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Title: An introduction to the history of history
Author: James Thomson Shotwell
Release date: October 25, 2026 [eBook #79862]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Columbia University Press, 1922
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF HISTORY ***
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Records of Civilization
SOURCES AND STUDIES
EDITED BY
JAMES T. SHOTWELL, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
[Illustration: 1754
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
PRESS
1893
IN·LITTERIS·LIBERTAS]
New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922
RECORDS OF CIVILIZATION
SOURCES AND STUDIES
Edited by
_JAMES T. SHOTWELL_
A series of volumes containing documents in translation, commentaries
and interpretations, and bibliographical guides.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED
=Hellenic Civilization.= By G. W. Botsford, Professor of History,
Columbia University, and E. G. Sihler, Professor of the Latin,
Language and Literature, New York University. 8vo, cloth, pp. 719.
$4.00 net.
=History of the Franks, by Gregory Bishop of Tours.= Selections,
translated with notes. By Ernest Brehaut, Ph.D. 8vo, cloth, pp. xxv +
284. Map. $3.00 net.
=The Book of the Popes.= (Liber Pontificalis.) Translated with an
introduction. By Louise Ropes Loomis, Ph.D. 8vo, cloth, pp. xxii +
169. $2.50 net
For titles of volumes in preparation, see list at end of this volume.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK CITY
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
AMEN CORNER, E.C.
SHANGHAI: EDWARD EVANS AND SONS, LTD.
30 NORTH SZECHUEN ROAD
Records of Civilisation: Sources and Studies
AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE
HISTORY OF HISTORY
BY
JAMES T. SHOTWELL, PH.D.
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
[Illustration: 1754
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
PRESS
1893
IN·LITTERIS·LIBERTAS]
New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS.
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1922.
Norwood Press
J. A. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass, U.S.A.
To
M., G. and H.
PREFACE
The series of which this volume forms part was planned before the
war. Its purpose was two-fold: in the first place, to make accessible
in English those sources of the history of Europe which are of prime
importance for understanding the development of western civilization;
in the second place, to indicate some of the more significant results
of scholarship in the field covered. It was intended to supply, to
those who could not read the documents in the original, the means
for forming some idea of the problems of the historian. About twenty
volumes had been arranged for, covering a considerable diversity of
topics, but bearing in one way or another upon the main purpose of
the series, when with the entry of the United States into the war the
Editor was called into Government service which lasted through the
Peace Conference. Work upon the series was therefore interrupted,
with the result that only three volumes have been published as yet: a
general, comprehensive source-book for Greek social history, _Hellenic
Civilization_ by Professors Botsford and Sihler; and two volumes of
a different type, each dealing with but a single source,--Gregory of
Tours’ _History of the Franks_ by Dr. Brehaut, and _The Book of the
Popes_ (_Liber Pontificalis_) by Dr. Loomis.
With the close of the war, plans for continuing the series were again
taken up, but with modifications imposed by changed conditions. Without
entering into details as to the way those conditions have affected
contributors and publishers, it may be said that in general it has
been necessary to lessen the purely documentary matter in the series
wherever it was otherwise readily accessible, and to enlarge the scope
of the “studies” which had been a somewhat secondary element in the
original plan. This modification, however, did not affect the essential
purpose of the series; for it had never been the object to present
merely revised translations of texts already easily available in
English, valuable as that service might be. Its aim had been rather to
fill certain gaps in the equipment of the average American student of
history, and those gaps exist as frequently in the field of critical
interpretation as in the knowledge of the texts themselves. Even where
the text is already at hand, therefore, the student’s problem is not
necessarily solved; for modern scholarship may have suggested new and
unsuspected meanings. In such instances the new editorial plan is to
shorten the text to mere illustrative extracts and to concentrate upon
descriptive or critical comment. In this way it is hoped to reduce the
bulk of the volumes, while opening up in a freer way than formerly the
significance of the sources with which they deal. In other instances,
however, where the text itself is the chief contribution, the
original method of publication will be maintained as far as possible.
This involves a certain inconsistency in the treatment of text and
comment, since, in volumes like the present one, the elimination of a
purely textual section has thrown many illustrative extracts into an
introduction--now become the body of the book. Even this lessened plan,
however, could not have been realized but for the generous support of
the Trustees of Columbia University.
* * * * *
The present volume needs an especial word of explanation and apology.
It has grown out of an introduction to a proposed collection of texts
from mediæval and modern historians. Nothing could have been farther
from the original intention of the author than to write a history of
antique historiography, which the book now in part resembles. But
the absence of any satisfactory general survey covering the antique
field led to enlargement in scope and critical comment, until the
work assumed the present form. It is freely recognized that the field
covered belongs of right to the ancient historian, properly equipped
not only with the classics and the languages of Western Asia but
also with archæology and its associated sciences. If any such had
done the work, this volume would have remained the single chapter
originally planned; so the classicist, who will undoubtedly detect in
it the intrusion of an outsider, is at least partly to blame for the
adventure, since it was the absence of a guide such as he might have
offered which led to the preparation of this one.
However much of an adventure this is in itself, the circumstances
under which the volume was made ready for the press have made it
all the more perilous from the standpoint of scholarship. For it
has been prepared at odd moments, as occasion offered, in the midst
of other work of an entirely different kind and involving heavy
responsibilities. Part of it has been written during European travel
with only such books at hand as could be obtained in local libraries
or could be carried along; part of it is drawn from fragments of
old university lectures; and part was already prepared for a mere
introduction to source selections. This will explain, if it does
not excuse, some irregularities in treatment, and inadequacies in
the bibliographical notes, as well as the use in most instances of
available translations of extracts. Had there been any possibility of
a separate and lengthy series of illustrative translations, as was
originally planned, these extracts would not have appeared in the
Introduction. Generally, however, a little examination will reveal
something like a substitute for the bibliographies in the footnotes,
or in a reference to some comprehensive manual which is the inevitable
starting point for further work in any case. If, however, this
Introduction to the exacting disciplines of history has itself escaped
some of the many pitfalls which lie along the pathway it follows, its
good fortune is due in the first instance to the fact that the pathway
is, upon the whole, not an obscure one, but travelled by many, who,
however, go only part way or turn off in different directions. But
in the second place, it is due to the critical care and scholarly
oversight which has been given the entire apparatus of the book by Miss
Isabel McKenzie, formerly of the History Department of Barnard College.
J. T. S.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,
April, 1921.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
SECTION I
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER
I. DEFINITION AND SCOPE OF HISTORY 1
II. PREHISTORY; MYTH AND LEGEND 12
III. BOOKS AND WRITING 28
IV. THE MEASURING OF TIME 40
V. EGYPTIAN ANNALS 51
VI. BABYLONIAN, ASSYRIAN AND PERSIAN RECORDS 66
SECTION II
JEWISH HISTORY
VII. THE OLD TESTAMENT AS HISTORY 79
VIII. THE PENTATEUCH 86
IX. THE REMAINING HISTORICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 96
X. THE FORMATION OF THE CANON 108
XI. NON-BIBLICAL LITERATURE; JOSEPHUS 114
SECTION III
GREEK HISTORY
XII. FROM HOMER TO HERODOTUS 128
XIII. HERODOTUS 144
XIV. THUCYDIDES 162
XV. RHETORIC AND SCHOLARSHIP 179
XVI. POLYBIUS 191
XVII. LATER GREEK HISTORIANS 202
SECTION IV
ROMAN HISTORY
XVIII. HISTORY AT ROME; ORATORY AND POETRY 211
XIX. ROMAN ANNALISTS AND EARLY HISTORIANS 225
XX. VARRO, CÆSAR AND SALLUST 236
XXI. LIVY 247
XXII. TACITUS 257
XXIII. FROM SUETONIUS TO AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS 273
SECTION V
CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY
XXIV. THE NEW ERA 278
XXV. ALLEGORY AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF ORIGEN 289
XXVI. CHRONOLOGY AND CHURCH HISTORY; EUSEBIUS 300
POSTSCRIPT ON MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN HISTORY
XXVII. THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 314
INDEX 335
[Illustration: THE PALERMO STONE
(_See_ page 55)]
SECTION I
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
DEFINITION AND SCOPE OF HISTORY
Until recently, history itself has lacked historians. There have been
histories of almost everything else under the sun, of literature,
philosophy, the arts and sciences, and, above all, of politics. But
until the last few years,--with the exception of a few works for
students,--the story of history has remained unwritten. Clio, though
the oldest of the Muses, has been busy recording the past of others but
has neglected her own; and apparently her readers have seldom inquired
of her about it. For even yet the phrase “history of History” conveys
but little meaning to most people’s minds, seeming to suggest some
superfluous academic problem for which a busy world should afford no
time, rather than what it really is, that part of the human story which
one should master first if one would ever learn to judge the value of
the rest.
The prime reason for this state of affairs is probably that which
has just been hinted at. Clio was a Muse; history has generally been
regarded as a branch of literature. Historians have been treated as
masters of style or of the creative imagination, to be ranked alongside
poets or dramatists, rather than simply as historians, with an art
and science of their own. Thucydides has been read for his Greek,
Livy for his Latin. Carlyle ranks in book-lists with the word-painter
Ruskin. Now and again historical criticisms of the “great masters”
have appeared, and scholarly studies of limited fields. But so long
as history could be viewed as primarily a part of literature its own
history could not be written; for the recovery of the past is a science
as well as an art.
The history of History, therefore, had to await the rise of scientific
historical criticism before it attracted the attention of even
historians themselves. That has meant, as a matter of course, that not
many except the critics have been attracted by it. Masked under the
unlovely title Historiography, it has recently become a formal part of
the discipline of historical seminars, but, with few exceptions, such
manuals as there are have been mainly contributions to the apparatus
of research. They have, therefore, lacked the allurements of style and
often even of imaginative appeal which win readers for history; and few
but the students have known of their existence.
And yet the history of History demands rather than invites attention.
Art, science and philosophy combined, history is the oldest and vastest
of the interests of mankind. What was the past to Babylon or Rome?
When and how was Time first discovered, and the shadowy past marked
out by numbered years? What travelling Greeks first brought home that
knowledge of the dim antiquities of Egypt and the East which made them
critics of their own Homeric legends and so created history? What havoc
was wrought in scientific inquiry by religious revelations and in
revelations by scientific inquiry? By what miracle has the long lost
past been at last recovered, in our own day, so that we are checking
up Herodotus by his own antiquity, correcting the narrative of Livy or
Tacitus by the very refuse deposited beneath the streets upon which
they walked? This is more than romance or literature, though the
romance is there to the full. For the history of History is the story
of that deepening memory and scientific curiosity which is the measure
of our social consciousness and our intellectual life.
But we must first get our bearings. For the word “history” has two
meanings.[1] It may mean either the record of events or events
themselves. We call Cromwell a “maker of history” although he never
wrote a line of it. We even say that the historian merely records the
history which kings and statesmen produce. History in such instances is
obviously not the narrative but the thing that awaits narration. The
same name is given to both the object of the study and to the study
itself. The confusion is unfortunate. Sociology, we know, deals with
society; biology with life; but history deals with history! It is like
juggling with words.
Of the two meanings, the larger one is comparatively recent. The idea
that events and people are historic by reason of any quality of their
own, even if no one has studied or written upon them, did not occur
to the ancients. To them history was the other thing--the inquiry and
statement, not the thing to be studied or recorded. It was not until
modern times that the phenomena themselves were termed history. The
history of a people originally meant the research and narrative of a
historian, not the evolution of the nation. It meant a work dealing
with the subject, not the subject itself. And this is logically as
well as historically the more accurate use of the word. Things are
never historic in themselves. They can be perpetuated out of the dead
past only in two ways: either as part of the ever-moving present,--as
institutions, art, science, etc.,--things timeless or universal; or in
that imaginative reconstruction which it is the special office of the
historian to provide.
This distinction must be insisted upon if we are to have any clear
thinking upon the history of History. For obviously in this phrase we
are using “history” only in its original and more limited meaning.
We are dealing with historians, their methods, their tools and
their problems; not with the so-called “makers of history” except
as materials for the historian,--not with battles and constitutions
and “historical” events, in and for themselves, but only where the
historian has treated them. And it is his treatment rather than the
events themselves which mainly interests us.
* * * * *
A word first, however, upon history in the wider, looser sense of “what
has happened.” Does it include _all_ that has happened? If so, it
includes everything; for the whole universe, as modern science shows,
is in process of eternal change. It extends beyond the phenomena of
life into those of matter; for that vast story of evolution from amœba
and shell-fish to man, whose outlines we are learning to decipher
from the pages of stratified rock, is but one incident in the whole.
The rocks themselves have “happened” like the life whose traces they
preserve. In short, if history includes _all_ that has happened, it was
under way not less when the first stars took their shape, than it was
when about a century ago science began to decipher and read it.
The deciphering of such history, however, is not the task of the
historian but of the natural scientist. There is no harm, to be sure,
in considering the analysis of matter as a branch of history when it
reveals the chemical elements which have gone into the upbuilding
of phenomena or the electron which is probably responsible for the
element. But this is not the historian’s kind of history. Faced with
such conceptions, he realizes that he must content himself with what
is scarcely more than an infinitesimal fraction of the vast field of
knowledge. And yet it is good for him to realize his place in that
great fellowship which is today so busily at work upon the mystery of
the processes of nature. For, once he has had the vision of the process
itself, he can never face the old tasks in the same way. It transforms
his perspectives, gives him different sets of values and reconstructs
that synthesis of life and the world into which he fits the work of his
own research. Although he realizes the partial nature of his outlook,
yet it is not rendered invalid. On the contrary it acquires a greater
validity if it is fitted into the vaster scheme. The significance of
his work grows rather than lessens, in the light of the wider horizon.
The perspectives of science are an inspiration for the historian, even
while he recognizes that he can never master its original sources or
trace its history. That is for the scientists to deal with. And, as the
nature of their phenomena becomes clearer to them, they are becoming,
themselves, more and more historical. The larger historical aspects of
physics and chemistry, to which we have just alluded, are taken over by
the astronomer, while “natural history” in the good old meaning of that
term is the especial province of the geologist and biologist. Between
them and historians the connection is becoming direct and strong; and
there is much to be said for the claim that, both through his work and
his influence, the greatest of all historians was Darwin.
But if History in the objective sense is not _all_ that has happened,
_how much_ is it of what has happened? The answer to this has
generally depended upon the point of view of individual historians. All
are agreed, for instance, that the term “history” should be limited to
substantially human affairs. And yet it cannot be narrowly so defined,
for the body and mind of man belong to the animal world and have
antecedents that reach far beyond the confines of humanity, while the
natural environment of life,--food, climate, shelter, etc.,--are also
part of the human story. When we try still further to limit the term
to some single line of human activity, as for instance, politics, we
shut out fields in which the expression of the human spirit has often
been more significant, the fields of culture and ideas, of literature,
art, engineering, education, science or philosophy. Why not, therefore,
avoid trouble by admitting the whole field of the human past as history?
There seems to be just one qualification necessary: it must be that
past _viewed historically_, which means that the data must be viewed as
part of the process of social development, not as isolated facts. For
historical facts are those which form a part of that great stream of
interrelation which is Time.
This is still history in the objective sense, the field which the
historian may call his own. But a careful reading of our definition
shows that we have already passed over into a consideration of history
in the truer meaning of the word--the performance of the historian;
since it is the attitude assumed toward the fact which finally
determines whether it is to be considered as historical or not. Now
what, in a word, is this historical attitude? It consists, as we have
already intimated, in seeing things in their relation to others, both
in Space and in Time. Biography, for instance, becomes history when it
considers the individual in his setting in society; it is not history
in so far as it deals exclusively with a single life. It may deal with
the hero as an isolated, solitary figure or as a type common to all
times. In either case it lacks the historical point of view, for it is
only by connecting the individual with his own society that he enters
into that great general current of events which we call Time. The study
of any farmer’s life, as a farmer’s life, set in the unending routine
of the seasons is almost as timeless as the study of Shakespeare’s
mind. The New England farmer, on the other hand, and the Elizabethan
Shakespeare enter the field of history because they are considered in
their setting in society; and society is the reservoir of time, the
ever-changing, ever-enduring reflex of human events.
The same tests that apply to biography apply to antiquarian research.
Because an event belongs to the past it is not necessarily historical.
Indeed in so far as the antiquarian isolates his material for our
inspection, interested in it for its own sake, laying it out like the
curator of a museum, he robs it of its historical character. For the
facts of history do not exist by themselves any more than the lives of
historical personages. They are parts of a process and acquire meaning
only when seen in action. The antiquarian preserves the fragments of
the great machinery of events, but the historian sets it to work again,
however faintly the sound of its motion comes to him across the distant
centuries.[2]
History in the proper sense of the word began with the Greeks. They had
already surpassed the world in the purely art-creation of the epic,
where the imagination urging the laggard movement of events secures the
dynamism of the past which is the first condition of history. Then they
turned from poetry to prose, and in sobriety and self-restraint began
to criticise their own legends, to see if they were true. Before the
sixth century B.C., so far as we know, no critical hand had attempted
to sort out the data of the past, impelled by the will to disbelieve.
This revolutionary mood, as happy in finding what had not happened as
what had, marks the emergence of the scientific spirit into the great
art of story-telling. History in the true sense is the combination of
the two.
The word “history”[3] itself comes to us from these sixth century
Ionians and is the name they gave to their achievement. It meant, not
the telling of a tale, but the search for knowledge and the truth. It
was to them much what philosophy was to the later Athenians or science
to us.[4] The historian was the critical inquirer. Herodotus was as
much an investigator and explorer as a reciter of narrative, and his
life-long investigation was “history” in his Ionian speech.[5] Yet
Herodotus himself hints that the word may also be applied to the story
which the research has made possible,[6] not to the guileless tale
of the uncritical, to be sure, but to a narrative such as he and his
soberly inquisitive fellows could tell. It was not until Aristotle,[7]
and more especially Polybius,[8] that we have it definitely applied
to the literary product instead of to the inquiry which precedes it.
From Polybius to modern times, history (Latin, _historia_) has been
literature. It is a strange but happy coincidence, that when the
scientific investigator of today turns from literature to scholarship,
from writing books to discovering facts, he is turning not away from
but towards the field of history as the word was understood by those
forerunners of Herodotus to whom science was as yet but a dream and an
aspiration.[9]
* * * * *
This double aspect of history--the one no older than Ionia, the other
reaching back to the dawn of Time--has apparently puzzled a good many
who write about it. There are those who try to prove that history is
either a science or an art, when, as a matter of fact, it contains the
elements of both. We shall recur to this in a later section, where
we shall have to face the further question of the relation of art to
science in general. But without entering into that problem yet, we may
for the present, with a view to clarity, frankly divide our subject
into two: the research which is science and the narration which is art.
The history of these two divisions runs in different channels, and
has always done so. History, the art, flourishes with the arts.
It is mainly the creature of imagination and literary style. It
depends upon expression, upon vivid painting, sympathy, grace and
elegance, elevated sentiments or torrential power. The picture may
be partial or incorrect--like Carlyle’s description of revolutionary
France; sympathies may warp the truth, as in Froude’s _Henry VIII_
or Macaulay’s _History of England_; elegance of style may carry even
Gibbon beyond the data in his sources, and the passionate eloquence
of Michelet ride down the restrictions of sober fact. But in the art
of history-narration these are magnificent even if they are not true.
Indeed the art in history seems to run, with most perverse intent, in
the opposite direction to the science. Wherever the great masters of
style have dominated, there one is likely to find less interest in
criticising sources than in securing effects. The historian’s method
of investigation often seems to weaken in proportion as his rhetoric
improves. This is not always true, but it is sufficiently common to
make the scientific historian eternally distrustful of the literary.
The distrust in the long run has its sobering effect upon the literary
historian, in spite of his contemptuous references to the researcher
as a dry-as-dust who lacks insight, the first qualification of the
historian. And from the standpoint of supreme historical achievement
both criticisms are justified. The master of research is generally but
a poor artist, and his uncolored picture of the past will never rank in
literature beside the splendid distortions which glow in the pages of
a Michelet or a Macaulay, simply because he lacks the human sympathy
which vitalizes the historical imagination. The difficulty, however,
in dealing with the art in history is that, being largely conditioned
upon genius, it has no single, traceable line of development. Here the
product of the age of Pericles remains unsurpassed still; the works of
Herodotus and Thucydides standing like the Parthenon itself,--models
for all time.
On the other hand, history, the science, has a development and logical
history of its own. Paralleling other scientific work, it has come to
the front in our own age, so that it has not only gained recognition
among historians as a distinct subject, but by the results of its
obscure and patient labors it has recast for us almost the whole
outline of our evolution. Impartial,--almost unhuman in its cold
impartiality,--weighing documents, accumulating evidence, sorting out
the false wherever it can be detected, no matter what venerable belief
goes with it, it is piecing together with infinite care the broken
mosaic of the past,--not to teach us lessons nor to entertain, but
simply to fulfil the imperative demand of the scientific spirit--to
find the truth and set it forth.
It is this scientific history--this modern fulfilment of the old Greek
_historia_,--which is responsible for the development of that group of
auxiliary sciences of which archæology is the most notable, by means of
which the scope of history has been extended so far beyond the written
or oral records. The advance along this line, during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, has been one of the greatest achievements of our
age. The vast gulf which separates the history of Egypt by Professor
Breasted of Chicago from that of Herodotus gives but a partial
measure of its achievement. By the mechanism now at his disposal, the
scientific explorer can read more history from the rubbish heaps buried
in the desert sand than the greatest traveller of antiquity could
gather from the priests of Thebes.
* * * * *
This history of scientific history, from the Greeks to our time, is,
therefore, the central thread of our story. But a proper historical
treatment of it must not be limited narrowly to it alone. It includes
as well the long pre-scientific and the subsequent unscientific
achievements. All of these belong, more or less, to our subject.
Indeed, in so far as they exhibit any clear sign of that sense of
the interrelation of events which we have emphasized above, they are
history,--winning their place by their art if not by their science.
One must not omit, for instance, the work of mediæval monks, although
they copied impossible events into solemn annals without a sense of
the absurdity, and although individually they are the last to deserve
the title of artists. For they had, after all, a vision of the process
of history, and one which was essentially artistic. The Christian
Epic, into which they transcribed their prosy lines, was as genuine an
art-product as the Greek or Babylonian, although it was one which only
the composite imagination of religious faith could achieve. The history
of History must deal with such things--historically.
The same is true of the pre-scientific origins. These lie unnumbered
centuries beyond that comparatively modern world of Hecatæus and
Herodotus. They reach back, indeed, to the dawn of memory--when, as
we suppose, some descendants of those shaggy, simian brutes of the
tertiary forests and caves, which were destined to produce humanity,
first learned, however dimly, to distinguish past from present. This
means that the origins of history are as old as mankind. For the dawn
of memory was the dawn of consciousness. No other acquisition, except
that of speech, was so fateful for humanity. Memory--the thing which
binds one’s life together, which makes me, me and you, you, which
enables us to recognize ourselves of yesterday in ourselves of today,
that reproduction of the dead past thrilling once more with life and
passion, that magic glass that holds the unfading reflection of what
exists no more--what a miracle it is! Destroy memory and you destroy
time so far as you and I are concerned. The days and the years may pass
along, each with its burden of work or its boon of rest, but they pass
from the nothingness of the future to the nothingness of the past like
the falling of drops of rain upon the ocean. The past exists in the
memory as the future in the imagination. Consciousness is itself but
the structure built upon this tenuous bridge between the two eternities
of the unknown, and history is the record of what has taken place
therein. Memory, in short, reveals the world as a process, and so makes
its data historical.
At first glance it might seem absurd to carry our origins back so far.
We have been used to thinking of early history as a thing of poetry
and romance, born of myth and embodied in epic. It demands a flight
of the imagination to begin it not with rhythmic and glowing verse
but almost with the dawn of speech. But the origins of history begin
back yonder, with the very beginning of mankind, before the glaciers
swept our valleys to the sea, instead of by the camp-fires of Aryan
warriors or in the clamorous square of the ancient city. When men first
learned to ask--or tell--in grunts and signs “what happened,” history
became inevitable. And from that dim, far-off event until the present,
its data have included all that has flashed upon the consciousness of
men so as to leave its reflection or burn in its scar. Its threads
have been broken, tangled and lost. Its pattern cannot be deciphered
beyond a few thousand years, for, at first, the shuttle of Time tore
as it wove the fabric of social life, and we can only guess by the
rents and gashes what forces were at work upon it. What we do know,
however, is that although history itself in the true sense of the term
did not start until midway down the process of social evolution, when
the social memory was already continuous, when deeds were inscribed
on monuments, and the critical spirit was at work,--in short when
civilization had begun,--still the prehistoric history is of more than
mere speculative interest; for civilization continued the pattern
begun for it, and anthropology has shown us how absurd has been our
interpretation of what civilized man has been thinking and doing, so
long as we have ignored his uncivilized, ancestral training.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
For the general treatment of the problems of the historian,
see Ernst Bernheim, _Lehrbuch der historischen Methode und der
Geschichtsphilosophie_ (5th and 6th ed., 1914); C. V. Langlois
and C. Seignobos, _Introduction to the Study of History_ (tr.
1898) and C. V. Langlois, _Manuel de bibliographie historique_ (2d
ed., 1901-1904). The sketch of the general subject in the article
_History_ in the eleventh edition of _The Encyclopædia Britannica_
was the starting point for this study. It would be well, however, to
read first _The New History_ (1912), by James Harvey Robinson.
For ancient history in general an important manual is that of
C. Wachsmuth, _Einleitung in das Studium der alten Geschichte_
(1895). For mediæval historiography such works as W. Wattenbach’s
_Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter_ (2 vols., 6th ed.,
1893-1894) or A. Molinier’s _Les sources de l’histoire de France_
(6 vols., 1901-1906), are adequate in their respective fields.
No similar survey exists of English mediæval historians. For the
modern field E. Fueter’s _Geschichte der neueren Historiographie_
(1911, there is also a French edition, 1914) covers the ground from
Machiavelli to about 1870, while such works as G. P. Gooch’s _History
and Historians in the Nineteenth Century_ (1913), or A. Guilland’s
_Modern Germany and Her Historians_ (1915; the French edition
appeared in 1900), deal with important topics. R. Flint’s _History
of the Philosophy of History, Historical Philosophy in France and
French Belgium and Switzerland_ (1894) is preceded by a short general
survey. B. Croce’s _Theory and History of Historiography_ (translated
by D. Ainslie, 1921) has somewhat more theory than history, but it is
found stimulating by the philosophically inclined. For more specific
references see below.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf._ E. Bernheim, _Lehrbuch der historischen Methode und der
Geschichtsphilosophie_ (5th and 6th ed., 1914), Chap. I. The German
word “Geschichte,” meaning that which has happened (was geschieht,
was geschehen ist), is even more misleading. R. Flint, _History of
the Philosophy of History_ ... (1894), (p. 5) called attention to the
ambiguity of the term in English, but limits his distinction to the
two-fold one of objective and subjective history, as substantially in
the text above. Bernheim insists (Chap. I, Sect. 5), upon introducing
a third category--the knowledge or study of history, which is neither
the events nor their artistic presentation but the science of
research (Geschichtswissenschaft). There is a suggestive anthology of
definitions in F. J. Teggart’s _Prolegomena to History_ (1916), Part
III, Sect. 1.
[2] It will be seen that this conception is practically identical with
that which Bernheim develops with such care in his manual, p. 9. His
definition of history, in this subjective sense of the word, runs as
follows:
“Die Geschichtswissenschaft ist die Wissenschaft, welche die zeitlich
und räumlich bestimmten Tatsachen der Entwicklung der Menschen in ihren
(singulären wie typischen und kollektiven) Betätigungen als soziale
Wesen im Zusammenhange psycho-physicher Kausalität erforscht und
darstellt.”
The expression “Kausalität” he explains later in quite a Bergsonian
sense. It is not mechanistic. _Cf._ Chap. I, Sect. 4, pp. 101 _sqq._ A
study of Bergson’s conception of Time would help to elucidate Bernheim
and to elaborate the idea of the text above.
[3] Ionic ἱστορίη, Attic ἱστορία. (_Vide infra_, p. 135.)
[4] _Cf._ Gilbert Murray, _A History of Ancient Greek Literature_
(1912), p. 123.
[5] _Cf._ the opening sentence, “This is the setting forth of the
researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus,” etc.
[6] _Cf._ Bk. VII, Chap. XCVI.
[7] _Cf._ Aristotle, _Rhetoric_, Bk. I, Chap. IV, Sect. 8 (_cf._ note
in E. M. Cope and J. E. Sandys’ edition) and Sect. 13; _Poetry_, Chap.
IX.
[8] _Cf._ Polybius, _The Histories_, Bk. I, Chap. III.
[9] The achievement of the Hebrew historians was primarily in the
field of art. Although sections of the early records of the Jews are
the finest narrative we possess from so early a date,--far earlier
than any similar product in Greece,--the principles of criticism which
determined the text were not what we should call scientific. They were
not sufficiently objective. (_Vide infra_, p. 79.)
CHAPTER II
PREHISTORY; MYTH AND LEGEND
Although the origins of History are as old as humanity, the history of
History reaches back to no such dim antiquity. There was story-telling
by the camp-fires of the cave-men, before the ice-sheets had receded
or the continents had taken their shape, when the Thames emptied into
the Rhine and the British Channel was the valley of the Seine. But no
trace remains of the tales that were told. Anthropology may surmise
something of their content from the study of savages today; but the
history we reconstruct from the chipped stones and burial mounds of our
prehistoric ancestors is our own, not theirs. It is a closing chapter,
not the opening, of the history of History.[1]
The term “prehistoric history” is, therefore, new. Once, not so
very long ago, prehistory meant what it seems to say; it implied in
a general way that there were ages or peoples prior to those known
to us, which were devoid of history. One did not generally stop to
inquire whether they themselves were devoid of it or whether it was
ourselves who were devoid of whatever history they may have had. In
either case the main point was clear; the term was a general negative.
Its application on the other hand was definite; it referred to what
lay beyond the Old Testament, Herodotus and a few other texts from the
classics. For what lay beyond them was an unreal world of myth and
legend, vague in outline, irrecoverable.
In our own day all this has changed. Archæology, pushing the frontiers
of knowledge into that seemingly impenetrable past, has enlarged
the field of history, both by the recovery of texts written over a
thousand years before the oldest texts of the Bible, and by its own,
modern story of still more remote antiquities. Since this latter is
the more comprehensive,--and the more important,--it, rather than the
work of any hieroglyphic or cuneiform writer, is commonly taken as
the measure of the field of history, and its farther limits as the
boundaries between the historical and the prehistorical. Strictly
taken, this would mean that those boundaries would shift with every new
discovery of archæology, and as the result would be unending confusion,
it is customary now to regard the whole held in which the archæologist
can find any recorded texts as lying within the field of history. The
test for the distinction between history and prehistory is therefore
the existence--or persistence--of inscriptions, since upon them depend
the possibilities of history. Even where the inscriptions are not yet
deciphered, the fact of their existence makes their field potential
history. The implements are at hand by which, some day, the past from
which they came shall be known; and if at present we have not learned
to use them, the confident movement of modern scholarship includes
them in the field of history along with those already mastered.[2] The
distinction between history and prehistory has in it a certain flavor
of anticipation as well as of achievement and does not always meet the
facts of the case. Where this anticipation involves too great a strain
upon one’s faith, it is at times disregarded; but upon the whole it
is as good a distinction as has been found, and the archæologist is
justifying it by works.
The prehistoric is, therefore, to be used not so much in the sense of
the pre-known past,--since much inside the field of history remains
unknown and on the other hand much beyond it is known,--as the
pre-inscriptional or pre-literary.[3] This, at first sight, may seem
a very inadequate test, since inscriptions furnish even the literary
archæologist with only a meagre portion of the sources from which he
pieces together his story. But in reality it is as nearly decisive
as anything can be. It marks the line between the possibilities
of narratives about definite persons and the vague movements of
peoples,--in short, the line between the particular and the general.
But more than this, writing alone, among all the sources of history,
preserves events. Monuments furnish only hints and implications of
them. The stone circles of Stonehenge indicate that once a numerous
tribe concentrated its energy upon a great achievement. But we do
not know what tribe it was or what motive, religious or monumental,
led to this concentration of energy. All we have is the achievement.
Even drawings, unless they have some word or sign attached, do not
perpetuate definite events. The bison drawn by the palæolithic cave-men
may be symbols from the realm of magic or memories of the hunt, there
is no way of knowing which. The hieroglyph, which is half-picture,
half-writing, can arrange its succession of symbols so that by the
addition of many, side by side, a sort of moving-picture narrative is
told. But only writing, that mobile medium, responsive to changing
fact, can record motives or deal with action; and these are the proper
themes of history.[4]
The field of prehistory is joined with that of history by archæology,
which works with impartial zeal in both, though with different methods.
In the prehistoric field, since the documents are lacking, it can only
verify its conclusions by the comparison of the remains of the culture
of unknown peoples with the output of similar cultures today. This is
the _comparative method_ of anthropology which has thus been called
into service to enable us to recover the unrecorded past before history
began. Tasmanian savages a generation ago or African Bushmen today
illustrate the life and society of the men of the old stone age in
Europe.[5] Where bone implements are added to the primitive equipment
and tools of the hunt become more efficient, the Esquimaux may furnish
a clue not only as to the mode of life but even as to the mental
outlook. So on, through varying grades of culture, the comparative
method tests the sources of archæology by data of anthropology.
This is not the place to enter into a critical description of such a
method; but it may not be out of place, as we pass along, to repeat
the warning which anthropologists have frequently issued, that there
is no more treacherous method in the scientific world today than this
use of analogies, which at first sight seems so easy. One should be
trained in the method of anthropology before using it, just as one
should be trained in the use of historical sources before writing
history. In the first place, the things compared must be really
comparable. This sounds like an absurdly elementary principle, and yet
a vast amount of anthropological history has been written in disregard
of it. Institutions from different tribes, which bear an external
resemblance, have been torn from their setting, massed together and
made the basis of sweeping generalizations as to the general scheme
of social evolutions; and the data of the prehistoric world have then
been interpreted in the light of inferences from these conclusions.
Such schemes are not history but speculation; some of them may even yet
be verified by fact and turn out to be true. But the historian should
not mistake their character. If his training in the historical method
has amounted to anything, he should not lose sight of the fact that
phenomena are never quite the same outside of their environment, for
the environment is part of them. The significance of an institution
depends not so much upon its existence or form as upon its use.
However, within broad limits and used with due caution, the comparative
method may furnish an anthropological history of the prehistoric world.
It can suggest manners and customs and even,--what alone concerns us
here,--a glimpse of the mental outlook of peoples who have kept no
history of their own. For, in a general way, the reactions of all men
in similar circumstances are alike. The tales they tell in Mexico
resemble those of ancient Babylon. Heroes perform almost the same
feats through the entire semi-savage world, varied only by the local
conditions, and the mysteries of Olympian councils are disclosed in
recognizable terms.
* * * * *
Now, upon the whole, it is the case that tales are told only when they
are worth telling, and the test as to whether they are worth telling or
not is whether they are listened to. This furnishes us with a clue as
to their general character, for men do not gather willingly to listen
about commonplace things of daily routine,--which, so far as possible,
have been turned over to the women. Just as the men have taken to
themselves the careers of adventure, of war and the chase, they wish to
make their tales adventures of the mind. This means that the universal
content of all early tales is myth.[6] For myth alone can supply
enough of the element of surprise, of the strange and mysterious.
In the world of luck and miracle, with its constant possibility of
dramatic turns, the _dramatis personæ_ are mainly supernatural. The
explanation of this lies in the tendency of the savage to “animize”
his world. Dawn and clouds, fire, running water, dark caves or groves,
animals, queer things or people, whatever strikes his fancy and remains
un-understood, is likely to become a “presence,” an uncanny something
that lies in that fearsome realm where things are lucky or unlucky in
their own right, sacred or accursed, acting irresponsibly or, in any
case, beyond the normal line of mere human conduct. The world is so
full of these uncanny things that the story of even daily life among
primitive peoples is bound to contain enough myth to condemn it utterly
in a rationalist society. And yet it may be mainly true--true to the
experiences of its authors and perpetuators.
The commonest theme of such myths is that which gives the savage mind
its greatest adventure, the myth of the origin of things. All people
have their versions of Genesis. The curiosity which prompts one to keep
asking how the story ends is not less keen in inquiring how it began.
Where different people have lived much alike, the explanations of their
similar worlds are strikingly similar. One can match not a few of the
elements in the Hebrew Book of Origins by the myths of the savage
world. But this is too varied and too unhistorical a problem for us to
pursue in detail here.
The world of myth is one of miracle, where gods and even heroes are
transformed before one’s eyes, where, as in a land of dreams, animals
talk, invisible presences are heard along the winds, trees imprison
and earth engulfs. So unreal do these seem to the civilized man that
he thinks of them as the conscious effort of invention, a product of
that poetic capacity which he takes for granted in early peoples. But,
however strongly the fancy plays in simple minds, the myth is seldom,
if ever, the creation of individual, conscious effort,--the result of
a single expedition of the questing intelligence. It is rather the
booty of the tribe, the heritage from immemorial quests. The shaman or
priest may mould mythologies and transform them, as the epic poet may
develop original incidents in his legend, but the range of his creative
imagination is anything but bold and free in the sense in which Plato
thought of its freedom. For instance, when Homer makes Athene take the
form of a swallow he is not inventing as Kipling may have done in his
_Jungle Tales_. Athene, or some such goddess, had been transforming
herself for untold centuries before Homer embodied the miraculous
incident in his narrative.[7]
In fact, what strikes the student of mythologies most is the poverty,
rather than the richness, of the primitive imagination. Imagination
must use the materials of experience to build its creations, however
fantastically it may combine them, and as the range of experience of
early man is much narrower than that of the civilized, the myths, which
register these creations, run in relatively narrow grooves. There are
common themes which one finds repeated with almost identical details in
the most widely scattered tribes,--not only in the myths of origin but
of such events as wars in heaven and floods on earth and such universal
heroes as slay dragons, fight giants, and rescue the weak by prowess
and miracle. Anthropologists formerly sought to trace these back to
some common source and viewed them as evidence of a common origin of
the varying cultures which preserved them. But now it is seen that no
such history need exist. The war of the gods in which the beneficent
deities of light and life overthrow the dragon-like forces of evil and
chaos was a theme native to many other places besides the Nile and
the Euphrates. Myths like those of Marduk and Horus were independent
of each other; for the sun-god represented the triumph of order and
settled life, when the earliest farmers began to tame the wastes, drain
the swamps and plough the fields. In short, the history of the gods
was but a reflection of the activities of the society which produced
them. In this sense they are a sort of perverted, divine reflection of
history, preserving in a distorting but vivid medium some portions of
the general story of a people. “Myth is the history of its authors, not
of its subjects; it records the lives, not of superhuman heroes but of
poetic nations.”[8]
This social origin and authorship of myth, while it does not preclude
the possibility of individual creations and modifications now and
then, enables one to understand two things which otherwise puzzle one
in dealing with the primitive mind. In the first place that realm of
mystery is not entirely mysterious. It is as much a part of nature
as the rest. This means that the savage is conscious of crossing no
closed barriers as he turns from the real to the imaginary. In the
second place, the social belief in the tale brings to its explanations
somewhat the force of a suggestion of nature itself, and so they impose
themselves upon the mind with the sense of things final and inevitable.
At once, this brings us upon a fact more vital for the history of
History than all the content of the myths,--the tendency to believe. It
is well to interest oneself in the fate of the gods, but it is impious
to inquire too much of them. This religious attitude of acceptance is
largely responsible for the absurdities which the myths contain, since
it is not fitting to apply the canons of common-sense criticism to
them. But its significance extends far beyond the boundaries of myth
and prehistory. It is still, in spite of the growth of criticism and of
science, the ordinary attitude of the ordinary man. The first impulse
upon hearing any tale is to accept it as true,[9] unless it itself
contradicts what has already been believed, or seems to imply such a
contradiction. Credulity is a natural attitude of mind; criticism is
one of the most difficult acquisitions of culture. The importance of
this fact will furnish some of the main themes in the history which
follows.
The credulity of the primitive, however, has more excuse than ours,
for he has a different appreciation of fact. We draw distinctions
between the real, the probable and the possible, between things that
are in their own right and things whose existence depends upon that
of others. This borderland of possibility we place outside the realm
of fact, not losing sight of the condition upon which it rests. The
savage stresses the fact and tends to forget the condition. The unhappy
anthropologist who offers to do something for a native “if he can”
finds himself regarded as having broken his word if he does not fulfil
his promise, even if the conditions remain unfulfilled. When we apply
such an attitude of mind to problems of mythology it explains largely
the positive character of the creations of what we call the primitive
imagination.[10]
Under such circumstances, the myth develops a life of its own. The
conditional elements in it drop away; uncertainties become fact by the
mere force of statement. Its origins are lost sight of. Hera may once
have been the air and Demeter a sheaf of wheat, but somehow in the
course of divine events, by common human consent, they became deities
and lived henceforth the life divine. To us moderns it was a purely
imaginary existence, but the myth acquires its authority upon the very
opposite assumption. And when temples are erected to them, art and
literature find in them their inspiration, when states trust to their
protection and individuals turn to them for salvation, both imagination
and memory are left far behind; the myth becomes a real and potent
element in the facts of history and life.
And yet it is the divine or supernatural element in the myth which is
its own best preservative. Whatever lies within the sphere of religion
is protected, the world over, by a vast and unrelenting primitive
criminal law, which we call the taboo. Everything connected with
worship, from magic to mysticism, is sacred, and whatever is sacred
cannot be treated like ordinary things. It contains something of the
power, diabolic or divine,[11] which moves by supernature and mystery
to afflict or bless those who come in contact with it. Sacrilege
needs no legal penalties in societies where religion really rules; it
enforces its own punishment through the terrors of the psychic world.
So, just as the fetishes and altars used in worship are surcharged with
this sacredness which ensures their protection, the myths which embody
the story of the gods are preserved by their own religious quality. To
know the story of the god, and especially to know his true name, is
of the greatest importance to the worshippers, since in the story and
the name lies some mysterious suggestion of potency. So the shaman and
his priestly successors, as those best fitted to deal with such sacred
things, tend to become the keepers of the mystic tale along with other
objects of cult. In the early world such specialization is more or less
informal and by no means rigid; but the tendency to intrust the myths
to theological care is already evident long before the development of
hierarchies.
We are not interested here in the later fate of the myths as parts
of theological systems, for there they lose all but a faint echo of
their historical sources, if such existed, and become at last a rather
artificial element of religions which grow away from them,--as the
modern world has grown away from the more incongruous stories of the
Old Testament and the more miraculous legends of the saints and martyrs
of the Middle Ages. Ritual,[12] in which the baldest, most compact
statements and representations are reduced to epigrammatic and poetic
terseness, preserves a last suggestion of the ancient origins, by
reason of its direct connection with the altar and the rite,--sometimes
even after the religion in which it is set has ceased to understand
its meaning,--as in the well-known case of the Arval priests at Rome,
reciting in archaic speech what had become little more than a magical
charm.[13] And yet, in such faint and unintelligible ways, the traces
of past ages lasted on,--less history for the worshippers who listened
to the mummery than for the modern historian to whom they are no longer
sacred utterances, and who therefore is free to trace their human
origins.[14]
But there is a human as well as a divine side to the myth, and as the
divine tends to drop away or change except where embodied in ritual
and preserved by priests, the human develops mainly by way of poets,
into that antetype of history,--the legend. The gods still come and
go; they hold their councils as of old, and they seem to outrange the
feeble will of man; but in reality the human beings are the heroes;
upon them the interest of the tale and the sympathy of the listener are
concentrated, and even the gods dispense with their divinity wherever
the interests of the story demand it.
It is not possible definitely to mark off the myth from the legend,
for myths enter into all early narratives. And yet it may clarify our
survey if we regard as legend those stories which carry the human theme
uppermost. The legendary, therefore, lies between the mythical and the
historical. As we have just seen, myth penetrates it, and for long
furnishes the dramatic element, the sudden turns, the swift surprises,
the justice that tracks the feet of crime, the fate that stands behind
and mocks--and pulls the strings. Thus often, as in Homer, the legend
seems to be largely a repository for myth, in spite of all its worldly
interests. Indeed the poet, far from being a bold innovator carrying
the social outlook frankly away from the myth, is really a conservator
of what is otherwise outworn. The ancient tale acquires in his eyes
a kind of sanctity which is the secular parallel of its sacredness in
religion.
In the naïve creations of the early epics this emphasis upon the gods
is taken for granted; but once the poets start upon their proper work
of conscious creation in the realm of imagination, their true attitude
toward myth becomes apparent. There has been only one great poet of
the uncompromising, scientific mind, Lucretius. Even to our own day
the mythology of the world has survived in its poetry. Nor is this all
to be dismissed as the play of pure fancy. In an age of faith, Dante
or Milton can impress their schemes of cosmology upon the world with
at least as much success as the theologians. Even in Goethe’s day the
philosophy of life lost nothing by being deliberately expressed along
the lines of old folk-myths, and the cruder imaginations could find
more than symbol in the story of Faust. Poetry, in short, may have
furnished a bridge from myth to history, but its connection with the
farther shore has never been broken down, and although the inquisitive
thought of the civilized world has moved across it to the conquest of
reality, it still retains its ancient character.
Legends, therefore, so long as they are preserved by the poets, mark
but a single stage of the advance toward history. Poetry, as Thucydides
pointed out, is a most imperfect medium for fact. Its ideal is of
another kind. Beauty or power, emotional stress and thrill are its
aims, and to achieve these it properly forsakes dull, calculable
reality. Its mythical elements are the least misleading, for its human
heroes are given imaginary rôles; their exploits are set in the world
of romance, and from of old the world of romance has been, some way or
other, the world of the unreal. Homeric warriors, for instance, use the
bronze weapons of an age already growing distant in the days when the
poems were recited. Then the bard exaggerates or distorts his story
to please his listeners; which means that each society in which it is
recited impresses changes upon it. So, although much of the early past
has been handed down to us in epic, in ballad and in the poetically
turned legends of folk-lore, these artistic creations belong rather to
the history of literature than that of history proper.
And yet the early poet, like the priest, knew the tribal lore. He was
held in high regard, not as a mere entertainer, like the travelling
minstrel of a later day, but as a sage who knew the ways of gods to
men, and who could draw enough lessons from the past to satisfy any
barbarously moralizing Ciceros or Carlyles. He may have lacked history
in the true sense of the word, but he at least knew that philosophy
which teaches by experience. For the most important part of his
tale came to him by tradition, in contrast with the part he himself
invented. The first qualification of the bard was rather memory than
imagination. Imagination filled in the gaps, but the past supplied the
theme.
Legendary history is preserved by this oral tradition. There is,
naturally, no other way to preserve it among pre-literate or illiterate
peoples. But the extent of it and its relative reliability are a
source of unfailing wonder to the student of history. For unlettered
societies, when left to themselves, with no modern devices to fall
back upon, make up for the absence of reading by an almost incredible
extension of the power of memory. It is not the bard alone who can
recite his story; tradition becomes to a large degree a social
heritage, and nothing is more remarkable than the way in which a
tribe or clan will repeat its legends, generation after generation.
Hour after hour, almost day after day, the primitive story-teller can
recite not merely the deeds of gods and men, but the exact words of
the ancient myths. Indeed this is, perhaps, one of the main reasons
for the form of poetry in which it is cast, for rhythm and metre
swing the memory along, while prose seems to snap the cord. So among
early peoples, the _whole_ record of the past tends to be embodied in
poetry--more or less--from bald lists of names in genealogies arranged
for a sing-song chant, to inspiring epic and stirring ballad. The rôle
of memory is now lessening. We trust to books and put our memories with
them on the shelf. But we can still testify to the acuteness of the
primitive methods. When we try to memorize even a few names in a row,
we unconsciously fall back upon the devices of our bardic forerunners
and, if we can, commit them to memory in a sing-song.[15]
When we turn to examine the content of these early, legendary
traditions, where they are accessible, we find them, like the myths,
perpetuating all kinds of things. It is impossible to delay here over
any detailed examinations of them. Their study belongs to the field of
folk-lore, a field in which scientific methods have made but little
progress yet.[16] But history may sometimes find in it at least a
general guidance in matters otherwise unrecoverable. The incidental
mention of natural objects helps to throw light upon the character of
the civilization which produced the legend. For instance, the tales
of early Rome point to a farming community. In like manner, the very
absence of mention is sometimes just as significant. None of these same
early Roman legends points to the sea. The story of Æneas’ wanderings
came in after Greek civilization had penetrated Italy. It was obviously
manufactured after the Romans knew about Greece and appreciated Homer
enough to wish to trace their ancestry to the fields of Troy. We know
that this was the case because there are no primitive traditions that
correspond with it. It was invented to suit the occasion by men of a
later age.[17]
There are, therefore, two main types of legends: the folk-tale that
no one made, that was born in no one brain, but, like Topsy in _Uncle
Tom’s Cabin_, met a social demand, ready-made; and the false legend
invented long after the events with which it deals, a romance produced
to glorify a monarch, a nation or a noble house, like the genealogies
that reached back to the gods and so flattered their happy recipient
with divine ancestry. The difficulty of deciding which kind one is
dealing with, whether it is primitive or artificial, makes the task of
the scholar an extremely delicate and treacherous one. For even the
genuine folk-tales come to us worked over by successive generations
until often so obscured that with the combined resources of archæology,
anthropology and history one can but guess at their value and true
meaning.[18]
* * * * *
Looking over the field of myth and legend as a whole, we see that we
are everywhere outside the boundary of genuine history. History may
incorporate portions of their substance, but it differs from them in
both means and end. It is not a thing of poetry but of prose; it needs
sobriety and commonplaceness of expression, just as it needs rigid
outlines, if the fancy which runs wild in legend is to be checked and
the narrative made worthy of the credence of inquiring men. Then,
that narrative must be intrusted to something more reliable than
memory--even social memory at its best. And finally it must be kept
definite in outline and positive in dates. So history must pass by
way of written records out of the realm of taboo and folk-lore, which
priests and poets perpetuate. The vague or rambling tradition must
become a straightforward narrative, taking into account the steadily
passing years. There are, therefore, outside of myth and epic, two
indispensable bases for history: writing and mathematics,--the one to
record what time would otherwise indifferently blot out, the other to
measure time itself in calendars and chronology.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It may not be out of place, however, to refer, for a general study
of the field, to such manuals as H. F. Osborn, _Men of the Old Stone
Age_ (1915), with good bibliography and illustrative material; to W.
J. Sollas, _Ancient Hunters_ (2d ed., 1915); H. Obermaier, _Der Mensch
der Vorzeit_ (1912), and, for detailed study, the exhaustive work
of J. Déchelette, _Manuel d’archéologie prehistorique, celtique et
gallo-romaine_ (2 vols., 1908-1914). The prehistory of Egypt, Babylonia
and the Ægean is now treated in the archæological studies devoted to
those special fields.
[2] In a sense the meaning has not changed so much as might seem; for
when the field of history did not reach beyond the Bible and Herodotus,
the hieroglyphs were unread and the key to them supposedly lost for all
time. So the oldest texts limited the field of history.
[3] Hittite or Cretan cultures are not viewed as prehistoric although
their inscriptions are still unread. The “prehistoric” element in Crete
preceded all the Minoan eras. One may say, however, that the term
“prehistory” is used upon the whole with something of the vagueness of
the term “history.” Different writers use it differently. Sometimes
it seems to mean the history of peoples devoid of civilization, in
particular of those in the stone age, preceding the age of metals. So,
especially, in Egyptian histories.
[4] The mention of the moving-picture suggests that, if the test for
the distinction between prehistory and history is the use of writing,
we may be at another boundary-mark today. Writing, after all, is but
a poor makeshift. When one compares the best of writings with what
they attempt to record, one sees that this instrument of ours for
the reproduction of reality is almost palæolithic in its crudity. It
loses even the color and tone of living speech, as speech, in turn,
reproduces but part of the psychic and physical complex with which
it deals. We can at best sort out a few facts from the moving mass
of events and dress them up in the imperfections of our rhetoric, to
survive as fading simulacra in the busy forum of the world. Some day
the media in which we work today to preserve the past will be seen in
all their inadequacy and crudity when new implements for mirroring
thought, expression and movement will have been acquired. Then we, too,
may be numbered among the prehistoric.
[5] The frankest use of such a method in this particular field is that
of W. J. Sollas in _Ancient Hunters_.
For examples of the comparative method as applied by the earlier
anthropologists, accompanied by a thoroughgoing criticism (by John
Dewey), see W. I. Thomas, _Source Book for Social Origins_ (1909), Part
II (_Mental Life and Education_). A long bibliography is appended to
the section. The numerous works of Franz Boas, as well as those of his
former students, furnish both direction and example in sound methods
in anthropology; his _Anthropology_ (1908) has been supplemented by
various studies. The student of history need not deal with W. Wundt’s
_Völkerpsychologie_ (9 vols., 1911-1919) or L. Levy-Bruhl’s _Les
fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures_ (1910), although he
will gain much from a criticism of the latter by A. A. Goldenweiser in
_American Anthropologist_, New Series, Vol. XIII (1911), pp. 121-130;
but he should at very least read R. R. Marett’s little sketch of the
field and method, _Anthropology_, in the Home University series (1912),
while E. B. Tylor’s _Primitive Culture_, although first published years
ago, is still as valuable as it is delightful (2 vols., 6th ed., 1920).
[6] The term myth is used here in the definite sense of the tale
involving supernatural elements. It is also used in English loosely
to include all legendary material. The instances cited in the Oxford
dictionary furnish a commentary upon the unformed state of thinking
in this field. The classic chapters on mythology in E. B. Tylor’s
_Primitive Culture_ should be read in this connection. There are good
articles in recent encyclopædias and the rich field of anthropology is
rapidly supplying whole libraries of material. A popular and worthy
enterprise is the collection of thirteen volumes, _The Mythology of
All Races_, edited by L. H. Gray, of which the first three volumes
appeared in 1916. The publications of the American Bureau of Ethnology
at Washington furnish a wealth of material of great interest in this
regard.
[7] A more definite contrast might be cited in the descent of Athene
from Olympus (_Iliad_, Bk. IV, ll. 75 _sqq._), and Milton’s description
of Satan’s fall. Homer’s picture is based upon the fall of stars. “Even
as the son of Kronos the crooked counsellor sendeth a star, a portent
for mariners or a wide host of men, bright shining, and therefrom are
scattered sparks in multitude, even in such guise sped Pallas Athene to
earth, ...” Such portents furnished the inevitableness of the simile.
[8] E. B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_ (2 vols., 3d ed., 1891), Vol. I,
p. 416.
[9] Dr. Paul Radin has furnished me with an unusually interesting
instance of this. During his researches among the Winnebagos he asked a
half-breed, who affected disdain for most of the Indian beliefs, if he
thought there were any truth in a medicine man’s graphic and detailed
story of his former incarnations. The puzzled reply was that he didn’t
know but thought there might be something in it, “for otherwise why did
the shaman say so?”
[10] The simple-minded novel-reader in the modern world has much the
same attitude. The conditions of the story are forgotten.
[11] Sacredness is a general term and has the power to curse as well as
to bless.
[12] Ritual, whether in word or act, must be performed with absolute
accuracy. Any error is sure to bring the wrath of the gods upon all
concerned and the vengeance of society upon the blunderer. Anthropology
supplies many instances of the infliction of the severity of the
punishment for carelessness or mistake. For example, see Franz Boas,
_The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl
Indians_, in _Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian
Institution for 1895_ (published 1897).
[13] The magical or priestly formula sometimes repeats the potent
words of the gods in some ancient myth, of which the formula is the
only fragment preserved. A good example is given in A. Erman’s _Life
in Ancient Egypt_ (tr. 1894), p. 353. A charm for burns was obviously
taken from a call of Isis, the mistress of magic, for the aid of Horus:
“My son Horus, it burns on the mountain, no water is there, I am not
there, fetch water from the bank of the river to put out the fire.” In
this connection it might be recalled that the recital of the names of
the gods, with all their attributes, in incantation or prayer, involved
a certain amount of mythological lore.
[14] The persistence of even a mere divine name may furnish the clue to
great events; for instance, if the Egyptian Re, the sun, is traceable
to the Semitic root R’a, it indicates an early Semitic invasion. _Cf._
H. R. Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_ (2d ed., 1913), p.
85. Even the images of the gods may preserve archaic customs and so
open up lost pages of history. The Sumerians, the earliest inhabitants
of lower Babylonia of whom we have record, represented their gods with
the long hair and beard of the Semites, which seems to indicate a
previous Semitic culture, of which the religion at least persisted. In
the same way the early gods of Egypt are dressed like the inhabitants
of Punt--Somaliland--which is taken to indicate that the Southern
Egyptians came from there. (_Ibid._, p. 91.) We do not have to go
outside the Jewish and Christian rituals to see the persistence of
similar suggestions of the past: the whole calendar of sacred festivals
is a reminder of sacred history (_cf._ J. T. Shotwell, _The Discovery
of Time in The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific
Methods_, Vol. XII (1915), No. 10, p. 253), the very prescriptions as
to the methods of sacrifice, even the form of the temple (see recent
studies on Orientation, such as H. Nissen’s _Das Templum_ and A. L.
Frothingham’s _Circular Templum and Mundus_ in _American Journal of
Archæology_, Second Series, Vol. XVIII (1914), No. 3), and the robes
and sacrificial implements of the priests (see references in J. G.
Frazer’s _Golden Bough_, 12 vols., 3d ed., 1911-1920). Religion has
proved to be the greatest reservoir of past usages; but its service to
history is rather that of a social archive than a social historian.
[15] This is not advanced as a general theory for the origins of
poetry. There is virtue in rhythm besides its aid to memory, as the
dance sufficiently indicates. Ritual also plays its rôle. But the
rhythmic element in mere prosy lists hints at its utility elsewhere as
well.
[16] At the close of the eighteenth century Herder pointed out the
importance of folk-lore in the crude, natural poetry preserved by
historic peoples down to the present. The work of the brothers Grimm
and of the whole romanticist movement greatly enriched this popular
literature. But the romanticists overburdened it with the trappings of
their imagination and made it unreal either as representing primitive
or modern ideas. Historical criticism, which had seen the legends of
Homer and regal Rome destroyed, was, therefore, unwilling to grant even
proper recognition to folk-lore as a serious occupation. Finally at the
opening of the twentieth century, the comparative method, rescued in
turn from its cruder uses, has enabled the historian to proceed upon
cautious and promising principles for the appraisal of the value of
traditions.
[17] See Jesse B. Carter, _The Religion of Numa_ (1906), and the
masterly use of religious data for historical purposes by W. W. Fowler
in his _Religious Experience of the Roman People_ (1911); or, for
further research, the work of G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der
Römer_ (2d ed., 1912).
The myths of the historic nations, especially those of Greece and
Rome, and to a less extent of the north of Europe, have been published
in such a variety of forms and have entered into literature to such
an extent as to make any short bibliography of the field well-nigh
impossible. From T. Bulfinch’s _Age of Fable_ (rev. and enl. ed.,
1919), for children, to such works as R. Reitzenstein’s _Hellenistische
Wundererzählungen_ (1906), which is for the most advanced scholar,
through _Handbücher_ and dictionaries of classical antiquities, the
student may pass a busy life in merely keeping up with the available
works dealing with the subject. One thing only need be said here; and
that is that since the comparative method was first applied, by Max
Müller, to the elucidation of the myths of Greece and Rome,--basing
it upon philology on the one hand for the names of the gods and upon
natural phenomena, sky, sun, earth, etc., for their origin,--the
study has made long progress. The anthropological archæologists
forcibly invaded the field in the twentieth century, and although
their first attempts at interpreting were somewhat too confident and a
bit careless, they have made over almost our whole conception of the
religious outlook of the antique world. Sober surveys of this work
may be found in L. R. Farnell’s _Cults of the Greek States_ (5 vols.,
1896-1909), and in W. W. Fowler’s _Religious Experience of the Roman
People_, while such works as those of Gilbert Murray, especially his
_Rise of the Greek Epic_ (1907), connect it with a genuine historical
interest. The Egyptian myths, which fill so large a space in the works
of Erman, Maspero or Budge, have been reëxamined in a most illuminating
survey by J. H. Breasted, in his _Development of Religion and Thought
in Ancient Egypt_ (1912). For Babylonia-Assyria, we have the works of
R. W. Rogers, and those of Morris Jastrow, not to mention the output of
European scholars, among whom L. W. King’s contribution in supplying
texts with English translation should be noted. _Vide infra_, Chaps. V
and VI.
[18] A good example is the Horus myth of Egypt, which represents
this Nubian sky-god leading his army of metal-workers, with their
metal-tipped spears, to the conquest of his rival Set and the land
of Egypt. The story as we have it comes from the latest period of
Egyptian history, and is interwoven with details from the war of the
Horus-born pharaohs against the Hyksos in historical times, although
many centuries before the myth was cast in the form in which we have
it. _Cf._ H. R. Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_, pp. 91
_sq._; J. H. Breasted, _Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient
Egypt_, p. 38.
CHAPTER III
BOOKS AND WRITING
Writing ranks next to speech itself as the implement and embodiment
of thought. Yet its evolution has been exceedingly slow and is still
most imperfect. Even today, if we take the world as a whole, the
great majority of men and women must learn by word of mouth alone
whatever they are to know, since the magic of the alphabet and of its
combinations on the printed page is still beyond their grasp. Yet the
Australian blacks, the lowest of existing mankind, can read crude
markings on twigs made by distant tribes;[1] the Bushmen of South
Africa--low grade among the Africans--can draw their pictures of the
hunt almost to match the hieroglyphs of Egypt.[2] From message sticks
to picture-writing the gulf seems wide, and the next step,--from
picture-writing to an alphabet--seems small in comparison. But on the
contrary, while the cave-dwellers of Europe, ten to twenty thousand
years ago, could draw the bison and the reindeer with a skill to match
the artist of today, such simple things as letters are the invention
of those comparatively recent times when merchant ships from Tyre and
Sidon were already exploiting the markets of the Mediterranean. As for
the extensive use of writing, in literature, records or journalism, it
occupied no such place in the cultures of antiquity--even of Greece at
its best--as it does today.
One reason for this is obvious--the lack of paper. We have been taught
in our history manuals the revolutionary effects of the invention of
the printing press upon the history of western thought, but paper is
just as important as the press. Imagine what it would be like if our
libraries were stacked with chiselled slabs of stone or tablets of
baked clay, if our newspapers were sun-dried bricks. When papyrus,
the paper of the ancient world, came to be used in Egypt, the writing
changed, lost its slow, old pictures and became much like ours; and
instead of a few walls or stelae covered with hieroglyphs, there were
libraries filled with manuscripts. Stone, as a medium for writing,
has a double disadvantage; it is not only hard to manipulate, it is
practically immovable. One has to go to it to read. The inscription
is part of a monument instead of a thing in itself, like the writing
on a piece of papyrus. Babylonia never suffered from this handicap as
Egypt did; owing to lack of stone it wrote on clay, inferior to papyrus
but usable. It is hard to draw pictures or to write with a round hand
on clay, so the Babylonian bricks and cylinders were scratched with
straight little wedge-like marks. And the weight of brick or cylinder
was such as to force the scribe to write with almost microscopic
fineness.
It takes but a moment’s thought to realize how the medium for
preserving literature conditions its scope, and its place in society.
What is written depends in a great degree upon what it is written on.
It is well, therefore, before surveying the early records of history,
to examine hurriedly the manner and method of the composition,--the
more so, as historiography seldom deigns to cast its eye on so purely
material a basis for its existence.[3]
Stone and clay, the first two media of Egypt and Babylonia, were, as we
have seen, definitely limited in their possibilities. There was need of
a lighter, thinner substance, suitable for carrying around, yet strong
enough not to break easily with general use.[4] Egypt ultimately had
recourse to the use of papyrus, Babylonia more to that of leather. But
there was a primitive substitute for both of these which we must not
forget. Leaves of trees sometimes furnish such a medium in tropical
countries, particularly the tough-fibred palm-leaf, of use especially
in India. The hieroglyphs preserve traces of its use in Egypt as
well.[5] In temperate climates where even this fragile writing surface
is not at hand, wood furnished the commonest substitute. Our barbarian
ancestors in northern Europe, improving a little on the twigs, which
the earliest savages notched for messages or memoranda, inscribed their
runic markings on rudely cut branches of trees.[6]
A new era in literature was made possible with the use of the metallic
saw. When boards became common, they offered a good and ready medium,
and were in general use throughout the antique world, wherever lumber
was plentiful. Small, square or oblong boards were especially in
demand as tablets for note-taking or memoranda; as such they were used
by school children far back in ancient Egypt.[7] But, although also
serving at times for recording literature, they were more generally
used in Greece and Rome for matters of business and for correspondence,
being lighter and cheaper than lead or other metallic tablets,--which
were also used,--and cheaper than leather. In such cases it was
customary to fold two tablets together,[8] and the interior cover was
commonly covered with wax. Boards were also used, however, for formal
inscriptions, the most famous being the white tablet, known as the
album, upon which the Pontifex Maximus inscribed the events of the year
and which was displayed at the Regia,--the origin of the official
annals of Rome. In early Greece they were used to write down the works
of the poets, which a still earlier age had committed to memory.
Tradition has it that Greek tyrants,--presumably copying the example
of the library of Ashur-bani-pal of the seventh century,--gathered
libraries and employed scholars to edit the classical texts. But the
scholarly activity could not achieve much when it would require two
hundred wooden tablets to arrange and handle the two Homeric epics.[9]
It is clear that wood, like stone or brick, serves only for the
preliminary and casual phases of the history of writing.[10]
It is doubtful if the antique world could have developed the classical
literatures in all their variety and freedom of scope, had there been
nothing better to write upon. Two substances saved the situation,
papyrus and leather. Of these two, the latter played little part in the
Mediterranean world during classical antiquity. In the Orient, leather
was always in use, and in the fourth century of the Christian era that
form of it known as parchment superseded everything else. But the
_paper_ of Greek and Roman times was papyrus.
As far back as the middle of the fourth millennium B.C., Egyptians knew
how to cut through the stem of the papyrus reed, and, pasting two thin
slips of its stringy marrow back-to-back, cross-ways on, secured a
tough and satisfactory writing surface. As we have already pointed out,
the scribe could write upon it with a flowing hand, which eliminated
much of the toilsome picture-writing of the genuine hieroglyph upon
the stone. But yet, so impressive were the monumental inscriptions, so
rigid the strength of Egyptian traditions, that the home of the papyrus
did not produce that last essential to writing--the alphabet.
By the twelfth century B.C., the business men of the market ports of
Phœnicia, keen-witted as their Hellenic neighbors of a later day,
seem to have realized the usefulness of Egyptian papyrus, as Egyptian
records show that they imported it to their cities at least as early
as the middle of that century.[11] No one can say whether it was this
importation of papyrus which helped them to invent the alphabet or
whether the invention of the alphabet brought the trade in papyrus;
but, in any case, these two events, so important for the future--and
the past--of the world’s culture, were interrelated.
The use of papyrus elsewhere seems to have spread relatively slowly.
In western Asia it did not displace the widespread use of leather to
any great extent. The Hebrew scriptures, for instance, were written on
rolls of leather, not papyrus. The Greeks, too, were surprisingly slow
to adopt it. Already by the middle of the sixth century B.C., they were
familiar with the material, which they named “biblos” (βύβλος) from the
Phœnician city which traded in it. Herodotus, however, in the fifth
century, describes the papyrus growing in Egypt without mentioning its
use as paper, and so has left an open conjecture as to what he had in
mind when he referred to βύβλος.[12] As a matter of fact the Greeks
were always hampered by the scarcity of papyrus, which they had to
import. This partly accounts for the extent to which their literature
was cast in form for oral delivery rather than private reading,--as
is seen even in the philosophical treatises, arranged in the shape of
dialogues. There was apparently no great library at Athens, even under
Pericles. The first public library in that city was not erected until
the reign of Hadrian.[13] It was in the land of the papyrus itself that
the first great Greek library flourished. The date of the founding of
the libraries of Alexandria is not quite certain, but the first was
probably founded by Ptolemy I early in the third century B.C.[14]
The influence of these libraries of Alexandria, and of their
librarians, upon the literature and thought of antiquity was
very great. Even the seemingly trivial needs of the shelf-room
classification had most important results; for, in order to arrange
their writings readily, they cut them up.[15] The average strip of
papyrus which could be easily filed away and in which one could
readily find references, was from twenty to thirty feet long. The
parchment roll was therefore cut off to about this length. Since the
older authors, those prior to the age of Alexandrian savants, had
not composed their works with reference to any such bibliographical
needs, the scholars deftly divided them into sections, “tomes” or
books, to suit their needs. So the text of Herodotus was divided into
nine sections, each set apart under the symbol of a Muse. Thucydides’
history was similarly broken up into eight books. The purely
bibliographical character of such a device comes out even more clearly
in the use of letters of the alphabet for the divisions of Homer and
Aristotle. After the scholars had thus recast the literature already
written, the authors of more recent antiquity wrote with an eye to
dividing their own texts so that the rolls would be of proper length
and the pigeon-holes on the library walls would easily take them in. In
this way the expedients of the ancient librarians affected the classics.
All the antique, classical literature was produced under these
conditions. Yet, until the recent discoveries of archæology, not a
classical text has reached us in its original form of papyrus roll. In
fact papyrus itself disappears from common use, and its place is taken
by parchment.[16] The reason for this is not altogether clear. There
was a decline in the output of the papyrus plant itself, and then it
disappeared from the Nile delta altogether; but whether this was due
to the fact that papyrus culture and trade were under strict government
control,--which in the later empire meant robbing the future to pay
the present,--or whether the book trade was ruined--and hence papyrus
culture--by a decline in the demand from readers, the fact remains that
from the fourth century of our era the papyrus roll was replaced by an
entirely different form of book, the parchment codex.
The name parchment comes from the city of Pergamum, on the coast of
Asia Minor. There, in the second century B.C., a Greek tyrant, Eumenes
II (197-159), made his capital of a state that had been built out of
the Macedonian Empire. On the crest of a lofty hill, dominating the
city, he placed a palace, a temple, and a library that was one of the
wonders of the world.[17] Legend had it, recorded by the antiquarian
Varro,[18] that the rival tyrant in Egypt, Ptolemy VI, refused to send
papyrus and that, as a substitute, Eumenes invented parchment. The
story, though still frequently quoted, does not hold; for the use of
leather as writing material is as old as that of papyrus, or older; it
was common throughout Asia, and was referred to already by Herodotus.
But the name of Pergamum, attached to the sheets of leather (_pergamena
charta_) seems to indicate a new process of tanning and preparation,
and a centre of the trade at Pergamum.
For some five hundred years after the founding of the Pergamum library,
papyrus still remained the common medium of writing. Finally, however,
as we have seen, in the fourth century of our era, it was superseded
by the parchment, no longer wound into long rolls, but cut like the
leaves of a book and fastened together in somewhat the same form as the
tablets of wood had been, in what was called a codex.[19] Into these
codices the works of antiquity were transcribed from the worn papyrus
rolls by Christian scribes. What was not so transcribed was lost;
for, as we have said above, no papyrus text survived. The fate of the
classical literatures, and of much history, depended upon the smaller
pages of the new form of book.
The ease with which the vellum or parchment could be washed or scraped
to clean off its past writing and the surface used again for more
pressing needs, recommended it especially to the mediæval scribes,
since writing materials were so very scarce. Such palimpsests[20]
still bore traces of their former use, and in this manner the
half-obliterated original was often preserved, when a feebler texture
like papyrus would not have retained it. The papyrus leaves could be
cleaned by a sponge, but were not strong enough to be used a second
time for lasting documents. The practice of scraping the wax tables is
also referred to by Cicero, and must have been common, whatever the
material used, so long as it was difficult to procure. The mediæval
palimpsests show by the fragmentary character of the original texts
they preserve that “the scribes were indiscriminate in supplying
themselves with material from any old volumes that happened to be at
hand.”[21] Fragmentary as they are, however, these old texts, treated
chemically and read critically by modern scholars, have restored many a
precious passage of the lost literatures of antiquity. It is one of the
ironies of history that books of devotion, used for centuries in the
service of the Church which denounced the vanities of pagan thought and
practice, should keep for the modern humanist those very texts of myth
or history which otherwise would have passed into complete oblivion.
The use of the codex lasted through the Middle Ages, and gave the
suggestion for the modern book. Fortunately, during the century
preceding the invention of printing by movable types, another substance
began to be sufficiently common to cope with the increasing demand for
writing materials. Paper is originally a Chinese invention, but was
brought into Europe through the Mohammedan cultures of the Near East
and Spain. As early as the twelfth century, sheets of it drifted into
Christendom, through those two open doors, the Moorish and Italian
trade, but it was not until the later part of the fourteenth century
that paper became the general medium for writing. It still remained
comparatively rare--and generally good--until the invention of a
machine at the close of the eighteenth century enabled manufacturers to
make more than a sheet at a time,--which is the way with the old hand
process, still in use in rare papers, bank notes and the like. But
with the vast and rapid increase in the output of paper in our own day
comes an attendant danger to contemporary history, of which historians
and librarians have warned repeatedly in vain. For the paper made
today is the most fragile stuff upon which any civilization has ever
intrusted the keeping of its records. All but a tiny fraction of the
vast output of our printing presses is crumbling and discolored waste
a few years after it is printed upon. We are writing not upon sand but
upon dust-heaps. The thought is a sobering one to any one who looks
back, even in so short and superficial a survey as this, over the fate
of other civilizations and the slight and fragmentary traces they have
left.
* * * * *
We have mentioned, in passing, that the form of writing has to some
extent depended upon the materials used. But writing has a history
of its own, a history of so great importance to the historian that
the study of the history of handwriting is a science in itself,
palæography.[22] Even after the alphabet supplants hieroglyphics, and
so becomes the mere barren framework of words, its style changes with
different cultures, and only those can read it who have made it a
special study. For it requires constant familiarity with the crabbed
and compressed text, with the forms of abbreviations and devices
for shortening the interminable labor of transcription, to decipher
the ancient manuscripts. Into this field, fundamental as it is to
historical research, it is impossible to enter here. Fortunately the
student of history today is able to travel far toward his goal, even in
mediæval and ancient history, without having to decipher manuscripts
for himself. For, especially during the last hundred years, generations
of scholars have been at work preparing the texts, and others have
been equally busy criticising them, so that the day is almost past
when the historian has to make his pilgrimage from archive to archive
to compare and copy the major texts of his sources, and so be his
own palæographer. The discipline involved is one which may always be
indulged in to advantage, but the results to be obtained are growing
steadily less, as the great collections of sources, edited by the most
eminent of scholars, fill up the shelves of our libraries at home.
All writing is in a sense historical, in that its purpose is to record
something. So far we have been treating it almost as though it were an
end in itself, but it is only a means for doing something else, such as
stimulating thought or action. When we turn from the means to the end,
we are brought face to face with the origins of history.
The earliest markings were largely aids to memory, such as are in use
throughout the savage world,--scratches on sticks or leaves or bark
of trees, runic signs, wampum belts, ensuring that both parties to an
agreement remember alike, spreading news or recording it. One of the
most important of such devices is the indication of rights of property
by symbols denoting ownership. Thus the Maoris of New Zealand marked
their lands by wisps of grass on boundary trees. Trespassers knew
that the inclosed spaces were taboo to all but the owner--by reason
of curses, of which the wisp of grass was the symbol. A much more
definite symbol of ownership would naturally be the representation of
the proprietor’s name, or that of his tribe. The common use of this was
possibly long impeded by the fear that an enemy might secure such a
name-picture for evil magic,--for if he secures your name and anything
of yours, he can have power over you. In spite of such fear,--which
must have hindered not only literature but the development of private
property,--the use of totem signs is common to indicate the name of a
tribe or clan.
The earliest inscriptions, out of which grow the records of history,
were, like these, mere monograms of names. They were, of course, the
monograms of royal names, stamped on Egyptian stone or Babylonian
brick, much as the letter boxes of England bear the symbol G. R. to
indicate the reigning king. Such monograms, chiselled into the rock
over five thousand years ago, retain for us the name of the reputed
founder of the first dynasty of Egypt. Recovered only a few years
ago, they prove to us that Menes of Memphis, that shadow figure which
headed the long list of shadow kings, and was already legend by the
days of Herodotus, was a real man. The first inscriptions of Babylonia
are similar royal names and titles. They are historical records only
by courtesy. Imagine the history of Anglo-Saxon England based upon
nothing but the Alfred jewel, or a historian of the distant future
reconstructing the history of the Victorian era from a few stray
stones on which the full titles of the empress queen were engraved! In
time, however, the titles expand, indicating conquests by including new
dignities and enumerating the lands over which the monarch rules. As
the years go on the titles grow more specific and detailed, and now and
then in the boastful phrases of an epitaph (which had been carefully
prepared during the lifetime of the king), we have almost a summary
of the main events of the reign. This, for instance, is as far as the
records of the old Babylonian kingdom seem to have gone.
As we have seen, the narrative grows out of the simple inscription
almost unconsciously. Indeed it exists to some extent in the titles
themselves, since the graphic hieroglyph tells the story as it
depicts the results. The lord of the upper Nile smites the cowering
inhabitants, the conqueror of Syria carries away the Semitic victims
in chains. But the narrative also develops, alongside the public
inscriptions, in tombs and temples; in tombs for the gods to read, in
temples for the priests. Here, at last, we are on the verge of history;
the temple record is the origin of annals. We are not beyond the verge,
however, for these bald narratives are not histories, in the strictest
sense. History is retrospective; these are mere lists of contemporary
happenings. As the calendar developed, the events were entered year
by year, giving us annals. But still that did not make them history.
They were a sort of primitive journalism or official record, marking
the present, not the past. The annalist writes down what is happening
or has just taken place. He enters on the temple lists the death of a
priest or king when it occurs, or registers conquests under the royal
command of the conqueror himself. It is only because the present is
eternally becoming the past that these notes of contemporary events
take on the character of history--as today’s evening papers will be
history tomorrow.
But the annal is also potentially historical. The past, not the
present, gives it its value and interest. Moreover, the step from the
annal to the chronicle is a short one. Add a few genealogies or the
legendary deeds of the sovereign’s divine ancestors and the narrative
becomes historical. Where such a narrative follows a rigid scheme of
years, as in the annal, we term it a chronicle. To the reader of
the narrative there is little difference, and the two terms are used
loosely and interchangeably throughout the history of History. Moreover
a pure annal, containing nothing except mention of contemporary events,
would be hard to find. Even the official annals of Rome, inscribed by
the pontiffs with the yearly exploits of the citizens or prodigies of
the gods, contained portions of the earlier years rewritten from later
sources.
The subject matter of the annal or chronicle was therefore a
miscellany, woven out of religion, war, catastrophes, legendary
exploits or mere business items. Genealogies, for instance, which
patriarchal illiteracy perpetuated in the sing-song verses, were more
safely embalmed in writing. These were especially valued by noble
houses, who, in imitation of royalty, were sure to reach the gods at
the other end. Needless to say, while they afford many a hint to the
student of today, they were not more reliable than those prepared for
some of our fellow-citizens at present.
Since the annalists were generally the priests they early kept temple
records, mainly from a business instinct. Donations from pharaohs
or kings were sure to be entered, votive tablets recording miracles
accomplished at a shrine fitted the scheme, as well as accounts of
prodigies and portents; and along with these developed lists of priests
and priestesses in long succession. But most important of all, they
noted the festivals of the gods, and in watching the recurring seasons,
with the changing moon and the lucky and unlucky days, they _began
to measure Time_. This, along with the discovery of writing itself,
was the most decisive forward step in the history of History--perhaps
hardly less in the history of civilization. We must turn aside to
consider it in some detail.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf._ A. W. Howitt, _Notes on Australian Message Sticks and
Messengers_, in _The Journal of the Archæological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland_, Vol. XVIII (1889), pp. 314-332.
[2] _Cf._ C. Menhof, _Zur Entstehung der Schrift in Zeitschrift für
ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde_, Vol. XLIX (1911), pp. 1 _sq._
[3] The literature on this interesting background of history is not
extensive, and mainly goes back to the capital work of T. Birt, _Das
antike Buchwesen_ (1882).
See also K. Dziatzko, _Untersuchungen über ausgewählte Kapitel des
antiken Buchwesens_ (1900), and other references below.
[4] The distinction between the hard, heavy media for inscriptions
and the lighter kind, furnishes the basis of a distinction between
epigraphy and palæography, the former dealing with monumental writing,
the latter with writing in its more general forms. Epigraphy properly
belongs with archæology; palæography, however, carrying the history of
writing parallel with successive epochs of culture, is a constant aid
to history.
[5] A good example is the scene of the gods writing the name of Ramses
II on the leaves of a sacred tree, in R. Lepsius, _Denkmäler aus
Aegypten und Aethiopien_ (12 vols., 1849-1859), Sect. III, Vol. VI,
Plate 169, and A. Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_ (tr. 1894), p. 347.
[6] _Cf._ Venantius Fortunatus (_Opera Omnia_, Part I, Bk. VII, Chap.
XVIII), who wrote at the end of the sixth century:
Barbara fraxineis pingatur, runa tabellis Quodque papyrus agit, virgula
plana valet.
On the other hand, runic characters have now been found inscribed on
various substances, stone and metal.
[7] _Cf._ K. Dziatzko, _Untersuchungen über ausgewählte Kapitel des
antiken Buchwesens_, pp. 6, 19, 23. The Greeks, as well as the Romans,
used them almost exclusively in the earlier days.
[8] These tablets were also sometimes of lead or other metals. The two
folded together were known as the _diptych_. Often it was ornamented on
the outer covers. Used widely for correspondence, diptychs were also
sent around by consuls and other officials upon assuming office, to
appraise their friends of the dignity and title. The Christian church,
adopting this use, kept diptychs with the names of clergy, saints, and
martyrs at their altars. The relation of these with mediæval annals is
of much interest in this connection.
[9] _Cf._ K. Dziatzko, _op. cit._, p. 26.
[10] If we rely upon etymology, the Romans, like some semi-barbarous
people, once used the inner bark of the tree to write upon, for that is
the meaning of their word for “book,” _liber_. The word _book_ itself,
with its several Teutonic variants, comes from the same root as that of
the _beech_ tree.
[11] _Cf._ J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_ (5 vols.,
1906-1907), Vol. IV, p. 284. It seems likely that they also
manufactured a paper from other reeds, perhaps from some grown nearer
home. This may explain the treatment by Herodotus.
[12] From Biblos comes our word Bible. The paper itself, before it was
written upon, was called χάρτης or _charta_, which also suggests a
changed history. A length of papyrus was termed τόμος or _tomus_, from
the fact that it was “cut off,” or, in Latin, a _volumen_, from the
fact that it was wound up. The Latin word _liber_ refers to the whole
book and is identical with _volumen_. _Cf._ T. Birt, _op. cit._, Chap.
I.
[13] _Cf._ Pausanias, _Attica_, Bk. I, Chap. XVIII, Sect. 9; J. W.
Clark, _The Care of Books_ (2d ed., 1909), p. 6.
[14] There were two: one apparently connected with the palace; the
other with the temple of Serapis. The chief benefactions are attributed
to the son, Ptolemy II.
[15] The standard work on this whole subject of ancient books is
T. Birt, _Das antike Buchwesen_. See also E. Maunde Thompson, _An
Introduction to Greek and Latin Palæography_ (rev. ed., 1912), or F. W.
Hall, _A Companion to Classical Texts_ (1913) for good short accounts.
There is a good account of libraries in J. W. Clark, _The Care of
Books_.
[16] Papyrus paper was still used to some extent through the first
part of the Middle Ages. For instance, it was used at the papal court
until the eleventh century. But parchment was much more durable. The
ancients regarded a papyrus two or three centuries old as rare. _Cf._
K. Dziatzko, art. _Buch._ col. 939 _sqq._, Vol. III, in Pauly-Wissowa,
_Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_ (1894-1918).
[17] _Cf._ J. W. Clark, _The Care of Books_, pp. 8 _sqq._
[18] _Cf._ Pliny, _Naturalis Historiae Libri XXXVII_, Bk. XIII, Chap.
XI. Jerome repeats the story, with slight variation, _Ep. VII ad
Chromatium_. _Cf._ T. Birt, _op. cit._, pp. 50 _sqq._
[19] The word _caudex_ or _codex_ first meant the tree trunk.
[20] From the Greek πάλιν, _again_, and ψάω, _scrape_.
[21] Article _Palimpsest_ in _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (by E. Maunde
Thompson).
[22] From παλαιός, _old_, and γράφειν, to _write_.
CHAPTER IV
THE MEASURING OF TIME
Time is the basis of history, as space is of geography or matter of
the physical sciences. Until some method of keeping accurate track of
it was discovered, the data of history were like an uncharted land
or an unanalyzed substance. To us with our almanacs this seems like
the simplest matter of observation and arithmetic, merely a counting
of days, weeks, months and years. But when history began there were
no almanacs or calendars to consult. Weeks were unknown, months were
observed only from the superstitious fears and beliefs attached to the
changing moon, and the revolving years were too vast and vague extents
of time to be measured off with any accuracy. There are really only two
measures of time of which the primitive mind is fully conscious: the
day--and one day is like another; and the season--and the seasons vary.
A little thought shows that whole new sciences had to be evolved before
the dates could be set along the margin of our annals--the sciences
which make possible astronomy and through it a settled calendar for
events that recur, and a fixed chronology for those which happen but
once.[1]
Anthropologists point out that the greatest social revolution of
primitive mankind came about when men, settling on the soil instead
of wandering, and so accumulating goods which involved foresight,
began to calculate for a future. From that dim sensing of futurity in
which civilization dawned, the whole evolution of society has been
conditioned by some reckoning of the passing of time. The calendars
upon our walls make this now so simple and familiar that the fact
escapes our attention. But it takes considerably more thought than most
people are ever likely to devote to it, to realize that the calendar
itself is an invention rather than a discovery, an art-creation,
magnificent in its mathematical perfection, but a product of human
ingenuity all the same, and not the mere revelation of some laws of
nature.
Yet the artificial character of our calendar can be seen very easily.
Some of our time-divisions are artificial on the face of them,--the
divisions of the day and the massing of days into weeks. We could do
without seconds or even minutes without much inconvenience; and do
so most of the time. Even hours vary greatly. The twelve-hour unit
comes to us from Babylon, through Ionian Greece,--twelve being like
our ten, the unit of measurement for anything. We might as well have
had a decimal instead of a duodecimal system; it all depended on the
arithmetical tables one used. But one should not put too much stress
on the hour as a division of the day, for, in general, it is only
the point of time, within the hour or at its beginning or close, of
which we are keenly conscious,--especially the time for commencing
or quitting work. It is the same with weeks. There were none in
ancient Greece or Rome. They, too, like the hours, come apparently
from Babylon. They mark off seven days, because seven was a sacred
number. Habits and religious beliefs have settled this cycle upon our
minds with the weight of centuries; the rhythmic Sunday pause in our
busy week-day industries impresses itself upon the imagination so
that poetically inclined people attribute to nature itself a restful
note upon the sacred day. But this is merely our tribute to social
convention and taboo. Every day is a sun-day. Weeks are a fiction based
upon superstition but perpetuated for their social value. Even now,
however, there are many people who pay no attention to them; in the
mills of modern industry, on railways or ships, where work continues
without ceasing, the weeks are practically unrecognizable. But days,
months and years are different. Here nature seems itself to mark an
interval. The turning of the earth on its axis, of the moon around the
earth and the earth around the sun, seems to furnish real units. It was
undoubtedly these which first gave men a mathematical idea of time. But
when we come to apply the lesson, it is not so easy.
The calendar began in registering these celestial phenomena. The first
chronometer was the universe itself; its ever-recurring movements
struck off the days, months and years as our clocks now strike off
the hours. The days and years are thus in reality on a par with the
minutes and the hours, only they are the product of a larger clock.
Unfortunately, however, the clocks of the universe do not run together.
The days do not fit the years and the months fit neither one. The
exact solar year is not even 365¼ days, awkward as that multiple would
be; it is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds! We have frankly
given up trying to keep track of months that really go by the changes
of the moon--a cycle that has no relation to our night or day. Yet
this was the unit for twenty or thirty centuries in that home of
astronomy, Babylon. When we pause a moment to consider these things, we
begin to realize what baffling mathematics lies behind our calendars
and almanacs. For there are the stars, too, to keep track of, with
their revolutions and conjunctions, coming and going at all sorts of
intervals, planets zigzagging across the heavens in crazy patterns, out
of touch with everything, and yet somehow forming, apparently with sun
and moon, a final unit, composing a universe. What a tangled problem
for Babylonian and Egyptian astronomers to work out! No Chaldæan
shepherds, “killing time” in pastoral loneliness and innocence, were
ever able to evolve the science of astronomy. That venerable myth still
lingers in respectable books: but astronomy was the product of learned
priests, those first scientists and intellectual leaders, who developed
it, through astrology, for the service of religion.
