Chapter III: Velleius, Curtius and History

Minor historians of the period—Cremutius Cordus, Aufidius
Bassus and others.

Velleius Paterculus—Ancestry—Interest in literature and
in the East—Military service under Tiberius—Scheme of the
compendium—Obligation to be brief—Sources—Subjective factors of
interest in Velleius—Symptoms of Silver Latin—The rhetorical
element—Epigrammatic antitheses—Literary conceits—Merits
of style—Sententious sayings—Defects and merits as
historian—Subjective historical method—Character-pieces—His
picture of Tiberius—The close on an imperial note.

Q. Curtius Rufus—The puzzle of his identity—Probable date
under Claudius—Eight surviving books—The attractive theme of
Alexander the Great—Curtius, Plutarch and Arrian in relation
to sources—Want of critical method and historical grasp—Gift
of narration—The hero’s character—A psychological study in
deterioration—Fortune and Fate—Stoicism in Curtius—Freedom from
superstition—Rhetorical element—Some features of style.

MINOR HISTORIANS

Under Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius history did not greatly flourish: under Nero, we shall find, it flourished still less. There are only two historians of note in the period—Velleius and Curtius. Before considering them, we may pause on a few minor names. Cremutius Cordus illustrates the danger of historical composition in the early Empire, especially if a writer gave offence to a powerful minister like Sejanus. Cremutius was charged with praising Brutus in his annals, and with calling Cassius “last of the Romans.” He starved himself to death, and the senate had his books burned in A.D. 25, though Tacitus says copies were hidden and published.[225] Similarly, the downfall of the republic and the initial phases of the Empire occupied Aufidius Bassus in Tiberius’s reign. He gave attention to Rome’s wars with the Germans, and his work is cited and continued by the elder Pliny.[226] The elder Seneca’s lost historical work has been recorded as containing an account of the end of Tiberius. A later group includes Caligula’s victim Gaetulicus, who governed Germany for ten years, but whose writings on Germans and Britons may, like other works of his, have been in verse;[227] then, in Claudius’s time, Servilius Nonianus who wrote on recent as well as contemporary history, and Bocchus who treated chronology and the marvels of Spain.

VELLEIUS PATERCULUS

The circumstance that C.[228] Velleius Paterculus[229] was quaestor elect in A.D. 6[230] warrants the inference that his birth took place not later than 19 B.C. After A.D. 30, the year of the consulate of M. Vinicius, to whom he dedicated his history and whom he often addresses in its course, we know nothing of Velleius; and, indeed, he seems to have played no prominent part in the reign of Tiberius, for throughout the sixteen years which elapsed after his nomination as a _candidatus Caesaris_ for the praetorship in the year of Augustus’s death[231] we have no information about him. Then comes the fact that he published his book; and as to his biography the rest is silence. For us, therefore, his activity lies within narrow limits of time: its outstanding feature, that which determined his outlook on history, was his career in the public and especially the military service during the first fourteen years of the Christian era.

He came of a family which, as he is at pains to remind his readers, had been strenuous in civic life and in the profession of arms. Dealing with the Italian franchise war, he declares that mistaken modesty (_uerecundia_) shall not deter him from doing justice to the part played by an ancestor (_atauus_), Minatius Magius, who in turn was the grandson of a notable Campanian, Decius Magius. This more distant forbear figures in Livy’s pages at Capua as a stubborn advocate of fidelity to Rome despite the threats of Hannibal.[232] The author’s grandfather, C. Velleius, a _praefectus fabrum_, had been honoured by Pompey and remained so keen an anti-Caesarian that he ran himself through with his sword, when by reason of years he felt unable actively to support Tiberius Nero (the future emperor’s father) after his defeat by Octavian: “I shall not defraud my own grandfather,” says Velleius admiringly with a Johnsonian emphasis, “of a testimony which I should give to a stranger.”[233] He notes elsewhere that his father, like himself, had been _praefectus equitum_.[234] Again, he records the assistance given by Capito, his uncle (_patruus meus_), a man of senatorial rank, to Agrippa in prosecuting C. Cassius after the assassination of Caesar.[235] To his brother, Magius Celer Velleianus, he makes several allusions, chronicling his recognized ability as lieutenant-general under Tiberius Caesar in Dalmatia and his association with the author both in attending Tiberius’s triumph, and later as one among “Caesar’s candidates” for the praetorship.[236]

Concerning his formal education we have scant knowledge; yet, considerable rhetorical training may be argued from his artifices of style; and he must have imbibed an interest in books and authors, to judge from his pronouncements on Homer, Hesiod and Cicero, and from excursuses on literary men of the Gracchan, Ciceronian and Augustan periods.[237] About the beginning of our era he was a young officer (_tribunus militum_) who had gained preliminary insight into military life under Vinicius’s father in Thrace and Macedonia, and was next on service in the East.[238] Such service doubtless provided a stimulus towards writing the now mutilated compendium upon Oriental and Greek affairs near the outset of his history. Elsewhere, too, we meet transient suggestions of Oriental colour and memories—as when he recalls his good fortune in beholding a gorgeous Durbar held on an island in the Euphrates between C. Caesar and the Parthian monarch;[239] or when there flashes on his inward eye the pleasant recollection of “so many events, places, nations and cities” of the East;[240] or when he recounts Antony’s luxurious chariot-ride through the streets of Alexandria as the new Father Bacchus, “ivy-wreathed, clad in a golden robe, thyrsus in hand, and buskins on his legs;”[241] or again when, _con amore_, he devotes picturesque touches to his description of the extravagant mummery of Antony’s quondam friend, Plancus, who acted Glaucus “naked and painted sea-green, wearing a chaplet of reeds on his head, dragging a tail after him and crawling upon his knees.”[242]

But no experience left upon his history so distinctive an imprint as his military service under Tiberius. This meant contact virtually for eight years on end with a powerful and able personality.[243] For his commander’s greatness he conceived and expressed unbounded enthusiasm in an almost eighteenth-century sense of the term. It is an enthusiasm which amounts to a bias for Tiberius in particular and for the Caesars in general. The question of the character of Tiberius may be with greater appropriateness raised in considering Tacitus; but at least more light and shade might have been expected from Velleius, if, as an actual observer (_spectator_), he aimed at producing an impartial and realistic picture of the man. What one can say without prejudice is that he had abundant opportunity for estimating the merits of Tiberius as a general, and that both the author and the subject of his eulogies were men of proved military experience. The future historian went out as a cavalry officer with Tiberius to Germany in A.D. 4; two years later, when quaestor-elect, he took charge of reinforcements despatched from Rome to Tiberius, who was then coping with the danger threatening Italy from Dalmatia and Pannonia; and after the quaestorship at Rome he acted as _legatus_ under him.[244] “What battalions of the enemy did we not behold in that first year!” exclaims Velleius proudly.[245] The ultimate surrender of Pannonia confined war-like operations to Dalmatia, where Velleius and his brother were assisting Tiberius.[246] Scarcely was Dalmatia pacified in A.D. 9 when the appalling disaster to the Roman arms under Varus in Germany summoned Tiberius thither to the rescue of imperial fortunes, or, to follow Velleius’s artificial expression, as the _patronus_ who took up the case of his client, the state: “the never-failing champion of the Roman Empire undertakes the cause so familiar to him.”[247] With Velleius’s attendance at Tiberius’s triumph in the winter of A.D. 12-13 the record of his career as a soldier fittingly closes.

