[1.0] THESE are the researches of Herodotus
of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of
thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of
preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians
from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to
put on record what were their grounds of feuds.
[1.1] According to the Persians best informed
in history, the Phoenicians began to quarrel. This people, who had formerly
dwelt on the shores of the
[1.2] At a later period, certain Greeks, with
whose name they are unacquainted, but who would probably be Cretans, made a
landing at Tyre, on the Phoenician coast, and bore
off the king’s daughter, Europe. In this they only retaliated; but afterwards
the Greeks, they say, were guilty of a second violence. They manned a ship of
war, and sailed to Aea, a city of
[1.3] In the next generation afterwards,
according to the same authorities, Alexander the son of Priam,
bearing these events in mind, resolved to procure himself a wife out of Greece
by violence, fully persuaded, that as the Greeks had not given satisfaction for
their outrages, so neither would he be forced to make any for his. Accordingly
he made prize of Helen; upon which the Greeks decided that, before resorting to
other measures, they would send envoys to reclaim the princess and require
reparation of the wrong. Their demands were met by a reference to the violence
which had been offered to Medea, and they were asked
with what face they could now require satisfaction, when they had formerly
rejected all demands for either reparation or restitution addressed to them.
[1.4] Hitherto the injuries on either side
had been mere acts of common violence; but in what followed the Persians
consider that the Greeks were greatly to blame, since before any attack had
been made on Europe, they led an army into Asia. Now as for the carrying off of
women, it is the deed, they say, of a rogue: but to make a stir about such as
are carried off, argues a man a fool. Men of sense care nothing for such women,
since it is plain that without their own consent they would never be forced
away. The Asiatics, when the Greeks ran off with
their women, never troubled themselves about the matter; but the Greeks, for
the sake of a single Lacedaemonian girl, collected a
vast armament, invaded Asia, and destroyed the
[1.5] Such is the
account which the Persians give of these matters. They trace to the attack upon
[1.6] Croesus, son of Alyattes,
by birth a Lydian, was lord of all the nations to the west of the river Halys. This stream, which separates
[1.7] The
sovereignty of
[1.8] Now it happened that this Candaules was in love with his own wife; and not only so,
but thought her the fairest woman in the whole world. This fancy had strange
consequences. There was in his bodyguard a man whom he specially favoured, Gyges, the son of Dascylus. All affairs of greatest moment were entrusted by Candaules to this person, and to him he was wont to extol
the surpassing beauty of his wife. So matters went on for a while. At length,
one day, Candaules, who was fated to end ill, thus
addressed his follower: “I see thou dost not credit what I tell thee of my
lady’s loveliness; but come now, since men’s ears are less credulous than their
eyes, contrive some means whereby thou mayst behold
her naked.” At this the other loudly exclaimed, saying, “What most unwise
speech is this, master, which thou hast uttered? Wouldst thou have me behold my
mistress when she is naked? Bethink thee that a woman, with her clothes, puts
off her bashfulness. Our fathers, in time past, distinguished right and wrong
plainly enough, and it is our wisdom to submit to be taught by them. There is
an old saying, ‘Let each look on his own.’ I hold thy
wife for the fairest of all womankind. Only, I beseech
thee, ask me not to do wickedly.”
[1.9] Gyges thus endeavoured to decline the king’s proposal, trembling lest
some dreadful evil should befall him through it. But the king replied to him,
“Courage, friend; suspect me not of the design to prove thee by this discourse;
nor dread thy mistress, lest mischief be. thee at her
hands. Be sure I will so manage that she shall not even know that thou hast
looked upon her. I will place thee behind the open door of the chamber in which
we sleep. When I enter to go to rest she will follow me. There stands a chair
close to the entrance, on which she will lay her clothes one by one as she
takes them off. Thou wilt be able thus at thy leisure to peruse her person.
Then, when she is moving from the chair toward the bed, and her back is turned
on thee, be it thy care that she see thee not as thou passest
through the doorway.”
[1.10] Gyges,
unable to escape, could but declare his readiness. Then Candaules,
when bedtime came, led Gyges into his
sleeping-chamber, and a moment after the queen followed. She entered, and laid
her garments on the chair, and Gyges gazed on her.