The calendar developed everywhere as a cycle of religious feasts. It
was the gods, not men, for whom or by whom the days were first marked
out. The times for hunting and fishing, for sowing and reaping, the
phases of the moon, the summer and winter solstice, and the like,
upon which the attention of primitive men was so forcibly directed,
early became associated with some idea of miraculous power. The times
themselves became “lucky” or “unlucky”--an idea still so common that
we never stop to ask what it means.[2] There was an uncanny power let
loose in the world when the moon still hung visible in the sky by day,
or under the blazing mid-summer sun. The primitive man cannot exactly
tell whether the power is in the moon or sun or the day itself, but on
that day he knows that it is there. So when animism produces its gods
and demons these days are consecrated to them. The time for reaping is
sacred to the god of the harvest, and so forth. The old scruples take
a more definite turn. A part of the time becomes the property of the
gods. It is henceforth a violation of divine law to work or transact
business on the days thus set apart. Holidays were at first genuinely
holy days, and the calendar grew up around them. It was necessary to
find some way by which the festival day, the _dies nefastus_, on which
business was sacrilege,[3] should not be violated. It was taboo; to
violate it was not only wrong but dangerous. The power of an inherent
curse, which is essential in the early idea of the sacred, protected it
and assured it social recognition. Accordingly it had to be kept track
of in order to ensure that the proper ceremonies should be celebrated
upon it. Hence the elaboration of that succession of religious feasts
and fasts which still persists in our church calendar. The idea would
not naturally occur to one that the lists of saints’ days and holy days
which preface our liturgies are the historic remnants of the first
marking of time. But in the practically universal superstitions about
planting crops, gathering herbs or doing almost anything in the dark or
the full of the moon we have a trace of something infinitely older than
any sacred date in the prayer-book--a first vague fear of the unusual
or uncanny, out of which theologies, as well as calendars, were born.
Once grant that days differ in their virtues, that some are good for
one thing, some for another, it is of the utmost importance to know
which is which. In Hesiod’s _Works and Days_ we have the program
outlined for the farmer of the earliest age of historic Greece. In the
so-called Calendar of Numa we have the priestly reckoning for ancient
Rome. But in Egypt and especially in Babylon, where the sky is so clear
that, as the report ran in Rome, even the stars cast shadows, the
mechanism of the heavens first produced an adequate system.
Babylon bears the proud title of Mother of Astronomy. It was a title
already admitted by Greeks and Romans, to whom the words “Chaldæan”
and “astronomer” (or rather astrologer) were practically synonymous.
Modern scholars agree as to the justness of the claim; but the careful
study of newly found inscriptions places the scientific achievements
of Babylonia and Assyria not at the opening but at the close of their
long history. However much the priests of those distant centuries
watched the heavens for portents and omens, their observations were
not sufficiently systematic to enable them to measure the recurring
periods of sun, moon and stars with that accuracy necessary for an
unvarying calendar until after at least two thousand years of priestly
lore. The Semites clung with the conservatism of superstition to
the phases of the moon. Although they had grown civilized,--and
civilization must arrange its work according to the sun, because nature
does so too, bringing the recurring duties of the seasons,--these old
desert-dwellers, and their neighbors who learned of them, never broke
away from the lunar month and the lunar year.
No one knows when or how this reckoning was first adopted; but a study
of primitive peoples the world over today shows that the moon and not
the sun is generally the earliest guide toward the calendar. Wherever
agriculture is not much developed, the moon dominates, owing both
to its uncanny associations and to the shortness of its cycle. The
origins of the lunar calendar of Babylonia, therefore, apparently lie
beyond all the long story of its civilization. The records themselves
carry us back, however, to the middle of the third millennium, when
we find a Babylonian year of twelve lunar months, making up 354 days,
with a thirteenth month thrown in once in a while--making that year
384 days--to bring the religious festivals and the business world
right again. There was no absolute certainty as to what years should
be lengthened and what ones should be left the normal length; the
matter was in the hands of the priests. This unwieldy calendar spread
throughout western Asia, wherever the cuneiform script carried the
message of Babylonian culture. It was adopted by the Jews and,--apart
from other fragments of it embedded in our calendar,--we still have a
positive reminder of its difficulties in our festival of Easter.
But so much observation of the moon ultimately produced an astronomical
cycle of great importance, that of the moon with reference to the
sun. It was discovered that in nineteen years the moon returned to
almost its original position with reference to the sun,[4] a period
destined to be used for chronology by the Greeks. This discovery was
not made until the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., however, in that
period when the study of the universe began to assume more calculable
form, and astrology--still rooted in religion, but verging toward
science--rose to supersede the crude old fantasies of the earlier
and barbarous priestcraft. Then we come upon a strange and happy
interworking of calendar and chronology. To foretell an eclipse, or
a conjunction of the stars, it was necessary to know the period of
time which had elapsed between such eclipses or conjunctions in the
past. So, looking forward to forecast the future, the astrologer found
himself obliged to consult the records of the past, and the more he
sought for accuracy in his calendar the more he needed it in the royal
or priestly annals which supplied him with the data upon which he had
to build. In short, mathematics began to emerge from the position of a
mere tool of superstition, in which the luck of numbers combined with
that of the stars in a jumble of folly, and to assume its proper rôle
as the basis of definite knowledge.
This was an epoch in the history of thought, an epoch of fundamental
importance for history, for from that time to the present the years
have been numbered in regular, unbroken succession. The list of the
kings of Assyria whose dates are thus fixed and accurate began in the
year 747 B.C., the first year of a somewhat insignificant monarch,
Nabonassar. This list was used by the great astronomers of Alexandria,
who finally worked out the problem of calendar and chronology as
far as they were solved in antiquity, and it has been preserved
in what is called the Canon of Ptolemy. Through these savants the
Babylonian-Assyrian year was translated into the “fixed” year of
Egypt, _i.e._ 365¼ days; and to the “Era of Nabonassar” were added
those of the Persian and Alexandrian empires, and finally the list of
Roman emperors, down to the year 160 of our era. So that from 747 B.C.
until the present, the years have been kept track of in continuous, if
varied, reckoning. But the Canon of Ptolemy was used by astronomers,
not by antique historians.[5]
The mention of Alexandria naturally suggests the contribution of Egypt.
But it was not Egyptian so much as Greek science which made the name
of Alexandria so illustrious in antiquity, and the great astronomers
who worked there found little in the long centuries of Egyptian culture
to help them in their study of astronomy or chronology. This seems
strangely paradoxical when one reads in modern histories of ancient
Egypt of the great achievements of its science and, above all, that it
bears an even prouder title than Babylon as the land which produced
the solar year. The date when that event took place is a matter of
dispute among Egyptologists; but if the calendar year of 365 days was
introduced at a time when it fitted the solar year day for day, the
nineteenth of July,[6] 4241 B.C., would be the first day of the year
one of the new calendar. This date is reached by calculating back from
a known date in the third century of our era, when a Latin writer,
Censorinus, tells us that the solar year of Egypt was two months
behind the calendar year. As the calendar year was about a quarter of
a day short in length, it had been gaining on the solar year that much
yearly, so that in 1460 years (4 × 365), it would gain a whole year.
Thus, the two had coincided about 140 A.D., of which fact further
evidence exists, and again at 1460-year intervals. The third of these,
4241 B.C., is, in the opinion of Professors Eduard Meyer and J. H.
Breasted, the starting point for the invention of the calendar.[7] It
was a remarkable achievement. What long and puzzling computation, what
tables of priestly science and records were at the disposal of those
who inaugurated it, no one can tell. When one compares this solar year,
only a little over six hours wrong, with the grossly inaccurate lunar
year of 354 or 355 days in use in the rest of the world throughout
most of antique history, it seems at first to indicate something like
a Hellenic rationalism at work in Egypt as long before the Greeks
as we are since them. But this impression of Egyptian superiority is
hardly borne out by fuller study. For, not only did Egypt fail to make
good its early promise in astronomy,[8] but by failing to rectify the
error of a quarter of a day, its calendar year came to have no real
correspondence with the solar year, as we have seen. And, finally, the
ancient Egyptian did not know how to make the discrepancy between the
official and the true solar calendar the basis of a calculation of
dates in history. There is no trace of his having used the (Sothic)
cycle of 1460 years. It is the modern scholar who uses it to check up
his calculations.
In chronology, therefore, as in the calendar, the Egyptians have no
such contribution as might be expected from the promise of their early
texts. Moreover, the more detailed data for chronology are as irregular
as the calendar. The years were numbered, not in a straight and
continuous succession, but according to striking events, campaigns, the
years of the pharaoh’s reign, or (especially) the levy of taxes. When
the state was thoroughly organized, the treasury officials “numbered”
the royal possessions every two years, and the regnal years were known
as “Year of the First Numbering,” “Year after First Numbering,” “Year
of the Second Numbering,” etc. Whatever knowledge the priests may
have had of the period involved in the long succession of Egyptian
dynasties,--and Hecatæus and Herodotus show that they had some,--it was
left for the twentieth century A. D. to disentangle the problem for the
world at large; and much is still to do.
The Babylonians and Assyrians had the practice of _naming_ rather than
_numbering_ their years. There was some priestly or royal functionary
whose duty it was to proclaim what event or man should give the name
to the year. It was to be the year of the magistracy of so-and-so, or
the year when a battle was fought or a city taken. There is a touch
of casual history in this, but it is too haphazard to be of much use.
For in the first place, one never knew, until the functionary made up
his mind--perhaps toward the end of the year--what the year really
was! Combine that with a lunar calendar, and one can see that there is
work for the Babylonian scholar as he struggles with the problem of
Sumerian date-lists, which contain the names of the years, as recorded
by the Babylonian scribes.[9] Neither Greeks nor Romans worked out
by themselves any adequate reckoning of time. The lunar year was the
basis, and with all their ingenuity, they could not make it work. In
Greece it was easily seen that the 354 days did not exactly fit the
twelve lunations of the year, being short by 8.8 hours. So (if the old
accounts are correct) they put in a month every second solar year,
which brought the total up to about 7½ days more than the right amount.
In order to meet this inaccuracy, the intercalation was then omitted
every eighth year. This _octaëteris_ or luni-solar cycle of eight years
was in itself not rigorously exact and was not systematically carried
out. In 432 B.C. the astronomer Meton proposed the 19-year luni-solar
cycle, of which we have spoken above. It was not adopted, however,
until the second half of the fourth century. Once adopted, it was
naturally destined to play a very important rôle in later classical and
ecclesiastical chronology. The astronomical cycle is really slightly
less than 19 years, however, and further corrections were necessary.
In fact so long as the motions of the moon remained the basis of
reckoning, the calendar was sure to be imperfect.
The Romans began with a lunar calendar, but since they regarded odd
numbers as the lucky ones, they made the year 355 instead of 354 days.
Then they added a month every second year, inserting it between the 23d
and 24th of February, so that the mean length was 366¼ days. To get rid
of the extra day they had recourse to a clumsy device,--perhaps based
upon the old Greek eight-year cycle,--ordering that every third period
of eight years should have three instead of four intercalary months,
and that they should be of 22 days each. This made the year 365¼ days.
But the pontiffs were left discretion in adjusting the calendar to the
needs of astronomy, and they seem to have adjusted it (in some cases at
least) rather to the needs of their friends,--having long years when
those were in office whom they wished to favor, and short ones when
their enemies were in power! In any case, the calendar fell into such
confusion in the last years of the republic that it was out by three
months, judging by the solar year. The decree of Julius Cæsar was the
result, fixing the year at 365 days with an extra day in every fourth
year. The ancients have attributed the reform to the intercourse with
the savants of Alexandria, but there is also some ground for connecting
it with a simple old-fashioned solar year of Italian farmers, of which
we have fragmentary but definite traces even in the official calendar,
and which in its turn may have been affected by the farming calendar of
the Greeks. If this be true we have a single line from Hesiod to Cæsar.
The first reformed year began on the first of January, 46 B.C. (708 A.
U. C.). The months took their place in it,[10] and then Christianity
brought in the weeks from Judæa--and Babylon. The year remained, as we
have seen, a fraction of a day too short, and there was no absolute
agreement yet as to when it should begin. But these were matters never
settled until the sixteenth and even the eighteenth centuries of our
era.
* * * * *
We need to know this much of the origins of the calendar in order
to complete our survey of antique chronology. In both Greece and
Rome,--after the fashion of Babylon and Egypt,--the year bore the name
of the ruling magistrates. In Rome it was named after the consuls,
in Athens after the first archon, in Sparta after the first ephor,
etc. As it was found necessary for practical purposes to keep lists
of these, from the calendar we pass not only to chronology but to the
crudest of annals.[11] Thucydides, for instance, had only the Athenian
lists of archons, the Spartan lists of ephors and the lists of the
priestesses of Hera in the temple of Argos to rely upon, in addition
to the festivals.[12] The cycle of the Olympiad, the four-year period
based upon the celebration of the Olympic games, by which later ages
reckoned Greek history, was never used officially by the city-states,
and really was not taken over by historians and chronographers until
about the end of the third century B.C. The credit for its introduction
seems to belong to Timæus (c. 350 B.C.), an indefatigable antiquarian
and historian whose unphilosophical cast of mind apparently left him
free to indulge a singularly un-Hellenic taste for dates. But it was
a geographer rather than a historian who finally attacked the problem
of chronology in a critical spirit. Eratosthenes, who flourished about
276 to 194 B.C., and who, as librarian of the Alexandrian library,
was equipped with the science of the East as well as with his native
Hellenic genius, fixed the dates of the great epochs of Greek history
in what was destined to be the accepted chronology of antique as
well as of Christian historians. Into this we cannot go further at
present.[13] Nor need we do so for this chapter of our history of
History. The crude old reckoning of Rome, from the fabled founding of
the city, 753 B.C., and the Olympiads remained, for later classical
antiquity, the two eras in general use.
Looking over this chapter of our intellectual evolution one is
impressed with the slowness of its progress. The ancient world could
come to its full maturity without any clear idea of the passing years,
with even no accurate knowledge of what a year should be. Yet does not
such vagueness correspond with our own experience? The past is all
one to us; yesterday as dead as the centuries of Egypt. Only by the
magic of memory can we even recall its faded color or catch an echo of
its silenced voices. How that memory has become a social and undying
heritage, a heritage that hallows its own possessions, is the theme of
the chapters which follow on the history of History.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf._ J. T. Shotwell, _The Discovery of Time_, in _The Journal of
Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods_, Vol. XII (1915), Nos.
8, 10, 12.
[2] See Hutton Webster, _Rest Days, a Study in Early Law and Morality_
(1916), for an exhaustive survey of time taboos.
[3] The Romans, characteristically viewing things from the practical
point of view, had the terms inverted: the _dies fasti_ were those on
which business was permitted.
[4] The time between eclipses was seen to be 18 years, 11 days, or 223
lunations (“Saros”).
[5] The importance of the “Era of Nabonassar” for chronologists was
first seen by Panodorus, the creator of the Alexandrian school of
chronologers, in the opening of the fifth century A.D. See H. Gelzer,
_Sextus Julius Africanus und die byzantinische Chronologie_ (1898),
Part II, p. 227, who traces the development of the Canon of Ptolemy
through the Syncellus into Byzantine chronology and so opens up the
connection with the Middle Ages.
[6] The day when the star Sirius rose at dawn, at the opening of the
Nile floods.
[7] For discussion, see J. H. Breasted’s _Ancient Records of Egypt_,
Vol. I, Sects. 38 _sqq._ There is a short, clear account by H. R. Hall,
_The Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 19. The chief protagonist
of the longer chronology of Egypt, Professor Flinders Petrie, is now
regarded as having been extreme.
[8] It even failed to note eclipses.
[9] There is a clear, short summary in R. W. Rogers, _A History of
Babylonia and Assyria_ (2 vols., 6th ed., 1915), Vol. I, Chap. XIII.
[10] Julius Cæsar’s months were to be of alternate length, the odd
numbers being 31, the even numbers 30 (except February). That would
have made a simple year to reckon with. But when the eighth month
(the fifth in the old year) was named after Augustus, his vanity was
gratified by adding a day to it to make it as long as that of Julius.
Then, in order to avoid having three months of 31 days together,
September and November were reduced to 30, and 31 were given to October
and December.
[11] The vagueness of an idea of extent of time in Greek history can
be seen by the fact that “generations” were used to help reckon time
and this was roughly put at 33 years, although the period varies. In
Herodotus one comes upon a system of 23 years.
[12] The only continuous list of the Attic archons which has come down
to us is a copy preserved in the history of Diodorus, but a growing
body of inscriptions supplements it now, and enables the modern scholar
to recover more than the ancients knew themselves.
[13] Apollodorus of Athens, applying the conclusions of Eratosthenes,
drew up a metrical _Chronica_ in four books, dedicated to Attalus of
Pergamum, which became the popular handbook on the subject. Both this
and the works of Eratosthenes are lost, but fragments were preserved
by the Christian chronologers, Julius Africanus, Eusebius, Jerome and
Georgius Syncellus, and so this still is a primary base for the old
Greek chronology. _Vide_ H. Gelzer, _Sextus Julius Africanus und die
byzantinische Chronologie_.
CHAPTER V
EGYPTIAN ANNALS
The historians of ancient Egypt and Babylonia are not ancient Egyptians
or Babylonians but modern archæologists. Their achievement--one of the
greatest in all the history of scholarship--piecing together the annals
of centuries which often left no conscious record of their own, has
obscured the poorness of the sources out of which the history of the
earliest civilizations is made. In reality the written history of the
first nations of the ancient world was a very slight affair. In all
that vast spoil of the East which now lies in our museums, there is a
surprisingly small amount of genuine historical record.
It is possible, of course, to make too confident statements about the
scope of a subject of which our knowledge depends almost entirely upon
chance. For it is chance which has preserved what has been preserved
of the material of this early history. The statement is true of all
history, but is especially applicable where thousands of years and
changing civilizations have in turn devastated and used again the
material of earlier ages. Moreover, the permanence of such a record
does not depend upon its importance--as is the case, more or less, with
traditions. It is due rather to the durability of the substance upon
which the record is inscribed, and the chance that the inscription
lies undisturbed. Mortgages for garden plots, baked into the clay
of Babylon, have survived long after the plot was desert sand and
Babylon itself a heap of ruins. Sometimes chance plays strange tricks,
preserving frail papyri or parchment while the stone disappears. A
building inscription was placed upon a huge stone stela by Sesostris
I, in his temple at Heliopolis, nearly two thousand years before
Christ. “The great block itself has since perished utterly; but the
practice-copy made by a scribe, who was whiling away an idle hour in
the sunny temple court, has survived, and the fragile roll of leather
upon which he was thus exercising his pen has transmitted to us what
the massive stone could not preserve.”[1] The stone had been there five
hundred years before the copy was made; but now stela and temple have
alike disappeared. The student of history can never know how much of
what was set down in distant ages has been blotted out in a similar
manner. Archæology, it must not be forgotten, is a science of ruins.
By taking the sources as we have them, the striking fact remains that
history, the one branch of literature which one might expect to find
develop first, seeing that it carries on tradition and that its poetic
counterpart is the epic, nevertheless is hardly to be found at all
in these early cultures, except where a mythic content contributes
the interest of marvels and wonders,--a world flood or something of
the sort. In all the inscriptions of ancient Egypt there is no work
that can be termed a “history of Egypt.” There are some annals that
are expansions of the lists of royal names; and there are boastful
notices of contemporary pharaohs, but of the idea of a history of the
successive ages of Egyptian civilization there is not a trace.
One reason which has been advanced for this absence of history in
ancient Egypt is that the pharaoh of the time was so intent upon his
own greatness that his courtiers did not venture to exalt the deeds
of his ancestors for fear of belittling his own.[2] The path to royal
favor lay rather in covering the walls of monuments with inscriptions
describing what the present pharaoh had done or could do. In any case,
no successor of even the great monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty
ever deigned to record their exploits in the form of history. The
court scribes busied themselves with the more profitable enterprise of
depicting the events or scenes of their own day. In the literature of
ancient Egypt, history, as we understand it, is absent.
Mention of “the scribes” recalls the high esteem in which their work
was regarded. It was the profession for ambitious men, who might rise
even to princely state by means of it.[3] Scribes kept the accounts of
either government or nobles, for everything in the large establishments
was recorded by these busy forerunners of the modern lawyers or trust
companies. “Nothing was done under the Egyptian government without
documents; lists and protocols were indispensable even in the simplest
matters of business. The mania for writing ... is not characteristic of
the later period only; doubtless under the Old and the Middle Empire
the scribes wrote as diligently as under the New Empire.”[4] In the
case of legal texts we have almost the whole modern machinery. “The
documents were then given into the care of the chief librarian of
the department they concerned, and he placed them in large vases and
catalogued them carefully ...”[5] and so had them readily available for
reference, in case the lord called for them. But so completely was this
bureaucracy under the thumb of the ruler that it does not furnish a
starting point for that criticism which is the beginning of historical
knowledge. The old writings were sometimes appealed to in the practice
of government, as when the founder of the twelfth dynasty, in deciding
upon the boundaries of the provinces, fell back upon “what was written
in the books and what he found in the old writings” “because he so
loved the truth.”[6] But the love of the truth for its own sake, in the
unpractical fields of scientific research, was left for a later age.
There is something mediæval in the attitude of later Egypt toward its
own past, a sense of dimness, a failure to grasp its reality[7] even
with reference to such abiding things as religion. This was accentuated
by the change which came over hieroglyphics, rendering the old writing
hard to understand. Under the circumstances they did what other people
have always done under the same circumstances; their learned men,
mostly priests, sought in allegory an explanation for the texts, and
having found that key to the past had less need of another.[8]
Egyptians may have done little with history but they treasured myth
and legend. In the twentieth century B.C. we already meet with the
prototype of Sinbad the sailor. Tales of wonders wrought by ancient
wise men and magicians[9] were as effective then as now in whiling away
hours of leisure, when history would be too forbidding a discipline.
There were also myths of origin; stories of the gods, how they came
from the Holy Land in the south country.[10] But as the centuries
passed the myths got strangely mixed. For instance, the misreading of
an inscription on the tomb of an early king at Abydos led to a popular
belief that Osiris himself was buried there, and thus started a new
cult.[11] We shall find such local name-myths again in the origins of
the Old Testament. But there is no need to follow them here into the
tangle of Egyptian religious conceptions.
* * * * *
If Egypt did not produce “history” in our sense of the word, it at
least possessed the framework for it in the lists of royal names,
which were displayed in magnificent profusion, along with the reigning
monarch’s monogram or portrait. Three such tablets, of Abydos, Sakkara,
Karnak, may be mentioned for light they throw on Egyptian chronology.
In the first, Seti I, of the nineteenth dynasty (about 1300 B.C.),
accompanied by his son Ramses II, has before him seventy-five of his
predecessors; in the second, Ramses II has some forty-seven names on
the list before him;[12] while in the third, Thothmes or Thutmose III
of the eighteenth dynasty is adoring sixty-one. Modern research has
verified the accuracy of the two former lists, by comparison with the
monuments.[13] No wonder the priests who kept such lists were able to
make a lasting impression upon the Greek travellers who were to come
at a later date to learn from them the folly of tracing one’s descent
from the gods in the sixteenth generation.[14] The fact that Egypt was
itself a museum, preserving a sort of monumental history of the kings,
must also have impressed the mind with an enduring sense of the past;
but religion rather than history profited from such curiosity as the
spectacle produced. The weight of authority was in the hand of time.
* * * * *
The earliest historical record which has come down to us, however,
is a development from just such lists of names. It is the famous
Palermo stone, so-called from the fact that it is in the museum at
Palermo,[15]--a small stone, of black Diorite, one of the hardest of
stones, only about seventeen inches high, nine and a half wide and two
and a half thick. On this stone, somewhat less than two thousand years
before the oldest parts of the Old Testament were written, Egyptian
scribes copied the names and recorded the known facts of the reigns of
five dynasties before their time. The stone itself, as is apparent from
its general appearance and from the character of the text, is but a
small fragment, broken from a larger slab. Egyptologists, calculating
from the spaces of reigns and their arrangement, have supposed that the
original was about seven feet long and two feet high; but this is mere
conjecture.
The date when the annals were inscribed upon the stone can be set with
confidence as the fifth dynasty, which ruled in Egypt according to a
widely accepted reckoning, from 2750 to 2625 B.C. The portion of the
stone preserved covers only the first three reigns of that dynasty.[16]
A picture of this fragment from ancient Egypt stands as frontispiece to
this volume. Its claim to such a place of honor is unquestioned, for it
contains the earliest of all known annals in the history of History.
Fortunately, however, the illustration in this case is much more than a
mere picture, for it offers as well the text of the original. At first
glance this may not seem of very great interest to those who cannot
read the hieroglyphs; and their interest is not likely to be quickened
when they learn that even Egyptologists do not quite agree as to the
meaning of parts of the text. But a very little study of the original,
in the light of the clues offered below, will enable any one, even if
he has never read a hieroglyph before, to puzzle out the way in which
it was written and even some sections of the text. There can be few
more interesting puzzles for the student of history.
At the top of the stone there is a simple row of oblong spaces, with
relatively few signs in them. The lower section of each of these
furnishes the clue to their meaning, for it contains the sign for the
king of lower Egypt, a figure wearing the red crown and holding one of
the royal insignia, the flail. Consequently, each symbol in the space
above must be the name of a king. This row, therefore, is the list of
the names of early kings of lower Egypt, of whose reigns apparently
nothing had come down to the scribes of the fifth dynasty but the
royal names themselves. In any case, no events are recorded. It should
be noted here that these, like all Egyptian hieroglyphs, are to be read
from right to left.
With the second row or series, however, one comes upon entirely
different data. The dividing lines, curling over at the top, are
themselves the hieroglyphic signs of palms, signifying years. If one
looks carefully one can see a short cross-mark on each one, about three
quarters of the way up the stem, which definitely establishes their
meaning.[17] But in a few instances the line is also run straight up,
through the intervening long parallel space, the series above. These
long straight lines are taken to indicate the close of reigns, and
are accompanied by some specific reckoning, as may very well be seen
by glancing a moment at the spaces on each side of the first one. On
the right of it one can easily distinguish six new-moons, one above
the other, which mean six months, and a circle representing the sun
and seven strokes, which indicate seven days. On the other side of the
vertical line one sees four months and thirteen days,--the symbol for
ten being the two strokes joined at the top instead of crossed as in
Roman counting. Consequently, here is obviously some detail as to the
time when the reign ceased. The name of the king is given in the long
horizontal space above the yearly records, although only two such are
visible on this side of the fragment, one at the extreme right above
the third row, and the other at the left above the fourth row.
The measurements in the little square below each yearly record are
supposed to register the height of the Nile flood. The forearm
represents a cubit, the other indications stand for hands and
finger-lengths.
The general character of the material here preserved is of great
interest, however one may regard the details; for on this little block
of stone one can see how history grows out of the thin data of the
earliest lists. At first there are only rows of unknown kings, mere
names, and even these of strange archaic sound.[18] It is supposed
that the lost portion may have contained the kings of upper Egypt or a
list of the gods. Then, in the second line we come upon the story of a
reign of the first dynasty, giving the events year by year.
This first of all annals reads as follows:
“Year 1 Fourth month; thirteenth day.[19] Union of the two lands.
Circuit of the wall.
Six cubits [the height of the Nile.]
2 Worship of Horus.[20] Festival of Desher.
3 Birth of two children to the King of Lower Egypt.
Four cubits, one palm.
4 Worship of Horus; [undeciphered].
5 [Plan] of the House, ‘Mighty of the Gods.’ Feast of Sokar.
Five cubits, five palms, one finger.
6 Worship of Horus. Birth of the goddess Yamet.
Five cubits, one palm.
7 Appearance [or coronation] of the King of Upper Egypt.
Birth of Min.
Five cubits.
8 Worship of Horus.
Birth of Anubis.
Six cubits, one palm.
9 First appearance of the Festival of Zet.
Four cubits, one span.
10 [Destroyed.]”[21]
These are still mainly the data of religion,--festivals of the gods and
scraps of divine history. The chief human activity is the building of
temples. In the fourth line, however, we come upon the second dynasty,
and the items recorded steadily grow more secular. We even come upon
the regular system of the numbering of the land and its resources,
which may be viewed, if one so wishes, as the earliest trace of
economic history.[22] It is not until the third dynasty, however, on
the last line of the fragment, that the annal becomes at all detailed.
The story depicted in the three years here preserved runs as follows:
“Building of the 100-cubit dewatowe ships of meru wood, and of 60
sixteen [oared?] barges of the king. Hacking up of the land of the
negro. Bringing of 7,000 living prisoners, and 200,000 large and
small cattle. Building of the wall of the Southland and Northland
[called] ‘Houses of Snefru.’ Bringing of 40 ships filled with cedar
wood.[23]
“Making 35 houses ... of 122 cattle. Building of a 100-cubit dewatowe
ship of cedar wood and two 100-cubit ships of meru wood. Seventh
occurrence of the numbering.
“Five cubits, one palm, one finger.
“Erection of ‘Exalted is the white crown of Snefru upon the Southern
Gate’ [and] ‘Exalted is the red crown of Snefru upon the Northern
Gate.’[24] Making the doors of the king’s palace of cedar wood.
“Two cubits, two palms, two and three-fourths fingers.”
The inscriptions on the reverse continue the story, through part of the
fourth dynasty and of the three first reigns of the fifth dynasty. The
detail is much richer here, but the condition of this face of the stone
is so bad as to render decipherment very difficult, and the mere fact
that the material is richer on each reign limits the scribe to fewer
reigns. As a result interest in these sections of the annals hardly
extends beyond Egyptologists, and further comment may be omitted here.
So slight a chronicle, even if it be the first, seems hardly worth
delaying over, were it not that we have the original text before us,
and that its very slightness tempts one to linger. There must have been
many such simple, monastic products as this in the possession of the
priests of Egypt; but it is hardly to be wondered at that it needed
the best of stone to preserve them, for there is little enough in the
text itself to enforce immortality. More human interest attaches to
the records of single reigns, in which the royal scribe has every
incentive to tell a striking story, and dress it up in all the detail
of actuality. Such records are less “historic” than the dry-as-dust
chronicle we have just been examining, but they are at least of
livelier interest for the modern reader.
There is a large number of these. They form the bulk of the great
collection of Professor Breasted’s _Ancient Records of Egypt_. It will
suffice to take as an example the most notable of these, the “annals”
of the great monarch of the imperial period, Thothmes or Thutmose
III.[25] As the Palermo stone is the first, this is “the longest and
most important historical inscription in Egypt.”[26] It was written
by the king’s command on the walls of “the corridor which surrounds
the granite holy of holies of the great Karnak temple of Amon,”[27]
and describes some seventeen campaigns which he carried on, year after
year, as he maintained the sovereignty of Egypt over western Asia. The
most noteworthy of these was that in which the king met and defeated
the forces of Syria at Armageddon, or Megiddo; and so detailed is the
account of this exploit that modern historians are able to reconstruct
the strategy according to the map and to follow the story day by
day. The description of the battle itself, which has just a touch of
something Homeric in it, is as follows:[28]
“Then the tents of His Majesty were pitched, and orders were sent
out to the whole army, saying, Arm yourselves, get your weapons
ready, for we shall set out to do battle with the miserable enemy
at daybreak. The king sat in his tent, the officers made their
preparations, and the rations of the servants were provided. The
military sentries went about crying, Be firm of heart, Be firm of
heart. Keep watch, keep watch. Keep watch over the life of the king
in his tent. And a report was brought to His Majesty that the country
was quiet, and that the foot soldiers of the south and north were
ready. On the twenty-first day of the first month of the season
Shemu (March-April) of the twenty-third year of the reign of His
Majesty, and the day of the festival of the new moon, which was also
the anniversary of the king’s coronation, at dawn, behold, the order
was given to set the whole army in motion. His Majesty set out in
his chariot of silver-gold, and he had girded on himself the weapons
of battle, like Horus the Slayer, the lord of might, and he was
like unto Menthu [the War god] of Thebes, and Amen his father gave
strength to his arms. The southern half of the army was stationed on
a hill to the south of the stream Kīnā, and the northern half lay to
the south-west of Megiddo. His Majesty was between them, and Amen was
protecting him and giving strength to his body. His Majesty at the
head of his army attacked his enemies, and broke their line, and when
they saw that he was overwhelming them they broke and fled to Megiddo
in a panic, leaving their horses and their gold and silver chariots
on the field. [The fugitives] were pulled up by the people over the
walls into the city; now they let down their clothes by which to pull
them up. If the soldiers of His Majesty had not devoted themselves
to securing loot of the enemy, they would have been able to capture
the city of Megiddo at the moment when the vile foes from Kadesh and
the vile foes from this city were being dragged up hurriedly over the
walls into this city; for the terror of His Majesty had entered into
them, and their arms dropped helplessly, and the serpent on his crown
overthrew them.”
The scribe who thus graphically describes the flight to Megiddo
evidently repeats a royal regret at the delay of the Egyptians to
plunder the enemy, for he devotes the whole of the next section to a
description of the spoil. Indeed, as Breasted remarks, being a priest,
he is really more interested in the booty than in the strategy,
because the booty fell largely to the temples. Hence the annals as
set forth “are little more than an introduction to lists of feasts
and offerings,”[29] which cover adjoining walls of the temple.[30]
Fortunately, however, he preserves the source of his narrative, showing
that it was taken from the daily record kept by the secretaries of
Thutmose III, a copy of which, made on a roll of leather, was preserved
in the temple of Amon.[31] The temple inscription was, therefore, an
excerpt from a sort of royal journal, arranged and chosen “as a record
for the future,”[32] a conscious effort at current history in the
grand style, in keeping with the theme and place. Whatever the daily
journal of the king amounted to, the official in charge of it was no
mean dignitary; and by a strange chance one of them has left in the
epitaph on his tomb by Thebes an indication that it was he--Thaneni by
name--who followed Thutmose on his campaigns and wrote the original
record, to which the inscription refers.[33]
It is unnecessary here to delay long over annals of this kind.
Their detailed study belongs to the history of Egypt rather than
to such a survey as this. Although here and there one comes upon
notable passages, particularly in the descriptive sections that deal
with the administration of the realm,[34] we are not yet, strictly
speaking, dealing with historical literature, but with semi-religious,
semi-biographical epitaphs, intended, like the monuments on which they
were inscribed, to preserve the glory of the present for the future,
not to rescue a past from oblivion. Their existence, however, made the
latter possible so long as the hieroglyphs could be read; and Herodotus
shows us how the scribes and priests could profit from living in such
pictured archives as their temples had become, as well as from the
treasures in their keeping. So, to some extent, they kept the long
perspective open.
* * * * *
Finally, in the early third century B.C., when the history of Egypt
was already ancient, a priest and scribe set down in Greek the lists
of pharaohs, through all the centuries. Manetho, this one Egyptian
historian of Egypt of whom we know, was no mean scholar. He shows,
by comparison with the monuments now discovered, that he had at his
disposal relatively accurate and adequate data for a suggestive outline
without a rival in any antique narrative for the length of time it
covers. Unfortunately, we can judge of his work only by the fragments
which it suited Josephus, the Jewish historian, to preserve, and by
the epitomes used by the Christian chroniclers, Julius Africanus and
Eusebius.[35] Judged by the latter, which is hardly fair, he seems to
have made it his chief aim to secure correct lists of the pharaohs,
coming like a careful mathematician to add up the items in the long
lists now practically closed.[36] In doing this he left a device, which
Egyptologists still find of use; he divided the names into groups or
Dynasties,--the familiar divisions of today.[37] What we have in the
Christian chronologies is apparently rather a reflection of their
interest in Egyptian history than that of Manetho. The same is true
of Josephus; but fortunately it suited his purpose, in his defence of
Jewish historiography, to quote from Manetho sufficiently to give us
an idea--though only one--of the extent to which the work measures up
to the standards of history. It is best to quote the opening section
of Josephus’ reference, in which he adduces Manetho to prove that the
Hyksos were the Hebrews:[38]
“Manetho was a man who was by race an Egyptian, but had made himself
master of the Greek learning, as is very evident; for he wrote the
history of his own country in the Greek tongue, translating it, as he
himself says, out of their sacred records: he also finds great fault
with Herodotus for having given through ignorance false accounts
of Egyptian affairs. Now this Manetho, in the second book of his
Egyptian history,[39] writes concerning us in the following manner.
I shall set down his very words, as if I were producing the very man
himself as a witness.
“‘There was a king of ours whose name was Timaus, in whose reign
it came to pass, I know not why, that God was displeased with us,
and there came unexpectedly men of ignoble birth out of the eastern
parts, who had boldness enough to make an expedition into our
country, and easily subdued it by force without a battle. And when
they had got our rulers under their power, they afterwards savagely
burnt down our cities, and demolished the temples of the gods, and
used all the inhabitants in a most hostile manner, for they slew
some, and led the children and wives of others into slavery. At
length they made one of themselves king, whose name was Salatis.
And he lived at Memphis,[40] and made both upper and lower Egypt
pay tribute, and left garrisons in places that were most suitable
for them. And he made the eastern parts especially strong, as he
foresaw that the Assyrians, who had then the greatest power, would
covet their kingdom, and invade them. And as he found in the nome
of Sais a city very fit for his purpose (which lay east of the arm
of the Nile near Bubastis, and with regard to a theological notion
was called Auaris), he rebuilt it, and made it very strong by the
walls he built round it, and by a numerous garrison of two hundred
and forty thousand armed men whom he put into it to keep it. There
Salatis went every summer, partly to gather in his corn, and pay his
soldiers their wages, and partly to train his armed men and so to awe
foreigners. When he had reigned nineteen years he died. After him
reigned another, whose name was Beon, for forty-four years. After him
reigned another, called Apachnas, thirty-six years and seven months.
After him Apophis reigned sixty-one years, and then Janias fifty
years and one month. After all these reigned Assis forty-nine years
and two months. And these six were the first rulers among them who
were very desirous to pluck up Egypt by the roots. Their whole nation
was called Hycsos, that is shepherd-kings; for Hyc according to the
sacred dialect denotes a king, as does Sos a shepherd and shepherds
in the ordinary dialect, and of these is compounded Hycsos. But some
say that these people were Arabians.’”
From this extract, which contains the greater part of the text
preserved by Josephus, one can judge the character of the Egyptian
history of Manetho. It seems to have been a respectable performance,
a work of wide scholarship, extending over a comparative study of the
rich materials that lay open to the men of the Hellenic age; the kind
of history one might welcome to the reference shelves of the great
library at Alexandria. But whatever the content, the enterprise was
apparently less Egyptian than Hellenic.
In conclusion, it may be remarked that if the text of Manetho is as
good as this in the part that deals with the history of the Hyksos, it
probably reached still greater excellence in the more purely Egyptian
theme of the great days of the Empire, for which ample materials were
at hand. The critic of Herodotus may therefore fairly claim the title
of the one historian of Egypt.
Such, in short, is the history of History of Egypt. The student will
find much of interest as he turns to that vast descriptive literature
which modern scholars have now deciphered. But there are no signs of
anything comparable to their own work; no mastery of time-perspectives
and source-criticism such as is now demanded of every one who attempts
to recast the ancient story.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The works of J. H. Breasted have been constantly used in this
chapter. In addition to his well known _History of Egypt_ (2d ed.,
1909) and his shorter _History of the Ancient Egyptians_ (1908),
with good selected bibliography, his general surveys in _Ancient
Times_ (1916), and the _Development of Religion and Thought in
Ancient Egypt_ (1912), the collection of historical texts, in
English translation, _Ancient Records of Egypt_ (5 vols., 1906-1907)
contain material which is readily usable as illustrative of the
text, by any thoughtful reader. The finely illustrated Reports of
the _Egyptian Exploration Fund_ should be referred to, if available,
for the graphic quality of their texts. The _History of Egypt_ by
Flinders Petrie, although revised in process of publication, follows
a chronological scheme now generally not accepted. More elaborate is
the _History of Egypt_ by E. A. W. Budge (8 vols., 1902-1904), while
the best general description of Egyptian society is that of A. Erman,
translated as _Life in Ancient Egypt_ (1894). The works of G. Maspero
(also translated) contain much suggestive material. The articles on
Egypt in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ are especially valuable, with
good bibliographies; and there is a valuable Introduction in Budge’s
elaborate _Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary_ (1920). But the student
of historiography is indebted most to Professor Breasted.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_, Vol I, pp. 4-5.
[2] _Cf._ E. A. W. Budge, _The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians_
(1914), p. 99.
[3] _Cf._ A. Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, Chap. XIV.
[4] A. Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, pp. 52, 112. _Cf._ J. H.
Breasted, _A History of Egypt_ (2d ed., 1909), Chaps. V, XI, XIII.
[5] A. Erman, _op. cit._, p. 114. The hugest and finest of all the
papyri, the Harris papyrus, is an enumeration of the benefactions of
Ramses III to gods and men during his reign. It is 133 feet long,
containing 117 columns, usually of 12 or 13 lines. _Cf._ J. H.
Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_, Vol. IV, pp. 87-88.
[6] From R. Lepsius, _Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien_, Sect. II,
Vol. IV, Plate 124, quoted in A. Erman, _op. cit._, p. 91.
[7] _Cf._ A. Erman, _op. cit._, p. 39. H. R. Hall, _The Ancient History
of the Near East_, p. 99, says the names of the pre-dynastic kings were
to the men of the nineteenth dynasty like Hengist and Horsa to the
English of today.
[8] _Cf._ A. Erman, _op. cit._, pp. 346-347. “In this respect the
Egyptian scholars did but follow the same course as the mystical
writers of the Middle Ages, who made out that both Bible and Vergil
were allegorical; the Rabbis and many interpreters of the Koran have
done the same; reverence for ancient literary works, if carried too
far, always bears the same fruit.” _Vide infra_, the section on
allegory in Christian historiography.
[9] _Cf._ J. H. Breasted, _A History of Egypt_, p. 203. A. Erman,
_op. cit._, Chap. XV. E. A. W. Budge, _The Literature of the Ancient
Egyptians_, Chap. X.
[10] _Cf._ H. R. Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 91.
[11] _Ibid._, p. 103; _cf._ J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_,
Vol. I, Sect. 609.
[12] _Cf._ E. A. W. Budge, _A History of Egypt_ (8 vols., 1902-1904),
Vol. I, pp. 119 _sqq._ (Tablets of Abydos, Sakkara and Karnak given in
illustrations.)
[13] _Cf._ H. R. Hall, _op. cit._, p. 12.
[14] _Vide infra_, Hecatæus. Sometimes the names were not safe in
the keeping of a jealous descendant. Queen Hatshepsu, “an Egyptian
Catherine II,” had the name of her brother, Seti I, who preceded her,
erased from his monument. A. Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, p. 43.
Thothmes III, in turn, had her obelisk walled up. _Cf._ J. H. Breasted,
_A History of Egypt_, pp. 282-283.
[15] A small fragment of it is also at Cairo.
[16] Although known to Egyptologists for some forty years, no careful
studies of the Palermo stone were made before the twentieth century.
The first reference to it was made in 1866 by E. de Rougé in his
_Recherches sur les monuments qu’on peut attribuer aux six premières
dynasties de Manéthon_ (p. 145), using a print that had been sent him.
The stone was then in a private collection, but in 1877 it passed
into the possession of the Museum of Palermo, where it was seen by
several Egyptologists in the subsequent years, without realizing its
significance. Finally, a study of it, accompanied by plates of the
text, was published in 1896, by A. Pellegrini, in the _Archivio storico
siciliano_ (New Series, Vol. XX, pp. 297-316). Working from this, the
eminent French Egyptologist, E. Naville, interpreted the document as
a “sort of calendar containing donations made by a certain number
of kings of ancient Egypt and the indication of the feasts to be
celebrated.” (_Les plus anciens monuments égyptiens_, in G. Maspero’s
_Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l’archéologie
égyptiennes et assyriennes_, Vol. XXI (1899), pp. 112 _sq._) In 1899,
however, Naville visited Palermo and collated the text, publishing the
results--with plates--in 1903, in the same series (Vol. XXV, or Vol.
IX of the new series). There his conclusion was that it was a fragment
of religious annals, probably drawn up by the priests of Heliopolis,
“of which the chronology, at least in the first part, appears to depend
upon the periods or cycles which do not correspond with the reigns of
the kings” (p. 81). Meanwhile an even more detailed study had been
undertaken by the German scholars H. Schäfer, L. Borchardt and K.
Sethe, the general conclusions of which appeared in 1902 under the
title _Ein Bruchstück altägyptischer Annalen_, in the _Abhandlungen der
königlichen preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften_ (_Philosophische
und historische Classe_), for 1902, with excellent photographic plates
of the original. J. H. Breasted’s translation, in _Ancient Records
of Egypt_, Vol. I, pp. 51-72, is based mainly upon Schäfer’s text. A
photographic plate of the front face of the stone is also given in
Breasted’s _History of Egypt_, facing p. 46.
The present text is drawn from Breasted’s and Schäfer’s, rearranged
somewhat for purposes of clarity.
[17] This was not apparent in Pellegrini’s plates, but is clearly
brought out in those of Schäfer and Naville.
[18] The first line reads: -pu; Seka; Khayn; Teyew; Thesh; etc. It
should be recalled that the text is read from right to left. The
vocalization is that adopted by Breasted; the Egyptian alphabet noted
only the consonants.
[19] Date of the king’s accession. The remainder of the year, which has
been interrupted by the death of the last king. On this day the new
king ascends the throne. Note the upright line dividing the reigns. The
new king’s name was apparently farther to the left, and is lost.
[20] Celebrated every two years.
[21] Proceeding upon the assumption that the king’s name was placed
over the middle years of his reign, and that it would itself spread
over six others, Schäfer (p. 187) reckons that since this king’s name
is not yet reached in the ten years here shown, he must have reigned
at least sixteen years more; and the stone extended at least that far
to the left. Similarly the king whose name occurs at the extreme right
of the next line must have already reigned as long as the period shown
here (13 years + 5 for the name, or 18 in all).
[22] In the third space from the right of the fourth line. It reads
“Worship of Horus. Fourth numbering. Four cubits, two fingers.” Since
this numbering took place every other year, and this is the fourth
numbering for this king, the reign probably began seven years earlier.
[23] An expedition by sea to Lebanon.
[24] The names of two gates or parts of the palace of Snefru. _Cf._ J.
H. Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_, Vol. I, p. 66 _n.c._
[25] The spelling of Egyptian names is not standardized yet, owing to
the absence of vowels in the hieroglyphs.
[26] J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_, Vol. II, pp. 163
_sqq._ It is 223 lines long.
[27] _Ibid._, note.
[28] Translation of E. A. W. Budge, _The Literature of the Ancient
Egyptians_, pp. 104-105. _Cf._ also J. H. Breasted, _op. cit._, Vol.
II, p. 184, Sect. 430.
[29] J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_, Vol. II, p. 166.
[30] _Ibid._, p. 218.
[31] _Ibid._, Sects. 391, 392, 433 Sect. 392, “Now all that his majesty
did to this city [Megiddo], to that wretched foe and his wretched
army was recorded on each day by its name, under the title of [title
not deciphered]. [Then it was] recorded upon a roll of leather in the
temple of Amon to this day.”
[32] _Ibid._, Sect. 568; _cf._ Sect. 392.
[33] The inscription runs as follows (J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records
of Egypt_, Vol. II, p. 165):
“I followed the Good God, Sovereign of Truth, King of Upper and Lower
Egypt, Menkheperre (Thutmose III); I beheld the victories of the king
which he won in every country. He brought the chiefs of Zahi as living
prisoners to Egypt; he captured all their cities; he cut down their
groves; no country remained.... I recorded the victories which he won
in every land, putting (them) into writing according to the facts.”
[34] Note particularly the fine account of the state of Egypt under
Ramses III, in E. A. W. Budge, _The Literature of the Ancient
Egyptians_, p. 114; J. H. Breasted, _Ancient Records of Egypt_, Vol.
IV, Sect. 410. Attention might also be called to the famous Punt
Reliefs, _Ancient Records of Egypt_, Vol. II, pp. 102 _sqq._ J. H.
Breasted, _A History of Egypt_, pp. 274-278. A. Erman, _Life in Ancient
Egypt_, pp. 510 _sqq._, etc. The richness of these records kept up
to the last. For a description of Egypt under the Ptolemies see _The
Tebtunis Papyri_ (2 vols., 1902-1907), edited by B. G. Grenfell and A.
S. Hunt.
[35] The fragments of Manetho are not readily accessible. The best
source is I. P. Cory’s _Ancient Fragments of Phœnician, Chaldæan,
Egyptian, ... and Other Writers_ (2d ed., 1832), where text and
translation are given as preserved in fragmentary form. _Cf._ H. R.
Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 13.
[36] Note especially the correspondence, in the main, with the famous
Turin papyrus, a list of great importance to Egyptologists.
[37] Whether he took it over from his sources or not, we get it from
him.
[38] Josephus, _Against Apion_, Book I, Sect. 14. _Cf._ H. R. Hall,
_op. cit._, pp. 13, 213, and the section from Josephus below.
[39] Ἀἰγυπτιαχά, the title of Manetho’s work.
[40] _Cf._ Josephus, _The Wars of the Jews_, Bk. I, Chap. IX, Sect. 4.
CHAPTER VI
BABYLONIAN, ASSYRIAN AND PERSIAN RECORDS
The art of writing in cuneiform--making wedge-shaped marks in clay by
means of a reed--was developed as early as the fourth millennium B.C.
by the people who lived in the mud flats and among the reedy marshes
of the lower Euphrates. They were not Semites, like the nomads of the
desert to the west, but “Sumerians,” a strange Asiatic people, living
mainly in towns and engaged already in business or in truck-farming
where dikes secured that most fertile soil. History, in that part of
the world, dawns for us,--since the rise of modern archæology,--with
the scratches of those early scribes, noting the sales of a merchant,
the title to a plot of land or some such item of current business, or a
religious text. For, not only has time preserved many a hardened lump
of clay, which served them for book and paper; but also, the art of
writing itself was never lost, through all the changing civilizations
which followed each other on the soil of Babylonia.[1] Indeed it
remained one of the fundamentals in Mesopotamian culture; an essential
in the transaction of business and of government. From the days when
Hammurabi dictated his despatches and had his laws inscribed, to the
closing of the Persian era, the little lumps of day, baked and sealed,
were as important instruments in carrying on affairs as the armies of
the kings or the goods of the merchants. And if the devices of literacy
helped to hold the Mesopotamian world together, they also united the
centuries. Libraries preserved the tablets by scores and hundreds, and
scholars copied the classical ones or those their royal patrons were
interested in. In short, from a time so remote that it was almost as
far away to the Persians as to us, through three millenniums at least,
the people of Babylonia-Assyria kept producing and studying the data of
history; yet the thing itself they never produced.[2]
The history of History in Babylonia is very similar to that in Egypt,
so similar that we do not need to delay long over the details. But
there is an added significance in the failure of Babylonia; for it
_did_ develop the two elements which are the essentials in historical
production: a curiosity about the origin of things which resulted in a
mythical literature that has been of lasting importance in religion;
and a care for the texts of the past, which is the first step toward
historical criticism. Had criticism supervened, we should have had
genuine history. But criticism presupposes skepticism; and in Babylon
as in Egypt, religion--or superstition--blocked the way to science.
* * * * *
The myths of Babylon have a personal interest for us, not so much on
account of what they contain as on account of their subsequent history.
Preserved and transformed by the Jews, they became the basis of our
own story of the origin of things; and when the originals were found
and deciphered, only a few years ago, the controversies which they
aroused passed the frontiers of either science or religion, as the very
foundations of biblical faith seemed shaken. Here, however, we have no
theological problems to solve, and must limit ourselves to considering
them in their own time and setting, although it must be admitted that,
were it not for their later use, we should hardly be tempted to do
so, seeing that we passed by in silence the Pyramid texts of Egypt,
with a content intrinsically not less significant.[3] But the coming
of Osiris, however much it contributed to that process of intricate
and subtle syncretism which tinged with wistful hope and moral purpose
the Greco-Roman world in early Christian days, did not enter into the
fabric of Jewish belief as did the Babylonian stories of Creation and
the Flood, and so its conscious influence in western thought is not to
be compared with theirs.
The myth of Creation[4] as preserved on seven tablets, is long
and involved, with much repetition; but the parts of interest for
comparison with the story in Genesis are only a few lines. It begins
with the creation of the gods themselves.
“When above the heaven was not named,
And beneath the earth bore no name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And Mummu and Tiamat, the mother of them all,--
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh seen,
When no one of the gods had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies [were fixed],
Then were created the gods in the midst of [heaven].”[5]
Then comes a struggle between Tiamat, dragon of darkness and disorder,
and the champion of the parent god Anshar, who was Ea when the tale was
told in Eridu, Marduk when it was told in Babylon. The text rises to
fine epic quality as it describes the hero advancing to the combat.
“He made ready the bow, appointed it as his weapon,
He seized a spear, he fastened ...
He raised the club, in his right hand he grasped it,
The bow and the quiver he hung at his side.
He put the lightning in front of him,
With flaming fire he filled his body.”[6]
It was only after Tiamat’s body was cut, so that one half made heaven
and the other half the earth, that Marduk determined to create plants
and animals, and man.[7]
“When Marduk heard the word of the gods,
His heart moved him and he devised a cunning plan.
He opened his mouth and unto Ea he spoke,
That which he had conceived in his heart, he made known unto him:
‘My blood will I take and bone will I _fashion_,
I shall make man that man may ...
I shall create man who shall inhabit _the earth_,
Let the worship of the gods be established, let _their_ shrines
be built.’”
There is also the legend of a certain Adapa--or perhaps Adamu[8]--who
is cautioned by his father Ea not to eat or drink of the food the gods
will provide him, and by obeying--not by disobeying--he misses eternal
life. This Adam is not a first man but a god who breaks the wings of
the south wind. It is a pretty story, even in the form in which we have
it.
But the great myth-epic of Babylonia was that of Gilgamesh and the
Flood. It is “the most beautiful, most impressive and most extensive
poem which has been preserved to us of the literature of the ancient
Babylonians.”[9] The text we have was written on twelve large closely
written tablets, some of which are badly broken; and was copied for a
royal Assyrian library, that of Ashur-bani-pal (668-626 B.C.), from
some old Babylonian sources, such as have been in part preserved as
well from the first Babylonian dynasty, of about 2000 B.C. Gilgamesh
was the ruler of one of the city-states, Erech or Uruk, who wandered to
that mysterious country beyond the western sea, where he learned from
the lips of Noah himself,--whose Babylonian name was Ut-napishtim,--the
story of the Flood. The epic which preserves this tale is a strange
mixture of sublime Oriental poetry, rich with imagery, swift and
powerful in narration, with sections of commonplace details as to the
measurements of the ark and of the business routine of its management.
The more prosy account in Genesis is here embedded in a poem that
rivals the Hellenic or Germanic epics. Evidently a real event had
drifted over into the realm of legend and romance.
The myths of Babylonia reflect, though dimly, real conditions and
events, but they lack the secular tone of the Homeric epics. They
belong with religion rather than forming a part of the preliminary
processes of history. Myths of origin or of half-fabulous heroes
have in them the data of history; but they can seldom reveal their
historical qualities to the people who produce them; for that requires
an attitude of unbelief on the part of the listener, sufficient to
enable him to apply the ruthless surgery of criticism. And the age
that applies such methods to discover the truth must know how to use
the scalpel or it simply kills the whole process, so that myth and
fact alike disappear. It was not until the present that readers of the
ancient texts could so discriminate between fact and superstition in
the early tales of Babylonia; the scholars of later Babylonian ages
took them as they were.
* * * * *
This scholarship did produce another set of sources, however, which
brings one to the very threshold of historical literature. No
civilization ever produced more codification of documents. The code
of Hammurabi was but one of several, and recent discoveries carry the
procedure back to Sumerian beginnings.[10] The data of religion were
codified as well as those of law; vast literatures of omens and charms
grew up for the conduct of life in that borderland of luck and morals
which was the field of Babylonian magic and religion. Mathematics and a
study of the stars finally brought the content to the verge of science,
through astrology, and so left a doubly deep impress upon the ancient
world.[11] But the interest in this work of codifying and passing
along the ancient lore was in the application for the future, as the
codifying of laws was for the present. The interest in the past was not
destined to produce as notable a contribution, mere lists of names and
dates rising at last to the dignity of chronicles.
The earliest records are lists of the names of kings. These are of
great importance for the archæologist, and two such lists, known as the
Babylonian King Lists A and B,[12] copied out in the late Babylonian
period, show how these could persist in their mud tablets for
centuries, to be available for the scholars of the last age of Babylon;
since similar Sumerian lists have also been discovered, enabling
comparison. This shows that as early as the days when Hammurabi was
inscribing his code, scribes were also ensuring an accurate statement
of the succession of rulers. Date-lists were also kept, in order to
place the years, the Babylonian way, by events or names.[13]
When we turn from these meagre lists to inscriptions recording events,
we find, as in Egypt, that the notable ones deal with current affairs,
for the most part glorifying a single monarch. A common device is to
present the narrative either as coming from the king himself or from a
god--a sure mark of authenticity combined thriftily with devotion! The
chronicle grows out of these naturally, but the growth in Babylonia was
slight enough. The monastic hand is traceable throughout. Thin dynastic
narratives have been found, which carry a continuous story from reign
to reign--or would if the fragments were less fragmentary.[14] There
are some that go back to recite the exploits of Sargon I, the Semitic
Charlemagne of this monastic literature, whose legendary figure loomed
large through later ages, and Naram-Sin his son.[15] But after all, we
have only a few lines at best.
The closing chapter of Babylonian history is, strangely enough, a
chapter of our survey. For the last king, Nabonidus,[16] was himself,
if not a royal historian, at least an archæologist. While the Persians
under Cyrus were gathering in the nations along the north and making
ready to strike at the old centre of civilization there, the king
of Babylonia was excavating the remains of its distant past as he
sunk the foundations for his own new temples through the débris of
the city where they stood. Although his son Belshazzar, to whom
the administration of the realm fell, could see the handwriting on
the wall, Nabonidus was not interested in war, but was recording
with a scholar’s enthusiasm such facts as that he had unearthed a
foundation stone of Naram-Sin “which no king before me had seen for
3200 years.”[17] To these archæological interests of Nabonidus the
modern archæologist is deeply indebted; yet the contribution is rather
in the field of chronology than of history proper. The scribes of
Nabonidus searched the libraries to be able to place the kings whose
inscriptions he found in their proper places in the lists, and to
calculate the stretch of years before their time. But gods and men
share honors alike, in this careful though undiscriminating survey of
what were already ancient times in Babylonia.
* * * * *
The contribution of Assyria to historiography is so closely linked
with that of Babylonia that little is left to be said concerning
it. Like the meagre lists of Babylonia, we find here lists of those
officers whose names gave the name to the year, arranged in an _Eponym
Canon_.[18] On some of these, as on the calendar tablets of the
mediæval monasteries, they jotted down short notes of events in the
year, especially military expeditions, which were to Assyria what
temple-building was to Babylonia. More significant were synchronistic
chronicles, giving the parallel events in Babylonia and Assyria. All of
these are of great importance to modern scholars, but are slight enough
in themselves.
The chief approach to history in Assyria is again the boastful
record of single reigns, set forth for the glory of the king. Some
of these are detailed and graphic, and they leave us living pictures
of Sennacherib, Tiglath-Pileser, Shelmaneser and Esarhaddon,[19] who
are now as real to us as the figures of classical history. There
is a persistent minor note which runs through these proud boastful
assertions of the royal power, which should not escape the modern
reader. For, however sure the king may be of his control of the world
of his own day, he is uneasy about the future. It is to safeguard
that, that “memorial stones” are inscribed for the coming generations.
Yet even the inscriptions may not be safe at the hands of one’s
descendants. The thought is disquieting; and the kings either plead
with or threaten those who are to come after. There have been few more
ruthless criminals in the world’s history than Ashur-nasir-pal III,[20]
the Assyrian Tamerlane, and few annals from the monuments equal his
account of his conquests which established the Assyrian power in
western Asia. Yet his grasp upon the future is feeble enough; he pleads
as follows:
“... O thou future prince among the kings, my sons ... thou shalt not
blot out my name which is inscribed (hereon), but thy own name thou
shalt inscribe beside my name.”[21]
But the records of the Assyrian kings were hardly safe if left to the
kindly offices of their successors. Curses were more effective, as
Shakespeare, too, thought; and so the chronicle would close with a
good round formula, the power of which must have been considerable in
the land of omens and augural science. The curse of Ashur-nasir-pal
presents so realistic a picture of what may happen to royal records
that it may be quoted at length:
“Whosoever shall not act according to the word of this, my memorial
stone, and shall alter the words of my inscription, or shall destroy
this image or conceal it, or shall smear it with grease or bury it
in the earth, or burn it in the fire, or cast it into the water, or
place it so that beasts may tread on it or cattle pass over it, or
prevent men from beholding and reading the words of my inscription,
or shall do violence to my memorial stone so that none may behold it;
or, because of these curses shall send a foe ... or a prisoner or any
living creature and cause him to take it, and he shall deface it or
scrape it or change it into a foreign tongue, or he shall turn his
mind ... to alter the words--whether he be scribe or soothsayer or
any other man-- ... and he shall say ‘I know him not! Surely during
his own rule men slew him and overthrew his image and destroyed it
and altered the words of his mouth,’ ... may Ashur, the great lord,
the god of Assyria, the lord of destinies, curse his destiny, and may
he alter his deeds and utter an evil curse that the foundation of his
kingdom may be rooted up....”[22]
With such an appeal to the guardianship of the gods and the fears of
men one might leave the record to the keeping of history. It was all
one could do. Yet it was not enough. The history of the Assyrians was
soon lost. Already by the time of Xenophon, no one could tell the true
meaning of the nameless mounds in which lay embedded all that was left
of the splendor of Nineveh.[23] The Greeks knew something of Babylon,
but almost nothing of Assyria.[24]
It remains only to note the attempt made under the last of the great
Assyrian kings, Ashur-bani-pal (668-626 B.C.), to improve upon his
predecessors and to give to his inscriptions something of the character
of history. The king himself was not only a famous conqueror but a
patron of learning, and found time from his wars to bring together
a vast library; some 20,000 tablets remain to show the activity of
his scribes, who copied the great cuneiform heritage.[25] His own
inscriptions forsake the terse phrases of the older style for an
essay in history in the grand style, the finest product Assyria could
yield. But the substance remains much the same; and the attempt to
rearrange events in some topic order instead of following the strict
chronological sequence, leads to confusion and loses more than it gains.
* * * * *
The Persians continued the regal tradition of Babylonia-Assyria, and
one of the greatest records in the world is that which, on the almost
inaccessible precipice of Behistun, recites the deeds and exalts the
glory of Darius the Great to the untenanted desert! But though the
desert roads are unfrequented now, this Gibraltar-like rock stands
facing the one great highway between central Asia and Mesopotamia,
and there, where the traffic between East and West would pass, on the
bare face of the cliff, three hundred feet above the roadway, were
sculptured the figures of Darius and the “rebels” he overthrew, and the
long inscription describing the events of his reign.[26]
The inscription was destined to do more than Darius could have
imagined, for by means of it the key was found which unlocked
cuneiform to modern scholars. The text had been recorded in Persian,
Susian and Babylonian, and when, in 1833-1837 (and again in 1844), Sir
Henry Rawlinson, then a young officer in the Indian service, at the
risk of his life clambered up the rock and copied the inscription, he
was able (later) to translate it as well. In such dramatic fashion,
the Behistun inscription became the Rosetta stone of the cuneiform
texts.[27]
The inscription of Darius is divided into some fifty or sixty sections,
each devoted to a different subject and each beginning “Thus saith
Darius the king.” The first ten give the genealogy of Darius and a
description of the provinces of his empire. With the tenth section
the history begins, and it may be quoted to give an idea of how the
succeeding ones run:
“(Thus) saith Darius, the king: This is what was done by me after
I became king. He who was named Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, one of
our race, was king here before me. That Cambyses had a brother,
Smerdis by name, of the same mother and the same father as Cambyses.
Afterwards Cambyses slew this Smerdis. When Cambyses slew Smerdis, it
was not known unto people that Smerdis was slain. Thereupon Cambyses
went into Egypt. When Cambyses had departed into Egypt, the people
became hostile, and the lie multiplied in the land, even in Persia,
as in Media, and in the other provinces.”[28]
The inscription closes with an appeal to posterity, similar to those of
the other regal chronicles described above:
“If thou seest this inscription beside these sculptures and
destroyest them not, but guardest them as thou livest, then shall
Auramazda be thy friend and thy race shalt thou perpetuate, and thou
shalt live a long life and whatsoever thou desirest to do shall
Auramazda cause to prosper.”[29]
But if not, then the curse of Auramazda is invoked on the evil-doer.
Fortunately the curse has not been tested by the vandal; the texts are
too inaccessible.
* * * * *
Like Egypt, though, the Empires of Asia were touched into new life when
the Greeks invaded them, either as travellers or as beneficiaries of
the Macedonian conquest. The earliest of these wanderers whose record
of his impressions we possess was no less a personage than Herodotus,
the “Father of History” himself.[30] But the story of Assyria-Babylonia
accepted in the ancient world was largely drawn from that of Ctesias
of Cnidus, who lived from 415 to 398 B.C. as personal physician to
the king of Persia, Artaxerxes Mnemon. His _Persica_ was a _magnum
opus_ of twenty-three books, the first three of which dealt with the
ancient kingdoms, the fourth with their overthrow by the Medes, and the
remaining nineteen with Persian history.[31] This uncritical mixture
of invention and credulity, utterly unreliable, has not even the
merits of a romance, since it imposed itself as history upon the sober
chronographers of Alexandria.[32]
Berossos, a Babylonian priest of Bel, who wrote his three books,
_Babylonica_ or _Caldaica_, about 280 B.C., was better equipped to
open up to the Hellenic world the mysteries of his home-land.[33] He
could know the sources in the original. This text is lost, but such
extracts as have been preserved enable us to form a very fair idea of
it.[34] There were these different parts: first a mythical, legendary
section dealing with the period from Creation to the Flood; then a thin
list of names of kings from the Flood to Nabonassar with no account of
their deeds; and a closing section of detailed narrative of the more
recent history. The whole work was prefaced with a description of the
country apparently in the manner of Herodotus.[35] The myth with which
his narrative begins, that of the gift of the arts of civilization to
man by a sea-monster Oannes, is taken by modern historians to contain
a possible dim reflection of a tradition that the Sumerians, that
earliest of all the people of Babylonia, came from India by way of the
Persian Gulf.[36] On the chance that it may be so, and that it is,
therefore, the farthest echo of historical fact that has reached our
ears from beyond the frontiers of knowledge, we may quote the grotesque
narrative as Eusebius has preserved it:
“In the first years, so he (Berossos) says, there appeared from the
Red Sea, even there in the midst of the territory of the Babylonians,
a terrible monster, whose name was Oannes.... And of this animal he
says that it was in daily intercourse with men, never touching food;
and it taught men writing and the manifold arts, the building of
cities and the founding of temples; also the giving of law and the
terms of boundaries and divisions. Also it is said to have taught men
the harvest of wheat and fruit; and indeed everything which is of use
to the life of organized society was delivered by him to man. And
since that time nothing more has been invented by anyone.[37]
“And at sunset the monster Oannes plunged again into the sea, and
passed the night on the high sea. So that it led a double life to a
certain extent. And later other similar monsters appeared which he
says he treats of in the book of the kings. And Oannes, he says, has
written the following account of the creation and the commonwealth
and bestowed speech and aptness to the arts upon man.”[38]
That Berossos could turn from such luxuriant Oriental myths as this
to a mere list of names in his historical section argues well for his
sense of scholarship if not for his critical ability. For obviously he
was following his sources closely, a fact which recent investigations
tend to corroborate. But his antique editor took another point of view.
The inference he drew was that one who knew so little in one section
must be an unreliable witness in another! The comment of Eusebius
shows what temptations to give a little more than full measure lay in
the path of the antique historian![39]
It would be only fair to Berossos to quote, in contrast to these
legendary and chronological sections, something from the later part,
where he is on firmer historical ground. Josephus gives us a long
enough excerpt of this to show that here it rose to something of the
dignity of genuine history.[40] There is a description of Babylon in
its last splendor, with the “hanging gardens” and the other feats of
engineering, and a criticism of the mistakes of Greek historians who
held to the myth of the founding of Babylon by Semiramis. But this is
about all we have; and in view of the relatively small fragment of the
whole history which has been preserved, we are hardly justified in
delaying further over it. And with Berossos we quit Babylonia.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The most useful guides to the non-technical student of
Babylonian-Assyrian history are those of R. W. Rogers referred to
above, his _Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament_ (1912), and
his _History of Babylonia and Assyria_ (2 vols., 1915), in which a
full account is given of the progress of modern scholarship and a
helpful and adequate bibliographical apparatus. The works of Morris
Jastrow, especially _The Civilisation of Babylonia and Assyria_
(1915) should also be consulted, as well as those of L. W. King. The
articles by these two scholars in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ are
good short surveys. Good discussions occur in H. R. Hall’s _Ancient
History of the Near East_ (1913), to which constant reference has
been made in the text. References to the great collections of the
original texts will be found in these works, but mention should
be made of the remarkable series edited by H. V. Hilprecht, _The
Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania_ (1893-1911),
continued as _Publications of the Babylonian Section, University of
Pennsylvania Museum_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf._ S. P. Handcock, _Mesopotamian Archæology_ (1912), Chap. IV.
[2] Berossos had Greek antecedents.
[3] See J. H. Breasted’s analysis in _Development of Religion and
Thought in Ancient Egypt_.
[4] On these Babylonian myths see R. W. Rogers, _Cuneiform Parallels to
the Old Testament_ (1912) with bibliographies. Of the works mentioned
there see especially those of L. W. King, _The Seven Tablets of
Creation_ (2 vols., 1902).
[5] R. W. Rogers, _Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament_, p. 3.
[6] _Ibid._, p. 26.
[7] _Ibid._, Sixth tablet, II. 1-8, p. 36.
[8] _Ibid._, pp. 67 _sq._
[9] _Ibid._, p. 80 (with bibliography). There is a detailed discussion
in the article _Gilgamesh_ by M. Jastrow in the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_. Gilgamesh himself resembles in several ways the Greek
Heracles. _Vide_ L. R. Farnell, _Greece and Babylon_ (1911).
[10] _Cf._ E. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_ (5 vols., 1884-1902; 3d
ed., Vol. I, 1910-1913), (3d ed.), Vol. I, Sects. 313 _sq_. The code
of Hammurabi has been published several times in English translation.
_Cf._ R. W. Rogers’ _Parallels_, pp. 398 _sqq._, and R. F. Harper’s
_The Code of Hammurabi_ (1904).
[11] _Vide_ J. T. Shotwell, _The Discovery of Time_, in _The Journal of
Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods_, Vol. XII (1915), Nos.
8, 10, 12, as above; Franz Cumont, _The Oriental Religions in Roman
Paganism_ (tr. 1911), and _Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and
Romans_ (1912).
[12] _Cf._ R. W. Rogers, _Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament_, p.
201; _History of Babylonia and Assyria_, Vol. I, p. 470.
[13] _Vide supra_, Chap. IV. _Cf._ E. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_
(3d ed.), Vol. I, Sect. 323.
[14] _Vide_ L. W. King, _Chronicles Concerning Early Babylonian Kings_
(2 vols., 1907).
[15] _Cf._ L. W. King, _ibid._; R. W. Rogers, _History_, Vol. II, p.
25; _Parallels_, p. 203.
[16] _Cf._ R. W. Rogers, _History_, Vol. I, p. 493; _Parallels_, p.
373. Nabonidus’ reign was from 555 to 539 B.C.
[17] _Cf._ R. W. Rogers, _History_, Vol. I, p. 494, with references.
[18] _Vide supra_, Chap. IV.
[19] For Esarhaddon see E. A. W. Budge, _The History of Esarhaddon_
(1880).
[20] He reigned from 885 to 860 B.C. _Cf._ H. R. Hall, _The Ancient
History of the Near East_, p. 445.
[21] _Cf._ E. A. W. Budge and L. W. King, _The Annals of the
Kings of Assyria_ (1902), Vol. I, p. 165. See the similar plea of
Tiglath-Pileser I, _ibid._, p. 104. Such formulæ are common in the
inscriptions.
[22] _Ibid._, Vol. I, pp. 249 _sqq._
[23] _Anabasis_, Bk. III, Chap. IV, Sects. 1-10. He marched past in 401
B.C.
[24] It is striking that the case is somewhat reversed now; we know
the history of Assyria better than that of more ancient Babylonia.
As E. Meyer remarks, _Geschichte des Altertums_ (3d ed.), Vol. I,
Sects. 315-316, the sudden destruction of Nineveh was fortunate, for
the remains were at once buried and so preserved, while Babylon was
repeatedly despoiled.
[25] _Cf._ E. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_, _loc. cit._; R.
W. Rogers, _History_, Vol. II, pp. 427 _sqq._ H. R. Hall, _Ancient
History_, p. 500. To it we owe the preservation of such sources for
Babylonian history as the Sargon chronicle, etc.
[26] Professor A. V. W. Jackson, who visited Behistun in 1903, thus
describes it in _Persia, Past and Present_ (1906), p. 187: “With all I
had read about Behistun, with all I had heard about it, and with all
I had thought about it beforehand, I had not the faintest conception
of the Gibraltar-like impressiveness of this rugged crag until I came
into its Titan presence and felt the grandeur of its sombre shadow and
towering frame. Snow and clouds capped its peaks at the time, and birds
innumerable were soaring around it aloft or hovering near the place
where the inscriptions were hewn into the rock. There, as I looked
upward, I could see, more than three hundred feet above the ground, the
bas-relief of the great King Darius.”
[27] See the fine volume, with notable illustrations, _The Sculptures
and Inscription of Darius the Great on the Rock of Behistun_, published
anonymously by the British Museum (1907). The authors are L. W. King
and R. C. Thompson, who prepared a new copy by careful work on the
spot. _Cf._ R. W. Rogers, _History_, Vol. I, p. 80.
[28] L. W. King and R. C. Thompson, _op. cit._, Persian text, pp. 6-7.
[29] _Ibid._, Susian text, p. 149.
[30] As Herodotus reproduced Hecatæus in part, we have some trace of
his investigations as well.
[31] _Cf._ C. Wachsmuth, _Einleitung in das Studium der alten
Geschichte_ (1895), pp. 367 _sqq._; R. W. Rogers, _History_, Vol. I, p.
391. It was still complete in the ninth century A.D. Diodorus Siculus,
_Bibliotheca Historica_ (Bk. II, Chaps. I-XXXIV), repeats the stories
about the Assyrian part.
[32] A. H. Sayce, _The Ancient Empires of the East_ (1900), p. xxiii,
took occasion to say a good word for him, however, while criticising
Herodotus.
[33] _Cf._ H. R. Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 14;
R. W. Rogers, _History_, Vol. I, p. 388, _Parallels_, pp. 76 _sqq._
(for translation of a section).
[34] The extracts, as in the case of Manetho, were preserved by
Josephus, _Against Apion_, Bk. I, Sects. 19 _sqq._, and Eusebius at
the opening of his _Chronicorum Liber Primus_, quoting Alexander
Polyhistor, an antiquarian of the time of Sulla. Texts and translation
by I. P. Cory in _Ancient Fragments of Phœnician, Chaldæan, Egyptian,
... and Other Writers_.
[35] Eusebius (_op. cit._, Bk. I, Chap. II) summarizes this as follows:
“And first, he says, that the land of the Babylonians lies on the
river Tigris and that the Euphrates flows through the midst of it, and
the land brings forth of itself, wheat, barley, lentils, millet, and
sesame. And in the swamps and reeds of the river were certain edible
roots called gong, which have the strength of barley-bread. Dates and
apples and all kinds of other fruits grow there too, and there are
fishes and fowls and birds of fields and swamps. The land has also
arid and barren territories (the Arabian); and opposite the land of
Arabia, it is mountainous and fruitful. But in Babylon an enormous mass
of strange people was settled, in the land of the Chaldæans, and they
lived in licentiousness, like the unreasoning animals and the wild
cattle.”
[36] _Cf._ H. R. Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 174,
note.
[37] Note this magnificent statement of the static, conservative idea.
[38] Eusebius, _Chronicorum Liber Primus_, Chap. II.
[39] _Cf._ Eusebius, _ibid._: “If they (the Chaldæans) had only told
of deeds and works accomplished by the long succession of rulers in
these thousands of years, corresponding to the vast extent of time, one
might properly hesitate whether there were not some truth in the matter
after all. But since they have merely assigned to the rule of those ten
men so many myriads of years, who is there who should not regard such
indiscriminate accounts as myths.”
[40] Josephus, _Against Apion_, Bk. I, Sects. 19-20.
SECTION II
JEWISH HISTORY
CHAPTER VII
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS HISTORY
When we turn from these poor and thin records of the great empires of
the East to the history of that little branch of the Semites which
clung to the perilous post on the land-bridge between the Euphrates
and the Nile, the Hebrews of Palestine, we are struck at once with
the comparative wealth of its national annals. In contrast with the
product of Egypt or Babylonia, the Bible stands out as an epoch-making
achievement. A composite work of many centuries, filled with much
that the historian rejects, it yet embodies the first historical
work of genuinely national importance which has come down to us.[1]
Higher criticism has robbed it of its unique distinction as a special
revelation of Jehovah, denied the historicity of its account of the
Creation and destroyed the claim of the legends of the patriarchs to
be regarded as authentic; the great name of Moses disappears as the
author of the Pentateuch, and that of David from the book of Psalms;
the story of Joseph becomes a romance, the Decalogue a statement of
late prophetic Ideals; the old familiar books dissolve into their
component parts, written at different times and by different hands.
In short, a national record, of varying value and varying historical
reliability, has replaced the Bible of the churches, of stately uniform
text and unvarying authority. Nevertheless, it is possible to claim
that, judged as historical material, the Old Testament stands higher
today than when its text was protected with the sanctions of religion.
For it was not until its exceptional and sacred character was denied
that it could be appraised by the standards of history and its value as
a repository of national, if not of world, story be fairly appreciated.
So long as the distinction existed which exalted the Jewish scriptures
as sacred inspiration above the rest of the world’s literature, the
historicity of the Old Testament had to be accepted on a different
basis from that of other narratives. Sacred and profane history are
by nature incomparable; for the author of the one is God, of the
other, man. Now, no higher tribute could be paid to the historical
worth of the Old Testament than the statement that, when considered
upon the profane basis of human authorship, it still remains one of
the greatest products in the history of History, a record of national
tradition, outlook and aspiration, produced by a poor, harassed,
semi-barbarous people torn by feud and swept by conquest, which yet
retains the undying charm of genuine art and the universal appeal of
human interest. That is not to say that, viewed from the standpoint of
modern history, it is a remarkable performance; for while it embodies
some passages of great power and lasting beauty, the narrative is often
awkward, self-contradictory, clogged with genealogies and overloaded
with minute and tiresome ceremonial instructions. The historian,
however, should not judge it from the modern standpoint. He should not
compare Genesis with Ranke, but with the product of Egypt and Assyria.
Judged in the light of its own time the literature of the Jews is
unique in scope as in power. It is the social expression of a people
moving up from barbarism to civilization; and if its pastoral tales
reveal here and there the savage Bedouin and its courtly chronicle is
touched with the exaggerations of hero-myths, if its priestly reforms
and prophetic morals are allowed to obscure the currents of more
worldly politics, all of these elements but mirror a changing outlook
of different ages in the evolution of one of the most highly gifted
peoples of the ancient world.
The trouble has been that this mass of literary remains has been taken
for something other than what it was. The rabbis came to view its
last editorial revision as the authoritative and divine statement of
the whole world’s story, and the theologians of succeeding centuries
accepted their outlook with unquestioning faith. In short, the Bible
became more and more unhistorical as it became more and more sacred.
Higher criticism, viewing the texts historically, at last reveals their
setting in their own time and place, and presents them as a national
product instead of a record of creation in the words of the Creator.
For the former it is adequate, for the latter no doctrinal apologies
could save it from the shafts of ridicule.
The most important service, however, which higher criticism has
rendered the Old Testament, is that it has allowed us to distinguish
between the validity of different parts, to detect the naïve folk-tale
in which Jahveh and the patriarchs meet at old hill-sanctuaries and
the late priestly narrative reconstructing the whole in terms of the
temple at Jerusalem. The finer passages are no longer involved in the
fate of the rest. It is therefore possible to appreciate the genuine
achievements of the chief historians of Israel for the first time.
* * * * *
The Bible, as the name implies, is a collection of books.[2] It is
not a single, consistent whole, but a miscellany. The first step
in understanding it is to realize that it comprises the literary
heritage of a nation,--all that has survived, or nearly so, of an
antiquity of many centuries. It includes legends from the camps of
nomads, borrowings from Babylon, Egypt and Persia, annals of royal
courts, laws, poems and prophecies. It preserves these, not in their
original form, but in fragments recast or reset to suit the purpose
of a later day. For, down to the very close of Jewish history the
process of editing and re-editing this huge, conglomerate mass went
on. Moreover, as the editors were theologians rather than historians,
the result was as bad for history as it has been accounted good for
theology, and the historian today has to undo most of their work to
reach the various layers of sources upon which they built the Bible as
we know it,--sources which represent the real heritage of the ancient
days. One must dig for these beneath the present text, just as one
digs the soil of ancient cities for the streets and walls of former
times. For the literary and the material monuments of a people share
a somewhat similar fate. The Bible of today stands like some modern
Athens or Rome upon the fragments of its former elements. The legends
and laws of the early time are buried deep beneath the structures of
later ages. More than once they have been burned over by conquest
and civil feud, and, when restored, built up to suit new plans and
different purposes. Today, however, the historian can lay bare the
various strata, recover the ancient landmarks, and from their remains
reconstruct in imagination each successive stage of the story. So, like
the archæologist, who sees not merely the city of the present or of its
classic splendor, but the cities of every era in the long, eventful
past, the student of higher criticism can now trace the process of
the formation of the Bible from the crude, primitive beginnings--the
tenements of barbarian thought--to the period when its contents were
laid out in the blocks of books as we have them now, faced with the
marble of unchangeable text, and around them all were flung the sacred
walls of canonicity. The walls are now breached; and the exploring
scientist can wander at will through the historic texts, unhampered by
any superstitious fears. We shall follow him--hurriedly.
There was once a historian of our southern states who prepared himself
for his life’s work in the highly controversial period of the Civil War
by taking a doctorate in mediæval history. In an alien field, where
his personal feelings could not warp his judgment, he learned the
scientific temper. Something of his discipline is incumbent upon every
student of the Bible. Let us imagine, for instance, that instead of the
Jewish scriptures we are talking of those of the Greeks. Suppose that
the heritage of Hellas had been preserved to us in the form of a Bible.
What would be the character of the book? We should begin, perhaps, with
a few passages from Hesiod on the birth of the gods and the dawn of
civilization mingled with fragments of the _Iliad_ and both set into
long excerpts from Herodotus. The dialogues of Plato might be given
by Homeric heroes and the text of the great dramatists (instead of
the prophets) be preserved interspersed one with another and clogged
with the uninspired and uninspiring comments of Alexandrian savants.
Then imagine that the sense of their authority was so much obscured as
centuries passed, that philosophers--for philosophers were to Greece
what theologians were to Israel--came to believe that the large part of
this composite work of history and philosophy had been first written
down by Solon as the deliverance of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi.
Then, finally, imagine that the text became stereotyped and sacred,
even the words taboo, and became the heritage of alien peoples who knew
nothing more of Greek history than what this compilation contained.
Such, with some little exaggeration, would be a Hellenic Bible after
the fashion of the Bible of the Jews. If the comparison be a little
overdrawn there is no danger but that we shall make sufficient mental
reservations to prevent us from carrying it too far. Upon the whole, so
far as form and structure go, the analogy holds remarkably well.
* * * * *
The Jews divided their scriptures into three main parts: The Law or
Torah, the Prophets, and a miscellany loosely termed “The Writings.”
The Law is better known to Christians by the name given it by the Jews
of Alexandria when they translated it into Greek, the Pentateuch[3]--or
five books--or by the more definite title of “The Five Books of Moses,”
an attribution which rests on a late Jewish tradition.[4] It is with
these books that we have mainly to deal, for they furnish most of the
fundamental historical problems of the Old Testament; but the finest
narrative lies rather in the second group, which included as well as
the books of prophecies, the four histories, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and
Kings.[5] The third division, the “Writings” or “Scriptures,” of which
the Psalms, Job and Proverbs are typical, contained as well some of the
later histories--the Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah.[6]
To the first of these groups we now turn.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The higher criticism of the Old Testament and its analysis into its
constituent parts goes back to the middle of the eighteenth century,
and to the work of Dr. J. Astruc, _Conjectures sur les mémoires
originaux dont il parôit que Moyse se servit pour composer le livre
de la Genèse_, published in 1753. Slowly but steadily during the
century following, scholarship gained upon prejudice, but it was not
until the middle of the nineteenth century that the doors were really
thrown wide open to criticism by the great work of J. Wellhausen. His
_Prolegomena to the History of Israel_ (English translation, 1885)
and his article _Israel_ and those by W. Robertson Smith in the ninth
edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ marked the end of an era.
The modern literature is so vast that only a few references can be
given here. Most of the important foreign works have been translated,
and the articles in the leading encyclopædias may be turned to for
introductory outlines and bibliographies of specific sections.
Popular introductions to the subject are to be found in G. F. Moore,
_The Literature of the Old Testament_ (Home University Library,
1913); G. B. Gray, _A Critical Introduction to the Old Testament_
(1913); H. T. Fowler, _A History of the Literature of Ancient Israel
from the Earliest Times to 135 B.C._ (1912). Other works are S. R.
Driver, _An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_
(9th ed., 1913); C. H. Cornill, _Introduction to the Canonical Books
of the Old Testament_ (tr. 1907); E. Kautzsch, _An Outline of the
History of the Literature of the Old Testament_ (tr. 1899). For an
edition of the books of the Old Testament based on the results of
modern scholarship, see C. F. Kent, _Student’s Old Testament_ (5
vols., 1904-1914), esp. Vol. I, “Beginnings of Hebrew History,”
and Vol. II, “Israel’s Historical and Biographical Narratives.”
See also the large commentaries on the various books of the Old
Testament, especially those in the series of the _International
Critical Commentary_ and _The Expositor’s Bible_. For the relation
of Hebrew history to general Semitic history, see A. Jeremias, _The
Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East_ (2 vols., tr. 1911)
(a book to be used with caution); G. A. Barton, _A Sketch of Semitic
Origins, Social and Religious_ (1902); and the works of R. W. Rogers
and Morris Jastrow noted above. For the general history of Israel,
see the monumental works of H. Ewald, _The History of Israel_ (8
vols., tr. 1869-1886) which, though old, is still useful in many
parts, and H. Grætz, _History of the Jews_ (5 vols., tr. 1891-1898)
esp. Vol. I. Other histories of the Hebrews are: R. L. Ottley, _A
Short History of the Hebrews to the Roman Period_ (1901); C. F.
Kent, _History of the Hebrew People_ (2 vols., 1896-1897); _Heroes
and Crises of Early Hebrew History_ (1908); _Founders and Rulers
of United Israel_ (1908); C. H. Cornill, _History of the People
of Israel_ (tr. 1898, 4th ed., 1909); H. P. Smith, _Old Testament
History_ (1903); R. Kittel, _History of the Hebrews_ (2 vols., tr.
1895-1896); H. Guthe, _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_ (3d ed., 1914);
W. F. Badè, _The Old Testament in the Light of Today_ (1915). See, in
general, W. Robertson Smith, _The Old Testament in the Jewish Church_
(2d ed., 1902). There is a short history of the higher criticism by
A. Duff, _A History of Old Testament Criticism_ (1910), which is
useful for a sketch of Jewish antecedents. Those wishing to read the
Bible for study purposes should use the _American Revision, Standard
Edition_ (1901).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The treatment of the historical records of the Jews is here taken
up from the standpoint of the completed output, the Bible as we now
have it. This is mainly for the sake of clarity. A more historical
treatment would be to begin with the elements as they existed in the
earliest days and bring the story down, as it really happened, instead
of going backwards, analyzing the completed text. This historical
treatment has been admirably followed out by H. Schmidt in his booklet
in the _Religionsgeschichliche Volksbücher_ series (Series II, No. 16),
entitled _Die Geschichtsschreibung im alten Testament_ (1911). The
volume by Julius Bewer in this series (of the Records of Civilization,
to be published shortly), _The Literature of the Old Testament in its
Historical Development_, should be at hand to develop, and perhaps to
correct, the points touched upon in these pages.
[2] βίβλος was the inner bark of the papyrus, hence applied to the
paper made from it. From this it was applied to the book made of the
paper. βιβλία (bible) is the plural of βιβλίον, a diminutive of βίβλος.
_Vide supra_, Chap. III.
[3] They are also responsible for the names of the separate books,
Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus. Numbers (_Numeri_) comes from
the Latin. It is customary now to group with these five books Joshua,
which is closely connected both in form and matter. This makes a
Hexateuch instead of a Pentateuch.
