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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49146	Notitia historicorum selectorum, or, Animadversions upon the antient and famous Greek and Latin historians written in French by ... Francis La Mothe le Vayer ... ; translated into English, with some additions by W.D. ...; Des anciens et principaux historiens grecs et latins dont il nous reste quelques ouvrages. English	La Mothe Le Vayer, François de, 1583-1672.; D'Avenant, William, Sir, 1606-1668.	1678 (1678)	Wing L301; ESTC R16783	125,384	274

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

Cassius who is besides known by the Surnames of Cocceius and Cocceianus was born at Nicea a City of Bithynia whether he retired in his latter years to pass in quiet the remaining part of his life after the example of those Animals who alwaies return as they say to dy in their Mansions The infirmity of his leggs called him to this retirement and he writes that his Genius had foretold it him long before by a Verse of Homers Iliads recited by Photius As Socrates was said to have had a Familiar Spirit or Daemon who was as a Director of his life Dio alledges that he was warned by his to avoid by a retirement the Ambushes which the ●retorian Militia prepared for him and the same Spirit or Goddess to use his own terms in his Threescore and Twelfth Book made him write his History who before exercised himself only in Philosophical learning as that of the Divine Dreams and their Interpretation of which he had composed a Book His Father Apronianus a Consular man according to the Phrase of that Age was Governor of Dalmatia and sometime after Proconsul of Cilicia He himself had the same Consular dignity bestowed on him twice which he exercised jointly with the Emperor Alexander Son of Mammea after he had passed through divers Imployments under the precedent Emperors for Macrinus had established him Lieutenant or Governor of Pergamus and Smyrna and he sometime commanded in Affrick and had afterwards the Administration of Austria and Hungary then called Pannonia committed to him These things are convenient to be known before we speak of his Writings because they recommend and give the greater Authority to them His History comprised all the time from the building of Rome to the Reign of Alexander Severus which he writ in Eighty Books divided into Eight Decades whereof few are saved from that unhappy loss which as we have elsewhere shown has been fatal to many admirable Works of this nature whereof the ignorant and barbarous Ages have deprived us At present the Five and Thirtieth Book is the first of those that remain intire for we have but some Eclogues or Fragments of the Four and Thirtieth preceding His progress to the Sixtieth is intire enough But instead of the last Twenty we must be content with what Xiphilinus a Constantinopolitan Monk has given us in an Epitome or Compendium of them for the Text of those peeces of Dion is not to be found whole by a misfortune alwaies incident to Books that are abbreviated Photius observes that he writ his Roman History as some others had likewise done not from the Foundation of Rome only but even from Aeneas his Descent into Italy which he continued to the Tyranny of Heliogabalus and some part of the Reign of Alexander Severus his successor That which we have of it now in our possession comprehending the events of Three Hundred years at least begins but at the time when Lucullus had his great commands and finishes with the death of Claudius the Emperor the rest is the Epitome of Xiphilinus before mentioned Though all that has been lost of this excellent Author is much to be regretted I think nothing is so deplorable as the loss of the Forty last years of which he writ as an Eie-witness and one that had a part in the government of the State For he could not express what was before the Empire of Commodus but from the relation of strangers and as others had done it before him But after that Emperor until the other with whom he had the honor to be Collegue in the Consulship he built no more upon the faith of other men but what he relates that descends to us by his Organ Xiphilinus is no other than what he saw himself and wherein he was a principal Actour It is a clear proof of Dion's prudent conduct that he could pass over such bad times as those of the Tyrannical Dominion of Commodus Caracalla Macrinus and Heliogabalus without loss of life goods or reputation which are often in danger under such Princes without a wonderful dexterity of Wit His was so commendable that after having overcome those Stormy and Tempestuous seasons wherein the quality of a stranger and his riches exposed him to much envy he arrived happily at a safe Port to wit the Raign of Alexander Severus an exceeding Lover of justice and a most powerful Protector of virtuous men Under him he publisht the Roman History to which as he was led by his Genius as we before hinted so he was commanded by Septimius Severus He confesses himself that he imploied Ten years in providing the necessary materials for this great building and twelve more in raising it and adding that Majesty unto it which makes us