that no way of writing is more instructive and apter in that respect to contenâ— the mind of the Readers We learn from Suidas that his History by an excellency of Title was sometimes termed Basilick or Royal. And his Roman History which he writ in Twenty Four Books from Aeneas and the Taking of Troy to the Foundation of Rome contains in the first thereof the Goverment of its Seven Kings as may be conjectured by the Text of Photius Florus his Epitome is indeed composed of Wars and actions seperated one from the other but Appian has represented them more intirely how long soever any of them endured whereas the Other confounds his relations in the mixtures of them as in the First Second and Third Punick Wars he shuffles together all the affairs of the Romans with the Gaules Ligurians Macedonians and many other People with whom they had contest in the interval of those Two cessations of Arms which happened betwixt the Carthaginians and them But this favourable judgment of Photius in Appians behalf does not restrain Bodin from accusing both his memory and judgment in the matter of his History for this bold Censurer asserts that the Romans did never lend their Wives one to the other according to the custome of the Parthians and Lacedemonians and imputes therein too much credulity to Appian Though Plutarch hath written the same thing affirming that Cato freely sent his Wife to Hortensius the Oratour to raise of her an issue to him nor is the Law of Romulus or that against Adulterers mentioned by Aulus Gellius repugnant to this practise as Bodin unadvisedly imagins He taxes him likewise to have made Caesar say in his Second Book of the Civil Wars of Rome certain expressions which were not uttered by him but Pompey in a threatning speech which he used to the Senate when he put his hand on his Sword and told them if they would not grant him the things he desired that Sword should purchase them but this may be ascribed to a failure of memory to which all mankind is subject as also another error which he notes of him in mistaking Calphurnia for Pompeia that Wife of Caesar which was vitiated in the Temple called by the Romans the Temple of the good Goddess But Sigonius is more indecent who arraigns him of levity and many omissions without alledging any proof or instance thereof And Scaliger is not less bold in the censure that he makes of him in his Animadversions on the History of Eusebins where he saies he would appear to be a Child in the business of History were it not that an infinity of matters are added to his Treatise of the Wars of Syria Yet though I approve not of these reflections I presume one may truly impure it to him as a fault in all his works that he too much flatters the Romans alwaies making the right as well as the advantage to be on their side to the prejudice of all other Nations in the world with whom they were concerned as well as of his own Native Country And we may add to this that he often attributes to himself the labours of others transcribing many Paragraphs and intire Sentences of Polybius Plutarch and other Authors more Antient and inserting them in his Book without citing their Texts to render them that acknowledgment which is due to their merit on such occasions And some affirm that he in like manner transcribed the greatest part of the Commentaries of Augustus which contained as Suetonins relates the principal actions of his life This is indeed a sort of theft not to be allowed Deprehendi in furto malle quam mutuum reddere As Pliny saies to Vespatian on the same subject and Scaliger on this occasion calls him alienorum laborum fucum in resemblance to a certain sort of Flies which nourish themselves with the honey of others I have read in some Author that the Rhodians when they had a purpose to honour the memory of any well deserving person by having his Statue erected in some publick place were used only to take the head from some of the old Statues in their City and put a new one in the place of it of the Figure of him they designed to represent Those that steal from the writings of others do the same thing as those Rhodians did but in a more ridiculous fashion for by putting their names to other mens Works hoping thereby to acquire honour to themselves they ordinarily instead thereof reap only shame and contempt for so sordid a practise This matter calls to my remembrance an abuse which was put upon Diomedes by his friend Alcibiades to whom he committed the charge of conveying his Horses to the Olympick games for by changing the inscription which belonged to them and making them to run in the name of Alcibiades he took to himself the honour of the victory they acquired which was not of small consequence at that time and to complaet his deceit was so unjust to retain them to himself without ever making restitution to Diomedes who trusted him therewith What greater treachery can there be in respect to letters than to ascribe to our selves the productions of others when instead of yeilding the glory to those by whose thoughts we have profited we would have those very conceptions pass for the pure inventions of our own wit The figurative expression of Plagiary which the Latins give to those that are guilty of a Crime so abject and odious sufficiently denotes the Abomination they had for it as if by the word Plagium it were to be understood that such offences could not be expiated but by a Whip Vitruvius in the Preface to his Seventh Book of Architecture after having asserted that such of whom we now treat are to be punished as impious and infamous he informs us with what severity and Ignominy Ptolomy punished some Poets that had been so impudent to recite in a publick Assembly in Alexandria certain Verses stoln by them out of different Authors and to expose them as their own whereby they had carried the prize which the King proposed to be given them that best performed by the suffrage of Six of the Judges and all the People if the Seventh who was called Aristophanes that had been more conversant in Books than the other had not discovered the abuse preferring a Poet before them that was the least applauded of all the rest but one that had pronounced nothing in the Assembly that was not of his own composition Theocritus boasted in one of his Epigrams with a kind of assurance that he never was of the number of those that ascribed to themselves the Verses of other men but I am not ignorant of the excuses that many are forced to make in his behalf for that very assertion They tell us that Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius in his Evangelical preparation report that the Greeks did not only take from the Hebrews that which is best in their
Cassius who is besides known by the Surnames of Cocceius and Cocceianus was born at Nicea a City of Bithynia whether he retired in his latter years to pass in quiet the remaining part of his life after the example of those Animals who alwaies return as they say to dy in their Mansions The infirmity of his leggs called him to this retirement and he writes that his Genius had foretold it him long before by a Verse of Homers Iliads recited by Photius As Socrates was said to have had a Familiar Spirit or Daemon who was as a Director of his life Dio alledges that he was warned by his to avoid by a retirement the Ambushes which the â—retorian Militia prepared for him and the same Spirit or Goddess to use his own terms in his Threescore and Twelfth Book made him write his History who before exercised himself only in Philosophical learning as that of the Divine Dreams and their Interpretation of which he had composed a Book His Father Apronianus a Consular man according to the Phrase of that Age was Governor of Dalmatia and sometime after Proconsul of Cilicia He himself had the same Consular dignity bestowed on him twice which he exercised jointly with the Emperor Alexander Son of Mammea after he had passed through divers Imployments under the precedent Emperors for Macrinus had established him Lieutenant or Governor of Pergamus and Smyrna and he sometime commanded in Affrick and had afterwards the Administration of Austria and Hungary then called Pannonia committed to him These things are convenient to be known before we speak of his Writings because they recommend and give the greater Authority to them His History comprised all the time from the building of Rome to the Reign of Alexander Severus which he writ in Eighty Books divided into Eight Decades whereof few are saved from that unhappy loss which as we have elsewhere shown has been fatal to many admirable Works of this nature whereof the ignorant and barbarous Ages have deprived us At present the Five and Thirtieth Book is the first of those that remain intire for we have but some Eclogues or Fragments of the Four and Thirtieth preceding His progress to the Sixtieth is intire enough But instead of the last Twenty we must be content with what Xiphilinus a Constantinopolitan Monk has given us in an Epitome or Compendium of them for the Text of those peeces of Dion is not to be found whole by a misfortune alwaies incident to Books that are abbreviated Photius observes that he writ his Roman History as some others had likewise done not from the Foundation of Rome only but even from Aeneas his Descent into Italy which he continued to the Tyranny of Heliogabalus and some part of the Reign of Alexander Severus his successor That which we have of it now in our possession comprehending the events of Three Hundred years at least begins but at the time when Lucullus had his great commands and finishes with the death of Claudius the Emperor the rest is the Epitome of Xiphilinus before mentioned Though all that has been lost of this excellent Author is much to be regretted I think nothing is so deplorable as the loss of the Forty last years of which he writ as an Eie-witness and one that had a part in the government of the State For he could not express what was before the Empire of Commodus but from the relation of strangers and as others had done it before him But after that Emperor until the other with whom he had the honor to be Collegue in the Consulship he built no more upon the faith of other men but what he relates that descends to us by his Organ Xiphilinus is no other than what he saw himself and wherein he was a principal Actour It is a clear proof of Dion's prudent conduct that he could pass over such bad times as those of the Tyrannical Dominion of Commodus Caracalla Macrinus and Heliogabalus without loss of life goods or reputation which are often in danger under such Princes without a wonderful dexterity of Wit His was so commendable that after having overcome those Stormy and Tempestuous seasons wherein the quality of a stranger and his riches exposed him to much envy he arrived happily at a safe Port to wit the Raign of Alexander Severus an exceeding Lover of justice and a most powerful Protector of virtuous men Under him he