Quotes: Tacitus (1958) by Ronald Syme

NB. The footnotes are abridged. Most of those containing only modern sources are omitted, except in a few special cases when they contain academic arguments of some importance. References to specific pages are likewise generally omitted as they don’t make sense in this context; a few are retained and converted into chapter numbers when they refer to a passage which is also quoted here. All translations from Latin and Greek are taken from the Loeb Classical Library. Translations from French, German and Italian are courtesy of Google. They and other editorial additions are confined within square brackets. The meagre limits of Blogger unfortunately prevented the inclusion of some material from the appendices.

 

Ronald Syme

Tacitus

Clarendon Press, Hardback, 1997.

8vo. 2 vols. xii+856 pp. Preface [v–vi, 26 Sep 1957] and Prologue [ix-xii] by the author. Appendixes 1–95 [627–807]. Index [825–54].

 

First published by Oxford University Press, 1958.

Special edition for Sandpiper Books, 1997.

 

Preface

Tacitus has never gone short of praise for style and composition. His quality as an historian might be another matter. In the recent age the trend of study and research turned against him, producing various harsh verdicts on his performance. The time is due for a juster appraisal, a closer approach to the author and his epoch. Tacitus had been a magnificent orator, and he wrote in a proud tradition. But he was not a mere eloquent expositor. He was a Roman senator, consul, and proconsul of Asia.

Political history could not be grasped and mastered if a man was not a senator. Nor can the political historian be understood in isolation. The events must be known, his coevals registered in their careers and activities. The theme demands both a broad canvas and a mass of detail. Much of the material has never been put together, let alone properly interpreted.

[...]

Diligence and accuracy (it is averred) are the only merits an historian can properly ascribe to himself. The one virtue does not always guarantee the other. The more documentation, the more chances of error. Further, time and scrutiny will reveal misconceptions as well as mistakes. The record being one of scraps and pieces, with many of the agents little better than names, and momentous transactions buried in deep obscurity, reconstruction is hazardous. But conjecture cannot be avoided, otherwise the history is not worth writing, for it does not become intelligible. And, the ultimate danger, the dominance of Tacitus himself, strong, subtle, and pervasive. Tacitus may here be found to benefit from a presentation too favourable, the lungo studio not impairing the grande amore.

The task has been long and laborious (for all that ostensible drudgery can be sheer delight). It has been hampered by various delays and vexations. Nor, in making the written text fit for publication and compiling the vast index, can aid or alleviation be recorded from any academic body, from any fund or foundation dedicated to the promotion of research in history and letters. It is therefore with alacrity and a deeper gratitude that I wish to thank Mrs. D. M. Davin, Mr. E. Birley, and Mr. G. E. F. Chilver for their help (in style, substance, and accuracy) at different stages between manuscript and final proof.

Tacitus insists on chance and hazard in the affairs of men, on the ‘ludibria rerum mortalium cunctis in negotiis’. It is good fortune and a privilege if one can consort for so many years with an historian who knew the worst, discovered few reasons for ease or hope or confidence, and none the less believed in human dignity and freedom of speech.

 

Prologue

The Principate arose from usurpation. If one man seized the power, so might another. Birth or energy, chance or a horoscope would declare the ruler of the world. A hundred years after the victory at Actium the line of Caesar Augustus terminated in catastrophe. Nero’s folly and a chain of accidents subverted the dynasty.

Nero feared the generals. By paradox the first move came from a provincial governor without a regular army. Julius Vindex raised rebellion among the tribes of Gaul but encountered disaster. The Roman legions on the Rhine were eager for battle against the native levies, and Verginius Rufus, commanding in Upper Germany, won a signal victory. Verginius saved the Empire for Nero, if Nero had sense or spirit. Although a large force was mustering for him in northern Italy (and there is no sign that Verginius had a mind for treason), Nero despaired too soon. Rumours threw him into confusion and panic. Intrigue did the rest. He could not hold the allegiance of the Praetorian Guard.

Gaul began the revolt against Nero, but Spain furnished his successor, an old man whom many had forgotten. Sulpicius Galba was induced by Vindex to join the movement and lend the credit of his name; and it turned out that Galba, whose cause seemed hopeless after the defeat of his ally, became emperor in the end, although not welcome everywhere. T h e legions of the Rhine had been slow to abandon Nero, and Verginius Rufus showed no great alacrity for Galba. Not that he would take the power himself. The soldiers solicited their victorious general, but he refused. Only Rome and the Senate, he said, were competent to confer the imperial authority. Verginius affirmed a principle and embellished his fame thereafter.

The reasons that kept Verginius loyal to Nero were still valid after Nero’s death. Being the first of his family to enter the governing order, Verginius Rufus lacked prestige and alliances. The supreme power was beyond his reach.

Galba seemed the man. Galba had a pedigree of remote antiquity, and high favour with all the rulers since Caesar Augustus; his career brought military commands; and, evading various hazards, he earned a reputation for sagacity. Moreover, the destiny of Sulpicius Galba had been foretold by the stars. An expert in the science of astrology revealed it long ago, none other than Tiberius Caesar.

Thus, as was fated, the power came to Galba in his old age. Fear or senile ambition incited him to grasp what was offered, with a fair pretext and claims that counted. Birth, office, and renown spoke for Galba, creating a universal expectation. Galba could not fulfil it – ‘omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset [all would have agreed that he was equal to the imperial office if he had never held it]’.

Seven months from Nero’s death were ample. Even dull Galba saw his own predicament. He tried to avert calamity by nominating a partner and heir whom he adopted as his son. His choice fell upon an aristocrat, but eschewed the magnificent and superficial. Piso Licinianus was a young man of discreet and unblemished conduct, signalized only by misfortune – both parents killed b y the Caesars, and two brothers; and he had lived long in exile. Piso knew nothing o f the imperial court, the ways of government, or the control of armies. In that selection Sulpicius Galba looked to ancestry and the negative virtues, advertising thereby his own incompetence. Galba was a fraud. The wrong words had been used. Men praised him for prudence. It was lethargy.

The adoption was no remedy, but an act of despair. It served only to exasperate the Praetorian Guard and hasten the criminal designs of Salvius Otho, whom Galba passed over. In any event, Piso or another, it was too late. The armies of the Rhine already had an emperor of their own. Anger impelled them, still indignant that Spain with a single legion should take the profit of their victory and produce a Caesar. On the first day of 69 the troops at Moguntiacum refused allegiance, casting down the images of Galba. The revolt spread at once from Upper to Lower Germany where Vitellius was proclaimed, with ‘Germanicus’ for name and title.

Galba having been killed at Rome, the candidate of the Guard had to face the onslaught of an invasion led by the generals of Vitellius. Otho marched out to confront them in Northern Italy where he was defeated not far from Cremona, but Vitellius was to have no long tenancy of the power. A few months later the Danubian armies intervened in favour of another pretender who had arisen in the East. Intrigue had been active, and eager partisans. Swift columns crossed the Julian Alps, the legions followed, and a second battle was fought in the same vicinity.

In armed competition for the purple, the premium on ancestors fell sharply. The family of Otho, municipal by origin, rose and prospered through the patronage of the reigning house. Vitellius belonged to the same class and type, but his father’s success went beyond all proportion – consul for the third time and chief minister of Claudius Caesar. Otho was a courtier and a man of fashion. He had never commanded an army before he became the Imperator, nor had Vitellius until Galba, imprudently trusting him for that reason, sent him to be legate of Lower Germany. Vitellius had never seen a camp in his life before.

If Otho and Vitellius were eligible, the time had come for the military men to weigh their own chances. Nero’s advisers made a good choice when they appointed Verginius Rufus; and they saw no harm in sending Licinius Mucianus to govern Syria, Flavius Vespasianus to crush the rebellion in Judaea. Each had known provinces and armies, but, like Verginius, they lacked the benefit of birth and renown. Neither could have risen against Nero. The surge of events now lifted them up. And since Mucianus, with various and blended capacities, ambitious yet satisfied with unobtrusive power, announced that he was ready to waive his claims in favour of one who had sons and could found a dynasty, a rival became an ally, inciting Vespasianus to accept the gift of Fortune.

A single year saw the three emperors after Nero perish in turn. Vespasian’s rule, bringing order out of anarchy, gave promise of a second century of stable governance for Rome and the nations. Destiny decreed that it should not be achieved through his own line, or without hazard. The dynasty had a brief duration, ten years for Vespasian, two for Titus, and fifteen for Domitian.

Domitian’s reign opened well, showing a domestic policy beyond reproach. The Emperor soon went to Gaul, marched to the Rhine and crushed the Chatti, the most formidable of all the western German tribes. The Danube, however, grew menacing. The trouble started with an incursion of the Dacians. Other peoples, Sarmatian and German, later came into conflict with Rome.

After disasters a victory was won in Dacia; but before that war ended Domitian was faced with armed treason and a pretender. Antonius Saturninus, the legate of Upper Germany, proclaimed himself emperor on the first day of January, 89. A civil war had begun. It was promptly arrested, Antonius being defeated b y the commander of the other army on the Rhine.

That marked the turning point of the reign. Fear and distrust set Domitian upon a despotic course. The open clash with the Senate did not come until 93. It arose from a prosecution for high treason, and led to many deaths. The first to suffer were certain men of proud integrity (a group, and almost a party). Birth and ambition were also incriminated. The rest waited, silent and afraid – and the majority took thought only for personal safety and for advancement in the career of honours.

On September 18, A.D. 96, Domitian was assassinated in the Palace. The imperial chamberlain planned and supervised the deed. The Flavii had gone the way of the Julii and Claudii. With how close a resemblance in scene and characters was history again to be enacted – a peaceful transmission of the power or a rapid sequence of wars and proclamations? 

 

III. Julius Agricola

Nerva’s reign, and the supersession of Nerva, produced a Roman historian. When, in the course of the year 97, the aged Verginius Rufus succumbed to a long illness, the Senate voted a state funeral, and the laudation was pronounced by Cornelius Tacitus, who then held the consular fasces, an orator of power and repute.[1] Before many months have elapsed, Tacitus comes out with a composition of kindred nature and theme, commemorating his wife’s father, Julius Agricola, who had died over four years previously. In the Agricola the eloquent consular announces that he will go on to write a history of his own times, as testimony to past enslavement and present felicity.[2]

The monograph itself may have something to tell about the new emperor. In the third chapter of the Agricola Tacitus counts the age happy because Nerva Caesar has blended ‘libertas’ and the ‘principatus’, and Nerva Traianus with every day that passes augments the ‘felicitas temporum [the happiness of the times]’.[3] The words convey the impression that Nerva is still alive. Later on, however, towards the end of the Agricola Trajan is described as ‘princeps’.[4] What is the solution? Was the book published before, or after, Nerva’s death (January 28, A.D. 98)? Or was it composed before that date and published subsequently?[5] The problem hardly matters. ‘Nerva Caesar’ could stand in writing after Nerva had become a ‘divus’ – and the dominant fact is not Nerva’s decease but Nerva’s adoption of Trajan.

The name of Trajan occurs only twice in the Agricola. That work as a whole is much more than a retarded eulogy of one man’s father-in-law. It stands in close relation to the training and career of the Imperator himself, to his character and his virtues.

[…]

More delicate was the adjustment between a famous general and a jealous emperor, with enmity often ensuing, or disgrace and death. Domitian. had wronged Agricola, and Domitian therefore hated Agricola. The Emperor was swift to anger, implacable in revenge, but Agricola showed no resentment for shabby treatment. Defiance and a provocative exhibition of ‘Iibertas’ would have earned him ruin and renown. He chose prudence and escaped harm.[6]

Agricola’s demeanour was far from heroic. It might easily have been misconstrued while he lived, and no doubt it was so subsequently – by those whom Tacitus condemns for ‘admiring what is wrong’.

Tacitus has a sharp answer. ‘Let me tell them’, he says, ‘that there can be great men even under bad emperors, that duty and discretion, if coupled with energy of character and a career of action, will bring a man to no less glorious summits than are attained by perilous paths and ostentatious deaths, with no advantage to the Commonwealth.[7]

The fervour and acerbity in this outburst belies the normal gravity of the Roman and the senator. His anger can be explained. After the assassination of Domitian the friends and relatives of those who had suffered exile or death were loud for vengeance and many whose tie or claim was tenuous took up the cry. However, the needs of ordered government impose bars and limits. That soon became apparent, and sagacious senators would support a plea for moderation. Although the greater criminals duly secured protection, although the men of principle and the eager careerists were alike baffled in their cravings for revenge or advancement, they were by no means reduced to silence; and some would later exhibit the propriety of their sentiments and seek approbation in the world of letters by composing pamphlets on the deaths of illustrious men.

Tacitus proclaims his scorn for the brave enemies of dead tyrants, the noisy advocates of the heroes and martyrs. They had not confined their reprobation to evil men, the willing agents of despotism, but had gone much further. The rule of the Caesars depended not only on political managers or venal prosecutors. It had the support of administrators; and the whole senatorial order was acquiescent. Tacitus goes out of his way to make a passionate confession of collective guilt – ‘our hands dragged Helvidius off to prison, our countenances felt shame at the sight of Mauricus and Rusticus, it was we whom Senecio bespattered with his innocent blood’.[8]

Tacitus refers to the sudden sequence of prosecutions in the autumn of the year 93. Agricola was dead at the time of these transactions, and Tacitus himself may have still been absent from Rome.[9] No matter, Tacitus puts himself among the majority that witnessed and condoned the worst acts of tyranny. It does not follow that Tacitus would have quietly concurred when anybody else arraigned Agricola’s conduct, or his own, for cowardice and subservience.

Attacking those who admired the martyrs unduly, Tacitus defends his father-in-law – and shields his own conduct under the tyranny of Domitian. Tacitus may have spoken in the Senate, deprecating the excesses of faction and fanatics. When the time came, he was to show how well he could demonstrate that theme – ‘it was all very well to emulate Brutus and Cato in fortitude: one was only a senator, and they had all been slaves together’.[10]

Tacitus speaks not only for Agricola or for himself. The Agricola expounds the moral and political ideals of the new aristocracy, not systematically formulated but emerging gradually in the portrayal of an individual and in the stages of a senator’s career.

The provincial magnates, as depicted in the Agricola and discoverable elsewhere, bear a strong resemblance to their predecessors in the invasion of the Roman State, the men of substance and repute from the Italian towns: the categories are inherited, the labels often conventional, and the general portrayal is highly flattering.[11]

In the first place, wealth and the use to which it is put. Some provincial fortunes were enormous. Agricola had adequate means.[12] The new-comers were good farmers and keen men for gain. Financial ability commended them as procurators to the imperial government, and money was needed to carry the next generation forward in the career of honours. The habit of parsimony endured even in the opulent, and, with other antique virtues, kept its dominance in the provinces, as in the remoter tracts of Italy, when it had long since fled from the capital.[13] Fashion was not allowed to wreak its ravages among the womenfolk, though some might acquire the rudiments of a polished education; and the alacrity of youth in the pursuit of ‘bonae artes’ was curbed and preserved from dangerous thoughts by native shrewdness or domestic pressure.

The Caesars had need of loyal and capable servants, at home and abroad. Provincials were alert and ready. Neither rancour nor idealism could be permitted to interfere. Many of them had all the robust patriotism of a frontier zone and a fervid devotion to the great past of Rome, but they did not take the name for the thing. Unobtrusive in performing the flat and regular duties of the urban magistracy, and firmly treading a middle path between economy and display, a man intent on the highest honours was careful to show deference towards seniority. Military training was valued, but did not have to be lengthy; and military ways would not always blunt a senator’s capacity for civil business. Disdaining to be showy and competitive, he established by subordination his right to be promoted.

The sum of meritorious qualities falls a long way short of the heroic or the spectacular. .It evokes the sober virtues which in ancient days won the hegemony in Italy and dominion over the nations – according to what was believed or advertised under the rule of Caesar Augustus by the writers of improving prose or verse.

In their manner of thought the Romans were addicted to tradition. If a person, quality, or thing could be styled ‘antiquus’ or ‘prisais’, all was well. The provincial notables not infrequently embodied the antique notions of frugal merit or rustic valour. And some were assiduous in. preaching the theme. Roman opinion, when confronted with upstarts who were often not conservative but innovatory, and who combined frugality with great possessions, was muzzled and disarmed by its own most cherished conventions.

