[In the following excerpt, Crees examines the question of Claudian's reliability as an historian, particularly when his subject is his patron, the powerful general Flavius Stilicho.]

The period which we have been considering is in no wise a rounded whole. Such unity as the Age of Claudian possesses, it derives from the fact that Claudian flourished then, and in his occasional poems celebrated contemporary history. If Claudian had continued to sound the praises of Stilicho until his death, 408 a.d., the years 395-408 a.d. could certainly claim to be a definite epoch, for it was then that the spirit of Stilicho dominated the policy of the Western Empire, and from time to time exercised a strong influence on the affairs of the East. As it is, Claudian's help fails us at that moment at which Stilicho reached his brief zenith. The period between the defeat of Alaric, the Gallic invasion and Britannic revolt is the time at which Stilicho could develop his policy with least opposition. By an unhappy chance, we are plunged into a historical twilight after the clear day¹ of Claudian, and are condemned to grope about in a shadowland. But this accentuates the importance of Claudian's contribution of facts and point of view. Whatever judgment we pass on Stilicho's career as a whole, we are contrained by the scantiness of our information on the latter period to base it chiefly on what has gone before. The view we take of Stilicho's actions in the period selected for this essay cannot be materially modified by what is merely a continuance of a policy already projected, and already put into action. And our judgment upon Stilicho, the one man of the epoch, depends almost entirely upon our estimate of Claudian.

This is not a question of slight importance. If Claudian is ruled out as utterly unworthy of credence², then the history of the Roman Empire, at least its Western half, becomes a blank for ten years. But for a few facts to be ascertained from the Eastern writers, from the Chroniclers, or from a thankless investigation of Orosius, we should know nothing. Even the scanty inferences to which we might proceed would be in general merely plausible hypotheses. An entire ignorance of the course of events in years which saw the final separation of East and West, the final vanquishment of paganism, and a preliminary trial of strength between the Goths and Italy, is not a result which we can regard with indifference.

The historian's function is twofold. We require of him accuracy of detail, and accuracy of view. Not that accuracy of outlook can be divorced from accuracy in minute things—on the contrary it must be based ultimately solely on such precision—but that microscopic investigation, if pursued exclusively, leads to shortsightedness. A verdict must be passed upon Claudian under both these heads.

Claudian was not a professed historian, and, as a poet, avoided philosophical disquisitions upon history. He had a wide if not profound knowledge of Rome's history. From Romulus to Marcus Antoninus he had an arsenal of apt instances, ever at his command and lavishly employed; but there are few general conclusions. One thing, however, he comprehended, the spirit of Rome. In one striking passage³ he celebrates its glories. He had entered into the secret of the power of ‘the parent of arms and law,’ of the undaunted resolution which quailed at no disaster, which bore no rancour after the hour of battle, but cherished as a mother the whole world, of that spirit which confidently looked to an eternal dominion. Such an illustration of the solidarity of the empire as we find in this passage, is both a striking and a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the empire at the moment of its disintegration.

Claudian's view of the leading politicians of the time, and his interpretations of its most striking events, will often arouse our suspicion. This is due to his peculiar position. Again we find poetry employed, if not as a political instrument, yet as a means to maintaining a personal predominance. But Rome was not the Rome of the Augustan Age, nor was Stilicho, conciliatory, tactful, elaborate actor as he was, in the position of Augustus. He could, if he wished, despise and neglect the senate, whose glories he attempted to revive; his poet was less potent than one maniple of his barbarians. Yet even the Vandal was not insensible to the devotion of his enthusiastic client. He found him never lacking in power to give expression, after the manner of the skilled diplomatist or the ‘inspired’ leader-writer of modern times, to the successive phases of his policy, to justify his doubtful acts, to gloss over his failures and miscarriages, and to excite a glow of enthusiasm at his successes. His dexterous powers of expression, his consummate rhetorical skill, were qualities still useful at a court; the alliance between Stilicho and Claudian was not altogether one-sided.

But this intimate relationship may have a tendency to damage Stilicho. We may refuse to credit one who was compelled to speak well of his patron. It leads us to trust rather to incidental statements than to the general point of view. It is difficult to believe Stilicho to have been the one ‘faithful amid the faithless found.’ It is hard to listen to the general chorus of censure without being moved to a judgment unfavourable in some degree. Indiscriminate eulogy is more severely judged by some temperaments than even the most rancorous abuse.

