Annales, from annua a year), a term commonly applied to a concise and plain kind of narrative of historical facts digested in the order of time, each event being arranged under the particular year in which it happened. Although this style of composition does not necessarily exclude the casual observations of the writer, episodes or formal digressions are incompatible with the brevity characteristic of annals: while history, on the other hand, comprises not only the narrative and exposition of facts, but also the writer's observations on actions, motives, causes, and consequences, in general; thus affording ample scope for illustration and embellishment. Annals may be said to constitute the essence of history, since they are the elements or materials of which it is composed.

We are told by Cicero (de Oratore, ii. 12), that from the earliest period of the Roman state the Pontifex Maximus, in order to preserve the memory of events, used to write down the public transactions of each year on a whitened tablet, which he exposed in an open place at his house, that the people might come and read it; hence, in his time, these records were called annales maximi. The greater part of the annals composed by the Pontifex previous to the capture of Rome by the Gauls, perished at that time in the burning of the city, a.c. 390. These records, which appear to have been of a very meagre nature, were probably the same as the Commentarii pontificum cited by Livy. Commentarii was also used to denote the memoirs which an individual wrote concerning his own actions. Thus Julius Cesar designated the celebrated account he wrote of his own campaigns with the unassuming title of Commentaries. It may be observed that this was a general term for any kind of notes or simple memoranda.

The practice of compiling annals was continued until the pontificate of P. Mucius Scrovolo and the time of the Gracchi, when its omission was a circumstance of less im- portance, as a literature had been formed. After the pontifices ceased to compose annals, many other persons, both among the Greeks and the Romans, began to draw up historical accounts of public affairs, in which they imitated the condensed and unadorned style of the pontifical records. Cicero, in speaking of these annalists, says—"unam dicendi laudem putant esse brevitudinem."

The distinction, however, between annals and history properly so called, is a subject that has exercised the ingenuity of many distinguished critics, and given rise to more discussion than its intrinsic importance perhaps deserved. Aulus Gellius, in the Noctes Atticae (v. 18), endeavours to demonstrate, on the authority of the grammarian Verrius Flaccus, that the derivation of the word history from torpor (insipience, or to inquire in person), would seem to indicate that history is an account of events which happened during the time of the writer. Annals, again, he distinguishes as a relation of the events of earlier times, arranged under the respective years in which they occurred. Similar to this is the well-known definition given by Servius (ad Eneid. i. 373). This is the explanation that Gronovius has expressly declared to be satisfactory to himself; and it is the one which the learned Grotius has consented to follow in his History of the Netherlands, since he divides that great work into Annals and History accordingly. The Historiae and the Annales of Tacitus would seem at first sight to countenance such a distinction, as the former work is occupied with the transactions of his own time, while the latter is devoted to the events of an earlier period. But, on the other hand, it is by no means certain that Tacitus made any such distinction between them; and it is more probable that he gave the title of Annales to both these works, if, indeed, he used either of the terms. It seems by no means improbable that the title of Annales was given to that work after the time of Tacitus; and, indeed, there seems to be no peculiar propriety in the designation simply because the events are arranged in the order of time, since that would render it equally applicable to the books of Livy, or Caesar's Commentaries. The concise vigorous style of the Annales may have been one cause of their receiving that title; yet brevity was inseparable from the style of Tacitus, a peculiarity conspicuous even in the Historiae; and in reference to which Montesquieu has remarked—"Tacitus knew everything, and therefore abridged everything." In the so-called Annales (iii. 65, iv. 71), Tacitus explains that he was prevented by the plan of the work from entering upon details in general, or anticipating the order of events; and this has given the Annales a greater degree of brevity than appears in the Historiae. With respect to these titles, however, there is no direct evidence to prove that such a distinction as that mentioned by Aulus Gellius and Servius was recognised by writers contemporary with Tacitus, and it may fairly be presumed to have been the invention of a later period.

If Tacitus really gave no definitive title to either of the works in question, such omission, perhaps, was not without precedent. Niebuhr, in his ingenious but somewhat fanciful disquisition on the Distinction between Annals and History, concludes his remarks by the inquiry whether the title Historiarum ab urbe condita was the original designation of the books of Livy; and he conjectures that the historian may possibly have used neither historice nor annales, since Diomedes, Priscian, and other grammarians never cite otherwise than Livius ab urbe condita libro—and he suggests that the strangeness of the inscription may have occasioned the filling up of the blank.—(See Cambridge Philological Museum, No. vi. 1833, p. 670; translated from the Rheinisches Museum.)

The high antiquity of the annalistic form of writing requires no demonstration; and perhaps there are few nations that possess no such memorials of their early history. The Chinese, whose veracity in matters of antiquity is frequently questionable, affirm that their annals date from so remote a period as 3000 years or more before the Christian era.

Independently of the consideration that annals are the basis of all history, there is one point of view in which they must be regarded as possessing a high degree of political importance. Knowledge being confessedly the basis of constitutional liberty, veritable annals may be said to be a record of facts unperverted by the bias of the historian; by means of which the people are to be guided and instructed, in order that they may appreciate the advantages they already possess, and be led to maintain inviolate those rights for which their progenitors have toiled and suffered.