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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

had given the world a proof of his clemency by his gentle usage not only of the Vandal Kings but of Vi●ges and Gilimer those very Subjects who had conspired against his person and Government Johannes de Cappadocia his prefect and the valiant Captain Artaban● convicted of perfidiousness escaped with imprisonment only and the Last in a short time was restored to his offices and the favour of that Prince from whom he would have taken both life and Empire I know that he is reproached for having been too severe to Belisarius Yet we read nothing of it in Procopius who in all likelihood would not have concealed it Agathias writes plainly that those who envied this great Captain were the cause that his services were not worthily rewarded without speaking one word either of the condemnation or confiscation of his goods Gregory of Tours alledges that Justinian was necessitated to substitute in his place the Eunuch Norses in Italy because he was too often defeated there by the French adding that to humble him the Emperor reduced him to his first place of Consta le which could not be so considerable at Constantinople aa it was not long since in France Some but petty writers of no Authority affirm that being reduced to extream misery he was forced to beg but that must be accounted as a Fable and on the contrary we may observe in his person the bounty of his Prince who having heaped riches and Honours on him never treated him worse although endeavours were thrice used to render him suspected of designing to be master of the State It is also strange that he upbraids Justinian with his buildings who writ a book purposely in their commendation and who describing the lofty structure of so many Churches Hospitals and Monasteries did no less admire the Piety than the magnificence of their Founder Evagrius attributes unto him the reparation or re-establishment of a Hundred and Fifty Cities But I see no reason for this to be imputed to his disadvantage Nor has the love of Women for which his reputation is blemished any better foundation For though he may be blamed for having ingaged himself so far in the affection of Theodora as to extort from his Predecessor Justin new laws in favour of Actresses that she might be qualified to marry him we cannot therefore accuse him like Procopius for having abandoned his thoughts to Women without specifying any particulars when neither his own History or any other mentions those Ladies to whom he was so passionately addicted and who doubtless would have prevailed on his weakness if he had been so fond on that side as the Anecdota would make it be believed I could not forbear to manifest in some sort the absurdity of these Two or Three heads of accusation by which one may judge of the rest though they were not confuted either by themselves or by what we had observed before we proposed them I must nevertheless add this only word on the Subject of the Stupidity of Justinian that though he had wagging Ears as the Satyr applies to him he was never so blockish as he represents him The truth is a fault which was committed a a Hundred and Fifty years ago by one Chalcondylius that then printed Suidas by a corrupt Copy where the name of Justinian passed for that of Justin with the Surname of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an illiterat man which even Procopius attributes only to the last who could not so much as write his name has made worthy men mistake amongst which Alciatus and Budaeus when upon this false Authority which all the Vatican Manuscripts contradict they ranked Justinian with the most ignorant Princes that ever were I was curious to see in the King of France his Library Three other Manuscripts of Snidas which are there to assure me of the mistake which happened in that impression Two of the best account were very correct and ascribe this ignorance to Justin alone who was known to be a mean keeper of Oxen before he bore Arms by which he attained to the Empire but the Third was false and in that Justinian was called Justin which shews that the Impression before mentioned probably followed a Copy as erronious as the printed Book In the mean time it is notorious that Justinian had made a great progress in learning under his Tutor the Abbot Theophilus Many Books are ascribed unto him by Isidorus and others Cassiodorus his letters stile him most learned And this observation has been also made that many crowned Heads at the same time made profession of Philosophy Chosroes in Persia the unfortunate Theodahatus in Italy and our Justinian at Constantinople which plainly discovers the injury that is done him by those tearms of stupid and ignorant Though Procopius is to blame for having yeilded so much to his particular resentments against Justinian the reading of his History is of great moment because we can learn from no other what he delivers as an Eye-witness of the Wars of this Emperor in Persia of the Vandals in Affrick and of the Goths in Italy It was that which made Leonard Aretin commit the crime of a Plagiary for we have no other tearm to signifie that sort of theft when he had a mind to publish their History in Latin For being not able to learn almost any thing of them elsewhere he resolved to Translate the Three books of Procopius into the Roman Language dividing