Theodor Mommsen > Quotes

“The writer of history is perhaps closer to the artist than the scholar.”
― Theodor Mommsen

“[P]erhaps in this case, as often, the most courageous resolution might have been at the same time the most prudent”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“[T]he sacred sense of right and the reverence for the law, which it is difficult to destroy in the minds of the multitude, it is still more difficult to reproduce.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“The material benefits which a state exists to confer — security of frontier, undisturbed peaceful intercourse, legal protection, and regulated administration — began all of them to vanish for the whole of the nations united in the Roman state; the gods of blessing seemed all to have mounted up to Olympus and to have left the miserable earth at the mercy of the officially called or volunteer plunderers and tormentors. Nor was this decay of the state felt as a public misfortune merely perhaps by such as had political rights and public spirit; the insurrection of the proletariate, and the brigandage and piracy which remind us of the times of the Neapolitan Ferdinands, carried the sense of this decay into the remotest valley and the humblest hut of Italy, and made every one who pursued trade and commerce, or who bought even a bushel of wheat, feel it as a personal calamity.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“The fashionable life of the capital shattered not merely the fortunes of men, but also their vigour of body and mind. That elegant world of fragrant ringlets, of fashionable mustachios and ruffles—merry as were its doings in the dance and with the harp, and early and late at the wine-cup—yet concealed in its bosom an alarming abyss of moral and economic ruin, of well or ill concealed despair, and frantic or knavish resolves.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“To create order amidst this chaos did not require either brilliance of conception or a mighty display of force, but it required a clear insight into the interests of Rome and of her subjects, and vigor and consistency in establishing and maintaining the institutions recognized as necessary.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“It is true that the history of past centuries ought to be the instructress of the present; but not in the vulgar sense, as if one could simply by turning over the leaves discover the conjunctures of the present in the records of the past, and collect from these the symptoms for a political diagnosis and the specifics for a prescription; it is instructive only so far as the observation of older forms of culture reveals the organic conditions of civilization generally— the fundamental forces everywhere alike, and the manner of their combination everywhere different—and leads and encourages men, not to unreflecting imitation, but to independent reproduction.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“When we see Caesar, Sulla, Gaius Gracchus, and Roman statesmen in general displaying throughout an activity which transcends our notions of human powers of working, the reason lies, not in any change that human nature has undergone since that time, but in the change which has taken place since then in the organization of the household. The Roman house was a machine, in which even the mental powers of the slaves and freedmen yielded their produce to the master; a master, who knew how to govern these, worked as it were with countless minds. It was the beau ideal of bureaucratic centralization; which our counting-house system strives indeed zealously to imitate, but remains as far behind its prototype as the modern power of capital is inferior to the ancient system of slavery.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“According to the same law of nature in virtue of which the smallest organism infinitely surpasses the most artistic machine, every constitution however defective which gives play to the free self-determination of a majority of citizens infinitely surpasses the most brilliant and humane absolutism; for the former is capable of development and therefore living, the latter is what it is and therefore dead.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“There are no set forms of high treason in history; whoever provokes one power in the state to conflict with another is certainly a revolutionist, but he may be at the same time a discerning and praiseworthy statesman.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 4: The Revolution

“But the bitterest feature of this bitter time was that even hope and effort failed the clear-seeing patriot. The sun of freedom with all its endless store of blessings was constantly drawing nearer to its setting, and the twilight was settling over the very world that was still so brilliant. It was no accidental catastrophe which patriotism and genius might have warded off; it was ancient social evils—at the bottom of all, the ruin of the middle class by the slave proletariate—that brought destruction on the Roman commonwealth.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 4: The Revolution

“Restoration is always revolution; but in this case it was not so much the old government as the old governor that was restored. The oligarchy made its appearance newly equipped in the armor of the tyrannis which had been overthrown.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 4: The Revolution

“Das ganze römische Wesen lief darauf hinaus, die Bürger durchschnittlich zu tüchtigen Männern heranzubilden, geniale Naturen aber nicht emporkommen zu lassen.”
― Mommsen Theodor, The History of Rome, 4 Vols in 5 Paperback Parts

