8?3 



TACITUS, CAIUS CORNELIUS. 



TACITUS, CAIUS CORNELIUS. 



884 



books. Unfortunately the fifth book contains only the commence- 

 ment of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. 



The ' Annals ' comprehended the history of Rome from the death of 

 Augustus to the death of Nero, a period of two and fifty years, which 

 ended with the extinction of the Julian House in Nero. A part of 

 the fifth book of the 'Annals' is lost; the seventh, eighth, ninth, 

 tenth, the beginning of the eleventh, and the end of the sixteenth and 

 last book are also lost. These lost portions comprehended the whole 

 reign of Caligula, the first years of Claudius, and the two last years of 

 Nero's reign. It is said that the preservation of the historical works 

 of Tacitus is due to the Emperor Tacitus (Vopisous, 'Tacitus,' 10), 

 who caused them to be transcribed ten times every year, and copies 

 to be placed in the libraries. But the works of Tacitus, and more 

 particularly the ' Annals,' were neglected during the decline of the 

 empire, and few copies of them were preserved. The first five books 

 of the 'Annals ' were not found till the beginning of the 16th century, 

 when they were discovered in the abbey of Corvey, in Westphalia, 

 and published at Rome, in 1515, by Philip Beroaldus. 



The ' Germany ' of Tacitus has been the subject of some discussion 

 as to its historical value. The author does not inform us whence he 

 drew his materials for the description of the usages of these barbarians, 

 many of whom could only be known by hearsay even to the Roman 

 traders and adventurers on the frontiers of the empire. The work 

 contains numerous minute and precise details, for which it must be 

 assumed that the writer had at least the evidence of persons conver- 

 sant with the German tribes on the frontiers ; and there is nothing in 

 the desciiption of Tacitus which is substantially at variance with what 

 we know of the early Germans from other sources. The soundest 

 conclusion is that the picture of the Germans is in the main correct ; 

 otherwise we must assume it to be either a mere fiction, or a rhetorical 

 essay founded on a few generally known facts: but neither of these 

 assumptions will satisfy a careful reader. 



The Dialogue on the causes of the decline of eloquence may have 

 been written in the reign of Vespasian : it is at least probable that it 

 is an early work of Tacitus. It has been sometimes doubted if it is 

 by Tacitus, but the style is in favour of the common opinion, though 

 it presents in many respects a marked contrast to the ' Annals,' the 

 work of his mature years. Messala, one of the speakers, attributes 

 the decline of oratory to the neglect of the arduous method of study 

 adopted by the older orators, who learned their art by attaching 

 themselves to some eminent speaker, and by experience in the actual 

 business of life : in Messala's time the school of the rhetorician was 

 the only place of discipline for the young. But Maternus, another 

 speaker, indicates more truly the causes of the decline of eloquence, by 

 a reference to the political condition of the Romans and the suppression 

 of their energies under the Empire, as compared with the turbulent 

 activity of the republican period. 



Tlie ' Annals ' of Tacitus are the work of his riper age, on which his 

 historical reputation mainly rests. Though entitled Annals, and 

 generally sufficiently true to the chronological order of events, the 

 title of Annals conveys no exact notion of the character of this work. 

 The writer moulded the matter of his history, and adapted it to his 

 purpose, which was not a complete enumeration of the domestic and 

 foreign events of the period, but a selection of such as portrayed in 

 the liveliest colours the character of the Romans. The central figure 

 in this picture is the Imperial power, and the person who wielded it, 

 the Princeps, and every event is viewed in relation to him. The 

 notion of the Romans of the age of Tacitus is inseparably associated 

 with the notion of the government of one man. The power that had 

 been founded and consolidated by Augustus, had been transmitted 

 through many princes, few of whom had distinguished themselves by 

 ability, and some had sullied the purple with the most abominable 

 crimes. Yet the imperial power was never shaken after it was once 

 firmly established, and the restoration of the old republic was never 

 seriously contemplated by any sober thinker. The necessity of the 

 imperial power was felt, and the historian, while he describes the vices 

 and follies of those who had held it, and often casts a glance of regret 

 towards the republican period, never betrays a suspicion that this 

 power could be replaced by any other in the abject and fallen state of 

 the Roman people. It is this conviction which gives to the historical 

 writings of Tacitus that dramatic character which pervades the whole, 

 and is seen in the selection of events and the mode in which they are 

 presented to the reader. It is consistent with this, that the bare facts, 

 as they may be extracted from his narrative, are true, and that the 

 colouring with which he has heightened them may often be false. 

 This colouring was his mode of viewing the progress of events, and 

 the development of the Imperial power : the effect however is, that 

 the reader often overlooks the bare historical facts, and carries away 

 only the general impression which the historian's animated drama 

 presents. 



Tacitus had formed a full, and, it may be, a correct conception of 

 the condition of the empire in his own time, and the problem which 

 he proposed to himself v/as not only to narrate the course of events 

 from the close of the reign of Augustus, but to develope their causes. 

 (' Hist.,' i. 4.) For his ' Annals ' at least he could claim, as he does, 

 the merit of strict impartiality: he lived after the events that he 

 describes, and consequently had no wrongs to complain of, no passions 

 or prejudices to mislead him. (' Annal.,' i. 1.) He observes also, in 



the commencement of his Histories (i. 1), that neither Galba, Otho, 

 nor Vitellius had either conferred on him any favour or done him 

 any injury. To Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian he acknowledges hia 

 obligations. The reign of Domitian is unfortunately lost; but we 

 may collect from the expressions in the 'Life of Agricola' (43, 45, 

 &c.), that the favours which Tacitus had received did not save this 

 contemptible tyrant from the historian's just indignation. 



