Reverting for a moment to Livy's honesty and frankness, so far as his
intent might govern such qualities, I think no stronger evidence in
his favour can be found than his avowed republican leanings at the
court of Augustus and his just estimate of Cicero's character in the
face of the favour of a prince by whose consent the great orator had
been assassinated. Above all, it must have been a fearless and honest
man who could swing the scourge with which he lashed his degenerate
countrymen in those stinging words, "The present times, when we can
endure neither our vices nor their remedies."

Nevertheless, and despite the facts that Livy means to be honest and
that he questions much on grounds that would not shame the repute of
many of his modern critics, the charge is doubtless true that his
writings are not free from prejudice in favour of his country. That he
definitely regarded history rather as a moral agency and a lesson for
the future than as an irrefutable narrative of the past, I consider
highly hypothetical; but it is probable that his mind was not of the
type that is most diligent in the close, exhaustive, and logical study
so necessary to the historian of today. "Superficial," if we could
eliminate the reproach in the word, would perhaps go far toward
describing him. He is what we would call a popular rather than a
scientific writer, and, since we think somewhat lightly of such when
they write on what we consider scientific subjects, we are too apt to
transfer their light repute to an author who wrote popularly at a time
when this treatment was best adapted to his audience, his aims, and
the material at his command. That he has survived through all these
centuries, and has enjoyed, despite all criticism, the position in
the literature of the world which his very critics have united
in conceding to him, is perhaps a stronger commendation than any