Iiv Characteb of the archaeologia.
war, where Timaeus also stopped, and where Polybius began.
Dionysius lived on terms of Diendship with many distin-
guished Romans, and wrote with a feeling of real esteem for
the greatness of the Eoman people. He called his work
Archaeologia, a name which does not seem to have been used
before him. As in the eleven books still extant, he does not
carry his history further than Livy does in his first three ; as
he has one whole book before he comes to the building of
Eome; and as he has two more which contain the history of
the kings down to the banishment of Tarquinius Superbus, the
minute history of those early periods excites our mistrust in
regard not only to his trustworthiness, but also to his judg-
ment. It is not to be denied, that in this respect Dionysius
had formed a plan which we cannot approve of; and even
independently of his taking the history of the kings as his-
torical, the attempt to write a pragmatical history from the
earliest times is a blunder at which we sometimes cannot help
smiling; but the longer and the more carefully the work is
examined, the more must true criticism acknowledge that it is
deserving of all respect, and the more will it be found a store-
house of most solid information. Before Eoman history was
treated critically, Dionysius was neglected, and his work was
despised as a tissue of follies; and indeed if any one should
wish to decry him, he would not find it very difficult, for
there are passages in him, in which the most intolerable
common-places, nay, things which are utterly false, are set
forth in long rhetorical discussions. But leaving such things
out of the question, I say, that we cannot value too highly
the treasures we possess in him. Through him we become
acquainted with a multitude of facts derived from the ancient
ι law-books and annalists, though he may not have consulted
them himself, and with institutions which are but too often
referred by him to the kings as their authors : we owe it solely
to him that we are not in utter darkness about these things,
and about an infinite number of changes in the laws and con-
stitution. The careful use which he made of his authorities,
render him invaluable to us; sometimes even the foundations
of his speeches arc taken from ancient annalists; many cir-
cumstances at least, which were mentioned in them, and
which he could not incorporate in the body of his history,
are introduced in his speeches, which consequently, often
MISAPPREHENSIONS OF DIONYSIUS.
Iv
contain traces of a genuine tradition, though otherwise every-
thing seems to be arbitrary in them. Thus in the speech of a
patrician, said to have been delivered on the occasion of a
popular tumult, we find the words “ if all expedients fail,
why should we not rather grant the isopolity to the Latins,
than humble ourselves before the plebeians”? Now this
isopolity was afterwards actually granted to the Latins in the
peace, a fact which cannot be doubted, though it is not noticed
by Dionysius. This therefore is one of the passages, where he
inserted in a speech a statement which he found in the annalist’s
account of the peace. But the mistakes into which he fell,
must be distinguished from the substance of the accounts
which he collected. Having once lost the thread with which
he might have found his way in the labyrinth, it was impos-
sible for him not to go astray. This would not have happened
to him, if he had understood the expressions of Fabius; but
he knew nothing of the ancient mode of expressing consti-
tutional relations, and was misled by the meaning which con-
stitutional terms had assumed in his own days. He did not
comprehend the happy distinction of Fabius between δfjμoς
(populus) and δpιλoς (plebs), and he called the former ιrXηθo4,
and the latter δ⅞uo?.4 Hence he often finds himself in a
painful perplexity; and we see how, from mere ignorance, he
torments himself with riddles, when he places the δ⅞ao? in
opposition to the ⅛ημo<>, and makes the tribunes disturb the
assemblies of the people. But he is determined to find his way,
and does not pass over anything, although it may cause him
pain. That he is a rhetorician and not a statesman, is indeed
but too manifest, and hence his judgment is deficient, though
not absolutely bad, for he was an extremely intelligent man.
His language is very good, and with a few exceptions it may be
called perfectly pure. But what may be brought against him
as a proof of his bad taste are his speeches, in which he
imitated Thucydides in such a manner, that he made his
heroes speak as if all of them were Athenians, and thus causes
them to lose all their individuality of character. I read
Dionysius at a very early age, and as a young man I studied
his primordιa of the early history of the Italian nations, till
the exertion exhausted my strength; but few results were to
be gained. I have gone through him more carefully and per-
4 Compare vol.ιi. notes 417 and 431, and p.220, foil