Livy: Philosophy of History and the Monarchy | Old Western Culture

[Music] [Music] welcome to old western culture we're talking about roman literature in this series of lectures and specifically now we're starting a new unit on the historians we'll be talking in the next series of lectures about the romans who wrote about roman history who picked up on the idea of history from the greek historians and developed it in a particularly uniquely roman direction in the direction of the roman idea that we talked about earlier in the epics that shows up in the historians as well and some of the most famous episodes in roman history that many of us have read about in in uh earlier history studies and so on will be covered in these particular historians the historians we'll be talking about in this unit are livy who lives in the first century bc salust who also lives in the first century bc uh tacitus who lives in the first century a.d uh julius caesar uh the famous general and dictator uh who lives in the first century bc and plutarch for century a.d in other words all the historians we'll be talking about fall within the space of 200 years the first centuries before and after christ most of the great literature of ancient rome falls into this period many people consider all of the literature history poetry philosophy and so on that was written during the first century bc to be part of what they call golden age latin literature and everything written during the first century a.d after christ silver age latin literature because although it's great it's not quite as great as the earlier stuff in the previous lectures you may have listened to me talking about the the epic poets lucan and stasius they wrote in the first century after christ and so they are silver age epic poets and neos or the aeneid rather written by virgil takes place or is written composed in the first century bc and so it's golden age literature so the historians that i'll be talking about in this next series of lectures mostly wrote during the first century bc and a.d during the same time as the epic poets that i talked about in the previous series so we haven't really moved in time we're in the same time period just talking about a different kind of literature today i'll be talking about the historian livy livy uh is born around 59 bc dies around 17 a.d that is that he's born during the civil wars that i talked about in previous lectures which were ended finally by octavian or caesar augustus around 30 bc so um the the historian livy is about 30 years old when the civil war has come to an end he's lived through this time of tumult uh this time of chaos uh he's a conservative like uh uh like virgil is and he agrees with julius caesar's or rather caesar augustus's attempt to revive the morals of rome and to return rome back to the earlier days when she was better and not so corrupt and that's one of the themes that we're about to talk about in this history uh livy becomes a historian in his uh uh in his uh um adulthood and he writes a history of rome in about 150 books a very extensive uh history of the of the entire course of of rome from the founding legendarily by aeneas down to his own day about 12 1200 years of history unfortunately of these 150 or so 153 volumes that he wrote only 30 some odd 35 maybe have survived and i'm actually only going to be talking about the first five we don't have time to talk about all of them but the first five books of livy's history the early history of rome are very representative and uh and contain some of the most famous stories i'll mention some of the other things he writes about in later books but i'm going to focus on the first five books of libya's history in our discussion uh today and in the next several lectures so livy is a conservative he's a historian he's famous has a good reputation he dies as i said in ad 17 which means that he's dying his death falls during the time of christ's early adulthood of course there's no connection there's no way that livy really knew about what was going on in judea nor would he have cared and there's no reason that jesus should ever have mentioned or the gospel writers should ever have mentioned livy but it helps to put them together chronologically and to imagine them living at the same time period so that we don't make the mistake of doing what we often do and that is keeping our biblical history and secular history in these separate watertight categories we want to see them as as happening at the same time so livy is writing in the in the early decades or the remaining decades of the bc period right up until the time of christ and shortly after christ lives the uh uh the story that livy tells is the story of the beginnings of rome her rise to greatness under the monarchs and then under the new republic after a revolution that overthrows the monarchs uh her uh her rise to triumph as an empire throughout the entire mediterranean basin and then the gradual uh her gradual decay and morals although she's great in extent and great in power and so what i'm going to do today is talk about the very beginning of his book and the philosophy of history that he espouses and some of the things that to this very day a modern cultural conservatives like to quote because they're so appropriate but i want to make one more comment about his influence i've mentioned this before but it's worth repeating in the in the early days of america among the founding fathers uh in the late colonial period and early republic period of american independence roman historians were the most loved and widely read books from the classical world among the educated literate founders of our country excluding the bible and biblical commentaries and uh and and works of theology outside of that which were the most dominant forms of most popular kinds of reading for most of the early americans roman history was the most popular form far beyond say the poetry of homer or a virgil romans loved their roman history and the reason is they saw in the roman model of government something that they could build america upon they understood very clearly that the romans or rather the greeks attempted democracy in ancient athens in the 5th century bc was a failed model the founding fathers as you can see in reading their writings the uh the documents known as the federalist papers and the anti-federalist papers in these documents and others you can see that the founding fathers hated and feared strict democracy democracy they saw would be a disaster that's what athens had and it was a disaster but the romans came up with a different kind of government a representative republic a constitutional republic and the founding fathers of our country saw that that would be a valuable model and that's why our country today constitutionally is a is a republic a representative republic not a democracy we have democratic principles in that everyone has a voice in in appointing