II.

I now propose to show briefly that Livy, so far from trying to work up the chronicles into historical narrative, uses them as they exist, in all their tangled complexity, leaving to others the unravelling of both their course and their sequence. A notorious instance of this adoption sans phrase of dubious record is the account of the relationships of Rome with the Volsci and the Æqui.

Niebuhr devotes a chapter to this subject; Mommsen passes it by in almost obvious contempt. Ihne is also somewhat brief. In the case of Ihne and Niebuhr the legend of Coriolanus is the chief object of criticism. Lewis weaves the Volscian episodes into the general texture of his work. Livy himself, after loading his pages with wearisome details of these perennial wars, winces at the glaring inconsistencies he himself elevated to the rank of history.

1. "I make no doubt," says he,1"that besides the sense of weariness my readers must feel on account of these incessant wars, described in so many books, the same question will occur to them, as has occurred to myself on consulting the authors nearer to the epoch of these events, Whence came the sufficient supply of troops for the Volsci and Equi, vanquished so often?"

2. It is requisite to bear in mind the terrible severity of Italian warfare, while the consideration of Livy's narrative proceeds. No nation once warred down by the Italians ever rose again to give battle, much less successful battle. Caesar twice traversed Gaul sword in hand, and Gaul may be said to have perished. Four legions served to keep Britain in a state of profound peace. The whole standing army of Augustus equalled in number the actual effective force of our volunteers, but it was more than was necessary for the police of the whole empire."

These results arise from the well-known principle of the

I vi. 12. 2.

2 The empire, jam latissime patens, extended from the Firth of Forth to the Persian Gulf (W. to E.), and was bounded by the parallel lines (N. and S.) of the German forests and the African deserts.

ancient polities in their wars: the principle of making war on every man, woman, and child, every beast and every tree in the hostile territory. To take two instances:

1. "Ceterum nihilo minus foede dedita urbe quam si capta foret, Aurunci passim principes securi percussi, sub corona venierunt coloni alii, oppidum dirutum, ager veniit."1 (The town is Suessa Pometia.)

That is to say, in violation of all conditions of a deditio, the leading men were murdered in cold blood, the inhabitants sold into slavery, the town doubtless actually demolished by sappers," and the land sold to the highest bidder.

It is no objection to the force of this instance to feel, with Niebuhr, that there was no such town as Suessa Pometia,3 and that consequently the sack of the town is a fiction. The point is, that the historian is quite aware of the Italian custom, from instances within his own personal knowledge'; and that, to justify the usual method of dealing with captured towns in his own times, he indicates the high antiquity of rigorous cruelty. Hence, I believe, arose the laborious account of the sack of Alba, the destruction of Suessa, the capture and ruin of Veii, the conflagration of Rome, in which we are carried on from fiction to fact imperceptibly, because the historian feels that what actually took place at Perusia must have taken place at Alba and Suessa, at Veii and Rome.

2. Four hundred and fifty years after the sack of Suessa, Caesar captured Orleans. The capture is described by him with characteristic brevity: "Oppidum diripit atque incendit, praedam militibus donat." That is, he sacked the town, and then set it on fire; the movable booty (praeda) he gave to his troops as a largess. The movable booty in such a wretched place would be a few bracelets and necklets, some brooches, rings and the inhabitants. (Cf. also Caesar, B. G. vii. 28.) It is need less to speak of the fate of other cities: Astapa, Numantia, Carthage, Corinth, Praeneste, Capua, Jerusalem.

I Liv. ii. 17. 8.

2 Alba was so demolished.-Liv. i. 29.

3 i. 29. 5.

4 e.g. the sack of Perusia; cf. Merivale, iii. 243, and Suetonius, Octavianus, 15. (This occurred in B.C. 41. Livy was then 18 years of age.)

This method of warfare will illustrate the fictions identified with the Volsci. "The Volsci," says Niebuhr, "were an Ausonian people, and identical with the Auruncans; so that the war is sometimes called Volscian, sometimes Auruncan." I have noted twenty passages in books ii.-vii. out of many illustrative of the question:

1. ii. 16: "Cum Auruncis bellum initum, fusoque ingenti exercitu . . . omne Auruncum bellum Pometiam compulsum est. Nec magis post proelium quam in proelio caedibus temperatum est. Et caesi aliquanto plures erant quam capti; et captos passim trucidaverunt."

2. ii. 17: "Ceterum nihilo minus foede, dedita urbe, quam si capta foret, Aurunci passim principes securi percussi, sub corona venierunt coloni alii; oppidum dirutum, ager veniit."

3. ii. 22: "Hac ira consules in Volscum agrum legiones

duxere."

4. ii. 24: "Inter haec major alius terror. Latini equites cum tumultuoso advolant nuntio, Volscos infesto exercitu ad urbem oppugnandam venire."

5. ii. 25 (As a result of the foregoing): "Postero die ad Suessam Pometiam, quo confugerant hostes, legionibus ductis intra paucos dies oppidum capitur: captum praedae datum."