After a while she moved toward the bed, and her back being then turned, he
glided stealthily from the apartment. As he was passing out, however, she saw
him, and instantly divining what had happened, she neither screamed as her
shame impelled her, nor even appeared to have noticed aught, purposing to take
vengeance upon the husband who had so affronted her. For among the Lydians,
and indeed among the barbarians generally, it is reckoned a deep disgrace, even
to a man, to be seen naked.
[1.11] No sound or sign of intelligence
escaped her at the time. But in the morning, as soon as day broke, she hastened
to choose from among her retinue such as she knew to be most faithful to her,
and preparing them for what was to ensue, summoned Gyges
into her presence. Now it had often happened before that the queen had desired
to confer with him, and he was accustomed to come to her at her call. He
therefore obeyed the summons, not suspecting that she knew aught of what had occurred.
Then she addressed these words to him: “Take thy choice, Gyges,
of two courses which are open to thee. Slay Candaules,
and thereby become my lord, and obtain the Lydian throne, or die this moment in
his room. So wilt thou not again, obeying all behests of thy master, behold
what is not lawful for thee. It must needs be that either he perish by whose
counsel this thing was done, or thou, who sawest me
naked, and so didst break our usages.” At these words Gyges
stood awhile in mute astonishment; recovering after a time, he earnestly
besought the queen that she would not compel him to so hard a choice. But
finding he implored in vain, and that necessity was indeed laid on him to kill
or to be killed, he made choice of life for himself, and replied by this
inquiry: “If it must be so, and thou compellest me
against my will to put my lord to death, come, let me hear how thou wilt have
me set on him.” “Let him be attacked,” she answered, “on the spot where I was
by him shown naked to you, and let the assault be made when he is asleep.”
[1.12] All was then prepared for the attack,
and when night fell, Gyges, seeing that he had no
retreat or escape, but must absolutely either slay Candaules,
or himself be slain, followed his mistress into the sleeping-room. She placed a
dagger in his hand and hid him carefully behind the self-same door. Then Gyges, when the king was fallen asleep, entered privily into the chamber and struck him dead. Thus did the
wife and kingdom of Candaules pass into the
possession of Gyges, of whom Archilochus
the Parian, who lived about the same time, made
mention in a poem written in iambic trimeter verse.
[1.13] Gyges was
afterwards confirmed in the possession of the throne by an answer of the
Delphic oracle. Enraged at the murder of their king, the people flew to arms,
but after a while the partisans of Gyges came to
terms with them, and it was agreed that if the Delphic oracle declared him king
of the Lydians, he should reign; if otherwise, he
should yield the throne to the Heraclides. As the
oracle was given in his favour he became king. The Pythoness, however, added that, in the fifth generation
from Gyges, vengeance should come for the Heraclides; a prophecy of which neither the Lydians nor their princes took any account till it was fulfilled.
Such was the way in which the Mermnadae deposed the Heraclides, and themselves
obtained the sovereignty.
[1.14] When Gyges
was established on the throne, he sent no small presents to Delphi, as his many
silver offerings at the Delphic shrine testify. Besides this silver he gave a
vast number of vessels of gold, among which the most worthy of mention are the
goblets, six in number, and weighing altogether thirty talents, which stand in
the Corinthian treasury, dedicated by him. I call it the Corinthian treasury,
though in strictness of speech it is the treasury not of the whole Corinthian
people, but of Cypselus, son of Eetion.
Excepting Midas, son of Gordias, king of Phrygia, Gyges was the first of the barbarians whom we know to have
sent offerings to
As soon as Gyges
was king he made an in-road on
[1.15] Ardys took Priene and made war upon
[1.16] This prince waged war with the Medes
under Cyaxares, the grandson of Deioces,
drove the Cimmerians out of Asia, conquered Smyrna, the Colophonian
colony, and invaded Clazomenae. From this last
contest he did not come off as he could have wished, but met with a sore
defeat; still, however, in the course of his reign, he performed other actions
very worthy of note, of which I will now proceed to give an account.
