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1、As regards his attitude towards the credibility of early Roman history he is quite as conscious as we are of its mythical and unsound nature. He will not, for instance, decide whether the Horatii were Albans or Romans; who was the first dictator; how many tribunes there were, and the like. His metho
2、d, as a rule, is merely to mention all the accounts and sometimes to decide in favour of the most probable, but usually not to decide at all.从对早期罗马历史上可信度的态度可以看出,对于我们的神话了的和不健全的本质他非常清醒的。例如,他不会去判定贺拉斯兄弟定是阿尔巴人还是罗马人;或者谁是第一个独裁者;他们有多少教堂,等等这些类似问题。他的态度,作为准则,是仅仅提及所有的问题,有时对有些但不是对所有决定有帮助。 No canons of historical
3、 criticism will ever discover whether the Roman women interviewed the mother of Coriolanus of their own accord or at the suggestion of the senate; whether Remus was killed for jumping over his brothers wall or because they quarrelled about birds; whether the ambassadors found Cincinnatus ploughing o
4、r only mending a hedge. Livy suspends his judgment over these important facts and history when questioned on their truth is dumb. If he does select between two historians he chooses the one who is nearer to the facts he describes. But he is no critic, only a conscientious writer. It is mere vain was
5、te to dwell on his critical powers, for they do not exist.没有历史批判就不会发现罗马妇女是否在参议院的建议下采访了她们的母亲科里奥兰纳斯;是否莱姆斯被杀是因为他背叛了他哥哥,并发生了争吵;是否大使发现了辛西内塔斯耕种或修补篱笆。李维搁置了对于怀疑那些重要事实和历史真理感到愚蠢的真相的判断。如果让他在两位历史学家之间进行选择,他会选择更接近他所描述的事实的那个。但是他并不会批评,因为他只是一个尽责的作家。对于不存在事物进行批评,那是纯粹白白浪费了他的批判能力。 In the case of Tacitus imagination has
6、taken the place of history. The past lives again in his pages, but through no laborious criticism; rather through a dramatic and psychological faculty which he specially possessed.在塔西佗时期,空想主义已经代替了历史主义。过去的生活重新写在他的著作中,只是这个著作不是描述对辛苦劳动的评价,而是戏剧化的疯狂的心里描写。In the philosophy of history he has no belief. He c
7、an never make up his mind what to believe as regards Gods government of the world. There is no method in him and none elsewhere in Roman literature.塔西坨对于史学没有信仰。他从来不会相信世界上存在上帝。在他的著作里没有,在任何的罗马著作中也没有。Nations may not have missions but they certainly have functions. And the function of ancient Italy was
8、not merely to give us what is statical in our institutions and rational in our law, but to blend into one elemental creed the spiritual aspirations of Aryan and of Semite. Italy was not a pioneer in intellectual progress, nor a motive power in the evolution of thought. The owl of the goddess of Wisd
9、om traversed over the whole land and found nowhere a resting-place. The dove, which is the bird of Christ, flew straight to the city of Rome and the new reign began. It was the fashion of early Italian painters to represent in mediaeval costume the soldiers who watched over the tomb of Christ, and t
10、his, which was the result of the frank anachronism of all true art, may serve to us as an allegory. For it was in vain that the middle ages strove to guard the buried spirit of progress. When the dawn of the Greek spirit arose, the sepulchre was empty, the grave-clothes laid aside. Humanity had rise
11、n from the dead.国家可能没有使命,但是一定有它的功能。古意大利的功能是不仅仅告诉我们机构的稳定性和法律的合理性,而是将雅利安人和犹太人的信仰融合在一起。意大利不是知识进步的先驱,在这场思想演变中也不是积极者。上帝的侦察者智慧女神走过整个土地,发现智慧无处安放。基督的鸽子直接飞到了罗马城和新王朝。这是早期意大利画家在看守基督之墓的士兵的中世纪服装上所表达的时尚,这是真正艺术坦白的时代错误,有助于我们作为一个寓言。中世纪努力守护埋没的进步精神是徒劳的。当希腊精神的曙光出现,坟墓是空的,严肃的衣服放在一边。人们已经重生。The study of Greek, it as been w
12、ell said, implies the birth o,iticism omparison and research. At the opening of that education of modern by ancient thought which we call the Renaissance, it was the words of Aristotle which sent Columbus sailing to the New World, while a fragment of Pythagorean astronomy set Copernicus thinking on
13、that train of reasoning which has revolutionised the whole position of our planet in the universe. Then it was seen that the only meaning of progress is a return to Greek modes of thought. The monkish hymns which obscured the pages of Greek manuscripts were blotted out, the splendours of a new metho
14、d were unfolded to the world, and out of the melancholy sea of mediaevalism rose the free spirit of man in all that splendour of glad adolescence, when the bodily powers seem quickened by a new vitality, when the eye sees more clearly than its wont and the mind apprehends what was beforetime hidden
15、from it. To herald the opening of the sixteenth century, from the little Venetian printing press came forth all the great authors of antiquity, each bearing on the title-page the words Greej words which may serve to remind us with what wondrous prescience Polybius saw the worlds fate when he foretol
16、d the material sovereignty of Roman institutions and exemplified in himself the intellectual empire of Greece.通常说,希腊学说,暗示着诞生,批判,比较,研究。在用古代思想教育现代的开端,我们称为文艺复兴时期,亚里士多德文学将哥伦布航行送往新大陆,然而毕达哥拉斯天文学部分,将哥白尼送上了考虑推理什么是彻底改变宇宙中星球位置的变化的列车。然后回到希腊模式中思考被认为是进步的唯一意义。掩盖了希腊手稿的僧侣赞美诗被遮住了,一种绚丽多彩的新方法展现给世界,走出中世纪精神忧郁的大海,燃起了正直辉煌与愉悦青春期人们的自由精神。那时身体的力量似乎被新的活力加强,那时眼睛比曾经看的更加清晰,头脑思考过去隐藏之下的问题。预示着十六世纪初,从小小的威尼斯的印刷出来所有古代的伟大作家,铭记在哥白尼扉页上的字有助于提醒我们先人阿里斯塔克斯见证了世界的命运是多么令人神奇,他预言了罗马机构重要的主权,展现了他是希腊知识