636 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[DEC. 



that aro manifestly out of the course of raent from the tribunes to exasperate the blind 

 experience. To have swept these away, and ra ?e of the people. We might excuse him if such 

 left us the probable, or at least the less im- expressions were given merely as those of an ora- 

 probable skeleton of facts, would to any tor > or of tl' e senate as a body. When this is the 

 ordinary mind have seemed all that was 

 practicable, and indeed all that was requi- 

 site ; but Niebuhr looked deeper and fur- 

 ther to the growth of the constitution 

 to the operation of laws and manners and 

 aimed at tracing the progress of a rude 

 people to empire by natural and consecu- 



case.it would be unreasonable to blame him if the 

 bitterness of the other side had only been made 

 equally intelligible to the reader, and dwelt upon 

 with equal impartiality ; he would on the contrary 

 deserve our praise, because the indolent or inex- 

 perienced reader cannot present to himself in a 

 lively view, from the mere development of the 



tive means. The full extent of his hopes 'I 1 * 8 ' thc ***** dispositions awakened by party 



*_ flfVlrif. nor nnceihlv nnnrAAlnfa tlimv aimpo-ntis* ;_ 



and aims, he is far from realizing ; but he 

 has scattered to the winds much of the 

 chaff of the common story 7 , and has given 



spirit, nor possibly appreciate their energetic in- 

 fluence. Popular harangues expressing the inter- 

 nal feelings of the orator, exhibit these develop- 

 ments more forcibly ; but not only are such exhi- 



i f .. _ ~ MiwMva IUVAV rwiciuij , uui nut uuiy tut; eucu CAUl- 



much Of it a new aspect, and opened up bitions of plebeian feeling very rarely interspersed, 

 sources of mqmry and suggested others, but thc hardest juj ti prononnced as tho?e of 

 that will eventually, either by his own fu- the historian himself; and from this period, during 

 ture researches, or the ardour of others, 

 lead to more satisfactory and intelligible 

 results. 



Of the people, the plebs, of Rome, the cians, whose rapacity and violence he cannot con- 



the following two centuries of the first decade, 

 Livy's opinions are consistent respecting the inter- 

 nal commotions; he decidedly favours the patri- 



reader will gain an entirely new concep- 

 tion. The greatness of Rome is traced to 

 the formation of the plebeian order in the 



ceal, in opposition to the plebeians, even while 

 compelled to admit their forbearance and long- 

 suffering. Tliis partiality painfully excites the 



State, and the union of patricians and pie- displeasure of the leader who judges for himself, 



beians in centuries by Servius. But for his ""* ; " nflw " rtI " 1 '-' "<"" 1 " f " "^ mU >- - - ' 

 efforts the free people would too probably 

 have been depressed by the patricians to the 



and is nevertheless ready to admit an excuse, from 

 his love to this great historian. Livy was not a 

 statesman either by dispositioi\or habits of life; 



co; d : tirn of clients : " for "the free people ! lis very carliest y uth was P ast in turbulent times ; 

 j_-_^- ^ F .1 -,. ., he had seen the commonwealth when yet scarcely 



were distinct from the clients the common 

 notion that every patrician had his clients, 

 and every plebeian his patron, is plainly an 

 idle tale. It was through the aid of the 

 clients that the patricians so long and so 

 successfully retarded the struggle of the 

 people to the full attainment of political 

 rights. 



Nor less novel will be the general ap- 

 pearance of the tribunes and the Agrarian 

 laws. Their persevering efforts to enforce 

 these laws will prove to have been directed 

 not to pluck from the great to distribute 

 to the poor not to tear from the patricians 

 their private estates, but to break their 

 monopoly of the public lands. These Agra- 

 rian laws, in short, always bore solely upon 

 the public lands. The blunders of Machia- 

 velli and Montesquieu on this subject are 

 well exposed. Equally felicitous has Nie- 

 buhr been in illustrating the real condition 

 of the Equites, and distinguishing the privi- 

 leges of theComitia Tribute, Curiata, and 

 Centuriata. He has also boldly thrown off 

 all blind respect for authority, and fearlessly 

 examined all pretensions ; and with a learned 

 spirit in human dealings, detected the bias 

 of the writers he consults. His reviews of 

 Dionysius and Livy are admirable speci- 

 mens of his power of exhibiting charac- 

 ter, and of estimating the value of testi- 

 mony. 



Livy (says he) at one time admits that the more 

 moderate patricians held the pretensions of the 

 people to be reasonable, while again lie designates 

 the Agrarian law as a poison of the tribunes, and 

 their opposition as thc hindrance of the public 

 weal ; aud he deckles that it required no exeitc- 



licanism with the aristocratical party > 

 because the republic was subverted by that which 

 called itself the democracy. Livy was a partizan 

 of Pompey, with purely speculative feelings, for, 

 when still a young man, the parties were no longer 

 in existence. And from this attachment, the less 

 he distinguished between things bearing the same 

 names, he invariably took the part of the senate 

 and the aristocracy in times of old, as according 

 with his own prepossessions, not recollecting that 

 the latest aristocracy had grown out of that which 

 he affects to despise in earlier times as the popular 

 party, and which he therefore detests, because he 

 makes it in the days of his fathers answerable for 

 all the calamities which it brought upon the re- 

 public in his own days. The plebeians of the 

 third century must atone for those who were called 

 soin the eighth ; their tribunes for Saturninus and 

 Clodius ; the Agrarian law of the early common- 

 wealth for that of the Triumviri. Thus a man of 

 the most amiable dispositions became unconscious- 

 ly, and in opposition to his natural and best feel- 

 ings, unjust to a good cause, and partial to a bad 

 one. 



In another place, Niebuhr speaks of 

 Livy 



He who was so keenly alive to the old poetic nar- 

 ratives, who also wrote history admirably when- 

 ever he had sure guides, was little inclined to 

 weigh thc consistency and possibility in the con- 

 fused periods of the middle age ; he arrayed the 

 firat form that presented itself in a mantle of cap- 

 tivating narrative. The errors into which he has 

 thus fallen, betray thc man, who had learned to 

 view history not in the light of the forum, or the 

 camp, but merely in his own municipium. Per- 

 haps all that Asinius Pollio meant to designate by 