[1.17] Inheriting from his father a war with
the Milesians, he pressed the siege against the city
by attacking it in the following manner. When the harvest was ripe on the
ground he marched his army into Milesia to the sound
of pipes and harps, and flutes masculine and feminine. The buildings that were
scattered over the country he neither pulled down nor burnt, nor did he even
tear away the doors, but left them standing as they were. He cut down, however,
and utterly destroyed all the trees and all the corn throughout the land, and
then returned to his own dominions. It was idle for his army to sit down before
the place, as the Milesians were masters of the sea.
The reason that he did not demolish their buildings was that the inhabitants
might be tempted to use them as homesteads from which to go forth to sow and
till their lands; and so each time that he invaded the country he might find
something to plunder.
[1.18] In this way he carried on the war with
the Milesians for eleven years, in the course of
which he inflicted on them two terrible blows; one in their own country in the
district of Limeneium, the other in the plain of the Maeander. During six of these eleven years, Sadyattes, the son of Ardys who
first lighted the flames of this war, was king of
[1.19] It was in the
twelfth year of the war that the following mischance occurred from the firing
of the harvest-fields. Scarcely had the corn been set alight by the soldiers
when a violent wind carried the flames against the
[1.20] Thus much I know from information
given me by the Delphians; the remainder of the story
the Milesians add.
The answer made by the oracle came to the
ears of Periander, son of Cypselus,
who was a very close friend to Thrasybulus, tyrant of
THUCYDIDES, an Athenian, wrote the history of
the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment
that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war and more worthy
of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its
grounds. The preparations of both the combatants were in every department in
the last state of perfection; and he could see the rest of the Hellenic race
taking sides in the quarrel; those who delayed doing so at once having it in
contemplation. Indeed this was the greatest movement yet known in history, not
only of the Hellenes, but of a large part of the barbarian world—I had almost
said of mankind. For though the events of remote antiquity, and even those that
more immediately preceded the war, could not from lapse of time be clearly
ascertained, yet the evidences which an inquiry carried as far back as was
practicable leads me to trust, all point to the conclusion that there was
nothing on a great scale, either in war or in other matters.
For instance, it is evident that the country
now called
There is also another circumstance that
contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times.
Before the Trojan war there is no indication of any common action in Hellas,
nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary, before the
time of Hellen, son of Deucalion,
no such appellation existed, but the country went by the names of the different
tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not
till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other
cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of
Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon
all. The best proof of this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan
War, he nowhere calls all of them by that name, nor
indeed any of them except the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis,
who were the original Hellenes: in his poems they are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans.
He does not even use the term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not
yet been marked off from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation.
It appears therefore that the several Hellenic communities, comprising not only
those who first acquired the name, city by city, as they came to understand
each other, but also those who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole
people, were before the Trojan war prevented by their want of strength and the
absence of mutual intercourse from displaying any collective action.
Indeed, they could not unite for this
expedition till they had gained increased familiarity with the sea. And the
first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the
Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most
of which he sent the first colonies, expelling the Carians
and appointing his own sons governors; and thus did his best to put down piracy
in those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use.
For in early times the Hellenes and the
barbarians of the coast and islands, as communication by sea became more
common, were tempted to turn pirates, under the conduct of their most powerful
men; the motives being to serve their own cupidity and to support the needy. They
would fall upon a town unprotected by walls, and consisting of a mere
collection of villages, and would plunder it; indeed, this came to be the main
source of their livelihood, no disgrace being yet attached to such an
achievement, but even some glory. An illustration of this is furnished by the honour with which some of the inhabitants of the continent
still regard a successful marauder, and by the question we find the old poets
everywhere representing the people as asking of voyagers—“Are they pirates?”—as
if those who are asked the question would have no idea of disclaiming the
imputation, or their interrogators of reproaching them for it. The same rapine
prevailed also by land.
And even at the present day many of
THE next summer Alcibiades
sailed with twenty ships to Argos and seized the suspected persons still left
of the Lacedaemonian faction to the number of three
hundred, whom the Athenians forthwith lodged in the neighbouring
islands of their empire. The Athenians also made an expedition against the isle
of Melos with thirty ships of their own, six Chian, and two Lesbian vessels, sixteen hundred heavy
infantry, three hundred archers, and twenty mounted archers from
Athenians. Since the negotiations are not to go on before the
people, in order that we may not be able to speak straight on without
interruption, and deceive the ears of the multitude by seductive arguments
which would pass without refutation (for we know that this is the meaning of
our being brought before the few), what if you who sit there were to pursue a
method more cautious still? Make no set speech yourselves, but take us up at
whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any farther. And first
tell us if this proposition of ours suits you.