[4] This attribution of the Pentateuch to Moses is probably found
in II Chronicles 23^{18} 25^4, 35^{12}; Ezra 3^2, 6^{18}; Nehemiah
13^1; Daniel 9^{11, 13}. It is found in Philo (fl. at the time of
Christ), and in Josephus (first century A.D.) It also occurs in the New
Testament.
[5] The “Prophets” included the three major prophets, Israel, Jeremiah,
and Ezekiel, and “the Twelve” (_i.e._ minor prophets), whose prophecies
formed one book.
[6] The full list of “the Scriptures” is: Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Chronicles.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PENTATEUCH
The Pentateuch--or, to include Joshua, which really belongs with it,
the Hexateuch, is composed of four main sources, dating from about the
ninth century to about the fourth. Only two of these, the two oldest,
are properly historical, but the other two, while chiefly taken up with
laws and ritual, have so recast the text of the earlier ones that all
four must be considered in a survey of Hebrew historiography.
The earliest text, which runs through Genesis to Kings, is a repository
of prehistoric legend. There had been legends of the patriarchs of the
Israelites, passed down by tradition from the dimmest antiquity. They
were just like those of any other primitive people, tribal legends
of reputed ancestors and heroes, intermingled with myths of tribal
religion. Anthropology can match them with similar stories from all
over the world. They were kept alive, apparently, or at least some
of them were, by recital at local shrines and holy places, of which
the land was full. Every village had its altar for sacrifices to its
divinities, and often a feast-hall for the festivities which followed.
There were sacred groves and hill-top sanctuaries, haunted rocks
and piles of stones; and around each clung some legend of the olden
time, some story of a hero who had once been there. If one reads the
narratives of the patriarchs, even in the form in which we have them
in Genesis now, one is struck with the continual punctuation of the
stories by the erection of altars and the dedication of holy places.
Wherever an oath is sworn, a sacrifice offered, or a vision is seen,
the stones are piled up for an altar, which in most cases “remains even
unto this day.”[1] Often across successive editings one catches the
touch of genuine local color in these incidents, and it does not take
much analysis to discover in them the remnants of myths or legends
of origin, like those which in the Middle Ages attributed so many
foundations of churches and monasteries to the apostles.[2]
Such stories--at least among primitive peoples--are not to be
attributed to conscious invention. They grow up of themselves. One
might almost say that they are believed before they are told. The
process of their fabrication is a purely social matter and is as much
alive today as it was before Moses. How many colonial houses have had
a visit from George Washington, or have become in some way associated
with him? One person supposes heroic incidents _may_ have happened
here, another thinks they _must_ and a third thinks they _did_. If
there are skeptics, they are soon frowned down, because the world
wishes the story. So Abraham built an altar in Shechem,[3] Isaac dug
the well of Shebah,[4] Jacob piled boundary stones at Gal’ed--or
Gilead,[5] while, above all, two sacred mountains, Horeb and Sinai,[6]
were rivals for the vaster prestige of being the scene of the lawgiving
of Moses.
These legends not only dignified the locality by a connection with the
patriarchs and their divinities, but they also enriched the patriarchal
tradition itself with a wealth of local detail. The material was
therefore at hand for a great national saga, which should weave the
incidents together in harmony with the major theme of the origins of
the nation itself, looking back from settled agricultural life to that
of nomadic herdsmen from the fringe of the desert and beyond. Such
national legends must be large enough in scope to include all the
tribes who hold themselves akin, and bold enough to face the further
question with which every mythology deals in some form or other, the
origin not only of the tribesmen but of the world itself. Beyond the
Nibelungen of this Semitic migration, therefore, there reached out
memories of pre-migration legends--the story of a flood in the old
home-land east of the desert, the land of Shinar, or Sumeria, and of
a garden of Eden where the first man learned the secrets of the gods.
The patriarchal legends were thus prefaced with Babylonian creation and
flood myths.
* * * * *
These primitive materials were worked over into more or less consistent
stories by various hands, and finally, about the year 900 B.C., they
were pulled together by a genuine master of narrative whose text still
furnishes most of the naïve and picturesque parts the Old Testament
from Genesis to Kings.[7] Since the distinctive note and unifying
thread of the story, following undoubtedly the trend of the earlier
models, is not so much the fortunes of the tribesmen as the way in
which those fortunes depended upon the favor of the tribal god whose
name is Jahveh,[8] the unknown author, or rather reviser, is known to
scholars by the simple epithet, “the Jahvist,” or, since there were
several Jahvists, as “the great Jahvist.”[9] The latter epithet would
be justified, even had there been no need of contrast, for the Hebrew
Herodotus tells his ancient folk-tale with epic force and presents
the materials, however crude, as they came to him. Although his own
conception of God rises to heights of genuine sublimity, such as those
passages where the splendor of Jahveh passes before the bowed figure
of Moses, in the cleft of the mountains,--a spectacle which calls
forth a lyric outburst worthy of the Psalms,[10]--yet he begins by
repeating the naïve account of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden,
and God walking there in the cool of the day, of the curse on snakes
and men, of giants and demi-gods, and of the flood. He does not balk
at any semi-savage tale such as that of Hagar turned off into the
wilderness to die, the lying cunning of Jacob toward his father and
brother, etc. Obviously these tales came down to him sanctioned by too
universal acceptance to be discarded, although belonging to a lower
grade of culture and morals than those of his own day. Like Herodotus,
five centuries later, he left the ancient stories embedded in his own
narrative; but unlike Herodotus, he offered no suggestion that the
fables he retold were unworthy of credence.
* * * * *
Within about a century after the work of the great Jahvist, a new
compilation of the stories of the patriarchs appeared. The source of
the Jahvist had been Judæa in southern Palestine; this was from the
northern kingdom of Israel. It was to a large degree parallel with
the Jahvist, but with variations and different local touches. Its
main distinction, however, is that throughout the narrative of the
patriarchs it does not use the name Jahveh at all, but refers all the
supernatural element in it to Elohim, a word difficult to translate,
since, like so much of the language of religion, under the guise of
primitive vocabulary it carries the conception of Divinity on to
higher planes. Elohim, the plural of Eloah, means supernatural powers
or Power.[11] Mythologically it is connected with such spirits as one
may find at hill-top altars and see if one sleeps in lonely places,
local or household gods of a people just emerging from fetishism.
This second of the prime narratives of the Old Testament is therefore
known to biblical criticism as the Elohist account.[12] According to
it, “the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” was really unknown to them,
since they did not know his name, and not to know the name of a god in
primitive mythology is not to know the god himself.[13] In other words,
the nomadic period, with its barbarous morals and low-grade theology,
is represented as a pre-Jahvistic age. The god that eats his supper by
the tent door and cannot even throw Jacob in a wrestling match except
by a foul, is not Jahveh as J lightly assumes, for Jahveh is a more
exalted deity. The ancestors of Israel, according to this narrative,
were worshipping local deities or their own protecting genii in about
the same way as the rest of the primitive world. It is therefore in the
interest of a higher conception of Jahveh that the story omits his name
from the crude beginnings of the age of migration. According to the
Elohist, Jahveh first definitely appears in the national history after
the period of nomadic life, at the second great era in Hebrew history,
that of the conquest and settlement. It is at that dramatic point where
Moses hears the oracle from the burning bush, commissioning him to
lead the Israelites out of Egypt.[14] In response to the insistence of
Moses, the god Elohim at last reveals his name, in cryptic, oracular
fashion: “I am going to be what I am going to be.” Thus Jahveh enters
definitely into the story of the Elohist, which from this on runs
along much like that of the Jahvist. It differs, however, in two or
three important particulars. In the first place it presents a higher
conception of the deity, who does not show himself bodily to men, but
reveals himself only in visions or by a voice from the unseen. He
dwells in the heavens, which only a ladder of dreams can reach, and--a
fact of prime importance--uses as the medium of communication a special
class of men, devoted to his service, gifted with second sight and the
power of miracle. This latter element, that of the miraculous, thus
enters into the story to a marked degree, more so than in the naïve
account of J. For instance, the waters of the Red Sea are driven back
by a high wind according to J; they are made to divide miraculously at
the touch of Moses’ wand, according to E. This enhancement of miracle,
introduced to exalt the dignity and the claims of Jahveh, served its
purpose throughout all succeeding centuries. So long as miracle was
regarded as the especial mark of divinity the more miracle the Bible
could boast the more authentic it seemed. Now, however, in an age of
science, when miracles are disowned on general principles, the romantic
additions to the primitive tale contributed by the narrative of E
merely lower its value as history. One is confronted with a situation
similar to that of mediæval saint-legends, where the miracles multiply
the farther one goes from the original source, and multiply almost
according to formula.
If the account of J is more reliable than E in its treatment of
incident,--that is, more nearly a reflection of primitive myth,--the
same is true of the treatment of morals. E toned down the cruel and
crude stories of the olden time, which J had allowed to stand as
tradition had preserved them. A higher moral standard in the present
was demanding a more edifying past. Under such circumstances E, which
apparently began as an independent and parallel compilation, drawn from
similar--or the same--sources as J, became the basis for a revision
of the whole mass of legend. For just as there were several Jahvists
there were several Elohists, and the text came to reflect definitely
the great reform of the prophets Amos and Hosea, in which the national
religion was almost as completely recast as when Christianity
broke away from it some seven or eight centuries later. The tribal
deity--chiefly a war god--who had replaced the local divinities through
the ardent propaganda of the Jahvist prophets, now was conceived of
in terms of pure moral conduct. His true worship was not sacrifice
but upright living. Nothing could be more foreign than this to the
ideas of the olden time; then Jahveh had been the fierce unforgiving
god of taboo and ceremonial; now he was transformed into a god of
love and righteousness. This reconstruction of religion involved a
reconstruction of history, a reconstruction so sweeping as to be termed
by some modern scholars the first attempt at higher criticism. The old
tribal story was recast to make the rôle of Jahveh more consistent
with the newer ethics,[15] and, incidentally, more credible. The men
who wrote the decalogue--for the Elohists were responsible for the ten
commandments--did not hesitate at what would now be accounted changing
the records in order to permit them to insert it as divine command.
Sometime in the seventh century a Judæan author joined J and E into a
single narrative, known as JE,--a rather careless weaving of the two
strands, not eliminating contradictions and repetitions. Evidently
this bungling performance was forced upon the editor by the vitality
of the various versions, but he rather increased than lessened his
difficulties by adding further variants from still other sources.
Unsatisfactory as his compilation is from the standpoint of a finished
artistic production, the biblical critic is often grateful that it is
as poor as it is; for the trace of the different strands, which we have
just been examining, might otherwise have been obliterated. Had Judæa
produced a Thucydides for the perpetuation of its national history,
capable of rising to the full height of his theme and recasting the
fragmentary and uncouth materials into the mould of art, the history of
the world would now be poorer instead of richer, for the sources would
have been lost.
* * * * *
But the process of Pentateuch authorship was not complete with the
final edition of JE. In the second half of the seventh century a new
element was introduced, preserved mainly in the book of Deuteronomy,
and so known to biblical scholars simply as the Deuteronomist,--or D
for short. Although not narrative in the sense of J or E, this body of
religious precept was responsible for a yet bolder attempt than E to
upset much of the accepted text, in order to swing the whole in line
with its exalted outlook. That the outlook was really exalted--the
finest in the Old Testament--any one will admit who reads the fifth
to the eleventh chapters of Deuteronomy and then compares them with
the rest of the world’s literature before the climax of antique
civilization.[16] In order, however, to realize this high ethical
religion it was necessary to discredit the crude heathenism which still
persisted at those local shrines, at which J had gathered so much of
its narrative,--the very shrines which were set up by the patriarchs
themselves. D insisted that Jahveh could be sacrificed to in one place
only--the temple at Jerusalem.[17] Local altars tend to a localization
of the deity,--as they do still,--so they must go, and the priests
who attended them must become priests of Jahveh in his one and only
temple.[18]
The reformers had to find the justification for such a sweeping
innovation, which tore up the customs of village life by the roots, in
oracles of Jahveh from the olden time, and since these were lacking,
they were obliged to invent them to meet the emergency. Most of the
invention naturally was attributed to the greatest figure of the Hebrew
legends--Moses. The ancient texts (especially E) had already made
him the mouthpiece of Jahveh at a sacred mountain; D elaborated his
deliverances with new divine instructions. This is the main change made
by D. It is more law than history, but the history had to accommodate
itself to the law; and D is responsible for the transformation of the
figure of Moses from that of a prophet and seer to that of the greatest
lawgiver of antiquity, a transformation which was completed by the next
and last of the four main contributions to the Pentateuch.[19]
* * * * *
The last contribution to the Pentateuch was written either during the
exile at Babylon or during the Persian period which followed.[20] It is
known as the Priestly History, or P for short,[21] for it reviews the
whole history of J and E from the standpoint of the priesthood of the
temple. This is, perhaps, the most important of all the contributions
so far as the present text of the Bible is concerned, for it furnishes
the general framework of history, as we have it now.
That framework is very remarkable. We are far removed in it from the
naïve, gossipy narratives of the olden time. Five hundred years, or
so, had elapsed since the Jahvist wove together his material--already
hoary with age when he found it. In those five centuries we may almost
be said to pass from a Froissart or Gregory of Tours, credulous,
simple-minded but a born raconteur, to a Hegel, with a philosophy of
history. P arranges the phenomena of the past according to a theory, a
theory very similar, indeed, in general outlines to that of Hegel. He
finds the meaning of history in successive self-revelations by Jahveh.
With this principle as a guide, the author groups the main incidents of
history around four great figures and into four great epochs,--those of
Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses. Around these figures all the different
lines are made to converge, the first three as ancestral heroes, the
last as the especial mouthpiece of Jahveh. Lines of genealogy--P is
responsible for this dismal element in the text--serve both to link
the chief personages and to indicate the passage of time.[22] One must
not credit P with the imagination necessary for the invention of so
impressive a scheme, for the data already suggested it. Legends tend
to concentrate upon a few heroic figures and to culminate in dramatic
epochs. But what had been a natural development of the story became,
under the hand of P, artificial, doctrinal and unreal.[23] All history
led up to the establishment of the temple, all the fortunes of Israel
depended upon the observance of the taboos, codified under Moses. The
prescriptions for the temple-worship are asserted to have been given
already at Sinai, anticipating the temple itself by many centuries.[24]
The prerogatives of the priests,--with their levite temple servants
and national tithes for their support,--are safeguarded by miracle and
exalted to dominate the nation to an impossible extent. In short, P
is less a historian than an apologist and theologian. Yet it was his
account which gave the tone to the completed scriptures, for, sometime
in the fifth or fourth centuries B.C., a final edition fitted the
composite JED into the narrative of P and so gave us the text of the
first five books of the Bible.[25]
* * * * *
We must close this section of our survey by a glance back at its
opening,--the story of Creation. The first chapter of Genesis comes
from P,--an account written almost in the days of Herodotus. In any
case it was not until his time that the second chapter (from J) was
added to the first. Herodotus, too, was interested in the origin of
things, so much so that he made a special journey to the Phœnicians to
verify an Egyptian account of the beginnings of human society, where
“Hercules” played somewhat the rôle of Jahveh. If ever the historian
is justified in speculating on what might have been, he may surely
be allowed the privilege of conducting the Father of History the few
miles inland to Jerusalem, to discuss the matter with the author of
Genesis! It is doubtful if the intellectual heritage of succeeding ages
would have been much changed by such a meeting; for Herodotus could
not have guessed that the mixture of myth and tribal legend which the
Jewish historian was editing would have been taken at rather more than
its face value by the whole of western civilization for almost two
millenniums, as the explanation--_the_ genesis--of the entire world;
and the Jew could have understood just as little the rational temper
of his Greek confrère, or the importance of his inquiry. But in the
days when religion and history began once more to be studied by the
comparative method, such as Herodotus tried to use, and the priests of
Egypt and Babylon to be interrogated, this time in their own tongue,
nothing could match in interest, for the critic of the Bible, such an
imaginary conversation recorded by the hand of Herodotus.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For such instances, _cf._ Genesis 12^{7, 8}, 13^{4, 18}, 16^{7-14},
21^{12-21, 31}, 22^{14}, 23^{1, 19, 20}, 24^{62}, 25^{9, 10}, 26^{25,
32}, 28^{17-19}, 31^{13, 46-49}, 32^{30}, 33^{20}, 35^{14, 15, 20},
48^9, 49^{30}, 50^3.
[2] C. F. Kent, _Student’s Old Testament_, Vol. I, pp. 8-12, classifies
the legends under the headings: 1. Biographical; clan and family
legends, with the family as the central theme, held in the memory of
wandering tribes for four or five centuries. 2. Institutional, _e.g._
explanatory of the origin of Sabbath or Passover. 3. Of Sacred Places,
giving the origin of their names. 4. Of Origin of Proper Names, _e.g._
Abraham from ab-hamon, the father of a multitude. 5. Entertaining
Stories, _e.g._ the journey of Abraham’s servant for Rebekah. These
latter were great favorites. The most stimulating work of recent times
on these subjects, bringing great wealth of anthropological lore to
illustrate the setting of Jewish legend and cult, is Sir J. G. Frazer’s
_Folk Lore in the Old Testament_ (3 vols., 1918).
[3] Genesis 12^{6, 7}.
[4] Genesis 26^{33}, “Wherefore the name of the city is Beer-Sheba unto
this day.”
[5] Popularly believed to be the etymology.
[6] The mountain is Sinai in the accounts of P and probably J; Horeb in
E and D. _Vide infra._
[7] Except Ruth, which is a product of the Persian or Greek period.
[8] The emphasis, as will appear later, is upon the name.
[9] Or just “J” for short. The narrative by him is generally so
indicated, merely by the letter.
[10] _Cf._ Exodus 33^{12-23} and 34^{6-9.}
[11] _Cf._ the Latin _numina_, some of which develop later into _dei_.
[12] More often simply as “E.” It is also well to recall that “J,”
Jahvist, is now used often by scholars to signify Judaistic, and “E,”
Ephraimistic, from their source.
[13] The sacred character of the name is insisted upon wherever
religion is invested with the power of the curse or blessing.
Anthropology supplies evidence of the universality of this belief. The
formulas of blessing or benediction by the sacred name have lost most
of their primitive meaning, but the oath still retains the power of the
curse.
[14] Exodus 3.
[15] For instance, the condemnation of the worship of Jahveh in the
form of a bull.
[16] E had denied that the cult at high places of the early period had
been a real cult of Jahveh. The Deuteronomic reformers now went much
farther. They denied that this hill-top and village worship could ever
be legitimate in the religion of Jahveh.
[17] “The core of D is CC. 5-11; 12-26; 28,” G. F. Moore, _The
Literature of the Old Testament_, pp. 58-59.
[18] Deuteronomy 18 ^{6, 7}. It proved impossible on account of the
vested rights of the Jerusalem priesthood. A degradation of these
priests to levites resulted and was justified by Ezekiel.
This helps to date D with certainty. Hosea does not show any belief
in the special sacredness of the temple. This doctrine does not come
before the latter part of the seventh century. But Hosea’s influence
upon D’s conception of God is obvious. Language and style also point to
the seventh century.
[19] The book of Deuteronomy came to light in the eighteenth year of
the reign of Josiah. The story is told in II Kings 22. While repairing
the temple, under orders of Josiah, Hilkiah, the high priest, found it.
“And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found
the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book
to Shaphan and he read it.... And Shaphan the scribe read it before the
king, and it came to pass that when the king had heard the words of the
law, that he rent his clothes. And the king commanded ... saying: Go
ye, inquire of the Lord for one and for the people ... concerning the
words of this book that is found.” So they consulted a “prophetess”
who instructed them to follow it. Then (Chap. 23) the reform was
inaugurated, the local altars broken, the groves cut down, and all the
sacred places polluted with dead men’s bones or otherwise profaned. Not
the least significant incident from the standpoint of historiography is
the consultation of the “prophetess” to learn of the validity of the
law.
[20] It is generally thought to be the book of The Law (Torah) which
Ezra brought back with him to Judæa when sent to Jerusalem by the
Persian Artaxerxes in 458 B.C. But the text does not bear the mark of
the theological interests of the period of Nehemiah,--the especial
prohibitions of mixed marriages.
[21] A better title is “The Book of Origins” (H. Ewald, _The History of
Israel_, 8 vols., trans. 1869-1886, Vol. I, pp. 74 _sqq._).
[22] The difficulties in this problem were easily met by giving
fabulous ages to the generations of which few names were known. On
the genealogies see note on Nehemiah below, p. 103. P carries the
genealogies from the Creation to Abraham as follows: the generations
of Adam, Genesis 5; of Noah, 6^9; of the sons of Noah, 10; of Shem,
11^{10}; of Terah, 11^{27}.
[23] A comparison of the first chapter of Genesis (by P) with the
second (by J) will show how far removed is the last contribution from
the first, not only in matter but also in style. In the one, creation
comes from the fiat of a god who remains aloof from his universe;
in the other he breathes into the dust to make man live and then
associates with him as a companion. The style of P is here suitable to
his theme, for the lack of detail which makes the rest of his story
bald and dry was here most appropriate. Later on his inferiority is
more apparent.
[24] All sacrifice except by the priesthood is illegitimate, hence P
does not admit that the patriarchs ever sacrificed.
[25] This is a simplification of the actual process, for the separate
J and E continued to circulate after JE was made, and there are other
elements in the composition not covered here.
CHAPTER IX
THE REMAINING HISTORICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The main sources of the Pentateuch run on into the books which follow.
The old collections of traditions, J and E or similar narratives,
tangle themselves together; Deuteronomist historians use them to preach
their lesson that disaster is always due to sin and especially to the
anger of Jahveh, then priestly hands insert, at likely points in the
narrative, sections--largely imaginative--which exalt the rôle of
the priesthood. Then comes the work of the author-editors, who throw
the miscellany into approximately the present form, a work which was
not completed until later. Since we have already seen this composite
process of authorship worked out in some detail in connection with the
Pentateuch, we shall pass in more hurried review over these remaining
books.
Joshua is so intimately connected with the five preceding books that
it is now customary to treat it along with them, the six forming the
Hexateuch. It carries over into the conquest the same elements as we
have seen in the Pentateuch, or continuations of them. The book falls
rather clearly into two main parts: the first twelve chapters dealing
with the conquest, the next ten with the division of the land, while an
appendix of two final chapters gives a valedictory warning of Joshua
after the fashion of that of Moses.[1] Of these, the second section,
that describing the allotment of the tribes, is obviously an invention
emanating from the same kind of priestly imagination of a late day
as the P (Book of Origins) of the Pentateuch, but the imagination in
this case became somewhat too business-like, when it asserted that
forty-eight cities, some of them the best in the country, belonged
by right of original assignment to priests and levites. We need not
delay long over that kind of “history.”[2] The story of the conquest
is told by a Deuteronomic moralizer,[3] who used the two older
sources, continuations of J and E, to suit his taste. Now these earlier
narratives did not agree as to how the Hebrews conquered Canaan, for
the one (J) made it a movement of scattered war-bands, who settled in
the open country, being unable to take the walled towns, while the
other (E) had a great tale of how they destroyed the Canaanites root
and branch, in a vast migration, somewhat the way the Saxon invaders
were credited in the old histories of England with the destruction of
the Britons. The taste of the Deuteronomic editor--whose edition was
taken over by the author of Joshua--was for this latter source, with
its story of miracles and slaughter. This accounts for such tales
as the crossing of the Jordan in which all the wonders are repeated
with which legend had surrounded the reputed crossing of the Red
Sea,--waters piled up and a march through in priestly procession.[4]
It also accounts for the story of the falling of the walls of Jericho
at the sound of trumpets, although traces of the fact that the city
was taken by storm in the ordinary way are still to be detected in
the narrative. The book of Joshua frankly cut out the plain facts of
history in favor of heroic legend. Strangely enough, however, the
substance of the unheroic narrative (J) was preserved in another place.
The opening chapter of Judges and the first five verses of the second
chapter sum up the story of the conquest as it probably happened.[5]
There the truth crops out that the advance of the Israelites was a
slow, intermittent movement, and that it left the fortified cities
practically untouched, making inevitable that racial blend and
intercourse against which the prophets of Jahveh were to protest so
vehemently. One can see, in the light of their national fanaticism, how
natural it would be for writers, saturated in the doctrines of these
prophets, to believe in the exaggerated rather than the true account
of the war upon the native population. That is the explanation for the
relatively poor history of the book of Joshua.
The book of Judges begins, as we have seen, with the fragments which
might have been used as a basis for the opening of Joshua. The proper
narrative of the “judges” begins at the close of this short review of
the conquest and the death of Joshua.[6] The keynote to the book is
struck at once.[7] The Israelites are continually forgetting Jahveh or
violating his taboos; his anger is aroused and he turns them over to
spoilers;[8] then “judges”--war-chieftains and petty rulers--rise to
throw off the yoke; again the people sin, and again are given up to
tyrants; again a “judge” arises to smite the oppressor and to rule for
a generation; again comes anarchy, and again a deliverer, etc., etc.
It is an eternal round. Such history is suspect on the face of it. It
is even more so when one looks at the chronology, for the periods of
disaster and deliverance run regularly for twenty, forty or eighty
years, or approximately so. When we recall that this chronology runs
through Samuel and Kings, that the reigns of David and Solomon are each
given as forty years, which was reckoned as the average length of a
generation in the Old Testament, we see here a schematic arrangement
of history quite too regular and symmetrical to be true. Each moral
lesson is framed in a generation. We do not have to look far to see
the principles upon which the whole is constructed. The Deuteronomist
interpreted tribal wars and the anarchy of Bedouin-like people as part
of the providential scheme of Jahveh, and it is a significant fact that
whenever a theologian--of any religion--has attempted to use history
to justify the ways of God to man, he has the history rearranged so
that its artificial character may convince the reader that it was
actually planned![9] As for the exact time allowed each judgeship,
the chronology apparently was fixed so as to try to fill in the four
hundred and eighty years which, according to I Kings 6^1, lay between
the exodus and the building of the temple, although the attempt is not
quite successful.
But if the main part of the book of Judges[10] was cast into this form
by a Deuteronomist writer in the sixth century, the material which he
used is genuine, old, legendary stuff, tales of heroes and semi-savage
men, often unvarnished, with all their vindictive cruelty and cunning,
their boastful exaggeration, both of prowess and slaughter. The very
savagery of these stories is in their favor; they bear the mark of
their time, and reflect, through all their bombast, the wild age when,
as the narrative plaintively repeats, “there was no king in Israel.” It
was surely a triumph for the compiler of this material to reduce it,
even partially, to be food for sermons. Fortunately he was still enough
of a savage himself not to rub out all the savagery of his ancestors.
* * * * *
When we come to the narrative of the founding of the kingdom,[11]
our sources work out in a remarkable way. The originals become both
more reliable and fuller. Contemporary accounts from those who knew
intimately the ins and outs of camp and court have been preserved
almost untouched by subsequent editing. There is no such artistic
manipulation of events as we have just seen in Judges, by seventh or
sixth century reformers. They left almost untouched the great story
of David, because they could not have improved upon it in any case.
Through a period of national expansion and successful war, the worship
of the national god, Jahveh, was not likely to meet with serious
rivalry from the local deities of earth and the fertility gods--the
Baals--which in time of peace were continually drawing the attention
of the farmers.[12] The building of the temple at Jerusalem was the
logical conclusion of the war period begun by Saul’s battles with the
Philistines; the war god was enthroned on the citadel. Consequently the
later prophets and priests of Jahveh had relatively little to change
in the sources which carried the narrative of J up to its fitting and
triumphant conclusion, and we have fairly contemporary and unspoiled
narratives.
Here, therefore, at last we come upon the best product of Hebrew
historiography. The story-telling art of J is[13] no longer working
over the naïve old tales of Genesis, but deals with well-known men
and recent events, and in the tale of the houses of Saul and David we
have something which will rank with the best the world can offer. Few
figures from antiquity stand out more clearly, in all their complex
humanity, than that of David. We have him in all his weakness as well
as his strength; no shocked moralizer got rid of his sins at the
expense of his character. Legend, which always surrounds great men,
even when alive, added something, so that subsequent ages endow him
with extravagant gifts of poetry as they did his son with equally
extravagant gifts of wisdom, but his personality and the story of his
reign remain on the solid basis of history.
This detailed, reliable history runs through the two books of Samuel
into the first two chapters of the first book of Kings. But from the
reign of Solomon a vastly different type of narrative takes its place.
The events of four centuries are chronicled in the same amount of space
as was devoted to the lifetime of David alone, and even this meagre
outline is blurred by the Deuteronomic editors. For the history of
the period from Solomon to the Babylonian captivity is cast in the
same mould as that which we have already seen in Judges. Disaster is
due to neglect in the worship of Jahveh, and more especially to the
persistence of the old worship in high places in spite of the claims of
the temple at Jerusalem to be Jahveh’s sole abode. The result of this
line of interpretation of history, carried to the extreme, is that we
have less a history of kings than a commentary upon Jahveh-worship,
for the author pays little attention to the importance of the reigns
he catalogues except as they can be made to illustrate the theological
point he is making. For instance, Omri, who founded a great dynasty in
the Northern Kingdom, is dismissed in one verse,[14] although Assyrian
inscriptions recognize his greatness to the extent of calling the
Kingdom of Israel Beth-Omri.[15] Since this founder of the city of
Samaria, however, permitted the old worship of the golden calves, he
was obviously not an edifying figure for a history which was intended
to prove that such heathenish rites spelled disaster. In such cavalier
fashion the book of “the Kings” treats the successive reigns of both
Judah and Israel. Historians have seldom resisted the temptation to
draw a moral from history, but here the history itself was drawn into
a moral, until it distorted the whole perspective.[16] The fact that
even today only biblical scholars are able to recover the correct
perspective is sufficient comment upon the poor quality of these last
chapters of Hebrew national history, and the critics have received most
of their hints from elsewhere--cuneiform inscriptions and a study of
the prophets.
From time to time, however, through this mangled chronicle, a remark
is inserted which excites the interest of the historian. The reign of
Solomon is cut short with the remark: “And the rest of the acts of
Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written
in the book of the acts of Solomon?”[17] Similarly at the close of
the account of Jeroboam and Rehoboam: “And the rest of the acts of
Jeroboam, how he warred and how he reigned, behold, they are written
in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.”[18] ... “Now
the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not
written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?”[19] The
formula occurs practically without fail at the end of the narrative
of every reign.[20] This means that, in the eyes of the author, his
work was less a history than a commentary. It also shows us that from
the days of Solomon, there were royal annals, like those of Assyria,
which were kept in the capital, and that after the separation of the
ten tribes under Jeroboam, each kingdom kept its record. The Bible does
not preserve these for us; it preserves only as much as suited the
priestly and prophetic writers intent upon making history a handmaid to
religion.[21]
This royal chronicle (referred to but not reproduced in the Bible)
marks the end of the age of tradition and brings us, at last, into that
of written records. The separate tribes had been welded into a nation,
and while the different settlements undoubtedly preserved still their
ancient stories, the breaking-up of their isolation made the traditions
complex, hard to remember and more or less trivial and irrelevant. The
great feats of Saul and David were bound to overshadow the less notable
past. So when the Hebrew system of writing came in, as it did for the
first time under the kingdom, history developed at the court of Solomon
in apparently somewhat the same official way in which we find it in
the courts of the late Babylonian kings. The legend was giving way to
annals, romance yielding to business-like records, a change which has
taken place in every country at the moment when it begins to acquire
what it calls civilization.
* * * * *
There remains only one other Hebrew history,--that which runs through
the books of Chronicles,[22] Ezra and Nehemiah. This is a single work,
written by one hand, probably after 300 B.C.[23] It is a summary of
the whole history given in the preceding books, at least so far as
immediately concerned the kingdom of Judah and Jerusalem. Its author
uses the “Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel” and the “Book of
the Kings of Israel” and other such sources which have since been
lost. He was evidently a learned priest of the temple at Jerusalem,
intent upon its preëminence and especially interested in its liturgy.
His exaggerations of the glory of the Davidic Kingdom are especially
noticeable, but for that matter the work is not important as history
until we leave the book of Chronicles and come to Ezra.
The two books of Ezra and Nehemiah are really one,[24] and bear the
title Ezra in the Jewish Bible. This contains the history of the Jews
from the Persian release to the coming of Alexander. Its main interest
for us, however, lies less in its value as source material to the
modern historian than in the unique personal memoirs of Nehemiah and
Ezra which have been embedded in the narrative. In spite of the fact
that they were sadly mutilated in the process of fitting them in,
these two documents remain unique in Hebrew and perhaps in antique
historiography. The memoirs of Nehemiah are especially fine. The
restorer of Jerusalem gives no petty copy of the vainglorious boasting
of Assyrian kings when they recited their great deeds. Instead, he
seems to have kept a remarkably sane appreciation of the proportion
of things. His sense of the importance of what he is doing does not
conceal the fact that he is dealing with petty tribal neighbors, who
could end it all if he would stray over to one of their villages.[25]
Homely detail lifts the story into that realm of realism, which only
really great writers can risk entering without loss of authority.[26]
The result is one of the most graphic pictures in the Bible, sketched
in a few words. Take, for instance, the building of the wall: “They
which builded on the wall and they that bare burdens, ... every one
with one of his hands wrought in the work and with the other held a
weapon.... And he that sounded the trumpet was by me.... So we labored
in the work, and half of them held the spears from the rising of the
morning till the stars appeared.”[27]
The memoirs of Ezra are of an inferior quality to this. Their
significance in Hebrew historiography lies mainly in their content. For
as Nehemiah tells how he built the Jews a city to be safe from their
neighbors, Ezra tells how he kept them apart from these same neighbors
by refusing to admit intermarriage,[28] and then, in the year 443 or
444, brought forth a book which, if tradition and the surmise of modern
scholarship be correct, centred the whole world’s history at their very
temple.[29] Whatever the exact book was which he expounded, subsequent
Jewish tradition believed that it was nothing short of epoch-making,
and the name of Ezra, or Esdras, became the greatest among the
scribes.[30]
The books of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah contain these rich
historical materials; but their compiler should have little credit
for his share in their preservation. His editorial task was done as
clumsily and unintelligently as his chronicle is biassed and dry. One
fact, however, we can deduce from his narrative, which enables us to
state the conclusion of the long process of coöperative authorship by
which the Bible story was finally made. As the chronicler apparently
used the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings in that order, it
seems likely that by about 300 B.C. they had already been put together
in the form in which we have them now.
* * * * *
This ends our survey of what are commonly known as the historical books
of the Old Testament, although it by no means covers the field of
interest to the historian. For in the other works, especially in the
prophetic writings, there are narratives of prime importance, if only
secondarily historical. The memoirs of a governor like Nehemiah are
fully matched, for instance, by the biography of Jeremiah, preserved
by his friend and secretary, Baruch.[31] Taken in its setting, along
with the words of the prophet, this is a human document of the first
order. In personal self-revelation and high religious feeling it has
not unaptly been compared with the _Confessions_ of Augustine. There
are similar poetic or realistic glimpses of the life of the time and
the policy of rulers throughout most of this prophetic literature; but
however much it affected history its purpose was not historical and we
must leave it aside.
* * * * *
There is, finally, one supremely good piece of historical writing in
that considerable body of Jewish literature which is not included in
the Old Testament as known to Protestant readers. The first book of
Maccabees is a stirring narrative of the most heroic days of the Jewish
nation, a straightforward account, gathered from eye-witnesses[32] and
from written sources, of the great war of liberation begun by Judas
Maccabæus in which the newly vitalized hopes of the Jews were actually
realized for a period, and political was added to religious liberty.
The history of this achievement is given with scientific scruple, and
in minuteness of detail and accuracy of information it ranks high among
any of the histories of antiquity. One appreciates these qualities
all the more when one turns to the second book of Maccabees and sees
how the same kind of detail is marred by inaccuracy and distorted by
partisanship, until the book becomes a mere historical pamphlet for the
Pharisees. The fundamental difference between the two books is that in
the first, religious interests yield to the historical, while in the
second they yield to nothing. It is the same contrast which we have met
time and again, of a book that tells the truth as over against one that
is meant to edify. But then the latest phase of pre-Christian Jewish
thought passed farther and farther away from scientific interest in the
facts of a past which offered no more triumphs to record, and turned
from the humiliation of reality to that bright dreamland of hope, the
kingdom of the Messiah. The two great eras of David and the Maccabees
had produced histories worthy of the deeds they recorded; but the
last sad age of Jewish national life consoled itself with apocalyptic
visions and prophecies of the future. In such a situation, the genuine,
old histories themselves suffered as well. They were plundered for
texts to buttress belief, and history suffered that faith might live.
The significance of this conclusion of our survey of Hebrew
historiography should not escape us, nor should it be misinterpreted.
It is a saddening paradox that the higher we treasure ideals the more
likely are we to violate others for them. The historian devotes himself
to the discovery and preservation of the truth. By the truth he means
an objective fact or an assemblage of such facts. He is apt to forget
that this objectivity upon which he insists as the very basis of their
reality does not exist for those who actually use or have used the
facts. Hence when he finds high-minded moralists plundering the data of
the past to point their morals, he loses respect for both their history
and their ethics, without having considered the possibility that the
non-historical attitude might conceivably have a justification. No one
could pretend that the violation of historical standards of truth could
be excused today on any basis of morals; for in our appreciation of
the value of scientific work we recognize--in theory--nothing higher
than truth. But in the pre-scientific world, where few of the data
were established with absolute certainty, the case was different. The
idea of objective historical truth could have only a limited appeal,
since the medium for the preservation of fact was so imperfect. We have
spoken elsewhere of the stimulus to accuracy in modern scholarship
owing to the consciousness that others are on our trail. But the
heightening of the value of facts brings with it a certain unhistorical
failure to appreciate why they should have been so lightly esteemed by
men who are apparently inspired by as high ideals--so far as morals
go--as the modern critic.
This is the problem which confronts the critic of Hebrew history. For
those who wrote the Pentateuch and the books of histories, who edited
out their diverse sources and gave them their final form, there was
something in the world worth more than annals of the past. The forces
of the future were in their hands, forces which determined the fate not
only of Jewish history but of the religious outlook of the whole world.
The prophets of the eighth century were those great innovators who made
religion over from a set of taboos to a moral code, and substituted
upright living for sacrifice. It is small wonder if the legends of the
past were made over as well into a form to suit the new outlook. Their
own work was of vastly more importance to the men who wrote under the
new inspiration, than the crude details of an uncertain past. For the
modern critic to fail to appreciate the point of view of these Hebrew
historians is as grave a sin in historical criticism as to fail, on
the other hand, to see the damage they wrought in the ancient sources.
It was a point of view which has much to justify it too; for but for
the work of those prophets who sought to carry Israel away from its
primitive line of history into new and unhistorical ideals, the history
of Israel would never have been worth bothering over at all--except as
that of an obscure Oriental people who contributed next to nothing to
civilization. In the same way, if the believers in a coming Messiah
plundered the documents of the past, the plunder was used for no less
a purpose than the documentation of the kingdom of Christ. In short it
was the distorters of Hebrew history who made that history worth our
while!
Yet the fact remains that, from our point of view, the history was
distorted. The paradox is not an antithesis between history and morals,
however, or between science and religion, or science and theology. It
is simply the statement of the difference between the ideals of the
scientific and the pre-scientific eras.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In Deuteronomy 33^{1-8}. Of course there are interpolations within
these sections.
[2] Although some of it rests on older material, especially E.
[3] One, that is, thoroughly associated with the spirit and style of
the writers of Deuteronomy.
[4] The infertility of the myth-making faculty becomes apparent here.
Folklorists are familiar with this limitation of the imagination to a
few staple exploits, which repeat themselves indefinitely. The legends
of the saints are mostly alike.
[5] Subsequent events of Hebrew history agree with it.
[6] Judges 2^6. Verses 6, 8, 9 are literal repetitions from the last
chapter of Joshua.
[7] Judges 2^{11-23}.
[8] Judges 2^{14, 15}.
[9] We come upon this especially in the work of the Christian
historians.
[10] To the end of the sixteenth chapter.
[11] The stories of Eli and Samuel really belong with those of the
Judges. Even in the form in which we have it now, this connection is
emphasized by the address, which Samuel delivers in I Samuel 12, and
which forms a fitting literary close to the Judges, similar to the
addresses of Moses and Joshua. This at least seems to fit one stratum
of sources.
[12] _Cf._ G. F. Moore, _op. cit._, p. 94.
[13] The source of Samuel is so much in the spirit of the J of the
Pentateuch and Joshua, that the same symbol is used for it; but that
does not necessarily imply the same authorship or even that the text in
Samuel is a continuation of the J of the older part. But whatever their
relationship, the conception and style are so similar as to justify the
symbol for both.
[14] I Kings 16^{24}.
[15] On the translation of this see R. W. Rogers, _Cuneiform Parallels
to the Old Testament_, p. 304, n. 2.
[16] _Cf._ G. F. Moore, _op. cit._, p. 103, “Some one has said that
history is philosophy teaching by example; for the author of Kings
history was prophecy teaching by example.” The short survey of Kings
in this admirable little book covers the ground so thoroughly and
satisfactorily that it is hard to avoid repeating its treatment.
[17] I Kings 11^{41}.
[18] _Ibid._, 14^{19}.
[19] _Ibid._, 14^{29}.
[20] _Cf._ also I Kings 15^{23, 31}, 16^{5, 14, 27}, II Kings 8^{23},
10^{34}, 12^{19}, 13^{8, 12} 14^{15, 18, 28}, 15^{6, 11}, 16^{19},
20^{20}, 21^{17, 25}, 23^{28}, 24^5, etc.
[21] Other sources were used as well as annals. There are traces of
tradition, and especially there are the heroic legends of the prophets
Elijah and Elisha. Other literary sources may be detected.
[22] The name _Chronicon_ was Jerome’s rendering of the Hebrew title
“Events of the Times.”
[23] _Vide_ _Dictionary of the Bible_ (edited by J. Hastings,
1898-1904), Vol. I, pp. 289 _sqq._
[24] The division seems to have been due to Christians, later.
[25] One possible piece of exaggeration seems to be the statement that
the walls were completed in fifty-two days. Josephus, relying on other
sources, says it took two years and four months. _Cf._ _Antiquities of
the Jews_, Bk. XI, Chap. V, Sect. 8. But a preliminary wall may have
been built, or the text may have been corrupted.
[26] His interest in economic matters is especially noteworthy. _Cf._
Nehemiah 5 and the laws codified in Leviticus 25^{35-55}.
[27] Nehemiah 4^{17-21}. More realistic still is the twenty-third
verse: “So neither I nor my brethren nor my servants nor the men of
the guard which followed me, none of us put off our clothes, except
that every one put them off for washing.” Was the last verse a later
emendation?
[28] This exclusive policy of Ezra, it has been pointed out, was likely
to emphasize the question of descent and so to call forth an interest
in genealogies. We see the effect of this in Nehemiah 7 (_cf._ verse
61), where a list of what one might term pure-blooded, patrician
Jewish families is given. One recalls in this connection the fact
that P, which is attributed to the time of Ezra, was responsible for
the long genealogies of the earlier historical books. Evidently the
reëstablished Jews were working up their ancestry with great eagerness.
It should be noted, however, that there is a reference in Ezekiel 13^9
to registers of “the house of Israel,” at the beginning of the exile.
_Cf._ Josephus, _Against Apion_, Bk. I, Chap. V _sqq._
[29] The narrative of P, based upon the teachings of Ezekiel. _Cf.
supra_, p. 94. Thus the Jews began again their national existence,
self-centred and isolated, with relatively slight intercourse with the
gentile world.
[30] A considerable literature grew up in his name, and a late
tradition went so far as to regard him as the restorer of the law, the
author of some seventy works, and finally as the last of writers in the
canon of the Old Testament.
[31] _Cf._ Jeremiah 32, 36^4 _sqq._, 43^3, 45, etc.
[32] Although written in the second generation after the event.
CHAPTER X
THE FORMATION OF THE CANON
There still remains the question of how this mass of Hebrew writings
took the form and shape in which it is known to us, as the Old
Testament. The process was a long and slow one, and part of it has
already been traced above. We recall how the legends of the earliest
days were first thrown into connected written narrative in the eighth
or ninth century B.C., in the schools of the prophets, as J and E,
how then in the close of the seventh century they were combined (JE);
how, about the same time, a code was prepared in Jerusalem in the
name of Moses (D), then promulgated in the eighteenth year of the
reign of Josiah (621 B.C.) and shortly afterward combined with the
history (JED);[1] how during the exile a new ritual-law, traced to
the influence of Ezekiel, was responsible for a new and thoroughgoing
recasting of the narrative from a priestly standpoint (P) and then how,
after various changes, the whole composite mass became our Hexateuch.
One might expect from this, that the books of the Jews would go on
developing, modified to the changing needs of successive ages, and
so, to a certain extent, they did. But there was one influence making
strongly against change. The texts themselves became sacred. The use
of the Law, as the five “books of Moses” were termed, by the priests
in the actual administration of justice may have had something to do
in this process of crystallization, but a deeper reason lies in the
very mystery of “the written word,” which attains an undue authority
over all primitive minds and holds its tyranny even in the modern world
of encyclopædias and newspapers. What is written attains a life of
its own, and only here and there can one find the unfeeling skeptic
indifferent to its fate. But when the word that is written is regarded
as the utterance of God,--as in practically all early codes of
law,--the skeptic has little chance to commit his sacrilege.[2]
In Israel this respect for the scriptures attained the dignity of a
separate superstition, one which was destined to cast its influence
over the whole subsequent history of Jewish and of Christian thought.
The early scribes had felt free to arrange and annotate the law as
part of their work. Indeed, as we have seen, the law itself was a
product of repeated revision and rectification. But from about the
middle of the fifth century it became fixed and rigid,[3] the object of
religious reverence which protected itself by an enlarged use of old
taboos. The books of “the Prophets,”--including, it will be recalled,
the earlier histories,--were stereotyped into their canon by about two
centuries later, about 250 B.C. The two lessons read in the synagogue
were drawn, one from the law, the other from the prophets, so that the
latter shared inevitably the fate of the former. The “scriptures,”
or “hagiographa,” were not so easily moulded into place. The rabbis
disputed long over what ones to accept, and were unable to come to
final conclusions until after the Christians had begun to plunder the
sacred arsenal for their revolt.
The difficulty lay in the test of inclusion or exclusion, which was
not subject-matter but authorship. Only those scriptures were to be
admitted which had been written by God, through inspired mediums as in
the case of Law and Prophets. Such a test, however, made disagreement
inevitable, since there was no ready way of establishing or denying
the inspiration. History has never discovered other than two possible
lines of evidence for assigning authorship: external evidence, such as
that of witnesses who were present when the work was written or had
access to knowledge as to how it was written, and internal evidence
from the nature of the text. Although it was obviously presumptuous,
involving the danger of blasphemy, for any man to use the second test
consciously, since he would in the circumstances be making himself
judge of what God should be credited with saying and what not,
nevertheless what could not be risked by the individual was done by
the mass.[4] A _consensus fidelium_, that “agreement among all those
who believe,” was arrived at, as is the case with all doctrines truly
catholic. In this process, however, the external test of authorship was
used to an extent which really led to a study of the contents of the
books involved. The books, it must be admitted, were already prepared
for such a test, or readily adjusted themselves to it. In arrangement
of time and circumstance, and miraculous evidences of the presence of
the divine Author, the later books even protested somewhat too much,
as the apocalyptic literature shows. Two historical devices were also
used: ascribing books to authors already accepted in the canon as
inspired, and the antedating of works to give them greater claim upon
the credulity of the present. Psalms which were perhaps written as late
as the Maccabean struggle were grouped with older ones,--all possibly
being later than the Exile,--and attributed to David. Solomon was made
responsible for wisdom of a later day, and thus poetry and proverb
enriched the history of the royal period with a new and sophisticated
myth. More interesting still to the historian is the antedating of
prophecy, such as that of the book of Daniel. We know from its contents
that it was written in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.),
yet it purports to come from the days of Nebuchadnezzar, over four
centuries earlier. Upon the whole the exigencies of the situation
produce a somewhat bewildering misappropriation of texts. But no
higher critics were at hand, and the canon of the Old Testament was
framed,--for two religions.[5]
The decisions of the rabbis enabled the Christians in their turn to
meet pagan criticism entrenched behind a sacred text, and no greater
tribute could be paid to the work of rabbi and theologian, or, perhaps,
to the weakness of the critical attitude in man, than that from
that day of warring creeds to the present the citadel of faith and
inspiration has held against the assaults of inquiry and historical
skepticism, and still asserts an almost undiminished sway. The early
Christians, however, did not at first pay any very strict attention
to the opinions of the rabbis as to which of the “scriptures” were
canonical and which were not. They were eager for them all, especially
for those that bore Messianic prophecy; which put a premium upon some
of the very ones which the rabbis were inclined to discard. As a matter
of fact the test of authorship as over against that of the contents
of writings again broke down. A new _consensus fidelium_ had to be
satisfied. “The Christians discovered no reason in the books themselves
why Esther, for example, should be inspired and Judith not; or why
Ecclesiastes, with its skepticism about the destiny of the soul, should
be divinely revealed, and the Wisdom of Solomon, with its eloquent
defence of immortality, a purely human production; or, again, why
the Proverbs of Solomon were Scripture, and the Proverbs of Ben Sira
(Ecclesiasticus) nothing but profane wisdom.”[6] Christian scholarship
did not challenge this process until Jerome prepared his famous text at
the close of the fourth century.
* * * * *
The mention of Jerome suggests the last problem to be considered, the
origin of the text as we have it now. The Christians used the Greek,
not the Hebrew Bible. This had been translated into the Greek from
the Hebrew,[7] by Jews of Alexandria. Legend had it, as also recorded
in Josephus,[8] that the law was translated in seventy-two days by
seventy-two persons; hence the name Septuagint[9] by which the Greek
Old Testament became known. In reality it was the work of different
scholars through different ages, and was probably not completed before
the second century B.C. It was from this Greek text that the Christian
Bible was drawn at first. During the second and third century there
was some stirring among Christian scholars to have a Hebrew collation.
The greatest of these scholars, Origen, drew up a collection of six
parallel texts,[10] but it was Jerome who set to work actually to
procure a reliable Latin translation for common use in the West,
based upon Hebrew texts, in the notion that, being Hebrew, they were
more genuine than the Greek version,--a notion which turned out to
be mistaken, however, since the Septuagint was in reality from older
Hebrew texts than those used by him. In preparing this edition, Jerome
took the Jewish point of view as to what books should be included as
inspired and what ones should not, thus denying the canonicity of
scriptures which were in constant use, and modifying texts by his
new translation to the disturbance of the faith of believers,--as
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, ventured to admonish him.[11] The Church
of the Middle Ages in general tended to follow the liberal view of the
churchman rather than the narrower interpretation of the scholar, and
when Luther, and Protestantism following him, made the Hebrew Bible
the test, reverting to the position of Jerome,[12] the Catholic Church
at Trent declared on the other hand that these works, _e.g._ Tobit,
Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus and the Maccabees, were an intrinsic
part of the canonical scriptures, adding the usual sanction--“If any
man does not accept as sacred and canonical these books, entire, with
all their parts, as they have been customarily read in the Catholic
Church and are contained in the ancient common Latin edition ... let
him be anathema.”[13]
It is easy to see how the skeptics of the eighteenth century might
reverse the doubt of the early Christians and demand not why one
should limit the list of inspired books but why one should regard
any of them as inspired at all. Such doubts made possible genuine
textual criticism, which began with Astruc in the eighteenth century.
The development of philology and archæology supplied the tools for
the two-fold task of textual studies on the one hand and of external
comparison with the rest of ancient history upon the other, with the
result that we now know more of how the Bible was put together than the
very scribes who copied or rabbis who used it in the immemorial service
of the ancient synagogue; as we know more of the history of Israel than
the very authors who compiled its last revision.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This incidentally shows how highly the historical texts were
regarded, that D should be united with them. For D came with authority.
[2] The same authority may attach to spoken words, but their reporters
are bound to modify them in terms of their own time and thought. The
beliefs about the _logos_ occur to one in this connection.
[3] _Cf._ Nehemiah, 8-10.
[4] This is an excellent example of a most important principle,
familiar to sociologists and anthropologists, but strangely ignored
by historians. All the world’s history is affected by it. We have
ordinarily considered it as belonging exclusively to a myth-making
stage of society; but we are still making myths and resting content
with our _consensus fidelium_.
[5] The authoritative form was apparently settled for the Jews at
a congress or council of rabbis held at Jamnia, the successor to
destroyed Jerusalem, in the year 90 A.D. Josephus, however, in his book
_Against Apion_ (Bk. I, Chap. VIII), written 93-95 A.D., states that
the Old Testament has 22 books, whereas the regular Jewish version has
24. They are: the five books of the Law; eight books of “Prophets,”
including Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, “the twelve” major
prophets, and the minor prophets, the latter as one book; and eleven
books of “Scriptures,” Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth,
Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah together,
Chronicles. The Christians, by dividing Samuel, Kings, Ezra, and
Chronicles and counting the rest separately, reckon thirty-nine books.
[6] G. F. Moore, _The Literature of the Old Testament_, p. 14. _Cf._ C.
A. Briggs, _General Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures_
(1899), pp. 118 _sqq._, and articles in _Encyclopædia Britannica_ and
Hastings’ _Dictionary of the Bible_.
[7] A few chapters in Ezra (4^8-6^{18}) and Daniel (2^4-7) are in
Aramaic.
[8] _Antiquities of the Jews_, Bk. XII, Chap. II.
[9] From the Latin, _septuaginta_, seventy. The name strictly speaking
is applicable only to the Pentateuch. But it was loosely extended to
cover the whole of the Old Testament.
[10] The famous _Hexapla_. They were: (1) The Hebrew Text, (2)
Transliteration of Hebrew Text into Greek Letters, (3) Greek versions
of Aquila, (4) of Symmachus, (5) of the Septuagint, (6) of Theodotion;
3, 4, and 6 are from the second century A.D.
[11] This correspondence between Augustine and Jerome offers an
illuminating section in Christian historiography. Augustine not only
stood for the traditional text, he was in favor of the traditional
inclusion of Judith, Tobit, First and Second Maccabees, Ecclesiasticus
and the Wisdom of Solomon. _Cf._ _De Doctrina Christiana_, Bk. II,
Chap. VIII, written 397 A.D.
[12] Luther placed the Apocrypha between Old and New Testaments, with
this further caption, “Books that are not equally esteemed with the
Holy Scriptures, but nevertheless are profitable and good to read.”
[13] In the fourth session.
CHAPTER XI
NON-BIBLICAL LITERATURE; JOSEPHUS
The very process we have just been describing implies that we have only
a portion of the literature of the Jews inside the canon of the sacred
scriptures. It remains to glance at what lies outside it, and finally
at the work of a purely secular historian who wrote at Rome, for the
Greco-Roman world, the story of Jewish antiquity and the struggle for
Jewish freedom, Josephus.
The two chief characteristic products of Jewish thought, legalism and
prophecy, which we have seen coloring with more or less different hues
the long perspectives of biblical antiquity, continued to determine
the quality of the non-biblical literature to a very large degree.
The result is that that literature largely consists of two great
developments, corresponding to these two interests: the elaboration of
the law in the Talmud and the production of apocalyptic literature. How
great these two developments were is something of which Christians are
generally grossly ignorant; and yet no student of New Testament history
can ever quite get the sense of the setting of primitive Christianity,
of the forces which it had to fight and even of those which it
incorporated, until he has looked into the teachings of the rabbis
or realized the scope of the poetic, rhapsodical dreams of Oriental
imaginations fired by fanatic zeal, that were prevalent in the closing
days of Judaism.
The great body of the “oral” law, as opposed to the “written” law of
Moses, was preserved, elaborated and debated by the rabbis, just as
the Christian church has its bodies of ecclesiastical law in addition
to the Old and New Testaments. How far back its precepts really go,
no one can tell; but those who taught it believed that it extended
back to Moses, and had existed parallel with the written law from
the time of its deliverance,[1] being passed along by word of mouth
from generation to generation. The Talmud, in which this “oral law”
was embodied, is to the Jews like the New Testament to Christians,
something far more than a mere commentary on the Scriptures, of an
authority and influence parallel to them. It is made up of two parts,
the Mishnah, which is a collection of texts, begun under the Maccabees
and compiled at the end of the second century A.D., and the Gemara, or
comments on the Mishnah. The discussions of the Palestinian rabbis were
codified in the fourth century A.D. in what is called the Jerusalem
Talmud. Those of the schools of Babylonia were codified in the fifth
and sixth centuries A.D. The latter, which is about four times the size
of the Jerusalem Talmud, is what is meant when “The Talmud” is referred
to without further qualification.
This mass of material, as an ostensible body of recorded tradition,
might seem to have some claim upon our attention; but we have included
it in this survey mainly to emphasize its essentially unhistorical
character, and the fact that Talmudic training tends to block the path
of historical criticism. In the first place, in spite of all the vast
literature on the Talmud,--and no text has ever been studied with
more intensive zeal,--it has not received that “higher criticism”
which has led us at last to appreciate the historicity of the biblical
narratives. Owing largely to the very fact that it was so long oral
tradition, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine the origin
and first setting of the central texts. In any case this work has not
yet been done, and the Talmud remains a practically sealed book to
historians, who can use its wealth of descriptive and illustrative
material--the Talmudists claim that its texts can meet every possible
exigency in life--only in the most general way. Talmudic scholarship
therefore tends to turn the mind toward that type of speculation
on words and phrases which results in either the hair-splitting
of quibbles in the application of theological law or the more
philosophical moralizing that draws strength from allegory; but neither
of these tendencies leads to historical analysis. When one examines
the Talmud, and considers the influences which it reflects from the dim
antiquities of Jewish life, one wonders all the more at the historical
product of the Old Testament.
This impression is still further strengthened by a glance at the
prophetic literature, which rivalled the influence of the Law upon the
Jewish mind. We have seen above how this--along with the Law--became
the vehicle for so much of that high moral teaching which gave the
lasting value to Jewish aspirations,--aspirations which otherwise would
hardly interest succeeding ages.[2] There was much of this literature,
and more still that did not reach the dignity of literature, in the
later period of Jewish history.[3] It was a great contribution,
poetry fired by passion and rich in dreams, the outpouring of
Oriental zealots,--the literature of apocalypses. But it gained its
best triumphs by its boldest defiance of fact. True, its vision had
power at times to supplant the mean realities of actual things by new
creations, made real through that conviction which impels to deeds;
but the historic forces which it wielded were drawn more from faith
in the future than from interest in the past. Prophetism, as we have
pointed out elsewhere, blocks the path of scientific inquiry; and yet
as we register its impediment to history, we cannot but find in it an
expression--one of several, but not the least significant--of that
fundamental difference in outlook between the Oriental and the Western
mind. The Oriental has remained essentially unhistorical because of his
relative indifference as to fact and fancy. His interest is determined
more by what he wishes things to be and less by what they are. In
the West, in spite of much persistence of the same attitude, we have
grown interested in things as they actually are, and in things as they
actually were. History cannot substitute what one wishes to happen or
to have happened for what actually happened. Its field is not free and
open but sadly circumscribed, marked out by frustration and darkened by
the dull walls of fact.[4]
“The Law and the Prophets” are both distinctly Jewish products, for,
whatever they borrowed from beyond Jordan, in both cases they are
the expression of Palestinian civilization. In the last phase of its
history, however, Judaism, especially in the Diaspora or Dispersion
throughout the Greco-Roman world, came to a certain degree under the
influences of that Hellenic civilization which had permeated so much
of the Near East after the conquests of Alexander. The result was
that the Jew and Gentile were led to look into each other’s past. The
mutual challenge was hopeful for history. It was such a situation
which, as we shall see, had opened the doors to Greek historical
criticism in the days of Herodotus, when the antiquity of Egypt became
the touchstone for judging that of Hellas. One might have thought
that when the two peoples who really could show some achievement in
antique history-writing--the Greeks and the Hebrews--came to know each
other, the effect would be to stimulate a critical appreciation of
that achievement and so further the cause of scientific history; that,
at least, if the Hebrews did not profit from the contact, the Greeks
would. How they escaped doing so,--and by so doing to anticipate by
twenty centuries the biblical criticism of today,--is apparent from a
consideration of the work of the two outstanding figures of Hellenic
Judaism, Philo the philosopher and Josephus the historian.
* * * * *
Philo Judæus, as he is commonly termed, was a product of Alexandria, a
contemporary of Christ.[5] He comes into our survey, not because of any
contribution which he offered to the history of History, but because
of his influence in furthering that essentially unhistorical habit of
thought to which we have referred above, by interpreting texts by way
of allegory. It was a method which Christian writers were to develop to
such an extent that we may leave the fuller consideration of it until
we come to the work of Origen and the “apologists.” But, although
Philo seems to have had little _direct_ influence upon later Christian
writers[6]--probably because he was a Jew,--the contribution which he
offered to the world of his time, Jew and Greek, was so distinctive as
to demand attention. For Philo applied the familiar device of allegory
not simply to explain the texts but to explain them away, by boldly
taking them over from history to philosophy.
One or two examples, out of an almost unlimited number, will suffice to
show how the commentary on the Pentateuch runs, as it takes up the text
verse by verse. _The Allegories of the Sacred Laws_ begins as follows:
“‘And the heaven and the earth and all their world was completed.’[7]
Having previously related the creation of the mind and of sense,
Moses now proceeds to describe the perfection which was brought about
by them both. And he says that neither the indivisible mind nor the
particular sensations received perfection, but only ideas, one the
idea of the mind, the other of sensation. And, speaking symbolically,
he calls the mind heaven, since the natures which can only be
comprehended by the intellect are in heaven. And sensation he calls
earth, because it is sensation which has obtained a corporeal and
somewhat earthy constitution. The ornaments of the mind are called
the incorporeal things, which are perceptible only by the intellect.
Those of sensation are the corporeal things, and everything in short
which is perceptible by the external senses.
“‘And on the sixth day God finished his work which he had made.’
It would be a sign of great simplicity to think that the world was
created in six days or indeed at all in time; because all time is
only the space of days and nights, and these things the motion of the
sun as he passes over the earth and under the earth does necessarily
make. But the sun is a portion of heaven, so that one must confess
that time is a thing posterior to the world. Therefore it would be
correctly said that the world was not created in time, but that time
had its existence in consequence of the world. For it is the motion
of the heaven that has displayed the nature of time.
“When, therefore, Moses says, ‘God completed his works on the sixth
day,’ we must understand that he is speaking not of a number of days,
but that he takes six as a perfect number. Since it is the first
number which is equal in its parts, in the half, and the third and
sixth parts, and since it is produced by the multiplication of two
unequal factors, two and three. And the numbers two and three exceed
the incorporeality which exists in the unit; because the number two
is an image of matter being divided into two parts and dissected like
matter. And the number three is an image of a solid body, because a
solid can be divided according to a threefold division. Not but what
it is also akin to the motions of organic animals. For an organic
body is naturally capable of motion in six directions, forward,
backwards, upwards, downwards, to the right, and to the left. And
at all events he desires to show that the races of mortal, and also
of all the immortal beings, exist according to their appropriate
numbers; measuring mortal beings, as I have said, by the number six,
and the blessed and immortal beings by the number seven. First,
therefore, having desisted from the creation of mortal creatures on
the seventh day, he began the formation of other and more divine
beings.”[8]
When one considers that such speculations are the matured contribution
of one of the greatest thinkers of antiquity, one sees how far adrift
theology might go from the sober world of fact and the processes of
history. And theology was to capture the intellectual interests of the
age.
Sometimes Philo recognizes the statement of fact in the narrative but
even that is the material veil for some divine truth. For instance, the
rivers of the Garden of Eden may be real rivers,--though the inadequacy
of the geography of Genesis is troublesome,--but the escape is always
at hand, for the four rivers are the signs of the four virtues,
Prudence, Temperance, Courage and Justice, flowing from the central
stream of the Divine Wisdom.[9] Reading such a passage one recalls
the jeers of Herodotus at the geographers who held to the Homeric
cosmography and especially the Ocean Stream encircling the world;[10]
but by no flight of imagination can one think of Herodotus solving his
difficulties by transmuting rivers into ideas. The divergence between
the paths of history and philosophy is fortunately thus sufficiently
dear at the start that we need not stray longer from the one before us.
* * * * *
Flavius Josephus stands out as the very opposite of Philo He was a
man-of-affairs, warrior, statesman and diplomatist. He was one of the
leaders of the great Jewish revolt, but made his peace with Vespasian
and became a favorite of the Flavian imperial family, from whom he took
his adopted name. After the destruction of Jerusalem he passed most
of his life at Rome, and there wrote in Greek[11] for the Greco-Roman
world, a history of _The Wars of the Jews_, and a long account of _The
Antiquities of the Jews_, as well as a defence of Jewish historical
sources and methods against the attacks of Greeks, especially one
Apion, in a treatise _Against Apion_.[12] In addition he wrote his own
biography, as a reply to attacks upon him by his own people. Thus the
man whom the Jews most hated as a betrayer of his country in his own
day became the defender of its past. But he has never been popular
among the Jews. His readers were mainly among the heathen and the
Christian. Among them his vogue was surprisingly large, considering his
theme. His works have survived as few from that age have, almost as
though he had been a Christian Father.
Josephus’ own life enters so much into his writings that it tends to
distract one from considering them on their own merits. He was born
37-38 A.D. of high-priestly stock, and studied for the priesthood.
He was a prominent young Pharisee when sent to Rome on a successful
mission to plead for some Jews in the year 63-64. Then he was drawn
into the Great Rebellion, becoming one of the leaders, but turned to
the Roman side after his capture, saving his life indeed by prophesying
that Vespasian would be emperor. The favor of the Flavians never failed
him after that, in spite of constant attacks upon him by the Jews. This
shifty--and thrifty--career is reflected in the first of his works, the
history of the Jewish War, which was written between 69 and 79 A.D., at
once a court history and an apology.
_The Wars of the Jews_ is an elaborate work in seven books, of
which the first two trace the history of the Jews from the capture
of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes to the war of 67 A.D. In this
portion he relies on some previous historians, such as Nicholas of
Damascus,[13] and does not venture far afield. The remaining books are
based on contemporary sources and personal knowledge, and should be
read along with his _Life_. He states that he submitted the history to
Titus, who indorsed it, as well he might, for Josephus absolves him
from blame for firing the Temple,[14] although Tacitus indicates that
he gave definite orders to do so; and in general charges the Zealots,
who were the misguided Jewish patriots, with the real responsibility
for the disaster to their nation. Providence is visibly on the side of
the great battalions.
The _Antiquities of the Jews_ is a much more ambitious work,[15] one
of the longest individual products in antique literature. In twenty
long books, Josephus traces, for those who are unfamiliar with the
Bible,--and the ignorance of the classical world about the Jews was
very great[16]--the story of the Jewish past. His chief source was the
Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Old Testament,[17] but in addition
he added from that store of tradition passed along among those learned
in the law. He also brings in profane testimony, using Herodotus, for
instance, for the story of Cyrus,[18] and many Roman sources for the
later part. He works these over, however, and fits them into his story
so that it is a work of textual criticism--into which we need not
enter--to trace the actual process of composition.
This brings us to consider his style. Like Polybius, he is conscious
of his weakness in art; but hopes to make up for it by the content.
He promises, in the preface to the _Wars_, to conceal nothing nor
add “anything to the known truth of things.”[19] “I have written it
down” he says, “for ... those that love truth, but not for those who
please themselves (with fictitious relations).”[20] “How good the style
is must be left to the determination of the readers; but as for the
agreement with the facts, I shall not scruple to say, and that boldly,
that truth hath been what I have alone aimed at throughout its entire
composition.”[21] In the face of such protestations one is reluctantly
obliged to come to the conclusion that Josephus was as disingenuous
about his style as about the substance,--which, we have just seen, was
badly twisted for his own defence. For he was a florid writer, trying
out successfully all the devices of the literary art of his day with
which he was familiar. He invents speeches for the biblical heroes, as
for those of later days;[22] he strives for effect by exaggeration,
using figures, as some one has said of a statesman of our own time,
like adjectives: the Jews killed at Jerusalem number 1,100,000,[23]
whereas Tacitus puts the total number of the besieged at the outside
figure of 600,000.[24] He elaborates on the statesmanship of Moses,[25]
until one feels that it is just a little overdone. Yet those of his own
day liked it, and that is its justification; so that even the little
self-apologetic touches, concerning his sad awkwardness in Greek, may
have added to the total effect,--especially as he deftly combines this
with an appeal to take him at his word in the subject-matter. Take for
instance these closing words of his great _Antiquities_:
“And I am so bold as to say, now I have so completely perfected the
work I proposed to myself to do, that no other person, whether he
were a Jew or a foreigner, had he ever so great an inclination to
it, could so accurately deliver these accounts to the Greeks as is
done in these books. For those of my own nation freely acknowledge,
that I far exceed them in the learning belonging to Jews; I have also
taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks,
and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have
so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot
pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not
encourage those that learn the languages of many nations, and so
adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because
they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to
all sorts of freemen, but to as many of the servants as please to
learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man, who
is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their
meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done
their endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there
have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded
therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains.”[26]
Josephus was relatively free from the impediments that blocked the path
of more religious natures to the consideration of mere matters-of-fact.
But there is a touch of the difficulty in his comment on Daniel which
is worth a passing attention. He says that Daniel “not only prophesied
of future events, as did the other prophets, but also determined the
time of their accomplishment.”[27] The problem was here presented of
working out the numbered years of the divine plan, which was to absorb
so much of the speculation of later ages and which projected chronology
into the future instead of establishing it in the past. Had Josephus
been a thinker rather than a student, he would have followed the lead
here given, into unhistorical grounds. Fortunately, he was a historian
instead of a philosopher.
There remains one work to consider, and that the most interesting
of all to the historian of History, the treatise _Against Apion_,
written to challenge the gentile historians for their failure to
appreciate the history of the Jews, and to justify its authenticity.
It is anticipating here to quote the criticism of Greek historiography
with which the treatise opens, and yet as it contains so much that is
still suggestive and sound, it may serve as a connecting link with the
next part of our story,[28] and as a discriminating survey of antique
historiography, in general, it justifies quotation at length:[29]
“I cannot but greatly wonder at those who think that we must attend
to none but Greeks as to the most ancient facts, and learn the truth
from them only, and that we are not to believe ourselves or other
men. For I am convinced that the very reverse is the case, if we
will not follow vain opinions, but extract the truth from the facts
themselves. For you will find that almost all which concerns the
Greeks happened not long ago, nay, one may say, is of yesterday
and the day before only; I speak of the building of their cities,
the inventions of their arts, and the recording of their laws; and
as for their care about compiling histories, it is very nearly the
last thing they set about. Indeed they admit themselves that it is
the Egyptians, the Chaldæans and the Phœnicians (for I will not now
include ourselves among those) that have preserved the memory of the
most ancient and lasting tradition. For all these nations inhabit
such countries as are least subject to destruction from the climate
and atmosphere, and they have also taken especial care to have
nothing forgotten of what was done among them, but their history was
esteemed sacred, and ever written in the public records by men of the
greatest wisdom. Whereas ten thousand destructions have afflicted
the country which the Greeks inhabit, and blotted out the memory
of former actions; so that, ever beginning a new way of living,
they supposed each of them that their mode of life originated with
themselves. It was also late, and with difficulty, that they came to
know the use of letters. For those who would trace their knowledge
of letters to the greatest antiquity, boast that they learned them
from the Phœnicians and from Cadmus. But nobody is able to produce
any writing preserved from that time, either in the temples or in any
other public monuments; and indeed the time when those lived who went
to the Trojan war so many years afterwards is in great doubt, and it
is a question whether the Greeks used letters at that time; and the
most prevailing opinion, and that nearest the truth, is, that they
were ignorant of the present way of using letters. Certainly there
is not any writing among them, which the Greeks agree to be genuine,
ancienter than Homer’s poems. And he plainly was later than the
siege of Troy: and they say that even he did not leave his poems in
writing, but that their memory was preserved in songs, and that they
were afterwards collected together, and that that is the reason why
such a number of variations are found in them. As for those who set
about writing histories among them, such I mean as Cadmus of Miletus,
and Acusilaus of Argos, and any others that may be mentioned after
him, they lived but a short time before the Persian expedition into
Greece. Moreover, as to those who first philosophized as to things
celestial and divine among the Greeks, as Pherecydes the Syrian, and
Pythagoras, and Thales, all with one consent agree, that they learned
what they knew from the Egyptians and Chaldæans, and wrote but
little. And these are the things which are supposed to be the oldest
of all among the Greeks, and they have much ado to believe that the
writings ascribed to those men are genuine.[30]
“How can it then be other than an absurd thing for the Greeks to be
so proud, as if they were the only people acquainted with antiquity,
the only people that have handed down the truth about those early
times in an accurate manner? Nay, who is there that cannot easily
gather from the Greek writers themselves, that they knew but little
on good foundation when they set about writing, but rather jotted
down their own conjectures as to facts? Accordingly they frequently
confute one another in their own books, and do not hesitate to give
us the most contradictory accounts of the same things. But I should
spend my time to little purpose, if I should teach the Greeks what
they know better than I already, what great discrepancy there is
between Hellanicus and Acusilaus as to their genealogies, in how
many cases Acusilaus corrects Hesiod, or how Ephorus demonstrates
Hellanicus to have told lies in most of his history; or how Timæus in
like manner contradicts Ephorus, and the succeeding writers Timæus,
and all writers Herodotus. Nor could Timæus agree with Antiochus and
Philistus and Callias about Sicilian history, any more than do the
several writers of the Atthidæ follow one another as to Athenian
affairs, nor do the historians that wrote on Argolic history coincide
about the affairs of the Argives. And now what need I say any more
about particular cities and smaller places, when in the most approved
writers of the expedition of the Persians, and of the actions done
in it, there are such great differences? Nay, Thucydides himself is
accused by some as often writing what is false, although he seems to
have given us the most accurate history of the affairs of his own
times.
“As for the causes of such great discrepancy, many others may perhaps
appear probable to those who wish to investigate the matter, but
I attach the greatest importance to two which I shall mention.
And first I shall mention what seems to me the principal cause,
namely, the fact that from the beginning the Greeks were careless
about public records of what was done on each occasion, and this
would naturally pave the way for error, and give those that wished
to write on old subjects opportunity for lying. For not only were
records neglected by the other Greeks, but even among the Athenians
themselves also, who pretend to be Autochthons, and to have applied
themselves to learning, there are no such records extant, but they
say the laws of Draco concerning murders, which are now extant in
writing, are the most ancient of their public records, yet Draco
lived only a little before the tyrant Pisistratus. For as to the
Arcadians, who make such boasts of their antiquity, why need I
mention them, since it was still later before they learned their
letters, and that with difficulty also?
“There must, therefore, naturally arise great differences among
writers, when no records existed, which might at once inform those
who desired to learn, and refute those that would tell lies. However,
we must assign a second cause, besides the former one, for these
discrepancies. Those who were the most zealous to write history
were not solicitous for the discovery of truth, although it is very
easy always to make such a profession, but they tried to display
their fine powers of writing, and in whatever manner of writing they
thought they were able to exceed others, to that did they apply
themselves. Some betook themselves to the writing of fabulous
narrations; some endeavoured to please cities or kings by writing in
their commendation; others fell to finding faults with transactions,
or with the writers of such transactions, and thought to make a
great figure by so doing. However, such do what is of all things
the most contrary to true history. For it is the characteristic of
true history, that all both speak and write the same about the same
things, whereas, these men, by writing differently about the same
things, thought they would be supposed to write with the greatest
regard to truth. We must indeed yield to the Greek writers as to
language and style of composition, but not as regards the truth of
ancient history, and least of all as to the national customs of
various countries.
“As to the care of writing down the records from the earliest
antiquity, that the priests were intrusted with that function, and
philosophized about it, among the Egyptians and Babylonians, and the
Chaldæans also among the Babylonians, and that the Phœenicians, who
especially mixed with the Greeks, made use of letters both for the
common affairs of life, and for handing down the history of public
transactions, I think I may omit any proof of this, because all men
allow it to be so. But I shall endeavour briefly to show that our
forefathers took the same care about writing their records (for I
will not say they took greater care than the others I spoke of) and
that they committed that office to their high priests and prophets,
and that these records have been written all along down to our own
times with the utmost accuracy, and that, if it be not too bold for
me to say so, our history will be so written hereafter.”
Josephus then goes on to argue the superiority of a people who have
“not ten thousand books disagreeing with and contradicting one another,
but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all time and
are justly believed to be divine.”[31] We cannot follow him further
in the argument, but must recall the value of the succeeding chapters
for more than Hebrew historiography, since embedded in them are the
selections from gentile writers, especially Manetho and Berossos, which
are our only source for them. The pamphlet is the learned work of a
clever man.
* * * * *
The last, and greatest, of the Jewish historians, Flavius Josephus,
recalls, strangely enough, the last and greatest of the historians
of Egypt and Babylonia-Assyria, Manetho and Berossos. Josephus too,
as a historian, was more a product of the Greco-Roman world than of
the direct antecedents of his own national culture. All three were
stimulated to write the history of their countries by the desire
to make it known to the Gentile. But Josephus goes beyond them in
achievement, and brings to mind still more the last of the great Greek
historians, Polybius,[32] whose life, indeed, was singularly like his
own. Both wrote their histories at Rome as high favorites of those who
had crushed out the last movement of freedom in their native lands; and
both profited from being on the defensive among an alien people, whom
they had to impress by sound method and weight of evidence. The result
was to make of the Greek and the Jew not only historians but historical
critics, and to that degree moderns among the ancients. We see again
here another illustration of the point we have touched upon before,
that it is not so much the long procession of the centuries which
produces the historian as the need to convince one’s contemporaries of
the truth of what one tells. The mere possession of a mighty past is of
less value than a critical audience.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Articles in the larger Encyclopædias (especially the _Jewish
Encyclopædia_) furnish the best introduction to a study of the
Talmud. A most useful manual is H. L. Strack’s _Einleitung in den
Talmud_ (4th ed., 1908) with bibliography. There is an English
translation of the Talmud by M. L. Rodkinson (20 vols., 1918) and a
comprehensive German translation by L. Goldschmidt, _Der babylonische
Talmud_ (8 vols., 1897-1917).
On this whole period of Jewish history, the classical work is E.
Schürer’s _Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi_
(3 vols. and index, 3d and 4th ed., 1901-1911; tr. 1897-1898). The
literature dealing with Philo is summarized in the notable article,
_Philo_, in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Those of his works of
interest to the student of history have been translated by C. D.
Yonge, in Bohn’s Ecclesiastical Library.
The works of Josephus are available in several editions. The Greek
text by B. Niese (7 vols., 1887-1895) remains standard, and the
Teubner edition is based on it. The full bibliography in Schürer is
still of value. The translation by W. Whiston, a classic in itself,
from the first part of the eighteenth century, has been reprinted
several times. It has been slightly revised by A. R. Shilleto
(1889-1890). A Latin text of the tract _Against Apion_ is available,
in _Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum_ (1898), Vol.
XXXVII, edited by K. Boysen.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As a good example of rabbinical interpretation on which such
conclusions rest, a rabbi of the third century A.D. takes Exodus
24^{12}: “I will give thee tables of stone, and the Law, and the
Commandment, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them,” and
elucidates the text as follows: “‘Tables,’ these are the ten words (the
Decalogue); the ‘Law’ is the Scripture; ‘and the commandment,’ that is
the Mishnah; ‘which I have written,’ these are the Prophets and the
Writings (the Hagiographa); ‘to teach them,’ that is the Gemara--_thus
instructing us all that these were given to Moses from Sinai_.” Quoted
in article _Talmud_ in _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Historical criticism
cannot flourish in such an atmosphere.
[2] This recognition of the lasting message of Jewish Theology is the
theme of many a recent study, since the critics have destroyed the
older basis of canonical authority. As an example may be cited W. F.
Badè, _The Old Testament in the Light of Today_.
[3] The chief name among modern scholars in this field is that of R.
H. Charles. His contributions need hardly be cited here, however; and
the student is referred to articles on _Apocrypha_, etc., in Bible
dictionaries and encyclopædias.
[4] This inability to distinguish between what things are and what one
wishes them to be is a characteristic of all immature or undisciplined
minds. It is a factor in current world-politics, to be borne in mind
in the entry of backward people into the society of nations. They can
readily use the same language of political institutions but the sense
of fact is not always the same.
[5] We know almost nothing of his life, beyond an incident or two.
He was born about the second decade before Christ and was in Rome in
40 A.D. on a mission for the Alexandrian Jews. His works, however,
have been preserved in surprisingly full form. See article _Philo_ in
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.
[6] There are almost no manuscripts of his works in mediæval
ecclesiastical libraries. _Cf._ M. R. James, _The Biblical Antiquities
of Philo_ (1917), Introduction. This is a pseudo-Philo summary of the
Pentateuch of the end of the first century A.D.
[7] Genesis 2^{1}.
[8] Philo Judæus, _The Allegories of the Sacred Laws_, Bk. I, Chaps.
I-II. (Translated by C. D. Yonge in Bohn’s Ecclesiastical Library.)
[9] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XIX. _Cf._ also _Questions and Solutions_,
Bk. I, Chap. XII.
[10] _Vide infra_, Chap. XIII.
[11] His early Aramaic account of _The Wars of the Jews_ is lost. He
tells us in the introduction that he translated it into Greek (Sect.
1), but the relation of this Aramaic version to the text we have is not
known.
[12] Apion was the leader of an Alexandrian mission opposing Philo. In
this incident therefore, we have a link between the philosopher and the
historian.
[13] Nicholas of Damascus was a Greek savant who became friend and
adviser to Herod the Great and who played a considerable part in the
diplomacy and politics of the Near East under Augustus. His historical
writings included a biography of Augustus of which but slight fragments
remain, and a _Universal History_ in one hundred forty-two books,
dealing with the Assyrians, Lydians, Greeks, Medes and Persians, and
concentrating upon the history of Herod and his own time. Josephus used
this latter part in detail, while criticising Nicholas for his highly
flattering and unreliable account of his patron’s reign. The fragments
of the _Universal History_ are preserved in C. Müller, _Fragmenta
Historicorum Græcorum_ (5 vols., 1841-1873), Vol. III, pp. 343-464;
Vol. IV, pp. 661-668, and in L. Dindorf, _Historici Græci Minores_ (2
vols., 1870-1871), Vol. I, pp. 1-153. _Cf._ E. Schürer, _Geschichte des
jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi_ (3 vols. and index, 3d and
4th ed., 1901-1911), Vol. I, pp. 50-57.
[14] _Cf._ Josephus, _The Wars of the Jews_, Bk. VI, Chap. VI, Sect.
2 (in _The Works of Flavius Josephus_, trans. by W. Whiston). _Cf._
Sulpicius Severus, _Chronica_, Bk. II, Chap. XXX; Orosius, _Historiarum
Adversum Paganos Libri Septem_, Bk. VII, Chap. IX.
[15] Note the opening words of the first chapter.
[16] _Vide_ T. Reinach, _Textes d’auteurs grecs et romains relatifs au
judaïsme_ (1895).
[17] It is doubtful if he knew Hebrew. _Cf._ B. Niese’s article
_Josephus_ in _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_ (edited by J.
Hastings, 1908-1919), Vol. VII.
[18] _Cf._ Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, Bk. XI, Chap. II.
[19] Josephus, _The Wars of the Jews_, Preface, Sect. 10.
[20] _Ibid._, Sect. 12.
[21] _Ibid._, Bk. VII, Chap. XI, Sect. 5.
[22] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XIX, Sect. 4; Josephus, _Antiquities of the
Jews_, Bk. II, Joseph’s speeches, etc.
[23] Josephus, _The Wars of the Jews_, Bk. VI, Chap. IX, Sect 3.
[24] Tacitus, _Historiae_, Bk. V, Chap. XIII.
[25] Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, Bks. II, III, IV.
[26] Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, Bk. XX, Chap. XI, Sect. 2.
(Whiston’s translation.)
[27] _Ibid._, Bk. X, Chap. XI, Sect. 7.
[28] This is a disadvantage due to the treatment of the different
national histories as entities rather than in a comparative,
chronological survey. But after all the antecedents of the Greco-Roman
writers were national.
[29] Josephus, _Against Apion_, Bk. I, Chaps. II-VI. (Whiston’s
translation, revised by A. R. Shilleto in Bohn’s Standard Library.)
[30] _Cf._ Josephus, _The Wars of the Jews_, Preface, Sect. 5.
[31] Josephus, _Against Apion_, Bk. I, Sect 8.
[32] _Vide_ Chap. XVI.
SECTION III
GREEK HISTORY
CHAPTER XII
FROM HOMER TO HERODOTUS
When we come to Greece we at once think of “Homer,” and recent
discoveries, which have remade our perspectives of Greek history,
but confirm the world-old impression. The archæologist has unearthed
Troys before Troy, but he has found no pre-Homeric Homer. Although
now the centuries stretch away beyond the days of Agamemnon in
long millenniums, and the ruined walls of Cnossus and Hissarlik
are marked with the flow and ebb of many wars and the movements of
dim, prehistoric peoples, no trace of Minoan epics has been found.
Delicately frescoed walls and masterpieces of the goldsmith’s art
remain to tell us of the splendor of the sea-lords of Crete or the
rich cattle-lords of the Argive plain, but the one great tale which
the Greeks preserved of that “Pelasgian” past was of its overthrow.
What they knew of the ancient civilization which preceded their own was
slight enough. In the Homeric poems there are lingering traces of the
splendor of Mycenæ and idyllic glimpses of the island-dwellers, but
the heroes are of a later day and a different race. And yet, slight
as they are, those traces are so true to what the spade reveals, that
some source must have kept alive the story from the great days of
Crete (Middle Minoan) to those of Homer.[1] Moreover, two of the most
scholarly researchers of Greece, still centuries later, Aristotle and
Ephorus, speak with such seeming confidence and reasonable accuracy of
the age of Minos, that one is forced to suppose that Minoan culture
left some genuine, historic documents. What they were no one knows. It
is the hope of historians that when Minoan script can be deciphered,
the tablets which have been found in the palace of Cnossus will prove
to contain, along with business records of the kings, some sort of
royal annal like those of Assyria and Babylonia. But so far “Homer”
remains, in spite of archæology, what it has been from long before
the days of Herodotus, the earliest account of the Greek past; and,
although we shall find the real origins of Greek history-writing rather
in a criticism of Homeric legends than in the legends themselves,
scholars are agreed today that in main outlines the Homeric epics
are based upon real events. The tale of the siege of Troy may be a
free treatment of diverse incidents from the story of the Hellenic
“migrations,” and the present text be but a local variation of rival
sagas which chance and Athenian culture secured for posterity, but in
the picture of society and in the very tangle of the story there is
much of genuine historical value. The _Iliad_ furnishes light upon
the finds of the archæologist as archæology throws light upon the
historicity of the _Iliad_.[2]
* * * * *
It is no part of a history of History to discuss the still unsolved
question, “Who wrote the Homeric poems?”[3] The personality of the
blind bard, that dim but pathetic figure, which all antiquity honored
as the supreme epic genius of Greece, has suffered from the attacks
of a century of criticism, but is apparently recovering once more
in a reaction against too sweeping skepticism.[4] It was in 1795
that Friedrich August Wolf (1759-1824) published his epoch-making
_Prolegomena ad Homerum_ in which the unity of the poems was attacked
and “Homer” was dethroned from his supreme position.[5] During the
nineteenth century the poems have been studied from every possible
angle, and as the study of comparative mythology and folk-lore
developed alongside the progress of philology, the tendency was to view
them more and more as folk-tales, welded into shape by various poets
and at different times. If a note of personal authorship seemed to
dominate, one might fall back upon the fact that these were the tales
of a folk so keenly individualistic that the quality of personality
could not fail but shine through the social expression. Indeed these
two elements, the individual and the general, give the poems their
double charm and have assured their preservation not only by the Greeks
but by those who learned Greek to know them. They carry with them
the vision of beauty and the living fire of genius and at the same
time take on that universal outlook and interest which mark out the
folk-tale from the individual creation. We have pointed out how records
engraved upon stone endure while traditions change; but here was a
tradition whose words themselves acquired immortality, engraved, not
simply in the memory, but in the whole intellectual life of a people.
The Homeric poems were to the Greeks--so far as history goes--almost
what the Old Testament was to the Jews. Their authority was fastened
upon the Greek mind down to the era of its full intellectual
development. The early Christian Fathers accepted them in this light,
devoting their energies merely to prove that the narrative of Moses was
prior to that of the Greeks.[6] It is a singular parallel that modern
scholarship developed the higher criticism of Homer and Moses side by
side,[7] and applying with impartial judgment the same tests to both,
has revealed in each case the same art of composite authorship and the
gradual formation of canon. Whether Pisistratus, who was credited with
having got the specialists in Homer together, in the sixth century, for
the preparation of an orthodox text, was really the Nehemiah of the
Greeks or not,[8] the great scholars at Alexandria seem to have been
finally responsible for the text as we have it. For not only are the
_Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ composite poems built out of materials of
various origins, but the poems which have survived are only parts of
wide cycles of the “Homeric” saga. Local poets adapted and continued
the poems to suit the audience. “Every self-respecting city sought to
connect itself through its ancient clans with the Homeric heroes.”[9]
It is no wonder that many cities claimed to be the birthplace of the
legendary poet; doubtless many were!