them into Four by making Two of the last and rescinding in some places what he judged less important to his Country and adding something in others as the burning of the Capitol by Totilas by whom as Procopius affirms so much of Rome was not consumed by fire as Aretin reports In the mean time he is contented to say in his Preface that he used some Forreign Commentaries or Greek relations not naming the person of whom he is meerly a bad translater by an affected forgetfulness which cannot be too much condemned We have already in our foregoing Sections exclaimed upon those who counterfeit Authors ascribing books to persons that never thought upon making of them And certainly it is a great point of infidelity thus to deceive as much as one can even all mankind But as this vice is very great I find that of a Plagiary which is the contrary and takes away instead of giving to be much the more shameful because there is nothing more vile or infamous than to steal and they who apply to themselves other mens labours confess their own inability to produce something of value But to return to Procopius he was acquainted under Belisarius with almost all the secrets of State of that Age which renders his History of great weight But the excessive zeal which he has for this General makes Bodin amongst others accuse him of too much partiality towards him Thus Eginard is reproved for having alwaies flattered Charlemagne Eusebius Constantine Paulus Jovius Cosmodi Medici Sandoual Charles the Fifth and

have writ on the same subject An Example of this to instance no more may be observed in what he writes concerning that publick Treasure which was preserved from the time that Rome was taken by the Gaules not to be made use of but in some extream necessity He pretends that Lentulus who had order to send it to Pompey abandoned it by his flight upon the first Rumour that Caesars Troops began to be masters of Rome though it was a false report But that which is received for a certain truth in this matter is that Metellus intending as Tribune to hinder Caesar from seizing on the Treasure was forced to quit the City being terrified by the Menaces of Caesar who made the Gates of the place where that sinew of War and of the State was kept to be forced open which proved a wonderful advantage to his designs This shews that it is oftentimes no less difficult to an Historian than any other writer to resist the temptations of humanity and treat as indifferently of the things which concern himself as those wherein he is no way interessed For my part I doubt not but Caesar said many things of the Ancient Gaules which would be contradicted by their Histories if any of them had been preserved to our time Some Criticks have maintained that neither the Three Books of the Civil War nor the Seven of the War of the Gaules were writ by Caesar but such an opinion is so groundless that it merits not the least reflection As for the Eighth book of the last mentioned work most agree that Hirtius was the Author of it who writ also the Commentaries of the Wars of Alexandria Africa and Spain Though some ascribe them to Oppius an intimate friend of Caesars who likewise wrot a Treatise to prove that the Son of Cleopatra which she pretended to have had by the same Caesar was not of his begetting Whosoever was the Author of the last book of the War of the Gaules appeared to have been much in the favour and confidence of Caesar for he saies in one place that though all that read the writings of Caesar admire them as well as he yet he had more reason to do it than others because they consider in them only the purity of Phrase and excellency of Stile but he who knew with what facility and expedition he used his Pen had a more particular subject of admiration This passage calls to my memory the noble Elogy which Pliny gave him viz. to have surpassed in vigor of mind all the rest of Mankind He writ that he has been seen at the same time to read write dictate and hear what was said to him and adds that he made nothing at once to dictate to Four Secretaries and when he was not diverted by other affairs he usually imploied Seven to write under him This activity of thought is as if he ●ere something more than human and indeed the greatness of his genius would be judged wholely incomparable should we examine it exactly in the extent of all his actions but this being not the proper place for such an inquiry we shall confine our self to what particularly concerns his Commentaries They are destitute of many Rhetorical Ornaments as we have already observed yet they contain both Oblique and Direct Orations and they have been so valued by all Nations that they are translated into most languages Selimus the Great caused them to be turned into Arabick And it is held that the reading of them which was no less agreeable than ordinary with him contributed much to the conquest of so many Provinces wherewith he augmented his Empire And Henry the Fourth that famous Monarch of Franco took the pains to translate into French those that related to the War of the Gaules which doubtless were no small assistance to that Heroick Ardour wherewith his whole life was animated It was under Florence Christian his Tutor that he undertook th●t work so worthy of himself And Casaubon who affirms that he saw it writ by the Kings own hand adds that he told him he was recollecting his matter to write commentaries