even at this day admire its dismembred Fragments and Ruins A man of his Quality who had passed all his life in the management of affairs and had read men as well as Books and of such an experimented conduct must needs have been a very considerable Historiographer Nor have any of them revealed so much unto us as he of those state secrets which Tacitus Stiles Arcana Imperii and whereof he makes so high a Mistery He is so exact in describing the order of the Comitia the establishing of Magistrates and the use of the publick Rights of the Romans that those things are no where else learned more distinctly And in what relates to the Consecration of Emperors their Apotheosis or inrolling amongst the number of the Gods We may say that he is the only Writer who has shewn us a good form except Herodian who coveted afterwards to imitate him in the same Subject But particularly in the Fifty Sixth Book he is very curious where he represents the Pomp of Augustus his Funerals his Bed of State his ●ssigies in Wax and the Funeral Oration which Tiberius read before the People he exposes after that the manner of the burning his body how Livia gathered and laid up his Bones finally with what dexterity they made an Eagle part from the Funeral Pile whence that Bird of Jupiter seemed to bear the Soul of the Emperor to Heaven The Funeral Oration before mentioned obliges me to remark that Dion freely used not only the Oblique but the Direct way of Oration also in the body of his History Those of Pompey to the Romans and of Gabinius afterwards in his Thirty Sixth Book are of the last frame The Philosophical discourse of Philiscus to Cicero which is seen in the Eight and Thirtieth to perswade him to bear his Exile into Macedonia constantly is also in the form of a Prosopopaea after a very considerable Dialogue between them Two The Orations of Agrippa and Mecaenas the first of which exhorted Augustus to quit the Empire the Second on the contrary to retain it are of the same sort and contain the whole Fifty Second Book And Xiphilinus was not contented in his Abbreviation of the Sixty Second to make Paulinus Governor of great

Brittain speak a direct Oration to his Troops ready to Engage with the British Forces after he had divided them into Three different Bodies but makes him speak Three separate ones on the same Subject to perswade them to fight couragiously and thereby to obtain the Victory By this it appears that they who believe that all sorts of Orations are indecent in History will not be satisfied with Dio's method of writing for he abstains not from those which are most to be avoided namely the direct and has made use of Dialogues also which is contrary to the rules of the Criticks in History but if we must take notice of his faults there are others which deserve sooner to be complained of than what we mentioned He is accused of having taken Caesars part too much against Pompey to accomodate himself to the course of Fortune Nor seems he more equitable in respect of Antonius his Faction which he alwaies favours to the prejudice of that of Cicero And whoever reads in the Forty Sixth Book the invective of Q. Fusius Calenus against this incomparable Oratour will be hardly able to indure all the injuries with which it seems Dio would have Sullied his reputation Not content to make him be reproached that he was the Son of a Fuller or Dyer very often reduced to dress Vines or cultivate Olive Trees he assaults his person and touches his honour in all the most sensible parts he renders him ridiculous for his fearfulness and to blast him the more affirms that of all the Orations which were seen of his he delivered not one of them after the manner in which they were writ and therefore his want of memory is imputed as a crime to him But he makes Calenus much more severe He would have him contented not to wear the long Robe if he had not wanted it to hide his ill-shapt Leggs and Feet And arraigns his Conjugal Bed to expose the vice of his Wives defaming him to have prostituted the honour of one of them and in the mention of his Children he accuses him of Incest with his Daughter and represents his Son as an infamous Libertin Drunk Night and Day Certainly to treat one of the greatest persons of the Roman Republick thus is rather like a Satyrist than an Historian But Dion does so pursue his disparagement that in the following Book he takes a new occasion to make Fulvia the Wife of Antonius vomit out abundance of reproaches against his memory who pierces his Tongue through and through with her Needle He has not been much more respectful to Seneca if the conjectures of some men are not true who think that Xiphilinus in that part maliciously delivered the thoughts of Suillius or some other as bad for those of Dio. Yet we read in what Constantinus collected out of him besides what is related in the Epitomy of Xiphilinus that Seneca led a life quite contrary to his Writings and the Philosophical profession to which he pretended He is accused of Adultery with Julia and Agrippina and of the death of the last He is taxed with reading Lectures of Pederasty to Nero and charged with as-ending the Theatre with him to make Orations in