ame short work that was made with Regal Rome
and the early Republican period was applied to the Imperial age. Julius
Caesar was the destroyer of Roman liberty, and Pompeius was the unlucky
champion of his country's constitution. With few exceptions, the
Emperors were the greatest moral monsters that ever had lived and
reigned. It is true that two or three critical writers had so handled
historical subjects as to create some doubts as to the exact correctness
of the popular view of Roman history; but those doubts were monopolized
by a few scholars, and by no means tended to shake the faith which even
the educated classes had in the vulgar view of the actions of the mighty
conquering race of antiquity.

But all has been changed. For half a century, learned men have been
busily employed in pulling down the edifice of Roman history, until they
have unsettled everybody's faith in that history. No one now pretends,
seriously, to believe anything that is told of the Romans farther back
than the time of Pyrrhus. Clouds and darkness rest over the earlier
centuries, and defy penetration. What Sir Thomas Browne says of Egypt is
not inapplicable to early Rome. History mumbleth something to the
inquirer, "but what it is he heareth not." Not even the story of Curtius
now finds believers. He must have been a contractor, who made an
enormous fortune at the time of the secession of the plebs, and ruined
himself by the operation. So far as relates to early Roman history, want
of faith is very natural; for what documents have we to go upon in
making up an opinion concerning it? None to speak of. But it is strange,
at the first thought, that there should be any difficulty in making up a
judgment concerning the history of the last century or two of the
Republic, and of the Imperial period. Of those times much that was then
written still survives, and many of the works that were familiar to the
Romans are even more familiar to the moderns. Yet there is a wide
difference of sentiment as to the character of the Roman Revolution, and
the objects and the actions of the eminent men who figured in that
Revolution are yet in dispute; and the contention is almost as fierce,
at times, as it was in the days of Pharsalia and Philippi. There are
Pompeians and Caesarians now, as there were nineteen centuries ago, only
that the pen with them is indeed mightier than the sword. Caesar's case
has been reviewed, and the current of opinion is now setting strong