their legislators but then the legislators themselves take care of the business of doing law in other words in a republic following the ancient roman model there's a buffer between the people and power so uh the amer the early americans loved their roman historians and olivia's one of the people that they that they loved and read most up there with tacitus and salust and plutarch probably the four most famous roman historians in the beginning the very beginning of livy's work he talks about how reluctant he is to write a history because so many historians before him have done so and done so well and so he hopes he says that he'll not be put too much into into the shade by the nobility of his of his predecessors in writing history but he's going to do it anyway because he thinks he has something something to contribute he goes on and he says that um he's going to go back to the to the legendary founding of rome and he doesn't think that's an ignoble or illegitimate thing to do although we might question the truth of those legendary stories or was there really ananias did he really do what the poet virgil said did all the things that romulus is claimed to do in the legends did they really happen he says we may we may not agree with those things but they he says they lend nobility and dignity to our national past the fact that we romans he says think that mars is one of the founder founding fathers of rome because mars uh um in union with a um with a mortal woman uh gave uh um gave rise to romulus so the fact that we think that mars is one of the founding gods of our country tells us something about ourself that we that we understand ourselves to be a successful war-like military people mars is our father the fact that venus is one of our as one of a founding goddesses is significant she's the mother of the hero aeneas the legendary character aeneas whether or not the story is true it's significant that we think so that we think that aeneas and the romans are descendants of the goddess of venus that's why we put so much emphasis on love uh says uh says livy here and here you might compare this with uh american legendary stories uh americans like to tell the story of george washington as a little boy chomping down a cherry tree with the little hatchet that his father gave him and then when confronted he says father i cannot tell a lie it was me with my little hatchet well chances are this is a story invented by a man named parson weems in the 19th century it never happened at all but the fact that the story is repeated by generations of americans tells us something about our opinion of ourselves we like to think of ourselves as an honest people and so this story embodies our opinion of ourselves as essentially honest stories about paul bunyan and babe the blue ox or pecos bill these wild legendary heroes tell us something about ourselves our belief our belief that we as a people can do anything that we're independent that we're a sort of a can-do nation of people there are no obstacles on our way and so our legendary stories whether or not they're true the fact that we like them and tell them about ourselves tells us something about our national character and so that's what livy says here about the stories of aeneas and perhaps about romulus and so on even if these early legendary stories lack full veracity the fact that we love them and repeat them to every new generation tells us what we think about ourselves as a roman people but then he comes in his introduction to one of the most famous passages in ancient history that people still quote this and rightly so there's some tremendously valuable philosophy of history going on here this is what he says and i'm reading here by the way from the penguin classics edition of livy's early history of rome uh translated uh by um a man named aubry de selencort there are a number of other translations that are very good i happen to like this one and it's uh it's got a good introduction it's got good commentary it's easy to read um although it's certainly not the only one you could use but it's the one that i like and so uh if you're looking for a recommendation this is the one i'd recommend he says this these however referring to the previous discussion about legendary history these however are comparatively trivial matters and i set little store by them i invite the readers attention to the much more serious consideration of the kind of lives our ancestors lived of who were the men and what the means both in politics and war by which rome's power was first acquired and subsequently expanded i would then have him trace the process of our moral decline to watch first the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse then the rapidly increasing disintegration then the final collapse of the whole edifice and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor the remedies needed to cure them the study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings find things to take as models base things rotten through and through to avoid classic statement about the philosophy of history and i'd like to go back and just point out a few things about this paragraph first he says uh let's set aside these legendary histories we were talking about i invite the reader's attention to the serious consideration of the kind of lives our ancestors lived who were the men and what the means both in politics and war by which rome's power was first acquired and subsequently expanded history is driven by the choices of individuals history is not dominated as karl marx would say in the 1800s by impersonal forces history is not dominated as fred frederick hegel would say uh in the 1700s by forces of thesis antithesis synthesis and so on history is dominated by people by the choices that men make and so he asks us to consider the kind of lives our ancestors lived their character because it's the character that determines choices and this the choices that men make that drives history and so he says this is the kind of thing that we ought to look at as having driven the rise of rome to power through politics and warfare but then he says i would have him the reader trace the process of our moral decline to watch first the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse and so and so now we see livy says we're going to look back in history and see how the corruption began to set in the corruption that we see all around us in our modern world he says speaking from the first century bc now we see a corrupt roman populace how did it begin let's go back and we'll see it and he also points out the the thing that begins the process of decline in another paragraph or so he'll talk about the growth of luxury and wealth pouring into the raw into the city of rome because of her overseas conquests and he talks about how this everest and luxury will contribute to rome's moral decline but that doesn't cause it it's not the original cause if