The Melian
commissioners answered:
Melians. To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as
you propose there is nothing to object; but your military preparations are too
far advanced to agree with what you say, as we see you are come to be judges in
your own cause, and that all we can reasonably expect from this negotiation is
war, if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to submit, and in the
contrary case, slavery.
Athenians. If you have met to reason about presentiments of the
future, or for anything else than to consult for the safety of your state upon
the facts that you see before you, we will give over; otherwise we will go on.
Melians. It is natural and excusable for men in our position
to turn more ways than one both in thought and utterance. However, the question
in this conference is, as you say, the safety of our country; and the
discussion, if you please, can proceed in the way which you propose.
Athenians. For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious
pretences—either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the
Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us—and make
a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead
of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have
done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real
sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world
goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what
they can and the weak suffer what they must.
Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient—we speak as
we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of
interest—that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the
privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even
to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current. And
you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for
the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon.
Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not
frighten us: a rival empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to
the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers.
This, however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to
show you that we are come here in the interest of our empire, and that we shall
say what we are now going to say, for the preservation of your country; as we
would fain exercise that empire over you without trouble, and see you preserved
for the good of us both.
Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to
serve as for you to rule?
Athenians. Because you would have the
advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not
destroying you.
Melians. So that you would not consent to
our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side.
Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your
friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity
of our power.
Melians. Is that your subjects’ idea of equity, to put those
who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most
of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?
Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it
as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they
are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so
that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your
subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it
all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of
the sea.
Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the
policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about
justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try
to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making
enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case from it that one day or
another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies
that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise
have never thought of it?
Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us
but little alarm; the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking
precautions against us; it is rather islanders like yourselves, outside our
empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke, who would be the most likely to
take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious danger.
Melians. Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire,
and your subjects to get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice
in us who are still free not to try everything that can be tried, before
submitting to your yoke.
Athenians. Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an
equal one, with honour as the prize and shame as the
penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not resisting those who are
far stronger than you are.
Melians. But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more
impartial than the disproportion of numbers might lead one to suppose; to
submit is to give ourselves over to despair, while action still preserves for
us a hope that we may stand erect.
Athenians. Hope, danger’s comforter, may be indulged in by those
who have abundant resources, if not without loss at all events without ruin;
but its nature is to be extravagant, and those who go so far as to put their
all upon the venture see it in its true colours only
when they are ruined; but so long as the discovery would enable them to guard
against it, it is never found wanting. Let not this be the case with you, who
are weak and hang on a single turn of the scale; nor be like the vulgar, who,
abandoning such security as human means may still afford, when visible hopes
fail them in extremity, turn to invisible, to prophecies and oracles, and other
such inventions that delude men with hopes to their destruction.
Melians. You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of
the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as
good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we
want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians,
who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our
confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational.
Athenians. When you speak of the favour
of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as yourselves; neither our
pretensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men believe of
the gods, or practise among themselves. Of the gods
we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they
rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law,
or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it
to exist for ever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you
and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we
do. Thus, as far as the gods are concerned, we have no fear and no reason to
fear that we shall be at a disadvantage. But when we come to your notion about
the Lacedaemonians, which leads you to believe that
shame will make them help you, here we bless your simplicity but do not envy
your folly. The Lacedaemonians, when their own
interests or their country’s laws are in question, are the worthiest men alive;
of their conduct towards others much might be said, but no clearer idea of it
could be given than by shortly saying that of all the men we know they are most
conspicuous in considering what is agreeable honourable,
and what is expedient just. Such a way of thinking does not promise much for
the safety which you now unreasonably count upon.
Melians. But it is for this very reason that we now trust to
their respect for expediency to prevent them from betraying the Melians, their colonists, and thereby losing the confidence
of their friends in
Athenians. Then you do not adopt the view that expediency goes
with security, while justice and honour cannot be
followed without danger; and danger the Lacedaemonians
generally court as little as possible.
