Original

Originally the History was conceived as a five volume work, spanning Roman history from its inception to the emperor Diocletian (284–305). The first three volumes, which covered the origin of Rome through the fall of the Republic, ending with the reforms of Julius Caesar, were published in 1854, 1855, and 1856, as the Römische Geschichte.^[8]

These three volumes did indeed become very popular. "Their success was immediate." Here "a professional scholar" presented his readers with a prose that was of "such vigor and life, such grasp of detail combined with such vision, such self-confident mastery of a vast field of learning." Especially in Mommsen's third volume, as the narrative told of how the political crisis in the Roman Republic came to its final climax, "he wrote with a fire of imagination and emotion almost unknown in a professional history. Here was scientific learning with the stylistic vigor of a novel."^[9]

These first three volumes of the Römische Geschichte retained their popularity in Germany, with eight editions being published in Mommsen's lifetime.^[10] Following his death in 1903, an additional eight German editions have issued.^[11]

Later volumes

Provinces of the Roman Empire, 117 A.D.

A planned fourth volume covering Roman history under the Empire was delayed pending Mommsen's completion of a then 15-volume work on Roman inscriptions. This task required his services as researcher, writer, and editor, which occupied Mommsen for many years. After repeated delays the projected fourth volume was eventually abandoned, or at least not published; an early manuscript may have been lost in a fire.^[12][13]

Despite lacking a "fourth volume", in 1885 Mommsen had ready another volume on ancient Roman history; it described the imperial provinces. In Germany this work was published as volume five of his Römische Geschichte.^[14] In thirteen chapters Mommsen discusses the different provinces of the Roman Empire, each as a stand-alone subject.^[15] Here there was no running narrative of political events, often dramatic, as was the case in Mommsen's popular, chronological telling of the Roman Republic in his first three volumes.^[16] The English translation was entitled The Provinces of the Roman Empire from Caesar to Diocletion.^[17]

In 1992 a 'reconstructed' edition of what would-have-been Mommsen's missing "fourth volume" on the Empire was issued.^[18] It was based on newly discovered lecture notes by two of Mommsen's students: Sebastian Hensel (father) and Paul Hensel (son).^[19] The two Hensels took notes of lectures on the politics of the Roman Empire delivered by Prof. Mommsen at the University of Berlin from 1882 to 1886. Alexander Demandt discovered them in 1980 at a used bookshop in Nuremberg. As edited by Barbara Demandt and Alexander Demandt, the notes yielded the 'reconstructed' German text, Römische Kaisergeschichte.^[20]

In English

The contemporary English translations were the work of William Purdie Dickson, then the Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. The first three German volumes (which contained five 'books') were published during 1862 to 1866 by R. Bentley & Son, London.^[21] Over several decades Prof. Dickson prepared further English editions of this translation, keeping pace with Mommsen's revisions in German.^[22] All told, close to a hundred editions and reprints of the English translation have been published.^[23][24]

In 1958 selections from the final two 'books' of the three-volume History were prepared by Dero A. Saunders and John H. Collins for a shorter English version.^[25] The content was chosen to highlight Mommsen's telling of the social-political struggles over several generations leading to the fall of the Republic.^[26] Provided with new annotations and a revised translation, the book presents an abridgment revealing the historical chronology. With rigor Mommsen is shown narrating the grave political drama and illuminating its implications; the book closes with his lengthy description of the new order of government adumbrated by Julius Caesar.^[27]

With regard to Mommsen's 1885 "fifth volume" on the Roman provinces, Prof. Dr. Dickson immediate began to supervise its translation. In 1886 it appeared as The Provinces of the Roman Empire. From Caesar to Diocletian.^[28]

Mommsen's missing fourth volume was reconstructed from student notes and published in 1992 under the title Römische Kaisergeschichte. It was soon translated into English by Clare Krojzl as A History of Rome under the Emperors.^[29]

The Republic

With exceptions, Mommsen in his Römische Geschichte (1854–1856) narrates a straight chronology of historic events and circumstances. Often strongly worded, he carefully describes the political acts taken by the protagonists, demonstrates the immediate results, draws implications for the future, while shedding light on the evolving society that surround them. The chronology of the contents of his five 'books' (in his first three volumes) are in brief:

Roman Senate (Cicero attacking Catilina, 63 BCE). 19th-century fresco in Italian Senate at Palazzo Madama.

