VICTOR DIMITY'S HISTORY OF ROME.—VOLUME L* Tars splendidly printed and
profusely illustrated first instal- ment of M. Victor Duruy's "History of Rome and the Roman People, from its Origin to the Establishment of the Christian Empire," is not the kind of work that we can welcome with any enthusiasm. We cannot recommend it to students, for it would mislead them too often ; nor to scholars, for they would laugh at us if we did; nor can we precisely define the class of readers whose wants it will meet. But all may derive some benefit from the illustrations which have been supplied very liberally by the publishers, who, as the editor, Mr. Mahaffy, gratefully acknowledges, "have done everything in their power to make M. Duruy's book the best and the most complete that has yet appeared on Roman history." Some readers may be encouraged by the "verbal legerdemain" of this artful, or artless, sentence, but others will detect in it a note of warning. And we shall say at once that they will do well to heed that note. M. Duruy's work, so far as this instal- ment of it is concerned, is very far indeed from having the shadow of a claim to be thought the best that has appeared on the subject which it handles, and whatever praise may be due to the extensive reading and lucid exposition of this "Member of the Institute and ex-Minister of Public Instruction," he lacks too many of the qualities in which a great historian should be strong, to leave us much choice as to the lines on which we must write this notice. Briefly, then, the impression which his history in its present form leaves upon us, is that he is himself an inaccurate, not to say careless, and unscholarly writer, and that in Mr. Mahaffy he has found, for the nonce, a very con- genial editor. To justify this adverse verdict thoroughly would require far more space than we can command. We shall trust in the main to the exposition of a few salient errors,—but errors of a kind that class the man who makes them, and speak with significance to the tiro, no less than to the ripest of scholars.
• History of Home and the Boman People. By Victor Horny. Edited by the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy. Vol. I., "Primitive History to the End of the Second Punic War." London : Eagan Paul, Trench, and Co.
Mr. Mahaffy has tersely marked in his Editorial Preface the broad difference between the older school of Niebuhr, and that of Mommsen. M. Darny's work, he says, stands on the ground of Niebuhr, or rather of Schwegler, "whose valuable history, like that of our own Thirlwall, is regaining its real position, after some years of obscuration by the brilliancy of a more passionate but less trustworthy rival." Now, Mr. Mahaffy may believe what he likes about the coming obscuration of Grote by Thiriwall redivivus, but he is so curiously mistaken in thinking that Mommsen's well-known and most trustworthy history re- presents a school of thought as yet (as yet !) quite unknown in England, that we hesitate to believe his forecast of the coming obscuration of Mommsen by Schwegler in Germany. And in any case, when we emerge from the primitive history of Rome —and heaven forbid that we should loiter for one second in that hotbed of vexato3 gucestiowes—Mommsen strides away, like a giant, from his competitors. About a year ago, we endeavoured to show that Ihne's attempt to overhaul him was a failure, yet we have little scruple in affirming that Ihne's his- tory is a fine performance, indeed, compared with M. Duruy's. For, in addition to that unscholarly inaccuracy which we shall illustrate directly, the French historian, writing hastily, per- haps, in view of the magnitude of the task before him, resorts to a device which sadly impairs his work from an artistic point of view. He is apt, instead of assimilating and re- moulding his authorities, to quote them, as Malvolio uttered state, "by great swarths " ; and this lazy habit, to call it no worse than it deserves, sometimes lands him in absurdities. Havingto explain, for instance, how it was that Hannibal was able to maintain him- self in Brattium so many years after the decisive battle of the Metaurns, he quotes a long passage from Elisee Resins, and quotes it so carelessly, that one of the causes of Hannibal's holding out might seem to be the fact that the "present inhabit- ants of the Calabrian peninsula gather from the trunks of the ash trees manna, an important article of commerce." This "great swarth" from an excellent modern geographer leaves M. Thistly no room, apparently, to mention that the Cartha- ginians were able to send, and did send, reinforcements to their general sufficient for the defence of Brattium. And as we have come in contact here with Hannibal, we may briefly say that M. Duruy's estimate of that wonderful man is singularly un- satisfactory. He believes, among other things, that the disaster of the Metanrus was the result of deficient vigilance on the part of Hannibal's brother, and that at Zama,—but we shall reserve for the present that prize specimen of credulity, and the inference to be drawn from it.
To quote all the examples of M. Durny's inaccuracy and care- lessness, which we have noted, is impossible. A few samples—a handful from a waggon-load—must suffice. A" Scipio" with M. Darny is rarely anything else than a "Cornelius Scipio ;" so that we find on one page that the "Consul Cornelius Scipio" was cap- tured at the Lipari Islands, and on the next that the "Consul Cornelius Scipio" captured Sardinia. These were different men, of course ; but how easy to make it clear that they were. Again, "the Romans would have made Mutin (and why not Matinee, Mr. Mahaffy ?) a consul." Would they, indeed P and was " Mutin " a mercenary in the proper sense of that word, as applied to the hired soldiery of Carthage P Who must bear the blame of the "great swarth" from Horace, concerning Regulus, being printed so as to be nonsense, we cannot settle. Neither can we assign to author, editor, or translator the exact share of praise which is due to each for giving us as a translation of two famous lines in Ennius :— "The one man by delaying has recovered our affairs.
Ile did not sacrifice the public safety to vain rumours."
