INTRODUCTION.

A. Curtius and his book.

(1) Of Quintus Curtius Rufus the author of the work before us we know perhaps less than of any other writer ancient or modern whose name has come down to us with his book. We know nothing whatever as to who he was, unless indeed we identify him with the adventurer spoken of by Tacitus and the younger Pliny under the same name. But this has been so gravely questioned by Orelli Nipperdey and Teuffel that it would not be safe to assume it here. This however is not all: we are not certain even as to the time at which he wrote, and shall have to content ourselves with probabilities. On the very meagre and obscure evidence of a passage in the tenth book (9 §§ 3—6) the date of the com

1 Tac ann XI 20, 21, Plin epp VII 27. It is argued that Tacitus would have mentioned his writings, had he been speaking of the present Curtius. But he seems not to have mentioned those of Corbulo and Frontinus, of whom he speaks; and here there is no question as to the personal identity. Again it is said that our writer in describing battles shews ignorance of military matters, and so cannot have been the man who was proconsul of Africa. Is this inference so very certain? It might further be asked, would so mean-born a man as the proconsul have had the rhetorical training that our author clearly had? Might this not have been the very means whereby he gained the praetorship which he held before the proconsulate ?

2 Geschichte der Römischen literatur § 292.

position of his history has been fixed variously by different critics; some find therein an allusion to Augustus, others to Claudius, to Vespasian, or even to Septimius Severus. Of these interpretations that which refers the words to the accession of Claudius seems the most plausible. And with this view, which would place him between Velleius and Petronius, his Latin style agrees well. He is perhaps to be identified with the rhetorician mentioned by Suetonius in his treatise de rhetoribus, for that Q Curtius Rufus must have flourished in this period.

(2) In forming our judgment as to the merits of his work it is most necessary first to arrive at some notion of the object with which it was composed. One of the first things that strikes the reader is the unevenness of the writer. Like Tigellius in Horace, nil fuit umquam sic impar sibi. In the many well-wrought speeches with which his work is after the manner of ancient writers1 copiously adorned, and in the picturesque and telling descriptions of important or striking incidents, we are conscious that our author is doing his best to equal the dignity of the subject and fix the attention of his readers. But in the ordinary course of the narrative, when the matter has no striking interest of its own to take the common fancy, we find him generally meagre and occasionally dull. This seems to indicate that his purpose was to present his readers with a series of interesting pictures, and by a quiet and compressed narrative to bind them into a whole: so that we should fairly judge him not by the bare and lifeless passages which serve to make transition, but rather by the more effective scenes2 which he has set himself specially to pourtray. This view of his purpose suits well with the probable opinion that he followed

1 See the remarks of Diodorus XX 1, 2. Voltaire in the preface to his history of Russia under Peter the Great § 7 says well 'Les harangues sont une autre espèce de mensonge oratoire que les historiens se sont permis autrefois. On faisait dire à ses héros ce qu'ils auraient pu dire.' The Curtian speeches, like those in Livy and Lucan, are good but rather wanting in distinctive character.

2 Such as VIII 13, 14, IX 4, 5, 9.

mainly the authority of Klitarchus1, an Alexandrine historian who wrote about 300 BC, and is said to have sacrificed truth to effect; not trusting to the solid merits of his work (which were considerable) but seeking to render it attractive by fabulous and exaggerated descriptions. Probably Curtius, whether drawing direct from Klitarchus or not, dressed up or recast many of his exaggerations as he saw fit at the time, but was too sober to load his book with recounting other marvels which were most likely at once dreary and incredible. There is also reason to think that Curtius, though in the main a reporter rather than a historian, did sometimes3 check the statements of his guide by those of more trustworthy authors such as Ptolemy, who with Aristobulus is the writer most relied upon by the judicious Arrian‘. While therefore we must conclude that much in the work before us is overdrawn, the singular accuracy observable in many small points and in some descriptions of places forbids us to regard it as a mere romance to be ranked with Xenophon's Cyropaedia or Johnson's Rasselas. That Curtius is above all things a rhetorician we may readily admit; but looking to the close con

1 Quintilian x 1 § 74 Clitarchi probatur ingenium, fides infamatur. Pliny the elder reports some of his marvels in the 'Natural History,' and Strabo in his Geography. See in particular Strabo VII 2 § I. From Diodorus II 7 and Strabo XI 5 § 4 it has been wrongly inferred that he had been with Alexander on his expedition. See also Plut

Alex 46, and our notes below on VIII 9 §§ 21, 25, 22, IX IO § 10.