“But Catilina could not venture to place his abler partisans, such as the young senator Gaius Cethegus and the equites Lucius Statilius and Publius Gabinius Capito, at the head of the movement; for even among the conspirators the traditional hierarchy of rank held its ground, and the very anarchists thought that they should be unable to carry the day unless a consular or at least a praetorian were at their head. Therefore, however urgently the army of the insurrection might long for its general, and however perilous it was for the latter to remain longer at the seat of government after the outbreak of the revolt, Catilina nevertheless resolved still to remain for a time in Rome.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“Without allowing each individual to see into the whole springs of action, Caesar yet allowed each to catch such glimpses of the political and military connection of things as to secure that he should be recognized—and it may be idealized—by the soldiers as a statesman and a general. He treated his soldiers throughout, not as his equals, but as men who are entitled to demand and were able to endure the truth, and who had to put faith in the promises and the assurances of their general, without thinking of deception or listening to rumours; as comrades through long years in warfare and victory, among whom there was hardly any one that was not known to him by name and that in the course of so many campaigns had not formed more or less of a personal relation to the general; as good companions, with whom he talked and dealt confidentially and with the cheerful elasticity peculiar to him; as clients, to requite whose services, and to avenge whose wrongs and death, constituted in his view a sacred duty. Perhaps there never was an army which was so perfectly what an army ought to be—a machine able for its ends and willing for its ends, in the hand of a master, who transfers to it his own elasticity.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“While the leading state thus collected its energies in the prospect of the severe war impending, the insurgents had to solve the more difficult task of acquiring political organization during the struggle. [...] The Latin language, which was even then the prevailing language among the Marsians and Picentes, continued in official use, but the Samnite language which predominated in Southern Italy was placed side by side with it on a footing of equality; and the two were made use of alternately on the silver pieces which the new Italian state began to coin in its own name after Roman models and after the Roman standard, thus appropriating likewise the monopoly of coinage which Rome had exercised for two centuries. It is evident from these arrangements— and was, indeed a matter of course-that the Italians now no longer thought of wresting equality of rights from the Romans, but purposed to annihilate or subdue them and to form a new state. But it is also obvious that their constitution was nothing but a pure copy of that of Rome or, in other words, was the ancient polity handed down by tradition among the Italian nations from time immemorial:—the organization of a city instead of the constitution of a state, with primary assemblies as unwieldy and useless as the Roman comitia, with a governing corporation which contained within it the same elements of oligarchy as the Roman senate, with an executive administered in like manner by a plurality of coordinate supreme magistrates.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 4: The Revolution

“But such a bold player Tiberius Gracchus was not. He was a tolerably capable, thoroughly well-meaning, conservative patriot, who simply did not know what he was doing; who in the fullest belief that he was calling the people evoked the rabble, and grasped at the crown without being himself aware of it, until the inexorable sequence of events urged him irresistibly into the career of the demagogue-tyrant; until the family commission, the interferences with the public finances, the further "reforms" exacted by necessity and despair, the bodyguard from the pavement, and the conflicts in the streets betrayed the lamentable usurper more and more clearly to himself and others; until at length the unchained spirits of revolution seized and devoured the incapable conjurer.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 4: The Revolution

“Wie die Größe des römischen Gemeinwesens nicht das Werk hervorragender Individuen, sondern das einer tüchtig organisierten Bürgerschaft gewesen ist, so ist auch der Verfall dieses gewaltigen Gebäudes nicht aus der verderblichen Genialität einzelner, sondern aus der allgemeinen Desorganisation hervorgegangen. Die große Majorität der Bürgerschaft taugte nichts und jeder morsche Baustein half mit zu dem Ruin des ganzen Gebäudes; es büßte die ganze Nation, was die ganze Nation verschuldete. Es war ungerecht, wenn man die Regierung als den letzten greifbaren Ausdruck des Staats für alle heilbaren und unheilbaren Krankheiten desselben verantwortlich machte; aber das allerdings war wahr, daß die Regierung in furchtbar schwerer Weise mittrug an dem allgemeinen Verschulden.”
― Theodor Mommsen

