Per gravissimas procellas in hanc felicitatem temporum: Livian and Tacitean Style Changes in Grotius’s De antiquitate reipublicae Batavicae

Abstract In ‘De antiquitate reipublicae Batavicae’ Hugo Grotius writes a history of the constitution of the province of Holland. He claims that it has always been an aristocratic republic, like it is in his own time. In this article, I argue that Grotius writes in a style reminiscent of Livy in the first chapters on the early history, then changes to a style more like that of Tacitus in the chapters on the Burgundian and Habsburg rulers, and back to a Livian style in the last chapter. The key to the meaning of these style changes is given in the first sentence of the book, a quotation from Tacitus’s Annals. This motto not only refers to the discussion in Tacitus on the difference between writing history in a republic and in a monarchy, it also alludes to Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’. In this way, Grotius stresses the need to limit the power of a ruler.