time than it has been since Ausonius mentions a Treatise of Kings writ by Suetonius in three books whereof Pontius Paulinus contracting them made a Poem Moreover the Surname of Tranquillus which is given to Suetonius is in effect the same in signification as that of his Father whom he himself calls in the Life of Otho Suetonium Lenem reporting that his charge of Tribune of the thirteenth Legion obliged him to be present when that Emperors Troops engaged against those of Vitellius They therefore were deceived who beleived that this Suetonius of whom we write was Son of that Suetonius Paulinus whereof Tacitus Pliny and Dion make mention Sicco Polentonus and Muret committed this error which Lipsius and Some Others judiciously repair there being no reason in what they affirm to confound a Military Tribune with a Consul Gerardus Vossius shews also the mistake of those who read in the tenth Chapter of the first book of the Divine Institutions of Lactantius Tranquillus instead of Tarquitius who was another Author very learned in the Pagan Religion and whom probably in that respect Lactantius speaking of Aesculapius rather intends than our Suetonius But to return to his particular History of the Twelve first Emperors There are some Criticks which affirm that the beginning of the first book is wanting and the ground of their opinion is founded on the improbability that Suetonius should have writ nothing of the birth and first years of Julius Caesar when he took the pains to search into the Original and Education of eleven other Emperors that succeeded whose lives he has described He laboured in it according to the judgement of S t Hierome with the same liberty as Soveraigns so absolute assumed in a condition exempt from all sort of fear Muret indeed in his Oration upon Tacitus converts this to his disadvantage and maintains that S t Hierome rather blamed than praised him in that saying For saies Muret it were to be wished that we had not learned so many Riots and shameful Vices as he declares to have been practised by the Tiberii Nerones and Caligulae They are saies he so filthy that they almost make the Paper blush upon which they are represented And if what one of the Ancients saies be true namely that there is but little difference between him who describes such infamy with care and he who teaches it we shall have much ado to excuse Suetonius for having acted such a part as he did And to augment his charge he is accused of having used the Christians ill calling them a sort of men who imbraced a new and mischievous superstition which made them be persecuted in Nero's time But as we have already answered to the like objections in other Sections is there any of all the Historians of repute who is not guilty if it be a crime in him to have represented the wicked actions of those they write of which makes the greatest and often the most considerable part of the narration Does not the Sacred History it self shew us Parricides Incests Idolatry and many other Profanations amongst the best examples and holiest instructions And ought we not to cast into the fire all the books of those Pagans who have writ since the beginning of Christianity if what they exposed against our Religion should make us absolutely condemn it REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF JUSTIN SOME think they are to blame that complain of Abreviators because without contributing to the loss of the writings they epitomised they have not left us destitute of the most remarkable memorials of many Authors of whose works nothing now remains But those which are of this opinion ought to confess themselves obliged to Justin by whose Industry the Great Labour of Trogus Pompeius is so happily reduced into little that we have few Latin compositions more considerable than his Epitome either for the Stile or matter thereof Yet methinks these sort of writers are not sufficiently discharged in asserting that they have left behind them valuable works unless it be made to appear that they have not been accessory to the loss of the Originals which is the crime imputed to them by many Learned Men as we have already observed in the Chapters of Herodotus Dion Cassius and Livy The Extracts or Collections of that Understanding Emperor Porphyrogenetus are instanced on this occasion And Tribonianius meets with the like entertainment for having made a defective compilation in his Pandects of the Texts or rather Oracles of all those Ancient Lawyers whose excellent reasonings and elegant expressions ought to have been preserved from so bold an attempt A very speculative modern Author speaking of Epitomys does not stick to call them Moths and Worms that gnaw History which have made such a spoil therein that there often remain but miserable shreads of the first contexture And indeed there ought to be more than a bare negation to refute so probable an opinion though it may be alledged that the works of most Abreviators and those of Justin amongst the rest ought to be now very acceptable to us because we can have recourse to no other relations of the matter they deliver It is easy to make a near guess at the time when Trogus Pompeius lived by what he said in his forty third book of his Parents that came from Gallia Narbonensis where he declares his Grandfather to be made a Citizen of Rome by the favour of Pompey the Great whose Surname probably he took during the Wars of Sertorius and that his Father after he had borne Arms under Caius Caesar who is here taken for the first Emperor who bore that name rather than for Caligula had the honour to be his Secretary and jointly to keep his Seal It is therefore thought that Trogus Pompeius wrote his History under Augustus and Tiberius having spoken of the former at the end of the whole work It was divided into forty four books whose number Justin has not changed no more than their Title which was the Philippick History because as it appears from the seventh unto the one and fortieth book it was a continued narration of the Macedonian Empire which owed its rise to Philip Father of Alexander the Great Theopompus had written before fifty eight books called Philippicks which are quoted by Athenaeus and Diodorus and by Some held to be the Model which Trogus Pompeius followed as Cicero imitating Demosthenes named his Orations Philippicks with much less reason The seven first books of that History in pursuance of the Title we mention comprised the first beginnings of the world or of the Inhabitants thereof together with descriptions of Places and Countries which Justin has apparently cut of as it may be collected from the Ancient Preambles before each book of Trogus Pompeius published by Bongars But we had been more fully satisfied herein if that Friend of Aldus who bragged he had in his hands all the works of that Historian and would even in a
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
be expected from a successor of the Scipio's and Aemylii After this conference saies my Author Polybius was hardly ever out of Scipio's company who communicated to him his most important affairs and made use of his Counsel in all the occurrences of the great emploiments he had But who can be safe from the insolence of detractors when there will be found some that vilifie this great Historian though he was honored in Inscriptions and Statues by his Country-men who best knew his Quality as may be seen in Pausanias to acknowledge thereby the esteem they had of his benefits and rare merit There might perhaps be more reason to lay to his charge as some have done his not having been religious enough in his devotion to the Deity for though he speaks in many places very advantagiously of the worship of the Gods as when he attributes all the glory of Arcadia his Country to the great care they had to serve the Altars and else here professes that he abhors the outragiousness of War that causes the destruction of Temples which he makes to be a most capital crime Yet he declares so formally in another place against the Divinity and all those which in his time held the opinion of the pains of Hell that it appears evidently he believed nothing thereof And about the end of his Sixth Book he observes that superstition which was accounted a vice by all other Nations past for a Vertue among the Romans If one could saies he compose a Republick only of wise and vertuous men all those fabulous opinions of Gods and Hell would be altogether superfluous But since there is no State where the people are not as we see them subject to all sorts of irregularities and evil actions one must to bridle them make use of those imaginary fears that our Religion imprints and the panick terrors of the other world which the Ancients have so prudently introduced to this end that they cannot be contradicted now by any but rash persons or those who are not well in their Wits Let them who defend Polybius in every thing as Casaubon has done say what they please on his behalf they can never make him pass after so formal a Declaration for a man very zealous in the Religion of his time They would perhaps do him better service to speak of him as of a Soul illuminated by Heaven in the darkness of Paganism and who believing but in one Principle or only Deity laughed at all those which the Idolatry then reigning made to be adored as well as at the Elysian Fields Gerberus and Rhadamantus which were represented to those Proselites Thus in my opinion he may be best acquitted if it be possible of the crime of impiety putting him in the rank of Heraclitus and Socrates whom St. Justin more charitably than perhaps truly maintains to be Christians long before Christianity Besides the Forty Books of his Universal History it is credible by one of the Letters which Cicero writ to Lucceius that he made a particular Treatise of the War of Numantia His great Age furnished him with the convenience to write much since we understand from Lucian that he passed the great Climacterical year and died not till he was Eighty two years old about Two Hundred and Thirty years before Christ He confesses himself that the advice of Lelius which he often required in their ordinary conferences and the memorials which that great person furnished him withal were very advantagious to him But as to his manner of writing the Ancients agree not that he ought to be accounted eloquent Dionysius Halicarnasseus the most strict and austere critick among them names him impolite and reproaches him with negligence both in the choice of words and structure or composition of his periods His excellency is nevertheless such in all other things that one ought to think that he neglected words as of little importance to tie himself entirely to things more serious Titus Livius is not thought very ingenious to give him only the commendation of a Writer not to be despised since whole books of his are seen transcribed word for word in his Decades It is sure we have no Historian of whom one may learn more in matter of government and civil prudence than of Polybius He does not think a simple narration sufficient but moves pathetically and instructs no less like a Philosopher than an Historian Patritius is mistaken to reprehend him for that method of writing without considering the affinity which has alwaies been between History and Philosophy which is such that the former has been often defined to be a Philosophy filled with examples Perhaps a meer Commentator is condemnable when he acts the Philosopher too much and stretches so far that way which cannot be said of one that undertakes to write a just History We learn from Suidas that one Scylax whom he confounds with a certain Mathematician of that name made an invective against Polybius which was not possibly more reasonable than the censure of the forementioned Patritius I cannot also be reconciled to those who are scandalised that he called one of the Capes or Promontories of Sicily Pelorus long before that name was imposed on it For treating of the first Punick War he calls the place Pelorus where that innocent Pilot was interred whom Hannibal slew long after so unjustly and which gave it 's name of Pelorus to the Promontory now called Capo di Faro if this Etymologie which is combated by the learned Cluverius may be received However it is a way of speaking which the Compilers of the holy Scriptures practised when it was necessary to make a thing better understood He is it may be not excusable for having contrary to the truth of History flatter'd his Scipio to that degree as to make him exercise a memorable example of continency towards the fair Spanish Captive with whom nevertheless he was so taken that he could never resolve to restore her Valerius Antias is he who charges him with this crime in Aulus Gellius which seems to me so much the more strange because Polybius compared History which has not truth for a Guide to an Animal whose Eies are put out and he pretended after Timaeus to render truth as essential to an History as rectitude to a Rule in which resemblance he may be reasonably contradicted as I remember I have done in another work The great affection he had for Scipio puts me in mind of the excellent counsel he gave him that whensoever he went abroad he should never return to his House till he had first endeavoured to gain the friendship of some particular person by obliging him all the waies that lay in his power And although this was a very useful advice to him that received it I mention it in this place to shew the great humanity which appeared in him that gave it We are indebted to Pope Nicolus the Fifth that great
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
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
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
short time shew them the light had said a truth As to what relates particularly to Justin he made his Epitome according to the most common opinion under Antoninus surnamed Pius to whom it is thought he dedicated it in his Preface I know the passage wherein that Emperor is mentioned is diversly interpreted and some have been perswaded that he wrote after the Establishment of the Roman Empire in Constantinople because of a place in the eighth book where he speaks of the Soveraign power of Greece But that may admit other interpretations without a necessity of making him live two hundred years later than he did and in an Age which produced nothing so polite or elegant as all we have of this Author is Yet it is a greater error to confound him with Justin the Martyr as one Martin ' a Polander did in his Chronicle For though these Two Justins were Contemporary the manner how the Historian treats the Israelites in his six and thirtieth book where he will have Moses to be the Son of Joseph and the Latter a very Great Magician shews that he was of the Pagan belief And Justin the Martyr never wrote but in Greek nor did Eusebius S t Hierome or Photius rank the Epitomy of Trogus Pompeius amongst his Works Though S t Hierome indeed quotes something of it in his Preamble upon Daniel And no Author more Ancient than that Father of the Church spoke of Justin the Historian He was not like to use Direct Orations when he whom he epitomised had condemned them in Salust and Livy as we have already elsewhere mentioned Which appears in the eight and thirtieth book where he rehearses in an Oblique form that long Oration of Mithridates to his Souldiers to animate them against the Romans And that of Agathocles in the twenty second book pronounced as soon as he arrived at Africa to incourage his Troops then terrified by the obscurity of an Eclipse of the Sun is no less considerable than that of Mithridates though it be shorter But he is censured by Some for introducing a few Digressions in a work so close and short as the History he writes The first is found in the beginning of his second book where the Scythians and the Egyptians have a debate on the point of honour in what relates to their Antiquity both of them pretending to have sufficient reasons to call themselves the most Ancient People of the Earth The second is in the twentieth book on the subject of Pythagoras whose birth voyages learning virtues and death he describes without forgetting the misfortune which happened to his Disciples whereof threescore were burnt in Croton and the rest exiled Whence one may conclude that all sort of Digressions are not to be condemned when so eminent an Author as Justin who contracted into so little a space the History of the Transactions of two thousand years which are reckoned from Ninus the Founder of the Assyrian Monarchy to the Emperor Augustus made no difficulty sometimes to divert himself this way upon an agreeable subject But though Justin's manner of writing is so excellent that it was thought worthy of Augustus his Age rather than of that of the Antonines his elegancy of Stile cannot atone for his mistakes in relation Pererius has convinced him of many errors in reference to the Jews in his Commentaries upon Daniel And Vopiscus places him in the rank of Historians who could not avoid lying but one may say that his associating him with Livy Salust and Tacitus renders that accusation very light That which he cannot be excused in is Chronology where he was so much mistaken that one ought not to follow him alwaies And that which makes his fault the greater is that the reputation of Trogus Pompeius and the esteem which all the Ancients had for him obliges men to think that those misreckonings in the sequel of times are rather of the Copy than the Original or of the Abreviator rather than the Primitive Author Which is the ordinary judgment of those who have laboured most in the best Editions of Justin I Should have ended here according to my first intention not finding after Justin and the time of the Antonines any Latin Historian amongst the Ancients whence one might draw any profitable instruction to compose a History or whose works might merit a serious reflection unless it should be absolutely to condemn the exposition and ill conduct of them They who are usually called the Writers of the August History Spartianus Wlcatius Gallicanus Trebellius Pollio Julius Capitolinus Lampridius and Vopiscus have nothing in them contrary to this proposition or otherwise considerable except it be that they teach us things of many Emperors whereof we hardly learn any thing elsewhere though indeed Vopiscus is the least faulty of them Trebellius Pollio may be put in the second order Spartianus Lampridius and Wlcatius are incomparably more faulty and more negligent than the others and Julius Capitolinus is the worst of all by the advice of those who have taken the pains to examin them But it is very strange that a whole Age and more should pass away from that of the Antonines to Diocletian under whom all those before mentioned did write without the appearance of one good Historian in the Roman Empire who might deserve to have his works descend to us Neither will Sextus Aurelius Victor who came a little after merit a better esteem whose abridged History contains but a word of each Emperor's Life from Augustus to Julian nor would it be any advantage to him if we should confound in one the three who bore the same name of Sextus Victor to Theodosius the Great And as for Eutropius who dedicates almost at the same time his Historical Breviary to the Emperor Valens and whom Suidas calls an Italian Sophister I shall say little of him as having nothing comparable in his writings to those of the celebrated Authors whose works we have examined There remains only Ammianus Marcellinus whom I cannot with a good conscience decline he having compiled a just body of History and by whom I will finish this Treatise for we cannot extend it to the Age of Justinian as we have done that of the Greek Historians unless we should introduce Jornandes and Cassiodorus indiscreetly mingling the barbarity of the Goths with the purity and adress of the best Authors of the Latin Language REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS IT must be confessed that Ammianus Marcellinus is not considerable in respect of the beauty of his language For he was a Greek by Nation as he himself declares at the end of his last book And from an Epistle of Libanius to him it is inferred that he was a Citizen of Antioch he speaks of him with Elogies as often as occasion does occur excusing him in his two and twentieth Book on the subject of the Invectives of the Misopogon of Julian which he affirms to have been excessive and contrary to what might
