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HISTORY
To be truly Roman was not a matter of race but of service rendered to the
res publica, and Cato's practice of leaving commanders anonymous is an
affirmation of a view of society quite unlike that implicit in, say, Ennius' Annales.
Unfortunately it is not clear how Cato spoke of himself in episodes where he
himself was involved. His quotations from his own speeches (frs. 95, 106)
certainly imply that the later books will have had some of the characteristics of
the memoirs and autobiographies which were an important feature of political
life in the next generation. Cato did not follow the convention of Greek
historiography by which speeches might be invented to summarize issues
dramatically or for appropriate occasions such as a meeting of Hannibal and
Scipio before Zama. It is also to to his credit that his account of ancient Italy is
based without speculative elaboration on what he found to be current local
traditions, and he avoided the enigma of what might be called Rome's ' mediaeval
history' by omitting the Early Republic altogether,beginning Book4with
the First Punic War.
The quality of Cato's Origines is highlighted by comparison with the work of
his immediate successors who seem, by and large, to have been less critical and
reliable, and who were not above inventing where sound evidence was lacking.
Cassius Hemina's five books of Annales attempted a more continuous account of
Roman history than Cato's: Books 2 and 3 dealt with the period which Cato
had 'skipped', the early Republic, and, as in Cato, Book 4 began with the First
Punic War. Cassius' style is clearly influenced by Cato; he shows an interest in
etymologies (frs. 2, 3, 4, 6), 'firsts' (frs. 15, 26), aetiology (frs. ir, 14, 15, 20),
moral points (fr. 13), and, what is new, imaginative description — the image of
Aeneas leaving Troy as described by Cassius may owe something to Naevius
(fr. 5 ad fin.). The Annales of L. Calpurnius Frugi was in seven books; he too
dealt with the early Republic in Books 2 and 3, and wrote in a more jejune and
less idiosyncratic manner than Cato, possibly with a Greek model such as
Xenophon in mind as well as the pontifical records themselves. He quotes a bon
mot of Romulus (fr. 8) and had a penchant for anecdotes of no real historical
import (frs. 27, 33). The Annales of Cn. Gellius were on a scale that can only
have been achieved by massive invention: he only reached 389 B.C. in Book 15
(fr. 25) and 216 B.C. in a book numbered at least 30 (fr. 26). Charisius quotes
from a ninety-seventh book, which is perhaps not quite beyond credibility
considering the scale of the Annales as published by Scaevola pontifex (Serv.
auct. ad Virg. Aen. 1.373). The retreat from Cato's original and critical if
quirky style of historiography into the mainstream of second-rate Hellenistic
rhetoricizing narrative seems to have been completed by L. Coelius Antipater,
die first to write on a single theme (the Second Punic War) (see p. 145), and C.
Fannius, cos. 122 B.C., who included fictitious speeches (Cic. Brut. 81). Lastly
Sempronius Asellio shows die influence of Polybius in his reflections on the
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