The generals of old and the empire-builders became ideal and legendary figures. Very different were the nobiles as men had known them in their own time or by recent examples. In the last epoch of the Free State the pursuit of honour and the lust for power engendered the monarchic aristocrat, ruinous to the Commonwealth. ‘Libertas’ was the badge and device of the ruling order. Asserting privilege to the limit, the nobles competed, gladly and ruthlessly. To incur a feud was a title of distinction, and an intractable character became a glorious virtue. If the struggles in which the old order perished be taken on a broad view as the battle between Republic and Monarchy, it will be well to recall that the principal contestants belonged to the same class in society, professing the same aristocratic ideals, though at odds about their interpretation: they paraded ‘dignitas’ and ‘magnitudo animi’.

If Cato failed, and Brutus, so did Caesar and Antonias. And, although the prestige of the nobiles was refurbished by Caesar Augustus, he yoked them to the monarchy: they had to share their privilege and lower their pretensions. The true victory went to the new men and to the non-political classes.[14] For a season the Republican façade of the dynasty, the aristocratic temper of Tiberius Caesar, and the prominence of the noble families might keep up a semblance of the old pride and dignity. The day of the great men and the splendid virtues was over. To succeed, or even to survive, modesty was requisite, and discretion; while ‘quies’, previously the mark of the Roman knight, became honourable in a senator.[15] ‘Libertas’ itself, the dearest virtue of the noble, had to recede and surrender to ‘obsequium’.

The fall of the Republic demonstrated that liberty and the Empire were incompatible. It was now evident that the maintenance of the Empire called for subordination and obedience in the governing class. Compromise was distasteful to the independent spirit of the Roman aristocrat. Yet in ancient days (if history was to be believed), not only in the struggle of the orders but even in the strife of noble factions, compromise had been invoked to preserve stability, and private feuds abated for the Commonwealth. If the Commonwealth survived only as a name, the Empire was a fact; and, to keep the Empire intact, a compromise was needed between the Emperor and the Senate. For Rome, anarchy and despotism were equally intolerable. The notion of the middle path – liberty without licence and order without despotism – is inherent in the Principate from the beginning. Men might be found who understood that ideal and put it into their conduct long before it was formulated by any orator or theorist: it might be possible to steer a safe course amid the temptations of public life and all the perils.[16]

As the destiny of the Empire worked itself out, and the power grew ever more concentrated in the hands of the ruler, the emphasis fell more heavily on order and subordination. The notion of ‘obsequium’ is put on show in the exposition of Agricola’s career.[17] The word denotes rational deference to authority – the obedience which an officer owes to his commander, a senator to the Senate, an emperor to the gods of the Roman State.[18]

In the process of adjustment between the Emperor and the Senate two battles had to be fought. In the first the old governing order, the families who claimed to be the ‘res publica’, were tamed, broken, and almost annihilated. In the second ‘Libertas’, surviving as the habit of free speech and free criticism, and incorporated in the men of principle who withstood the autocratic rule of Nero and of Domitian, was reduced to obedience. The Republic died hard. It was not until the accession of Trajan that the ghost of Cato wras laid at last.

If the glories of the Free State were far behind, so too the shams and pretences of the early Principate. If pride and contumacy were abolished, political wisdom now prevailed. In their ideal of service to the Roman State the new aristocracy could assert a firm claim. It was not a foreign enemy that endangered the Empire, but internal weakness – a wicked ruler, an irresponsible opposition. Patience and sagacity held the structure together.

To the eye of romance or sentiment a dreary period dawned upon the world, inimical to excellence and murderous to renown. The great men belonged to the past, to an epic age. They were ‘ingentes viri’.[19]

On a sober estimation those heroes were too large for the Commonwealth, with virtues no less ruinous than their vices. They were portents to admire, not models to imitate. The new Romans had an answer, deriving not from books but from their lives, not from the city but from the Empire. There could still be great men, even under a bad emperor.

It is the mark of political literature under the Empire, especially when it happens to be written by Cornelius Tacitus, that it should not carry its meaning on its face.[20] The Agricola purports to be a composition in praise of Tacitus’ father-in-law. Being that, it cannot fail to be an attack on Domitian. Violent language shows that it is also an attack on other persons, on political extremists.[21] Something further is implied – a vindication of the new men from the provinces, setting them up against effete aristocrats and the parochial Italians.

A happy artifice conveys the link between Agricola and Trajan. Fortunate in the season of his death, Agricola was spared the sight of many tribulations. Of one felicity he was frustrated – the accession of Trajan. That was what he prayed for, and prophesied.[22]

[...]

 

V. Capax imperii

Trajan, the candidate of the generals, was neither able nor eager to announce forthwith a dynastic heir to the power from his own family circle, even though he gave to Aelius Hadrianus the hand of his grand-niece Vibia Sabina.[23] If Trajan were to die before long, the decision would rest with the marshals – and he may have felt (but could hardly enforce) a preference for Licinius Sura. But Trajan was not thinking about death. If the fortune of Rome held, the Imperator might enjoy a reign unsurpassed in length since Caesar Augustus.

Trajan was still young, in the prime of life. When adopted by Nerva he was just forty-four.[24] The Caesars since Augustus ran to extremes— young princes wild and unteachable, old men sad and sorry, imprisoned by their experience or debilitated by various infirmities. Galba at seventy was quite incapable of learning the trade or art, and Nerva at sixty was too fragile. The subtle Vespasian was in his sixtieth year when the armies proclaimed him. Only two of the Caesars hitherto had the right age along with a safe and dynastic succession. Destiny converted them into types of contrast. Tiberius was forty-four when Augustus adopted him; but Tiberius had to wait ten years – and then he lived on for twenty-three more. Titus succeeded his father in his fortieth year, and the world was happy; but Titus died after a rule of two years and two months, secure in his unfulfilled renown. The favourites of the Roman People died young. Popularity and long life were hardly compatible.

Of all the Caesars since Tiberius, with the exception of Galba and Vespasian, only Trajan passed through the regular stages of a senator’s promotion, rising to the consular command of an army. Galba had military repute behind him when he became Princeps, cheaply acquired or enhanced by the ignorant. Vespasian’s achievement seemed solid and unimpeachable – active warfare when legionary legate during the invasion of Britain, and the arduous subjugation of Judaea. Vespasian had never been tempted by splendour or risks. The new emperor, however, young, energetic, and a soldier by training, seemed likely to bring a change from the foreign policy of the Flavian dynasty with its timid advances or equivocal compromises. The war might come at once, to enhance the glory of Trajan, to blot out the memory of the Praetorians’ rising and the threat of open strife for the power.

Trajan was still on the Rhine when Tacitus wrote his second monograph, an essay on the land and people of Germany. In the Germania he is mentioned once, and only as a date, the second consulate in 98, so it might seem at first sight.[25] In itself the treatise carried a clear appeal to the lettered public. It was no long or exacting task to compile: almost every item derives from written sources. None the less, in the midst of an ethnographical catalogue, style, passion, and prejudice betray the preoccupations of the author.

A native tribe across the lower Rhine, the Bructeri, had been wiped out by a coalition of their neighbours. Resentment at their arrogance was the cause, or greed for booty – or an especial grace of the gods towards the Roman People. A Roman army contemplated the massacre. More than sixty thousand of the Bructeri perished – and not by Roman weapons but, what is more splendid, to gladden Roman eyes.[26]

The incident was either recent, belonging to the year 97, or recently brought to conspicuous notoriety at Rome.[27] The language of Tacitus is ferocious and exultant, heavily charged with moralizing. No less fervent is what follows. He utters a solemn prayer. May the nations persist, since they cannot love the Romans, in hating one another: as fate bears remorselessly on Rome, fortune can offer no greater boon now than the disunion of Rome’s enemies.[28]

The passage is not a little enigmatic, and has been much debated in its interpretation. The present condition of Rome and of the Empire, it should seem, gave no cause for fear and foreboding, with Trajan emperor. Yet the reference is clearly to the present. Moreover, the phrase ‘urgentibus imperii fatis’ is most ominous. It evokes the age-old menace to Rome from the northern peoples, with a clear echo of the tone and language in which the classic historian of the Republic prepared his readers for the capture of Rome by the Gallic invaders.[29]

From that catastrophe the Romans emerged to vigour and empire. When they had at last defeated the Gauls in Italy they were ready to engage any adversary.[30] The mastery of the world ensued. No rival remained, and no threat to the dominion of Rome – only civil war, letting the vanquished rise again and the outer peoples break in.

Though Rome, in the opinion consecrated since the time of Augustus, was built to endure for ever, though ‘aetemitas’ was predicated of the Empire and of the imperial peace,[31] sombre thoughts might invade a reflective man. Past history declared that empires were transient – internal discord, the decline of energy, new and vigorous competitors.[32] The civil wars of 68 and 69 were fresh in mind – rebellion among the nations, the burning of the Capitol, and prophecies of doom.[33] And only a few months earlier a catastrophe threatened. Even now, stability was precarious.

Rome and the Germans, it was a story of two hundred and ten years since the first conflict of arms. ‘Tam diu Germania vincitur [for that length of time has the conquest of Germany been in process].’[34] Tacitus gives a date. He may have hoped it would be the end of an era. In that long period of the German wars many disasters had befallen the Romans, yet the Roman invasions brought no conquest. Peace came, or rather warfare lapsed, yet the Germans intervened in 69, and Domitian (it was asserted) celebrated triumphs without gaining victories.[35] The free peoples of Germany were a deadlier enemy than any monarch of Parthia.[36]

It was not for the consular Cornelius Tacitus to play the mentor to a military emperor. None the less, there may be anger brooding beneath the exultant thanks rendered to fortune for the extinction of a German tribe, and fierce resentment that Roman arms should never be employed for a war of conquest and revenge. In the days of Caesar Augustus the Roman legions traversed Germany as far as the Elbe. In the time of Tacitus that river was only a name.[37]

The author of the Germania confutes Domitian’s claim that Germany had been conquered. He also implies a hope, if he may not utter the expectation, that Trajan, being now on the Rhine, will settle the German question by methods altogether different from those of the Flavian emperors.[38] In truth, the Danube had become the more important frontier; and Trajan soon went there. If Tacitus had composed an ethnographical essay a year later, he would have been tempted, if not compelled, to write about the peoples beyond the Danube – with ample detail about the Suebi in Bohemia, the Sarmatae Jazyges of the great plains, the Dacians of Transylvania, and more Sarmatians, the Rhoxolani. It would not be at all easy. For Germany he had full and valuable sources: knowledge about Sarmatians was probably traditional and obsolete, and nobody perhaps had recently written upon Dacia.

[…]

A Caesar in the dynastic succession inherited the devotion of plebs and soldiers, and a usurper need not fail if ready with cash and pageantry. Nor was the effort arduous to win the goodwill of the senatorial order in the first days. The exacting test came from the personal adherents of a new emperor, with multifarious claims to satisfy, not all open and avowed. Hence lengthy consular lists, unforeseen promotions, and some honours that can hardly have evaded sharp comment.

Trajan, it appears, was firm and sagacious in managing his entourage. No ruler could abolish the competition of groups and factions – and the campaigns in Dacia might easily engender rivalry or friction among the generals. If some were set back and disappointed, overt scandal was avoided. Trajan’s prime allies were Julius Servianus and Licinius Sura, with strong claims upon his gratitude. At first the two ran level in public honours (and perhaps in the Imperator’s esteem), sharing a second consulate in 102. Then, in 107, Sura with his third consulate leaves Servianus far behind. There is no hint of what Servianus thought. The marshals continue in ostensible concord.[39]

The military emperor entered upon the tenth year of his rule in warranted pride. His vigour had brought Rome back to the mission and habit of conquest. Caesar Augustus, by winning Illyricum, advanced the frontier to the Danube, binding province to province and army to army. That was the principal achievement of his long reign.[40] Trajan’s Dacia, projecting across the river like a strong bastion, dominated wide territories on its flanks. Another advance was not out of the question. The German peoples faced the Danube as well as the Rhine: to occupy Bohemia would round off the conquest of the Danubian basin and ensure complete mastery over central Europe. The means were available. Trajan had raised two new legions, making a total strength of thirty. No fewer than twelve were now stationed in the Danubian lands.[41]

Trajan was the emperor produced and designated by the Empire. Not merely in virtue of his Spanish origin or through the command in Upper Germany, but because he knew the provinces and had personal ties with senators, knights, and soldiers. Trajan went on from land to land and from task to task. Later ages would tell of his glory and point out the traces of his passage.[42] He was like Hercules in athletic pursuits, and in something more: strength of body is not of much account in itself,, unless the mind rules and directs.[43]

The parallel with Hercules is not mere ornament or clever flattery of an emperor who came from the vicinity of Gades on the far edge of the western world. Pliny in the Panegyricus lays especial emphasis on Trajan’s career of service – and subordination. Trajan did nothing to make himself emperor: obedience brought him to the Principate.[44] The word is ‘obsequium’. Tacitus insisted on this quality in Agricola: duty and discretion can produce a great man still, if he has ‘vigor’ and ‘industria’.[45]

Trajan was heralded by Agricola, and manifested as ‘capax imperii’. Though that phrase is not used by Tacitus in his Agricola or by Pliny in his Panegyricus, it is implicit in both works. And the notion is highly significant. It runs through all the historical writings of Tacitus and imparts a unity to the record of dynastic politics and civil wars.[46]

 

VI. The Career of Tacitus

Cornelius Tacitus speaks for the emperor and for provincial Romans. Yet he is chary of information about his own life and career. Neither family nor birthplace stands on record. Even the praenomen seems to admit a doubt – was he Gaius or Publius?[47]

Ignorance has fed upon fable. The ingenious author of the Historia Augusta comes out with an engaging item. The Emperor Claudius Tacitus (so he alleges) claimed the historian for an ancestor and demonstrated his piety by governmental enactment: statues of Cornelius Tacitus should be set up in all public libraries, and ten copies of the writings should be produced every year.[48]

The fiction may be dismissed. A way of inquiry offers, though not without its hazards. The parsimony of the historian has been providentially compensated by Pliny, who was never tired of talking about himself and his friends. His correspondence serves to put Cornelius Tacitus in a clear social and literary setting. Not only that. What is known of the character and pursuits of Pliny may shed light on Tacitus – and not least by contrast. Pliny exemplifies the cultivated senator of the day in a happy combination of moral endeavour and deliberate frivolity. Tacitus had something more. Pliny’s generous revelations about his own activities are supplemented by the epi- graphic record of an official career.[49] Comparison may begin with the facts and details, how the two senators passed from office to office in the service of the State.

The friendship between their families went back to the previous generation. It probably originated either in the schools at Rome or abroad in the imperial service: a certain Cornelius Tacitus, financial agent of the government in Gallia Belgica, was known to Pliny’s uncle.[50] The promotion and success of a new senator depends very much upon talent and energy in the family when it is still equestrian in rank. Pliny’s family, the Caecilii, were a reputable stock from early days at the town of Comum in the Transpadane zone of Italy.[51] It may be taken without question that their means were comfortable.[52] Pliny’s own father did nothing of note.[53] The true author of his ‘dignitas’ is his mother’s brother, C. Plinius Secundus.

That remarkable character deserves more than a casual tribute.[54] Born in 23 or 24, he entered the ‘militia equestris’ in his early twenties and spent the greater part of the next twelve years in three officer positions (? 46–58). His terms of service were all passed with the armies of the Rhine. The frontier was tranquil, with plenty of leisure, and the officer was passionately addicted to study. He composed various treatises, among them a manual on the use of the javelin for cavalry and a biography of his friend and patron P. Pomponius Secundus – not only an illustrious tragic poet but governor of Upper Germany.[55] Pliny also began an historical work, embracing all the wars between the Romans and the Germans, in twenty books.

Military service concluded, a civil post might have been waiting for this energetic person. No procuratorship fell to Pliny when he returned to Italy in 58, so far as can be established.[56] His failure might prompt speculation – the loss of a patron, some minor indiscretion in. the society of the capital, a sudden distaste for affairs, or a prescience of the dangers that lurked in the path of industry and integrity. Pliny lapsed into retirement. The Neronian tyranny, and such catastrophes as the Pisonian conspiracy (which involved a large number of knights as well as senators), confirmed his luck or judgement. Senators might invoke the evil times as a cover for inertia. To Pliny there could never be an excuse for idleness. He adopted an exacting task, to write about Latin grammar.

