them with that lawgiver, or with any other person. (175) Their times and authors are uncertain; we are not told in what building the originals were preserved, or by whom they were transcribed; and the genuineness of some of them has been doubted.(176) The accounts preserved respecting the early events of other Peloponnesian states-as of the period of the Bacchiada and the Cypselidæ at Corinth-of the reign of Phidon at Argos, and of that of Cleisthenes at Sicyon-are subject to similar uncertainty, on account of our ignorance of the sources from which they were originally derived.

Livy says that the events of Roman history, from the foundation of the city until its capture by the Gauls, (753 to 387 B.C.) are obscure and uncertain; because very little was committed to writing in that period, and the few records, public and private, which existed, chiefly perished in the conflagration of the city. 'From that epoch,' he adds, 'the history becomes clearer and more certain. (177)

Rome, however, had no historian, native or foreign, who wrote a continuous narrative of the events of his own or of the previous times, until the second Punic war.(178) Q. Fabius Pic

(175) See Plut. Lyc. 6, 13.

(176) See Schoemann, Jus. Publ. Gr. p. 132. Compare the detailed authentication of the copy of the treaty between Rome and Carthage, in Polyb. iii. 22, 26; and of other more ancient Roman treaties in Dion. Hal. i. 26, 58. The treaties inserted by Thucydides in his fifth book are to be inscribed on stone and brass columns, and these columns are to be set up in certain enumerated places, v. 18, 23, 47. The laws of Solon were written on rollers of wood, called kúpes, of which some fragments were said to be preserved in the time of Plutarch.-Solon, c. 25. The laws of the twelve tables were inscribed on brass.

(177) vi. 1. Again he says, with reference to the early periods: Raræ per ea tempora literæ erant,' vii. 3. Plutarch (Num. 1) quotes a statement from a chronological work of a writer named Clodius, that the ancient annals of Rome perished in the Gallic conflagration, and that those then extant had been fabricated by persons who wished to favour the great families of the state. This Clodius appears to be Clodius Licinus, who was anterior to Cicero, Krause, ib. p. 213. He alludes again to the uncertain chronology of the ante-Gallic period, Camill. 22.

(178) Dionysius says that there was no ancient historian of the Romans, but that each writer framed his narrative from ancient stories, preserved in sacred books, i. 73. 'Abest historia litteris nostris,' says Cicero, Leg. i. 2. He will not allow the name of historian to the jejune chroniclers who preceded him. Dionysius compares the early Roman historians, before

tor, and L. Cincius Alimentus, who lived at this period, composed histories reaching from the foundation of the city to their own time-full in the contemporary part, and succinct for the early period. (179) Now, even with respect to an event so recent as the Gallic invasion, a historian who began to collect oral accounts of it for the first time in 220 B.C., would be in the same situation as a historian who should undertake to perform the same process for the American war in the year 1945, or for the burning of Moscow in the year 1982. (180) With respect to the period before the Gallic invasion, his position would have been still more unfavourable. The oral traditions respecting such events as the expulsion of the kings, or the war with Porsena, must at this time have passed through so many successive reporters, as to retain scarcely any resemblance to historical fact. Thucydides was born only thirty-nine years after the expulsion of the Pisistratidæ, and the oral traditions respecting this family were still fresh: whereas, the interval between the lifetime of Fabius and the expulsion of the Tarquins was not less than two centuries and a half.

All the early Roman history, throughout the reigns of the

himself and Livy, with the Greek chronographers, i. 7. Strabo states that the Romans had, in his time, added little to the researches of the Greeks in geography, iii. 4, § 19.

Plutarch, Fab. 16, speaks of detailed histories of the second Punic war: -οἱ τὰς διεξοδικὰς γράψαντες ἱστορίας.

(179) ὧν εἰσὶ πρεσβύτατοι Κόϊντος Φάβιος, Λεύκιος Κίγκιος, ἀμφότεροι κατὰ τοὺς Φοινικοὺς ἀκμάσαντες πολέμους. Τούτων δὲ τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἑκάτερος, οἷς μὲν αὐτὸς ἔργοις παρεγένετο, διὰ τὴν ἐμπειρίαν ἀκριβῶς ἀνέγραψε τὰ δὲ ἀρχαῖα τὰ μετὰ τὴν κτίσιν τῆς πόλεως γενόμενα κεφαλαιωδῶς ἐπέδραμε. Dion. Hal. i. 6. Again, in vii. 71, he describes Fabius as the earliest Roman historian, and as deriving his information both from hearsay accounts and from personal knowledge-see above, p. 259, n. 155. Both these historians wrote in Greek: the Latin language had not, at this time, been polished sufficiently for prose composition. Fabius composed his Roman history in Greek, for the same reason that Grotius composed his Dutch history in Latin.