Melians. But we believe that they would be more likely to face
even danger for our sake, and with more confidence than for others, as our
nearness to
Athenians. Yes, but what an intending ally trusts to is not the
goodwill of those who ask his aid, but a decided superiority of power for
action; and the Lacedaemonians look to this even more
than others. At least, such is their distrust of their home resources that it
is only with numerous allies that they attack a neighbour;
now is it likely that while we are masters of the sea they will cross over to
an island?
Melians. But they would have others to send. The
Athenians. Some diversion of the kind you speak of you may one
day experience, only to learn, as others have done, that the Athenians never
once yet withdrew from a siege for fear of any. But we are struck by the fact
that, after saying you would consult for the safety of your country, in all
this discussion you have mentioned nothing which men might trust in and think
to be saved by. Your strongest arguments depend upon hope and the future, and
your actual resources are too scanty, as compared with those arrayed against
you, for you to come out victorious. You will therefore show great blindness of
judgment, unless, after allowing us to retire, you can find some counsel more
prudent than this. You will surely not be caught by that idea of disgrace, which
in dangers that are disgraceful, and at the same time too plain to be mistaken,
proves so fatal to mankind; since in too many cases the very men that have
their eyes perfectly open to what they are rushing into, let the thing called
disgrace, by the mere influence of a seductive name, lead them on to a point at
which they become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall wilfully into hopeless disaster, and incur disgrace more
disgraceful as the companion of error, than when it comes as the result of misfortune.
This, if you are well advised, you will guard against; and you will not think
it dishonourable to submit to the greatest city in
Hellas, when it makes you the moderate offer of becoming its tributary ally,
without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to you; nor when you have the
choice given you between war and security, will you be so blinded as to choose
the worse. And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who
keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on
the whole succeed best. Think over the matter, therefore, after our withdrawal,
and reflect once and again that it is for your country that you are consulting,
that you have not more than one, and that upon this one deliberation depends its prosperity or ruin.
The Athenians now withdrew from the
conference; and the Melians, left to themselves, came to a decision corresponding with what they
had maintained in the discussion, and answered: “Our resolution, Athenians, is
the same as it was at first. We will not in a moment deprive of freedom a city
that has been inhabited these seven hundred years; but we put our trust in the
fortune by which the gods have preserved it until now, and in the help of men,
that is, of the Lacedaemonians; and so we will try
and save ourselves. Meanwhile we invite you to allow us to be friends to you
and foes to neither party, and to retire from our country after making such a
treaty as shall seem fit to us both.”
Such was the answer of the Melians. The Athenians now departing from the conference
said: “Well, you alone, as it seems to us, judging from these resolutions,
regard what is future as more certain than what is before your eyes, and what
is out of sight, in your eagerness, as already coming to pass; and as you have
staked most on, and trusted most in, the Lacedaemonians,
your fortune, and your hopes, so will you be most completely deceived.”
The Athenian envoys now returned to the army;
and the Melians showing no signs of yielding, the
generals at once betook themselves to hostilities, and drew a line of
circumvallation round the Melians, dividing the work
among the different states. Subsequently the Athenians returned with most of
their army, leaving behind them a certain number of their own citizens and of
the allies to keep guard by land and sea. The force thus left stayed on and
besieged the place.
About the same time the Argives
invaded the
Summer was now over. The next winter the Lacedaemonians intended to invade the Argive
territory, but arriving at the frontier found the sacrifices for crossing unfavourable, and went back again. This intention of theirs
gave the Argives suspicions of certain of their
fellow citizens, some of whom they arrested; others, however, escaped them.
About the same time the Melians again took another
part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned. Reinforcements
afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the
siege was now pressed vigorously; and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put
to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for
slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and inhabited the
place themselves.