A decade passed. It terminated in civil war. Pliny, emerging opportunely as a partisan of Vespasian, took up his career again in fine style. He ran through a sequence of procuratorships, ending with Gallia Belgica, which made him paymaster general for the armies of the Rhine.[57]

Leaving Belgica about 76, Pliny is discovered at the capital, holding a post that involved daily visits to Vespasian.[58] The title is not specified: the fire-brigade or the corn-supply would have gone well with his methodical habits. The former is not unlikely, the latter is excluded, for three known tenants of the office of praefectus annonae will account for the period 76–82. One of the three had previously been praefectus vigilum, and all of them passed in turn to the governorship of Egypt.[59]

Belgica ranked very high, but if it brought Pliny to the post of praefectus vigilum, that was all. His next appointment is not as important or promising as its title would seem to imply. It was the command of one of the two imperial fleets stationed in Italian waters. The month of August 79 found Pliny in charge at Misenum on the bay of Naples.[60] When the volcano erupted, Pliny was eager to inspect the phenomenon and succour the distressed. He perished in the attempt. His nephew stayed behind, reading Livy and making excerpts from that author.[61]

Duty and curiosity set their stamp on the life of the elder Pliny from first to last. Habits of learning once acquired by a conscientious boy may be difficult to discard. Pliny held all time wasted that went not to study.[62] He read at meals, in the bath, and when carried in the litter. No book, he said, could be wholly bad. Apart from his published works, he left 160 volumes of extracts to attest the variety of his reading and the strength of his convictions. That vast erudition was not sought as an escape from the concerns of active life or designed for ostentation. A sceptic about the gods, and harshly contemptuous of personal immortality, Pliny proclaimed that man’s help to man is true divinity.[63] To this end he laboured. History was surely useful. In addition to the Bella Germattiae he composed the annals of his own times. Scrupulous for the truth and avoiding the imputation that he might have flattered the dynasty, Pliny aspired to a higher fame and refused to publish that history.[64] There was no reason to hold back the supreme monument of his labours. It was an encyclopedia of all human knowledge, a work unattempted before by Greek or Roman, the Naturalis Historia.

The aristocratic ideal of leisure, inherited from the Greeks, led by an easy decline to the disdain of serious effort, to the advertising of elegant accomplishments as a pretext for sloth or emptiness. Pliny's gospel, that work is a good thing, is a typically Roman manifestation.[65] The energy, the tenacity, and the devotion of equestrian officials go far to explain the success of the imperial system.[66] Nothing guaranteed that a Caesar would possess the taste or endurance for hard tasks, that an indolent voluptuary might turn into a model proconsul. Nor was it likely that the initial impulse from an equestrian ancestry would persist for many generations when a family assumed the gilded pride and decorative pretensions of the governing class.

Pliny was a personal friend of Vespasian. Always an early riser, he would go- and visit the Emperor before daybreak to discuss the business of his post at Rome.[67] His acquaintance with Titus went back to the latter’s service as military tribune on the Rhine, and to Titus he dedicated the encyclopedia, in 77.[68] For the nephew, whom he adopted as his son, the latus clavus was ready on request and a senator’s career under the Flavian dynasty.

The antecedents of Cornelius Tacitus are closely comparable. Tacitus nowhere has occasion to say anything about his father, and he mentions his own entry to the senatorial order only because it is strictly relevant – an assertion that the historian will be frank and honest despite benefits owed to the dynasty.[69] The decease of a parent or relative might easily impair a young man’s prospects.[70] The procurator of Bélgica may no longer have been alive, but his rank guaranteed a good start for the young Tacitus – better indeed than for many bom in the senatorial order.[71]

The birth of Cornelius Tacitus may be assigned to 56 or 57. Vespasian granted the latus claims. Between adolescence and the age of twenty ensued the interlude of social probation. The aspirant to honours held one or other of the twenty appointments in the four minor magistracies: duties were negligible, but the post allotted gave some sign of a man’s future prospects and career. These were the impressionable years, just before military service, and sometimes influenced by it.[72] Tacitus went in for the study of public speaking, assiduous in the company of senior practitioners. A quarter of a century later, when composing a dialogue on the decline of oratory, Tacitus laid the scene in the sixth year of Vespasian’s rule (75).[73] Four characters participate – two orators (the most celebrated forensic speakers of the day), a senator who preferred poetry, and a young man of family and distinction, aged about twenty-five.

Political eloquence at this time was dominated by Vibius Crispus and Eprius Marcellus. Two other consulars, the last ordinariiof Nero’s reign, claim a passing notice: Galerius Trachalus, who had volume and resonance beyond equal, and Silius Italicus, a man of many parts. The season itself was not unpropitious to civilian attainments. Of those who trod the path shortly before Tacitus, some had been hampered by the last Neronian years (the orator’s talent seldom went with good reputation or survival), others were cut off by the civil wars, others again benefited, passing swiftly into an administrative career. Few are known by name among the predecessors and the rivals of Tacitus. Before he reached the consular age, he challenged his seniors, and none of his juniors (so far as known) surpassed him.

Meanwhile, the stages of advancement: some fixed by an inevitable prescription, others modified by birth or patronage, by personal choice or by already proved aptitudes.

In Rome of the aristocracy, leges atmales ordained the limits of age and status within which ambition might compete for honours without wrecking the ‘res publica’. The renovated oligarchy which Caesar and his ministers directed also had need of regulations. For mere magistracies and proconsulates they were easy to devise and operate. The creation of sequence and hierarchy in the imperial service took longer; and for the consular army commands merit, favour, or emergency are inimical to routine and seniority. None the less, under the Flavian emperors the code acquires remarkable precision and stability.

The government had twenty-seven military tribunates to fill.[74] The holders of the vigintivirate make up the total, supplemented by some iterations. The age of the tribunus laticlavius was twenty or thereabouts. Army or legion (or both) might be commanded by relatives and friends of the family. Matrimony strengthened such ties. Returning from service, the young man looked for a suitable bride in some consular or rising family. Tacitus won the approbation of Julius Agricola, to whose daughter he was betrothed in 77.[75] Marriage in the early twenties was common, for a precise reason – the law according privileges to candidates with children.

The quaestorship came in 81 or 82, with the odds equal for service abroad. Ten of the twenty quaestors go out with the proconsuls of the provinces in the Senate’s portion (two consular and eight praetorian). Two are allotted to attendance upon the Princeps, and some of the remainder to the consuls: birth or special favour selects the quaestores Augusti.[76]

Two or three years later, the tribunate of the plebs or the aedileship. Altogether, sixteen posts, senators of patrician family being excused. Next, after a short interval, one of the praetorships (the total was normally eighteen).[77] Cornelius Tacitus became praetor in 88. The magistracy he mentions casually in reference to the Secular Games celebrated in that year, when he was a member of the sacerdotal college concerned therewith, the quindecimviri sacris faciundis.[78]

Pageantry appealed to the Emperor Domitian, and ritual even more. As head of the state religion he enforced the traditional observances with pedantic rigour. Several of the sacred virgins of Vesta who had neglected their vows were punished, the senior delinquent being entombed alive in the primeval fashion.[79] And, although Domitian permitted the flamen Dialis to divorce his wife, the thing could riot be done without horrid rites and incantations.[80]

The quindecimviri had custody of the Sibylline oracles and superintended cults of extraneous origin, some very ancient, others quite recent, such as the worship of Isis and Serapis, which the Flavian emperors regarded with favour. The archives of the college contained documents of immemorial antiquity, or believed such. To interpret them called for scholarship and good sense among the priestly experts when the government required supernatural sanction for its projects or quietly altered the date of some stated ceremony. The cycle of recurrence for the Secular Games had already been revised more than once. The calculation that suited Domitian was not the weakest in the series. There is no sign that it was impugned by Cornelius Tacitus.[81]

In rank and honour the sacerdotal colleges exhibit a wide divergence. The four inherited by the Principate from the last age of the Republic kept their primacy, namely pontiffs, augurs, quindecimviri, and epulones. Nobody could belong to more than one of them. Next came the priests to whom the Senate had consigned the official worship of Divus Augustus, the sodales Augustales.[82] Lowest in estimation were certain confraternities which Caesar Augustus had revived by artifice from long desuetude: the fetiales, the sodales Titii, and the fratres arvales. He had not been able to install them beside the ‘quattuor amplissima sacerdotia’.[83]

Nonentities now tend to congregate among the Arval Brethren (fairly full registers are extant for the Flavian period), and their activities (apart from banquets) are largely taken up with anniversaries or events that concern the dynasty.[84] The quindecimviri embrace a superior selection – fashionable young men, with literary talent at a premium, and certain wise old politicians.[85] To be of the company was delight and instruction – who could fail to benefit from Fabricius Veiento? It was also a promise (seldom delusive) of further honours. That Tacitus acquired this priesthood so early in his career is a noteworthy fact, indicating high favour with the managers of patronage. Many senators had to wait until the consulate or later. Save in an aristocrat, an early priesthood easily carried the imputation of base arts or undue influence.[86] Tacitus had perhaps already earned repute as a speaker – in the Senate, not merely in the courts of law or the schools of rhetoric. Some resounding success may mark the years 86 or 87.[87] Further, he would now augment his own following among the aspirants to oratorical distinction.[88]

In the Agricola Tacitus musters all the resources of an advocate’s art, mature in its command of innuendo, to demonstrate how an evil emperor visited upon the conqueror of Britain his envy, his hatred, and his fears. Good sense and personal dignity saved Tacitus from dishonesty about himself. He does not hint that his own advancement had been impaired by the ostensible disgrace of his wife’s father; and he may have had other friends and patrons, active while Agricola was away in Britain, and after his return.[89] The ministers and counsellors of Domitian stand on record.[90] It would be worth knowing more about the operations of Fabricius Veiento or Vibius Crispus – or the influence exerted by Pegasus, the Prefect of the City, and by Cornelius Fuscus, commander of the Guard.

The posts after the praetorship, by number, quality, and duration, decide a man’s ultimate success. The standard consular year is the forty-third, but not all have to wait so long. A scion of the primeval nobility of Rome (the patriciate) may omit the praetorian posts, thus coming to the consulate as young as thirty-two; and other aristocrats benefit from birth and privilege, with little or no constraint to seek active employment abroad.[91] For a man of talent and ambition, honour accrues through the service of Caesar. The provinces of the Senate are in minor esteem.[92] They will seldom see him again after the quaestorship until, a senior consular, he qualifies for Asia or Africa – which an eminent ‘vir militaris’ may well forgo.[93]

It was expedient to command a legion. With a triennial tenure eight of the praetors of each year normally become legionary legates. The field of promotion narrows. With six consuls in a normal year, not every legionary legate can hope to crown his ambitions.[94]

In the career of the imperial commands a legion followed by a praetorian province takes a man in a clear run to the consulate, which he can hold four or five years short of the standard age, with a firm prospect of later distinction in charge of an army.[95] Not all of the ‘viri militares’ are so fortunate; and other senators (especially the sons of knights) must wait until forty-two, sometimes longer. A variety of posts occupies the interval, at Rome, in Italy, or abroad.

Cornelius Tacitus, not long after his praetorship, departed to an employment in the provinces. When Julius Agricola died (August 23, A.D. 93) Tacitus was still absent: he had been away for a ‘quadriennium’.[96] The nature of Tacitus’ occupations permits only a wide conjecture. A decision between civil or military might be prompted by opinions about the experience of affairs which his historical writings are deemed to disclose. It could never claim validity. The consular Julius Frontinus compiled several volumes of Strategemata: for the most part, literary and antiquated. The reader would never guess that Frontinus had once governed the province of Britain and subdued a refractory region.[97]

It is a fair assumption that Tacitis commanded a legion, as did almost every novus homo ambitious to see his name on the Fasti.[98] Moreover, the recent wars accelerated the promotion of legates, leaving places to be filled. Otherwise a civilian employment might be surmised, though not with any confidence, at this stage. In three of the consular provinces (Hispania Citerior, Britain, and Cappadocia) the Flavian emperors created a new post, that of iuridicus, to assist the governor.[99] If Tacitus’ sojourn abroad comprised four full years, it might have terminated with a year as proconsul somewhere, in a minor province, nor is a proconsulate after a short interval excluded. Certain senators offer parallels, but no certainty.[100]

There was still a period to be spent, with or without some further post. A dozen years could easily elapse after a man’s praetorship if no signal merits intervened.

Various hazards could help or hinder. Vespasian took a number of new men into the Senate by adlection, in 69 and in 73, some being given praetorian rank.[101] After ten years the competition grew intense; after fifteen, intolerable. An expanded consular list from time to time brought alleviation – one or two may be presumed early in Domitian’s reign, the year 86 shows eight consuls, while 90 is portentous, after the civil war.[102] The subsequent years (except perhaps for 93) are regular and conventional.

The civil war produced a number of gaps, and four years later party strife in the Senate provoked a chain of prosecutions for treason, with many deaths and exiles. Moreover the period exhibited a sequence of unhealthy seasons. Some deadly infection was going about. It excited suspicion of maleficence or crime, and strange rumours.[103] Death from natural causes might easily overtake the governor of an insalubrious province;[104] and it was not unusual for a consular to pass away in his early fifties.[105] This time the young were extinguished with the old: senators of high promise in society and letters, for whom the consulate could confidently have been predicted, were carried off in their prime.[106]

Yet there was no lack of rivals in the race. A group of aristocrats encumbered the course. Their ancestry commanded a preference. Nor should the members of more recent consular families have to wait until the standard age. The son of Silius Italicus would come in ahead of any coeval novus homo, and so would the two Neratii, Marcellus and Priscus (a favoured pair who belonged to the new patricians).[107] At the other extreme were older men without benefit of birth, some tardy in their advancement but hoping to exploit the hazards of influence, the caprice of the emperor, or his need of loyal agents.[108]

A variegated company stood in prospect of the consulate. Some were closely calculable by reasons of age, standing, and employment. Ten triennial posts stand as direct designations – with the eight legates of imperial provinces go the collegiate pair of prefects, who manage the Senate’s treasury, the aerarium Saturni. On an average three of the consuls in each year derive from this type of promotion. For praetorian legates in the period 94–97 the evidence is scanty, but sufficient to dispel the notion that Cornelius Tacitus governed Gallia Belgica.[109] The legate of Belgica was Glitius Agricola, who returned to hold the fasces in 97.[110]

The consulate of Tacitus fell in the second half of that year. He was one of a long list. A strong persuasion is sometimes expressed that Tacitus came late to the consulship. That is false. Some hold that he owed the supreme dignity to Nerva or the friends of Nerva. That is far from certain. One would have to know when consuls were designated. Now some of the consuls who held office in 69 had in fact been designated by Nero.[111] Nero committed suicide on June 9 of the previous year. As likely as not, Cornelius Tacitus had been marked out for promotion before the assassination of Domitian. For a knight’s son not aspiring to the army commands he had made a good career.

The consul’s only known action is a funeral oration.[112] His next public appearance is at the trial of Marius Priscus, as advocate for the prosecution along with his friend Pliny.[113] Priscus, proconsul of Africa under Nerva, set himself to exploit the ‘félicitas temporum’, rapacious, oppressive, and condoning murder for money. After some delays the case was terminated in January of the year 100.[114] The Princeps presided in the Senate. It was one of the first duties that fell to him after his arrival. Trajan comported himself with tact and discretion, solicitous for the dignity of senators, even when a flagrant offender was involved. The indictment of a senator might evoke signal manifestations of class solidarity and eloquent appeals to compassion. On behalf of Priscus the attempt was made to let him off with mere restitution of the munies he had extorted. The prosecution, however, insisted and prevailed. Priscus had to go into exile. The interests of the government were safeguarded, and the honour of the Senate, with an enhanced reputation for Tacitus and for Pliny. The Africans were not so happy.[115]

In ioi began the first war against the Dacians, prosecuted and terminated in the next year. Of Cornelius Tacitus there is no trace in the correspondence of Pliny for several years after the trial of Marius Priscus. He was now eligible for a consular post in Rome, Italy, or the provinces; and certain of his coevals were holding important commands. Pride and duty carried a strong appeal. And, although Tacitus now renounced oratory for history, an official occupation might be less inimical to studious leisure than were the busy futilities of the capital – receptions, recitations, and senatorial debates.[116] A letter of Pliny in 104 or 105 welcomes Tacitus’ arrival in Rome.[117] He may have been absent somewhere in the service of the government.