himself he begins his narration again with Julian's residence at Paris being then only a designed Caesar or Emperor In the beginning of the twentieth book he takes notice of a great Eclipse of the Sun in the year when the Scotch the Picts wasted England which was that of the tenth Consulat of Constantius and the third of Julian As this was a good observation to be made and very worthy of his History so there is no reason on that circumstance to fall upon the most secret misteries of Astronomy not only in what concerns those Periodical defects of the light of the Sun but also in what touches the travels of the Moon as the Poets say when the Earth darkens it with its shadow He exposes on that subject the opinion of Ptolemaeus in the same words he used and not content to treat of Eclipses he inquires into the cause of the Parelia when we think we see more than one Sun in the Heavens so that one would think in this place he quite abandons the prosecution of his History to deliver to his readers a Lecture of Astronomy Nevertheless at last he resumes his discourse recounting the preparations of Constantius against the Persians and his jealousy of the brave actions of Julian after a tiresome and intolerable excursion The third and last example of the vicious digressions of Ammianus is in his thirtieth Book where he observes with curiosity and profit how the Emperor Valens was diverted by his Courtiers from hearing causes pleaded and assisting at judgments that they might thereby pursue their unjust Monapolies and because they feared considering his rigid and severe nature he would cause justice to be exercised as legally and justly as it was a little before under the government of Julian Thence he takes occasion to inveigh against the profession of Advocates which he says Epicurus named the Art of Knavery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the better to represent the infamous proceedings of those of his time he exaggerates the merit of one Demosthenes that made all Greece come to Athens when he was to speak in publick and of one Callistratus who made even Demosthenes leave Plato in his Academy to go and hear him And then he mentions Hyperides Aeschines Androcides Dinarchus and one Antiphon who was the first of all Antiquity that was recompensed for pleading in a weighty cause From the Greeks he passses to the Romans and naming those great Orators Rutilius Galba Scaurus Crassus Antonius Philippus and Scaevola he descends to Cicero to prove that formerly they that had exercised the chief imployments of State after having been Censors Consuls Generals and had Triumphed did not disdain to take a place at the Bar and add to the glory of their precedent actions as a Corollary that of having had the applause of a whole Audience in pleading And after having shown so fine a Scene he draws the Curtain to expose to all eies the shameful and criminal prostitution of the Advocates of his Age dividing them into four sorts whose impostures impertinencies and perplexing tricks he does so particularly display that one has much ado to get out of the Laborinth to recover the narration and return to Valentinian in Tryers where he had left him Though his Declamation is very moral and elegant being separately considered it must needs be troublesome and tedious as he introduces it because it too visibly interrupts the course of the History And those that would be instructed in Physicks Astronomy or Moral Philosophy do not seek such lessons in an Historian and to those that design to be informed in History nothing can be more uneasy than to find in the midst of a relation foreign discourses which divide or mislead the mind and do but shew his learning that exposes them Besides this vicious ostentation which one may easily perceive in those three passages I instanced Ammianus Marcellinus is blamed for having made certain descriptions so Poetical that they are hardly sufferable And though as we have elsewhere observed History and Poetry are good friends enough and agree in many things Caussinus the Jesuite in his Treatise of Eloquence gives divers examples of this defect which appear so frequently in the writings of Ammianus that it is hard not to find some in every opening of the book But all these censures cannot deprive him of the praises we have given him There are generally speaking certain things in books that are displeasing which nevertheless are not to be rejected because they serve for a Basis to others which are better and are like the Lees which preserve the Wine in its spirits But after all that has been said the imperfections of this Historian seem to me so much the less considerable as the virtues of his Age were rare And it is that which induces me to put an end here to my labour hardly finding after him any thing but gross errors in the writings of those Authors of the next succeeding age which busied themselves in writing Latin History To write of the Modern Historians is not my design and the Interval of time which divides them from the first of that order is a just occasion for me to make a stop here FINIS Ep. 25. l. 7. Lib. 1. Strom. L. 1. de leg 2. de Orat. L. 15. c. 25. Noct. Act. L. de scr hist. In Bion. Herac. A Book so called Noct. Act. l. 1. c. 25. Suet. de ill Gram. c. 6. Photius Sect. 61. de Aesch Juven Sat. 10. In Euterp L. pen. parag 2 dig de acq rer dom Iaitio Terpsic Plutarch was Trajan's Preceptor Nat. Hist l. 12. c. 4. Hobbs in the life of Thueydides * Ter Maximus For Hermes was so called because he was a King a Priest and a Philosopher Xenophon t is sermo est quidem meâ—le dulcior Tullius lib. de Clar. oratoribus ad Brutum Et eodem libro pâ—â—lò inferius scribit Xenophontis vote musas quasi locutas ferâ—â—t * Cyrus ille à Xenophonte non ad Historiae fidem scriptus est sed ad effigiemâ— Justi Imperii Tullius ad Quintum Fratrem Cicer. 2. Tusc quae * Libellus de Aequivocis Voss de hist graet lib. 1. cap. 5. Speron Speroni dial di Xenoph. Unus Xenophontis libellus in eo rege laudando facilè omneis imagines omnium flatuasque superavit Tullii Epistol lib. 5. ad Q. filium Diod. Sic. initio lib. 1. A. Gellius Noct. Att. l. 5. c. 18. A custome in use amongst the greatest of the Roman Nobility Cicer. l. 1. Tusc quae Constantinus Porphyrogennetus ut supra In Arcad. Lib. 5. Ep. In Macr. Vossius de hist graetis c. 19. L. 6. Noct. Act. c. 8. Lib. 1. hist Tr. of Hist upon Sand. Rome The Greeks called all Nations but themselves by that name Ad annum Num. 1567. Photius Meth. hist c. 5. 5. disc de trad Lib. 18. Cap. 40. Lib. 2. Lib. 1. The name or inscription of his History Paraen ad Gr.
to fall upon the most loaden as on those where there is more to be gained Having in some manner justified my proceedings it is reasonable that I should acknowledg the great assistance I received from divers persons who favoured my enterprise The Two Du Puys were the first who perswaded me to it and according to their natural goodness which so many Schollars find by daily experience assisted me with Books out of three Great Libraries to wit the Kings that of Monsieur de Thou and their own It is certain that the first could never fall into better hands and though as all men know it is very considerable yet it receives at this day its greatest ornament from their judicious conduct whose presence does even animate the books contained in it Neither were they content to give me all the help that way I could desire but as it is said of Socrates that he performed the Office of Midwife to the spiritual deliveries of the most worthy men of Greece I should be very ungrateful not to confess that I am indebted to their Learned conferences for all that is good in this Treatise This comparison and their backwardness hitherto in setting out any thing under their own names although their works when exposed to the eye of the world will meet with an Universal approbation puts me in mind of a thought of Pliny the Younger on the subject of one of his friends He saies that they who though full of Learning and merit are nevertheless silent demonstrate a greater strength of wit than many others who cannot forbear to prostitute what they know Illi qui tacent hoc amplius praestant quod maximum opus silentio reverâ—ntur In the next place I must acknowledg the great assistance I have received from the Library of the most Eminent Cardinal Mazarin by the means of his Learned Library-keeper Monsieur Naudé who was pleased to add to the effects of his ordinary humanity those of an Ancient and most perfect friendship As for some Authors who have anticipated me in printing of works upon the same subject I hope I shall not be accused of ingratitude towards them I have cited Sigonâ—â—s â—ossiâ—s and Balthasar Bonifacâ—us who wrot and censured before me the Greek and Latin Historians and if I have taken something from them as it could not be avoidâ—d I did it not like a Theif or Plagâ—ary nor without adding something of my own which a candid Reader might well expect from a Treatise succeeding so many others but with this advantage at least as far as I know to be the first of this nature that has been seen in French I am not ignorant that my work is not of the number of those which please many people They that prefer Fabulous Stories before true Narratives and Romances before Roman History will not find content here I consider herein the excellent waies used by the Ancients to instruct us faithfully and satisfactorily in those passages of the world which were worthy to be Recorded to posterity And thoughts are herein displayed in such a manner that without giving a precise judgment as coming absolutely from me I leave without partiality free liberty to all men to contradict my opinions But though many perhaps who are short-sighted will yeild freely to those who have better eyes than themselves yet very few refer themselves to others in what concerns the Operations of the mind wherein every one thinks he is clear sighted and no body will acknowledg a Superior Let not therefore what I expose here but as doubts grounded upon some appearances of truth be taken for resolutions My freinds know why I wrot them And my comfort is whatever happens the Labour was as an honest diversion to me And if it be true as Clemens Alexandrinus asserts that our Souls are of the nature of Wells from whence we must alwaies draw something to make their waters more wholesome and pure I do not repent of a trouble which has been so profitable to me and which at least has kept my better part from corruption for want of exercise To conclude I should willingly use in favour of this writing the same prayer to God which Apollonius made to the Sun when he undertook those long voyages which Philostratus describes upon the credit of Damis Addressing himself to that great Star which he held to be the Visible God of Nature he asked him the favour to find through the world the most honest men If my book were so happy to have no others to deal with it would be no small advantage to it But if its destiny is otherwise ordained I must suffer patiently what cannot be avoided by those who expose any thing to the publick The Greek Historians HErodotus Pag 1. Thucydides p. 15. Xenophon p. 26. Polybius p. 33. Diodorus Siculus p. 46. Dionysius Halicarnasseus p. 58. Josephus p. 69. Arrian p. 83. Appian p. 93. Dio or Dion Cassius p. 104. Herodian p. 116. Zosimus p. 126. Procopius p. 135. Agathias p. 156. The Latin Historians CRispus Salustius p. 165. Julius Caesar p. 180. Titus Livius p. 188. Velleius Paterculus p. 201. Quintus Curtius Rufus p. 206. Cornelius Tâ—citus p. 216. Lucius Annaeus Florus p. 228. Suetonius p. 234. Justin. p. 240. Ammianus Marcellinus p. 248. IMPRIMATUR March 29 1678. JOH NICHOLAS Vic. Can. Oxon. REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS ALTHOUGH there have been many Greek Historians who preceeded Herodotus he is allowed to be the most Ancient of those whose Works have been preserved to our time Pherecydes Dionysius Milesius Hecateas Xanthus Lydius Charon of Lampsacum Hellanicus and some others are indeed mentioned to have written Histories before him but their writings have been so long lost that Cicero in his Book de Legibus acknowledged Herodotus to be the Father of History and in another place for his excellency he stiled him the Prince of Historians They reckon no less than one and twenty Ages from his to ours for he lived about four Hundred and Fifty years before the Nativity of Christ Hellanicus and Thucydides were his contemporaries and they differed so little in Age that as Aulus Gellius reports Hellantus was but twelve years elder than Herodotus and Thucydides but Thirteen years younger Suidas Photius and Marcellinus relate a circumstance which-justifies this in respect of the two latter they write that Herodotus reading his History in a great Olympick Assembly of all Greece Thucydides who was then but very young could not forbear weeping to hear him which obliged Herodotus to tell his Father that he esteem'd him very happy in having a Son who shewed so early such a great affection to the Muses I do not affirm by this expression of Herodotus that he then called the nine Books he composed by the names of the Daughters of Parnassus The most probable opinion and which Lucian seems to uphold is that those Books received their names from the learned rather than the Author and we
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
for they both composed a defence of Socrates and many other moral and politick Treatises according to the observation of Diogenes in Plato's life without any mentioning one another with reciprocal praise whatsoever occasion presented it self among so many Dialogues by them exposed in the name of Socrates with his Disciples Some will have it that Xenophon represented in very lively colours the defects of one Menon a Thessalian in the end of the Second Book of Cyrus his expedition for no other reason than that he was a friend to Plato But as for that other Book de Aequivocis printed an Age ago under the name of Xenophon it is to be held one of the impostures of Annius Viterbius In like manner some would have a certain suppositious History of the Siege of Troy to pass for current under the name of one Dictys Cretensis a Companion of Idomeneus and of one Dares a Phrygian and that it was translated out of Greek into Latin by Cornelius Nepos when the Stile bewraies that he never thought upon the work for it has nothing of that inimitable purity and eloquence which appears in his lives of the Greek Captains and in that of Atticus writ by the same Author such impostures are offensive and cannot be too much derested by the Lovers of truth And yet some there are so led away by their affection for Fables that they feed themselves with such trifles and so build upon those idle foundations as thereby to encourage others to impose the like chears upon Mankind We have lately seen the Itinerary of Alexander Geraldin Bishop of St. Dominick who pretends to have found over all Aethiopia on this and the other side of the Line Roman Inscriptions and Antiquities of such value that all others which the rest of the Earth affords would be despicable if the worst of his were true But it is observable that none before or after him ever saw them nor is there any Schollar so unexperienced in this sort of reading that cannot easily discover the falsehood of his observations so unlikely they are Is it not a great impertinence to raise pillars to testifie the Conquest and absolute dominion of the Romans in places where apparently none of them ever set foot and in direct opposition to all we have from their own Histories The same judgment is to be made of those Hetruscian or Tuscan Antiquities which we have of a fresher date from one Inghiramius whose impudence is unpardonable for deceiving the world at such a rate And perhaps it were not unfit to have punishments established to signalise the infamy of those that dare expose to the publick spiritual Aliments so corrupted and Mortal as those are for no poison operates with more violence and bad effects upon the body then errors and impostures upon our minds when we are infected with them An Author of the last Age accuses Xenophon of having loved Agesilaus so passionately that not only in his Book which he writ of his praise but likewise in his History he makes rash judgments in his favour and extols his Victories much more than the Laws of History will permit But this Capricio of an Italian will be approved of by very few because it arraigns the judgment of all Antiquity which never spoke so much to the disadvantage of Xenophon And Tully who mentions his praise of that Prince does not accuse him of any indecency in it As for his Stile one may see what Hermogenes writes of it who commends it especially for its sweetness and simplicity which he makes one of the principal Ornaments of Language and in this respect he by much prefers Xenophon to Plato He was by Birth an Athenian and the Son of one Grillus and lived about four hundred years before the Nativity of Christ. REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF POLYBIUS AS Xenophon was the first Philosopher that applied himself to write Histories so Polybius has the advantage to have given us the most considerable one extant and made it appear more clearly than any other Historiographer that History is as it were the Metropolitan of Philosophy to use the tearms of the Historian of whom we shall write in the Chapter following But what is said of Polybius might be more reasonably admitted if the whole body of his works were now extant of which only the least part remains since of fourty Books which he composed there are but the five first entire with the Epitomy of the following twelve which is continued to the beginning of the Eighteenth Many are of opinion that this Epitomy was writ by the great assertour of Roman Liberty Marcus Brutus because it is known that he delighted in nothing so much as in reading History being a man so difficult to please that Cicero's works did not affect him and therefore he imployed his leasure in Epitomising the History of Polybius finding therein besides that instruction wherewith it abounded the consolation he needed in the last and most unfortunate daies of his life The Subject of this History were all the most considerable actions in the world from the beginning of the second Punick War to the end of that which terminated the differences of the Romans with the Macedonian Kings by the utter ruine of their Monarchy This includes the space of Three and Fifty years the events of which Polybius shewed in the last Eight and Thirty Books for the Two first are not so much of the body of his History as they serve for a preparative in a summary narration of the taking of Rome by the Gaules under the conduct of Brannus and of that which followed until the first year of the second War against the Carthaginians But though the affairs of the Roman Empire were much more exactly described by him than the rest of those that writ of that Subject because his chief aim was to omit nothing that might give a perfect information of them yet he neglected not also to represent the concerns of all the other powers of the Universe unsolding the interests of the Kings of Syria Egypt Macedon Pontus Cappadocia and Persia with those of all the different Dynasties which were then in Greece And therefore he gave the name of Catholick or Universal to his History as informing us of the destinies of all the Nations of the Earth there being scarce any at that time which had not some difference with or dependance on the Romans He received at his Birth great gifts from Nature which favoured his enterprise and that chance of fortune which made him come to Rome was no small advantage to him since he is indebted to it not only for the best part of his learning but the important friendship he contracted with Scipio and Lelius which contributed much to the celebration of his History to posterity But the pains he took in the acquisition of all that could put him in a capacity of writing it well and labouring for eternity seems worthy to be considered
