Roman History, Books I III - Titus Livius
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ROMAN HISTORY
By
Titus Livius
Translated by
John Henry Freese, Alfred John Church, and William Jackson Brodribb
With a Critical and Biographical Introduction and Notes by Duffield
Osborne
Illustrated
1904
LIVY'S HISTORY
Of the lost treasures of classical literature, it is doubtful whether
any are more to be regretted than the missing books of Livy. That
they existed in approximate entirety down to the fifth century, and
possibly even so late as the fifteenth, adds to this regret. At the
same time it leaves in a few sanguine minds a lingering hope that some
unvisited convent or forgotten library may yet give to the world a
work that must always be regarded as one of the greatest of Roman
masterpieces. The story that the destruction of Livy was effected by
order of Pope Gregory I, on the score of the superstitions contained
in the historian's pages, never has been fairly substantiated, and
therefore I prefer to acquit that pontiff of the less pardonable
superstition involved in such an act of fanatical vandalism. That the
books preserved to us would be by far the most objectionable from
Gregory's alleged point of view may be noted for what it is worth in
favour of the theory of destruction by chance rather than by design.
Here is the inventory of what we have and of what we might have had.
The entire work of Livy--a work that occupied more than forty years
of his life--was contained in one hundred and forty-two books, which
narrated the history of Rome, from the supposed landing of AEneas,
through the early years of the empire of Augustus, and down to the
death of Drusus, B.C. 9. Books I-X, containing the story of early
Rome to the year 294 B.C., the date of the final subjugation of the
Samnites and the consequent establishment of the Roman commonwealth as
the controlling power in Italy, remain to us. These, by the accepted
chronology, represent a period of four hundred and sixty years. Books
XI-XX, being the second "decade," according to a division attributed
to the fifth century of our era are missing. They covered seventy-five
years, and brought the narrative down to the beginning of the second
Punic war. Books XXI-XLV have been saved, though those of the fifth
"decade" are imperfect. They close with the triumph of AEmilius, in 167
B.C., and the reduction of Macedonia to a Roman province. Of the other
books, only a few fragments remain, the most interesting of which
(from Book CXX) recounts the death of Cicero, and gives what appears
to be a very just estimate of his character. We have epitomes of all
the lost books, with the exception of ten; but these are so scanty as
to amount to little more than tables of contents. Their probable date
is not later than the time of Trajan. To summarize the result, then,
thirty-five books have been saved and one hundred and seven lost--a
most deplorable record, especially when we consider that in the later
books the historian treated of times and events whereof his means of
knowledge were adequate to his task.
TITUS LIVIUS was born at Patavium, the modern Padua, some time between
61 and 57 B.C. Of his parentage and early life nothing is known. It
is easy to surmise that he was well born, from his political bias in
favour of the aristocratic party, and from the evident fact of his
having received a liberal education; yet the former of these arguments
is not at all inconsistent with the opposite supposition, and the
latter should lead to no very definite conclusion when we remember
that in his days few industries were more profitable than the higher
education of slaves for the pampered Roman market. Niebuhr infers,
from a sentence quoted by Quintilian, that Livy began life as a
teacher of rhetoric. However that may be, it seems certain that he
came to Rome about 30 B.C., was introduced to Augustus and won his
patronage and favour, and after the death of his great patron and
friend retired to the city of his birth, where he died, 17 A.D. It
is probable that he had fixed the date of the Emperor's death as the
limit of his history, and that his own decease cut short his task.
No historian ever told a story more delightfully. The available
translations leave much to be desired, but to the student of Latin
Livy's style is pure and simple, and possesses that charm which purity
and simplicity always give. If there is anything to justify the charge
of "Patavinity," or provincialism, made by Asinius Pollio, we, at
least, are not learned enough in Latin to detect it; and Pollio, too,
appears to have been no gentle critic if we may judge by his equally
severe strictures upon Cicero, Caesar, and Sallust. This much we know:
the Patavian's heroes live; his events happen, and we are carried
along upon their tide. Our sympathies, our indignation, our
enthusiasm, are summoned into being, and history and fiction appear to
walk hand in hand for our instruction and amusement. In this latter
word--fiction--lies the charge most often and most strongly made
against him--the charge that he has written a story and no more; that
with him past time existed but to furnish materials "to point a moral
or adorn a tale." Let us consider to what extent this is true, and, if
true, in what measure the author has sinned by it or we have lost.