Various posts offered. At Rome, the superintendence of temples and other public buildings, of the river Tiber, or of the aqueducts.[118] In Italy the new system of poor relief (the alimenta) was at this time being administered by commissioners of consular rank;[119] and a consular could be put in charge of an important road.[120] There was also the periodic census of Tres Galliae.[121]

To govern an imperial province did not always demand the training or habits of the military. The command of the army was only one among the functions of Caesar’s legate: civilian tact and knowledge of the law would be requisite. And some regions declined in military importance: the Rhine armies, reduced by Domitian, now surrendered two more legions for the needs of the Danube. Nothing debarred Cornelius Tacitus from governing the Upper or the Lower Germany in these years (101–4).[122] Syria, indeed, was held by a man who had never seen an army, even as a young tribune.[123] That was not altogether normal. Other legates, however, were more than mere soldiers. They found no incompatibility between a military career and literary tastes or accomplishment.[124]

Even when the books of the Historiae had been completed and given to the world, with the certitude of an immortal renown, the consular did not disdain to submit his name to the ballot for the two provinces of highest dignity in the senatorial career, Asia and Africa. The interval since a man’s consulship, fixed originally by Caesar Augustus at five years, increased when more and more ex-consuls became eligible, and, although from time to time an attempt seems to have been made to keep it at ten or twelve years, the exclusion of eminent senators was invidious. Extending to fourteen and to fifteen years under Trajan, the interval reaches seventeen before the death of that emperor. An inscription shows that Cornelius Tacitus was proconsul of Asia. His term of office ran from summer to summer, almost certainly 112/13.[125]

So far the official career of Cornelius Tacitus. For the rest the sole testimony is the Annales. How soon he began the work there is no evidence, and the larger portion may have been composed after the death of Trajan. Had Tacitus belonged to the group of families in close alliance with Trajan’s successor, he might have hoped for a second consulate before long. The quality of his historical writings would not alone have sufficed, even were they to the liking of the new emperor – a hazardous assumption.

[…]

The circle of Pliny will repay inspection. About Tacitus the facts are scanty. It would be needful to have knowledge about various groups and categories – his father’s friends and the Narbonensian allies acquired through the family of his wife; the members of his sacerdotal college; the orators and the masters of jurisprudence; the men of birth and fashion. Curiosity asks in vain, how Tacitus stood with the five elder statesmen who emerged under Nerva – or with the personages most prominent during the first decade of Trajan’s rule.

There could be no end to speculation, and little profit. Apart from Pliny, only one of the Trajanic consular can be invoked with certitude, Fabius Justus, the friend to whom Tacitus dedicated a literary treatise in dialogue form.

Fabius was at Rome in December of the year 96.[126] Not long afterwards he is absent abroad in one of the military zones.[127] Furthermore, his consulate early in 102 proves active merit – when Licinius Sura resigns after a brief tenure, it is Fabius who takes his place. Fabius is again with the armies in 106, perhaps governing one of the Danubian provinces or a general under Trajan in the second war against the Dacians.[128] Two years later he accedes to the governorship of Syria, with which his known employments end.[129]

 

VIII. Literature under Trajan

[…]

More than a hundred persons receive epistles from Pliny. How complete is the picture of Roman society under Trajan? A full catalogue would be instructive, and tedious. Not a few of the correspondents betray the marks of mediocrity, whether rank or accomplishment be regarded – family retainers, school friends, local bards and small-town snobs, admirers of eloquence, devotees of culture, some who had fallen behind in the race, and some who never started. Instead, profit may accrue from an indirect computation, from reviewing the categories that happen not to be strongly in evidence.

First of all, the men of power in the entourage of Trajan. Julius Servianus can count as an acquaintance before the Emperor’s accession;[130] Licinius Sura is there with missives to his address, likewise Sosius Senecio and Fabius Justus.[131] Yet a number of the senior marshals have no entry, even a general of high honour from the North, Glitius Agricola from the city of Augusta Taurinorum.[132] Pliny’s career and tastes help to explain the gaps. Some of the younger military men are also absent.

If the military hierarchy was not all and at once accessible, nobles with their prestige of birth seemed to invite cultivation. A frank and open predilection for the aristocracy might have been surmised in the alert parvenu. However, not a single descendant either of the Republican nobilitas or of the Augustan consular houses is discovered on the list of Pliny’s correspondents. The oriental grandees, the descendants of kings and tetrarchs, are also missing; and the equestrian dignitaries of weightiest moment, prefects of Egypt and commanders of the Praetorian Guard, display a solitary specimen. This is Vibius Maximus, a man not lacking in social rank and literary pretensions.[133] Septicius Clarus, to whom the correspondence is dedicated, did not earn high promotion until much later.[134]

Though. Trajan cared not even to put up a pretence, his wife was benevolently disposed towards literary pursuits. To the Empress Pliny has not ventured to dedicate any composition of his own, but he promises that the epistles of a friend in Spain will be forwarded for her perusal.[135] More remarkable, since it was Pliny’s habit to encourage talent or promise in the younger generation, there is no letter to Aelius Hadrianus, no trace of him anywhere in the collection.[136] Silence also envelops certain of Hadrianus’ kinsmen and friends, already persons of consequence or later prominent on the family tree of the dynasty.[137]

The world of letters in the last years of Domitian comprised several groups, notably those associated with the names of Statius and Martial. The two poets, neither of whom deigns to mention the other, praised the Emperor in eager emulation and competed for the favour of various patrons. Some of those patrons were of Pliny’s own age or rank, and might appear to share his literary tastes. Hardly any of them turn up again in Pliny’s circle, not even Arruntius Stella, high-born and wealthy though he be, gifted, eloquent, and poetical.[138] Stella came from Patavium.[139] Previous generations knew bad Transpadani as well as good, for example Vibius Crispus.[140] Not all of Pliny’s seniors from the northern towns are enrolled in the category of Pliny’s friends. The eminent Silius Italicus received no letter.[141] The sons are also absent.

To new groups and rising talent the time of Trajan offered a clear field of endeavour, for the Flavian poets went out in rapid sequence, with hardly anybody left to compete or impede. Statius, w'hose efforts did not stop at the elaborate occasional verse of the Silvae, duly delivered one mythological epic of standard proportions and began another, but was carried off before he could acclaim Nerva and Trajan with congenial enthusiasm and familiar artifice. And Valerius Flaccus died before Domitian’s removal, his Argonautica unfinished. If Silius Italicus persisted, it was for a task to complete, not because he was disposed to sacrifice his leisure and decorate the new government – or be decorated by it. His public life belonged to the past – one of the prosecutors under Nero and consul in 68, but redeemed by discreet conduct subsequently; and fame accrued from his governorship of Asia. Letters claimed him, his art collections, and the cult of Cicero and Virgil. The old consular stayed in his Campanian villas, not stirring even to witness the advent of Trajan. He was hard at work, ‘maiore cura quam ingenio [he took great pains over his verses]’. When he heroically terminated the seventeen books of the Punica but still had to struggle with an incurable malady, he ended his life by voluntary starvation at the age of seventy-five.[142]

The extinction of Silius, closing a line of epic poets, seems to mark the end of a period in literature. Within a year or so Rome had the loss to chronicle of a less pretentious talent. The epigrammatist Valerius Martialis, though willing to pay brief tribute to the felicity of the times, soon found that the changed atmosphere was not altogether exhilarating, while affection for the land of his birth – he had not seen it for a third of a century – grew stronger and reinforced distaste for the metropolis. Martial returned to Spain, where he died not long after.[143]

Silius belongs to the lower slopes of Parnassus – industry rather than talent – but Valerius Flaccus knows how to write with elegant precision and make a narrative move; Statius is a pleasing and accomplished poet; and Martial refines the vigour and clarity of Latin with Attic point and elegance. Such in brief is what the poets of the Flavian age achieved. The names of two prose authors will be added, of high and classical rank – Fabius Rusticus (an historian whose works are lost) and Fabius Quintilianus. After a successful career of teaching (he held the first endowed chair of rhetoric at Rome, whence came wealth and official honours), Quintilian in his retirement wrote the Institutio Oratoria. Published shortly before the death of Domitian, it is a general treatise on education – clear, eloquent, sagacious.[144]

The government lent encouragement to literature, not merely from the personal caprice of a prince whose tastes inclined towards poetry and the arts, but of set policy. Official patronage need not always be harmful to poetry, to education, to erudition. Oratory or history is another matter. An uneasy and suspicious emperor inhibited free comment about present conditions, and soon about the past even, with espionage, delation, and the burning of books. The evil was not novel. It seemed to grow inevitably out of the system of government. Yet tyrants passed away and were consigned to eternal infamy, not least because they attempted to abrogate the traditional privilege of free speech which senators under the Caesars inherited from the aristocracy of the Republic. What was to follow after Domitian in the happier years when ‘libertas’ and ‘principatus’ joined in unwonted amity and concord?

Liberation from despotism brought relief to Cornelius Tacitus, but any transports of enthusiasm were chilled by sober reflection. Genius and learning, once curbed and repressed, cannot easily be revived; inactivity, at first resented as a penalty, grows congenial, and may slip into complacent sloth.[145] Tacitus’ friend did not allow himself to doubt. Polite studies, so Pliny avers, flourish as never before.[146] Pliny acclaims a genuine renascence, with handsome credit to his own efforts and orations, to the multifarious talents of friends and clients. Any year might now bring forth a whole crop of poets, any month be given over almost wholly to daily recitations.[147]

All modes were practised, including lyric and drama, and some that had been seldom or never attempted in Latin.[148] Versification not only frivolous but even scabrous embellished the quiet years of consular statesmen such as Vestricius Spurinna and Arrius Antoninus, in well- earned repose after the cares of office. The young men took up the challenge, emulating in hendecasyllablcs the fame of Catullus. Some of them had the poet’s town and region for an excuse. A specimen has been preserved, emanating from a relative and protégé of Spurinna, and it suffices – not the grace and spirit of Verona’s poet, but triviality and flatness.[149] The versatility of these people was disquieting, and so was their conceit. One of Pliny’s northern friends was not content to throw off poems elegantly and easily, another veritable Catullus. He was a fluent and sonorous orator, commanding all fashions of public discourse; he honoured history with his attentions; and he would recite epistles of a studied archaic manner, ostensibly his wife’s but perhaps his own.[150]

Under the specious garb of mutual criticism, mutual flattery paraded unashamed. A composition seldom reached the book-market before it had circulated among admirers or got advertisement in the salons. Social constraint and reciprocal needs generally sufficed to muster an audience and preserve the decencies. Yet a soldier, a lawyer, or a scholar might well become restive. When a poet from Asisium in Umbria, who numbered Propertius among his ancestors, began to recite some elegiacs, invoking the command of his friend Javolenus Priscus writh the words ‘Prisce iubes [Priscus, you command]’, that person at once retorted ‘ego vero non iubeo [Indeed I don’t!]’. There was much laughter. Pliny, reporting the matter to a distant correspondent, expresses grave doubts about the sanity of Javolenus, who was a jurist of classic attainments.[151]

Another stray detail is of interest. By paradox one of Pliny’s comrades has to be rebuked for diffidence, for a culpable reluctance to publish.[152] This honorable exception is not a bard or a declaimer but a learned antiquarian: Suetonius Tranquillus, the son of an equestrian tribune. His quest for a career had been plagued by doubts and fancies. Having to plead a suit, he took alarm from a dream: he begged Pliny to intervene and have the hearing postponed.[153] Then there was military service. Mere superstition should not have kept a man out of the Roman army, yet when Pliny secured him a tribunate in Britain, he drew back.[154] Literary researches had attracted others as a refuge and consolation. Suetonius could know that the prime exponent of Latin textual criticism, Valerius Probus, failed to get the post of centurion.[155] He might also read a challenge in the performances of Pliny’s uncle. He dedicated his life to scholarship. Not until many years had passed, wrhen the vicissitudes of favour and patronage brought an employment in the Palace, with access to the archives, did Suetonius embark on the Lives of the Caesars.[156]

Biography offers the easy approach to history, and some go no further than biography. To this form of writing the establishment of the monarchy and the long duration of a dynasty might have seemed not a little propitious. Yet the earlier theme in imperial Rome is not so much the Caesars as their victims. If the practice took its origin from the funeral oration, it was soon exploited by persons extraneous to the deceased, avowedly as a genre intermediate between oratory and history. A certain C. Fannius resolved to write about those whom Nero killed or banished.[157] He composed three volumes. Then the author was vouchsafed a vision of Nero. The spectre came and sat on his bed, read the scrolls one by one, and went away. Fannius divined that it was not his destiny to write any more; and Fannius died.

The Domitianic persecution supplied fresh matter. It was put to abundant use. Pliny hastened to elaborate his invective against Publicius Certus, which he put out expressly as the avenging of Helvidius Priscus. Pliny was in the habit of commending the speech for imitation, to young men of rank and promise, in their oratorical exercises; and some thought Demosthenes the only comparison.[158]

Fannius in his choice of a subject may have been encouraged by ties of kinship,[159] but Pliny’s relations with the circle of Helvidius Priscus were not perhaps as close and continuous as his professions imply. The behaviour of Titinius Capito, who set down in writing the deaths of illustrious men, is instructive and salutary.

Titinius multiplied his activities, not only an author but a friend, a patron, a champion.[160] Literature was in a decline; Titinius arrested the decline.[161] He never missed a recitation, and his own house was generously lent for those performances. Titinius (so Pliny affirms) stood out among the especial ornaments of the age. What else is known about Titinius and the age will be held to strengthen that amiable prepossession. In his mansion this man exhibited the consecrated effigies of Cato, of Brutus, of Cassius, so genuine was his devotion to the great names of the Republican past; and he asked permission of the Emperor to erect in the Roman Forum the statue of a nobleman who had been put to death by Nero.[162]

No suspicion of Republican sentiments incriminates the life and career of Titinius Capito, nor does any link of propinquity with the aristocratic houses explain or extenuate his behaviour. Not a noble, not even a senator, but merely a Roman knight, Titinius is a document of social mimicry. Undue subservience to the prestige of rank and station transforms imitation into parody, involuntarily exposing the inner falsity of conventional beliefs and pious observances.

The record of Titinius’ career substantiates the revelation.[163] An officer on some campaign or other, he attracted the notice of Domitian through pleasing gifts, elegance of style, or some act of loyal service. Rewarded with military decorations, he was taken out of the army to become the Emperor’s confidential secretary. Nerva kept him, and so did Trajan, with promotion from the secretariat to the charge of the vigiles, a post which likewise called for discretion and loyalty. Knights illustrate the permanence of officialdom when rulers change, and the higher knights are often literary celebrities.

Such was the Maecenas of Trajan’s Rome, writer and patron both. Pliny also sustained the double role, with an assiduity that recalled his uncle and an exuberance all his own. No kind of writing was immune from his solicitations. A votary of the Muses from early youth, Pliny composed a Greek tragedy when only fourteen; and Latin verses beguiled an interval of delay on the voyage home from service in Syria.[164] Copious and varied productivity came much later. One day during the hour of the siesta inspiration descended upon Pliny.[165] He discovered that he could write hexameters. Then he passed to elegiacs, with no less facility, and soon other metres invited a trial. A whole series of hendecasyllables emerged and gained wide esteem. Greeks adored the slim volume – it made them love the Latin language – and they set the poems to music. Some of Pliny’s intimates, however, were unable to conceal their distress: the productions were not only frankly immoral, they were unseemly in a person of his station.[166] Pliny is at great pains to justify his incursion into the realms of conventional frivolity. Men unimpeachable in the purity and the dignity of their days had ever been addicted to light verse – why, all the great orators and statesmen, a whole catalogue, and emperors even, like Nerva, and some classical authors, though they were not (he concedes) of senatorial rank.[167]

[…]

It is in the letters [of Pliny the Younger] that originality will be discovered, and by paradox, for their contents appear to be extremely conventional. There was an ancient tradition to cast all manner of literary themes into the form of a speech or a letter; and genuine correspondence, after suitable editing, was sometimes given to the world. When Seneca had already turned out a number of ethical treatises, he went on to compose a whole series of short sermons in the guise of epistles, all addressed to a single friend. Seneca’s style had gone out of fashion; and, though moral fervour necessarily extorted approbation from serious men, though enormous tribute was publicly rendered to the profession of philosophy, gentlemen of taste now found that Seneca was declamatory and boring. It was Pliny’s design to make moralizing a delicate art, emerging unobtrusively from the portrayal of men and manners.

He displays people in their daily pursuits or confronting the important events of upper and middle class life in a stable society characterized by ease and refinement. Betrothal and matrimony, wills and bequests, the illness of a friend or bereavement in a family, the first flowering of poetical or oratorical genius, the early stages of youthful ambition in the career of honours, the multifarious occupations enjoined by metropolitan life, the ceremonial obsequies of illustrious men – such are among the subjects of Pliny’s epistolary essays. Rome is at the centre of the stage. Yet pictures are vouchsafed of life in the country – the comprehensive description of a villa, the management of an estate, the cares of a landowner, the pastimes of retired statesmen, or the habits of those municipal worthies whom ‘honesta quies’ enfolded in dignified leisure. Law, politics, and administration are incidental, being brought in because they concern public morals, the progress of the arts – and the vicissitudes of individuals, especially the author. The only prosecutions in the high assembly recorded by Pliny are those in which he took a leading part.