• Book I, Roman origins and the Monarchy;
• Book II, the Republic until the Union of Italy;
• Book III, the Punic Wars and the East;
• Book IV, the Gracchi, Marius, Drusus, and Sulla;
• Book V, the Civil Wars and Julius Caesar.

The broad strokes of Mommsen's long, sometimes intense narrative of the Roman Republic were summarized at the 1902 award of the Nobel Prize in a speech given by the secretary of the Swedish Academy.^[30] At the beginning, the strength of Rome derived from the health of its families, e.g., a Roman's obedience to the state was associated with obedience of son to father.^[31] From here Mommsen skillfully unrolls the huge canvas of Rome's long development from rural town to world capital. An early source of stability and effectiveness was the stubbornly preserved constitution; e.g., the reformed Senate composed of patricians and plebeians generally handled public affairs of the city-state in an honorable manner.^[32]

Outline of Roman Constitution.

Yet the great expansion of Rome and the consequent transformations worked to subvert the ancient order. Gradually, older institutions grew incapable of effectively meeting new and challenging circumstances, of performing the required civic tasks.^[33] The purported sovereignty of the comitia (people's assembly) became only a fiction, which might be exploited by demagogues for their own purposes.^[34] In the Senate, the old aristocratic oligarchy began to become corrupted by the enormous wealth derived from military conquest and its aftermath;^[35] it no longer served well its functional purpose, it failed to meet new demands placed on Rome, and its members would selfishly seek to preserve inherited prerogatives against legitimate challenge and transition.^[36] A frequently unpatriotic capitalism abused its power in politics and by irresponsible speculation. The free peasantry^[37] became squeezed by the competing demands of powerful interests; accordingly its numbers began to dwindle, which eventually led to a restructuring of Army recruitment, and later resulted in disastrous consequences for the entire commonwealth.^[38]

Sulla bust in Munich Glyptothek.

Moreover, the annual change of consuls (the two Roman chief executives) began to adversely impact the consistent management of its armed forces, and to weaken their effectiveness, especially in the era following the Punic Wars. Eventually it led to the prolongation of military commands in the field; hence, Roman army generals became increasingly independent, and they led soldiers personally loyal to them.^[39] These military leaders began to acquire the ability to rule better than the ineffective civil institutions. In short, the civil power's political capabilities were not commensurate with the actual needs of the Roman state. As Rome's strength and reach increased, the political situation developed in which an absolute command structure imposed by military leaders at the top might, in the long run, in many cases be more successful and cause less chaos and hardship to the citizenry than the corrupt and incompetent rule by the oligarchy of quarreling old families who de facto controlled the government.^[40] Such was his purpose when the conservative Optimate, the noble and Roman general Sulla (138–78), seized state power by military force; yet he sought without permanent success to restore the Senate nobility to its former power.^[41]

Political instability soon returned, social unrest being the disagreeable norm. The conservative renovation of the Republic's institutions was abandoned and taken apart. Eventually the decisive civil war victory of the incomparable Julius Caesar (100–44), followed by his executive mastery and public-minded reforms, appeared as the necessary and welcome step forward toward resolution of the sorry and bloody débâcle at Rome. This, in the dramatic narrative of Theodore Mommsen.^[42][43][44]

Julius Caesar, obverse; Victory on hand of Venus with sceptre, reverse. Denarius.