It is natural that, like Livy on a larger scale, Velleius should treat with greater fulness events nearest to his own day; but his treatment of early history would look less disproportionate, if his compendium had come down in more perfect form. As it stands, Book I has lost its opening; and only eight chapters have survived to represent the affairs of the East and Greek and Tyrian enterprise before the foundation of Rome. An allusion to the rape of the Sabine maidens is interrupted by a gap of well-nigh six hundred years in the narrative, which is resumed in the second century B.C., at the period of the second Macedonian war. Then ten extant chapters of Book I include the fall of Carthage and Corinth, an account of Roman colonies, reflections on the multiplicity of geniuses at certain epochs and remarks on Roman literature and oratory. Book II, in 131 chapters, ranges over more than a century and a half from Tiberius Gracchus to Tiberius Caesar. The last definite historical allusion is to the emperor’s bereavement by the death of the dowager-empress Livia, which happened in A.D. 29.[248] The tone of encomium adopted towards Sejanus would prove, even if we did not know the date of Vinicius’s consulate, that the work ended before his fall in A.D. 31.[249]

In reviewing the literary and historical qualities of Velleius, one must keep before one the intentionally compendious nature of his work. Readers are indeed not likely to forget it; for he repeatedly pauses to explain that he is in haste, harping on the point till it sounds like a refrain among his themes. This brevity was a kind of literary fashion, comparable with that to which Phaedrus lays claim at the same period. Velleius seems desirous of illustrating the merits of his compendious system when applied to a serviceable digression upon Roman colonies (_non inutili rerum notitia in artum contracta_).[250] At another time, he feels impelled to digress on the recurrence of periods distinguished for special talent, although he is sensible that the “headlong rapidity” of his composition, “like the revolution of a wheel, or the downrush of a torrent, admits of no halt, and involves rather the exclusion of necessary details than the acceptance of the superfluous.”[251] Similarly he realizes the necessity laid upon him by his limits to deal succinctly with even such a subject as the greatness of Pompey (_operis modus paucis eam narrari iubet_);[252] while the greatness of Caesar forces him to stop despite his urgency (_quamlibet festinantem in se morari cogit_.)[253] Again, he offers a condensed account of the outbreak of the Civil War in contradistinction to the copious volumes of others;[254] almost apologetically he regrets that his promise to be brief involves racing over details in Caesar’s campaigns against the Pompeians;[255] with equal regret he exclaims that the boons conferred upon the world by the victory at Actium could not have justice done them in so rapid a survey as his abridgement;[256] and elsewhere he asserts the impossibility of describing adequately the magnificence of Octavian’s triumphant return to Rome “even in the compass of a regular history, let alone a work so abbreviated as this.”[257] But it is in connexion with Tiberius that he becomes still more insistent upon his obligation to be concise; thus, he promises to discuss in a different work Pannonia, Dalmatia and other countries subdued by Tiberius;[258] he reserves, presumably for the same intended work, the circumstances attending that prince’s withdrawal from Rome into temporary seclusion at Rhodes;[259] he looks forward to conveying an impression of the popular joy over his adoption “in that regular history” (_in illo iusto opere_); so too with further Dalmatian and Pannonian victories and the Varian disaster which called Tiberius to Germany.[260] The alarming effect of Augustus’s death he avers to be beyond description: “I have no leisure in so precipitate a narrative to portray it, and he who has leisure is unable to do it.”[261] All this may savour of protesting too much on the part of one who would be brief; yet it has its importance as a proof that he had a conception of, and perhaps yearnings after, a different method of writing history; while, to some extent, his confessedly compendious aim disarms criticism or, at least, palliates certain blemishes and omissions. It is beside the point to reproach him with sketchiness when his plain object is to be sketchy; nor is it surprising that in his hurry he should be at times careless in composition, awkward in structure, conversational in tone, and given to tasteless repetition in word and phrase.[262]

In a work which makes no pretence to be exhaustive we cannot expect an enumeration of authorities. Some sources he does, in fact, mention; others we are left to infer. Discussing the foundation of Capua and Nola (in a manner half suggesting that he belonged to the former town),[263] he cites vaguely “some authors,” and then descends in particular upon Cato, whose _Origines_ he is certain to have found useful, and from whom he dissents “with all due deference to his carefulness.”[264] He alludes to the _Annales_ of Hortensius as authoritative upon the Italian war of Sulla’s time; to an inscription, in proof of a religious ceremony performed by Sulla; to ampler details “in the larger volumes of others” who had treated the outbreak of the Civil War; and to the autobiographic memoirs of Augustus.[265] The effect of the annalists’s method is observable in his inclusion of a survey of Greek colonization; and we may readily suppose, since the works of Atticus, Cornelius Nepos and Pompeius Trogus[266] were available, that he made use of them. Livy, who was republican enough to be dubbed “Pompeian” by Augustus, would not possess the pro-Caesarian enthusiasm likely to commend him to Velleius.

The curtness of the specially compendious parts does not conduce to interest, and for this reason one welcomes occasions when summary gives place to slightly more spacious digressions such as those on colonies, on early Roman literature and the natural law regulating the emergence of genius, on literature and oratory at the Gracchan period, on great authors of the Augustan age, on Roman provinces, and on the boons of the Augustan _régime_.[267] But it is only fair to say that the general effect compares favourably with that of most compendium-writers in Latin. For instance, his compendium is of much greater force and individuality than that of Florus. Velleius can at least be spirited and interesting (even if over-enthusiastic), when he relates his personal impressions of Tiberius. This may be due to an excess of that subjectivity which is a characteristic of the Silver Age; but it has the merit of winning attention. He leaves us under no misapprehension as to his likes or dislikes. He is no democrat: he hates the ‘pernicious’ agitations of the Gracchi; he detests Marius and Cinna and the tribune of the people, Manilius (_semper uenalis et alienae minister potentiae_);[268] on the other hand, he is full of admiration for Marcus Cato, while his affection for the Caesars emerges at every opportunity, continuously from the chapter recording Octavius’s birth, on through the appreciative comparison of Julius Caesar’s achievements in Gaul with the subsequent exploits of Tiberius, until he reaches those passages where he sounds the praises of the _princeps_ or of his minister Sejanus.[269] Now, while these antipathies and sympathies imply partiality, they by no means make the historian less entertaining. It is one thing to be trustworthy, and another to be readable. Besides, as we shall find, the very style, faults notwithstanding, has a good deal of colour and variety: it is no dead monotony in its choice of words and ideas.