of his own actions which he would finish as soon as his leasure would permit But God was not pleased to allow him that leasure and his hasty death by a crime more detestable than was that of the Murtherers of Caesar has deprived us of those Second Commentaries which might have made a greater resemblance between these Two Princes than there is though the clemency valour diligence and several other virtues wherein they both excelled rendered them very conformable to each others not to mention the resemblance of their ends REFLECTIONS UPON THE HISTORY OF TITUS LIVIUS SOME persons have given the same Elogy to Livy as Seneca the Rhetorician ascribed to Cicero viz. to have had a wit answerable to the greatness of the Roman Empire And others have not been content to equal the eloquence of this Historian to that of so great an Oratour but have proceeded so far as to suppose that if Cicero had attempted to write a History he would have been inferiour to him in the performance of it But without reflecting on either to their disadvantage by such comparisons we may say that they both excelled in their way of study and as never any one was heard with so much attention and transport at Rome as Cicero so we have no example of a reputation higher and more glorious in respect of History than that of Livy Pliny the Younger has left us a memorable passage of his fame in one of his Epistles Where he saies that his Predecessors saw a man come into Italy from the extremities of Spain which was then counted the remotest place of the Earth in the West to have the satisfaction to see Livy and injoy for some time his conversation who sought no other diversion than the discourse he had with so great a person and though the Capital City of the world where he found him had many rarities to entertain his curiosity nothing thereof could detain him after he had conversed some time with him for whose sake he undertook such a journey But we must observe that the credit Livy has amongst the learned is not only for the writing of this History for he had writ certain Philosophical Dialogues before he came to Rome which he dedicated to Augustus Caesar and which acquired him the love and protection of that renowned Monarch the most favourable to the Muses that ever governed the Roman Empire And besides these Dialogues which are mentioned by Seneca we learn from Quintilian that in a Letter to his Son he delivered excellent Precepts of Rhetorick wherein he especially commended to his reading the writings of Demosthenes and Cicero bidding him neglect many other Authors unless any were found amongst them to resemble those which he advised him to have alwaies in his view And one may read in Suetonius that Livy was chosen amongst the most

NOTITIA HISTORICORUM SELECTORUM OR Animadversions upon the Antient AND Famous GREEK and LATIN HISTORIANS Written in French by the Learned FRANCIS LA MOTHE LE VAYER Councellor of State to the present French King Translated into English with some Additions By W.D. B. A. Of Magd. Hall Oxon. OXFORD Printed by LEON LICHFIELD Printer to the University For RIC. DAVIS Anno Dom. 1678. To the Right Honourable JAMES EARL OF DONCASTER Eldest Son to the most noble Prince JAMES DUKE OF MONMOUTH And Beaucleugh My Lord YOVR Lordship whose Greatness is to be in Arms will know how useful a virtue Ambition is and forgive my pride who desire to be the first who shall lay something at Your feet This Treatise was written to instruct the present French King when Dauphin in the choice of History and to recommend to him the Ancient Writers who must needs be the best because they treat of the Ancient virtue Your Lordship is the hopes of our Age and 't is the interest of all that Your tender years should be seasoned with the Love of that Noble study in the Greek and Roman Historians Your Lordship will see what you have to do to be a Hero but Your Lordship cannot have a better example of Greatness than Your Princely Father who is bold in War calm in Councel temperate in Peace and who like Scipio is a perfect Commander in the very Spring of his Youth but this is too great a Subject for me though none more admires his Virtues and more firmly beleives Your Lordship will succeed to all his Glory than My Lord Your Lordships most devoted humble and most obedient Servant W. D. THE PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR I Find my self obliged write a Preface to give a reason for the order I observe in the choice of those Historians whereof I treat For many persons till they shall have considered of it may well wonder that I make no mention of some very famous Authors who are often ranked amongst the Historians As Plutarch Diogenes Laertius Philost●atus and Eunapius of the Greeks and Cornelius Nepos or Aemilius Probus of the Latins with some Writers of particular lives such as Spartian Lampridius and others who compiled the Volume usually called Historia Augusta It is certain that most of them did write very well of the times which they describe and that the reading of their books where we can have no better recourse than to them ought not to be neglected But because none of them compiled a perfect body of History that came to our hands if it be true that the Chronicles of Cornelius Nepos are intirely lost my design would not allow me to comprise them in this book wherein I onely pretend to examine those Writers who have left us