The Historians' History of the World 06

Such are the estimates placed upon the work of Livy by those who view him from the coldly analytical standpoint of the technical historian. But we must not leave the greatest writer of Latin prose without seeking a more sympathetic interpretation of his influence. Let us turn to the estimate of one who was himself an historian kindred in spirit to Livy—one who approached history from the standpoint of the artist and humanitarian,—M. Taine. Here is his estimate of

LIVY AS THE ARTISTIC LIMNER OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE

There are three ways of representing character [says Taine]: the author may stop to think and compose a portrait, in a philosophical style, as Thucydides does; one may paint people by their actions, a method followed by Tacitus and the poets; or he may portray them by exposing their opinions in speeches; this is Livy’s and the orator’s talent.

The finest of all his portraits is that of the Roman people. Each speech, each oratorical narrative revises and perfects it, and it is easily seen that Livy has not taken it from the ancient authors but that it is entirely his own. In the combat of Horatius Cocles, what pride and what vigour! It is not likely that the Romans in one year had become such unruly republicans. But how well the fable is hidden under a noble passion! Throwing towards the chiefs of the Etruscans savage and threatening glances, sometimes provoking them one after another, sometimes insulting them collectively.“Slaves of insolent kings, forgetting your own liberty, you come to attack that of others!” If this passage is theatrical, it is grand, and eloquence nobly adorns “the beginning of this liberty.”

Dionysius makes Mucius an ingenious Greek, who terrifies good Porsenna and saves himself by a stratagem with a double result. In Livy Mucius is a hero. “Seized by the guards and brought before the king’s court, even then, in the midst of such dangers, he was more to be feared than to be frightened. ‘I am a Roman citizen,’ he said, ‘I am called C. Mucius, enemy. I wished to kill an enemy, and I am as ready to die as to kill. A Roman can dare all and suffer all. I am but the first to bring against thee their courage; behind me is a long train of men who seek the same honour. Prepare thyself if thou wilt, for the struggle. At each hour, thou wilt fight for life and thou wilt have a dagger and an enemy in the vestibule of thy palace. We young men declare this kind of war against thee. Fear neither army nor combat, this affair is between each of us and thee alone.’

“The king, at the same time excited by anger and terrified by fear, ordered him to be surrounded by flames, if he did not at once explain these ambiguous threats of conspiracy. ‘Look,’ said Mucius, ‘in order to understand what a small thing the body is to those who behold a great glory.’ He put his hand in a brasier lighted for the sacrifice, and left it there, as if unconscious of the pain.” In Dionysius, Clœlia asks the guards permission to bathe, requests them to withdraw a little whilst she disrobes herself, and then quietly crosses the Tiber. In reading the inventions of clever poltroonery, one respects Livy for having written as a Roman.

It is pride and not interest which makes the Roman people revolt against a master. See in what manner Cincinnatus judges tyranny. Does Livy forget that he lived under Augustus? When Melius was stretched out on the market-place, “He has been justly killed,” says the dictator; “a man should not be treated as a citizen, who, born of a free people, in the centre of privileges and laws, conceived the hope of ruling, knowing that kings had been driven from that city; that the same year, the king’s nephews, sons of the consul who liberated the country, being denounced for having plotted to re-establish kings, had been beheaded with an axe by their father; and that the Consul Tarquinus Collatinus, in hatred of his very name, had been obliged to leave his magistracy to go into exile.”