Already in his prose there are evidences of the change which had set in towards Silver Latinity. Traces of such tendencies may be remarked in Livy,[270] but in Velleius they are more prominent; for the old massive and, on the whole, straightforward periods are largely replaced by briefer sentences where pointed phrase and emphatic contrast argue a style at once disdainful of absolute simplicity and ambitious of attracting notice to the manner of expression. Where he attempts the long sentence, the inferiority of his literary architecture becomes patent: it is often an ill-built fabric of clumsy patchwork. Thus, the character of Julius Caesar is portrayed in a rambling sentence where the first word “hic” is separated from the closing verb “elapsus est,” to which it is nominative, by nearly 130 words forming an overcrowded series of subordinate clauses and phrases.[271]

The evolution of Latin prose during the first century A.D. is so closely wrapped up with the educational training undergone by writers, that one instinctively looks for traces left by the rhetorical school upon Velleius. They are not far to seek among his plentiful exclamations and interrogations: _e.g._ the apostrophe denouncing Antony for Cicero’s murder:

“You gained nothing, however, Mark Antony (for indignation bursting from heart and spirit compels me to depart from the regular form of my history), you gained nothing, I tell you, when you paid the hire for cutting off a divine gift of utterance and a most noble head, or when you procured for a ghastly wage the assassination of a man once the preserver of the commonwealth, once a consul so illustrious! You robbed Cicero on that day of a life of trouble, of an age in the yellow leaf, of an existence more pitiable under your domination than death could be under your triumvirate; but his reputation, the renown of his actions and words, these, instead of taking away, you enhanced. He lives and will live in the memory of all the ages; and as long as, whether framed by chance or providence or by what means soever, there shall endure unharmed this fabric of the universe, which he almost alone of Romans could see in the mind’s eye, could grasp with his genius, and could illustrate by his eloquence, so long shall it carry the praise of Cicero as the companion of its own continuance. All posterity will admire his writings against you, and will curse your conduct towards him!”[272]

The poetic element in his diction is an allied feature; and another kindred symptom is an inordinate fondness for superlatives.[273]

But it is his habitual quest after the striking and epigrammatic that classes Velleius’s Latin as definitely Silver.[274] His antitheses—and some are excellent—would impress one more, if they were fewer; their frequency palls, and amid such an embarrassment of material, one need but select the examples first to hand. “Scipio, by the destruction of Carthage and Numantia, freed us from the dread of the one, and the insults of the other” (_excisa Carthagine ac Numantia ab alterius nos metu, alterius uindicauit contumeliis_).[275] A little more elaborate is the studied contrast of nouns, adjectives and tenses observable in the following:

_ne quid usquam malis publicis deesset, in qua ciuitate semper
uirtutibus certatum erat, certabatur sceleribus, optimusque
sibi uidebatur qui fuerat pessimus_.[276]

Another chapter contains a balanced summary of the rivals’ position at the outbreak of the Civil War:

_alterius ducis causa melior uidebatur, alterius erat
firmior; hic omnia speciosa, illic ualentia: Pompeium senatus
auctoritas, Caesarem militum armauit fiducia_,[277]

in reading which one cannot help thinking of Lucan’s famous antithesis concerning the same struggle, _Victrix causa deis placuit sed uicta Catoni_, and the fuller comparison between the protagonists which follows that line.[278] So one might quote the distinction drawn between Brutus and Cassius, or the portions of the chapter on Actium where he piles antithesis upon antithesis.[279]

Sometimes his artificiality lies in straining after an affectedly remote way of conveying a mental picture; and such literary conceits may or may not be combined with the trick of antithesis. He introduces a fanciful idea of the solace which the outcast Marius might derive from the ruins of Carthage, each contemplating, each comforting the other (_cum Marius aspiciens Carthaginem, illa intuens Marium, alter alteri possent esse solacio_).[280] When Catulus asphyxiated himself, he found a death rather after the wish than the design of his enemies (_mortem magis uoto quam arbitrio inimicorum obiit_).[281] Similar anxiety to compass a smart saying animates the conceit implying that Catiline’s end had cheated the executioner: “gallantly fighting, he yielded up the breath of life already due to capital punishment” (_fortissime dimicans quem debuerat supplicio spiritum reddidit_).[282] So of Sextus Pompey, the son of the pirate-crusher turned pirate, as Velleius must remind us: so, of the heroic lady, who “bringing about a premature death by swallowing live coals was compensated for death by deathless fame” (_uiuo igni deuorato praematura morte inmortalem nominis sui pensauit memoriam_).[283]

His prose style demands attention, both as a type of its period and as the subject of strictures which have sometimes been too unqualified. Although nowise comparable to the _lactea ubertas_ of Livy, yet a careful examination will show that it cannot fairly be dismissed as absolutely meagre. There are qualities which recall Sallust: and that must be imputed to Velleius for literary virtue. His very artifices save him from baldness, while, as a military author, he displays, with all his faults and affectations, more sense of style than, for instance, the continuators of Caesar.[284]

His semi-proverbial sayings, which read like so many condensations of a reflective wisdom, rather heighten than otherwise one’s opinion of him as an author. Such pronouncements as the following imply, not absolute invention, but a faculty of insight and expression: “rivalry nurtures talent” (_aluntur aemulatione ingenia_); “continuance at the height of perfection is hard” (_difficilis in perfecto mora est_); “what one cannot overtake one ceases to follow” (_quod assequi non potest sequi desinit_); “precedents do not stop where they start” (_non ibi consistunt exempla unde coeperunt_); “men are indulgent critics of themselves” (_familiare est hominibus omnia sibi ignoscere_); “any port in a storm” (_exitialem tempestatem fugientibus statio pro portu_); “ease is the deadliest foe to discipline” (_res disciplinae inimicissima otium_); “great tasks need great helpers” (_magna negotia magnis adiutoribus egent_).[285] On at least two occasions he propounds the ancient notion that those predestined to calamity are forced upon foolishness by some higher power, be it “God” or “Destiny’s force that none may wrestle against.”[286]