his applause In fine his Luxury and Avarice are aggravated to that pitch that the cause of the Rebellion of Great Brittain is imputed to him where the People could no more indure his extortion than Nero could suffer his Conspiracies from which he had no means to deliver himself than by putting so bad a Master to death But what we before hinted that the invectives against Seneca are rather the words of Tigellinus the abbreviator than our Author seems to be very manifest because Dion in his Fifty Ninth Book speaks very honourably of Seneca We might perhaps accuse him of Superstition and Credulity and thereby something discredit his History if something were not to be allowed to Humanity and if we did not know that the best Authors in this kind have fallen into the same inconveniences In his Forty Seventh Book he tells us the Sun appeared at Rome sometimes lesser and sometimes greater than ordinary to foretel the bloody Battel fought in the Fields of Philippi which was also signified by many other Prodigies How he credited the report of the strange quality of the Psylli to expel poison may be read in his One and Fiftieth Book on the Subject of the death of Cleopatra whom these men since there was no Female amongst them and they begot themselves endeavoured in vain to bring to life again In his Fifty Eighth Book he reports that a Phaenix was seen in Aegypt in the Seven Hundred and Nineteenth year of the Foundation of Rome In another place he writes that Vespasian cured a Blind Man by spitting in his Eies and worked a like Miracle on a Lame mans Hand which he cured and restored to its vigour by walking upon it they being both forewarned in a Dream that they should receive this benefit from the Emperor In another place he expresses that the famous Apollonius Tyanaeus saw in the City of Ephesus all that passed at the death of Domitian in Rome at the same instant that he received it so that he cried out calling on the name of Stephanus which was that of his Murtherer bidding him strike boldly and soon after that saies he it was done as if Dion would have conformed himself to Philostratus who writ at the same time the Imaginary life of this Philosopher and as if there were no difference to be put betwixt true and Fabulous History Though some men and Baronius amongst others find fault with Dio because he was not favorable to Christianity I think it not worthy to be considered since he is to be esteemed as a Pagan Author who was not like to uphold a Religion contrary to that which he professed It is true that speaking of the victories of Marcus Aurelius he attributes to the Magick Art of one Arnuphis an Aegyptian rather than to the prayers of the Christians the miraculous Rain which fell in favour of the Romans and the strange Tempests which afflicted the Army of the Quadi whom the learned Cluverius takes for the present Moravians But is it a wonder in things subject to various interpretations as are ordinarily such Prodigies that Dio an Idolatrous Historian should not give the same judgment as a believer And that he spake otherwise of them than Tertullian Eusebius Paulus Diaconus and some others have done His Stile is by Pho●ius put into the rank of the most elevated being extraordinarly raised by the loftiness of his thoughts His discourse saies he is full of Phrases which resemble the Antient construction or Syntaxis and his expression answers the greatness of the matter he treats of His periods are often interrupted with Parentheses and he uses many Hyperbates or transitions which are very troublesome when they are not used Artificially after his manner But one thing is very remarkable that

Livy please themselves with a belief that this was that which Pollio found fault with in his History when he was offended that it had too much Patavinity I rather build upon that sense which Quintilian gives the word who in all probability knew in his time the true signification of it He quotes it in the Chapter of the virtues and vices of Oration where he remarks that Vectius was reproached of having imployed too many Sabine Tuscan and Praenestine words in his writings so that saies he Lucilius thereupon laughed at his language as Pollio did at the Patavinity of Livy Wherefore after an interpretation so express of such a considerable Author in this respect as Quintilian I should be loath to wrest the signification of that word which the Courtiers of Rome reproved in the History we speak of to any other sense than that of Stile and Phrase Justin informs us that Trogus Pompeius censured Livy's Orations for being Direct and too long which many attribute to some jealousy that might arise between Two Authors of the same time and profession Quintilian observed that Livy begins his History with an Hexameter Verse and Mascardi in the Fifth Treatise of his Art of History rehearses many others which he found there but there is no prose where some do not occur if looked after with too much curiosity The same Mascardi taxes him in another place of having been defective in many important circumstances which we read in Appian and which he ought not to have omitted I have already shown in a precedent Section how Seneca the