publisht the Roman History to which as he was led by his Genius as we before hinted so he was commanded by Septimius Severus He confesses himself that he imploied Ten years in providing the necessary materials for this great building and twelve more in raising it and adding that Majesty unto it which makes us even at this day admire its dismembred Fragments and Ruins A man of his Quality who had passed all his life in the management of affairs and had read men as well as Books and of such an experimented conduct must needs have been a very considerable Historiographer Nor have any of them revealed so much unto us as he of those state secrets which Tacitus Stiles Arcana Imperii and whereof he makes so high a Mistery He is so exact in describing the order of the Comitia the establishing of Magistrates and the use of the publick Rights of the Romans that those things are no where else learned more distinctly And in what relates to the Consecration of Emperors their Apotheosis or inrolling amongst the number of the Gods We may say that he is the only Writer who has shewn us a good form except Herodian who coveted afterwards to imitate him in the same Subject But particularly in the Fifty Sixth Book he is very curious where he represents the Pomp of Augustus his Funerals his Bed of State his â—ssigies in Wax and the Funeral Oration which Tiberius read before the People he exposes after that the manner of the burning his body how Livia gathered and laid up his Bones finally with what dexterity they made an Eagle part from the Funeral Pile whence that Bird of Jupiter seemed to bear the Soul of the Emperor to Heaven The Funeral Oration before mentioned obliges me to remark that Dion freely used not only the Oblique but the Direct way of Oration also in the body of his History Those of Pompey to the Romans and of Gabinius afterwards in his Thirty Sixth Book are of the last frame The Philosophical discourse of Philiscus to Cicero which is seen in the Eight and Thirtieth to perswade him to bear his Exile into Macedonia constantly is also in the form of a Prosopopaea after a very considerable Dialogue between them Two The Orations of Agrippa and Mecaenas the first of which exhorted Augustus to quit the Empire the Second on the contrary to retain it are of the same sort and contain the whole Fifty Second Book And Xiphilinus was not contented in his Abbreviation of the Sixty Second to make Paulinus Governor of great
of having first thought upon the animation of History that was before a body languishing which appears in his exact Orations composed in all the three sorts of Oratory the demonstrative the deliberative and the Judicial Herodotus had attempted the same thing but he was content to use some oblique speeches and those almost ever imperfect never proceeding so far as Thucydides who in this way of writing left nothing to be objected against by the severest Orators And it is said that Demosthenes was so well pleased with his History that he took the pains to transcribe it Eight times By the consent of all he has the glory of not mingling Fables with his true Narrations If he is constrained to say a word of Tereus King of Thrace and Progne in his Second Book or if in describing Sicily in the beginning of the Sixth he finds himself obliged to speak of the Cyclops and Laestrigones as Ancient Inhabitants of a part thereof it is so lightly that the Dogs of Egypt touch not so hastily the water of Nilus whose Crocodiles they fear as he passes nimbly over a fabulous circumstance to avoid the least entrance of a lye into his writings And yet he has not been so happy to be without the reproach of not having alwaies spoken truth for Josephus affirms that he was taxed of having falsified his History in many places but at the same time he accuses all the Grecians of imposture and if one observes the commendation he gives him afterwards of having been the most exact and cautious of all his Country-men in compiling a History it will appear rather to proceed from the capricious humour of his Sect than the demerit of an Historiographer for as he was a Jew who made it his business to discredit all Pagan History he thought he ought to say something to the prejudice of Thucydides when he had spared none of the rest I shall add here that Thucydides did not onely lay down in his History all sorts of Orations as we before observed but took the liberty to insert Dialogues as that betwixt the Athenian Generals and the Inhabitants of the Isle of Melos which comprehends a great part of the fifth Book to the end But those that have an aversion to digressions have no reason to hare them in this Authour who touches them with great Art as amongst others the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogiton in the sixth Book which may justifie many other excursions or like Sallies that are often censured with two little reason and notwithstanding all his defects the most judicious of the learned yeild him the prize of Eloquence and not one of the Ancients deny him the glory of having seconded Pindar in the Grandeur and Majesty of expression REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF XENOPHON XENOPHON does not owe the fame he has had so many Ages to History alone for Philosophy and Arms have contributed to it and I believe that for these three Qualifications he may be as well termed Trismegistus as Hermes the Aegyptian since he is universally acknowledged to be a very great Captain Philosopher and Historiographer He has common with Caesar the first and last Qualities and they are not deceived who find a third resemblance in their stile Purity Eloquence and sweetness being equally natural to them both They have each an agreeable manner of expression without art or affectation though no art or affectation can come near it The Surname of Apes Attica and Athenian Muse with which all the Ancients have dignified Xenophon is not only a witness of the beauty of his language and of that hony-like sweetness which the Graces seem to have poured on it with their own hands to speak like Quintilian but it is a particular mark of his Attick Dialect wherein he excelled so much that Diogenos Laertius writing his life gives no other reason for the bad intelligence that was between him and Plato than the jealousie they conceived one against the other upon that account Yet Marcellinus who attributes to Thucydides in his Elogy the height of Eloquence gives the lowest rank to Xenophon placing Herodotus between both and Dionysius Halicarnasseus when he observes that Xenophon has often imitated Herodotus adds that the former was alwaies much inferiour to the latter But notwithstanding this it is very considerable that Xenophon was the first Philosopher who applied himself to the compiling of a History which in what relates to the Graecian affairs treats of the Transactions of eight and forty years and begins where Thucydides ended shewing Aleibiades his return to his Country whom Thucydides in his last Book left meditating upon that retreat Nor is it a small glory to Xenophon but a proof of extraordinary Honesty to have freely exposed to the publick the writings of Thucydides which he might have supprest or delivered as his own if he would have been a Plagiary and have ascribed to himself the works of another which many others have done and do daily practise Besides the continuation of the History begun by Thucydides Xenophon has left us that of the enterprise of young Cyrus against his brother Artaxerxes and the memorable retreat of ten thousand Graecians from the extremities of Persia to their own Country in which he had almost the whole honour as well for his councel and discipline as the excellency of his conduct What he writ of the institution of the Elder Cyrus is not an historical Treatise but purely Moral where he drew the figure of a great Prince without confining himself to the truth except of two or three events viz. the taking of Babylon and the captivity of Craesus All the rest is feigned and has nothing in it commendable but the agreeableness of the Fable as Hermogenes has well observed on the subject of Panthea's death who slew her self with three Eunuchs upon the body of her Husband Abradatus in the seventh Book of that institution These compositions of Xenophon of which we have spoken are such that as they may serve for a rule to the first Ministers of State in all the extent of Politicks according to the excellent judgment which Dion Chrysostomus makes of them so likewise they are capable to form great Captains and give the world Generals and we have two notable examples of this among the Romans for they acknowledg that their Scipio surnamed Africanus had almost alwaies Xenophons works in his hands and that nothing made Lucullus capable to oppose such a formidable enemy as King Mithridatos but the reading the writings of Xenophon Whereof Lueullus made so good use by Sea he who before had a very small insight into the affairs of War that he knew enough afterwards to gain those famous Victories which few of the learned are ignorant of and whereby the most considerable Provinces of Asia became tributary to the Romans Xenophon has writ upon divers Subjects and it seems that in many of them there has been Emulation between him and Plato
could say to the advantage of One whom he considers as the glory of his Country He mingled in all places of his History Oblique and Direct Orations wherein his Eloquence principally appears And he did not refrain from Digressions though he excuses himself for it in the Ninth Book of his first Decade on the Subject of Alexander whose renown he saies obliged him to reflect upon the probable success he might have had against the Romans if he had attacked them He makes a question of equalling Ten or Twelve Roman Captains to that invincible Monarch but manages it with so much disadvantage on one side and so much flattery on the other that it is the place in his whole History which is the least agreeable to a judicious Reader Is it not ridiculous to say upon so serious a Subject that the Senate of Rome was composed of as many Kings as there were Senators And ought he not to have considered that Alexander led Twenty Generals under his command Ptolemaeus Lysimachus Cassander Leonatus Philotas Antigonus Eumenes Parmenio Cleander Polyperchon Perdiccas Clitus Ephestion and others like them more renowned and experienced in military affairs if we may judge by their actions than all those Roman Chiefs which he pretends to compare to him To say the truth that his Digression examined in all its parts is more worthy of a declamer than of an Historian of Livy's reputation REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF VELLEIUS PATERCULUS THOUGH Velleius Paterculus in the Two Books he composed pretended only to write an Epitomy of the Roman History from the Foundation of Rome to the time wherein he lived which as he himself reports was in the Reign of