orderliness. In his remarkable preface he speaks of himself as turning to
historical study in order to withdraw his mind from the evils of his own
age, and the spectacle of an empire tottering to the fall under the
weight of its own greatness and the vices of its citizens. "Into no
State," he continues, "were greed and luxury so long in entering; in
these late days avarice has grown with wealth, and the frantic pursuit of
pleasure leads fast towards a collapse of the whole social fabric; in our
ever-accelerating downward course we have already reached a point where
our vices and their remedies are alike intolerable." But his idealisation
of earlier ages was that of the romantic student rather than the
reactionary politician. He is always on the side of order, moderation,
conciliation; there was nothing politically dangerous to the imperial
government in his mild republicanism. He shrinks instinctively from
violence wherever he meets it, whether on the side of the populace or of
the governing class; he cannot conceive why people should not be
reasonable, and live in peace under a moderate and settled government.
This was the temper which was welcome at court, even in men of Pompeian
sympathies.

So, too, Livy's attitude towards the established religion and towards the
beliefs of former times has the same sentimental tinge. The moral reform
attempted by Augustus had gone hand in hand with an elaborate revival and
amplification of religious ceremony. Outward conformity at least was
required of all citizens. _Expedit esse deos, et ut expedit esse
putemus;_ "the existence of the gods is a matter of public policy, and we
must believe it accordingly," Ovid had said, in the most daring and
cynical of his poems. The old associations, the antiquarian charm, that
lingered round this faded ancestral belief, appealed strongly to the
romantic patriotism of the historian. His own religion was a sort of mild
fatalism; he pauses now and then to draw rather commonplace reflections