* * * * *
Alongside “Homer” stands “Hesiod,” somewhat as a Wordsworth would stand
alongside a mightier Scott. Hesiod comes but indirectly within our
survey, through the influence of his poems upon subsequent writers.
He is no minstrel with a tale, but a peasant moralizer with a gift
of homely wisdom and an interest in theology. His poems attempt no
sustained and glorious flight. His _Works and Days_ are the “works
and days” of a simple Bœotian farmer, interested in his crops, the
weather and the injustice of men. The _Theogony_, the opening chapter
of the Greek Genesis, tells the story of the birth of the gods and
their dealings with men. Neither would be mentioned in a history of
History on its own account were it not that in the _Works and Days_
one finds the first statement of that familiar scheme of the ages,
into the age of gold, of silver, of bronze and of iron,[10] which
has beguiled the fancy of so many a dreamer in later centuries,--in
that long “age of iron” in which all dreamers live; and that in the
_Theogony_ we are given a straightforward account of the myth basis
of the ancient Greek idea of the origins of society. Hesiod furnishes
us, therefore, in the one poem with a framework for the successive
epochs of social development, a scheme of world history, and in the
other a picture of those divine factors which account for the process
itself. In short, we have a philosophy of history,--unphilosophical and
unhistorical,--although in the Hellenic Genesis mankind loses the Eden
of the gods slowly and by the very character of successive cultures.
There is the germ of a gospel of Rousseau in the outlook of Hesiod.
* * * * *
But none of this is history, Homer no more than Hesiod. It is poetry,
romance, art, the creation of imagination, the idealization of both
realities and dreams. History began in another and more obscure
setting. Indeed, in a sense this poetic material blocked its path.
From the standpoint of science art overdid itself; the poems were
too well done. They prevented the Greeks from looking for any other
narrative,--for what could the past offer so satisfactory, so glorious
as the deeds of the saga which everybody knew and the golden age of
gods and men in which every one believed? So the past was clothed
with the colors of romance. It held something more than the good old
days. A magic of antique Arabian Nights lay beyond its misty boundary,
and the tales one told of it were for entertainment rather than
for instruction. The present was an age of iron--it always is; but
the gleam of the age of gold could still be caught--as it can even
today--when the memory was a poem. If the epics stimulated a sense of
the past they perverted it as well. The perspective of the early ages
of Hellas, as seen in them, stretched by real cities and dealt with
real heroes, but they included as well so much fantastic material that
the genuine exploits could not be distinguished from those invented to
suit the audience.
There is another way in which the poetry which was the glory of early
Greek literature seems to have hindered the development of history. It
placed the emphasis upon individuals. No epic can have as its subject
the origins of a civic constitution; it must deal with men, with life
and death and great exploits and the rapt tragedy of haunting fate.
History may include all this, but it is more. It deals with society as
such, with politics and the sober commonplace of business; it records
the changes in the administration of the city and the hardships of the
debtors in the days of rising prices as well as the raids of robber
cattle-lords. Now, whether it was owing to the epics or not, the Greeks
while keenly alert about the politics of the present, were, down to
the latter part of the sixth century and even later, satisfied with
what Homer had to tell them of their origin. This is long after they
had developed more than one complicated political structure. Highly
organized states, filled with a critical, inquisitive and sophisticated
citizenship, still accepted the naïve traditions of their past, and
continued building upon the general theme still newer myths to connect
themselves with the ancient heroes.
It is difficult to realize that no real history, in our sense of the
word, was produced in Greece until in the climax of its civilization.
The theme of the first prose-writers continued to be like that of
the poets, less politics than the story of heroes or noble clans.
Herodotus himself was the first political historian, the first to
deal in systematic form with the evolution of states and the affairs
of nations; and Herodotus, after all, came late. One forgets that the
naïve tales of the Father of History were composed far along in Grecian
history, in the age of Pericles and by the friend of Sophocles. Athens
had already achieved democracy, the creations of such men as Solon,
Cleisthenes or even Aristides were already things of the past, before a
political history was written.
It was not because the Greeks lacked curiosity as to their past, that
their performance in history-writing was so long delayed. The trouble
was that their curiosity was satisfied by something else than history.
What they needed to develop history and historians was criticism,
skeptical criticism, instead of blind acceptance of the old authority.
This criticism first showed itself in the cities of Ionia, and with
it came into existence not only history but that new intellectual
life, that _vita nuova_, which marks out the achievements of the
Hellenic genius from all the previous history of the human mind,--that
philosophy which was science, and that science which was art.
* * * * *
The scene of this renaissance was not Athens nor anywhere on the
mainland of Greece. Farther to the east, where the rocky coast of Asia
crumbles and plunges into the Ægean, lay the cities of the Ionian
Greeks. A little fringe of cities, a half-dozen or so, on hill-crest
or by the deep waters of half-hidden bays, these settlements played no
rôle in the political history of the world like the states of the Nile
or Euphrates valleys. They had no great career of conquest and erected
no empire. Few, even today, have ever heard of them. And yet the
history of civilization owes to them a debt hardly less than to Egypt
or Babylon. It was there that critical thought dawned for the western
world. In them began that bold and free spirit of investigation which
became the mark of the Hellenic mind.
They held the key between East and West. They had held it some
centuries before Darius found them in possession of it, insolently
tempting and then suffering his anger. Long before that fateful fifth
century when they were to serve as the medium to bring East and West
to war, they had been the agents of another kind of intercourse. For,
just behind, through the valley of the Meander and passing the mountain
fastnesses of Phrygia and Lydia, lay that overland caravan route
which stretched through Asia Minor by old Hittite towns to touch, at
Carchemish, the bazaars of Assyria. Along it moved the Oriental-Western
trade. By the southern coast they met Phœnician ships, bringing goods,
and perhaps an alphabet. Along the islands to the west and up the coast
to the Black Sea their own ships came and went, gathering in that
commerce which had brought wealth to Troy, and planting their colonies.
They were kin with the masters of Attica, and held an even larger share
than they of that still more ancient culture which flourished in Crete
and along the Ægean before the days of Homer and the steel swords of
the north. They were Greeks, sharing the common heritage. But it was
from the barbarians rather than from Hellas that the inspiration came
which set going the new scientific spirit. A knowledge of the world
outside brought out and fed the native thirst for more; and as the
diversities of civilization opened up before them, with possibilities
of comparison, such as Egyptians or Babylonians never enjoyed, they
grew more curious and more skeptical at the same time. They had
acquired an external point of view from which to judge of their own
traditions. The naïve primitive faith began to suffer from a growing
sophistication, and in this movement of intellectual clarification
there were some who attacked the Homeric tradition in somewhat the
same spirit as the philosophers of the eighteenth century attacked the
traditional theologies of Christendom. Before 500 B.C., Xenophanes,
the philosopher, denounced the myths of Homer and Hesiod, because such
miraculous occurrences are impossible in the face of the regularity of
the laws of nature. In such a setting was born “history.”[11]
The exact origins are confused and uncertain. As we have seen already,
the word “history” (ἱστορίη) as used by these Ionian Greeks would apply
rather to the investigations which characterized the whole intellectual
movement than to that one branch to which it was ultimately limited.
The “historian” was the truth-seeker. The word was already used in
this sense in the _Iliad_, where quarrelling parties in disputes at
law came shouting “Let us make Agamemnon, Atreus’ son, our arbitrator,
[our ‘histor’].”[12] Obviously, by the word “histor” Homer had in mind
the wise man who knows the tribal customs and can get at the rights
of the case. Such skilled “truth-seekers” are to be found in all
semi-barbarous peoples. The Roman _quæstor_--he who inquires--carried
the office over into the formal magistracy. But truth-seeking is not
confined to law-courts. One might “inquire” of oracles as well.[13]
It is noteworthy that a word with such possibilities, which in Israel
might have headed for religion and in Rome for law,[14] was in Greece
kept clear of even philosophy. In spite of the myths with which it
had so long to deal, the inquiry was in the world of living men; it
is a secular task, and a human one. There is in it, apparently from
the first, a sense of hard fact, which sooner or later was to get rid
of illusions. How it steered clear of philosophy is more difficult to
tell. It has been stated that “history” to the Ionians of the sixth
century was much what the Athenians of the fourth century termed
philosophy.[15] But the same matter-of-fact quality which swept it
far away from the idea of divine inspiration, also kept it from being
lost in abstraction. _Philosophia_--love of knowledge--might come to
mean speculations about speculations; but _historia_ continued at its
humbler, but more fundamental task of inquiring for the data. There is
already a hint of its scientific possibilities in the fact that when
Aristotle included in his philosophy an account of the actual, living
world, he gave to this part of his survey the title _Natural History_.
To Aristotle, however, the term still in the main carried with it the
connotation of “research.” It is only in the work of the last of the
great Greek historians, Polybius, that this meaning shifts definitely
from inquiry to narrative. To Polybius, intent as he was upon the
scientific aspect of his work, this gradual change in usage may have
passed unnoticed; but it is none the less significant of unscientific
possibilities. For if _historia_ escaped religion and metaphysics it
was captured by literature.
None of these distinctions, however, was possible in the Ionia of the
sixth century. The very breadth of the term prevented one thinking of
“historia” as mere history. Even Herodotus, although the usage was
narrowing in his time, could hardly have imagined himself the Father
of History in the later sense of the word. His “inquiry” was geography
as well; it included descriptions of physical features of countries
along with the occupations and achievements of their inhabitants. The
whole miscellaneous survey was his “history.” But the surprising thing
is that those sections which to us are the historical sections _par
excellence_, the narratives of happenings beyond the memory of his
own time or outside the possibility of his own inquiry, are called by
another name. There are several of these embedded in his vast mosaic,
large enough to be “histories” by themselves, the story of Crœsus and
Lydia, of Egypt, of Scythia or of Thrace; but these narratives of the
things really past are termed not “histories” but “sayings”--_logoi_.
This means that they are secondary sources, as it were, narratives of
other men, which he cannot verify by his own inquiry or “history.” It
means more, however. For _logos_ was already a technical term;[16] it
was what a man had to say,--his “story” in about the sense in which
the word is used by journalists today--a deliverance in prose. Hence
prose-writers in Ionia were termed _logographoi_, and it is under this
heading that one finds, in most histories of Greek literature, the
founders of history.[17]
The prose in history came by way of city chroniclers (ὥροι), who
were busied in the Ionian cities, as elsewhere, in carrying back the
story to Homer’s heroes and Hesiod’s gods.[18] Possibly because they
took material from temple and civic records,[19] they broke away from
verse and put their “sayings” into prose. This in itself was a real
liberation, but the results came slowly. The subject seems generally
to have been the genealogical story of noble clans,--a subject to try
the most scientific of tempers, especially if one’s livelihood depends
upon a successful artistic performance. Yet it was from among these
men that the critical impulse came. Among them arose some who grew
skeptical of the legends it was their business to relate and so became
“truth-seekers” through a widened inquiry for the data of the past.
At the head of the list of some thirty of these logographers whose
names, but not whose works, have come down to us, a Greek tradition
placed the “misty figure”[20] of Cadmus of Miletus. Whether the fabled
inventor of Greek letters was rather one of the real inventors of
Greek prose, the city whose origins he is said to have described[21]
produced soon after the middle of the sixth century a prose writer who,
both as narrator of the past of his own people and geographer of the
world at large, may be regarded as the direct forerunner of Herodotus.
Hecatæus of Miletus is the first “historian,” whose works--even in
fragments--have come down to us, the first of whom we have any real
knowledge of the line of those who criticised their sources and so
devoted themselves to that “search for truth” which was to be the
mark of the historian’s profession.[22] But it must be admitted that
his claim to this distinction rests rather upon a single phrase--the
opening words of his _Genealogies_--than upon the substance of the
passages which have been preserved. His life was passed in that age
when the great conflict between East and West began, and his home was
the city which, perhaps more than any other, forced it on. The two
eras, therefore, which met in that rapid epoch, are reflected in his
works. Two alone are attributed to him, an account of his _Travels
around the World_,[23] and a book of local _Genealogies_, the one
a description of the Persian world by a much-travelled subject of
the great king, the other a story of his city’s heroes by a patriot
Greek. Of the two, the book of travels would seem--and did seem to the
Greeks--to be the more important. It revealed the modern world to those
who were to take over its heritage. But it is the other book which
mainly concerns us here. There was in it the promise of something which
makes it, in spite of its obscure and relatively trifling subject, one
of the epoch-making contributions in the long story of our intellectual
emancipation. It applied the new-won knowledge to criticise the ancient
myths. Its opening words seem to mark the dawn of a new era: “Hecatæus
of Miletus thus speaks: I write what I deem true; for the stories of
the Greeks are manifold and seem to me ridiculous.” Ringing words,
that sound like a sentence from Voltaire. Unfortunately, as has been
indicated above, the few fragments in our possession hardly lead one
to suppose that the actual achievement of Hecatæus measures up to his
ideals. We know that he did not, like Xenophanes, the philosopher, deny
the myths in the Homeric legend on the basis of _a priori_ scientific
impossibility; his criticism was the product of a comparative study
of mythology and history, rather than an application of Ionian
philosophy. It was as a geographer that he brought the comparative
method to correct the pseudo-historical. The open world he travelled
was responsible for the open mind.
Strangely enough, Herodotus records, in a notable passage, an incident
in the life of Hecatæus which must have contributed largely to produce
this first emphatic criticism of historical sources. It is not too long
to quote:
“When Hecatæus, the historian, was at Thebes, and, discoursing of his
genealogy, traced his descent to a god in the person of his sixteenth
ancestor, the priests of Jupiter did to him exactly as they afterwards
did to me, though I made no boast of my family. They led me into the
inner sanctuary, which is a spacious chamber, and showed me a multitude
of colossal statues, in wood, which they counted up and found to
amount to the exact number they had said; the custom being for every
high-priest during his lifetime to set up his statue in the temple.
As they showed me the figures and reckoned them up, they assured me
that each was the son of the one preceding him; and this they repeated
throughout the whole line, beginning with the representation of the
priest last deceased, and continuing until they had completed the
series. When Hecatæus, in giving his genealogy, mentioned a god as his
sixteenth ancestor the priests opposed their genealogy to his, going
through this list, and refusing to allow that any man was ever born of
a god. Their colossal figures were each, they said, a Pirômis, born of
a Pirômis, and the number of them was three hundred and forty-five;
through the whole series, Pirômis followed Pirômis, and the line
did not run up either to a god or a hero. The word _Pirômis_ may be
rendered ‘gentleman.’”[24]
One must recall the situation. Egypt had been thrown open by Cambyses,
and had now become the university of the Mediterranean world. How much
it had to teach the inquisitive Greeks, as well as the Asiatics, we
are only today discovering; but the eager narrative of Herodotus shows
how many such interviews as those at Thebes the priests of Egypt had
been granting to the half-barbarian Hellenes. Hecatæus had gone there
believing in his own traditions, “boasting” of them, as Herodotus
implies. The splendors of the river valley from Sais to Thebes--six
hundred miles of a museum street--had hardly broken the crust of his
Greek provincialism. He could at least offer a rival to Egyptian
antiquity in the imaginative conceptions of the Olympian sages. Then
came the impressive spectacle of centuries of a human past made visible
and real and stretching out before his eyes; and it cast ridicule
upon the slight and relatively insignificant Hellenic past. Evidently
Hecatæus had described his own confusion or Herodotus would not have
referred to it in this off-hand way. If so, the incident may well have
stood out in his own mind as an experience of decisive importance in
the moulding of his point of view. We might not be far wrong, then,
if we were to date--so far as such things can be dated--the decisive
awakening of that critical, scientific temper, which was to produce the
new science of history, from the interview in the dark temple-chamber
of the priests of Thebes. Yet we must not forget that it was the Greek
visitor and not the learned Egyptian priests who applied the lesson.
How much the skepticism of thinkers at home had already predisposed
Hecatæus to critical attitude we cannot tell. But then we need not try
to “explain” the mind of one of whom we know little more than what is
given here; especially since, even in that little, we see that Hecatæus
had a mind of his own.
Hecatæus is the only one of the logographers to whom Herodotus pays
the tribute of naming as a source. Modern scholarship has interested
itself in attempting to estimate how much the Father of History
actually was indebted to his pioneering predecessor, but the problem
belongs rather to the criticism of Herodotus than to that of Hecatæus
and is too detailed for such a survey as this. The general conclusion
is that Herodotus was even more in debt than he admitted, and that the
earlier traveller not only supplied his successor with notes for his
history but a guide for his actual travels as well. If this be so, it
is all the more remarkable how Herodotus takes particular pains to
discredit and ridicule Hecatæus. He repeatedly expresses his scorn of
the geographers who adhere to the old Homeric cosmography and believe
in the existence of an “Ocean stream” that bounds the world.[25]
This attitude of critical superiority is not due to the possession by
the critic of any superior technique in research, since he himself
could make as grotesque concessions to myth, as, for example, in the
accounts of the phœnix and hippopotamus,--the latter having, according
to Herodotus,[26] cloven hoof, and horse’s mane and tail. It was not in
the description of such detail that Herodotus could deny the merit of
Hecatæus’ achievement, so much as in the faulty generalizations which
tradition had fastened upon Hecatæus--that Homeric map of the world
which prevented one from ever forming a correct impression of geography
as a whole. Hecatæus had been a great traveller and, we suppose,
a shrewd observer, but he was unable to allow the body of fact he
gathered to overthrow the preconceived ideas of the world. Herodotus,
with much the same technique but greater mastery, could appreciate,
as his predecessor failed to do, that where the body of facts runs
contrary to theory, the theory must go, even if it have the weight of
universal acceptance. Thus, from Hecatæus to Herodotus one passes a
further step toward the science of history. Hecatæus after all was only
a logographer, Herodotus a historian.
It is impossible to go into detail upon the work of these logographers.
The writing of prose narrative is no improvement upon verse unless the
author avails himself of its freedom to be more exacting in what he
says, and, to judge from the scornful comment of Thucydides,[27] the
chroniclers were little better historians than the poets who preceded
them. But Thucydides’ impatience may not be altogether justified
historically. However monastic and prosy these prose-writers became,
they should hardly be blamed for their failure to evolve an adequate
chronology, especially by the author of the _Peloponnesian War_, who
is himself so careless of the calendar. And, however uncritical they
remain, it was something to hand down the documents and stories
of the past much as they found them.[28] One must recall the whole
situation,--the vague chronology, the involved calendar, the unreliable
genealogies, the comparative absence of even bad material concerning
the past,--in order to do justice to these blundering logographers.
How little advance was made, however, can be seen from the work of one
of the greatest of the older contemporaries of Herodotus, Hellanicus
of Lesbos. As a scholar he ranked high. He used materials not simply
from Greece, but from Asia as well, to straighten out chronology by
a comparative survey. Then he consulted the lists of the archons of
Athens and of the priestesses of Hera at Argos--the great shrine of
Hera in Greece[29]--as basis for a chronicle of Attica from 683-2
to 404 B.C. But after all his labor, this pagan Eusebius retained
a genuinely mediæval mind. He reckoned, as did Herodotus and every
one else, in terms of generations; but as these might have a 33-year
unit, or a 23-year or 40-year unit, the result is most unsatisfactory.
Moreover, Hellanicus twisted his figures as well, and in order to make
out that the first mythical king of Athens, Ogygos, was as old as the
founder of Argos, Phoroneus, he interpolated five kings in the lists
of Athens![30] It is small wonder that when Thucydides came to sketch
the period of history between the Persian war, where Herodotus left
off, and the Peloponnesian war, where his own work began, he scornfully
rejected the account of Hellanicus, although it was the only one in
existence, and rewrote the narrative himself.[31]
Such works, which had now left poetry so far behind as to be not
merely prose but prosy, were those upon which the Greeks of the great
age of Athens rested their ideas of chronology. In the absence of
adequate records, history was, even in Hellas, hardly rising above
the level of mediæval annals. It was reserved for a Herodotus of
Halicarnassus to combine geography and history-narrative with criticism
and literature, and so to win for history for all time a distinct place
in the arts and sciences of mankind.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
On the subjects treated generally in this chapter the standard
histories of Greek literature offer many suggestions which could
not be elaborated in this short survey. To avoid repetition such
references have been grouped at the end of the next chapter. On the
Homeric question the student is referred to G. W. Botsford and E. G.
Sihler’s _Hellenic Civilization_ (1915), in this series.
In connection with this and the following chapters on Greek and
Roman history, the student is reminded of the excellent guides to
be found in the more recent and elaborate classical dictionaries
and encyclopædias. The introductory manual on Greek antiquities by
L. Whibley, _A Companion to Greek Studies_ (3d ed., 1916), contains
a short review of historical literature. The student of Latin
antiquities will find a good starting point in J. E. Sandys, _A
Companion to Latin Studies_ (2d ed., 1913), with a fair comment on
historians.
For bibliographical apparatus the advanced student is referred
to the _Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft_ where exhaustive surveys of pertinent recent
literature, covering both Greek and Latin literatures, may be found.
A few references to such bibliographies have been made in some of the
following chapters, but there is no attempt to supply full lists of
titles. That would more properly belong to the companion volume of
texts, if it should ever be completed.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Archæology is steadily, if slowly, bridging the gulf from the
“historic” to the prehistoric periods. See Arthur Evans’ survey of
progress: _The Minoan and Mycenæan Element in Hellenic Life_ in _The
Journal of Hellenic Studies_, Vol. XXXII (1912), pp. 277 _sqq._
[2] On these questions see G. W. Botsford and E. G. Sihler, _Hellenic
Civilization_ (1915), in this series.
[3] This problem has often received undue emphasis in the field of
historiography. It does not properly belong there, since history began
less in the epic than in criticism of the epic. The influence of Homer
upon Greek ideas and thought is naturally of supreme interest to
historians, but that does not make the _Odyssey_ or the _Iliad_ history.
[4] _Cf._ G. W. Botsford and E. G. Sihler, _Hellenic Civilization_,
Chap. I, Sect. 3. Botsford sums up his position as follows: “We may
suppose that songs and perhaps other literature descriptive of the
splendors of Minoan life passed down into the Middle Age, which
followed the Minoan period, and into the language of the Hellenes, and
that Hellenic bards on the Greek mainland and in the colonies continued
to sing the glories of gods and heroes, intermingling their own customs
and ideas with traditions. The greatest of these bards was Homer,
who lived in Asia Minor, perhaps in the ninth or eighth century. He
incorporated nothing, but created his great poems afresh, making use,
however, of much traditional matter. The _Odyssey_ was composed after
the _Iliad_; yet both may have been the product of one genius. After
their completion by Homer the poems were to some extent interpolated.”
[5] On Wolf, see especially S. Reiter in _Neue Jahrbücher für das
klassische Altertum_, Vol. XIII (1904), pp. 89 _sqq._
[6] Not the least interesting passages bearing upon this authority of
Homer are the sections of Justin Martyr’s _Appeal to the Greeks_ (_Ad
Græcos Cohortatio_), in which he places Homer alongside Plato as the
two main sources of pagan theology. Justin ingeniously proves, with
the display of considerable learning, that Homer as well as Plato
borrowed the better side of the Greek system from Moses. This line of
argument was followed by many a Christian Father and ultimately worked
into systematic shape, as in Eusebius’ chronicle (_Chronicorum Liber
Primus_).
[7] Especially through the influence of F. A. Wolf upon Germany’s
scholarship at the end of the eighteenth century.
[8] Gilbert Murray doubts it. See his short but suggestive survey
of the growth of the Homeric canon in his _History of Ancient Greek
Literature_, pp. 10 _sqq._
[9] J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek Historians_ (1909), p. 2.
[10] With a Homeric age thrown in between bronze and iron.
[11] _Cf._ D. G. Hogarth, _Ionia and the East_ (1909); J. B. Bury, _The
Ancient Greek Historians_, p. 10.
Since this paragraph was written (some years ago), a very similar
treatment has appeared in F. S. Marvin’s _Living Past_ (1913).
[12] _Iliad_, Bk. XXIII, l. 486. _Cf._ Bk. XVIII, l. 501 for similar
use.
[13] _Cf._ Euripides, _Ion_, l. 1547. A collection of them was kept for
reference in the Acropolis at Athens. _Cf._ _The History of Herodotus_,
Bk. V, Chap. XC.
[14] _Cf._ the opening phrase of Justinian’s _Institutes_, “Law is ...
the knowledge of things human and divine.”
[15] _Cf._ G. Murray, _A History of Ancient Greek Literature_, p. 123.
[16] The Latin _sermo_ (our sermon) has had a somewhat similar history.
[17] Herodotus refers to Hecatæus as “the maker of prose,” λογοποιός.
Thucydides includes Herodotus among the λογογράφοι. The use of the
term by modern writers to apply to these early historians dates from
F. Creuzer’s _Die historische Kunst der Griechen_ ... (1803, 2d ed.,
1845). On the subject in general, see W. v. Christ, _Geschichte der
griechischen Litteratur_ (2 vols., 5th and 6th ed., 1908-1913), (6th
ed.), Vol. I, pp. 449 _sqq._; A. and M. Croiset, _Histoire de la
littérature grecque_ (5 vols., 2d ed., 1896-1899; 3d ed., Vols. I-III,
1910-1914), (2d ed.), Vol. II, pp. 544 _sqq._; G. Murray, _A History
of Ancient Greek Literature_, p. 124; J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek
Historians_, Lect. 1.
[18] _Cf._ M. Vogt, _Die griechischen Lokalhistoriker_, in _Neue
Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, Sup. Vol. XXVII (1901), pp.
699-786.
[19] Such documents and inscriptions as were sure to be found in the
important shrines and in the public offices.
[20] J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek Historians_, pp. 14-15. There is a
good short summary here of the Cadmus problem.
[21] _The Foundations of Miletus._
[22] On Hecatæus see E. H. Bunbury, _A History of Ancient Geography
among the Greeks and the Romans_ (2 vols., 2d ed., 1883), Vol. I; H.
Berger, _Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen_
(1903); W. v. Christ, _Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur_
(6th ed.), Vol. I, pp. 451 _sqq._; R. H. Klausen, _Hecatæi Milesii
Fragmenta_ (1831); E. Meyer, _Forschungen zur alten Geschichte_ (2
vols., 1892-1899), sections on _Herodotus_, _passim_; C. Müller,
_Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_.
[23] Γῆς περίοδος in two books, one on Europe, and the other on Asia.
On one aspect of this, with good bibliography, see B. Schulze, _De
Hecatæi Milesii Fragmentis quæ ad Italiam Meridionalem Spectant_ (1912).
[24] _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. II, Chap. CXLIII. (Rawlinson’s
translation, 2d ed.)
[25] _Cf._ _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. II, Chaps. XXI, XXIII; Bk.
IV, Chap. XXXVI, etc.
[26] According to Porphyry (in Eusebius’ _Praeparatio Evangelica_, Bk.
X, Chap. III) the accounts in Herodotus, _History_, Bk. II, Chaps.
LXXI, LXXIII, were taken literally from Hecatæus. _Cf._ C. Müller,
_Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_, Vol. I, p. 21, who attributes the
last part of the phœnix story to Hecatæus. It is more charitable to
discredit Porphyry as G. Rawlinson does (_The History of Herodotus_, 4
vols., 1858-1860; 2d ed., 1862; 3d ed., 1876; 2d ed., Vol. I, p. 40).
The description of the hippopotamus was evidently imagined (by some
one) from its name.
[27] _Cf._ Thucydides [_History of the Peloponnesian War_], Bk. I,
Chap. XXI.
[28] Dionysius of Halicarnassus says (_De Thucydidis Historiis
Judicium_, Chap. V) that they did not add or subtract anything. But
this hardly conveys the right impression. They were jejune but not
necessarily copyists.
[29] _Cf._ C. Waldstein, _The Argive Heræum_ (2 vols., 1902-1905), Vol.
I, p. 4.
[30] _Cf._ E. Meyer, _Forschungen zur alten Geschichte_, Vol. I, pp.
176 _sqq._; H. Kullmer, _Die Historiai des Hellanikos von Lesbos_, in
_Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, Sup. Vol. XXVII (1901), pp.
455-698; J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek Historians_, pp. 27-35.
[31] _Cf._ Thucydides [_History of the Peloponnesian War_], Bk. I,
Chaps. LXXXIX to CXVIII, and especially the passage in Chapter XCVII:
“I have gone out of my way to speak of this period because the writers
who have preceded me treat either of Hellenic affairs previous to the
Persian invasion or of that invasion itself; the intervening portion
of history has been omitted by all of them, with the exception of
Hellanicus; and he, where he has touched upon it in his Attic history,
is very brief and inaccurate in his chronology.” (Jowett’s translation.)
CHAPTER XIII
HERODOTUS
The life of Herodotus coincided almost exactly with the years of
the Athenian supremacy, those sixty years or so which lay between
the battle of Salamis and the beginning of the end of things in the
Peloponnesian war. He was born about 480 B.C., and died after 430
B.C. Practically nothing is known of his life except what can be
deduced from his own history. His native city was Halicarnassus, a
Dorian settlement on the seacoast of Asia Minor, where, however,
inscriptional remains indicate that the Ionic dialect was in use.[1] He
had thus accessible for his history the tongue which had already been
consecrated to prose literature. But while he wrote their language,
he could not rid himself of a strong native prejudice against the
Ionians. They are practically the only people in his whole narrative
to whom he is almost consistently unfair. They “have built their
cities in a region where the air and climate are the most beautiful in
the whole world; for no other region is equally blessed with Ionia,
neither above it nor below it, nor east nor west of it.”[2] Yet, “of
all its [Greek] tribes the Ionic was by far the feeblest and least
esteemed, not possessing a single State of any mark excepting Athens.
The Athenians and most of the other Ionic States over the world went so
far in their dislike of the name as actually to lay it aside; and even
at the present day the greater number of them seem to me to be ashamed
of it.”[3] Thus he brings his neighbors into the story, borrowing
their tongue to do it! And once in it, they fare no better. His jibes
sometimes became a sneer, deftly driven home by the rhetorical device
of having some one else--a Scythian for instance--say “by way of
reproach” that the Ionians “are the basest and most dastardly of all
mankind ... but the faithfullest of slaves.”[4] There is a touch, a
shadow, of something Dantesque in this strength of local antipathy,
quite out of keeping with the breadth of sympathy and interest he shows
elsewhere. The much-travelled Greek never entirely lost the narrow
partisanship of his home town. To be sure, as commentators have pointed
out, such anti-Ionian sentiments were popular at Athens,[5] which was
having its troubles keeping the Ionians in subjection, in the days when
Herodotus sought its hospitality; but, although the applause of his
audience[6] may have led him to polish his darts, he flicked them of
his own accord. The Halicarnassus of his boyhood seems to have left its
traces in his outlook, whatever else it supplied.[7]
It is unfortunate to have to touch first upon this evidence of
smallness in Herodotus, for the work as a whole is marked by a breadth
of view in keeping with its breadth of knowledge. Indeed it is doubtful
if the wide scope of its information did not depend upon the open mind
with which the author-voyager travelled the world, that frank desire to
see things as they are, which, when disciplined, leads toward science.
Just what disciplines directed the native curiosity of Herodotus no
one knows, but they must have been considerable.[8] His work reveals
a wide and intimate knowledge of the poetry of Hellas, especially
Homer;[9] and he had readily at hand his predecessors in the new art of
prose-writing, especially Hecatæus, to cite or refer to on occasion.
His education, therefore, must have been almost as extensive as his
travels, covering practically the known world. Only a well-born and
well-to-do young man could equip himself as he did for his life-task.
Such a one could hardly keep out of politics in a Greek city, and his
travels may have been partly due to exile. But of this he gives no
glimpse himself, and the story of participation in a Halicarnassan
revolution, and subsequent withdrawal to Ionian Samos, rests only on
a late source.[10] Practically all we know for certain is that about
447 B.C., near the age of forty, he went to Athens to reside, and to
form part of that most brilliant circle of men of genius which the
world has ever seen, at the “court” of Pericles; that he left Athens
four years later (443) to become a citizen of the Athenian colony of
Thurii in Italy, where he died, apparently shortly after 430 B.C. Into
this framework were fitted many travels and the arduous labor of a
great composition. Just how they fitted, careful study of the text can
largely show, but such intensive criticism is no part of this survey.
The striking thing is the extent of the travels, from upper Egypt in
the south, to “Scythia” in the far north, from Magna Græcia in the
western Mediterranean to Babylon in the Orient, and almost all the
world between; the dates matter less.
Turning from the biography of Herodotus to his history is like turning
from a single article in an encyclopædia to the encyclopædia as a
whole. The first thing that strikes one on opening it, is its vastness,
its intricacy, the wealth of its information. Such a work is too
large, in every sense of the word, to be compressed within the few
pages of this outline. With it before us, we have at last entered upon
the broad lines of the genuine history of History, and we may stand
aside, as it were, to let the Herodotean achievement speak for itself.
The usefulness of a guide depends not less upon maintaining discreet
silences in the presence of monuments universally known, than in
bringing the traveller face to face with them. Such comments as follow,
therefore, are not intended as contributions to scholarship, but as
suggestions, mostly familiar to students, for reading the text itself
in the light of this study as a whole, not leaving it either entirely
unexplained nor yet permitting it to be entirely submerged beneath the
rising tide of expert criticism.
The first impression of the _History_ is one of relative formlessness;
the rambling story of a good raconteur. The opening sections carry
back the conflict between East and West to the dawn, of history, or
rather beyond it, to the rape of Helen by the Asiatics and of Europa
and Medea by the Greeks, with all their consequences. The stage is
thus set for the drama, and were Herodotus a dramatist, he would have
at once brought on the main actors and reduced the outlying portions
of his subject to mere incidents, as Thucydides did. But Herodotus was
not a dramatist. Although, influenced perhaps by Æschylus, he depicted
the overthrow of the Persians as the result of divine judgment, and
so secured for his work an underlying dramatic unity, he handled his
material like a romancer, with careless art passing from story to
story and land to land. One subject seems to suggest another, and with
hardly a casual “that reminds me” the story-teller seems to plunge
into each new narrative, rich with description of unknown lands and
the fabulous tales of distant centuries. The mention of the attack of
Crœsus, King of Lydia, upon the Greek cities of Asia Minor leads to a
general survey of the history of Lydia and of its Greek neighbors. The
conquest of Crœsus by Cyrus, which follows, opens up the great Persian
Empire, and we pass to Egypt, Babylon and Scythia in a rambling survey
of that great “barbarian” world. Then the narrative settles down to
the struggle between Persians and Greeks. Passages dealing with the
Greeks in the earlier portion are now linked up with the revolt of the
Ionian cities against Darius, and by way of the anger of the great king
we are led to Marathon, and then to Salamis and more recent times. As
we approach this central theme, the digressions drop away, the style
becomes more direct, and the author marshals his motley array of
materials somewhat as Xerxes did his army when it passed before him in
that vast, bewildering review.
Such is the first impression one receives of the work as a whole,
but closer reading shows that it is by no means so loosely knit as
it appears. On the contrary, it bears evidence of careful editing,
and fits with little strain into a general architectural plan, which
modern scholars have had little difficulty in agreeing upon. Although
the division of the work into nine books seems clearly to have been
done by a later hand, probably, as indicated above,[11] to meet the
exigencies of the libraries where scholars of the Hellenistic period
consulted it, yet the editor did his work so well that no one has
attempted to improve upon it. But the assignment of the text to these
accepted “books” has not prevented modern scholars from attempting
to find “broader, more fundamental and primary” divisions.[12] The
conclusions of the greatest textual critic of today, based on a most
elaborate analysis and reduced to simple statement by the historian of
Greek historians are as follows:[13]
“The work falls naturally into three sections, each consisting of three
parts. The first section, or triad of Books, comprises the reigns of
Cyrus and Cambyses, and the accession of Darius; the second deals
with the reign of Darius; the third with that of Xerxes. The first is
mainly concerned with Asia including Egypt; the second with Europe;
the third with Hellas. The first displays the rise and the triumphs of
the power of Persia; the last relates the defeat of Persia by Greece;
while the middle triad represents a chequered picture, Persian failure
in Scythia and at Marathon, Greek failure in Ionia. And each of the
nine subdivisions has a leading theme which constitutes a minor unity.
Cyrus is the theme of the first Book, Egypt of the second, Scythia of
the fourth, the Ionian rebellion of the fifth, Marathon of the sixth.
The seventh describes the invasion of Xerxes up to his success at
Thermopylæ; the eighth relates to the reversal of fortune at Salamis;
the final triumphs of Greece at Platæa and Mycale occupy the ninth.
In the third alone the unity is less marked; yet there is a central
interest in the dynastic revolution which set Darius on the throne.
Thus the unity of the whole composition sharply displays itself in
three parts, of which each again is threefold.[14] The simplicity
with which this architectural symmetry has been managed, without any
apparent violence, constraint, or formality, was an achievement of
consummate craft.”
It may be wrong, but as one turns from this schematic arrangement to
the narrative itself, an unbidden doubt arises to question if the
“architectural unity” of the great work is quite as simple as the
analysis seems to imply. As Macan himself confesses,[15] the fourth
book is like the first three in the quality which links them all, that
encyclopædic survey by way of vast digressions, which carries the
narrative far away from the central theme. The fourth book swings off
to the outer confines of the barbarian world, and matches with its
brilliant sketches of Scythia and Libya the wonderful second book on
Egypt. We leave Darius by Bosphorus or Danube to study the climate,
fauna and flora of the cold northern plains, wander like the Greek
traders (whose accounts are woven into the texture of the history)
along far rivers through unknown peoples, trace the amber trail to
dimmer distances, and, almost incidentally, note the habits and customs
of men, until the Scythian _logos_ becomes a priceless treasure of
anthropological lore. This is surely in the style of the first three
books.
The change from the far-reaching discursive style to the narrower
treatment of events in the later books is a gradual one; for there are
digressions right up to the battle of Thermopylæ, but as the Greeks
themselves come more and more into the story there is naturally less
description and more straight narrative. There was no need to describe
the Greeks to themselves, except as the facts were not well known at
Athens. The turning point in the history, therefore, inasmuch as one
can detect it, seems to be when Athens itself is brought upon the
scene, the Athens they all knew. This comes in the fifth book, when,
through the great Athenian revolution, we are brought out of the
“old régime” to the modern days of the new democracy. All before was
ancient history; the overthrow of the tyrants marked, fittingly, the
coming of modern times, and from now on Herodotus could be a modern
historian. It is hard at this distance to recover the perspectives of
the fifth century B.C., and to realize that the Athens and Sparta which
had figured in the earlier books were already, to the listeners of
Herodotus, about as far away in time as the kingdom of Lydia in space.
It takes but a short time for unhistorical peoples to lose their sense
of the reality of events; and Solon and Crœsus were both alike, the
half-historical, half-mythical figures of a bygone era. With Miltiades
and Darius the case was different. Though they too already were passing
into the heroic past, men who had fought Darius were still alive, and
these old veterans sprinkled in the audience would hardly encourage
that discursive anecdotal type of narrative which was suitable for the
ancient history and for the geography of the earlier part.
The fifth book, therefore, in which the “revolution” is described, may
be regarded as furnishing the transition from the “ancient” to the
“modern” history of Herodotus. The point is rather obscured by the
persistence of downright mediæval conditions at Sparta, which had yet
to be described,[16] and, although recent, seem to be on a par with
the remoter days of the tyranny at Athens. But everything is shaping
up for the dramatic act with which the book closes, the Ionian revolt,
which brought the Great War to Greece, henceforth the one dominant
theme of the history. The new keynote is struck by the comment with
which Herodotus closes the account of the Athenian revolution: “And it
is plain enough, not from this instance only, but from many everywhere,
that freedom is an excellent thing, since even the Athenians, who,
while they continued under the rule of tyrants, were not a whit more
valiant than any of their neighbours, no sooner shook off the yoke than
they became decidedly the first of all. These things show that, while
undergoing oppression, they let themselves be beaten, since then they
worked for a master; but so soon as they got their freedom, each man
was eager to do the best he could for himself. So fared it now with
the Athenians.”[17] The path from this to Salamis was thus definitely
entered upon, but it was still a long one with many turnings.
Whichever way one views the “architectural plan” of Herodotus’ history,
whether as a tri-partite grouping or a less formal but more intrinsic
unity, the plan was apparently not thought out beforehand, but grew
with the history itself. For internal evidence shows that the first
books to be written were the last three, and they were apparently
already largely written by the time he went to Athens.[18] His
travels,--that is, the real expeditions to the outlying world,--came
later. It was a triumph of art to master the bewildering miscellany
which these later years revealed and weave it into a single texture,
so that the original story of Xerxes’ invasion, with which he came to
Athens, was left after all as the fitting climax to the whole.
If the simplicity and perfection of plan were a product of art and
not, as might seem, the result produced by the very nature of the
circumstances recorded, the same is true of the style. The very
artlessness of Herodotus is artful. He is garrulous to a point and
sophistically ingenuous. When unable either to confirm or deny the
truth of what he tells, he brings his sources frankly into the
narrative and leaves them there. Sometimes, often in fact, he seems
to apologize for them, as in a passage in the seventh book, where he
says, “My duty is to report all that is said; but I am not obliged to
believe it all alike--a remark which may be understood to apply to my
whole History.”[19] So he lets his characters talk; and how they talk!
Often he seems to stand by and chuckle. Once in a while he interjects
a dry remark,--as, when reporting a story that a certain Scyllias swam
several miles under water, he adds, “My own opinion is that ... he made
the passage ... in a boat”![20] Similarly, he often escapes committing
himself, as on the question of the sources of the Nile, with regard to
which he had found no one among all those with whom he conversed who
professed to have any knowledge except a single person. “He was the
scribe who kept the register of the sacred treasures of Minerva in the
City of Saïs, and he did not seem to me to be in earnest when he said
that he knew them perfectly well.”[21] Herodotus wishes us to know that
he could travel and listen with his tongue in his cheek; yet deftly, at
the same time, by his deference to our criticism, and the frankness of
his confessions to us, he leaves an impression of simple candor that
adds to the charm of the telling.
It must not be forgotten how much of Herodotus’ history is a collection
of what other people said. Even his moralizing is partly due to what he
got from his informants.[22] It is a vast mass of material, drawn from
priests and travellers, from tradition and documents, from stories of
eye-witnesses and personal observation, all arranged and fitted to a
single plan, but not worked over so as to obliterate the nature of the
originals. This, to the modern student, is not its least merit. However
biassed and pro-Athenian Herodotus was, however guides imposed upon
his ignorance or sources misled him, he left us largely the means for
passing judgment upon himself. And this very fact does much to bring
the verdict of even this critical, scientific age in his favor.
It was serious work. Long years of travel were behind the story, and
the author, with proud simplicity, proclaimed himself a savant in
the opening line. His narrative “is the showing forth of researches
[histories]” by one who is able to make them: the term history is here
used in the definite technical sense. His predecessors were “makers
of prose,” but he is a “historian.” Modern criticism denies him the
distinction in just the way he claimed it,[23] but it awards him still
the distinction which he was awarded in antiquity, of being at once a
pioneer and a classic,--the Father of History. He combined with the
instincts of critical investigation the consummate skill of a great
artist. When his work is compared with the histories written before his
day, its epoch-making quality is at once apparent. There is not only
the deft, elusive touch of a master in the massing of detail, but the
narrative never loses its _élan_, however burdened with the weight of
fact. It swings along with the strength and grace of a mind unfettered
by either the hampering taboos of the primitive or the theories and
questionings of too philosophic culture. A tinge of romance from the
golden age still lightens the sober path of real events. One must turn
to the text itself to appreciate it; commentaries are as inadequate as
they are plentiful.
There are one or two further points, however, which are more especially
pertinent to this survey. In the first place, we must revert to the
point referred to above,--the modernity of Herodotus. Nothing is more
difficult in the appreciation of history than its perspective, and
in judging the achievement of the first historian we are almost sure
to find, first of all, our own limitations. Through the long stretch
of the intervening centuries, Midas, Solon, Crœsus, Cyrus, Darius,
and Xerxes all seem to belong to one and the same time. They are all
“ancients”; and the short intervals which lie between them do not seem
of much importance. Only Egypt reaches out from what seems to us a
common age into a different horizon,[24] like the sombre suggestion
of the mystery which lies beyond the beginning of the things one
knows. But to Herodotus and his audience the perspective was entirely
different. It would be as though some one of this generation, writing
of the Franco-Prussian war, were to carry back the narrative of causes
through the long centuries of the national development of Europe in
order to treat adequately the questions of today. Herodotus had met and
talked with those who lived through these stirring times; the scars
of war were in a sense still there; the effects upon the fortunes of
Greece, and especially of Athens, were just showing themselves to
the full. He built his vast and labyrinthine structure around this
main theme of the world-conflict; and since it was a world-conflict,
he brought to bear upon it the history of the world. The treatment
varies with the sources. The events at home were known--or at least
might be known--to his audience beforehand. There he must be on his
guard. On the other hand, the accounts of Egyptians and Orientals are
picked up at second-hand: Herodotus marks them off from the rest of his
narrative; they are the _logoi_,--the tales of the different countries,
the extras in his narrative, “histories” by themselves. They are drawn
from all kinds of sources, from native priests and dragomans and
travellers before his day--Hecatæus especially. It is easy to see why
this part is so much less reliable than the other. The priests of Egypt
might mislead him or he misunderstand them; but in the Grecian part he
knew where he was going. As a matter of fact he did make the mistakes
of a traveller. For a glaring instance, he puts down Nebuchadnezzar
of Babylon as a woman,--Queen Nitocris. But we must recall, as
Macaulay reminds us, that Babylon was to Greece about what Pekin was
to the Europe of the eighteenth century. The remarkable thing is that
Herodotus got as much correct as he did. When one thinks of what tales
European tourists are fed on today, what myths are current in this
country about the character of foreign peoples, even what persistent
misunderstanding there is between different sections of the same
country, where intercourse is so general and so constant one begins to
see the canny temper of the Father of History.
It is hard to get a true sense of the Herodotean achievement in terms
of any modern parallel. That of a European historian of today writing
of the Franco-Prussian war is obviously entirely inadequate. Perhaps it
might spur the historical imagination if we were to suppose that our
Persians are Russians and our Greeks Japanese, and that some twenty or
thirty years from now an Oriental historian sets to work to immortalize
the war which broke the island barriers of Japan and started it on
its imperial career of expansion. Port Arthur is Thermopylæ, Mukden
is Marathon, and Tsushima, Salamis. The Oriental Herodotus travels
through the West to gather the materials for a history of the two
worlds in conflict. So, in place of that ancient royal road of Persia,
he takes the Trans-Siberian railway to the ancient West and wanders
through Europe, in search of truth--a genuine ἱστορέων. He asks the
professors of Oxford for light on history and theology. He listens to
talk in the clubs and hotels, and, with little to fall back upon but
his Oriental common-sense, and a few guide books in Japanese, tries
to work out a reliable account of peoples whose language he cannot
read or speak, and among whom he lived only as a travelling guest.
His history of Europe might begin with an account of a Magellan, in
search of golden fleeces in the eastern seas, or Marco Polo visiting
the great Khan. Beyond Marco Polo, the first historical figure in the
annals of Europe, would lie the incredible story of Rome and Greece,
and perhaps there would be a passage from Herodotus himself. Beyond
this are the blank prehistoric ages, stretching back, according to
Oxford anthropologists, to a fabulous ice flood, much farther than the
432,000 years which the priests allotted to ancient Babylon. Suppose
that here and there he confused these data of science with the accounts
of theologians who believed in the literal inspiration of Genesis. He
might, perhaps, suspect and suggest that the material hardly fitted the
context, but the theologians were admirable men, with a high sense of
morals, so down it would go, with a short note on the character of the
informants. As the story drifted on toward modern times, it would grow
more complicated, for in a single lifetime Japan passed from feudal
society, fighting in armor, to a nation armed with siege cannon and
dreadnoughts. Of the age of transition, when the Phœnician Britishers
played their rôle, our Herodotus could gather personal reminiscences
and local memoirs,--of varying reliability. But when he finally reaches
the struggle in Manchuria, he has been over the ground of Mukden
himself, and recalls, from his youth, the effects of the war. Here he
knows his time and people, for they are his own.
The comparison might be developed farther. But if we have to invent our
modern Herodotus in order to appreciate the ancient one, it is better
to delay until our impressions of the original are refreshed by a new
study of the first single masterpiece in the history of History. To
do so one must turn to the book itself, for no series of extracts can
do it justice. One instance of his scientific method is perhaps worth
quoting in full for another reason.
In an earlier chapter we ventured the regret that Herodotus had not
visited Jerusalem about the time the Pentateuch was being edited for
the Bible as we have it.[25] It may be of interest to see how near he
was to Jerusalem. He had become attracted by the problem of tracing
the myth of Heracles throughout non-Greek parallels and tells us
how, with curiosity quickened rather than subdued by what he found
in Egypt,[26] he pursued his investigations to that borderland of
Palestine, Phœnicia. A visit inland to the Jewish scholars would not
have thrown much light on Heracles, for of the Heraclean labors of
Gilgamesh, the story of Noah retains no trace.[27] But there might have
been significant comments on other matters! The researches in Phœnicia
are recorded as follows:
“In the wish to get the best information that I could on these
matters, I made a voyage to Tyre in Phœnicia, hearing there was a
temple of Hercules at that place, very highly venerated. I visited
the temple, and found it richly adorned with a number of offerings,
among which were two pillars; one of pure gold, the other of emerald,
shining with great brilliancy at night. In a conversation which I
held with the priests, I inquired how long their temple had been
built, and found by their answer that they too differed from the
Greeks. They said that the temple was built at the same time that the
city was founded, and that the foundation of the city took place two
thousand three hundred years ago. In Tyre I remarked another temple
where the same god was worshipped as the Thasian Hercules. So I went
on to Thasos, where I found a temple of Hercules which had been
built by the Phœnicians who colonized that island when they sailed
in search of Europa. Even this was five generations earlier than the
time when Hercules, son of Amphitryon, was born in Greece. These
researches show plainly that there is an ancient god Hercules; and
my own opinion is, that those Greeks act most wisely who build and
maintain two temples of Hercules, in the one of which the Hercules
worshipped is known by the name of Olympian, and has sacrifice
offered to him as an immortal, while in the other the honours paid
are such as are due to a hero.”[28]
There is no need to appraise the work of Herodotus; history has already
done that for us. Until the monuments were deciphered his account was
about all we had of some of the greatest empires of the ancient world,
and it still remains a constant commentary on them. One might even say
that until our own time it has been for antique history as a whole
almost what Homer was to the Greek of Athens. But if appraisal of his
achievement is gratuitous, it may be well in closing to recall that the
achievement involved the two aspects of historiography,--criticism,
which lies in the field of science, and narrative, which is mainly art,
and that while the latter quality has been chiefly of value in the long
centuries of the unscientific mind, preserving the story by the very
magic of its appeal, yet today it is the other aspect which is of most
importance; for it has now to pass a much more critical audience than
ever assembled in Athens, and one that knows more of Greece than they,
or of its antiquity than Herodotus.
It follows, that only those conversant with this vast new lore
of classical and Oriental archæology are qualified to speak
authoritatively on the critical capacity and the reliability of
Herodotus. But, while leaving detailed criticism for textual students,
we may at least register the fact that their verdict is growingly
in his favor. For the case of the writings of Herodotus is somewhat
parallel with that of the records of the Jews. So long as they were
taken for more than they could possibly be, they were open to most
serious charges of anachronisms, exaggerations and the like. But when a
truer historical perspective enables us to appreciate the _necessary_
limitations, in both the implements and the sources of research, of all
antique historians, we obtain a juster estimate of their performance
because we do not expect too much. So it was with Herodotus. When the
data of history from the inscriptions began to run counter to some of
his accounts there was a movement of distrust in them,[29] but it has
apparently subsided, and we have more discriminating judgments, based
on less expectations.
It was obviously impossible for Herodotus to write history as we do
now. The question is whether he used _his_ methods successfully. There
was one stern critic of his time, Thucydides, who clearly thought that
he attempted too much. Thucydides would likely have held the story down
to the original last three books, and polished them over and over (as
indeed Herodotus did), established every item in them indisputably,
and left it at that. But Herodotus chose to add to them the _logoi_ or
histories which fill the long proem, although he could not establish
their accuracy with the precision which characterized the events of
his own time. The contrast is significant, and has been taken to show
a distinctly less scientific temper on the part of Herodotus, in that
he has not that keen appreciation of the boundary line which separates
the world of fact from that of fiction. But is the line as firm a one
after all as the purely scientific mind imagines it? If Herodotus had
been as skeptical as Thucydides, he would have left out of his history
some of its most valuable parts, for some of the things most incredible
to him contain hints of items established or made intelligible by
archæology.[30] The most striking instance is the comment of Herodotus
on the story of the Phœnicians circumnavigating Africa at the behest
of Neco, the Egyptian Pharaoh. “On their return, they declared--I for
my part do not believe them, but perhaps others may--that in sailing
round Libya they had the sun on their right-hand.”[31] Again, in his
description of Scythia, he doubts the long northern nights, perhaps
because of the exaggerated way the account reached him, that men there
slept half the year;[32] he refuses to indorse the existence of any
“Tin Islands” whence the tin came which they used,[33] and expressly
states that, with reference to the Baltic, “though I have taken vast
pains I have never been able to get an assurance from an eye-witness
that there is any sea on the further side of Europe.”[34] It would have
given a poorer, and not a more accurate idea of the world as known to
the contemporaries of Herodotus, if all this varied information had
been sorted out by a too-skeptical mind. The reader who is not upon
his guard is constantly reminded,[35] by innuendo, if not openly, that
a fact was not finally established simply because it was recorded,--a
reminder too long ignored,--and that the reader should contribute
as well some of the critical insight he demanded of the writer. The
sources Herodotus used have been analyzed in great detail,[36] and the
result is to show that the work is much more the product of scholarly
erudition and less of casual hearsay than at first appears. He used
documents, such as the acts of the _ecclesia_ at Athens, treaties,
declarations of war, but more sparingly than a modern historian would,
and seems to have been willing to take them second-hand. He could
embody genealogies,[37] and use geographies while abusing them.[38]
But there was one set of sources which, however essential, was of
dubious value: the oracles, especially those of Delphi. They largely
furnished the mechanism for that supernatural element which to us lends
an air of myth to the narrative, but they were part and parcel of Greek
history and Herodotus had no choice but to use them. Unfortunately
they helped him to ignore his own chief defect,--an absence of the
sense of historical causation. He sought only to keep the motives
psychologically true[39] and left events to shape themselves under the
hands of fate, or by the chastening justice of the gods. For while
Herodotus did not, like the poets and his predecessors, follow the gods
to Olympus, and “drew ... a very marked line between the mythological
age and the historical,”[40] he remained throughout a devoutly
religious man. “Under the sunny gleam of his rippling narrative, there
is a substratum of deep melancholy and of the awe concerned with the
anger and envy of the gods. King Crœsus, whom the auriferous Pactolus
made the richest of men, Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, or Periander,
despot of opulent Corinth--their pride and their end are merely
iterations and reverberations of the stern melody of human success
and divine retribution and the humiliation of men, exemplified most
signally in Xerxes himself.”[41] This belief in a Providential scheme
of things offered him a clue for tracing the sequence of events which
is open now to criticism. But history had to wait from the days of
Herodotus to our own for anything approaching a mastery of causation in
history. And perhaps our groping may, before long, be classed with such
tendency-writing as his.
As to style, the varied charm and genial manner are still as fresh and
winning as ever; yet one device which Herodotus took over from his
logographic predecessors,--but which, as we shall see, goes back to the
very origins of story-telling,--the insertion of speeches into the
narrative, leaves upon the whole the tone of something antique. What
gave an added air of reality to it in ancient Greece lessens its force
today. But of this device we shall have more to say when we come to it
in a less natural setting and form in the work of Thucydides.
With Herodotus a new art may be said to have begun, that of basing a
genuine _epos_ upon the search for truth. How potent the touch of the
master in it was may be judged from the fact that it still remains
among the first of all the creations of history, and that it embodied
for subsequent centuries the life and movement, thought and action
of all that vast antiquity which lay outside the Bible and the other
Greek literature. Even Darius and Xerxes owed a large part of their
immortality to the traveller-student of Halicarnassus.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The best edition of the text of Herodotus is that of H. Stein (2
vols., 1869-1871, and 5 vols., 4th, 5th and 6th ed., with notes,
1893-1908). The last six books of this have been reprinted by R.
W. Macan, along with introductions, valuable commentaries, maps,
etc., thus forming the best edition for general use (_Herodotus,
the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Books_, 2 vols., 1895; _Herodotus, the
Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Books_, 2 vols., 1908). There are two
principal English translations, _The History of Herodotus_, one by
G. Rawlinson (4 vols., 1858-1860; 2d ed., 1862; 3d ed., 1876), with
a wealth of notes, though antiquated as regards archæological finds,
particularly for the East; and one by G. C. Macaulay (2 vols., 1890,
new ed., 1904). The Rawlinson translation has been used in the text.
A translation of Herodotus, by A. D. Godley, is announced for the
year 1920 by the Loeb Classical Library. For general accounts of
Herodotus and his work, see the histories of Greek literature: G.
Murray, _A History of Ancient Greek Literature_ (1912), Chap. VI,
pp. 132-152; A. and M. Croiset, _Histoire de la littérature grecque_
(5 vols., 2d ed., 1896-1899; 3d ed., Vols. I-III, 1910-1914) (2d
ed.), Vol. II, Chap. X, pp. 565-637; W. v. Christ, _Geschichte der
griechischen Litteratur_ (2 vols., 5th and 6th ed., 1908-1913),
Vol. I, pp. 459-476; and also J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek
Historians_ (1909), Lect. II, pp. 36-74. For detailed and careful
study a notable work is that of A. Hauvette, _Herodote, historien
des guerres mediques_ (1894). See also E. Meyer, _Forschungen
zur alten Geschichte_ (2 vols., 1892-1899), Vol. I pp. 151-202
(_Herodots Chronologie der griechischen Sagengeschichte_ and four
supplements), Vol. II, pp. 196-268 (_Herodots Geschichtswerk_); V.
Costanzi (_Richerche su alcuni punti controversi interno alla vita
e all’ opera di Erodoto_), _Memoriæ del’ r. Instituto Lombardo_,
1891, pp. 181-240; G. Busolt, _Griechische Geschichte_ (3 vols., 2d
ed., 1893-1904), Vol. II, pp. 602 _sqq._; for more special points
see J. L. Myres (_Herodotus and Anthropology_), in R. R. Marett,
_Anthropology and the Classics_ (1908); E. Weber, _Herodot als
Dichter_, in _Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum_, Vol. XXI
(1908), pp. 669-683; W. Nestle, _Herodots Verhältnis zur Philosophie
und Sophistik_, Prog. Schönthal (1908); H. Matzat, _Über die
Glaubwürdigkeit der geographischen Angaben Herodots über Asien_, in
_Hermes_, Vol. VI (1872), pp. 392-486; R. Müller, _Die geographische
Tafel nach den Angaben Herodots_ (1881); A. Bauer, _Die Entstehung
des Herodotischen Geschichtswerkes_ (1878), _Herodots Biographie;
eine Untersuchung_ (1878); K. W. Nitzsch, _Über Herodots Quellen
für die Geschichte der Perserkriege_, in _Rheinisches Museum_, Vol.
XXVII (1872), pp. 226-268; H. Diels, _Herodot und Hekataios_, in
_Hermes_, Vol. XXII (1887), pp. 411-444. The criticism of A. H.
Sayce, in his _Ancient Empires of the East_ (1883, reprinted 1900),
has met with little sympathy among scholars. For the question,
see in addition to A. Hauvette, cited above, Part I; A. Croiset,
_Revue des études grecques_, Vol. I (1888), pp. 154 _sqq._; R.
W. Rogers, _History of Babylonia and Assyria_ (2 vols., 6th ed.,
1915), Vol. I, p. 397; J. Oppert, in _Mélanges Henri Weil_ (1898),
pp. 321 sqq. For Herodotus’ influence on later philosophers see J.
Geffcken, _Zwei griechische Apologeten_ (1907), p. 188, n. 3. For
his influence on Roman historians, see W. Soltau, _Die Anfänge der
römischen Geschichtschreibung_ (1909), Chap. IV, pp. 73-91, and
Appendix III (_Herodot bei römischen Historikern_). For other recent
material on Herodotus, see _Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte
der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_; Vol. CXVII (1903), pp. 76
_sqq._, for 1898-1901; Sup. Vol. CXLVI (1909), pp. 556 _sqq._; Vol.
CXLVII (1910), pp. 1 _sqq._, for 1902-1908; Vol. CLXX (1915), pp. 291
_sqq._, for 1909-1915; Vol. CLXXI (1915), pp. 194 _sqq._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This disposes of the difficulty which critics had found in his use
of it.
[2] _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. I, Chap. CXLII.
[3] _Ibid._, Bk. II, Chap. CXLIII.
[4] _Ibid._, Bk. IV, Chap. CXLII. _Cf._ R. W. Macan’s comments
(_Herodotus, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Books_ (2 vols., 1895), Vol.
I, Bk. IV, p. 98) that this remark “may have been current in Sparta: at
least it has a Doric ring. But the sneer was singularly unjust, as the
Ionic revolts proved. What is not found in Herodotus is the story of
the surrender of the Asiatic Dorians to the Persian.”
[5] _Cf._ J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek Historians_, pp. 61-62.
[6] _Cf._ Thucydides’ comment on him, _infra_, p. 163.
[7] The best discussion of Herodotus’ attitude toward Ionia is by R. W.
Macan, _Herodotus, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Books_, Introduction,
Vol. I, pp. lxvii _sq._
[8] George Rawlinson, in the introduction to his translation of
Herodotus, has perhaps the best survey of the subject as a whole.
[9] “He has drunk at the Homeric cistern until his whole being is
impregnated with the influence thence derived. In the scheme and plan
of his work, in the arrangement and order of its parts, in the tone
and character of the thoughts, in ten thousand little expressions
and words, the Homeric student appears; and it is manifest that the
two great poems of ancient Greece are at least as familiar to him as
Shakspeare to the modern educated Englishman.” G. Rawlinson, _The
History of Herodotus_ (2d ed.), Vol. I, p. 6. In addition, Rawlinson
cites references to some fifteen poets.
[10] Suidas, the Byzantine scholar of the early Middle Ages, whose
lexicon preserved many valuable items of classical information.
[11] _Cf. supra_, Chap. III. R. W. Macan, _Herodotus, the Fourth,
Fifth, and Sixth Books_, Introduction, Vol. I, p. x.
[12] R. W. Macan, _Herodotus, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Books_,
Introduction, Vol. I, pp. xi _sq._
[13] J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek Historians_, pp. 38, 39, based upon
Macan’s analysis, though supplying independent criteria.
[14] This has been developed by Macan.
[15] _Cf._ R. W. Macan, _Herodotus, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth
Books_, Introduction, Vol. I, pp. xxii-xxiv.
[16] _Cf._ _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. V, Chaps. XXXIX-XLVIII.
[17] _Ibid._, Bk. V, Chap. LXXVIII.
[18] For a full treatment of practically all detailed problems
concerning Herodotus’ history, see the edition by R. W. Macan, with its
introductions, notes and appendices. On this point see _Herodotus, the
Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Books_ (2 vols., 1908), Introduction, Vol.
I, pp. xlv-xlvii. _Cf._ J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek Historians_, p.
39.
[19] _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. VII, Chap. CLII. It should be
noted that this comment dealt with a controversial matter of so recent
date that it has a more defensive ring than the earlier ones.
[20] _Ibid._, Bk. VIII, Chap. VIII.
[21] _Ibid._, Bk. II, Chap. XXVIII.
[22] _Cf._ _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. II, Chap. XXVIII.
[23] The attack of A. H. Sayce in his _Ancient Empires of the East_,
referred to above, casting doubt upon the veracity of Herodotus, was
perhaps the severest criticism which the Father of History has had to
face. Subsequent studies have refuted at least the implications of most
of the points alleged. See the judgment of A. and M. Croiset, _Histoire
de la littérature grecque_ (2d ed.), Vol. II, pp. 565 _sqq._, where
Herodotus is treated in connection with a most illuminating survey of
Greek historiography.
[24] As for the legends of Babylon, they bear on the surface the marks
of legend.
[25] Chap. VIII _supra, ad fin._
[26] _Cf._ _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. II, Chaps. XLIII-XLV.
[27] _Vide supra_, Chap. V.
[28] _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. II, Chap. XLIV. (Rawlinson’s
translation.)
[29] Perhaps the strongest statement of this is in A. H. Sayce’s
_Ancient Empires of the East_. See, by contrast, the judgment summed up
in Bury’s _Ancient Greek Historians_.
[30] _Cf._ G. Rawlinson’s acute observations along this line, _The
History of Herodotus_ (2d ed.), Vol. I, pp. 71 _sq._, and R. W. Macan,
_Herodotus, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Books_, Introduction, Vol. I,
p. lxxiii.
[31] _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. IV, Chap. XLII.
[32] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. IV, Chap. XXV.
[33] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. CXV.
[34] _Ibid._
[35] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. II, Chaps. XXVIII, LVI-LVII, CXXXI; Bk. III,
Chaps. CXV, CXVI; Bk. IV, Chaps. XXV, XXXI, XXXII, XXXVI, XLII, XCVI,
CV; Bk. V, Chap. X; Bk. VII, Chap. CLII.
[36] See especially the conclusions of R. W. Macan, _Herodotus, the
Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Books_, Introduction, Vol. I, pp. lxxiv _sqq._
One of the most interesting problems in his use of sources is in
his account of Darius’ expedition into Scythia, where he omits all
mention of the Balkans (Bk. IV, Chaps. XC-XCIII) apparently, as Macan
surmises, because at this point he was following a historical and not a
geographical source, and it made no mention of the mountains. But this
incident only emphasises all the more the success with which, upon the
whole, Herodotus welded his materials and marshalled the facts.
[37] _Cf._ _The History of Herodotus_, Bk. VI, Chap. LIII.
[38] _Vide supra_, Hecatæus.
[39] The point is well developed by R. W. Macan, _Herodotus, the
Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Books_, Introduction, Vol. I, p. cvi.
[40] G. Rawlinson, _The History of Herodotus_ (2d ed.), Vol. I, p. 94.
[41] G. W. Botsford in _Hellenic Civilisation_, p. 23.
CHAPTER XIV
THUCYDIDES
Alongside the history of Herodotus stands a work which begins as
follows:
“Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war in which the
Peloponnesians and the Athenians fought against one another. He began
to write when they first took up arms, believing that it would be great
and memorable above any previous war.”
In such sober terms does the greatest historian of antiquity begin the
story of those eventful years which determined the fate of Athens, and
with it, of the civilized world. This soberness is typical of the whole
work; a consciousness of the high theme even more. For the author was a
different type of man from the sophisticated but garrulous Herodotus.
He, too, had travelled before his work was done, being also an exile.
But he did not become a citizen of the world, catching with easy
familiarity the changeful notes of different countries. He remained
throughout a high-born Athenian, a magistrate in history, severe
and impartial even when his dearest interests were at stake, proud,
isolated, self-contained.[1] There could not well be a greater contrast
than that between Herodotus and Thucydides. Thucydides himself
knew this. He has a poor opinion of Herodotus, and as much as says
so--though without deigning to mention him. There is no mistaking a
remark like this, however: “Men do not discriminate, and are too ready
to receive ancient traditions about their own as well as about other
countries.”[2] He classes with the poets those “tales of chroniclers
who seek to please the ear rather than to speak the truth.”[3] His own
ideal is different--it is accuracy and relevancy--a straight story and
a true one. And he reached his ideal.
Thucydides, too, was a modern historian, more so than Herodotus. He
wrote the history of his own time. As we have just seen, he states
that he began collecting material for it when the Peloponnesian war
began; so that it has not even the genial fallacies of memoirs written
late in life and blurred over by failing memory or sources. He enjoyed
unrivalled opportunities. High in affairs of state, he was familiar
with the inner history of politics and knew personally the leading men.
Even his exile enabled him to become acquainted with the Spartans[4]
and probably to visit Sicily, where the naval power of Athens met its
fate.[5] And he brought to his task a brain that matched the best that
Greece produced--which is the highest tribute that can be paid.
His genius shows itself at the very start. In a few bold pages he
cuts his way through the mass of tangled myths and legends about the
early history of Hellas, and presents a clear and rational outline.
Then, pausing a moment to criticise his predecessors, the poets and
logographers--who had never quite done this thing before--with a proud
note on his own enterprise, he plunges into the theme of his history.
Here we have not the time to follow him, and even if we had, we may as
well confess, with Thucydidean candor, that few of us would care to do
so. For all the art of the greatest historian of antiquity cannot quite
reconcile the modern reader--unless he is a Hellenist beforehand--to a
prolonged study of the details of the Peloponnesian war. For Thucydides
it was the greatest event in history. The Trojan war had found a Homer;
the Persian a Herodotus; but these two great epochs of the Hellenic
past were, in his eyes, of far less importance than that of the great
civil war which involved all of Greece and even disturbed the otherwise
negligible barbarian world. The more he studied the past and compared
it with the present, the more he was convinced that the greatest theme
in history was offered to him by the war of his own lifetime. So he
preserved its detailed story with scrupulous care, and it is its very
excellence as history against which the modern reader rebels. For the
war was long and had many turnings; and Thucydides is no garrulous
guide or entertainer. He marches sternly ahead through a world of
facts; it is too serious business for one to turn aside and view the
scenery; even when the campaign is over for the year and we return
home to the city, we must attend the council where plans for next year
are on foot. There is only one purpose in life and that is to see the
war through. The result is that we are led through years of desultory
fighting, raids, skirmishes, expeditions by land and sea, debates in
council, strategy in battle, until our memories are fairly benumbed by
the variety of incident and the changes in policies, leadership and
fortune.
It is possible, however, that our weariness is caused less by what is
told than by what is left unsaid. Nothing so tires a traveller as to
miss the aim of his journey. We can stand long miles of dusty tramping
if we are reassured from time to time by glimpses of the delectable
mountains. The same is true of mental journeys; fatigue is largely a
matter of frustration. And so with Thucydides. The tale he tells is not
what we wish most to hear. Its theme is not the greatest in history.
Merely as a _military_ event the war was relatively insignificant.
Compared with the wars of Rome, of Hun and Teuton, of mediæval
crusaders and modern nations, the struggle between two leagues of
city-states has little in itself--merely as war--to attract attention.
What makes the Peloponnesian war of lasting interest is not the actual
fighting but the issues at stake--Greek civilization and Athenian
greatness. Our minds wander from the story of slaughter to what remains
untold, the achievements in the art of peace, which alone made the war
significant,--even for Thucydides.[6] So, if the narrative compels us
to follow,--and no one can dispute its power,--there are seasons when
we shoulder the yearly cuirass with reluctance.
As a matter of fact the greatest theme in history lay right before his
eyes, but it was not war; it was the Athens of Pericles’ and of his own
time. Instead of describing that, a work for which his discriminating
temper would have eminently fitted him, he chose rather to hand down
as part of “an everlasting possession”[7] to future ages, instructions
for our Von Moltkes, Kuropatkins, Joffres and Ludendorffs, in the
handling of spear-men on foraging campaigns! There is no glimpse
of the Parthenon except as it looms up against the sky where the
refugees from Attica watch the flames of Spartan pillagers in their
homes, no allusion to the drama of Athens in spite of the fact that it
furnished at least the suggestions of the mould in which his manual
of warfare was recast into the tragedy of Hellas. There is a proud
consciousness all the time that the Acropolis is there and that the
art and literature of Athens are a shining model to the world, but all
references to them are severely suppressed as not being germane to the
subject. Only once does Athens really come into the history, the Athens
to which subsequent ages looked back with such wonder and despair,--and
that is in the funeral oration of Pericles. This is enough, however,
to show what we have lost in the refusal of Thucydides to write the
history of a people instead of that of a war. No city ever received
a prouder tribute, or one more eloquent. It does not describe the
monuments, it adds another to them; for it stands like a solitary block
of prose, set in the midst of the tragedy of war,--a Parthenon itself,
hewn to enshrine not the myth-goddess of the city but the human spirit
of its citizens.
An orthodoxy of appreciation surrounds the works of the old masters in
any art; the heretics “fail to understand.” But heresy has a moral if
not an artistic justification, and we must register the disappointment
of the reader of Thucydides who comes to him in the hope that he will
find in his pages a living picture of the cities which waged the
war. To be sure, he did not write for us; he wrote for Athenians, or
at least for Greeks, and they took for granted what we wish most to
know. But the fact remains that the work lacks for us its central
theme. Much has been made recently of the influence of the tragedy
of Æschylus upon the form into which Thucydides threw the materials
of his history.[8] It is claimed that this was as much a model to
him--consciously or unconsciously--as the epic was to Herodotus.
But for the modern audience the rules of the tragedy seem strangely
violated. We are continually behind the wings where the killing is in
progress. The principals, too, seem to move across the stage at times
from insufficient motives, a single speech of rather obvious remarks
determining the policy of a city. The real reasons for much of the
intricacies of the drama remain undiscovered. We miss a good chorus,
made up, if possible, of the business men from the Peiræus, who might
explain, if Thucydides did not disdain their foreign accent, the real
causes of the war and of the policies of Athens--in terms of economics.
We should not be tempted to elaborate the shortcomings of Thucydides
from the standpoint of the modern reader, if it were not for the fact
that writers on Greek literature, and even historians who should know
better, in their enthusiasm over the magisterial performance, where the
scientific spirit dominates as nowhere else in antique history, give
the impression to the student that if he does not find the _History of
the Peloponnesian War_ completely satisfying his heart’s desire, the
fault is all his own. There is no fault; there are merely intervening
centuries. A work of genius may be universal and for all time; but
the form in which it is embodied bears the marks of the local and
temporary. This is always true, more or less. In art, as in nature,
immortality is of the spirit. That spirit, in Thucydides, was poised
in Hellenic balance, between science and art, a model for all time;
but the work which it produced shows the limitations of outlook and
material which definitely stamp it as antique. To see in the author of
the _Peloponnesian War_ a “modern of moderns,”[9] facing history as
we do, equipped with the understanding of the forces of history such
as the historian of today possesses, is to indulge in an anachronism
almost as naïve as the failure to appreciate Thucydides because he
lacks it! There is a world of difference between the outlook of a
citizen of Periclean Athens,--however keen and just his judgment,
however free from superstition and credulity,--and that of a modern
thinker supplied with the apparatus for scientific investigation. The
whole history of Europe lies this side of Thucydides, and it would be
strange indeed if the historian of today had learned nothing from its
experience, especially from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
which have contributed at the same time the implements of historical
research and the widened outlook of the social sciences. Yet such is
the spell which the spirit of Thucydides still exerts that even Eduard
Meyer, the historian who has perhaps done most to reconstruct antique
history in the light of those forces which the Greek ignored, is led
to assert that there is only one way to handle the problem of history,
that which Thucydides first used and in which no one has ever surpassed
him.[10]
Were Thucydides alive today, we venture to think that he would be the
first to dissent from this judgment, or at least from the general
implications involved as to the character of his work. The historian
who passed such impatient strictures upon Herodotus would certainly
not rest content now with his own performance. There are at least four
major elements in his history which he would now recast. In the first
place he would have to admit his inability to grapple with the past.
He lacked both the implements for dealing with it and a sense of its
bearings upon the present. In the second place he failed to give an
adequate picture of Greek politics, keeping too close to the definite
politics of the war to catch its working as a whole; and he missed
altogether the economic forces which underlay so much of both war and
politics. Finally, he put the political and diplomatic elements of his
story into the form of speeches by the leading characters,--a device
common to all antique historians, but which violates the primary laws
of historical work today.
Let us take up these points, hurriedly, in turn. We have said that
Thucydides was not at home in dealing with the past; yet his short
introduction to the history of Greece before his day was a unique
performance. The paradox is not difficult to explain. His sketch of
early Greek history is remarkable mainly for what it leaves out. It
does not fall into the common fault of early historians, that of
romancing. It does not exaggerate as poets and chroniclers did. A
skeptical spirit and sound common-sense kept Thucydides from yielding
to that greatest of all temptations to the story-teller, making a
point by stretching the tale. To the antique historian this was much
more of a temptation than it can ever be again, for there was little
chance that his audience would find him out. When the modern historian
tells a great story he is at once asked for his sources, and before
the book is fairly started on its career, a dozen other historians are
on his track, busily verifying the account. In the days of Herodotus
and Thucydides, the past was well-nigh unexplored, and the traveller
who did not bring back from its dim horizons some trophy of what might
have been, would miss the applause which he might otherwise so easily
win. Thucydides cared nothing for such applause and proudly broke with
those who did. He sought the truth because he wished it, not because
his readers were clamoring for it; yet his imagination caught the
reward of future centuries, when, as he foresaw, his history would be
as imperishable as the truth which it contained.
But there is a world of difference between denying the fabulous in the
past and appreciating the importance of the obscure. Because the past
lacked greatness Thucydides thought it unworthy of his attention. He
states his negative conclusions in no uncertain terms: “Judging from
the evidence which I am able to trust after most careful enquiry, I
should imagine that former ages were not great either in their wars or
in anything else.”[11] By “former ages” he includes everything down to
his own day. Even Salamis had its touch of pettiness; the Greek ships
were partly open-decked.[12] Compared with the great age in which he
lived, all that had gone before seemed poor and insignificant, and
therefore once having convinced himself that this was so, he ignored
the past as much as possible. His judgment may have been justified by
the achievements of the Athens of his time; but the perspective is all
the same a barren one so far as history is concerned, for his narrative
was limited to the events of his own day. The modern historian has no
such outlook. Although he lives in an age incomparably more wonderful
in many ways than that of Thucydides, he knows better than to despise
the past. On the contrary, he turns all the more to the study of what
is obscure in the detail of former civilizations. He does so not to
supply lessons to statesmen, which was the main purpose of Thucydides,
but from the conviction, forced home by science, that only through a
knowledge of how things came about can we understand what they are.
He has a vision of the eternal linking of past and present, of the
progressive creation of evolving societies, which no antique man could
possibly have seen. The insignificant gains significance when fitted
into such a scheme, just as each stone is necessary in a temple wall.
Science builds up its structures out of the neglected data of the
commonplace and the science of history has learned from it never to
despise a past however obscure it seems; for its fragmentary evidence
may furnish the clue for the recovery of some vanished civilization or
the explanation of otherwise inexplicable elements in a later one.
The fact is that where science has thus determined the outlook of the
modern historian, poetry determined that of Thucydides. He would have
vigorously denied it, but the case is clear. The epic--or perhaps
dramatic--ideal of a great story of great deeds was his ideal of
history as well. The contrast between this and the scientific outlook
escapes us, because historians have generally followed the same poetic
tendencies down even to our own time, seizing great themes under a
sense that they alone were worthy of great histories. Now, however, the
men of scientific temper see things differently. They find their theme
just where the great masters refused to look,--in such a past as that
which Thucydides ignored because it was “not great either in wars or
in anything else.” The result is that, for the first time, history is
disclosing its hidden perspectives and the past is taking on some of
the color of reality.
Thucydides failed to appreciate these things not from any personal
limitations, but because he lived before scientific history was
possible. He had the scientific temper, for he investigated everything
for himself, even what he omitted. But science demands more than
individual genius; it rests upon the coöperative work of many minds,
amassing data and preparing implements for others still to use. It
is a social phenomenon, indeed the most highly socialized there
is, for the economics of the search for truth encounters no such
individualistic tendencies as the economics of the search for wealth.
So the investigator of today has ready at his disposal a vast array
of facts already established and duly classified. Thucydides had no
such heritage. He had an archæologist’s eye for the use of monuments
as historical sources, for he observed the broken fragments of pillars
in the walls of Athens and quoted the fact as a vivid proof of his
account of how those walls were rebuilt after the Persian war. He
even used inscriptions when they came his way. But it is a long step
from such antiquarian interest--promising as it is--to the systematic
investigation of monuments. He could only speculate as to the wealth of
Agamemnon, little suspecting that the treasure chambers of Mycenæ lay
waiting for a spade. Minos was to him but a name from the borderland
of legend and history; now the excavations of Cnossus have made it a
term in scientific chronology. No prophecy of genius could foretell
that, when the search was wide enough, and the implements for it
sufficiently perfected, the merest trifles of antiquity would take on
the significance of historical records; that bits of tombstones and
scraps of papyri would enable us to reconstruct the history of vanished
centuries, or help us to correct the narrative of great historians.
But the chief handicap of the antique historian, in dealing with
the past, was an absence of exact chronology. It is hard for us to
realize what a handicap this was. Yet the more we examine the history
of History the more it becomes apparent that until time was measured
it was not appreciated. We have already seen that it took many ages
of Babylonian and later Egyptian history for the mathematics of the
calendar to straighten out the tangles of days, months and years, until
a systematic chronology became possible. In the Greece of Thucydides’
day, the problem had not yet been solved, and the perspective of the
past was, as a result, blurred and uncertain. The only historian who
had attempted to open it up, by a systematic chronology of Athens, was
Hellanicus, and Thucydides soon discovered how unreliable his reckoning
was. But it is a remarkable fact that he did not try to correct or
improve upon it. He frankly gave up the problem, and fell back upon
the most primitive of all methods of reckoning time, that of the old
farmer’s calendar of the seasons. Summer and winter are all he needs,
the summer for fighting, the winter for politics. This is all he needs
for the greatest war of antiquity.[13] Beyond those passing years lay
obscurity--and relative insignificance. He saw no long perspectives
of the marshalled centuries, like the historian of today; instead, he
looked but vaguely into “the abysm and gulf of Time,” and its darkness
almost enveloped the events of his own day.
If Thucydides lacked the prime qualification of a modern historian in
his failure to handle time-perspectives, his choice of subject bears
as well the marks and limitations of the antique. He had no doubt but
that war was the one and proper subject of history. Had this been true,
and the Peloponnesian war, as he believed, the greatest of wars, his
work would rank without a rival among the achievements of historians.
For the very sternness with which he kept to his theme instead of
offering us picturesque details of Greek society, as Herodotus would
have done, would be in his favor. Yet even here, a merit may easily
develop into a fault. Thucydides did more than cut out the digressions
of a story-teller;[14] he concentrated upon the war so intently as
not only to exaggerate its importance,--the very fault he found
with the poets and chroniclers before him,[15]--but even to weld the
interrupted struggles of the Athenian and Spartan leagues into one
and to give the impression that the attention of Greece of his time
centred as exclusively upon the war as did his own. It has been said
that Thucydides himself was the inventor of the war he narrates, and
undoubtedly he cherished a fixed idea concerning it; for, as he tells
us in the opening sentence, he foresaw its significance from the first,
a confession which shows the limitations of his outlook,--which is
after all but another name for a biassed mind. So, although subsequent
events to a large degree justified his foresight and approved his
perspective, there was undoubtedly some manipulation of the data to
make the continuity so clear and to ensure that the national tragedy
develop as a tragedy should--impelled by the wilful passions of men
under the hand of fate.[16]
Fortunately, even the story of a war extends beyond the field of
battle; it includes as well the politics of the combatants. For
one must listen to the speeches in council and watch the moving of
the public mind to explain the formation of alliances and the plan
of campaigns. So Thucydides interspersed his account of military
operations with a history of politics. Indeed he seems to have spent
upon it more elaborate care than upon the details of fighting. This,
in the eyes of most of his critics, serves at once to distinguish him
from all his predecessors. He had left behind the tales of heroes
which still evoked the story-telling qualities of Herodotus. Poets and
chroniclers “who write to please the ear” are scornfully dismissed for
a study of statecraft and generalship. But this is not a history of
Greek politics; it is only a history of the politics of the war. The
student of history finds in Thucydides almost as little light upon the
general character of political constitutions of Greek states as the
student of culture does of their life and thought.[17]
We shall of course be reminded that Thucydides should not be held
responsible for these omissions, for he was not writing constitutional
or cultural history. But that is just the point we wish to make. The
scope of Thucydides is limited by that of a war which few of us care
to follow--in detail--were it not that the genius of the author holds
us to the task, like some inexorable tutor with whom one reads for
imaginary examinations. Discipline and profit accrue to the reader, and
the text is one of the noblest products of antiquity; but it fails to
answer the questions we have most at heart.
The chief weakness in this story of politics, however, is the failure
to look beyond personal motives for causes. There is an almost complete
blindness to economic forces. To Thucydides this was a world where
men willed and wrought, of their own account, through the impulse of
passion, and met success or frustration as Fortune (τύχη) meted it
out. Fortune was the determining factor, the unknown quantity, the
“_x_” in the problem; but it was conceived in terms of religion, not
of business. It was the inexplicable Power, the Providence beyond the
reckoning of history, the Luck which rules the primitive world, decked
with the regalia of philosophic mysticism. Thucydides had no idea that
Fortune, this substitute for the caprice of the gods, was interested in
the price of commodities. Conceiving it in terms of mystery, he traced
its action but did not try to explain,--for there was no explanation.
With us Fortune still plays its major rôle, but it suggests economics
and invites investigation, for it is mainly a synonym for wealth. The
very element in history which meant mystery to Thucydides is therefore
offering to us the first glimpses of natural law in a natural instead
of a spiritual world--the laws of supply and demand and all their
implications.
The shortcomings of Thucydides in this matter should not be overstated,
for it would be absurd to the point of the grotesque to expect from
him an economic interpretation of history. The economic interpretation
of history is a very recent thing; it has not yet eliminated all the
mystery of individual will and is not likely soon to do so. But it is
just as absurd to claim for Thucydides a perception of universal laws
for man and nature, and to regard his narrative as one conceived in the
enlightenment of modern science. This is the point of view advanced
by the older literary critics, whose appreciation of Thucydides has
become the standard by which most readers hasten to adjust their own
impressions. It is needless to point out further how such extravagant
claims reveal rather the scientific limitations of their authors than
the scientific triumphs of Thucydides.
The result of our survey is the conclusion that the greatest historian
of antiquity was impotent in two of the major requirements of the
modern historian: on the one hand the mastery of time-perspectives,
the unravelling of the past; on the other hand the handling of the
impersonal forces, material and social, which modify if they do not
govern the course of human events. This does not detract from the
greatness of his performance; it could not have been otherwise. He
did not have the chance to measure economic forces or chronology; the
implements for doing so did not then exist. “We must constantly remind
ourselves,” says Mr. Cornford in his suggestive study of _Thucydides
Mythistoricus_,[18] “that Thucydides seemed to himself to stand on the
very threshold of history. Behind him lay a past which, in comparison
with ours, was unimaginably meagre. From beyond the Grecian seas had
come nothing but travellers’ tales of the eastern wonderland. Within
the tiny Hellenic world itself, the slender current of history flashed
only here and there a broken gleam through the tangled overgrowth of
legend and gorgeous flowers of poetry....” There was nothing to do with
such a past but to leave it alone and turn to his great journalistic
enterprise of saving the world of fact in which he lived. Skepticism
might keep him free from credulity, but it could not forge the tools
for investigation.
In short, the mind of Thucydides was neither primitive nor modern;
it was antique. No recognition of modern tendencies or capacities
should blind us to its limitations. It moved with the precision
of supreme self-consciousness, but within narrow confines both of
time and space,--and by unknown frontiers. To quote Cornford again:
“Thucydides lived at the one moment in recorded history which has
seen a brilliantly intellectual society, nearly emancipated from a
dying religion, and at the same time unaided by science, as yet hardly
born. Nowhere but in a few men of that generation shall we find so
much independence of thought combined with such destitute poverty in
the apparatus and machinery of thinking.... We must rid our minds of
scientific terminology as well as of religion and philosophy, if we
are to appreciate the unique detachment of Thucydides’ mind, moving in
the rarest of atmospheres between the old age and the new. Descartes,
for all his efforts, was immeasurably less free from metaphysical
preoccupation; Socrates appears, in comparison, superstitious.”[19]
Finally, there is one element in Thucydides’ work which bears the
mark of the antique on its face,--the speeches which he put into
the mouths of his leading characters, and into which he compressed
most of the politics and diplomacy of his history. Nothing could be
more unmodern than this device. Imagine a Ranke inventing or even
elaborating orations for modern statesmen and then embodying them into
his narrative! One cannot supply speeches for historical characters
unless one has the text, and where the Thucydides of antiquity labored
most, the Thucydides of today would give up the task. Even from the
standpoint of art, the speeches seem now incongruous and unreal. As
Macaulay said of them, “They give to the whole book something of
the grotesque character of those Chinese pleasure-grounds, in which
perpendicular rocks of granite start up in the midst of a soft green
plain. Invention is shocking where truth is in such close juxtaposition
with it.”[20]
But we must not be too sure of our judgment, either of the antique or
the Chinese. Each must be judged in its own environment. Certainly
no one in Ancient Greece or Rome could have guessed that a historian
would ever object to the making of orations as a legitimate part
of historical narrative. Speech-making in story-telling is as old
as story. It is natural in all primitive narration. All good
story-tellers put words into the mouths of their heroes. They do
this, not as conscious artifice, but simply because their minds work
naturally in dramatic mimicry--the mimicry which is a direct legacy
from the most primitive form of thought and its expression. This is the
explanation of much of what seems to us either naïve or questionable
in the Old Testament, where the words of the patriarchs and of Jahveh
are given in direct narration by authors of a millennium later than the
recorded conversations. There, however, as in Herodotus, the general
background of the story was in tone with such primitive dramatizing.