Genuine epistles preserved and solicitously edited, or little essays specially fabricated, sometimes after an interval: such is the skill of Pliny that it is difficult to draw a distinction. A suspicious feature may be noted: with hardly an exception each missive is confined to a single subject. Detail tends to be pruned away, as in the instructions sent to an architect;[168] and, when. Pliny writes to a consular army commander, he never seems to specify the province or region of his activity.[169] Careful attention is given to the choice of correspondents and to the arrangement of letters where the order in time is relevant.

For grace and neatness of style, for variety of topic and tone, for delicacy and for tact, the correspondence of Pliny has no rival. There is some risk that the portrayal of contemporary manners may engender satire and malice, if indeed it does not derive from that unkind propensity of the human heart. Pliny kept vigilant watch upon himself. The general colouring of the letters is amiable, sympathetic, improving. Censure of the living is the mildest imaginable, as when the writer adverts on social lapses, admonishes a proconsul for disregard of class distinctions, or evinces pained surprise at rebellious tendencies among the younger generation.[170] It is generally anonymous. Exceptions are so rare as to be remarkable. The author in manifest relish fills several letters with scandalous stories about the behaviour, past and present, of Aquillius Regulus.[171] And his comment on a consular jurist, Javolenus Priscus, excites wonder and tempts speculation.[172]

Martial and Statius extol with eager devotion their patrons and benefactors among the eminent. Martial celebrating the eloquence, the splendour, and the munificence of Regulus might almost be Pliny on one of Pliny’s friends; while phrases from the Panegyricus resemble Statius’ laudations of Domitian.[173] The resemblance goes beyond language. It is seen in the choice of subjects. When Statius describes a villa at Tibur, chants the nuptials of Arruntius Stella, condoles in his bereavement with Claudius Etruscus, and offers up vows that Rutilius Gallicus be restored to health, not without details about the life and career of that high personage, he is anticipating several of Pliny’s themes.[174] Conversely, some of the Plinian essays might have been versified and put into a collection of Silvae, without much change or loss.

Statius and Martial left a gap behind them. It is not fanciful to discover in Pliny their successor as a social commentator. The third book of Pliny’s collection concludes with a necrological notice of Martial. The letter quotes verses from Martial in praise of his patron’s eloquence, with a suitable reference to Cicero; and the letter ends with a compliment to talent and industry that deserve immortality but perhaps will not achieve it – ‘at non erunt aetema quae scripsit? non erunt fortasse, ille tamen scripsit tamquam essent futura [you may object that his verses will not be immortal; perhaps not, but he wrote them with that intention].’[175]

Like Martial, Pliny wrote on minor themes with high polish and an artist’s single-minded devotion. To insist upon comparable claims to survival for his own letters would have been ostentatious – but a modest hint was pardonable, and subtly effective.

It would be of some interest to know at what date the consular orator decided to enhance his fame by putting on the market a selection of his correspondence. The nine books contain letters covering the years 97 to 108. It may have been as late as 105 that Pliny published the first two books, or the first three, the remainder following in quick succession, and dealing with very recent events indeed, so that the latest portion appeared in 109. Some touch of emulation may have prompted him to publish. The year 105 brought rumours, and perhaps more than rumours, of his friend’s Historiae.[176]

Pliny’s essays held up a mirror to contemporary life. There is something more, and highly personal. Cicero’s correspondence, though not composed with an eye for publication, does the same, and it unintentionally yields much biographical matter. Pliny, while deprecating the comparison and avowing that his scope is narrower, is not at a loss.[177] He skilfully utilizes his letters to present the closest that, was decent or permissible to the autobiography of an orator and a statesman.

Only a few years from his consulship, Pliny lacked the age or the achievement to justify any avowed commemoration of his own life and works. Nor had the genre been widely practised. Princes, it is true, wrote the story of their own lives, just as they had their public monuments. A senator, in the rare event of his being permitted to have any ‘res gestae’, might properly hesitate to record them. Modesty was better, and it was safer. Few generals had exploits to match those of Domitius Corbulo, and it is not likely that there were many comparable memoirs.

Virtue for its reward in fame had to wait for the funeral laudation, or for the historian of Rome under Trajan. If Pliny thought of his own extinction, he could not have contemplated the occasion with equanimity unless he knew that an admiring colleague such as Comutus Tertullus would survive to superintend his obsequies. Comutus, however, was his senior by some twenty years, and the supreme honour of Tacitean eloquence at one’s interment might be impaired by various disadvantages. Pliny by publishing his letters stole a march on the funeral oration and captured immediate renown of a personal nature, illuminating his private life as well as his public achievement, such as nobody else could hope for on this side of the grave.

That there might be some place and being after death, at least for souls of superior merit, was maintained by the wise, though not by every sect.[178] The shadowy hope of a shadowy existence did not convince the traditional Roman of the governing order. The sole and solid prospect of survival lay in good deeds, with good repute thereafter to posterity. Hence the preoccupation with fame – sharp, insistent, and dominant. Even philosophers, who impugned the validity of opinion, could not deny or repel the temptations of glory.[179] The men of action were sometimes more modest, or at least more reticent. Verginius Rufus, who lived on to see his name in the history books, chose a brief epitaph, but a proud one.[180] Julius Frontinus declined any commemoration: if his merits deserved it, they would survive.[181]

It was evident that fame should be pursued, indefatigably.[182] Were the means adequate? Did the Empire in its mature season offer scope for distinction in the arts of peace or war? Words are a substitute for deeds, and a consolation. But was it not too late, even for oratory? Such were the questions that vexed some of the less enthusiastic among the friends of Pliny.

 

IX. The Dialogus

Eloquence like all things was tamed and disciplined by Caesar Augustus.[183] Or so it might seem. The great issues of public policy no longer came for debate before the assemblies of the Roman People, and in the Senate they were more often the theme of exposition than of argument. Diplomacy, management, and intrigue took the place of open competition and free discussion. That was not an unmitigated calamity for the orator. Industry and talent, if diverted from politics, might concentrate the more powerfully upon forensic practice; and, as the Senate’s prerogative of taking cognizance of matters that concerned the safety or the dignity of the State was gradually but rapidly extended, a seductive prospect unfolded. Prosecutions for ‘maiestas’, the curse of the imperial system, came as a blessing for the development of oratory.

A new style arose, pointed and ornate, savage and aggressive. With notable exponents before the death of Augustus, it soon became the dominant fashion, producing its heroes and its martyrs. To win a name and a career by prosecution tempted the ambitious energies of the young, the impoverished, and the obscure. For profit and for protection, the ‘delatores’ put their eager talents at the service of the government. In the end, wealth, honours, and influence with Caesar involved them in feuds and perils; they suffered in retribution the doom contrived for their victims.[184] Even if a prosecutor survived long enough to mend his ways, bland with success and opulence, and be honoured among the ‘principes civitatis’, his equivocal beginnings also survived in the ultimate verdict. Domitius Afer was reckoned by an exacting critic as the greatest of all speakers in the times of Claudius and Nero.[185] Yet the obituary notice of Afer does not allow him to stand alone and unrivalled: it pairs him with another man, an orator and historian, who was his equal for genius but superior in reputation.[186] The next age saw Vibius Crispus and Eprius Marcellus skilfully navigating the surges of civil war, managing the transition from ruler to ruler, and ensconced thereafter in wealth and honours. Next in succession to their bad eminence, for oratorical force and for success at the bar, though not (so it appears) for political influence, came M. Aquillius Regulus. Eprius or Vibius exemplified the contrast between humble antecedents and worldly honours.[187] The extraction of Regulus was aristocratic, perhaps from an ancient house of the nobility.[188] Not but what Regulus, like some aristocrats in the late age of the Republic, was forced to struggle for his ‘dignitas’ and for that of his family, to thrust his way forward like any novus homo. His fortunes had been impaired by the condemnation and exile of his father. To retrieve honour and station the young man went to work, in ruthless energy. The fate of three nobles of consular rank attested his murderous talent, with money and a priesthood for reward.[189] Regulus, like others, should have been vulnerable after Nero’s death. Then Eprius had been attacked in the Senate by Helvidius Priscus, hopes ran high, there were violent contentions – and it all came to nothing.[190] If Regulus also was threatened, he incurred no harm. When the next occasion offered, Helvidius again set upon Eprius;[191] and not long afterwards Regulus had to face an attack.[192] Eprius crushed his adversary by skill of argument and imperious force of eloquence.[193] Regulus was rescued by the intervention of his young half-brother, the excellent Vipstanus Messalla.[194]

Eprius and Vibius became a proverbial pair, matched yet contrasted. Vibius enjoyed long life and prosperity, with fame for his wit and humour.[195] Eprius met a paradoxical fate in the last year of Vespasian’s reign, being suppressed on an allegation of conspiracy – paradoxical, because the essential virtue of these men was loyalty, or ‘pietas’. They were the friends of Caesar, and cherished by him.[196]

Eprius (tne story runs) was involved with a certain Caecina Alienus in a plot against the dynasty. Caecina, leaving the Palace one evening after a dinner in all amity with Titus, was set upon by soldiers and killed, documentary evidence of treason being later produced (a speech to the Praetorian Guard in his own handwriting). It is not clear how Eprius comes in. Abnormal imprudence, a mysterious intrigue, or the impulsive violence of Titus Caesar destroyed an eminent servant of the Roman government. Arraigned before the Senate and condemned, a Eprius cut his throat with a razor, ending like Tigellinus.[197]

A man like Regulus could not have been debarred from honours.[198] That he rendered any especial service to the Flavian dynasty, or even acquired a second consulate, there is no record. Though Regulus did not contribute actively to the ruin of the opposition faction under Domitian, he exulted openly in what had been done, published a pamphlet attacking the memory of Junius Rusticus – and was much disliked.[199] Meanwhile he had been piling up wealth by all methods, from the pursuit of fees to the pursuit of inheritances. Many were the stories related, how he inveigled the rich and the childless of both sexes, and even the widow of an enemy.[200] Avidity and ostentation went hand in hand. Men might have been put in mind of the great Hortensius, who showed pomp and display in his rhetoric as in his style of life. Such were the arts of Hortensius that professional actors did not disdain to take him for a model. If Hortensius gave infinite thought and practice to the sweep of a gesture or the folds of a toga, Regulus went so far as to paint his face.[201]

Despite histrionic affectation and moral obliquity, Regulus had every right to his rank as the leader of the Roman bar. He did not possess the general culture or philosophical education that Roman tradition set up as an ideal, nor had he much in the way of natural gifts. Labouring under many disabilities, such as a weak constitution and a thick utterance, slow faculties and a poor memory, he surmounted them all by his frantic genius.[202] To the deadly force of his attack the supreme testimony is furnished involuntarily by an enemy, citing Regulus’ own statement, ‘ego iugulum statim video [I make straight for the throat]’.[203]

Regulus survived into the reign of Trajan and died about the year 105.[204] Which of his successors was competent to step into his place, or had any already outdistanced him? Hortensius, after the trial of Verres, had to yield the primacy to Cicero. In A.D. 100 the indictment of a proconsul recalled the historic themes of Republican eloquence: a province pillaged and the killing of Roman citizens. Tacitus in his oratory exhibited splendour and majesty.[205] As for the quality of his own performance, Pliny modestly discloses it by stating that one of his speeches at the prosecution lasted for nearly five hours.[206] The trial of Marius Priscus was the supremely dramatic opportunity for senatorial eloquence. Such enormities were not likely to recur under the regiment of Trajan. There remained, it is true, the case of another criminal proconsul, Caeciiius Classicus. But Classicus had died before the prosecution could get under way. For the rest Pliny now acts as advocate for the defence, and the occasions are not comparable: Julius Bassus was a trivial delinquent, while the charges against Varenus were not easy to verify and may have originated in local intrigues and feuds in the province of Bithynia.

Pliny was not the man to question the value of oratory and undermine the foundations of civilized existence. It was axiomatic that polite studies flourished, and it was manifest. The reception of the Pane- gyricus was proof enough. Audiences were not only keen and indefatigable, they showed a quite extraordinary discrimination.[207] Literary taste and social tact were by no means so strongly in evidence among the lawyers. Pliny is forced to a paradoxical confession. He longs for Regulus. Without Regulus the courts have now become a dreary desolation. Instead of taking pains and rejoicing in their work, barristers are glad to finish as soon as may be. Speeches grow shorter and shorter.[208]

Cornelius Tacitus sought no more laurels after the condemnation of Marius Priscus. There is no trace of any part or intervention in a senatorial debate. Pliny in his reports of the proceedings against three proconsuls in the course of the next half-dozen years names eleven persons of consular station.[209] Cornelius Tacitus is not numbered among them.

How good were those men? Expert testimony offers. Quintilian came out with a firm prediction. Whoever writes next about Roman eloquence (he opines) will discover a happy abundance of talent – we can already see mature speakers, who rival the classic performers, and young men of promise in their train.[210] Quintilian was writing in the last years of Domitian. Conflict and prosecutions sharpened ambition—nor was the teacher averse from complimenting those who had benefited by his instruction. Pliny belonged to that company, and Pliny furnishes laudatory information about sundry consular speakers. One exhibited gravity and pathos, another was prompt and vigorous, a third clever, biting, and polished, and so on. Six consulars, apart from Cornelius Tacitus, thus acquire their various labels.[211]

Tacitus established his fame by the time he was praetor, many years ago. He now stood not merely in the front rank of contemporary practitioners, but perhaps the foremost of them all – and he makes a pronouncement on the condition of oratory. One of his friends elicited it. Not Pliny, not one of the orators in vogue, but Fabius Justus, who chose the career of provinces and armies. Fabius assumed (and Tacitus concurs) that it was not a time for great orators any more, only for barristers, advocates, and the like. Why had Roman eloquence come to an end?[212]

Tacitus casts the inquiry into the form of a discussion purporting to have taken place in the time of Vespasian when he was quite a young man.[213] The scene of the Dialogus is laid at the house of Curiatius Matemus, and the action opens with the visit of Marcus Aper and Julius Secundus, the leading barristers of the day, whose precepts and discourse were eagerly enjoyed by Cornelius Tacitus in the beginnings of his career. Aper was now over fifty, Secundus perhaps about forty. They found Matemus going through the manuscript of his Cato. He had recited the drama the day before, not without giving offence to the government, so it was reported, and there was much talk of the matter in the city.[214]

[…]

The conclusion of the matter, as stated by Maternus, emerges with inevitable force from a debate in which the opposing arguments are justly and artistically balanced. No less skilful is the dramatic harmony between character and discourse. Of Julius Secundus a satisfactory estimate is perhaps precluded by the gap in the text; it is known that he was clear and eloquent, but lacking in pugnacity.[215] The speech of Vipstanus Messalla shows dignity and restraint, style and good sense.[216] The portrayal of Aper is vivid and masterly. Marcus Aper to make his way had to contend with notable disadvantages – he was a novus homo from Gaul, and from a community in no great repute, but had reached the praetorship;[217] he claimed to owe more to native wit and effort than to education, and he affected to despise literary culture.[218] Aper’s character is vigorous and even aggressive, he exults in action and in worldly success.[219] But he revels also in the force of his own oratorical genius.[220] None of the other interlocutors in the Dialogus is delineated quite so vividly as Marcus Aper, or quite so fully; and none has a larger share of the discourse.

Whenever forensic eloquence and its greater exponents were discussed, nobody in Trajan’s day could omit Marcus Regulus; The Dialogus contains neither censure of Regulus, for that would be undignified, nor any praise, for that would be both paradoxical and unduly offensive to contemporary taste. Only a hint, colourless and indeed anonymous. It occurs in the context of Messalla – Regulus was his half-brother.[221] For a theme of coloured contrast, in style of oratory and in the fashion of their lives, nothing could have touched a dramatic portrayal of the two brothers. Such a procedure might not, however, have seemed to Cornelius Tacitus the most delicate form of compliment to the memory of Vipstanus Messalla, the friend of his youth.

Nor was it practicable. More often than not, artistic propriety and convention discountenanced the introduction of the living. When Tacitus composed the Dialogus, all the characters in the treatise had been dead for some years, perhaps for many years. Already in the reign of Vespasian both Aper and Curiatius were men of some achievement, well on in middle life: Aper had seen service as an officer when Claudius Caesar invaded the island of Britain.[222] Julius Secundus (so it is recorded) died before he could develop his gifts to their full and predicted flowering.[223] Vipstanus was a good quarter of a century younger than Aper: he had been military tribune in the year 69.[224] No public transaction or official document of the Flavian age attests the name of Vipstanus Messalla. He would be quaestor about 74. Aristocratic birth should have carried him to the consulate a decade later. He may have been cut off before his prime.

