TACITUS

TACITUS, CAIUS CORNELIUS, one of the most eminent writers of the empire, and "the first historian who applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts." The meagre materials of his biography are derived mainly from notices in the correspondence of his contemporary, Pliny the younger, and from a few scattered allusions in his own writings. He belonged, in all probability, not to that celebrated branch of the Gens Cornelia which produced the Scipios and the Leutulii, but to a less distinguished equestrian family. This inference rests on the supposition that the Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman knight, and procurator of Gallia Belgica, who is mentioned by Pliny the elder,¹ was the father of our historian. The place of his birth is unknown, although tradition pointed to Interamna (the modern Terui), as his native city, and his statue and tomb were shown there for many centuries. The date of his birth is also uncertain; but we can determine it within a few years. Pliny² says that he and Tacitus were "nearly of the same age" (propemodum aequales), but that while he was a mere youth (adolescentulus) Tacitus had already gained a brilliant reputation, which must have been acquired by the display of forensic eloquence and skill. Now, we know that Pliny was born A.D. 61, for in the famous letter which he wrote in order to give Tacitus a correct account of the eruption of Vesuvius by which the elder Pliny lost his life, he mentions that he was eighteen years old at the time of the occurrence. As the expression "propemodum aequales" could certainly not have been used had Tacitus

been his friend's senior by more than ten years, we have A.D. 51 as a superior limit for the date of his birth. Now, Tacitus himself informs us that the first political honour which he obtained was conferred upon him by Vespasian, who died A.D. 79. This office was probably the quaestorship, which entitled him to a seat in the Senate, and (as we learn from Dio Cassius³) could not be legitimately held under the emperors till the age of twenty-five. This, therefore, gives us A.D. 54 as an inferior limit, after which Tacitus could not have been born. As Tacitus was a man of distinction it is nearly certain that he must have held the quaestorship at the earliest possible period (suo anno), and we may thus conclude with some confidence that A.D. 54 was the date of his birth. This would make him eight years older than Pliny, and it is a supposition that agrees well with the passages which we have quoted, and with the remark in the Dialogus de Oratoribus,⁴ that Tacitus (assuming him to have been the author of that treatise) had been, in early life, an eager admirer of the orators Marcus Aper and Julius Secundus, whom, with boyish ardour, he attended not only to the forum but even in their own houses. If, then, A.D. 54 was the date of his birth, we may notice the fact, that "the same year saw the accession of Nero, the horror of the human race, and the birth of Tacitus its avenger."

Tacitus incidentally mentions,⁵ that his political dignity was founded by Vespasian, increased by Titus, and still further advanced by Domitian. Taking as the basis of our chronology, the inference (which we have shown to be so highly probable), that Tacitus was made quaestor in the last year of Vespasian's reign, A.D. 79, it follows from the above remark that he must have gained the tribuneship⁶ (or aedileship) in A.D. 81, in which year Titus died. Under the empire the praetorship must be held at the age of thirty,⁷ but Tacitus could not have gained it earlier than his thirty-fourth year, as we know that he was not praetor earlier than A.D. 88, the eighth year of Domitian's reign, at which period he also presided at the ludi saeculares in his capacity of sacerdos quindecimviralis.⁸

In the year 78, at the age of twenty-four, Tacitus married the only daughter of the good and illustrious Cn. Julius Agricola; the betrothal had taken place in the previous year, when Agricola was consul, and immediately after the marriage he was despatched to take the command in Britain. Agricola died A.D. 93, and Tacitus mentions it as a source of keen sorrow that both he and his wife had for the few years previous to this event lost the advantage of their parent's affection and guidance. What was the cause of this absence from Rome is entirely conjectural, but it is not unlikely that Tacitus assumed the government of a praetorian province. There is no proof that he personally visited either Britain or Germany, nor is there the shadow of an authority for the vague rumour that he was driven into exile by Domitian. Had this been the case he would have been obliged to mention it, when vindicating his own claim to impartiality in the first chapter of his History. At the same time Tacitus, who had been an unwilling spectator of the atrocities of Domitian, and had met with opportunities only too frequent of seeing that red, yet unblushing countenance⁹ in the midst of the faces which had grown pale with the terror which it inspired, would probably have hailed with satisfaction any duty or position which enabled him to indulge, at a safer distance, the fierce indignation which lacerated his heart.

In the reign of Nero, A.D. 97, Tacitus obtained the rank of consul suffectus, and pronounced the funeral oration of his illustrious predecessor, Virginius Rufus. This we learn from

Tacitus. a passing allusion of Pliny,¹ who says that it was the crowning felicity of Rufus to have had in Tacitus, the consul suffectus, a most eloquent speaker to deliver his funeral harangue.

