canons of historical criticism will ever discover whether the Roman
women interviewed the mother of Coriolanus of their own accord or
at the suggestion of the senate; whether Remus was killed for
jumping over his brother's wall or because they quarrelled about
birds; whether the ambassadors found Cincinnatus ploughing or only
mending a hedge. Livy suspends his judgment over these important
facts and history when questioned on their truth is dumb. If he
does select between two historians he chooses the one who is nearer
to the facts he describes. But he is no critic, only a
conscientious writer. It is mere vain waste to dwell on his
critical powers, for they do not exist.

In the case of Tacitus imagination has taken the place of history.
The past lives again in his pages, but through no laborious
criticism; rather through a dramatic and psychological faculty
which he specially possessed.

In the philosophy of history he has no belief. He can never make
up his mind what to believe as regards God's government of the
world. There is no method in him and none elsewhere in Roman
literature.

Nations may not have missions but they certainly have functions.
And the function of ancient Italy was not merely to give us what is
statical in our institutions and rational in our law, but to blend
into one elemental creed the spiritual aspirations of Aryan and of
Semite. Italy was not a pioneer in intellectual progress, nor a
motive power in the evolution of thought. The owl of the goddess
of Wisdom traversed over the whole land and found nowhere a
resting-place. The dove, which is the bird of Christ, flew