order to justify his appointment, proposed and carried the reduction of the term of the newly created office of censors from five years to eighteen months. Livy tells us that the censors revenged themselves for this proceeding upon Æmilius, after he had resigned his office, by degrading him to an inferior tribe, and by increasing his taxable assessment eightfold.(5) As the censorship had now only been established nine years, and therefore only two censors could have held the office for the full quinquennial term, it seems highly improbable that the reduction of the term of the office should have led to so outrageous a retaliation, or that Æmilius should have quietly submitted to this arbitrary punishment for a legal act, which was within his competence, which was merely proposed by himself, and which the people at large had sanctioned by their vote. : The following is Livy's account of the consuls of this year (434 B. C.). He reports the statement of Licinius Macer to be, that Julius and Virginius, the consuls of the previous year, were re-appointed. On the other hand, he says Valerius Antias and Q Tubero stated that M. Manlius and Q. Sulpicius were the consuls Macer and Tubero, notwithstanding their discrepancy, both appealing to the libri lintei; and both admitting that the ancient writers described it as a year of consular tribunes. Macer held that the authority of the libri lintei was supreme; Tubero doubted; and Livy leaves the question undecided, classing it with other facts which on account of their antiquity were beyond the reach of certain knowledge.(86) The consular tribunes whom Livy mentions as assigned to this year by the ancient writers are probably those named by Diodorus; viz., M. Manlius, Q. Sulpicius Prætextatus, and S. Cornelius Cossus.(87) (85) Livy, iv. 24. (86) Eosdem consules insequenti anno refectos, Julium tertium, Virginium iterum, apud Macrum Licinium invenio. Valerius Antias et Q. Tubero M. Manlium et Q. Sulpicium consules in eum annum edunt. Ceterum in tam discrepante editione et Tubero et Macer libros linteos auctores profitentur: neuter tribunos militum eo anno fuisse traditum a scriptoribus antiquis dissimulat. Licinio libros haud dubie sequi linteos placet, et Tubero incertus veri est; sed inter cetera vetustate incomporta hoc quoque in incerto positum; iv. 23. (87) xii. 53. The first two of these, it should be observed, are identical with the consuls reported by Valerius Antias and Tubero. With respect, therefore, to the chief magistracy for this year, the ancient authorities are divided in the following manner:— 1 C. Julius and L. Virginius consuls, according to Macer. 2 M. Manlius and Q. Sulpicius consuls, according to Valerius Antias and Tubero. 3 M. Manlius, Q. Sulpicius, and S. Cornelius Cossus, consular tribunes, according to Diodorus. Other ancient historians likewise assigned consular tribunes to this year. We have already met with similar instances of uncertainty as to the names of the chief magistrates at this period: thus the version of the story of Mælius given by Cincius and Piso excluded the dictatorship of Cincinnatus, which is a necessary part of the received version; and again, there is a grave doubt whether Cossus was not consul at the time when he killed Tolumnius, instead of being merely a military tribune, as the common account represented him. There was likewise a controversy whether consuls were or were not appointed in the place of the consular tribunes, in the year 444 B.C. Now although the name of a consul or a dictator in a particular year may not be a matter of much interest to a modern reader, yet discrepancies such as these are utterly inconsistent with the supposition of authentic lists of magistrates faithfully preserved. It is to be remembered that the dictators, the consuls, and the consular tribunes were, for the time, the chief magistrates in the state : they were the depositaries of the supreme political power; and their contemporaries could have had no doubt who filled those offices. No fact is more notorious than the identity of persons at the head of the state; and if a contemporary register of magistrates was kept, there could have been no uncertainty about their names. Since history has been written from contemporary official records, such questions as these never arise. In modern history, we find questions as to the character, conduct, motives, or acts, of a certain minister or general, but we never find a discussion whether such a person was or was not at the head of the civil or military affairs of the country at a certain time. What should we think of a paragraph in a historical work to the following effect? Some writers affirm that Mr. Pitt died in 1806; that he was succeeded in the office of Prime Minister by Lord Grenville, and that Mr. Fox became at the same time leader of the House of Commons. This report is however denied by other historians, who assert that Lord Grenville was not prime minister in 1806, but that Mr. Pitt lived till 1807, when he was succeeded in the office of Prime Minister by the Duke of Portland. It is declared on both hands that the records of the Treasury have been searched; and one set of authorities affirms that Mr. Pitt appears from them to have held the office of Prime Minister during the whole of 1806; while another set declares that Lord Grenville's name is recorded during the chief part of the year. It is related by some chroniclers that Mr. Fox was Secretary of State and leader of the House of Commons under the Duke of Portland in 1807: but many historians represent Mr. Fox as having died in 1806; and