more Universal Histories and from whom the Laws of History may be best collected A true and regular History comprehends much more than the single narration of any life whatsoever And I thought I had reason to reject the writers of the Historia Augusta for if I had put them in the place where they were to be inserted they would not have contributed to my purpose All that Large Volume being rather a cold and lifeless Carkass than a body of animated History as it ought to be The judgment of many of the Learned in that behalf is sutable to his opinion who calls them in his Preface Historiae Dehonestamenta For there is nothing to be gained by reading of them in relation to the rules of History unless it be in a contrary sense as by the sound of those bad Players upon the Flute which Ismenias made his Schollars to hear that they might avoid the faults they observed in his playing If it be objected that by omitting these I might as well have refrained from Suetonius and Quintus Curtius who wrot only Lives it is easy to shew by the inequality of their labours to those I decline that they merited the place they have in this work For as to the last I have not so much considered him as a Writer of the Life of Alexander the Great as an Historiographer of that great change and Translation of the Empire of the Persians to the Macedonians And as for Suetonius the succession he has left us of twelve Emperors in the space of an Age and more puts such a difference between him and those who only published separate Lives without any coherence that the Learned unanimously confer on him the Title of an Excellent Historian We ought not moreover to esteem all as Historians who have given the Title of History to their works Pliny that wrot the Natural History cannot properly be taken for one And the same may be said of Aristotle and Aelian though they compiled Histories of Animals And if the word Historian were extended as far is it would reach Lucan Silius Italicus and many other Poets might assume it in regard of the subject matter of their Poems upon which nevertheless we have not thought it convenient to make the least reflection For we find so little relation between History and Poetry that as the one cannot be without Fable the other is inconsiderable without truth and it would be unreasonable not to make a distinction between things of so different a nature which have scarce any thing in common except the double sense of words Neither let it be thought strange to see the number of Greek Historians which I examine exceed that of the Latins Which is to be imputed either to the injury of time that prevailed more over the latter than the former or to the different Genius of the Nations which gave that advantage to the Greeks that although the Roman Empire was after the Graecian yet the Latins were not so accurate in writing History as the Greeks For we have found some of their Historians worthy of great consideration even in the time of the Emperor Justinian whereas those who wrot in Latin with reputation do not go beyond the age of the ●ntonines where all the Criticks with a common consent place the Old age of Latin History Yet I have made it descend a little lower to place after Justin Ammianus Marcellinus who though a Graecian wrot his History in Latin in the time of Julian Jovian Valentinian and Valens where it ended If I had not confined my self to the Historians of the first Classe only I might have made the number of the Latins equal to that of the Greeks and deduced History writ in the Roman Language to Justinian's time by the addition of Jorn●naes and Cassiodorus as I have done the Greeks by my Reflections on Proco●ius and Agathias But in the design I had to gather the necessary precepts to write History well from the Reflections we might make upon such of the Ancients as cultivated it with most skill and reputation I was content to examin the principal of them imitating in some manner those Pirates who often let Vessels that are light and of small burthen pass

learned men of his Age to take care of the instruction of Claudius who afterwards was Emperor and in his younger years by the advice of this his Tutor as Suetonius reports he undertook to write the Roman History of which he gave many volumes to the Publick which are lost to us As to the writings of Livy the last and most considerable thereof is the History which reached from the foundation of Rome to the death of Drusus in Germany the fine contexture whereof the agreeable narrations and the pleasing easiness makes him to be compared to Herodotus and placed in the first rank of the Latin Historians It was not at first divided by Decades as we now see it That is a recent distribution or distinction whereof no mention appears in Florus his Abbreviator nor in any of the Ancients and which Politian Petrarch with Petrus Crinitus have already disputed Of the Hundred and Forty or Hundred and Two and Forty Books which it contained there remain not above Five and Thirty nor are they all in an uninterrupted continuation for the whole Second Decade is wanting and we have but the First the Third and the Fourth with half of the Fifth which was found at Wormes by one Simon Gryneus The beginning of the Forty Third book has been also lately recovered by the means of a Manuscript in the Library of the Chapter of Bamberg but this fragment is a little contested Francisous Bartholinus