1 Had previous chroniclers neglected to speak in praise
of History in general, it might perhaps have been necessary for me to recommend
everyone to choose for study and welcome such treatises as the present, since
men have no more ready corrective of conduct than knowledge of the past. 2But all historians, one may say without exception, and in no
half-hearted manner, but making this the beginning and end of their labour, have impressed on us that the soundest education
and training for a life of active politics is the study of History, and that
surest and indeed the only method of learning how to bear bravely the
vicissitudes of fortune, is to recall the calamities of others. 3Evidently
therefore no one, and least of all myself, would think it his duty at this day
to repeat what has been so well and so often said. 4For the
very element of unexpectedness in the events I have chosen as my theme
will be sufficient to challenge and incite everyone, young and old alike, to
peruse my systematic history. 5For who is so worthless or
indolent as not to wish to know by what means and under what system of polity
the Romans in less than fifty-three years have succeeded in
subjecting nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government —
a thing unique in history? 6Or who again is there so passionately devoted to other spectacles or studies as to
regard anything as of greater moment than the acquisition of this knowledge?
2 How striking and grand is the spectacle presented by
the period with which I purpose to deal, will be most clearly apparent if
we set beside and compare with the Roman dominion the most famous empires of
the past, those which have formed the chief theme of historians. 2Those
worthy of being thus set beside it and compared are these. The Persians for a
certain period possessed a great rule and dominion, but so
often as they ventured to overstep the boundaries of
3 The date from which I propose to begin my history
is the 140th Olympiad [220‑216 B.C.], and the events are the
following: (1) in Greece the so‑called Social War, the first waged
against the Aetolians by the Achaeans in league with
and under the leadership of Philip of Macedon, the son of Demetrius and father
of Perseus, (2) in Asia the war for Coele-Syria between Antiochus and Ptolemy Philopator, 2(3) in Italy, Libya, and
the adjacent regions, the war between Rome and Carthage, usually known as the Hannibalic War. These events immediately succeed those
related at the end of the work of Aratus of Sicyon. 3Previously the doings of the world
had been, so to say, dispersed, as they were held together by no unity of
initiative, results, or locality; 4but ever since this date
history has been an organic whole, and the affairs of Italy and Libya have been
interlinked with those of Greece and Asia, all leading up to
one end. 5And this is my reason for beginning their systematic
history from that date. 6For it was owing to their defeat of
the Carthaginians in the Hannibalic War that the
Romans, feeling that the chief and most essential step in their scheme of
universal aggression had now been taken, were first emboldened to reach out
their hands to grasp the rest and to cross with an army to Greece and the continent
of Asia. 7Now were we Greeks well acquainted with the two
states which disputed the empire of the world, it would not perhaps have been
necessary for me to deal at all with their previous history, or to narrate what
purpose guided them, and on what sources of strength they relied, in entering
upon such a vast undertaking. 8But as neither the former power
nor the earlier history of Rome and Carthage is familiar to most of us Greeks,
I thought it necessary to prefix this Book and the next to the actual
history, 9in order that no one after becoming engrossed in the
narrative proper may find himself at a loss, and ask by what counsel and
trusting to what power and resources the Romans embarked on that enterprise
which has made them lords over land and sea in our part of the world; 10but that from these Books and the preliminary sketch in them,
it may be clear to readers that they had quite adequate grounds for conceiving
the ambition of a world-empire and adequate means for achieving their purpose.
4 For what gives my work its peculiar quality, and what
is most remarkable in the present age, is this. Fortune has
guided almost all the affairs of the world in one direction and has forced them
to incline towards one and the same end; 2a historian should likewise
bring before his readers under one synoptical view
the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose. Indeed it was
this chiefly that invited and encouraged me to
undertake my task; and secondarily the fact that none of my contemporaries have
undertaken to write a general history, in which case I should have been
much less eager to take this in hand. 3As it is, I observe
that while several modern writers deal with particular wars and certain matters
connected with them, no one, as far as I am aware, has even attempted to
inquire critically when and whence the general and comprehensive scheme of
events originated and how it led up to the end. 4I therefore
thought it quite necessary not to leave unnoticed or allow to
pass into oblivion this the finest and most beneficent of the
performances of Fortune. 5For though she is ever producing
something new and ever playing a part in the lives of men, she has not in a
single instance ever accomplished such a work, ever achieved such a triumph, as
in our own times. 6We can no more hope to perceive this from
histories dealing with particular events than to get at once a notion of the
form of the whole world, its disposition and order, by visiting, each in turn,
the most famous cities, or indeed by looking at separate plans of each:
a result by no means likely. 7He indeed who believes that by studying isolated histories he can acquire a fairly
just view of history as a whole, is, as it seems to me, much in the case of
one, who, after having looked at the dissevered limbs of an animal once alive
and beautiful, fancies he has been as good as an eyewitness of the creature
itself in all its action and grace. 8For could anyone put the
creature together on the spot, restoring its form and the comeliness of life,
and then show it to the same man, I think he would quickly avow that he
was formerly very far away from the truth and more like one in a dream. 9For we can get some idea of a whole from a part, but never
knowledge or exact opinion. 10Special histories therefore
contribute very little to the knowledge of the whole and conviction of its
truth. 11It is only indeed by study of the interconnexion
of all the particulars, their resemblances and differences, that we are enabled
at least to make a general survey, and thus derive both benefit and pleasure
from history.
