s, they
were restored as far as possible and continued until the pontificate of
P. Mucius Scaevola, by whom they were finally published in eighty books.
Two generations of these annalists have been distinguished--an older and
a younger. The older, which extends to 150 B.C., set forth, in bald,
unattractive language, without any pretensions to style, but with a
certain amount of trustworthiness, the most important events of each
successive year. Cicero (_De Oratore_, ii. 12. 53), comparing these
writers with the old Ionic logographers, says that they paid no
attention to ornament, and considered the only merits of a writer to be
intelligibility and conciseness. Their annals were a mere compilation of
facts. The younger generation, in view of the requirements and criticism
of a reading public, cultivated the art of composition and rhetorical
embellishment. As a general rule the annalists wrote in a spirit of
uncritical patriotism, which led them to minimize or gloss over such
disasters as the conquest of Rome by Porsena and the compulsory payment
of ransom to the Gauls, and to flatter the people by exaggerated
accounts of Roman prowess, dressed up in fanciful language. At first
they wrote in Greek, partly because a national style was not yet formed,
and partly because Greek was the fashionable language amongst the
educated, although Latin versions were probably published as well. The
first of the annalists, the father of Roman history, as he has been
called, was Q. FABIUS PICTOR (see FABIUS PICTOR); contemporary with him
was L. CINCIUS ALIMENTUS, who flourished during the Hannibalic war.[1]
Like Fabius Pictor, he wrote in Greek. He was taken prisoner by Hannibal
(Livy xxi. 38), who is said to have given him details of the crossing of
the Alps. His work embraced the history of Rome from its foundation down
to his own days. With M. PORCIUS CATO (q.v.) historical composition in
Latin began, and a livelier interest was awakened in the history of
Rome. Among the principal writers of this class who succeeded Cato, the
following may be mentioned. L. CASSIUS HEMINA (about 146), in the fourth
book of his Annals, wrote on the Second Punic War. His researches went
back to very early times; Pliny (_Nat. Hist_. xiii. 13 [27]) calls him
_vetustissimus auctor annalium_. L. CALPUFNIUS Piso, surnamed _Frugi_
(see under PISO), wrote seven books of annals, relating the history of
the city from its foundation down to his own times. Livy regard