“Catilina was in a painful position. According to his design there should have been a simultaneous rising in the capital and in Etruria on occasion of the consular elections; the failure of the former and the outbreak of the latter movement endangered his person as well as the whole success of his undertaking. Now that his partisans at Faesulae had once risen in arms against the government, he could no longer remain in the capital; and yet not only did everything depend on his inducing the conspirators of the capital now at least to strike quickly, but this had to be done even before he left Rome—for he knew his helpmates too well to rely on them for that matter.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“Lentulus in his tedious fashion, which sought to cover negligence in regard to what was immediate and necessary by the projection of large and distant plans, had entered into relations with the deputies of a Celtic canton, the Allobroges, now present in Rome; had attempted to implicate these—the representatives of a thoroughly disorganized commonwealth and themselves deeply involved in debt—in the conspiracy; and had given them on their departure messages and letters to his confidants. The Allobroges left Rome, but were arrested in the night between 2nd and 3rd Dec. close to the gates by the Roman authorities, and their papers were taken from them. It was obvious that the Allobrogian deputies had lent themselves as spies to the Roman government, and had carried on the negotiations only with a view to convey into the hands of the latter the desired proofs implicating the ringleaders of the conspiracy. On the following morning orders were issued with the utmost secrecy by Cicero for the arrest of the most dangerous leaders of the plot, and executed in regard to Lentulus, Cethegus, Gabinius, and Statilius, while some others escaped from seizure by flight”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“She (History) too is a Bible, and if she cannot any more than the Bible hinder the fool from misunderstanding and the devil from quoting her, she too will be able to bear with, and to requite, them both.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“Grecia dejó obras que serán maestras de superior cultura individual; Roma, leyes que gobiernan y dirigen las sociedades. Después del pueblo judío, pueblo jurista por excelencia, y de la promulgación de la Torá divina comunicada a Moisés, ningún pueblo ni ninguna ley han granjeado entre los hombres el influjo que el pueblo y las leyes romanas han conseguido, cuya extraordinaria difusión e influencia revelan, con claridad, que la historia se rige por principios verdaderamente providenciales.”
― Theodor Mommsen, Historia de Roma

“In the mighty vortex of the world's history, which inexorably crushes all peoples that are not as hard and as flexible as steel, such a nation could not permanently maintain itself.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“Even in the capital there was something brewing; those who saw the haughty bearing with which the summoned debtors appeared before the urban praetor, could not but remember the scenes which had preceded the murder of Asellio. The capitalists were in unutterable anxiety; it seemed needful to enforce the prohibition of the export of gold and silver, and to set a watch over the principal ports.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“All was over with the aristocracy; but the aristocrats could never become converted to monarchy. The highest revelations of humanity are perishable; the religion once true may become a lie, the polity once fraught with blessing may become a curse; but even the gospel that is past still finds confessors, and if such a faith cannot remove mountains like faith in the living truth, it yet remains true to itself down to its very end, and does not depart from the realm of the living till it has dragged its last priests and its last partisans along with it, and a new generation, freed from those shadows of the past and the perishing, rules over a world that has renewed its youth. So it was in Rome. Into whatever abyss of degeneracy the aristocratic rule had now sunk, it had once been a great political system; the sacred fire, by which Italy had been conquered and Hannibal had been vanquished, continued to glow—although somewhat dimmed and dull—in the Roman nobility so long as that nobility existed, and rendered a cordial understanding between the men of the old regime and the new monarch impossible.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“But it was no less clear, that Gracchus himself and these merchants and proletarians were only kept together by mutual advantage, and that the men of material interests were ready to accept their posts, and the populace strictly so called its bread, quite as well from any other as from Gaius Gracchus. The institutions of Gracchus stood, for the moment at least, immoveably firm with the exception of a single one—his own supremacy. The weakness of the latter lay in the fact, that in the constitution of Gracchus there was no relation of allegiance subsisting at all between the chief and the army; and, while the new constitution possessed all other elements of vitality, it lacked one—the moral tie between ruler and ruled, without which every state rests on a pedestal of clay.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 4: The Revolution