Mommsen's penultimate chapter provides an outline of the 'nation building' program begun by Caesar following his victory. Institutions were reformed, the many regions ruled by Rome became more unified in design, as if prepared for a future Empire which would endure for centuries; this, during Caesar's last five and a half years alive. His work at statecraft included the following: the slow pacification of party strife, nonetheless with republican opposition latent and episodically expressed; his assumption of the title Imperator (refusing the crown, yet continuing since 49 as dictator), with reversion of the Senate to an advisory council, and the popular comitia as a compliant legislature, although law might be made by his edicts alone; his assumption of authority over tax and treasury, over provincial governors, and over the capital; supreme jurisdiction (trial and appellate) over the continuing republican legal system, with the judex being selected among senators or equites, yet criminal courts remained corrupted by factional infighting; supreme command over the decayed Roman army, which was reorganized and which remained under civilian control; reform of government finance, of budgeting re income and expense, and of corn distribution; cultivation of civil peace in Rome by control of criminal "clubs", by new city police, and by public building projects.^[45] Impossible problems: widespread slavery, disappearance of family farms, extravagance and immorality of the wealthy, dire poverty, speculation, debt; Caesar's reforms: favoring families, against absentees, restricting luxuries, debt relief (but not cancellation as demanded by populares), personal bankruptcy for unpayable debt replacing enslavement by creditors, usury laws, road building, distribution of public agricultural lands in a moderated Gracchan fashion, and new municipal law. Mommsen writes, "[W]e may well conclude that Caesar with his reforms came as near to the measure of what was possible as it was given to a statesman and a Roman to come."^[46]

Curia Julia in Forum, seat of Imperial Senate.

Regarding the Roman provinces, former misrule and financial plundering is described, committed by Roman government agents and Roman merchants; Caesar's reforms replaced the quasi-independent Roman governors with those selected by the Imperator and closely supervised, with reduction in taxes; provincial oppression by private concerns was found more difficult to arrest. Abatement of the prior popular notion of the provinces as "country estates" to be worked or exploited for Rome's benefit. Favors granted Jews; Latin colonies continue. Cultural joining of Latins and Hellenes; "Italy was converted from the mistress of subject peoples into the mother of the renovated Italo-Hellenic nation." Census of the Mediterranean population under Rome taken; popular religion left free of additional state norms. Continuing development of the Praetor's Edict, and plans for a codification of law. Roman coinage, weights and measures reformed; creation of the Julian Calendar. "The rapidity and self-precision with which the plan was executed prove that it had been long meditated thoroughly and all its parts settled in detail", Mommsen comments. "[T]his was probably the meaning of the words which were heard to fall from him—that he had 'lived enough'."^[47][48]

The exceptions to the straightforward chronology are the periodic digressions in his narrative, where Mommsen inserts separate chapters, each devoted to one or more of a range of particular subjects, for example:

• "The Original Constitution of Rome" (Book I, Chapter 5);
• "The Etruscans" (I, 9);
• "Law and Justice" (I, 11);
• "Religion" (I, 12);
• "Agriculture, Trade, Commerce" (I, 13);
• "Measuring and Writing" (I, 14);

Capitoline Wolf with legendary founders Romulus and Remus.

• "The Tribunate of the Plebs and the Decemvirate" (Book II, Chapter 2);
• "Law – Religion – Military System – Economic Condition – Nationality" (II, 8);
• "Art and Science" (II, 9);
• "Carthage" (Book III, Chapter 1);
• "The Government and the Governed" (III, 11);
• "The Management of Land and Capital" (III, 12);
• "Faith and Manners" (III, 13);
• "Literature and Art" (III, 14);
• "The Peoples of the North" (Book IV, Chapter 5);
• "The Commonwealth and its Economy" (IV, 11);
• "Nationality, Religion, Education" (IV, 12);
• "The Old Republic and the New Monarchy" (Book V, Chapter 11);
• "Religion, Culture, Literature, and Art" (V, 12).

Theodor Mommsen in 1881

Mommsen's expertise in Roman studies was acknowledged by his peers as being both wide and deep, e.g., his direction of the ancient Latin inscriptions project,^[49] his work on ancient dialects of Italy,^[50] the journal he began devoted to Roman coinage,^[51] his multivolume Staatsrecht on the long history of constitutional law at Rome,^[52][53] his volumes on Roman criminal law, the Strafrecht.^[54] His bibliography lists 1500 works.^[55][56]

The Provinces

The Provinces of the Roman Empire (1885, 1886) contains thirteen chapters, namely: Northern Italy, Spain, Gaul, Germany, Britain, the Danube, Greece, Asia Minor, the Euphrates and Parthia, Syria and the Nabataeans, Judaea, Egypt, and the Africa provinces. Generally, each chapter describes the economic geography of the region and its people, before addressing how the Imperial regime adapted to its peculiarities. Regarding the North, military administration is often stressed; while in the East, the focus is more on culture and history.