No one would claim that the rules by which scientific historians of
to-day are judged should be applied to those that wrote when history
was young, when the boundaries between the possible and the impossible
were less clearly defined, or when, in fact, such boundaries hardly
existed in men's minds. In this connection, even while we vaunt, we
smile. After all, how much of our modern and so-called scientific
history must strike the reasoning reader as mere theorizing or as
special pleading based upon the slenderest evidence! Among the
ancients the work of the historians whom we consider trustworthy--such
writers, for instance, as Caesar, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, and
Tacitus--may be said to fall generally within Rawlinson's canons 1 and
2 of historical criticism--that is, (1) cases where the historian has
personal knowledge concerning the facts whereof he writes, or (2)
where the facts are such that he may reasonably be supposed to have
obtained them from contemporary witnesses. Canon 2 might be elaborated
and refined very considerably and perhaps to advantage. It naturally
includes as sources of knowledge--first, personal interviews with
contemporary witnesses; and, second, accesses to the writings of
historians whose opportunities brought them within canon 1. In this
latter case the evidence would be less convincing, owing to the lack
of opportunity to cross-question, though even here apparent lack of
bias or the existence of biased testimony on both sides, from which a
judicious man might have a fair chance to extract the truth, would go
far to cure the defect.
The point, however, to which I tend is, that the portions of Livy's
history from which we must judge of his trustworthiness treat, for the
most part, of periods concerning which even his evidence was of the
scantiest and poorest description. He doubtless had family records,
funeral panegyrics, and inscription--all of which were possibly almost
as reliable as those of our own day. Songs sung at festivals and
handed down by tradition may or may not be held more truthful. These
he had as well; but the government records, the ancient fasti, had
been destroyed at the time of the burning of the city by the Gauls,
and there is no hint of any Roman historian that lived prior to the
date of the second Punic war. Thus we may safely infer that Livy wrote
of the first five hundred years without the aid of any contemporary
evidence, either approximately complete or ostensibly reliable. With
the beginning of the second Punic war began also the writing of
history. Quintus Fabius Pictor had left a work, which Polybius
condemned on the score of its evident partiality. Lucius Cincius
Alimentus, whose claim to knowledge if not to impartiality rests
largely on the fact that he was captured and held prisoner by
Hannibal, also left memoirs; but Hannibal was not famous for treating
prisoners mildly, and the Romans, most cruel themselves in this
respect, were always deeply scandalized by a much less degree of
harshness on the part of their enemies. Above all, there was Polybius
himself, who perhaps approaches nearer to the critical historian than
any writer of antiquity, and it is Polybius upon whom Livy mainly
relies through his third, fourth, and fifth decades. The works of
Fabius and Cincius are lost. So also are those of the Lacedaemonian
Sosilus and the Sicilian Silanus, who campaigned with Hannibal and
wrote the Carthaginian side of the story; nor is there any evidence
that either Polybius or Livy had access to their writings. Polybius,
then, may be said to be the only reliable source from which Livy could
draw for any of his extant books, and before condemning unqualifiedly
in the cases where he deserts him and harks back to Roman authorities
we must remember that Livy was a strong nationalist, one of a people
who, despite their conquests, were essentially narrow, prejudiced,
egotistical; and, thus remembering, we must marvel that he so fully
recognises the merit of his unprejudiced guide and wanders as little
as he does. All told, it is quite certain that he has dealt more
fairly by Hannibal than have Alison and other English historians by
Napoleon. His unreliability consists rather in his conclusions than in
his facts, and it is unquestioned that through all the pages of
the third decade he has so told the story of the man most hated by
Rome--the deadliest enemy she had ever encountered--that the reader
can not fail to feel the greatness of Hannibal dominating every
chapter.
