Theodor Mommsen quotes
Theodor Mommsen was a renowned German historian, jurist, and writer, celebrated for his works on Roman history. His magnum opus, "The History of Rome," earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature. He remains a towering figure in the fields of classical scholarship and historiography. Here are 50 of his quotes:
He (Gauis Gracchus) was a political incendiary. Not only was the hundred years' revolution which dates from him, so far as it was one man's work, the work of Gaius Gracchus, but he was above all the true founder of that terrible civic proletariat flattered and paid by the classes above it, which was through it aggregation in the capital - the natural consequence of the largesses of corn - at once utterly demoralized and made conscious of its power, and which - with its pretensions, sometimes stupid, sometimes knavish, and its talk of the sovereignty of the people - lay like an incubus for five hundred years upon the Roman commonwealth and only perished along with it. And yet again, this greatest of political transgressors was the regenerator of his country. There is scarce a fruitful idea in Roman monarchy, which is not traceable to Gaius Gracchus.
Theodor Mommsen
Of all pitiful parts none is more pitiful than passing for more than one really is; and it is the fate of monarchy that this misfortune inevitably clings to it, for barely once in a thousand years does there arise among the people a man who is king not merely in name, but in reality.
Theodor Mommsen
With unrivalled activity.. [he] concentrated the most varied and most complicated functions of government in his own person. He himself watched over the distribution of grain, selected the jurymen, founded the colonies.. regulated the highways and concluded building-contracts, led the discussions of the senate, settled the consular elections - in short; he accustomed the people to the fact that one man was the foremost in all things, and threw the lax and lame administration of the senatorial college into the shade by the vigour and dexterity of his personal rule.
Theodor Mommsen
Fate is mightier than genius. Caesar desired to become the restorer of the civil commonwealth, and became the founder of the new military monarchy which he abhorred; he overthrew the regime of aristocrats and banks in the state, only to put a military regime in their place, and the commonwealth continued as before to be tyrannized and turned to profit by a privileged minority. And yet it is a privilege of the highest natures thus creatively to err. The brilliant attempts of great men to realize the ideal, though they do not reach their aim, form the best treasures of nations.
Theodor Mommsen
Catilina in particular was one of the most nefarious men in that nefarious age. His villanies belong to the criminal records, not to history; but his very outward appearance - the pale countenance, the wild glance, the gait by turns sluggish and hurried - betrayed his dismal past. He possessed in a high degree the qualities which are required in the leader of such a band - the faculty of enjoying all pleasures and of bearing all privations, courage, military talent, knowledge of men, the energy of a felon, and that horrible mastery of vice which knows how to bring the weak to fall, and how to train the fallen to crime.
Theodor Mommsen
Tiberius Caesar, who meanwhile had come to reign, did not order an immediate invasion (of Armenia), and for the moment the anti-Roman party in Armenia was victorious; but it was not his intention to abandon the important border-land. ON the contrary, the Annexation, probably long resolved on, of the Kingdom of Cappadocia was carried out in the year 17 (A. D.); the old Archelaus, who had occupied the throne there from the year 36 (B. C.), was summoned to Rome and was there informed that he had ceased to reign.
Theodor Mommsen
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 priest 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.
Theodor Mommsen
It is true that to one who was a rustic and a soldier the political proceedings of the capital were strange and incongruous: he spoke as ill as he commanded well, and displayed a far firmer bearing in the presence of the lances and swords of the enemy than in presence of the applause or hisses of the multitude; but his inclinations were of little moment. The hopes of which he was the object constrained him.
Theodor Mommsen
.. personal credit was guaranteed in the most summary and extravagant fashion; for the law entitled the creditor to treat his insolvent debtor like a thief, and granted to him in sober earnest by legislative enactment what Shylock, half in jest, stipulated for from his mortal enemy, guarding indeed by special clauses the point as to cutting off too much more carefully than did the Jew.
Theodor Mommsen
... in truth Publius Scipio was one, who was himself enthusiastic, and who inspired enthusiasm. He was not one of the few who by their energy and iron will constrain the world to adopt, and to move in, new paths for centuries, or who grasp the reins of destiny for years till its wheels roll over them.... a wide interval separates such a man from an Alexander or a Caesar. As an officer, he rendered at least no greater service to his country than Marcus Marcellus; and as a politician, although not perhaps himself fully conscious of the unpatriotic and personal character of his policy, he injured hi country at least as much, as he benefited it by his military skill.
Theodor Mommsen