In Thucydides the case is different; his mind did not naturally work
like that of a gossip or a raconteur, by the impersonation of others.
He kept to the old devices, and made up speeches to suit his story; but
the content does not suit the form, and in the ears of a modern the
thing rings false.
Yet we should not forget that Thucydides wrote for Greeks, not for us.
The incongruity is there because the work survives into another age,
when the clamor of the agora is stilled, and people read instead of
listen. Oratory no longer determines the fate of states. The sneers of
Bismarck at its impotence are justified. The forces that move events
in the modern world seldom find expression at all, and if they do they
are more likely to be embodied in figures than in words. This was
partly true too in the ancient world, truer than Thucydides could have
suspected. But it is well, after all, that he did not; for he had no
means for handling it, and would have merely obscured his narrative
had he attempted it. As it was, he left us, besides the story of war,
a picture of the leadership of men, of great speakers swaying the
passions of uncertain crowds, of councils listening to the thrusts of
keen debate. If we are always conscious, as we look at these scenes,
that we see them through the eyes of an interpreter, we at least have
the satisfaction of knowing that our interpreter was, of all who saw
them, the one best fitted to transmit them to posterity.
Thucydides began his history with the expression of haughty scorn for
the tales of poets in the youth of Hellas; prose, not poetry, is the
medium for truth. With this judgment the modern critic agrees, and
prosy historians have found in it much consolation and encouragement.
But prose in the hands of Thucydides was not a bare shroud upon
dead facts to ensure them decent burial in ponderous books, it was a
work of art in itself, as nervous with life and energy when moving
with the war-bands or the fleet as it was keyed to the eloquence of
Athenian oratory when dealing with politics and diplomacy. His work
was the result of long and painstaking researches,--at times he breaks
his impersonal reserve to tell us so,[21]--but he did not consider
it complete until the elements of which it was composed were worked
over so as to lose their outlines in the structure of the whole.
Unlike Herodotus he tried to obliterate his sources in the interest
of art.[22] Fortunately the art was noble enough to compensate for
the loss of the materials, and secured for the facts themselves an
immortality which they alone could never have attained. But there
was danger in this polishing of text. Thucydides himself was not
the victim of rhetoric; he lived and wrote before the schoolmen had
fettered language into styles, and he could hardly have surmised that
the very passages upon which he concentrated the mastery of his art
would exemplify a tendency hardly less fatal to history than the naïve
credulity of the early poets, a tendency to sacrifice substance for
form--in prose. How real the danger was, the subsequent chapters of
antique historiography show. But Thucydides stands out in as strong
contrast against the age of rhetoric as against that of poetry. In him
the antique spirit is revealed at its best; but it was antique.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Standard critical editions of the text of Thucydides are those of J.
Classen (8 vols., 1862-1878, 5th ed., 1914- ) and I. Bekker (1821,
3d ed., 1892). Other convenient editions are those of H. S. Jones
(Oxford Library of Classical Authors, 2 vols. (1902)), and C. Hude
(2 vols., ed. maior, Teubner, 1901-1913). The English translation of
B. Jowett (1881, 2d ed., 1900) is a classic itself. This translation
has been used in the text. The Loeb Classical Library is bringing
out a translation of Thucydides’ _Peloponnesian War_ by C. F.
Smith. Two volumes have already appeared. For textual study see the
illuminating work of W. R. Lamb, _Clio Enthroned_ (1914). For general
discussions see the histories of Greek literature: G. Murray (1912);
J. P. Mahaffy, _A History of Classical Greek Literature_ (2 vols.,
1880, 3d ed., 1890-1891), Vol. II, Pt. I, Chap. V; A. and M. Croiset
(5 vols., 2d ed., 1896-1899, 3d ed., Vols. I-III, 1910-1914), Vol.
IV, pp. 87-172; W. v. Christ (5th and 6th ed., 1908-1913) (6th
ed.), Vol. I, pp. 476-493. See also J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek
Historians_ (1909), Lects. III-IV, pp. 75-149; G. W. Botsford and E.
G. Sihler, _Hellenic Civilisation_ (1915), for extracts. Accounts
and critical estimates of Thucydides will be found in all the larger
Greek histories, but by far the most thoroughgoing is that in G.
Busolt, _Griechische Geschichte_ (3 vols., 1893-1904), Vol. III_{2},
pp. 616-693. See also G. B. Grundy, _Thucydides and the History
of His Age_ (1911); E. Meyer, _Forschungen zur alten Geschichte_
(2 vols., 1892-1899), Vol. II (_Thucydides_), pp. 269-436. Of
especial interest is F. M. Cornford’s _Thucydides Mythistoricus_
(1907), but see the reviews by B. Perrin in _The American
Historical Review_, Vol. XIII (1908), pp. 314-316; T. Lenschau, in
_Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft_, Vol. XXX_{1} (1907),
p. 229 (“seit Ed. Meyers Abhandlungen die bedeutendste Erscheinung
der Thukydides-Litteratur”); E. Lange, in _Jahresbericht über
die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_, Vol.
CXXXVIII (1908), pp. 119 _sqq._ For the life of Thucydides see U.
v. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, _Die Thukydideslegende_, in _Hermes_,
Vol. XII (1877), pp. 326 _sqq._; but see R. Scholl, in _ibid._,
Vol. XIII (1878), pp. 433 _sqq._, and G. F. Unger, in _Jahrbücher
für classische Philologie_, Vol. CXXXIII (1886), pp. 97 _sqq._, 145
_sqq._; A. Bauer, _Die Forschungen zur griechischen Geschichte_
(1899), pp. 210 _sqq._; E. Lange, in _Philologus_, Vol. LVII (1898),
pp. 465 _sqq._ For his sources, see H. Stein, _Zur Quellenkritik
des Thukydides_, in _Rheinisches Museum_, Vol. LV (1900), pp. 531
_sqq._; and the reply of J. Steup, _Thukydides, Antiochos und die
angebliche Biographie des Hermokrates_ in _ibid._, Vol. LVI (1901),
pp. 443 _sqq._; A. Kirchhoff, _Thukydides und sein Urkundenmaterial_
(1895); L. Herbst, _Zur Urkunde in Thukydides_, in _Hermes_, Vol.
XXV (1890), pp. 374 _sqq._ In general see E. Meyer (_Thukydides und
die Entstehung der wissenschaftlichen Geschichte_), in _Mitteilungen
des Vereins der Freunde des humanistischen Gymnasiums_, Vienna, Vol.
XIV; M. Büdinger, _Poesie und Urkunde bei Thukydides_ (1891); R. C.
Jebb (_Speeches of Thucydides_), in _Essays and Addresses_ (1907),
pp. 359-445; Th. Gomperz, _Griechische Denker_ (3 vols., 1896-1902),
Vol. I, pp. 408-413; G. Busolt, in _Klio_, Vol. V (1905), pp. 255
_sqq._; E. Kornemann, _Thukydides und die römische Historiographie_,
in _Philologus_, Vol. LXIII (1904), pp. 148 _sqq._; J. E. Harrison,
_Primitive Athens as Described by Thucydides_ (1906).
For recent literature, see _Philologus_, Vol. LVI (1897), pp.
658 _sqq._; Vol. LVII (1898), pp. 436 _sqq._, for the years
1890-1897. See _Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft_, Vol. C (1899), pp. 171 _sqq._; for 1888-1899;
Vol. CXXV (1906), pp. 166 _sqq._, for 1900-1903; Vol. CXXXVIII
(1908), pp. 119 _sqq._, for 1904-1907; Sup. Vol. CLI (1911), pp. 372
_sqq._ E. Drerup, _Die historische Kunst der Griechen_, Festschrift
für W. v. Christ, _Jahrbücher für classische Philologie_, Sup.
Vol. XXVII, pp. 443 _sqq._; F. Jacoby, _Über die Entwicklung der
griechischen Historiographie_, in _Klio_, Vol. IX (1909), pp. 80
_sqq._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Thucydides (c. 460 (?)-c. 396) was sprung from an old Thracian
family on his mother’s side, though his father was an Athenian citizen.
We have no trustworthy evidence for the date of his birth, some placing
it as early as 471, others as late as 455; a late date is generally
accepted, however. His family was well-off, possessing valuable mining
properties in Thrace. His early life was spent at Athens, where the
influence of the sophists upon him was great. Although he tells us that
as soon as the Peloponnesian war opened, in 431, he kept a record of
it from the very first, he took no great part in it himself until 424,
when he was elected one of the two generals to command an expedition
into Thrace. He was unsuccessful, however, owing to his failure to
arrive in time; and the incident resulted in his exile. For twenty
years he lived on his Thracian estates, and returned to Athens only
after its defeat in 404. His stay in the fallen city was but for a
short time, as he soon returned to Thrace, and spent the remainder of
his life in working upon his history. We cannot be sure of the date of
his death, but it seems probable that it took place between 399 and 396
B.C. Tradition says that he was murdered; in any case his _History_ was
not finished at the time of his death, and one legend has it that the
eighth book was completed by his daughter, who then gave the whole work
to Xenophon to be published.
[2] Thucydides [_History of the Peloponnesian War_], Bk. I, Chap. XX.
(Jowett’s translation.)
[3] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XXI.
[4] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. V, Chap. XXVI.
[5] _Cf._ J. B. Bury, _op. cit._, p. 76.
[6] _Cf._ Thucydides [_History of the Peloponnesian War_], Bk. I, Chap.
XI. “Poverty was the real reason why the achievements of former ages
were insignificant” [and the Peloponnesian war so much more important
than the Trojan, etc.].
[7] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XXII.
[8] _Cf._ F. M. Cornford, _Thucydides Mythistoricus_ (1907).
[9] _Cf._ Th. Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_ (4 vols., tr. 1901-1912), Vol.
I, p. 503.
[10] _Cf._ E. Meyer, _Kleine Schriften_ (1910), (_Zur Theorie und
Methodik der Geschichte_), p. 67.
[11] Thucydides [_History of the Peloponnesian War_], Bk. I, Chap. I.
[12] _Cf._ _ibid._, Bk. I. Chap. XIV.
[13] The comment of Thucydides upon his use of this easy-going method
of reckoning time is worth quoting. “Ten years, with a difference of a
few days, had passed since the invasion of Attica and the commencement
of the war. I would have a person reckon the actual periods of
time, and not rely upon catalogues of the archons or other official
personages whose names may be used in different cities to mark the
dates of past events. For whether an event occurred in the beginning or
in the middle, or whatever might be the exact point, of a magistrate’s
term of office is left uncertain by such a mode of reckoning. But if
he measure by summers and winters as they are here set down, and count
each summer and winter as a half year, he will find that ten summers
and ten winters passed in the first part of the war.” Bk. V, Chap. XX.
This undoubtedly has its advantage for contemporary reckoning; but
Thucydides failed to see that the calendar of the war had also to be
set in the chronicle of centuries. For other references to the calendar
in Thucydides, _cf._ Bk. II, Chap. I: “The narrative is arranged
according to summers and winters.” Bk. II, Chap. XLVII: “As soon as
summer returned, the Peloponnesian army ... invaded Attica.” Bk. III,
Chap. I: “In the following summer when the corn was in full ear, the
Peloponnesians and their allies ... invaded Attica,” etc.
[14] It would be an interesting speculation to imagine Herodotus
writing the history of the Peloponnesian war. We should know much more
of the history of Greece. Thucydides holds himself so closely to the
war itself that there are only four digressions in the whole history,
after he once gets through the introduction. Because he plunges into
the war itself (Bk. I, Chap. XXIII) at the opening of his narrative, he
reverts, in an excursus, to the history of Athens since the Persian war
(Bk. I, Chaps. LXXXIX-CXVIII). In addition to this he inserts a short
account of affairs in Thrace (Bk. II, Chaps. XCVI-CI), a description of
Sicily (Bk. VI, Chaps. I-V), and a criticism of the received tradition
of the overthrow of the house of Pisistratus (Bk. VI, Chaps. LIV-LIX).
In each place Herodotus would have been tempted to insert a book.
[15] _Cf._ Thucydides [_History of the Peloponnesian War_], Bk. I,
Chaps. X, XXI.
[16] _Cf._ F. M. Cornford, _Thucydides Mythistoricus_, Part II.
[17] To be sure the modern historian finds much illumination from many
passages. But they are mainly incidental in the narrative.
[18] F. M. Cornford, _Thucydides Mythistoricus_, p. 76. This most
stimulating book on Thucydides lacks somewhat of Thucydidean caution
in the way it forces home the comparison of the work with Æschylean
tragedy. Nevertheless, in spite of the protest of classicists, it is a
notable contribution to historical appreciation.
[19] _Ibid._, pp. 73, 74.
[20] Essay on History.
[21] _Cf._ Thucydides [_History of the Peloponnesian War_], Bk. I,
Chaps. I, XX, XXII, Bk. V, Chap. XXVI.
[22] So definitely is this the case that one can readily detect where
his hand had not given the final touch.
CHAPTER XV
RHETORIC AND SCHOLARSHIP
Thucydides left almost no impress upon subsequent Greek historians. He
remained a great name; but few read and fewer imitated him. His severe
yet lofty style and his passion for the truth were foreign to the taste
of the age that followed.[1] For although history did not revert to
poetry, it passed into the field of rhetoric, where the ideal was a
striving for effect rather than for fact. It was not until in the first
century B.C., when the old Greek classics were revived, that Thucydides
became once more an influence, or rather an ideal. But to trace this
farther carries us to Rome. Moreover between Thucydides and the
rhetoricians lay another historian, known to all those who even begin
the study of Greek, to whom we must now turn, though only for a hurried
glance.
Alongside Herodotus and Thucydides, the ancients placed Xenophon, the
three forming for them the trio of great Greek historians. Modern
criticism has a much lower opinion of Xenophon. Soldier of fortune,
student of philosophy, intimately acquainted with the men and events
of an age fateful both for Greece and for the history of the world, he
caught no gleam of its larger meaning, gained no sense of the causes
and little appreciation of the results of the happenings he chronicled.
The sudden fall of Sparta, for instance, he attributed not to its own
rather obvious faults but to the direct action of the gods. Neither
Greek nor Persian history was clear to him in its tendencies and
significance.
To quote the discriminating judgment of Professor Bury:
“In history as in philosophy he was a dilettante.... He had a happy
literary talent, and his multifarious writings, taken together, render
him an interesting figure in Greek literature. But his mind was
essentially mediocre, incapable of penetrating beneath the surface of
things. If he had lived in modern days, he would have been a high-class
journalist and pamphleteer; he would have made his fortune as a
war-correspondent; and would have written the life of some mediocre
hero of the stamp of Agesilaus. So far as history is concerned, his
true vocation was to write memoirs. The _Anabasis_ is a memoir, and it
is the most successful of his works. It has the defects which memoirs
usually have, but it has the merits, the freshness, the human interest
of a personal document. The adventures of the Ten Thousand are alive
forever in Xenophon’s pages.”[2]
This adverse judgment of the modern critic would seem to leave
Xenophon but slight claim to consideration in a history of History.
But we cannot get rid of him with quite so summary a dismissal. For
the historical, as contrasted with the purely biographical, treatment
demands of us that we keep in mind not simply the appraisal of his
work today, but also the opinions of the successive generations of
readers who have judged him differently than we. The very contrast
between the high regard in which Xenophon was held by the ancients
and the slight esteem of his modern critics, is itself a fact of real
significance,--perhaps the most significant one which the work of
Xenophon presents for us. To Cicero, for instance, and to the great
cultured world for which he spoke--and still speaks--Xenophon was one
of the world’s classics. Why?
First of all there was his style, graphic, entertaining, harmonious,
“sweeter than honey” as Cicero said, not heavy with ill-assorted facts
nor dulled by too much philosophy. But apart from style, there was
his happy gift of portraiture and his descriptive concreteness. If he
failed to get at the inner connection of events, he brought out all the
more the personality of the individual leaders. And after all, it is a
fair question in some stages of history, whether the events that offer
themselves to the narrator are as worth considering as the characters
of the actors. However unenlightened Xenophon may have been as to the
processes of history, as a memoir-writer he contributed largely to
the little there was of that high-class journalism which draws its
charm from an interest in people. The appreciation of Xenophon by the
ancients was therefore based upon real qualities; and although they are
insufficient to enable him to hold his place in the present, when the
standards of history reflect the wider vision of the social sciences
and demand a control of causal perspectives, still they are qualities
which endure.
Xenophon was born about the opening of the Peloponnesian war, and
died when the power of Macedon was already threatening to close the
last troubled era of Greek freedom (c. 430-354 B.C.). As a young
Athenian noble he became a disciple of Socrates and preserved his
“recollections” (_Memorabilia_) of his teacher in four books, which
present the homely detail of an observer rather than of a thinker and
the less abstruse side of Socrates’ philosophy. It is unfortunate for
him that Plato’s account lies alongside to invite comparison. Very few
historians, not to mention journalists, would measure up well with
such a rival. As it is, however, the _Memorabilia_ is an invaluable
human document. It also affords precious glimpses of the social life
of the time. But though this unenlightened pupil of Socrates failed to
get at the inner connection of events, he brought out all the more the
personality of the individual leaders.
Of vastly different content is the _Anabasis_, a narrative of the war
of Cyrus the Younger against Artaxerxes his royal brother, and of
the retreat of the Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries in the service of
Cyrus. Xenophon was elected their general after the death of Cyrus,
and his narrative--the best known manual to beginners of the study
of Greek--remains a clear picture of the marching soldiers and of
the hinterland through which they passed. Moreover, his description
of places and his geography generally have the merit, rarer than one
suspects, of being relatively accurate.
The formal effort of Xenophon at the writing of history, however,
was not the _Anabasis_ but the _Hellenica_, an attempt to carry on
the history of Thucydides,--completing the Peloponnesian war from
the autumn of 411 B.C. and terminating at Mantinea in 362. But it is
very unlike Thucydides, in both outlook and style. It moves in lively
narrative and where a bare story of intricate events would pall, it
interjects personal descriptions drawn to the life. Indeed, so well
are these done, that the reader’s interest is kept stimulated where
otherwise it would flag. So, although there is an undue proportion of
this descriptive material, it is so successfully handled as almost
to turn a defect into a merit. There was an excuse as well in the
theme itself. It lacked that large, compelling epic quality which lay
inherent in the Persian wars of Herodotus and that dramatic unity which
Thucydides revealed in the struggle against Athenian supremacy. The
pattern of Greek history was becoming more puzzling, the isolation
of even the more inland states was giving way, and their interaction
becoming more varied. If a Thucydides failed to estimate the economic
forces behind the fortunes and policies of his time, Xenophon should
not be blamed too much for sharing the weakness of all antiquity in
this regard. The _Hellenica_ was written while he was in exile from
Athens, and presents the later history of Greece from the Spartan point
of view. The Peloponnesians were having their day, as the Athenians
had had theirs when Thucydides wrote. But the times were no longer
great. When one recalls what Sparta was,--its arid intellectual soil,
its unadjustable hardness, its parochial militarism,--one is surely
justified in tempering justice with charity in judging the limitations
of outlook shown by a writer living under its domination; even if,
beyond the narrowing horizon of politics and culture, he could,
looking back, recall the inspiration of a great adventure with ten
thousand Greeks in Asia, or, better still, could treasure as a lasting
possession the personal memories of Socrates.
* * * * *
Between Xenophon and Polybius we come upon a period which is difficult
for us to appreciate justly, the age of the rhetorician.[3] The very
name is forbidding. Formal rhetoric not only repels the scientist,
it has even lost its charm as an art. We find it hard to be patient
with mere words when we have so rich a world of real experience to
draw upon, and few who study the evolution of history can repress a
condemnation of the pupils of Isocrates. The condemnation is justified
from the standpoint of science; rhetoric played too great a rôle in the
antique culture, and facts too little. But the historian of History
must temper his condemnation or run the risk of becoming unhistorical.
Given the antique world as it was, he should not expect it to achieve
the modern method. The art of Demosthenes was as fitting and noble an
expression of the maturity of Greek genius as was the Homeric epic of
its youth. From the standpoint of science, the Greek mind was always
hampered by its art. This was true of a philosopher like Plato and
a historian like Thucydides; it could hardly fail to be true, in a
different sense, of those who lived in an age when the great creations
of that art were already their heritage.
Rhetoric is to us largely a subject for school children, and is branded
in later life with the scorn of things immature; but the Greek ideal
was not altogether vain. The great art of expression by words is
surely as worthy one’s study as arts which live in color or stone. At
once plastic and monumental, preserving the form and color of reality
by the choice of the clear-cut word or the finely moulded phrase,
rhetoric elevates the prose of literature to replace the vanishing art
of poetry. Its field in antiquity, however, was limited. The ancient
city lacked the varied scope of modern journalism; its interests were
mainly local, and its literature was spoken rather than written. In a
country where the theatre took the place of our libraries, and where
even philosophy was largely dialogue, it was but natural that rhetoric
should, in its higher forms, tend to be practically a synonym for
oratory.[4] Moreover, oratory, in a Greek city, was a real force. The
arena of politics was hardly larger than the amphitheatre or the agora,
and it was possible to control it almost as definitely by the voice and
personality of a speaker. But oratory was not confined to politics. It
was an art cultivated for itself, like music today, and “people went
to hear an oratorical display just as we go to hear a symphony.”[5]
It was therefore inevitable that speech-making should over-run the
narrative of history and the play upon language over-run speech-making;
as inevitable as that the histories of the nineteenth century should
be couched so largely in the terms of national politics, or those of
the twentieth include the survey of economics and the sciences. The
invention of orations in history, which, as we have seen, has its
origins in primitive story-telling, and which Thucydides took over from
his predecessors as a natural part of his expression, became, in the
age which followed, a definite part of the historian’s trade, and not
more in Greece than in Rome, which was to receive much of its education
at the hands of the Greek rhetor. So Livy clogged his moving narrative
with long discourses, and even Cæsar, orator as well as soldier, would
halt the charge, as it were, to deliver through the mouth of the
general some unnecessary harangue.
Yet, as we have seen in the case of Thucydides, what seems to us
artifice was often genuine art. The orations which are now so futile
and unreal gave to the antique mind the very reflection of reality. We
must judge the antique historian only by living through the politics of
agora or forum in the small Mediterranean cities where the living voice
was both journalism and literature, and where the destiny of a state
might at any time be decided by the power of a ringing speech. Yet one
may carry the historic imagination too far, and excuse too much. The
rhetoric which brought popularity to the historian of the third century
B.C. brought him just as surely the neglect of later times.
Formal rhetoric, however, did not limit itself to the speeches. Such
obvious devices did perhaps less damage to historiography than the
general tendency which they represented to sacrifice accuracy for
effect. History, at best a poor enough mirror of reality, is readily
warped by art; and rhetoric is art of the most formal kind. It distorts
into ordered arrangement the haphazard, unformed materials which chance
produces or preserves. It sets its pieces like an impresario and
completes with convincing elegance the abrupt and incomplete dramas
of reality. All history-writing does this to some degree, since it
is art. But rhetoric passes easily over into the sphere of conscious
distortion. A phrase is worth a fact; and facts must fit the liking
of the audience, or serve to point a moral. As few facts in reality
do lend themselves readily to these moral and æsthetic purposes, the
rhetorician readjusts the story to his needs.[6]
The age that followed Thucydides and Xenophon was dominated by the
influence of Isocrates. Few men have impressed themselves upon an
art more profoundly than he. His canons of style were not only to
prevail in the Greece of his day, but to pass on, through the rich
rhythmic periods of Cicero, to mould the prose of many a modern
author. Fortunately, however, this master of style contributed as well
to history a widened outlook into the Hellenic world. He viewed the
politics of Greece as essentially one, and sought to inspire a common
patriotism by appealing to the pride of all in the achievements of a
single city.[7] The glory of Athens, its services to Greece and the
lessons of its democracy were held up to other states as an ideal
for the future. But the forces of the world today are never those of
yesterday, and when the long spears of Macedon wrecked instead of
realized the dreams of the great orators who shed such lustre upon the
last age of Greek liberty, there was left only history in which to
embody the ideal of Isocrates.
The first general historian of the Hellenic world, and one of the most
popular in antiquity, was Ephorus, to whom, according to Photius,
Isocrates assigned the task of preserving the more distant past
in fitting mould.[8] He was not uncritical when dealing with both
chronology and myth,[9] but he rejected the ideal of Thucydides to keep
his speeches closely modelled upon the originals. He frankly made them
up, and was especially given to harangues upon the field of battle.[10]
Yet he seems to have had a sense of their proper use, for Polybius,
who was a keen judge, says that he has “a most elegant and convincing
digression on this very subject of a comparison between historians and
speech-makers,”[11] and speaks of the work as a whole as “admirable
throughout, in style, treatment, and argumentative acuteness.”[12]
The name most commonly linked with that of Ephorus is Theopompus,
to whom, according to the story cited above, Isocrates assigned the
“modern” field, while he gave the past to Ephorus.[13] In any case,
he wrote two important histories, a continuation of Thucydides--the
_Hellenica_ (in twelve books), and a survey of contemporary Greek
politics in the time of Philip--the _Philippica_ (in fifty-eight
books). He was gifted with a lively style and he employed all
the artifices of rhetoric to secure effect,--a Greek Macaulay or
Treitschke. Placed by the ancients in the front rank of historians, his
work has suffered unduly from the ravages of time and changing taste.
Little of what he wrote remains, his works not having been copied from
their papyrus rolls into the codices which might have insured their
preservation.[14] He travelled extensively and saw things at first
hand; he was an insatiable investigator; yet the exigencies of style
and a biassed mind vitiated his work.[15]
Standing apart from the influence of Isocrates, and keenly criticising
Ephorus and Theopompus, was Timæus, the Sicilian, who passed fifty
years of his life at Athens busied with antiquarian researches. He
it was who instituted in history that dating by Olympiads which
henceforth became the Greek standard of chronology for historians and
the learned world, although it never was adopted into common use. He
was an indefatigable worker and investigator, and if he was a pedant
who lacked discrimination and that knowledge of the world which enables
one to judge men and describe events, he furnished the historians who
followed with much information otherwise lost. But he was biassed and
unfair, lacking not only the larger vision but the judicial mind, and
his attack upon his predecessors was the text of a more crushing attack
upon himself by Polybius, who devotes his whole twelfth book to little
more than this purpose. Polybius scorns this mere dry-as-dust who spent
his time in libraries and never saw the world, and who is a stickler
for small points while he fails to see the large ones. But however
much remained to criticise in the actual achievement of Timæus, it was
something to have him protest that “history differs from rhetorical
composition as much as real buildings differ from those represented in
scene-paintings”; and again, that “to collect the necessary materials
for writing history is by itself more laborious than the whole process
of producing rhetorical compositions.”[16]
No Greek historian arose to handle the greatest political achievement
of the Hellenic race--the Alexandrine empire. Ephorus had written the
national story down to 356, and Theopompus had covered the age of
Philip. There they stopped. To the Hellenistic world this was like
the Old Testament story of Judæa to the Christians. But the story
of the great Diaspora, of the spreading of the Greeks through all
the Orient, of the building of new cities and planting of Hellenic
colonies over to the heart of Asia, of the widening of language and
the vital contact with Oriental science, religion and philosophy, all
this remained unwritten by competent hands. The Greeks, at the moment
when their history seemed ended, emerged upon the theatre of world
history, not as local patriots nor the art creators of single cities,
but as the trained and competent interpreters of the more universal
phases of antique culture. The conquest of Alexander made possible a
Hellenic Orient,--as great an event in the history of civilization
as the Romanization of the West. But the epic of that conquest was
never written, not even the prose of it, by men worthy of the theme.
Fairy-like stories of Oriental splendor revealed in Susa or Babylon
found ready credence, at a time when truth itself was so incredible;
and alongside of them are narratives of some of Alexander’s generals
and subsequent rulers, like blue-books among fiction. Yet the Herodotus
of the _revanche_ was missing. Instead, the last great Greek historian
was a hostage at Rome, writing in the house of Scipio the story of
the rise of the western imperial republic whose armies he himself saw
sacking the treasures of Corinth when Greece became a Roman province.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The most recent edition of Xenophon’s works is that edited by E.
C. Marchant (5 vols., Vols. I-IV [1900-1910]). There are several
good editions. The translation of all the works by H. G. Dakyns (4
vols., Vols. I-III, 1890-1897) is prefaced by a short biographical
study. The Loeb Classical Library has announced a translation of
Xenophon’s _Hellenica_, _Anabasis_ and _Symposium_ by C. L. Brownson.
The first volume has appeared. J. B. Bury’s judgment on Xenophon in
_The Ancient Greek Historians_, pp. 150 _sqq._, is most severe. See
also H. G. Dakyns, in E. Abbott, _Hellenica_ (2d ed., 1898), pp.
296-352; Sir A. Grant, _Xenophon_ (1871); A. Croiset, _Xenophon, son
caractère et son talent_ (1873); F. Leo, _Die griechisch-römische
Biographie_ (1901), pp. 87-93; H. A. Gutschmid, _Kleine Schriften_
(5 vols., 1889-1904) (_Aus Vorlesungen ueber die Geschichte der
griechischen Historiographie_) (_Charakteristik des Xenophon_), Vol.
IV, pp. 328-335; E. Schwartz, in _Rheinisches Museum_, Vol. XLIV
(1889) (_Quellenuntersuchungen zur griechischen Geschichte_), pp.
104 _sqq._, 161 _sqq._ For other literature see _Jahresbericht über
die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_, Vol. CXVII
(1903), pp. 47 _sqq._, for 1899-1902; Vol. CXLII (1909), pp. 341
_sqq._, for 1903-1908; Sup. Vol. CLI (1911), pp. 402 _sqq._
The classical work on the period between Xenophon and Polybius is
R. C. Jebb’s _The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isæus_ (2 vols.,
1876, 2d ed., 1893), but the section devoted to _The Attic Orators_
(Chap. I, Sect. 10) in G. W. Botsford and E. G. Sihler’s _Hellenic
Civilization_ (1915), is now the best guide.
The works of Isocrates are edited by F. Blass (2 vols., 2d ed.,
Teubner, 1885) and by E. Drerup (Vol. I, 1906). There is an English
translation by J. H. Freese (Vol. I, 1894). See G. Murray (1912),
pp. 341-352; A. and M. Croiset (5 vols., 2d ed., 1896-1899; 3d ed.,
Vols. I-III, 1910-1914), Vol. IV, pp. 465-505; W. v. Christ (5th
and 6th ed., 1908-1913), (5th ed.), Vol. I, pp. 531-545; J. B. Bury
(1909), pp. 160 _sqq._; R. C. Jebb, _Attic Orators_, Vol. II, Chaps.
XII-XVIII, pp. 1-267, especially Chap. XIII, pp. 34-58. See also R.
v. Scala, _Über Isocrates und die Geschichtsschreibung, Versammlungen
deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner_, 1891 (41 u., 42 vers.), pp.
102 _sqq._; G. Misch, _Geschichte der Autobiographie_ (1907), Vol. I,
pp. 90 _sqq._; _Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft_, Sup. Vol. CLI (1911), pp. 308 _sqq._; Vol.
CLII (1911), pp. 76 _sqq._, for literature for 1886-1909.
On Ephorus, see the article in Pauly-Wissowa’s _Real-Encyclopädie_,
Vol. VI, pp. 1-16. The fragments of his works are preserved in C.
Müller, _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_ (5 vols., 1841-1873), Vol.
I, pp. 234-277, Vol. IV, pp. 641 _sqq._ See G. Murray, p. 389; A.
and M. Croiset, Vol. IV, pp. 655-662; W. v. Christ (5th ed.), Vol.
I, pp. 498-501; J. B. Bury, pp. 163-165. See also B. Niese, _Wann
hat Ephorus sein Geschichtswerk geschrieben?_ in _Hermes_, Vol. XLIV
(1909), pp. 170-178; E. Schwartz, _Die Zeit des Ephorus_, in _ibid._,
Vol. XLIV, pp. 481-502; R. Laqueur, _Ephorus_, in _ibid._, Vol. XLVI
(1911), pp. 161-206, 321-354; M. Büdinger, _Universalhistorie im
Altertum_ (1895), pp. 32 _sqq._
The fragments of Theopompus are collected in C. Müller, _Fragmenta
Historicum Græcorum_, Vol. I, pp. 278-333; Vol. IV, pp. 643-645. See
G. Murray, pp. 389-390; A. and M. Croiset, Vol. IV, pp. 662-674;
W. v. Christ (5th ed.), Vol. I, pp. 501-503; J. B. Bury, pp.
165-167. See also J. Dellios, _Zur Kritik des Geschichtsschreibens
Theopomps_ (1880); R. Hirzel, _Zur Charakteristik Theopomps_, in
_Rheinisches Museum_, Vol. XLVII (1892), pp. 359-389; G. Busolt,
_Zur Glaubwürdigkeit Theopomps_, in _Hermes_, Vol. XLV (1910), pp.
220-249; E. Rohde, _Kleine Schriften_ (2 vols., 1901), Vol. I, pp.
345-346; Vol. II, pp. 19-25; W. Schranz, _Theopomps Philippika_
(1912).
The texts of Timæus are collected in C. Müller, _Fragmenta
Historicorum Græcorum_, Vol. I, pp. 193-233. See the histories of
Greek literature, G. Murray, pp. 390 _sq._; A. and M. Croiset,
Vol. V, pp. 109-115; W. v. Christ (5th ed.), Vol. II, pp. 168-171;
F. Susemihl, _Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der
Alexandrinerzeit_ (2 vols., 1891-1892), Vol. I, pp. 563-583; J.
B. Bury, pp. 167-170. See also J. Geffcken, _Timaios’ Geographie
des Westens_ (1892); C. Clasen, _Historisch-kritische Untersuchung
über Timaios von Tauromenion_ (1883); A. Hopf, _Über die Einleitung
zum Timaios_, Prog. Erlangen (1884); E. Schwartz, _Timaeos’
Geschichtswerk_, in _Hermes_, Vol. XXXIV (1899), pp. 481-493; J.
Beloch, _Die Ökonomie der Geschichte des Timaios_, in _Jahrbücher
für classische Philologie_, Vol. CXXIII (1881), pp. 697 _sqq._; M.
Büdinger, _Universalhistorie im Altertum_, pp. 51 _sqq._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Bury, following Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, points out that it was not
an age favorable to the composition of political history in any case.
The engrossing intellectual interest was then political science. And
one need only look into the treatises on political science written by
the theorist today to see how history suffers!
[2] J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek Historians_, pp. 151-152.
[3] _Vide_ R. C. Jebb, _The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isæus_ (2
vols., 1876, 2d ed., 1893).
[4] On the other hand the rhetor’s work in the general art or
discipline of speaking was almost synonymous with education.
[5] J. B. Bury, _op. cit._, p. 174.
[6] _Cf._ W. v. Christ, _Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur_ (5th
ed.), Vol. II, pp. 228-235, 348-367.
[7] In his insistence upon the need of a general war of all Greece
with Persia in order to unite the Greeks, using Philip as the weapon
and instrument, Isocrates’ reliance upon a military salvation reminds
one of Bismarckian tactics. The death of the orator, then in his
ninety-eighth year, followed immediately upon Chæronea.
[8] _Cf._ Photius, _Bibliotheca_, Chap. CLXXVI (_Cf._ A. and M.
Croiset, _Histoire de la littérature grecque_, 2d ed., Vol. IV, pp.
656-657). Diodorus and Strabo also relied largely upon Ephorus for the
field he covered. _Cf._ H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_ (1911), pp. 151
_sqq._
[9] _Cf._ E. Meyer, _Forschungen zur alten Geschichte_, Vol. I, pp.
186 _sqq._ The influence of Isocrates shows itself especially in his
smooth-flowing style, tending, however, toward a languid diffuseness.
[10] _Cf._ Plutarch (_Præcepta Gerendae Reipublicae_, 803 _b_) includes
Theopompus in this remark; _cf._ W. v. Christ, _op. cit._ (6th ed.),
Vol. I, pp. 529 _sqq._
[11] _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. XII, Chap. XXVIII.
[12] _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. XII, Chap. XXVIII. Here,
perhaps, mention should be made of the fragment of a _Hellenica_ of
greater value than that of Xenophon, which was published in 1908
by B. G. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt in _Oxyrhynchus Papyri_, Part V,
pp. 143 _sqq._, since the most recent commentator, E. M. Walker, in
his lectures entitled _The Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, its Authorship
and Authority_ (Oxford, 1913) decides for Ephorus. It had been
attributed to Theopompus by Eduard Meyer, (_Theopomps Hellenika_,
1909), who compared the author to Schlosser or Macaulay, by Busolt,
Wilamowitz, and in a sense, perhaps, by the editors of the text.
Against this conclusion were also ranged such scholars as Blass,
Judeich, Lehmann-Haupt, Beloch, De Sanctis, and most English scholars
(see literature in Walker, _op. cit._, Lect. I). Bury (_Ancient
Greek Historians_) argued for Cratippus, a younger contemporary of
Thucydides, who continued his work. Cratippus had objected to the
speeches in Thucydides and there are none in this _Hellenica_. For the
other fragments of Cratippus see C. Müller, _Fragmenta Historicorum
Græcorum_, Vol. II, pp. 75 _sqq._ G. W. Botsford (_Hellenic
Civilization_, Chap. I, Sect. 9, p. 40) is inclined to accept Cratippus
as the author.
[13] Cicero’s chief comment deals with the contrast in the style of the
two pupils of Isocrates. _Cf._ _De Oratore_, Bk. III, Chap. IX: “We see
that from the same schools of artists and masters, eminent in their
respective pursuits, there have gone forth pupils very unlike each
other, yet all praiseworthy, because the instruction of the teacher
has been adapted to each person’s natural genius; a fact of which the
most remarkable example (to say nothing of other sciences) is that
saying of Isocrates, an eminent teacher of eloquence, that he used to
apply the spur to Ephorus, but to put the rein on Theopompus; for the
one, who overleaped all bounds in the boldness of his expressions, he
restrained; the other who hesitated and was bashful, as it were, he
stimulated: nor did he produce in them any resemblance to each other,
but gave to the one such an addition, and retrenched from the other
so much superfluity, as to form in both that excellence of which the
natural genius of each was susceptible.” (Watson’s translation.)
There is a similar remark in _Brutus_, Chap. LVI.
[14] Diodorus already, in the first century B.C., reported the loss of
rolls of Theopompus (... _Bibliothecae Historicae_, Bk. XVI, Chap. III,
Sect. 8).
[15] Fragments in C. Müller, _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_, Vol. I,
pp. 278-333; Vol. IV, pp. 643-645.
[16] Quoted by Polybius, _The Histories_, Bk. XII, Chap. XXVIII _a_.
(Shuckburgh’s translation.)
These researches of Timæus in chronology naturally bring up a very
knotty problem, that of the material upon which he could draw. We
have seen the general character of the work of Hellanicus, the one
standard authority in chronology. After him chronicles of Athens
(_Atthides_) continued to be written, and grew in scope to include
all kinds of happenings. A line of Atthid writers developed, somewhat
like the Pontifical annalists at Rome. (J. B. Bury, _The Ancient Greek
Historians_, p. 183.) Of these, Androtion, the pupil of Isocrates,
whose _Atthis_ appeared in 330, was the main source for Aristotle’s
_Constitution of Athens_. (See articles in Pauly-Wissowa and G. De
Sanctis, _L’Attide di Androzione e un papirio di Oxyrhynchos in Atti
della reale accademia delle scienze di Torino_, Vol. XLIII, 1908, pp.
331-356), although scholars have seriously considered whether the
_Constitution_ was not actually written by Philochorus, the last, and
greatest, of the Atthid writers. (See J. H. Wright in _American Journal
of Philology_, Vol. XII, 1891.) Bury (_op. cit._, p. 183) goes so
far as to say that “the recovery of Philochorus would mean a greater
addition to our historical knowledge than the Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία.”
This last work is the only one of the numerous historical treatises
of Aristotle which has been recovered. It was found in Egypt in 1890.
F. G. Kenyon’s text (1891, 1892) and translation (1912) are the
best. See bibliography in G. W. Botsford and E. G. Sihler, _Hellenic
Civilisation_, Chap. I, Sect. 9. This work does not entitle Aristotle
to a place among the great historians. Under his direction a collection
of 158 constitutions of states was made for a comparative study of
politics. In a sense, therefore, Aristotle’s place in the history of
constitutional government is that of a scientific pioneer. But he seems
to resemble an antique Montesquieu rather than a Stubbs or Waitz, to
whom Bury (p. 182) compares him.
CHAPTER XVI
POLYBIUS
The historian of History need hardly describe the works or narrate the
lives of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy and Tacitus, for their achievement
is universally known, their works the common possession of the whole
cultured world. But the case is different with Polybius. Art withheld
from him the Hellenic heritage; he was no master of style; his history
is not among the world’s best literature. He is generally known to
the modern reader as a name in footnotes. And yet in the long line
of great historians he ranks among the first. He is _par excellence_
the historian’s historian of antiquity, and in our own day, when the
scientific ideals for which he fought have at last won their way to
power, his figure emerges from the comparatively obscure place to which
his literary achievement entitles him, and reveals itself as a modern
among antiques, critical but not blankly skeptical, working toward
constructive principles and conscious of the exacting standards of
science.
Polybius was a noble Greek, born at Megalopolis in Arcadia about
198 B.C. His father, Lycortas, was the friend and successor of
Philopoemen, the patriot leader of the Achæan league--that last effort
of united Hellas--and Polybius himself had hardly reached manhood
before he was intrusted with high responsibility both as ambassador
and magistrate. But the policy with which he was identified--that of
strictly maintaining the formal alliance with Rome, neither yielding
to encroachment nor furnishing pretexts for aggression--had little
chance of success while the Roman armies were reducing the neighbors
of Greece and Greek warring factions were inviting trouble. Pretexts
for aggression can always be found, and accordingly, after the battle
of Pydna in 168 B.C., Polybius was carried off to Rome, along with a
thousand others, nominally as prisoners to await a trial which never
came, but really as hostages to insure a freer hand for practical
imperialism. Polybius himself fared the best of these, for he was
taken into the family of the victorious general, Æmilius Paulus, and
so stayed not only in Rome, but in company of the Scipios, in daily
intercourse with the leading spirits of that masterful aristocracy into
whose hands had fallen the destinies of the Mediterranean world. This
favored position seems to have been won more by his personality than by
his distinguished ancestry or position in Greece, for he tells us with
winning frankness how the young Scipio Æmilianus, the future conqueror
of Africa, sought his friendship and became his pupil.[1]
Situated thus in the centre of things, Polybius became fired with the
ambition to write the history of the tremendous epoch in which he was
living. “Can any one,” he asks at the opening of his work, “be so
indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under
what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and
brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too,
within the period of not quite fifty-three years?”[2] For those who are
not “so indifferent or idle,” Polybius left to the world a scientific
achievement of undimmed and perpetual worth. Forty books of history
carried the story from “the first occasion on which the Romans crossed
the sea from Italy,”[3] in 264 B.C., through the varying fortunes of
the Punic wars, down to the close of the history of Carthage and of
Greece in 146 B.C. Of these forty books only the first five have come
down to us entire, but lengthy portions of some of the others enable us
to form a fairly clear idea of the work as a whole. Moreover, conscious
of the intricacy of his subject, and of the difficulty of handling
intelligibly such a mass of detail, Polybius like a true school teacher
furnishes us with explanatory notes and even, in the opening of the
third book, with a sort of syllabus of the whole plan, in order to
make sure that the reader shall not miss seeing the woods for the
trees. These directions and hints are so thoroughly characteristic
of the author, as we shall see later on, that we cannot do better
than quote from them Polybius’ own conception of his field of work.
Apart from their value as guides, they at once afford a glimpse of the
half-apologetic, half-proud attitude and wholly intimate relationship
which Polybius assumes and establishes with the reader:
“My History begins in the 140th Olympiad. The events from which it
starts are these. In Greece, what is called the Social war, the
first waged by Philip, son of Demetrius and father of Perseus,
in league with the Achæans against the Ætolians. In Asia, the
war for the possession of Cœle-Syria which Antiochus and Ptolemy
Philopator carried on against each other. In Italy, Libya, and their
neighbourhood, the conflict between Rome and Carthage, generally
called the Hannibalian war.
“My work thus begins where that of Aratus of Sicyon leaves off.
Now up to this time the world’s history had been, so to speak, a
series of disconnected transactions, as widely separated in their
origin and results as in their localities. But from this time forth
History becomes a connected whole: the affairs of Italy and Libya
are involved with those of Asia and Greece, and the tendency of all
is to unity. This is why I have fixed upon this era as the starting
point of my work. For it was their victory over the Carthaginians in
this war, and their conviction that thereby the most difficult and
most essential step towards universal empire had been taken, which
encouraged the Romans for the first time to stretch out their hands
upon the rest, and to cross with an army into Greece and Asia.”[4]
The real history, therefore, begins with the third book; the first and
second are but a laborious and massive prelude. The fifty-three years
whose unparalleled achievements he proposes to chronicle are those from
220 to 168 B.C. That would bring the narrative down to the year in
which the author himself was carried off to Rome, when the victory of
Pydna ended forever any reasonable hope of the independence of Macedon
or Greece. The frank subjectivity of Polybius’ outlook[5] is reflected
in this original plan. He proposed to stop the survey of politics where
he himself had stopped; not consciously for that reason, but because
from the home of the Scipios it had seemed as if the Roman conquest
were over. He had become an imperialist and shared the imperialistic
conviction in an “inevitable destiny.” It was from this point of
view that he conceived his history. Fortuna,--part chance, part
goddess,--had “made almost all the affairs of the world incline in one
direction, and forced them to converge upon one and the same point.” So
his history was to culminate in the unification of the Mediterranean
world. He knew that intrigue and hot revolt still broke out in the
subdued territories but such things, properly reduced in size by
distance, are always to be expected on the verge of the imperialist’s
perspective. Later, however, Polybius saw that the task of imperialism
was not completed but only begun by its conquests, and so he carried
his narrative down to include the burning of Carthage and the sack of
Corinth--at both which events he was present.[6]
The reason which Polybius gives for adding this later survey is
interesting and important. It furnishes us with the clue for his
conception of the mission of the historian. We may as well quote him
in his own downright way. It is clear enough, he says, that in the
fifty-three years “the Roman power had arrived at its consummation,”
and that the acknowledgment of her supremacy had been extorted from
all, and her commands obeyed:
“But in truth, judgments of either side founded on the bare facts of
success or failure in the field are by no means final. It has often
happened that what seemed the most signal successes have, from ill
management, brought the most crushing disasters in their train; while
not unfrequently the most terrible calamities, sustained with spirit,
have been turned to actual advantage. I am bound, therefore, to add
to my statement of facts a discussion on the subsequent policy of the
conquerors, and their administration of their universal dominion:
and again on the various feelings and opinions entertained by other
nations towards their rulers. And I must also describe the tastes and
aims of the several nations, whether in their private lives or public
policy. The present generation will learn from this whether they
should shun or seek the rule of Rome; and future generations will be
taught whether to praise and imitate, or to decry it.”[7]
Here we come upon the practical aim of all Polybius’ work--the
pragmatic character of it, which he insists upon, time and again.
History was to him no mere antiquarianism. He is a practical
politician, and history is simply past politics. It is justified by its
utility; it is philosophy teaching by experience.[8] A knowledge of
history, he says in another place, is no mere graceful accomplishment,
but absolutely essential as a guide to action. It is only history which
can supply the statesman with precedents. The present offers no such
chances as the past for judging the relative forces of circumstances or
the motives of men:
“In the case of contemporaries, it is difficult to obtain an insight
into their purposes; because, as their words and actions are
dictated by a desire of accommodating themselves to the necessity
of the hour, and of keeping up appearances, the truth is too often
obscured. Whereas the transactions of the past admit of being tested
by naked fact; and accordingly display without disguise the motives
and purposes of the several persons engaged; and teach us from what
sort of people to expect favour, active kindness, and assistance, or
the reverse. They give us also many opportunities of distinguishing
who would be likely to pity us, feel indignation at our wrongs, and
defend our cause,--a power that contributes very greatly to national
as well as individual security. Neither the writer nor the reader of
history, therefore, should confine his attention to a bare statement
of facts: he must take into account all that preceded, accompanied,
or followed them. For if you take from history all explanation of
cause, principle, and motive, and of the adaptation of the means to
the end, what is left is a mere panorama without being instructive;
and, though it may please for the moment, has no abiding value.”[9]
The keynote of this is that history must “instruct.” It is no mean task
that it has in hand; the lesson which the tutor of Scipio Africanus
would draw from it is nothing less than a science of politics. The
story of Hannibal’s march upon Rome and of the firmness of the Romans
in the crisis is told with equal and generous admiration for both
sides, “not ... for the sake of making a panegyric on either Romans or
Carthaginians, ... but for the sake of those who are in office among
the one or the other people, or who are in future times to direct
the affairs of any state whatever; that by the memory, or actual
contemplation, of exploits such as these they may be inspired with
emulation.”[10] Perhaps the clearest statement of this conviction
of Polybius that history is philosophy teaching by experience,--a
conviction stated many times over,--is his comment on the narrative of
the defeat of Regulus in the first Punic war:
“I record these things in the hope of benefiting my readers. There
are two roads to reformation for mankind--one through misfortunes
of their own, the other through those of others: the former is the
most unmistakable, the latter the less painful. One should never
therefore voluntarily choose the former, for it makes reformation a
matter of great difficulty and danger; but we should always look out
for the latter, for thereby we can without hurt to ourselves gain a
clear view of the best course to pursue. It is this which forces us
to consider that the knowledge gained from the study of true history
is the best of all educations for practical life. For it is history,
and history alone, which, without involving us in actual danger, will
mature our judgment and prepare us to take right views, whatever may
be the crisis or the posture of affairs.”[11]
It must be admitted that such a “pragmatic” point of view is not
altogether reassuring. A historian who is mainly intent on the lessons
history supplies would be given short shrift today in the courts of
historical criticism. But Polybius was saved as a historian by his very
commonplaceness as a philosopher. He never really got the upper hand of
the facts. He does not even achieve a systematic conception of cause
and effect, so necessary to the brilliant distortions of philosophers.
He talks about causes, and allows himself so much as two chapters in
one place to point out that a “cause” and a “pretext” are not the same
thing.[12] But he gets little farther than a negative criticism of his
predecessor, Fabius Pictor, who had not even seen this. In spite of the
best pedagogical intentions, Polybius did not lose sight of actualities
in the search for final causes. He is too matter-of-fact to leave the
facts. His intensely practical outlook makes him incapable of sympathy
with abstractions and keeps him down to the task of securing accurate
and full data in the field of realities--which is the first and
indispensable qualification for the historian. Polybius is intent upon
supplying statesmen with lessons from experience, not with theories of
what might have happened. In a discussion of the constitution of Sparta
he says that it would not be fair to class the Republic of Plato “which
is spoken of in high terms by some philosophers” among the systems
which have actually been tried out:
“For just as we refuse admission to the athletic contests to those
actors or athletes who have not acquired a recognized position or
trained for them, so we ought not to admit this Platonic constitution
to the contest for the prize of merit unless it can first point to
some genuine and practical achievement. Up to this time the notion of
bringing it into comparison with the constitutions of Sparta, Rome
and Carthage would be like putting up a statue to compare with living
and breathing men. Even if the statue were faultless in point of art,
the comparison of the lifeless with the living would naturally leave
an impression of imperfection and incongruity upon the minds of the
spectators.”[13]
This sounds less Greek than Roman. But it also reassures us that
the author is not the man to be drawn into the realm of theory so
long as the world is full of things for him to study. He wastes no
time over “final causes,” in spite of a constant desire to bring
up the question.[14] Indeed his own philosophy of history is not
quite settled. He begins by attributing to Fortune the great drift
of events which resulted in the imperial unity; but while paying a
formal tribute to the goddess of luck, he in practice reserves her for
the more unexpected turns of affairs, the sudden surprises and the
inexplicable.[15] “It was _not_ by mere chance or without knowing what
they were doing that the Romans struck their bold stroke for universal
supremacy and dominion, and justified their boldness by its success.
No: it was the natural result of discipline gained in the stern school
of difficulty and danger.”[16] The theology of Fortune shares the fate
of all the other abstractions at the hands of Polybius. He is not
interested in it, but in the facts.
In keeping with this attitude was the method of work. Polybius was a
student rather than a scholar; a student of men and the world around
rather than of books. To be sure he spared himself no pains in his
investigations, and that meant much scholarly research; but he always
regarded that as of secondary importance compared with a first-hand
knowledge of how things had been and were being done. If anything
could shock the complacency of the modern research-historian who sees
the world so often through the barred windows of an alcove in the
archives, it is that attack upon Timæus, the learned antiquarian, which
fills most of the twelfth book, and to which we shall revert later.
Polybius holds Timæus up to scorn, because “having stayed quietly at
Athens for about fifty years, during which [time] he devoted himself
to the study of written history, he imagined that he was in possession
of the most important means of writing it.”[17] One must have served
in war to know how to describe it accurately and well; one must have
watched the political movements of one’s own day to be able to handle
those of the past. These qualifications Polybius had in a superlative
degree. Of a good deal of his story he had been “an eye-witness, ...
in some cases one of the actors, and in others the chief actor.”[18]
He was present at the last great tragic moment of Carthage; it was to
him that Scipio turned to confide his presentiment that Rome would
some day suffer the same fate.[19] He knew not only Romans and Greeks
but leaders on all sides, Massanissa, for example, and Carthaginians
themselves.[20] Then, instead of staying comfortably in Rome, he set
out, like a Herodotus of the West, to see the new world which was
just opening up to civilization. It was a scientific exploration. He
tells us that he confronted “the dangers and fatigues of my travels in
Libya, Iberia and Gaul, as well as of the sea which washes the western
coast of these countries, that I might correct the imperfect knowledge
of former writers....”[21] His experience leads him to a wholesale
distrust of former geographers; but then, as he adds, none of them
enjoyed the opportunities for finding out about the world, which the
_pax Romana_ now afforded. His curiosity was insatiable. He crossed,
himself, the pass by which Hannibal made the Alps; at the other end of
Italy he deciphered Hannibal’s inscription on a pillar on a promontory
of Brutium in order to establish the distribution of the Carthaginian
forces. He mapped out cities, examined records,[22] transcribed
treaties,[23] and studied earlier historians. But he seldom found an
authority with whom he did not become impatient, and perhaps his most
striking personal note is his persistent criticism and distrust of
historians and his frequent disgust with them. It was impossible for
one of his direct business-like temperament to accept the rhetorical
historians of his day, but in his scorn of rhetoric and his impatience
of bookishness, he went so far as to miss the real achievements of his
predecessors.
This attitude, moreover, had a personal significance; it reflects the
weak side of Polybius. For, in spite of all his prodigious labor, he
never learned how to tell his story effectively. He was no artist.
He had none of the easy grace of Herodotus nor the masterful touch
of Thucydides. It is rather characteristic of him, by the way, that
he never referred to the former and mentioned the latter only in a
casual remark. He had nothing to learn; chose to work out his own
salvation,--and almost failed to win it. For he could not weave the
intricate and elaborate pattern of world history without frequently
tangling the threads in the effort not to lose them. He knew this as
well as we do, and time and again came into the narrative himself
with digressions which are excuses and explanations.[24] This is
what gives that intimate, personal character to his history, which
is so un-antique. Herodotus swung into his theme with the abandon
of one who knows how to tell a great story well. Thucydides worked
like a dramatist, objectively, submitting only the finished product
to the audience. Neither of them invited you into his workshop or
interrupted a war to discuss scientific methods. But Polybius cannot
keep himself out of the narrative, and once in it, he gives free
rein to his feelings as well as his views. He consistently loses his
temper when he finds things wrong in his sources, and once heated,
he becomes garrulous. Untrained--for a Greek--in literature, a man
of action who had turned school-teacher, he faces his subject like
a problem and presents his research like solutions. He lectures his
contemporaries and berates his predecessors[25] when they fail to come
up to his standard--which is generally the case. Then he apologizes for
the digression and settles down to a little more narrative. But the
digressions are much more than apologies; for, after all, Polybius had
thought deeply on his own task. They rise to the dignity of a treatise
upon history, the first and the noblest statement of scientific ideals
for the historian until the days of Ranke. Indeed, it is these excursus
rather than his great theme which give to Polybius so high a place in
the history of History. How incredible it would have seemed to him that
any one should read his history for the sake of its asides instead of
for the compelling interest of the theme! Yet there are some to whom
even the rise of the Roman Empire is of less significance than the
rise of the scientific method. After all, the one is in the past, its
potentialities are well-nigh spent; the other is of the future and all
time, and capable of untold possibilities.
This treatise is scattered throughout the whole history as we have
indicated and indeed is exemplified in the structure and method of
work. Polybius demands the truth which is “the eye of History,” and
insists that the historian must give up all partisanship, all personal
bias, and making himself a judge, proceed to master the facts--as
they actually were. “Directly a man assumes the moral attitude of a
historian he ought to forget all considerations,” such as love of one’s
friends, hatred of one’s enemies.... He must sometimes praise enemies
and blame friends. “For as a living creature is rendered wholly useless
if deprived of its eyes, so if you take truth from History, what is
left but an idle unprofitable tale?”[26] These are noble words, worthy
to be held in everlasting memory. Unfortunately they were almost never
heard and--in spite of good intentions--not applied even by those
who studied Polybius--Cicero, for instance. Polybius does not say
that historians are given to conscious falsification,--though he does
strike that note at times,--but he is keenly alive to the bias that
partisanship is sure to give to a narrative even in honest hands. “I
would beg my own readers, whether of my own or future generations, if I
am ever detected in making a deliberate misstatement, and disregarding
truth in any part of my history, to criticize me unmercifully; but if
I do so from lack of information, to make allowances: and I ask it for
myself more than others, owing to the size of my history and the extent
of ground covered....”[27] This strain runs all through the work, but
it is especially concentrated in the famous twelfth book in which
Polybius attacks his predecessor Timæus. This digression comes near
to being a treatise in itself. The student of history who fails to be
stirred by it--considering its time and circumstances--has little to
hope from anything that follows in this survey.
Polybius believed in the pragmatic character of the historian’s office.
History must edify, must be of _use_. But it loses its pragmatism if it
is not true; it is only an “idle tale.” And this is the pragmatic test
of his own work. We are not much edified by the details of the wars in
Greece. No one is now likely to become excited over the institutions of
the Locrians or the policy of Diæus. But as long as history endures the
ideals of Polybius will be an inspiration and a guide.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
G. W. Botsford and E. G. Sihler in _Hellenic Civilisation_ (1915),
Chap. XVIII, Sect. D (_Historical Criticism_), give appropriate
extracts and a good bibliography, to which reference may be made
for intensive study. For the text of Polybius see the edition by T.
Büttner-Wobst (5 vols., 1st and 2d ed., Teubner, 1889-1905). The
best English translation is by E. S. Shuckburgh, _The Histories of
Polybius_ (2 vols., 1889). This translation has been used in the
text. The Loeb Classical Library has announced a translation of
Polybius, by W. R. Paton, for the year 1920. J. B. Bury in _The
Ancient Greek Historians_ (1909), (Lect. VI, pp. 191-220) is rather
hard on Polybius; compare the treatment by A. and M. Croiset,
_Histoire de la literature grecque_, (5 vols., 2d ed., 1896-1899; 3d
ed., Vols. I-III, 1910-1914); (2d ed.), Vol. V, pp. 260-295.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf._ _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. XXXII, Chap. X.
[2] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. I. H. Peter remarks that Polybius begins
with Greek readers in mind but as his work progresses he turns to
the Romans. (_Wahrheit und Kunst_, p. 263.) Note the frankness of
this admission, in Bk. XXXII, Chap. VIII: “And if what I say appears
incredible to any of my readers,” let him remember that the Romans will
read it and “no one ... would voluntarily expose himself to certain
disbelief and contempt.” The extent to which he could win thoughtful
Romans may be measured by the fact that Brutus made excerpts from him
during the campaign of Pharsalus. (Peter, _ibid._)
[3] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. V.
[4] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. III. (Shuckburgh’s translation).
[5] “He is always on the stage himself, criticizing, expounding,
emphasizing, making points, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s,
propounding and defending his personal views.” J. B. Bury, _op. cit._,
p. 211.
[6] His presence at the sack of Corinth has been disputed. In any case,
his account has survived in such poor fragments that the question is of
secondary importance. He was evidently there, or near there, shortly
afterwards. _Cf._ _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. XXXIX, Chap. XIII.
“I saw with my own eyes pictures thrown on the ground and soldiers
playing dice on them.”
[7] _Ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. IV.
[8] This time-worn phrase is already found in _Ars Rhetorica_ (Chap.
XI, Sect. 2), attributed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in a paraphrase
of Thucydides, Bk. I, Chap. XXII.
[9] _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. III, Chap. XXXI.
[10] _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. IX, Chap. IX.
[11] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XXXV.
[12] _Cf._ _ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. III. F. M. Cornford, _Thucydides
Mythistoricus_, p. 57, compares the looseness of terms of Thucydides
(Bk. I, Chap. XXIII).
[13] _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. VI, Chap. XLVII.
[14] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. I, Chaps. LXIII-LXIV; Bk. III, Chaps. VII-IX, etc.
[15] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. XXIX, Chaps. XXI-XXII.
[16] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. LXIII. _Cf. ibid._, Bk. XXXVII, Chap. IX,
for Polybius’ ideas on Providence.
[17] _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. XII, Chap. XXV, Sect. d.
[18] _Ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. IV.
[19] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. XXXIX, Chap. V.
[20] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. IX, Chap. XXV.
[21] _Ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. LIX.
[22] _Cf._ the chance remark in _ibid._, Bk. XVI, Chap. XV, that a
document at Rhodes bears out his account.
[23] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. III, Chaps. XXII _sqq._
[24] The following passages are especially valuable for their comments
upon style and method of handling: _Ibid._, Bk. II, Chap. LVI; Bk. III,
Chaps. LVII-LIX; Bk. IX, Chap. I; Bk. XV, Chap. XXXVI; Bk. XVI, Chap.
XVII; Bk. XXXVII, Chap. IV; Bk. XXXIX, Chap. I.
Perhaps the most thoroughly apologetic is his opening of the
thirty-ninth book.
[25] _Cf._ J. B. Bury, _op. cit._, Lect. VI.
[26] _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. I, Chap. XIV. _Cf._ also Bk. XII,
Chap. XII.
[27] _Ibid._, Bk. XVI, Chap. XX.
CHAPTER XVII
LATER GREEK HISTORIANS
Although Polybius may justly rank as the last of the great Greek
historians, his name is by no means the last in Greek historiography.
There were many historians, of varying degrees of importance, among
those Greek scholars who became the teachers of the Roman world, and
while individually their achievement is perhaps not such as to warrant
any detailed examination of it here, yet, taken as a whole, it offers
some striking generalizations.
In the first place the incentive to history-writing was no longer
connected with that first stimulus which produced it, patriotism or
national sentiment. The transplanted scholar, living an exile in
foreign lands, could hardly take his own antiquity along; and if he
did, few would care to know about it. On the other hand he could not
acquire the antiquities of the country of his residence with the same
sentimental appreciation of their bearing upon history as if he had
been born to their inheritance. The result was a certain detachment,
upon the part of later Greek scholars, which in some cases seems to
have made for indifference as to those movements of cause and effect
that so intrigued the keen intelligence of Polybius and left them
rather dilettanti antiquarians, and on the other hand made for an
enlargement of view that carried the better minds beyond the narrow
confines of purely Roman patriotism and gave them a glimpse of world
history.
It is hard to say why the obvious advantages of such a detached
position were not exploited more. The Hellenistic Greek could view
many of the historical problems of antiquity with much the same kind
of aloofness as that which the modern scholar brings to the study of
the Middle Ages. One might even expect that the economic stimulus
of earning a living by one’s wits would have stirred the Greek
intellectuals, who graced the households of the masters of the world as
slaves, freedmen or dependents, to notable achievement in that kind of
research which leads to systematic results along scientific lines. But
rhetoric on the one hand, and philosophy on the other proved to be the
winning rivals.
* * * * *
Mention of Greek philosophy in this connection recalls the fact that
we have hardly spoken of it before. Rhetoric and the influence of
Isocrates have come very largely to the fore; but what of the influence
of philosophy upon Greek historiography? Plato has so far escaped any
but casual mention, and Aristotle has come within our survey only in
a footnote! Yet the greatest creations of Greek thought could not but
affect the outlook of historians, even if they contributed little
directly. Truth was an ideal of philosophy as of history, and in the
recognition of social virtues as historic forces, or even in the whole
pragmatic quality of such a work as that of Polybius, there may be as
much an index of Stoic influence upon the writer’s trend of thought
as of his direct power of observation.[1] The lessons which history
supplies to one trained in the principles of such a philosophy are not
the same as those which it would bring to a Herodotus.
To follow these suggestions would lead one into intricate fields of
scholarship, far beyond our bounds. The history of the philosophy of
Greek historiography may best be left for the specialist. This, of
course, implies that the contribution of philosophy to history was a
limited one. For while it offered points of view to historians, it
failed to provide that apparatus of criticism which is the basis of
science. Aristotle, it is true, made a beginning; but the influence of
Plato told in the other direction. Although it was a great thing to
have justified the supremacy and to have insisted upon the identity of
truth and good, the abstract tendency of his speculation unified that
assemblage of data, which is The Investigator’s universe, by means of
the most unhistorical line of thought imaginable, his theory of ideas.
Metaphysics and history have not much in common.
But the interest of thinkers in ideas rather than in facts was less
responsible for the limited progress of antique historiography than
the failure to recognize the value of mechanism. There is a striking
passage in _Phædrus_ in which, according to Plato, Socrates laments
the passing of that time when the only known facts about the past were
those treasured in memory and the coming of that degenerate age when
people no longer bother remembering things they can read in books.[2]
He deprecates above all the invention of writing. Reliance on such
devices lessens the capacities of the user for distinguishing truth
from its semblance. It is a specious argument; and one might think
that his pupil Plato, recording it--in writing--might do so with a
sense of the humor of the situation. But there is no sign of it. For,
as a matter of fact, this objection of Socrates to alphabets was but
a single expression of something reaching deeply through the whole
trend of Plato’s mind. That mind was fundamentally poetic. It recoiled
against mechanism temperamentally. It felt instinctively that making
black marks on papyrus from Egypt or skins from Asia--those skins
the merchants of Pergamum later made into parchments--is an inferior
operation to reciting an epic. It is the same kind of protest that we
have today on the part of those who prefer hand labor to machinery.
Socrates, one supposes, would have preferred to tell the time by a
guess at the lengthening shadow on the square rather than by using a
watch. By ignoring inventions one keeps “close to nature.”
This is an attitude to be found through the whole history of culture.
Its most earnest advocates have been the artists, of every kind of
expression, impatient of anything interposed between nature and the
individual. It partly springs from the concentration of a creator on
his creation--that concentration which is joy,--leaving him relatively
indifferent as to its preservation. Idealism, drawn to this romantic
sentiment, has often denied itself the means of achievement, by holding
aloof from the processes by which ideas are realized. It is curious how
short-sighted it has been. For, in the larger view, mechanism itself
is an art-creation. The invention of an alphabet is a work of art to
rank beside poetry. In its use it is part of the clothing of thought,
like the words themselves; and shares the immortality which it assures.
Even machinery, which supplants the motions of the hand of the worker,
incorporates thought in its materials, just as marble bears the impress
of a sculptor’s imagination or the massing of pigment on a painter’s
canvas preserves the suggestion of nature. Being a social rather
than an individual creation, however, the appreciation of it is more
difficult.
Greek philosophy missed the great point that the power of ideas works
itself out in a grimy world, the world of daily life. History depends
upon that mechanism which transfers thought from brains to material
substances, and so enables thought to endure while thinkers come
and go. It is rather sobering to recall how much depends upon the
substance. We know, for instance, that the burning of the library at
Alexandria blotted out for all time much of the culture of that distant
antiquity which it had gathered in the papyri on its shelves. We know,
as well, that the last classics of Greece and Rome perished in the
mouldy rolls of papyrus which could not last in the climate of the
northern Mediterranean. The book trade of the ancients was careless
of the future,--as ours is today. But had it not been for papyrus
rolls dealt in by those astute traders who brought their goods to the
wharves of the Peiræus and Ostia, it is doubtful if the literature of
classic Greece and Rome would have been produced at all. Had there been
nothing better than clay tablets to scratch, how would the Augustan age
have achieved what it did? Imagine Polybius or Livy accumulating the
mud cylinders necessary for their histories! Or, to bring the matter
down to our own time, what would our modern literature and journalism
amount to if the art of making paper had not been brought to Europe by
the Arabs? A printing press without paper is unthinkable; and modern
literature cannot exist without them both. We need a _Sartor Resartus_
in the history of literature to show us how naked and helplessly
limited is thought except when provided with mechanism.
There have been two great creative epochs in the history of our
civilization; that of ancient Greece and that of today. The one
produced critical thought; the other applied it to invent machines.
Beside these two contributions to secular society, all others rank as
minor. The one stirred into activity that critical intelligence, upon
which rests our whole apparatus of knowledge; the other made nature
our ally not merely by applying its power to do our work, but also
by supplying the means for extending knowledge itself, almost to the
infinite. And the point to which this history returns again and again,
is that even the genius of a Plato could hardly anticipate the merest
fraction of the results to be obtained by the slow, minute processes of
the mechanism of science.
It is perhaps fortunate for us that we are spared the temptation of
tracing these suggestions in subsequent Hellenic historians, by the
fragmentary character of the literary remains of most of those who
might offer themselves for such a study. We shall have it before us,
however, as we turn to Rome. It remains now for us merely to pass in
rapid review the work of the more outstanding figures among those
gifted Greeks who supplied the cultured world of their time with the
kind of histories it demanded.
* * * * *
The history of Polybius was continued by the Stoic Posidonius, who
applied himself to the task with somewhat the same appreciation
of the distortions of narrative due to rhetorical adornment as
Polybius himself. He had also, like Polybius, travelled widely on
the outskirts of the known world, from Spain to Rhodes and Syria and
wrote voluminously on all kinds of topics. His _Geography_ and his
_History_ are the only works of interest here. The latter was begun in
74 B.C. and continued the universal history of Polybius, in fifty-two
books, from 144 B.C. to the Dictatorship of Sulla in 82 B.C. It was a
notable performance, and although Posidonius does not belong with the
rhetoricians, but in the succession of Timæus and Polybius, Cicero
deferred to him as to a master of style, when trying himself to write
the account of his own consulate in Greek. The modern critic has not
less praise for this Stoic historian, his learning, and his critical
capacity.[3]
Strabo (c. 64 B.C-19 A.D.), the great geographer was also a continuator
of Polybius, and wrote as well some _Historical Memoirs_ which included
a treatment of the deeds of Alexander. The _Geography_, too, had a
historical introduction covering the history of geography and the
work of geographers to his own day,--almost our only source for such
important figures as Eratosthenes. Moreover, historians are so much
in evidence as authorities in the _Geography_ that it may almost be
said to embody the descriptive phase of antique historiography, that
phase so evident in the excursus of Herodotus. But Strabo has a
further interest for us. His method, in line with the traditions we
have just seen maintained by Posidonius, was to cite largely from his
authorities and so preserve fragments of them for his less scholarly
readers and, in part, for us. A travelled Greek, he also knew Rome, and
is an outstanding example of those “philosophers,”--for so he is termed
by Plutarch,--who held to the saner lines of criticism and respected
facts. He was more a scholar than a historian, as his predilection for
geography indicates. The events of history require an added dimension.
It is easier to describe the world in space than in time,[4] and for
that great synthesis which recreates in intelligence the happenings of
chance he lacked the full stature of genius. On the other hand it was
to his credit that he did not try to reach that synthesis by the facile
use of words and phrases, to which a rhetorician would have yielded.
It was just this synthesis, in the widest possible sense, which
Diodorus Siculus (c. 80-29 B.C.), Strabo’s older contemporary, had
tried to reach in his general history (_Bibliotheca Historica_) in
forty books; tried and failed, for the chief value of his work to us
is in the fragments of sources which he built into it, not the bold
unifying conception of which he was chiefly proud. He began with the
mythical accounts of ancient Egypt and the Orient, and carried the
story of Greece and Sicily down to the close. But--fortunately for the
preservation of his sources--he did not see the interconnection of
events and simply made a sort of world-chronicle out of a series of
chronicles of different countries, cutting and trimming the authorities
to meet the exigencies, but still leaving them to substantiate the
narrative. To this clumsy, but imposing, monument of erudition Diodorus
added some of the unrealities of rhetoric; and it is hardly to be
wondered at if he failed to receive the attention of those of his day
for whom he wrote. It was only later, when Christian scholars in the
third century began to look back across the pagan past for an account
of the whole world, and not of Rome merely, that Diodorus proved to be
of enough importance to secure the preservation of part of his world
history.
It was in the line of these great world histories that Nicholas of
Damascus wrote the one hundred forty-four books of universal history
to which reference has been made above in the chapter on Josephus.
The favorite of Herod the Great knew how to win as well the favor
of Augustus, and his detailed account of contemporary events was
apparently not lacking in rhetorical polish. But his work was more a
compilation, like that of Diodorus, than an independent history.
By a strange coincidence it was the city of Herodotus which produced
the historian who most vitiated the scientific possibilities of this
kind of scholarship by acceptance of the standards of rhetoric.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, born about the middle of the first century
B.C., came to Rome in the year 30 B.C., and as he proudly relates
in the introduction to his _Archæologia_ spent twenty-two years in
preparation for his great work, which was published in the year 7 A.D.
He moved in the best circles of Rome, and it was his ambition to rival
Livy by the wealth of his detailed information concerning the Roman
antiquities. In addition, he tried to satisfy Greek pride by making
much of the Greek origins of Rome. Two such divergent purposes could
be welded into a single history only by the greatest creative capacity
upon the part of the historian; and instead of this, Dionysius brought
a mediocre talent and the devices of rhetoric. Even these devices were
not all his own; for he embodied expressions from the Greek classics,
where they could aptly apply to his narrative, seeking effect above
all, and, as is generally the case in such instance, failing to achieve
it.
* * * * *
Under the Roman Empire, Greek scholarship continued at its various
tasks; and after the golden age of Latin literature was over, Greek
became once more, under the Antonines, the medium for culture. Into the
details of this story we shall not enter; but we should at least recall
in passing the lasting importance to history of Plutarch’s _Lives_.
Few books have done more to determine the reputation of historical
characters for subsequent ages. The forty-six _Parallel Lives_ are
arranged in pairs, mainly Roman and Greek, and the personalities they
depict are typical of the times and customs of their environment or of
their own professions and careers. There are generals and statesmen,
patriots and lawgivers; a gallery of the great figures whose names
were already more or less legendary and who now became fixed in the
imagination of the world as real, living characters. Plutarch was a
native of Bœotia, and, although he travelled widely, he seems to have
written his biographies after his return to the little town of Chæronea
where he was born. It is a striking fact that, writing as he does in
this isolated village, he shows a larger and more catholic mind than
his brilliant contemporary, Tacitus, writing at Rome. This is a point
to which we shall revert later, when we come to see the influences
which made for provincialism at Rome under the Cæsars; but it is well
to recognize here that in Plutarch we have a genuine “historian” in
the first sense of the word, an inquirer on the paths of truth,--as
interested in comparative religion as in morals, and lacking only
in the social and political interests which bind these elements of
personality and mystery into the complex processes of society, and so
make history.
Finally, passing by such notable figures as Appian of Alexandria, of
whose accounts of the various provinces of the Empire in twenty-four
books, written under Trajan and Hadrian, almost the half has been
preserved, or Arrian of Bithynia, the favorite of Hadrian and
the Antonines, the worthy disciple of Epictetus and historian of
the Persian wars, we come to the last of the list in Cassius Dio
Coccejanus, the historian of Rome, of the third century. He was born
in Nicæa in Bithynia about 155 A.D., and passed a long life in high
offices of state, consul, proconsul of Africa, legate to Dalmatia and
Pannonia. He died about the year 235. His history of Rome, in eighty
books, was divided into decades after the manner in which Livy’s was
then preserved, and it stretched over the whole field from the arrival
of Æneas in Italy to the reign of Alexander Severus. It was a work of
long researches, ten years spent in collecting the materials, twelve
more in composition, and was to the Greek-speaking East much what
Livy was to the Latin West.[5] It expounded the great theme of Roman
history in the spirit of a Roman official. At the close, therefore,
Greek historiography fused and lost itself in that theme of empire
which was to perpetuate its outlook, however changed and dimmed, in a
new state creation at Byzantium.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The fragments of Posidonius are to be found in C. Müller, _Fragmenta
Historicorum Græcorum_ (5 vols., 1841-1873), Vol. III, pp. 245-296.
The most recent Teubner text of Strabo’s _Geographica_ is that of A.
Meineke (3 vols., 1904-1909). The translation in the Loeb Classical
Library is by H. L. Jones (8 vols., Vol. I, 1917). There is an
edition of Diodorus Siculus by F. Vogel and C. T. Fischer (5 vols.,
Teubner, 1888-1906); a translation by J. Fox has been promised by
the Loeb Classical Library. The fragments of Nicholas of Damascus
are preserved in C. Müller, _Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum_, Vol.
III, pp. 343-464; Vol. IV, pp. 661-668, and in L. Dindorf, _Historici
Græci Minores_ (2 vols., 1870-1871), Vol. I, pp. 1-153. The text of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus has been edited by C. Jacoby, H. Usener
and L. Radermacher (6 vols., Teubner, 1885-1905); a translation of
Dionysius’ treatise, _On Literary Composition_, has been made by W.
R. Roberts (1910).
There are editions of Plutarch’s _Vitae Parallelae_ by C. Sintenis (4
vols., 1839-1846; 5 vols., Teubner, 1873-1875) and by C. Lindskog and
K. Ziegler (Teubner, Vols. I-III, 1914-1915). The “Dryden Plutarch”
revised by A. H. Clough is the version used in Everyman’s Library (3
vols., 1910). There is also the translation of Plutarch’s works by W.
Goodwin and A. H. Clough (10 vols., 1914-1921). Naturally there is
more literature on Plutarch than can be noted here.
The Teubner editions of Appian are by I. Bekker (2 vols., 1852-1853)
and L. Mendelssohn (2 vols., 1879-1881); there is a partial edition
by P. Viereck (Vol. II, 1905). Translations of the text are by J.
L. Strachan-Davidson, _Appian’s Civil Wars_ (Bk. I, 1902) and by H.
White, _Appian’s Roman History_, in the Loeb Classical Library (4
vols., 1912-1913).
For the text of Arrian there is the edition by A. G. Roos (ed. maior,
Vol I, 1907). There is a translation, _The Anabasis of Alexander and
Indica_, by E. J. Chinnock (1893). The text of Dio Cassius is edited
by J. Melber (2 vols., Teubner, 1890-1894) and by U. P. Boissevain (3
vols., 1895-1901). A lengthy list of publications on Dio accompanies
H. B. Foster’s translation, _Dio’s Rome; an Historical Narrative_ ...
(6 vols., 1905-1906), which formed the basis for the edition by E.
Cary in the Loeb Classical Library (9 vols., Vols. I-VI, 1914-1917).
FOOTNOTES:
[1] An excellent short account of this subject is to be found in
H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, Chap. VII (_Die Stoa, Polybios,
Poseidonios und Strabon_).
[2] _Phædrus_, 274-375 D.
[3] _Cf._ Cicero, _Epistularum Ad Atticum Liber Secundus_, Letter I,
Sects. 1 and 2; H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, pp. 265-270.
[4] In this connection mention should be made of those Greek
chronographers who drew together comparative lists of events in world
chronicles. The basis of chronology, laid by Eratosthenes of Alexandria
in the third century B.C., was built upon by Apollodorus of Athens,
whose four books of chronicles reached down to 119 B.C. Then Castor
of Rhodes gathered the threads together into a synchronistic table or
“canon,” ending with the year 61 B.C. Castor’s chronicle was destined
to prove of great importance later to the Christian chronologists. He
is plentifully in evidence in Eusebius.
[5] H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, p. 396.
SECTION IV
ROMAN HISTORY
CHAPTER XVIII
HISTORY AT ROME; ORATORY AND POETRY
If politics be the main theme of history in the antique world, it
might seem reasonable to look for the greatest historians among the
people who achieved the greatest political creation, the Romans. But
although Rome furnished the lesson in practical statesmanship, both for
antiquity and for succeeding ages, its achievement in history-writing
is, upon the whole, poor and disappointing. It was a Greek, Polybius,
who, as we have seen, wrote in the city of the Scipios the story of
the emergence of the Latin people upon the theatre of world empire.
Although Sallust, Livy and Tacitus rise to the height of national
monuments,--Tacitus even higher still,--yet the two outstanding figures
of Roman literature, throughout the Middle Ages as in Modern Times, are
Vergil, the epic poet, and Cicero, the philosophic orator. There is a
real significance in this; for in them, rather than in the historians,
are typified the interests and attitudes of the intellectual Romans
themselves,--in them and in that other still greater creation of the
Latin genius, the Roman law. The extent of the failure of the Romans
in history-writing, when they had a theme the like of which had
never been even dreamed of in the world before, is obscured by the
individual genius of Tacitus. But from his time,--excepting Suetonius,
who was partly contemporary,--to the fall of the empire at the end of
the fourth century, when a simple, straightforward soldier, Ammianus
Marcellinus, told of the wars on the frontier and the troubles at home,
there “was not one author of talent to preserve in Latin the memory
of the events that stirred the world of that period; but it was a
Bithynian..., Dion Cassius of Nicæa, who, under the Severi, narrated
the history of the Roman people.”[1]
Our sense of loss is probably lessened by the poor consolation that
had a second Tacitus appeared and devoted himself to the larger theme
disclosed by the passing centuries, he could hardly have succeeded,
however great his genius, in dealing alone with so vast a subject.
History, as has become clear from our survey of Greece, differs
absolutely from poetry or philosophy in that it needs an apparatus
for investigation. Philosophy may get a new grip upon the questions
of reality from a Descartes divesting himself--or trying to do so--of
the inheritance of past systems. But the historian can never work in
isolation. The conditions under which Thucydides wrote justify the
editor of the merest selections for college text-books in revising his
story of the Peloponnesian war, and since the Romans failed to develop
historical apparatus any more adequate for their purpose than that of
the Greeks was for Thucydides, we should, at best, have had the same
kind of exploit over again. From Thucydides to Ammianus Marcellinus
stretch almost eight hundred years, during which ran the whole drama of
the classic world. Yet little, if any, progress was made in the work
of the historian. On the other hand, from the day of Niebuhr, hardly a
century ago, to the present, the whole perspective of that antiquity
has been remade, and a multitude of facts established which the antique
historians should have known but had no way of finding out. Surely no
greater proof is needed that history to be adequate differs from the
rest of literature in that it is more science than art, a social rather
than an individual product.
The sense of the mediocre character of the historical writings of
Romans during the Republic, is brought out by Cicero in the one
treatment of history and its possibilities which has come down to us
in Latin literature. The setting is significant, for it occurs in his
treatise, _On the Orator_,[2] an imaginary dialogue, placed by Cicero
in the Tusculan villa of Crassus in the year 91 B.C. The principal
disputants were the two great orators Lucius Licinius Crassus and
Marcus Antonius.[3] The passage which deals with history occurs in a
most incidental way. Antonius has been speaking of the fact that no
special training is needed by the orator to quote official documents in
his speeches,--a point with which his interlocutor, Catulus,[4] agrees:
“Well, then, to proceed,” said Antonius, “what sort of orator, or
how great a master of language, do you think it requires to write
history?” “If to write it as the Greeks have written, a man of the
highest powers,” said Catulus; “if as our own countrymen, there is no
need of an orator; it is sufficient for the writer to tell truth.”
This depreciation of the old Roman historiographers--for so mere
truth telling is regarded--is apparently brought in to indicate the
general opinion in which they were held in Cicero’s day. It draws from
Antonius, however, the following justification of the Romans by way of
a slight historical survey. The most noticeable point in this survey is
the recognition upon the part of Cicero,--for of course it is Cicero
who speaks,--that the development of historiography in Greece and Rome
took place along exactly similar lines:
“But,” rejoined Antonius, “that you may not despise those of our
own country, the Greeks themselves too wrote at first just like
our Cato, and Pictor, and Piso. For history was nothing else but a
compilation of annals; and accordingly, for the sake of preserving
the memory of public events, the pontifex maximus used to commit to
writing the occurrences of every year, from the earliest period of
Roman affairs to the time of the Pontifex Publius Mucius,[5] and had
them engrossed on white tablets, which he set forth as a register in
his own house, so that all the people had liberty to inspect it; and
these records are yet called the Great Annals. This mode of writing
many have adopted, and, without any ornaments of style, have left
behind them simple chronicles of times, persons, places, and events.
Such, therefore, as were Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Acusilas, and many
others among the Greeks, are Cato, and Pictor, and Piso with us, who
neither understand how composition is to be adorned (for ornaments of
style have been but recently introduced among us), and, provided what
they related can be understood, think brevity of expression the only
merit....”
We shall revert later to this account of the Annales Maximi, for it
is a prime source, but what interests us here is to follow the clue
which Cicero offers as to the reasons for the mediocrity of Roman
history-writing. His whole interest is in the style of the writers.
The first step forward was, in his eyes, when Antipater, the instructor
of the orator Crassus, adorned his narrative with rhetoric. Admittedly
Antipater overdid it,[6] but yet history at Rome did not amount to
much before his time. The implication is clear, and is developed
by Antonius. History is an art, and as such is to be compared with
oratory; and the point is made that the Romans have failed to do it
justice because they have concentrated too excessively upon forensic
eloquence:
“It is far from being wonderful,” said Antonius, “if history has not
yet made a figure in our language; for none of our countrymen study
eloquence except to display it in pleading and in the forum; whereas
among the Greeks, the most eloquent men, wholly unconnected with
public pleading, sought to gain renown in other ways, such as writing
history; for of Herodotus himself, who first lent distinction to this
kind of writing, we hear that he was never engaged in pleading; yet
his eloquence is so great as to delight me extremely, as far as I can
understand Greek. After him, in my opinion, Thucydides has certainly
surpassed all historians in the art of composition; for he has such
a wealth of material, that he almost equals the number of his words
by the number of his thoughts. He too, so far as we know, although
he was engaged in public affairs, was not one of those who engaged
in pleading; and he is said to have written his books at a time when
he was removed from all civil employments, and, as usually happened
to every eminent man at Athens, was driven into banishment. He was
followed by Philistus of Syracuse, who, living in great familiarity
with the tyrant Dionysius, spent his leisure in writing history, and,
as I think, principally imitated Thucydides. Afterwards, two men of
great genius, Theopompus and Ephorus, coming from what we may call
the noblest school of rhetoric, applied themselves to history by the
persuasions of their master Isocrates, and never attended to pleading
at all. At last historians arose also among the philosophers; first
Xenophon, the follower of Socrates, and afterwards Callisthenes,
the pupil of Aristotle and companion of Alexander. The latter wrote
in an almost rhetorical manner; the former used a milder strain of
language, which has not the animation of oratory, but, though perhaps
less energetic, is, as it seems to me, much more pleasing. Timæus,
the last of all these, but, as far as I can judge, by far the most
learned, and richest in subject matter and variety of thought, and
not unpolished in style, brought a large store of eloquence to this
kind of writing, but no experience in pleading causes.”[7]
There is a good deal to think about in this slight sketch. It is a
chapter of the history of History in miniature, the first and only one
in Latin literature. Yet it deals with Greeks! Rome had as yet produced
no such line of great historians. Sallust, Livy and Tacitus were yet to
come. Cicero knew only one Latin name to match the Greeks, the elder
Cato;[8] and in judging him he used Hellenic standards. He recognized
that the field of history is one by itself, and he had a real
appreciation of its dignity, but after all, it did not interest him
as did philosophy. He did not attempt to transmit to Rome the ideals
of Thucydides, as he did those of the Platonic school of thinkers to
whom he owed so much.[9] Thucydides is “a wise and dignified narrator
of facts,” but he “was never accounted an orator,” and used hard and
obscure sentences in his speeches; as for Xenophon, though “his style
is sweeter than honey,” it is “as unlike as possible to the noisy style
of the forum.” It is therefore a mistake, says Cicero, to imitate, as
some do, the one or the other in the training of an orator.[10]
Once having got our bearings, that history is a useful art and that its
chief use is to furnish inspiration or “points” to the orator, it is
clear that rules should be at hand for its production, rules that the
orator might readily apply. Yet no such treatment can be found among
the works on rhetoric; and this leads Cicero to supply the need, in an
oft-quoted passage:
“Who is ignorant that the first law in writing history is that the
historian must not dare to say anything that is false, and the next,
that he must dare to tell the truth? Also that there must be no
suspicion of partiality or of personal animosity? These fundamental
rules are doubtless universally known. The superstructure depends
on facts and style. The course of facts (_rerum ratio_) requires
attention to order of time and descriptions of countries; and since,
in great affairs, such as are worthy of remembrance, we look first
for the designs, then the actions, and afterwards the results, it
should also show what designs the writer approves; and with regard to
the actions, not only what was done or said, but in what manner; and
when the result is stated, all the causes contributing to it, whether
arising from accident, wisdom, or temerity. As to the characters
concerned, not only their acts should be set forth but the life
and manners of at least those eminent in reputation and dignity.