In A.D. 100, in the reign of Trajan, Tacitus was engaged with Pliny in the prosecution of Marius Priscus, for gross cruelty and maladministration in Africa during his pro-consulship. Salvius Liberalis defended the accused, but Tacitus replied in a strain of powerful² and dignified eloquence, which caused the condemnation and banishment of the unworthy governor. It is pleasing to find that the little we know of the historian's private life is in perfect accordance with the noble standard of his recorded sentiments.

After this period we have no further mention of Tacitus, who spent the remainder of his life in the peaceful pursuits of a learned retirement. A late and obscure authority says that he died at the age of eighty, but such a testimony has no weight. We do not even know whether he left any children or not; it is certain that the Iusus natura mentioned by Pliny the elder as the son of a Corn. Tacitus, a Roman knight, was not the son of the historian, though he may have been his brother. It is, however, most likely that Tacitus had some children, for the Emperor Tacitus claimed to be descended from him, and Sidonius Apollinaris attributes the same illustrious origin to Polemius, a prefect of Gaul. Almost the only other fact recorded about Tacitus is his cordial intimacy and friendship with Pliny the younger. Pliny was quite aware of the honour done him by so distinguished a connection, and he always addresses and speaks of his friend with proper respect and appreciation, and indeed with a humility which must, if honest, have caused some uneasiness to his own good-humoured vanity. Tacitus towered like a giant above all his contemporaries, isolated and unapproachable; for this very reason, perhaps, Pliny was quite as popular in his day, and may not have known how immeasurably inferior he was to his friend in real genius and power.

In order to arrive at a correct estimate of the literary value of the writings of Tacitus, it is necessary to know the date of their composition, and the order in which they were published.

It is now generally agreed that the Dialogus de Oratoribus is the work of Tacitus. If so, it was quite his earliest production, as the Dialogue is supposed to have taken place in the sixth year of Vespasian³ when, according to our chronology, Tacitus was not much more than twenty years old. This is quite sufficient to account for the difference of style between this treatise and his later works. When we remember that it was a youthful effort, that it was written in great leisure, and that the subject was widely different from those on which he was afterwards employed, we shall cease to wonder at its smooth, diffuse, and easy elegance. The only other authors who were capable of writing it, or to whom with any shadow of probability it has been assigned, are Pliny and Quinctilian. It could not, however, have been composed by either of these writers, for the author says he was "admodum juvenis" at the time when he heard the discussion; and as this is stated to have been in A.D. 75, Pliny would have been at that time too young, and Quinctilian too old, to admit of such an expression being applied to either of them. Perhaps the strongest reason for accepting the superscription of the MSS. which name Tacitus as the author, has been adduced by Doederlein. Pliny⁴, in one of his letters, addressing Tacitus, remarks, "Itaque poemata quiescunt quae tu inter nemora et lucos commodissime perfici putas," which can hardly be otherwise than in allusion to a sentiment expressed in these very words in the eleventh chapter

of the Dialogue. Eichstad and other able opponents of the Tacitean origin of the treatise, find it very difficult to diminish the cogency of this direct testimony. The Dialogue was probably published in the reign of Titus;—not in that of his predecessor, for it makes unfavourable mention of two of Vespasian's favourites, Ebrius Marcellus and Vibius Crispus, which would not have been done by a man entering on the course of political honours;—and not in that of Domitian, because, in the Life of Agricola, Tacitus hints that during the reign of that emperor he had been reduced to an unwilling silence.⁵ The discussion turns on the course which had led to the corruption of eloquence in recent times.

The next work of Tacitus was undoubtedly the Life of Agricola. We infer from the introduction that it was written after the reign of Domitian, and it was probably published when Tacitus was consul suffectus, A.D. 97. That it came out during the reign of Nerva, and after the adoption of Trajan seems likely, from the title, "Nerva Caesar" and "Nerva Trajanus," which occur in chapter iii., although the omission of the word "Divus" ("of happy memory") before Nerva's name is no sufficient proof that it was not given to the world after Trajan's accession. Be this as it may, this incomparable biography, with the stern, nervous, compressed passion of its style, "shows all the greatness of the man." It is an immortal monument to the memory of the great and good Agricola, by a son-in-law, who was at the same time the only person in the empire capable of doing justice to the life of this noble victim to imperial jealousy. The style is peculiarly difficult, owing not only to the brevity of the treatise and the corruption of the text, but far more to the intensity of those deep feelings, which, after having been so long stifled, now found, for the first time, an unimpeached utterance. Tacitus was fortunate in finding in his wife's father so grand a subject for his affectionate commendation. They had been united during life by a perfect unanimity. Both were stoics in philosophy, and moderate in politics;⁶ both agreed in the duty of dignified obedience even to a man whom they hated and despised; both knew how to maintain their independence without compromising their loyalty;⁷ both were regular in their morals, pure in their married life, honest without ostentation, and faithful without subservience.