Referring again to the criticisms made so lavishly upon Livy's story
of the earlier centuries, it is well to recall the contention of the
hard-headed Scotchman Ferguson, that with all our critical acumen we
have found no sure ground to rest upon until we reach the second Punic
war. Niebuhr, on the other hand, whose German temperament is alike
prone to delve or to theorize, is disposed to think--with considerable
generosity to our abilities, it appears to me--that we may yet evolve
a fairly true history of Rome from the foundation of the commonwealth.
As to the times of the kings, it is admitted that we know nothing,
while from the founding of the commonwealth to the second Punic war
the field may be described as, at the best, but a battle-ground for
rival theories.
The ancient historian had, as a rule, little to do with such
considerations or controversies. In the lack of solid evidence he had
only to write down the accepted story of the origin of things, as
drawn from the lips of poetry, legend, or tradition, and it was
for Livy to write thus or not at all. Even here the honesty of his
intention is apparent. For much of his early history he does not claim
more than is claimed for it by many of his modern critics, while time
and again he pauses to express a doubt as to the credibility of some
incident. A notable instance of this is found in his criticism of
those stories most dear to the Roman heart--the stories of the birth
and apotheosis of Romulus. On the other hand, if he has given free
life to many beautiful legends that were undoubtedly current and
believed for centuries, is it heresy to avow that these as such seem
to me of more true value to the antiquary than if they had been
subjected at their historical inception to the critical and
theoretical methods of to-day? I can not hold Livy quite unpardonable
even when following, as he often does, such authorities as the Furian
family version of the redemption of the city by the arms of their
progenitor Camillus, instead of by the payment of the agreed ransom,
as modern writers consider proven, while his putting of set speeches
into the mouths of his characters may be described as a conventional
usage of ancient historians, which certainly added to the liveliness
of the narrative and probably was neither intended to be taken
literally nor resulted in deceiving any one.
Reverting for a moment to Livy's honesty and frankness, so far as his
intent might govern such qualities, I think no stronger evidence in
his favour can be found than his avowed republican leanings at the
court of Augustus and his just estimate of Cicero's character in the
face of the favour of a prince by whose consent the great orator had
been assassinated. Above all, it must have been a fearless and honest
man who could swing the scourge with which he lashed his degenerate
countrymen in those stinging words, "The present times, when we can
endure neither our vices nor their remedies."
Nevertheless, and despite the facts that Livy means to be honest and
that he questions much on grounds that would not shame the repute of
many of his modern critics, the charge is doubtless true that his
writings are not free from prejudice in favour of his country. That he
definitely regarded history rather as a moral agency and a lesson for
the future than as an irrefutable narrative of the past, I consider
highly hypothetical; but it is probable that his mind was not of the
type that is most diligent in the close, exhaustive, and logical study
so necessary to the historian of today. "Superficial," if we could
eliminate the reproach in the word, would perhaps go far toward
describing him. He is what we would call a popular rather than a
scientific writer, and, since we think somewhat lightly of such when
they write on what we consider scientific subjects, we are too apt to
transfer their light repute to an author who wrote popularly at a time
when this treatment was best adapted to his audience, his aims, and
the material at his command. That he has survived through all these
centuries, and has enjoyed, despite all criticism, the position in
the literature of the world which his very critics have united
in conceding to him, is perhaps a stronger commendation than any
technical approval.
From the standpoint of the present work it was felt that selections
aggregating seven books would accomplish all the purposes of a
complete presentation. The editors have chosen the first three books
of the first decade as telling what no one can better tell than Livy:
the stories and legends connected with the foundation and early life
of Rome. Here, as I have said, there was nothing for him to do but cut
loose from all trammels and hang breathless, pen in hand, upon the
lips of tradition. None can hold but that her faithful scribe has writ
down her words with all their ancient colour, with reverence reigning
over his heart; however doubts might lurk within his brain. These
books close with the restoration of the consular power, after the
downfall of the tyrannical rule of the Decemvirs, the revolution
following upon the attempt of Appius Claudius to seize Virginia, the
daughter of a citizen who, rather than see his child fall into the
clutches of the cruel patrician, killed her with his own hand in the
marketplace, and, rushing into the camp with the bloody knife, caused
the soldiers to revolt. The second section comprises Books XXI-XXIV, a
part of the narrative of the second Punic war, a military exploit the
most remarkable the world has ever seen.