Plutarch (Rom. 3) speaks, however, of Fabius Pictor having followed a Greek writer, named Diocles of Peparethus, with respect to the legend of Romulus and Remus.-See Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. iii. p. 74.

(180) Livy calls Fabius Pictor scriptorum antiquissimus,' in reference to the reign of Servius, i. 44; and 'longe antiquissimus auctor,' in reference to the death of Coriolanus, ii. 40. Crevier properly remarks: Eorum qui historiam apud Romanos scripsere, antiquissimus; qui tamen recens admodum auctor videbitur, si comparetur ad primordia urbis Romæ.'

kings, and even for some time after the establishment of the commonwealth, has the character of a narrative formed out of commemorative, or explanatory legends; similar to the Cyropædia of Xenophon, and the lives of Theseus and Lycurgus by Plutarch. To what extent the main events which constitute the framework of the narrative may represent actual fact, and where the line is to be drawn between truth and fiction, the extant accounts afford little means of judging; and accordingly, very different judgments have been formed by the modern historians of Rome. (181)

Niebuhr, pointing out that Etruria had a far older literature than Rome, and that the earliest Roman writers were contemporary with the later Etruscan, adverts to an account of Servius, related by the Emperor Claudius from Etruscan authorities, as preferable to the Roman version. (182) If we could be satisfied that this account was derived from Etruscan chroniclers, who wrote at or near the time of Servius, their testimony would un

(181) The statements of the ancients concerning a contemporaneous official_registration of public events, at Rome (see Cic. de Orat. ii. 12; Dion. Hal. i. 74) have been examined by Beaufort, ib. p. 48 seq.; Hooke, Dissertation on the Credibility of the first 500 Years of Rome, p. xxix.xlvii. (in vol. iv. of his history); Wachsmuth, Aeltere Gesch. des Röm. Staats, p. 1-12; Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 248; Ulrici, Ant. Hist. p. 87; Krause, ib. p. 23; Leclerc, in the dissertation prefixed to his work, Des Journaux chez les Romains (Paris, 1838), and other modern critics.

It is certain, from the confusion and uncertainty which prevail even as to the names and dates of the annual magistrates, in the early period, either that the contemporaneous registration was imperfect, or that the registers were not preserved. Thus Livy says, with respect to the year 498 B.C., twenty years after the expulsion of the kings: Tanti errores implicant temporum, aliter apud alios ordinatis magistratibus, ut, nec qui consules secundum quosdam, nec quid quoque anno actum sit, in tantâ vetustate non rerum modo, sed etiam auctorum, digerere possis.'-ii. 21: see also iv. 7. The ancient practice of driving a nail into the wall of a temple by the principal magistrate (see Livy, vii. 3) indicates a great penury of writing materials, and is a very rude method of registering time, not so artificial as that used by the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians. A similar mode of registration was used by the Etruscans at Volsinii, in the temple of the goddess Nortia, and it was retained at a later period among the Italian peasants.-Livy, ib.; Müller's Etrusker, iv. 7, § 6. Beaufort (ib. p. 96) thinks that the chief source from which the early Roman historians drew their accounts of the first five centuries, was the memoirs of the great families.

(182) Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 327. The account is treated as historical by Müller, Etrusker, vol. i. p. 116-8.

doubtedly be preferable to that of the Roman histories: but of the credit due to the writings cited by Claudius we are unable to judge. (183)

Certain ancient monuments of the early period of Romesuch as treaties, and laws-appear to have been preserved; but they were probably few in number; and not being accompanied by contemporaneous narrative, they did not furnish a history of successive events. (184) The legislation of Servius is treated by all modern writers as historical; nor can it be doubted that the division of classes, and the census, combined with the right of suffrage, and with the obligation of military service, of which he is called the author, existed in the later centuries of Rome, when the detailed account handed down to us might be prepared. (185) But there is no evidence to prove that this

(183) Goettling (Geschichte der Römischen Staatsverfassung, p. 232) treats the Etruscan story as fabulous.