Next in order was the Germania, which was written during Trajan's second consulship, A.D. 98. It contained all that Tacitus knew or could learn by inquiry from the numerous traders and soldiers who had frequented Germany during their journeys and campaigns. Whether it consists of mere collectanea, which were intended for expansion into a larger work, or was originally an episode of the history which had outgrown its proper dimensions, is quite uncertain.

The Histories were written after the death of Nerva, who is called Divus in chapter i.; and they preceded the Annals, being directly referred to in the latter work.⁸ They contained the history of the Flavian dynasty, which, after the extinction of the Julian line, had succeeded to its honours. They commence with the period when Vespasian first appeared on the stage of public opinion, and conclude with the death of Domitian, because Tacitus says that he had reserved the reigns of Nerva and Trajan as the material for his old age. Four books only and a fragment of the fifth are extant, and as they only occupy the space of a single year, we must lament as an irreparable loss the large portion which has not come down to us. St Jerome mentions thirty books of the historical works of Tacitus, and Niebuhr thinks that this is not too much for the his-

tories alone, if they were continued on the same scale as the extant portion. If, however, St Jerome meant to include the Annals among the thirty books, the Histories could not have originally occupied more than fourteen books. As Tacitus paid great regard to symmetry, it is the supposition of Ritter, that the Annals contained eighteen books, and the Histories twelve. The Histories are his most finished work, and the space which he allowed himself, as well as the difference in plan, obviated the necessity of that painful conciseness which marks the style of the Annals, and left room for more vivid and animated narrative.

The last and greatest of all his works is the Annals, which could not have been published at the earliest before A.D. 116, because in book ii. chap. 61, he alludes to the expedition in which Trajan extended the boundaries of the empire as far as the Red Sea. Trajan died the year following, and Tacitus, although he survived him, was probably not anxious to fulfil his promise of becoming the historian of his greatness. The Annals comprise a period of fifty-four years, from the death of Augustus, A.D. 14, to the death of Nero, A.D. 68. They have come to us in a very mutilated state, and the entire 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th books are lost.

So profound and accurate a writer as Tacitus must have had some good reason for distinguishing between the titles "Annales" and "Historie." What was the intended difference has long been a matter of dispute, and is not unimportant to the right understanding of these great works. Without attempting to decide where such eminent writers disagree, we will briefly mention the main opinions on the subject. 1. The classical passage for a description of Annals, is Cicero de Oratore, ii. 12; and they were, he says, dry and jejune records of the facts of each year, published by the Pontifex Maximus—mere notes of the eclipses, prodigies, triumphs, or other events which had happened during the year; whereas the fuller and most embellished style of history commenced with the works of men like M. Cato, Fabius Pictor, and Cælius Antipater. 2. Aul. Gellius, who treats of the distinction as a lexicographical problem,¹ makes Annals differ from History, in the fact that in the former regard is had not to epic unity, but to chronological succession. 3. Servius,² who has been generally followed by modern writers, makes the difference consist in the contemporaneity of the History with some part of a person's life. For this reason Grotius gave the name of "Annals" to the earlier, and "History" to the later portion of his History of the Netherlands. Niebuhr, in an admirable paper³ on this subject, rejects all these opinions, and combines the two first of them, and we entirely agree with him, although Ritter has returned to the definition of Servius. That the distinction between the words was not accurately kept, we may see from the application of the term "Annales," by Livy,⁴ to his great work; but Tacitus, doubtless, had in view the difference of style between his two narratives—a difference which probably became less marked as the Annals advanced. We should have been better able to discriminate this difference if the latter books of the Histories, which paint the gloomy reign of Domitian, had survived; for the part which has come down to us treats of a period which, with all its "dreary reality," was an infinite improvement on the times of a Tiberius or a Nero.