5 I shall adopt as the starting-point of this Book
the first occasion on which the Romans crossed the sea from
PREFACE
[1.Preface]Whether
the task I have undertaken of writing a complete history of the Roman people
from the very commencement of its existence will reward me for the labour spent on it, I neither know for certain, nor if I
did know would I venture to say. For I see that this is an old-established and
a common practice, each fresh writer being invariably persuaded that he will
either attain greater certainty in the materials of his narrative, or surpass
the rudeness of antiquity in the excellence of his style. However this may be,
it will still be a great satisfaction to me to have taken my part, too, in
investing, to the utmost of my abilities, the annals of the foremost nation in
the world with a deeper interest; and if in such a crowd of writers my own
reputation is thrown into the shade, I would console myself with the renown and
greatness of those who eclipse my fame. The subject, moreover, is one that
demands immense labour. It goes back beyond 700 years
and, after starting from small and humble beginnings, has grown to such
dimensions that it begins to be overburdened by its greatness. I have very
little doubt, too, that for the majority of my readers the earliest times and
those immediately succeeding, will possess little
attraction; they will hurry on to these modern days in which the might of a
long paramount nation is wasting by internal decay. I, on the other hand, shall
look for a further reward of my labours in being able
to close my eyes to the evils which our generation has witnessed for so many
years; so long, at least, as I am devoting all my thoughts to retracing those
pristine records, free from all the anxiety which can disturb the historian of
his own times even if it cannot warp him from the truth.
The traditions of what happened prior to the
foundation of the City or whilst it was being built, are more fitted to adorn
the creations of the poet than the authentic records of the historian, and I
have no intention of establishing either their truth or their falsehood. This
much licence is conceded to the ancients, that by
intermingling human actions with divine they may confer a more august dignity
on the origins of states. Now, if any nation ought to be allowed to claim a
sacred origin and point back to a divine paternity that nation is
There is this exceptionally beneficial and
fruitful advantage to be derived from the study of the past,
that you see, set in the clear light of historical truth, examples of
every possible type. From these you may select for yourself and your country
what to imitate, and also what, as being mischievous in its inception and
disastrous in its issues, you are to avoid. Unless, however, I am misled by
affection for my undertaking, there has never existed any commonwealth greater
in power, with a purer morality, or more fertile in good examples; or any state
in which avarice and luxury have been so late in making their inroads, or
poverty and frugality so highly and continuously honoured,
showing so clearly that the less wealth men possessed the less they coveted. In
these latter years wealth has brought avarice in its train, and the unlimited
command of pleasure has created in men a passion for ruining themselves and
everything else through self-indulgence and licentiousness. But criticisms
which will be unwelcome, even when perhaps necessary, must not appear in the
commencement at all events of this extensive work. We should much prefer to
start with favourable omens, and if we could have adopted
the poets' custom, it would have been much pleasanter to commence with prayers
and supplications to gods and goddesses that they would grant a favourable and successful issue to the great task before
us.
Book
1: The Earliest Legends
[1.1]To begin with,
it is generally admitted that after the capture of Troy, whilst the rest of the
Trojans were massacred, against two of them - Aeneas and Antenor
- the Achivi refused to exercise the rights of war,
partly owing to old ties of hospitality, and partly because these men had
always been in favour of making peace and
surrendering Helen. Their subsequent fortunes were different. Antenor sailed into the furthest part of the Adriatic,
accompanied by a number of Enetians who had been
driven from Paphlagonia by a revolution, and after
losing their king Pylaemenes before
From this point there is a twofold tradition.