The question who was the greatest general that ever lived has been a
fruitful source of discussion, and Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon have
each found numerous and ardent supporters. Without decrying the signal
abilities of these chiefs, it must nevertheless be remembered that
each commanded a homogeneous army and had behind him a compact nation
the most warlike and powerful of his time. The adversaries also of the
Greek and the Roman were in the one instance an effete power already
falling to pieces by its own internal weakness, and in the other, for
the most part, scattered tribes of barbarians without unity of purpose
or military discipline. Even in his civil wars Caesar's armies were
veterans, and those of the commonwealth were, comparatively speaking,
recruits. But when the reader of these pages carefully considers
the story of Hannibal's campaign in Italy, what does he find? Two
nations--one Caucasian, young, warlike above all its contemporaries,
with a record behind it of steady aggrandizement and almost unbroken
victory, a nation every citizen of which was a soldier. On the other
side, a race of merchants Semitic in blood, a city whose citizens had
long since ceased to go to war, preferring that their gold should
fight for them by the hands of mercenaries of every race and
clime--hirelings whose ungoverned valour had proved almost as deadly
to their employers and generals as to their enemies. Above all, the
same battle had been joined before when Rome was weaker and Carthage
stronger, and Carthage had already shown her weakness and Rome her
strength.
And now in this renewed war we see a young man, aided only by a little
group of compatriots, welding together army of the most heterogeneous
elements--Spaniards, Gauls, Numidians, Moors, Greeks--men of almost
every race except his own. We see him cutting loose from his base of
supplies, leaving enemies behind him, to force his way through
hostile races, through unknown lands bristling with almost impassable
mountains and frigid with snow and ice. We see him conquering here,
making friends and allies there, and, more wonderful than all, holding
his mongrel horde together through hardships and losses by the force
of his character alone. We see him at last descending into the plains
of Italy. We see him not merely defeating but annihilating army after
army more numerous than his own and composed of better raw material.
We see him, unaided, ranging from end to end of the peninsula, none
daring to meet him with opposing standards, and the greatest general
of Rome winning laurels because he knew enough to recognise his own
hopeless inferiority. All stories of reverses other than those of mere
detachments may pretty safely be set down as the exaggeration of Roman
writers. Situated as was Hannibal, the loss of one marshalled field
would have meant immediate ruin, and ruin never came when he fought
in Italy. On the contrary, without supplies save what his sword could
take, without friends save what his genius and his fortune could win,
he maintained his place and his superiority not for one or for two but
through fourteen years, during all which time we hear no murmur
of mutiny, no hint of aught but obedience and devotion among the
incongruous and unruly elements from which he had fashioned his
invincible army; and at the end we see him leaving Italy of his own
free will, at the call of his country, to waste himself in a vain
effort to save her from the blunders of other leaders and from the
penalty of inherent weakness, which only his sword had so long warded
off.
When I consider the means, the opposition, and the achievement--a
combination of elements by which alone we can judge such questions
with even approximate fairness--I can not but feel that of all
military exploits this invasion of Italy, which we shall read of here,
was the most remarkable; that of all commanders Hannibal has shown
himself to be the greatest. Some of Livy's charges against him as a
man are doubtless true. Avarice was in his blood; and cruelty also,
though it ill became a Roman to chide an enemy on that score. Besides,
Livy himself tells how Hannibal had sought for the bodies of the
generals he had slain, that he might give them the rites of honourable
sepulture; tells it, and in the next breath relates how the Roman
commander mutilated the corpse of the fallen Hasdrubal and threw the
head into his brother's camp. So, too, his naive explanation that
Hannibal's "more than Punic perfidy" consisted mainly of ambushes
and similar military strategies goes to show, as I have said, that
whatever is unjust in our author's estimate was rather the result of
the prejudiced deductions of national egotism than of facts wilfully
or carelessly distorted by partisan spite.
