BOOKS.
MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME.*
ALL who feel an interest in historical studies have for some months looked with anxiety for the long promised translation of Mommsen's work. Those students who had, with more or less difficulty, read it in its German form, spoke of its merits in terms which, perhaps, ap- peared to their hearers to be tinged by that exaggeration with which men are wont to vaunt the beauty of a treasure to which they alone have access, and the few chapters which had been rendered into English were just sufficient to excite a curiosity which they did not satisfy. At last, Mr. Dickson has placed before the public an English version of the first half of the Roman history. He has done his work well. Lengthy German sentences, curiously formed sub- stantives, and the freedom with which Dr. Mommsen uses any modern expression which serves vividly to describe the subject of which he happens to be treating, make a translator's office no easy one. To say' that the translation fully equals the original would be an empty compliment, for no work of genius ever can be fully trans- lated. An indescribable something, a zest, a point, or a sort of spirit, is inevitably lost in the transition from one language to another. But pretty nearly all that can be done has, in tins case, been done. Mr. 'Dickson has rendered the thoughts, the information, and the theories of his author into E sdish, which is always accurate and readable, if it is a little heavy and at times slightly involved. Stu- dents who can read it will still prefer the original German, but all readers of the English translation will be able to judge for them- selves how far this great historical work deserves the fame which it has already attained. By a singular fatality, whilst the annals of Rome hive been the battle-ground chosen by the advocates of different historical theories, there has till recently been wanting a complete history of the Roman Republic. Niebuhr's labours were directed more to clearing the ground on which a history might be raised up, than to the construction of a great historical work. No doubt his efforts had a positive side, but not only was he much more successful in demolishing the credit given to Roman history, as related by Livy, than in decisively establishing his own views; but his intellectual character fitted him better for a lecturer on history than for an historian. A certain clumsiness runs through his works, and the arbitrary dogmatism which led him to imagine that he could, by a species of historical intuition, discern the fragments of ancient tra- dition scattered through the pages of Livy, threw discredit even on the soundest of his speculations, and, as it appears to us, induced him in many cases, as, for example, in his celebrated distinction be- tween the plebs and the populus, to rest sound conclusions on premises much weaker than those on which they really depend. The defects as well as the merits of the master adhered to the scholars. Arnold, for example, was nothing more than Niebuhr writing good English.
• The History of Rome. By Theodor Nommen. 'Tranalated by the Rev. William P. Dickson. Vole. L and 11. Richard Bentley.
He had not the grasp of mind which distinguished his teacher. And in the mistaken attempt to render the legends of Rome into Biblical English, he brought intoprominence one of the nnsoundest of Niebuhr's conclusions, and showed his own misappreciation of the true nature of the early Roman history, which certainly does not arise from poems, and probably is to a great extent the product of those Greek writers, who, like Timceas, were, to use Dr. Mommsen's words, "historians who upon no matter are so fully informed as upon things unknowable." From the errors of Niebnhr's school springs directly the sceptical theory recently put forward by Sir Cornewall Lewis, that the earlier history of Rome was and must for ever remain a blank, which no human power could fill. Dr. Mommsen, with true historical genius, has produced a history of the greatest state in the ancient world, which at once supplies real knowledge, as far as knowledge is pos- sible, and yet is not the result of either credulity or imagination. He fully admits the force of Niebuhr's criticisms, and in a masterly account of early historians of Rome points out the sources of the traditions which passed during so many centuries for historical facts. In some respects he pushes scepticism. further than did even Niebuhr. For he does not believe that the treaty quoted by Polybius belonged to the first ages of the Republic, and attaches little importance to any details concerning the Roman kings. He escapes, however, from the conclusions of men like Sir Cornewall Lewis, not by form- ing an exaggerated estimate of the authority due to the Latin his- torians, but by the attempt, and in the main a most successful attempt, to discover the outline of Italian institutions in the traces which they have left on theage, the laws, and the customs of comparatively modern times.lange speak advisedly of Italian institu- tions; for it is a history of Italy rather than of Rome which forms Dr. Mommsen's theme. If he had achieved nothing else, he would have done much to clear up ancient history, which is, in his view, in reality "the history of civilization among the Mediterranean nations," by turning the student's eyes, which have been hitherto almost exclusively fixed on Rome, towards the fortunes of those Italian states of which Rome herself was only the greatest. Lan- guage gives him the starting-point from whence to commence his narrative. By indications which, if faint, are yet more reliable than either tradition or annals, he obtains information as to the culture Iossessed by the original Indo-Germanic stock whence Greeks and talians alike arose. Before the two families separated they built houses, traversed the sea, and probably mined the earth. Through the help of language he forms conjectures necessarily vague, but by no means necessarily uncertain, as to the state of civilization of the Hellenic and Italian families at the moment of separation. By a similar course he marks out the main divisions among the races who occupied the peninsula, and every one who has read the voluminous and intricate dissertations in which the subject of early races is generally involved will not fail to admire the clearness with which Dr. Mommsen, while avoiding the temptation to useless speculation, points' out with precision the main relations existing between the more or less different families