that brought it from Germany into Italy Antonius Quaerengus and Gaspar Lusignanus the Author of the first impression judge it Authentick But Vossius and some others on the contrary pretend that it is a counterfeit piece and can be only imposed on those who have ears like Midas For the remaining Fourteen Decades we must rest satisfied with that Summary or Epitomy which Florus compiled if he was the Author of a work which many persons condemn believing him to have been the cause of the loss of Livys writings a loss that cannot be enough lamented This is the opinion of Bodin who likewise accuses Justin for having done the same prejudice to Trogus Pompeius Xiphilinus and Dion in epitomizing them Casaubon is also of this mind who thinks that the brief collection made by Constantine of a body of History in Fifty Three parts occasioned the neglect of the Authors that composed it which were afterwards lost But if the Three Decades and a half which we have of Livy make us deplore the want of the rest they are yet sufficient to represent him to our esteem most worthy of the Elogies which he received from the Ancients The most celebrated whereof was that yielded to him two hundred years ago by Alphonso King of Arragon when he sent his Embassador to demand of the Citizens of Padua and obtained from them as a pretious relique the bone of that Arm wherewith this their famous Country-man had writ his History causing it to be conveyed to Naples with all sorts of honour as the most estimable present could be made him And it is said that he recovered his health from a languishing indisposition by the delight he had in reading the same History But it is strange to consider with how much passion others went about to defame if they could a person of such rare merit In the Age wherein he lived Asinius Pollio arraigned his Stile which he called Patavinity Augustus taxed him of having favoured Pompey's party but did not therefore diminish his good will towards him And Caligula a while after accused him of negligence on the one side and too excessive redundancy of words on the other taking away his image and writings from all Libraries where he knew they were curiously preserved But the capricious and Tyrannick humour of this Prince was exercised in the same manner towards the works and Statues of Virgil. And he would have suppressed the Verses of Homer pretending that his power ought to be no less than Plato's who had prohibited the reading them in his Imaginary Republick Moreover hating Seneca and all men of eminent Virtue it came into his head to abolish the knowledg of Laws with all those Lawyers whose learned decisions were respected But the humorous conceit of such a Monster cannot prejudice Livy nor those others we named no more than that of Domitian a second prodigy of Nature who put to death through a like animosity Metius Pomposianus because amongst others he delighted to expose some Orations of Kings and Generals collected by him out of Livy's History The Testimony of Augustus is full of moderation he declares that the same History instead of flattering the victorious Party could not condemn that of the good and most honest men in the Common-wealth who had all listed themselves on Pompey's side which rather tends to the commendation of Livy than otherwise But that which Pollio finds fault with in all his observations is a thing which deserves to be a little more reflected on The most common opinion is that this Roman Lord accustomed to the delicacy of the language spoke in the Court of Augustus could not bear with certain Provincial Idioms which Livy as a Paduan used in divers places of his history Pignorius is of another mind and believes that this odious Patavinity had respect only to the Orthography of certain words wherein Livy used one letter for another according to the custome of his Country writing sibe and quase for sibi and quasi which he proves by divers Ancient inscriptions Some think that it consisted meerly in a repetition or rather multiplicity of many Synonymous words in one period contrary to what was practised at Rome where they did not affect such a redundancy which denoted a Forreigner Others report that the Paduans having alwaies been of Pompey's Party which was apparently the justest as we have observed Pollio that was a Caesarian derided Livys Patavinity and accused him of having shown too great an inclination for the unhappy faction of the vanquished which seems so much the likelier by the conformity it has with that opinion of Augustus which we already mentioned There are those who likewise affirm that Livy's partiality for those of Padua appeared manifestly in those books which are lost where he was led by his Subject to an immoderate praise of his Country-men It is the same fault which Polybius imputed to Philinus as a Carthaginian and Fabius as a Roman And many modern Historians have been charged therewith whereof Guicciardin was one who to oblige the Floreutines dwells so long upon the least concerns of their State and amplifies so much their smallest actions that he often becomes troublesome and sometimes ridiculous in many mens judgment The quaint Distich of Actius Syncerus against that of Poggius on the like occasion renders it altogether despicable Dum patriam laudat damnat dum Poggius hostem Nec malus est civis nec bonus historicus They who rather imagine than prove a like passion in