Another factor which impairs Claudian's judgment is his strong bias. The most strenuous exponent of the narrow Roman spirit which still survived in corners of the Roman curia, was an Alexandrian. With all the ardour of the enthusiastic novice he rails upon the barbarians. In this he cannot have represented Stilicho's views, for that statesman was himself scarcely a Roman. Our estimate of Alaric—to Claudian a Timur, or a Gengis Khan—can never be so harsh as that of the representative of a society, engaged in deadly contest with a terrible invader, whom it feared even more than it hated. That absence of all magnanimous or chivalrous feeling, which we are conscious of in his treatment of Alaric, and not less in the delineation of Rufinus and the unhappy Eutropius, warped his judgment and marred his poetry.

It is then in particular facts that we can assume most readily his veracity. The verdict may be harsh, but he is a witness whose testimony we can chiefly trust when he is off his guard. The question whether or no Claudian had any motive for concealing or disguising the truth must always be in the mind of the historian. If he had not, his statements may be trusted. There are numerous assertions which, after the employment of this canon, can be allowed, and there are a considerable number which have been confirmed by other credible witnesses. Moreover, a contemporary speaking to contemporaries cannot indulge in unlimited make-believe. His audience, however favourable and courteous, will exclaim at his crudeness and gaucherie if he makes statements which are glaringly false. However complaisant it may be towards deft manipulation of the truth, neat compliments, and delicate euphemism, it will plainly shew its disgust whenever the poet in the extravagance of his ardour too openly disregards the facts. Accepting this general principle we shall find a number of statements which there is no reason to discredit.

With the best will in the world, Claudian in many things could not hope to avoid inaccuracy. The gazetteer, who is forced to write before the enthusiasm excited by a great exploit has chilled, must through the hastiness of his writing depend often upon rumour and conjecture. The accounts of any important success are always conflicting. The writer has little time and less inclination to sift his material. Moreover, the distance between East and West, and still more the estrangement between them, rendered the task of obtaining accurate information particularly trying. The travelling merchants too, we are told, gratuitously added to this difficulty by their deliberate misstatements; and when, after Stilicho was declared an enemy by the East, communication was still more severely restricted, the troubles of a candid enquirer must have been seriously augmented. In all the accounts of events in Asia, we are bound to give less credit to Claudian owing to his geographical handicap⁴. In dealing with the troubles of Asia, he is at times vague. Distance, the estrangement of East and West, and his haste, all conspired to render him less trust-worthy⁵.

The poet's leaning towards exaggeration and embellishment, is another cause of distrust. Claudian is too sophisticated, too elaborate, to win our trust. He lacks that culmination of the highest art—naturalness. He describes victories with the intent to dazzle his hearers both by his hero's exploits and his own. One must suspect in dealing with historical questions a man who is always straining after poetic effects. He lived in an atmosphere of well-bred conventionality, where it was the mode to ignore unpleasant realities and to abstain from uncourtly home-truths. We can tolerate his praise of Stilicho, who had many qualities, and a distinctive personality, but encomiums upon a colourless weakling like Honorius are too reminiscent of the society chatter of modern journalism to excite anything but disgust or weariness. Even a master of delineation like Claudian could make nothing of Honorius.

Yet his merits as an historical artist are great. We must at once admit that Claudian's conception of history is not the modern conception of history, or even Thucydides' conception. But he gives the colour and life to his accounts of contemporary affairs which we could ill spare. Judged by his own standards he attains to a high degree of merit. He is necessarily not systematic in the sense in which the historian is systematic. But he is a master of the narrator's art. The consummate manner in which he makes his selection of facts, groups them, and connects them, can only excite the keenest admiration. He gives his narratives a symmetry and consistency to which the ordinary historian, bound by the stringent rules of his craft, to adhere closely to fact, to invent nothing, to pervert nothing, cannot hope to attain⁶. His skill in the delineation of character is such as few historians possess. The characters of Stilicho, of Rufinus, of Eutropius, may be condemned as false. They can never be censured for lack of graphicness, or for lack of vitality. Claudian may plead in extenuation of many a blemish that at least he never indulged in allegories, that he is always direct and pointed. With all their faults then, these delineations are great, perhaps the greatest, contributions to our knowledge of the time.