that were true if it were luxury and wealth and material blessing that causes moral decline in corruption then we wouldn't see god in the old testament promising material blessings to the jews if they're faithful to him there's something else and livy puts his finger on it accurately for a pagan he says the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse so you think about this livy says if we look back in early history we're going to see the romans at their best when they're people of integrity honor industry hard work courage thrift and so on all the virtues embodied in the ancient romans but if you have a generation of romans who who think and live that way then what is it that brings about a change in the next unit why is the next generation not quite so good and the next generation worse yet and the next generation worse yet and the answer he says is that the generation that holds to those virtues failed to pass on the old teaching the old teaching is allowed to lapse as christians we think to some very famous passages in the in the scriptures that speak to parents deuteronomy 6 for example where god through moses says parents teach your children to remember these things that i've spoken to you this day teach them when you walk by the way when you sit down when you rise up and many homeschoolers love this passage we're supposed to be teaching our children all the time well everybody should be not just homeschoolers but god is reminding the israelites to teach their children who did not experience the things their parents did teach their children to remember these stories that god is the one who led them out of the land of egypt through the red sea into the promised land giving them houses they didn't build wells they didn't dig vineyards they didn't plant and to remember that god gave them all those things and so they would continue to be grateful and thankful and rejoice in god's blessings but if the if the parents didn't teach the children to remember these stories and the children began to take for granted the blessings they have and start to thinking that they deserve those blessings that they're a given that they get credit for it then they're going to face destruction well this is uh this is classic christian teaching but livy understands it as well for a pagan he's getting this right if the if the original roman generations uh understood virtue but failed to teach their children why these romans were growing so great and so powerful the children would take for granted the blessings that they've gotten and forget to exercise the virtues that bring about these blessings and fall into corruption and then the crack having been introduced to the block of marble you might say when the wealth of luxury enters into the picture it continues to amplify and exaggerate the flaw that's already there the flaw is already in the character i've i've often used the analogy of a sidewalk a city sidewalk that if it's well built then when water gets on it in the winter and the water freezes no damage is done but sidewalks crack and potholes form in roadways because water gets into cracks that are already there and then when the water freezes in the cold of winter and the ice expands it breaks up the concrete breaks up the asphalt and causes and causes flaws so it's not actually the water or the ice that causes flaws the water the ice amplifies takes advantage of exaggerates a flaw that was already there but but but invisible in in in fine weather and so uh luxury and wealth and power do not really corrupt they amplify so many people have heard the famous saying power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and in a sense of course uh this is true in in in a general sense but technically it's really not power doesn't corrupt because we can all think of uh of cases rare exceptions they might be but cases in history where men have wielded great power and not been corrupt so it's not really that power corrupts or that wealth and material luxury and so on corrupt is that they exaggerate the the character of the person that holds them so if you have a man of integrity power is not going to corrupt him it will amplify and make more and more visible the integrity that was already present in his character but if you have a man whose character is flawed who hasn't conquered his flaws who still struggles with vices when he's given great power of some kind whether it's political power or military power or financial power the power he gives will simply amplify exaggerate uh reveal more manifestly whatever character he already had so power of any kind is more like an amplifier than uh than like the actual cause it's interesting to note that the man who said that that all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely uh was a roman catholic writing in the 1800s named lord acton he was a british nobleman he was writing a in advance of the roman catholic uh council called vatican one which took place in 1870 and at vatican one uh on the agenda uh was the um was the desire of the church to officially declare the doctrine of the infallibility of the pope now the the roman catholic church for a long time had held to the idea uh that power resides in a conciliar way among the bishops and there had been a popular notion that the pope may be infallible when he speaks ex-cathedra but it's not something that became official doctrine until the 1870s and so here's a roman catholic objecting to the idea and saying power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely well he understood this idea that it's not really a power that corrupts but it manifests the flaws and characters and he like all christians understands that man is flawed and so we want to safeguard and separate power from individual human beings so here livy is talking this way he says it's not the wealth and the material luxury that flowed into the roman world from their military conquests uh it's the problem of uh one generation of parents not passing on to the next generation of young people the virtues by which rome has achieved her successes it's the lapse of the old teaching well then he goes on and he says we watch as we study history the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching is allowed to lapse then the rapidly increasing disintegration then the final collapse of the whole edifice and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them and here again it's a it's a a brilliant mental image he asks us to imagine that roman culture and civilization as a great edifice like a great cathedral but it's built on shifting sands on a swamp and at first the cathedral stands erect and glorious and noble but then the foundations start to sink into the swamp and the building starts to lean a little bit and the windows crack and puffs of dust come out of the windows and then the steeple falls over and the stones start to crack and eventually the whole building collapses