xl
Quadrigarius.
the purpose of making out that the northern sagas are historical,
the whole lay of the Nibelungen has been transformed into a
war of the Burgundians, and connected with the accounts of
Roman chronicles of the fifth century. But, fortunately,
nobody believes these things. Such was the spirit of L. Cal-
purnius Piso, a remarkable man, but in a bad way: he may
be regarded as the first author of forgeries in Roman history.
The title of his work was annales; and he must have been an
industrious man, for we sec that he made use of good sources,
such as Fasti and the like. The number of books into which
his work was divided is uncertain; in the third, he spoke of
Cn.Flavius (a. U. 450); in the seventh, of the year 516, and
he must have carried the history down to his own time, as he
mentioned the secular games of the year 607.
In the course of the same century several historical works
were composed; but I do not speak of those who wrote only a
history of their own time, but of those who composed a com-
plete history of Rome. In Cicero’s youth about the time when
the books ad Herennium were written, that is, about the year
680, or rather somewhat earlier, near the time of Cicero’s
consulship, there were two men who wrote a general history
of Rome, Q. Claudius Quadrigarius and Q-Valerius Antias.
According to Velleius both were younger than Coelius Anti-
pater, and elder contemporaries of Sisenna, and wrote after
the time of Sulla. Quadrigarius is one of those authors who
in later times, after the restoration of the earlier literature,
were very much read. He and Cassius IIemina departed from
the general rule of the annalists who commenced their works
from the building of the city; for while Hemina began at an
earlier period, Quadrigarius commenced his history with the
destruction of Rome by the Gauls. We have some considerable
fragments of his work from which this is clear; for in the
numerous fragments of the first book much is mentioned that
belongs to the Gallic war; and at the same time it contained
the beginning of the Samnite wars, and even the battle of
Caudium ; one fragment even touches upon the end of the third
Samnite war, and all this not in very brief words. Hence,
as the book embraced such a rich period, he cannot have had
space for the earlier history. Another fact supporting our
opinion is the statement, that he declared that there existed no
Quadrigarius.
xli
documents older than the taking of Rome by the Gauls32; for I
have no doubt that the Aλω<h<⅛ пч in Plutarch33 is our Claudius
Quadrigarius. We must therefore consider him as a man of a
çritical mind, who would not write about what, according to his
conviction, was not historical. In the second or third book he
spoke of Pyrrhus; in the fifth and sixth, of Hannibal; in the
eighth, of Tiber. Gracchus, the father ; in the thirteenth, of Metol-
ius ; in the nineteenth, of Marius ; and there are quotations from
the work up to the twenty-third book. His history extended
down to Cicero’s consulship. Fragments, from which we clearly
see the great awkwardness of the language of those ancient an-
nalists, in whom we find no trace of the periodic structure of sen-
tences34, occur in Gellius, and justify Cicero’s judgment of the
ancient writers. ThechroniclcsofCologne and Limburg are gene-
rally written in a much better style. Hence prose was little read
before the time when Livy and Sallust wrote. Gellius thinks the
ancient authors pleasing, which must be accounted for by the
complete corruption of taste in his time, which had recourse some-
times to hot spices, sometimes to ice. To convince any one of
the truth of this, let him read only the fragment from Claudius in
Gellius.33 The flourishing time of Roman literature was in the
reign of Augustus, as that of French literature was in the reign
of Louis XIV ; but just because that was the first bloom, the
thoughts and ideas were more simple, the language more calm
and tranquil, and flowing in a certain broadness and fulness.
Afterwards, esprit and wit became awakened, and everything
was demanded and given in a more concise, refined, and pointed
manner. Such was the character of the period down to Ta-
citus, just as was the case with the age of Louis XV. in France;
but now, when the Romans carried everything to extremes,
everything was to become still more pointed, still more refined,
and still more witty; and thus they came to a style bordering
upon that which is really tasteless and absurd. Gellius lived
in that period; he was a very sensible man, and so disgusted
with the tendency of his age, that he lost all feeling for the
3' Compare vol.ii. p.2, foil. 33 Numa, c. ɪ.
34 Periodic writing among the Romans does not begin till the time of Cato,
and was particularly cultivated by C. Gracchus, who must, on tlɪe whole, be
regarded as the father of Latin prose. The periodic style, like the hexameter,
seems to have been engrafted upon the Latin language from the Greek.—N.
35 ix. 13.