it is uncertain whether this other account does not rather refer to the year 1783, when the annals contain the names of the Duke of Portland as First Lord of the Treasury and Mr. Fox as Secretary of State.' Yet absurd as such historical uncertainties appear when transferred to the events of modern times, they are not different in kind from those which are described in several places by the classical historians of this period. A consul or a dictator was at least as much to a Roman as a Prime Minister or a Secretary of State is to an Englishman. What makes the discrepancies respecting such patent and notorious facts as the name of a consul the more remarkable, is, that we have for the same period accounts of minute details, which imply the close observation of a well-informed contemporary. So that we have a history of which the accessories are known, while the substance is uncertain. § 62 The account of the unwillingness of the consuls to appoint a dictator in 431 B.C., and the interference of the tribunes to compel one of the consuls to nominate, is a curious passage in the constitutional history of Rome.(88) It is likewise one out of many examples which prove the impossibility of separating the history of the constitution from the history of political occurrences; and the consequent unsoundness of the doctrine, that although the events in Roman annals may be fabulous, the constitutional changes are all real. (89) A. Postumius Tubertus is the dictator, and he gains a great battle against the Volscians and Equians.(9) According to some accounts, Postumius caused his son to be put to death, after this battle, for a breach of discipline, which consisted in his leaving his post in order to kill an enemy. Livy says that the accounts differed, and the story might be either credited or discredited; he himself disbelieves it, chiefly because the execution of a son by a father was named after Manlius, not Postumius. (91) On the other hand, Diodorus, Valerius Maximus, and Gellius, relate that Postumius ordered the execution of his son on this occasion. (92) It will be observed that Livy proposes to decide this question by merely indirect arguments; and that he does not attempt to examine the testimonies by which the different accounts are supported, and to weigh them against one another. Livy here inserts a notice, that in this year the Carthaginians, who were destined to be afterwards such formidable enemies to Rome, for the first time sent an army to Sicily in order to assist one of the parties in a dispute between two Sicilian states.(93) This entry is made under 431 B.C., the first year of the Peloponnesian war. It seems highly improbable that the expedition of Hamilcar (9) in 480 B.C., should be referred to; and it can (88) Livy, iv. 26. (89) See above, ch. iv. § 5. (90) Camillus first distinguished himself in this battle; Plut. Cam. 2. (91) Nec libet credere, et licet, in variis opinionibus; et argumento est, quod imperia Manliana, non Postumiana, appellata sint; quum qui prior auctor tam sævi exempli foret, occupaturus insignem titulum crudelitatis fuerit; iv. 29. (92) Diod. xii. 64, who agrees with Livy in making L. Julius master of the horse. Val. Max. ii. 7, § 6; Gell. xvii. 21, § 17. In i. 13, § 7, Gel: lius speaks of the Postumiana imperia et Manliana.' The triumph of Postumus Tubertus over the Volscians and Equians for a battle in the Algidus is mentioned by Ovid. Fast. vi. 715-8. (93) Livy, iv. 29. (94) Herod. vii 165-8; Diod. xi. 20. scarcely be doubted that the great expedition of Hannibal, in 409 B.C., caused by the dispute of the Egestæans and Selinuntines, is intended; although it occurred above twenty years after the time specified by Livy.(95) As the error antedates the event by twenty years, it could not have been made till some time after the memory of the real expedition had faded away. It is conceivable that a contemporary entry by an official Roman annalist might have contained an inaccurate account of transactions in Sicily: but although rumour might have disfigured the truth, there could have been no mistake as to the time. For instance, an incorrect description of a battle in the interior of China might now reach this country; but it would arrive soon after the time when the battle had been fought, and its mention in a newspaper would be good chronological evidence, though the account itself might be defective. Two other foreign events were recorded in the Roman histories of this period, in which Rome had a more immediate interest than in the affairs of Sicily. Livy mentions the capture of Capua from the Etruscans by the Samnites, in 423 B.C.,(96) and the capture of Cuma from the Greeks by the Campanians, three years later. (97) The Campanians are here equivalent to the Samnites, and hence Livy speaks of the Samnites being in possession of Capua and Cumæ in 411 B.C.(9) Diodorus places the capture of Cumæ by the Campanians in 428 B.C.:(99) which, for an event of this date, is a tolerably close agreement with Livy. § 63 The contest with the Veientes, which had originated in the murder of the Roman ambassadors, is now continued after a short truce. The question of war or peace was referred to the people, and all the centuries voted for war. (100) It was (95) Diod. xiii. 54. (97) c. 44. (96) Livy, iv. 37, cf. vii. 38, x. 38, xxviii. 28. (98) c. 52. (99) xii. 76. He refers the origin of nation and name of the Campanians to the same year 445 B.C. xii. 31. Eusebius, Chron., refers the same event to the sixteenth consulship 444 B.C. Compare Strabo, v. 4, 4; Müller, Etr. vol. i. p. 178. (100) Livy, iv. 30. |