Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-03-01

lie was one the most eminent citizens of tn,
Athenian Republic, educated under the institu
lions OF Solon, and trained in all the politca
wisdom those institutions had developed in the
two centuries since their establishment. A more
profound intellect never applied itself to hstor
cal investigation: more clear-sighted and i'm
partial Judge of human conduct, never dealt witt
the fortunes and acts of political communities
The work of Herodotus is graphic, fluent
dramatic and ethical in the highest degree; bu
1t Is not the work of a free citizen of free Re.
public, personally experienced in the conduct Of
It's AFFAIRS The History of the Peloponesiar
war, on the other hend, could only have beer
produced by man who added to vast genius
deep personal insight into the workings of va
rious public institutions.
As Thucydides himself says his history was
writtennot for the entertainment ofthe moment
but to be "a possession forever
There can, it seems to me, be no reasonable
doubt that the first works by which man ex-
pressed his thoughts and feelings in an orderly
composition, were essentially poetical In the
earliest writings of which we know any thing
with distinctness, we have an union or min
cling OF poetry and fact, embodying the ira
dltlons and history of the people among which
they arose.
Like other intellectual culture this form of
history appeared first in the East, and, from the
days of Moses and Joshua down to our own
times, it has there retained substantially the
same character. [ mean it has been a remar-
kable mixture of the spirit of history and of epic
poetry In Greece we may observe originally
the same state OF things but the two forms of
composition soon became separated, through the
Greek historical art, when highest. never loses
all its relations to the epic.
| The earliest Greek poets were religions and
| in
thology OF their country, and so continued down
through Homer Herodotus was by birth an
Aslatic Greek, and was quite imbued with the
oriental spirit. In his time, of public records
there were none, or, at the most there were only
local registers of public events and their dates,
such, for instance as those kept by the priest
hood in the temples at Delphi and Argos, or the
registers of particular families. He travelled,
therefore, to collect the materials for his histo-
ry But he made of them one whole, and laid
one Idea at the bottom, with as much epic sim
plicity as Homer did in the Had. His subject
was the contest of Greece with the Persians,
and the triumph of Grecian liberty; Or more
strictly, the great Grecian victory over the bar
barians who had conquered the world as then
known. The relations between Herodotus and
Homer are not to be mistaken; he not only has
eplsodes like the long one about Egypt, and
formal speeches, which were common in his
tor1cal works till the sixteenth century of on.
era, and have not been unknown since; but he
has dialogues.
One OF his series of speeches, which par
takes OF the character of dialogue, shows a
remarkable advancement in political knowledge
for the age of Pericles. l mean that in which
the conspirators against the Magi of Persia,
previously to the elevation of Darius, discuss
the different forms of government, much in the
MOOtpSuJ11 R,1t oil
are kept in their proper places by Herodotus.
lie feels the conneXlon of his subject all the
way through; how one event proceeds from an
other, and how all tends to the principal result
or contributes to it directly.
In 1hucydides the art of history is further
advanced, though he lived very little later than
l1erodotus, and probably had read or heard his
history, though that is doubted.
Thucydides did not, indeed, make one whole
OF his work, for he did not survive the war
whose history he undertook to relate; but he is
less credulous than Herodotus; he has no pro-
per dialogue; he is more compact; he INDUCES
very little in episodes; he draws characters, and
his speeches are more like formal stately dis
cussions. And he says of them, they are such
as he either heard himself, OF received from
those who did hear them ;; and he states that
he gives them in their true substance.
There is nothing to create doubt that per-
sopally he heard the Grafton of Pericles and it
iSlremarkable that throughout the most flour
ishing period of Greek literature, both poetical
and HISTORICAL productions were composed to be
heard, rather than to be read and the practice
OF listening to their rehearsals led the Greek
people to attain great accuracy as well as reten-
tiveness of memory.
In short, Herodotus's work seems natural,
fresh production of the soil; that of Thucydides
belongs to more advanced state of culture
Quintillan says OF the former, In Herodoto ON
MA lenlter fuup; of the latter, Deasus ct breuis
ct se'nper anstans sibi. Xenophon, in his Hell
lenica, continues 1hucydides. He was mill
ary leader and familiar with the affairs of States
and, though not so deep a thinker was a more
graceful and easy writer. Polybius, living in
much later period, is defective in style, but is
a wise and sensible author. His object is not |
merely to show what has been, but to attempt |
the instruction of the .fittutre-making his work !
what he calls a dennonstratiue history, fitted for
the use of statesmen. He is the last of the |
really good Greek historians.
The Romans had the great Greek masters in
prose and poetry all before them and initiated
them In everything, but approached their mo-
dels nearly only in eloquence and history
Like the Greeks, too, they had early poetica |
histories, historical legends, songs, &C. Emil
us wrote sort of epic history of Rome. Ce
sar, one of the most distinguished of all great
men, wrote accounts of what he had done, or
what related directly to himself. The clear
ness, purity, and precision of his style are as
characteristic Of him any of his great achieve
ments.
Sallust went more upon Greek models
Each of his tworemaining histories is an epic
whole; short, indeed, but completes; fashioned
with the greatest exactness; and inspired with
a dignity and stateliness ofstyle which Caesar
did not seek, and which would not have been
fitting for his personal memoirs.
Livy had another purpose; there is an epic |
completeness in his great work, though that
work has come down to us ia multiated state.
Mqjestas Popuh Romani was his subject, and
he sacrifices much to it !; even, not untrequent-
ly, the rigor of truth. His style is rich and
flowing some one speaks of Livii lactea ubertaS.
His descriptions excellent indeed, there
is nobleness and grandeur about his whole