VALERIUS ANTIAS

valerius antias, a younger contemporary of quadrigarius, wrote the history of rome from the earliest times, in a voluminous work consisting of seventy-five books. he is notorious for his wilful exaggeration, both in narrative and numerical statements. for instance, he asserts the number of the sabine virgins to have been exactly 527; again, in a certain year when no greek or latin writers mention any important campaign, antias speaks of a big battle with enormous casualties. nevertheless, livy at first made use of him as one of his chief authorities, until he became convinced of his untrustworthiness. c. licinius macer (died 66), who has been called the last of the annalists, wrote a voluminous work, which, although he paid great attention to the study of his authorities, was too rhetorical, and exaggerated the achievements of his own family. having been convicted of extortion, he committed suicide (cicero, _de legibus_, i. 2, _brutus_, 67; plutarch, _cicero_, 9). the writers mentioned dealt with roman history as a whole; some of the annalists, however, confined themselves to shorter periods. thus, l. caelius antipater (about 120) limited himself to the second punic war. his work was overloaded with rhetorical embellishment, which he was the first to introduce into roman history. he was regarded as the most careful writer on the war with hannibal, and one who did not allow himself to be blinded by partiality in considering the evidence of other writers (cicero, _de oratore_, ii. 12). livy made great use of him in his third decade. sempronius asellio (about 100 b.c.), military tribune of scipio africanus at the siege of numantia, composed _rerum gestanim libri_ in at least fourteen books. as he himself took part in the events he describes, his work was a kind of memoirs. he was the first of his class who endeavoured to trace the causes of events, instead of contenting himself with a bare statement of facts. l. cornelius sisenna (119-67), legate of pompey in the war against the pirates, lost his life in an expedition against crete. he wrote twenty-three books on the period between the social war and the dictatorship of sulla. his work was commended by sallust (_jugurtha_, 95), who, however, blames him for not speaking out sufficiently. cicero remarks upon his fondness for archaisms (_brutus_, 74. 259). sisenna also translated the tales of aristides of miletus, and is supposed by some to have written a ccmmentary on plautus. the autobiography of sulla may also be mentioned. see c.w. nitzsch, _die romische annalistik_ (1873); h. peter, _zur kritik der quellen der dlteren romischen geschichte_ (1879); l.o. brocker, _moderne quellenforscher und antike geschichtschreiber_ (1882); fragments in h. peter, _historicorum romanorum reliquiae_ (1870, 1906), and _historicorum romanorum fragmenta_ (1883); also articles rome, _history_ (ancient) _ad fin_., section "authorities,'" and livy, where the use made of the annalists by the historian is discussed; pauly-wissowa, _realencydopadie_, art. "annales"; the histories of roman literature by m. schanz and teuffel-schwabe; mommsen, _hist. of rome_ (eng. tr.), bk. ii. ch. 9, bk. iii. ch. 14, bk. iv. ch. 13, bk. v. ch. 12; c. wachsmuth, _einleitung in das studium der alien geschichte_ (1895); h. peter, bibliography of the subject in bursian's _jahresbericht_, cxxvi. (1906). (j. h. f.) footnote: [1] he is not to be confused with l. cincius, the author of various political and antiquarian treatises (_de fastis, de comitiis, de priscis verbis_), who lived in the augustan age, to which period mommsen, considering them a later fabrication, refers the greek annals of l. cincius alimentus. annals (_annales_, from _annus_, a year), a concise historical record in which events are arranged chronologically, year by year. the chief sources of information in regard to the annals of ancient rome are two passages in cicero (_de oratore_, ii. 12. 52) and in servius (_ad aen_. i. 373) which have been the subject of much discussion. cicero states that from the earliest period down to the pontificate of publius mucius scaevola (c. 131 b.c.), it was usual for the pontifex maximus to record on a white tablet (_album_), which was exhibited in an open place at his house, so that the people might read it, first, the name of the consuls and other magistrates, and then the noteworthy events that had occurred during the year (_per singulos dies_, as servius says). these records were called in cicero's time the _annales maximi_. after the pontificate of publius, the practice of compiling annals was carried on by various unofficial writers, of whom cicero names cato, pictor and piso. the _annales_ have been generally regarded as the same with the _commentarii pontificum_ cited by livy, but there seems reason to believe that the two were distinct, the _commentarii_ being fuller and more circumstantial. the nature of the distinction between annals and history is a subject that has received more attention from critics than its intrinsic importance deserves. the basis of discussion is furnished chiefly by the above-quoted passage from cicero, and by the common division of the work of tacitus into _annales_ and _hlstoriae_. aulus gellius, in the _nodes alticae_ (v. 18), quotes the grammarian verrius flaccus, to the effect that history, according to its etymology ([greek: istorein], _inspicere_, to inquire in person), is a record of events that have come under the author's own observation, while annals are a record of the events of earlier times arranged according to years. this view of the distinction seems to be borne out by the division of the work of tacitus into the _historiae_, relating the events of his own time, and the _annales_, containing the history of earlier periods. it is more than questionable, however, whether tacitus himself divided his work under these titles. the probability is, either that he called the whole _annales_, or that he used neither designation. (see tacitus, cornelius.) in the middle ages, when the order of the liturgical feasts was partly determined by the date of easter, the custom was early established in the western church of drawing up tables to indicate that date for a certain number of years or even centuries. these paschal tables were thin books in which each annual date was separated from the next by a more or less considerable blank space. in these spaces certain monks briefly noted the important events of the year. it was at the end of the 7th century and among the anglo-saxons that the compiling of these annals was first begun. introduced by missionaries on the continent, they were re-copied, augmented and continued, especially in the kingdom of austrasia. in the 9th century, during the great movement termed the carolingian renaissance, these annals became the usual form of contemporary history; it suffices to mention the _annales einhardi_, the _annales laureshamenses_ (or "of lorsch"), and the _annales s. bertini_, officially compiled in order to preserve the memory of the more interesting acts of charlemagne, his ancestors and his successors. arrived at this stage of development, the annals now began to lose their primitive character, and henceforward became more and more indistinguishable from the chronicles. in modern literature the title annals has been given to a large number of standard works which adhere more or less strictly to the order of years. the best known are the _annales ecclesiastici_, written by cardinal baronius as a rejoinder to and refutation of the _historia eccesiastica_ or "centuries" of the protestant theologians of magdeburg (12 vols., published at rome from 1788 to 1793; baronius's work stops at the year 1197). in the 19th century the annalistic form was once more employed, either to preserve year by year the memory of passing events (_annual register_, _annuaire de la revue des deux mondes_, &c.) or in writing the history of obscure medieval periods (_jahrbucher der deutschen geschichte_, _jahrbucher des deutschen reiches_, richter's _reichsannalen_, &c.). (c. b.*)