162 ROMAN HISTORY : 



Mr. Merivale's preface he warmly and gracefully acknowledges 

 the aid he has derived from the writings of the former on the 

 later commonwealth of Rome. Of the original materials for 

 the life of Caesar, we have little room and not much occasion 

 to speak. They are well known to scholars in their different 

 degrees of value and authenticity. We may well regret here 

 (as so often elsewhere), the lost books of Livy, whose personal 

 knowledge of those who had witnessed or partaken in the 

 acts of this eventful period, would have given still deeper 

 interest ^and charm to his narrative power. We should 

 willingly recover from the spoils of time the history of Asinius 

 Pollio, the cynical companion of Caesar in all his most arduous 

 campaigns; and the letters and biography of Atticus, the 

 tranquil observer and common friend of all parties, even when 

 factions were fiercest. Yet more should we wish that the 

 stern truth and lofty moral dignity of Tacitus could have been 

 applied to the life of a man who made such mighty changes 

 in the destinies of his country. These are vain aspirations ; 

 yet in some sort forced upon us when disheartened by the 

 disputable stories of Suetonius, Plutarch, Dion Cassius, and 

 other anecdote-mongers of antiquity. The authority of Appian 

 is abated by distance of time and other doubts as to his 

 histories. The little we have from Sallust upon this period 

 the bias of the writer compels us to receive with caution. 

 The Pharsalia of Lucan may not safely be taken as more than 

 subsidiary authority to facts recorded elsewhere ; though we 

 are unwilling to utter anything in depreciation of this fine 

 composition, which we can hardly agree with Quintilian in 

 regarding rather as oratory than poetry. The materials which 

 come to us for the life of Caesar most free from cavil and 

 doubt are his own Commentaries, and Cicero's Epistles and 

 Orations. The former, whatever their merits, cannot be 

 rescued altogether from the charge of partial representation. 

 The latter need to be read with a critical eye, from the pecu- 