the Emperour Tiberius Yet he began his Treatise with things more Ancient for though the beginning of his first Book is lost we nevertheless find in the remains of it the Antiquities of many Cities more Ancient than Rome the Originals whereof he discovers before he describes the Foundation of that great Metropolis He was of an illustrious extraction as appears by those of his family who had signalised themselves in the exercise of many of the greatest imployments of the Roman Empire And he himself having gloriously succeeded in the military profession saies that the remembrance of the countries he had seen during the time he commanded in the Armies and in his voyages through the Provinces of Thrace Macedonia Achaia Asia the less and other more Easterly Regions especially those upon both the shores of the Euxin Sea furnished his mind with most agreeable diversions Whereby one may judge that if he had writ this History as intire and large as he sometimes promised we should have found many things very considerable in it as reported by a man who was so Eminent an Eye-witness and had a share in the execution of the noblest part of them In that little which is left wherein he represents all compendiously divers particulars are related that are no where else to be found which happens either by the silence of other Historians in those matters or the ordinary loss of part of their labours The Stile of Velleius Paterculus is very worthy of his Age which was also the time of pure language His greatest excellence lies in discommending or praising those he speaks of which he does in the softest terms and most delicate expressions that are seen in any other Historian or Oratour But he is blamed and perhaps with reason for flattering too much the Party and House of Augustus and making extravagant Elogies not only of Tiberius but even of his Favourite Sejanus whose merit he celebrates as of one of the prime and most virtuous persons which the Roman Common wealth has produced But the like fault may be observed in many others that have writ the History of their own times with a design to publish it whilst they lived However it was Lipsius imagined that those his excessive praises of Sejanus were the cause of his fall and the ruine of the rest of that unhappy Favourites friends who were almost all put to death upon his account but yet this opinion can pass for nothing but a meer conjecture since it is no here else to be seen The nature of his Epitomy did not it seems admit of Orations Yet an Oblique one is seen in his Second Book which he introduces the Son of Tigranes to speak before Pompey to procure his favour I find besides a very remarkable thing in his Stile to wit that amongst all the Figures of Oratory which he uses he imploies the Epiphonema so gracefully that perhaps no One ever equalled him in that respect So that in all or most of the events which he mentions there are few that he does not conclude with one of these sententious reflections which Rhetoricians call by that name And besides the beauty of that figure when it is judiciously imployed as he knew how to do it there is nothing instructs a reader more usefully than that sort of Corollary applyed to the end of the chief actions of every narration He shewed his great inclination to Eloquence in his invective against Mark Anthony on the Subject of his proscription and the death of Cicero whom none ever raised higher than he does in that place and in another of the same book where he acknowledges that without such a person Greece though overcome in Arms might have boasted to have been victorious in wit And this he did in pursuance of that zeal which made him declare in his first book that excepting those whom this Oratour saw or by whom he was seen and heard there was none amongst the Romans who ought to be admired for their Eloquence which was a faculty as to the excelling part as it were inclosed only in the space of Cicero's life Besides the Two Books of the abridged History of Velleius Paterculus a Fragment has been seen which is ascribed to him touching the defeat of some Roman Legions in the Country of the Grisons And of that part amongst others where this small writing place a City called Cicera it informs us that of a Legion there ingaged Verres alone escaped whom the above mentioned Cicero caused afterwards to be condemned with infamy for having during his Proconsulship in Sicily used such extortions in so important a Province that they had like to have made it desolate But most learned men Velserus with Vossius amongst the rest declaim against this piece which they affirm to be counterfeit as well by the Stile which seems of an Age much inferiour to that of Paterculus as by the matter whereof it treats wherein they find great absurdities But laying aside the doubtful judgment of Criticks it is evident in respect of the true Phrase of this Author that excepting the faults which proceed rather from his transcribers than himself and the Copies than the Original we have nothing more pure in all the Latin Language than his Writings nor more worthy of the times of
of Poets and that he alone is to use his term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that it is usual to advise those who will profit in the understanding of Homer first to read Herodotus to the end that the Prose of the latter may prepare an easie access to the Poesie of the former by the affinity of stile between them Samos was the place where Herodotus form'd himself to the Ionick Dialect and compiled his History before he retired with a Colony of Athenians into Thurium a Citty of that part of Italy which was then called Great Greece for Suidas his opinion conformable to this is more followed than that of Pliny who holds that Herodoâ—us chose the time and place of his voluntaty exile to enterprise so great a Work in which he is very erronious for he had compiled his History long before this retirement as is recorded in the Chronicles of Eusebius It is true he was born in Halicarnassus a Citty of that part of Greece called Doris a Region confining on the Meleans and because his illustrious birth had engaged him in the expulsion of the Tyrant of his Citty he retired into Thurium where he died according to the opinion of many there being even some as Plutarch writes that make this place where he was buried to be the place of his Nativity It is not asserted by all that the book of Homer's Life which follows the Ninth Muse was composed by Herodotus but whoever is the Authour of it it is very ancient and makes the labour of those men ridiculous who even at this day take great pains to pretend to somthing more certain and considerable than is there writ touching the Country of Homer But this matter concerns not his History which was happily preserved notwithstanding the Epitomy of one Theopompus whom Suidas mentions for Justin is accused though so great an Authour of having been the cause of the loss of Trogus Pompeius his History and the loss of part of the works of Livy is imputed also to Lucius Florus by the Epitomys which both have made of these great works which probably had been preserved but for their abbreviations REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF THUCYDIDES AS those that search for Springs or conveyers of Water whom the Latins call Aquileges take it for a good Augury if they see smoak arise out of certain grounds in the Morning because it is one of the signes which makes them hope to find therein some good and abounding Springs so they who understand best the nature of our Souls rejoice when they observe in our tenderest years earnest desires of learning and certain transports of ardour in the pursuit of Science from whence they draw almost assured conjectures of the merit of our minds and of their future excellence upon such a conception was founded the predictions of Herodotus mentioned in the foregoing Chapter when he observ'd Thucydides moved even to tears by hearing him recite his rare Treatise of the Muses in one of the most celebrated Assemblies of Greece He took that for a sign of the growing greatness of his Genius and as a Thorn pricks as it grows he judged that so extraordinary an emotion in his tender Age proceeding from so rare a Subject would produce one day something memorable and be follow'd by those agâ—reable watchings and disquiets which give Immortality to the learned of Mankind Thucydides lived about Four hundred and Thirty years before the Incarnation of Christ Anno Mundi 3520. and as he was a person of illustrious Birth and a great Fortune added to the excellency of his Indowments he had no temptation to betray truth in what he was to deliver to posterity and though some have censured the manner of his writeing few ever questioned the truth of it He was rich and of Royal extraction but his opulency was augmented by his Marriage to a very rich Wife a Daughter of a King of Thrace and being very curious to have perfect intelligence of affairs in order to the compiling of his History he emploied great summs of money to procure memorials comperent to his design not only from the Athenians but the Lacedemonians also that out of his collections from both the great Transactions of that might be the better and more impartially discovered as a Monument to instruct the Ages to come for he intituleth his History 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which signifies a possession for Everlasting It comprehends the Peloponnesian War which lasted one and Twenty years for though some Writers make it to continue six years longer yet others and perhaps the more judicious observers do make what follows in the succeeding six years after our Historiographer had ended his work to be rather the consequences of that War than truly a part of it but what was deficient in the affairs of those years was since supplied by Theopompus and treated on by Xenophon who begins his History where Thucydides ended There are some Criticks that do not believe his Eighth Book according to the ordinary division to have been written by him some ascribe it to his Daughter others to Xenophon or Theopompus but the more discerning part beleeve the contrary When the Peloponnesian War began to break out Thucydides conjectured truly that it would prove an argument worthy of his labour and it no sooner began than he began his History pursuing the same not in that perfect manner in which we now see it but by way of Commentary or plain Register of the actions and passages thereof as from time to time they fell out and came to his knowledg but such a Commentary it was as might perhaps deserve to be preferred before a History written by another hence it is very probable that the Eighth Book is left the same it was when he first writ it neither beautified with Orations nor so well cemented at the transitions as the former seaven Books are And though he began to write as soon as ever the War was on foot yet he began not to perfect and polish the History till after he was banished and why he did not refine his last Book equal to the rest is not known for he our-lived the whole War as appears by what he relates in his fifth Book where he saies he lived in banishment Twenty years after his charge at Amphipolis which was in the Eighth year of that Wat which in the whole by the largest computation lasted but seven and twenty years It is hard to judge whether the method and disposition of the History or the Stile of it be most to be praised since he hath in both shewed himself so great a Master that none that have writ since have exceeded him in either As to the disposition we shall in this place only observe that in his first Book he hath first by way of proposition derived the State of Greece from its Infancy to the vigorous stature it then was at when he began to write and next declareth the causes both