He thought it was required of a good Historiographer to have seen the best part of those things he related according to the Erymologie of the name given by the Grecians to that profession He knew the errors which the ignorance of places made Timeas commit for he reproached him in his Twelfth Book that having trusted to the reports of others and not travelled himself he might be proved guilty of many errors And possibly having learned the Latin Tongue with great care he remembred the expressions which Plautus who lived an Age before him makes Messenio say to Menechmus that unless they had a design to write a history he thought they had seen enough of the World Quin nos hinc domum Redimus nisi si Historiam scripturi sumus So much they at that time thought travel necessary to an Historiographer who could make no exact description nor be confident of the authority of his memorials from whatsoever place he should have them if he had not rectified them by his own sight viewing himself the Countries he intended to treat of Polybius resolved therefore to know exactly many places as well of Europe as Asia and Africa whether he went purposely to be assured of what he might write of them And he used Scipio's Authority to procure Vessels fit to Sail on the Atlantick Ocean judging that what he should there observe might prove useful to his intentions It is certain that he passed the Alps and one part of the Gaules to represent truly Hannibals passage into Italy and fearing to omit the least circumstance of the same Scipio's actions he travelled all over Spain and stopt particularly at new Carthage that he might carefully study the scituation of it But now we are mentioning the famous Subverter of Carthage Scipio Aemilianus Grand Son by adoption of Scipio Africanus who vanquished Hannibal after he had compelled him to leave Italy it may not be improper to insert what Polybius himself left in writing concerning the strict friendship which was between them two shall borrow the discourse of it from a fragment of his one and thirtieth Book taken from the Collections of Constantinus Porphyrogennetus under the Title of Vice and Vertue he tells in that place that this reciprocal affection had its rise from the pleasure they took together to talk of books and communicate them one to another This was the reason why Scipio emploied all his own and his Brother Fabius his credit to obtain leave for Polybius to live at Rome when the other Grecians which were sent for as well as he to remain as Hostages were distributed through all the rest of the Cities in Italy One day when they had Dined all Three together Scipio being alone with Polybius after dinner blushing a little complained to him that he alwaies addressed his speech at Table to his Brother Perhaps said he you do it because you see me less active than he and that I am careless to seek fame by publick pleading in which the Youth of this City employ their time and by this measure you and many others of my friends may conceive amiss of me which will be no small trouble to me Polybius soon perceived the commendable jealousie of Scipio who was not full Eighteen years old and assuring him of the esteem he had of his person as one most worthy to bear the many illustrious names which his Predecessors had left him he excused himself in respect of Fabius to whom he said being the eldest civility often required him to direct his discourse which he praied him not to apprehend amiss in him and after this little expostulation which was followed by a mutual protestation of good will Scipio never received any one into sucst a strict of Cordial familiarity Lelius excepted as he did Polybius I thought the circumstances of this conference between Two such great men so much the more considerable besides that thereby we make some discovery of their Genius which alwaies appears more in a private discourse than in any the most serious actions that I may by this instance refute the impertinence of a modern Writer who had the impudence to make many injurious reflections on Polybius It is one Sebastian Maccius that treating of History and declaming against digressions took occasion to condemn those of Salust and Polybius indecently calling them base conditioned Fellows and men sprung out of the dregs of the People And the more to defame the latter he particularly adds that he was a meer pedant given to Scipio to serve him in the Quality of a Preceptor But this is too malicious to pass without an answer on Polybius his account deferring what may be said in behalf of Salust till we treat of the Latin Historians None that converse with Books can be ignorant that Polybius was of Megalopolis a City in Arcadia and that he was Son of Lycortas General of the Achaians which was the most puissant Republick then in Greece That great State sent them both Father and Son in Quality of Ambassadors to King Ptolomaeus surnamed Epiphanes and the Son had afterwards the same Honour when he was deputed to go to the Roman Consul which made War upon King Perseus in Thessaly His Birth then was very illustrious contrary to what was said by Maccius and it is not probable that a person so exercised in the affairs of State and accustomed to great emploiments as Polybius was should be known to Scipio for no other purpose than to instruct him in the Rudiments of Grammar Nor has any but this detractor had so lewd an imagination of him All the Ancients who writ of Polybius have done it with great commendations and many of them esteemed Scipio for nothing more than his choice of so faithful a Counsellor and his carrying him with him in all his military expeditions Cato reproached a Roman Consul for having had a Poet amongst those of his train when he went to visit a Province out of Italy I will not say he shewed in that too much of the Philosophical severity of which he made profession though it is said that he would himself sometimes quit that humour when he feasted with his friends but it is certain that no man ever found fault with the choice Scipio made of the person of Polybius to accompany him for he was neither considered as a Poet nor meer Grammarian if to be such may be accounted faults the fragment we quoted is express enough to assure us of the contrary in pursuance indeed of the discourse he used to please Scipio he added that neither his Brother Fabius nor he should ever want instructors in what related to letters which he might decently enough say considering the great number of learned men which came daily to Rome from all parts of Greece and in further compliance with him that no man should be more zealous or industrious than he to improve his thoughts to things worthy of his Birth and what might
Greek because even in their time the Athenian Eloquence was already transferred to Rome and that faculty which delights in command had quitted the vanquished to follow the fortune of the victorious taking their habit and Language It is no wonder then that Diodorus is not equal in this respect to Herodotus Thucydides or Xenophon bing a Sicilian onely and having added to that the disadvantage to write in such a season Photins nevertheless does not forbear to praise his Stile as being very clear unaffected and very proper for his Subject which is History It is saies he neither too Attick nor too full of Ancient words His manner of writing has a just mediocrity between the most high Stile and the other which the School calls humble and creeping for its lowness which is alwaies avoided by Diodorus There is certainly more reason to credit that learned Patriarch of Constantinople who was a most exact critick in his Tongue than John Bodin who though he understood Greek much less ventures to give a quite contrary judgment and reprehend the words as well as the Stile of Diodorus as if a stranger at this day could say any thing worthy consideration in that matter after what has been said by the Ancients and contrary to the opinion of those to whom Greek was a maternal language Nor is there more heed to be taken to the invective of Lodovicus Vives the Spaniard against Diodorus than to that of Bodin the French man The last blames even the expressions and words the first arraigns the body of his History and the things whereof his narration is composed If we believe Vives there is nothing more vain than the Historical Library of our Sicilian and Pliny was much to blame in his opinion to say in his Preface that Diodorus was the first of the Greeks who spoke seriously and abstained from writing trifles I know the Authority of this accuser is not small he being very learned in respect of his Age and one of the ornaments of his Country neither am I ignorant that others besides him as Pighius and Sigonius complained of the faults which Diodorus committed in Chronologie for having followed bad computations And I consider that Vives having commented on the Books of St Augustin de Civitate Dei remarked in them how that great Doctor of the Church laughed at the Egyptians who said that they had Records in their Books a hundred thousand years old to which Diodorus his Text is not repugnant nay he goes farther than this when he makes mention of the great knowledg of Heavenly things which the Chaldeans had acquired who bragged that they had made observations upon them for the space of four hundred seventy and two thousand years before the conquests of Alexander the Great in Asia He had already said that the Egyptians reckoned some Ten and others of them Three and twenty thousand years from Isis and Osiris to the same Alexander and that their first Kings who were Gods did each of them Reign no less than Twelve Hundred years This is doubtless that account which Vives could not suffer and which provoked him to declare so highly against Diodorus who will not allow him to have been praised by Pliny for any other thing than the Title of his History which is indeed neither improper nor ridiculous as many of those were which the other Grecians ordinarily gave to their Books But if that may be said to be the onely occasion which moved Pliny to pronounce this fair Elogy of our Historian viz. Primus apud Graecos desciit nugari Diodorus yet it was alwaies favourably interpreted to extend to his whole composition and it is a kind of injustice to affirm as Vives did that there is nothing more vain not less solid than his History As for the Egyptian Ephemerides and the Astronomical calculations of the Chaldeans they are inferted onely to shew what was the common belief of those people not arguing that he gave any credit to them He is so far from it that he saies expressly in his Second Book that he cannot possibly acquiese to what the Colledge of Chaldeans had determined of the long space of time which preceded the Victories of Alexander I am so far from condemning the Fables and excellent Mythology in the Five first Books of Diodorus that in my opinion we have nothing more precious in all that remains of Antiquity for besides that Fables may be told seriously and that Plato's Timaeus with several other works of very great consideration should be rejected if they were absolutely unnecessary it is to be said of these that they teach us the whole Theology of the Idolaters And if it were lawful to give a Holy name to a profane thing I might call the Five forementioned Books the Bible of Paganism since they teach us at the first sight what the Gentiles believed of Eternity and the Creation of the World and the birth of the first men is therein afterwards described according to the pure Light of Nature So that they represent to us so well all the Theogony of the Egyptians whence that of the Greeks drew its Original that without Diodorus we should be ignorant of what is most curious in that sort of knowledge Nevertheless he is not the first Infidel that began his History with the Original of all things as well as Moses with the Creation of the World For he himself teaches us in the fifth Book of his Bibliotheca that Anaximenes of Lampsacum had not writ the first of any as some have ill translated it but the first History of Greece because he took it from the birth of the Gods and the infamy of Mankind to speak like him continuing it to the famous battel of Mantinea and the glorious death of Epaminondas however since our evil destiny would not permit the others labours to come to us I believe we cannot at this day have too great an esteem for those of Diodorus which it hath not envied us nor too much retort the injurious censure of Vives and such like But in this we do no more than follow the opinion of most men of letters not onely Ethnicks but even Christians also Jnstin Martyr calls Diodorus in several places the most renowned and esteemed of all the Greek Historians and proves by his writings the excellence and Antiqnity of the Great Law giver of the Hebrews and when he would insinuate that Homer had learned in Egypt the most refined things he put into his Poesy he uses for it the Authority of Diodorus whom he does not name without praise And Eusebius goes beyond Justin Martyr both in Titles of Honour and in citations of passages drawn from our Historian with which he fills all the books of his Evangelical preparation And when he treats of the beginning of the world and of what the Ancients believed of the Sun and Moon and of the custome which the Carthaginians had to Sacrifice men
not very polite and worthy of his name We have his compositions of Rhetorick and the most subtle Criticks place him in the first rank of those who delighted in that sort of study and though there were no more to be said of him than the request that was made him by Pompey the Great to give him his judgment on the first Greek Historians and especially on Herodotus and Xenophon it shews sufficiently the esteem wherein he lived in his time and of what Authority he was in Rome among the learned when Pompey chose him out of so many others to inform him therein If there be any thing which may be found fault with either in that letter which he addresses to Ammaea and Tubero or in others upon the same matter it is that he was too exact and rigorous therein giving Laws to Eloqueuce so full of severity that they take from it one of the best parts which is the generous liberty whereof it has alwaies made profession In effect he often straightens that noble Art so much that he deprives it almost of all its reality and reduces it to a simple Idea without hopes that it can be practised by any one for the future so that one may say according to the strictness of his Maxims there was never any perfect Historian nor true Orator If one studies his precepts of Rhetorick upon all the sorts of Oration his characters of the Ancients wherein he shews what one ought to imitate in them and what to avoid with his other Treatise made to instruct us how to examin their Writings the truth of what I have said will appear and the Spleen of this Critick will be discovered who found fault with the Stile of Plato This was one of the occasions of a letter which Pompey taking Plato's parr writ to him And we see by Dionysius his answer that although to content Pompey he professes himself an admirer of Plato he forbears not to prefer Demosthenes to him protesting that it was onely to give the whole advantage to the latter that he exercised his censure against the former Nevertheless it appears that at another season he spared his Demosthenes no more than the rest so prone was his inclination to carping because after he had conceived things in the highest perfection he pretended to find nothing which was not far beneath them and which did not consequently displease him But since it is not our intention to consider him here so much an Orator as an Historian Let us be content to make some observations on his Roman Antiquities to be acquainted with his judgment concerning the principal matters of History We have already seen that he was no Enemy to digressions when we said that Photius drew one of the greatest causes to praise him from his making such good use of them And that which he makes in his Seventh Book to describe the whole course of the Tyranny of Aristodemus surnamed Mollis shews that he thought them one of the Ornaments of History The long Orations of Tullus Hostilius and Metius Suffetius in the Third Book with others of Servius Tullius which are in the Fourth make it also appear sufficiently that he did not condemn as some have done all sort of direct Orations though he has elsewhere blamed the bad ones He is not content in his Fifth Book to praise P. Valerius Publicola but takes occasion thereupon to prescribe it to Historians not to represent the brave and glorious actions of illustrious men in their Histories without making their particular and Domestick virtues appear accompanied with their merited praises which is directly contrary to the opinion of those who would have them refrain from all things that may excite the passions least they thereby invade the Province of an Orator In the same Book on the Subject of the Conspiracy of the Tarquins detected and severely punished by the Consul Sulpitius he delivers another important precept to those who write History not to set down barely in their narratives the issue of things but to represent them alwaies jointly with their causes and the means which were used to make them succeed not forgetting the least circumstances nay to penetrate if it be possible into the Counsels of the first Authors and those who had the greatest share in the execution But though Dionysius Halicarnasseus reproved Theopompus for having emploied some comparisons to no purpose he does not judge them to be all faulty for he makes use of them sometimes and of those Parallels or affinities of actions which many cannot endure Thus on the Subject of Tarquin who to answer the Servant of his Son beat down in his presence the heads of those Poppies which were higher than the rest he remarks that Thrasybulus had practised the same thing towards Periander pulling up before his Messenger those Ears of Corn which overâ—opped the rest And treating of the creation and absolute power of the Roman Dictators he observes that this Magistracy was probably instituted in imitation of the Greeks because the Inhabitants of Mitylene now called Metelin had formerly raised Pâ—ttacus one of the Seven Sages to a like dignity which they limited to a certain time onely in an expedition against some persons banished from their State who were companions to the Poet Alcaeus As these opinions which we have examined elsewhere more amply than here seem to me very receivable so we must on the contrary take heed of many improbable Tales which he relates sometimes with too much assurance He makes a Rasor cut a Wherstone in two of them by the command of the Augur Navius Actius and represents Castor and Pollux fighting for the Romans against the Latins and the Rivers Vulturnus and Glanis to remount to their Source in favour of the Inhabitants of Câ—mâ— And relates that a Statue of the Goddess Fortune pronounces twice these words ritè me Matronae dedicastis according to the words of the Annals which he thought himself obliged to rehearse and he would have had reason for it if he had left us some hint not to believe it as he might have done perhaps if it would have been permitted But there is not a worse Relation in the Roman History than the action of Cloelia as he represents it He reports that this Roman Virgin who was given in hostage with many others to Porsenâ— King of the Hetruscians returned with all her companions from the Tuscan Camp into the City of Rome swimming over the River Tiber wherein they had ask'd leave to bath themselves as if it were possible that fearful Women and who had not learned to Swim durst but look upon such a River with design to pass it and cast themselves desperately into it without any necessity the peace being almost then concluded For though Plutarch describes the place in the life of Publicola so very agreeable and convenient to bath in yet he acknowledges that the River was very Rapid and deep I