The sort of language and character of style to be observed must be
regular and continuous, flowing with a kind of equable smoothness,
without the roughness of judicial pleadings, and the sharp-pointed
sentences used at the bar. Concerning all these numerous and
important points, there are no rules, do you observe, to be found in
the treatises of the rhetoricians....”[11]
It is perhaps somewhat confusing, in an introductory chapter, to have
the doors thus thrown open upon the central theme. But Cicero reveals
more than he intends, and one sees from these slight sketches what
there was in the Roman attitude toward history which determined its
whole character. Two things stand out: the practical bent of the Roman,
and his Greek education. History is an aid to statesmen and orators,
furnishing examples of actions to emulate or avoid, or illustrations
for speeches, which the user--if not the historian himself[12]--may
improve to suit the needs of an idea or a phrase[13] Truth for truth’s
sake is all right in its way; but truth that is apt and to the point,
in debate or in practice, is worth more to a Roman. Now history abounds
in truths that may be applied; the trouble is that in applying them
one is likely to destroy the nexus of events and lose the sense of
historical relationships, of that _process_, in short, which gives
meaning to the whole.[14] Pragmatic history, in spite of the plea of
Polybius,[15] is dangerous business. The practical Roman, however, was
not so much interested in any other kind. And his native bent was not
corrected by his Greek education. “Greece captive, captured Rome,”
as the saying ran. And the Greeks who achieved this cultural triumph
were the grammarians and rhetoricians who taught the Latins the arts
of elegance and sophistication.[16] The effect of Greece upon Rome
was seen in history as in poetry and in religion, a constant influence
reaching all the way from the transformation of its early legends to
embellishments of style in the later writers.
* * * * *
The legendary element in Roman history has little place in a history,
for it is the most unhistorical product imaginable, being invention
rather than folk-myths,[17] and supplanting the simple annals of the
poor by suggestions of strange adventures that linked the origins of
Rome with the great days of Troy. To the Roman there was little worthy
of record in the humble story of his little farmer-state, struggling
with its neighbors of Latium. There are no contemporary legends of the
long period of history in which Rome grew from a group of villages
on the hills by the swampy back-water of the Tiber, to be the chief
city of the western plain. Contemporary data begin only when Rome was
already conquering the Mediterranean.[18] And as both Polybius and Livy
“recognized as the chief principle of historical criticism that there
can be no trustworthy and sincere history where there have not been
contemporary historians”[19] we may frankly and shortly dismiss, as not
germane to our subject, the legendary heritage which Rome possessed
from its earliest days. It remained for a Wissowa or a Fowler in our
own day to recover, from the fragmentary remains of cult and myth, of
law and custom, the living picture of that quaint if unheroic life
of wattled hut and market-place which left its traces on the Roman
character, but which the glamour of Greece and of Rome’s own great
career obscured until the critics of the nineteenth century began their
destructive and reconstructive work.[20]
If the legends of early Rome were unreal, even as legends, we need
hardly delay over the way in which the epic poets immortalized them.
And yet, this was history to Romans, almost, if not quite, as the
Homeric poems were to Greeks. Indeed, the epos of Rome was a recurring
echo of the great voice of Homer. It was not necessarily due to any
inherent weakness of the Roman imagination, as is often supposed; nor
to any abstract nature of the Italian gods;[21] it was rather due to
the absence of a great adventure. There was no racial sense among the
dwellers of Latium as among the Greeks; they had no “barbarian” world
against which to sharpen their national consciousness. Moreover, they
were conquered by Etruscans and the greatest age of the early period
was under foreign kings. Hence there was little chance for an epic of
glorious war. As for the abstract deities, the gods of early peoples
are not abstract; we are beginning now to understand better the cults
and faith of early Rome. There were no great divine happenings, simply
because the worshippers had done nothing heroic; for the myth of the
gods is a reflection of the human story. The deities of Rome were
obscure, not abstract. Later, there was no need to invent new epic
poetry when that of Greece had been captured, and brought home along
with the rest of the booty.[22]
The first of the predecessors of Vergil was Andronicus (c. 284-204
B.C.), who translated the _Odyssey_ into Latin. The wanderings of
Ulysses into those western seas which wash the shores of Italy, rather
than the siege of Troy itself, was the suggestive theme for Italians.
Then came Nævius (d. 199 B.C.), who wrote the story of the first Punic
war, which he had himself seen, in “the style of a mediæval chronicle,
but with a rhyming, mythological framework, after the Homeric manner
(Juno as the enemy, Venus as the friend of the Trojans, Jupiter and
Apollo taking personal part in the action).”[23] But the one who
more than any other, except Vergil himself, fastened the poetic
legend of Trojan origins upon Roman history was Ennius (d. 169 B.C.),
whose _Annales_ were placed by Cicero on the plane of the history of
Herodotus for reliability,[24] whom Livy used as a source, and upon
whom Vergil built. He traced the history of Rome from the landing of
Æneas in Italy down to his own time, at the end of the second century
B.C. Ennius was considerably more of a historian than one would at
first suspect from the medium he used, for he availed himself of the
Homeric device of accumulating lists and exact data in order to record
not imaginary but historical or at least legendary material.[25] His
narrative was influenced by his intimate relations with the older
Scipio Africanus, and tends to take the side of the Scipios in the
politics of the great Roman houses, as against the Fabians, who had
as their exponent the first Roman historian--to be considered in
the following chapter--Q. Fabius Pictor. Ennius was successful in
outbidding Pictor in popularity, and the story of the old families as
preserved in later days obscured the exploits of the Fabians. But the
creator of the Latin hexameter, for Ennius has that distinction, did
not allow these clannish interests to obscure the main one, which was
the history of Rome itself. We come at the outset, therefore, upon the
striking fact that in poetry as in prose, from first to last, the chief
aim of Latin literature, responsive to the demands of national outlook,
is the exaltation of the state.
* * * * *
The culmination of the poetic legend in Latin was, of course, Vergil’s
_Æneid_. Merely to recall it here shows how far from the narrow paths
of history those delusive, quasi-historical interests take us, which
linked the Rome of Augustus with the story of its origins. It was a
work of genius to carry into the sophisticated age of the Principate
the simplicity and charm of a tale of the olden time; to recreate
Homer, as it were, consciously, and to impress both for his own time
and succeeding ages a sense of reality upon mere poetic imaginings
by the sheer, inevitable quality of art. Yet this assent which he
won for a fabricated myth was secured less by the Homeric power of
narrative than by stirring the emotions of readers over the fate of his
characters. St. Augustine tells us how deeply he was affected, as a
youth, by the story of Dido dying for the love of Æneas, a tale with a
charm to rival the Christian epos.[26] Vergil shows how human sympathy
may translate even the grotesque into the field of experience. Next to
this emotional suggestiveness must be mentioned the religious quality
of Vergil’s mind, that _pietas_ or reverence, which calls forth a
responsive note wherever the universal “will to believe” is supported
by emotion. It was reverence for the greatness in Rome’s destiny which
tinged even the remote distances with dignity, while the spell of the
past lent, in turn, to the present a gleam of poetry and romance.
Moreover, the narrative, varied as it was from simple, natural scenes,
in keeping with the quiet of the poet’s own temper, to the splendor
of imperial visions, offered a pageant of life and color which, until
then, was unknown in Latin literature. It is small wonder, therefore,
that the myth content of the _Æneid_ became fixed upon Rome as a
substitute for history.
* * * * *
If consideration of the myths of Rome has carried us over into the
field of Latin poetry, before we have so much as secured a foot-hold in
that of history proper, we may as well profit by the occasion, before
turning to the sober beginnings of prose annals, to consider here a
poem which stands apart from all others, not only in Latin, but in
the world’s literature, and which is of deep and lasting interest to
thoughtful students of history--the poem of Lucretius, _On the Nature
of Things_ (_De Rerum Natura_). If Vergil stands with Homer, in epic
power and universality of appeal, Lucretius suggests comparison rather
with Dante or Milton, both in the sombre “fanatical faith” in his
scheme of the universe, and in his sense of a religious mission, to
rid the world of superstition.[27] But the vision of the world which
he proposed to substitute for that of popular imagination was not, as
in the case of Dante or Milton, merely a reinterpretation of accepted
beliefs, refined through Aristotelian or biblical media. Lucretius
proposed to dispense with myth entirely; and, many centuries before its
day, wrote in terms of science. It is a poem for the twentieth century,
in this sense perhaps the most marvellous performance in all antique
literature. Any survey of antique processes of mind as they bear upon
the development of historical outlook would be sadly incomplete without
an examination of _De Rerum Natura_.
Of the life of Lucretius Carus (c. 95-55 B.C.) little is known.[28]
The one poem which has been left us appeared just before Vergil’s
day, and, “though it not only revealed a profound and extraordinary
genius, but marked a new technical level in Latin poetry, stole into
the world all but unnoticed,”[29] whereas the _Æneid_ was produced (and
even preserved)[30] under the direct patronage of Augustus. In neither
style nor message was there any of the appealing charm of Vergil; but
a scheme of the world based upon Epicurean philosophy, cast into a
ringing, if metallic, verse. Much of this lies outside our field; we
are not concerned here with atomistic theories nor with the fate of the
dead, nor even with the effort to justify man’s place in the universe
by displacing superstition and the fear of the gods. But there is more
than a philosophy of history in the marvellous fifth book, which traces
the birth of the world and then, after the scientific postulates of
creation, attempts a survey of the beginnings of life, of men, and
of civilization. Strongly countering that natural tendency to look
backward to a golden age, a dawn of innocence in an Eden of the gods,
such as the Jews or Greeks had accepted, Lucretius begins with the
slow evolution of life from lower forms to higher; first vegetable,
then animal; then primitive man, suffering much but living a wild and
hardy life. The beginning civilization and the central fact of social
origins according to Lucretius, as also according to the sociologists
today, was the discovery and use of fire; it came, not as a gift of
a god, but either from lightning setting trees aflame, or from the
friction of dry boughs in the wind. No Vulcan brought fire and its
blessings to men; natural causes led to its discovery. Then control of
metals brought an ever-enlarging control over nature; and with settled
life came politics and the state, the arts and sciences. Even religion
had a natural origin, although, through dreams by night and the awe
engendered by mystery, mankind created its gods by its own imaginings
and so obscured the patent but elusive truth. This generalized plan
of human advance is not history in the narrower sense; but where such
a genius as that of Lucretius illustrates the process, it offers the
historian more suggestion than he sometimes proves worthy of receiving.
We may, therefore, close this chapter by quoting a section or two from
the one poet-critic and philosophic thinker of antiquity who eliminated
from his mind that entire myth-picture of social origins which, in one
form or another, obscured with its mirage the vision of all antiquity;
and who, by so doing, anticipated much of modern discovery.
Quotation from Lucretius is difficult, both because the expression
itself is often involved and because the poem so holds together that
extracts fail to carry the argument. But one may catch a glimpse of its
graphic power from the lines which describe the various possible ways
in which the smelting of metals may have been learned:
“... copper and gold and iron were discovered, and with them the
weight of silver and the usefulness of lead, when a fire had burnt
down vast forests with its heat on mighty mountains, either when
heaven’s lightning was hurled upon it, or because waging a forest-war
with one another men had carried fire among the foe to rouse panic,
or else because allured by the richness of the land they desired to
clear the fat fields, and make the countryside into pastures, or
else to put the wild beasts to death, and enrich themselves with
prey. For hunting with pit and fire arose first before fencing the
grove with nets and scaring the beasts with dogs. However that may
be, for whatever cause the flaming heat had eaten up the forests
from their deep roots with terrible crackling, and had baked the
earth with fire, the streams of silver and gold, and likewise of
copper and lead, gathered together and trickled from the boiling
veins into hollow places in the ground. And when they saw them
afterwards hardened and shining on the ground with brilliant hue,
they picked them up, charmed by their smooth bright beauty, and
saw that they were shaped with outline like that of the several
prints of the hollows. Then it came home to them that these metals
might be melted by heat, and would run into the form and figure of
anything, and indeed might be hammered out and shaped into points
and tips, however sharp and fine, so that they might fashion weapons
for themselves, and be able to cut down forests and hew timber and
plane beams smooth, yea, and to bore and punch and drill holes. And,
first of all, they set forth to do this no less with silver and gold
than with the resistless strength of stout copper; all in vain,
since their power was vanquished and yielded, nor could they like
the others endure the cruel strain. Then copper was of more value,
and gold was despised for its uselessness, so soon blunted with its
dull edge. Now copper is despised, gold has risen to the height of
honour. So rolling time changes the seasons of things. What was of
value, becomes in turn of no worth; and then another thing rises up
and leaves its place of scorn, and is sought more and more each day,
and when found blossoms into fame, and is of wondrous honour among
men.”[31]
Then follow a disquisition on the art of war and a rapid series of
pictures of the various stages of social development, pastoral,
agricultural and urban, ending with the luxuries of civilization.
“So, little by little, time brings out each several thing into view,
and reason raises it up into the coasts of light.”[32]
The pathway to those coasts of light, which Lucretius pointed out,
unhappily lay untravelled; and there was ample justification for the
poignant lines which he interjected into the sketch of history, when
treating of the origins of religion--lines which match the noblest
protests of reason in the face of mystery in all literature:
“Ah! unhappy race of men, when it has assigned such acts to the
gods and joined therewith bitter anger! what groaning did they then
beget for themselves, what sores for us, what tears for our children
to come! Nor is it piety at all to be seen often with veiled head
turning towards a stone, and to draw near to every altar, no, nor to
be prostrate on the ground with outstretched palms before the shrines
of the gods, nor to sprinkle the altars with the streaming blood of
beasts, nor to link vow to vow; but rather to be able to contemplate
all things with a mind at rest.”[33]
But the mind of Lucretius was not “at rest.” Such gloomy might is not
serenity. Its very poise is protest--protest against that “will to
believe” which is the universal barrier to science. No wonder the world
at large shrank from such stern rationalism, and preferred the genial,
mythical stories of Vergil.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] F. Cumont, _The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism_, p. 7, where
the debt of Rome to the Orient is brilliantly summarized.
[2] Cicero, _De Oratore_, Bk. II, Chap. XII. It was published by Cicero
55 B.C. The extracts quoted here are from the translation by J. S.
Watson in Bohn’s Classical Library, a somewhat literal rendering.
[3] Grandfather of the triumvir.
[4] Consul with Marius, at the time of the battle with the Cimbri.
[5] Publius Mucius Scævola. _Vide infra_, Chap. XIX.
[6] Cicero, _op. cit._, Bk. II, Chap. XIII.
[7] Cicero, _De Oratore_, Bk. II, Chaps. XIII-XIV. (Translation based
on Watson’s.)
[8] _Vide infra_, Chap. XIX.
[9] _Cf._ Cicero, _Orator_, Chaps. III-IV: “I confess that I have been
made an orator (if indeed I am one at all, or such as I am), not by
the workshop of the rhetoricians, but by the works of the Academy.”
It is philosophy that stirs the imagination of the great orator, and
imagination is the main thing in eloquence (not facts!).
[10] Cicero, _Orator_, Chap. IX. The admission of this vogue is as
significant as Cicero’s comment.
[11] Cicero, _De Oratore_, Bk. II, Chap. XV. (Translation based on
Watson’s.)
[12] _Cf._ Quintilian’s dictum, _De Institutione Oratoria_, Bk.
X, Chap, 1, Sect. 31 “Historia ... scribitur ad narrandum non ad
probandum.”
[13] _Cf._ Cicero, _Brutus_, Chap. XI. “It is the privilege of
rhetoricians to exceed the truth of history that they may have the
opportunity of embellishing the fate of their heroes.”
[14] In other words, destroy the _history_. _Vide supra_, Chap. I, for
definition.
[15] It would be interesting to speculate as to how much of Polybius’
pragmatism is a reflection of Roman influences.
[16] Philosophy proper was best to be studied by travel, especially by
going to Athens, much as many Americans have gone to Europe for their
post-graduate studies.
_Cf._ H. Peter, _Die geschichtliche Litteratur über die römische
Kaiserzeit bis Theodosius I und ihre Quellen_ (3 vols., 1897), Vol. I,
Chap. I (_Die Geschichte in der Jugendbildung_.)
[17] _Cf._ W. Soltau, _Die Anfänge der roemischen Geschichtschreibung_
(1909), pp. 1-4. Only the scientific mind has a sense of the
significance of the obscure. So long as history is considered as
primarily one of the literary arts such things escape it.
[18] _Ibid._, p. 228.
[19] E. Pais, _Ancient Legends of Roman History_ (1905), p. 12.
[20] This is not the place for a comprehensive survey of the remaking
of early Roman history. The groundwork of historical criticism was
laid by Louis de Beaufort, in his _Dissertation sur l’incertitude des
cinq premiers siècles de l’histoire romaine_ (1738). B. G. Niebuhr’s
great work is still of absorbing interest. The first two volumes of
his _Römische Geschichte_ appeared in 1812, a third in 1832, and his
_Lectures_ in 1846. The reaction against his negative criticism has
generally taken the line that the growth of Rome might be traced fairly
well through an analysis of its institutions. T. Mommsen’s _Römische
Geschichte_ (1st ed., 1854-1856) deliberately ignored the early period
as unhistorical, but even the credit which he was willing to allow
the later sources on the regal era (in his various studies), has been
denied by the vigorous skepticism of E. Pais, _Ancient Legends of Roman
History_, Chap. I (_The Critical Method_). See recent manuals of Roman
History, especially W. Ihne’s _History of Rome_ (1871-1882), and the
article in _Encyclopædia Britannica_, _Roman History_, where there is a
short but excellent history of Roman historiography.
[21] _Cf._ Teuffel-Schwabe, _History of Roman Literature_, Vol. I,
Sect. 20.
[22] There is no argument for any native lack of inventive capacity in
the Romans because they appropriated Greek culture. Compare America
today, which copies everything European, down to millinery. Yet we like
to think that our inventive faculties are still available and could
be shifted to other uses than those of business, in case of need. The
point is that circumstances rather than natural capacity dictate our
activities.
[23] Teuffel-Schwabe, _History of Roman Literature_, Vol. I, Sect. 95,
n. 8.
[24] Cicero, _De Divinations_, Bk. II, Chap. LVI.
[25] Cf. H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, pp. 278-279.
[26] Augustine, _Confessions_, Bk. I, Chap. XIII.
[27] _Cf._ A. W. Verrall, in _A Companion to Latin Studies_, edited by
J. E. Sandys (2d ed., 1913), pp. 612-613.
[28] The brief notice in St. Jerome’s _Chronicle_, stating that he
lost his reason through a drug and wrote in the intervals of sanity,
and that Cicero with his own hand edited the poem, while practically
the only account we have, is open to suspicion on each of the three
supposed facts which it supplies. The account in J. W. Mackail’s
_Latin Literature_, Bk. I, Chap. IV, while short, is satisfactory. For
detailed bibliography see Teuffel-Schwabe, _op. cit._
[29] J. W. Mackail, _op. cit._, p. 40.
[30] Vergil, dying before he had the chance to work it over as he
wished, had left instructions that it should be destroyed. Augustus
countermanded these orders.
[31] Lucretius, _De Rerum Natura_, Bk. V, ll. 1241-1280, translated by
C. Bailey, 1910. (Reprinted by permission of the Clarendon Press.)
[32] _Ibid._, Bk. V, ll. 1454-1455.
[33] _Ibid._, Bk. V, ll. 1194-1203.
CHAPTER XIX
ROMAN ANNALISTS AND EARLY HISTORIANS
In the last chapter much was made of the Greek characteristics of the
Latin legends of origin. It is possible, however, that the taste for
indigenous historical materials was stronger in Rome than one would
suspect from the slight remains we possess. Cicero tells us how the
Roman nobles loved to be glorified in poetry.[1] The ancestral cult of
Rome, combined with this aristocratic tendency of noble houses to exalt
their deeds, was, naturally, one of the mainsprings of Roman history.
It was a tainted spring, but bountiful.
“It was customary (says Cicero in another place[2]) in most families
of note, to preserve their images, their trophies of honor, and their
memoirs, either to adorn a funeral when any of the family died, or
to perpetuate the fame of their ancestors, or to prove their own
nobility. But the truth of history has been much corrupted by these
laudatory essays; for many circumstances were recorded in them which
never happened, such as false triumphs, a pretended succession
of consulships, and false connections and distinctions, when men
of inferior rank were confounded with a noble family of the same
name; as if I myself should pretend that I am descended from Manius
Tullius, who was a Patrician, and shared the consulship with Servius
Sulpicius, about ten years after the expulsion of the kings.”
Such records of noble families, reaching back to primitive tradition
and written down later by slaves or dependents, formed one of the chief
sources for Roman historians when dealing with the early period. They
knew, as Cicero did, that the material was not worth much;[3] but they
did not know how to apply the canons of historical criticism so as to
move surely and safely through their treacherous offerings.
By way of these specious antecedents of history we pass from poetry
to prose, that farthest flung line of the scientific advance. Prose
literature, developing slowly and late in Rome as elsewhere, naturally
came more directly under Greek influence than poetry. Written Latin
prose did not rise to rival the spoken Latin until Cicero’s day,
which partly explains why there is so much about orators in Cicero’s
essays and the echo of a similar interest in the historians--even in
Tacitus. Moreover, Latin prose literature had a short period of flower,
declining after the first century of the empire, partly because the
formalism of the patrician periods was out of keeping with the realism
of business, and partly because the men of the provinces developed
their varied forms of speech. History-writing among the Romans did not,
therefore, develop its own natural media of expression, but like a
borrowed or captured piece of art remained more or less out of place in
its setting. The façade was Attic, or affected by Attic influences; yet
the structure of most Roman histories was of the simplest and homeliest
of designs--that of the annal.
The starting point for this annalistic treatment was that register of
annual events kept by the Pontifex Maximus in the Regia, which has been
described above in the passage from Cicero.[4] It was there where “all
the people had the liberty to inspect it.” So important was it, that
its style “was adopted by many” of the earlier Roman historians, a
style “without any ornaments,” “simple chronicles of times, persons,
places and events.” In the eyes of Cicero, history at Rome developed
mainly along the lines of this annalistic writing; and so it had up to
his time. The description he gives is confirmed by an examination of
the available references to obscure authors and by the traces they have
left upon the method of Livy and Tacitus themselves.
The extract from Cicero on the _Annales Maximi_, slight as it is, is
matched by only one other paragraph in the Latin literature which has
come down to us. In the closing part of the fourth century of our era,
Servius, a grammarian, who wrote an exhaustive commentary on Vergil,
described the pontifical annals as follows:
“The annals were made in this way. The pontifex maximus had a white
tablet (prepared) every year, on which, on certain days,[5] he
was accustomed to note, under the names of the consuls and other
magistrates, those deeds both at home and in the field, on land or
at sea, which were deemed worthy to be held in remembrance. The
diligence of the ancients inscribed 80 books with these annual
commentaries, and these were called _Annales Maximi_ from the
_Pontifices Maximi_ by whom they were made....”[6]
The starting point for our survey is therefore the Regia, or house
of the head of that college of priests, the _pontifices_, who had
perpetuated the religious duties of the abolished kingship, having
charge of the calendar and the archives, that is, both the measurement
and the record of time. The _album_ or white wood tablet which our
sources describe--and the two quoted are practically all there are on
the _Annales Maximi_--was therefore but one of several records in their
keeping. In addition to those which dealt more especially with sacred
science, the _Libri pontificum_ and the _Commentarii pontificum_, there
were also _Fasti calendares_ or _Fasti consulares_, with the names of
officials and items for the calendar. The _Annales_ differed from the
rest in that they were prepared for the public. How extensive they were
is a matter of conjecture. Cicero rhetorically dates them from the
very origin of Rome.[7] The repeated destruction of the Regia by fire
really left the later Roman antiquaries in the dark as to their actual
extent. It seems likely, however, that no contemporary pontifical
annal _of the kind described_ was kept during the long period when
Rome grew from a group of farming villages to be the chief city of
Latium. The contemporary history began rather in the period of the
conquest of the Mediterranean.[8] In any case the sack of Rome by the
Gauls destroyed whatever the pontiffs had preserved. Livy tells us
that “whatever was contained in the commentaries of the pontiffs and
other public and private records, was lost, for the most part, in the
burning of the city.”[9] The great pile of dry wood in the Regia was
right at hand for the Gauls to warm themselves, and the tablets must
have made good fuel.[10] The result was that, whatever historical data
the early pontiffs prepared, the later Romans could not profit from
them. Year by year, however, during the robust period of the republican
expansion, the Pontifex would hang up the white tablet on the wall of
his house for the citizens to see, and for such as could, to read. The
practice lasted until about 120 B.C. when, owing to the growth of the
histories by private individuals, it became superfluous. Then P. Mucius
Scævola published the whole extant collection in one volume of eighty
books, as Servius intimates in the extract above.[11] Upon the whole
it would seem that this official history shared the defects of such
compositions, as we have noted them elsewhere, with only this in its
favor, that in a republic the rival claims of leaders and clans act in
some degree in the place of criticism. Whether it was the prominence
of these official annals or not which, in the absence of genuine
historical literature, made the annalistic, or at least chronological,
structure the chief orthodox form for history-writing in Latin, the
fact remains that Roman historiography is strikingly held to the
annalistic mould. Even Tacitus’ _Annales_ bear (though disguised) the
common impress.[12] Indeed the word _annal_ was much more the synonym
for “history” than _historia_. Not only was it used in that general
sense in which it is used in English in such phrases as “the annals
of the poor” or “the annals of the Empire,”[13] but in the eyes of
the grammarians it was the only correct term for history of the past.
_Historia_ was properly used only of contemporaneous narrative.[14]
So, indeed, we find the works of Tacitus which deal with his own day
termed _Historiae_ and those dealing with an earlier period _Annales_,
although these titles probably do not come from Tacitus’ own hand.[15]
The official annals, therefore, seem to have played a considerable
rôle in early Roman historiography. Of the remaining books of the
priesthood, the _Fasti_ are, perhaps, the most important. These began
as lists of days for the calendar, the lucky and unlucky days--_dies
fasti_ and _dies nefasti_; and as such remained, through a varied
history, the basis of calendar-making on down, even through the Julian
reform and into the Christian era. The name was therefore naturally
transferred as well to denote annalistic chronicles, lists of years
giving the names of the consuls, etc. (_Fasti consulares_) and the
lists of triumphs (_Fasti triumphales_). Two such lists were drawn up
in the reign of Augustus.[16]
In addition to the _Annales Maximi_ and the _Fasti_ of the pontiffs,
there were lists of secular magistrates, such as the _Libri
magistratuum_ or _Books of the Magistrates_, reminding one of the
Eponym lists of the Assyrians. Some of them were written on linen
(_libri lintei_) and kept in the temple of Juno Moneta, the Goddess
of Memory, on the Capitol. Livy may have these in mind when he refers
repeatedly to the _libri magistratuum_,[17] or he may use the term to
cover all similar sources and even the _Annales Maximi_. For, by the
end of the republican era there were a number of such collections, and
antiquarians were already working on them.
* * * * *
When we turn from these materials for history to history itself, we
find, significantly enough, that the line of Roman historians is headed
by one who wrote in Greek. Q. Fabius Pictor is commonly recognized as
the first Roman historian.[18] Born about 254 B.C. of distinguished
family, he played a leading part in the wars with Ligurians and Gauls,
before the war with Hannibal, in which he also took part. His _History_
(ἱστορία), which carried the story of Rome from the days of Æneas to
his own time, was enriched by access to the archives of his family,
in which--as has been the case so often in our day--the official
documents of official members of the family had found a resting
place. He wrote for the nobles, not for the commonalty (as did his
contemporary Plautus, the author of comedy), and memoirs of nobles are
also traceable in his work. In fact, history-writing in Rome remained
down to the days of Sulla, a privilege of the upper class, from which
it drew its readers and to which it appealed, leaving a perspective
for Roman social history which only modern scholarship has been able
in part to correct. As for Fabius Pictor, he furnished Polybius
with his main guide for the second Punic war, in spite of Polybius’
uncomplimentary remarks about him, due, perhaps, as has been suggested,
to the rivalry of the Scipios (Polybius’ patrons) with the Fabii.[19]
While Livy apparently included him in the indefinite references to the
“most ancient writers,” he also twice refers to him specifically as
“the oldest historian” and once as the trustworthy contemporary of the
events described, whose name cited in the texts would substantiate the
narrative.[20] After Livy’s day he ceased to be known to Roman authors,
although he was still used by Greek historians.
The real father of Roman history, however, was M. Porcius Cato, that
most Roman of Romans, who fought the influence of Greece, yet revealed
a mind saturated in Greek thought, and who, according to Cicero and
Nepos, learned Greek itself late in life.[21] Born about 234 B.C. he
lived a busy public life, holding the highest offices, and meanwhile
writing earnestly and much at those earliest books of Latin prose,
his treatises on agriculture, war, oratory, as well as history. His
history, the seven books of _Origines_, was a national work, but it
repeated the Greek myths of origin. The prefaces to his books recall
the school of Isocrates which he ridiculed;[22] and his pragmatic
outlook recommending history for practical uses,[23] while natural
enough in a Roman, was also to be found in the Greeks from whom he
professedly turned away. Again, although he kept to the annalistic
form, he found it admirably suited for the insertion of orations in the
formal style, and inserted them to such an extent that the speeches
were even brought together as a special collection by themselves.
Cato was a thorough and careful worker; all Latin writers bear
witness to that. Cicero refers to his study of the inscriptions on
tombstones[24]--which may also reflect a lesson from the Greeks. But
his interest did not extend to the varied data of the social life,
it was strictly limited to politics. A citation preserved by Aulus
Gellius, a chatty antiquary of the second century A.D., is worth
quoting:
“They [the Romans] were not very strenuous in their endeavours to
explore the causes of the eclipses of the sun and moon. For M. Cato,
who was indefatigable in his researches after learning, has spoken
upon this subject indecisively and without curiosity. His words in
the fourth book of _Origins_ are these: ‘I have no inclination to
transcribe what appears on the tablet of the Pontifex Maximus, how
often corn is dear, how often the light of the sun or moon is, from
some cause or other, obscured.’”[25]
From the valuable treatise on agriculture which he left us, we can
imagine that Cato followed the grain quotations of the Regia very
closely, and as he brought to the task of history-writing the training
of a practical man, we have every reason to regret that he did not do
exactly the thing he here refuses to do. The one thing, however, which
the whole of this survey teaches, is that history reflects the major
interests of the society which produces it, and that the insight of
historians into the importance of events is relatively slight, except
as they are interpreters of their own time. The dominant interest of
the men around Cato was no longer agriculture, as in the early days of
the farmer-state, but war and politics and the struggle with Carthage.
Hence the trivial incidents of the priestly annals were to be ignored.
Subsequent historians at Rome agreed with Cato in this, but they ceased
to struggle as he did against the Greek invasion, and as rhetoric
gained the day more and more, Cato was less and less read until, in
Cicero’s day, he was almost entirely left aside. It is interesting,
therefore, to find Cicero himself turning to Cato’s defence, for it
shows what solid worth there must have been in the first of the Roman
historians:
“Not to omit his [Cato’s] _Antiquities_, who will deny that these
also are adorned with every flower, and with all the lustre of
eloquence? And yet he has scarcely any admirers; which some ages ago
was the case of Philistus the Syracusan, and even of Thucydides
himself. For as the lofty and elevated style of Theopompus soon
diminished the reputation of their pithy and laconic harangues,[26]
which were sometimes scarcely intelligible from excessive brevity and
quaintness; and as Demosthenes eclipsed the glory of Lysias; so the
pompous and stately elocution of the moderns has obscured the lustre
of Cato. But many of us are deficient in taste and discernment, for
we admire the Greeks for their antiquity, and what is called their
Attic neatness, and yet have never noticed the same quality in Cato.
This was the distinguishing character, say they, of Lysias and
Hyperides. I own it, and I admire them for it; but why not allow a
share of it to Cato? They are fond, they tell us, of the Attic style
of eloquence; and their choice is certainly judicious, provided they
do not only copy the dry bones, but imbibe the animal spirits of
these models. What they recommend, however, is, to do it justice, an
agreeable quality. But why must Lysias and Hyperides be so fondly
admired, while Cato is entirely overlooked? His language indeed has
an antiquated air, and some of his expressions are rather too harsh
and inelegant. But let us remember that this was the language of the
time; only change and modernise it, which it was not in his power
to do; add the improvements of number and cadence, give an easier
turn....[27] I know, indeed, that he is not sufficiently polished,
and that recourse must be had to a more perfect model for imitation;
for he is an author of such antiquity, that he is the oldest now
extant whose writings can be read with patience; and the ancients, in
general, acquired a much greater reputation in every other art than
in that of speaking.”[28]
There was another reason, however, besides the severity of his style,
for the neglect of Cato’s history by the contemporaries of Cicero.
If history was prized at Rome by the aristocracy for the glory it
reflected on their noble houses, there was little use preserving
Cato’s _Origins_. For this confirmed enemy of the upper class made it
a point to omit the names of leaders in describing the achievements of
Roman arms; and carried his grim humor so far, on the other hand, as
to preserve for future generations the name of an especially fierce
elephant which fought bravely in the line of battle.[29]
We must leave it to more detailed surveys to describe the writers who
carried the story of Rome down to the last years of the republic,
writers such as P. Mucius Scævola, who in 123 B.C. as Pontifex Maximus
ended the old _Annales Maximi_, and published them; L. Cœlius Antipater
the jurist, who broke with the old annalistic style; thoughtful
scholars like Sempronius Asellio, who sought in the manner of Polybius
to establish the causes of events;[30] Q. Claudius Quadrigarius and the
more popular but less critical Valerius Antias; L. Cornelius Sisenna,
the historian of the period of Sulla; or C. Licinius Macer, whose
_Annales_ seem to have been more controversial than accurate. Although
these writers were gratefully used by later Latin historians, and above
all by Livy,[31] so little has been left of their works or about them
as to render comment a matter of minute erudition, out of place in a
study like this. Cicero, however, viewing history from the standpoint
of literature, offers an illuminating comment on Antipater, who wrote
at the close of the second century. Historians up to that time, says
Cicero, were simply makers of annals (_annalium confectiores_) and
for him history in the proper sense began with Antipater, the first
to adorn his tale with art or artifice (_exornator rerum_) instead of
being, as his predecessors were, mere narrators.[32]
L. Cœlius Antipater was a distinguished jurist and teacher of
oratory, who lived a scholarly and retired life. Perhaps owing to
this retirement he gave up the pragmatic principle and substituted
for his aim rather that “pleasure to the ear” (_delectare_) which
Thucydides had once denounced but which the followers of Isocrates
had made the vogue.[33] He lacked the restraint and good taste of the
Greek, however, carrying rhythm to extreme, and introducing not only
speeches, but also anecdotes and breaking the narrative with all kinds
of diversions so that the reader should not suffer ennui. For instance,
instead of giving the figures of Scipio’s expedition to Africa, he
tells us that birds fell from heaven at the noise of the shouting
soldiers. As Thucydides had done, he chose a single war, the second
Punic,[34] as his theme, rather than the whole story of Rome. In his
preface he tells frankly that he takes it from those authors who are
deemed reliable,[35] meaning Fabius Pictor and Cato; there is naturally
no trace of Polybius. The seven books of this history were used as
texts for criticism in the days of Cicero’s youth, and where rhetoric
flourished more than history, Antipater flourished with it. Hadrian is
said to have preferred him to Sallust--the student of Thucydides, the
first real Roman historian in the eyes of the modern.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cicero, _Pro Archia_, Chaps. X-XI, Sects. 26-27. The description
given here of the means taken by the Roman dignitaries to preserve
their names and exalt their glory reminds one somewhat of the
inscriptions of Egypt or Babylon. _Cf._ H. Peter, _Die geschichtliche
Litteratur über die römische Kaiserzeit bis Theodosius I und ihre
Quellen_, Vol I, Chap. II (_Das geschichtliche Interesse des
Publikums_).
[2] Cicero, _Brutus_, Chap. XVI. (Translation based on Watson’s.)
[3] In this connection mention should be made of the use of the old
inscriptions by the later historians. Monumental inscriptions were
used by both Greek and Roman historians of early Rome, but they
were sometimes misled by what they saw, and the monuments became
foundations for new myths, as is likely to be the case anywhere if full
contemporary records are missing. _Vide supra_, the myth of Osiris.
E. Pais, _Ancient Legends of Roman History_, Chap. VII, has a good
discussion on this point.
[4] _Cf._ p. 213. On the _Annales Maximi_ there has been considerable
discussion. The few fragments concerning them are given in H.
Peter’s _Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae_ (2 vols., 1906-1914,
with Bibliography to 1914), Vol. I, pp. iii-xxix (De _Annalibus
Maximis_); _cf._ Teuffel-Schwabe, _History of Roman Literature_, Vol.
I, Sects. 73-77. The contributions of O. Seeck, _Die Kalendertafel
der Pontifices_ (1885), and of W. Soltau, _Römische Chronologie_
(pp. 442 _sqq._), may be cited; but the field is intricate as can
be seen from the article _Annales_ (by Cichorius) in Pauly-Wissowa,
_Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_, Vol. I, pp.
2248 _sqq._
[5] _Per singulos dies_, not _every_ day, but when the event happened.
Hence the _acta diurna_, or official daily bulletin from the time of
Julius Cæsar, was not a continuation of this. _Vide_ O. Seeck, _Die
Kalendertafel der Pontifices_, p. 62; H. Peter, _Historicorum Romanorum
Reliquiae_, Vol. I, p. x.
[6] _Servii Grammatici qui Feruntur in Vergilii Carmina Commentarii_,
edited by George Thilo and Hermann Hagen (3 vols., 1878-1887), Vol.
I, Bk. I, l. 373. This paragraph occurs only in the manuscript
published by Daniel in 1600. On whether it belongs to Servius or to
a later commentator see the edition by Thilo and the bibliographical
indications in Teuffel-Schwabe, _op. cit._, Vol. II, Sect. 431, n. 2.
[7] “Ab initio rerum Romanarum.”
[8] _Cf._ W. Soltau, _Die Anfänge der roemischen Geschichtschreibung_,
p. 228; A. Enmann, _Die aelteste Redaction der Pontificalannalen_ (in
_Rheinisches Museum_, Vol. LV (1902), pp. 517-533), places the origin
of the yearly tablet for public use at about 400 B.C.
[9] Livy, _Ab Urbe Condita_, Bk. VI, Chap. I.
[10] O. Seeck, _Die Kalendertafel der Pontifices_, p. 74. In fact their
menace to the safety of the surrounding buildings was almost as great
as the pile of inflammable papers by the heating plants of some of the
buildings in Washington.
[11] E. Pais announced in _Ancient Legends of Roman History_ (1905),
Chap. I, that he has been gathering the fragments of the _Annales
Maximi_ for publication.
[12] On the influence of the old annalistic forms on Tacitus’ works see
E. Courbaud, _Les procédés d’art de Tacite dans les Histoires_ (1918),
p. 34 and references.
[13] So Ennius called his epic _Annales_; and when Vergil refers to the
content of early history he uses the same general term. _Cf._ _Æneid_,
Bk. I, l. 373, _Et vacet annales nostrorum audire laborum_.
[14] Thus Servius, commenting on the line of Vergil quoted here, says:
“There is this difference between history and annals: history deals
with these times which we witness or have been able to witness. The
word comes from ἱστορεῖν, that is ‘to see’ (dicta ἁπὸ τοῦ ἱστορεῖν,
id est videre); but annals are of those times of which our age is
ignorant. Hence Livy consists of both annals and history. Nevertheless
they are freely used one for the other, as in this place where he says
‘annals’ for ‘history.’” Aulus Gellius had earlier (_Noctes Atticae_,
Book V, Chap. XVIII) cited the authority of Verrius Flaccus the
lexicographer for this distinction of meaning and adduced practically
the only fragment we have of Sempronius Asellio, one of the later
annalists, to show that the narrower meaning of the word, a yearly list
of happenings, was their ideal of history. Asellio is impatient with
the narrowness of those who do not connect the isolated items of war or
conquest with the broader theme of politics, and terms such monastic
annals _fabulas pueris_, unworthy the name of history. For discussion
of this point see Teuffel-Schwabe, _op. cit._, Vol. I, Sect. 37, n. 3.
[15] It is doubtful if they bore any such titles, but more likely, as
in the case of Livy, whose work was termed _Ab urbe condita libri_, the
annals of Tacitus were probably _Ab excessu d. Augusti_.
[16] See the articles _Fasti_ in Daremberg and Saglio’s _Dictionnaire
des antiquités_, and (by Schön) in Pauly-Wissowa’s _Real-Encyclopädie_.
The _Fasti Triumphales_ have just been published in an exhaustively
critical edition by E. Pais (2 vols., 1920) in the _Collezione di festi
e monumenti romani_ of E. Pais and F. Stella Maranca.
[17] Livy, _Ab Urbe Condita_, Bk. II, Chap. IV; Bk. IV, Chaps. VII, XX.
[18] _Cf._ H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, pp. 273 _sqq._, whose
account has been mainly used for what follows. For the fragments of
Fabius Pictor see H. Peter, _Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae_, Vol.
I, pp. LXIX-C, pp. 5-39. There was apparently a Latin translation or
version.
[19] _The Histories of Polybius_, Bk. III, Chaps. VIII-IX; _cf._
Teuffel-Schwabe, _op. cit._, Vol. I, Sect. 116, n. 2, with references.
[20] _Cf._ Livy, _Ab Urbe Condita_, Bk. I, Chap. XLIV; Bk. II, Chap.
XL; Bk. XXII, Chap. VII.
[21] Cf. H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, pp. 282 _sq._
[22] _Cf._ Plutarch, _Vitae Parallelae_, Chap. XXIII (_Cato_).
[23] _Cf._ H. Peter, _Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae_, Fragment 3.
[24] Cicero, _Cato Maior_, Chap. XI, Sect. 38; Chap. VII, Sect. 21.
[25] _The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius_, Bk. II, Chap. XXVIII
(Translated by W. Beloe.)
[26] Thucydides eclipsed by Theopompus! _Cf._ Teuffel-Schwabe, _op.
cit._, Vol. I, Sect. 185, with references.
[27] Cicero, _Brutus_, Chap. XVII.
[28] _Ibid._, Chap. XVII.
[29] _Cf._ Pliny, _Naturalis Historiae Libri XXXVII_, Bk. VIII, Chap.
XI; Plutarch, _Vitae Parallelae_, Chap. XXV (_Cato_).
[30] _Vide supra_, p. 229, n. 3.
[31] Livy cites Antias thirty-five times, Quadrigarius ten times. On
the remains of these writers see the works of H. Peter quoted above,
and Teuffel-Schwabe, _op. cit._, Vol. I, Sects. 155 _sqq._
[32] “Ceteri non exornatores rerum, sed tantummodo narratores fuerunt.”
Cicero, _De Oratore_, Bk. II, Chap. XII.
[33] H. Peter’s admirable account of Antipater in _Wahrheit und Kunst_
has been summarized in this paragraph.
[34] _Belli Punici Alterius Historiae._
[35] Ex scriptis eorum qui veri arbitrantur.
CHAPTER XX
VARRO, CÆSAR AND SALLUST
If the achievement of Roman historians was disappointing, the fault
did not lie altogether in a lack of interest about the past, as
is witnessed by the list of historians of the closing era of the
Republic which has been given in the last chapter; and historians
were not the only ones to contribute antiquarian lore. There were,
in addition to poets and historians, other scholars as well, at work
on all kinds of curious investigation, interpreting auguries or the
archaic hymns of the Salii, studying the history of law or philosophy
or the etymology of words, or simply writing encyclopædic surveys
of things in general. This movement of scholarship forms a notable
supplement to Roman historiography, reaching as it does all the way
from Cato, through Varro, to the elder Pliny. Partly in the form of
practical manuals, partly in erudite volumes, it preserved a mass of
data for the learned society of Cicero’s day and later; and it helped
to satisfy curiosity as to striking events or unusual customs. But
the essentials of criticism were lacking,--that is, adequate tools;
and it need not surprise the reader of this study to find that the
work of these scholars was, upon the whole, on a lower plane than
that of the historians. The test of success for the antiquarian at
Rome seems to have been what it was for the American capitalist in
the nineteenth century, mere amount of output. Varro, for instance,
wrote between six and seven hundred volumes. The author of so many
works could not examine with discerning care the sources from which
such a vast store of learning was drawn. The credulous, uncritical
character of Pliny’s great _Natural History_, the final summing up of
this encyclopædic historical literature, is a fair indication of its
inability to sort out fact from fiction; due to the absence not only
of historical disciplines, but also of those of the other sciences
which deal with human evolution: the sciences of language, philology;
of society, anthropology; of comparative religion. Yet, inaccurate
or not, these collections of the data of history were at hand for the
Romans to read; and as the reader is generally still less critical than
the writer, there were probably few who had any idea of how thin the
line of established fact really was. On the contrary, at least from the
day of Varro, it must have seemed to them more like an enveloping--if
hazy--sea, in which only the most expert could find his bearings.
We should have a better idea of the situation if the works of Varro
had come down to us in anything like the way in which those of Cicero
were preserved. But whether it be, as Augustine suggests, that the
appeal to the lover of words is stronger than that to the lover of
facts,[1] or that the facts ceased to have any meaning by themselves,
there remain but slight fragments of the many writings of Varro. Born
in 116 B.C., and therefore Cicero’s senior by ten years, Varro lived a
long and busy life, not as a hermit-scholar, but as a man of affairs,
taking an active part in politics; a somewhat whimsical man, as his
satirical miscellany shows. The only work which concerns us, however,
is his treatise on _Roman Antiquities_, published in 47 B.C. There
were twenty-five books dealing with human and sixteen with “divine”
antiquities. The data were grouped into large sections under Persons,
Places, Times and Things. There was no attempt to establish their
interconnection historically, but simply an amassing of curious facts.
Strangely enough, while the part dealing with human affairs was lost,
portions of the religious section, the _Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum_,
were destined to be passed down to us because of the interest of
Christian theology in combating the pagan deities. Augustine’s _City of
God_ quoted, in order to ridicule them, Varro’s accounts of the early
cults of Rome. Modern scholarship, correcting Varro in places, is upon
the whole able to profit better from the data he offers than were the
Fathers of the Church; and perhaps, also, better than the believing
pagans. To these Varro supplied something like a “counterblast” to the
negative criticism of Lucretius,[2] and helped to restore that emphasis
upon the good old Roman virtue of _pietas_, upon which the Vergilian
epic was so strongly to insist.
But however much this work of Varro may have served its purpose, we
find in the attitude of Cicero towards him, an indication that those
days were strangely like our own; that literary men sometimes did
not read the works of scholars. Cicero did not quote Varro, whose
works were not to be found in his library. His friend, Atticus, the
book-publisher and author, had them, however, and urged Cicero to use
them; but when Cicero and Varro both made their peace with Cæsar and
returned to their literary pursuits, Cicero’s letters to Varro are
still general and somewhat formal.[3] Even under the stress of having
to exchange dedications to some of their works, the mutual regard of
scholar and man of letters is none too cordial.
This is all the more evident when one turns to the little manual on the
history of eloquence which Cicero wrote at this time, under the title
_Brutus_. The book itself is of interest to us, for it is the nearest
to history of Cicero’s writings. It passes in review about two hundred
orators, Greek and Roman, but all in the form of a pleasant dialogue,
suitably held under the statue of Plato on a quiet lawn, by Brutus,
Atticus and Cicero. But the incident with which it opens is most
significant. Atticus had written a short, general outline of universal
history. From all that we can gather, it was a poor enough affair, an
annal based, like that of his predecessor Cornelius Nepos,[4] upon
the Athenian chronicle of Apollodorus, and hence in the direct line
that leads through Eusebius, to Christian monastic annals. But it got
away from the beaten path of purely Roman antiquities and presented
the world as one; and perhaps its very slightness combined with its
extended perspectives constituted its chief charm. There is no subtler
appeal to our intellectual _amour propre_ than to have great and
difficult truths in science or philosophy made obvious by keeping us
unaware of the difficulties. In any case Cicero hails this manual with
lyric joy; it has restored his drooping spirits and made life worth
living in these dark days; it opens out the obscurities of the past
to the daylight and furnishes a sure guide where all was so confused!
In short, Atticus’ outlines have done for Cicero what H. G. Wells’
_Outline_ has done for the modern busy reader, led him to that “peak
in Darien” where he might discover the expanse of Time, not so much
with the shock of wild surmise, as with the comfortable assurance that
he already had the chart for its exploration. The significance of the
incident is not that Atticus had written a manual of general history,
but that Cicero needed it so badly.
Reference to this general history naturally recalls at this point the
works of the later Greek historians described above, and we may perhaps
anticipate here enough to mention the one attempt to carry over into
Latin the scheme for universal history, which we met first in Ephorus
and Theopompus. Pompeius Trogus, the younger contemporary of Livy,
covered the history of the near East in forty-four books, beginning
with Ninus and including the Macedonian Empire. The title of the work,
_Historiae Philippicae_, sufficiently indicates the Greek point of
view, for the culminating figure was Philip of Macedon. Rome came in
only incidentally, and rather as seen by her enemies. This was not the
kind of history to rival Livy; and it would have perished utterly had
not a certain M. Junianus Justinus made a synopsis of it which was
destined largely to satisfy the meagre curiosity of the Middle Ages in
the great story of the pagan world. For it was to this that Orosius,
the pupil of Augustine, mainly turned for his materials when writing
that story of the sufferings of the pre-Christian era which was the
historical counterpart to the _City of God_.[5]
Consideration of works like these has carried us somewhat afield from
the main lines of Roman historiography. But before we proceed to the
first of the great historians of Rome, Sallust, whose figure already
stands before us, we must pause for a moment more to consider the
historical writings of another class, not scholars this time but men of
action.
For in the controversial atmosphere of late republican politics most
statesmen who could write left narratives to justify their conduct, and
those who could not write them themselves employed others to do so.
The dictator Sulla (138-78 B.C.) after his retirement from public life
wrote an autobiography, which seems to have resembled the semi-fabulous
narrative of an Oriental rather than of a sober Roman; for it points
to a series of miraculous occurrences coincident with his public work
to show that the hand of the goddess Tyche was visible throughout.[6]
Yet such a narrative could impose upon Plutarch. Lucullus also (114-57
B.C.) early in life wrote a history of the war with Marius; but the
use of current narrative as apologetic pamphlet literature reached its
height in the last years of the Republic, when Pompey on the one side
and Cæsar on the other, defended their actions at the bar of history.
Pompey did not plead himself, but maintained a “literary staff”[7] to
present his story in the light of hero-worship. For this purpose slaves
or Greeks were best; and Theophanes of Mytilene described the third
Mithridatic War as a repetition of the conquest of Asia by Alexander,
repeating the hero-myth even down to a conflict with Amazons.[8]
It is only when we turn from nonsense like this to Cæsar’s
_Commentaries_ that we suddenly realize the full measure of achievement
of these war-memoirs.[9] Few books, however great, can stand the test
of use in school and still retain a hold upon us in later life, and it
was a questionable gain to Cæsar that he wrote in such simple, lucid
phrase as to make his works the object of the desolating struggles of
the young with Latin prose. But if one does, by any chance, go back to
Cæsar after years of absence from the schoolroom, one finds a surprise
awaiting him. For these works, written primarily to justify himself
before the Roman people, dictated in camp and in the midst of the
world’s affairs, contain not a word of open eulogy of the author, and
present the narrative as if from an impersonal observer, interested
not only in the war but in the manners and the customs of peoples; in
short a detached, objective account such as Thucydides himself might
approve. This is the external, however; for so happily is the illusion
of impartiality maintained that it is only when one has read the story
through that one realizes the possibility of another point of view. It
was a work of genius to use the quality of self-restraint to increase
the impression of reality, and so, after all, to make what was left out
speak for the writer.
For the ten or eleven years following the murder of Julius Cæsar in
44 B.C. there was living in retirement, in his luxurious villa on the
Quirinal, the first really great historian whom Rome produced, Gaius
Sallustius Crispus, known to us as Sallust. He had been a partisan
of Cæsar, and his great wealth, which showed itself in the elaborate
gardens (_horti Sallustiani_) which he laid out on the northern
hillsides of the city, was probably partly due to his having held the
governorship of the province of Numidia for a while after Cæsar’s
victories. But during the hot factional fights and the civil wars
of the period of the Triumvirate and the founding of the imperial
Principate of Augustus, he withdrew from present politics to devote
himself to a narrative of those of the age which had just passed away.
Such a course of action needed, in the eyes of a practical Roman, some
apology, and the two works of Sallust which have come to us begin
with such apologies. Since they supply the point of view from which
he wished us to judge of his performance, we may first listen to what
he has to say on the matter. The third and fourth chapters of the
_Conspiracy of Catiline_ run as follows:[10]
“It is a fine thing to serve the State by action, nor is eloquence
despicable. Men may become illustrious alike in peace and war, and
many by their own acts, many by their record of the acts of others,
win applause. The glory which attends the doer and the recorder of
brave deeds is certainly by no means equal. For my own part, however,
I count historical narration as one of the hardest of tasks. In the
first place, a full equivalent has to be found in words for the deeds
narrated, and in the second the historian’s censures of crimes are
by many thought to be the utterances of ill-will and envy, while his
record of the high virtue and glory of the good, tranquilly accepted
so long as it deals with what the reader deems to be easily within
his own powers, so soon as it passes beyond this is disbelieved as
mere invention.
“As regards myself, my inclination originally led me, like many
others, while still a youth, into public life. There I found many
things against me. Modesty, temperance, and merit had departed,
and hardihood, corruption, and avarice were flourishing in their
stead. My mind, a stranger to bad acquirements, contemned these
qualities;[11] nevertheless, with the weakness of my youth, I was
seized and held amid this throng of vices by ambition. I presented
a contrast to the ill behaviour of my fellows, none the less I was
tormented by the same craving for the honours of office, and the same
sensitiveness to popularity and unpopularity as the rest.
“At last, after many miseries and perils, my mind was at peace, and
I determined to pass the remainder of my days at a distance from
public affairs. It was not, however, my plan to waste this honourable
leisure in idleness and sloth, nor yet to spend my life in devotion
to such slavish tastes as agriculture or hunting. I returned to the
studies I had once begun, from which my unhappy ambition had held me
back, and determined to narrate the history of the Roman people in
separate essays, wherever it seemed worthy of record. I was the more
inclined to this by the fact that my mind was free alike from the
hopes and fears of the political partisan.”
In his other book, _The Jugurthine War_,[12] Sallust is even more on
the defensive:
“Among the tasks that occupy the intellect, historical narration
holds a prominent and useful place. As its merits have been often
extolled, I think it best to leave them unmentioned, and thus escape
any imputation of arrogantly exalting myself by praise of my own
pursuit. And yet I have no doubt that there will be some who, because
I have determined to pass my life at a distance from public affairs,
will apply the name of indolence to my long and useful task. At any
rate, the men to whom it seems the height of energy to court the mob,
and buy favour by their public entertainments, will do so.”
In both these sections his defence involves a characterization of the
politics of Rome--the other alternative held for his activity--which
is, in a word, the essence of his history as well. For he dealt as
a historian with just that corrupt and vicious political life of
the closing years of the Republic, from which he sought refuge in
the polite society of his friends and the delights of intellectual
intercourse. The choice of the conspiracy of Catiline for a subject to
be immortalized, revealing--as it did in his depiction--the degradation
of Roman ideals and the failure of its social as well as of its
political system, was typical of his outlook. The story of the war
against Jugurtha, his other theme, has a constantly recurring note as
to the venality of Roman senators, and if we lose the thread of home
affairs in the graphic--though sometimes fanciful--descriptions of
battle in the wilds of Numidia, the climax of the tale is less the fate
of Jugurtha than that striking passage which closed the disreputable
manœuvres of the king and his partisans in Rome, in which, as he was
leaving the city, “he is said, after looking back at it in silence,
at last to have cried: ‘a city for sale, soon to fall if once it find
a buyer.’”[13] There is no wonder that in dealing with characters and
events such as these Sallust should find history difficult.
But the difficulty was enhanced by the fact that he never quite saw
the perspective as a historian. He was intent upon preserving “the
memory of gallant deeds that kindled a fire in the breasts of brave
men, that cannot be quenched until their own merit has rivalled their
ancestors’ fame and renown,”[14] and so he sought to bring out,
partly by contrast, against that dark background, the patriotism of
a Cato or the military genius of a Metellus. Yet he was too much of
a historian to do this at the expense of the narrative as a whole;
the episodes are not allowed to dominate as they would in the case of
a mere writer of memoirs. The attempt to be impartial prevents him
from that brilliant sort of sketching which would have distorted the
narrative for the sake of a few strong effects. On the other hand,
the background never becomes really clear. He did not set himself,
in these works at least, the larger theme, of which they furnished
the notable illustrations,--the theme of Roman government in the days
when an outworn oligarchy was attempting to rule through an outworn
constitution, and the democratic statesmen had not yet found their
Cæsar.
If, therefore, there is something inherently weak about the work of
Sallust, why is it held in such high regard? For, not only have we the
praise of the one most competent to pass judgment in Rome, Tacitus
himself,[15] but modern critics are agreed that Sallust stands head and
shoulders above his predecessors, and remains, with Livy and Tacitus,
one of the three really great Latin historians. The reason is mainly
that he applied to Rome the standards of Thucydides and Polybius,
whom he took as his masters; and, cutting adrift from the current of
complacent rhetorical compositions, honestly tried to tell the truth.
Moreover, in style as well as in content, he held himself aloof from
the florid or oratorical traditions and wrote with dignity and gave a
certain fitting, archaic flavor to his narrative.[16] Like Thucydides,
he polished and repolished his phrases; and the speeches he introduced,
even when he had the text before him,[17] were rewritten in keeping
with the rest of his work. Fortunately one orator, Cicero, saved him
the trouble of so doing with his particular orations, by rewriting and
polishing them for posterity himself.
It is generally held that one of Sallust’s chief merits is his
depiction of character; and it is true that his characters are for
the most part drawn with real impartiality and are life-like. But the
qualities assigned them seem to smack a little of formula; they are not
subtle combinations of temperament and capacity, capable of swiftly
surprising the reader, but share that element of the commonplace
which makes so much of antique literature seem more or less like
stage-property.[18] However, it is open to the classicist to take
exception to this, for the full merit and charm of Sallust’s art demand
more time and study than his subject-matter makes otherwise profitable.
Finally, there are two frank weaknesses in Sallust as a historian. In
the first place he is weak in chronology and geography. His editors
have all pointed out how incredibly careless he is in both respects.
He uses vague phrases for lapse of time and even then gets hopelessly
wrong, while his geography of Africa is a fanciful bit of writing, such
as putting cities near the coast that should be forty miles inland.
This would have shocked Polybius, and if Sallust found Thucydides vague
in his time-reckoning, Thucydides would have never failed, as Sallust
did, where the data were at hand.
The second weakness of Sallust came from his very advantages. A
retired capitalist, living in elegant ease, employing scholars to do
the drudgery of research,[19] he missed some of that keen sense of
the value of accuracy which comes from constantly feeling the iron
discipline of the scientific method. But, more than this, he saw the
world much as such a one would today, through the windows of a Pall
Mall or Fifth Avenue club. His philosophy, which he outlines in his
prefaces, is one of self-denial, but it is the kind of self-denial that
goes with club-life. It reminds one of Polonius. It does not reach
out to grapple with the real problems of a work-a-day world. It is
placid and sure of itself, properly censorious, but lacking in grasp of
fundamentals.
If Sallust’s other work, a history of the whole era just preceding
his own, was ever finished or not,[20] we have traces of only a few
fragments; and the fact that he proposed to concentrate on certain main
features, as a rule for historical composition, leads us to surmise
that his performance in the larger task was hardly one to cause us to
revise our judgment upon him. Yet he may have suffered from the fact
that in the ages that followed, particularly in the closing period of
imperial history, it was the charm of his style and the power of his
portrayal which preserved for us what it did, rather than any more
solid merit in historical synthesis.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The philological work of Varro has been brought out by G. Goetz
and F. Schoell, _De Lingua Latina Quae Supersunt_ (Teubner,
1910); but the student of history should consult H. Peter,
_Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae_ (2 vols., 1906-1914), Vol. II,
for the fragments which are of historiographical interest. For
bibliography see _Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft_, Vol. CXLIII (1910), pp. 63 _sqq._; for
1898-1908; Sup. Vol. CLXV (1913), pp. 307 _sqq._; Vol. CLXXIII
(1915), p. 91; Vol. CLXXVII (1916-1918), pp. 89 _sq._, p. 254.
There are editions of Cæsar’s _Commentarii_ by B. Kübler (3 vols.,
ed. maior, Teubner, 1893-1897; ed. minor, Teubner, 1897-1911); E.
Hoffmann (2 vols., 3d ed., 1898); B. Dinter (3 vols., Teubner, 1864,
1890); T. R. Holmes (1914); E. S. Shuckburgh (1912-1915); R. Du
Pontet (Oxford Library of Classical Authors, 2 vols. [1900-1901]).
There is a large literature on Cæsar but the translations of _The
Gallic War_ by H. J. Edwards (1917), _The Civil Wars_ by A. G.
Peskett (1914), in the Loeb Classical Library and the works of T. R.
Holmes, _Ancient Britain and the Invasion of Julius Cæsar_ (1907),
_Cæsar’s Conquest of Gaul_ (2d ed., 1911), will furnish the best
introduction. See also E. G. Sihler, _Annals of Cæsar_ (1911). For
general literature see _Jahresbericht_, etc., Sup. Vol. CLVI (1912),
pp. 168 _sqq._
Of the various editions of Sallust the following may be mentioned:
T. Opitz (2d ed., Teubner, 1909); A. Eussner (_Catilina_, _De Bello
Jugurthino_, Teubner 1887; new ed., 1912); J. H. Schmalz (_Catilina_,
8th ed., 1909; _De Bello Jugurthino_, 8th ed., 1912); C. Stegmann
(_Catilina_, Teubner, 4th ed., 1914; _De Bello Jugurthino_, Teubner,
3d ed., 1915). There are translations by A. W. Pollard, _The
Catiline of Sallust_ (1886; 2d ed., 1891, reprinted 1913), and by
J. C. Rolfe, _Sallust_ ... (1921), in the Loeb Classical Library.
The bibliographies in the _Jahresbericht_, etc., are in Vol. CLX
(1912), p. 64; Sup. Vol. CLXV (1913), pp. 165 _sqq._; Vol. CLXXVII
(1916-1918), pp. 84, 248.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf._ _De Civitate Dei_, Bk. VI, Chap. II.
[2] J. Wight Duff, _A Literary History of Rome_ (2d ed., 1910), p. 338.
[3] _Cf._ E. G. Sihler, _Cicero of Arpinum_ (1914), pp. 249, 334. This
is a suggestive book, crowded with facts, but hard to follow.
[4] Atticus’ chronicle was written about 47 B.C., that of Cornelius
Nepos about 63 B.C. On Apollodorus see above, p. 50, n. 1.
[5] _Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri Septem._
[6] It bore the title _Commentarii Rerum Gestarum_.
[7] The expression used by H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, p. 333. See
also his _Die geschichtliche Litteratur über die römische Kaiserzeit
bis Theodosius I und ihre Quellen_, Vol. I, pp. 163 _sqq._ Varro wrote
for Pompey.
[8] The use of slaves or freedmen to exalt the fortunes of the great
was common in Rome as elsewhere. But none of the achievement is notable
enough to come within this survey.
[9] Cæsar’s _Commentarii_ are ostensibly merely “sketches” for
a history, to be written later; but this was partly a stylistic
self-depreciation, recognizable among the rhetorical devices of the
day. Cicero wrote the account of his consulate in the same vein.
[10] _The Catiline of Sallust_ (_The Conspiracy of Catiline_), English
translation by A. W. Pollard (1886; 2d ed., 1891; reprinted 1913).
[11] Sallust’s life, before his retirement, by no means escaped
criticism; but we are not concerned here with questions of private
morals.
[12] Sallust, _Bellum Jugurthinum_, Chap. IV.
[13] _Ibid._, Chap. XXXV.
[14] _Ibid._, Chap. IV.
[15] Tacitus, _Annales_, Bk. III, Chap. XXX.
[16] A good example of a deftly turned phrase, even were it not
original, is the crisp comment on the Numidians who were “protected
rather by their feet than by their swords” (_Bellum Jugurthinum_, Chap.
LXXIV).
[17] As for instance that of Cato against Catiline or Memmius against
Jugurtha. His speeches are admittedly well done, and if there are too
many for us, and the moralizing is overdone, they suited the age for
which they were written.
[18] The portrait of Marius is perhaps an exception. _Cf._ Sallust,
_Bellum Jugurthinum_, Chap. LXIII _et seq._
[19] He employed scholars to do the “grubbing” for him. Suetonius, _De
Illustribus Grammaticis_, Chap. X. Yet he should get due credit for
recognizing the value of scholarly aids. “Such pains were seldom taken
by a Latin historian.” _Cf._ J. W. Mackail, _Latin Literature_ (1895;
reprinted 1907), p. 84.
[20] It bore the title _Historiae_, and apparently covered from about
78 to 66 B.C., continuing where L. Cornelius Sisenna had left off.
_Vide_ Teuffel-Schwabe, _op. cit._, Vol. I, Sect. 205, n. 4. On Sisenna
see H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, p. 301.
CHAPTER XXI
LIVY
Whatever opinions one may have as to the place of Sallust among
historians, that of Livy remains unchallenged. He was the national
historian of Rome; the only one who successfully handled the long and
intricate story of war and politics from the establishment of the
City to that of the Empire. Others worked at portions; he took over
the whole. Even in mere size his history was monumental. It had no
less than one hundred forty-two books; and a book in Livy is not like
the meagre divisions of Cæsar’s _Commentaries_; it is a small work in
itself. But apart from its vastness, the conception which underlay
the history of Livy was so consistently developed, the outlines of
his structure so clear and so harmonious, that it is hardly too much
to say that it was the impress which he gave to the history of the
Republic that lasted down to the day of Niebuhr and the nineteenth
century critics. He carried the idea of the fated mission of Rome as
the unifying centre of the civilized world back across the centuries
of its obscurity, and linked together past, present and future in
one culminating perspective. In a sense it was merely the reflection
in history of the greatness of the writer’s own times. But the fact
that those times were great made the faith in Rome itself,--which was
Livy’s creed,--almost the same as a belief in human progress or a vital
interest in organized society. Thus his patriotism became catholic,
and remained an inspiration to succeeding ages, even after the Roman
world had passed away.[1] Whatever criticism may have to say as to his
methods of work, it cannot shake the place of Livy as one of those few
historians whose works have lived rather than endured. Judged in this
light, the national historian of Rome stands high among the old masters.
Titus Livius (59 B.C.-17 A.D.) was born at Padua, but passed most of
his life at Rome, and wrote under the direct patronage of Augustus.
Indeed, he represented in history that effort toward reform in morals,
in which Augustus was so much concerned, by the strong emphasis which
he placed upon the ancient virtues and the depiction of heroic acts
and patriotic sacrifice.[2] But the very sincerity of character, which
revealed itself in this moral attitude of Livy, kept him independent
in spirit, so that although at court he was no courtier. He did not,
like Horace and Vergil, place Augustus among the gods, and indeed
only mentioned him incidentally, “once to mark a date, again to prove
a fact.”[3] On the other hand, he ventured to praise Brutus and
Cassius.[4] A sturdy provincial, without any of the ties that made
partisanship a family virtue, he came to Rome just when the hot feuds
of the latter Republic were quenched in the great civil wars, and the
era of corruption and intrigue which obscured the perspectives of
Sallust was apparently over. Consequently, without surrendering his
republican principles, he could see in the Principate a continuation of
these elements in the Roman past which made for greatness. But while
his character and outlook are clearly shown in his works and in the few
references we have concerning his life, those references are so few
that, as in the case of Herodotus, we are left with a history rather
than a historian. As Taine has somewhat sententiously summed it up: “A
date in Eusebius, some details scattered in Seneca and Quintilian, two
words thrown by chance in his own work; that is all that is left us on
the life of Titus Livius. The historian of Rome has no history.”[5] The
fragments we have show him to have been modest in the midst of his vast
popularity;[6] his work reveals the fact that he travelled little and
read much; and his style bears the marks of the training of a rhetor.
In other words he was a cultured gentleman of studious habits. Beyond
that we can hardly go.
When we turn from the man to the history, we may as well begin at the
beginning and let Livy describe his purpose and his conception of
the work, as he does, frankly enough, in the Preface to the _Ab Urbe
Condita_:
“Whether the task I have undertaken of writing a complete history of
the Roman people from the very commencement of its existence will
reward me for the labour spent on it, I neither know for certain,
nor if I did know would I venture to say. For I see that this is
an old-established and a common practice, each fresh writer being
invariably persuaded that he will either attain greater certainty in
the materials of his narrative or surpass the rudeness of antiquity
in the excellence of his style.
“However this may be, it will still be a great satisfaction to
me to have taken my part, too, in investing, to the utmost of my
abilities, the annals of the foremost nation in the world with a
deeper interest; and if in such a crowd of writers my own reputation
is thrown into the shade, I would console myself with the renown and
greatness of those who eclipse my fame.
“The subject moreover is one that demands immense labour. It
goes back beyond 700 years, and, starting from small and humble
beginnings, has grown to such dimensions that it begins to be
overburdened by its greatness. I have very little doubt, too,
that for the majority of my readers, the earliest times and those
immediately succeeding will possess little attraction; they will
hurry on to those modern days in which the might of a long paramount
nation is wasting by internal decay. I, on the other hand, shall look
for a further reward of my labours in being able to close my eyes to
the evils which our generation has witnessed for so many years; so
long, at least, as I am devoting all my thoughts to retracing those
pristine records, free from all the anxiety which can disturb the
historian of his own times even if it cannot warp him from the truth.
“The traditions of what happened prior to the foundation of the City,
or whilst it was being built, are more fitted to adorn the creations
of the poet than the authentic records of the historian, and I have
no intention of establishing either their truth or their falsehood.
This much licence is conceded to the ancients, that by intermingling
human actions with divine they may confer a more august dignity on
the origins of states. Now, if any nation ought to be allowed to
claim a sacred origin and point back to divine paternity, that nation
is Rome. For such is her renown in war that when she chooses to
represent Mars as her own and her founder’s father, the nations of
the world accept the statement with the same equanimity with which
they accept her dominion.
“But whatever opinions may be formed or criticisms passed upon
these and similar traditions, I regard them as of small importance.
The subjects to which I would ask each of my readers to devote his
earnest attention are these--the life and morals of the community;
the men and the qualities by which, through domestic policy and
foreign war, dominion was won and extended. Then, as the standard
of morality gradually lowers, let him follow the decay of the
national character, observing how at first it slowly sinks, then
slips downward more and more rapidly, and finally begins to plunge
into headlong ruin, until he reaches those days in which we can bear
neither our diseases nor their remedies.
“There is this exceptionally beneficial and fruitful advantage to be
derived from the study of the past, that you see, set in the clear
light of historical truth, examples of every possible type. From
these you may select for yourself and your country what to imitate,
and what, as being mischievous in its inception and disastrous in its
issue, you are to avoid. Unless, however, I am misled by affection
for my undertaking, there has never existed any commonwealth greater
in power, with a purer morality, or more fertile in good examples;
or any state in which avarice and luxury have been so late in making
their inroads, or poverty and frugality so highly and continuously
honoured, showing so clearly that the less wealth men possessed the
less they coveted. In these latter years wealth has brought avarice
in its train, and the unlimited command of pleasure has created in
men a passion for ruining themselves and everything else through
self-indulgence and licentiousness.
“But criticisms which will be unwelcome, even when perhaps necessary,
must not appear in the commencement, at all events, of this extensive
work. We should much prefer to start with favourable omens, and if
we could have adopted the poets’ custom, it would have been much
pleasanter to commence with prayers and supplications to gods and
goddesses that they would grant a favourable and successful issue to
the great task before us.”[7]
Nowhere else in antique historiography have we so winning an appeal.
It has the personal note of Polybius without his pedagogical airs, the
moral atmosphere of Sallust but not his censorious declamation, and a
promise of the charm of a Herodotus in the _logi_ about old, forgotten
things that take the mind off the sordid cares of the present. The
light touch which brings one at the close to the borderland that lies
between humor and poetry, shows at once the sure hand of a master. The
omens are favorable when the historian has in mind the frailties of his
readers to the point of not recalling them unduly, but can leave the
heroic past to convey its own lesson.
The history of Livy bore the simple title, _From the Foundation of the
City_ (_Ab Urbe Condita_), and it properly begins with Æneas, whose
deeds are hurriedly sketched on the basis of the “generally accepted”
legend.[8] There is little indication of enthusiasm for this or the
story of Romulus which follows. There is even a rising doubt as to the
divine paternity of the founder of Rome and a naturalistic alternative
to the tales about him. Indeed, the narrative hardly gets under way in
the legends of origin. It is not until we have the struggle of Rome
against Alba Longa, culminating in the dramatic duel of the three
Horatii against the Curiatii,[9] that we are conscious of the swing of
unfettered movement and the play of the historical imagination. The
problem of origins is left unsolved; the case is given away to neither
the credulous nor the skeptical; details hardly matter; for in any
case, says Livy, “in my opinion, the origin of so great a city and the
establishment of an empire next in power to that of the gods was due to
the Fates.”[10]
This at once suggests the phase of Livy’s history which is most open
to question in our eyes. It is so religious in tone as to be frankly
mediæval in the inclusion of the supernatural as an intrinsic part of
the human story, and especially in the handling of crises, when by
miracle or portent the gods reveal themselves. Omens and prodigies
abound; when the gods are not on the scene they are just behind it.
Herodotus by comparison is almost modern, for, although the oracles
play a great part in his narrative, the gods remain aloof. Livy,
on the contrary, in the spirit of Augustus’ religious reforms,[11]
made piety the very core of patriotism. There is a flavor of Stoic
doctrine, as Pelham points out, in the way in which Fate “disposes the
plans of men,[12] and blinds their minds,[13] yet leaves their wills
free.”[14] But the philosopher yields to the historian, as he relates
the narratives, in the way he finds them in his sources, and realizes
how fully his characters believed in all the apparatus of official
magic, and the uncanny presences that heralded disaster or victory.
In a sentence which is practically unmatched in antique history for
penetrating historical imagination, he admits the influence which the
old faiths exert over him as he sinks himself into the past and learns
to think and feel the way his ancient heroes did. “In narrating ancient
things,” he says, “my soul, I know not how, becomes antique, and when I
see men so wise treat these events as affairs of state, I have scruples
at finding them unworthy my annals.”[15] This is certainly the most
that can be said in his defence. If the gods reveal the future, as they
do in the instance which calls forth this aside, they are moving in the
pages of Livy as they did through the brains of his heroes, and to that
degree the supernatural is the more natural history.
The story of Rome was one of constant war, and Livy is at his best
describing campaigns and battle scenes. A man of letters and not a
soldier himself, he is deficient in military science and inaccurate
in geography,[16] and his sense of numbers is poor; yet his narrative
of action is nervous, swift and forceful. While in argumentative
sections his style is often involved and sometimes drags, here he has
the art of securing speed and yet combining it with the picturesque.
The only thing that spoils his best portions is the chance that he
will interrupt them to insert just such an argument in the shape of
interminable speeches or harangues. These were undoubtedly, in Livy’s
eyes, the high points of his art; for the influence of Isocrates, or at
least of that form of rhetoric which Romans most admired, was dominant
in his style. There are over four hundred speeches in the thirty-five
books which have come down to us, and they were adjudged, by no less a
critic than Quintilian, to be unsurpassed in diction and content.[17]
It must be admitted, indeed, that they are not vapid declamations but
real, characteristic speeches; but they are often long and labored.
It was not the speeches which Livy feared might drive readers away, but
the long succession of the wars themselves. After ten books of them he
is moved to exhort the tired reader to continue as a patriotic task:
“What sort of a man must he be who would find the long story of those
wars tedious, though he is only narrating or reading it, when they
failed to wear out those who were actually engaged in them?”[18]
In this apprehension Livy was justified. It was the greatest tribute
to his genius that antiquity preserved, well into the Middle Ages, so
vast a repertory of archaic wars. If only relatively small portions of
the great work have come down to us,[19] it was not until those dark
ages after the seventh century that the missing books disappeared, and
even some parts of them are preserved in extracts by later authors. Why
the long story of obscure struggles was preserved when so much more
important parts were lost is of course impossible to say; but perhaps
the historian’s love for those quaint, far-off days had something to do
in preserving them.
When we turn from the art of Livy to his criticism and use of sources,
we at once come upon his weakness. Criticism was contrary to his
nature. He was a narrator. He gives one the impression that he used
criticism only superficially and because it was the fashion.[20] He
did not discriminate among his sources, but took what best fitted
with the scheme of the story. Pictor and Polybius[21] were used, but
not consistently. Second-hand annalists were good enough so long as
they contained the data. While hardly going so far as to apply the
adage _se non e vero e ben trovato_, Livy did not interest himself in
those researches in either philology or antiquarian lore which the new
scholarship of his day had made available. It is enough to say that he
shows no trace of having read Varro.[22]
There are, however, signs of the distinct sense of dependence upon the
sources which he found available. The most notable is the difference in
tone after the narrative of the burning of the city by the Gauls. The
sixth book, which begins the new era, starts as follows.
“The history of the Romans from the foundation of the City to its
capture, ... has been set forth in the five preceding books. The
subject-matter is enveloped in obscurity; partly from its great
antiquity, like remote objects which are hardly discernible through
the vastness of the distance; partly owing to the fact that written
records, which form the only trustworthy memorials of events, were in
those times few and scanty, and even what did exist in the pontifical
commentaries and public and private archives nearly all perished in
the conflagration of the City. Starting from the second beginnings of
the City, which, like a plant cut to its roots, sprang up in greater
beauty and fruitfulness, the details of its history both civil and
military will now be exhibited in their proper order, with greater
clearness and certainty.”[23]
The promise in these latter lines was made good rather in a literary
than in a scholarly sense. Where all his authorities agree, he is
happy;[24] where they disagree he is without any principles of
criticism to guide him. An interesting instance of this is in a passage
to which reference has already been made. After stating that his
readers will doubtless tire of his Volscians, he goes on to say:
“But they will also be struck with the same difficulty which I have
myself felt whilst examining the authorities who lived nearer to the
period, namely, from what source did the Volscians obtain sufficient
soldiers after so many defeats? Since this point has been passed over
by the ancient writers, what can I do more than express an opinion,
such as anyone may form from his own inferences?”[25]
The point to be noted is that Livy does not dream of questioning the
fact of the great size of the Volscian army, in view of the agreement
of his authorities. He can only turn aside to theories which may help
to rationalize the account so as to make it more credible. The modern
historian must first do what Livy seems not to have done at all,
determine the relation of his various sources one to the other.
If Livy was not a scholarly historian, neither was he qualified by
that experience in practical affairs which Polybius preferred to
scholarship. His failure to see the value of that wider knowledge
of men and places shows itself not only in his lack of exactness in
geography, to which reference has been made, but it narrows as well
his view of history and of Rome. As Pelham has so ably put it, “With
Polybius, the greatness of Rome is a phenomenon to be critically
studied and scientifically explained; the rise of Rome forms an
important chapter in universal history, that must be dealt with, not
as an isolated fact, but in connexion with the general march of events
in the civilized world.... Livy writes as a Roman, to raise a monument
worthy the greatness of Rome, and to keep alive, for the guidance and
the warning of Romans, the recollection alike of the virtues which
had made Rome great and of the vices which had threatened her with
destruction.”[26]
Livy’s history is, therefore, intensely patriotic. Rome was always
in the right. Its rise was due to the sterling virtues of the good
old days; above all, to piety. The fathers of the Republic are men of
courage and firmness, and of unshaken faith in the greatness of their
destiny. Fortunately, these are virtues of general application, and
however inadequate they may be as an explanation of the Roman triumph,
they offered to subsequent moralists much inspiration to apply the
lessons elsewhere. It is only in our own day that civic virtues have
ceased to be impressed upon the young by the model supplied from the
pages of the classics. And it is sufficient tribute to Livy in this
regard to recall that he was the one writer of antiquity singled out by
that clearest political thinker of the humanistic era, Machiavelli, to
drive home to his age the lessons of the past.[27]
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The literature on Livy is so well organized in the various manuals
that no detailed bibliography is necessary here. Several editions
of the text may be noted, however. They are those of W. Weissenborn
and M. Müller (3 vols., Teubner, 1882-1885; 2d ed., Vols. I-II,
1901-1915); A. Zingerle (3 vols., 1883-1904); R. S. Conway and C. F.
Walters (Oxford Library of Classical Authors, Vol. I, 1914). The
translation in the Loeb Classical Library is by B. O. Foster (13
vols., Vol. I, 1919), that in Everyman’s Library is by W. M. Roberts
(3 vols., 1912). Bibliographies are to be found in the _Jahresbericht
über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_, Vol.
CXLVII (1910), pp. 113 _sqq._ for 1901-1909; Sup. Vol. CLVI, pp.
513 _sqq._; Vol. CLXXIII (1915), pp. 73 _sq._, pp. 210 _sq._; Vol.
CLXXVII (1916-1918), p. 241.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf._ A. Molinier, _Les sources de l’histoire de France_, Vol. I,
p. 36, for the influence of Livy’s perspective upon the historical
ideas of the Middle Ages. This influence, however, was rather indirect,
while from the days of the humanists to our own Livy has again his
place among “the classics.”
[2] _Cf._ H. Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, p. 352.
[3] H. Taine, _Essai sur Tite Live_ (1856), p. 6.
[4] _Cf._ Tacitus, _Annales_, Bk. IV, Chap. XXXIV.
[5] H. Taine, _Essai sur Tite Live_, p. 1.
[6] The younger Pliny tells us a striking story, apparently current in
his day, which sufficiently indicates the contemporary fame of Livy.
“Have you never read (he says to Nepos) about a certain man from Cadiz,
who came from the very end of the world to see Livy, moved thereto by
the latter’s name and fame, and immediately after seeing him went back
home again?” _Cf._ _Epistulae_, Bk. II, Letter 3.
[7] Translation by W. M. Roberts in the edition of Livy in Everyman’s
Library (3 vols., 1912). The translator has succeeded in giving the
sense of Livy’s ease of style but hardly his compression. The Latin is
about half the length of the English.
[8] Livy, _Ab Urbe Condito_, Bk. I, Chap. I. The division into books is
by the author (_cf._ Bk. VI, Chap. I, 1); that into decades or sets of
ten books is a later device.
[9] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XXV.
[10] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. IV.
[11] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XIX.
[12] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XLII.
[13] _Ibid._, Bk. V, Chap. XXXVII.
[14] _Ibid._, Bk. XXXVII, Chap. XLV; H. F. Pelham, article _Livy_, in
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.
[15] Livy, _Ab Urbe Condita_, Bk. XLIII, Chap. XIII.
[16] His battle scenes do not work out on the actual map. _Cf._ H.
Peter, _Wahrheit und Kunst_, p. 356.
[17] H. Peter, _op. cit._, p. 356.
[18] Bk. X, Chap. XXXI. _Cf._ also Bk. VI, Chap. XII, “I have no doubt
that my readers will be tired of such a long record of incessant wars
with the Volscians.”
[19] The extant books are I-X, XXI-XLV, of which XLI and XLIII are
incomplete.
[20] H. Peter, _op. cit._, p. 356.
[21] Polybius was used for the Greek and Oriental history in the
thirtieth book; but he had nothing so good for Rome. _Vide_ W. Soltau,
_Livius’ Geschichtswerk, seine Komposition und seine Quellen_ (1897).
[22] _Cf._ H. F. Pelham, article _Livy_, in _Encyclopædia Britannica_.
[23] Livy, _Ab Urbe Condita_, Bk. VI, Chap. I.
[24] _Ibid._, Bk. IV, Chap. XX; Bk. VIII, Chap. VI; Bk. VI, Chap. XII.
[25] _Ibid._, Bk. VI, Chap. XII.
[26] H. F. Pelham, article _Livy_, in _Encyclopædia Britannica_.
[27] _Vide_ _Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio_ (various
editions, English translations 1836 and 1883).
CHAPTER XXII
TACITUS
From Livy to Tacitus is somewhat like passing from Herodotus to
Thucydides. Tacitus, too, was an artist in history, a consummate
artist. His style is the result of the maturity, not only of
individual, but also of national achievement. The charm of the
naïve is lost. The story-telling power that carries one through
interminable detail by making narrative entertaining is no gift of
Tacitus. His appeal, like that of Thucydides, is to intelligence. But
the intelligence of the age of the Fabians was not the same as that
of the age of Pericles; and beyond the general standards which they
set themselves, there is little resemblance between the work of the
greatest of Greek historians and that of the greatest of the Latins.
For both, history was a tribunal, the final one; but where Thucydides
was a magistrate, Tacitus was an advocate,--the most; brilliant,
perhaps, who ever sought to determine the judgment of Time, but an
advocate all the same. His client was Rome itself, and the stake was
human liberty; but these impersonal ideals were less in evidence in
the handling of his case than the dangers they encountered, dangers
embodied in real men and women, not envisaged as abstractions. It
was the tyrant, not tyranny, that Tacitus attacked; the immoral men
or women whom he could. name, rather than immorality in general.
But however powerfully he drove home his argument, he recognized
the dignity of the court in which he was pleading and asked only
the judgment which the facts would warrant. Thus, while Thucydides
sought to establish the truth alone, Tacitus sought to maintain that
truth which would be of service to the world. How far the two methods
coincided would depend upon one’s conception both of truth and the
pragmatic values of history.
Of the life of Cornelius Tacitus we know very little; our
knowledge being confined to what he tells himself--and he is most
uncommunicative--and to the letters of the younger Pliny, his intimate
friend, who addressed no less than seven epistles to him.[1] The date
of his birth has been fixed, by a surmise as to his probable age
upon appointment to political office, at about 54 A.D.; and he must
have lived through approximately the first two decades of the next
century. The marked stages of his political career are indicated by
him in somewhat enigmatic fashion at the opening of his _Histories_:
“My political position was begun by Vespasian, augmented by Titus and
carried still higher by Domitian.”[2] This has been taken to mean that
Vespasian made him quæstor; that he became ædile or tribune of the
people under Titus and prætor under Domitian.[3] His marriage with the
daughter of Agricola calls out a passing comment,[4] but, although he
immortalized his wife’s father, he is practically silent about his
home life. He indicates that he left Rome for four years upon the
completion of his prætorship[5] but nowhere does he indicate where
he spent this time. Conjecture naturally connects it with his famous
monograph on Germany, although it did not appear until some six years
later (98 A.D.); and still further surmise, hunting for a suitable post
for observation, would give him the governorship of Belgic Gaul.[6]
However this may be, he was back in Rome in 93 A.D., and there is ample
evidence in his _Histories_ that from then till the close of Domitian’s
reign, he lived through the very heart of “the terror.”[7] He was
consul the year after the tyrant’s death; and then began to publish his
shorter studies, the _Life of Agricola_ in 97 or 98, and the _Germania_
in 98. His histories, the works of years of study, favored by the quiet
resulting from his forced dissimulation under the tyranny of Domitian,
were published piecemeal, as he completed them. Boissier has inferred
from a letter of Pliny that the _Histories_ probably began to appear
about 105 A.D., and that it was because they had taken Rome by storm
that Pliny suffered a sudden and sore temptation to try his own hand at
history as a means of achieving immortality.[8] A chance remark in the
_Annals_, that the Roman Empire “now extends to the Red Sea”[9] through
Egypt, implies that these words were written about ten years later (c.
115 A.D.), when Trajan had carried the frontiers this far. Finally, an
inscription discovered in modern times in Caria indicates that toward
the end of Trajan’s reign, Tacitus held the great post of proconsul in
Asia.[10]
Such is the meagre framework for the life of Tacitus, except for the
indications furnished in the letters of Pliny, which are less separate
facts than a picture of the society in which they moved and of the
interests of the two men. Pliny tells us that when he began his career
at the Roman bar, Tacitus was “already in the prime of his glory and
renown”[11] as a celebrated pleader; and he still practised pleading
after Domitian’s death, for we know of one important law-suit which he
conducted jointly with Pliny. But the eloquence to which Pliny bears
generous witness[12] awakened even less admiration than the histories.
These, he asserts, will live forever; and fortunate is the man who can
secure mention in their enduring pages.[13] Reading Pliny, one might
suppose that Tacitus belonged to those whom contemporaries already have
marked out for immortality. But if so, they were content to let him
achieve it by his own works, unaided by biographers.