But such an author must be used with the greatest discrimination. Many critics, carried away by their admiration of Claudian, have accepted almost verbatim his praises of Stilicho, with many a sharp censure of the cynical views of eastern writers, to whom they ascribe moral defects most serious in a historian. But it is unsound to attribute to the statesman of the time exemplary virtue, while imputing to the historians every fault. Corruption in high places was symptomatic of the universal corruption. It is far more probable that writers seeing venality triumphant, themselves adopted low standards of truth and debased views of humanity, than that wise statesmen and devoted patriots had suffered through the tender mercies of conspicuously mendacious and unscrupulous historians. Stilicho may have had as lofty aims as Seneca, but he had also Seneca's suppleness and complaisance. Many statesmen have found by experience that they must adjust ethics to expediency, and not least Stilicho. Much can be said in extenuation. He was generous, and not vindictive, he was comparatively humane, comparatively upright, he did not descend to the lowest depths of baseness. But the consciousness of just aims made him the less scrupulous. If he did not murder Mascezel, he assassinated Rufinus; in either case the end justified the means. It was by his instrumentality that the change from the ancient to the mediaeval world was set on foot. His dealings with Alaric were condemned by a patriotism which he, as a Vandal, had never imbibed. Yet he ever desired, if it were possible, to use the nobler expedient. He strangely reminds us of Pompeius⁷. There is the same ambition of supremacy—the ruling motive—combined with a desire to obtain that end by irreproachable methods, the same administrative and military capacity, paralysed at times by inexplicable irresolution, the same tortuous methods, and the same aversion for directness or explicitness. Here then, valuable as is the quantity of facts which Claudian supplies, we may not trust him, but must strive to test each statement. In our judgment of Rufinus and Eutropius, on the other hand, we must allow for obvious hostile animus.

Again, Claudian as an artist claims freedom of treatment. He refuses to bind himself strictly to chronological definition; the narrative once started, we must ourselves supply a hiatus, or more precisely indicate the dates. He is not a chronologist but a poet, and moreover he is addressing those who need no information on these points. We must have recourse to others to obtain the chronological framework, and to test his statements. Fortunately in many places a law, or an inscription, or passages in other writers, attest his complete accuracy. In other cases the historian must always have in mind the famous query of the Roman iudex—‘Cui bono?’ If there is no reason to suspect him of special pleading, or of deceitful intent, we may safely trust him; otherwise reliance is dangerous.

The faults and virtues of Claudian are inextricably blended. Not a historian, but an artist in the historical style, he gives us the atmosphere of the time, he makes us more vividly and closely acquainted with the characteristics of the period, than any except the very greatest of historians could do. The brilliance of his sketches is heightened by what is a defect historically speaking, his hasty composition. His tact, his finish, and his refinement, are qualities derived or perfected by that sojourn among courtiers which also produced an obsequiousness which bordered on servility. The rhetoric, which often hides the truth from us, also achieved his finest passages. Nor finally can we regret his attachment to Stilicho. The smallest benefit which the latter bestowed on him was sustenance and patronage. He gave him much more—a worthy theme. Claudian was transformed from the idle minstrel of some mediocre aristocrat, doomed to fritter away his talents on show poems, trifling epigrams, or hackneyed epithalamia, into the poet of majestic and impassioned utterance, wrestling in the consciousness of strength with the most arduous of tasks, and triumphing over all. The debt was great, the quittance was still more splendid. We may upbraid Claudian for doing violence to truth in his zeal for friendship, yet his monument to Stilicho will survive most histories. If his delineation of Stilicho is not ‘ben vero,’ it is at least ‘ben trovato,’ and his noble eulogy of Stilicho⁸ is his own best epitaph. In him shines forth again in the radiance of a stormy sunset Latium and all Rome's spirit.

Notes

1. Perhaps we should rather say ‘the dazzling radiance.’

2. Professor Bury, Later Roman Empire, p. 67, shews signs of a reaction against the unquestioning trust which too many commentators upon Claudian have shewn. ‘In the works of a poet whose leading idea was so extravagant, we can hardly expect to find much historical truth.’ Dr Hodgkin is juster, vol. I. p. 729: ‘Claudian's verses, whatever their defects, have shed over the last eventful nine years a light that we shall grievously miss in those that are to come.’

3. de cons. Stil. III. 130-173.

4. In such a case too Claudian seems to give himself more licence. He follows in the track of older poets, and seeks rather to display his learning by as many proper names as possible. Britain, Africa, and Asia Minor, give him opportunities for such encyclopædical displays. The whole of the poem on Eutropius seems an astonishing tour de force which is in independence, if not in defiance, of the facts, which were at that period peculiarly hard to ascertain.

5. His habit of writing ‘réchauffés’ of former poems shews how skilfully he availed himself of the lapse of time. As in the classic instance of Demosthenes' and Aeschines' speeches on their embassy to Philip, the later account has many discrepancies with the earlier, and the poet's licence is under still less restraint. A doubtful battle becomes in process of time a triumph.

6. We cannot more reasonably expect from Claudian a copious and detailed account of contemporary events, not admitting of poetic treatment, than require Aeschylus in the Persae to give an ordered exposition of all that happened at Salamis.

7. Cf. Professor Bury. If he was the Pompeius of the age, Gainas appears to have been the Cinna.

8. De bell. Get. 374:

   ‘inque uno princeps Latiumque et tota refulsit
   Roma viro.’