For his historical method at large profundity cannot be claimed. He does not appreciate great movements in history; he does not exhibit the essential nexus or continuous evolution between periods; and though his eye to their relationship in time is noticeable in the frequent insertion of a date, even this laudable habit is discounted by inconsistencies in chronology. On the other hand, if he shows no keen discernment for the causal link conjoining ages, he can grasp and criticize certain political, social or economic developments which constitute differences between them: thus, he remarks forcibly upon the increase at Rome of civil broils (II. iii.), aestheticism (I. xiii.), luxury (I. xi., xv.),[287] and house-rents (II. x.). And while the vital significance of great movements is not made luminous, he at least realizes the duty of assigning causes, as in his speculation upon the contemporary emergence of great geniuses (I. xvii.). It adds to his merits that he recognizes the play of human passions and in virtue thereof remains no mere chronicler, but becomes a discerner and recorder of motives—as in the case of the outbreak of the Civil War, where he accounts for Pompey’s attitude, or where he states the respective objects of Pompey, Caesar and Crassus in forming their triumvirate.[288] If, then, it may be admitted that Velleius writes history without deep penetration into what Teuffel calls “the internal connexion of things”;[289] yet it is going too far to say that “his interest centres upon individuals only.” For, surely, his actual search for motives must relate the individual to his surroundings; and, as indicated, he is not entirely neglectful of the need for tracing causes. Besides, his serviceable digressions, already glanced at, arise expressly from his sense of the inferior force of isolated details in history as compared with their effect when grouped together.[290]

With these qualifications, however, the truth remains that his history is written mainly from a personal or subjective standpoint; and its cardinal method is the biographic, with some of the merits and most of the defects entailed. It is, then, not highly scientific or philosophic: on the other hand, though Velleius believes in the universal sway of fortune,[291] there is in such a character-loving method little danger of representing historical figures as mere puppets controlled by some indefinable but apparently inexorable “Will of the Age.” With him prominent men are no tools of impersonal forces, but living actors who logically deserve moral blame or commendation when their qualities come to be weighed. So, through his own interest in character, he increases his readers’ interest in his personages and seldom leaves a doubt as to his opinion for or against a man. Strong sympathies, indeed, may be consistent with a claim to be candid and dispassionate.[292] Velleius is, however, too enthusiastic to realize the extravagance of his praises. Bias has blinded the judge. Tiberius was doubtless an able soldier, but Velleius damages the emperor’s character by excessive eulogy. Perilously endowed with an inexhaustible capacity for laudation and an insatiable thirst for superlatives, he resembles a professional writer of testimonials in favour of the Caesars.[293]

The likes and dislikes are not confined to persons. He is almost Puritanic in his suspicion of art and wealth as detrimental to the community;[294] and yet this distrust of aestheticism does not conceal from him the crass ignorance (although he is too grave to see the humour) which Mummius showed in serving his celebrated notice upon the contractors for the removal of pictures and statues from Corinth to Rome, to the effect that any masterpiece lost must be replaced![295] He is scathing in his denunciation of proscription, and sarcastic on the tendency to minimize contemporary greatness and on homage rendered to high place.[296] Still, it is upon his character-drawing that one should focus attention. His briefer character-pieces, containing many neat strokes, include, in the first book, that of Scipio (xii.-xiii.); in the second, Marius (xi.); Mithradates (xviii.); Cinna (xxiv.); Cato, finely called “the very likeness of Virtue” (_homo uirtuti simillimus_, xxxv.); Clodius (xlv.); Curio, “a most ingeniously good-for-nothing person” (_homo ingeniosissime nequam_, xlviii.); Caelius, who resembled Curio and was not _minus ingeniosissime nequam_ (lxviii.); Brutus and Cassius (lxxii.); Lepidus (lxxx.), Shakespeare’s “slight unmeritable man,” called by Velleius “the biggest of fools without a single good quality to deserve the long indulgence of fortune”; Maecenas, whose voluptuous effeminacy during leisure-hours is noted in _otio ac mollitiis paene ultra feminam fluens_, and his sleepless vigilance at an emergency in the no less striking words _ubi res uigiliam exigeret, sane exsomnis_ (lxxxviii.). The sketch of Drusus comes later (xcvii.). Fuller portrayals are given of Pompey (II. xxix.) and Caesar (xli.). Still more elaborate is the character of Tiberius conveyed in different chapters; and to this picture we now turn, remembering that a complete estimate of the real Tiberius involves the attitude of Tacitus. Tiberius is introduced in a comparison with Julius and Augustus;[297] but we get our first historical glimpse of him when, a child of two, he lay in the arms of his mother Livia, then a fugitive from the troops of the man whose consort she was one day to be.[298] Really, however, he enters on Velleius’ stage in his nineteenth year, announced with a fanfare of praise as a quaestor of promise:—

“Tiberius Claudius Nero ... brought up on a system of the loftiest principles, a youth of high birth, good looks and imposing stature, thoroughly equipped with an excellent education and superior talents, who from the outset had awakened expectations equal to his present greatness, and even to the eye had proclaimed himself a prince.”[299] For almost forty chapters Tiberius is the dominating figure; but it is mainly his career previous to his accession which Velleius describes; for it is only in five closing chapters that he touches briefly on his reign. This brevity is the more disappointing in view of the account which Tacitus gives in the _Annals_; and those at least who accept it must charge Velleius with _suppressio ueri_. About twenty chapters are occupied with Tiberius as a soldier.[300] They contain material illustrative of his greatness, such as the indescribable enthusiasm for him as a general:—

The very sight of him drew tears of joy from the soldiers. They
were all eagerness, with a sort of unexampled rapture in their
salutation and a passion for touching his hand: they could
not restrain themselves from immediately adding ‘Is it really
you, General? Have we got you back in safety?’ and then, ‘_I_
was with you in Armenia, General,’ ‘_I_ was in Raetia,’ ‘_I_
had a reward from you in Vindelicia,’ ‘_I_ in Pannonia,’ ‘_I_
in Germany’—a scene not to be expressed in words, and perhaps
scarcely capable of winning belief.[301]

This forms an effective prelude to his military successes in Germany. Another impressive incident is that of the tall and aged German chieftain who in a native “dug-out” paddled half across the river between the enemy and the Roman camp to request the privilege of looking upon Tiberius.[302] Tiberius’s solicitude for the health of subordinates (his provision of an ambulance for sick officers is one illustration), and his self-discipline on active service, are among the admirable traits emphasized.[303] Apart, however, from handling his prowess, Velleius has ways of elevating his hero. He touches on Tiberius’s dignified leisure at Rhodes, the disturbing effect exercised upon the peace of the world by this retirement, the widespread joy over his adoption by Augustus, and his modest reluctance to accept imperial sovereignty.[304] Then, looking back from A.D. 30 over Tiberius’s years upon the throne, in a passage whose textual variations fortunately do not impair the sense, our author paints in _couleur de rose_ his picture of the reign:

