hy of government therefore emerges as the dominant theme of political history , as the binding link between the Republic and the

and Augustus, to warfare, to provincial affairs and to constitutional history has been severely restricted. Instead, the noble

reatment calls for explanation. In narrating the central epoch of the history of Rome I have been unable to escape from the inf

idealize the men who win wealth and honours through civil war. The history of this age is highly controversial, the learned

r Caesar. There is no breach in continuity. Twenty years of crowded history , Caesarian and Triumviral, cannot be annulled. Wh

inning after Actium or in 27 B.C. is an offence against the nature of history and is the prime cause of many pertinacious delus

ficult to discard. 1 Yet that conviction ruins the living interest of history and precludes a fair judgement upon the agents. T

the agents. They did not know the future. Heaven and the verdict of history conspire to load the scales against the vanquishe

one thing the influence of literature when studied in isolation from history . The writings of Cicero survive in bulk, and Augu

adverse testimony from contemporary sources. Yet for all that, the history of the whole revolutionary period could be writte

position, whether passionate or fatalistic. The art and practice of history demanded of its exponents, and commonly reveals i

insistence upon the character and exploits of a single person invests history with dramatic unity at the expense of truth. Howe

public, or democracy, an oligarchy lurks behind the façade; and Roman history , Republican or Imperial, is the history of the go

behind the façade; and Roman history, Republican or Imperial, is the history of the governing class. The marshals, diplomats,

ly the biography of Augustus that shall be sacrificed for the gain of history . Pompeius, too, and Caesar must be reduced to due

ted memory of the origins, alliances and feuds of their families; and history never belied its beginnings. Of necessity the con

essity the conception was narrow only the ruling order could have any history at all and only the ruling city: only Rome, not I

alliance of Pompeius and Caesar. 2 When Pollio set out to narrate the history of the Roman Revolution he began, not with the cr

State perished NotesPage=>008 1 Thus Tacitus, writing imperial history in the spirit and categories of the Republic, beg

o record of activity or fame in a singularly well-documented epoch of history . Not mere admission to the Senate but access to

ct a man whose name had not been known for centuries as a part of the history of the Republic. Hence the novus homo (in the str

in a city-state and governed an empire. Noble families determined the history of the Republic, giving their names to its epochs

ment based on congeniality. Individuals capture attention and engross history , but the most revolutionary changes in Roman poli

e scrutiny, at once stands out, solid and manifest. In any age of the history of Republican Rome about twenty or thirty men, dr

unchanged in their alarming versatility. There was no epoch of Rome’s history but could show a Claudius intolerably arrogant to

named after the consuls Metellus and Afranius into a date heavy with history . 5 In the next year the domination of Pompeius

ry, cf. Cicero, Brutus 212 f.; his ignorance about a detail of family history , Ad Att. 6, 1, 17. His morals (Val. Max. 9, 1, 8)

consulate. The compact with Metelli and Scipiones recalled ancient history and revealed the political decline of two great h

at move in a harmony so swift and sure as to appear pre-ordained; and history has sometimes been written as though Caesar set t

posthumous. No statement of unrealized intentions is a safe guide to history , for it is unverifiable and therefore the most at

tator: Caesar dead became a god and a myth, passing from the realm of history into literature and legend, declamation and propa

t divine. 2 This extreme simplification of long and diverse ages of history seems to suggest that Caesar alone of contemporar

ii, the first consul of the Republic and founder of Libertas. Dubious history and irrelevant. 1 The Liberators knew what they w

to govern and exploit the Empire in its own fashion. The tragedies of history do not arise from the conflict of conventional ri

ders, will yet help to recall the ineffable complexities of authentic history . NotesPage=>060 1 Namely Ap. Claudius Pulc

or the worst of reasons. A huge bribe decided C. Scribonius Curio, so history records and repeats but that was not the only inc

uo maior ei commendatio conciliaretur ad consulatus petitionem. ’ The history that never happened was the consulate of Caesar a