To the reader who bears well in mind the points I have ventured to
make, I predict profit hardly less than pleasure in these pages; for
Livy is perhaps the only historian who may be said to have been honest
enough to furnish much of the material for criticism of himself, and
to be, to a very considerable extent, self-adjusting.
DUFFIELD OSBORNE.
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE [1]
Whether in tracing the history of the Roman people, from the
foundation of the city, I shall employ myself to a useful purpose, I
am neither very certain, nor, if I were, dare I say; inasmuch as I
observe that it is both an old and hackneyed practice, later authors
always supposing that they will either adduce something more authentic
in the facts, or, that they will excel the less polished ancients in
their style of writing. Be that as it may, it will, at all events,
be a satisfaction to me that I too have contributed my share to
perpetuate the achievements of a people, the lords of the world; and
if, amid so great a number of historians, my reputation should remain
in obscurity, I may console myself with the celebrity and lustre of
those who shall stand in the way of my fame. Moreover, the subject is
of immense labour, as being one which must be traced back for more
than seven hundred years, and which, having set out from small
beginnings, has increased to such a degree that it is now distressed
by its own magnitude. And, to most readers, I doubt not but that the
first origin and the events immediately succeeding, will afford but
little pleasure, while they will be hastening to these later times, in
which the strength of this overgrown people has for a long period been
working its own destruction. I, on the contrary, shall seek this, as
a reward of my labour, viz., to withdraw myself from the view of the
calamities, which our age has witnessed for so many years, so long as
I am reviewing with my whole attention these ancient times, being free
from every care that may distract a writer's mind, though it can not
warp it from the truth. The traditions that have come down to us of
what happened before the building of the city, or before its building
was contemplated, as being suitable rather to the fictions of poetry
than to the genuine records of history, I have no intention either to
affirm or to refute. This indulgence is conceded to antiquity, that by
blending things human with divine, it may make the origin of cities
appear more venerable: and if any people might be allowed to
consecrate their origin, and to ascribe it to the gods as its authors,
such is the renown of the Roman people in war, that when they
represent Mars, in particular, as their own parent and that of their
founder, the nations of the world may submit to this as patiently
as they submit to their sovereignty. But in whatever way these and
similar matters shall be attended to, or judged of, I shall not
deem it of great importance. I would have every man apply his mind
seriously to consider these points, viz., what their life and what
their manners were; through what men and by what measures, both in
peace and in war, their empire was acquired and extended; then, as
discipline gradually declined, let him follow in his thoughts their
morals, at first as slightly giving way, anon how they sunk more and
more, then began to fall headlong, until he reaches the present times,
when we can endure neither our vices nor their remedies. This it is
which is particularly salutary and profitable in the study of history,
that you behold instances of every variety of conduct displayed on a
conspicuous monument; that thence you may select for yourself and for
your country that which you may imitate; thence note what is shameful
in the undertaking, and shameful in the result, which you may avoid.
But either a fond partiality for the task I have undertaken deceives
me, or there never was any state either greater, or more moral, or
richer in good examples, nor one into which luxury and avarice made
their entrance so late, and where poverty and frugality were so much
and so long honoured; so that the less wealth there was, the less
desire was there. Of late, riches have introduced avarice and
excessive pleasures a longing for them, amid luxury and a passion for
ruining ourselves and destroying everything else. But let complaints,
which will not be agreeable even then, when perhaps they will be also
necessary, be kept aloof at least from the first stage of beginning so
great a work. We should rather, if it was usual with us (historians)
as it is with poets, begin with good omens, vows and prayers to the
gods and goddesses to vouchsafe good success to our efforts in so
arduous an undertaking.
[Footnote 1: The tone of dignified despondency which pervades this
remarkable preface tells us much. That the republican historian was
no timid or time-serving flatterer of prince or public is more than
clear, while his unerring judgment of the future should bring much of
respect for his judgment of the past. When he wrote, Rome was more
powerful than ever. Only the seeds of ruin were visible, yet he
already divines their full fruitage.--D. O.]