in the Third Book and Fourteenth Chapter of the Jewish War He shews also his deliverance in the Fifth Book and Twelfth Chapter after that Vespasian had found the truth of his Predictions What the profane Historians such as Tacitus and Suetonius relate conformable to this deserves our observation for they affirm that all the Provinces of the East were then firmly possest with a belief that they to whom the Destinies and Sacred Writs had promised the Empire of the World should at that time come from Judaea The Jews and Josephus amongst the rest interpreted what regarded the true Messias of Vespasian and his Son Titus because of the victories they had newly gained over them and the unmeasurable extent of the Roman Empire And it happened that after his deliverance from his imprisonment he was Spectator of the taking of Hierusalem by the same Titus and composed since as an Eie-witness the Seven Books of the Judaick War of which he made to him and Vespasian who was then living such an agreeable present that Titus caused them to be put into the Publick Library subscribed and approved of by his own hand Josephus adds in his own Life which he himself has given us in writing that King Agrippa had testified unto him by many latters that he held him for the truest Author of all those who enterprised to treat of the affairs of their country Being return'd to Rome with Vespasian he lived there under his protection and that of his Two Sons gratified with their Pensions and with the condition of a free Citizen of Rome and many other benefits which gave him means to finish peaceably under Dâ—mitian his Twenty Books of the Jewish Antiquities from the Creation of the World to the Twelfth year of the Empire of Nero. His Two Books against Apion Plistonices are made in favour of the Jews whom this same Apion Surnamed also Grammaticus had defamed as much as he could in a work he published being sent Deputy to Rome to the disadvantage of Philo and his Country-men But the discourse of the Empire of Reason or the Martydom of the Machabees is the most eloquent of all the pieces writ by Josephus As for the Treatise of his life he composed it in imitation of many great Men who had done the like thing before him and have been imitated by many others For passing by Moses who alone filled with the Spirit of God writ not onely his Life but Death it is known that a little before Josephus the Emperors Augustus Tiberius and Claudius were pleased to leave the platform of their lives to Posterity traced with their own Pens Agrippina Mother of Nero did no less as Tacitus reports And private persons such as Sylla Varro Rutilius Rufus Aemilius Scaurus and Nicolaus Damascenus had already practised that sort of writing If we must mention others who exercised themselves therein since Josephus we shall name in the first place the Emperors Adriaanus Marcus Antoninus and Severus secondly to draw nearer to these Times James King of Arragon Maximilian the first the Abbot Trithemius Cardanus and Augustus de Thou who have all written Books of their own Lives But there is no small difference at this day between learned Men touching the credit Josephus his History ought to have amongst us For if we refer our selves to Maldonat Melchior Canus Pererius Salmeron Baronius Salian and some others we should have no value for all his labour which they defame as full of Anachronisms in the Calculation of times and Fables in the Narration of things Baronius amongst the rest rebukes him very severely in his Preface which he calls Apparatus c. and in many other places of his Annals nay he proceeds so far as to impute to him that he knew not justly his own Age and that he was mistaken in it by six whole years But if on the other side we yeild to the judgment of his Partisans such as Scaliger and Calvisius of whose Party are Justin Martyr Eusebius St. Hierome Suidas and several other Ancients we shall be obliged to place him in the rank of the best Historians which remain And truly when I consider with what recommendation Justin spoke of him I am not easily induced to condemn him so absolutely as many doe He stiles him many times an exceeding wise Historiographer and joyning him with Philo he saies they are Two Persons worthy of great respect As for Eusebius he remarks in his Ecclesiastical History that Josephus was honoured with a Statue at Rome which we have already observed giving him the Title of a most true Author and one that deserves that credit should be given to what he writeâ— The Books Stiled an Evangelical preparation of Eusebius are full of passages of Josephus and in the Third of his Evangelical Demonstration he rehearses that place of the Jewish Antiquities which makes such express mention of Jesus Christ As for S t Hierome after he had placed Jesophus amongst the Ecclesiastical Writers he confirms the favours he received from Vespasian and Titus and the honour that was done him by putring his Books into the Publick Library and raising a Statue to him in Rome He quotes also his forementioned Testimony of Jesus Christ And in one of his Epistles he did not forbear to name him the Graecian Livy which shews the great valew he had for his History Suidas recites almost all the same things which he could see in Justin Eusebius and S t Hierome and he gives him particularly the Quality of a Lover of truth which is much to be considered in his case I wonder not therefore after these Testimonies if many will take Josephus his part against those who endeavoured utterly to discredit him Nevertheless Scaliger was a little too forward when he named him in a Preface to a Book intituled the correction of Times in one place the most diligent and greatest friend to truth of all Writers Diligentissimum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 omnium Scriptorum out-doing in this manner Suidas by a Superlative Encomium and in another place the most true and religious of all Authors Omnium Scriptorum veracissimum religiosissimum He adds further that the integrity and learning of Josephus showing it self in every thing he shall not be backward to assert boldly that not onely in what relates to the Jewish affairs but in all others also it is more fit and sure for one to refer himself unto this Hebrew than to all the rest of the Greek and Latin Authors I would not proceed to so determinate a judgment yet I think one may safely say that abating what may be contrary to the Sacred Texts of the Old and New Testament Josephus is for the rest an Historian of great Authority and one that merits a great deference especially in the things of his own time wherof he writes as an Eie-witness for we ought I think in charity to make that interpretation of what so many Christians have often
History he lived in the Hundred and Thirtieth year of Christ he was a Disciple of Epictetus It is not easie to know whether his History was writ before his Enchiridion and those other discourses of his Master which Simplicius in his Commentaries assures us to be composed by him for though it might not be thought according to the ordinary and natural course of mens dispositions he should apply himself to Philosophical contemplations in the Youthful part of his life yet it appears in the Preface of those discourses that he writ them as they were spoken by Epictetus collected from his mouth whilst he was yet the Schollar of that great Philosopher and he complains that they were published without his privitie which is a certain evidence of their being writ in his younger Age. Photius saith they were formerly in Twelve Books besides certain Philosophical dissertations by him mentioned which are lost to this Age. As for his Historical Compositions though we have not them all intire by what remains of them we may discern enough to oblige us to value his merit And his Seven Books of the Conquest of Alexander the Great and Eight which treat particularly of India may suffice to give him a Rank amongst the chiefest Historians I shall not insist on the description which he hath made of the Euxin Sea and the Countries which border on it nor on that of the Erythrean Sea which comprehends part of the Indian Coasts the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea because they are rather peices of Geography than History Rhamusius observes that many would distinguish this Arrian who in his Eighth Book describes the Voyage of Nearchus Admiral to Alexander from the River Indus to the Persian Gulf from him who is the Author of Periplus or the description of the Erythrean Ocean The difference of Stile whereon those that debaâ—e this matter establish their opinion is but a slender foundation for all agree if it must be that there were Two Arrians that they both lived in the time of the Antonines and that Prince of Geographers Claudins Ptolemaeus Alexandrinus But that which the same Rhamusius notes on this occasion is very considerable That though Arrian hath often followed the opinion of Marinus Tyrius whom Ptolemy does alwaies reject yet it appears that his is a better and more just situation of many parts of the East-Indies than that which Ptolemy has left us as is manifest by many Modern Relations exhibited thereof by the Portuguese It is certain that Arrian's merit recommended him so much to the Emperors of his time that they advanced him to the Consular dignity He was a Native of Nicomedia a City of Bithynia where he made his Studies and became a Priest of Ceres and Proserpine as he himself reports in those Eight Books of his Bithynicks mentioned by Photius which began the History of his Country at the fabulous times and continued it to the death of the last Monarch of Nicomedia who left the Romans to be the Heirs of his Crown He pretends to have writ this History of Alexander the Great by Divine inspiration and that he did it under the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and with the like number of Seven Books as Xenophon chose to describe the Conquests of Cyrus and some observe that he so affected to follow that Author that he hath perfectly imitated him in his Stile and many other respects and is therefore called the Young or the Second Xenophon He declares in his Preface that his Relations are by him delivered on the faith of Aristobulus the Son of Aristobulus and Ptolemaeus Lagus who accompanied Alexander in all his Enterprises which were the more credible for that besides the Royal Quality of the latter they did neither of them publish their writings till after the death of Alexander without any other obligation than a real desire of discovering the truth of his Actions And yet our Author professes in his description of the death of Callisthenes the Philosopher that it was diversly reported by them though they were both near the person of Alexander when the process was made against that unfortunate person Aristobulus saies he was led in Chains after the Army till he died of a Sickness and the other affirms that after having been exposed to Torture he was Stangled for having been unhappily involved in the conspiracy of Hermolaus so difficult it is to know the truth of actions performed and there is nothing more certain than that one and the same action is many times variously related by those that saw it because of the divers respects and interests wherewith most men are preoccupied But notwithstanding these particular defects which Arrian could not redress his History is the more esteemable because those of Aristobulus and Ptolomy are not to be found moreover there are many places in the History of Quintus Curtius which have need to be reformed by the Text of Arrian for when he writes in his Sixth Book that Alexander parted from the Batavians doubtless it ought to be from the City of Ecbatana as it is expressed in Arrian And the voiages to the East-Indies made these last Hundred and Fifty years shew that he has better represented the Houses or Cabbins of certain Ichthyophages built of the bones of Whales and other Fishes than Quintus Curtius who saies they are made of Shells and the excrements of the Sea conchas purgamenta Maris But there are some places also in Arrians History which the other doth very well explain and I shall not determine which of them has been most lucky in expressing the name of Alexanders Phisitian whom Arrian calls Critodemus and Quintus Curtius Critobulus for Plutarch makes no mention of either and Pliny when he commends the excellency of that Phisitian who drew the Arrow out of Alexanders Fathers eie without disfiguring his Face nameing him Critobulus makes it to be reasonably supposed that his Son made use of the same Phisitian and consequently that Curtius did not mistake in the name Photius commends Arrian as equal to the best Historians his narration is alwaies agreeable because it is both short and intelligible and he never discomposes his Readers with tedious digressions and such Parentheses as may obscure the sense of his sentences And one cannot easily find in all his History any one such Miraculous event as might render it suspected if you will except some predictions of Aristander and the story of Two new Springs which appeared near the River of Oxus as soon as Alexander was there Encamped The pattern which Arrian proposed to imimitate permits him not to elevate his Stile to a Sublime degree of Oratory because the Eloquence of Xenophon is not of that order but his Phrase is mingled with such excellent figures that by retaining all the clearness of him that he imitates his Stile has nothing in it either too flatly low or too highly Towering He occasionally uses someties oblique Orations and sometimes direct ones
And all along in his Second Book he Artificially couches the imperious letter of Alexander to Darius The Oration of Callisthenes against Anaxarchus who would have Alexander to be adored is one of the most considerable of those that are direct And there are Two others not inferiour to it of the same Prince to his Souldiers which began to mutiny once in the Indies and the other time on the Banks of the River Tygris Those which were made before the Battel given at the Streights of Amanus and at the Plain of Arbela or Gaugamela are oblique and much more concise than the occasion required Photius makes a very favourable judgment of the History of Arrian viz. that whosoever shall compare it with the most Ancient of those which are so much esteemed it will be found that there are many things in them which in no wise approach the valew of the other But yet there is one passage in the middle of his first Book wherein there is Vanity enough to stain the whole body of his History if decency did not oblige us to consider it with that indulgence which the best of us may sometimes need in respect to our own productions the place I mean is where he declares that the greatness and number of the famous Atchievements of Alexander made him enterprise the writing of his History by the assurance he had of being able to acquit himself well therein and that without putting his name to it or mentioning his extraction or Quality he would have the world to know he might valew himself in all those respects and that having loved letters from his Infancy as Alexander has merited the chiefest Rank amongst the Leaders of Armies so the greatest amongst those that have enterprised the writing of History cannot without injustice he denied to him This impudence of Arrian puts me in mind of the impertinence of another Grecian that was contemporary with him of whom Photius writes that he dedicated his composition to the Emperor Marcus Antoninus to get thereby the more credit to it and that it might obtain a more favourable reception and at his first entrance preparatory to the matter he pretended that his Stile should be as Sublime as the actions of Alexander which was the subject of his Book when alas Nothing was ever lower and more barren than his Narrations nor more weak and faint than the expressions wherein he exposed them It may be reasonably believed that the Ambition of this pretender equalled in the beginning the vanity of Arrian but his weak performances made all his promises ridiculous in the end whereas the other hath given to Posterity one of the best Histories that Antiquity hath left us yet he ought not to pass without a censure for the fault he committed there being scarce any thing in the world more insupportable than self praise which instead of the esteem and reputation that our merit might justly challenge for any worthy enterprise draws on us nothing but contempt and hatred Besides the Seven Books before mentioned of the expeditions of Alexander the Great and the Eighth of so much of the East-Indies as was known in his time He writ in Ten Books the History of those actions which happened amongst Alexanders Captains after his death for they could not agree about the dividing their Conquests but of those there remains nothing at this day but an abridgment of them which Photius gives us in his Bibliotheca and we have also lost his Bithynicks and Two other Treatises One of the most considerable actions performed by Timoleon of Corinth in Sicily and the Other of the means used by Dion of Syracuse to free the City so called and all the circumjacent Country from the Tyranny and oppression of Dionysius the Second Tyrant of that name nor has the misfortune of the Age been less by the loss of another work of his composed in Seventeen Books which Stephanus in his Cities mentions more than once whose Subject is of the Parthians and their descent from the Scythians and their Wars with the Romans in the time of the Emperour Trajan Photius informs us that he writ another Treatise called the Alanick History so that many believe that which Dion Cassius reports of one Arrian Governour of Cappadocia under the Emperour Adrian who reduced the Alanians and Massagets to the obedience of the Empire was meant of our Historian it is he also to whom Plinius Novocomensis addresses Seven of his Epistles betwixt whom there was a friendship contracted whilst the same Pliny was Proconsul of Pontus and Bithynia which our Arrian acknowledges to be the place of his Nativity And if we may ascribe to him those Decisions of Law which Vlpian and Paulus determin by his Authority the knowledg of that learned Science may be added to his excellency in Geography History and Philosophy But one of the greatest Encomiums that can be given to any is that which Lucian applies to him when he excuses himself for writing the life of his false Prophet Alexander Let no man saies he blame me for imploying my time on so inconsiderable a Subject since Arrian that worthy Disciple of Epictetus one of the greatest among the Romans who hath exercised himself among the Muses condescended to write the life of the Villain Tiliborus It is not to be doubted but there are many Arrians besides this person of whom we now write for Julius Capitolinus quotes one Arrian a Greek Historian to prove that there were three of the narne of Gordianus against the opinion of those who pretend there were but Two and this cannot be meant of our Arrian who lived an Age before the time of any of those Emperors and Suâ—tonius mentions a Poet of that name more Antient than any of the others because Tiberius is said to have imitated him in his Greek Poesy And perhaps this may be the same Arrian cited by Suidas to be the Author of an Heroick Poem divided into Four and Twenty Books called Alexandriades written to celebrate the Honour of Alexander the Great REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF APPIAN APPIAN is so much the more considerable amongst all those that have laboured in the Roman History in that besides the commendation which Photius gives him to have as truly as possible delivered his matter He alone has particularly described their actions according to the Provinces and different Regions wherein they were transacted Not that he has in this method excelled all other Historiographers for the most Ancient of them have alwaies followed the order of time and related things annually done in Countries very distant one from the other But though Appian seems in some things to have affected an order even contrary to Nature not observed by any of the Ancients yet it must be acknowledged that his Method in general is very useful to express the things performed distinctly and separately from each other to represent as to our view all that passed in each Country so
