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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
in a little time all that Sâ—perbe Edifice was consumed in Flames and at the same time they let an Eagle fly which the Pagan superstition of that Age believed was to carry away the Soul of the deceased Herodian used direct Oâ—ations in all his History As in the first Book we have that of Marcus Antoninus to his friends a little before his death with another which Commodus delivered to his souldiers whilst he was yet very young to gain â—heir affections to him And his Eighth Book does as it were conclude with that speech which Maximus made in the middle of his Army a little before he marched with it to Rome and all his other Books are filled with the like discourses which are leaning to the form of Declamation and which without any difficulty he continually used as occasion offered as may be seen by that letter which Macrinus writ from Antioch to the Senate and Roman People in the beginning of his Fifth Book He did not moreover avoid Digressions in his Compositions There is one in his first Book on the occasion of that Idol of the Mother of the Gods which the Romans caused to be brought from Phrygia after having related that the Stone all ingraved as it was into the form of the Image fell down from Heaven in the Field of Pesinunta and made the Ship that carried it stop at the Mouth of Tyber till a Vestal in proof of her Virginity had drawn it out with her cincture and he gives no other reason for the Sacrifices which the Eunuchs celebrated to such a Divinity and many other Fables which depended thereon in this whole diversion than that writing in Greek he thought it might be acceptable to his Country-men to be informed of the Theology of the Latins whereof few of them had any knowledg Julius Capitolinus mentions Herodian in the Life of Clodius Albinus as a good Historian but accuses him nevertheless in his two Maximins to have favoured one in hatred of Alexander Severus whose memory was displeasing to him He did indeed commend the clemency and mild disposition of that Prince who reigned Fourteen years without any effusion of blood and without taking away the life of any one otherwise than by the ordinary course of Justice which he remarks as a virtue very rare and without example since Antoninus Philosophus As to the Empress Mammea who is proposed by some as a Pattern to those to whom the Education of such Princes which they shall have brought into the World may appertain he by no means approved of her Government sometimes he described her as an avaritious person that invaded the possessions of many persons by evil and fraudulent means and saies she was for that reason hated by her Son And then he represents her to be so proud that she could not endure her Daughter in Law Augusta impatient to have the Title of Empress given to any but her self but banished her into Affrick after having caused her Father to be put to death against the consent of the Emperor because he made publick complaints of the wrongs he and the young Empress Augusta his Daughter had endured by the cruelty of the same Mammea nor was she less injurious to her Son who when he regretted the defeat of a Roman Army which was too far advanced in to the Country of the Parthians could not but impute the dishonor of it to her who on pretext of her care which perswaded him not to hazard his person was thereby the occasion of the loss of that Army and all the reproach and infamy that attended it Not does Herodian assign any other cause of the death of both the Mother and the Son who were assassinated by the Souldiers than the hatred they had conceived against Mammea because of her insatiable avarice and shameless parcimony whereby Maximinus was advanced to the Empire Lampridius also after having called Mammea a pious Woman does not refrain from arraigning the impudence of her avarice for amassing together all the Gold and Silver she could gather And when he relates the assâ—ssinate of Alexander Severus he saies that Prince was grievously reproached by his Murtherers with the covetousness of his Mother And Sextus Aurelius Victor declines not to have it pronounced to that unfortunate Emperor at the last moment of his life that the same person which gave it to him was the cause of his death And he adds that Mammea had reduced her Son to that extremity by her frugal humour that the meat which was untouched at the Table one day was saved to be served to it the day following to content her though at best it was but meanly furnished But though Herodian justly blamed Mummea for her ill conduct in the matter of Government of the State he very much commends her care for the instruction of her Son excluding from him all depraved persons and especially those Pests of Courts which flatter the bad inclinations of Princes and thereby peâ—vert their nature and immediately vitiaâ—e their understandings she would let none approach him that were not virtuous in their lives and of approved behaviour and so discreetly regulated his time that it was chiefly occupied in imployments worthy of him not permitting any leisure for indecent actions which are begotten and nourished by idleness as their proper Aliment Certainly these wise precautions cannot be sufficiently prised and do well deserve those commendations which are ascribed to this unhappy Princess Nor was her vigilance and the great pains she took to preserve her Son from so vile a Monster as Heliâ—gabalus who tried alwaies to deprive him of his life less praise worthy as our Historian observes And Lampridius who as it was before hinted commended her piety of life adds to it that never any Prince was better educated than Alexander Severus in all the exercises of peace and War by the excellent Masters she provided for him And he finishes his discourse of the life of that Emperor in saying he was of a very good disposition being the Son of a most virtuous Mother Zosimus relates that the Animosity of the Souldiery against Mammea and her Son proceeded from her favour to Vlpian the famed Lawyer preferring him above the Captian of the Emperors Guards which is no small proof of the zeal she had to maintain the Laws The Chronologer Cassiodorus reports that the piety and respect which Alexander had for his Mother Mammea made him to be beloved by all men But Eusebius has surpassed all others in her commendation extolling her to be a Lady of virtue and piety in a more religious sense than that of Cassiodorus and equal to if not exceeding therein all the Women of her time and he improves that his good opinion of her to us because of her sending for Origen from Antioch to confer with him of the misteries of Christianity What shall we then conclude of the bad reports which Herodian writes of her may we not believe with Julius Capitolinus
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
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
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