The Aemilii and the Servilii occupy a special rank in the political history of Rome, patrician houses which seem to have form

r, the ambitious and poetical Cornelius Gallus first enters authentic history as a friend of Caesar’s partisan Pollio. 2 Southe

redulous posterity and consecrated among the uncontested memorials of history . Sulla, they said, put common soldiers into the S

cumentation, is sometimes disregarded before it emerges into imperial history with two consuls in the reign of Caligula. 5 Ther

e and never again, to say nothing of more than two hundred unknown to history , the Senate after Sulla must have contained in hi

way exclusive. Rome outshines the cities of Italy, suppressing their history . Yet these were individual communities, either co

till recently independent, endowed with wide territories, a venerable history and proud traditions. The extension neither of th

ld have been to expel the Aleuadae from Thessalian Larisa. Simplified history , at Rome and elsewhere, tells of cities or nation

families, imposing them upon the religion of the Roman State and the history of the Roman People. The Secular Games were once

e and Roman at heart, perhaps belongs more truly to Latin or Volscian history . The Junii could not rise to a king, but they did

ugh; and it is confirmed not a little by subsequent and unimpeachable history . Enemies of the dominant family of the Scipiones,

scure individuals like D. Turullius or Cassius of Parma, whose former history and political activity evade detection, certain o

r of Actium. The political advocate and the verdict of conventional history must be constrained to silence for a time. With

names and never known before. 1 They were destined for glory and for history . When Salvidienus tended flocks upon his native h

and Agrippa, the earliest of the great marshals, occupy the stage of history , crowding out the obscurer partisans and secret c

vantages of the adoption. PageBook=>131 Invective asserts, and history repeats, that the consul Antonius embezzled the s

ives of his services to Caesar’s heir. After November he slips out of history for four years: the manner of his return shows th

Cicero, it might be argued, came out into the open at last, and made history by a resolute defence of the Republic. But Cicero

nus may be dated too far back, interpreted in the light of subsequent history , and invested with a significance foreign even to

l-ordered state and to corroborate it in the light of the most recent history . The De officiis is a theoretical treatment of th

rom action. In November he urged his friend to turn to the writing of history . 6 Cicero was obdurate: he hoped NotesPage=>

um esse gloria. ’ 6 Ad Att. 16, 13b, 2 PageBook=>146 to make history . Duty and glory inspired the veteran statesman in

s of Cicero, his rank in the literature of Rome, and his place in the history of civilization tempt and excuse the apologist, w

recalcitrant proconsul occupy the stage and command the attention of history : in the background, emerging from time to time, P

augur for the space of 55 years), and Cn. Domitius Calvinus, lost to history for thirty months after the Ides of March, but st

ror at the time, or uncritically since, perpetuated in fiction and in history ; and in later days, personal danger and loss of e

ivors among the consulars, only three claim any mention in subsequent history , and only one for long. The renegade from the Cat

the year, Balbus the millionaire from Gades, emerging again into open history after an absence of four years, and the Antonian

e Dardani, but there is no record of any operations against them. The history of Macedonia in the years 38-32 B.C. is a complet

ν, χϵιν. PageBook=>233 now stood some forty legions diverse in history and origin but united by their appetite for bount

he family of Q. Laronius (cos. suff. 33) and indeed of his subsequent history nothing at all is known. 2 Destined ere long to a

as a civil but a foreign war, soon to become a glorious part of Roman history . In the Bellum Siculum no Metelli, Scipiones or M

tticus. 8 Of the associates of Octavianus so far as now revealed to history , Messalla, Ap. Pulcher and Lepidus were not mer

orical as well as antiquarian works, he had gathered the materials of history rather than written any annals of note or permane

se or the pursuits of agriculture and hunting,3 he devoted himself to history , a respectable activity. 4 After monographs on th

political illusions the Roman was eminently qualified to narrate the history of a revolutionary age. Literary critics did no

te of political assemblies or the marching of armies. From Sallustius history acquired that preoccupation with human character,

ic yet highly sophisticated, sombre but not edifying. Men turned to history for instruction, grim comfort or political apolog

riter. 3 In Rome of the Triumvirs men became intensely conscious of history , not merely of recent wars and monarchic faction-

ply- rooted belief, held among the learned and the vulgar alike, that history repeated itself in cyclical revolutions. For Rome

l and religious antiquities of the Roman People. The writing of Roman history , adorned in the past by the names of a Fabius, a

utor of Pompeius Magnus, was the first of his class. 1 So popular had history become. On the writing of poetry, however, the Ro

owned as the inventor of Roman elegy. He first emerges into authentic history when Pollio in a letter to Cicero mentions ‘my fr