friend of the Muses and restorer of letters for the first publication of the Works of Polybius at that time when the Turks invaded Constantinople though they are much augmented since in the latter Editions REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF DIODORUS SICULUS CLUVERIUS one of the most exact of our modern Geographers teaches us that Agyrium of which Diodorus Siculus speaks as of the place of his birth is now called San Filippo d' Agyrone It is a great honor to this little place to have given to its Isle such a person without whom no body would know its Antiquity nor many things which render it very considerable He saies in the beginning of his History which stands instead of a preface to it that he was no less than Thirty years in writing it in the Capital City of the World where he gathered Notions which he could not have elsewhere confessing that the vastness of the Roman Empire had extreamly favoured his design But nevertheless he did not omit to go himself through the greatest part of the Provinces of Europe and Asia where he was in many dangers and endured extream labour that he might not commit the faults which he had remarked as he saies in those who had medled to speak of places where they had never been It does not appear in that place that he saw Affrick and yet we read in the second Section of his first Book that he travelled to Aegypt in the raign of that Ptolomy who is distinguished from the rest by the Surname of new Bacchus or Dionysius and who was the first Husband of his Sister Cleopatra whereby one may note that the best part of Aegypt was formerly of Asia when the Geographers divided it from Affrica rather by the Nile than the Red Sea It is not without reason that Diodorus gave his work the name of an Historical Library since when it was intire it had united in one according to the order of times all that which other Historians have writ separately for he had comprised in Forty Books whereof we have but Fifteen remaining the most remarkable passages in the World during the space of Eleven Hundred and Eight and Thirty years without reckoning what was comprehended in his six first books of the more fabulous times that is to say of all which had preceded the War of Troy His History is then truly Oecumenical or Universal and we ought so much the more to bewail what is wanting since after the loss of Berosus Theopompus Ephorus Philistius Callisthenes Timaeus and such other great Authors the reading of Diodorus alone repaired in some manner our dammage having compiled and digested all their works in his Library Of the Six first Books before mentioned the last is no where to be found although Raphael Volaterranus and some others quote it sometimes as if we had it yet But if one observes exactly it will be found that they misreckon in their account and that what they report to be in the Sixth is in the precedent Book which Diodorus names the Insular and which is only the Fifth The error proceeds from the first impression which was all Latin and wherein Poggius Florentinus Author of the translation which Pope Nicolaus Quintus desired of him made Two Books of the first because Diodorus divided it into Two different Sections By this means the second became the Third and consequently that which was but the fifth was taken for the sixth as if we had lost no more of the fabulous Antiquities of Greece contained in the Fourth Fifth and Sixth book than of those of the Barbarians which we have intire in the first second and third The remainder of Diodorus his Library consists in Two parts which are squared by Two Epochies of note The first reaches from the destruction of Troy to the death of Alexander the Great for the understanding whereof and all which happend in the world during that time he emploied Eleven whole Books which are from the Sixth to the beginning of the Eighteenth of this number the four first are lost but we have the other Seaven remaining The Second Epoche stretches from the time in which the first ended to that of the Conquests of Julius Caesar in Gallia when he made England and the Brittish Ocean the limits of the Roman Empire on the North side The marvellous successes of all this interval were described in Three and Twenty Books but there remains no more than the Eighteenth the Nineteenth and the Twentieth to our time the others unto the Fortieth being all lost except some small fragments taken from Eusebius Photius and some others who used Diodorus his Text in their works Henricus Stephanus affirms out of a Letter communicated to him by Mr Lazaro Baif that all the works of Diodorus are found entire in some corner of Sicily I confess I would willingly go almost to the end of the World if I thought to find there so great a Treasure And I shall envy those that will come after us this important discovery if it shall be made when we shall be no more and that instead of Fifteen Books only which we now enjoy they shall possess the whole Forty Since Diodorus speaks of Julius Caesar which he does in more than one place and alwaies with an attribute of some Divinity as it is the custome of the Pagans he cannot be more Ancient than he which is about Forty Eight years before the Nativity of Christ But when Eusebius writes in his Chronicles that Diodorus Sieulus lived under this Emperour it seems that he limits the life of the former with the reign of the latter Yet Suidas prolongs his daies even to Augustus And Scaliger very well observes in his animadversions upon Eusebius that Diodorus must needs have lived to a very great Age and that he was alive at least half the Reign of Augustus since he mentions on the subject of the Olympiads the Romans Bissextil year which name was not used before the Fasts and Calendar were corrected which was done by Octavius Augustus to māke the work of his Predecessor more perfect We have at this time in the last impression of Diodorus a Fragment of his Seven and Thirtieth Book which would remove all this difficulty if it were true for in it is seen the death of Caesar revenged by the Triumvirat on Brutus and Cassius with the fall of Anthony and the establishing of Augustus in the Empire for all his life This would infer that Diodorus lived longer than Augustus But that collection which is somewhat larger in Photius shews by those whom he calls Illustrious by a Title unknown in the Age of Diodorus that another was the Author of it or that his Text has received additions from some one who lived long after his time whence consequently we cannot make any certain conclusion The time of these Two Emperors Caesar and Augustus is indeed the Age of the best Latin as all who understand it agree but not so of
and of infinite other Subjects which fall into his principal design he alwaies alledges Diodorus but he does it chiefly when he examins the Theology of the Aegyptians in his Second Book where he very much extols the fame of him he calls him a most illustrious Writer most exact in his Narrations and one esteem'd by all learned men for his profound doctrine and he adds that there is no Grecian who is not desirous to read him by a common approbation and preference to the rest of their Authors But when he insists in his Tenth Book of the same work that Greece had received from the hands of those it esteemed barbarous and particularly from the Jews all the Sciences and learning for which it had so great a value it is in that he attributes the greatest Honour to him For after having used the Testimonies of St Clement Porphyrius Plato Democritus Heraclitus Josephus and such like Authors of the first Classe he finishes his proof with a Quotation out of the first Book of that incomparable History to the end saies he that the Authority of Diodorus may be as a Seal to all my demonstration To say the truth he has a marvellous advantage given him by Eusebius to be cited and put expressly after the rest to shew how much he is esteemed by him in the same manner as Archirects place that Stone last which is called the Key of the Arch and which conduces no less to the solidity than the ornament of the whole Edifice This is that which I purposed to add to the suffrages of Pliny and Photius in favour of our Historian for fear that the ill terms which Bodin and Vives used against him should be prejudicial to his fame If I had reason to blame him it should be much rather for the great superstition in which he abounds in all his writings as well as Titus Livius amongst the Latins than for his bad Greek or for having handled his subject ill whereof those indecent Criticks accuse him there being no reason to diminish his reputation in that regard REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF DIONYSIUS HALICARNASSEUS IF Dionysius Halicarnasseus had not said himself in the beginning of his History that he lived in the Emperor Augustus his time in whose Regin our Saviour was born Strabo would teach it us in the Fourteenth Book of his Georgraphy where speaking of the City of Halicarnassus he observes that it bestowed on the world Two great persons Herodotus and in our time saies he Dionysius the Historiographer So that since Strabo witnesses in that same work that he had it in hand under Augustus and Tiberius we are certain that Dionysius Halicarnasseus was also of the same Age which is as all know one of those which most favored learning and learned men Suidas names among many Writers who bore the name of Dionysius another besides him we speak of who was of Halicarnassus also and of his Posterity and appeared under the Emperor Adrian with the Surname of Musicus because though he was an Orator his principal Talent lay in Musick of which he composed many Books and among others one wherein he interpreted all the places of Plato's Republick which could not be well understood without a particular understanding of that Art That which makes me say that this other Dionysius was descended from the first is that the same Suidas saies that from Dionysius the Historian came one Dionysius whom he calls Atticista who lived under Adrian and