“There was, further, the remnant of the old liberal minority in the senate, which in former times had laboured to effect a compromise with the reform party and the Italians, and was now in a similar spirit inclined to modify the rigidly oligarchic constitution of Sulla by concessions to the Populares. There were, moreover, the Populares strictly so called, the honestly credulous narrow-minded radicals, who staked property and life for the current watchwords of the party-programme, only to discover with painful surprise after the victory that they had been fighting not for a reality, but for a phrase.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“If Egypt was really selected as the headquarters of the democracy, there was no time to be lost; otherwise Pompeius might easily arrive in Egypt sooner than Caesar. The conspiracy of 688, far from being broken up by the lax and timid measures of repression, was again astir when the consular elections for 691 approached. The persons were, it may be presumed, substantially the same, and the plan was but little altered. The leaders of the movement again kept in the background. [...] Through these consuls the heads of the conspiracy intended to seize the government, to arrest the children of Pompeius, who remained behind in the capital, as hostages, and to take up arms in Italy and the provinces against Pompeius. On the first news of the blow struck in the capital, the governor Gnaeus Piso was to raise the banner of insurrection in Hither Spain. Communication could not be held with him by way of the sea, since Pompeius commanded the seas. [...] The threads of this combination reached as far as Mauretania. One of the conspirators, the Roman speculator Publius Sittius from Nuceria, compelled by financial embarrassments to keep aloof from Italy, had armed a troop of desperadoes there and in Spain, and with these wandered about as a leader of free-lances in western Africa, where he had old commercial connections.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5

“In verhängnisvoller Weise verschlingen sich in dem Rom dieser Zeit die zwiefachen Mißstände einer ausgearteten Oligarchie und einer noch unentwickelten, aber schon im Keime vom Wurmfraß ergriffenen Demokratie. Ihren Parteinamen nach, welche zuerst in dieser Periode gehört werden, wollten die "Optimaten" den Willen der Besten, die "Popularen" den der Gemeinde zur Geltung bringen; in der Tat gab es in dem damaligen Rom weder eine wahre Aristokratie noch eine wahrhaft sich selber bestimmende Gemeinde. Beide Parteien stritten gleichermaßen für Schatten und zählten in ihren Reihen nur entweder Schwärmer oder Heuchler. Beide waren von der politischen Fäulnis gleichmäßig ergriffen und in der Tat beide gleich nichtig. Beide waren mit Notwendigkeit in den Status quo gebannt, da weder hüben noch drüben ein politischer Gedanke, geschweige denn ein politischer Plan sich fand, der über diesen hinausgegangen wäre, und so vertrugen denn auch beide sich miteinander so vollkommen, daß sie auf jeden Schritt sich in den Mitteln wie in den Zwecken begegneten und der Wechsel der Partei mehr ein Wechsel der politischen Taktik als der politischen Gesinnung war. Das Gemeinwesen hätte ohne Zweifel gewonnen, wenn entweder die Aristokratie statt der Bürgerschaftswahlen geradezu einen erblichen Turnus eingeführt oder die Demokratie ein wirkliches Demagogenregiment aus sich hervorgebracht hätte. Aber diese Optimaten und diese Popularen des beginnenden siebenten Jahrhunderts waren die einen für die andern viel zu unentbehrlich, um sich also auf Tod und Leben zu bekriegen; sie konnten nicht bloß nicht einander vernichten, sondern, wenn sie es gekonnt hätten, hätten sie es nicht gewollt. Darüber wich denn freilich politisch wie sittlich das Gemeinwesen immer mehr aus den Fugen und ging seiner völligen Auflösung entgegen.”
― Theodor Mommsen, A History of Rome

“He was one of those men who are capable it may be of a crime, but not of insubordination; in a good as in a bad sense, he was thoroughly a soldier. Men of mark respect the law as a moral necessity, ordinary men as a traditional everyday rule; for this very reason military discipline, in which more than anywhere else law takes the form of habit, fetters every man not entirely self-reliant as with a magic spell.”
― Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome, Vol 5