A quarter of the way into his short "Introduction" to the Provinces Mommsen comments on the decline of Rome, the capital city: "The Roman state of this epoch resembles a mighty tree, the main stem of which, in the course of its decay, is surrounded by vigorous offshoots pushing their way upward."^[57] These shoots being the provinces he here describes.

The Empire

Diocletian (245–313, r.284–305)

Constantine (272–337).

Mommsen's missing fourth volume, as reconstructed by Barbara Demandt and Alexander Demandt from lecture notes, was published as Römische Kaisergeschichte in 1992. Thus appearing many years after third volume (1856), and the fifth (1885). It contains three sections of roughly equal size.

The first section is arranged chronologically by emperor: Augustus (44 BC-AD 14); Tiberius (14–37); Gaius Caligula (37–41); Claudius (41–54); Nero (54–68); The Year of Four Emperors (68–69); Vespasian (69–79).

The chapters of the second section are entitled: General Introduction; Domestic Politics I; Wars in the West; Wars on the Danube; Wars in the East; Domestic Politics II.

The third section: General Introduction; Government and Society; A History of Events [this the longest subsection, arranged by emperors]: Diocletian (284–305); Constantine (306–337); The sons of Constantine (337–361); Julian and Jovian (355–364); Valentinian and Valens (364–378); From Theodosius to Alaric (379–410).^[58]

This rescued work contains a great wealth of material, in which one follows in the footsteps of a master historian. Yet, perhaps because of its nature as reconstructed student lecture notes, it more often lacks the fine points of literary composition and style, and of course the narrative drive of the original three volumes.^[59] Nonetheless it is well to remember that the students involved here in taking the lecture notes were themselves quite accomplished people, and one listener and recorder was already a mature father.^[60]

New sources

Mommsen followed by a generation the historian Barthold Niebuhr, who had made significant advances in Roman studies.^[84] Niebuhr elevated the standards of scholarship and, in doing so, brought to light the lack of rigor of earlier work. He insisted on investigating the original sources. By his perceptive questioning, he challenged the surviving Latin and Greek historical literature, especially regarding earliest Rome. Niebuhr sifted it carefully in order to separate out what genuinely reflected the actual events: stories sourced in persons with personal knowledge, as opposed to inventions created apart from the event and containing suspect information, e.g., legend or folktales thoroughly scrambled with myth and fiction. He relied in part on the emerging field of source criticism to shed new light on the old writings.^[85] Niebuhr's Roman History was highly praised.^[86][87]

Barthold Niebuhr (1776–1831).

Yet Mommsen outdid Niebuhr. Mommsen sought to create a new category of material evidence on which to build an account of Roman history, i.e., in addition to the literature and art. Of chief importance were the many surviving Latin inscriptions, often on stone or metal. Also included were the Roman ruins, and the various Roman artefacts ranging from pottery and textiles, to tools and weapons. Mommsen encouraged the systematic investigation of these new sources, combined with on-going developments in philology and legal history. Much on-going work was furthering this program: inscriptions were being gathered and authenticated, site work performed at the ruins, and technical examination make of the objects. From a coordinated synthesis of these miscellaneous studies, historical models might be constructed. Such modeling would provide historians with an objective framework independent of the ancient texts, by which to determine their reliability. Information found in the surviving literature then could be for the first time properly scrutinized for its truth value and accordingly appraised.^[88][89]

"[T]hrough comparative linguistics, numismatics, and epigraphy, Mommsen was trying to create a body of material which had the status of archival evidence and which would serve as a control on the narratives of historical writers such as Livy and Appian. Their narratives had already been subjected to scrutiny by earlier scholars, of whom the most significant was Barthold Georg Niebuhr (1776–1831). ... Niebuhr's method had been to apply the principles of "Source Criticism" to unravel contradictions in the traditional account, and then to explain them by applying models developed in the light of his own experience, e.g., of conscription in a peasant society. Mommsen's work sought to establish entirely new categories of evidence for the use of the historian."^[90]