The heroic and military age demanded an epic poem for its honour; and history was now in favour. Bibaculus and the Narbonensian

nd a certain Cornelius Severus was writing, or was soon to write, the history of the Bellum Siculum as an epic narrative. 4 B

aganda. Yet in some classes there was stirring an interest in Roman history and antiquities, a reaction from alien habits of

red by the first beginnings of a patriotic revival, the new taste for history might be induced to revert to the remotest origin

4. 3 Ib. 49, 43, 5. 4 The reliefs showing scenes from early Roman history recently discovered in the Basilica Aemilia may b

the choice of the agents goes beyond all praise: it was vindicated by history and by the judgement of Antonius’ enemies. Anot

, 3 (the last of the assassins). Cassius is also a figure in literary history , cf. P-W III, 1743. 4 On Poplicola, the son of

orally’ the aggressor. The situation and the phraseology recur in the history of war and politics whenever there is a public op

zed intentions may be logical, artistic and persuasive, but it is not history . Up to a point the acts of Antonius can be reco

t. Of the ability of Cleopatra there is no doubt: her importance in history , apart from literature and legend, is another mat

and the presumptuous Pythodorus. Created belief turned the scale of history . The policy and ambitions of Antonius or of Cleop

ate of the city, but all Italy. The phrase was familiar from recent history , whereas idea and practice were older still. Long

no son of Italian stock, was conveniently oblivious of recent Italian history . The Marsi had no reason at all to be passionatel

of the mountains of Montenegro, was the frontier given by nature, by history , by civilization and by language between the Lati

split into two parts very easily. It is one of the miracles of Roman history that in subsequent ages the division between West

d new, about Plancus, or about Agrippa. It is to be regretted that no history preserves the opinions of Pollio concerning these

l is obscure. Months passed, with operations by land and sea of which history has preserved no adequate record. Antonius’ admir

equired the glory of a victory that would surpass the greatest in all history , Roman or Hellenic. 4 In the official version of

are more frequent in the decade after Actium—or less relevant to the history of those years. Octavianus had his own ideas. It

gramme of rational aggression without match or parallel as yet in the history of Rome. An assertion of imperial NotesPage=>

ad elapsed (July, 27 B.C.), after which he disappears completely from history . In robbing Crassus of the title of imperator O

process of time. 1 Augustus sought to demonstrate a doctrine —Roman history was a continuous and harmonious development. 2

ecord of Rome’s glorious past. Following an inspired vision of recent history , the shield of Aeneas allows a brief glimpse of t

carnifex’ (Val. Max. 6, 2, 8, cf. above, p. 27). 3 Tacitus, in his history of legislation (Ann. 3, 28), passes at once from

er his death has been maintained by scholars alert to investigate the history of ideas and institutions—his whole conception of

s by no means as secure and unequivocal as official acts and official history sought to demonstrate. He feared the nobiles, his

y have prepared the way for Augustus: if so, scant acknowledgement in history . 3 In 26 B.C. Augustus took the field in person

omans operated in three columns of invasion; and as all glory and all history now concentrate upon a single person, only the de

sources defy and all but preclude the attempt to reconstruct the true history of a year that might well have been the last, and

as found vivid and enduring expression in the preface of Livy’s great history and in certain of the Odes of Horace. 1 The chi

charge of Syria was perhaps Murena’s brother. He fades from recorded history . When M. Agrippa went out, he administered Syria

t is evident that Tiberius’ retirement to Rhodes has coloured earlier history . PageBook=>343 Some at least of the perils

ing not by any pre-ordained harmony or theory of politics, but by the history of the Caesarian party and by the demands of impe

of Actium had been alarming, because it corresponded so clearly with history and geography, with present needs, with developme

der was steadily replenished. Down to 13 B.C., a cardinal date in the history of the Roman army, Augustus provided the discharg

tus, maintain and augment their dignity and become a part of imperial history . M. Salvius Otho, the son of a Roman knight, spru

ue or the politician but is alien and noxious to the understanding of history . 3 The difference between the policy of the two r

f Cales may here be detected. Velleius repaid the debt by composing a history of Rome, fulsome in praise for the government and

avianus and Lepidus, only four of them find any mention in subsequent history . 1 NotesPage=>387 1 Cf. above, p. 197. P

o the military men who served the dynasty and the State, Augustus and history have paid scant requital; the record of their ach