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
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
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
Brittain speak a direct Oration to his Troops ready to Engage with the British Forces after he had divided them into Three different Bodies but makes him speak Three separate ones on the same Subject to perswade them to fight couragiously and thereby to obtain the Victory By this it appears that they who believe that all sorts of Orations are indecent in History will not be satisfied with Dio's method of writing for he abstains not from those which are most to be avoided namely the direct and has made use of Dialogues also which is contrary to the rules of the Criticks in History but if we must take notice of his faults there are others which deserve sooner to be complained of than what we mentioned He is accused of having taken Caesars part too much against Pompey to accomodate himself to the course of Fortune Nor seems he more equitable in respect of Antonius his Faction which he alwaies favours to the prejudice of that of Cicero And whoever reads in the Forty Sixth Book the invective of Q. Fusius Calenus against this incomparable Oratour will be hardly able to indure all the injuries with which it seems Dio would have Sullied his reputation Not content to make him be reproached that he was the Son of a Fuller or Dyer very often reduced to dress Vines or cultivate Olive Trees he assaults his person and touches his honour in all the most sensible parts he renders him ridiculous for his fearfulness and to blast him the more affirms that of all the Orations which were seen of his he delivered not one of them after the manner in which they were writ and therefore his want of memory is imputed as a crime to him But he makes Calenus much more severe He would have him contented not to wear the long Robe if he had not wanted it to hide his ill-shapt Leggs and Feet And arraigns his Conjugal Bed to expose the vice of his Wives defaming him to have prostituted the honour of one of them and in the mention of his Children he accuses him of Incest with his Daughter and represents his Son as an infamous Libertin Drunk Night and Day Certainly to treat one of the greatest persons of the Roman Republick thus is rather like a Satyrist than an Historian But Dion does so pursue his disparagement that in the following Book he takes a new occasion to make Fulvia the Wife of Antonius vomit out abundance of reproaches against his memory who pierces his Tongue through and through with her Needle He has not been much more respectful to Seneca if the conjectures of some men are not true who think that Xiphilinus in that part maliciously delivered the thoughts of Suillius or some other as bad for those of Dio. Yet we read in what Constantinus collected out of him besides what is related in the Epitomy of Xiphilinus that Seneca led a life quite contrary to his Writings and the Philosophical profession to which he pretended He is accused of Adultery with Julia and Agrippina and of the death of the last He is taxed with reading Lectures of Pederasty to Nero and charged with as-ending the Theatre with him to make Orations in his applause In fine his Luxury and Avarice are aggravated to that pitch that the cause of the Rebellion of Great Brittain is imputed to him where the People could no more indure his extortion than Nero could suffer his Conspiracies from which he had no means to deliver himself than by putting so bad a Master to death But what we before hinted that the invectives against Seneca are rather the words of Tigellinus the abbreviator than our Author seems to be very manifest because Dion in his Fifty Ninth Book speaks very honourably of Seneca We might perhaps accuse him of Superstition and Credulity and thereby something discredit his History if something were not to be allowed to Humanity and if we did not know that the best Authors in this kind have fallen into the same inconveniences In his Forty Seventh Book he tells us the Sun appeared at Rome sometimes lesser and sometimes greater than ordinary to foretel the bloody Battel fought in the Fields of Philippi which was also signified by many other Prodigies How he credited the report of the strange quality of the Psylli to expel poison may be read in his One and Fiftieth Book on the Subject of the death of Cleopatra whom these men since there was no Female amongst them and they begot themselves endeavoured in vain to bring to life again In his Fifty Eighth Book he reports that a Phaenix was seen in Aegypt in the Seven Hundred and Nineteenth year of the Foundation of Rome In another place he writes that Vespasian cured a Blind Man by spitting in his Eies and worked a like Miracle on a Lame mans Hand which he cured and restored to its vigour by walking upon it they being both forewarned in a Dream that they should receive this benefit from the Emperor In another place he expresses that the famous Apollonius Tyanaeus saw in the City of Ephesus all that passed at the death of Domitian in Rome at the same instant that he received it so that he cried out calling on the name of Stephanus which was that of his Murtherer bidding him strike boldly and soon after that saies he it was done as if Dion would have conformed himself to Philostratus who writ at the same time the Imaginary life of this Philosopher and as if there were no difference to be put betwixt true and Fabulous History Though some men and Baronius amongst others find fault with Dio because he was not favorable to Christianity I think it not worthy to be considered since he is to be esteemed as a Pagan Author who was not like to uphold a Religion contrary to that which he professed It is true that speaking of the victories of Marcus Aurelius he attributes to the Magick Art of one Arnuphis an Aegyptian rather than to the prayers of the Christians the miraculous Rain which fell in favour of the Romans and the strange Tempests which afflicted the Army of the Quadi whom the learned Cluverius takes for the present Moravians But is it a wonder in things subject to various interpretations as are ordinarily such Prodigies that Dio an Idolatrous Historian should not give the same judgment as a believer And that he spake otherwise of them than Tertullian Eusebius Paulus Diaconus and some others have done His Stile is by Phoâ—ius put into the rank of the most elevated being extraordinarly raised by the loftiness of his thoughts His discourse saies he is full of Phrases which resemble the Antient construction or Syntaxis and his expression answers the greatness of the matter he treats of His periods are often interrupted with Parentheses and he uses many Hyperbates or transitions which are very troublesome when they are not used Artificially after his manner But one thing is very remarkable that
though his language is very numerous and adjusted according to Art yet it appears to be so little laboured that the Reader does in no wise perceive the care that has been taken in it because it is so clear and intelligible that every one presupposes as much facility in the composition as there is in the reading He seems to have imitated Thucydides whom he follows especially in his Narratives and Orations But he has the advantage over him not to be reproached with obscurity In all else Thucydides is the pattern by which he Copies with all sort of Circumspection This is the judgment Photius gives of him who is much more creditable in this point than Sigonius that to say something of his own long since thought on accuses Dio of being too Asiatick and so prolix in his Orations that he is troublesome to his Readers The world must be left to their liberty of thinking according to the Law of the Romans Populo libera sunto suffragia Yet I conceive for what relates to language the surest way is to leave that to those to whom it is natural and who have sucked it with their milk rather than to strangers who are much more subject to be mistaken Besides Dio's History and his little Treatises before mentioned it seems that Suidas ascribes to him some other compositions as the life of the Philosopher Arrianus the action of Trajan and certain Itineraries Raphael Volaterranus makes him besides Author of Three Books intituled de Principe and some small Treatises of Morality We must also observe that there have been many Dio's of great repute and one amongst the rest who lived an Age before Dio Cassius in the same Emperor Trajans time This is he who for his Eloquence had the Surname of Chrysostomus who was of Prussia and by consequence of Bithynia as well as the other and for whom Trajan had so particular a Love that he often honoured him with a place by him in his Châ—riot These Two Dions are distinguished by their professions as well as their Surnames The first according to the times they lived in was an Oratour and Phisopher the Second an Historian and Statesman such as we have represented him in this Section REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF HERODIAN THE History of Herodian as most of those we have already mentioned receives its commendation from the merit of its Author He declares at the beginning of his first Book that he will only write of the affairs of his own time which he himself hath seen or understood from creditable persons for which he was very competent because of the publick imployments that he exercised for he might justly boast to have passed through the principal charges of the State About the end of his Second Book he acquaints us before he begins to write of the life of Septimius Severus which contains all the Third Book that his History in general shall comprehend the space of Seventy years and treat of the Government of all the Emperors which succeeded one another during that time that is from the Reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus the Philosopher to that of the younger Gordianus Grandchild of the former which some with Julius Capitolinus reckon to be the Third of that name His Eighth Book which is the last of his Work ends with the unworthy slaughter of the Two old men Balbinus and Pupienus whom he calls Maximus committed on them by the Praetorian Souldiers to advance the forementioned Gordianus Junior to the Throne Photius writes of his Stile that he has writ in an Air so much the more cleer and agreeable in that he has not too much affected the Attick terms but so tempered his Phrase that his discourse is heightned above the lower form of Oration and as there is nothing superfluous in his writings so it cannot be said that he has omitted things necessary or useful to be known and he adds to compleat his Elogium of him that considering all the virtues of an Historian there are few Authors to whom Herodian ought to subscribe We have observed in the preceding Sections that he hath as well as Dion Cassius informed us of the Pagan Ceremonies used at the Consecration of their Emperors It is in the beginning of his Fourth Book where he so well represents to us all the Funeral honours rendered to the Ashes of Severus which his Children had transported from England in an Alablaster Chest that it is hard to see any where any thing more exact and more instructive He tells us how they were put into an Urne with the general adoration of the Senate and the People and carried by the Consuls to the Temple where the Sacred Monuments of their Emperors were preserved and then proceeding to describe the Funeral Pomp he informs us that his Effigies in Wax all cloathed in Robes of Gold was placed at the Gate of his Palace on an Ivâ—ry Bed elevated from the Ground and magnificently adorned Where Seven daies together the Senators clothed in black and the Roman Ladies all in White without any other Ornaments came to pay their respects taking their places the Women on the right and the men on the left side of the Bed all appearing with very mournful countenances He observes also that the Physitians came duly to visit this representation of the Emperor making formal approaches to the Bed as if he were alive and declaring that his sickness grew daily worse and worse so true it is that this world is a continual Comedy After this time was passed over the most considerable of the Youth and the Knights carried the same Bed on their shoulders first to the great Market places where the Magistrates of Rome used to Surrender their charges and there a Chorus of young men on one side and Virgins on the other Sung Hymns to the praise of the dead Emperor from thence they proceeded to the Campus Martius which was out of the Town where the Bed and Effigies were placed in a large square Tabernacle of Wood resembling and elevated to the height of one of those Towers upon which Lights are placed on the Sea Coasts to direct Mariners to avoid the dangers of Rocky shores whereof he makes such exact descriptions both as to the exterior and interior Ornament and the several stories of it that any one may easily thereby comprehend the manner of the structure In the next place he writes that the Roman Knights made their Horses run round about the Tabernacle in certain orderly motions which were at that time called Motus Pyrrhichii and in orbicular revolutions And at the same time there were a certain number of Chariots filled with persons which represented the most qualified men of the Empire which also went in a kind of Procession round the great Machine till the next successor of the Emperor first took a Torch in his hand and with it kindled some combustible matter made for that purpose at the bottom of it and then
that as he was displeased with the Government of Alexander Severus he for that reason arraigned the Qualities of his Mother or rather that in a mixture of virtues and vices wherewith Mammea was taxed he would suppress neither of them to acquit himself the better of the duty of an Historian which last I take to be the most equitable opinion Though we consider Herodian in this place but as an Historian Suidas informs us that he writ many other Books which are not preserved to our time He was Originally a Grammarian of Alexandria and lived in the Three Hundredth year of Christ the Son of one Apollonius surnamed Difficilis of the same profession and perhaps it is for this reason that Ammianus Marcellinus calls him Artium minutissimum sciscitatorem However he passed the best part of his life at Rome in the Courts of the Emperors where he had the means to inform himself with that curiosity which appears in his writings of many excellent particulars which are no where else to be found REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF ZOSIMUS THEY who with Sigonius make no distinction between the Historian Zosimus and Two or Three others of the same name commit in my opinion an inexcusable fault For Suidas names Two the First an Alexandrian that had amongst other his Works writ the life of Plato and the Second of Gaza or Ascalon who commented upon the writings of Demosthenes and Lysias in the time of the Emperor Anastasius We ought not therefore to confound this last Zosimus with the Historian who as Evagrius expressly affirms in his invective against him lived under Theodosius the younger Neither do I know why we should take the Alexandrian for the same Historian their writings being quite different and the Quality of Count and Advocate of the Treasury wherewith the last was dignified was not attributed to the other by Suidas who gives him only the Title of Philosopher Balthasar Bonifacius would have it that the Historian Zosimus wrot a Chymical Book of the Transmutation of Metals which he heard was kept in that excellent Library Royal of Paris But he is mistaken in his conjecture for the Manuscript he mentions which I have examined is of one Zosimus who stiles himself Panopolitanus and is indeed a counterfeit name a practise usual among Chymists who delight so to deceive one another by writings which they ascribe falsly sometimes to Democritus sometimes to Zosimus and sometimes to others to give them the better Authority But the History of Zosimus has no resemblance to those compositions If we may believe Photius it may have some affinity with Eunapius his History of the Caesars which Zosimus is said to have meerly abridged so great a likeness there was between one and the other except in those places where Stilico was concerned whose reputation Zosimus did not defame as Eunapius did whereof we might more particularly relate if the Venetians had made publick the Manuscript which we are assured they have of Eunâ—pius his History Zosimus as Evagrius reports left in his History in six Books whereof the first comprehends all the Caesars from Augustus to Probus and was by the Author continued to Diocletian but the matter is so contracted and succinct that nothing thing can be more the Five other Books are larger especially when he comes to the time of Theodosius the Gâ—eat and of his Children Arcadius and Honorius because he then writ of what he had seen He goes but a little beyond the Siege which Alaricus laid to Rome and the occasions of division which some Sowed between Honorius and him And indeed we have but the beginning of the Sixth Book the end being lost But I know not upon what Authority Sigonius builds to assert that there was a Seventh Book of Zosimus his History which was also lost since Photius mentions but Six and no other person saies any thing of a Seventh We hinted before that there was an Invective of Evagrius against Zosimus which may be seen more at large in Nicephorus Callistus Photius saies indeed that he barks like a Dog at those of our Christian belief And few Christian Authors till Leunclavius who translated his History into Latin made any Apology for him To say the truth although this learned German defends him very pertinently in many things showing that they were to blame to require of a Pagan Historian as Zosimus was other thoughts than those he exposed or that he should refrain from discovering the vices of the first Christian Emperors since he also had not concealed their virtues Nevertheless it may be said that in many places he expressed more Animosity in that behalf than the Laws of History do permit Yet I think he had reason to reproach Constantin of that imposition of Chrysargyr or glisteting Gold which Anastasius afterwards removed and that his duty obliged him to arraign his luxury and prodigality nor was it a fault to have accused him of having made his wife Fausta to be smothered in too hot a Stove after he had commanded through Jealousie his own Son Crispus to be put to death Perhaps Eusebius writing in this Constantine's time or at the latest in that of his Son Constantius durst not publish such bold truths as it happens to those who expose any relations wherein the Governing powers are interessed Nor is it unknown that Constantine committed several other actions worthy of blame He repealed from Exile the Arch Haeretick Arrius to gratify his Sister Constantia and banisht S t Athanasius to Tryers to the great prejudice of Christianity But nevertheless Zosimus cannot be excused who as much as in him lay made an ill interpretation of all the actions of this Prince who made himself a Christian if you believe him only because he was told that Paganism had no faculty to wash away so many crimes as he had committed and therefore he resolved by the advice of a certain Aegyptian to imbrace the Christian Religion which promised an absolution of all sorts of offences But this assumption is as if Zosimus had penetrated into the inward thoughts of Constantine and all those graces with which his Soul might be filled by the liberality of Heaven Moreover when he speaks of the differences he had with his Brother in Law Licinius he laies all the blame on him as one that never kept his word And he is not content to say that Constantin caused him to be strangled in Thessalonica violating thereby his faith given to the Wise of this unhappy person but it was his usual Stile to take hold of all occasions to blast his reputation to the world And yet it is not on the Subject of Constantin alone that his passion is seen against Christianity He attributes the fall of the Roman Empire to the contempt of the Ancient Pagan Religion and principally to their neglecting in Diocletian's time the celebration of the secular Plays And to the misfortunes which happened to Gratian he