The Mommsen's work won immediate, widespread acclaim, but the praise it drew was not unanimous. "While the public welcomed the book with delight and scholars testified to its impeccable erudition, some specialists were annoyed at finding old hypotheses rejected... ."^[91] Mommsen omits much of the foundation legends and other tales of early Rome, because he could find no independent evidence to verify them.^[92] He thus ignored a scholarly field that was seeking a harmonized view using merely ancient writers. Instead Mommsen's Römische Geschichte presented only events from surviving literature that could be somehow checked against other knowledge gained elsewhere, e.g., from inscriptions, philology, or archaeology.

"[The book] astonished and shocked professional scholars by its revolutionary treatment of the misty beginnings of Rome, sweeping away the old legends of the kings and heroes and along with them the elaborate critical structure deduced from those tales by Barthold Niebuhr, whose reputation as the grand master of Roman history was then sacrosanct. It replaced the critical work of Niebuhr with a far more penetrating criticism and a profounder body of inference."^[93]

Work continues, of course, in the trans-generational endeavor of moderns to understand what can legitimately be understood from what is left of the ancient world, including the works of the ancient historians. To be self-aware of how the approach ancient evidence, of course, is included in the challenge.^[94]

Novel style

There were academics who disapproved of its tone. "It was indeed the work of a politician and journalist as well as of a scholar." Before writing the History, Mommsen had participated in events during the unrest of 1848 in Germany, a year of European-wide revolts; he had worked editing a periodical which involved politics. Later Mommsen became a member of the Prussian legislature and eventually of the Reichstag.^[95] Mommsen's transparent comparison of ancient to modern politics is said to distort, his terse style to be journalistic, i.e., not up to the standard to be achieved by the professional academic.

About his modernist tone, Mommsen wrote: "I wanted to bring down the ancients from the fantastic pedestal on which they appear into the real world. That is why the consul had to become the burgomaster." As to his partisanship, Mommsen replied: "Those who have lived through historical events... see that history is neither written nor made without love and hate." To the challenge that he favored the political career of Julius Caesar, Mommsen referred to the corruption and dysfunction of the tottering Republic: "When a Government cannot govern, it ceases to be legitimate, and he who has the power to overthrow it has also the right." He further clarified, stating the Caesar's role must be considered as the lesser of two evils. As an organism is better than a machine "so is every imperfect constitution which gives room for the free self-determination of a majority of citizens infinitely [better] than the most humane and wonderful absolutism; for one is living, and the other is dead." Thus, the Empire would only hold together a tree without sap.^[96]

Theodor Mommsen.

Roman parties

"In only one important aspect", Saunders and Collins hold, "did Mommsen fall into serious error." They note that 'most' scholars have faulted Mommsen for his depiction of the Roman party system during the late Republic. They readily admit that the Senate was dominated by a hardcore of 'aristocrats' or the 'oligarchy', who also nearly monopolized the chief offices of government, e.g., consul, by means of family connection, marriage alliance, wealth, or corruption. Such "men may be said to have formed a 'party' in the sense that they had at least a common outlook—stubborn conservatism." They contended vainly among themselves for state 'honors' and personal greed, "forming cliques and intrigues in what amounted to a private game". Such Senate 'misrule' subverted Rome, causing prolonged wrongs and injustice that "aroused sporadic and sometimes massive and desperate opposition. But the opposition was never organized into a party. ... [T]here was no clear political tradition running from the Gracchi through Marius to Caesar."^[97][98]

The classicist Lily Ross Taylor addresses this issue, as follows. Cicero, to refer to these two rival political groups, continually used the Latin word partes [English "parties"]. Cicero (106–43) was a key figure in Roman politics who wrote volumes about it. In distinguishing the two groups, he employed the Latin terms optimates for proponents of the Senate nobility and populares for elite proponents of the popular demos or commoners. She points to the Roman historians Sallust (86–34) and Livy (59 BC-AD 17) for partial confirmation, as well as to later writers Plutarch (c.46–120), Appian (c.95-c.165), and Dio (c.155-c.235), and later still Machiavelli (1469–1527).^[99]