Rhetorician accuses Livy of having suffered himself to be swayed by envy when he gave Thucydides the preference to Salust I here add in opposition to Vossius his opinion that although Seneca the Philosopher conferred the Title of most Eloquent upon Livy he does likewise reprove him in the same place for having attributed to any man greatness of wit without goodness believing them to be inseparable Qualities And in another place on the subject of the Great Library of Alexandria he blames him for commeding the care of those Kings who founded it and yet pretending that they did it rather in a vain ostentation of glory than a true affection for books But such Stoical Austerities do not much wound the reputation of an Historian who speaks according to the common sense of things and is not obliged to follow all the opinions of Philosophers But if Antoninus his Itinerary such as Annius of Viterbum exposed was true it would be a hard matter to excuse Livy of a great fault which he accuses him of in speaking of Fanus Volturna which was his suppressing of the most gallant actions of the Tuscans whereof he envyed them the glory But it is of importance to know that the impudent supposition of Annius in this respect appears manifestly in the good editions of that Itinerary which we have from Simler and Surita wherein nothing like that is read because it is a slanderous addition of the Impostour who soisted in this corrupt relation with that Comment whereof we have so often complained already But I find it a harder task to answer the zeal of Gregory the Great who would not suffer Livy's Works in any Christian Library because of his Pagan Superstition which I remember I read in the Preface of Casaubon upon Polybius And indeed it cannot be denyed that his History is filled with many Prodigies which denote a great adherence to Idolatry Sometimes an Ox spoke one while a Mule ingendered another time Men Women and Cocks and Hens changed their Sex There are often showers of Flint-stones Flesh Chalk Blood and Milk and the Statues of the Gods be mentioned to speak shed tears and swet pure blood How many Ghosts are made to appear Armies ready to ingage in Heaven with Lakes and Rivers of Blood and the like So that no Historian ever reported so much of the vulgar's vain belief of that time as he But we should condemn almost all the books of the Gentils if our Religion received any prejudice from such trifles One might moreover represent to Pope Gregory that Livy exposes all those and some others of the same nature no otherwise than as fond opinions of the vulgar and uncertain rumours which he derides often protesting that although he is obliged to report them because they made such an important impression upon the minds of most men of that time and had a mighty influence on the greatest affairs yet there was nothing therein but vanity and imposture Some modern Authors have been found such as Bodin Benius and others like them who presumed to censure Livy's Stile for being too Poetical in some places too prolix in others and often unlike it self But these are rash judgments and worthier of pitty than consideration chiefly in respect to those that give them Yet the like cannot be said of Budaeus and Henricus Glareanus that accuse him of injustice to the Gaules in all his narrations where he treats of them and their Wars I know they who have indeavoured to defend him from this imputation reply in his behalf that if the powerful consideration of Augustus his Protector could not hinder him from speaking honourably not only of Pompey but even of Cassius and Brutus as Cremutius Cordus testifies in Tacitus it is improbable that he should refrain from saying the truth in what concerned the Gaules out of a particular Animosity to render himself more acceptable to the Romans But it is certain he was borne away herein with the common tide of opinion and that there was no Latin Historian of that time who did not as well as he use all Nations ill to oblige the Italian either through flattery or ignorance taking their relations from the reports of the victorious who suppressed all the memorials of others So general a fault nevertheless ought not to hinder us from esteeming Livy in particular as one of the first men of his Country He was of Padua and not of Aponus as Sigonius imagined because of a verse in Martial which puts one place for another by a figure ordinary enough to Poets His residence at Rome and the favour of Augustus afforded him the means to have all the instructions necessary for the compiling of his History He composed one part of it in that Capital of the Empire and the other at Naples whither he retired from time to time to digest his matter with less disturbance After that Emperors death he returned to the place of his Birth where he was received with unparalell'd honours and applauses by the Paduans and there he dyed in the Fourth year of the Reign of Tiberius and the very day of the Calends of January which was also Ovids last day according to the observation of Eusebius in his Chronicles His life was lately delivered unto us by Jacobus Philippus Thomasinus the Paduan Bishop who omitted nothing that a Paduan