“Of the transactions of these last sixteen years, massed (_ingerantur_, Ellis; _inhaereat_, Kritz) as they are before the eyes and mind of everyone, who shall venture upon a detailed account? Our emperor secured the consecration of his sire not by authority, but by scrupulous reverence (_non imperio sed religione_); he did not simply give Augustus a divine title—he made him a god. Financial stability has been recalled to our public life and political disaffection cleared out of it (_summota_), as bribery has been from the elections, and strife from the senate-house. Justice, equity, industry, long buried and cumbered with mould (_sepultaeque ac situ obsitae_), have been restored to the state. There has been an enhancement of prestige for the authorities (_magistratibus_ instead of _militibus_), of grandeur for the senate, and of dignity for the law-courts. Rioting in the theatre has been put down, and upright conduct has been either the aim inspired in all or a necessity imposed upon them: integrity is honoured and irregularities are punished. The humble man respects the powerful without fearing him, while the powerful takes precedence of a humbler man without despising him. When were provisions more moderate in price? When was peace richer in blessings? Spread over the regions of east and west and everywhere within the bounds of south or north, the Augustan Peace to the uttermost corner of the earth preserves men immune from the dread of brigandage. Accidental losses sustained not only by individuals but by cities are made good through the generosity of our prince. Cities in Asia have been repaired; provinces have been secured against the wrong-doing of governors. Office is the ready reward of merit; crime is certain to meet with punishment, even if it comes late. Influence is surpassed by a fair claim, and intrigue by desert; for our best of princes by his own practice teaches his countrymen to act aright, and while he is greatest in power, he is even greater as an example.”[305]

Later we read his panegyric upon Tiberius composed in exclamatory fashion:

“With what precepts did he equip his dear Germanicus and imbue him with the principles of campaigning in his own company long before he welcomed him back as the conqueror of Germany! What were the honours which he heaped upon his young manhood, when the style of his triumph corresponded to the greatness of his exploits! How often has he honoured the people with donations, and how willingly, when he could do it with the approval of the senate, has he made good a deficiency in a senator’s income without either offering inducements to extravagance or allowing honourable poverty to be deprived of dignity!... What a formidable war, stirred up by the Gallic chieftain Sacrovir and Julius Florus, did he suppress with a rapidity and a gallantry so marvellous that the Roman people found itself a conqueror before it was conscious of being at war, and the messenger of victory outstripped the news of danger! The highly alarming conflict in Africa, too, despite its daily increase in seriousness, was, under his auspices and direction, speedily laid to rest. What public works has he erected of his own (_sua_ rather than _suo_), or in the name of his family! With what dutiful generosity, surpassing human belief, is he rearing a temple to his sire!... Anything that has at any time enjoyed eminent renown, he considers to have the claim of kindred upon his protection. With what liberality on other occasions, but, especially at the recent conflagration on the Caelian Mount, has he out of his own patrimony come to the rescue of the losses of people in every rank! How little are the public disturbed when, without the consternation involved in a levy, he organizes the raising of troops, a matter of prolonged and peculiar alarm!”[306]

Having thus belauded his talent for training youth in military science, his benefactions, energy, businesslike grasp, filial piety, and gift for organization, Velleius proceeds humbly to protest his wonderment that the gods should permit plots to be formed against so good a ruler, and to bemoan the sorrowful bereavements and shameful domestic trials which have befallen the emperor.

So the historian praises not wisely but too well. There is no whisper about unfair treatment of Germanicus to besmirch the spotlessness of the emperor: nor is there a suggestion of fault in Sejanus, for the powerful minister had not yet fallen. In the pages of Tacitus we look upon a different portrayal of the emperor and his times. But with Velleius all is right in the Roman world. As an old soldier he is unflinching in loyalty to his _imperator_. He could not belong to the political opposition. From the first warmly affected towards the Caesars, he shows his favourable attitude to the Empire in his sketch of the benefits conferred by the Augustan _régime_.[307] Consistently with this feeling of approval a sense of the continuity of Rome animates and dignifies his closing prayer. This is an appeal for national preservation and defence addressed to Jupiter of the Capitol, to Mars as author of the Roman name and mainstay of its power, to Vesta as warden of the ever-burning fires, and finally to all those majestic divinities who had conferred imperial destiny upon Rome:

_Voto finiendum uolumen est. Iuppiter Capitoline, et auctor
ac stator Romani nominis, Gradiue Mars, perpetuorumque custos
Vesta ignium, et quidquid numinum hanc Romani imperi molem
in amplissimum terrarum orbis fastigium extulit, uos publica
uoce obtestor atque precor: custodite, seruate, protegite hunc
statum, hanc pacem, hunc principem._[308]

Q. CURTIUS

A story is told about Alfonso V of Aragon and I of Sicily and Sardinia that once, when ill, he had Quintus Curtius’s narrative of the exploits of Alexander the Great read to him, and that the result proved to be more than relaxation; for the King was cured. This anecdote of a ruler in the fifteenth century notable for kindness to scholars who fled from Constantinople to escape the Turks is one which indicates the right approach to Curtius. He is to be read rather for entertainment than for exact instruction; yet, after all, this is to certify his possession of a considerable literary gift. The manuscripts give his name as Q. Curtius Rufus;[309] but details of his life are not forthcoming and his date is a matter of inference. There seems no way of settling his relationship to or identity with the Curtius Rufus[310] in Tacitus who was son of a gladiator, gained a triumph for overworking his soldiers at silver mines in Germany, beheld an ominous midday vision recorded[311] by both Tacitus and Pliny, and eventually became proconsul of Africa. It has been argued that, if he had been a writer, Tacitus would have mentioned the fact; that a proconsul might have been expected to be more proficient in military history than our Curtius is; and that an imperial official characterized by a “sullen sycophancy towards superiors” (_aduersus superiores tristi adulatione_) would not have been so independent in criticisms on Alexander’s arrogance, and on his courtiers’ subservience—“the perpetual curse of princes, whose power has been overthrown oftener by flattery than by foes.”[312] Plausible answers can be framed to each of these arguments; for example, it is unfortunately too innocent (and Sallust will serve as an instance) to assume that a writer’s morality is equal to his moralizing. But, all things considered, no absolute conclusion can be reached. Rather more satisfactory is the contention that he wrote under Claudius; for the two contemporary references[313] traceable in his work best suit that period. One arises out of the siege of Tyre, “now that prolonged peace restores all things, Tyre, reborn after her destruction, finds repose beneath the protecting clemency of Rome”; and the other contrasts the dissolution of Alexander’s dominions after his death with the happier condition of the Roman Empire:

“Rightly does the Roman people acknowledge a debt of safety to a prince that shone forth like a new star of the night which wellnigh proved our last: most truly it was his rising, not the sun’s, that restored light to a world in gloom (_caliganti_) when, deprived of their head, its members were in conflict and panic.” The most satisfactory explanation of the second passage is that it refers to the night in January, A.D. 41, when Caligula was murdered and Claudius found himself suddenly elevated to the throne; and the suggestion has been made that _caliganti_ is a play on the dead emperor’s name. The “prolonged peace” of the earlier passage applies appropriately to the period up to 41: and if the historian is the Curtius Rufus given between Porcius Latro and Valerius Primanus in Suetonius’s list in _De Rhetoribus_, then the order of names would suggest a similar date.[314]