So much for the outlines of Tacitus’ life. But if the external facts
are lacking, the more intimate picture of his education and outlook, of
the society he frequented and of the influences upon him of its morals,
manners and politics, is relatively clear. He was an aristocrat, not
of the old nobility of Rome, for they had almost all disappeared; but
of the newer gentry, drawn from the provinces or from the official
classes.[14] It was a wealthy and polite society, like that of the
old régime in France; one where wits counted, where literature was a
passport to elegant salons and clever repartee might make, or unmake,
fortunes. It was more a school for scandal than for history. There was
much floating gossip which Tacitus, as a man of the world, could hardly
fail to pick up; mostly malicious gossip, concerned with personalities
rather than with political movements, spiteful guesses as to what
was going on by those who wished to pose as knowing, and who felt
aggrieved that they did not, or generally depreciating comments by
the politically unemployed. The only thing to recommend this unlovely
growth of scandal-mongering was its contrast with the still more
unlovely output of adulation on the other side. Fortunately such a
school brings its own remedy in the sophisticated skepticism which it
breeds in those who indulge in its sensational curriculum, so that
its worst effects are attenuated. But the skepticism it breeds is not
of that inquiring kind which leads to science; it is more the dulling
influence of surfeited sensationalism, tending to bring indifference.
It is not a happy soil for scientific history. In a mind like that of
Tacitus it bred a sort of saturnine melancholy which pervades all his
work.
Tacitus himself belonged by sentiment to the senatorial faction,
although in practice accepting office and favor from the emperor. His
prejudices are not concealed, the only point in doubt is how far his
sense of scientific obligation to historical truth kept him within
the restraints of accuracy.[15] It is a problem which will probably
never be solved, for we have little but Tacitus himself upon which
to base our judgment. Moreover, it is the one subject upon which the
commentators upon Tacitus have almost invariably concentrated their
remarks. Hence we shall not delay here over it, or such related
questions as that of the real character of Tiberius; whether the
_Germania_ was mainly a moral lesson to the Romans, or other well-worn
themes of criticism. The mere fact that such questions do persist in
offering themselves to readers of Tacitus is itself an indication of
the character of his work as a whole.
The social prejudices of Tacitus were responsible for more than his
partiality; they also account for the details as to the fate of
prominent citizens, with which he clogs his narrative of imperial
history. No one now cares much about these ill-starred victims or
unwise plotters. But the audience for which Tacitus wrote had a
personal interest as keen as his own in the interminable stories of
intrigue. These were something like family tales of one’s ancestors,
cherished in a smothered desire for either justification or posthumous
vengeance. Tacitus found it hard to make up his mind to omit any of
these crimes, and the result was to give to much of his narrative
something of that savage flavor which seems most appropriate in
a Gregory of Tours. One might almost fancy, reading such a “long
succession of horrors,”[16] that the scene was at a Merovingian,
semi-civilized court, or among Nibelungen heroes, instead of the court
and capital of all the world. It is rather too much to be convincing;
for however true the facts might be, they could hardly be the central
theme of history.
Tacitus was aware that all was not right with such a narrative, but
could not discover the remedy. He was too close to the scene for that,
too much involved in the petty issues of family politics. He knew that
the stage was overcrowded and the action a long-drawn-out succession
of intrigues or atrocities, and from time to time commented on his
embarrassment in being obliged to repeat continually such stories as
these. But, on the other hand, since the events had happened, and since
in his eyes they had formed the chief content of imperial history, he
felt that his obligation to historic accuracy and fulness prevented
curtailment. As a historian he was happy to gather all the facts he
could, however difficult it made the literary task of exposition. This
comes out in such comments as the following:
“Many authors, I am well aware, have passed over the perils and
punishments of a host of persons, sickened by the multiplicity of
them, or fearing that what they had themselves found wearisome and
saddening, would be equally fatiguing to their readers. For myself, I
have lighted on many facts worth knowing, though other writers have not
recorded them.”[17]
But if a sense of scholarship tempted him to tell the whole story, how
could he retain the interest of his reader? It was Livy’s question
over again. And Tacitus, mindful of how well Livy had maintained that
interest by digressions and incidental matter thrown into the serious
current of his work, tried the same devices.[18] The narrative of what
was happening in the city was varied by constant reference to events in
the frontiers or in the provinces. These glimpses of the wider current
of imperial affairs in the eyes of the modern historian give the
meaning to the whole;[19] to Tacitus they rather gave relief from the
oppressive quality of his chief subject, the fate of men of his class.
For instance, after an account of one of the Parthian wars he adds: “I
have related in sequence the events of two summer campaigns as a relief
to the reader’s mind from our miseries at home.”[20] This is hardly the
way to conceive history greatly.
Tacitus himself recognized the shortcomings of his work in this regard,
without ever quite learning how to overcome them. He fancied that the
trouble lay in the subject itself, which is but another way of saying
that the subject was too great for him. This comes out in a remarkable
passage in which he frankly compares his task with that of Livy,
although avoiding mention of his predecessor’s name:
“Much of what I have related and shall have to relate, may perhaps,
I am aware, seem petty trifles to record. But no one must compare
my annals with the writings of those who have described Rome in old
days. They told of great wars, of the storming of cities, of the
defeat and capture of kings, or whenever they turned by preference
to home affairs, they related, with a free scope for digression,
the strifes of consuls with tribunes, land and corn-laws, and the
struggles between the commons and the aristocracy. My labours are
circumscribed and inglorious; peace wholly unbroken or but slightly
disturbed, dismal misery in the capital, an emperor careless about
the enlargement of the empire, such is my theme. Still it will not be
useless to study those at first sight trifling events out of which
the movements of vast changes often take their rise.
“All nations and cities are ruled by the people, the nobility, or by
one man. A constitution formed by selection out of these elements,
it is easy to commend but not to produce; or, if it is produced,
it cannot be lasting. Formerly, when the people had power or when
the patricians were in the ascendant, the popular temper and the
methods of controlling it, had to be studied, and those who knew
most accurately the spirit of the Senate and aristocracy, had the
credit of understanding the age and of being wise men. So now, after
a revolution, when Rome is nothing but the realm of a single despot,
there must be good in carefully noting this period, for it is but
few who have the foresight to distinguish right from wrong or what
is sound from what is hurtful, while most men learn wisdom from the
fortunes of others. Still, though this is instructive, it gives very
little pleasure. Descriptions of countries, the various incidents of
battles, glorious deaths of great generals, enchain and refresh a
reader’s mind. I have to present in succession the merciless biddings
of a tyrant, incessant prosecutions, faithless friendships, the ruin
of innocence, the same causes issuing in the same results, and I am
everywhere confronted by a wearisome monotony in my subject matter.
Then, again, an ancient historian has but few disparagers, and no
one cares whether you praise more heartily the armies of Carthage or
Rome. But of many who endured punishment or disgrace under Tiberius
the descendants yet survive; or even though the families themselves
may now be extinct, you will find those who, from a resemblance of
character, imagine that the evil deeds of others are a reproach to
themselves. Again, even honour and virtue make enemies, condemning,
as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast. But I return to
my work.”[21]
In so many words Tacitus puts his case; and, as a skilled pleader, he
puts it well. But a little examination of the extract shows how, in
reality, he simply gives his case away. “Peace wholly unbroken or but
slightly disturbed, dismay in the capital, an emperor careless about
the enlargement of the empire, such is my theme.” Its history is bound
to be “circumscribed and inglorious.” These words, however, indicate
not its limitations as he imagines, but his own. For just as Thucydides
failed to leave us the history of the greatest theme of Greece, Athens
at the height of its glory, so Tacitus failed adequately to describe
that greatest political creation of antiquity, which for the first time
in history was extending a common citizenship throughout the world,
building up a common law and policing the routes of commerce for the
arts of peace. It was, again, the failure of the pre-scientific mind to
appreciate the importance of the commonplace and obscure,--which is the
major theme of life and society.[22] There is, however, this difference
between Thucydides and Tacitus, that the former had personally a keen
appreciation of the Athens he took for granted; while Tacitus, in
spite of all his insight, seems hardly to have seen the Roman Empire.
He saw and traced its external fortunes; and his vivid picture of
details, on distant frontiers as well as at home, lend to his work
that appearance of reality to which the modern journalist aspires. But
the deeper facts of statesmanship escaped him, the living forces of a
busy world intent upon the security of its heritage, a world that was
something more than a victim of intrigue. Granting that he could not
analyze in terms of sciences yet undiscovered, he might at least have
brought to the problem more of that antique substitute for science, the
open mind. He had seen too much of life to be capable of its greatest
gift,--the sense of wonder, which, as Plato said, is the beginning of
philosophy.[23]
The more one examines the _Histories_ and _Annals_ the more one feels
that such an adverse judgment is justified. Compare the outlook of
Tacitus upon the problems of his day with those of even the most
mediocre modern historian of the imperial history, and one sees at
once what was lacking in the work of the Roman. But again, on the
other hand, as we have so often insisted in the course of these
studies, the conclusion does not follow that Tacitus’ failure to
grasp the essentials of his age is to be judged in the light of _our_
knowledge. If he failed to rise to the full height of the real theme
of his age, it was partly because history had not yet learned to deal
with generalized and abstract forces. It dealt with men instead; with
nations as aggregations of individuals, where character and chance
are at grips with destiny; with policies determined by personalities,
incidents settled by single appeals or by acts of force. There are
passing references here and there in Tacitus to the business side of
politics, but they are generally incidental. The most notable exception
is the description of “The Panic of the Year 33,”[24] as it has been
aptly termed by a modern writer. This was too serious a social crisis
to be ignored. Moreover, it affected many private fortunes. There
are as well references to the dangers of excessive luxury in Rome,
as in the case when Tiberius addressed a letter to the Senate on the
subject.[25] But, upon the whole, questions? of economics are as few
and far between as those of general politics.[26] As for the process
of social evolution, Tacitus is almost naïvely conservative. In a
society so advanced as that in which he lived it almost required a
certain wilful ignorance of history to insist, as Tacitus does, that:
“Mankind in the earliest age lived for a time without a single vicious
impulse, without punishment and restraints. Rewards were not needed
when everything right was pursued on its own merits; and as men desired
nothing against morality, they were debarred from nothing by fear. When
however they began to throw off equality, and ambition and violence
usurped the place of self-control and modesty, despotisms grew up
and became perpetual among many nations.”[27] “Man is born free; and
everywhere he is in chains” was the way Rousseau put it, in the ringing
challenge of the opening words of the _Social Contract_. Tacitus, too,
was writing an indictment of society; but a misreading of history
excusable in a prophet is less easy to pardon in a historian.
Tacitus at least had not much of a generalized conception of historical
processes. And that is why he did not know how to manipulate the vast
and often obscure interrelation of events so as to show its larger
meaning. It is perhaps too much to say that he never saw his history
as a whole; but he never saw it in the whole of its setting. He was
a great artist rather than a great thinker, a wonderful observer and
analyst of motives; but fundamentally a master of detail. In effect
his depiction reminds one of the old Dutch masters; of features drawn
with minutest care yet deftly and swiftly; of landscapes enriched with
everything really there. What makes his greatness as an artist is
that he combines this mastery of detail with a freedom and breadth of
movement, a grave and sombre power which gives to his work the high
quality of tragedy. It always speaks with dignity, however trivial the
incident. It never rings false, no matter how strained and rhetorical
the phrase. Sentences are compressed into phrases and phrases into
single words; but the crabbed text challenges the reader--and remains
with him.
Yet, in spite of all this richness of detail, power of depiction,
mastery of expression and dignity of spirit, Tacitus remained an
annalist, whose narrative was held together by that most primitive of
all links, the time nexus. Things are mentioned when they happened,
because they happened when they did. There is no such attempt to trace
the complex of events through cause and effect as we find in the
Greeks. To be sure there are common-sense remarks as to why this or
that incident arose, but the wider sweep of history, which gives it its
meaning, is lacking.[28] Year by year, or event by event, the facts
are noted as they occur in the sources, and the items jotted down are
mostly quite isolated from those which precede or follow. Only the
extent of detail on each one prevents the almost mediæval quality of
such a plan from appearing at first glance. That it does not do so is
due to the skill with which the author used his artistry of expression
to cover the defects of his plan.
It is typical of such a historian that his best work should be,
in addition to the depiction of character,--as in the marvellous
portrayal of Tiberius,--the description of great crises, when events
so concentrate in a single time or place as not to involve a problem
in perspective. Of these, the most outstanding instance is the opening
portion of the _Histories_, where the revolutionary year 69 is
described in such graphic detail, that, as the translator of the text
has put it, we know no other year in all antique history as we do this.
In the rapid passage of events, the play and counterplay of emotion,
the sudden changes of fortune, mob action uncertain yet determining the
wavering of its leaders, soldiery in control but not sure of itself,
and the empire the prize of disorder, we have a scene painted with
masterful power and scrupulous care. It is Tacitus at his best.
* * * * *
When we turn from the choice and handling of the subject to the more
technical problem of the use of sources, we find Tacitus about as much
at sea as in the shaping of his general plan. In the first place there
is the question of oral tradition and rumor.[29] How can it be tested?
What criteria are there for the contemporary historian, by which to
substantiate what he hears? Time and again he comes from this problem.
For instance, he tells us that the measures taken to avenge the death
of Germanicus were “a subject of conflicting rumors, not only among the
people then living but also in after times. So obscure are the greatest
events, as some take for granted any hearsay, whatever its source,
others turn truth into falsehood, and both errors find encouragement
with posterity.”[30] More flat-footed still is the attack upon such
unsupported rumor as had fastened the crime of Drusus’ murder upon
Tiberius. After giving the story of that crime as he finds it in the
narratives of most of the best historians, in which Tiberius is not
implicated, he relates at length the accusing rumor to disprove it,
adding:
“My object in mentioning and refuting this story, is, by a
conspicuous example, to put down hearsay, and to request all into
whose hands my work shall come, not to catch eagerly at wild and
improbable rumors in preference to genuine history which has not yet
been perverted into romance.”[31]
This seems clear and straightforward; but current history simply
cannot ignore current gossip, and Tacitus’ histories are constantly
fed by its sediment-bearing stream. Indeed, as the written sources he
consulted were themselves often but the composite result of similar
rumors, it is not to be wondered at if such phrases as “it was said”
or “many say” run through the narrative as substantiating references.
Sometimes he definitely admits the importance of such source material,
as in connection with the description of Piso’s death at Tiberius’
instigation:
“I remember to have heard old men say that a document was often seen
in Piso’s hands the substance of which he never divulged, but which
his friends repeatedly declared contained a letter from Tiberius with
instructions referring to Germanicus, and that it was his intention
to produce it before the Senate and upbraid the emperor, had he not
been deluded by vain promises from Sejanus. Nor did he perish, they
said, by his own hand, but by that of one sent to be his executioner.
“Neither of these statements would I positively affirm; still it
would not be right for us to conceal what was related by those who
lived up to the time of my youth.”[32]
In short, it was inevitable that much of Tacitus’ work would have to
depend upon oral testimony. How much this was the case is impossible
to state definitely, for except in the matter of official documents
and when his sources disagree and he must choose between them, he does
not mention them individually.[33] However, it should be recalled that
he himself had been contemporary with most of the narratives, for
he was about fourteen years old when Nero died, and as a boy he must
have heard many a reminiscence of the days of Tiberius and events of
Augustus. The influence of these experiences upon his histories must
extend far beyond single incidents which might be attributed to this or
that source; they would largely determine his whole outlook.
As to written sources, Tacitus falls back upon the well-accepted
principles which we have seen followed by his predecessors, especially
Livy. Where his sources agree, he accepts the narrative--unless denied
by more authoritative personal or oral accounts. “Proposing as I do (he
says), to follow the consentient testimony of historians, I shall give
the difference in their narratives under the writers’ names.”[34] But
he does not follow these sources blindly. He checks one by another,
and does not always adhere to the same one in different parts of his
works.[35] When there is little to choose between contradictory sources
he is plainly at a loss. For instance, take a comment like this:
“I can hardly venture on any positive statement about the consular
elections, now held for the first time under this emperor, or indeed
subsequently, so conflicting are the accounts we find not only in the
historians but in Tiberius’ own speeches.”[36]
This extract is interesting as indicating Tacitus’ constant use of
documentary material, as well as narrative. He consulted the fund
of information in the _Daily Register_[37] and memoirs of notable
characters.[38] The problem in criticism, however, as to what he most
relied upon, whether he simply rewrote some of the more excellent
historical accounts before his day, or completely remade the story,
will hardly ever be settled, since the authorities he used have
practically all perished.[39] It is abundantly clear, however, that he
spared no pains to get at the truth; and that, lacking a knowledge
of the principles of source-criticism which leads the modern scholar
to trace the history of his documents before he risks the story of
the events they record, he nevertheless made up by genius for the
shortcomings of science, in so far as that could well be done.
That with all his handicap Tacitus takes rank still in the forefront of
the world’s historians is due not only to his genius as a word painter,
or his insight into character,--the two gifts in which he excels,--but
also to his idea of history itself. He has a most exalted conception
of it. There is small tolerance for the dilettante outlook of those
“elderly men who amuse themselves comparing present and past.”[40] He
holds, in common with all earnest thinkers of antiquity, that it is
“history’s highest function to let no worthy action be uncommemorated,
and to hold the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and
deeds.”[41] This is to be done without bitterness or favor (_sine ira
et studio_).[42] There was also more of the poet in his make-up than in
any other antique historian. His sense of words, his use of compressed,
epigrammatic phrases are genuinely poetical devices.[43] And still
more poetical than these implements of expression are the wealth of
color and variety of action which give the illusion of life to his
pages. In a remarkable passage, a great modern Hellenist has described
the masterpieces of Greek history as suggestive of bas-reliefs, thin
in outline and low in tone.[44] They are conceived in one dimension,
as it were; lacking in depth and motion. This is just what Tacitus
supplies to antique historiography. He is a romanticist as opposed to
their classicism; a genius with the creative grasp of a Victor Hugo but
holding himself in, consciously, from that “folly of extremes” which is
the danger fronting those who can carry their art so far.
Restraint with power behind it; in this respect at least, the genius of
Tacitus is a living embodiment of that of Rome.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Tacitus’ works are the early _Dialogus de Oratoribus_, a treatise of
much interest for the study of the influences forming his ideas on
history as well as oratory; _De Vita et Moribus Julii Agricolae_,
the biography of his father-in-law written somewhat in the manner
of Sallust; _Germania_, the celebrated description of Germany;
_Historiae_, covering the years 69 to 96, including the reigns of
Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. It originally
extended over some fourteen, or perhaps twelve, books, but only the
first four and half of the fifth have been preserved; _Ab Excessu
Divi Augusti_, known generally as the _Annales_, in sixteen or
eighteen books, covering the years 14 to 68 A.D., from the death of
Augustus to that of Nero, and hence including the reigns of Tiberius,
Caligula, Claudius and Nero. The manuscripts upon which our texts
rest do not go beyond the tenth or eleventh centuries, and for the
first six books of the Annals there is only a single manuscript,
discovered in the fifteenth century. There has been an attempt to
prove it the forgery of the humanist Poggio Bracciolini, but the
genuineness of the text is now not questioned. The best edition of
the text of the _Historiae_ for English readers is that by W. A.
Spooner (1891), of the _Annales_, that by H. Furneaux (2 vols., 2d
ed., 1896-1907), both of which have elaborate notes in English.
The standard edition of the text by C. Halm has been brought up to
date (2 vols., 5th ed., Teubner, 1913-1914) and that by J. Orelli
has been revised and reëdited by H. Schweiger-Sidler, G. Andresen
and A. Meiser (2 vols., 2d ed., 1877-1895). Latest editions of the
text of the _Annales_ by C. Nipperdey and G. Andresen are those
of 1904-1908 and 1915 (2 vols., 1904-1908), (Bks. I-VI, 11th ed.,
1915). There is an edition of the _Annales_ by C. D. Fisher (Oxford
Library of Classical Authors, 1906). Of translations, that used here,
and the most generally known, is by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb
(_Annals_, 1869, _Histories_, 2d ed., 1872, and frequent reprints).
The translation in Everyman’s Library (2 vols., 1908) is that of A.
Murphy, first published in 1793. More recent translations are those
by G. G. Ramsay (_Annals_, 2 vols., 1904-1909; _Histories_, 1915),
and by W. Peterson and M. Hutton in the Loeb Classical Library (1914).
The chief work on the style of Tacitus is A. A. Draeger’s _Ueber
Syntax und Stil des Tacitus_ (3d ed., 1882). In France the studies of
P. Fabia have gained wide recognition, especially his discussion of
the sources Tacitus used, _Les Sources de Tacite dans les histoires
et les annales_ (1893), in which he argues, as does also E. G. Hardy,
_Studies in Roman History_ (1910), for the theory that Tacitus
relied chiefly upon a work of the elder Pliny. In spite of the
careful analysis of text upon which this theory rests, E. Courbaud,
in _Les procédés d’art de Tacite dans les “Histoires”_ (1918), very
aptly points out that such a conclusion seems incredible in view of
the character of the younger Pliny’s comments on Tacitus. Further
discussion may be followed in the two works of H. Peter frequently
referred to in the text, _Die geschichtliche Litteratur über die
römische Kaiserzeit bis Theodosius I und ihre Quellen_ (2 vols.,
1897), and _Wahrheit und Kunst_ (1911), and in German dissertations
and many articles in classical reviews. For recent bibliographies
see the _Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischcn
Altertumswissenschaft_, Sup. Vol. CLXV (1913), pp. 224 _sqq._, and
Vol. CLXVII (1914), pp. 201 _sqq._, which covers the literature
from 1904 to 1912; see also Vol. CLXXIII (1915), pp. 87 _sqq._, pp.
216 _sqq._; Vol. CLXXVII (1916-1918), pp. 87 _sq._, pp. 251 _sqq._
The literature in Tacitus is continually growing, and manuals like
Teuffel-Schwabe are inadequate in this case. This continued interest
is itself a reason for still further output, since the critical
student of historiography has obviously here a problem in the art
if not in the science of history developed as seldom elsewhere in
historical literature,--that of personality. Pliny was right as to
the immortality of such work.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pliny’s letters are a valuable source for the society of the day of
Tacitus. There is a good translation based upon the Teubner text, by J.
B. Firth (_The Letters of the Younger Pliny_, 2 vols., 1909-1910).
[2] Tacitus, _Historiae_, Bk. I, Chap. I.
[3] This conjecture has been accepted by G. Boissier, _Tacitus and
Other Roman Studies_ (translated by W. G. Hutchinson, 1906), p. 26.
_Cf._ discussion by Teuffel-Schwabe, _op. cit._, Vol. II, Sect. 333, n.
6.
[4] Tacitus, _Agricola_, Chap. IX.
[5] Tacitus, _Annales_, Bk. XI, Chap. XI, and _Agricola_, Chap. XLV.
[6] _Cf._ G. Boissier, _op. cit._, p. 28.
[7] Tacitus, _Agricola_, Chaps, III, XLV.
[8] Plinius Secundus, _Epistulae_, Bk. V, Letter 8. _Cf._ G. Boissier,
_op. cit._, p. 93.
[9] Tacitus, _Annales_, Bk. II, Chap. LXI.
[10] _Cf._ _Bulletin de correspondence hellénique_, Vol. XIV (1890),
pp. 621-623.
[11] Plinius Secundus, _Epistulae_, Bk. VIII, Letter 20.
[12] _Ibid._, Bk. II, Letter 1. Tacitus is “the most eloquent man in
Rome.”
[13] _Ibid._, Bk. VI, Letter 16; Bk. VII, Letter 33.
[14] The elder Pliny in his _Natural History_, Bk. VII, Chap. XVII,
refers to a Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman knight, who was a financial
administrator in Belgic Gaul. It has been conjectured that he was
either father or uncle to the historian. _Cf._ G. Boissier, _op. cit._,
p. 2.
[15] Tacitus’ feeling for his class comes out on all occasions. He
upholds its dignity even against itself. For instance, when some
nobles so far forgot themselves as to go into the imperial Neronian
vaudeville, to retrieve their fortunes, he turns the incident against
the emperor, who would bring such disgrace upon the victims. As for
themselves he comments, “As they have ended their days, I think it due
to their ancestors not to hand down their names.” _The Annals_, Bk.
XIV, Chap. XIV.
[16] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. IV, Chap. XXXI.
[17] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. VI, Chap. VII (A. J. Church and W. J.
Brodribb’s translation). If they were not recorded, they must have been
repeated by word of mouth. In any case such a reference shows what
vague traces we have as to the sources of Tacitus.
[18] Not merely to entertain, however. As he states himself, “he
will studiously refrain from embroidering his narrative with tales
of fabulous marvels, and from diverting his readers with fictions;
that would be unbecoming the dignity of the work he has undertaken.”
_Histories_, Bk. II, Chap. L. _Cf._ G. Boissier, _op. cit._, p. 75; H.
Furneaux, _The Annals of Tacitus_ (2 vols., 2d ed., 1896-1907), Vol. I,
pp. 40-41.
[19] The best illustration is of course Mommsen.
[20] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. VI, Chap. XXXVII. The remark is all the
more significant since the chapter on the phœnix having been seen again
in Egypt occurs just before the account of the Parthian campaigns. One
might have thought it was sufficient diversion!
But even foreign wars became monotonous in time. _Cf. ibid._, Bk. XVI,
Chap. XVI. “Even if I had to relate foreign wars and deaths encountered
in the service of the State with such a monotony of disaster, I
should myself have been overcome by disgust, while I should look for
weariness in my readers, sickened as they would be by the melancholy
and continuous destruction of our citizens, however glorious to
themselves.” This is surely personal history, lacking in perception of
larger issues.
[21] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. IV, Chaps. XXXII, XXXIII.
[22] On Tacitus’ avoidance of trivialities see especially the analysis
of H. Peter, _Die geschichtliche Litteratur_..., Vol. II, p. 45. But
this is a different matter.
[23] _Theætetus_, 155 D.
[24] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. VI, Chaps. XVI, XVII. _Cf._ W. Stearns
Davis, _The Influence of Wealth in Imperial Rome_ (1910), a stimulating
book for careful readers.
[25] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. III, Chaps. LII-LV.
[26] There is the repetition of old complaints about the decline of
Italian farm supplies (_ibid._, Bk. XII, Chap. XLIII); similarly rather
dubious comments on Nero’s proposed reforms in taxation (_ibid._, Bk.
XIII, Chap. LI), with sometimes an interest in the supply of metal, as
in the silver mines at Nassau (_ibid._, Bk. XI, Chap. XX). See, also,
references to Nero’s spell of economy, Bk. XV, Chap. XVIII, or his
extravagance, Bk. XVI, Chap. III.
[27] _Ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. XXVI.
[28] This general comment stands in spite of various passages which
might be cited against it, as, for instance, the closing words of the
second book of the _Annals_, with reference to Arminius: “He is still a
theme of song among barbarian nations, though to Greek historians, who
admire only their own achievements, he is unknown, and to Romans not as
famous as he should be, while we extol the past and are indifferent to
our own times” (_ibid._, Bk. II, Chap. LXXXVIII). But if Tacitus had
been working in the spirit of Herodotus, the _Germania_ would have been
incorporated in the history as one of the _logoi_.
[29] “Rome with its love of talking.” (Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. XIII,
Chap. VI.)
[30] _Ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. XIX.
[31] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. IV, Chap. XI.
[32] _Ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. XVI.
[33] Even this is greatly to his credit. Boissier, commenting on
it, says (_op. cit._, p. 55): “He is the ancient historian who most
frequently cites the authors and documents he has consulted. He does
not do so out of a kind of erudition run mad, as is so often done
nowadays to make a show of being better informed than other people,
since ... no one then deemed it any merit in an author, and since
consequently he could reap no glory therefrom.”
[34] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. XIII, Chap. XX.
[35] _Cf._ H. Furneaux, _The Annals of Tacitus_, Vol. I, p. 26.
[36] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. I, Chap. LXXXI.
[37] _E.g. ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. III. On this see the chapter by
Boissier, _op. cit._, pp. 197 _sqq._
[38] _Cf._ Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. IV, Chap. LIII.
[39] All studies of Tacitus’ use of source material are much in debt
to the various works of Philippe Fabia, especially _Les sources de
Tacite dans les histoires et les annales_ (1893). _Vide infra_,
Bibliographical Note.
[40] Tacitus, _The Annals_, Bk. XIII, Chap. III.
[41] _Ibid._, Bk. III, Chap. LXV.
[42] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. I.
[43] _Cf._ H. Furneaux, _The Annals of Tacitus_, Vol. I, p. 40.
[44] A. and M. Croiset, _Histoire de la littérature grecque_, Vol. II,
p. 568.
CHAPTER XXIII
FROM SUETONIUS TO AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS
There were two of Tacitus’ contemporaries who rivalled him in that
part of his work where he was most successful,--portraiture; Plutarch,
the Greek, and Suetonius, the Roman biographer, were both of his time;
and all three used to some degree the same materials. Indeed there is
so much resemblance between Plutarch’s lives of Galba and Otho and
the description of the reigns of these two emperors by Tacitus in
his _Histories_, that critics, after the most minute analysis of the
two texts, are still unable to agree as to whether one of them was
dependent upon the other, and if so which one; or whether both depend
upon a common source; while the relation of Suetonius to them, and in
general to Tacitus, remains one of the most interesting problems in
source-criticism.[1] However that may be, the vogue of biographies
in this age is indicative of the same tendencies and limitations we
have noted in Tacitus. It is not merely the interest in character
or characters which is significant; that is peculiar to no one age
since it belongs to all. It is the concentration of interest upon
individuality to the exclusion of the larger social or political view.
Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 75-160 A.D.) was, like Tacitus, an upper
class Roman who devoted himself to scholarship; by no means so much a
personage as Tacitus, but perhaps more of a scholar. In his researches
he reminds one of Varro, for he had a perfect mania for finding and
noting all kinds of details, physical peculiarities, trivial incidents,
obscure situations, in short all the miscellany that might go into an
encyclopædic _Notes and Queries_ dealing with biography. He ultimately
held a position where his insatiable curiosity could have full play, as
secretary to Hadrian’s prætorian prefect, Septicius Clarus, a position
which opened to him the secret documents of the imperial cabinet. The
result was a work as different as possible from Tacitus’, yet sharing
the same immortality by reason of the subjects of which it treated.
_The Lives of the Cæsars_ (_De Vita Cæsarum_ ...) is a collection of
biographies in eight books. The first six books are each devoted to the
life of a single emperor (Cæsar to Nero), but the seventh book covers
the revolutionary year 69 with the three emperors it produced, and the
Flavians make up the eighth. It was published in the year 120 A.D., and
so Tacitus, in his old age. after “enjoying the serene glory of a great
and serious historian,”[2] may have enjoyed reading that anecdotal
counterpart to his grave and unbending narrative. For the work of
Suetonius is the very antithesis of the _Annals_. It is, indeed,
something of a new _genre_. As Boissier has so well put it:
“We plainly perceive in reading the _Lives of the Cæsars_, that the
author has aimed at making a work of a new order; he has avoided
including what was to be found in history as it was understood before
him. He has not arranged events in chronological sequence, which is a
rule of the historic art; rhetoric is quite absent; political views
and general reflections occupy small space; he has made no pretence
of teaching. On the other hand, anecdotes abound, told simply,
without any attempt at effect or pictorial treatment. We read in his
pages original documents, letters especially, when they throw some
light on the great man he is describing; the witticisms fathered
on him and those made at his expense; the monuments he has erected
or restored are enumerated; the games he has given the people, a
universal passion at the time; the signs which have announced his
death, for the author is very superstitious and his readers still
more so; finally, we are provided with his physical portrait, in
which nothing is omitted, from the dimensions of his figure to the
colour of his eyes. Suetonius has no compunction in telling us
without any reticence all known of his infirmities; how Cæsar combed
his hair over his forehead to conceal his baldness, how Claudius
sputtered and jogged his head in speaking, how Domitian, who had
been a very handsome lad when young, was afflicted towards the end
with a huge stomach borne on thin legs, and only found consolation
in saying, ‘that there is nought more pleasing than beauty, but
also nought that passes more quickly.’ Here, obviously, we are at
the antipodes of ancient history. It is highly probable that works
of this order held no very high place in the hierarchy of literary
forms drawn up by the grammarians of the time. Never would Pliny, who
knew and liked them both, have committed the impropriety of putting
Suetonius on a level with Tacitus. Tacitus is a great personage,
a serious man, a senator, a consul, who ‘graves for eternity.’
Suetonius is but an advocate, a student (_scholasticus_), who wants
to divert his contemporaries. And yet Suetonius has created a form
which is to last so long as the Empire and he survive. History shall
scarce be written henceforth save on the model he has designed; on
the contrary, whilst Tacitus is always admired, he will never again
be imitated. He was almost the last of the historians who wrote in
the ancient fashion.”
From the day of Hadrian, the decline in Latin literature which had
already set in proceeded rapidly. Greek historians, it is true, to some
extent made up for the deficiency, as we have already seen, although
very hurriedly. But there were no western counterparts to Appian,
Arrian or Cassius Dio; and, apart from the pleasant miscellany of the
_Attic Nights_ (_Noctes Atticae_) of Aulus Gellius (born c. 130), with
their scraps of information, and some epitomes of history, paring down
the old masters, we have little but biographical continuations of
Suetonius to record, until the very closing days of imperial history.
Of these, a certain Marius Maximus (c. 165-230), carried the
biographies of emperors down from Nerva to Elagabalus.[3] His work
seems still to have been a creditable performance. Others continued at
this popular substitute for history; and finally, some one gathered
together a collection from Hadrian to Numerianus (117-284 A.D.), drawn
from the works of some six so-called _Scriptores Historiae Augustae_.
These are frankly mediæval in style and content. Servile in tone, they
are both trivial and self-contradictory in a helpless sort of way. It
is hardly an apology for them to say that, after all, “they mean well
and intend to state what is, or what they believe to be, the truth.
Where they go astray, they are rather dupes than impostors.”[4]
After such a foretaste of the Middle Ages, it is with distinct surprise
that, just as we are entering those ages in reality, we come upon the
single, outstanding figure of a good historian,--a Greek but writing in
Latin a continuation, not of Suetonius but of Tacitus.
Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330-400 A.D.) was a native of Antioch who
fought with the Roman armies all along the threatened frontiers, east
and west. He knew the world of the barbarians as well as the culture
of the empire; and his rich and varied experiences but strengthened
his large share of native common-sense. The combination of plentiful
information and good judgment did not produce a work of genius; but the
_Rerum Gestarum Libri_, which carried the story of Rome from Nerva to
the death of Valens (96-378 A.D.), was a performance worthy of the best
company in antique historiography. Only the more contemporary sections
(Bks. XIV-XXXV) have been preserved. As they cover but the years 353
to 378 A.D., it is evident that either the early books were relatively
slight and introductory, or that those we have belong only to a
division of the whole series, dealing with contemporary history,--much
as Tacitus separated his _Histories_ from his _Annals_.[5] In any case,
all that we have of Ammianus is the history of the last twenty-five
years preceding the battle of Adrianople.
This last work of Roman history is frankly that of a soldier,[6] a
blunt, sincere man, honest and open-minded, a pagan, yet tolerant of
Christians, not thoroughly at home in his study, yet proud of his
scholarship, writing with the colloquial turn of a man of affairs and
still turning it to use by preparing a history which was to be read
in public. There is almost a touch of romance in the fact that this
is so; that the last of the antique histories was to be declaimed, in
competition with the output of the rhetoricians, the way the history
of Herodotus was given to his age. Ammianus seems to have tried hard
to brush up his Latin for such public presentation, but, in spite
of his residence at Rome while he was writing it, his expressions
remain clumsy, and obvious affectations even render the text obscure.
It is only when one compares him with any other Latin historian for
centuries before or after him that one appreciates his value as a
straightforward, if somewhat awkward, witness to the truth. No fitter
tribute has ever been paid him than that by the greatest historian
who has ever dealt with the fortunes of Rome. For when Gibbon parted
company with him, at the year 378, he took the occasion to bid Ammianus
the farewell of a fellow-craftsman worthy of mastership in the guild of
history.[7]
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
There are editions of the text of Suetonius by C. L. Roth (Teubner,
1858, reprinted 1886) and by M. Ihm (Teubner, Vol. I, 1908). The
_De Vita Cæsarum_ (_Divus Julius_; _Divus Augustus_) has been
edited with notes in English, by H. T. Peck (1889) and (_Divus
Augustus_), by E. S. Shuckburgh (1896). For extracts see H. Peter,
_Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae_ (2 vols., 1906-1914), Vol. II,
pp. 54 _sqq._ The translation in the Loeb Classical Library is by
J. C. Rolfe (2 vols., 1914-1920). A. Macé, _Essai sur Suétone_
(Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athens et de Rome, Vol.
LXXXII, 1900) gives an exhaustive bibliography. For bibliographical
material see _Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft_, Vol. CXXXIV (1907), pp. 237 _sqq._, for
1897-1906; Vol. CLXXIII (1915), p. 87, p. 215; Vol. CLXXVII
(1916-1918), p. 86, p. 250.
The most recent edition of Aulus Gellius’ _Noctes Atticae_ is by C.
Hosius (2 vols., 1903). There is an old translation by A. Beloe,
_The Attic Nights_ (3 vols., 1793). On the _Scriptores Historiae
Augustae_ see H. Peter, _Die geschichtliche Litteratur über die
römische Kaiserzeit bis Theodosius I und ihre Quellen_ (2 vols.,
1897), Vol. II, and his bibliographical survey in _Jahresbericht über
die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft_, Vol. CXXX
(1906), pp. 1 _sqq._; see also Sup. Vol. CLVI (1912), pp. 73 _sqq._
Editions of the text of Ammianus Marcellinus are by F. Eyssenhardt
(1871), V. Gardthausen (2 vols., 1874-1875) and by C. U. Clark (2
vols., 1910-1915). The translation by C. D. Yonge in Bohn’s Classical
Library has not yet been superseded but a translation by C. U. Clark
has been announced by the Loeb Classical Library. Among the many
articles on Ammianus mention should be made of those by T. R. Glover
in _Life and Letters in the Fourth Century_ (1901), Chap. II, and S.
Dill in _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_ (2d
ed., 1899, reprinted 1906), Bk. I, Chap. I. Recent bibliographical
material will be found in _Jahresbericht_, etc., Sup. Vol. CLVI
(1912), pp. 95 _sqq._; Vol. CLXXVII (1916-1918), p. 61, p. 227.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See the discussion referred to in the Bibliographical Note on
Tacitus’ works.
[2] G. Boissier, _Tacitus and Other Roman Studies_, p. 78. The extract
quoted precedes this remark.
[3] _Cf._ H. Peter, _Die geschichtliche Litteratur_..., Vol. II, pp.
106 _sqq._
[4] Teuffel-Schwabe, _op. cit._, Vol. II, Sect. 392.
[5] _Cf._ Teuffel-Schwabe, _op. cit._, Vol. II, Sect. 429, n. 3.
[6] _Vide_ T. R. Glover, _Life and Letters in the Fourth Century_
(1901), Chap. II.
[7] _Cf._ E. Gibbon, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, Chap.
XXVI. (J. B. Bury’s edition, Vol. III, p. 122.)
“It is not without the most sincere regret that I must now take leave
of an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the history of his
own times without indulging the prejudices and passions which usually
affect the mind of a contemporary.”
SECTION V
CHRISTIANITY AND HISTORY
CHAPTER XXIV
THE NEW ERA
The great historians of antiquity were writers of modern history.
Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Tacitus, were interested in what had
happened because of what was happening, and great things were happening
in their day. Herodotus writing, as he said, “in order that the great
and wondrous deeds of both Greeks and barbarians may not be effaced
by time” massed his facts around that world-stirring crisis which had
just been passed, the Persian wars. Thucydides, persuaded that “former
ages were not great either in their wars or in anything else,” believed
that the war that passed before his eyes was the greatest event in
the world’s history, and he bent his life’s energies to describing
it. Polybius, too, carried off to Rome in the track of her victorious
armies, saw as a captive the miraculous dawn of that first empire of
the Mediterranean world, and he wrote his history to explain it. Livy’s
vision was also always fastened upon the imperial present and the calm,
clear-headed patriotism which had brought it about. Tacitus lacked
this generous enthusiasm, but his interests were not antiquarian; the
great age in which he lived drew his observation and supplied him with
his task. From the clash of East and West in the Ionian cities in the
sixth century B.C., whereby the critical curiosity of men and societies
was first made active, to the tragic close of the drama of the ancient
world, almost a thousand years later, history was centred upon the
great events and the characters that dominated the world in which each
writer lived.
But there was one event of supreme importance that had no Herodotus
to gather up its details, no Polybius to weld it into the world’s
history with scientific insight and critical acumen--the rise of
Christianity.[1] The product of obscure enthusiasts in an obscure
and despised Oriental people, it did not win more than a disdainful
paragraph (in Tacitus) at the hands of pagan historians. Its own
writings were but poor attempts at history compared with what other
lesser events produced. When the scanty texts of the sayings and doings
of Jesus were taking the shape in which we have them now, a Plutarch
was writing biographies of all the pagan heroes. But no Christian
Plutarch appeared for another three centuries; and then all that the
learned Jerome was able to preserve for us was three or four paragraphs
on the lives of the leading apostles.[2]
There were several reasons for this. In the first place Christianity
began in a most humble way and among the unlettered. It did not
burst out in a flame of conquest like Mohammedanism, but crept,
half-hidden, along the foundations of society. Its very obscurity
left little to chronicle. If it changed the lives of men, they were
lives too insignificant to be noticed by history. Only in the present
age, after democracy itself has learned to read and begun to think,
is the historian awakening to the spiritual forces in the lives of
the obscure. But even now we pay little attention to such seemingly
extraneous elements as the beliefs of foreign immigrants settled in our
city slums--the class that furnished the majority of the early converts
to Christianity. In any case the Greco-Roman world troubled itself
little about the history of the Jews and less still about that of the
Christians.[3]
Even when Christianity had penetrated the society of the learned,
moreover, it stimulated little historical investigation. Pagan
savants, like Celsus,[4] sometimes challenged the sources of Christian
tradition and scripture,[5] but for the most part the great controversy
between Christian and pagan writers took place in fields that lay
beyond the scope of history. Christianity was a religion, not a thing
of politics, and although, as we shall see, the problem of fitting
it into the Jewish and then into the gentile setting did involve
historical conceptions, yet the main interests awakened by it were
theological. This meant that history, as a record of mere human events,
was bound to suffer; for theology, in so far as it concerned itself
with those events, sought to transfer them from the realm of human
action to that of divine grace, and so to interpret the phenomena
of time and change in terms of a timeless and unchanging Deity.[6]
The western world has since gratefully built its theology upon the
conceptions so brilliantly worked out by the Fathers, and the historian
whose business it is to register the judgments of society cannot
fail to appreciate their great formative influence in the history of
thought. But their very success was a loss to history; for it placed
the meaning of human effort outside the range of humanity, and thus
impressed upon the western world a fundamentally unhistorical attitude
of mind.
The motive force which accomplished this theological victory was
faith. Faith was the chief intellectual demand which Christianity
made of its converts.[7] By it the mind was enabled to view events in
a perspective which reached beyond the limits of time and space into
that imaginary over-world which we know as Eternity. Faith did more
than remove mountains, it removed the whole material environment of
life. There have been few such triumphs of the spirit as it achieved in
those early days of the new religion. But the fact remains that this
achievement was largely at the cost of history. Faith, one can see from
the criticism of those first really conscious historians, the Ionian
Greeks, is an impediment to genuine history, unless the imagination
which it quickens is kept within control. The historian needs rather
to confine his imagination by skepticism and to be more upon his guard
against believing whenever he feels the will to believe than at any
other time--which, in the realm of religious virtues, has sometimes
been mistaken for a sin.[8] Moreover, over and above the fact that
faith puts a premium upon credulity,[9] it indicates an absence of any
real, serious interest in historical data. When one “takes a thing
on faith,” it is because one is intent upon using it for something
else of more importance--so important, indeed, that often while still
unrealized it can clothe with reality the very condition upon which it
depends. Thus the “will to believe” can master phenomena in a way not
permitted to historians. Faith and scientific history do not readily
work together.
If this is clear in the dawn of Greek history, when science first
challenged faith, it stands out even more clearly still in that very
antithesis of the creations of Hellas, which we may best term the
gospel according to Paul.[10] Nowhere else in the world’s literature
is there a call to faith like that of Paul, and few, even of the great
creators of religious doctrine, have been more indifferent than he to
the historical data, upon which, in the order of nature, that faith
would seem to rest. The Apostle to the Gentiles cared little for the
details of the life of Jesus, and boasted of his indifference.[11]
He learned of the divinity of Christ by a flash of revelation which
marked him out as one of the prophets. Then the desert, rather than
Jerusalem, furnished him that tremendous plan of Christian doctrine
upon which Christian orthodoxy still rests, which included the whole
drama of humanity from the Creation and the Fall to the Redemption
and the vision of its meaning, revealed on the road to Damascus. The
plan was based upon the law and the prophets, but only because Paul’s
thought ran in terms of their teaching. His scheme was one that needed
no verification from the sources even of sacred scripture, if once it
could carry conviction by inner experience.[12]
Finally the faith of early Christianity was largely involved in a
doctrine which centred attention not in this world but in the world
to come; and the world to come was about to come at any moment.
Immortality for the individual was a doctrine shared by other mystery
religions of the pagan world; but only Christianity developed--out of
the apocalyptic literature of the Jews--the vaster dream of an imminent
cataclysm in which the world to come should come for all at once.
While this doctrine appears in full force in Christian circles only
from the latter part of the first to the middle of the second century,
and was most developed in circles given over to what might be viewed,
even by ecclesiastics, as extreme spirituality, it undoubtedly had a
large and damaging influence upon Christian historiography. There is
nothing which so effectively destroys our interest in the past as to
live under the shadow of a great and impending event. It would not have
been the same had each individual convert merely been keenly aware
of the shortness of his own life and the vision of the coming day
of judgment. That is still and has always been a perspective before
religious minds; and however strange it may seem, it does not entirely
kill the interest in the origin and evolution of these things which
are so soon to vanish from before the eyes of death. Such is the vital
instinct in us.[13] But it is a different thing for heaven and earth
and all mankind to pass away at once as these early Christians expected
them to do at any time. A few years ago we were to traverse the tail of
a comet and there was some speculation as to whether its deadly gases
might not exterminate all life on this globe. Had the probability been
more probable, had astronomers and men of science determined the fact
by some experimental proof, with what breathless and hypnotic gaze we
should have watched the measured coming of that star across the gulfs
of space! Our vast, unresting industries would have ceased; for there
would have been no tomorrow to supply. Our discoveries in science, our
creations in art would have been like so many useless monuments in an
untenanted world--and science and art would have had no incentive to go
on. The one interest for us all would have been that growing point of
light--that doom, swift, inevitable, universal. Here comes a problem in
psychology. For as a matter of fact that same doom is coming; we know
it with absolute certainty; we know there can be no escape. How many
of those who saw that comet pass will be alive fifty years from now?
In a century, at most, the earth will be the sepulchre of all--just as
much a sepulchre as if the race had perished in one grand catastrophe.
And what a little interval is a century! Yet our mills work on, our
discoveries continue, our art goes on producing its visions of beauty;
and above all, we increase our interest in the distant past, digging
for history in the hills of Crete and Asia and working as never before
to rescue and reconstruct the past from archives and libraries. Why?
Because humanity is more to us than our individual lives; and the
future is a reality through it. If humanity were to disappear and no
future be possible, we should lose our reckoning, along with our sense
of values, like Browning’s Lazarus, who has had a vision of eternity,
but has lost track of time.
So it was in the millennial atmosphere of the early Church. However
vaguely or definitely the triumph of “the Kingdom” was reckoned,[14]
the belief in its approach carried the mind away from earthly
affairs and their history. Men who drew their inspiration from it
had but little interest in the splendor of a Roman state or in the
long procession of centuries in which were painfully evolved the
institutions of pagan law and government, institutions which not only
safeguarded the heritage of antique culture but made possible the
extension of Christianity.
* * * * *
The only history of importance to the Christian was that which
justified his faith, and it all lay within the sacred writings of the
Jews. So, as the vision of the judgment day became fainter and the
Church proceeded to settle itself in time and not in eternity, it
looked back to a different past from that which lay beyond the pagan
world. The sacred scriptures of the Jews had replaced the literature
of antiquity. A revolution was taking place in the history of History.
Homer and Thucydides, Polybius and Livy, the glory of the old régime,
shared a common fate. The scientific output of the most luminous minds
the world had known was classed with the legends that had grown up by
the camp-fires of primitive barbarians. All was pagan; which meant that
all was delusive and unreliable except where it could be tested in the
light of the new religion or where it forced itself by the needs of
life into the world of common experience.
There is no more momentous revolution in the history of thought than
this, in which the achievements of thinkers and workers, of artists,
philosophers, poets, and statesmen, were given up for the revelation
of prophets and a gospel of worldly renunciation. The very success of
the revolution blinds us to its significance; for our own world-view
has been moulded by it. Imagine, for instance, what the perspectives of
history would have been had there been no Christianity, or if it had
remained merely a sect of Judaism, to be ignored or scorned! Religion
carried history away from the central themes of antiquity to a nation
that had little to offer--except the religion.
The story of Israel could not, from the very nature of its situation,
be more than an incident in the drama of nations. The great empires of
the east lay on either side of it, and the land of promise turned out
to be a pathway of conquering armies. From the desert beyond Jordan
new migrations of Semite nomads moved in for the plunder of the Jews,
as the Jews themselves had plundered the land before. On the west,
Philistine and Phœnician held the harbors and the sea. Too small a
nation for a career of its own, exposed and yet secluded, the borderer
of civilization, Israel could produce no rich culture like its more
fortunately situated neighbors. When unmolested for a time, it too
could achieve rapid progress in its fortress towns. But no sooner was
its wealth a temptation than the Assyrian was at the gates. It is small
wonder, then, if in spite of the excellence of much of the historical
literature embedded in the Old Testament, even the best of it, such
as the stories woven around the great days of Saul and David, when
compared with the narrative of Polybius or even with that of Herodotus,
leaves the picture of petty kinglets of an isolated tribe, reaching
out for a brief interval to touch the splendors of Tyre and Sidon, and
vaguely aware of the might and wealth of Egypt.
The main contribution of the Jews to the world was in a field which
offers history few events to chronicle. As we have insisted above,
it was a contribution of the first magnitude, to be treasured by
succeeding ages above all the arts and sciences of antiquity. But its
very superiority lay in its unworldliness, in its indifference to the
passing fortunes of man or nations which make up the theme of history.
This, at least, was the side of Judaism which Christianity seized upon
and emphasized. But there could be little for history in any case in
a religion born of national disaster and speaking by revelation. The
religion which is born of disaster must either falsify realities by a
faith which reads victory in defeat or it must take refuge in the realm
of the spirit, where the triumphs of the world, its enemy, are met with
indifference or scorn. In either case the perspective is distorted.
Revelation may save the future by stirring hope and awakening
confidence; but with the same calm authority with which it dictates the
conduct of the present, it will falsify the past,--falsify, that is,
in the eyes of science. In its own eyes it is lord of circumstance and
master of phenomena; and the records of the centuries must come to its
standards, not it to theirs.
It was, therefore, a calamity for historiography, that the new
standards won the day. The authority of a revealed religion sanctioned
but one scheme of history through the vast and intricate evolution of
the antique world. A well-nigh insurmountable obstacle was erected
to scientific inquiry, one which has at least taken almost nineteen
centuries to surmount.
Not only was the perspective perverted, and the perversion made into
a creed, but the stern requirements of monotheistic theology placed a
veritable barrier against the investigation. The Christian historian
was not free to question the data as presented to him, since the source
was inspired. He might sometimes evade the difficulty by reading new
meanings into the data and so square them with the rest of history,
a device employed by every Father of the Church whose erudition and
insight brought him face to face with the difficulties of literal
acceptance of the scriptures. But however one might twist the texts,
the essential outlines of the scheme of history remained fixed. From
the prophets of Jahveh with their high fanaticism and from Paul, the
prophet of Jesus, there was but one world-view, that dominated by the
idea of a chosen people and a special dispensation. The only difference
between Jewish and Christian outlook was that what had been present
politics became past history. The apostle to the Gentiles did not give
up the Jewish past. Pre-Christian history was in his eyes the same
narrow story of exclusive providence as it was in the eyes of the older
prophets. Gentiles had had no share in the dispensations of Jahveh; it
was only for the present and future that they might hope to enter into
the essential processes of historical evolution. The past to Paul was
what it was to a Pharisee.
This exclusive attitude of Christianity with reference to the past was
in striking contrast with the attitude of contemporaneous paganism,
which was growing liberal with increasing knowledge. To attack the
story of Jahveh’s governance of the world was, for a Christian,
sacrilege, since the story itself was sacred. A pagan, with a whole
pantheon to turn to, placed no such value upon any one myth and
therefore was free to discount them all. His eternal salvation did
not rest upon his belief in them; and, moreover, he did not concern
himself so much about his salvation in any case. When the belief in an
immortality was bound up with the acceptance of a scheme of history,
the acceptance was assured. What is the dead past of other people’s
lives, when compared with the unending future of one’s own? History
yielded to the demands of eternity.
Moreover in its emphasis upon the Messiahship of Jesus, Christianity
fastened upon one of the most exclusive aspects of Jewish thought.
Such history as the proof of this claim involved was along the line
of a narrow, fanatic, national movement. Christianity, it is true,
opened the Messianic Kingdom to the whole world, but it justified
its confidence in the future by an appeal to the stricter outlines
of a tribal faith in the past. And yet that appeal, in spite of its
limitations, was the source of such historical research as Christianity
produced. For, when pressed by pagan critics to reconcile their claims
with those of Greeks or Egyptians, the Fathers were obliged to work
out not merely a theory of history--their theology supplied them with
that--but a scheme of chronology. The simple problem, so lightly
attacked, as to whether Moses or the Greeks should have the priority as
lawgiver forced the apologists to some study of comparative history.
While in this particular issue they had a somewhat easy triumph,[15]
there was a danger, which is obvious to us now, in too much reliance
upon the chronology of the Old Testament, and especially in placing
an emphasis upon the literal text. The trenchant criticism of their
opponents, therefore, led the Fathers to adopt that allegorical type
of interpretation, which they learned from the Greeks themselves,
and which is so useful wherever there is a need for holding fast to
a text while letting the meaning go. We shall, therefore, find the
chief developments of Christian historiography during the first three
centuries following these two lines of allegory and symbolism on the
one hand and of comparative chronology on the other.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf._ H. von Soden, _Das Interesse des apostolischen Zeitalters an
der evangelischen Geschichte_, in _Theologische Abhandlungen_ (1892),
pp. 113-169.
[2] Jerome’s _De Viris Illustribus_, written after the model of the
work of the same name by Suetonius.
[3] The emphasis which subsequent ages has placed upon references to
Judaism and Christianity in pagan writers has given those passages an
altogether factitious prominence. There are at best only a very few,
and those are mostly either incidental or pointed with ridicule. See
T. Reinach, _Textes d’auteurs grecs et romains relatifs au judaïsme,
réunis, traduits et annotés_; the opening sections of the important
work of J. Juster, _Les Juifs dans l’empire romain, leur condition
juridique, économique et sociale_ (2 vols., 1914). E. Schürer’s
_Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi_ (also in
English translation) remains the standard work on the period. See also
articles in the _Jewish Encyclopædia_ dealing with the Diaspora.
[4] _Vide infra_, pp. 294 _sqq._
[5] As Apion did those of the Jews.
[6] It is significant to see how the conception of the essential
unhistoricity of God, as a Being beyond the reach of change, has been
growingly modified in modern times. The increase in the number of those
mystics who have revised their theology in terms of modern science
and philosophy (especially Bergsonian) is, from the standpoint of the
history of pure thought, the most decisive triumph of the historical
spirit. The Deity himself becomes historical; eternity disappears; all
is time--and change.
[7] Charity was hardly an intellectual virtue, at least as conceived by
the Fathers.
[8] There are all kinds of faith, to be sure. We are speaking only
of religious faith which transfers phenomena from the natural to the
supernatural world and is, therefore, the chief opponent of rationalism.
[9] As Celsus, the pagan critic, so cogently suggested.
[10] And we must regard Paul as the intellectual creator of Christian
theology.
[11] _Cf._ the first, second and third chapters of The Epistle to the
Galatians.
[12] The Pauline doctrine involved a conceptual parallel to history,
which apparently furnished a better past to the world, one more
reasonable and more probable than that which actually had been the case.
[13] The influence of the belief in immortality upon historical
perspectives invites our attention here; but the subject is too
intricate for hurried consideration. Undoubtedly the emphasis upon a
contrast between time and eternity obscured the meaning of phenomena in
their time-setting.
[14] The conception of a millennium, drawn from the later Jewish
literature, was that Christ and his saints would rule for a thousand
years; but in spite of much calculation the belief was never quite
reduced to successful mathematics. It is interesting, in passing, to
see how it drew upon that other interest in chronology, the plotting
out of a future instead of a past, which astrology best illustrates. In
fact the millennium may be said to be a sort of Christian equivalent
for astrology. In the earlier prophets the Messianic Kingdom is to
last forever (_cf._ Ezekiel 37^{25}, etc.), a conception found also
in the apostolic age (John 12^{24}). Jeremiah, however, had risked a
prophecy of Jewish delivery from captivity at the end of seventy years
(25^{12}), but when his dream of deliverance was not realized the
later prophets had to find an explanation, and apocalyptic literature
developed a reckoning which should save the validity of the earlier.
This was definitely the occasion of Daniel’s attempt (9), which has
taxed the mathematics of every apocalyptic dreamer to the present day.
The conception of a thousand years came late, and perhaps rests on very
extended use of symbolic interpretation. According to Psalms 90^4, a
day with God is as a thousand years. Combine this with the six days
of Creation in Genesis and by analogy the world’s work will go on for
six such days, or six thousand years, and then the Messiah will reign
for a Sabbath of a thousand years. This idea is found only once in the
Talmud. It was developed for Christians in Revelation (_cf._ 20^4,
“They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years”). Through Jewish
and Christian apocalypses the doctrine was taken up, sometimes with,
sometimes without, the mathematical data. By the middle of the second
century it began to subside, and although Montanism in the early third
century revived it, it was henceforth regarded as somewhat tinged with
heresy and Judaism. In the learned circles, Neoplatonic mysticism,
as taught by Origen, superseded the crudities of the millennistic
faith. “It was only the chronologists and historians of the church
who, following Julius Africanus, made use of apocalyptic numbers in
their calculations, while court theologians like Eusebius entertained
the imperial table with discussions as to whether the dining-hall of
the emperor--the second David and Solomon, the beloved of God--might
not be the new Jerusalem of John’s Apocalypse.” (A. Harnack, article
_Millennium_ in _Encyclopædia Britannica_. This article furnishes an
admirable survey and bibliography. See the treatment of Christian
eschatology in the various works of R. H. Charles in the field of
apocalyptic literature.)
[15] One of the earliest and best short statements of this claim is
that made by Tatian in his _Address to the Greeks_, Chap. XXXI _sqq._
It is strikingly in line with Josephus’ protest in _Against Apion_.
CHAPTER XXV
ALLEGORY AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF ORIGEN
In spite of what has been said as to the weakness of Christian
historiography, it is possible to maintain the thesis that, among
religions, Christianity is especially notable as resting essentially on
a historical basis.
In so far as Christianity was a historical religion, that was due,
as has just been said, to the Messianic element in it. Indeed it can
be said to have claimed from the beginning that it was a historical
religion--a fulfilment of history, one fitting itself into the scheme
of social and political evolution in a particular state. The apostles
themselves, in their earliest appeal, demanded that one “search the
scriptures”--a demand unique in the founding of religions. There is
a vast difference, however, between studying history and studying
historically. That they did study it, the one fact that the Christians
retained the Old Testament is ample evidence. That they failed to deal
with it adequately, the New Testament is also ample evidence. But since
the Christian Messiah was offered to the whole world as well as to the
Jews, Christian historiography had two main tasks before it: it had to
place the life of Jesus in the history of the Jews, and, also, to show
its setting in the general history of antiquity. The latter problem
was not forced upon the Church until the pagan world began to take the
new religion seriously, and its answer is found in the works of the
great apologists. The relation of Christianity to Judaism, however, the
Messianic problem proper, was of vital importance from the beginning,
for it involved the supreme question whether or not Jesus was the one
in whom the prophecies were fulfilled.[1]
One “searched the scriptures,” therefore, for the evidences of the
signs by which the advent could be recognized. The invitation to search
them was, in appearance at least, a challenge to a scientific test,
that of verification. If the data of the life of Jesus corresponded
with the details of the promises, there was a proof that the promises
had been fulfilled. But since the fulfilment was not literal, the
interpretation could not be literal either. The spiritual Kingdom of
the Messiah had to be constructed out of fragmentary and uncertain
references, and the only satisfactory way to apply many of them was by
symbolism and allegory. Modern critical scholarship has now discarded
Messianic prophecy, on the basis that the texts so confidently cited
as foretelling the life of Jesus had no such purpose in the minds of
their authors. But orthodoxy has held, through all the history of the
church, that the texts were applicable and that the proof was thereby
established of the harmony of the old and the new dispensations.
We cannot turn, however, to the problems of higher criticism. The
significant thing for history-writing was the creation of what might
be called a new _genre_--that of the allegorical interpretation of
texts. The use of allegory to explain, or explain away, texts was not
a creation of Christian historians, for the device was not unknown to
pagan literature or philosophy. As far back as the sixth century B.C.,
Homer was interpreted allegorically by Theagenes of Rhegium, and pagan
philosophy had constant recourse to allegory to harmonize myth with
reason. The Jews too were past-masters in its use. We have seen how
the allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament had been developed
by the Jewish scholars, especially those of the Diaspora, who found
themselves thrown into contact with gentile scholars and felt the need
of harmonizing Greek thought with their own intellectual heritage; we
have seen to what extent it was carried in the writings of the greatest
Jewish philosopher of antiquity, Philo of Alexandria.[2] But it is
to be found as well in the Old Testament itself, especially in the
prophetic literature, where it runs alongside that elusive trace of
the unattained which gave the prophecies their fascinating charm. One
could trace it back farther still to the mind of primitive man, where
symbol and reality are often confused into a single impression. But
in the hands of the Christian theologians, symbolism emerged from the
background of thought to dominate the whole situation. The story of
realities depended upon the interpretation of the unrealities; and that
story of realities was nothing short of a history of the world itself.
The greatest master of Christian allegory was Origen, the Alexandrine
Greek, who, in the third century, contributed so much to the
formulation of a scheme of theology for the Fathers of the Church.
Origen was a scholar as well as a philosophic thinker, and it was his
work on the text of the Bible, to which reference has been made above,
which won for him the praise of one so unlike him in point of view
as St. Jerome. In that limited gallery of illustrious men which St.
Jerome has left for us, the _De Viris Illustribus_, Origen stands out
clearly:[3]
“Who is there, he asks, who does not know that he was so assiduous
in the study of Holy Scriptures, that contrary to the spirit of
his time, and of his people, he learned the Hebrew language, and
taking the Septuagint translation, he gathered in a single work the
other translations also, namely those of Aquila of Ponticus the
Proselyte, and Theodotian the Ebonite, and Symmachus an adherent of
the same sect who wrote commentaries also on the gospel according to
Matthew, from which he tried to establish his doctrine. And besides
these, a fifth, sixth, and seventh translation, which we also have
from his library, he sought out with great diligence, and compared
with other editions. And since I have given a list of his works in
the volumes of letters which I have written to Paula, in a letter
which I wrote against the works of Varro, I pass this by now, not
failing, however, to make mention of his immortal genius, how that
he understood dialectics, as well as geometry, arithmetic, music,
grammar, and rhetoric, and taught all the schools of philosophers, in
such wise that he had also diligent students in secular literature,
and lectured to them daily, and the crowds which flocked to him
were marvellous. These, he received in the hope that through the
instrumentality of this secular literature, he might establish them
in the faith of Christ.”
This tribute by Jerome summarizes the lengthy account of Origen by
Eusebius in the sixth book of the _Ecclesiastical History_ to which we
may still turn for a full account of the life and influence of one who,
while not a historian in the stricter sense, contributed to Christian
historiography one of its most remarkable chapters.
Origen was as courageous in his interpretations as he was thorough
in his scholarship. He not only denied the literal truth of much of
Genesis, and explained away the darker happenings in the history of
Israel; but, even in the New Testament, he treated as parables or
fables such stories as that of the Devil taking Jesus up into a high
mountain and showing him the kingdoms of the world. One reads Origen
with a startle of surprise. The most learned of the Fathers of the
third century was a modern.[4] His commentaries upon the Bible might
almost pass for the product of the nineteenth century. The age of Lyell
and Darwin has seen the same effort of mystic orthodoxy to save the
poem of Creation, by making the six days over into geological eras
and the story of Adam and Eve a symbol of human fate. Many a sermon
upon the reconciliation of science and religion--that supreme subject
of modern sermons--might be taken almost bodily from Origen. For his
problem was essentially like that which fronts the modern theologian;
he had to win from a rationalism which he respected, the denial of
its inherent skepticism. Like Philo, a resident of that cosmopolitan
centre, Alexandria, that meeting-place of races and religions, Origen
was a modern among moderns. He was a Greek of subtlest intellect and
vast erudition, one of the finest products of the great Hellenic
dispersion.[5]
Interpretation of the scriptures by allegory is not, in Origen’s
eyes, an unwarranted liberty. The scriptures themselves sanction
it--allegorically! There is a “hidden and secret meaning,” he says,
“in each individual word, the treasure of divine wisdom being hid in
the vulgar and unpolished vessels of words; as the apostle also points
out when he says, ‘We have this treasure in earthen vessels.’”[6]
Quaintly naïve as such reasoning seems when based upon a single text,
its weakness becomes its strength when sufficient texts are adduced to
convey the impression that the scriptures themselves do really proclaim
their own symbolic character. This Origen endeavors to do. “If the law
of Moses had contained nothing which was to be understood as having a
secret meaning, the prophet would not have said in his prayer to God:
‘Open thou mine eyes and I will behold wondrous things out of thy law’”
(Psalms 119^{18}). What, he asks, can one make out of the prophecy of
Ezekiel except allegorically?[7] Prophetic literature implies allegory
in its very structure. But the strongest proof of the legitimacy of
allegorical interpretation is its use in the New Testament, and so
largely by St. Paul.[8]
The modern critic sees the vicious circle in which such reasoning
moves. But he sees it because he denies the hidden meaning, the secret
lore, which to the “intellectuals” of the third century was the real
heart of phenomena. Symbolism has deeper roots than one suspects. The
mysterious efficacy of numbers is as wide as savagery; the secret
value of words is a doctrine as universal as speech. They come from
untold ages beyond Pythagoras or Heracleitus. The Christian emphasis
upon the logos--“the word which became God and the word which was
God”--but put the stamp of supreme authority upon a phase of thought
intelligible to all antiquity. Gnosticism took hold of that phase,
and by insisting upon an inner doctrine which was concealed from the
uninitiated, attempted to harmonize Christianity with the parallel
cults of paganism. Neo-platonism was doing much the same for paganism
itself. The cults of Asia and Egypt were drawn together and interpreted
in the light of the worship of Demeter or Dionysus. Origen’s point of
view is not so naïve as it seems. It was in line with that of his age.
The world was becoming one, and yet at the same time it was a medley
of different and divergent civilizations. The only way the ancient
could think of overcoming this antithesis between an ideal which sought
for unity and phenomena which differed was by denying the essential
nature of the differences. We should do the same if it were not for
our hypothesis of evolution and the historical attitude of mind. Only
when one sees the _impasse_ into which the thinkers of antiquity were
forced, in their attempts to syncretize a complex and varying world,
does one realize by contrast what a tremendous implement of synthesis
the evolutionary hypothesis supplies. The only alternative method by
which to realize the harmony which does not appear is by symbolism.
If we once grant that texts are not what they seem, there is only one
way to learn their true meaning. We must find a key, and that key must
be some supreme fact, some fact so large that the content of the text
seems but incidental to it. Christianity supplied such a clue to the
interpretation of the Old Testament; and the Old Testament, upon its
side, supplied Christianity with the authority of a long antiquity.
The value of that antiquity for the basis of a story of obscure,
recent happenings in Jerusalem was felt by all apologists, and has
been a convincing argument until the present. It was left for the
nineteenth century to substitute for symbolism the tests of historical
criticism, and thus to see the whole scheme of allegorical theological
interpretation fade away. But we should not forget that, false as it
seems to us in both method and results, the symbolic method made the
theologian somewhat of a historian in spite of himself; and we should
not expect of the savant of the third century the historical and
evolutionary attitude of today--which was, so far as we can see, his
only alternative.
Symbolism may twist the texts; but a mind like Origen’s does not miss
the essential point that the texts must be there to twist. Nothing is
more interesting in the historiography of early Christianity than to
see how Origen came to realize, after all, the paucity of his sources
and their inadequacy, particularly those dealing with the history
of Christianity itself. He shows this with scholarly frankness in a
passage in his famous apology, _Against Celsus_. Celsus was a pagan
Greek who wrote the most notable attack upon Christianity of which we
have record from those early times. His treatise was a powerful and
learned criticism of the Christian writings and teachings, especially
emphasizing their unscientific character and the credulity of those
who believed in them. Origen’s reply reveals in more places than one
how in him a genuine historical critic was lost in the theologian. To
illustrate: Celsus had claimed that before writing his attack he had
taken the trouble to acquaint himself with all the Christian doctrines
and writings. Origen, drawing on his prodigious knowledge of the
Bible, shows time and again what a superficial acquaintance it had
been--that is, judged according to Origen’s method of interpretation.
But when Celsus charges the Christians with obscurantism, stating that
their teachers generally tell him not to investigate, while at the
same time exhorting him to believe, Origen takes another tack.[9] He
is apparently a little ashamed of the emphasis taken from reason and
placed upon faith by his Christian colleagues. He does not actually
say as much, but he reminds Celsus that all men have not the leisure
to investigate. After this weak admission, however, he turns round, in
what is one of the most interesting passages of patristic writing, and
demands if Celsus and the pagans do not follow authority as well. Have
not Stoics and Platonists a teacher too, whose word they go back to?
Celsus believes in an uncreated world and that the flood (Deucalion’s)
is a fairly modern thing.[10] But what authority has he? The dialogues
of Plato? But Moses saw more clearly than Plato. He was in incomparably
better position to be informed. Why not prefer the account of Moses?
The value of a controversy is that each side sees the other’s weak
points. It seldom results in admitting the inferiority of one’s own
position; but once in a while a fair-minded man will be courageous
enough to state that, through no fault of his own, he is unable to be
more accurate than his opponent. This is about what Origen does, in
taking up the charge of Celsus that the narrative of the baptism in
the Jordan is so improbable a story as to require confirmation of
first-hand witnesses, before he as a thinking pagan could accept it.
In reply Origen frankly admits the paucity of sources for the history
of Christianity; but demands to know if Celsus is willing to give up
pagan history because it contains improbable incidents. The passage is
worth quoting, for it shows how the most learned of all the Fathers,
the most subtle and comprehensive intellect, with one exception,
which Christianity enlisted to its cause, recognized the weakness of
Christian historiography but failed to see how it could be remedied:
“Before we begin our reply we have to remark that the endeavour
to show with regard to almost any history, however true, that it
actually occurred, and to produce an intelligent conception regarding
it, is one of the most difficult undertakings that can be attempted,
and is in some instances an impossibility. For suppose that some one
were to assert that there never had been any Trojan War, chiefly
on account of the impossible narrative interwoven therewith, about
a certain Achilles being the son of a sea-goddess Thetis and of a
man Peleus, or Sarpedon being the son of Zeus, or Ascalaphus and
Ialmenus the sons of Ares, or Æneas that of Aphrodite, how should
we prove that such was the case, especially under the weight of
the fiction attached, I know not how, to the universally prevalent
opinion that there was really a war in Ilium between Greeks and
Trojans? And suppose, also, that some one disbelieved the story of
Œdipus and Jocasta, and of their two sons Eteocles and Polynices,
because the sphinx, a kind of half-virgin, was introduced into the
narrative, how should we demonstrate the reality of such a thing? And
in like manner also with the history of the Epigoni, although there
is no such marvellous event interwoven with it, or with the return
of the Heracleidæ, or countless other historical events. But he who
deals candidly with histories, and would wish to keep himself also
from being imposed upon by them, will exercise his judgment as to
what statements he will give his assent to, and what he will accept
figuratively, seeking to discover the meaning of the authors of such
inventions, and from what statements he will withhold his belief, as
having been written for the gratification of certain individuals.
And we have said this by way of anticipation respecting the whole
history related in the Gospels concerning Jesus, not as inviting men
of acuteness to a simple and unreasoning faith, but wishing to show
that there is need of candour in those who are to read, and of much
investigation, and, so to speak, of insight into the meaning of the
writers, that the object with which each event has been recorded may
be discovered.”[11]
In so many words Origen admits that since the sources for Christian
history cannot be checked up by external evidence, there is nothing
left but to accept their main outlines on faith--the same faith the
Greek has in the existence of Troy or the Roman in the early kings.
But being a Greek--and above all a Greek in argument--he qualifies his
faith by reason and explains away what seems improbable. In a way,
therefore, we have before us a sort of sophisticated Herodotus after
all, who eliminates myth to suit his perspective.[12]
Had the Christian world been and remained as sophisticated as Origen,
the conception of biblical history for the next fifteen hundred years
would have been vastly different. But, although the allegorical method
of biblical interpretation was used by nearly all the Fathers--by none
more than by the pope whose influence sank deepest into the Middle
Ages, Gregory the Great--and still forms the subject of most sermons,
the symbolism and allegory came to be applied less to those passages
which contained the narrative, than to the moralizing and prophetic
sections. The stories of the Creation, of the Flood, of Joseph, of the
plagues in Egypt, of Sodom and Gomorrah, were not explained away. But
about them, and the rest of that high theme of the fortunes of Israel,
were woven the gorgeous dreams of every poetic imagination from Origen
to Bossuet which had been steeped in miracle and rested upon authority.
One turns to Sulpicius Severus, the biographer of the wonder-working
Martin of Tours, for the Bible story as it reached the Middle Ages.
The narrative of the Old Testament was taken literally, like that of
the New; the story of a primitive people was presented to a primitive
audience. Allegory was not allowed to explain away passages which would
have shocked the critical intelligence of Hellenic philosophers, for
those were the very passages most likely to impress the simple-minded
Germans for whose education the church itself was to be responsible.
There was, however, a better reason than mere credulous simplicity
why Jewish and Christian history were not allegorized away. It
was because that history had been made credible by an exhaustive
treatment of chronology. Christian scholars took up the task of
reconciling the events of Jewish history with the annals of other
histories, and worked into a convincing and definite scheme of
parallel chronology the narrative from Abraham to Christ. Mathematics
was applied to history--not simply to the biblical narrative but all
that of the ancient world--and out of the chaos of fact and legend,
of contradiction and absurdity, of fancy run riot and unfounded
speculation, there was slowly hammered into shape that scheme of
measured years back to the origins of Israel and then to the Creation,
which still largely prevails today. This is one of the most important
things ever done by historians. Henceforth, for the next fifteen
centuries and more, there was one sure path back to the origin of the
world, a path along the Jewish past, marked out by the absolute laws
of mathematics and revelation. An account of how this came about will
carry us back into that complicated problem of the measurement of time,
which we have considered before, in its general aspects. Now, however,
we come upon the work of those who gave us our own time-reckoning, and
who in doing so moulded the conception of world history for the western
world more, perhaps, than any other students or masters of history.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The coming of the Messiah was the main continuation of Jewish
national history. Messiahship was to the Jews of the time of Christ
the embodiment of somewhat the same thought as stirred the Frenchman
of the close of the nineteenth century at the recollection of 1870 and
the lost provinces, or lent such inspiration in embittered Poland to
the prophet-like poetry of Mickiewicz. It was the dream of a deliverer,
a belief strengthened rather than crushed by failure and disaster. The
whole sad drama of Jewish history may be said to have concentrated
its expression in the Messianic hope--a hope against hope itself.
Christianity in offering itself as the realisation of that hope was
stepping into a definite place in Jewish history, but it was a place to
which the Jewish nation as a whole has never admitted it.
[2] The influence of Philo upon the Christian Fathers is a matter of
great interest. The admiration of speculative minds for the Jewish
thinker is echoed in the comment which Eusebius prefixes to his list
of the works of Philo (_Historia Ecclesiastica_, Bk. II, Chap. XVIII):
“Copious in language, comprehensive in thought, sublime and elevated in
his views of divine Scripture, Philo has produced manifold and various
expositions of the sacred books.” (A. C. McGiffert’s translation in the
_Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers_.)
[3] Jerome, _De Viris Illustribus_, Chap. LIV. Also in the preface
of his _De Nominibus Hebraicis_, Jerome speaks of him as, “Origen,
whom all but the ignorant acknowledge as the greatest teacher of the
churches, next to the Apostles.”
[4] Too modern to be entirely orthodox. Hence his subsequent eclipse.
[5] _Cf._ Eusebius, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, Bk. VI, for details of
Origen’s life.
[6] Origen, _De Principiis_, Bk. IV, Chap. I, Sect. 7.
[7] Origen, _Contra Celsum_, Bk. IV, Chap. L.
[8] _Ibid._, Bk. IV, Chap. XLIX.
[9] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. I, Chaps. XII and X. The order of citations has
been reversed here for clarity.
[10] Celsus also had the idea of a common evolution of ideas and
customs and of the borrowings of one nation from another, _e.g._,
circumcision from Egypt, _ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XXII.
[11] _Ibid._, Bk. I, Chap. XLII. (F. Crombie’s translation in the
_Ante-Nicene Christian Library_.)
[12] In addition to Celsus, Porphyry entered the lists against Origen
from the pagan side. Of his attack, the following extract, quoted, with
cautionary comment, by Eusebius in the sixth book (Chap. XIX) of the
_Historia Eccelesiastica_ (A. C. McGiffert’s translation), is worth
repeating as an indication of the controversial atmosphere in which we
are here moving:
“‘Some persons [says Porphyry], desiring to find a solution of the
baseness of the Jewish Scriptures rather than abandon them, have had
recourse to explanations inconsistent and incongruous with the words
written, which explanations, instead of supplying a defense of the
foreigners, contain rather approval and praise of themselves. For they
boast that the plain words of Moses are enigmas, and regard them as
oracles full of hidden mysteries; and having bewildered the mental
judgment by folly, they make their explanations.’ Farther on he says:
‘As an example of this absurdity take a man whom I met when I was
young, and who was then greatly celebrated and still is, on account
of the writings which he has left. I refer to Origen, who is highly
honoured by the teachers of these doctrines. For this man, having been
a hearer of Ammonius, who had attained the greatest proficiency in
philosophy of any in our day, derived much benefit from his teacher in
the knowledge of the sciences; but as to the correct choice of life,
he pursued a course opposite to his. For Ammonius, being a Christian,
and brought up by Christian parents, when he gave himself to study and
to philosophy straightway conformed to the life required by the laws.
But Origen, having been educated as a Greek in Greek literature, went
over to the barbarian recklessness. And carrying over the learning
which he had obtained, he hawked it about, in his life conducting
himself as a Christian and contrary to the laws, but in his opinions
of material things and of the Deity being like a Greek, and mingling
Grecian teachings with foreign fables. For he was continually studying
Plato, and he busied himself with the writings of Numenius and Cronius,
Apollophanes, Longinus, Moderatus, and Nicomachus, and those famous
among the Pythagoreans. And he used the books of Chaeremon the Stoic,
and of Cornutus. Becoming acquainted through them with the figurative
interpretation of the Grecian mysteries, he applied it to the Jewish
Scriptures.’
“These things are said by Porphyry in the third book of his work
against the Christians. He speaks truly of the industry and learning of
the man, but plainly utters a falsehood (for what will not an opposer
of Christians do?) when he says that he went over from the Greeks, and
that Ammonius fell from a life of piety into heathen customs. For the
doctrine of Christ was taught to Origen by his parents, as we have
shown above. And Ammonius held the divine philosophy unshaken and
unadulterated to the end of his life. His works yet extant show this,
as he is celebrated among many for the writings which he has left.
For example, the work entitled ‘The Harmony of Moses and Jesus,’ and
such others as are in the possession of the learned. These things are
sufficient to evince the slander of the false accuser, and also the
proficiency of Origen in Grecian learning.”
CHAPTER XXVI
CHRONOLOGY AND CHURCH HISTORY; EUSEBIUS
The history of History repeats itself. Tradition and myth, epic and
genealogy, priestly lore of world eras and the marking of time,
criticism and history follow each other or fuse in the long evolution
of that rational self-consciousness which projects itself into the
past as it builds up the synthesis of the present. Similar pathways
lie behind all developed historiographies. Indeed, the parallel
between the histories of the History of different nations is so close
as to rob the successive chapters of much of the charm of novelty.
When we have reviewed the historiography of Greece, that of Rome
strikes us as familiar. The same likeness lies already in the less
developed historiographies of Oriental cultures. They all emerge from
a common base; and, to use a biological expression, ontogeny repeats
phylogeny--the individual repeats the species. The law of growth seems
to apply to history as though it were an organism with an independent
evolution, instead of what it really is, a mere reflection of changing
societies.
The explanation apparently lies at hand, in the similar evolution of
the societies which produce the history. But, from such premises one
would hardly expect the historiography of a religion to exhibit the
same general lines of development. Yet in the history of Christian
History we have much the same evolution of material as in that of
Greece or Rome. Naturally, the priestly element is stronger, and
the attempts at rationalizing the narratives more in evidence. But
it is the absence rather than the presence of sophistication which
strikes one most. The genealogies play their rôle for the kingdom
of the Messiah as for the cities of Hellas,[1] Hesiods of Jewish
and Christian theology present their schemes of divinely appointed
eras, and through the whole heroic period of the Church, legends of
saints and martyrs furnish the unending epic of the unending war,
where the hosts of heaven fought with men, not for a vanished Troy
but for an eternal city. Finally, the work of Christian logographers
in the apologists--and every theologian was an apologist--reduced the
scheme to prose. The parallel would not hold, however, beyond the
merest externals if it had not been for the development of Christian
chronology; for the thought of writing history was but little in the
minds of theologians, and hardly more in those of martyrologists. From
the apologists, face to face with the criticism of the unbelieving
world, came the demand for more rigid methods of comparative
chronology, by which they could prove the real antiquity and direct
descent of Christianity. The same kind of practical need had produced
similar, if more trivial, documentation by pagan priests and was later
to repeat itself in mediæval monasteries. So that in the Christian
Church, as in the antique world generally, history proper was born of
the application of research and chronology to meet the exacting demands
of skepticism, as well as of the desire to set forth great deeds.
The path to Christian historiography lies, therefore, through a study
of Christian chronology. The basis for this was the work of the
Jewish scholars of the Diaspora. When the Christian apologists of the
second and third centuries attempted to synchronize the Old Testament
history with that of the gentiles, they could fall back upon the work
of a Jewish scribe, Justus of Tiberius, who wrote in the reign of
Hadrian.[2] He prepared a chronicle of Jewish kings, working along
the same uncertain basis of “generations” as had been used in gentile
chronicles, and so claiming for Moses an antiquity greater than that of
the oldest figures in Greek legend. The difficulties in the way of any
counter proof lent this statement great value in argument, especially
since it was merely a mathematical formulation of a belief already
established in the Church. But, although the argument of priority
was familiar from early days, the first formally prepared Christian
chronology did not appear until the middle of the third century when
Julius Africanus wrote his _Chronographia_. It was a work in five
books, drawing upon the writings of Josephus, Manetho and pagan
scholars, and arranging the eras of the old dispensation in a series
symbolical of creation itself. The duration of the world is to reach
six thousand years, after which is to come a thousand-year Sabbath.
The birth of Christ is put five thousand five hundred years from Adam,
which leaves five hundred more before the end. Halfway along this
stretch of centuries, three thousand years from the creation, we come
upon the death of Palek, under whom the world was parcelled out, as is
recorded in the twenty-fifth chapter of Genesis.[3]
A scheme like this is a chronology only by courtesy; and yet a glance
at the dating along the pages of the authorized edition of the Bible
will show how relatively close to it has been the accepted dating of
the world’s history down to our own time. Critically considered, it
was merely a variation of the symbolism of Origen--an allegory of
the general scheme of history instead of an allegory of details. It
was symbolism on a bolder and larger scale, all the more convincing
because, while it supplied the framework for events it did not have
to harmonize or explain them away. Three main influences made for its
success. The absence of any continuous Jewish chronology offered it
open field; theology demanded that the world’s history should centre
upon the life of Christ and the coming of the kingdom; and the idea of
world eras was just in line with the ideas of pagan savants who had
attained a rude conception of natural law in the movement of history.
A treatment of history which could appeal to the great name of Varro
for its pagan counterpart was not lightly to be rejected. The best
minds of antiquity saw--though dimly--the outer world as a reflection
of the human reason; but what Platonic idea ever mastered recalcitrant
phenomena so beautifully as this scheme of Christian history with its
symmetry established by a divine mathematics?
One is tempted to turn aside to the absorbing problems of philosophy
which these crude solutions of world history open up. But before us
stands a great figure, a Herodotus among the logographers of the early
Church. Eusebius of Cæsarea, the Father of Church History, worked out
from materials like these the chronology of the world which was to be
substantially that of all the subsequent history of Europe to our own
time, and preserved the precious fragments of his predecessors in the
first history of Christianity.[4]
Eusebius meets the two qualifications which Polybius prescribed as
indispensable for the historian. He was a man of affairs, of wide
knowledge of the world, and held high office in the state whose
fortunes he described. He it was who at the great council of Nicæa (325
A.D.) sat at the right hand of Constantine and delivered the opening
oration in honor of the emperor.[5] Few historians of either church or
state have ever had more spectacular tribute paid to their learning
and judicial temper. For it was apparently these two qualities which
especially equipped Eusebius for so distinguished an honor. At least
one likes to think so; but perhaps the distinction fell to him because
he was as well an accomplished courtier and as much the apologist of
Constantine as of the Christian faith.
This incident fixes for us the life of Eusebius. Born about 260 A.D.,
he was at the fulness of his powers when the Church gained its freedom,
and he lived on until 339 or 340. He had studied in the learned circle
of Pamphilus of Cæsarea, whose great library was to furnish him with
many of his materials,[6] and there came under the spell of Origen,
whose influence was supreme in the circle of Pamphilus. Nothing is
more difficult in criticism than the estimate of one man’s influence
upon another--and nothing more light-heartedly hazarded. It would be
hard to say what Eusebius would have been without the works of Origen
to inspire him, but that they did influence him is beyond question.
Eusebius was not an original thinker. He lacked the boldness of genius;
but to witness that boldness in Origen must have been an inspiration
toward freedom from ecclesiasticism and traditionalism.[7] His history
is no mere bishop’s history, it is the record of a religion as well as
of a church. Its scholarship is critical, not credulous. From Origen,
too, may have come the general conception which makes the first church
history a chapter in the working out of a vast world-scheme, the
“economy” of God.[8] But the time had now come for such a conception to
be commonplace. It was no longer a speculation; the recognition by the
empire was making it a fact.
If one were to search for influences moulding the character of
Eusebius’ history this triumph of the Church would necessarily come
first. No history of Christianity worthy of the name could well
appear during the era of persecutions. Not that the persecutions
were so severe or so continuous as has been commonly believed.
Eusebius himself, for instance, lived safely through the most severe
persecution, and visiting Pamphilus in prison--for Pamphilus suffered
martyrdom--carried on his theological works in personal touch with
his master. But though the persecutions have been exaggerated,
the situation of the Church was not one to invite the historian.
Constantine was its deliverer; in a few years it passed from oppression
to power. And in the hour of its triumph Christian scholarship was to
find, in a bishop high at court, a historian worthy not only of the
great deeds of the saints and martyrs, but of the new imperial position
of the Church.
Eusebius was a voluminous writer, “historian, apologist, topographer,
exegete, critic, preacher, dogmatic writer.”[9] But his fame as
a historian rests upon two works, the _Church History_ and the
_Chronicle_. Both were epoch-making. The one has earned for the author
the title of Father of Church History; the other set for Christendom
its framework in the history of the world.
The _Chronicle_ was written first.[10] It is composed of two parts, the
_Chronographia_ and the _Chronological Canons_. The first of these
is an epitome of universal history in the form of excerpts from the
sources, arranged nation by nation, along with an argument for the
priority of Moses and the Bible. It is a source-book on the epochs of
history, much like those in use today as manuals in our colleges. The
second part consists of chronological tables with marginal comments.
The various systems of chronology, Chaldæan, Greek, Roman, etc., are
set side by side with a biblical chronology which carries one back to
the creation, although the detailed and positive annals begin only with
the birth of Abraham. The _Canons_ therefore presents in a single,
composite form the annals of all antiquity--at least all that was of
interest to Christendom. It presented them in simplest mathematical
form. Rows of figures marked the dates down the centre of the page; on
the right hand side was the column of profane history; on the left hand
the column of sacred history.[11]
The fate of this work is of peculiar interest. It is doubtful if any
other history has ever exercised an influence comparable to that
which it has had upon the western world; yet not a single copy of
the original text has survived; the Latin west knew only the second
part, and that in the hasty translation of Jerome. Modern research
has unearthed a solitary Armenian translation of the work as a whole,
and modern scholars have compared this with the fragments preserved
by Byzantine chronographers[12] until finally, in the opening of the
twentieth century the work is again accessible--if only to the learned.