These rival political groups, Prof. Taylor states, were quite amorphous, as Mommsen well knew. In fact when Mommsen wrote his Romische Geschichte (1854–1856) political parties in Europe and America were also generally amorphous, being comparatively unorganized and unfocused, absent member allegiance and often lacking programs. Yet in the 20th century modern parties grew better organized with enduring policies, so that their comparison with ancient Rome has become more and more tenuous. She describes Mommsen:

"Theodor Mommsen... presented party politics of the late [Roman] republic in terms of the strife of his own day between liberalism and the reaction that won the battle in 1848. Mommsen identified the Roman optimates with the hated Prussian Junkers and aligned himself with Caesar against them. But he fully recognized the lack of principle or program among the populares. He well understood the amorphous character of the Roman 'parties'. The parties that he knew in Prussia and in other German states were almost equally amorphous."^[100]

As Prof. Taylor continues, since Mommsen's wrote modern party 'tickets' and party 'lines' have grown more disciplined, and "the meaning of party had undergone a radical change. Thus the terms 'optimate' and 'popular' party are misleading to the modern reader. [¶] Lately there has been protest against the attribution of parties to Rome. The protest has gone too far." That is, the above-stated divisions were strong and constellated politics during the last century of the Roman Republic.^[100][101]

Revolution(s)

In 1961 the British historian Edward Hallett Carr published his What is History?, which became well known. Therein Carr conjectured that the very nature of writing history will cause historians as a whole to reveal themselves to their readers as 'prisoners' subject to the context of their own age and culture. As a consequence, one may add, every generation feels the need to rewrite history so that it better fits their own situation, their point of view. To illustrate his point here, Carr selected as exemplars a number of well-regarded historians, among them being Theodore Mommsen.^[102]

Democratically elected National Assembly at St. Paul's Church, Frankfurt, 18 May 1848.

Accordingly, Carr informs us that Mommsen's multivolume work Römische Geschichte (Leipzig 1854–1856) may tell the perceptive modern historian much about mid-19th-century Germany, while it is presenting an account of ancient Rome.^{[103][104][105]} A major recent event in Germany was the failure of the 1848–1849 Revolution, while in Mommsen's Roman History his narration of the Republic draws to a close with the revolutionary emergence of a strong state executive in the figure of Julius Caesar. Carr conjectures as follows.

"Mommsen was imbued with the sense of need for a strong man to clean up the mess left by the failure of the German people to realize its political aspirations; and we shall never appreciate its history at its true value until we realize that his well-known idealization of Caesar is the product of this yearning for the strong man to save Germany from ruin, and that the lawyer-politician Cicero, that ineffective chatterbox and slippery procrastinator, has walked straight out of the debates of the Paulikirche in Frankfurt in 1848."^[106]

Far from protesting or denying such an observation, Mommsen himself readily admitted it. He added, "I wanted to bring down the ancient from their fantastic pedestal on which they appear in the real world. That is why the consul had to become the burgomaster. Perhaps I have overdone it; but my intention was sound enough."^[107][108]

Alongside Carr on Mommsen, Carr likewise approaches George Grote's History of Greece (1846–1856) and states that it must also reveal that period's England as well as ancient Greece. Thus about Grote's book Carr conjectures.

