288 Tacitus and his times 



merely to be fed and amused. A populace of some sort was a necessary 

 element in the imperial capital: that it was in fact a mongrel mob 

 could not be helped, and year by year it became through manumissions 

 of slaves a mass of more and more cosmopolitan pauperism. The 

 Provinces and the frontier armies were matters of deep interest, but 

 the wars of the succession after Nero only served to exhibit with irre- 

 sistible stress the comparative unimportance of Italy. Tacitus, a Roman 

 of good family, born in Italy if not in Rome, dignified and critical by 

 temperament, was not the man to follow the fashion of idle and showy 

 rhetoric. He does not waste time and effort in vainly deploring the loss 

 of a state of things that could not be restored. That the present con- 

 dition of Italy grieved him, we may feel sure. But he viewed all things 

 in a spirit of lofty resignation. That he was led to contrast the real or 

 assumed virtues of German barbarians with the flagrant vices of Roman 

 life was about the limit of his condescension to be a preacher: and it 

 is not necessary to assume that the pointing of a moral was the sole 

 motive of his tract on the land and tribes of Germany. 



I have already referred to the uneasiness of Tiberius as to the food- 

 supply 1 of Rome, dependent on importations of corn which were liable 

 to be interrupted by foul weather and losses at sea. The risk was real 

 enough, and the great artificial harbours constructed at the Tiber mouth 

 by Claudius and Trajan were chiefly meant to provide accommodation 

 for corn-fleets close at hand, with large granaries to store cargoes 2 in 

 reserve. The slave rising of 24 AD in south-eastern Italy, and its sup- 

 pression, have also been mentioned 8 above. These passages, and a 

 passing reference to the unproductiveness 4 of the soil (of Italy) are 

 significant of the inefficiency of Italian agriculture in the time of Tiberius. 

 But in reporting these matters Tacitus writes as historian, not as a 

 contemporary witness, and enough has been said of them above. A 

 curious passage, not yet referred to, is that describing the campaign 5 

 against money-lenders in 33 AD. A law passed by Julius Caesar in 

 BC 49 with the object of relieving the financial crisis without resorting 

 to a general cancelling of debts, long obsolete, was raked up again, and 

 there was widespread alarm, for most senators had money out on loan. 

 It seems that some trials and condemnations actually took place, and 

 that estates of the guilty were actually seized and sold for cash under 

 the provisions of a disused law. Further trouble at once followed, for 



1 Annals III 54. 



2 This policy bore fruit in the possibility of forming reserves in the next period. See Spart 

 Severus 8 5, 23 2. 



3 Annals IV 27. 4 Annals IV 6 infecunditati terrarum. 



5 Annals VI 16, 17. Caesar's law is described as de modo credendi possidendique infra 

 Italiam. Nipperdey holds that it cannot be the law of BC 49, but must be an unknown law, not 

 of temporary effect. See his note. 