If, however, recovery of the chronicle is a work of archæological
philology, like the recovery of an ancient ruin, yet all the time that
it had lain buried this little book of dates and comments had been
determining the historical outlook of Europe.[13] For the next thousand
years most histories were chronicles, and they were built after the
model of Jerome’s translation of Eusebius’ _Canons_. Every mediæval
monastery that boasted of enough culture to have a scriptorium and a
few literate monks, was connecting its own rather fabulous but fairly
recent antiquity with the great antiquity of Rome and Judæa through the
tables of Eusebius’ arithmetic.
This anonymous immortality of the great _Chronicle_ is easily accounted
for. It was not a work of literature, but of mathematics. Now
mathematics is as genuine art as is literature, art of the most perfect
type; but its expression, for that very reason, is not in the variable
terms of individual appreciations. It is not personal but universal.
It does not deal with qualities but with numbers; or at best it deals
with qualities merely as the distinguishing elements in numbers. The
structure is the thing, not the meaning nor character of the details.
And the structure depends upon the materials. Hence there is little
that is Eusebian about Eusebius’ _Chronicle_, except the chronicle
itself. It has no earmarks of authorship like the style of a Herodotus
or a Thucydides. But all the same its content was the universal
possession of the succeeding centuries.
There is, however, a simpler reason for the fate of Eusebius’
_Chronicle_. It has a forbidding exterior. It had even too much
mathematics and too much history for the Middle Ages; they were
satisfied with the results of the problem. But behind this forbidding
exterior the modern scholar finds a synthesis of alluring charm.
Parallel columns of all known eras extend up and down the pages; eras
of Abraham, David, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc. It is interesting
to see this tangle of columns simplify as the divers nations come and
go; and finally all sink into the great unity of Rome. At last the
modern world of Eusebius’ own time was let but four columns, the years
of Rome (A. U. C.), of Olympiads, of Roman Consuls, and of Christ.
The rest was already ancient history. As one follows the sweep of
these figures and watches the steady line of those events where the
Providence of God bore down the forces of the unbeliever, one realizes
that in this convincing statement lay the strongest of all defences
of the faith. Here, compressed into a few pages, lies the evidence of
history for the Christian world-view. Origen’s great conception that
pagan history was as much decreed by Jehovah as sacred history finds
in the _Chronicle_ its most perfect expression; the facts speak for
themselves.[14] No fickle Fortuna could ever have arranged with such
deliberate aim the rise and fall of empires. History is the reservoir
not of argument but of proof, and the proof is mathematical.[15]
The human element of humor, however, comes into the situation when one
turns back to the opening paragraph and learns the attitude of Eusebius
himself. “Now at the very beginning, I make this declaration before all
the world: let no one ever arrogantly contend that a sure and thorough
knowledge of chronology is attainable. This every one will readily
believe who ponders on the incontrovertible words of the Master to his
disciples: ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which
the Father hath put in his own power’ [Acts 1^7]. For it seems to me
that he, as Lord God, uttered that decisive word with reference not
merely to the day of judgment, but with reference to all times, to the
end that he might restrain those who devote themselves too boldly to
such vain investigations.”[16]
We have left ourselves little space for the work by which Eusebius
is chiefly known, the _Ecclesiastical History_. So far as students
of theology and church history are concerned, little space is needed,
for the work itself is readily accessible and that, too, in an English
edition, and magnificently translated.[17] But the general student
of history seldom reads church history now, and the achievement of
Eusebius shares the common fate. Yet it is a great achievement, and a
genuine surprise awaits the reader who turns to it. One might expect
that the age of Constantine would produce a history of the obscure,
unstoried institution which had suddenly risen to the splendor of an
imperial church, but one could hardly expect to find out of that arena
of fierce theological conflict the calm and lofty attitude of generous
reserve and the sense of dominating scholarly obligation for accuracy
which characterize the first church historian. The judgment of Gibbon,
that the _Ecclesiastical History_ was grossly unfair,[18] is itself a
prejudiced verdict. To be sure it lacks the purely scientific aim, it
is apologetic. But Eusebius is not to be blamed for that; the wonder is
that he preserved so just a poise and so exacting a standard in view
of the universal demands of his time. We should not forget that the
apologetic tone of Christian historiography was also sanctioned by the
pagan classics. Even Polybius had demanded that history be regarded
as a thing of use, and Cicero, Sallust, Livy and Tacitus had applied
the maxim generously. Christian historiography should not bear the
brunt of our dissatisfaction with what was the attitude of nearly all
antiquity.[19]
The task of Eusebius was a difficult one. Only those who have tried
themselves to extract historical data from theological writings can
appreciate how difficult it was; but even they have an advantage over
the Father of Church History. For now the principles of scientific,
objective criticism of sources are well understood, and the historian
can stand apart from the data aware that his criticism may be frankly
skeptical without injury to his standards of religion. But Eusebius
could not go far upon that path without arousing more serious doubts as
to his general canons of belief. His history was, after all, intended
to contribute proof of the truth of the central doctrines in the
literature it used. He had to combine discriminating judgment with the
“will to believe.” There is therefore more than rhetoric, though it is
not lacking, in the apology with which he enters upon his narrative:
“But at the outset I must crave for my work the indulgence of
the wise, for I confess that it is beyond my power to produce a
perfect and complete history, and since I am the first to enter
upon the subject, I am attempting to traverse as it were a lonely
and untrodden path. I pray that I may have God as my guide and the
power of the Lord as my aid, since I am unable to find even the bare
footsteps of those who have traveled the way before me, except in
brief fragments, in which some in one way, others in another, have
transmitted to us particular accounts of the times in which they
lived. From afar they raise their voices like torches, and they cry
out, as from some lofty and conspicuous watch-tower, admonishing us
where to walk and how to direct the course of our work steadily and
safely. Having gathered therefore from the matters mentioned here
and there by them whatever we consider important for the present
work, and having plucked like flowers from a meadow the appropriate
passages from ancient writers, we shall endeavor to embody the whole
in an historical narrative, content if we preserve the memory of the
successions of the apostles of our Saviour; if not indeed of all, yet
of the most renowned of them in those churches which are the most
noted, and which even to the present time are held in honor.
“This work seems to me of especial importance because I know of
no ecclesiastical writer who has devoted himself to this subject;
and I hope that it will appear most useful to those who are fond
of historical research. I have already given an epitome of these
things in the Chronological Canons which I have composed, but
notwithstanding that, I have undertaken in the present work to write
as full an account of them as I am able. My work will begin, as I
have said, with the dispensation of the Saviour Christ--which is
loftier and greater than human conception,--and with a discussion of
His divinity; for it is necessary, inasmuch as we derive even our
name from Christ, for one who proposes to write a history of the
Church to begin with the very origin of Christ’s dispensation, a
dispensation more divine than many think.”[20]
In spite of the touch of rhetoric in such passages as this, the
_Ecclesiastical History_ does not live by grace of its style. Eusebius
had no refined literary taste; he wrote, as he thought, in rambling
and desultory fashion. But he combined with vast erudition a “sterling
sense,” and a “true historical instinct” in choosing the selections
from his store of facts and documents.[21] Conscious of the value of
the sources themselves, he weaves into his narrative large blocks of
the originals, and in this way has preserved many a precious text
which would otherwise be lost. The _Ecclesiastical History_ is less
a narrative than a collection of documents, for which every student
of Christianity is devoutly thankful, and more thankful yet that
the author was so keenly conscious of his responsibility. Wherever
his references can be verified they prove correct, which gives a
presumption of accuracy for those found in his work alone.
Such instances of scholarly caution occur time and again in the
_Ecclesiastical History_, in some cases revealing a discriminating use
of sources in the effort to get to originals. This is especially the
case where the incident narrated may seem in itself improbable, or
where the skeptic is likely to challenge the evidence. For example, he
narrates a story of Marcus Aurelius as follows:
“It is reported that Marcus Aurelius Cæsar, brother of Antoninus,
being about to engage in battle with the Germans and Sarmatians,
was in great trouble on account of his army suffering from thirst.
But the soldiers of the so-called Melitene legion, through the
faith which has given strength from that time to the present, when
they were drawn up before the enemy, kneeled on the ground, as is
our custom in prayer, and engaged in supplications to God. This
was indeed a strange sight to the enemy, but it is reported that a
stranger thing immediately followed. The lightning drove the enemy
to flight and destruction, but a shower refreshed the army of those
who had called on God, all of whom had been on the point of perishing
with thirst.
“This story is related by non-Christian writers who have been pleased
to treat the times referred to, and it has also been recorded by our
own people. By those historians who were strangers to the faith,
the marvel is mentioned, but it is not acknowledged as an answer to
our prayers. But by our own people, as friends of the truth, the
occurrence is related in a simple and artless manner. Among these is
Apolinarius, who says that from that time the legion through whose
prayers the wonder took place received from the Emperor a title
appropriate to the event, being called in the language of the Romans
the Thundering Legion. Tertullian is a trustworthy witness of these
things. In the Apology for the Faith, which he addressed to the
Roman Senate, and which we have already mentioned, he confirms the
history with greater and stronger proofs. He writes that there are
still extant letters of the most intelligent Emperor Marcus in which
he testifies that his army, being on the point of perishing from
thirst in Germany, was saved by the prayers of the Christians. And
he says also that this emperor threatened death to those who brought
accusations against us.”[22]
This scholarly accuracy was combined with a vast learning. Eusebius had
enjoyed the freedom of the great library of Pamphilus at Antioch, in
his earlier days. He tells us that he gathered materials as well in the
library at Jerusalem founded by Bishop Alexander,[23] and Constantine
seems to have opened his archives to him.[24] But he learned not
less from the busy world in which he lived. He was no recluse; he
lived at the centre of things, both politically and ecclesiastically.
His genial nature blinded him to men’s faults, and his judgments on
contemporaries--particularly on Constantine--are of little value.[25]
But even at his worst he seldom recorded any marvellous event without
the Herodotean caution of throwing the responsibility back upon the
original narrative. There is no better example of this than the account
in the _Life of Constantine_ of the emperor’s vision of the cross. It
was an incident all too likely to find ready that credence in Christian
circles which it found in subsequent ages. But, however much a courtly
panegyrist Eusebius could be, in matters of fact he is on his guard.
His account runs soberly enough: “And while he was thus praying with
fervent entreaty, a most marvellous sign appeared to him from heaven,
the account of which might have been hard to believe had it been
related by any other person. But since the victorious Emperor himself
long afterwards declared it to the writer of this history, when he was
honored with his acquaintance and society, and confirmed his statement
by an oath, who could hesitate to accredit the relation, especially
since the testimony of after-time has established its truth?”[26]
For two centuries Christian worship had lain hidden behind the
“Discipline of the Secret.” The uninitiated knew little of what was
held or done by the adherents of this intolerant mystery, “after the
doors were shut.” Constantine brought the new régime, when persecution
and secrecy ceased. Eusebius had lived through the dark days of
Diocletian, and although he himself had escaped--a fact sometimes held
up against him--his dearest friends, and above all his great teacher
Pamphilus, had been martyred. Free now to speak, therefore, he turns
back from the “peace of the church” to the years of persecution with a
feeling for martyrs like that of Homer for heroes, of the Middle Ages
for wonder-working saints.[27] He depicts their sufferings, however,
not simply as the material for heroic biography, but as forming the
subject of a glorious page of history, that of the great “peaceful
struggle” by which the Kingdom of the Messiah was to take its place
among and above the powers of this world. The martyrs of Palestine are
fighting the Punic wars for the kingdom of Christ:
“Other writers of history record the victories of war and trophies
won from enemies, the skill of generals, and the manly bravery of
soldiers, defiled with blood and with innumerable slaughters for
the sake of children and country and other possessions. But our
narrative of the government of God will record in ineffaceable
letters the most peaceful wars waged in behalf of the peace of the
soul, and will tell of men doing brave deeds for truth rather than
country, and for piety rather than dearest friends. It will hand
down to imperishable remembrance the discipline and the much-tried
fortitude of the athletes of religion, the trophies won from demons,
the victories over invisible enemies, and the crowns placed upon all
their heads.”[28]
It was reserved for a greater intellect--that of Augustine--to
carry this conception of the Church as the realization of the
temporal Kingdom of Christ to its final form. But the outlines of
Augustine’s _City of God_ are already visible in the opening chapters
of the _Ecclesiastical History_, as its foundations were placed by
Eusebius’ master, Origen. The Messiah is not a recent Christ, but
comes to us from the beginning of the world, witnessed to by Moses
and the prophets. And when “in recent times” Jesus came, the new
nation which appeared was not new but old, the Nation of God’s own
Providence--Christian and universal. The pæan of the victorious Church
is sounded at the opening of its first history; “A nation confessedly
not small and not dwelling in some corner of the earth, but the most
numerous and pious of all nations, indestructible and unconquerable,
because it always receives assistance from God.”[29] This is the
historical prologue to the _City of God_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf._ Julius Africanus’ pioneer work in this direction, in
harmonizing the variant genealogies of Christ in the Gospel, quoted by
Eusebius, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, Bk. I, Chap. VII.
[2] The connection of Christian chronology with that of the Greeks,
_e.g._ Castor, has been referred to above. _Vide_ Eusebius,
_Chronicorum Liber Primus_.
[3] See the monumental study of H. Gelzer, _Sextus Julius
Africanus_..., which has disentangled the fragile threads of his
chronology as preserved in various ways.
[4] The name Eusebius was a very common one in the records of the early
Church. There are forty Eusebiuses, contemporaries of the historian,
noted in Smith and Wace’s _Dictionary of Christian Biography_, and, in
all, one hundred thirty-seven from the first eight centuries. Eusebius
of Cæsarea took the surname Pamphilus after the death of his master
Pamphilus, out of respect for him.
[5] _Cf_. Sozomen, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, Bk. I, Chap. XIX.
[6] _Cf_. Eusebius, _De Martyribus Palæstinae_, Chap. IV; Jerome, _De
Viris Illustribus_, Chaps. LXXV, LXXXI.
[7] These at least are the two main influences of Origen upon
Eusebius according to McGiffert and Heinrici. See A. C. McGiffert’s
edition of the _Church History_, p. 7, and C. F. G. Heinrici, _Das
Urchristentum in der Kirchengeschichte des Eusebius_ (1894). Heinrici
here presents the case against F. Overbeck’s view (_Über die Anfänge
der Kirchengeschichtsschreibung_, 1892), that Eusebius follows the
hierarchical, episcopal thread in a sort of constitutional history of
the church.
[8] _Cf._ C. F. G. Heinrici, _op. cit._, p. 13.
[9] See _Eusebius of Cæsarea_ by J. B. Lightfoot in Smith and Wace’s
_Dictionary of Christian Biography_. A brilliant article.
[10] He already refers to it in the opening of his _Historia
Ecclesiastica_, Bk. I, Chap. I, also in the _Eclogae Propheticae_,
Bk. I, Chap. I, and in the _Praeparatio Evangelica_, Bk. X, Chap. IX,
which were both written before 313. As the _Chronicle_, when it reached
Jerome, was carried down to 325, it is conjectured that there may have
been a second edition.
[11] In the present text some profane history notes are on the left
side, but this was due to the fact that the comments on profane history
were fuller than those on sacred history, and were crowded over for
reasons of space.
Eusebius was largely indebted for his plan to Castor, whom he invokes
at the beginning and end of the lists for Sicyon, Argos and Athens.
_Cf._ H. Gelzer, _Sextus Julius Africanus_..., Part II, pp. 63 _sq._
On the relations between Eusebius and Julius Africanus see H. Gelzer,
_op. cit._, Part II, pp. 23-107.
[12] Especially Georgius Syncellus. These chronographers preserved such
large extracts that Joseph Scaliger was able to risk a reconstruction
of the text from them alone. Scaliger’s first edition was published
in 1606, the second edition in 1658. The Armenian version, with a
Latin translation, was published at Venice in 1818 by J. B. Aucher.
The text in Migne, that by Cardinal Mai (1833), is based upon this;
but the classic work on the _Chronicle_ is that of A. Schoene,
_Eusebi Chronicorum Libri Duo_ (Vol. I, 1875, Vol. II, 1866), while
the Armenian text has recently been published with parallel German
translation, by J. Karst in the great edition of Eusebius’ works now
appearing in the series, _Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller
der ersten drei Jahrhunderte_. It has also the version of Jerome,
edited by R. Helm.
[13] Joseph Scaliger refers thus to the influence of Eusebius. “Qui
post Eusebium scripserunt, omne scriptum de temporibus aridum esse
censuerunt, quod non hujus fontibus irrigatum esset.” (Quoted in J. P.
Migne, _Patrologiae Græcae_, Vol. XIX, p. 14.)
[14] This view of universal history places Eusebius on a distinctly
higher plane than that of a mere apologist. It enabled him to have
somewhat of the Herodotean sweep and breadth. _Cf._ C. F. G. Heinrici,
_op. cit._, pp. 13 _sqq._ Eusebius, _Historia Ecclesiastica_, Bk. I,
Chap. VII.
[15] The translation of the Canons by Jerome, while apparently superior
to the Armenian version, bears the marks of careless haste. He tells
us himself (Preface, ll. 13 _sqq._) that it is an _opus tumultuarium_,
and adds that he dictated it most hurriedly to a scribe. He must have
meant, so A. Schoene thinks (_Die Weltchronik des Eusebius_, 1900, p.
77), that he dictated the marginal comments, not the rows of figures.
Likely a _notarius_ translated the figures into Latin, and Jerome added
the notes.
A great deal of discussion has arisen over the fact that in the
_Ecclesiastical History_ Eusebius differs decidedly from the chronology
of the _Chronicle_.
[16] Eusebius, _Chronicorum Liber Primus_, Preface.
[17] _The Church History of Eusebius_ by A. C. McGiffert, in the
_Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers_, Second Series, Vol. I,
pp. 81-403. The same volume contains a translation of the _Life of
Constantine_ by E. C. Richardson, and an exhaustive bibliography.
[18] _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ (J. B. Bury’s edition),
Vol. II, p. 135: “Eusebius, himself, indirectly confesses that he has
related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed
all that could tend to the disgrace of religion;” adding in a footnote,
“Such is the _fair_ deduction from I:82, and _De Mart. Palast._ c. 12.”
[19] This point is well made by H. O. Taylor in _The Mediæval Mind_,
Vol. I, pp. 78-81.
At the same time Eusebius advances principles of historical composition
against which it is well to be on one’s guard, as for instance in the
following extract, with reference to the divisions among the Churches:
“But it is not our place to describe the sad misfortunes which finally
came upon them, as we do not think it proper, moreover, to record their
divisions and unnatural conduct to each other before the persecution.
Wherefore we have decided to relate nothing concerning them except the
things in which we can vindicate the Divine judgment. Hence we shall
not mention those who were shaken by the persecution, nor those who in
everything pertaining to salvation were shipwrecked, and by their own
will were sunk in the depths of the flood. But we shall introduce into
this history in general only those events which may be useful first
to ourselves and afterwards to posterity.” (_The Church History of
Eusebius_ (A. C. McGiffert’s edition), Bk. VIII, Chap. II.)
[20] _The Church History of Eusebius_ (A. C. McGiffert’s edition), Bk.
I, Chap. I.
[21] See the fine characterization by A. C. McGiffert, in the
Prolegomena to his edition of _The Church History of Eusebius_, pp. 46
_sqq._
[22] _The Church History of Eusebius_ (A. C. McGiffert’s edition), Bk.
V, Chap. V.
[23] _Cf._ _Historia Ecclesiastica_, Bk. VI, Chap. XX.
[24] _Cf. ibid._, Bk. V, Chap. XVIII.
[25] _The Life of Constantine_ is a panegyric rather than a biography;
and it is unreliable even in questions of fact.
[26] _The Life of Constantine_ (E. C. Richardson’s edition), Bk. I,
Chap. XXVIII.
[27] _Cf._ C. F. G. Heinrici, _op. cit._, p. 3.
[28] _The Church History of Eusebius_ (A. C. McGiffert’s edition), Bk.
V, Introduction, Sects. 3, 4.
[29] _The Church History of Eusebius_ (A. C. McGiffert’s edition), Bk.
I, Chap. IV.
POSTSCRIPT ON MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN HISTORY
CHAPTER XXVII
THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY[1]
Two great questions front all students of the social sciences: What
happened? Why? History attempts to deal mainly with the first. It
gathers the scattered traces of events and fills the archives of
civilization with their records. Its science sifts the evidence and
prepares the story. Its art recreates the image of what has been, and
“old, forgotten, far-off things” become once more the heritage of
the present. Though no magic touch can wholly restore the dead past,
history satisfies in considerable part the curiosity which asks, “What
happened?” But “Why?” What forces have been at work to move the latent
energies of nations, to set going the march of events? What makes our
revolutions or our tory reactions? Why did Rome fall, Christianity
triumph, feudalism arise, the Inquisition flourish, monarchy become
absolute and of divine right, Spain decline, England emerge, democracy
awaken and grow potent? Why did these things happen when or where they
did? Was it the direct intervention of an overruling Providence, for
whose purposes the largest battalions were always on the move? Or are
the ways past finding out? Do the events themselves reveal a meaning?
These are not simply questions for philosophers. Children insist upon
them most. He is a lucky story-teller whose Jack-the-Giant-Killer or
Robin Hood is not cut through, time and again, by the unsatisfied
curiosity as to _why_ the beanstalk grew so high, _why_ Jack wanted
to climb, _why_ Robin Hood lived under a greenwood tree, etc.
Many a parental Herodotus has been wrecked on just such grounds.
The problem for the philosopher or scientist is the same as that
brought forward by the child. The drama of history unrolls before
our eyes in more sober form; our Robin Hoods become Garibaldis,
our Jack-the-Giant-Killer a Napoleon, but we still have to ask how
fortune and genius so combined to place southern Italy in the hands
of the one, Europe at the feet of the other. Not only is the problem
the same, but we answer it in the same way. Here, at once, we have
a clue to the nature of interpretation. For any one knows that you
answer the child’s “Why?” by telling another story. Each story is, in
short, an explanation, and each explanation a story. The school-boy’s
excuse for being late is that he couldn’t find his cap. He couldn’t
find his cap _because_ he was playing in the barn. Each incident was
a cause and each cause an incident in his biography. In like manner
most of the reasons we assign for our acts merely state an event or a
condition of affairs which is in itself a further page of history. At
last, however, there comes a point where the philosopher and the child
part company. History is more than events. It is the manifestation of
life, and behind each event is some effort of mind and will, while
within each circumstance exists some power to stimulate or obstruct.
Hence psychology and economics are called upon to explain the events
themselves. The child is satisfied if you account for the career of
Napoleon by a word “genius,” but that merely opens the problem to
the psychologist. The child in us all attributes the overthrow to
the hollow squares of Waterloo, but the economist reminds us of the
Continental System and the Industrial Revolution which made Waterloo
possible.
The process of interpreting history, therefore, involves getting as
much as possible out of history, psychology and economics--using
economics in the widest possible sense as the affective material
background of life. This does not get to final causes, to be sure. It
leaves the universe still a riddle. Theologians and metaphysicians
are the only ones who attempt to deal with final causes as with final
ends. Certainly historians cannot follow them in such speculations.
The infinite lies outside experience, and experience is the sphere of
history. When we talk of the interpretation of history, therefore,
we do not mean its setting in the universe, but a knowledge of its
own inner relationships. We confine ourselves to humanity and the
theatre of its activities. But within this realm of mystery man
exists, acts and thinks--or thinks he does--which is all the same for
historians; and these thoughts and deeds remain mostly un-understood,
even by the actors themselves. Here is mystery enough, mystery which
is not in itself unknowable but merely unknown. The social sciences
do not invade the field of religion; they have nothing to do with
the ultimate; their problems are those of the City of Man, not of
the City of God. So the interpretation of history can leave theology
aside, except where theology attempts to become historical. Then it
must face the same criticism as all other histories. If the City of
God is conceived of as a creation of the processes of civilization, it
becomes as much a theme for scientific analysis as the Roman Empire or
the Balkan Confederacy. If theology substitutes itself for science it
must expect the same treatment as science. But our search for historic
“causes” is merely a search for other things of the same kind--natural
phenomena of some sort--which lie in direct and apparently inevitable
connection. We interpret history by knowing more of it, bringing to
bear our psychology and every other auxiliary to open up each intricate
relationship between men, situations and events.
This is our first great principle. What do we mean by the “meaning”
of anything but more knowledge of it? In physics or chemistry we
enlarge our ideas of phenomena by observing how they work, what are
their affinities, how they combine or react. But all these properties
are merely different sides of the same thing, and our knowledge of
it is the sum total of our analysis. Its meaning has changed, as our
knowledge enlarges, from a lump of dirt to a compound of elements.
No one asks what an element is, because no one can tell--except in
terms of other elements. The interpretation, therefore, of physical
phenomena is a description of them in terms of their own properties.
The same thing is true of history, only instead of description we
have narrative. For history differs from the natural sciences in
this fundamental fact, that while they consider phenomena from the
standpoint of Space, history deals with them from the standpoint of
Time. Its data are in eternal change, moving in endless succession.
Time has no static relationships, not so much as for a second. One
moment merges into the next, and another has begun before the last is
ended. The old Greeks already pointed out that one could never put
his foot twice into the same waters of a running stream, and never has
philosophy insisted more eloquently upon this fluid nature of Time than
in the writings of Professor Bergson. But whatever Time may be in the
last analysis it is clear that whereas physics states the meaning of
the phenomena with which it deals in descriptions, history must phrase
its interpretations in narrative--the narrative which runs with passing
time.
Hence history and its interpretation are essentially one, if we mean
by history all that has happened, including mind and matter in so
far as they relate to action. Any other kind of interpretation is
unscientific. It eludes analysis because it does not itself analyze,
and hence it eludes proof. So theological dogma, which may or may not
be true, and speculation in metaphysics are alike outside our problem.
Indeed, when we come down to it, there is little difference between
“What has happened?” and “Why?” The “Why?” only opens up another
“What?” Take for example a problem in present history: “Why has the
price of living gone up?” The same question might be asked another way:
“What has happened to raise prices?” The change in the form of sentence
does not solve anything, for who knows what has happened? But it puts
us upon a more definite track toward our solution. We test history by
history.
The earliest historical narrative is the myth. It is at the same
time an explanation. It is no mere product of imagination, of the
play of art with the wayward fancies of childlike men. Myths, real
genuine myths--not Homeric epics composed for sophisticated, critical
audiences--are statements of “facts” to the believer. They are social
outputs, built up out of experience and fitted to new experiences.
The long canoes are swept to sea by the north-east hurricane, and
year by year in the winter nights at the camp-fires of those who go
by long canoes the story is repeated, over and over again, until the
sea is left behind or a new race brings triremes with machinery in the
inside. So long as the old society exists under the old conditions the
myth perpetuates itself; but it also gathers into it the reflex of
the changing history. It therefore embodies the belief of the tribe,
and this gives it an authority beyond the reach of any primitive
higher criticism. Appealed to as the “wisdom of our fathers,” as
the universally accepted and therefore true--_quod semper quod ab
omnibus_--it becomes a sort of creed for its people. More than a creed,
it is as unquestioned as the world around and life itself. The eagle
of Prometheus or of the Zuñi myths is as much a part of the world to
Greeks and Zuñis as the eagle seen yonder on the desert-rim. The whole
force of society is on the side of myth. The unbeliever is ostracized
or put to death. What would have happened to the man who should have
dared to question the literal narrative of Genesis in the thirteenth
century, has happened in some form in every society. The Inquisition,
we are told, was merely a refinement of lynch law. In any case it
would never have been effective without popular support. The heretics
of all ages suffer because the faith they challenged is the treasured
possession of their society, a heritage in which resides the mysterious
efficacy of immemorial things.
Now it is a strange fact that most of our beliefs begin in prior
belief. It does not sound logical, but it remains true that we get
to believing a thing from believing it. Belief is the basic element
in thought. It starts with consciousness itself. Once started, there
develops a tendency--“a will”--to keep on. Indeed it is almost the
strongest tendency in the social mind. Only long scientific training
can keep an individual alert with doubt, or, in other words, keep him
from merging his own beliefs in those of his fellows. This is the
reason that myth has so long played so momentous a rôle in the history
of the human intelligence--by far the largest of any one element in our
whole history. Science was born but yesterday. Myths are millenniums
old. And they are as young today as in the glacial period. Heroes and
victims share the stage of the drama of history with those uncanny
Powers that mock at effort or exalt the weak, and trick with sudden
turns the stately progress of society. Wherever the marvellous event
is explained by causes more marvellous still, where the belief is
heightened by basing it upon deeper mysteries, we are following the
world-old method of explaining by the inexplicable.
Myths are unsatisfactory as explanations for various reasons, but the
main one is that human events are subordinated to the supernatural
in which they are set. This means that normal events of daily life
are generally passed unnoticed, and attention is concentrated upon
the unusual and abnormal. It is in these that the divine or diabolic
intervenes. They are preëminently--as we still say of railway
accidents--acts of God. So the myth neither tells a full story, with
all the human data involved, nor directs to any natural sequence of
events. Sickness and consequent catastrophe are not attributed to
malarial mosquitoes--such as filled the temples of Æsculapius with
suppliants and depleted Greece of citizens. All misfortune is due to
broken taboos. When Roman armies are defeated the question is, “Who
has sinned and how?” When death comes to the Australian bushman, there
is always black magic to account for it. And pontiffs and medicine men
elaborate the mythology which explains and justifies the taboos.
That is not to say that myths are the creations of priests. The
creation is the work of the society itself. The priest merely
elaborates. The initial belief resides in the nerves of primitive men,
the fear of the uncanny, the vague apprehension which still chills
us in the presence of calamity. Social suggestion is responsible for
much of it--we tremble when we see the rigid fear on the faces of
those beside us. When some one whispers in the dark, “Isn’t it awful?”
“It” suddenly thrills into being, like a ghost. Voltaire was wrong to
attribute the origin of these beliefs of superstition to priestcraft.
The priest merely took hold of the universal beliefs of his people and
gave them form and consistency, as the minstrel wove them into poetry.
The scruple about entering the dark wooded slopes beyond the village
grain-fields is enough to people it, for most of us, with all uncanny
things. If you are the kind of person to have scruples about entering
a wood by night, you are the kind to appreciate the possibilities of
lurking danger in its shadows and moving presences in its thickets. So
on a night, when the moon is high and the wind is still, you may hear
the hounds and the wolf-packs of the wild hunters--of Diana and Mars.
It needs no priestly college to convince us of that. The wood and the
wolves and our own nerves are enough. But the priestly college develops
the things of night into the stuff for history; and centuries after the
howling wolves have disappeared from the marshes around Rome the city
cherishes, to the close of its history, the myth of its founding.
Men first tell stories. Then they think about them. So from mythology,
the ancients proceeded to philosophy. Now philosophy is a wide word.
For some of us it means keen criticism of fundamental things. For
others it is a befuddled consideration of unrealities. But whatever it
may be now, philosophy came into the antique world as science, critical
analysis, and history was but another name for it. The “inquiry” of
those Ionian _logographoi_ who began to question Homer, in the sixth
century before Christ, was a challenge and interpretation of myth. So,
all through its history, history has demanded of its students denial
rather than acceptance, skepticism rather than belief, in order that
the story of men and empires be more than a myth. But the tendency to
believe and accept is so strongly impressed upon us from immemorial
social pressures that few have risen to the height of independent
judgment which was the Greek ideal. Criticism, in the full sense of the
word, is an interpretation. To reject a story means that one constructs
another in its place. It establishes that certain things did not happen
because certain other ones did. So the Greeks corrected myths, and in
doing this made history more rational. Man came into the story more and
the gods receded.
One may distinguish two phases of philosophic interpretation of
history, that in which the philosophy is in reality a theology and
that in which it is natural science. In the first phase we are still
close to myth. Myth places the cause of events in Mystery of some
sort--deities, demons, the Fates or Fortune. Early philosophy proceeds
upon these assumptions, which also penetrate most antique histories.
Even Polybius, hard-headed, much-experienced man of the world, cannot
quite attribute to natural causes the rise of Rome. Fortune, that
wayward goddess of Cæsar, had something to do with it--how much it
would be hard to say. Livy had this myth-philosophy to the full;
every disaster had its portent, every triumph its omen. This was the
practical philosophy of all but the few calm thinkers whose skepticism
passed into the second phase, which reached all the way from an open
question whether or not the gods interfered in human affairs to the
positive denial of their influence. The great source-book for such
interpretations of history is Cicero’s _On the Nature of the Gods_,
where one may find in the guise of a theological discussion a résumé
of the various pagan philosophies of history. For the philosophies of
history were more frankly philosophy than history; the question at
issue was the intruding mystery rather than the circumstances of the
intrusion, and one denied or affirmed mainly on _a priori_ grounds. The
denial was not historical criticism and the philosophy of doubt hardly
more genuine historical interpretation than the philosophy of belief.
Its conclusions more nearly _coincide_ with the demands of scientific
research; that is all. But mythology was not lightly to be got rid of,
even among philosophers, and as for the populace, it merely exchanged
one myth for another, until finally it could take refuge in theology.
The bold infidelity of a Lucretius was too modern for the age which
was to give birth to Christianity, and the Voltaires of antiquity were
submerged in a rising sea of faith.
Moreover there were two reasons why antique philosophy could not
accomplish much. It lacked the instruments by which to penetrate into
the two centres of its problem: psychology, to analyze the mind, and
experimental laboratories, to analyze the setting of life or life
itself. It had some knowledge of psychology, to be sure, and some
experimental science, but relatively little; and it never realized
the necessity for developing them. It sharpened the reason to an
almost uncanny degree, and played, like a grown athlete, with ideas.
But it followed the ideas into their ideal world and left this world
unaccounted for. Above all, it knew practically nothing of economic and
material elements in history. Even a Thucydides has no glimpse of the
intimate connection between the forces of economics and of politics.
History for him is made by _men_, not by grain-fields and metals.
It was not until the nineteenth century--just the other day--that
economic factors in historical causation were emphasized as playing
a rôle comparable to that of man himself. Thucydides did not realize
how commercial and industrial competition could rouse the rivals of
Athens to seek her overthrow. Polybius felt that Fortune was a weak
excuse to offer for Rome’s miraculous rise and fell back upon the
peculiar excellence of her constitution. Both were rationalists of
a high order, but they never extended their history--and therefore
their interpretation--beyond politics. The gods tend to disappear, and
mankind to take their place. But it is an incomplete mankind, rational
beings moved by ideas and principles; not economic animals moved
by blind wants and fettered by the basest limitations. In short, a
political man is the farthest analysis one gets. But even Aristotle
never knew how many things there were in politics besides politics.
The extent of the interplay of material forces upon psychological lay
outside his ken.
Upon the whole, then, there is almost nothing to learn from antique
interpretations of history. They interest us because of their antiquity
and their drift from the supernatural to the natural. But they did not
achieve a method which would open up the natural and let us see its
working. They are of no service to us in our own interpretations.
Christianity dropped all this rationalist tone of the Greeks, and
turned the keen edge of Greek philosophy to hew a structure so vast in
design, so simple in outline, that the whole world could understand.
History was but the realization of religion--not of various religions,
but of one; the working out of one divine plan. It was a vast,
supernatural process, more God’s than man’s. It was no longer a play
of rival forces, the gods of Rome against those of Veii or the Baalim
against Jahveh. But from all eternity the drama had been determined
by the Wisdom that was infinite, and it was being wrought out by an
almighty arm. Baal and Jupiter are creatures and puppets, like mere
men. History has only one interpretation. Rome--city and empire--is
the spoil of the barbarian, the antique world is going to pieces, all
its long heritage of culture, its millenniums of progress, its arts
and sciences are perishing in the vast, barbaric anarchy: why? There
is one answer, sufficient, final--God wills it. No uncertain guesses
as to the virtue of peoples, weights of battalions, resources of
countries, pressures of populations, wasteful administrations, black
deaths, impoverished provinces. There is sin to be punished. The pagan
temples of the ancient world, with their glories of art shining on
every acropolis, are blasphemy and invite destruction. Philosophers
and poets whose inspiration had once seemed divine now seem diabolic.
Those who catch the vision of the new faith, shake off the Old World
as one shakes off a dream. Talk of revolutions! No doctrines of the
rights of man have caught the imagination with such terrific force as
these doctrines of the rights of God, which from Paul to Augustine
were clothed with all the convincing logic of Hellenic genius and
Roman realism. It is hard for us Christians to realize the amount of
religion which Christianity injected into the world; not merely among
the credulous populace, on the religious _qui vive_, but among thinking
men. It saturated philosophy with dogma and turned speculation from
nature to the supernatural.
The earliest Christians cherished the belief that the world was soon
to end and lived under the shadow of the day of doom. As time went
on, this millennial hope seemed to grow fainter; but in reality it
merely took a more rigid form. It became the structural heart of the
new theology. The pageant of history, which had seemed so gloriously
wonderful, so inspiring to a Polybius back in the old heroic days,
was now a worn and sorry thing. It had no glory nor even any meaning
except in the light of the new dispensation. On the other hand the new
_patria_, the _Civitas Dei_, transcending all earthly splendor, was
absorbing, not merely the present and the future, but the past as well.
For all the tragic lines of war and suffering were now converging.
All the aimless struggling was now to show its hidden purpose. In
Christianity, the story of nations, of politics, economics, art, war,
law--in short of civilization--culminated, and ceased!
Such was the thought which underlay all Christian apologetic theology
from the first. But it received its classic statement in the _City of
God_ by Augustine, written when the city of Rome had fallen, and--if it
were not for the heretics and the barbarians--the claims of theology
seemed almost realizable. For a thousand years and more it was the
unquestioned interpretation of the meaning of history, easily adaptable
to any circumstance because it covered all. It still is found wherever
pure theology satisfies historical curiosity. That includes--or has
included--not merely theologians but most other people, for however
slight has been the interest in theology it has been greater than the
interest in scientific history, at least until recent times. Religion
has supplied the framework of our thought, and the picture of our
evolution. The most influential historians of Europe have been the
parish priests. In every hamlet, however remote, for the lowly as for
those of high degree, they have repeated the story week after week,
century after century. Greek writers and thinkers, mediæval minstrels
and modern journalists can hardly match their influence upon the mind
of the mass of men. Their tale itself was an unrivalled epic, dark
with the supreme central tragedy upon which Christendom itself rested,
rising to the keenest voicing of the hopes of life. Its very element
was miracle. No fairy story could rival its devious turns, while at
the same time the theme swept over the whole path of history--so far
as they knew or cared. It was the story of a chosen people, of divine
governance from creation to the founding of their own church, guarded
in a sacred book and interpreted from a sacred tongue.
Slowly, however, the setting of the Church had changed. The vision
of the day of judgment died away almost altogether. Men who dared to
dream apocalypses--like Joachim of Flora--or their followers were
judged heretics by a church which had planted itself _in sæculo_ and
surrounded itself with all the pomp and circumstance of temporal
power. There was still a lingering echo of the older faith, heard most
often in the solemn service for the dead. So long as the universe was
ptolemaic--the world of Dante and of Milton--the heavy chord of _dies
iræ_ would cut in upon the growing interest in the world itself. But
once the crystalline sphere was shattered by Copernicus and Galileo,
and the infinite spaces were strewn with stars like our own, the old
idea of a world to “shrivel like a parched scroll” had to be revised
and readjusted, and with it the simple conception of the divine
purpose, centred upon the centre of things, and working by direct
intervention through constant miracle. There was no sudden revolution,
the old ideas were too firmly fixed for that. Moreover, science
began to challenge the theological history of the universe before it
challenged the theological history of man himself. But when geology
began to bring in evidence of the age of our residence, and physics
achieved the incredible feat of weighing the forces and determining
the conditions which held the worlds together, then the details of the
scheme of Augustine had to be recast as well. From Augustine to Bossuet
one may trace an almost unbroken line of theological interpretations.
But some, at least, of the generation which listened to Bossuet
were also to watch Bolingbroke and Voltaire whetting the weapons of
rationalist attack.
Now what is the weakness of the theological interpretation of
history? It is of the same character as that we have seen in the
myth. The interpretation is outside of history altogether. Grant all
that theology claims, that Rome fell and England arose, that America
was discovered, or was so long undiscovered, because “God wills it.”
That does not enlarge our knowledge of the process. It satisfies
only those who believe in absolutely unqualified Calvinism--and they
are becoming few and far between. If man is a free agent, even to a
limited degree, he can find the meaning of his history in the history
itself--the only meaning which is of any value as a guide to conduct or
as throwing light upon his actions. Intelligent inquiry has free scope
within a universe of ever-widening boundaries, where nature, and not
supernature, presents its sober phenomena for patient study.
This patient study, however, had not yet been done when the
eighteenth-century deists attacked the theological scheme, and their
philosophy shares to some extent the weakness of the antique, in
its ignorance of data. Natural law took the place of an intervening
Providence; history was a process worked out by the forces of nature
moving uniformly, restless but continuous, unchecked, inevitable. The
process comprised all mankind; no chosen people, implying injustice
to those not chosen; no miracles disturbing the regularity of nature.
This was an advance toward future understanding because it concentrated
attention upon nature and the method of evolution, yet in itself
it cast but little light upon the problem. For it did not explain
details. One sees its failure most where it risked hypotheses with
most assurance, in its treatment of religion. It would not do for
philosophers to admit that religion--at least of the old, historic
type--was itself one of the laws of nature, implanted in humanity from
the beginning. Consequently it was for them a creation of priestcraft.
No dismissal of its claims could be more emphatic. Yet the old
theologies have since proved that they have at least as many natural
rights in society as the criticism of them, and now, with our new
knowledge of primitive life, dominated by religion as we see it to be,
we cast aside the rationalist conception as a distortion of history
almost as misleading as those of the mythology it tried to dispose of.
But the work of Voltaire and his school, in disrupting the old
authority of Church and Bible--bitterly denounced and blackly maligned
as it has been--is now recognized by all thinking minds, at least
by all leaders of thought, to have been an essential service in the
emancipation of the human intellect. The old sense of authority could
never afterwards, as before, block the free path of inquiry; and the
Era of Enlightenment, as it was fondly termed, did enlighten the path
which history was to take if it was to know itself. The anti-clerical
bias of Hume and Gibbon is perhaps all the casual reader perceives
in them. But where among all previous historians does one find the
attitude so genuinely historical? Moreover, in Hume we have the
foundations of psychology, and a criticism of causality which was
of the first importance. It would be tempting to linger over these
pioneers of the scientific spirit, who saw but could not realize the
possibilities of naturalism. Their own achievement, however, was so
faulty in just this matter of interpretation, that it was not difficult
for the reaction of the early nineteenth century to poke holes in their
theories, and so discredit--for the time being--their entire outlook.
Before Voltaire had learned in England the main lines of his
philosophy, a German-Scottish boy had been born in Königsberg, in
Prussia, who was destined to exercise as high if not as extended a
sovereignty over the intellect of the nineteenth century. Immanuel
Kant, however, was of a different type. He fought no ringing fights
with the old order. He simply created a new realm in metaphysics,
where one could take refuge and have the world as his own. The _idea_
dominates. Space and time, the _a priori_ forms of all phenomena, lie
within us. Mathematics is vindicated because the mind can really master
relationships, and the reason emerges from its critique to grapple
with the final problem of metaphysics. This at first sight has little
to do with interpreting history, but it proved to have a great deal to
do with it. The dominance of ideas became a fundamental doctrine among
those who speculated concerning causation in history, and metaphysics
all but replaced theology as an interpreter.
One sees this already in the work of the historian’s historian of the
nineteenth century, Leopold von Ranke. To him each age and country
is explicable only if one approaches it from the standpoint of its
own _Zeitgeist_. But the spirit of a time is more than the temporal
environment in which events are set. It is a determining factor,
clothed with the creative potency of mind. Ranke did not develop this
philosophic background of history, he accepted it and worked from
rather than towards it. His _Zeitgeist_ was a thing for historians to
portray, not to speculate about. History should concern itself with
the preservation of phenomena as they had actually existed in their
own time and place. It should recover the lost data of the past, not
as detached specimens such as the antiquary places in his museum, but
transplanted like living organisms for the preservation of the life as
well as of the organs. Now, where else should one look for the vital
forces of history than in the mind of the actors? So if the historic
imagination can restore events, not simply as they seem to us but as
they seemed to those who watched them taking place, we shall understand
them in so far as history can contribute to their understanding. In any
case this is the field of the historian. If he injects his own theories
into the operation he merely falsifies what he has already got. Let
the past stand forth once more, interpreted by itself, and we have the
truth--incomplete, to be sure, but as perfect as we shall ever be able
to attain. For, note the point, in that past, the dominating thing was
the _Zeitgeist_ itself--a thing at once to be worked out and working
out, a programme and a creative force. Why, therefore, should one turn
aside to other devices to explain history, since it explained itself if
once presented in its own light?
Ranke developed no further the implications of his theory than to
ensure a reproduction of a living past, as perfect as with the sources
at his disposal and the political instincts of his time it was possible
to secure. But this high combination of science and art had its
counterpart in the philosophy of Hegel. At first sight nothing could
be more absurd than the comparison of these two men, the one concrete,
definite, searching for minute details, maintaining his own objectivity
by insisting upon the subjectivity of the materials he handles,
the other theoretic, unhistorical, creating worlds from his inner
consciousness, presenting as a scheme of historical interpretation a
programme of ideals, unattained and, for all we know, unattainable. It
would be difficult to imagine a philosophy of history more unhistorical
than this of Hegel. Yet he but emphasized the Idea which Ranke
implicitly accepted.
Hegel was a sort of philosophic Augustine, tracing through history
the development of the realm of the spirit. The City of God is still
the central theme, but the crude expectations of a miraculous advent
are replaced by the conception of a slow realization of its spiritual
power, rising through successive stages of civilization. So he traces,
in broad philosophic outlines, the history of this revelation of the
Spirit, from its dawn in the Orient, through its developing childhood
in Asia, its Egyptian period of awakening, its liberation in Greece,
its maturity in the Roman balance of the individual and the State,
until finally Christianity, especially in the German world, carries the
spirit life to its highest expression. In this process the Absolute
reveals itself--that Absolute which had mocked the deists with its
isolation and unconcern. And it reveals itself in the Idea which
Kantian critique had placed in the forefront of reality and endowed
with the creative force of an _élan vital_. So theology, skepticism
and metaphysics combined to explain the world and its history--as the
working out of an ideal scheme.
As a series of successive ideals the Hegelian scheme may offer some
suggestions to those who wish to characterize the complex phenomena
of an age or an empire in a single phrase. But it is no statement of
any actual process. The ideals which it presents remain ideals, not
realities. History written to fit the Hegelian metaphysics would be
almost as vigorous a distortion as that which Orosius wrote to fit
Augustinian theology. The history of practical Christianity, for
instance, is a vastly different thing from the history of its ideals.
It is an open question whether the ideal could ever be deduced from
the practice, and not less questionable whether we are any nearer
realization than at the start. There has been little evidence in
outward signs of any such determinant change in the nature of politics
or in the stern enforcement of economic laws during the history of
western Europe. We find ourselves repeating in many ways experiences of
Rome and Greece--pagan experiences. Society is only partly religious
and only slightly self-conscious. How, then, can it be merely the
manifestation of a religious ideal? Surely other forces than ideals
or ideas must be at work. The weakness of Hegel’s interpretation of
history is the history. He interprets it without knowing what it
is. His interest was in the other side of his scheme, the Absolute
which was revealing itself therein. The scheme, indeed, was a sort of
afterthought. But before historians directed any sufficient criticism
against his unhistoricity, skepticism in philosophy had already
attacked his Absolute. It was the materialistic Feuerbach, with his
thoroughgoing avowal that man is the creature of his appetite and not
of his mind (_Der Mench ist was er isst_), who furnished the transition
to a new and absolutely radical line of historical interpretation--the
materialistic and the economic.
Materialism has a bad name. It has partly earned it, partly had it
thrust upon it. But whatever one may think of its cruder dogmatic
aspects, the fact remains that interpretation of history owes at
least as much to it as to all the speculations which had preceded
it. For it supplied one half the data--the material half! Neither
theology nor metaphysics had really ever got down to earth. They had
proceeded upon the theory that the determination of history is from
_above_ and from _within_ mankind, and had been so absorbed with
working out their scheme from these premises that the possibility of
determination from _around_ did not occur to them, until the physical
and biological sciences and the new problems of economics pressed it
upon their attention. To the old philosophies, this world was at best
a theatre for divine or psychic forces; it contributed no part of the
drama but the setting. Now came the claim that the environment itself
entered into the play and that it even determined the character of the
production. It was a claim based upon a study of the details from a new
standpoint, that of the commonplace, of business, and of the affairs
of daily life. The farmer’s work depends upon his soil, the miner’s
upon the pumps which open up the lower levels. Cities grow where the
forces of production concentrate, by harbors or coal-fields. A study of
plains, river valleys or mountain ranges tends to show that societies
match their environment; therefore the environment moulds them to
itself. So the nature of the struggle for existence, out of which
emerges intelligence, is determined by the material conditions under
which it is waged.
This is innocent enough. One might have expected that philosophers
would have welcomed the emphasis which the new thinkers placed upon the
missing half of their speculations. For there was no getting around
the fact that the influences of environment upon society had been
largely or altogether ignored before the scientific era forced the
world upon our view. But no. The dogmatic habits had got too firmly
fixed. If one granted that the material environment might determine
the character of the drama of history, why should it not determine
whether there should be any drama at all or not? There were extremists
on both sides, and it was battle royal--Realism and Nominalism over
again. One was to be either a Hegelian, booted and spurred, sworn,
cavalier-like, to the defence of the divine right of the Idea, or a
regicide materialist with a Calvinistic creed of irreligion! The total
result was that their mutual opinion of each other brought _both_ into
ill repute. Philosophies of history became at least as discredited as
the materialism they attacked.
Now the materialistic interpretation of history does not necessarily
imply that there is nothing but materialism in the process, any more
than theology implies that there is nothing but spirit. It will be news
to some that such was the point of view of the most famous advocate
of the materialistic interpretation of history, H. T. Buckle. His
_History of Civilization in England_ (1857-1861) was the first attempt
to work out the influences of the material world upon the formation
of societies. Every one has heard of how he developed, through a
wealth of illustration, the supreme importance of food, soil and the
general aspect of nature. But few apparently have actually read what
he says, or they would find that he assigns to these three factors an
ever-lessening function as civilization advances, that he postulates
mind as much as matter, and, with almost Hegelian vision, indicates its
ultimate control. He distinctly states that “the advance of European
civilization is characterized by a diminishing influence of physical
laws and an increasing influence of mental laws,” and that “the measure
of civilization is the triumph of the mind over external agents.” If
Buckle had presented his scheme politely, right side up, as it were,
it could hardly have had a sermon preached at it! But he prefaced it
with his opinion of theologians and historians--and few, apparently,
have ever got beyond the preface. It was not encouraging reading for
historians--a class of men who, in his opinion, are so marked out by
“indolence of thought” or “natural incapacity” that they are fit for
nothing better than writing monastic annals. There was, of course, a
storm of aggrieved protest. But now that the controversy has cleared
away, we can see that, in spite of his too confident formulation of
his laws, the work of Buckle remains as that of a worthy pioneer in a
great, unworked field of science.
Ten years before Buckle published his _History of Civilization_, Karl
Marx had already formulated the “economic theory of history.” Accepting
with reservations Feuerbach’s materialist attack upon Hegel, Marx was
led to the conclusion that the motive causes of history are to be found
in the conditions of material existence. Already in 1845 he wrote, of
the young-Hegelians, that to separate history from natural science
and industry was like separating the soul from the body, and “finding
the birthplace of history, not in the gross material production on
earth, but in the misty cloud formation of heaven.”[2] In his _Misère
de la philosophie_ (1847) he lays down the principle that social
relationships largely depend upon modes of production, and therefore
the principles, ideas, categories, which are thus evolved are no
more eternal than the relations they express, but are historical and
transitory products. From these grounds, Marx went on to socialism,
which bases its militant philosophy upon this interpretation of
history. But the truth or falseness of socialism does not affect the
theory of history. In the famous manifesto of the Communist party
(1848) the theory was applied to show how the Commercial and Industrial
Revolutions, with the attendant growth of capital, had replaced feudal
by modern conditions. This, like all history written to fit a theory,
is inadequate history, although much nearer reality than Hegel ever
got, because it dealt more with actualities. But we are not concerned
here with Marx’s own history-writing any more than with his socialism.
What we want to get at is the standpoint for interpretation. Marx
himself, in the preface to the first edition of _Capital_, says that
his standpoint is one “from which the evolution of the economic
formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history.” This
sounds like the merest commonplace. Human history is thrown in line
with that of the rest of nature. The scope is widened to include every
factor, and the greatest one is that which deals with the maintenance
of life and the attainment of comfort. So far so good. But Marx had
not been a pupil of Hegel for nothing. He, too, went on to absolutes,
simply turning Hegel’s upside down. With him “the ideal is nothing else
than the material world reflected by the human mind.”[3] The world is
the thing, not the idea. So he goes on to make man, the modifier of
nature, with growing control over it, but a function of it--a tool of
the tool, just when he has mastered it by new inventions.
But strange as it may seem, Marx’s scheme, like Buckle’s, culminates in
mind, not in matter. The first part is economic purely. The industrial
proletarians--“the workers,” as socialism fondly terms them--are,
like capitalism, the product of economic forces. The factory not only
binds the shackles upon the wage-slaves of today, it even fills the
swarming _ergastula_ of city slums by the stimulation of child labor.
So the process continues until the proletariat, as a last result of
its economic situation, acquires a common consciousness. Then what
happens? The future is not to be as the past. Consciousness means
intelligence, and as soon as the proletariat _understands_, it can
burst shackles, master economics, and so control, instead of blindly
obeying, the movement of its creative energy. Whether socialism would
achieve the object of its faith and hope is not for us to consider, but
the point remains, that in the ultimate analysis, even the economic
interpretation of history ends uneconomically. It ends in directing
intelligence, in ideals of justice, of social and moral order.
Where are we? We have passed in review the mythological, theological,
philosophical, materialistic and economic interpretations of history,
and have found that none of these, stated in its extremest form, meets
the situation. Pure theology or metaphysics omits or distorts the
history it is supposed to explain; history is not its proper business.
Materialism and economics, while more promising because more earthly,
cannot be pressed beyond a certain point. Life itself escapes their
analysis. The conclusion is this: that we have two main elements in our
problem which must be brought together--the psychic on the one hand,
the material on the other. Not until psychology and the natural and
economic sciences shall have been turned upon the problem, working in
coöperation as allies, not as rivals, will history be able to give an
intelligent account of itself. They will need more data than we have
at present. The only economics which can promise scientific results
is that based upon the statistical method, for, in spite of Bergson,
brilliant guesses can hardly satisfy unless they are verified. The
natural sciences are only beginning to show the intimate relation of
life to its environment, and psychology has hardly begun the study
of the group. But one sees already a growing appreciation of common
interests, a desire on the part of economists to know the nature of
the mechanism of the universe whose working they attempt to describe;
an inquiry from the biologist as to the validity of un-eugenic social
reform.
Now the interpretation of history lies here, with these coöperative
workers upon the mystery of life and of its environment, and their
interplay. That does not mean that history is to be explained from the
outside. More economics means more history--if it is good economics.
Marx, for instance, attempted to state both facts and processes of
industrial history, Malthus of population, Ricardo of wages, etc.
Both facts and processes are the stuff of history. The statement of
a process may be glorified into a “law,” but a “law” merely means a
general fact of history. It holds good under certain conditions, which
are either historical or purely imaginary, and it is only in the latter
case that it lies outside the field of history. It is the same with
psychology as with economics. It supplies an analysis of action, and
action is history. Explanation is more knowledge of the same thing. All
inductive study of society is historical.
The interpretations of history are historical in another sense.
Looking back over the way we have come, from Greek philosophers to
modern economists and psychologists, one can see in every case that
the interpretation was but the reflex of the local environment, the
expression of the dominant interest of the time. History became
critical in that meeting place of East and West, the Ionian coast
of Asia Minor, where divergent civilizations were opened up for
contrast with each new arrival from the south and west and where
travellers destroyed credulity. In the same way, as we have traced
it, the isolated landed society of the Middle Ages, with its absence
of business and its simple relationships, could rest complacent with
an Augustinian world-view. Nothing else was demanding explanation.
When business produced a Florence and Florence a Machiavelli, we
have a gleam of newer things, just as Voltaire and Hume mirror the
influences of Galileo, and the voyages to China. With the nineteenth
century the situation becomes more complicated, and yet one can see the
interpretation of history merely projecting into the past--or drawing
out of it--the meaning of each present major interest. Kant and Hegel
fit into the era of ideologues and nationalist romanticists; and their
implications are developed under the reaction following the French
Revolution. Buckle draws his inspiration from the trend of science
which produced--in the same year--the _Origin of Species_. Marx is the
interpreter of the Industrial Revolution.
But this does not mean that interpretations of history are nothing
more than the injection into it of successive prejudices. It means
progressive clarification. Each new theory that forces itself upon the
attention of historians brings up new data for their consideration and
so widens the field of investigation. The greater knowledge of our
world today reveals the smallness of our knowledge of the past, and
from every side scholars are hastening to make the content of history
more worthy of comparison with the content of science. From this point
of view, therefore, interpretation, instead of assuming the position of
a final judge of conduct or an absolute law, becomes only a suggestive
stimulus for further research.
We have, therefore, an historical interpretation of interpretations
themselves. It accepts two main factors, material and psychical, not
concerning itself about the ultimate reality of either. It is not its
business to consider ultimate realities, though it may be grateful
for any light upon the subject. Less ambitious than theological,
philosophical or even economic theories, it views itself as part of the
very process which it attempts to understand. If it has no ecstatic
glimpses of finality, it shares at least to the full the exhilaration
of the scientific quest. It risks no premature fate in the delusive
security of an inner consciousness. When you ask it “Why?” it answers
“What?”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This chapter is the reprint of an article in _The American
Historical Review_ for July, 1913 (Vol. XVIII, No. 4). It was first
given as a lecture in the University of Illinois in that year.
It has been added as a sort of supplementary chapter in view of
the impossibility of completing the survey of mediæval and modern
historians for some years to come.
[2] K. Marx, _Die heilige Familie_ (1845), p. 238.
[3] Quoted from the preface to the second edition of _Capital_.
INDEX
Abydos, 54 n.
Achæans, 193.
Acts, Book of, 307.
Acusilaus, 124 _sq._
_Æneid_, 219 _sqq._
Æschylus, 147, 166.
Ætolians, 193.
_Against Apion_, 120, 287 n.
Agricola, Cn. Julius, 258.
Album, 227.
Alexander, 188, 206.
Alexander Polyhistor, 76 n.
Alexandria, 32 _sq._, 45 _sq._, 49, 64, 111, 117, 131, 205, 207 n.,
209, 291.
Allegory, 53 n., 54 n., 115, 117 _sq._, 288, 290 _sqq._, 298.
Alphabet, 28, 32 _sq._, 36, 124, 134, 137, 204.
Ammianus Marcellinus, 211 _sq._, 275 _sq._
Amos, Book of, 91.
_Anabasis_, 180.
Andronicus Livius, 218.
Androtion, 188 n.
Animism, 42.
_Annales Maximi_, 213, 226 n, 227 _sq._, 230, 234.
Annals, 39, 102, 106, 217, 220, 226, 229;
Assyrian, 79, 101;
Egyptian, 51 _sq._, 55 _sq._, 58 _sqq._;
Mediæval, 9, 30 n., 143;
Monastic, 238;
Origin of, 38;
Priestly, 45;
Profane, 305;
Rome, 31, 39, 187 n., 213, 226 _sqq._, 238, 252 _sq._, 259, 264,
266, 276;
Royal, 45, 81, 101;
Sacred, 305.
Anthropology, 11, 15 n., 19, 21 n., 26 n., 40, 86, 89 n., 110 n.,
236.
Antiochus, 125.
Antipater, L. Cœlius, 214, 234 _sq._
Antiochus Epiphanes, 110, 120.
Antonines, 208.
Antonius, Marcus, 212 _sqq._
Apion, 120 n., 123.
Apocalypse, Book of, 284 n.
Apocalypses, 105, 114, 116.
Apocrypha, 112 n.
Apollodorus, 50 n., 207 n., 238.
Appian, 209, 275.
Aquila, 112 n., 291.
Aratus, 193.
Archæology, 9, 12 _sqq._, 26 n., 29 n., 51 _sq._, 66, 71, 113, 128
_sq._, 157 _sq._, 170.
Aristotle, 7, 33, 128, 136, 188 n., 203, 214, 322.
Arrian, 209, 275.
Asellio, P. Sempronius, 229 n., 234.
Ashur-bani-pal, 31, 69, 74.
Ashur-nasir-pal III, 72 _sq._
Assyria, 26 n., 44 _sqq._, 66, 69, 72 _sqq._, 80, 100 _sq._, 121
n., 126, 129, 134, 230, 285.
Astronomy, 40 _sqq._
Astruc, J., 113.
Athens, 7, 49, 50 n., 82, 135 n., 142 _sqq._, 182 _sqq._, 198, 214,
216 n., 264, 305 n.
Attalus, 50 n.
_Atthides_, 125, 187 n., 188 n.
Atticus, T. Pomponius, 238 n., 239.
Augustine, St., 105, 112 n., 220, 237, 239, 313, 322 _sqq._, 327
_sq._;
(_Confessions of_), 105, 313;
(_The City of God_), 313, 323.
Augustus. (_See_ Cæsar.)
Babylon, 2, 12 n., 16, 22 n., 26 n., 29, 37 _sq._, 41 _sqq._, 66
_sqq._, 81, 93, 95, 100, 102, 126, 129, 134, 146 _sq._, 154
_sq._, 188, 225 n.
Beaufort, L. de, 217 n.
Behistun, 74 _sq._
Bergson, H., 317, 333.
Berossos, 66 n., 76 _sqq._, 126.
Beth-Omri, 100.
Bible, 13 n., 32 n., 54 n., 80 _sqq._, 90 _sqq._, 101 _sqq._, 113,
155, 160, 291 _sq._, 295, 298, 302, 305, 325;
Christian, 112;
Hebrew, 102, 111, 112 n.;
Greek, 111 _sq._, 121.
Biography, 5 _sq._, 104, 146, 180, 209, 259, 273 _sqq._, 279, 312,
315;
(Autobiography), 239.
Bossier, G., 259, 268 n., 274.
Bossuet, 298, 324.
Botsford, G. W., 129 n.
Breasted, J. H., 9, 46, 60 _sq._
Buckle, H. T., 330 _sqq._
Brutus, M. Junius, 192 n., 238, 248.
Bury, J. B., 179 n.
Cadmus, 124, 137 n.
Cæsar, C. Julius, 49 n., 184, 227 n., 238.
Cæsar Octavianus, C. Julius, (Augustus), 49, 121 n., 208, 219, 221
n., 230, 241, 248, 251, 269.
Calendar, 22 n., 27, 38, 40 _sqq._, 48, 56 n., 141 _sq._, 170
_sq._, 229 _sq._;
Egyptian, 45 _sqq._;
Greek farming, 49;
Lunar, 44, 47 _sq._;
Roman, 43, 48 _sq._, 227.
Callisthenes, 214.
Callius, 125.
Canon, of Old Testament, 104 n., 109;
of Ptolemy, 45 _sq._;
of Scriptures, 114.
Carlyle, T., 1, 8, 24.
Carthage, 192 _sqq._, 232, 263.
Cassius Dio Coccejanus. (_See_ Dion Cassius.)
Cassius Longinus, C., 248.
Castor of Rhodes, 207 n., 301 n., 305 n.
Cato, M. Porcius, 213, 231 _sqq._, 235 _sq._, 243, 244 n.
Catulus, Q. Lutatius, 213.
Celsus, 280, 294 _sqq._
Censorinus, 46.
Christianity, 114, 279, n., 280, 282, 285, 287, 289, 290 n., 293
_sq._, 296, 310, 321 _sqq._, 328.
Chronicle, 38 _sq._, 59, 70 _sqq._, 101 _sq._, 207 n., 219, 238 n.,
301, 306.
Chronicles, Book of, 83 n., 84 n., 101 _sq._, 104, 110 n.
Chronology, 27, 40, 45, 47 _sq._, 123, 141 _sqq._, 170, 174, 185,
187 n., 284 n., 287 _sq._, 298, 301 _sq._, 307;
Biblical, 98, 305,
Chaldæan, 305;
Christian, 63, 207 n., 298, 301 n.;
Egyptian, 45, n. _sqq._, 54, 56 n., 76;
Greek, 49 _sq._, 187, 207 n., 305;
Roman, 244, 305.
Cicero, M. Tullius, 24, 35, 180, 185, 186 n., 200, 206, 211 _sqq._,
215 _sq._, 219, 221 n., 225 _sqq._, 331 _sqq._;
(_Brutus_), 186 n., 215 _sqq._, 225, 232 _sq._;
(_De Oratore_), 186 n., 212 _sqq._;
(_On the Nature of the Gods_), 320.
Cnossus, 128 _sq._, 170.
Codex, 34. n. _sq._, 187.
_Commentarii Pontificum_, 227.
Constantine, 303 _sq._, 308, 311 _sq._
_Constitution of Athens_, 188 n.
Corinth, 159, 189, 194, n.
Cornford, F. M., 174 _sq._
Crassus, L. Licinius, 212.
Cratippus, 186 n.
Crete, 13 n., 128, 134, 283.
Crœsus, 136, 147, 150, 159.
Ctesius of Cnidus, 76.
Cuneiform, 13, 66, 74 _sq._, 101.
Cycle, 56 n.;
Astronomical, Luni-solar, 19-year, 48;
8-year, 48;
of the Olympiad, 49 _sq._;
Sothic, 47.
Daniel, Book of, 83 n., 84 n., 110, n.
Dante, 23, 145, 220 _sq._, 324.
Darius, 74 n., 75 n., 134, 147 _sqq._, 153, 158 n., 160.
Darwin, C., 4, 292;
(_Origin of Species_), 334.
David, 79, 98 _sqq._, 102, 105, 110, 284 n., _sq._, 306.
Decalogue, 79.
Deists, 325, 328.
Delphi, Oracle of Apollo, 83, 159.
Demosthenes, 183.
Descartes, 175, 212.
Deuteronomist, 92 _sq._, 96, 98.
Deuteronomy, Book of, 83 n., 92, 96 n., 97 n.
Diaspora, 117, 188, 290, 301.
Diodorus Siculus, 49 n., 76 n., 185 n., 187 n., 207 _sqq._
Dion Cassius, 209, 211, 275.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 142 n., 195 n., 208.
Diptych, 30 n.
Easter, 44.
Ecclesiastes, Book of, 84 n., 110 n.
Ecclesiasticus, Book of. (_See_ Proverbs....)
Economics, 170, 173, 183, 315, 321, 323, 329, 332 _sqq._
Egypt, 2, 9, 12 n., 26 n., 28 _sqq._, 37, 42 _sq._, 46 _sq._, 49
_sqq._, 79 _sqq._, 90, 95, 117, 124, 126, 134, 136, 139
_sq._, 146 _sqq._, 153 _sqq._, 204, 207, 225 n., 259, 262 n.,
285, 295 n., 306.
Egyptologists, 46, 55 n., 56 n., 59, 63 n.
Elohist, 89 _sqq._
Ennius, 219, 229 n.
Ephorus, 125, 128, 185 _sqq._, 214, 239.
Epic, 6, 10, 17, 23 _sq._, 27, 69, 129, 133, 204, 300;
Babylonian, 9, 69;
Christian, 9;
Greek, 9;
Homeric, 69, 129, 183, 317;
Minoan, 128;
Vergilian, 237.
Epictetus, 209.
Epigraphy, 29 n.
Eratosthenes, 50 n., 206, 207 n.
Eschatology, 284 n.
Esther, Book of, 84 n., 110 n. _sq._
Eumenes II, 34.
Eusebius, 50 n., 63, 76 n. _sqq._, 130 n., 142, 207 n., 248, 284
n., 292, 297 n., 300 n., 302 _sqq._;
(_The Chronicle_), 76 n., 130 n., 304 _sqq._;
(_The Ecclesiastical History_), 304, 308 _sqq._;
(_The Life of Constantine_), 311 _sqq._
Exodus, Book of, 83 n.
Ezekiel, Book of, 83 n., 92 n., 104 n., 108.
Ezra, Book of, 83 n. _sq._, 102 _sqq._, 110 n.
Fabia, P., 269 n.
Fabii, 219, 231, 257.
Fabius Pictor, Q., 196, 213, 219, 230 _sq._, 235, 253.
_Fasti Calendares_, 227, 229.
_Fasti Consulares_, 227, 230.
_Fasti Triumphales_, 230 n.
Feuerbach, L. A., 329, 331.
Folk-lore, 23, 25 _sqq._, 87 n., 97 n., 130.
Fortunatus, Venantius, 30 n.
Fowler, W. W., 217.
Froissart, 94.
Froude, J. A., 8.
Galileo, 324, 334.
Gellius, Aulus, 229 n., 232, 275.
Gemara, 115 n.
Genealogy, 26, 38 _sq._, 80, 94 n., 103 n., 137 _sqq._, 142, 159,
300.
Genesis, Book of, 68, 80, 83 n., 86, 88, 94 n., 95, 100, 119, 155,
283 n., 292, 302, 318.
Geography, 40, 136 _sq._, 139 _sqq._, 143, 150, 159, 181, 198, 206
_sq._, 244, 252, 255.
Georgius Syncellus, 46 n., 50 n., 305 n.
_Germania_, 258, 261, 266 n.
Gibbon. E., 8, 276, 308, 326.
Gilgamesh, 69, 156.
Gnosticism, 293.
Greece, 2, 6, 7 n., 9, 25 n., 31 _sq._, 34, 41, 43, 45, 47 _sqq._,
73 _sq._, 75, 78, 82 _sq._, 95, 117 _sq._, 120 _sqq._, 124
_sqq._, 128 _sqq._, 138 _sqq._, 142 _sq._, 145 n. _sqq._, 153
_sqq._, 160, 163 _sq._, 166 _sq._, 170 _sqq._, 175 _sq._,
179 _sqq._, 191 _sqq._, 197 _sq._, 200 _sq._, 202 _sq._, 205
_sqq._, 212 _sqq._, 221, 231 _sq._, 264, 266, 278, 287, 291
_sq._, 294, 297 n., 300 _sq._, 305 _sq._, 318 _sq._, 322,
328, 333.
Gregory of Tours, 94, 261.
Grimm, J. L., 25 n.
Grimm, W., 25 n.
Hagiographa, 109, 115 n.
Halicarnassus, 7 n., 142 n. _sq._, 144 _sqq._, 160, 195 n., 208.
Hammurabi, 66, 70 n.
Hecatæus of Miletus, 10, 47, 55 n., 76 n., 137 _sqq._, 146, 154.
Hegel, G. W., 94, 327 _sq._, 330 _sqq._, 334.
Hellanicus, 125, 142 n., 170, 187 n., 213.
_Hellenica_, 181 _sq._, 186 n.
Hera, List of priestesses of, 49, 142.
Heracleitus, 293.
Herder, J. G., 25 n.
Herodotus, 2, 7 _sqq._, 12, 32, 34, 37, 47, 49 n., 62 _sqq._, 76
n., 82, 88 _sq._, 95, 117, 121, 129, 133, 137 n., 139 _sqq._,
144 _sqq._, 149 _sqq._, 160, 162 _sqq._, 166 _sqq._, 171
_sq._, 176 _sq._, 179, 182, 191, 198 _sq._, 207 _sq._, 214,
219, 248, 250 _sq._, 257, 266 n., 276, 278, 285, 297, 302,
306 _sq._, 311, 314;
(_The History_), 147.
Hesiod, 43, 49, 82, 125, 131 _sq._, 135, 137.
Hexapla, 112 n.
Hexateuch, 83 n., 86, 96, 108.
Hieroglyphs, 13 _sq._, 28 _sq._, 36, 38, 53, 56 _sq._, 60 n.
Historiography, 2, 156, 184, 286, 288, 300;
Antique, 103, 123, 177, 203, 206, 250, 270, 276;
Christian, 54 n., 282, 288, 289, 292, 296, 301, 308;
Greek, 123, 129 n., 152 n., 202 _sq._, 210, 213;
Hebrew, 63, 86, 100, 103, 106, 126;
Roman, 213, 218 n., 229, 236, 239.
History, Ancient, 36, 113;
Antique, 166, 170, 276, 289;
Anthropological, 16;
Argolic, 125;
Babylonian, 170;
Biblical, 298;
as branch of literature, 1, 7, 52;
Christian, 289 _sq._, 296, 298, 302 _sqq._;
Church, 290, 302, 304;
of Civilization, 134, 205;
Constitutional, 173;
Comparative, 287;
Contemporary, 163, 205, 276;
Cultural, 173;
Definition of, 195 _sq._;
Divine, 58;
Economic, 59;
of Egypt, 52, 62 _sqq._, 170;
of Geography, 206;
Greek, 49 n. _sq._, 128, 133, 159, 179, 182, 205 _sq._, 253 n.;
Hebrew, Jewish, 81, 90, 97 n., 101 _sq._, 106 _sq._, 116, 120,
123, 289 n., 290 n., 298;
Interpretation of, 100, 315 _sqq._;
(Allegorical), 287;
(Antique), 322;
(Economic, Materialistic), 173, 329 _sqq._;
(Historical), 334;
(Mythological), 317 _sqq._, 332;
(Philosophical), 320 _sq._, 326 _sqq._, 332;
(Theological), 322 _sqq._, 332;
of Israel, 113, 292;
Latin, 276;
Legendary, 24;
Meaning of, 2 _sqq._, 136;
Mediæval, 36;
Modern, 163;
“Natural,” 4;
of XIX Century, 183;
Oriental, 253 n.;
Origins, 10 _sq._;
Pagan, 296;
Persian, 179;
Philosophy of, 132, 197, 221;
of Philosophy, 203;
Pragmatic, 201;
Pre-Christian, 286;
Prehistoric, 11, 12 _sqq._;
Political, 133, 172, 179 n.;
Profane, 305;
Roman, 209, 217, n., 219, 225 _sq._, 264, 276;
Sacred, 305;
Science of, 169;
Scientific, 260, 281;
Sicilian, 125;
Universal, 179, 199, 238 _sq._, 255, 299, 305.
Homer, 2, 17 _sq._, 23, 25, n., 33, 128 _sqq._, 137, 139, 140
_sq._, 145, n., 183, 218 _sqq._, 284, 312, 317, 320.
Horace. (_See_ Horatius Flaccus, Q.)
Horatius Flaccus, Q., 248.
Hosea, Book of, 91, 92 n.
Hume, D., 326, 334.
Ihne, W., 218 n.
_Iliad_, 82, 129 n., 131, 135.
Inscriptions, 13 _sq._, 29, 37 _sq._, 51 _sq._, 157, 226 n., 231;
Assyrian, 72, 74 _sq._, 100;
Babylonian, 71 _sq._;
Behistun (_see_ Persian);
Cuneiform, 66, 74, 101;
Egyptian, 31, 52, 61 _sq._;
(Palermo Stone), 55 _sqq._;
Greek, 170, 226 n.;
Persian (Behistun), 74, n., 75, n.
Interpretation of History. (_See_ History, Interpretation of.)
Ionia, 6 _sq._, 41, 133, 135, 139, 144, 146 _sqq._, 150, 278, 281.
Isocrates, 182, 185 _sqq._, 203, 214, 231, 234, 252.
Israel, 81, 83, n., 90, 94, 99, 101 _sq._, 104 n., 107, 113, 285,
292, 298.
Jahvist, 88 _sqq._
Jamnia, 110 n.
Jeremiah, 283 n.;
Book of, 83 n., 104.
Jerome, St., 50 n., 111 _sq._, 221 n., 279 n., 291 _sq._, 304 n.,
305 _sqq._
Jews, 7. n., 44, 67, 79 _sq._, 83, 95, 102 _sqq._, 108, 110 _sq._,
115, 117 _sq._, 120 _sqq._, 157, 221, 279, 282, 284, 285.
Job, Book of, 84 n., 110 n.
Josephus, 63 _sq._, 76 n., 78, 83 n., 103 n., 110 n., 111, 114, 119
_sqq._, 208, 287 n., 302;
(_Against Apion_), 110 n., 120, 123;
(_The Antiquities of the Jews_), 120 _sqq._;
(_The Wars of the Jews_), 120 _sq._
Joshua, Book of, 83 n., 86, 96 _sqq._, 104, 110 n.
Journalism, 28, 38, 136, 180 _sq._, 183, 205, 264.
Judges, Book of, 83, 97 _sqq._, 100, 104, 110 n.
Judith, Book of, 111 _sq._
Julius Africanus, 50 n., 63, 284 n., 300 n. _sq._, 305 n.
Julius Cæsar. (_See_ Cæsar.)
Junianus Justinus, M., 239.
Justin Martyr, 130 n.
Justus of Tiberius, 301.
Kant, I., 326, 328, 334.
Karnak 54 n.
Kings, Book of, 83, 86, 88, 93 n., 98, 101 _sq._, 104, 110 n.
Lamentations, Book of, 84 n., 110 n.
Law, 108 _sqq._, 117.
(_See_ Pentateuch.)
Legend, 2, 6, 17, 22 _sqq._, 54, 86 _sq._, 90, 93, 95, 97 n., 100,
102 n., 106, 111, 129, 137, 163, 217, 219, 225, 298, 301.
Leviticus, Book of, 83 n.
Libraries, 28 _sq._, 33 n., 71, 183, 187, 238;
Alexandrian, 32 _sq._, 50, 64, 205;
Assyrian, 31, 69, 74;
at Jerusalem, 311;
Mediæval, 118 n.;
of Pamphilus, 303;
at Pergamum, 34.
_Libri Lintei_, 230.
_Libri Magistratuum_, 230.
_Libri Pontificum_, 227.
Livius, T., 1 _sq._, 184, 191, 205, 208 _sq._, 211, 215, 217, 219,
227, 229 n., 231, 234 n., 239, 243, 247 _sqq._, 262 _sq._,
269, 278, 284, 320;
(_Ab Urbe Condita_), 249, 251.
Livy. (_See_ Livius, T.)
Logographer, 136 _sq._, 140 _sqq._, 159, 163, 301 _sq._, 320.
_Logos_, 109 n., 136, 149, 153, 157, 250, 293.
Lucretius Carus, T., 23, 220 _sqq._, 237, 321;
(_De Rerum Natura_), 220 _sq._
Lucullus, L. Licinius, 240.
Macan, R. W., 149, 158 n.
Macaulay, T. B., 8, 154, 175, 186.
Maccabees, 110, 115;
Book of, 105, 112.
Macer, C. Licinius, 234.
Machiavelli, 255, 334.
Malthus, T. R., 333.
Manetho, 62 _sqq._, 76 n., 126, 302.
Marx, K., 331 _sqq._
Meton, 48.
Meyer, E., 46, 167.
Michelet, J., 8.
Middle Ages, 21, 33 n., 35, 46 n., 53 n., 146 n., 202, 211, 239,
247 n., 253, 275, 298, 312, 333.
Millennium, 283 n., 284 n.
Minoan Era, Period, 13 n., 128, 129 n.;
Life, 129 n.;
Script, 129.
Mishnah, 115.
Mommsen, T., 218 n., 262 n.
Moses, 79, 83, 87 _sq._, 90, 93 _sq._, 96, 99 n., 108, 114, 115 n.,
118, 122, 130, 287, 293, 295, 297 n., 301, 305, 313.
Myth, 10, 16 _sqq._, 54, 67, 69, 76 _sqq._, 87 _sq._, 91, 95, 110
n., 130, 133, 135, 138, 163, 185, 217, 220 _sqq._, 226 n.,
231, 300, 317 _sqq._
Nabonassar, 45, 76;
Era of, 45 n.
Nævius, Cn., 219.
Nehemiah, Book of, 83 n., 84 n., 93 n., 94 n., 102 _sqq._, 110 n.
Nepos, Cornelius, 231, 238 n., 248 n.
New Testament, 83 n., 112 n., 114 _sq._, 289, 292 _sq._
Nicholas of Damascus, 120 n., 121 n., 208.
Niebuhr, B. G., 212, 217 n., 247.
Numa, Calendar of, 43.
_Octaëteris_, 48.
_Odyssey_, 129 n., 131, 218.
Ogygos, 142.
Old Testament, 21, 21, 54 _sq._, 80 _sq._, 88 _sq._, 92, 98, 104
_sq._, 108, 110 _sqq._, 114, 116, 121, 130, 176, 188, 285,
287, 289 _sq._, 294, 298, 301.
Olympiad, 50, 193, 307.
Omri, 100.
Orations, in History. (_See_ Speeches.)
Oratory, 176 _sq._, 183 _sqq._, 211, 213 _sqq._, 231, 238.
Origen, 112, 118, 284 n., 291 _sqq._, 302 _sqq._, 307, 313.
Orosius, 239, 328.
_Oxyrhynchus Papyri_, 186 n.
Pais, E., 218 n.
Palæography, 29 n., 36.
Palermo Stone, 55 _sqq._
Pamphilus of Cæsarea, 303 _sq._, 311 _sq._
Panodorus, 45 n.
Papyrus, 29, 31 _sqq._, 81 n., 170, 186, 204 _sq._;
Harris, 53 n.;
Oxyrhynchus, 186 n.;
Tebtunis, 62 n.;
Turin, 63 n.
Parchment, 31, 33 _sqq._, 204.
Paul, St., 281 _sq._, 286, 293, 322.
Paulus, L. Æmilius, 192.
Pelham, H. F., 251, 255.
Pentateuch, 79, 83 n., 86 _sqq._, 96, 100 n., 104, 106, 111 n., 118
n., 155.
Pergamum, 34, 50 n., 204.
Pericles, 8, 32, 133, 146, 165, 167, 257.
Peter, H., 192 n.
Pherecydes, 124, 213.
Philistus, 125, 214, 232.
Philo Judæus, 83 n., 117 _sqq._, 291 _sq._
Philocorus, 188 n.
Philology, 25 n., 113, 130, 236, 253, 306.
Philosophy, 1, 2, 5, 7, 24, 101 n., 118, 120 n., 123, 138 _sq._,
179 _sqq._, 188, 195 _sqq._, 203, 205, 207, 212, 215, 221,
264, 285, 290 _sqq._, 302, 315, 320 _sqq._, 327, 329, 333.
Photius, 185.
Plato, 17, 82, 130 n., 181, 183, 203 _sq._, 264, 295, 297 n.
Plautus, T. Maccius, 230.
Plinius Secundus, C., 236, 260 n.
Plinius Cæcilius Secundus, C., 258 _sq._, 274.
Pliny. (_See_ Plinius.)
Plutarch, 207 _sqq._, 240, 273, 279.
Poetry, 6, 23 _sqq._, 110, 116, 132, 142, 169, 174, 176 _sq._, 179,
183, 204, 217 _sq._, 220 _sqq._, 225 _sq._, 285.
Polybius, 7, 121, 127, 136, 182, 185, 187, 191 _sqq._, 211, 216
_sq._, 231, 235, 243 _sq._, 250, 253 n., 255, 278, 284 _sq._,
303, 320 _sq._, 323.
_Pontifex Maximus_, 30, 226, 228, 232, 234.
Pompeius Magnus, Cn., p. 240.
Pompey. (_See_ Pompeius Magnus, Cn.)
Porphyry, 141 n., 297 n.
Posidonius, 203 n., 206 _sq._
Prehistory, 12 _sqq._, 19.
Prophecy, 83, 108 _sqq._, 114 _sq._, 117.
Proverbs, Book of, 84 n., 110 n., 111;
of Ben Sira, 111 _sq._
Psalms, Book of, 79, 84 n., 88, 110 n., 283 n., 293.
Ptolemy (Ptolemæus, Claudius), Canon of, 45, 46 n.
Ptolemy I, 32.
Ptolemy II, 32 n.
Ptolemy VI, 34.
Punt, 22 n., 62 n.
Pyramid Texts, 67.
Quadrigarius, Q. Claudius, 234 n.
Quintilian. (_See_ Quintilianus, M. Fabius.)
Quintilianus, M. Fabius, 252.
Ranke, L. von, 80, 175, 200, 326 _sq._
Rawlinson, Sir H., 75.
Regia, 30, 226 _sqq._, 232.
Rhetoricians, 177, 179, 182 _sqq._, 203, 206 _sqq._, 214 _sqq._,
232, 244, 276.
Rome, 2, 21, 25 n., 30 _sq._, 41, 43, 48 _sqq._, 82, 120 _sq._,
127, 135, 155, 164, 175, 179, 184, 187 n., 191 _sqq._, 197
_sq._, 200, 205 _sq._, 208 _sqq._, 211 _sqq._, 217 _sqq._,
225 _sqq._, 236, 239 _sqq._, 247 _sqq._, 251 _sqq._, 257,
259, 261, 263 _sqq._, 270, 275 _sq._, 278 _sq._, 306 _sq._,
316, 323, 325, 328.
Rosetta Stone, 75.
Ruth, Book of, 84 n., 88 n., 110 n.
Saga, 129, 131 _sq._
Sakkara, 54 n.
Sallust. (_See_ Sallustius Crispus, C.)
Sallustius Crispus, C., 211, 215, 235, 239, 241 _sqq._, 248, 250,
308.
Samuel, Book of, 83, 98 _sq._, 100 n., 104, 110 n.
Scævola, P. Mucius, 213 n., 228, 234.
Scaliger, J., 305 n., 306 n.
Scipio, 192, 211, 231.
Scipio Æmilianus Africanus Minor, P. Cornelius, 189, 192, 195, 198.
Scipio Africanus Maior, P. Cornelius, 219, 234.
_Scriptores Historiae Augustae_, 275.
Septuagint, 112, 121, 191.
Servius Maurus Honoratus, 227 _sqq._
Severus, Sulpicius, 298.
Sisenna, L. Cornelius, 234, 245 n.
Socrates, 175, 181 _sq._, 204, 214.
Speeches, 213, 216;
in Cæsar, 184;
in Cato, 231;
in Ephorus, 185;
in _Hellenica_, 186 n.;
in Herodotus, 159 _sq._;
in Livy, 184, 252 _sq._;
in Thucydides, 167, 172, 175 _sq._, 184, 186 n.
Strabo, 185 n., 203 n., 206 _sq._
Suetonius Tranquillus, C., 211, 273 _sqq._
Suidas, 146 n.
Symbolism. (_See_ Allegory.)
Symmachus, 112 n., 291.
Syncellus. (_See_ Georgius Syncellus.)
Taboo, 27, 37, 41, 43, 94, 98, 109.
Tacitus, C. Cornelius, 2, 121 _sq._, 191, 209, 211 _sq._, 215, 226
_sq._, 229, n., 243, 257 _sqq._, 273 _sq._, 276, 278 _sq._,
308;
(_The Annals_), 229, 259, 264, 276;
(_Germania_), 258;
(_The Histories_), 258, 264, 267, 276;
(_The Life of Agricola_), 258.
Taine, H., 248.
Talmud, Babylonian, 114 _sq._, 284 n.;
Jerusalem, 115.
Tatian, 287 n.
Tertullian, 311.
Theagenes of Rhegium, 290.
Theodotian, 112 n., 291.
Theopompus, 186 _sqq._, 214, 233, n., 239.
Thucydides, 1, 8, 23, 33, 49, 92, 125, 141 _sq._, 157, 160, 162
_sqq._, 184, 186, n., 191, 195 n., 199, 212, 214 _sq._, 233
_sqq._, 240, 243 _sq._, 257, 264, 278, 284, 306, 321;
(_History of the Peloponnesian War_), 166.
Timæus, 50, 125, 187, n., 198, 201, 206, 214.
Tobit, Book of, 112.
Treitschke, H. von, 186.
Trogus, Pompeius, 239.
Valerius Antias, Q., 234, n.
Varro, M. Terentius, 34, 236 _sqq._, 253, 273, 292, 306.
Vergil. (_See_ Vergilius Maro, P.)
Vergilius Maro, P., 54 n., 211, 218 _sqq._, 224, 227, 229, n., 237,
248.
Verrius Flaccus, M., 229 n.
Voltaire, 138, 319, 321, 324 _sqq._, 334.
Wells, H. G., 238 _sq._
Wisdom, Book of, 111 _sq._
Wissowa, G., 217.
Wolf, F. A., 130 n.
Writing, 14, n., Chap. III, 102;
Socrates on the invention of, 204.
Xenophanes, 135, 138.
Xenophon, 73, 163 n., 179 _sqq._, 182, 184, 186 n., 214 _sq._;
(_Anabasis_), 180 _sq._;
(_Hellenica_), 181 _sq._;
(_Memorabilia_), 181.
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