881 



TABART. 



TACITUS, CAIUS CORNELIUS. 



fishiug island, where, protected from the burning sun by my large 

 straw hat, I amuse myself by enticing the fish that sport in the water: 

 at other times, with my quiver ou my shoulder and my bow in my 

 hand, I climb to the top of tho rocks ; and there, spying out, like a 

 traitor, the rabbits as they come forth, I pierce them with my arrow 

 at the entrance of their burrows." . . . . " Sometimes the last rays of 



tho sun surprise me while, I contemplate in silence the tender 

 inquietude of a swallow for its young ; and the moou is risen before I 

 quit my seat." The whole poem, with its pleasing enthusiasm for leaf 

 and flowers, grottoes and cascades, is well worthy of perusal ; and it is 

 interesting to reflect that its author was a contemporary of William 

 the Conqueror. 



T 



TVA'BARI' is the surname of Abu Jaafar Mohammed Ibn Yozid Ibn 

 - Jerir, a celebrated Arabian historian, who was called At-tabari 

 because he was a native of Amol, the capital of Tabaristiln, where he 

 was born in A.H. 224 (A.D. 839). Tabari was the author of many 

 works on various subjects, such as a commentary on the Kora'n, which 

 is greatly praised by Abu-1-feda" ('Ann. Mussl.,' iii.), and a treatise on 

 Mohammedan law. But the work by which he is best known in Europe 

 is his general history from the Creation to A.H. 302 (A.D. 314-15). This 

 work was abridged aud continued by George, son of Al-'amid, 

 generally called Elmacin, who brought it down to the year 512 of the 

 Hijra (A.D. 1118-19). That portion of the abridgment which begins 

 at the death of the Mohammedan prophet was published in Arabic 

 and Latin by Thomas Erpenius, and printed for the first time at 

 Leyden, fol., 1625, together with the ' Historia Arabum,' by Rodericus 

 Toletanus. Tabari's Chronicles were translated into Persian by Abu 

 Ali Abdu-1-ghani, vizir of the Samanide prince Mansur Ibn Nuh. 

 Soon after the death of Tabari the copies of his original work became 

 so scarce that the Persian text was retranslated into Arabic ; a trans- 

 lation of the Persian version into French by Mr. Dubeux was com- 

 menced under the auspices and at the expense of the Oriental 

 Translation Fund, but only one part (4to, 1836) has been published. 

 There is also a Latin translation by G. L. Kosegarten, ' Taberistanensis, 

 sive Abu Dschaferi Mohammed ben Dscherir Ettaberi annales regum 

 et legatorum Dei. Arabice ed. in Latinum transtulit,' 3 vol?. 4to, 

 Gryph., 1853. Tabari died at Baghdad, in A.H. 310 (A.D. 922). 

 (Hamacker, ' Spec. MSS. Orient./ Bib. Lugd.-Bat., p. 24 ; D'Herbelot, 

 Bib. Or., sub. voc. ' Thabari.') 



TABERN^EMONTANUS, JACO'BUS THEODO'RUS, a physician 

 and botanist, was born at Berg-Zaberu in Alsace, whence he takes his 

 name. Ha first practised as an apothecary in his native place, and 

 thence removed to Paris, where he graduated. On returning to his 

 native country, he took up his residence and practised his profession 

 at Worms. He was made physician to the elector-palatine John 

 Casimir, and also to the bishop of Spire. He lived at a time when 

 confidence in vegetable remedies in disease was carried to the greatest 

 extent. He diligently studied this department of his profession, and 

 the result of his labours was given to the world in the form of a large 

 folio volume, under the title ' Neue Vollkommen Kraii terbuch,' or 

 New Complete Herbal. He lived to see only the first part of this 

 volume published, which was in 1588. Several editions of this work 

 were afterwards published in Germany, to which the two last parts 

 were added. The second edition was published at Frankfurt in 1613, 

 by Caspar Bauhiu, and contained descriptions of 5800 species of plants, 

 of which 2480 were illustrated by wood engravings. The best and 

 latest edition published is that of Hieronymus Eauhin, which appeared 

 at Basel in 1731. This work appears to have been for a long time a stan- 

 dard botanical authority. The descriptions of the plants are minute, 

 and an immense space is devoted to the consideration of their medical 

 properties. Tabernsemontanus maintained the principle, which has 

 many advocates at the present day, that Providence causes those plants 

 to grow in a district which are beneficial for the diseases that arise in 

 it. To such an extent did he carry his views on this point, that it is 

 said that at the siege of Metz, in 1552, in which he was engaged as 

 physician to the army, he applied nothing but mugwort to the wounds 

 of the soldiers, because it grows plentifully in the neighbourhood. 

 The cuts in the work are badly executed, and are mostly inferior 

 copies from preceding works. This however did not prevent their 

 being republiahed without the letter-press, by Nicolas Bass, the 

 printer at Frankfurt, in 1590, under the title ' Icones Plantarum,' &c. 

 In the latter part of his life Tabernsemontanus removed to Heidelberg, 

 where he died in 1590. He also published two other works, the first 

 on mineral waters, entitled ' Neue Wasserchatz,' in 1584, and which 

 went through three editions ; the second was published in 15S6, and 

 is entitled ' Regiment und Bericht wie man eich in Sterbeuslaufeu 

 halton soil.' 