’s narrative, has perpetuated wholly unsatisfactory beliefs about the history of this period. Certain campaigns, deliberately o

quila and M. Magius Maximus. These persons, it is true, have no known history among the equestrian councillors of the Princeps,

er, ‘regnum’ or ‘dominatio’ as it was called, was no new thing in the history of Rome or in the annals of the Claudian house. T

le and disaster for Rome in the absence of Tiberius. For the internal history cf., above all, E. Groag, Wiener Studien XL (1918

Fasti now prevail the descendants of ancient houses, glorious in the history of the Roman Republic or more recently ennobled.

no political transactions, intrigues or conspiracies. The tumultuous history of the Ahenobarbi may have inculcated a rational

re propagated by rumour, embellished with rhetoric and consecrated in history she disgraced by public and nocturnal debauch the

his father, admiral at Actium, consul in 22 B.C., and the author of a history of the Punic Wars in the manner of Sallustius. 2

ignificant is the name of Lucilius Longus, honourably commemorated in history for his loyalty to Tiberius perhaps the son of th

plorable Lollius had a son, it is true, but his only claim to fame or history is the parentage of Lollia Paullina. P. Vinicius

r and assimilated all that the Hellenes could give, they shaped their history , their traditions and their concept of what was R

egeneration and a cause of disaster. It was the Greek period of Roman history , stamped with the sign of the demagogue, the tyra

there might well be doubts, if men reflected on human nature and past history . Moreover, such regulation was repugnant to arist

symptom and product of the whole unhallowed and un-Roman era of Roman history . Temples had crumbled, ceremonies and priesthoods

ng. He could wait for Lepidus’ death. Better that he should in recent history the dignity of pontifex maximus, in no way the re

gustan reform or damn its authors, whoever they were. The Augustus of history and panegyric stands aloof and alone, with all th

me crown to the work of earlier generations which had transformed the history of Rome by assiduously expurgating the traces of

d of destiny in the earliest origins of Rome, the continuity of Roman history and its culmination in the rule of Augustus. As h

Like other literary compositions fostered by the government, Livy’s history was patriotic, moral and hortatory. Even antiquar

patriotic, moral and hortatory. Even antiquarianism had its uses. But history did not need to be antiquarian it could be employ

the later books of Livy with their record of recent and contemporary history had been preserved, they would no doubt set forth

ather than partisan. The North, unlike so many parts of Italy, had no history of its own, with memories of ancient independence

however, were more in the line of a Callimachus than was contemporary history . Propertius was able to recount ancient legends a

f the Black Sea. He could hardly have been sent farther. Poetry and history were designed to work upon the upper and middle c

acceptance. The lower classes had no voice in government, no place in history . In town or country there was poverty and social

ndent of the nobiles had perished. On a superficial view the domestic history of the Augustan Principate seems to attest inevit

its own internal crises, it falsifies the symptoms. Most of the real history of the Principate is secret history. The nobile

es the symptoms. Most of the real history of the Principate is secret history . The nobiles were unable or unwilling to overth

ed Philippi, with melancholy pride, as the greatest calamity in Roman history . Officially, there prevailed a conspiracy of sile

New State. Pollio was himself both a historian and an orator; and in history he was critical as well as creative. Sallustius h

ury later, was scornful of the academic historian. 2 Livy had come to history from the study of rhetoric. That was not the only

bout the style, substance and treatment appropriate to the writing of history . Pollio, who came from a poor and infertile regio

sums up, elegantly and finally, the whole moral and romantic view of history . 1 Pollio knew what history was. It was not like

lly, the whole moral and romantic view of history. 1 Pollio knew what history was. It was not like Livy. Augustus’ historian

ent were not immune. He even criticized Pollio. 3 Labienus also wrote history . When reciting his works, he would ostentatiously

falling from favour, had boldly consigned to the flames an adulatory history which he had formerly composed in honour of the P