had writ a Lexicon of the Attick words as may be seen in the Hundred and Two and Fiftieth Section of Photius For my part I am easily perswaded that this Atticist and Musitian are but one since they are both mentioned to be under one Emperor As for our Historian he came to Rome a little after Augustus had happily finished the Civil Wars and sojourned there Two and Twenty whole years learning the Latine Tongue and making his provision of necessaries to the design he had of writing his History He read to this end all Books which are called Commentaries and Annals made by those Romans who had writ with some reputation about the concerns of their State as old Cato Pabius Maximus Valerius Antias Licinius Macer and some others But acknowledges that the conversation he had with the worthy men of that Capital City of the world and his conferences with an infinite number of learned men there were not less servicable to him than all the other diligence he could use His History was of the Roman Antiquities which he comprised in Twenty Books whereof there remains no more than the first Eleven to this Age which conclude with the time when the Consuls resumed the chief Authority in the Republick after the government of the Decemviri which happened Three Hundred and Twelve years after the foundation of Rome The whole work comprehended much more for it passed from the taking of Troy over the fabulous and Historical time to the beginning of the first Punick War ending where Polybius beings his History near Two Hundred years later than what we even now mentioned Whereupon it behoves us to observe the error of Sigismond Gelenius who imagined that Dionysius Halicarnasseus whom he has translated very well never ended his work and that death hindered him from composing above Eleven Books of the Twenty he promised to give to the Publick When Stephanus a Greek Author who writ of Cities quotes the Sixteenth and Twentieth Book of the Roman Antiquities of our Dionysius and Photius saies in his Bibliotheca that he read all the Twenty Books giving the last the same ending which we assigned unto it This learned Patriarch assures us also that he saw the compendium or synopsis which Dionysius made of his own History which he reduced into Five Books with much Eloquence but it was not agreeable to a Reader because of the strict Retrenchment of all he thought not absolutely necessary The loss of that Epitomy would be less sensible if we had the first composition entire which has received so much approbation especially in respect of the calculation of times and what relates to Chronology that all Criticks prefer in this point Dionysius Halicarnasseus before Titus Livius And Scaliger confesses in his Animadversions upon Eusebius that we have no Author remaining who has so well kept the order of years As for his Stile Photius considers it as extraordinary and new but accompanied with a simplicity which renders it delightful and he adds that the Elegancy of his discourse or phrase corrects and softens all the roughness which is sometimes found in his speech He commends him also very much for having understood how to use many digressions which retain and recreate the mind of the Reader when the evenness of an Historical narration begins to be redious and wearisom to him And certainly it is not to be imagined that a man of that reputation which Dionysius Halicarnasseus had acquired in learning could produce any thing which was
Writings but instanced in many examples how they frequently borrowed from one another also Strabo writes of Eudorus and Ariston Two Peripatetick Philosophers which had writ some Commentaries of Niliss so like in Phrase and matter that the Oracle of Jupiter Hammon only could discover which of them was the true Author upon their mutual accusations of one another of the theft committed Marcianus Heracleota affirms that Eratosthenes transcribed a Treatise writ by one Timosthenes of an Epitome of the Isles from one end to the other and published it as his own Athenaeus defames Plato about the end of the Eleventh Book of his Deipnosophists to have taken the greatest part of his Dialogues from Byrson Aristippus and Antisthenes And though it be known that Apuleius his Golden Ass is not of his own Fabrick it is not yet discovered whether he took it from Lucian or Lucius Patrensis for both these have writ of the same Subject and each of their peices pass as Originals But all these examples and many more that might be instanced cannot produce the effect which those that make them promise to themselves nor is it enough to excuse a fault by saying many others are guilty of the like for if that were sufficient there is scarce any that would not be easily pardonable Appian lived in the time of Trajan Adrian and Antoninus Successive Emperors of Rome and about the 140th year of our Saviours Incarnation In the Preface of his History he declares his Extraction to be from one of the best Families of Alexandria from whence being come to Rome he rendred himself in a short while so considerable in the imployment of Advocate that he was elected and inrolled in the number of those that were the Proctors of the Emperor and to have as Photius relates the Administration of a Province Sigonius and some others call him Sophista Alexandrinus and make him an Egyptian His History was divided into Three Volumes which as the same Photius mentions contained Four and Twenty Books or Twenty Two as â—arolus Stephanus Volaterranus and the before named Sigonius inform It began at the burning or taking Troy and the fortune of Aeneas and extended beyond the Reign of Augustus making sometimes excursions even to the time of Trajan As to his Stile the same Photius observes that as his manner of writing was plain and easie so he had nothing in it that was soaring high or superfluous and he gives to him the prerogative of being not only very faithful as we hinted in the beginning but one of those that has given the greatest Testimony of his knowledg in the art of War and all kind of military Discipline To read the description of his battels would make one fancy himself in the middle of them And he is so happy in his Orations that he manages and moves the affections which way he pleases whether it be to revive the courage of the drooping Souldiers or express the extravagant transports of those that are too violent But of the many works which he composed there remains to this time but the least part which describe the Punick Syrian and Parthian Wars Those against Mithridates against the Spaniards against Hannibal and Five Books of the civil Wars of Rome and those of Illyria As for that of the Celtick War or the War of the Gaules there is only a fragment or compendium of it extant rather to make us regret what we want than satisfie our minds with that which remains Thus far we have confined our self in this Chapter of Appian to Monsieuâ— de la Mothe le Vayer our Author who in many things seems to me not so exact in his judgment of this Historiographer as his merit requires and too severe in his reflection whilst he makes so long a defamatory digression against those that incorporate the writings of others in their works on occasion of the mention of his borrowing something in his History from Polybius and Plutarch which he makes to be the more unpardonable because he cites not in his Books the Texts of those Authors to render them as he Phrases it the acknowledgment due to their merit And yet he himself even in this Chapter borrows some part of his matter from Vossius without quoting him But may it not be doubted whither this Gentleman ever saw the Original Manuscript of Appian where perhaps those Quotations were to know thereby whether he or those that transcribed it are to be blamed for this omission or indeed whether in those Ancient times such citations were practised for though the borrowing of writings from others may be sometimes in some circumstances a great offence it is not alwaies to be so accounted since there is not any thing written that is not taken from the conceptions of them that went before and when we take from others to improve their reason that it may be derived to us in a more familiar refined and exquisite sense it is rather commendable than faulty as may be said of that which Virgil takes from Homer or to speak of our time of what our Ben Johnson extracts from Catullus Juvenal Horace Plautus and other Poets and from Tully also who so much improves their thoughts that they themselves if they were alive would not think themselves dishonored by the use he makes of them What our Author mentions of Scaliger which is also hinted by Vossius of Appians being a Child in History is rather to be imputed to his passion than right judgment whose censures are not alwaies to be allowed especially when they contradict the more general consent of the learned in all Ages What he saies also in the beginning of this Chapter in one place that Appian seems to have affected an order of writing even contrary to Nature is an opinion wherein he is very singular for Caelius Secundus Curio who had it may be more curiously studied Appian than he in his Epistle Dedicatory before the Latin Impression at Basil 1554 writes thus of him It is certain saies he that Appian proposed to himself the method and contexture of Thucydides and Salust and endeavoâ—red to imitate them both in their veracity of expression and quickness of transition for he did not weave together a perpetual series of History as Livy and others but from the whole matter that is to say from the greatest most and immortal actions of the Romans he separated the Wars they made upon any Nation or People and made so many bodies of History as they undertook and waged Wars which Reason and image of writing Caesar pursued in his so much celebrated Commentaries wherein nothing is found empty fabulous or prodigious No superfluous or feigned speeches or Orations for ostentation but all pure true religious and necessary in which he did not imitate the Vanity of the Greeks which to do is not indeed to write a History but deceive the World with Fables REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF DIO OR DION CASSIUS DIO
