xviii
CHARACTER OF ANCIENT LAYS.
the Iiands of the people. If the Nibelungen and all accounts
of it were lost, and some critic discovered the ancient poem
in the story of Siegfried, the case would he quite the same
as what has actually happened in the history of Bome. Γhe
lay of the Horatii, of which we have three verses in Livy,
stands precisely on the same footing as if we had nothing of
the Nibelungen but the few lines preserved in Aventinus.6
The three verses of the lay of the Horatii preserved in Livy
are quite sufficient7 ; for the form of the lays, as I have said, is
totally indifferent in investigating the origin of the history of
Rome. Such lays exist for a considerable time along with the
records of chronicles. The lays in Saxo-Grammaticus stand
by the side of the Runic records ; and he has combined them
in such a manner that history is intermixed with poetical
traditions, which cannot be reconciled with one another. I
believe that Rhianus did not go to work arbitrarily in his
description of the Messenian war, but composed his beautiful
epic poem out of old Messenian popular lays. His work, like
that of the Nibelungen, embraced a long period of time.
What this poem related of the war with Sparta and of Aristo-
menes, is absolutely irreconcileable with the lists of the
Spartan kings, which Pausanias found in ancient records, and
with the contemporary songs of Tyrtæus. Tradition goes on
forming and developing itself in such a peculiar and thriving
manner, that it becomes more and more estranged from history.
Long before the existence of a literature, however, there are
men, who, endowed with all the requisites of an historian,
write history in the form of chronicles and not Unfrequently
in the most brilliant manner. We have an instance of this in
the history of Cologne. The chronicle of that city is one of
the most splendid monuments of our literature8 ; and it is to be
lamented that we have not any good edition of it, as there
6 His real name was John Thurnmeyer; he wrote a chronicle in Latin (1566,
in fol.) and afterwards translated it into German. But Niebuhr seems to be
mistaken here in mentioning the Nibelungen instead of the Waltharius, which
is a Latin poem of the tenth century, and from which Aventinus quotes the lines
i. 9, foil. Aventinus often refers to the ancient heroic epics, though without
⅛uoting them verbatim. Comp. W. Grimm, Deutsche Heldensage, p. 302.
7 See vol. i. p. 258.
8 Of this chronicle Nicbuhr speaks in several of his letters, but especially in
one to Savigny. (Lebensnachrichten, vol ii. p. 370 and 373, where he calls
the author of the poem mentioned below in our text, Gotthard Hagen, in-
stead of Godefrit Hagen.)
ancient Cheonicles in geneeal.
xix
are so many materials still in the Cologne archives, from which
it might be completed. Some of the most beautiful portions
of it may have been written as late as the fifteenth century.
Xow we find in this chronicle, among other things of the
same kind, the poem of Godefrit Hagen on the feuds of the
bishops ; it is written by a contemporary and is exceedingly
pleasing.9 The writer of the chronicle, perhaps feeling the
beauties of the poem, has made a paraphrase of it in prose, and
incorporated it with the chronicle. In some passages the rhyme
is still preserved and in others but slightly changed. The
portion of the work, in which we have the poem reduced to
perfect prose, forms a strange contrast to the chronicler’s
simple and meagre records of subsequent periods. Here then
we have an instance, in times previous to the existence of a
literature,-—for the author who had made several other
chronicles did not write for the public, — every thing is con-
stantly changing its character. If we compare what the same
Chroniclerelates on the same subject, perhaps from ecclesiastical
records, we shall find that the two accounts are irréconciliable.
The earliest history of Russia by Nestor, a monk of the
eleventh century, whose work has been continued by various
monks of the same convent and always in the strain and charac-
of its first author, is an instance of a similar kind ; I myself
possess one of these chronicles of a late period. As for many
of these chroniclers, no one knows who they are, nor will any
body ever know, and yet if they had lived in a literary age
they would have been honourably distinguished.
Such chronicles were undoubtedly written at Rome before
the period of its historical literature, which sprang up when
the Romans, such as Fabius, M. Cincius, and C. Acilius1 began
to write for the Greeks, in order to rescue their own history
from the contempt with which it was looked upon by the
latter. All the nations of antiquity exerted themselves to
gain the respect of the Greeks; and it was not Alexander alone
who said, “How much have I undertaken, Athenians, to gain
your praise.”10 Hence the first Roman authors wrote in
Greek, not in Latin ; for their countrymen had their chronicles,
9 A separate edition of the poem has been published by E. von Groote
Cologne, 1834, under the title, “ Des Meisters Godefrit Hagen, der Zeit Stadt-
sehreιbers, Reimchronik der Stadt Coin aus dem dreιzehnten Jahrkundert," with
notes and a vocabulary. 10 Plutarch, Alex. c. 60.