assigns no other cause than his refuâ—â—l as a Christian to be the Pontifex Maximus of the Gentils for which even Constantin saies he had no aversion When Theodosius exhorted the Roman Senate to quite the worship of Idols declaring that he would no more go to the charge of Sacrifices he put this answer into the mouths of all the Senators that there was no reason to oblige them to abandon a Religion wherein they had prospered during Twelve Hundred years to follow an unreasonable faith to which it was intended they should be compelled The injurious description of the Monathal Order which he said did appropriate to its self all the wealth of the Nation under a pretext of making the poor partake of it is no small proof of his Animosity He called that Olympius an Hypocrite and wicked man who was the cause of the ruine of Stilico as well to make him alwaies pass for innocent as because the other was a Christian of great esteem as may be seen by Two Letters which Saint Augustin writ to him In fine no person in my opinion ought to believe him when he does not only represent S t John Chrysostome as a Seducer of the People but affirms that Pope Innocent the First whom he names 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 urâ—is Episcopum permitted Pagan Sacrifices to be made for the safety of Rome whilst Alaricus besieged it Zosimus his aversion to Christians will be less wondered at when one considers what deference he had to all the Superstitions of Idolatry which made him tell many tales that I should think unworthy of History if I had not already observed that the like are found even in those who have writ with the greatest reputation In the first Book after the taking of Zenobia by Aurelian he reâ—ites the Oracles and shews the Podigies which did forerun the ruine of the Palmâ—renians her Subjects And in a Famine towards the Rhine he makes corn enough to fall from Heaven to make bread and by that means render the legions of the Emperor Probus victorious The Fable of that Vaelesius who was warned by a voice to Sacrifice to Ceres and Proserpina is seen in his Second Book And in the Fourth he alledges that the Sacrifices offered to Achilles by one Nestorius defended Athens and all the Athenian Territory from a great Earth-quake after the death of Valentinian In the Fifth he pretends that the same City was again saved by the Apparition of that Hero and of Minerva who pacified the mind of Alaricus which I leave to the learnâ—d Baronius to refute He mentions Two Statues one of Jupiter and the other of that Daughter of his to be miraculously preserved from a fire happening in Arcadius his Reign in Constantinople and all the misfortunes which overwhelmed the House of Sâ—ilico to proceed from the imprecations of a Vestal because his Wife Serena had the temerity to adorn her self with one of Rhea's attires for the head and also because she took her Collar the impiety was punisht with a Cord wherewith Serena being strangled suffered Death in that part which seemed to be most culpable May it not then be reasonable to avouch that infidelity has made Zosimus write many things either in favour of his Altars whose destruction he was unwilling to see or against ours which he could not indure to the prejudice of his History and that we might be therefore induced to despise it if it did not contain some curious matters which are not learned elsewhere And it is certain that laying aside the excess of sharpness and Animosity which he showed against the first Christian Emperors it is injustice to take it ill that he noted their defects when he omitted not as hath been said to praise their virtues as may be seen in what he expressed both of Theodosius and Constantine Was he not obliged in duty to reproach the Children of the last with their strange cruelties in spilling the blood of their nearest Relations And can we think it strange that he should exhibit the successours of the First in their lively colours Arcadius to make the same Allusion which Leunclavius used was a true Animal of Arcadia His brother Honorius was no better and both miserably possest by Women and Eunuchs who abused their Authority and were the cause of so many disgraces in the Roman Empire that its ruin has not a more certain Epoche thâ—â— the time of their dominion Zosimus had then been faulty if he had not instructed us in all this and they are much to blame who bear him an ill will for having done it His Stile is recommendable in the judgment of Photius for its purity and that agreeable sweetness which ordinarily accompanies that which is writ intelligibly His sentences are short and his phrase concise as they ought to have been since he brought into a narrower compass what others had more diffusedly exposed before him It is also for this reason that Photius observes his language to have rarely had any figures which are not proper to the manner of writing that he used He likewise refrained from Orations and all those Ornaments which only become high Eloquence and we cannot but acknowledg that he is no way comparable to those first Historians which we have already examined REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF PROCOPIUS PROCOPIUS was a person of great fame in the Reign of Justinian the Emperor he was Secretary of Belisarius all the time when that renowned General was imploied in the Wars of Persia Affrick and Italy and described the actions of many of them He was both an Oratour and a Rhetorician and no mean Historian His History contains Eight Books Two of the Persian War epitomized by Photius in the Sixty Third Chapter of his Bibliotheca Two of the Wars of the Vandals and Four of that of the Goths Of all which there is a kind of Compendium in the Preface of Agathias who began his History where Procopius left But besides these Eight Books Suidas mentions a Ninth which comprehends matters not before published and he calls it his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or inedita which is an invective against Justinian and his Wife Theodora and those inedita were by Vossius thought to be lost though there have been of late some Editions of them as will hereafter appear He is said to have used in his History both oblique and direct Orations and all such as he believed might make him approach the method and manner of the Ancients yet he as well as Zosimus came far short of them That which induces me to put him in the Rank of the precedent is that I conceive he may pass with Agathias who follows next for the Two last Pagan Historians that have writ in Greek of whom in our time there remains any thing considerable I know that many take him for a Christian Author and that in some passages of his works especially in the Treatise he made of the Edifices of Justinian
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
forbids the writing of lies and the other concealing of a truth which ought to be discovered But for a better understanding of this matter it may not be impertinent to proceed to some particulars It is certain that Procopius ever made very honourable mention of Justinian and his Wife Theodora in his History although he did it not so often as he might In the Second Book of the War against the Persians he extols the Emperor for providence joined with singular lâ—iety on the Subject of that great Pestilence which passed from Aegypt to Constantinople where he used all possible means to allay it And in his Six Narrations of the Edifices of the same Justinian he incessantly celebrates his greatness of Courage his devotion liberality clemency and magnificence That Monastery of Penitent Women whom the Empress Theodora withdrew from vice gives him occasion to commend her zeal and charity jointly with her Husbands although he recounts the action otherwise in his Anecdota But he has remembred this Lady in many places of his History with great titles of honour When a councel was held to resist the enterprises of Hipatius who had caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor in Constantinople he makes her argue so generously that as he affirms nothing infused so much courage into the whole imperial councel as her Heroical resolution And when he describes the ill conditions of that Johannes of Cappadocia who was turned out of his office of Praefect of the Praetorate he saies he was so indiscreet and rash as to slander the Empress Theodora even in the presence of Justinian whom he there Stiles a very discreet Lady And though he did not praise her in other places of his History he never blamed her In the end of the Second Book of the Persian War he mentions her death but does not speak ill of her And in the Third treating of the War of the Goths he again remembers her decease which happened at the same time that Belisaerius sent his Wife Antonina to Court to forward his affairs there by the favour of the Empress which he relates without using the least invective against her But let us now see the reverse of the Medal and with how many different colours he draws the Picture of Justinian and Theodora in that extravagant Satyr which we complain of To render this Prince the more odious he will have him resemble Domitiaen in his outward form whose memory was so much abhorred that by a Decree of the Senate of Rome his Statues wear beat down through the whole Empire and his name razed out of the publick inscriptions But though he is constrained in the comparison he makes of these Two Monarchs to confess that Justinian was not ill-favoured yet he likens him in one place to an Ass not only for his dulness and sottishness but also in respect of his wagging Ears which made him be called in a full Theatre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Master Ass by those of the Prasine Faction whereto he was an Enemy according to the observation of Nicalacis Alemannus who lately caused these Anecdota to be printed with Historical Notes of the same kind Moreover he makes him a Prince that condemned upon the first and very light information without hearing and would coldly and without any remorse order the razing of places the sacking of Cities and the desolation of Provinces The love of Women he saies transported him beyond all bounds and he was an irreconcilable Enemy He also accuses him to make a show of being a Christian but that in his heart he esteemed the Heathen Duities His prodigality he writes especially in building forced him to ase strange exactions so that besides the extraordinary Tolls he drew from the Prefect of his Tribunal of Justice a tribute which he himself called in a scoffing manner an Airy Lap because it had no other foundation than his covetous and Tyrannical humour His light mind was susceptible of all impressions except humanity He never kept his word but when it was to his advantage and was so transported with flattery that nothing made him affect Tribonianus so much as hearing of him once say that he feared his extream piety would make Heaven steal him from the Earth on a sudden and when it was least thought of Lastly it seemed if this Character of him was true that Nature had took pleasure to instil into the Soul of this Monarch all the defects which are capable to defame the rest of Mankind And the more easily to betray those they had a mind to ruin his Empress and he laid this Snare they feigned to be alwaies at discord so that the one to compass their design sided with those of the blew Livery the other openly favoured the contrary party namely the Green which were the Two factions of that time They were both of them so impious saies this Detractor that many persons to insinuate themselves into their esteem seemed to be wicked and have all their inclinations bent to vice And amongst those who knew them so well as Procopius they passed for no other than Devils Incarnate and true Furies invested with humanity more conveniently to infest human kind incense Nations one against the other and turn all the world upside down It is certain as he pretends that the Mother of Justinian often confessed that he was not begotten by her Husband Sabbatius but an Incubus who lay with her And as for Theodora they who loved her while she was a Comedian reported that Demons or Nocturnal Spirits often forced them from her to take their places in her bed That part of the book which for shame was cut off from the One and Fortieth and Two and Fortieth Pages of the printed Anecdota was sent to me from Rome wherein Procopius renders this Woman Author of actions so strangely incontinent that I think no body has reason to envy the Vatican Library the Original entire and that such abominations were never heard off But let this that has been writ suffice for a brief description of Justinian and Theodora accoâ—â—â—ng to the lineaments wherein Procopius has represented them in that infamous work which discred is all the rest we have of his I shall not inlarge on what Nicephorus Bartholus Johannes Faber Gennadius and several others have written of Justinian who report that he was ranked amongst the Saints assigning even the Calends of August for his holy day But though he and his Empress had been the most vicious persons in the World Procopius ought not to have been so unlike to himself and so unfaithful to truth as to speak of them so as he did overthrowing the Faith of his History in his book of Antidota and that of Anecdota in his Treatise of the Edifices of Justinian which is the last of his works But without undertaking to refute so many calumnies what appearance is there to accuse this Emperor of cruelty after he
had given the world a proof of his clemency by his gentle usage not only of the Vandal Kings but of Viâ—ges and Gilimer those very Subjects who had conspired against his person and Government Johannes de Cappadocia his prefect and the valiant Captain Artabanâ— convicted of perfidiousness escaped with imprisonment only and the Last in a short time was restored to his offices and the favour of that Prince from whom he would have taken both life and Empire I know that he is reproached for having been too severe to Belisarius Yet we read nothing of it in Procopius who in all likelihood would not have concealed it Agathias writes plainly that those who envied this great Captain were the cause that his services were not worthily rewarded without speaking one word either of the condemnation or confiscation of his goods Gregory of Tours alledges that Justinian was necessitated to substitute in his place the Eunuch Norses in Italy because he was too often defeated there by the French adding that to humble him the Emperor reduced him to his first place of Consta le which could not be so considerable at Constantinople aa it was not long since in France Some but petty writers of no Authority affirm that being reduced to extream misery he was forced to beg but that must be accounted as a Fable and on the contrary we may observe in his person the bounty of his Prince who having heaped riches and Honours on him never treated him worse although endeavours were thrice used to render him suspected of designing to be master of the State It is also strange that he upbraids Justinian with his buildings who writ a book purposely in their commendation and who describing the lofty structure of so many Churches Hospitals and Monasteries did no less admire the Piety than the magnificence of their Founder Evagrius attributes unto him the reparation or re-establishment of a Hundred and Fifty Cities But I see no reason for this to be imputed to his disadvantage Nor has the love of Women for which his reputation is blemished any better foundation For though he may be blamed for having ingaged himself so far in the affection of Theodora as to extort from his Predecessor Justin new laws in favour of Actresses that she might be qualified to marry him we cannot therefore accuse him like Procopius for having abandoned his thoughts to Women without specifying any particulars when neither his own History or any other mentions those Ladies to whom he was so passionately addicted and who doubtless would have prevailed on his weakness if he had been so fond on that side as the Anecdota would make it be believed I could not forbear to manifest in some sort the absurdity of these Two or Three heads of accusation by which one may judge of the rest though they were not confuted either by themselves or by what we had observed before we proposed them I must nevertheless add this only word on the Subject of the Stupidity of Justinian that though he had wagging Ears as the Satyr applies to him he was never so blockish as he represents him The truth is a fault which was committed a a Hundred and Fifty years ago by one Chalcondylius that then printed Suidas by a corrupt Copy where the name of Justinian passed for that of Justin with the Surname of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an illiterat man which even Procopius attributes only to the last who could not so much as write his name has made worthy men mistake amongst which Alciatus and Budaeus when upon this false Authority which all the Vatican Manuscripts contradict they ranked Justinian with the most ignorant Princes that ever were I was curious to see in the King of France his Library Three other Manuscripts of Snidas which are there to assure me of the mistake which happened in that impression Two of the best account were very correct and ascribe this ignorance to Justin alone who was known to be a mean keeper of Oxen before he bore Arms by which he attained to the Empire but the Third was false and in that Justinian was called Justin which shews that the Impression before mentioned probably followed a Copy as erronious as the printed Book In the mean time it is notorious that Justinian had made a great progress in learning under his Tutor the Abbot Theophilus Many Books are ascribed unto him by Isidorus and others Cassiodorus his letters stile him most learned And this observation has been also made that many crowned Heads at the same time made profession of Philosophy Chosroes in Persia the unfortunate Theodahatus in Italy and our Justinian at Constantinople which plainly discovers the injury that is done him by those tearms of stupid and ignorant Though Procopius is to blame for having yeilded so much to his particular resentments against Justinian the reading of his History is of great moment because we can learn from no other what he delivers as an Eye-witness of the Wars of this Emperor in Persia of the Vandals in Affrick and of the Goths in Italy It was that which made Leonard Aretin commit the crime of a Plagiary for we have no other tearm to signifie that sort of theft when he had a mind to publish their History in Latin For being not able to learn almost any thing of them elsewhere he resolved to Translate the Three books of Procopius into the Roman Language dividing them into Four by making Two of the last and rescinding in some places what he judged less important to his Country and adding something in others as the burning of the Capitol by Totilas by whom as Procopius affirms so much of Rome was not consumed by fire as Aretin reports In the mean time he is contented to say in his Preface that he used some Forreign Commentaries or Greek relations not naming the person of whom he is meerly a bad translater by an affected forgetfulness which cannot be too much condemned We have already in our foregoing Sections exclaimed upon those who counterfeit Authors ascribing books to persons that never thought upon making of them And certainly it is a great point of infidelity thus to deceive as much as one can even all mankind But as this vice is very great I find that of a Plagiary which is the contrary and takes away instead of giving to be much the more shameful because there is nothing more vile or infamous than to steal and they who apply to themselves other mens labours confess their own inability to produce something of value But to return to Procopius he was acquainted under Belisarius with almost all the secrets of State of that Age which renders his History of great weight But the excessive zeal which he has for this General makes Bodin amongst others accuse him of too much partiality towards him Thus Eginard is reproved for having alwaies flattered Charlemagne Eusebius Constantine Paulus Jovius Cosmodi Medici Sandoual Charles the Fifth and