(184) See Dionys. iii. 36; iv. 26, 58; vi. 95. Polybius (iii. 22, 26) describes the treaty between Rome and Carthage, made in the first year of the republic, which he translated from the original brass plate, preserved in the Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter; and he remarks that the oldest persons, both among the Romans and Carthaginians, and those who were most conversant with public affairs, knew nothing of its existence. The oblivion of this important treaty is quite consistent with the absence of contemporary history at the period in question; but it would have been remarkable if the oldest persons in the time of Polybius had known anything of it by oral tradition, inasmuch as three centuries and a half had elapsed since the treaty was made. A treaty with Porsena is quoted by Pliny, H. N., xxxiv. 39; see Livy, i. 60; Sueton. Vesp. 8; Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 248; Wachsmuth, ib. p. 4-6.

(185) Concerning the retention of the Servian constitution for many generations, and its change in his own time, see Dionysius, iv. 21. His regulations respecting the census likewise lasted for a long time (ib. c. 15). If, therefore, these institutions were referred to Servius as their author, there was no difficulty in giving a minute description, in later times, from the existing practice. Dr. Arnold says:- This constitution is no doubt historical, however uncertain may be the accounts, which relate to its reputed author.'-vol. i. p. 64.

The accounts of the constitution of Servius have been considered by Huschke sufficiently authentic to furnish materials for a volume of 754 pages, Die Verfassung des Königs Servius Tullius; Heidelberg, 1838. According to Müller, the names of the two Tarquins designate epochs, and mark the ascendancy of the Etruscan city of Tarquinii in Rome. Servius Tullius is a rival Etruscan leader of troops, who interrupts the ascendancy of Tarquinii.-Etrusker, vol. i. p. 119, 122, 203, 380-9.

The facts that Tarquinius Superbus was a tyrant, and that he was the last king of Rome, are certain. All the rest of his history is uncertain,

constitution proceeded in a finished form from the head of Servius. (186)

In following the account of the expelled Tarquinian party, we come into contact with a circumstance respecting Aristodemus, the despot of Cuma, which may perhaps have been recorded in some ancient Cuman chronicle. (187) But all the events of the early period of the commonwealth, though they doubtless concern real persons, and involve a nucleus of fact, have nevertheless a legendary character. Even the capture of Rome by the Gauls-an event which was known to Aristotle, Heraclides Ponticus, and Theopompus (18)—and of which the chronology is fixed by sure evidence, is not described to us with the clearness and certainty which belong to contemporaneous history. (189) The

according to Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 410, who adds, that his death at Cuma is historical.—Ib. p. 559.

(186) Concerning the remains of laws attributed to the Roman kings, see Dirksen's Versuche zur Kritik und Auslegung der Quellen des Römischen Rechts (Leipsig, 1823), p. 234-358.

(187) See Dionys. vi. 21, vii. 2, 12; Livy, ii. 21, 34; Plut. de Mul. Virt. 24.

(188) See Plutarch, Camill. 22, and Plin. H. N. iii. 9. Dionysius says that nearly all authorities agree as to the date of this event.-i. 74.

The dies Alliensis, which was marked as nefastus in the Roman calendar, had doubtless been observed by an uninterrupted usage from the day of the unfortunate battle; Damnata diu Romanis Allia fastis,' says Lucan, vii. 409 See Livy, vi. 1; Gell. N. A. v. 17; Niebuhr, vol. ii. n. 1179.

(189) The extant accounts of the Gallic war are thus characterized by Dr. Arnold: It is impossible to rely on any of the details of the narrative which has been handed down to us; the Romans were no doubt defeated at the Alia; Rome was taken and burnt, and the Capitol ransomed ; but, beyond this, we know, properly speaking, nothing. We know that falsehood has been busy, to an almost unprecedented extent, with the common story; exaggeration, carelessness, and honest ignorance, have joined more excusably in corrupting it. The history of great events can only be preserved by cotemporary historians, and such were, in this case, utterly wanting. But as we have an outline of undoubted truth in the story, and as the particulars which are given are exceedingly striking, and in many instances not improbable, I shall endeavour at once to present such a view of the events of the Gaulish war as may be clear from manifest error, and to preserve also some of its most remarkable details, which may be true, and are, at any rate, too famous to be omitted.'-Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 531-2. Lower down, in describing the repulse of the Gauls from the Capitol, he says Historically true in the substance, these stories are yet, in their details, so romantic, that I insensibly, in relating them, fall into the tone of the poetical legends.'-Ib. p. 545. Gibbon says that, 'in the history of the taking of Rome by the Gauls, everything is uncertain, and perhaps fabulous. Decline and Fall, c. 31, note. Compare Beaufort, ib. c. 9.

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