which may all be called, though with some laxity, Italian. One race, the Etruscan, stands in marked con- trast with all others. The somewhat meagre results of modern in- vestigation are carefully summed up, and one of the stumbling-blocks in the student's path is removed, we hope, for ever. Difficulties enough embarrass the study of Etruscan antiquities. They have, however, been fearfully increased by theories which connected Etruscans with the Lydians, and both with that spectre which haunts the portals of history—the so-called Pelasgic race. Dr. Mommsen in a few lines shows that an accidental resemblance of names forms the whole basis of the hypothesis which connects the Etruscans with Asia, and thus with one blow throws to the ground a'a whole pile of crude historical speculation" reared on this suppo- sition. His treatment of this question is singularly characteristic, for it exhibits his power of summing up briefly the results of end- less discussion, and the decisive vigour with which he brushes aside historical cobwebs. Institutions and laws are, next to language, the source from whence he mainly derives his views of early ages. At first it seems a paradox to assert that in many cases the ex- istence of institutions may be proved, and their main outlines depicted, when little or nothing can be known of the acts and lives of the men by whom these institutions were formed. 'The assertion is, however, seen on consideration to be palpably true. In laws, in legal forms, and especially in religious cere- monies, there linger on, sometimes for centunes, relics of social conditions long passed away. From an inspection of English law deeds might be traced out some of the salient characteristics of feudal society, and to take an example known to every one, there are at least two or three historical facts, which are for ever recorded in the petitions of the English Litany. What is true of a modern society is still more true of a state like Rome. A positive love for formulas is traceable in every development of Roman civilization. The legend of the Horatii is bound up with an old form of trial, and in philosophy it was the formalism of stoicism which gave it half its influence at Rome. The seven Roman Kings possibly none of them existed, and certainly we cannot feel assured that a single fact in any one of their lives is truly known to us, but it is not impossible to gain a conception of what was the nature of the Roman kingship : for the authority of the dictator, and the power of the consuls whilst still unrestricted, was but the regal power limited in duration. From a strict examination of every vestige of rights originally belonging to the King, Dr. Mommsen has drawn an ela- borate picture of the kingly power, has shown its essential difference from modern sovereignty, and after exhibiting at once the King's might, the limitations by which this power was confined, and the
peculiar view which looked upon the King as a despotic agent indeed, but still the agent of the community, thus states the result of his speculations : " The oldest constitution of Rome was in some measure constitutional monarchy inverted. In that form of govern- ment the King is regarded as the possessor and bearer of the plenary power of the state, and accordingly acts of grace, for example, pro- ceed solely from him, while the administration of the state belongs to the representatives of the people and to the executive respon- sible to them. In the Roman constitution the community of the people exercised very much the same functions as belong to the King in England. The right of pardon, which in England is the preroga- tive of the crown, was in Rome the prerogative of the community; while the ordinary operations of government devolved entirely on the crown." The same process by which a picture of the regal power has been obtained is employed with equal success in investigating the nature of the institutions on which Roman society rested. But whilst the difficulty of the task to be accomplished by the investi- gator of early history, and the disputes which have arisen concerning the first ages of the Roman republic, inevitably direct attention to Dr. Mommsen's opening chapters, it is not on these that his repu- tation will mainly depend. He is not an antiquarian, but a historian, and like all men of historical genius, shows the whole extent of his ability in describing the most important parts of his theme and not in searching into mere antiquities. One of our greatest writers has expressed surprise that Niebuhr, who delighted to trace out the constitution of Rome, should have devoted so little attention to the social life of the Romans. Dr. Mommsen is, at any rate; not open to this censure. In chapters which would alone have made the reputation of an ordinary writer he records the state of Roman religion, agriculture, literature, and art, at the most important crises of the republic's history. On one of these topics alone our space enables us to speak. The condition of agriculture was the point of vital consequence to the Roman commonwealth. The strength of Italy lay in what were the characteristic use of modern terms, Dr. Mommsen calls " free- holders." Though the government, the army, and the prosperity of Rome depended on the existence of these small farmers, yet their life was perpetually menaced by the growth of large estates cultivated by slaves. Their struggle for existence is never absent from the his- torian's mind. By the most minute details and calculations he marks the steps by which the free soil became at last tenanted by slaves and slaveowners, and exhibits in the clearest colours the manner in which politics, education, and even literature, were in- fluenced by the never-ceasing struggle between freedom and slavery. Up to the wars of Hannibal the yeomen held their ground. The effects of the long war gave Italian agriculture a blow from which it never recovered. The last chapters of Dr. Mommsen's two volumes describe with singular power the state of Rome, when, apparently, at the height of her prosperity, she showed the symptoms of approach- ing revolution ; when men like Cato struggled in vain to prevent a change, of which they were only half conscious, whilst another class welcomed the Greek thoughts which were gradually breaking down the customs and the constitution of the republic. In the next two volumes will be seen the equally successful description of the mighty revolution, which ended in turning an Italian city into the imperial capital of the ancient world.
Previous page