he speaks like the Christians of his time But there are other passages in his writings so contrary to that doctrine and the opinion of those that believe he is an Ethnick is founded upon such strong considerations that I cannot but yeild to it For not insisting upon his seeming in many places to esteem Fortune a great Goddess and not minding the strange Antimosity which he shewed against Justinian grounded partly upon the interest of Religion that place alone in his First Book of the Wars of the Goths where he speaks of the Ambassadors which the Emperor sent to the Bishop of Rome to reconcile the different opinions of Christians is sufficient to undeceive those who considered him as a Christian Historian I will not trouble my self saies he to relate the Subject of such controversies although it is not unknown to me because I hold it a meer folly to covet to comprehend the Divine Nature and understand what God is Human wit knows not the things here below how then can it be satisfied in the search after Divinity I led alone therefore such vain matter and which the credulity of man only causes to be respected contenting my self with acknowledging that there is one God full of bounty who governs us and whose power stretches over this whole Universe Let every one therefore believe what he thinks fit whether he be a Priest and tyed to Divine Worship or a man of a private and secular condition How could he more plainly deride all our Theology and the zeal of the Fathers of the Church who were then busied in suppressing the Heresie of the Arrians in what relates to the Second person of the Trinity His discourse expresses him to be a perfect Deist who thought as many other Philosophers have done and amongst the rest that Melissus in Hesychius that one could determin nothing of God but rashly and that it was impossible to have any knowledg of him How can it be imagined that such a man was a Christian who founded his whole belief of Heavenly matters upon such erronious maxims If we add to this the marks of Pagan Superstition which appear in all his books we shall be hardly able to distinguish him from the most profane of the Gentils The Tale he tells in the first book of the Persian War of the Artifice used by some of the Magi to make One Arsaces confess the truth is of this strain They covered one half of a borded Floor with Persian Earth and the other with Armenian and both of them conjured in such a sort that when Arsaces was upon the last half which was that covered with his country Earth he confessed all that he had denied upon the other In the following Book he relates that some military Ensigns turned of themselves from the West to the East presaging thereby the calamity wherein the Inhabitants of Antioch fell He makes King Genzerich in the first Book of the War of the Vandals to understand by the flight of an Eagle upon the head of Martianus that he should be one day Emperor And he reports that Attila ready to quit the Siege of Aquileia staied his enterprise upon seeing a Stork carry its young ones out of the City And in the same Book he relates one of his dreams which was the most vain that sleep could form and yet to testify how much he relyed on it he confesses that nothing but that made him resolve on his Sea Voyage with Belisarius Nor are his Writings concerning the War with the Goths less exempt from such like superstition wherein he makes a Jew foretel by Thirty Hogs the ruin of the Goths in Italy and Constantin bury in the chief Market-place of the City which bears his name that renowned Palladium of Aeneas purposely transported thither from Rome Which wild relations have no conformity with the purity of Christian Religion But since we have mentioned something of that ill will Procopius bore to Justinian which he made so visible in his Anecdota it is expedient to examin that work a little because it is the place from whence those who pretend to defame this Emperor have alwaies collected their detractions If we make it apparent that Procopius was much to blame in writing so defamatory a Satyr against his Soveraign to gratify his passion we shall at the same time render those aspersions inconsiderable which others have cast upon his reputation The word Anecdota imports that it was a secret work and that the Author thereof had no mind to be known He is judged to have composed it in the Two and Thirtieth year of the Empire of Justinian and left it imperfect as well because he repented that he was so far transported as for the satisfaction he received in his Stipend which was then paid him and many other favours which he obtained He had complained in several places before that one that the Salaries of such serviceable men as he were detained and it was an insupportable grief unto him to see himself excluded from those honorable places and imployments above Thirty years to which others were admitted whose desert he thought no way equal to his Lastly having been Belisarius his Secretary during all the Wars of Persia Affrick and Italy as it was before mentioned he was received into the number of the Senators attained unto the Quality of Illustrious which was given to few men and to compleat his dignity the Emperor made him Prefect of new Rome where all offices were inferiour to his In the mean time his book of Anecdota remained Suidas makes mention of it and they who for divers considerations have been animated aganst the memory of Justinian made use of it and alledged the matters in it to his prejudice it was not long since printed with Expositions and Comments as bad as the Text they explain others besides my self have already indeavoured to confute the absurdities of it but it shall suffice to shoâ— summarily that all which Procopius has writ of History will prove ridiculous if never so little credit be given to the Calumnies of this piece He protests in the beginning of the First Book of the Persian War that he cannot be reasonably reproached of writing any thing for favour or to oblige the undeserving nor of refraining to speak the truth to spare a friend and acknowledges in the same place that as Eloquence is the object of Rhetorick and Fable that of Poetry the knowledg of truth is the only end of History After this declaration what can be said in his excuse for having represented Justinian in his History as a mighty and most virtuous Prince and in this Libel rendred him the most infamous and vicious of men The fear of offending the Soveraign Powers which is thereupon alledged cannot qualify such a shameful diversity nor reconcile so manifest a contradiction And Procopius is at the same time convinced of having trespassed against the two most important Laws of History whereof one
several others the Princes whom they affected to oblige at the expence of truth It is certain that Procopius never speaks but to the advantage of Belisarius he illustrates all his actions and rather chuses to suppress a part of the successes which he recites than to write any thing which might any waies blemish the reputation of his Hero I shall produce one single instance and such a one that I think is not to be marched in any other Historian the place is in his Second Book of the War of the Vandals where after the Oration of Belisarius to his Souldiers and Two others of his Adversary Stozas Procopius writes that the Troops of the former revolting forced their Chiefs to retire into a Temple where they were all killed He was obliged in reason to signifie thereupon what became of Belisarius who one would think was massacred with the rest But because it was an unhappy event without telling how he came off Procopius adds only that Justinian upon this ill news dispatched away his Nephew Germanus who came and took possession of the command of the Armies in Affrick and not saying the least word of Belisarius he makes his narration so lame that the Reader knows not where he is The Latin Text is a little deffective here having not all which is read in the Greek yet this fault we speak of appears also in that version This puts me in mind of another place in the Second Book also of the War of the Goths where upon a meer Letter of Belisarius to Theodebert King of France he quits the pursuit of his victories in Italy and returns hastily into his Country He acknowledged his fault saies he and his temerity as soon as he had read the Letter of Belisarius returning with all speed to France as if this powerful Monarch came thither like a raw Schollar without having well considered what he did and the Rhetorick of Belisarius had obliged him and all his Councel to absent themselves for want of a reply Certainly there is a great defect of judgment in this passage and Aretin had reason to supply something of his own in this place saying that hunger and want of victuals made the Victorious French return into their Countries He might have added sickness according to the relation of Gregory of Tours who speaks of this retreat I find moreover that our Historian makes Theodebert Author of an action which does not agree with what he had said a little before of him namely that the French were the men of the world who violated their Faith the most when the letter of Belisarius which upbraids that Prince with nothing else but not observing Treaties had nevertheless such power over him An Author of more judgment would not have said so nor have rashly offended a whole Nation with the like Animosity wherewith the Romans declaim against the Greek and Punick Faith at the same time when they themselves were the most unfaithful that ever had been to all Nations of the World I must before I leave that place where Procopius spoke so ill of the French do the Nation reason by remarking with how much malice and absurdity he makes them in the same place become Masters of the Camp of the Goths and of that of the Grecians Romanized as it were by a surprize although they exceeded the number of a Hundred Thousand as if their Army descended from Heaven upon the heart of Italy like Grashoppers which a boysterous Tempest of wind transports sometimes from one Region to another But since we reprove him of having been too partial let us stop here the course of the zeal which we have for our Ancestours that it may not be judged excessive To conclude I think that Procopius deserves to be read attentively especially in consideration of the things which he alone treats of with an exact knowledge And that besides a great discretion is to be used in reading of him to discern the good things from the bad and the defects whereof we have produced Examples from what he has writ more judiciously He was of Caesarea in Palaestine from whence he came to Constantinople in the time of the Emperour Anastasius whose esteem he obtained as well as that of Justin the First and Justinian Suidas after he had given him the Surname of Ilustrious calls him Rhetorician and Sophister as truly he seems to have been to much for an Historian He is diffused but with a Copiousness more Asiatick than Athenian which has often in it more superfluity than true Ornament Photius only inserted in his Library as was before mentioned an abstract of the Two Books of the War against the Persians although he made some mention of the rest He distinguishes him elsewhere from another Procopius Surnamed Gazeus who lived in the same time of Justinian and who also was a Rhetorician by Profession If I durst follow the judgment of one of the men of this Age who has the greatest insight into the Greek Tongue I should willingly be of his mind that the Book of Anecdota is a supposed work and falsely ascribed to the Historian Procopius For that which is really his is writ in a Stile much different from that of this Satyr