2 Voltaire well says in his preface to the history of Russia under Peter the Great § 7 'une troisième espère de mensonge, et la plus grossière de toutes, mais qui fut longtemps la plus séduisante, c'est le merveilleux : il domine dans toutes les histoires anciennes, sans en excepter une seule.' The last sentence is a little too sweeping, but not much. Lucian's papers called ‘A true history' and 'How to write history' are not quite so sweeping in their denunciation but to the full as severe.

3 See on IX I § 34, 5 § 21.

4 See the preface to his anabasis.

5 See on VIII 9 § 4 gelidior etc, 12 § 14 Taxilen.

Such as in the passage of the Hydaspes VIII 13, and the adventure with the fleet in the Indus estuary IX 9.

nexion maintained by Roman writers between rhetoric and history1-particularly in the days of the empire-this is only what we should expect. The same may be said in various degrees of Sallust Livy and Tacitus. This, as well as the epigrammatic sentences with which his work is studded, is nothing but the natural result of an age of recitations2, when books were composed rather with a view to afford a choice of extracts fit to tickle the ears of a lecture-room audience than to supply solid information to the student in his closet. So too, if not critical, he is to some extent imaginative3: he is seldom at a loss to infer the motive for an action, or draw a bold and appropriate moral.

(3) It has often been remarked that Curtius was an imitator of Livy, and this is an indubitable fact. It has also been well pointed out by Vogel that, if we suppose him to have published his book in 41 or 42 AD, it is quite credible that he may in his youth have seen and even been a pupil of that eminent master. All that has been said above of his merits and defects as a writer in respect of manner and matter will apply with slight modification to Livy also; and the two

1 Quintilian x I §§ 31-34 allows the oratorical student to read history, but sparingly, as it is a sort of poetry in prose, et scribitur ad narrandum non ad probandum. It has a sort of poetic license in expression, so as to enliven the narrative. The conciseness of Sallust is wasted on a jury, neque illa Livii lactea ubertas satis docebit eum qui non speciem expositionis sed fidem quaerit. In digressions the orator may now and then allow himself the sleek plumpness of historical style. In fact the orator must be content generally with a tamer style than the historian. So too Pliny epp v 8 §§ 9-11, though VII 17 § 3 has another sound. The pretensions of Livy in his preface are not to be taken as meaning the same as we now should by the same words. Style had in fact with all ancient historians an undue prominence. So Tacitus Agr 10 refers to Livy and Rusticus as eloquentissimi auctores when merely citing a statement of theirs.

2 See Mayor on Juvenal 111 9, particularly pp 180, 181, where their effect in causing the whole of a book to be sacrificed to the parts is clearly and fully detailed.

3 See Thirlwall chapter 49 p 154 note, chapter 52 P 304.

have this further trait in common with the mass of Roman writers, that they utterly miss the high aims and far-sightedness which give its true grandeur to the character of Alexander. To them-whether from national jealousy or imperfect information-the Macedonian youth is merely the brilliant conqueror of insatiate ambition, Fortune's very darling. To us the partial view of Plutarch seems nearer the truth, that he was ever at odds with Fortune and became great in spite of her.

(4) The Latin of Curtius is probably a good average specimen of the Latin of the early Empire, the so-called silver-age. Inferior in vigour to the balanced sermon style of Seneca or the painful and muscular energy of the Tacitean Annals, it reminds us in descriptive passages of the elder Pliny, and generally (both in the speeches and elsewhere) of the earlier writings of Tacitus. His imitation of Livy is sufficiently transparent, and in common with most writers of his day he betrays frequently an attentive study of Virgil. To enter into minute details concerning the peculiarities of his diction and syntax is beyond the scope of the present edition. It may be remarked in general that his vocabulary is a limited and commonplace one, containing few strange words but many familiar words in strange senses. His habit of using the very same construction and even the same phrase over and over again has a tiresome effect; but this is a common fault in the later Greek and Latin writers. Still with all its defects the style of Curtius has the merit of being terse and generally clear; if he now and then strains too hard after antithesis, at least he succeeds in bringing his point home to the reader. A few of his more notable usages may perhaps be recorded with advantage here.

(a) the continual use of quippe (='you see') as an equivalent for nam, enim, scilicet.

(6) the equally frequent use of ceterum, as=sed, autem.

(c) ipsum, ipsos, ipsius, ipsorum, ipsi, ipsis, where se, sibi, suus would have been used in the best Latin. This is very characteristic of Curtius. See note on VIII IO § I.