fruitless, had at least shown to the patriots a method which appeared to promise deliverance from the great danger that beset them.

Demosthenes, Philipp. iii. 75 [ix. 127]; Chersones. 53, sqq. [viii. 102];

Olynth. iii. 30, sqq. [iii. 35].

Thucydides, ii. 64, 65.

L

LI.

ET us pause for a moment over the conflict which extended the dominion of Rome beyond the circling sea that encloses the peninsula. It was one of the longest and most severe which the Romans ever waged. Many of the soldiers who fought in the decisive battle were unborn when the contest began. Nevertheless, despite the incomparably noble incidents which it now and again presented, we can scarcely name any war which the Romans managed so wretchedly and with such vacillation, both in a military and in a political point of view. It could hardly be otherwise. The contest occurred amidst a transition in their political system, -the transition from an Italian policy, which no longer sufficed to the policy of a great state which was not yet matured. The Roman senate and the Roman military system were excellently organized for a purely Italian policy. The wars which such a policy provoked were purely continental wars, and always rested on the capital, situated in the middle of the peninsula, as the primary basis of operations, and on the chain of Roman fortresses as a secondary basis. The problems to be solved were mainly tactical, not strategical; marches and operations occupied but a subordinate place; battles held the first place; siege warfare was in its infancy; the sea and naval war hardly for a moment crossed men's thoughts.

Thucydides, i. 1, 3, 7, 10, 97.

WE

LII.

E can easily understand, if we bear in mind that in the battles of that period it was really the hand-to-hand encounter that proved decisive, how a deliberative assembly might direct such operations, and how any one who was mayor of the city might command the troops. All this was changed in a moment. The field of battle stretched away to an incalculabie distance, to the unknown regions of another continent, and beyond broadly spreading seas: every wave might prove a pathway for the enemy, every harbour might send forth an invading fleet. The siege of strong places, particularly maritime fortresses, in which the first tacticians of Greece had failed, had now for the first time to be attempted by the Romans. A land army and the system of a civic militia no longer sufficed. It was necessary to create a fleet, and what was more difficult, to employ it : it was necessary to find out the true points of attack and defence, to combine and to direct masses, to calculate and mutually adjust expeditions extending over long periods and great distances: if these things were not attended to, even an enemy far weaker in the tactics of the field might easily vanquish a stronger opponent. Is there any wonder that the reins of government in such an exigency slipped from the hands of a deliberative assembly and of commanding burgomasters?

Thucydides, i. 1, 3, 7, 10, 97.

LIII.

TH

HE spirit of ancient Rome had thus completely disappeared from all the relations of life; the moral strength of the people was broken; the freedom of their fathers was gone. Rome had become unable to govern herself, and

wanted the powerful hand of an absolute ruler like an exhausted mother, she had lost the power of producing truly great and good men. She was incapable of enjoying political freedom, which prospers only when it is supported by the manly virtues and the moral character of a nation. Thousands must have looked with disgust upon the perpetual struggles which had of late torn the republic to pieces, and must have felt that a tranquil enjoyment of life, which was with many the highest object of existence, was incompatible with the continuance of the republic.

Isocrates, de Pace, 41, sqq. [or viii. pp. 166-174].

WE

LIV.

E find but few historians, of all ages, who have been. diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they distribute to the public; by which means a falsehood once received from a famed writer becomes traditional to posterity. But Polybius weighed the authors from whom he was forced to borrow the history of the times immediately preceding his, and oftentimes corrected them, either by comparing them each with other, or by the lights which he had received from ancient men of known integrity amongst the Romans, who had been conversant in those affairs which were then managed, and were yet living to instruct him. He also learned the Roman tongue, and attained to that knowledge of their laws, their rights, their customs, and antiquities, that few of their own citizens understood them better; having gained permission from the senate to search the Capitol, he made himself familiar with their records, and afterwards translated them into his mother tongue.

Thucydides, i. 20, sqq., 138.

I

LV.

AM well aware of the great difficulty of giving liveliness to

a narrative which necessarily gets all its facts secondhand. And a writer who has never been engaged in any public transactions either of peace or war, must feel this especially. One who is himself a statesman and orator, may relate the political contests even of remote ages with something of the spirit of a contemporary; for his own experience realizes to him in great measure the scenes and the characters which he is describing. And in like manner, a soldier or a seaman can enter fully into the great deeds of ancient warfare; for although in outward form ancient battles and sieges may differ from those of modern times, yet the genius of the general, and the courage of the soldier, the call for so many of the highest qualities of our nature, which constitutes the enduring moral interest of war, are common alike to all times; and he who has fought under Wellington has been in spirit an eyewitness of the campaigns of Hannibal. But a writer whose whole experience has been confined to private life and to peace, has no link to connect him with the actors and great deeds of ancient history, except the feelings of our common humanity.

Thucydides, i. 21, 22.

LVI.

AN

ND though I had a desire to have deduced this history from the beginning of our first kings, as they are delivered in their catalogue; yet finding their actions uncertainly delivered, and the beginning of all eminent States to be as uncertain as the heads of great rivers; and that idle antiquity, discovering no apparent way beyond their times, have ever

delighted to point men out into imaginary tracts of fictions and monstrous originals; I did put off that desire with this consideration, that it is but mere curiosity to look further back into the times past than we can well discern, and whereof we can neither have proof nor profit. Besides, it seemeth that God in His Providence hath bounded our searches within the compass of a few ages, as if the same were sufficient both for example and instruction in the government of men; for had we the particular occurrence of all nations and all ages, it might more stuff, but not better, our understanding. We shall find the same correspondences to hold in the actions of men ; virtues and vices the same; though rising and falling according to the worth or weakness of governors; the causes of the ruins and changes of commonwealths to be alike, and the train of affairs carried by the precedent in a course of succession under like figures.

Thucydides, i. I, 20, 22.

HIS

LVII.

IS understanding was keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly fertile in distinctions and objections; his taste refined; his sense of the ludicrous exquisite; his temper placid and forgiving, but fastidious, and by no means prone either to malevolence or to enthusiastic admiration. Such a man could not long be constant to any band of political allies. He must not, however, be confounded with the vulgar crowd of renegades. For, though, like them, he passed from side to side, his transition was always in the direction opposite to theirs. He had nothing in common with those who fly from extreme to extreme, and who regard the party which they have deserted with an animosity far exceeding that of consistent enemies. His place was between the hostile divisions of the