Ixii AUTHORITIES OF LIVY.
after the burning of the city by the Gauls. It seems probable
to me that he did not employ the pontifical annals, until he
reached nearly the end of the first decad. With Polybius he
was unacquainted until after he had related the first half of
the second Punic war; for had he known the incomparable,
critical, and authentic account which Polybius gives of this
war, he would not in the first period of it have followed
Coelius Antipater who wrote the history of it ex professa, and
who, although his narratives were written in a beautiful style,
was a wretched historian. The whole description of the siege
of Saguntum and of Hannibal’s passage over the Alps, is
probably taken from Coelius Antipater, and would have been
very different, if he had used Polybius. During this period he
doesnot Seemtohavemade use even of Cincius Alimcntus, but on
reaching the time when he had to speak of Philip of Macedonia,
his attention turned, or was turned by some one, to Polybius,
whom he now translated into Latin throughout the fourth
decad, whenever he had no annalist ready at hand to consult
about the internal affairs of Eome. When Polybius failed him,
he continued writing his history in the same manner, and fol-
lowed his authors such as Posidonius, the memoirs of Eutilius,
Sulla, and in the later times, perhaps, Asinius Pollio’s history
of the civil war, Thcophanes and others, most uncritically,
and gave what he found in them. Thus the further he ad-
vanced, the more he was obliged to enter into details, and the
more also did he become conscious of his real calling; but un-
fortunately he grew old at the same time. Scneca in his seventh
Suasoria has preserved Livy’s description of the character of
Cicero, which is excellent. If we compare with this his other
narratives one by one, we see the greatness of his talent for
narration—which is with us so much valued in writers of
novels—the liveliness of his portraits, and his clear perception
of character.6 In these points he is a master of extraordinary
powers; but he is altogether deficient in a clear survey or con-
trol over his subject : no great author, in fact, has this deficiency
to such an extent as Livy. For an annalist a clear survey is
not necessary ; but in a work like that of Livy, it is a matter of
the highest importance. He neither knew what he had written
nor what he was going to write, but wrote at hazard. Thus
he takes from one annalist an account, which presupposes
g Compare ∖o'.ι. p.3.
LIVY’S FALSE NOTIONS.
Ixiii
circumstances quite different from those stated by himself.
His list of the nations which revolted from the Romans
immediately after the battle of Cannae7 is exceedingly in-
correct. It contains nations which did not revolt till several
years later, and yet Livy represents their insurrection as the im-
mediate consequence of the battle of Cannae. He shews his
want of criticism in the manner in which, at the beginning of
the second Punic war, he relates the tales of the siege of Sa-
guntum and the passage of Hannibal across the Alps, which
can have been copied only from Coelius Antipater. There are
things stated in them which cannot possibly have happened.
This want of survey is also the cause of his utter incapability
of judging of events and of the persons concerned in them :
he can never say whether persons acted wisely or foolishly,
nor whether they were right or wrong. He had from his early
youth belonged to the party of Pompey, that is, to that chaotic
confusion which had formed itself out of the Roman constitu-
tion. At the time when Caesar Crossedthe Rubicon, Livy was
not more than ten years old, and having no distinct notion of
the state of things before this event, he pictured to himself the
preceding period as a sort of golden age.8 He seems to have
been one of those men who never ask themselves whether the
disease could have been avoided, and what would have been
the result, if such a crisis had not taken place. It, is, however,
quite natural that after Caesar’s victories all noble minds should
have been favorably disposed to Pompey, whose object appa-
rently was to preserve the ancient customs and constitution; it
is only we that can see that Caesar was the more beneficial of
the two leaders. The false notions which Livy thus formed,
are applied by him to persons and circumstances with which
they have nothing to do. The tribunes, for instance, and all
who are connected with them, are in his eyes seditious persons,
and he speaks of them in the most revolting terms.® When
Tarquinius Supeibus intended to usurp the supremacy over the
7 xxii. 61.
8 Wc see the same thing in France. A friend of mine who is a decided
royalist, and holds one of the highest offices in France, once told me that those
noblemen who had been boys at the time of the resolution, were most enraged
against ιtspιin<iplcs, and fancied that the previous period was the golden age
of their order and its privileges.—N.
, 9 Instances of this occur m iv. 35, 49; v.‘1: vi.27: and a great many other
passages.