"Grote, an enlightened radical banker writing in the 1840s, embodied the aspirations of the rising and politically progressive British middle class in an idealized picture of Athenian democracy, in which Pericles figured as a Benthamite reformer, and Athens acquired an empire in a fit of absence of mind. It may not be fanciful to suggest that Grote's neglect of the problem of slavery in Athens reflected the failure of the group in which he belonged to face the problem of the new English factory working class.^[109]

"I should not think it an outrageous paradox", writes Carr, "if someone were to say that Grote's History of Greece has quite as much to tell us about the thought of the English philosophical radicals in the 1840s as about Athenian democracy in the fifth century B.C."^[110] Prof. Carr credits the philosopher R. G. Collingwood as being his inspiration for this line of thinking.^[111]

Collingwood

Robin Collingwood, an early 20th-century Oxford professor, worked at building a philosophy of history, wherein history would remain a sovereign discipline. In pursuing this project he studied extensively the Italian philosopher and historian Benedetto Croce (1866–1952). Collingwood wrote on Croce, here in his 1921 essay.^[112]

"Croce shows how Herodotus, Livy, Tacitus, Grote, Mommsen, Thierry, and so forth, all wrote from a subjective point of view, wrote so that their personal ideals and feelings coloured their whole work and in parts falsified it. Now, if this is so, who wrote real history, history not coloured by points of view and ideals? Clearly no one. ... History, to be, must be seen, and must be seen by somebody, from somebody's point of view. ... But this is not an accusation against any particular school of historians; it is a law of our nature."^[113]

In summary, Edward Carr here presents his interesting developments regarding the theories proposed by Benedetto Croce and later taken up by Robin Collingwood. In doing so Carr does not allege mistaken views or fault specific to Mommsen, or to any of the other historians he mentions. Rather any such errors and faults would be general to all history writing.^[114] As Collingwood states, "The only safe way of avoiding error is to give up looking for the truth."^[115] Nonetheless, this line of thought, and these examples and illustrations of how Mommsen's Germany might color his history of ancient Rome, are illuminating concerning both the process and the result.

Caesar

The figure of Julius Caesar (100–44) remains controversial among historians and students of ancient Rome.^[116] Mommsen saw in him a leader with a special gift for organizing and transforming the city-state, which had come to rule the Mediterranean world.^[117] Caesar was opposed by an oligarchy of aristocratic families, the optimates, who dominated the Senate and nearly monopolized state offices, who profited by the city's corruption and exploited the foreign conquests. They blocked the change necessitated by the times, stifling or coopting, at times by violence, any who advanced progressive programs. Although the state was dangerously unsteady, and the city often rent by armed mobs, the optimates rested on their heritage of the Roman tradition.^[118]

Julius Caesar, bust at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

Caesar sprang from the heart of this old nobility, yet he was born into a family which had already allied itself with the populares, i.e., those who favored constitutional change. Hence Caesar's career was associated with the struggle for a new order and, failing opportunity along peaceful avenues, he emerged as a military leader whose triumph at arms worked to advance political change. Yet both parties in this long struggle had checkered histories of violence and corruption. Mommsen, too, recognized and reported "Caesar the rake, Caesar the conspirator, and Caesar the groundbreaker for later centuries of absolutism."^[119]

Some moderns follow the optimate view that it was a nefarious role that Caesar played in the fall of the Republic, whose ruling array of institutions had not yet outlived their usefulness.^{[120][121][122][123]} To the contrary, the Republic's fall ushered in the oppressive Empire whose 'divine' rulers held absolute power. Julius Caesar as villain was an opinion shared, of course, by his knife-wielding assassins, most of whom were also nobility. Shared also without shame by that epitome of classical Roman politics and letters, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43).^{[124][125][126]} For some observers, following Caesar's assassination Cicero saved his rather erratic career in politics by his high-profile stand in favor of the Republic.^[127] Also strong among Caesar's opponents was Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (95–46), who had long led the opimates, supporters of the republican aristocracy, against the populares and in particular against Julius Caesar. During the Imperial era the stoic Cato became the symbol of lost republican virtue.^[128]

M. Tullius Cicero at about age 60.

Nonetheless, even deadly foes could see the bright genius of Caesar; indeed, many conspitators were his beneficiaries.^[129] "Brutus, Cassius and the others who, like Cicero, attached themselves to the conspiracy acted less out of enmity to Caesar than out of a desire to destroy his dominatio."^[130] Too, the conspiracy failed to restore the Republic.^[131] An aristocrat's libertas meant very little to the population: the people, the armies, or even the equestrians; his assassins "failed to grasp the real pulse of the respublica."^[132]