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
is said from whence many draw a strong proof of his infidelity The most common opinion also founded as well on this passage as on some others lists him in the number of the Gentils although he never railed any more than Procopius against Christianity as most Pagan Historians did in imitation of Zosimus The time wherein these Two lived not favouring Paganism is perhaps the only cause He himself declares in his Preface that Murina a City of Asia was the place of his Nativity which he distinguishes from another of Thrace bearing the same name His Father was called Memnonius and he professed the Law pleading at the Judicatories of Smyrna in Quality of an Advocate as Suidas reports whence he had the Surname of Scholastiâ—us because the places where the Roman Laws were taught then went under the name of Schools as they are even at this time in some places called He confesses that Poetry was the Mistris of his first affections which led him to write many small Poems in Heroick Verse that he published under the Title of Daphnicks And there are certain of his Epigrams collected by divers hands whereof I believe many are seen in the Greek Anthology under his name And this renders his Stile so agreeable and Florid having undertook History by the advice of Eutychianus the First Secretary of State as approaching in this respect to and bordering as he tearms it upon Poetry Sigonius and Verderius were of another mind concerning his writing and that very different from this opinion listing him amongst the lowest and impurest writers But they were not only mistaken in Agathias his Stile but have been accused for several other rash judgments so that I have been constrained many times hitherto to follow some more equitable censures than theirs He began not to write till after the death of Justinian in the Reign of Justin the Second as he himself declares in his Preface beginning his History where Procopius left And I doubt not but that great Statesman Eutychianus who put him upon so high an Enterprise and who was his intimate friend furnished him with many rare pieces and Memorials of consequence to make him so successful as he has been There are Letters and Direct Orations in all his Books as that of Narses in the Two First of Aetes in the Third of the Deputies of Colchos in the Fourth of Belisarius in the Fifth And not content to penetrate into the Councels and to discover the principal causes of events he frequently gives his judgment thereupon and contrary to the custom of Xenophon and Caesar who never declare what they think of things he delivers his opinion of matters and therein imitates some great Authors who were not of the mind of these we mention Although Agathias highly commends Procopius he does not refrain from following opinions very contrary to his and even reproves him sometimes for having given unreasonable conjectures of which there are many examples the most considerable whereof is that which he said to the advantage of the French in his First Book against the infamous reproach which Procopius had cast upon them of being the most unfaithful of men Agathias on the contrary after he had shown that they were very polite and civil as they who already made use of the Roman Laws almost in all things adds that they were to be esteemed for nothing so much as the exact justice they observed without exception their Kings themselves being not exempted from it whereby they lived in an admirable Union Certainly besides that justice is a transcendent virtue and which comprehending all others cannot subsist without fidelity nothing is more contrary to it than breach of word of Faith and consequently Agathias could not more reasonably contradict Procopius nor make better amends for the wrong he had done the French Nation It is observable that notwithstanding these Two Historians had such opposite thoughts in what concerned us they agreed in what related to the greatness and independence of our Kings Procopius acknowledges in the Third Book of the Gothish War that They and the Roman Emperors were the only Monarchs in the World who had the priviledge to stamp their Images on golden Coin so that even the King of Persia who had such glorious Titles durst not attempt to do the like Agathias also speaking of King Theodebert saies that he was so much offended to see that the Emperor Justinian assumed among other Titles that of Francious as if he had conquered the French and held some right of superiority over them that for this consideration alone he resolved to go and subdue Thrace lay Siege to Constantinople and overthrow the Roman Empire whereof that City was then the Capital I know that the same Agathias calls that design rash presupposing that Theodebert would have perished in so bold or to use his tearm in so furious an Enterprise Nevertheless he confesses that this King had brought it to such a pass that if he had not been killed as he was hunting a wild Bull nothing had retarded him in it and God knows whither the event would have answered the conjectures of Our Historian But we may say that these are unreproachable testimonies of the absolute power of the French Monarchy which never acknowledged any Superiour but God and according to the words of a good Gaule to Alexander any thing but Heaven to be above it To return to the reflections of Agathias very different from those of Procopius which seem to have the force of argument wholly on their side we will examine a very remarkable place of his Fourth Book Where he cannot endure that Procopius not content to say that Arcadius left his Son Theodosius and Empire to the protection of Isdigerdes King of Persia which no Author worthy of credit ever writ before him should moreover praise the action as if it were full of prudence and add that although Arcadius was not very discreet in other things yet in this he shewed wisdom and demeaned himself very prudently This saies Agathias is judging of things by their success as the vulgar alwaies do but weighing them with reason it will be found that a Soveraign never did any thing more blame-worthy than this Declaration of Arcadius for he seemed in it to make a Wolfe Gardian of a Sheep trusting his Son and State in the hands of their greatest Enemy through a confidence which though it is sometimes tolerable in private men was not sufferable when the safety of a young Monarch lay at stake and the preservation of a Crown by so much the more envied as it pretended to give Laws to all others Methinks every one ought to yeild to this opinion of Agathias and conclude with him that in the event of this Tuition happy as it appeared there is more reason to admire the goodness and integrity of the King of Persia than the wisdom of the Emperor Arcadius Amongst many very remarkable things found in the Five Books of the History
learned men of his Age to take care of the instruction of Claudius who afterwards was Emperor and in his younger years by the advice of this his Tutor as Suetonius reports he undertook to write the Roman History of which he gave many volumes to the Publick which are lost to us As to the writings of Livy the last and most considerable thereof is the History which reached from the foundation of Rome to the death of Drusus in Germany the fine contexture whereof the agreeable narrations and the pleasing easiness makes him to be compared to Herodotus and placed in the first rank of the Latin Historians It was not at first divided by Decades as we now see it That is a recent distribution or distinction whereof no mention appears in Florus his Abbreviator nor in any of the Ancients and which Politian Petrarch with Petrus Crinitus have already disputed Of the Hundred and Forty or Hundred and Two and Forty Books which it contained there remain not above Five and Thirty nor are they all in an uninterrupted continuation for the whole Second Decade is wanting and we have but the First the Third and the Fourth with half of the Fifth which was found at Wormes by one Simon Gryneus The beginning of the Forty Third book has been also lately recovered by the means of a Manuscript in the Library of the Chapter of Bamberg but this fragment is a little contested Francisous Bartholinus that brought it from Germany into Italy Antonius Quaerengus and Gaspar Lusignanus the Author of the first impression judge it Authentick But Vossius and some others on the contrary pretend that it is a counterfeit piece and can be only imposed on those who have ears like Midas For the remaining Fourteen Decades we must rest satisfied with that Summary or Epitomy which Florus compiled if he was the Author of a work which many persons condemn believing him to have been the cause of the loss of Livys writings a loss that cannot be enough lamented This is the opinion of Bodin who likewise accuses Justin for having done the same prejudice to Trogus Pompeius Xiphilinus and Dion in epitomizing them Casaubon is also of this mind who thinks that the brief collection made by Constantine of a body of History in Fifty Three parts occasioned the neglect of the Authors that composed it which were afterwards lost But if the Three Decades and a half which we have of Livy make us deplore the want of the rest they are yet sufficient to represent him to our esteem most worthy of the Elogies which he received from the Ancients The most celebrated whereof was that yielded to him two hundred years ago by Alphonso King of Arragon when he sent his Embassador to demand of the Citizens of Padua and obtained from them as a pretious relique the bone of that Arm wherewith this their famous Country-man had writ his History causing it to be conveyed to Naples with all sorts of honour as the most estimable present could be made him And it is said that he recovered his health from a languishing indisposition by the delight he had in reading the same History But it is strange to consider with how much passion others went about to defame if they could a person of such rare merit In the Age wherein he lived Asinius Pollio arraigned his Stile which he called Patavinity Augustus taxed him of having favoured Pompey's party but did not therefore diminish his good will towards him And Caligula a while after accused him of negligence on the one side and too excessive redundancy of words on the other taking away his image and writings from all Libraries where he knew they were curiously preserved But the capricious and Tyrannick humour of this Prince was exercised in the same manner towards the works and Statues of Virgil. And he would have suppressed the Verses of Homer pretending that his power ought to be no less than Plato's who had prohibited the reading them in his Imaginary Republick Moreover hating Seneca and all men of eminent Virtue it came into his head to abolish the knowledg of Laws with all those Lawyers whose learned decisions were respected But the humorous conceit of such a Monster cannot prejudice Livy nor those others we named no more than that of Domitian a second prodigy of Nature who put to death through a like animosity Metius Pomposianus because amongst others he delighted to expose some Orations of Kings and Generals collected by him out of Livy's History The Testimony of Augustus is full of moderation he declares that the same History instead of flattering the victorious Party could not condemn that of the good and most honest men in the Common-wealth who had all listed themselves on Pompey's side which rather tends to the commendation of Livy than otherwise But that which Pollio finds fault with in all his observations is a thing which deserves to be a little more reflected on The most common opinion is that this Roman Lord accustomed to the delicacy of the language spoke in the Court of Augustus could not bear with certain Provincial Idioms which Livy as a Paduan used in divers places of his history Pignorius is of another mind and believes that this odious Patavinity had respect only to the Orthography of certain words wherein Livy used one letter for another according to the custome of his Country writing sibe and quase for sibi and quasi which he proves by divers Ancient inscriptions Some think that it consisted meerly in a repetition or rather multiplicity of many Synonymous words in one period contrary to what was practised at Rome where they did not affect such a redundancy which denoted a Forreigner Others report that the Paduans having alwaies been of Pompey's Party which was apparently the justest as we have observed Pollio that was a Caesarian derided Livys Patavinity and accused him of having shown too great an inclination for the unhappy faction of the vanquished which seems so much the likelier by the conformity it has with that opinion of Augustus which we already mentioned There are those who likewise affirm that Livy's partiality for those of Padua appeared manifestly in those books which are lost where he was led by his Subject to an immoderate praise of his Country-men It is the same fault which Polybius imputed to Philinus as a Carthaginian and Fabius as a Roman And many modern Historians have been charged therewith whereof Guicciardin was one who to oblige the Floreutines dwells so long upon the least concerns of their State and amplifies so much their smallest actions that he often becomes troublesome and sometimes ridiculous in many mens judgment The quaint Distich of Actius Syncerus against that of Poggius on the like occasion renders it altogether despicable Dum patriam laudat damnat dum Poggius hostem Nec malus est civis nec bonus historicus They who rather imagine than prove a like passion in
Livy please themselves with a belief that this was that which Pollio found fault with in his History when he was offended that it had too much Patavinity I rather build upon that sense which Quintilian gives the word who in all probability knew in his time the true signification of it He quotes it in the Chapter of the virtues and vices of Oration where he remarks that Vectius was reproached of having imployed too many Sabine Tuscan and Praenestine words in his writings so that saies he Lucilius thereupon laughed at his language as Pollio did at the Patavinity of Livy Wherefore after an interpretation so express of such a considerable Author in this respect as Quintilian I should be loath to wrest the signification of that word which the Courtiers of Rome reproved in the History we speak of to any other sense than that of Stile and Phrase Justin informs us that Trogus Pompeius censured Livy's Orations for being Direct and too long which many attribute to some jealousy that might arise between Two Authors of the same time and profession Quintilian observed that Livy begins his History with an Hexameter Verse and Mascardi in the Fifth Treatise of his Art of History rehearses many others which he found there but there is no prose where some do not occur if looked after with too much curiosity The same Mascardi taxes him in another place of having been defective in many important circumstances which we read in Appian and which he ought not to have omitted I have already shown in a precedent Section how Seneca the Rhetorician accuses Livy of having suffered himself to be swayed by envy when he gave Thucydides the preference to Salust I here add in opposition to Vossius his opinion that although Seneca the Philosopher conferred the Title of most Eloquent upon Livy he does likewise reprove him in the same place for having attributed to any man greatness of wit without goodness believing them to be inseparable Qualities And in another place on the subject of the Great Library of Alexandria he blames him for commeding the care of those Kings who founded it and yet pretending that they did it rather in a vain ostentation of glory than a true affection for books But such Stoical Austerities do not much wound the reputation of an Historian who speaks according to the common sense of things and is not obliged to follow all the opinions of Philosophers But if Antoninus his Itinerary such as Annius of Viterbum exposed was true it would be a hard matter to excuse Livy of a great fault which he accuses him of in speaking of Fanus Volturna which was his suppressing of the most gallant actions of the Tuscans whereof he envyed them the glory But it is of importance to know that the impudent supposition of Annius in this respect appears manifestly in the good editions of that Itinerary which we have from Simler and Surita wherein nothing like that is read because it is a slanderous addition of the Impostour who soisted in this corrupt relation with that Comment whereof we have so often complained already But I find it a harder task to answer the zeal of Gregory the Great who would not suffer Livy's Works in any Christian Library because of his Pagan Superstition which I remember I read in the Preface of Casaubon upon Polybius And indeed it cannot be denyed that his History is filled with many Prodigies which denote a great adherence to Idolatry Sometimes an Ox spoke one while a Mule ingendered another time Men Women and Cocks and Hens changed their Sex There are often showers of Flint-stones Flesh Chalk Blood and Milk and the Statues of the Gods be mentioned to speak shed tears and swet pure blood How many Ghosts are made to appear Armies ready to ingage in Heaven with Lakes and Rivers of Blood and the like So that no Historian ever reported so much of the vulgar's vain belief of that time as he But we should condemn almost all the books of the Gentils if our Religion received any prejudice from such trifles One might moreover represent to Pope Gregory that Livy exposes all those and some others of the same nature no otherwise than as fond opinions of the vulgar and uncertain rumours which he derides often protesting that although he is obliged to report them because they made such an important impression upon the minds of most men of that time and had a mighty influence on the greatest affairs yet there was nothing therein but vanity and imposture Some modern Authors have been found such as Bodin Benius and others like them who presumed to censure Livy's Stile for being too Poetical in some places too prolix in others and often unlike it self But these are rash judgments and worthier of pitty than consideration chiefly in respect to those that give them Yet the like cannot be said of Budaeus and Henricus Glareanus that accuse him of injustice to the Gaules in all his narrations where he treats of them and their Wars I know they who have indeavoured to defend him from this imputation reply in his behalf that if the powerful consideration of Augustus his Protector could not hinder him from speaking honourably not only of Pompey but even of Cassius and Brutus as Cremutius Cordus testifies in Tacitus it is improbable that he should refrain from saying the truth in what concerned the Gaules out of a particular Animosity to render himself more acceptable to the Romans But it is certain he was borne away herein with the common tide of opinion and that there was no Latin Historian of that time who did not as well as he use all Nations ill to oblige the Italian either through flattery or ignorance taking their relations from the reports of the victorious who suppressed all the memorials of others So general a fault nevertheless ought not to hinder us from esteeming Livy in particular as one of the first men of his Country He was of Padua and not of Aponus as Sigonius imagined because of a verse in Martial which puts one place for another by a figure ordinary enough to Poets His residence at Rome and the favour of Augustus afforded him the means to have all the instructions necessary for the compiling of his History He composed one part of it in that Capital of the Empire and the other at Naples whither he retired from time to time to digest his matter with less disturbance After that Emperors death he returned to the place of his Birth where he was received with unparalell'd honours and applauses by the Paduans and there he dyed in the Fourth year of the Reign of Tiberius and the very day of the Calends of January which was also Ovids last day according to the observation of Eusebius in his Chronicles His life was lately delivered unto us by Jacobus Philippus Thomasinus the Paduan Bishop who omitted nothing that a Paduan
