The ancients regarded Livy as the greatest of historians,--an opinion not indorsed by modern critics, on account of his inaccuracies. But his narrative is always interesting, and his language pure. He did not sift evidence like Grote, nor generalize like Gibbon; but he was, like Voltaire and Macaulay, an artist in style, and possessed undoubted genius. His annals are comprised in one hundred and forty-two books, extending from the foundation of the city to the death of Drusus, B.C. 9, of which only thirty-five have come down to us--an impressive commentary on the vandalism of the Middle Ages, and the ignorance of the monks who could not preserve so great a treasure. "His story flows in a calm, clear, sparkling current, with every charm which simplicity and ease can give." He delineates character with great clearness and power; his speeches are noble rhetorical compositions; his sentences are rhythmical cadences. He was not a critical historian, like Herodotus, for he took his materials secondhand, and he was ignorant of geography; nor did he write with the exalted ideal of Thucydides, but as a painter of beautiful forms, which only a rich imagination could conjure, he is unrivaled in the history of literature. Moreover, he was honest and sound in heart, and was just and impartial in reference to those facts with which he was conversant. [Sidenote: Tacitus.] In the estimation of modern critics, the highest rank, as an historian, is assigned to Tacitus, and it would be difficult to find his rival in any age or country. He was born A.D. 57, about forty-three years after the death of Augustus. He belonged to the equestrian rank, and was a man of consular dignity. He had every facility for literary labors that leisure, wealth, friends, and social position could give, and he lived under a reign when truth could be told. The extant works of this great writer are the "Life of Agricola," his father-in-law; his "Annales," which commence with the death of Augustus, A.D. 14, and close with the death of Nero, A.D. 68; the "Historiae," which comprise the period from the second consulate of Galba, A.D. 68, to the death of Domitian; and a treatise on the Germans. [Sidenote: Histories of Tacitus.]