Regulus lived on. The great lawyer was hated and traduced in his lifetime; and there was no certainty that posterity would be encouraged to form a just estimate of his attainments. Accident or design could cover up the memory of a great orator.[225] Tacitus thought that Regulus was a bad man; but Tacitus knew that he was a genius in his way. The Dialogus reveals a judicious and equitable inquirer. When Tacitus comes to write history, a passion for justice – and a bitter contempt for conventional opinions – will sometimes induce him to lighten the scales against the wicked. Eprius Marcellus, when his enemy attacks him in the Senate, is firm and unperturbed; he controverts the fanatical, and wins the sympathy of the assembly by a speech of great force and sagacity, conveying the argument for moderation and tolerance.[226]

Nor does Regulus go without recognition. Passing beyond the trivial gossip, the personal dislikes, and the moral preoccupations of contemporaries into the realm of history and of equity, Tacitus pays his tribute. It is unobtrusive and indirect.

Regulus, surviving into the reign of Trajan, survived as the great exemplar of the forensic eloquence of the prosecutors, that eloquence that reeked of blood and smelled of lucre.[227] Regulus, even if deceased, would not have been remote enough for the Dialogus, he could not quite have fitted into a polite controversy among friends of Tacitus. Instead, to defend the modem style in oratory, the author introduces, as it were, a purified and sympathetic Regulus, namely Marcus Aper.[228]

Tacitus had to suffer not a little when contemporary mediocrity claimed for feebleness or redundancy the support and precedent of classical models. Tacitus was an innovator himself. Something of his power and intensity, something of his exultant audacity and delight in violence has gone into the portrait of Marcus Aper.[229]

Genius could no longer find scope and exhilaration in the pursuit of forensic or senatorial eloquence. Matemus utters the final verdict of Cornelius Tacitus: he will cast off the yoke.[230] Maternus had already said something else that is highly significant. It is not only that the conditions of the time harm and hamper the orator. Maternus in scorn and fatigue of an advocate’s practice wished to be liberated for poetry, a superior form of activity.[231]

History in the view of the Romans was a form of literatu re closely allied to poetry.[232] They might look back to the beginnings, to the Bellum Punicum of Naevius and the Annales of Q. Ennius. Those writers had left a deep imprint on the early annalists. Moreover, the central and eternal subject of Roman history, the ‘res publica’, might still be expounded in verse. Annaeus Lucanus chose the epic to narrate the fall of the Republic. ‘Libertas’, and not any hero or leader, is Lucan’s theme, though Cato naturally emerges in heroic lineaments, embodying that theme. Curiatius Maternus used tragedy as his medium. The Cato was not his only historical drama. He had also composed a Domitius, honouring an ancestor of Nero in the struggle against despotism.[233] Perhaps that Ahenobarbus, the adversary of Caesar, who fell at Pharsalia. Better, his son, the admiral of the Republic, who deserted Antonius and made his peace with Caesar’s heir a few days before the fate of the world was decided at Actium. This man was a nephew of Cato. He saw the menace from Egypt’s queen, and vainly tried to keep her out of a Roman war.[234]

The history of Rome was irresistible in its appeal – and it might be dangerous. Lucan perished for his share in the conspiracy of C. Piso. Curiatius Maternus was not deficient in courage – he had quelled one of Nero’s favourites, the impudent Vatinius, and his tragedies were provocative in theme and tone.[235]

Despite his Cato and a much more outspoken denunciation of crime and tyranny (the Thyestes),[236] Maternus prayed for a quiet end. He trusted that virtue would go unharmed, that he would never have to speak in the Senate in his own dangerous hour, only in another’s.[237] For such confidence there was little support in Rome of the Caesars. If Matemus in his turn was not destroyed by a despotic government, it might seem that the author of the Dialogus has imported an ironical suggestion deceptively, and without cause.[238]

Whatever happened to Curiatius Matemus, destiny produced a sharper paradox, and quickly – the great Eprius brought to ruin, with no help now from rank and wealth and influence; hitherto Caesar’s friend, on the attack and truculent (and it had been easy for him to baffle and crush Helvidius in altercation), but betrayed at the end, and perhaps abandoned in extremity by his own eloquence.[239]

Cornelius Tacitus now turning to history proposes to continue the poets in an exposition of recent and even contemporary transactions. The Dialogus advertises and justifies a proud renunciation of oratory. The rewards belonged to the past, like the danger or the splendour, and it was not needed any more.

 

X. From Oratory to History

The Dialogus is addressed to L. Fabius Justus, who was consul suffect early in the year 102. The practice of dedicating a composition to a friend or a patron when he entered upon public office was not uncommon. If the Dialogus in fact belongs to this year, the date acquires marked and even personal significance – and not merely for Fabius Justus. Coming so soon after the Panegyricus and impinging on the recitations of it, a treatise that so authoritatively pronounced the epitaph upon contemporary eloquence cannot have been taken as a compliment to Pliny.

Eleven letters in Pliny’s collection bear the address of Cornelius Tacitus.[240] They attest common tastes and the amicable exchange of literary compositions.[241] Each had helped the other in his oratory, and the two went on in amity, candour, and loyalty.[242] Pliny recounts with complacency the fact that their names occur inevitably together in the testament of a friend or in the conversation of a stranger.[243] While conceding the earlier distinction of Tacitus as a speaker, and generously expressing his own admiration, he none the less continues to assert a parity of renown. By thus exalting the accomplishment of his friend, Pliny put forward his own claims, irreproachably.[244]

Pliny means oratory – the passage carries no allusion to the fame accruing from historical writing – but he nowhere indicates that his friend had published any speech, not even an oration against Marius Priscus. Tacitus indeed may have felt discontent with the outcome of that celebrated case. Pliny did not allow himself to be deterred. He consulted one of his friends about the propriety of holding a recitation.[245] It is hardly credible that he would consent to withhold from the world the modern equivalent of the indictment against Verres.

As for Tacitus, there happens to be mentioned twice a book which he sent to Pliny for comment or emendation.[246] In a covering missive Tacitus described himself as one orator writing to another, each being at the same time both master and pupil.[247] The volume should therefore be either an oration or a treatise on oratory.

Perhaps the Dialogus, now revised for a definitive publication. The letters in question occur at a late point in the collected correspondence (perhaps belonging to 107). It might be doubted whether the historian was bothering about speeches at this season, and there is no need to conjecture that he was refurbishing a funeral oration in decennial commemoration of Verginius Rufus.[248]

Despite the amity between Pliny and Tacitus (and the latter’s elegant concession of parity), a suspicion arises – the relationship showed more warmth, and more insistence, on the one side than on the other. It was to Tacitus that Pliny addressed his epistolary essay in deprecation of brevity.[249] Though prepared to defer to the authority of his senior, he would prefer, he says, a reasoned statement from his friend. There is no sign that Pliny received an answer.

Pliny was frank and exorbitant in his demands upon fame. Tacitus, as is elsewhere discoverable, was possessed by an almost morbid fear of self-glorification.[250] Pliny gently reassures him;[251] and Pliny defends himself against the imputation of vanity.[252]

Fame was an eager and jealous pursuit, especially among the orators.[253] Pliny bears witness, extolling as something unusual the concord in which he operated with Lucceius Albinus when they were charged with a prosecution.[254] Apart from Tacitus, Lucceius is the only consular advocate whom Pliny honours with a letter.[255]

Personal rivalry among the masters of eloquence might be sharpened by doctrinal antagonism, and friends of Pliny as well as enemies found his fashion of discourse not at all to their liking. Regulus (it was obvious) would protest, either brutally or with a sly compliment to some other speaker, for example one who did not put himself above the ‘eloquentia sacculi nostril [the eloquence of today]’[256]. There were also arbiters of severe taste, men whose preference went to the plain and unadorned. Pliny, when submitting a composition to Minicius Fundanus, is aware that it may be judged pompous and luxuriant.[257] To spare his friend vexation, he will make a sacrifice. He amiably inserts some sober patches (drab and detrimental, he would prefer to call them). Fundanus is clearly an adherent of the Attic school.[258] Not the only one among the Plinian correspondents. Writing to another friend, Pliny sets forth his own doctrine and explains why he cannot wholly approve an unnamed speaker of the time, who is ‘rectus et sanus’, but not sufficiently ‘grandis et ornatus [grandeur and eloquence]’.[259]

There was splendour and sublimity, if there was nothing else, in the public speeches of Cornelius Tacitus. Pliny affirms that he chose Tacitus as master and model, from the beginning, though there were other orators in high estimation; and, as he reminds Tacitus, not all critics are now prepared to concede the supremacy to Pliny’s friend and to Pliny.[260]

The performance of the one has to be divined or deduced. The other is not so fortunate. The Panegyricus survives as the solitary specimen of Latin eloquence from the century and a half that had elapsed since the death of Cicero. It has done no good to the reputation of the author or the taste of the age. The speech is a strange and blended product, heavily loaded with poetical ornaments. Though often felicitous, and sometimes forceful, the thing soon palls, through tireless pursuit of the eternal antithesis, through repetitive fervour and exuberant redundance.

[...]

Cicero proclaimed that eloquence is the child of peace and concord.[261] Maternus, who demolishes that notion, shows that much of Cicero no longer possessed use and relevance:[262] the public speeches owed their very existence to political liberty and themes of high contention, while the private orations had never added much to his renown.[263]

Tacitus had recourse to the literary treatises of Cicero. He studied them carefully.[264] By composing the Dialogus after the manner of Cicero, he demonstrated that Cicero might still be used as a model. For an essay, but not for oratory.

The precise date of the Dialogus need not matter. The book may belong a little earlier than the consulate of Fabius Justus – or, first composed in 102, it might have been published later, as much as five years later.[265] The significance remains the same. The Dialogus shows a writer who has turned his back on the eloquence of Senate and law-courts, and is already thinking as an historian.[266]

[...]

 

XI. An Historian’s First Steps

Tacitus had announced that he would write a history. Two monographs came first, the Agricola and the Germania – but not without some relevance to the project. What quality and promise do these essays show?

Producing an encomium on Verginius Rufus, Tacitus cannot have failed to see that another great and good man might be honoured in like fashion. Verginius survived the emperors whose suspicion and hatred he incurred: Julius Agricola died before the truth could be told. For virtue wronged by a tyrant the delayed and posthumous oration was available, a pious duty. Domitius Corbulo may have been commemorated in this manner; and the deaths of illustrious men as compiled by the devout fervour of Titinius Capito were suitably compared to funeral orations.[267]

To discover the link between Verginius and Agricola requires no insight or perspicacity. Pliny in the letter describing the obsequies of his guardian echoes and adapts the peroration of the Agricola on fame and survival.[268]

‘Clarorum virorum facta moresque [the works and ways of famous men]’.[269] The opuscule, opening with a traditional phrase, goes on to defend those who write biographies. It was an ancient and reputable practice, for the ages that produced excellence knew how to honour it, but nowadays calling for excuse – ‘tarn saeva et infesta virtutibus tempora [the spirit of the age, so cynical towards virtue]’.[270]

The subject-matter of the Agricola, however, seems to go beyond the theme of a biography. The treatise contains a dissertation on the history and geography of Britain, the narrative of seven campaigns the speeches of generals before battle. Is the expansion excessive? However bulky, it stands in relation to the central figure, for Britain is the theatre of ‘virtus’, and the field of Agricola’s exploits as a ‘vir militaris’ from first to last – tribune, legionary' legate, and conqueror of the island. Other commanders are scantily treated, and some with dispraise, especially if they fought no battles, or, coming after the murderous work of subjugation, showed mildness in their policy and conciliation towards the natives. Such were the three governors who fill the interval between Boudicca’s rebellion and the resumption of conquest under the Flavian dynasty.[271] And it is but natural that what was done by Petillius Cerialis and Julius Frontinus (the Brigantes broken and Wales subdued) is passed over rapidly and lightly.[272] The biographies of Cerialis and Frontinus have not survived.[273]

Wilful vagueness enhances the portion of Julius Agricola. Before that legate arrived, the Roman armies had already advanced a long way to the north, cutting off the Brigantes from the tribes of Caledonia. The first two campaigns covered familiar ground. It was not till the third that the general penetrated into new territories when his columns swept onwards as far as the estuary called Tanaus.[274] The narrative of the northern operations is sparsely equipped with names. Six in all, a tribe, a harbour, a mountain, and three estuaries. Elsewhere the author likewise avoids detail and precision – no town in Britain is registered, and none of the legionary stations. Not indeed that ignorance has to be assigned as the reason for such omissions.[275] At the same time, however, since Tacitus professed an undertaking to supply fresh facts now accruing about the geography of the island (to surpass earlier writers), the performance seems to fall short.[276]

As conquerors in Britain, all must yield to the glory of Agricola, the eleventh legate since the invasion thirty-five years before.[277] The other contrast is between the emperor and the senator. Underlying the whole work, ’it is brought out and magnified by insinuation, and rumour. Domitian’s morbid jealousy is variously manifested – displeasure at Agricola’s great victory, the story of the imperial freedman who was sent out on a secret mission (to promise the province of Syria) but never met Agricola, and at the end the allegation of poisoning.[278]

So flagrant is the distortion when the Emperor is defamed that upon cool reflection doubts might arise about the superior excellence of Julius Agricola, that paragon of civic and military virtue. Tacitus concedes that Agricola was not impressive – one could see that he was a good man, one would gladly believe him a great man.[279] Like Verginius Rufus, he had to be built up. The caution and prudence of the hero fatigues with reiterated documentation. Respect for authority and a conduct that so invariably enlisted the favour of higher officers may be liable to unfriendly imputations. Nor is it at all clear how far Agricola’s actions in Britain belong to personal initiative, to normal military routine, or to deliberate imperial policy. Other governors may have been no less prudent in choosing the site of a fort;[280] no less circumspect in the field when they explored estuaries and forests;[281] no less amiable and assiduous when they solicited the natives to build cities, to live in decent comfort, to study literature and eloquence.[282]

The moralist shows through as wrell as the panegyrist. Agricola’s laudable efforts to further the urban wrav of life in Britain had another side, he must add: ease and refinement become detrimentally seductive.[283] It would be a graver matter if the author’s zeal magnified unduly the quality of the general. Some may make play with the names of Cerialis and Frontinus, invoking what cannot be ascertained. If Agricola was slow and cautious, it was right to be so. There was no hurry. Nothing invalidates his skill in the design of a campaign or the dispositions for battle.

The war ended with the victory at Mons Graupius. Tacitus claims that Agricola had conquered the whole island of Britain.[284] If that is what the general reported to the Emperor, his sanguine estimate may have influenced the government or caused misconceptions. Other regions of the Empire had their demands. During the sixth campaign Domitian had been able to withdraw detachments from each of the four legions to reinforce his operations in Germany without impeding (so it appears) the process of conquest in Britain.[285] Those troops did not go back at once. More important, the repercussion of the trouble on the Danube. Soon after Agricola’s departure (and perhaps very soon) the war against the Dacians caused a whole legion to be removed.[286] What was the subsequent fate of the Roman acquisitions in the land of the Caledonians?

A legionary camp had been established a long way forward in the newly-won territory, facing the mountains. Destined for a permanent occupation, it was held for several years, then evacuated after a methodical demolition.[287] That measure did not entail (and cannot prove) the sudden and complete abandonment of all that Agricola conquered. The time and manner of the Roman retreat remains obscure. One stage (it might be conjectured) had ensued before the end of Domitian’s reign, another under Trajan, bringing forts and garrisons back to the vicinity of the line of defence and demarcation chosen by Trajan’s successor.

Tacitus does not help – ‘perdomita Britannia et statim missa’.[288] Such is the verdict pronounced in the prologue of the Historiae when the historian assesses the record of foreign policy, adverse in the West though favourable in the East. Exaggerated if not enigmatic, the phrase has provoked much discussion. The elucidation lies somewhere in the lost books of the Historiae.[289]

With the Agricola, the laudation has developed into a biography. That genre was described as lying half-way between oratory and history.[290] The style is in accord, in some parts flowing, ornate, and eloquent; in others, and especially where there is narrative, ethnography, or geography, it shows the traditional features of the Roman historical diction in the manner of Sallust and Livy.

When orators turn their talent to the composition of history, they modify their style before they change their habits. The characteristic vices in the annals of the Empire were early diagnosed – praise and defamation.[291] It is easy to indict rhetoric as the origin of certain features in the Agricola; and everybody knew that a biographical encomium took liberties not permitted in regular history.[292] The cause lies deeper. The treatise, as has been shown, is concerned with much more than the life and the laudation of Tacitus’ father-in-law. It is a document of Roman political literature, a manifesto for the Emperor Trajan and the new imperial aristocracy.