ius anticipated conviction by suicide, after a noble speech defending history against oppression and despotism. 6 His works wer

r long. Coerced through official repression, or tainted by servility, history soon decayed and perished. ‘Magna illa ingenia ce

istory soon decayed and perished. ‘Magna illa ingenia cessere. ’7 Not history only, but poetry and eloquence also, now that Lib

libraries. 3 The rule of Caligula brought no freedom, no benefit to history : it merely poisoned the sources again. Literature

e monarchic dynasts, Sulla, Pompeius and Caesar, engross the stage of history , imposing their names, as families had done in ha

great houses or permanent factions. The Scipiones had been an age of history . Their power had passed to the Metelli. Both hous

, the patrician house of the Claudii had been an integral part of the history of the Republic. Tiberius, doubly Claudian, for t

e divine blood of Augustus in their veins and enriched the scandalous history of the Julio-Claudian age, from the blameless M.

their acquired dignity. The names of Ventidius and Canidius belong to history : no offspring of theirs could hope to receive the

composition of the governing oligarchy, became involved in the family history , court scandals or judicial murders of the Julio-

albus should be added. The banker Atticus knew all about contemporary history : Balbus had a share in the making of it, from the

Rhine, brigaded in two armies, are in themselves a large part of the history of the first century of the Empire, the makers of

power and splendour of the ancient families whose names embodied the history of Republican Rome. That was not the worst. Polit

admired Republican virtue but believed in ordered government, wrote a history of the civil wars that his own generation had wit

teriorem fore qui vicisset’. 3 In his old age Tacitus turned again to history and composed the Annals of the Empire, from the a

of the Roman Aristocracy’. Lucan, who narrated recent and authentic history in epic verse, a typical and traditional occupati

ticus was more typical, if a little narrow, in his conception of real history he studied the genealogy of noble families and co

es and compiled the public careers of illustrious men. 3 The theme of history remains, as before, ‘clarorum virorum facta mores

ely the Princeps himself and his allies, Agrippa, Maecenas and Livia, history and scandal have preserved a sufficient testimony

zle, but it cannot blind, the critical eye. Otherwise there can be no history of these times deserving the name, but only adula

for that, the aristocratic partisans of Augustus would have illumined history with a constellation of characters no less vivid

abroad and political dissensions at home, was a splendid subject for history . Well might Tacitus look back with melancholy and

egiment. Tacitus announced an intention of writing in his old age the history of that happy time, when freedom of thought preva

State. Politics were abolished, or at least sterilized. As a result, history and oratory suffered, but order and concord were

deeds and destiny for glory or for politics: none can have fabricated history with such calm audacity. Other generals had their

ugusti. It would be imprudent to use the document as a sure guide for history , petulant and pointless to complain of omission a

n Caesar, 6, 42, 484; on Cicero, 147, 192; on literary style, 484; on history , 484; on ‘Patavinitas’, 486; family and descendan

90, 93; no descendants,498. Carthage, fall of, in relation to Roman history , 154, 249; wars against Carthage promote novi hom

olitical morality, 64, 157 f.; on language, 154, 156; on the study of history , 250. Cinna, see Cornelius. Claudia, exemplar

inarian, 44. Cornelius Nepos, his sagacious remarks on contemporary history , 250; on the quarrel of Octavianus and Antonius,

Dellius, Q., Antonian and renegade, 214, 265, 267, 296, 385; writes history , 265, 484; addressed by Horace in an Ode, 511; ‘d

., 122; an imitator of Thucydides, 154; on the difficulty of imperial history , 407; composes a debate on Monarchy and Republic,

7, 464; as a ‘Pompeianus’, 317, 464; his style, 486; character of his history , 464 f.; pessimism of his Preface, 336, 441; ‘Pat

e under Augustus, 318, 321, 484, 506, 520; general repute and rank in history , 4, 146. Tullius Cicero, M. (cos. suff. 30 B.C.

es the title of pater patriae, 411; as an orator, 246, 375; on family history , 377; as a patron of letters, 460, 483; his memoi

0; military service, 356, 360, 428; family, 383 f.; dishonesty of his history , 393, 488 f.; on the Restoration of the Republic,

This tree, which is designed in the main to illustrate the political history and the marriage alliances of the Principate of A