TA'CITUS, CAIUS CORNE'LIUS, was probably born in the reign 

 of Nero, but neither the place of his birth nor the exact date is 

 known, nor is anything known of his parentage. There is no reason 

 for supposing that he belonged to the illustrious patrician gens of the 

 Cornelii, nor any evidence of his having been born at Interamna, as 

 it is sometimes stated. The few facts of his life are chiefly collected 

 from his own works, and from the letters of his friend the younger 

 Pliny. Tacitus was about the same age as Pliny, but the elder of the 

 two. Pliny was bom about A.D. 61 [PUNY THE YOUNGER], in the 

 reign of Nero, which commenced A.D. 54. 



A passage of the elder Pliny (' Hist. Nat.,' vii. 16) speaks of a son 



EIOG. DIV. YOL. V. 



of Cornelius Tacitus, the procurator of the emperor in Belgic Gaul. 

 Lipsius concludes that this Cornelius Tacitus was the historian ; but 

 as Pliny died in 79, it seems hardly probable that the passage can 

 apply to him. It has been conjectured that the procurator was the 

 father of the historian. Tacitus states that he owed MB first pro- 

 motion to Vespasian, and that ho was indebted for other favours to 

 his successors Titus and Domitian. ('Hist.,' i. 1.) In the year 77, 

 C. Julius Agricola, then consul, betrothed to him hia daughter; and 

 the marriage took place after the consulship of Agricola. Tacitus 

 does not state what places ho filled under Vespasian and Titus, but in 

 the reign of Domitian he informs us that he assisted as one of the 

 Quindecemviri at the celebration of the Ludi Seculares, which event 

 took place in the fourteenth consulship of Domitian (A,D. 88). At that 

 time he was also praetor. ('Ann.,' xi. 11.) 



He was not at Rome when his father-in-law Agricola died there 

 (A.D. 93), in the reign of Domitian ; but it is too much to affirm, as 

 some have done, thu,t he was an exile during the time of Domitian. 

 It has already been shown that he was at Rome in the year 88. A 

 passage in his Life of Agricola (c. 45) rather leads to the inference 

 that he was at Rome during many of the atrocities which Domitian 

 perpetrated after the death of Agricola, though he had been absent 

 from Rome for four years prior to Agricola's death. On the death of 

 T. Verginius Rufus, in the reign of Nerva (A.D. 97), he was appointed 

 Consul Suffectus ; and Pliny enumerates it as the crowning event to 

 the good fortune of Verginius, that his panegyric was pronounced by 

 the consul Cornelius Tacitus, the most eloquent of speakers. 



Tacitus is recorded by his friend Pliny as one of the moat eloquent 

 orators of bis age. He had already attained some distinction as an 

 advocate when Pliny was commencing his career. In the reign of 

 Nerva, Pliny and Tacitus were appointed by the senate (A.D. 99) to 

 conduct the prosecution of Marius Priscus, who had been proconsul of 

 Africa, and was charged with various flagrant crimes. On this occasion 

 Tacitus replied to Salvius Liberalis, who had spoken in defence of 

 Priscus : his reply, says Pliny, was most eloquent, and marked by 

 that dignity which characterised his style of speaking. (Pliny, ' Ep.,' 

 ii. 11.) 



The contemporaries of Tacitus were Quinctilian, the two Pliuys, 

 Julius Florus, Maternus, M. Aper, and Vipsanius Messala. He was on 

 terms of the greatest intimacy with the younger Pliny, in whose 

 extant collection of letters there are eleven epistles from Pliny to 

 Tacitus. In one of these letters (vi. 16) Pliny describes the circum- 

 stance of the death of his uncle, Pliny the elder, and the letter was 

 purposely written to supply Tacitus with facts for his historical 

 works. 



It is not known when Tacitus died, nor whether he left any 

 children. The Emperor Tacitus claimed the honour of being 

 descended from him, but we have no means of judging of the accu- 

 racy of the emperor's pedigree; and Sidonius Apollinaris ('Ep.,' 

 lib. iv., ' ad Polemium ') mentions the historian Tacitus among the 

 ancestors of Polemius, a prsefect of Gaul in the 5th century of 

 our era. 



The extant works of Tacitus are, 'The Life of Agricola,' 'The 

 Treatise on the Germans,' ' Histories,' ' Annals,' and the ' Dialogue on 

 Orators, or the causes of the decline of eloquence.' None of hia 

 orations are preserved. 



The 'Life of Agricola' is one of the earliest works of Tacitus, and 

 must have been written after the death of Domitian (A.D. 96). The 

 Proemium, or Introduction to it, was written in the reign of Trajan, 

 and the whole work probably belongs to the first or second year of 

 that emperor's reign. As a specimen of biography it is much and 

 justly admired. Like all the extant works of Tacitus, it is unencum- 

 bered with minute irrelevant matter : the life and portrait of Agricola 

 are sketched in a bold and vigorous style, corresponding to the dig- 

 nity of the subject. The biographer was the friend and son in-law of 

 Agricola, whom he loved and revered ; but he impresses his reader 

 with a profound conviction of the moral greatness of Agricola, his 

 courage and his prudence, without ever becoming his panegyrist. 

 The ' Life of Agricola ' was not contained in the earliest editions of 

 Tacitus. 



The Histories, which were written before the ' Annals,' and after 

 the death of Nerva, comprehended the period from the accession of 

 Galba to the death of Domitian ; to which it was the author's inten- 

 tion to add the reigns of Nerva and Trajan (' Hist.,' i. 1). There are 

 only extant the first four books and a part of the fifth, and these 

 comprehend little more than the events of one year, from which we 

 may conclude that the whole work must have consisted of many 



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