"The Annals," says Niebuhr in the paper above quoted, "carefully preserve a resemblance to their prototypes, differing only as a Madonna of Cimabue from one of Raphael. Each year is kept strictly separate, the most heterogeneous events strung together, and many things mentioned, which in a his-

tory would have found no place. It is St Peter's seen under the illumination of the Cross, where most parts of the building lie in darkness, while others are more strongly delineated by the shadows with which they are bound. The histories are like the sun falling on the same building through the great window of the tribune, and showing all things in broad day, though not under noonday brightness, not under the clear sky. The difficulties of Tacitus were really insurmountable. Tiberius had made the world torpid, and reduced it to the silence of the grave; its history is confined to himself, his unfortunate house, his victims, and the enslaved senate. In this dreary silence we shudder and speak in a whisper; all is dark, mysterious, perplexing. Was Germanicus poisoned? was Piso guilty? what urged him to his mad violence? did the son of Tiberius die of poison, and Agrippina by assassination? Tacitus knew no more certainly than we." Suetonius had a right instinct in describing this period under the form of biography; but Tacitus was too proud, too deeply wounded, to degrade the history of his country, in form as well as in fact, to the mere life of men so unfortunate and depraved as those who then wielded the sceptre of the world. We have already shown, in the life of Suetonius, how the two writers supplement each other, and how Suetonius solves the problem which the study of Tacitus had excited in the mind of the Emperor Napoleon I., by penetrating into those mysteries of the Palatine which Tacitus was prevented from entering by shame or by disgust.

The writings of Tacitus have the "majestic melancholy" of a tragedy, and indeed the Annals may be divided into the twofold dramas of Tiberius and of Nero, while upon scene after scene falls, like the heavy fold of a curtain, an atmosphere thick with debauchery and blood. It was the influence produced on the mind of Tacitus by having lived through times not dissimilar to those which he describes, that constituted him a philosophic historian. There is no withoutness in his narrative; he writes, not like a cold spectator of past events, but like one who had a living share in their degradation and their horror. Thucydides, desirous only to present unembellished facts, details them without colour and without comment, and, at the most, the veil of individuality which he throws over them is as transparent as the light of the Grecian sky. But in Tacitus every sentence bears the characteristic impress of a profound and troubled soul; and the reader never loses sight of the author in dwelling on the events which he narrates. He writes with the distinct consciousness of an avenging⁵ purpose, and something of the world's former terror still trembles involuntarily in his page.⁶ It is this deep feeling, joined with the most elevated moral purity and rectitude of purpose, which entitle him to Bussuet's panegyric of having been "the most dignified of historians;" and if he were the author to whom Pliny alludes in the 27th letter of his 9th book, we can easily imagine that he made the polite littérateurs of Trajan's court feel, as they had never felt before, "the power, the grandeur, the majesty, the divinity of history." At the same time, this keen comprehension of the period he was describing led to an exaggerated sensibility, an unconscious affectation, an unnecessary suspicion of profundity, which is the main and almost the only fault of this incomparable writer. He probably owed this defect to the influence of his contemporaries; but in him alone does it become tolerable, and he shares it in a much less degree than the other writers of his age.

Böttcher, in an admirable treatise, De Vita, scriptis, et stilo Taciti, classes his peculiarities under three heads, viz., 1. Love of variety; 2. Brevity and force of expres-

Tacna
Taganrog.

sion; and 3. A certain poetical colouring of the language, which is almost the only characteristic in which Tacitus resembles the writers of the Decadence. To the first class belong his different modes of spelling and inflecting the same word, his heteroclitics, his copiousness, his coined words, and his interchange of constructions; to the second, the condensed periods and scornful avoidance of every unnecessary word, which makes him so remarkable a contrast to the babbling loquacity of some of his contemporaries; to the third, his numerous Grecisms, his syntaxis ornata, and his rhythmic conclusions.

Tacitus has never been a popular writer, and preferred an audience, "fit though few." This must have been the case at a very early period, or the Emperor Tiberius would have found it unnecessary to publish an edict that ten copies of his Histories should be made at the public expense every year.¹ In spite of this pious care, large portions of them have perished.

The first and incomplete edition of Tacitus was that by Vindelin de Spira, Venice 1470. The first edition of the entire work is that by Beroaldus, Rome 1515. The best modern commentaries are those of Brotier, Walther, Ritter, and Orelli. The latter is an admirable work, and contains nearly everything that is necessary for the understanding of Tacitus. Böttcher's Lexicon Taciteum is also useful. Walsh has published a separate edition of the Agricola, and Grimm of the Germania, of which there is also an English edition by Dr Latham, containing a vast amount of ethnological information. The Italian translation by Davanzati is the best, and there are English versions by Gordon and Murphy. The former is accurate and antiquated; the latter avoids all the difficulties, but may be read with advantage from its interesting style and undeniable eloquence. It is the work of a man who loved and appreciated the author whom he was translating. (F. W. F.)