THEODORE MOMMSEN. 853 



the vastest amount of material, l)ut also the only method and the only 

 guiding- aper^'us in the study of ancient Rome. It is time to say that 

 while he has done the former he has not done the latter. He has, 

 indeed, through the publication of the Corpus of Latin inscriptions, 

 and similar very useful collections of material, very much increased 

 our means of studying Roman histor}^ more especially of writing more 

 numerous books thereon. It is, however, equallv true that his 

 influence, the undoubted authority that he enjoyed both in and out of 

 the Fatherland, has in a measure sterilized the study of the histoi-y of 

 Rome. Thus in the last twenty odd years exceedingly few independ- 

 ent and elaV)orate works on the ensemble of Roman history have 

 appeared either in England or on the Continent. The scholars of the 

 world seem to be under the ban of Mommsen. To abandon his 

 method, to doubt the essential correctness of his Roman constitutional 

 law {Roeinisches Staatsrecht) seemed, and still seems, to be not on\j 

 impossible but indecent. In England, if we except a few short works, 

 more particularlv the brilliant and suggestive study on Roman history 

 by Mr. T. ]M. Taylor, no attempt has been made to rewrite the history 

 of the great empire-nation, which in so man}- ways is so essentially 

 similar to the Britons. In fact, it is part of the irony of things that 

 the English have so far devoted great attention and great industrv to 

 Greek history rather than to Roman, although the}' are, from the 

 nature of their own history and modern constitution, less apt to seize 

 and clear up the factors and powers that made Greece; while they are 

 eminently adapted for clearing up some of the most difficult problems 

 of the history of Rome. Using expressions somewhat untechnical, yet 

 precise, we may sa\' that Greek histor}' ought to be written by the 

 French, and Roman by the British. In ^modern Great Britain alone 

 can we still see institutions, the essential identit}' of which with those 

 of the institutions of Rome ought to suggest to Britons in the first 

 place, or to such as are intimately acquainted with Great Britain, some 

 of that insight into the real nature of ancient Rome without which all 

 study of history is blind. 



It is almost impossible for a German scholar living in Germany to 

 find any of those modern analogies to events and institutions in Rome 

 without which we moderns are absolutely excluded from a real knowl- 

 edge of Roman history. Mommsen's Roman History has accordingly 

 very much more charm than real insight. Mommsen was a great 

 artist; his st3'le, like that of a few other North -German writers, is 

 both compact and fluent, clear-cut, plastic, and packed with infor- 

 mation. It flows on majestically and resembles one of the Roman 

 aqueducts; perhaps in more senses than one. There can be no hesita- 

 tion in saying that, as a mere piece of reading, Mommsen's history is 

 by far the best book ever written on Roman history. Mommsen — 

 who shared all the passions and ideals of the revolutionary period in 