6. ii. 26. 27: "Nec procul inde cum Auruncis signa collata, proelioque, uno debellatum est. Fusis Auruncis victor Romanus promissa consulis expectabat."

...

7. ii. 30: "Alter consul in Volscos profectus. . . vastandis maxime agris hostem ad conferenda proprius castra dimicandumque acie excivit. . . (the result of this campaign is detailed at some length as being a terrible overthrow after a sanguinary battle) castris exutum hostem Velitras persecuti, uno agmine victores cum victis in urbem irrupere."

8. ii. 33: "Alter (consul) ad Volscum bellum missus Antiates Volscos fundit fugatque: compulsos in oppidum Longulam persecutus, maenibus potitur." (In this campaign the great bravery of C. Marcius, afterwards called Coriolanus, was preeminent.)

9. ii. 39. The well-known campaign of the Volsci against

Rome, in which Coriolanus led them on to victory. The legend of Coriolanus.

10. ii. 40. The Æqui and Volsci cut each other in pieces, and thus rid Rome of a double pest: "Ibi fortuna populi Romani duos hostium exercitus, haud minus pernicioso, quam pertinaci certamine confecit." Immediately after we read: "Eo anno Hernici devicti, cum Volscis aequo Marte discessum est;” that is, after they had been slaughtered by the Æqui.

II. ii. 42: Accensaque ea cupiditas est malignitate patrum: qui devictis eo anno Volscis Æquisque militem proeda fraudavere."

12. ii. 42 (ad fin.): "Bellum inde Veiens initum: et Volsci rebellarunt."

13. ii. 53: "Dum haec ad Veios geruntur, Volsci Æquique in Latino agro posuerant castra. . . . Nullum genus calamitatis contumeliaeque non editum in Volscos est."

14. ii. 58: "Volscum Æquicumque inter seditionem Romanam est bellum coortum. . . ." (In this campaign the Romans, to spite their generals, allow themselves to be ignominiously defeated. This, however, is a temporary feeling, and they, under a new consul, retrieve their fame; for the war ends with a great disaster for the Volsci and the capture of Antium.) The second book closes thus:

Qui Volscorum effugere potuerunt, Antium petunt: Antium et Romanus exercitus ductus. Paucos circumsessum dies deditur, nulla oppugnantium vi nova; sed quod jam inde ab infelici pugna castris amissis ceciderant animi."

15. ii. 8: "Volsci, Æquique afflictas vires suas in unum contulere Tertia illa pugna eo anno fuit. Eadem fortuna victoriam dedit: fusis hostibus etiam castra capta."

16. iii. 10. Livy grows impatient of the monotony of these everlasting wars: "Ecce, ut idem in singulos annos orbis volveretur Hernici nuntiant, Volscos et Æquos, etsi accisae res sint, reficere exercitus."

17. iii. 15. "Et ab Volscis et quis, statum jam ac prope sollemne in singulos annos bellum timebatur."

The same record variously expressed continues till the seventh

book, and here we find the author's impatience relapsing into contempt.

18. vii. 27: “Volsci, ferocior ad rebellandum quam ad bellandum gens, certamine victi fuga effusa Satrici moenia petunt." Then the historian dismisses the Volsci to revert to more serious topics.

19. vii. 29: “Majora jam hinc bella et viribus hostium et longinquitate vel regionum vel temporum [spatio] quibus bellatum est, dicentur."

We take leave of the Volsci in the words of the Campanian

envoys.

20. vii. 30: Subactis iis gentibus [i.q. Volscis Æquisque] quae inter nos vosque sunt; quod propediem futurum spondet et virtus et fortuna vestra, continens imperium usque ad nos habebitis." (i.q. Campanos.)

This desultory war with the Volsci thus lasts 150 years (507, 347 B.C.). The period embraced within the second book, from the capture of Pometia to the capture of Antium, is forty years. In every case the Volsci are defeated, except in the campaign wherein Coriolanus commands them. They succeed on this occasion because a Roman is in command, and the Roman whose fame was acquired by his courageous demeanour at the capture of one of the Volscian towns. No indignity of war is ever spared them. (e.g. ii. 16, ii. 17, ii. 30, ii. 53.) They are cut to pieces by their old friends the Æqui, with whom they quarrel because the Æqui cannot abide Attus Tullius, the Volscian general. Immediately after being cut to pieces (the same year) they meet the Romans, and give a good account of themselves; for "aequo Marte discessum est."1

Impatient of peace, these warriors invade the Roman borders at the first opportunity.2 Roman colonies notwithstanding are planted in their midst,3 and the Volscian towns are captured with every detail of disaster. Coriolanus leads them to victory because he is Coriolanus; for the Volsci are spoken of in withering terms as very eager to begin fighting and very 4 ii. 58.

1 ii. 40.

3 ii. 31.

ii. 24.