rooted up in an instant It is not the part of a wise man to mind only the fruit they bear and not to consider their height and their danger of falling Take heed lest endeavouring to climbe up to the top their uttermost branches do not break and make you fall with them The Lion be it never so great and fierce sometimes serves for nourishment to the least Birds and Iron for all its hardness is often consumed with rust Nor is there any thing so solid or strong in Nature that may not be hurt by the weakest things and which have in appearance the least vigour Certainly here are many Elegant expressions which instead of being condemned for unseemliness as spoken by Scythians ought rather to be esteemed in a more than ordinary manner for the Air they have of their Country and that unusual way of expression which almost totally differs from that of the Greeks or Latins If I had a mind to censure this History as well as Others I would not find fault with its Geography or Rhetorick I should rather accuse Quintus Curtius for his Immorality wherein he can be no way justified For after he had acknowledged in more than one place that Alexander made the same use of the Eunuch Bagoas as Darius did which made him have so great a power over his affections not to speak of Ephestion whose friendship he does not render so shameful or criminal as others have done he had the confidence afterwards to affirm that the pleasures of Alexander were natural and lawful The place I mean is where he first represents the death of that Prince and then examins his virtues and vices using these very terms veneris juxta naturale desiderium usus nec ulla nisi ex permisso voluptas How this infamous passion he had for Bagoas was not then esteemed against Nature I know not since long before notwithstanding the darkness of Paganism Phocylides had observed in one of his verses that even Brutes naturally abhorred that sort of conjunction And Plato how infamous soever in that respect acknowledged in the Eighth Book of his Laws that even before the time of Laius that Example of Beasts made masculine love be stiled a sin against nature Certainly Quintus Curtius his fault herein cannot be palliated what licence soever may be ascribed to the Gentils both Greeks and Romans on this Subject I will not repeat in this place what I said in the Section of Arrian of some small errours of Quintus Curtius which are amended by the writings of the former or rather by the mutual assistance which these Two Authors give one to the other to be rendered more intelligible But I will observe that notwithstanding the praise we attributed to the Graecian of having been one of the most tender writers in matter of prodigies he whom we now examine is much more reserved therein than he of which there needs no more proof than what they both writ of one or two extraordinary Springs which newly sprung up from the ground where Alexander had Encamped near the River Oxus Arrian saies that one of them was of Oil and the other of clear Water which he confidently reports as if he would impose a belief thereof on his Readers Quintus Curtius on the other hand saies nothing of the Source of Oil but that in digging of Wells a Spring was found in the Kings Tent of which as soon as it was discovered a rumour ran as if it had been miraculous and Alexander himself so far improved it as to be pleased that it should be thought a grace of Heaven bestowed on him by the Gods But to shew clearly with what circumspection this Historian alwaies handled things which admitted of doubt I will instance the terms wherewith he accompanies the narration he writes of a Dog in the Kingdom of Sopita that fastened on a Lyon with so much courage that he suffered his members to be cut piece-meal rather then lose the hold he had taken Equidem saies he plura transcribo quam credo Nam nec affirmare sustineo de quibus dubito nec subducere quae accepi And this moderation may be applied to that place of the same book where on the occasion of Ptolomy's sickness a Serpent shewed to Alexander in his sleep an Herb which would cure him Truly when an Author is so modest in his relation that he appears not to have any design to invade the credulity of his Readers he may write what he pleases as we have already remonstrated in the Chapter of Livy Amongst all the Latin Historians there is none more generally approved than Quintus Curtius Some are for Livy's Stile others for that of Tacitus but all agree that Curtius has writ very agreeably and well Lipsius advises that no book is more worthy the perusal of Princes than this History which he commends to their frequent inspection Some there are of that dignity who have not only recreated their minds with this Book but found other advantages by it We have already reported somewhat like this in what we writ of Livy and I remember I observed that one Laurentius di Medicis who caused the History of the Emperors to be read to him was so affected with the recital of some notable Act of Conrard the Third of that name that he thought he owed his health to the content he received from that relation Antonius Panormitanus and several others observe a memorable occurrence concerning our Author in reference to Alphonso that wise King of Arragon who finding himself oppressed with an indisposition from which all the remedies of his Phisitians could not delive him sought some diversion in the History of Quintus Curtius which was with so much satisfaction and good success that he became cured of his infirmity and protested to all about him that neither Hippocrates nor Avicenna should ever be of equal consideration to him with that Treatise But to draw to a conclusion I must admit that Curtius is excellent in all his Orations either Direct or Oblique I have seen but one Letter in all his works which is the answer of Alexander to Darius And I do not remember that there is any other Digression than that one of the Tenth Book which I mentioned before where taking an occasion from the Divisions amongst the Macedonians after the death of him that had made them Monarchs of the world he celebrates the felicity of the Roman People reunited in the time when he wrote under a great and happy Emperor We must not take for a Digression the Relation of the manner of living of the Indians and the Description of their Country which is found in the Eighth Book because there is nothing therein that is not essential to the Theme which the Author proposed to himself for being to write of the Exploits of Alexander in that Country it was requisite for him to give some summary account of it REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF
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
produced so many excellent persons and few are ignorant how all the following ages have honoured his endeavours whereof we shall give some more Testimonies before we finish this Section But in the mean time is it not strange that any should be so barbarous as Alciat and Ferret and contradictory to all the Ancient Romans to maintain that so considerable an Author could not so much as speak his mother-tongue One must certainly have a brazen face and a very empty head to advance such propositions For my part should I see a Thousand things that displeased me I should rather accuse my own weak understanding or the faults of the Copies or some other defect which ought not to be imputed to him than give the lye to all Antiquity by falling into such an imaginary imputation There is a third sort of Tacitus his accusers who tax him of speaking untruths Vopiscus is of that number But because he only arraigns him to excuse himself in this general proposition that the best Historians of the world cannot avoid the mixture of lies in their truest narrations Tacitus his reputation seems not to be much concerned therein We have shown elsewhere that several persons took delight to maintain this thesis And I remember Dion Chrysostome endeavouring to prove in one of his Orations that one never knows the truth of things is not content to say that the taking of Troy by the Graecians is a meer Fable and that the Persians delivered a very different account of the wars of Xerxes and Darius against Greece than the Graecians themselves but he adds as a note of the small certainty there is in History that amongst the most famous of the Greek Historians some held that the Naval victory of Salamin preceded that of Plataea and others asserted the contrary It is sufficient then to answer that there are untruths which our humanity bears with when they are related by report and without lying But when Tertullian reproaches Tacitus with imposture and Budaeus calls him one of the most vile and impious Authors we have it is evident that they mean something more than that sort of misreport which ignorance may excuse and which one may retort upon errors Authorised by common belief For they are offended at what he impiously spoke of Christians in derision of our holy religion whom he assaults even in the foundations of the Old Testament deriding the Miracles of Moses and reproaching the Jews with adoring the Effigies of a Wild Asse I confess that one cannot too much condemn what he writ on that subject as he was a Pagan But nevertheless we must be forced to acknowledg that if he must be totally renounced for what he writ against the true God and our Altars we shall be obliged to burn with his Books almost all those of the Gentils very few of them having abstained from the like calumnies I say the same thing against the judgment which Casaubon in his Preface passed upon Polybius where he pretends that Princes cannot read a more dangerous book than Tacitus because of the bad examples which are seen in it For it is an ill custome that Casaubon has followed never to write upon an Author without blaming all others to give that the greater Authority and we know that he has praised Tacitus elsewhere as much as any one can do It is true his History has represented unto us the actions of the most wicked Princes that ever were and that by misfortune those Books which contained the best Emperors Raigns as of Vespasian Titus Nerva and Trajan are lost Yet it is the way to censure all the Histories we have in the world even without excepting the Holy Writ to make that of Tacitus responsible for the bad examples it contains there being none found that have not some very dangerous in them and where there is no need of distinguishing with judgment the good and the bad of every Narration But perhaps heretofore as even in Tertullians time the Pagans invectives against us might be apprehended because the world was not then purged of their errors as it is at present by the Grace of God I cannot imagine that any person can be found at this day that would let himself be seduced by the Calumnies of the Ethnicks or by all that the infidelity they lived in could make them write against our Evangelical truths The general esteem the works of Tacitus have gained might suffice alone against the Authorities we have examined though we wanted reasons to refute them If it were needful to weaken them by other contrary authorities I can produce Two besides the Universal consent of learned men which are so weighty that they will alwaies turn the Scale on their side The first is that of the Emperor Tacitus who though invested in the supreme dignity of the world did not forbear near two hundred years after the death of our Historian to glory in that name common to them esteeming it as an honour to have had such an Ancestour and to be acknowledged one of his Posterity He caused his Statue to be placed in all Libraries and all his books to be writ over Ten times every year that they might pass from hand to hand and from Age to age as they have done unto ours The Second Authority shall be that of the Great Duke Cosmo di Medicis whose memory will never want veneration as long as the Science of Polity or good government as his Country-men term it shall be cultivated That Prince chose Tacitus amongst all the Historians as one from whom his mind could receive the most instruction and solid satisfaction Add to the Testimony of Princes and Emperors that the translation of this Author into all Tongues gives a certain proof of the valew of him in all Nations Besides his Commentaries History he wrote a Treatise of divers people who inhabited Germany in his time and of their different manners with another Book of the Life of his Father in Law Agricola Some moreover ascribe to him the book Entituled the causes of the corruption of Latin Eloquence which others attribute to Quintilian and which possibly belongs to neither of them according to the probable conjecture of Lipsius As for the collection of the book of the pleasant sayings of Tacitus which Fulgentius Planciades mentions it is a meer counterfeit which never deceived any one but that Grammarian The true compositions of Tacitus are discernable enough either by their form or matter taking as Scaliger does the words of the History for the matter and the things it unfolds for the form He scatters here and there throughout the whole Oblique and Direct Orations as the condition of time place and persons require But as concise as he is in his Stile he flies out into Digressions in many places witness that of the God Sarapis amongst the rest in the Fourth Book of his History and that other wonderful one in the Fifth which we
have already in some sort reflected on relating to the Religion of the Jews and that of Moses their Law-giver He was of the opinion that as there is no Traveller who may not go out of his way sometimes to see a memorable place or some singular thing of the Countries he passes through so the Laws of History do no more forbid a Writer to make some small excursions which please and refresh the mind more than they diver it when they are used only in apt season He is no less sententious than Thucydides or Salust but with such artifice that all the maxims he laies down issue from the nature of the subjects he treats of in the same manner as Stars are made of the proper substance of the Heavens There is nothing of Foreign affected too far fetched or superfluous in what he writes each thought holds a place which becomes it so well that it cannot be disputed Moreover you do not only learn from him the events of things past He seldom fails to discover their causes and the foregoing councels One may say the same thing of History as the Poet said of Husbandry Faelix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas And if what many people aver be true to wit that the water is sweeter in the bottom of the Sea than in the Superficies it is more certain that an Historical relation which only gives an insight into affairs and the pursuance of events leaving the Antecedent causes and advices unpenetrated cannot be so useful or pleasant as that which reveals all the misteries thereof and does not hide the greatest secrets contained in those affairs which relish according to the comprehension we have of them But that which neightens the merit of Tacitus his works is the observation which others have made before me that one often learns no less from what he left unsaid than what he expressed his silence being as instructive as his language and his cyphers to speak in the terms of numbers as considerable as his most important figures because all therein described is full of consideration proportion and judgment Thus as the Ancients report the Painter Timanthes left more in his Pictures to be imagined than he exposed to the view of Spectators And it is known that Tacitus did not set himself to write before he was very old after Nerva's Reign and under that of Trajan as he himself declares REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF LUCIUS ANNAEUS FLORUS THEY who make Lucius Florus to live under Trajan are obliged to correct that place of his Preface where he saies there was little less than two hundred years from Augustus his time to his The most probable opinion is that he was of a little later time And it is beleived that the Poet Florus whose verses Spartianus quotes in the Life of the Emperor Adrian is the same of whom we now write the Author of the Epitomy of the Roman History in four books The verses are in a very familiar Stile Ego nolo Caesar esse Ambulare per Britannos Scythicas pati pruinas The Emperor Adrian was addicted to Poetry as may be seen by the pleasant answer which he returned Ego nolo Florus esse Ambulare per Tabernas Latitare per popinas Calices pati rotundos And one may see that the Phrase of his History is wholly Poetical and that the love of Parnassus caused him sometimes like Virgil to imploy Hemistichs in his Periods But though he seems very licentious in it and his speech and expressions often favour more of a Declamer than an Historian yet we must affirm Sigonius to be very unjust when he stiles him an impertinent Writer The manner in which Florus treats of every War apart did not deserve so severe a censure And it is apparent that he was ever acknowledged to be a very fluent Author full of Eloquence and very agreeable flowers of Oratory He is moreover replenished with very ingenious sentences thoughts expressed with force and vehemency And laying aside some little places which may be thought cold in comparison of others many refined precepts are contained in what he writes which could not be expressed in better terms Some doubt whither Florus that made the four books above mentioned was the same that composed Arguments to the books of Livy's history Nevertheless it is a great mistake to beleive that he intended to Epitomize the whole History of Livy in his four books for he does not follow it in divers places but rather pursues his particular fancy Which is so extravagant in reference to Chronology or the account of time that it is not safe for any that will be truly informed to take him him for a guide in that matter because of the many faults he has committed therein through negligence or otherwise He is accused also of contriving the loss of Livy's works to value his own collections but I judge those that are of that opinion to be in an error such a sort of summary Narration being not sufficient so to satisfy the mind as to make it reject a work whereof that Compendium gives but a very superficial account Moreover some make Seneca to be the Author of the Compendious History of Florus because Lactantius laies down in the fifteenth Chapter of the Seventh book of his Divine Institutions a Division of the Roman Empire into four different seasons ascribing Metaphorically to it Infancy Youth Virility and Old Age which he attributes to Seneca's invention And because the like division is seen in the Preface of Florus his books they conclude that Seneca is the Author of them and that the name of Florus is to be no otherwise considered than as a counterfeit But he that shall well observe the writings of these two Authors will easily discern great differences in them Seneca makes the Youth or Adolescency of Rome as he terms it reach to the end of the last Punick War whilst Florus makes it continue but to the first And Seneca begins its Old Age when the Civil Wars arose between Julius Caesar and Pompey whereas Florus accounts it from Augustus his establishment in the absolute power of the Empire Is it not therefore more probable that Florus made use of Seneca's thought varying it and rendering it in a manner his own by the alteration he made therein I am apter to believe that Lactantius was mistaken than to imagine that all the Manuscripts should err which have put L. Annaeus Florus in the Title of the Books we now mention But perhaps Florus and Seneca being both of the same family Viz. that of the Annaei their names may have been confounded by adoption or otherwise and that Florus was therefore sometimes called Seneca as one cannot deny that he is in some old Copies and some have given him also the Surname of Julius Whereupon we must observe that the House of the Heraclidae is not more honoured in the valour of the many gallant men it hath bestowed on the world