And lastly, while, without doubt, enormous
simplicity in the elements under consideration is the result of the employment
of the abstract method, even within the limit
thus obtained a certain selection must be made, and a selection involves
a theory. For the facts of life cannot be tabulated with as great an ease
as the colours of birds and insects can be tabulated. Now Polybius points
out that those phenomena particularly are to be dwelt on which may be served
as a παράδειγμα or sample, and show the character
of the tendencies of the age as clearly as “a single drop from a full cask
will be enough to disclose the nature of the whole contents.” This recognition
of the importance of single facts, not in themselves but because of the spirit
they represent, is extremely scientific; for we know that from the single
bone, or tooth even, the anatomist can recreate entirely the skeleton of the
primeval horse and the botanist tell the characters of the flora and fauna
of a district from a single specimen.
Regarding truth as “the most divine thing
in Nature”, the very “eye and light of history without which it moves a blind
thing,” Polybius spared no pains the acquisition of historical materials or in
the study of the sciences of politics and war, which he considered were so
essential to the training of the scientific historian, and the labour he took
is mirrored in the many ways in which he criticises other authorities.
There is something, as a rule, slightly
contemptible about ancient criticism.
The modern idea of the critic as the interpreter, the expounder of the beauty
and excellence of the work he selects, seems quite unknown. Nothing can be more
captious or unfair, for instance, than the method by which Aristotle criticised
the ideal state of Plato in his ethical works, and the passages quoted by
Polybius from Timaeus show that the latter historian fully deserved the punning
name given to him. But in Polybius there is, I think, little of that bitterness
and pettiness of spirit which characterises most other writers, and an
incidental story he tells of his relations with one of the historians whom he
criticised shows that he was a man of great courtesy and refinement of taste –
as, indeed, befitted one who had lived always in the society of those who were
of great and noble birth.
Now as regards the character of the canons
by which he criticises the works of other authors, in the majority of cases he
employs simply his own geographical and military knowledge, showing, for
instance, the impossibility in the
accounts given of Nabis’s march from Sparta simply by his acquaintance with the
spots in question; or the inconsistency of those of the battle of Leuctra and
Mantinea. In the latter case he says, if any one will take the trouble to
measure out the ground of the site of the battle and then test the manoeuvres
given, he will find how inaccurate the accounts are.
In other cases he appeals to public
documents, the importance of which he was always foremost in recognising;
showing, for instance, by a document in the public archives of Rhodes how
inaccurate were the accounts given of the battle of Lade by Zeno and
Aristhenes. Or he appeals to psychological probability, rejecting for instance,
the scandalous stories told of Philip of Macedon, simply from the king’s
general greatness of character, and arguing that a boy so well educated and so
respectably connected as Demochares (xii. 14) could never have been guilty of
that which evil rumour accused him.
But the chief object of his literary
censure is Timaeus, who had been so
unsparing of his strictures on others. The general point which he makes against
him, impugning his accuracy as a historian, is that he derived his knowledge of
history not from the dangerous perils of a life of action but in the secure
indolence of a narrow scholastic life. There is, indeed, no point on which he
is so vehement as this. “A history,” he says, “written in a library gives as
lifeless and as inaccurate a picture of history as a painting which is copied
not from a living animal but from a stuffed one.”
There is more difference, he says in
another place, between the history of an eye-witness and that of one whose
knowledge comes from books, than there is between the scenes of real life and
the fictitious landscapes of theatrical scenery. Besides this, he enters into somewhat elaborate
detailed criticism of passages where he thought Timaeus was following a wrong
method and perverting truth, passages which it will be worth while to examine
in detail.
Timaeus, from the fact of there being a
Roman custom to shoot a war-horse on a stated day, argued back to the Trojan
origin of that people. Polybius, on the other hand, points out that the
inference is quite unwarranted, because horse-sacrifices are ordinary
institutions common to all barbarous tribes. Timaeus here, as was so common
with Greek writers, is arguing back from some custom of the present to an
historical event in the past. Polybius really is employing the comparative method,
showing how the custom was an ordinary step in the civilisation of every early
people.