But we can quote no more of these "small things," unless it be M. Durny's argumentative question,—" Is not the nobility of England, so powerful and so proud [in great part], descended from the adventurers who followed William of Normandy ?" The words in brackets are the Editor's ; and how much kinder it is in him to let us know that some of the nobility of England are sweet and reasonable, than to roundly convict M. Durny of his mistake.
The "best and most complete" history of Rome will never come from a man who cannot write well and clearly about political and social questions, about literature, and about war. For obvious reasons, we shall, in criticising this instalment of his work, examine M. Duruy's qualifications as a military, rather than as a political or literary historian; and we find nothing to say in praise of them. Mt. Mahaffy has found himself
obliged, he says, here and there, to curtail some of his author's battle-pieces borrowed from ancient historians, and com- posed, therefore, from purely rhetorical considerations, with no claim to accuracy. We are as willing as Mr. Mahaffy himself can be, to trouble our memories with as few details as possible of nine-tenths of the battles which marked Rome's march to empire. But Hannibal's battles are among the tenth part which is fraught with perennial interest and instruction. For sixty generations they have fascinated men's minds, as the Waterloo campaign has for two. It happens, also, that his earlier fights were his master-pieces, and that they have found a Macaulay in Livy, and a Napier in Polybius. Their incidents have been sifted again and again by able military, and still abler civilian critics. The historian, therefore, who breaks-down utterly in describing one of these battles, may be regarded as a bungler. Does M. Duray deserve that name P Well, the battle of the Trebia—and we must ask the reader to use a map for the next few sentences—was in this wise. The Romans were encamped on the right bank of the stream ; their place d'armes, Placentia, was lower down the stream, and also on the right bank, as was natural ; strong reinforcements—a second consular army, under Sempronius—was on its way to join them from Ariminum. Hannibal's camp was on the left, or western bank, and his place d'armes at Clastidium. Sempronius joined his colleague without difficulty—and Hannibal enticed the Romans across the Trebia, by manthavres similar to those by which Napoleon enticed the Russians, in 1807, across the Aller at Friedland—and completed their destruction by a skilfully arranged ambush. A mistaken phrase in Polybius made Livy place the Romans on the left bank. M. Darny, in company with better historians, has fallen into the trap thus set for him, and so we have in the page before us Sempronius fetching a compass round the rear of Hannibal's army, crossing the Apennines into Etruria, and recrossing them into the plains on the west bank of the Trebia. This, M. Durny informs us, is the opinion of Commandant Hennebart and probably right, because Polybius clearly places Hannibal on the right bank. Plump and plain, Polybius does nothing of the kind ; and how does the Editor, who has presumably read what he calls that "fine book," Mommsen's history, help his author here ? Well, thus :—" There is some difficulty in this march of Sempronius, owing both to the silence and confusion of our authorities, who speak as if he had gone by sea round Italy to Ariminum." This is strange, indeed. How does Mr. Mahaffy suppose that Sempronius got from Rheginm to Ariminum, unless by sea ; and when the difficulty of his march from Ariminum is the question, what does it matter how Sempronius got to Ariminum ? One little touch of varnish Mr. Mahaffy adds to M. Duray's poor picture. By a queer slip of the pen, M. Durny changes the name of Hannibal's brother, who was in command of the ambush, from Mago to Hanno, and it is marvellous that the translator, W. J. Clarke, M.A., should have passed so strange a blunder. But what shall we say of the Editor, whose sympathy with Mago is so great, that he says in a note on his death, that "this brilliant leader has received but scanty justice in history !" Well, what was it that Mr. Scrooge said to the nephew who wished him a merry Christmas ? And it may be that, before we part from Mr. Mahaffy, he will remind us once more of that memorable answer.
We have said that M. Durny's notice of what Hannibal did at Zama, which was his Waterloo, is a prize, or what old com- mentators call a " palmary " specimen of credulity. He believes that Hannibal drew up the flower of his army, his "Old Guard," 20,000 strong, in the rear of his inferior troops, "to complete the victory, or else to flee with him to Carthage, that he might not return thither undefended." There was no victory for these happy veterans to complete, so Hannibal, says M. Dump, "fled from the field, covered by 20,000 soldiers, as far as Hadra- metum." No, no, M. D any ! It was the field, and not Hannibal, that was covered by the bodies of those 20,000. And what says Mr. Mahaffy ? Marry, this :—" According to most historians, Hannibal's veterans were cut to pieces." Unless Mr. Mahaffy can mention the names of more than one historian who can be cited as authorities for M. Darny's foolish fable, this note is hardly fair. And it is feeble in the extreme if he can mention those names, for he ought then to have written "so-and-so are the authorities whom M. Dnruy relies on for his statement in the text, but it is needless to say that he ought to have rejected them." We must reserve what we have to say about the really valuable illustrations which adorn this sumptuous work, till the appear-
ance of the second volume. Meanwhile, we may notice two which Mr. Mahaffy refers to with humorous pomposity :—" I have had recourse," he says, "to contemporary art, and given some ideal pictures of great events in Roman history, as imagined by artists learned in the local colour and the dress of the period." We will guard ourselves by stating that though we have failed to notice any others, there may be more than two of these" ideal pictures." But if there are, and they at all resemble M. Henri Motto's picture of" Hannibal's Army Crossing the Rhone," and M. Henri Motto's picture of the "Geese of the Capitol," they are absurdly trivial ; and in the latter picture, indeed, all that is wanting to complete its absurdity is that the Gauls should be wearing in their great gymnastic feat the kepis and red trousers of their descendants.
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