and has much more of the Air of Ancient Greece But because even they who have writ against the Anecdota seem to agree that they are his to whom they are imputed I was obliged to make the precedent Reflections and to treat Procopius upon this Foundation more to his disadvantage than I had othewise done It is true that at the same time I end this Section an Epistle of Balthasar Boniface to the Clarissimo Molini which I read even now hinders me from repenting of what I did It is printed at the end of his judgment upon those who wrot the Roman History And because they did not mention the Anecdota in the Chapter of Procopius he takes occasion to declare his opinion to that Noble Venetian in the said Letter He appears to be no less concerned than I at such an insolent invective And wonders as I did that Rivius and they who undertook to answer it never thought of considering it as a supposed piece although he himself comes to no determination therein being only content to declare how much he suspects it REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF AGATHIAS I HAVE as much reason to doubt of the Religion of Agathias as I had of that of Procopius For when he speaks in the beginning of his History of the French of his time he praises them amongst other things for being all Christians and because they entertained as he adds very good thoughts of God But when he gives a reason in his Third Book why the fortress of Onogoris Situate in Colchis was called in his time the Fort of S t Stephen he reports that this Protomartyr was stoned to death in that Place using the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they say or as it
Augustus and Tiberius REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF QUINTUS CURTIUS RUFUS ALEXANDER has no reason to complain as once he did for not having like Achilles a Homer to celebrate his praises seeing there was found amongst the Latins so eminent an Historian as Quintus Curtius to describe the actions of his life I take him to be one of the greatest Authors they had and the excellency of his Stile would oblige me to think him more Ancient than Livy and Paterculus and to make him pass for him of whom Cicero speaks in one of his Epistles if the more common opinion of those who have laboured in the search of his Age did not yeild him Vespasian's Contemporary and some to have lived in the Reign of Trajan I will not insist upon the passages of his fourth book where he speaks of Tyre nor on that of the Tenth where he makes a Digression upon the felicity of his Age because many are subject to wrest those expressions to their own sense But as he lived to a great Age he may well be the same person that Suetonius mentioned as a great Rhetorician in the time of Tiberius and Tacitus as a Praetor and Proconsul of Africa under that Emperour for there is not above Two and Thirty years from the last year of Tiberius to the first of Vespasian And what the Younger Pliny reports of a Phantasm which appeared in Africa to one Curtius Rufus can be understood of no other than him that was mentioned by Tacitus as aforesaid But it is of little moment to my design to reconcile the diversity of opinions on this subject which are collected together in Vossius and Raderus a Commentator of Quintus Curtius He is perhaps a Son only of those whom Cicero or Suetonius mentions and may have nothing in common with any of the other that we named especially considering that neither Quintilian nor any of the Ancients have said the least word of him or his History which is very strange for how Quintilian who omitted not to mention all the considerable Historians then extant in the Tenth Book of his Institutions writ in Domitians Reign could forget him is not to be answered without presupposing that the works of Quintus Curtius were not at that time published The ordinary impressions of this Author witness that his Two First Books and the end of the Fifth are lost as also the beginning of the Sixth and in some few places of the last which is the Tenth there manifestly appears a defect It was not Quintianus Stoa but Christopher Bruno that supplied the Two first Books which he did out of what Arrianus Diodorus Justin and some others left us in writing of the Archievements of Alexander the Great Quintus Curtius did well to abstain from the relations of the counterfeit Callisthenes the true one cited by Plutarch being not to be found which make One Nectanebus a Magician to be the Father of that Monarch instead of Philip of Macedon and represent him rather as a Roland or Amadis of Gaule than a true Conqueror Henry Glarean is not followed by any in his distribution of Quintus Curtius his History into Twelve Books re-establishing the Two first and dividing the rest into Ten others instead of the ordinary Eight But in what manner soever his History is disposed it will be alwaies found worthy of its Subject and to him alone can that Elogy be applyed which one Amyntianus insolently and undeservedly arrogated to himself Viz. that he had in some sort equalled by his Stile the noble actions of Alexander As Censurers are every where found it is not to be supposed that Curtius will escape them The same Glarean whom I mentioned before reproves him for having like an ill Geographer made the River Ganges proceed from the South and confounded Mount Taurus with Caucasus and also mistook the Jaxartes of Pliny for the River Tanais But one may answer in his behalf that these errors if they are such are not his who as a Latin Author did no more than follow the Grecian Relators from whom he borrowed his History Strabo observed in the Fifteenth Book of his Geography that the Macedonians called that Caucasus which was but part of the Mount Taurus because the former furnished them with more fabulous matter than the latter as that wherewith they delighted to flatter the ambition of Alexander and their own also And as for the course of the Ganges although it is true that generally speaking it descends from the North to the South yet Strabo adds that it finds such opposition as obliges it many times to hold different courses and that at length it conveighs all its waters to the East But Mascardi makes other objections he thinks him excessive in the use of Sentences and though he cannot but confess that all his are very elegant and ingenious yet he accuses him for not having alwaies imploied them judiciously making some persons speak in a Phrase no way proportionable to their conditions and he instances in that Oration of the Scythians to Alexander in the Seventh Book I have read it over and over by reason of this imputation but with far different Eies from those of Mascardi and I can scarce believe that it is a piece contrived by the Author for I find all matter and Stile so fitly suited to the persons of the Scythian Ambassadors that pronounced it both in respect of the Sentences and all the rest of its parts that it passes in my judgment for a Copy taken from the true Original of Ptolemaeus Aristobulus Callisthenes Onesicritus or some other of those present with Alexander at the time it was spoke who had the curiosity to insert it in the History of that Monarch I insist not on that part which is so well accommodated to the present made by those Barbarians of a pair of Oxen a Plough a Cup and an Arrow The Greek Proverb of the solitary places of their Country is admirably applyed And the Scythian description of Fortune without feet whose flight cannot be stopped although you have hold of her hands seems unexpressibly graceful in their mouths But though all these things do suit wonderfully well with the persons that utter them I find the greatest harmony in the manner of imploying those Sentences which Mascardi arraigns and if ever the Decorum of the Latins was considered or those rules observed which their Rhetoricians authorised I think one may say that Quintus Curtius has on this occasion most religiously kept them They who know with what liberty the Scythians and Tartarians use Fables in all their discourses and that they like the rest of the Eastern People scarce say any thing without intermixing parables therewith will admire the judgment of Curtius in the most sententious part of that Oration which his Censurer found so much fault with Are you ignorant say those Ambassadors to Alexander that the tallest Trees which are so long growing may be beat down and
CORNELIUS TACITUS IN all the impressions of Cornelius Tacitus his Annals are printed before his History which is understood to be because they have a farther beginning treating of the last daies of Augustus and proceeding unto the end of Nero's Reign whose last Twelve years are nevertheless wanting whereas the books of his History seem to follow one another from the Epoche of the death of that Tyrant to the happy Government of Nerva and Trajan And yet there is no doubt but Tacitus first composed his History as being nearer to his own time for he quotes a place in the Eleventh of his Annals to which he refers his Reader concerning what he had already writ of the actions of Domitian which were not by him mentioned any where but in the Books of his History Of this History there remains to us but Five Books and Lipsius guesses that there are Ten lost For if they reached from Galba to Nerva and Trajan which includes at least a space of Twenty one years it is probable the greatest part of them are wanting seeing the Five we have comprehend little more than the occurrences of one year Their Stile is more large and florid than that of the Annals which are composed in a close contracted Phrase but Tacitus his Eloquence appears every where in his grave way of writing which has something of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sublimity in it from which the Rhetâ—â—icians have observed that Demosthenes never straved Amongst so many Censurers who find every one something thing to say against the works of this Historian none are more excusable than those who only complain of his obscurity For as he often leaves his Narrations imperfect he is sometimes found less intelligible And the faults of the Copies and depravation thereby of his sense in many places contributes much to render his matter difficult to be understood but where the Paragraphs are intire and uncorrupted his meaning is easily discovered Howsoever it be it is no wonder if Tacitus having imitated Thucydides and both followed Demosthenes retained something of that roughness and austerity which is observed in the writings of those Two Graecians and which all the Ancients accounted as a virtue so far is it from deserving to be imputed as a fault to him that should propose them to himself for imitation And as some Wines are recommended to our palates by a little bitterness that is in them and many persons find that a dusky and obscure light in Churches in most sutable to their exercise of devotion so others conceive the obscurity of an Author mixed with