It was also his purpose—which a modern historian might well deny himself—to set down the early legends of Rome. Here there were no historical sources, and the question was whether to omit the legends—as Mommsen has done—because they could not be considered worthy of credence, whether to rationalize them and attempt to rescue a kernel of fact as Piso did, and as Pais and Beloch have recently attempted to do, or finally to set them down as found, with a warning that they were legends. Mommsen’s method was facile but we are glad that Livy did not use it. The legends are good literature; they also have a great value in revealing the temper of those who accepted them and passed them to future generations as worth having. Finally they prove upon comparison with archaeological facts to have a sounder basis in fact than Mommsen thought. Even if all their details be legendary, they represent a Rome that could not have been far from the actual state. In fact they prove to be nearer the actuality than the strange and lifeless civilization that Mommsen reconstructed for the early period out of unscientific etymologies and stereotyped conceptions of late legal institutions. We are also glad that he did not follow Piso’s lead in trying to use them “critically.” Had he done so he would have transmitted them in garbled form and spoiled them, and won nothing in the process. We have learned from recent attempts that this method is a failure. A Charlemagne reconstructed from medieval French epics or a Theodoric shelled out of the Diedrek legend would at best not be accurate history. Thirty years ago our hyper-critical historians tried it, and moved all the early dates of Roman history down a century or two. Archaeology has at least proved this a mistake, and we now are moving the dates back and most of the critics have got into the moving van. After all is said Livy’s method was the soundest. His procedure was the more nearly scientific. It is with exceeding good sense that he says in his preface: “The early stories regarding Rome’s foundation that are handed down to us in poetic romances rather than in sound historical records it is not my intention to support or to refute.” And again in the preface of the sixth book he warns us that very nearly all that he had written in the preceding five books—up to the burning of Rome in 387—rested not on acceptable records but on legend. And even thereafter, throughout his work, whenever for any incident he is limited to the authors who employed legend he is quick to warn the reader of the nature of the source. These passages show that Livy was a sounder critic of Rome’s legends than Polybius was in respect to Homeric stories. Historians who scold Livy for his preservation of legends have not only missed their value but have misunderstood Livy’s cues.