The tone which characterises the historical works of Tacitus is an 

 elevation of thought which had its foundation in the moral dignity of 

 the writer and the consciousness of having proposed to himself a noble 

 object. He was a profound observer of character : it was his study 

 to watch the slightest indications in human conduct, and by correctly 

 interpreting these outwards signs, to penetrate into the hidden recesses 

 of the heart. His power of reaching those thoughts which are often 

 almost unconsciously the springs of a man's actions, has perhaps 

 never been equalled by any historical writer. If any man has ever 

 approached him in this power, it is Feuerbach, who (' Merkwiirdige 

 Criminal-Rechtsfalle,' that is, ' Remarkable Criminal Cases '), while 

 laying bare the inmost soul of a murderer, makes us shudder at the 

 contemplation of enormities of which every man is capable. Tacitus 

 bad lived through a time when the value of the lessons of philosophy 

 had to be tasted by their practical application, and bis historical 

 studies carried him through a period in which the mass were sunk in 

 sensuality, and the really good and great had no consolation but in 

 the consciousness of their own thoughts. Though he appears to 

 belong to no sect of philosophers, his practical morality was of the 

 Stoic school, the only school which in those degenerate times could 

 sustain the sinking spirits of the Romans, and which even under favour- 

 able circumstances guided the conduct of the wise Aurelius, the 

 noblest man that ever possessed sovereign power. The religious 

 opinions of Tacitus partook of the character of his age : be had no 

 strong convictions, no settled belief of a moral government of the 

 world : his love of virtue and his abhorrence of vice were purely 

 moral; they had no reference to a future existence. ('Ann.,' iii. !>>; 

 vi. 22.) In one of his earliest productions he hopes rather than expects 

 that the' souls of the departed may still live and be conscious of what 

 is passing on earth. (' Agric.,' 46.) But in his latest writings there are 

 no traces that his hopes or his wishes had ever ripened into a belief. 



The style of Tacitus, especially in his 'Annals,' is the apt expression 

 of his thought : concise, vigorous, and dramatic. He has perhaps 

 attained as great a degree of condensation as is compatible with per- 

 spicuity ; sometimes his meaning is obscured by his labour to be brief. 

 His historical works are especially works of art, constructed on a fixed 

 principle, and elaborated in obedience to it. He loves to display his 

 rhetorical skill, but he subdues it to his dramatic purpose. It is a 

 fault that his art is too apparent, that his thoughts are sometimes 

 imperfectly or obscurely expressed, that he affects an air of mystery, 

 that his reflections on events are often an inseparable part of them, 

 and consequently the impressions which it is his object to produce can 

 only be rectified by the rigorous scrutiny of a matured mind. Yet 

 those who have made Tacitus a study generally end in admiring him 

 even for some of those qualities which at first repelled : almost every 

 word has its place and its meaning, and the contrast between the 

 brevity of the expression and the fulness of the thought, as it marks 

 the highest power of a writer, so it furnishes fit matter for reflection 

 to those who have attained a like intellectual maturity. 



Tacitus must have had abundant sources of information, though he 

 indicates them only occasionally. He mentions several of those 

 historians who lived near his own time, as Vipsauius Messala and 

 Fabius Rusticus : he also speaks of the memoirs of Agrippina and 

 others. The Oratione% Principum, the Fasti, the Acts of the Senate, 

 and the various legislative measures were also sources of which he 

 availed himself. It has been already intimated that the minute detail 

 of events was often foreign to the purpose of Tacitus, and accordingly 

 he is sometimes satisfied with giving the general effect or meaning of a 

 thing without aiming at perfect accuracy. Thus we cannot always 

 collect with certainty from Tacitus the provisions of the Sanatus- 

 consulta of which he speaks ; and for the purpose of any historical 

 investigation of Roman legislation, his statements must sometimes be 

 enlarged or corrected by reference to other sources, and particularly 

 to the ' Digest.' 



The first edition of Tacitus, which is extremely rare, was printed at 

 Venice, in 1470, by Vindelin de Spira: this edition contains only the 

 last six books of the 'Annals,' the 'Histories,' the 'Germany,' and 

 the ' Dialogue.' The subsequent editions are very numerous. One of 

 the best editions is that of Ernesli, by Oberlin, Leipzig, 2vols. 8vo, 

 1801 : it contains the valuable notes and excursus of Lipaius, the best 

 of all the commentators on Tacitus, aud in his department one of the 

 first modern scholars. The last editions are by Immanuel Bekker, 

 Leipzig, 2 vols. 8vo, 1831 ; by J. C. Orellius, 2 vols. imp. Svo, Zurich, 

 1848 ; and by F. Ritter, 4 vols. Svo, Col. 1848. Of the ' Germania,' 

 J. Grimm published an excellent edition with the other passages 

 relating to Germany selected from the other writings of Tacitus, 

 Giittingen, Svo, 1835; and F. C. Wex published an edition of the 

 'Agricola,' Brunswick, Svo, 1852. There is a 'Lexicon Taciteum,' by 

 Botticher, Berlin, Svo, 1S30. 



There are translations of Tacitus in Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Ger- 

 man, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. The Italian 