a little roughness of Stile is rather to be esteemed than otherwise because it disposes the mind to attention and elevates and transports it to notions which it would not arrive at in a more easy composition As for those who were so confident to pretend that Tacitus writ ill Latin I judge them more worthy of compassion for that extravagance than any solid answer Yet Two great Civilians were of that opinion Alciat who maintained that the Phrase of Paulus Jovius was preferable to that of this Ancient Historian which he said was full of Thornes and Ferret who condemn'd his Stile as being in his judgment not Roman enough If ever men were absurd in censures doubtless these were and I do affirm against such unreasonable opinions that apparently Tacitus makes the least Groome or Cook in narratives speak better Latin than either Ferret or Alciat they are indeed learned in the Law but very bad judges of the Roman Eloquence For though Tacitus has not writ like Caesar or Cicero that is no argument of his bad performance Eloquence is not uniform there are divers kinds of it and it is not unknown to the Learned that Latin flourished in all of them differently till the Reign of the Emperor Adrian who was not so Ancient as Tacitus to whom the greatest Orators of his time Freely yielded the Palm of History And Pliny the younger who was one of the most considerable amongst them declared in many of his Epistles that he esteemed Tacitus one of the most Eloquent of his Age. In the Twentieth Epistle of the first Book he makes him Judge of a dispute he had about the Eloquence to be used in pleading at the Bar against a learned man that maintained the most concise to be alwaies the best And in another place he describes to one of his friends the Pomp of Virginius Rufus his Funerals observing his last and principal happiness to consist in the praises of the Consul Cornelius Tacitus who made his funeral Oration and who was the most eloquent of that time laudatus est à Correlio Tacito Nam hic supremus felicitati ejus cumulus accessit laudator eloquentissimus When he imparts to another called Arrian the success of a great cause against a Proconsul of Africa accused of robbing the publique Treasury he saies that Cornelius Tacitus made a replication to the person that defended him wherein his Eloquence and gravity inseparable from his discourse were admired respondit Cornelius Tacitus eloquentissimè quod eximium orationi ejus inest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And when the same Pliny designed to provide a publick Preceptor for the City of Coma in his Native Country he intreated Tacitus as one to whom all the great Wits of the Age applyed themselves to recommend one to him to exercise that charge I mention not the descriptions he makes him in two different Letters of the death of the Elder Pliny his Uncle and of the burning of Vesuvins which he was so desirous that the History of Tacitus should describe that he conjures him elsewhere not to forget his name in it declaring his passion for it in terms which I think not unfit to rehearse in this place Auguror nec me fallit augurium Historias tuas immortales futuras quo magis illis ingenue fatebor inseri cupio Nam si esse nobis curae solet ut facies nostra ab optimo quoque artifice exprimatur nonne debemus optare ut operibus nostris similis tui scriptor praedicatorque contingat But the place wherein Pliny shews most the esteem which he and all Italy had of Tacitus is that of another Letter where he declares that from his youth upwards he had chosen him for a pattern of Eloquence from amongst the great number of excellent Orators which were then in Rome And because we learn precisely from that place the age of those two men I will again very willingly insert it in its native language Equidem adolescentulus cùm tu jam fama gloriaque floreres te sequi tibi longo sed proximus intervallo essse haberi concupiscebam Et erant multa clarissima ingenia sed tu mihi it a similitudo naturae ferebat maxime imitabilis maxime imitandus videbaris There is no need to seek other proofs of Tacitus his reputation in his own time which
be justified with truth After the death of the Emperor Valens he retired to Rome where it is beleived by very probable conjectures that he complied his History after he had passed through the most honourable Offices of the Militia which he exercised under divers Emperors having been in his youth of the number of those who were then named Protectores Domestici which was a Quality that resembles that of the Gardes du Corps in France an ordinary step to the highest Imployments of the State He flourished under the Emperors Gratianus and Valentinian and wrote his History in one and thirty books which he began at the end of Domitians Reign or the beginning of Nerva and continued to the death of Valens the first thirteen of them are lost and the eighteen that remain are full of imperfections which the injury of time and the insolent temerity of Criticks have introduced in them as the learned Author of the last Edition of that work has very prudently observed It is easy to judge that the books of Ammianus his History which are wanting were writ much more compendiously than those we have for he comprised in the thirteen first the Reigns of as many Caesars as were between Nerva and Constantius who makes the beginning of the fourteenth all the rest which followed being imployed to describe what past from that last Emperor's to Gratian's time under seven Reigns only We have spoken in the Section of Josephus of those who undertook to write in Foreign Tongues I will not repeat any thing here that I there mentioned but only add that if the History of Ammianus Marcellinus receives some prejudice from his defects in the Latin Elocution in which a Graecian and a Souldier by profession as he was could not very much excell it is so well recompensed by the merit of the thoughts and all the rest of his work that an advantagious place amongst the Prime and Principal Historians cannot be refused him He is of the number of those who writ the things they saw in which they often had a great part wherefore he has something common with Caesar and Xenophon Nevertheless I do not think as others have done that he is that Free Prince of Dalmatia and Illyria of whom Suidas speaks though he bore the same name and was a great friend of Salustius the Philosopher who ought not to be confounded with another of that name a Principal commander of the Praetorian Militia under Valentinian But Ammianus Marcellinus is very much to be valued because though he was a Pagan he had the discretion to publish nothing directly contrary to Christianity and abstained from many Invectives which his equals often in that time used against our Religion He gives indeed excessive praises to Julian and though that Apostate cannot be too much detested for his infidelity and revolt yet it cannot be denied but he was indued according to the ordinary definitions of the Schools with the Moral and intellectual virtues of Chastity Magnanimity Learning and Temperance unless the faith of all Histories that have writ of him be disputed which is needless in the Age in which we live wherein the grace of God has left us nothing more to fear from the Idolatry of the Ancients If the opinion of Gesner may be allowed who maintains that Marcellinus the Historian is the same that writ the Life of Thueydides it may be wondered that he treated Christianity with so much moderation The Author of the Life commends Thucydides for nothing so much as that he had the power over himself to forbear writing with Animosity against Cleon or Brasidas who had caused him to be banished never shewing any where his resentment of so great an injury though to speak the truth he did not wholly refrain from representing the bad conditions of Cleon. It is no marvel then that Marcellinus practised himself what he esteemed so much in others or that he made use of that virtue in his discourses which he commended in those of Thucydides One of the considerations which ought to oblige us to a greater esteem of the History of Ammianus is that we have none like that which gives us the knowledge of many Antiquities of the Gaules or so well explains the Originals of the first French Germans and Burgundians of whom it makes frequent mention Morover it contains many things besides which are found no where else and has had the approbation of all Ages since it was writ because of the sincerity and veracity of the Author And for his reputation we may add to what has been already said of him and his Employments that he passed his last years with great reputation under the Emperors Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius the Great But all these Encomiums do not protect him from being accused of having too often acted the part of a Philosopher in his writings affecting to appear learned beyond what the Laws of History permit which do not admit of Entertainments of so great ostentation as many of those he relates It is the ordinary fault of those that are distinguished by their profession from men of letters and has great resemblance to that vice which the Greeks named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a learning in old age because they which study when they are advanced in age and against the Rules of the usual course of study are much more subject to it than others And indeed Ammianus Marcellinus cannot be justified in many places of his History where he indecently quits the prosecution of his narration to enter upon discourses of Philosophy and other Sciences which have hardly any relation to the matters whereof he treats But to make the thing clearer and consequently more instructive I will produce two or three examples of his practice herein In the seventeenth book speaking of terrible Earthquakes which happened under the Reign of Constantius in Macedonia in the Province which at that time bore the name of Pontus and in many parts of Asia Minor he makes an excellent description and not improperly of the strange Ruines which Nicomedia the Capital City of Bithynia suffered by this accident And if he had stopped there he had done enough but he takes occasion on that subject to seek for the Physical causes of such shakings in the lowest part of the Universe And considers first what the Priests of his Religion said of it Thence examining the reasons of Aristotle Anaxagoras and Anaximander strenghtned by the Testimony of the Poets and Theologians he shews that there are four sorts of Earthquakes And after a long enumeration of the new Isles which appeared in divers places after such shocks he names those that were swallowed up by a quite contrary violence and one amongst the rest which was of a greater extent than all Europe and was swallowed by the Atlantick Sea which doubtless he took from Plato's Timaeus though he does not name him At last having a long time Philosophically expatiated