Page:Regal Rome, an Introduction to Roman History (1852, Newman, London, regalromeintrodu00newmuoft).djvu/8

iv they treated them witht the same respect as this religious mythology, and would have feared to damage patriotism by too irreverent a criticism. The moderns, when a keen zeal for classical study was renewed, were for a long time seduced by the tone of the ancient authorities, into a far more entire belief than that of the Augustan age. Perizonius, according to the Niebuhr, eminently took the lead towards a sounder view. But no commanding genius was needed for this: the matter is plain enough to diligent talent. Bayle and Beaufort, knowing nothing of Perizonius, followed in the same course, and a severe shock was given to undiscriminating faith.

Sir Walter Raleigh had shown how false were the military annals of Rome even in the second Punic war; but it was reserved for Niebuhr to demolish effectually all trust in the detailed accounts of Rome's martial successes. It is now clear that the historians thought it a patriotic duty to conceal defeats, or to invent victories which would wipe them out.

A right understanding of the Agrarian laws dates only from Heyne, who, in the first French Revolution published a tract in proof that these laws never touched private, but only public, land. In fact, this