Attempts have been made to specify the place of Tacitus’ Agricola among the various categories of prose writing. It is best left to be defined in its own terms.[293] At first sight (and on a final judgement), the tract on Germany and its inhabitants is much simpler.

The Germania is unique but not original. Latin literature knew precedents in the genre. An historian like Sallust or Livy might have recourse to a copious digression on countries and peoples, welcoming the occasion to illustrate and diversify the bare narrative of events, to exhibit also his own erudition and versatility.[294] The excursus suggested the monograph. Seneca wrote treatises on India and on Egypt.[295]

The themes of ethnographical writing derived from a long tradition. They were a blend of fact and legend, theory and edification. From early times the contrast between the barbarous peoples and the civilized gave rise to wonder and speculation. ‘Campestres melius Scythae []’, that is a constant note. Idealization of the savage (like that of the peasant), nourished on the discontents of the urban existence, lent colour and conviction to fancy pictures of primitive virtue and primitive felicity, with inevitable censure, loud or subtle, directed against luxury, complexity, and corruption. If the topics were conventional, so also was the phraseology. Details and traits originally inherent in one native people were conveyed to another, from Thracians and Scythians to Gauls, and, with enhancement, from Gauls to Germans –  the Germans were larger and fiercer, with redder hair.[296]

‘Nemo illic vitia ridet [no one laughs at vice].’[297] Beyond the Rhine dwelt sound morality, and custom more potent for good than any legislation.[298] The frivolity of Roman society alarmed the moralist and the statesman, and so did its feebleness, for he was preoccupied with the aristocracy’s claim to rule or govern. The Germans were strong and free and numerous, menacing to a political system that rested on servility and corruption, justified riches by refinement, and supplied with culture the lack of vigour and virtue.

Did Tacitus record what he had seen and known, or only what he read in books? Seneca visited the land of Egypt, where his aunt’s husband ruled as viceroy for Tiberius Caesar;[299] and Sallust had been governor of a province in Africa, little though the excursus in his Bellum Jugurthinum seems to benefit from that fact.[300] Geography was held by Roman writers to be a difficult, abstruse, and rebellious subject.[301] Germany or Britain, Tacitus shows little interest in it. Fresh knowledge accrued mainly from merchants and soldiers.[302] It took a long time to win recognition in literature. A man’s own experience might seem less attractive and convincing than what stood in literary tradition, guaranteed by time and famous names. If Cornelius Tacitus was ever on the Rhine, he discloses no sign of it in the Germania.[303] Nor did the senator before taking up the pen make anxious inquiry of eyewitnesses or confront the books with the exact testimony of consular governors, legionary legates, or financial agents.[304]

The Germania derives from written information copied very closely, not merely in the general account of country, race, and customs, but also in the explicit catalogue of the tribes. It is a fair surmise that for his main authority Tacitus used and exploited the Bella Germaniae of the elder Pliny. That officer had served with the armies of the Rhine; he knew both Upper and Lower Germany from the sources of the Danube to the shore of the Ocean; and he had been on expeditions across the river into the lands of the free Germans.[305] Pliny united relentless energy, encyclopedic tastes, and a keen faculty of observation.

No better source could be imagined. Yet Pliny’s researches would require supplementation, for something like forty years had intervened since he wrote. Tacitus was not vigilant enough. In the first sentence of the treatise he takes over phraseology about the boundaries of Germany that seems to have been obsolete even in Pliny’s day, being relevant rather to Augustan times.[306] Similarly, he refers in general terms to tribes and kings as having come to Roman knowledge recently: rather something long ago, the result of expeditions in the days of Caesar Augustus that took the Roman arms to the river Elbe or revealed the promontory of the Cimbri.[307]

Elsewhere the Germania reflects the conditions that prevailed before the Flavian emperors moved forward the frontiers of Upper Germany and of Raetia beyond the Rhine and beyond the Danube.[308] No less revealing is what Tacitus says about the Danubian Germans, namely the Marcomanni and the Quadi. For Tacitus they are loyal clients of the Empire, supported usually by subsidies in money, seldom by armed intervention of the Romans.[309] Which is peculiar. The defection of those peoples in the year 89 during Domitian’s war against the Dacians modified the whole frontier policy of the Empire.

Nor, when he is aware of a change, has the author been at sufficient pains to insert new material. In the catalogue of the nations of Germany there appear to be only three explicit references to recent events. One of them is of a general nature: it occurs in the historical survey of Rome’s relations with the Germans.[310] The second is the episode of the Bructeri, exulting in their annihilation.[311] The third is the description of the tract in southern Germany called the ‘decumates agri’.[312] In each there is rhetoric and emotion; and the passage about the ‘decumates agri’ not only lacks precision – it seems to have been inserted without due regard to its context.[313]

The author’s defects are clear. Faithfully following his source, he confines his efforts to sharpening and embellishing the style, with a few epigrams added and a few details to bring the treatise up to date. To regard the Germania as in any sense an introduction to the Historiae of Tacitus is premature and misleading. Early in that work came to be recounted the fighting along the Rhine in the rebellion of Julius Civilis. The Germania, which mentions not a single one of the legionary camps from Vindonissa down to Vetera and Noviomagus, let alone the odd forts and small tribes, would be of scant service.[314]

Like the first essays of Sallust, the two Tacitean monographs stand at the threshold of a magnificent achievement. The comparison is not wholly apt. Tacitus still had a long way to go. Not in the development of a style only, but in depth and scruple of study. He had to explore documents, question witnesses, sift the written accounts, and establish the truth of long and complicated transactions. The Agricola, it is true, discloses something of a Roman historian, for evil as well as for good. None the less, the Agricola docs not have to be understood as preface and preliminary to a full-length history. Not every author of a biography or an ethnographical pamphlet passed on to the higher historical pursuits – and those who announce projects do not always produce books. A contemporary event, Trajan on the Rhine, with a good army, eager for battle (it should seem) and ready for conquest, helps to explain some features of the Germania.[315] Not indeed that Tacitus’ keen interest in the peoples of the North should be denied or extenuated.

[…]

 

XII. History at Rome

History at Rome took a long time to emerge from humble and documentary origins. The old chroniclers might set down the facts in order, they had no art to exploit and transcend them. Enough for an annalist that he told no untruths, and brevity was the highest praise. Now the fundamental laws of history, as all men know and concede, are veracity and honesty. But history calls for style and composition. It is not enough to record the events, they must be interpreted and judged, with movement and eloquence in keeping. The orator will supply what is needed.

Such were the opinions given utterance by Cicero in the dialogue entitled De oratore.[316] Thwarted of scope and action in the field of politics, the saviour of the Republic was looking to letters for compensation; and he brought to perfection themes barely touched, if at all, by the Romans hitherto. The treatise De re publica expounds the nature of the ideal state as it is revealed, not by speculation but in the life of man, not among aliens but in the long experience of the Roman People. Rome in the age of the Scipiones consoled him for the failure and vexations of the present. A disappointed politician could also derive comfort from narrating the story of the past. Since the master of civic wisdom was also the master of prose composition, his talents might discover a congenial mission if he elevated history to the dignity of literature, adorning the Commonwealth which he saved and guarded when consul.

The appeal becomes explicit in the prologue of De legibus. That dialogue is contemporary, Cicero the main expositor, with subsidiary parts for his brother Quintus and his friend Pomponius Atticus, and the setting is propitious for reflections upon history, for it is near Arpinum, beside the oak tree which Cicero immortalized in the poem on Marius. Suitably introduced by comments on the licence of poets and the legends of early Rome (literal believers are gently mocked in passing), the discussion centres on the shortcomings of the annalists, scrawny and shaggy in their writing, their productions tedious, incompetent, and unreadable. Even the most recent of the tribe, Cornelius Sisenna, although far ahead of his predecessors, came nowhere near the standard of Ciceronian eloquence or the requisite maturity of judgement.[317]

‘Opus . . . unum hoc oratorium maxime [this branch of literature is closer than any other to oratory].’[318] History must be composed as a speech is composed. Only Cicero is equal to it. Which shall be the period? Quintus is eager for recent events, and Atticus supports him weightily. He will not hear of Romulus and Remus – he demands the exploits of Pompeius and the consulate of Cicero.

Cicero admitted his duty but declined the task: it needed time and leisure, and might perhaps wait for his old age. Years passed, but the proper season never arrived, despite his enforced inactivity under the dictatorship of Caesar. Soon after the assassination of the despot, Atticus exhorted his friend to take up the writing of history; and he reiterated the advice later in the year, in the month of November, when it was much to the point, with private armies levied in Italy, a young adventurer marching on Rome, and a new sequence of civil wars in prospect.[319] The apprehensions of Atticus were quickly justified. The veteran statesman, inveigled into backing the ambitions of Octavianus by the hope and plan of destroying Antonius, came back to save the Commonwealth, and brought it down in ruin.

Roman history still languished, rudimentary and neglected. It was redeemed and exalted by one who wrote about Cicero and Pompeius, but not at all in the right spirit – and Cicero would not have liked the style and manner either.

C. Sallustius Crispus had a brief and variegated career. Tribune of the plebs in the year that witnessed the murder of P. Ciodius, the dictatorial consulate of Pompeius Magnus, and the prosecution of Annius Milo, he came into notice and blame through violent harangues against both Milo and his defender Cicero.[320] Two years later Sallust was duly thrown out of the Senate. Caesar brought him back. He commanded armies without conspicuous success, narrowly escaped death in a soldiers’ mutiny – and his government of a province laid him open to charges of extortion.[321]

If Sallust lost the favour of Caesar, there was no leader or party to tempt him in the contests so rapidly supervening after the Dictator’s removal. Next to a share in the making of history the best thing is to write it. Sallust discovered a proper use for his leisure: he would compose some historical monographs. It was too late for ambition, he had freed himself from the errors and the tribulations of his youth, and his judgement would not be distorted by the spirit of party.[322]

After completing the Bellum Catilinae and the Bellum Jugurthinum, Sallust went no further with separate studies but embarked on a full-length history. The theme was ready to hand, also a clear point of departure. Cornelius Sisenna told the story of the first revolutionary epoch from the secession of the allies in 91 B.C. through the Italian War and, blending with it, the struggle of the Roman factions down to the restoration of the nobilitas by Sulla, ending perhaps with Sulla’s abdication of the dictatorship, or with his death a little more than a year later. A senator and coeval with the events (he was praetor in 78 B.C.), Sisenna deserves to rank as an historian rather than an annalist, of greater consequence and merit than Cicero seems willing to allow, and he had a splendid subject.[323]

Sallust took up the tale more or less where Sisenna left off, beginning his Historiae with the year of the consuls M. Aemilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus (78 B.C.). Sisenna was a partisan of Sulla. His continuator was hostile to Sulla and the nobiles. He proposed (it may be assumed) to trace the decline and fall of the oligarchy through the thirty years of nominal stability and hollow concord between the two ages of civil war, from the rising of Lepidus down to the contest between Pompeius and Caesar; and it may further be conjectured what place and function he designed for Pompeius Magnus – a Sullan partisan at first, rescuing the government from lepidus and fighting its wars in Spain, then an enemy of the Optimates, with great commands extorted by help of the tribunes, a dynast oppressing the ‘res publica’ in the compact with Crassus and Caesar, and finally, when he was forced back, jealous for his predominance, to earlier alliances, a false friend of the oligarchy and its partner in catastrophe.

Sallust had covered a dozen years when death overtook him in 35 B.C. Of the five books of the Historiae there survive four speeches, two letters, and a number of fragments. Enough, however, when examined in conjunction with the pair of monographs, to explain an achievement that was recognized, instantly and for ever, as classic and canonical.

Rome could at last take pride in a history that was a work of art. Cicero condemned the annalists and desiderated a style that should be ample, equable, and flowing.[324] Sallust broke away from balance and harmony, and went back to earlier writers for much of his diction. He took over their archaic forms and poetical turns, but added strength and splendour, with many innovations of language. The prose grows tighter and fiercer – short sentences and abrupt endings, speed and variety; and there is a perpetual antithesis of thought, brought out by artful discordance in verbal structure.[325]

To adopt old-fashioned manners of speech was no paradox, for history had commonly been written by retired statesmen or censorious elders, condemning the indiscipline of youth or the corruption of the times in contrast to the grave and worthy standards of the virtuous past. With Sallust archaism is insidious, simplicity a mask, covering subtlety and malice. For all the invocation of ancient morality, Sallust is happiest among those scenes of vice and of violence that he affects so sternly to denounce.[326]

No paradox either that Sallust so deliberately and so savagely wrecked the rhythm, balance, and elaboration of the long and convoluted sentence. The ample oratorical manner which had recently been brought to perfection by Cicero was admirably designed to beguile and persuade an audience: it dealt in generous commonplaces, facile oppositions between right and wrong, and high-minded appeals to vulgar emotion. Roman history originated in the register of bare events before eloquence was known; and, when Roman history came to its maturity in an epoch saturated and nauseated with political oratory, it sought ruthlessly to get at the facts behind the words. Smooth phrases were suspect, their authors in discredit. A plain, hard, and broken style seemed to convey a serious guarantee of incorruptible veracity.

Next to native models among the annalists it was Thucydides who appealed most to Sallust—for style and intensity, for majesty and for disillusionment. The Roman had learned his lesson about men and affairs in the turmoil of the falling Republic, in the wrars of Pompeius and Caesar—and in the far worse things that came after Caesar when the tyranny of the Triumvirs re-enacted Sulla, with proscriptions at Rome and massacre throughout Italy. The harsh, angry, and pessimistic fashion of writing history which Sallust evolved was well suited to the age and the theme—and to his own nature.[327]

Sallust came from Amitemum in the Sabine country. Asinius Pollio, who w-as bom only a decade later, was a still newer type of Roman—his grandfather had led the Marrucini when Italy fought for liberty and honour, rebellious against the tyrant city.[328] A Republican at heart, but a Caesarian and an Antonian in his actions, diplomacy kept him from harm and brought him to the consulate in 40 B.c. Not long after, he forswore public life, resisted entanglements, and was the sole neutral in the last contest of all, when Caesar’s heir and M. Antonius fought for the mastery.

Not only a spectator but an agent in many momentous transactions, Pollio led armies, governed provinces, and managed negotiations between the dynasts. His courage was resolute, his temper intractable. Experience, insight, and bitterness qualified him to narrate the history of the revolutionary age, and the style he affected was wilfully plain and rugged. The superficial might fancy that the Civil War began when the proconsul of Gaul invaded Italy. Pollio relied on his own judgement—and on the respectable authority of M. Cato, who detested both dynasts. It was not so much their quarrel that broke the peace and ruined the Commonwealth as the original compact many years before, in the consulate of Metellus Celer and L. Afranius (60 B.C.).[329] Pollio chose that date for his exordium, and thereby conferred upon it significance ever after.[330] His historical books dealt with the last decade of the Free State, the war between Pompeius and Caesar, and the subsequent disturbances down to the Battle of Philippi, when ‘Libertas’ and the faction of the nobiles were overwhelmed by the leaders of the Caesarian party, Marcus Antonius and the young Octavianus.[331]

To a general, a diplomat, and a proconsul, no greater contrast than T. Livius. This man had no share in the ‘res publica’, no office that established his dignity, deepened his understanding, and justified his writing. From the comfortable obscurity of a private station, and from the schools of rhetoric, where he learned the craft of words, and perhaps taught it, Livy came to history and composed the annals of the Roman People from the beginning down to the middle years of the reign of Caesar Augustus. When he began the vast enterprise, about the time of the War of Actium or not much later, he was comparatively young.[332] That Livy had ever been outside Italy there is no sign; and, although the historian was on terms of amity with the reigning house, he was not often at Rome (no anecdotes bring him into touch with other writers or with their patrons), but resided for the most part at his native Patavium.[333]

The allegiances of the North were diverse in origin but not irreconcilable. Acquiring from Caesar the benefit of their full citizen status, the towns of Transpadana were none the less attached to Republican ideals. Patavium had a name for material prosperity and for a tenacious adherence to the ancient ways. Patavine morality was fearsome and proverbial. Nor was it confined to the conduct of private life. The city declared for the Republic against Antonius in 43 B.C., and had to suffer heavy financial exactions when Asinius Pollio held the North for Antonius after the Battle of Philippi.[334]

Yet the North was able to accept with dignity, and embrace with enthusiasm, the new order of Caesar Augustus. To the Roman aristocrat the Republic was a real and palpable thing. Not just a theory or principle, but a cause that was bound up with men and families, rivals or enemies of the Caesars. In the Italian municipio, tradition could be honoured without the spirit of discord or any suspicion of disloyalty: Mediolanium retained under Caesar Augustus the statues of Caesar’s assassins.[335]

Brutus and Cassius were the leaders of a political party. Cicero had never been that, and Cicero was not worshipped among the martyrs of the Republic. For those w'hose Republicanism was not political but sentimental and moral the ideals and the eloquence of Cicero might be held exemplary. Admiring the oratory of Cicero, Livy for the writing of history adopted a style that is Ciceronian in many of its features; and, although the early books have an infusion of archaic and poetical elements, as he went on the author reverted to more classical standards.[336]

Livy’s design was to supersede the annalists; and he maybe regarded not as an imperial author but as the last of the Republican prose writers.[337] The justification for a new historical work, so Livy affirms, is either superior style or superior accuracy.[338] The incentive may be of another kind. Men take up the pen from discontent with the times —and from discontent with history as it is written by other people.

