Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/807

LIVIUS. through long intervals of dullness, but a sort of gentle excitement is steadily maintained : the atten- tion never droops ; and while the great results appear in full relief, the minor incidents, which often conduce so materially to these results, are brought plainly into view. Nor is his art as a painter less wonderful. There is a distinctness of outline and a warmth of colouring in all his de- lineations, whether of living men in action, or of things inanimate, which never fail to call up the ■whole scene, with all its adjuncts, before our eyes. In a gallery of masterpieces, it is difficult to make a selection, but we doubt whether any artist, an- cient or modern, ever finished a more wonderful series of pictures than those which are found at the conclusion of the 27th book, representing the state of the public mind at Rome, when intelligence was first received of the daring expedition of the consul Claudius Nero, the agonising suspense which pre- vailed while the success of this hazardous project was yet uncertain, and the almost frantic joy which hailed the intelligence of the great victory on the Metaurus. The only point involving a question of taste from which we should feel inclined to with- hold warm commendation is one which has called forth the warmest admiration on the part of many critics. We mean tlie numerous orations by which tlie course of the narrative is diversified, and which are frequently made the vehicle of political dis- quisition. Not but that these are in themselves models of eloquence ; but they are too often out of keeping with the very moderate degree of mental cultivation enjoyed by the speakers, and are fre- quently little adapted to the times when they were delivered, or to the audiences to whom they were addressed. Instead of being the shrewd out-pour- ings of homely wisdom, or the violent expression of rude passion, they have too much the air of polished rhetorical declamations. Before proceeding to examine and to judge the matter or substance of the work, we are bound to ascertain, if possible, the end which the author proposed to himself. Now no one who reads the pages of Livy with attention can for a moment suppose that he ever conceived the project of draw- ing up a critical history of Rome. He desired indeed to extend the fame of the Roman people, and to establish his own reputation ; but he evi- dently had neither the inclination nor the ability to enter upon laborious original investigations with regard to the foreign and domestic relations of the republic in remote ages. Hia aim was to offer to his countrymen a clear and pleasing narrative, which, while it gratified their vanity, should con- tain no startling improbabilities nor gross amplifi- cations, such as would have shocked his fastidious contemporaries. To effect this purpose he studied with care some of the more celebrated historians who had already trodden the path upon which he was about to enter, comparing and remodelling the materials which they afforded. He communicated warmth and ease to the cold constrained records of the more ancient chronicles, he expunged most of the monstrous and puerile fables with which the pages of his predecessors were overloaded, retaining those fictions only which were clothed with a cer- tain poetical seemliness, or such as had obtained so firm a hold upon the public mind as to have become articles in the national faith ; he rejected the clumsy exaggerations in which Valerius Antias and others of the siime school had loved to revel- LIVIUS. 793 and he moulded what had before been a collection of heavy, rude, incongruous masses, into one com- manding figure, symmetrical in all its proportions, full of vigorous life and manly dignity. Where his authorities were in accordance with each other, and with common sense, he generally rested satis- fied with this agreement ; where their testimony was irreconcilable, he was content to point out their want of harmony, and occasionally to offer an opinion on their comparative credibility. But, however turbid the current of his information, in no case did he ever dream of ascending to the fountain head. Never did he seek to confirm or to confute the assertion of others by exploring the sources from which their knowledge was derived. He never attempted to test their accuracy by ex- amining monuments of remote antiquity, of which not a few were accessible to every inhabitant of the metropolis. He never thought it necessary to inquire how far the various religious rites and ceremonies still observed might throw light upon the institutions of a distant epoch ; nor did he en- deavour to illustrate the social divisions of the early Romans, and the progress of the Roman constitu- tion, by investigating the antiquities of the various Italian tribes, most of wliom possessed their own records and traditions. It may perhaps be objected that we have no right to assume that Livy did not make use of such ancient monuments or documents as were available in his age, and that in point of fact he actually refers to several. We shall soon discover, how- ever, upon close scrutiny, that in all such cases he does not speak from personal investigation, but from intelligence received through the medium of the annalists. Thus he is satisfied with quoting Licinius Macer for the contents of the Foedus Ardeatimim (iv. 7) ; the " Lex vetusta priscis Uteris verbisque scripta" (vii, 3), and the circum- stances connected with the usage there commemo- rated are evidently taken upon trust from Cincius Alimentus ; and although he appeals (viii, 20) to the Foedus Neapolitanum, he does not pretend to have seen it. On the other hand, we have many positive proofs of his negligence or indifference. When he hesitates between two different versions of the Libri Lintei given by two different writers (iv. 23), we might be inclined, with Dr. Arnold, charitably to believe that they were no longer in existence, rather than to suppose that he was so indolent that he would not take the trouble of walking from one quarter of the city to another for the sake of consulting them, had he not himself a few pages previously given us to understand that he had never inspected the writing on the breast- plate of Cossus (iv. 20), and had he not elsewhere completely misrepresented the Icilian law (iii. 31), although it was inscribed on a column of bronze in the temple of Diana, where it was examined by Dionysius, to whom we are indebted for an accu- rate account of its purport : nay, more, it is per- fectly clear that he had never read the Leges Regiae, nor the Commentaries of Servius Tullius, nor even the Licinian Rogations ; and, stranger still, that he had never studied with care the laws of the twelve tables, not to mention the vast col- lection of decrees of the senate, ordinances of the plebs, treaties and other state papers, extending back almost to the foundation of the city, which had been engraven on tablets of brass, and were consumed to the number of three thousand in tho