Laudator Temporis Acti

Ronald Syme, "Greeks Invading the Roman Government," in his Roman Papers, IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 1-20 (at 19-20):

Voltaire somewhere says that facts are vermin that infest history and prevent understanding. Another feature may be found even more repellent. The perpetual expansion of the governing class at Rome is nothing but the annals of the few and the fortunate.

The concept of élite, like the word itself, enjoys a certain disfavour in the modern time. Historical scholarship takes to embracing the labouring poor with eager solicitude or with doctrinaire affection. Not to much profit or exhilaration, at least as concerns the study of antiquity. Peasants and slaves did not speak or write, their condition denied them freedom of action. By good fortune, the Hellenes, although not always in possession of the liberty which they cherish even to excess, exhibit and avow a strong tendency to be active, visible, and vocal.

Voltaire, letter to Jean Baptiste Dubos (October 30, 1738):

Malheur aux détails! la postérité les néglige tous: c'est une vermine qui tue les grands ouvrages.