According to the one, Latinus was defeated in battle,
and made peace with Aeneas, and subsequently a family alliance. According to
the other, whilst the two armies were standing ready to engage and waiting for
the signal, Latinus advanced in front of his lines
and invited the leader of the strangers to a conference. He inquired of him
what manner of men they were, whence they came, what had happened to make them
leave their homes, what were they in quest of when they landed in Latinus' territory. When he heard that the men were
Trojans, that their leader was Aeneas, the son of Anchises
and Venus, that their city had been burnt, and that the homeless exiles were
now looking for a place to settle in and build a city, he was so struck with
the noble bearing of the men and their leader, and their readiness to accept
alike either peace or war, that he gave his right hand as a solemn pledge of
friendship for the future. A formal treaty was made between the leaders and
mutual greetings exchanged between the armies. Latinus
received Aeneas as a guest in his house, and there, in the presence of his
tutelary deities, completed the political alliance by a domestic one, and gave
his daughter in marriage to Aeneas. This incident confirmed the Trojans in the
hope that they had reached the term of their wanderings and won a permanent
home. They built a town, which Aeneas called Lavinium
after his wife. In a short time a boy was born of the new marriage, to whom his parents gave the name of Ascanius.
[1.2]In a short
time the Aborigines and Trojans became involved in war with Turnus,
the king of the Rutulians. Lavinia
had been betrothed to him before the arrival of Aeneas, and, furious at finding
a stranger preferred to him, he declared war against both Latinus
and Aeneas. Neither side could congratulate themselves on the
result of the battle; the Rutulians were defeated,
but the victorious Aborigines and Trojans lost their leader Latinus.
Feeling their need of allies, Turnus and the Rutulians had recourse to the celebrated power of the
Etruscans and Mezentius, their king, who was reigning
at Caere, a wealthy city in those days. From the
first he had felt anything but pleasure at the rise of the
[1.3]His son, Ascanius, was not old enough to assume the government; but
his throne remained secure throughout his minority. During that interval - such
was Lavinia's force of character - though a woman was
regent, the
Ascanius was succeeded by his son Silvius,
who by some chance had been born in the forest. He became the father of Aeneas Silvius, who in his turn had a son, Latinus
Silvius. He planted a number of colonies: the
colonists were called Prisci Latini.
The cognomen of Silvius was common to all the
remaining kings of Alba, each of whom succeeded his father. Their names are
Alba, Atys, Capys, Capetus, Tiberinus, who was
drowned in crossing the Albula, and his name
transferred to the river, which became henceforth the famous
[1.4]But the Fates
had, I believe, already decreed the origin of this great city and the
foundation of the mightiest empire under heaven. The Vestal was forcibly
violated and gave birth to twins. She named Mars as their father, either
because she really believed it, or because the fault might appear less heinous
if a deity were the cause of it. But neither gods nor men sheltered her or her
babes from the king's cruelty; the priestess was thrown into prison, the boys
were ordered to be thrown into the river. By a heaven-sent chance it happened
that the
[1.5]It is said
that the festival of the Lupercalia, which is still
observed, was even in those days celebrated on the Palatine hill. This hill was
originally called Pallantium from a city of the same
name in
[1.6]At the
beginning of the fray, Numitor gave out that an enemy
had entered the City and was attacking the palace, in order to draw off the
Alban soldiery to the citadel, to defend it. When he saw the young men coming
to congratulate him after the assassination, he at once called a council of his
people and explained his brother's infamous conduct towards him, the story of
his grandsons, their parentage and bringing up, and how he recognised
them. Then he proceeded to inform them of the tyrant's death and his
responsibility for it. The young men marched in order through the midst of the
assembly and saluted their grandfather as king; their action was approved by
the whole population, who with one voice ratified the title and sovereignty of
the king. After the government of Alba was thus transferred to Numitor,
[1.7]Remus is said to have been the first to receive an omen:
six vultures appeared to him. The augury had just been announced to