In another place he shows how illogical is
the scepticism of Timaeus as regards the existence of the Bull of Phalaris
simply by appealing to the statue of the Bull, which was still to be seen in
Carthage; pointing out how impossible it was, on any other theory except that
it belonged to Phalaris, to account for the presence in Carthage of a bull of
this peculiar character with a door between his shoulders. But one of the great
points which he uses against this Sicilian historian is in reference to the
question of the origin of the Locrian colony. In accordance with the received
tradition on the subject, Aristotle had represented the Locrian colony as
founded by some Parthenidae or slaves’ children, as they were called, a
statement which seems to have raised the indignation of Timaeus, who went to a
good deal of trouble to confute this theory. He does so on the following
grounds:
First of all he points out that in the
ancient days the Greeks had no slaves at all, so the mention of them in the
matter is an anachronism; and next he declares that he was shown in the Greek
city of Locris certain ancient inscriptions in which their relation to the
Italian city was expressed in terms of the position between parent and child,
which showed also that mutual rights of citizenship were accorded to each city.
Besides this, he appeals to various questions of improbability as regards their
international relationship, on which Polybius takes diametrically opposite
grounds which hardly call for discussion. And in favour of his own view he
urges two points more: first, that the Lacedaemonians being allowed furlough
for the purpose of seeing their wives at home, it was unlikely that the
Locrians should not have had the same privilege; and next, that the Italian
Locrians knew nothing of the Aristotelian version, and had, on the contrary,
very severe laws against adulterers, runaway slaves and the like. Now most of
these questions rest on mere probability, which is always such a subjective
canon that an appeal to it is rarely conclusive. I would note, however, as
regards the inscriptions which, if genuine, would of course have settled the
matter, that Polybius looks on them as a mere invention on the part of Timaeus,
who, he remarks, gives no details about them, though, as a rule, he is so
over-anxious to give chapter and verse for everything. A somewhat more
interesting point is that where he attacks Timaeus for the introduction of
fictitious speeches into his narrative; for on this point Polybius seems to be
far in advance of the opinion held by literary men on the subject not merely in
his own day but for centuries after.
Herodotus had introduced speeches avowedly
dramatic and fictitious. Thucydides states
clearly that, where he was unable to find out what people really said,
he put down what they ought to have said. Sallust alludes, it is true, to the
fact of the speech he puts into the mouth of the tribune Memmius being
essentially genuine, but the speeches given in the senate on the occasion of
the Catilinarian conspiracy are very different from the same orations as they
appear in Cicero. Livy makes his ancient Romans wrangle and chop logic with all
the subtlety of a Hortensius or a Scaevola. And even in later days, when
shorthand reporters attended the debates of the senate and a Daily News
was published in Rome, we find that one of the most celebrated speeches in
Tacitus (that in which the Emperor Claudius gives the Gauls their freedom) is
shown, by an inscription discovered recently at Lugdunum, to be entirely
fabulous.
Upon the other hand, it must be borne in
mind that these speeches were not intended to deceive; they were regarded
merely as a certain dramatic element which it was allowable to introduce into
history for the purpose of giving more life and reality to the narration, and
were to be criticised, not as we should, by arguing how in an age before
shorthand was known such a report was possible or how, in the failure of
written documents, tradition could bring down such an accurate verbal account,
but by the higher test of their psychological probability as regards the
persons in whose mouths they were placed. An ancient historian in answer to
modern criticism would say, probably, that these fictitious speeches were in
reality more truthful than the actual ones, just as Aristotle claimed for
poetry a higher degree of truth in comparison to history. The whole point is
interesting as showing how far in advance of his age Polybius may be said to
have been.
TO
BE CONTINUED