Of the ten books which Curtius composed on Alexander’s exploits, the first two are lost. Other gaps occur at the end of Book V and beginning of VI, and there is a break in the last book. Freinsheim in the seventeenth century wrote Latin supplements for the missing parts, drawing his material from many authors including Plutarch and Arrian. The eight surviving books narrate Alexander’s career from 333 B.C., when he was twenty-three and had reached Phrygia in his Asiatic expedition, up to his death at Babylon in 323 with the resultant confusion and rivalries. Falling short of first-rate history, the work is yet a wonderful and often enthralling pageant of adventure, diplomacy, barbarity, kindliness, privation, battle and sieges with “scapes i’the imminent deadly breach.” We need not read far in the existing Latin text before Alexander characteristically cuts the Gordian knot; and the will-power thereby displayed is soon triumphantly seizing the passes of Cilicia, winning the battle of Issus, and capturing the Persian queen and queen-mother (Book III.). Tyre falls after protracted siege-operations calling forth many inventions. In Egypt Alexander visits the oracle of Jupiter Hammon, is declared the god’s son, founds Alexandria, and on his return into Asia defeats King Darius at Arbela (IV.). The great cities of Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, fall into the victor’s hands, and Darius, to Alexander’s indignation, is murdered by two of his own commanders (V.). Oriental luxury increases its hold on the conqueror; and he has to face danger from conspirators (VI.). An emissary is despatched to kill Parmenio, his general in Media, whose son had been, on insufficient evidence, put to death for treason. Then Alexander carries his conquests into the heart of Asia (VII.). His murder of Clitus is the outcome of quarrelling over the wine-cups, and his domineering arrogance is depicted as on the increase. Besides, his espousal of an Oriental bride, Roxane, causes widespread disapproval. The next episode is the invasion of India, and a description of the country is attempted as a preliminary. The Indus is crossed and King Porus defeated (VIII.). After continued operations in the Punjaub, the army protests against proceeding further and Alexander reluctantly sanctions withdrawal. Nearchus is told off to investigate the Indian Ocean (IX.). Mutinous outbreaks hamper Alexander’s schemes of universal conquest and at Babylon he dies. After much scheming and counter-scheming Perdiccas divides the lands overrun by Alexander as provinces to be ruled by different generals, and Ptolemy transfers the embalmed body of the monarch to Alexandria (X.).

The barest summary of such achievements serves as a reminder, though not as an explanation, of the greatness which the ages have conceded to Alexander. This unique personality remains an enigma: how much was due to personal ambition or actually to blood-lust, how much to thirst for adventure, how much to any definite or indefinite notion of disseminating Greek culture through the absorption of many ancient sovereignties into one far-extended empire, historians have found it hard conclusively to decide. But though the motives are beyond exact measurement, and though they palpably changed amidst the growing brilliance of repeated triumphs, the general results are unmistakable. Alexander’s was a career destined to alter the course of civilization, and open a new epoch for the world. Naturally, then, history has always felt the attraction of his name. Professional writers accompanied his expedition and, like modern war-correspondents, employed their eyes and ears to advantage; official records were kept of Macedonian affairs, of campaigns by land, of coasting voyages, and survived long enough to be documents for later research; so that, between authors with war experience and authors of the study, a gigantic literature was composed on the conqueror in the Alexandrian epoch. The theme in turn fascinated Rome. Livy, jealous of the Macedonian’s fame, makes a patriotic digression[315] to argue that he would not have had the success against Rome that he had against Persia and India: and Livy’s contemporary, Pompeius Trogus, concerned himself with Macedon, as is plain from the epitome by Justinus. Some realization of the adventurous element in his career prompted the academic exercise recorded by the elder Seneca “Alexander deliberates whether he should cross the ocean.”[316] Finally, the extent to which the glamour of his life fascinated the Middle Ages is shown in Chaucer’s words:

The storie of Alisaundre is so comune
That everie wight that hath discrecioun
Hath herd somewhat or al of his fortune.

Curtius, therefore, entered upon a great inheritance. Yet he cannot be said to have made full use of his available sources. Only in two passages[317] does he name authorities: in both Clitarchus is mentioned, and in one of them Timagenes as well. It is possible indeed that he drew from Clitarchus (_c._ 300 B.C.) mainly through Timagenes (_c._ 55 B.C.). But, supposing he drew directly, Clitarchus was not a first-rate source; for it is an erroneous inference from Diodorus[318] and Strabo that he actually served under Alexander. Further, he was turgid rather than veracious, and Cicero[319] thinks poorly of him, counting it against Sisenna that he was content with imitating Clitarchus, an inferior model at the best. In many respects, Curtius seems to have less historical method than the two authors who not long after treated the same subject in Greek, namely, Plutarch and Arrian. Plutarch (born _c._ A.D. 40) at the outset of his _Life of Alexander_ records his consciousness of the mass of material available, but is careful to add that he is writing “not histories but biographies.” All the same, he shows more critical acumen than Curtius, and does not necessarily accept, on a disputed point, the opinion of the majority. Arrian (_c._ A.D. 90-170), the latest classical historian of Alexander, possessed qualities which made him on the whole the best. His training in Stoic philosophy under Epictetus, his experiences as a soldier, his ability to write on _Tactics_, and the good sense with which he amply fulfils the promise of his proem to rely upon the evidence of Aristobulus and Ptolemy, both of whom served with Alexander—all contribute to the success of his story.[320]

Most of Curtius’s defects lie on the surface. His geography is not infrequently at fault, his accounts of military operations are less than satisfying, his understanding of politics is far from profound, and his speeches are not individualized, but sound the same rhetorical note irrespective of variations in nationality and character. Virtually he renounces all claim to be critical when, relating the tenacity wherewith an Indian dog even with amputated limbs holds on to a lion, he declares,[321] “Certainly I transcribe more than I believe; for I cannot bring myself to affirm what I doubt, nor to suppress what I have received.” In connection with the plain speaking of Scythian envoys[322] who reproached Alexander for rapacity, Curtius professes to give it accurately (_incorrupta_), adding “though their speech be despised, our integrity ought not to be.” Laudable enough so far; but faithful reproduction of selected material (if indeed it was selected with discrimination) would for him preclude actual invention, and yet freely permit literary embellishment. Such negation of any high standard of critical inquiry is in keeping with his weakness of historical grasp. He takes no synoptic view of the meaning and results of Alexander’s career: thus, although he does contrast the posthumous dissolution of his power with the unity of the Roman Empire,[323] he never attempts to estimate the debt of civilization to the wars of Alexander.

