XXXviii GELLIUS — VENNONIUS — CALPUBNIUS PISO.
concerning the arrival of Aeneas, and who at least flourished
at this time.
Cn. Gellius26 also belongs to this period. He was a very
prolix, uncritical and credulous writer, and only a second rate
historian; he was no authority: but would to God that we
possessed the works of these writers, for who can say whether
or not many a valuable old chronicle had been used by them
and incorporated in their works. His age is uncertain, though
Vossiusconjecturesthatheisthesaineas the Gellius against
whom Cato Censorius delivered a speech ; but the fragments
which we have of his work do not seem to support that
supposition : I rather suspect that he belongs to the second
half of the seventh century, partly on account of his language,
and partly because we find him already engaged in sophistical
contrivances, whereby he endeavours to render the impro-
babilities of the ancient traditions more credible by small but
dishonest changes. The numbers of the books referred to
lead us to believe that the work entered into the most minute
detail. Charisius refers to the 97th book, and that in the
ancient Neapolitan MS. where the numbers are written in
words; other references do not go beyond the 30th book.
After Pictor, Cicero mentions an annalist, Vennonius, from
whose work we have only one passage preserved in Dionysius,
referring to the history of the kings. We may therefore infer
that he wrote annals from the foundation of the city. In that
fragment he shows that he was a man without judgment; and
Cicero judges unfavorably of his style also.
A writer about whose time and character I can speak with
greater decision, is L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi Censorius27, an
opponent of C. Gracchus, and one of the pillars of the aristo-
cratic party, but an honest man. His censorship falls in the
time between the two Gracchi, and it may be that he wrote
his history soon after the expiration of his office, but it is
also possible that the surname Censorius was added after-
wards. To judge from the extracts which Dionysius gives
from him, he must have been a man of a peculiar character.
Before him, historians had received the materials just as
they were handed down to them by their predecessors, and
had not cared whether that which was transmitted to them,
2δ Compare vo,.ii. p. 9, note 11.
27 Compare vol.i. pp.235, 237; ɪɪ. p.9, foil.; iii. p 319.
l. Calpubnius piso.
xxxιx
was possible or not. They had regarded the events of
early Roman history as something belonging to a time
which had no connexion whatever with their own age.
Piso began to look at things in a different light: his object
was to divest the ancient stories of all that appeared to him im-
probable or impossible, and to reconstruct out of the ancient
traditions such a history as he thought consistent and in ac-
cordance with the natural course of things. This is the same
mode of proceeding as has been unfortunately applied in
our days to matters of the highest importance. Piso, for in-
stance, calculates that L. Tarquinius Superbus could not pos-
sibly have been the son of Tarquinius Priscus, because lie
would then have been too old, when he came to the throne.
Therefore Piso, without giving any further reasons for it,
makes Tarquinius Superbus the grandson of Tarquinius
Priscus.28 He is surprised at the account that Tarpeia had a
monument on the Capitol, and forgetting that she was a Sabine
heroine to whom such a tomb might well be erected on the
Capitol29, just as Tatius had one on another hill, he discarded
the history of her treachery.30 He is unable to understand
the difference between the Sabine and Latin Romans. He is
the originator of falsifications in Roman history; his con-
trivances were dull and contemptible, but they ensnaιed
Cn. Gellius. The Romans had an ancient legend about the
lake Curtius into which Curtius was said to have thrown
himself in consequence of an oracle. Piso destroyed this
sublime story completely; for as he conceived that a battle
could not have been fought on that spot at any other time but
in the reign of Romulus, when the sewers did not yet exist,
he supposed that some Sabine general of the name of Curtius
had sunk in that marshy district together with his war-horse :31
he never thinks of the fact that the whole army cannot stand
whore the general sinks. Such poor and contemptible inter-
pretations are suggested by the same spirit which actuated
some interpreters of the Holy Scriptures, forty or fifty years
ago, who leave no letter untouched, and turn the narratives
upside down in order to make out, as they fancy, an intelligible
history; but in this case such a mode of proceeding is more
unpardonable than in any other. In the same spirit and for
28 Dionys. iv. 7. 29 Pestus, s. v. Tarpeiae. 30 Dionys. ii. 40.
31 Varro, de Lmg. Lal. v. 148 ed. Mullet. Compare vol. 1, p.237.