Moderns may be able to see both sides of the issue, however, as an historian might. Indeed, there exists a great difference in context between, say, an American, and a German historian of the 1850s, where during 1848 citizens had made a rather spontaneous, incoherent effort to move German politics toward a free and unified country: it was crushed by the nobility.^[133][134]

The philosopher Robin Collingwood (1889–1943) developed a nuanced view of history in which each person explores the past in order to create his or her own true understanding of that person's unique cultural inheritance. Although objectivity remains crucial to the process, each will naturally draw out their own inner truth from the universe of human truth. This fits the stark limitations on each individual's ability to know all sides of history. To a mitigated extent these constraints work also on the historian. Collingwood writes:

"This does not reduce history to something arbitrary or capricious. It remains genuine knowledge. How can this be, if my thoughts about Julius Caesar differ from Mommsen's? Must not one of us be wrong? No, because the object differs. My historical [object] is about my own past, not about Mommsen's past. Mommsen and I share in a great many things, and in many respects we share in a common past; but in so far as we are different people and representatives of different cultures and different generations we have different pasts. ... [O]ur views of Julius Caesar must differ, slightly perhaps, but perceptibly. This difference is not arbitrary, for I can see—or ought to be able to see—that in his place, apart (once more) from all questions of error, I should have come to his conclusions."^[135]

A modern historian of ancient Rome echoes the rough, current consensus of academics about this great and controversial figure, as he concludes his well-regarded biography of Julius Caesar: "When they killed him his assassins did not realise that they had eliminated the best and most far-sighted mind of their class."^{[136][137][138]}

4th volume

Mommsen mentioned the future publication of a fourth volume on the Roman Empire. Due to the immense popularity of his first three, there remained for decades substantial interest and expectation concerning the appearance of this fourth volume. Yet it did not appear in Mommsen's lifetime. Consequently, this missing fourth volume has caused numerous scholars to speculate about the reasons 'why not'. Concurrently, such musings served to suggest where Theodore Mommsen was to be situated amid the portrait gallery of historians of the 19th century and the modern era.

As to the matter of why "Mommsen failed to continue his history beyond the fall of the republic", Carr wrote: "During his active career, the problem of what happened once the strong man had taken over was not yet actual. Nothing inspired Mommsen to project this problem back on to the Roman scene; and the history of the empire remained unwritten."^[106][139]

Discernment

Because of Mommsen's expert knowledge across many field of study, he "knows as an eyewitness because... such a perfect comprehension [places him] in the position of a contemporary. [Thus he feels] a certainty he cannot explain, like the judgment of a statesman or a shrewd man of business who forms his opinions by processes he does not attempt to analyse."^[140][141]

While not following Niebuhr's 'divination', Mommsen's manner goes to question of whether one may use discrete and controlled 'intersticial projection', safeguarded by monitoring the results closely after the fact. Does its use necessarily sacrifice claims to 'objectivity'? Termed intuition based on scholarship, practitioners of such techniques are vulnerable to caustic challenges to the integrity of their science. Acknowledgement of such infirmities may also include an assessment of the skill involved and the quality of the result.^[142]

Praise

Mommsen's work continues to attract a refined and popular readership. In their introduction Saunders and Collins express their admiration for Mommsen and his contribution to the study of ancient Roman history:

"Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) was the greatest classical historian of his century or of ours. His only rival in any century was Edward Gibbon, whose monumental History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire complements rather than competes with Mommsen's superb description of the Roman republic."^[143]

One encyclopaedic reference summarizes: "Equally great as antiquary, jurist, political and social historian, Mommsen [had] no rivals. He combined the power of minute investigation with a singular faculty for bold generalization... ."^[144] About The History of Rome the universal historian Arnold J. Toynbee writes, "Mommsen wrote a great book, which certainly will always be reckoned among the masterpieces of Western historical literature."^[145] G. P. Gooch gives us these comments evaluating Mommsen's History: "Its sureness of touch, its many-sided knowledge, its throbbing vitality and the Venetian colouring of its portraits left an ineffaceable impression on every reader." "It was a work of genius and passion, the creation of a young man, and is as fresh and vital to-day as when it was written."^[146]