Notwithstanding such limitations, he displayed literary virtue. Above all, he can tell a story well. He had an inkling of the romance inherent in so intrepid an invasion of the gorgeous but perilous East, and his incidents are telling, sometimes positively exciting. Rhetorical erudition prompts him to over-indulge in descriptions: so that he enters with zest into details of difficulties overcome—a river reckoned impassable, a jungle wellnigh impenetrable, a rocky hill-fort to all appearance unscalable, the hazards of snowdrift and frostbite, or of sun-scorched wastes. He shows, however, to most advantage where he can best import dramatic movement; _e.g._ in V. xii., the treacherous conspiracy against Darius carried out at night when the monarch is deserted by his guards and a portentous silence broods over his tent; VI. vii.-xi., the plot against Alexander, involving its thrill of intrigue and discovery, with the pleading for life before the army, the hideous tortures to extort confession, and a final spice of mystery concerning the guilt or innocence of Philotas; VII. ii., the camel-ride of Polydamas disguised as an Arab across the desert, and his fulfilment of Alexander’s crafty scheme of murdering Parmenio without trial as he reads a forged letter purporting to be from his son Philotas; VII. xi., the scaling of the rock-fastness in Sogdiana; VIII. i., the fatal quarrel at the banquet when Clitus, annoyed at Alexander’s boastfulness, quotes Euripides on Greek kings who monopolize the glory of others and then with drunken licence goes on openly to denounce Alexander’s murder of Parmenio and to mock at Alexander’s claim to be a son of Zeus; VIII. vi., the scheme of the pages of the bedchamber to assassinate the king after a carousal, the long wait for the expected chance, and the melodramatic interruption of their plan by a woman reputed to be a crazed prophetess; and, in IX. ix., the struggle against an unforeseen tide from the ocean.

Another element of interest is furnished by Curtius’s conception of his hero’s character. From one standpoint the work is a psychological study in progressive deterioration caused by prosperity. Here is a favourable sketch of Alexander which comes in the first of the surviving books:[324]

“It is not easy to describe, apart from their inborn reverence for their monarchs, how far the people surrendered themselves to an admiration for this monarch in particular, or, you might equally say, burned with affection for him. To begin with, it looked as if he could essay nothing without heaven lending assistance: as luck was everywhere at his side, his very rashness had turned to his glory. Then, even his years were scarcely ripe for achievements of such moment, and yet they were more than enough, for they threw a halo round all his exploits; and things that are commonly thought insignificant not infrequently find their way to the common soldiers’ heart. He took his physical exercise among them; his dress and style were little different from the ordinary man’s; while he possessed true military energy. Such were the natural endowments or mental skill that had secured for him an equal share of affection and respect.”

Henceforward the author’s task is to display the effect of constantly triumphant warfare on such a character: and his method throughout is to record noble and chivalrous qualities in Alexander, but at the same time to produce the impression that gradually, under the influence of success, luxury and drink, the king yielded oftener to arrogant, arbitrary and cruel impulses, so that Jekyll-like he found it increasingly difficult to return from his inferior to his better nature. Hence a sort of alternation between good and bad strikes the reader as the tale is unfolded. The demoralization of the army at Babylon (V. i. 36-39) is a significant presage; still the conqueror feels qualms (V. ii. 13-15) about setting his feet on a table at which Darius used to dine, and he shows tactful respect for the feelings of the captive mother and queen of Darius (V. ii. 18-22) when he apologizes for his unfortunate, and to Persians impossible, suggestion that the royal ladies should work at woollen clothes like those from Macedonia. Similarly the moderation which marked one part of his career (V. iii. 15, _moderationem clementiamque regis quae tunc fuit_) becomes evident in his mercy to enemies at the intercession of Darius’s mother. Then falls a dark shadow: his fine traits of endurance, activity, honour and clemency are sullied by his insuperable passion for wine, and the drunken advice of the harlot Thaïs leads to the wanton burning of Persepolis, for the royal guests “rise from table intoxicated to fire a city which they had spared when they had arms in their hands” (V. vii. 5, _surgunt temulenti ad incendendam urbem cui armati pepercerant_). In the next book, Curtius pronounces Alexander a victim of luxury; “the man whom Persian arms had not broken was defeated by vice” (VI. ii. 1, _quem arma Persarum non fregerant, uitia uicerunt_); nevertheless he is still considerate towards captives (_ibid._), and, out of courtesy to Artabazus, an old Persian in his ninety-fifth year, orders a horse for both, forgoing his well-known preference for marching on foot (VI. v. 5). It is noted that his outward appearance disappointed the Amazonian queen (VI. v. 29), as it afterwards did the Scythian envoys (VII. viii. 9), being in both cases “not at all proportionate to his reputation.” Meanwhile, Oriental tastes and habits (VI. vi.) were driving him in the direction of ostentatious pomp. Luxury, however, did not prevent the king from sharing the privations of his men. The same chapter (VII. v.) which relates his merciless barbarity at Branchidae relates also his self-abnegation, despite the pangs of thirst, in declining water meant for some young men in the army. Yet this temperate warrior became an insufferable boaster in his cups, lauding his own exploits and belittling his royal sire Philip (VIII. i. 22). True, he undergoes agonies of remorse after his hasty murder of Clitus (VIII. ii.); but now that Clitus’s unbridled tongue has led to his doom, frankness in presence of the king becomes impossible (VIII. iv., _sub fin._, _post Cliti caedem libertate sublata_). Alexander succumbs to the charms of Roxane, because “amid fortune’s subservience to him, he could less control his desires now” (VIII. iv. 24, _minus iam cupiditatibus suis imperantis inter obsequia fortunae_). Scheming to be proclaimed a god, he resents Macedonian objections (VIII. v.). “His greed for glory and insatiate lust for fame grew intolerant of all obstacles” (IX. ii. 9, _auaritia gloriae et insatiabilis cupido famae nihil inuium nihil remotum uideri sinebat_). The chronicle reveals a grotesque chaos of pleasure and pain: immediately after the riotous Bacchanalian march of Alexander’s army in the East, Curtius remarks “This pomp had the executioner at its heels, for the satrap Aspastes already mentioned was ordered to be put to death: so cruelty is no bar to luxury, nor luxury to cruelty” (IX. x. _sub fin._). A similar strain is heard in the last book: “He began to be impetuous in executing punishments, and likewise in believing ill of people. Prosperity, it is plain, has power to alter one’s nature, it being a rarity for anyone to be sufficiently guarded in respect of good fortune” (X. i. 39-40). In the final summary of his character (X. v. 26-37) we read “it is plain to all fair judges of the king, that his merits were due to nature, and his faults to fortune or his time of life,” and later in his estimate Curtius elaborates this. For on the one hand he attributes to “fortune” failings such as Alexander’s claim to equal the gods or his exaction of divine honours—sins of pride, in fact, generated by his victories; and on the other hand he views his irascibility and intemperance as slips of youth which time would have abated. “It must, however, be allowed that while he owed a very great deal to merit, he owed more to fortune, whom he alone of mortal men held within his power.”

