I. Cicero Historicus

Extract

History in a literary form was a remarkably late growth in Roman letters. Cicero declares several times in unmistakable terms that in his day “History is absent from Roman literature.” Twice he discusses the previous writers of Roman history, the annalists such as Fabius Pictor, Cato and Piso. He makes it clear that he found them very unpalatable because of their jejuneness: “erat enim in historia nihil aliud, nisi annalium confectio…unam dicendi laudem putant esse brevitatem.” Only Coelius Antipater stood out from the rest as one who made some attempt to achieve a pleasing style, but even he “ut homo, neque doctus, neque maxime aptus ad dicendum, sicut potuit, dolavit.” It is obvious that the basis of this criticism is purely literary and not historical, and that the demerits which Cicero censures in the older school of annalists, when considered as literature, may to a certain extent be considered as merits, if their historical value is to be weighed amongst the sources of Livy.