in a great roar of rubble and sinks into the gaseous bubbling swamp this is the mental image that livy is trying to ask us to imagine imagine roman culture as a building falling apart as it sinks at its foundations into the swamp of degeneracy and corruption and he says the culmination of all this is the dark dawning of our modern day now think about some stormy morning stormy morning when you've woken up and where the sunrise should be in the east with a glorious beautiful sun shedding us rays across the landscape there's nothing but dark ominous storm clouds and you say this is going to be a good day to stay in bed with a book and a cup of coffee the dark dawning of that day well livy says that's what our culture is like now the dark dawning of a modern day that bodes uh the the bodes ill for all there's nothing to look forward to but more corruption uh more more degeneracy we can neither endure our vices nor the remedies needed to cure them modern political and cultural conservatives love to quote this passage and it's a great passage if you think about our uh the way that many conservatives think about the condition of modern america very few people would say we are in an ideal state we're deep in debt there are laws passed that christians think are are unethical uh we have the problems of of of the legalization of abortion uh of um of all kinds of things that we disagree with we have all kinds of difficulties in our country but when we ask what will solve these problems any solution involves somebody sacrificing his welfare benefits somebody having to tighten his belt somebody having to give up rights and nobody wants to sacrifice their rights so we cannot endure our vices if we keep on going this way deep in debt uh unethical laws whatever we point to if we keep going this way uh we we see nothing but bleakness but all the solutions to it are unendurable no one's willing to face them so we can neither endure our vices nor the remedies needed to cure them this is an absolutely untenable position we're on the horns of a dilemma and so in this position a cultural conservative that's that is someone who wants to preserve the good things of the past that are handed on to us for a benefit like the great books the great ideas of the past the doctrines of historic christianity the doctrines of cultural politics someone who is a cultural conservative and wants to retain those becomes sick at heart becomes discouraged as he looks at the world around them a world that that recognizes it's heading for destruction but refuses to face up to the discipline of the solutions that will solve the problems a conservative is sick at heart and says how do we get in this mess how will we give get out there's no hope that's the kind of sickness that livy talks about in the next sentence when he says the study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind now he's not talking of course about the ultimate sickness we christians know that the ultimate sickness is only cured by the gospel uh by the incarnation of this of of jesus christ god come in the flesh his death and resurrection and so on but livy is talking about the kind of sickness that conservatives feel when we look with despair at the mess that we're in and he says the study of history is the best medicine for that kind of a sick mind why because in the study of history you can see a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see and in that record you see examples find things to imitate base things to avoid in history we get perspective we can see that other nations and other cultures have been where we are we are not the first one it's not very likely that the problems we face are the first time humans have faced this problem people have been in this predicament before so the study of history gives us perspective and we can rise above our despair by by saying oh that's how they solved their problems before or as the case may be that's how they wrote out the problems when there was no solution their culture would not face up to them and a few people managed to write it out as their culture collapsed and they went into some change of culture some change of government or whatever but at least this is how the thinking people the philosophically mind-minded people survived without despairing ultimately so the perspective we get in the study of history helps us he says in it we find the infinite variety of human experience we see a good man doing what they must for their country and for their families for their gods we see bad men sacrificing other people for their own benefit and among those examples then we can choose whom we will imitate and whom we will avoid so history gives us perspective and that perspective keeps us from despairing when we see the darkness of the culture around us this is a this is a tremendous philosophy of history and this is a philosophy we're going to see from now on as we look at the other great histories uh written later in western culture even the christians will say the same thing we can learn from history because human nature doesn't change as thucydides in our greek discussions said we can learn from history because uh in history we see the uh the record of examples of goodness and badness as livy says here and because in history we see we're not the only people to ever have suffered these things and so we have perspective and we rise above the temptation to despair and discouragement the study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind to prepare for the lecture on book one of livy's early history of rome read the book and i want you to notice in particular on the first couple pages there are some introductory paragraphs where livy talks about his philosophy of history we're going to spend some time discussing that so i want you to pay special attention to his discussion about what he's trying to do and why he's trying to do it and what he assumes about history and then you'll get into the discussion of early roman history a brief recounting of aeneas and the founding of rome by the trojans the story of romulus founding the city of rome the story of the sabine women the capture of the sabian women so read those and then we're going to talk briefly about the history of the monarchy so as you read the rest of book one you'll see the story of the kings of rome and then we're going to have some important comments in the lecture about what brought about the end of the monarchy and brought about the beginning of the most famous uh aspect of roman history the republic or one of the most famous aspects so when you get to the end of book one uh look at the story in the last number of pages that uh is the straw that breaks the camel's back upsets the roman populace enough to overthrow the monarchy and start a republic

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Length: 28min 55sec (1735 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 10 2021