This raises a fundamental question touching the historian’s conception of Alexander’s whole career.[325] The ascription of virtues to “nature” and faults to “fortune” takes us but a little way towards explaining a great man. The antithesis resembles Plutarch’s account of Alexander’s success as due to fortune (τύχη) combined with generalship (_Alex._ xx. 675), and it does not obviously fit into the Stoic view which Curtius elsewhere professes to be his solution for the enigma of life. “Fortune” indeed counts for much with Curtius. It was what we should call sheer luck that the enemy did not attack and crush Alexander’s troops while they revelled on Mount Meros. “It is incontestable that glory is oftener the gift of fortune than of merit” is the comment (VIII. x. 18, _quis neget eximiam quoque gloriam saepius fortunae quam virtutis esse beneficium?_). So, too, of a week’s Bacchanalian progress when the revelling host might have been an easy prey, “Fortune who ordains the credit and value of things here also turned a military scandal into glory” (IX. x. 28, _fortuna quae rebus famam pretiumque constituit ..._). Alexander’s aims against Spitamenes were secured without exertion on his part, because “fortune, never weary of favouring him, managed the matter without his presence” (VIII. iii. 1, _fortuna indulgendo ei numquam fatigata ..._)—a personification like that implied in the “homage paid by fortune” (_obsequia fortunae_, VIII. iv. 24) which, as already shown, rendered him less master of his passions when he met Roxane, the satrap’s daughter. The king’s quick decision to segregate the Macedonian grumblers over Parmenio’s death proved, like everything else, fortunate for him, because they always afterwards fought gallantly to remove the stigma (VII. ii. 37, _consilium temerarium forsitan ... sicut omnia alia felicitas regis excepit_): and in his last adventure oceanwards “the one consolation of his rashness was his unfailing success” (_unum erat temeritatis solacium perpetua felicitas_). Little wonder, then, that Alexander should believe in his _felicitas_ (VII. vii. 28) or his _fortuna_ (_fortunam cui confidat_, VII. ix. 1, _fortunae suae confisus_, VII. xi. 27) like Julius Caesar after him.

In some of these instances Curtius may appear to imply little more than luck. But logically he is no believer in chance. He is a fatalist in his view of human life and is clearly influenced by Stoicism: so that his “fortune” in the last resort would be merged in “fate.” The inevitability of fate is a thought repeated in various contexts: of Alexander’s risk of a wound he says, “but to my mind, fate is unavoidable” (IV. vi. 17, _sed, ut opinor, ineuitabile est fatum_); of Darius’s incapacity to take advice that would rescue him, he says, “he is doomed to his own lot” (V. xii. 8, _destinatus sorti suae_), and of an intrigue to ruin an innocent man, “destiny, whose appointment is inevitable, was at hand” (X. i. 30., _fatum cuius ineuitabilis sors est appetebat_). His theory of history is made explicit apropos of the failure of Patron, the Greek, to save Darius by warning him against the treachery of Bessus:

This incident may afford amusement to those whose conviction
it is that human affairs roll on driven by blind haphazard.
I favour the belief that every series of events follows by
immutable law its course as the result of eternal ordinance and
the nexus of mysterious causes long since preordained.[326]

An aspect of Curtius’s thought commonly overlooked is a certain enlightenment of mind which argues his emancipation from some of the superstitious obsessions of antiquity. He condemns as unacceptable to the gods the ancient Tyrian sacrifice of a freeborn boy (IV. iii. 23): he remarks, on the recourse to a soothsayer about an accident to a crow, that Alexander’s “mind was not without its touch of superstition” (IV. vi. 12, _ut erat non intactae a superstitione mentis_), and on the consultation of the oracle of Hammon that “the prophet had set himself to flatter” (IV. vii. 26, _uates in adulationem compositus_). He dubs the employment of diviners for a military problem as “the outcome of a superstitious mind” (V. iv. 1, _a superstitione animi_). A noticeable example occurs in the introductory description of the judicious Cobares who, after reminding the Persian satrap Bessus incidentally that a dog’s bark may be worse than its bite and that still waters run deep, advocates coming to terms with Alexander: “there was at the feast one Cobares, of Median nationality, more renowned for his profession of the magical art (if it really is an art and not a jest at the expense of the silliest) than for any knowledge thereof” (VII. iv. 8). Plainly Curtius would have one take note that such things mean weakness: it was when ill and confronted with serious menaces that Alexander, “who had, since Darius’s overthrow, given up the consultation of soothsayers and prophets, fell back on that superstition—the delusion of mankind” (VII. vii. 8, _humanarum gentium ludibria_). It must have given Curtius satisfaction to record later how Alexander dismissed the warnings of a fortune-teller as unseasonable hindrances (IX. iv. 27-30).

Speeches and descriptions yield Curtius his readiest outlet for rhetoric. Not offensively overdone, it is most patent in the sententious remarks introduced into narrative and speeches alike. Of gallant fighting in a tight corner he says “necessity, I hold, sharpens even cowardice, and despair is often the cause of hope” (V. iv. 31, _ut opinor, ignauiam quoque necessitas acuit et saepe desperatio spei causa est_). When Alexander tried to win indulgence for his Oriental luxury by generous gifts, the comment is, “but, I hold, to the free the price of slavery is unwelcome” (VI. vi. 11, _sed opinor, liberis pretium seruitutis ingratum est_). The story of a poor scion of a royal race brought from garden-work to a throne calls forth an almost Juvenalian cynicism: “the cause of his poverty was as usual—honesty” (IV. i. 20, _causa ei paupertatis, sicut plerisque, probitas erat_). Two instances may be given from a speech: “Those bear afflictions best who conceal them” (V. v. 11, _optime miserias ferunt qui abscondunt_) and “no man loyally loves one he disdains, for calamity is querulous and prosperity proud” (V. v. 12, _nemo fideliter diligit quem fastidit, nam et calamitas querula est et superba felicitas_). Some of the inserted epistles have a rhetorical ring, as in Alexander’s haughty words to Darius: “I know both how to conquer and how to consider the conquered ... when you write to me, remember that you are writing not only to a king, but to your king” (IV. i. 10-14).

As regards the technique of his prose, Curtius’s sentence-endings show a distinct preference for a cretic followed by spondee or trochee, a rhythm which perhaps no contemporary employs so often. An ending about half as often used—though still comparatively common—is the double cretic; next to that, the cretic followed by a tribrach, and then the double trochee.[327]

His style in general is influenced by Sallust, Virgil and, most of all, by Livy. But there is in him a sameness of expression for similar situations which becomes monotonous, and marks his inferiority in prose to Livy’s brilliant variety. One cannot read far without noticing his pluperfect indicatives, his employment of a future participle in Greek fashion to denote purpose, his loose ablatives absolute, his repetition of the connectives _ceterum_ and _quippe_. Some rhetorical constituents of his style have already been illustrated. Yet it must be conceded that neither mannerisms, nor the poetic strain in him debar him from being generally clear: not seldom he is even vivacious.