Livy did not like the Sallustian fashion of writing. He spoke with distaste of orators who affect antique and mouldy words, who, striving for gravity, achieve only obscurity; and he criticized Sallust’s adaptation of a Greek phrase.[339] Livy must have approved and enjoyed Cicero’s censure of those who try to imitate Thucydides.[340]

If Sallust’s style was detestable, that was not the worst thing about him. The politician who turned moralist, the Sabine sermonizer of dubious conduct, the comfortable author of a pessimistic history, he was a disquieting figure. Asinius Pollio the consular was little better, a Republican who survived the Republic, enjoying riches and esteem under a regime he professed to disavow', but proud, savage, censorious—and bitterly hostile long years after to the memory of Cicero.

Livy was repelled by those detractors of humanity. Although the present was sombre, the annals of the past shewed that no commonwealth had ever equalled Rome for majesty and for morality, none had ever held out longer against the invasion of greed and corruption. History should be instructive and salubrious, showing a patriot what to follow and what to avoid.[341] Livy might have added that no good could come from Sallustian revelations about the hidden springs of action in the conduct of men and states and the inborn ineradicable lust for power.

In narrating the deeds of ancient virtue Livy found solace and respite from the tribulations that the Roman People had for so many years endured.[342] Livy was aware that many of his readers would be impatient to have the story of the revolutionary age.[343] Avowing the superior attractions of early Rome, he implies that the later part of his great enterprise will be distasteful to a Roman and a moralist. He may not have found it so when he came to write it.

Fate has dealt maliciously. Of the whole work in 142 books, a quarter is extant. There survive the first decade, carrying the narrative from the origins down to 293 B.C.; the third, containing the War of Hannibal; and, continuing, Books XXXI-XLV, which go as far as 167 B.C. The selection does not perhaps furnish a fair criterion of Livy’s quality as an historian. That he thought the story of the Kings any more authentic than Cicero did, there is no evidence. But he had to narrate it. Leaving legend, he plunges into fictions, without the equipment to disengage the facts. And, although in the later books that survive Livy is on safer ground (and the Hannibalic War proves congenial), he is betrayed by ignorance of politics and warfare, by lack of critical principles—and, above all, by incapacity to dominate the material with design and structure.

Perhaps the best has perished. The two ages of civil disturbance take up the greater part of the second half of Livy’s work (Books LXXI-CXLII). There were excellent, though partisan accounts; and full scope offered for the historian to display his narrative and pictorial skill, with the faculty of evoking the emotions of pity and terror. The Bellum Italicum, then the affairs of Marius, Cinna, and Sulla, was a magnificent portion of history; and Livy treated Sisenna’s theme handsomely, allotting two sections, one of ten books, the other of nine.[344] The story of the Ten Years War contained striking episodes: the solemn oath of the insurgent leaders, the battle among the vineyards in the Marsian country, the extinction of the Italian army trapped in winter in the Appennines, the capture of Rome, the siege of Praeneste, the defeat and massacre of the Samnites, the proscriptions ordained by L. Sulla the Dictator.

As long as Livy had to recount the exploits of the Populus Romanus in its early struggles with the Volscian, the Etruscan, and the Samnite, he was content with the edifying contrast between valour and virtue on the one side, on the other perfidy, cruelty, or cowardice. Knowledge and sympathy are absent. Nor was he disposed to be just to the Carthaginian or the Macedonian in their dealings with the imperial Republic. The Bellum Italicum was another matter. It resembled a civil war, and in the time of Caesar Augustus when ‘tota Italia’ had at last and in reality been achieved, it could hardly fail to be interpreted very much as a civil war. Patavium had never fought against Rome. But Patavium’s own recent misfortunes might inspire compassion and understanding for the fate of tribes and towns in that older Italy; and the municipal man knew the pride and the injustice of Roman magistrates.

In the civil strife that ensued before the Italian War was over a large part of the municipal aristocracy took the Marian side. Marius enjoyed and abused the prestige of saving Italy from the northern invaders. The ultimate verdict could only be condemnatory. Livy pronounces it – Marius subverted the Commonwealth, first by craft and then by violence.[345] Sulla fought the wars of the Republic in the East, saved Rome from the Samnites at the Battle of the Colline Gate, and established ordered government. But nobody among the middle class in Italy, devoted though they were to security and stability, could praise the Dictator – and hardly even the nobiles whom he gave dignity and power again, with enormous enrichment. Livy adverts upon the cruelty, the like of which was in no man before, that defiled a glorious victory with massacre and spoliation.[346]

More exacting and hazardous as an historian’s task was the next sequence of civil wars. The eruption had barely subsided, the fires still glowed beneath the lava crust.[347] In essaying to tell the uncomfortable truth about recent transactions, the consular Pollio relied upon past achievements and rank in society, and he exploited his reputation for obtrusive intractability. Livy, though amicably disposed towards the new order, was saved from some of the excesses of a partisan interpretation by his own good sense – and he could appeal to an orthodox version of the recent disturbances.

Caesar Augustus could not utterly traduce the champions, genuine or ostensible, of what even the victors had to concede was the ‘better cause’. Livy exalted Pompeius, and Augustus in no displeasure called the historian a ‘Pompeianus’.[348] As Caesar’s memory now got less honour from Caesar’s heir, Livy was free to debate whether his birth were the greater blessing or the greater curse.[349] And he avowed that Cato’s greatness lay beyond the reach of praise or blame.[350] That was not very harmful either. The Princeps himself, when asked his opinion of Cato, replied that anybody who does not wish the existing order to be altered is a good man and a good citizen.[351]

Cato was out of the way before the young Octavianus started on his career of fraud and violence. Brutus and Cassius were his parent’s murderers and his own enemies. None the less, an historian could still write of Philippi without wholly sacrificing liberty and dignity.[352] Cicero, basely proscribed by the youth he had brought forward to save the Commonwealth, was a delicate theme. Livy pronounced a handsome eulogy, but curbed his own enthusiasm: Cicero was not innocent, he suffered at the hands of his enemies precisely the fate he was contriving against them.[353]

For the rest, there were scapegoats to help out the historian, namely Sex. Pompeius, Lepidus, Antonius – and the queen of Egypt. But he had to concentrate more and more upon the virtues and destiny of the victor. The epilogue, the final nine books (CXXXIV–CXLII), dealing with the years of peace and order from 28 B.C. down to 9 B.C., may not have been wholly satisfactory.[354]

Though Livy for the history of the Republic extinguished all predecessors and deterred all competition (save from a stray Sallustian or two), his work was not universally regarded as canonical for the Triumviral period and for the reign of Augustus.[355] A Roman senator, Cremutius Cordus, dealt with those subjects, consigning the authors of the proscriptions to eternal infamy.[356]

As the years passed, other historians arose and wrote about the Caesars. The most notable were Aufidius Bassus and Servilius Nonianus. As they are both commended by Quintilian in the short list of the four historical authors after Sallust and Livy likely to be of service to the student of rhetoric, they cannot have lacked virtues of style and composition.[357] Nor should the influence be omitted of the ingenious and innovatory' Seneca on the development of Latin prose during the age intermediate between Livy and Tacitus. Then came the historians who narrated the reigns of Claudius and Nero. Some carried the story further. For Tacitus their importance lay not so much in style as in material – sources for the Historiae.[358]

None of the subsequent historians could touch Sallust and Livy – diverse in manner but equal in rank, so Servilius Nonianus observed.[359] Though Sallust and Livy will confidently be claimed as the literary models of Cornelius Tacitus, the measure of the debt is not easy to assess. Much will depend on inference and guesswork. No such investigation should omit the Helium civile of Annaeus Lucarnas. Pedestrian critics in antiquity asserted that Lucan was not a poet but an historian.[360] A juster appreciation of both poetry and history will vindicate his right to the double title – and reveal his kinship with Cornelius Tacitus.

In his epic poem on the fall of ‘Libertas’ Lucan went to Livy as the principal and almost the sole source of his information.[361] The outline of events and the main actors were given. With them he would not tamper, but he could select, emphasize, and expand, adding speeches to illuminate character and action. He could likewise invent incidents if they did not conflict with the authentic record, and produce supernumerary characters of minor station – a soldier, a slave, or a foreigner, but not a Roman senator or a Roman knight.

For the causes of the Civil War Lucan took over Pollio’s formulation – the original compact of the three dynasts. Historians tended to be much influenced by the shape and structure their predecessors had imposed on the narrative. Livy (it seems) made a break in his work at the point where Cornelius Sisenna ended, where Sallust took up the story with the consulate of Lepidus and Catulus. And, though Livy did not begin a new ‘decade’ with the year of Metellus and Afranius, he inherited Pollio’s conception.[362] Similarly Lucan.[363] A rapid sketch of events in the fifties concentrates on personalities and power, with the clash resulting from Caesar’s ambition and Pompeius’ jealousy – the one could bear no superior, the other no equal.[364] That probably comes ultimately from Pollio. Further, the general causes of the catastrophe are discovered in the corruption and turbulence of Roman political life.[365]

The characterization of Caesar, in brief phrases, antithetic, abrupt, and varied in structure, recalls the Sallustian manner.[366] Lucan also has resort to speeches with all an historian’s licence in their placing and content. When Caesar invades Italy, an anonymous old man, mindful of the past and apprehensive for the future, comes forward and discourses on the previous civil war, the massacres of Marius, and the proscriptions of Sulla.[367] Cato, when apprised of the death of Pompeius Magnus, produces a short oration comparable to an historian’s character sketch.[368] Mercy is suitably tempered with justice. Cato was a Republican, and Cato points out that it is not genuine liberty that ends with Pompeius – it had ended under Marius and under Sulla.[369] Later, in words of encouragement to his companions, Cato explains that a defender of the Republic can now continue the struggle with good hopes and a clear conscience – Magnus removed, only one dynast is left of the three.[370]

That oratory to achieve force and splendour should borrow from the poets, among them precisely Lucan, is an axiom produced by a speaker in the Dialogus.[371] The historian Tacitus makes use of poetical language. Much of it comes from his predecessors in prose. For the rest, Lucan is hardly ever the source, but Virgil, whom they both admired.[372]

Lucan here and there in a savage and pessimistic epigram seems to be the model and original of Tacitus – for example, the gods intervening only to punish humanity, never to help.[373] Yet the resemblances may not be close enough to prove a debt. Such ‘sententiae’ are perfectly in Lucan’s manner—and derive almost inevitably from his theme. Thus the speech of the eunuch Pothinus when he advises the King of Egypt to kill Magnus, with numerous maxims of statecraft confirming the incompatibility of virtue and power.[374] These things belong to a common fund of bitter experience, accumulated through civil war, despotism, and disillusion—and refined by generations of speakers and writers. Lucan and Tacitus acknowledge a similar subject and like preoccupations. Lucan, a senator quaestorian in standing and one of the victims of Nero, may be accorded mention, though not rank, beside Cornelius Tacitus; and he shares with Tacitus a sombre, violent, and poetical imagination.

 

XIII. Tacitus and His Models

[…]

Cornelius Tacitus leads off with the first day of a consular year.[375] To explain that, convention might be invoked, the point at which a predecessor terminated, or a Republican’s antipathy to the titles of a prince and the era of a dynasty.[376] To no purpose. Where else should the work begin? If at the death of Nero, much that preceded Nero’s death would have to go in, namely Vindex, Verginius, and the proclamation of Galba, with a vast military and political imbroglio. On the other hand, the official date of the accession of Vespasian (July i, 69) was no good at all—it truncated the story of the Rhine and Danubian armies and two invasions of Italy in a single year. No: January 1, 69 is vital and inevitable. That day starts the action on the Rhine. Two legions at Moguntiacum disown the authority of Galba, the news impels him to adopt Piso Licinianus on the tenth of January, and everything follows automatically—the plot and act of Otho at Rome, with Galba and Piso assassinated on the fifteenth day of the month, and in the meantime Vitellius proclaimed in Lower Germany and a new civil war under way, that was begun against Galba but waged against Otho.

As the tradition enjoined, Cornelius Tacitus contributes a prologue expounding his purpose and task. It contains remarks about history at Rome—free, dignified, and eloquent under the Republic, but declining after the War of Actium and the establishment of the monarchy through the political inexperience of writers and their partisan spirit. While adulation can easily be detected and condemned, malice is more attractive and more insidious. As concerns Cornelius Tacitus, the emperors Galba, Otho, and Vitcllius meant nothing to him. To the Flavian dynasty he acknowledges promotion and honours, but an historian must tell the truth unimpaired, with favour towards no man, or resentment either. And, if life be vouchsafed, Tacitus will go on and recount in his old age the reigns of Nerva and Trajan.

His present subject he now indicates and describes in the next two chapters—a period rich in catastrophe, with four emperors perishing by the sword, three civil wars, and a variety of foreign wars.[377] The Hast was not disturbed, but the fortunes of the Empire were imperilled in the West. At Rome oppression reigned, and murder. Birth and wealth were suspect, virtue being the surest guarantee of destruction. Any who lacked enemies were destroyed by their allies. Most odious for their power, influence, and profits were the ‘delatorcs’. Yet the age was not wholly devoid of moral strength. Friends and family kept faith, and senators faced death as bravely as the men of old time. The vicissitudes of human affairs were matched by strange signs and portents in nature. Never was it so powerfully demonstrated that the gods intend, not that men should be happy, but that they should suffer.

The three chapters of Tacitus’ prologue—concise, vivid, and intense—disable criticism and baffle eulogy.[378] The form is traditional, and much of what he says, with a manifest debt to Sallust; and, studied in conjunction with the fragments of Sallust, it could embolden conjecture about the kind of preface another historian of civil war must have composed, namely Asinius Pollio.[379]

The strictures which Tacitus passes on the historians who wrote about Augustus do not spare the greatest of them. That he had Livy in mind there can be no doubt. Dignity and discretion forbade him to mention by name either Livy or any other historian; and he says as little as may be about his own person and opinions.

If the prologue is masterly, the eight chapters that follow' are unique in their quality. Wherever an historian takes his point of departure, he must allow for the things that went before. Yet he will wish to plunge into the stream of events, stripped for action and unencumbered by the paraphernalia of explanation. Sallust managed it. He employed twro devices—a summary in chronological order covering the previous fifty years, and a political oration. However, for all the ruthless brevity of Sallust, the recapitulation may have been a little lengthy, the harangue of Lepidus overbold.

The eight chapters in the form of a digression, with the beginning and the end sharply defined, furnish a kind of second preface.[380] Tacitus proposes to set forth the condition of Rome, the armies and the provinces, the sources of discontent and the elements of power, in order that the reader may understand, not only the course and conclusion of events (often the product of chance) but the causes and the reasons.[381] After describing how government and Princeps were regarded by the different orders in Roman society, with especial emphasis on the Praetorian Guard and the various military detachments now stationed in the capital, the survey ranges round the provinces from west to east. An industrious compiler might have been tempted to furnish an exhaustive enumeration. Tacitus’ command of his subject is such that he will deliberately omit facts and names. There is no note about the strength of the armies in Britain and in the Danubian provinces, the identity of their commanders. Important facts- but irrelevant, for they do not explain the origins or influence the course of the immediate crisis. They emerge later, when decisive for plot or action. Alert and unclogged, Tacitus moves from one end of the world to the other and returns quickly to Rome. The survey of provinces and armies is not merely a marvellous device. It appears to lack precedent or parallel in ancient historiography—and, revealing a preoccupation not with events but with the sources of power, it at once stamps Tacitus as a political historian.

Neatly disengaging himself from prolegomena, the historian allows the drama to unfold, promptly. A few days after the first of January, a dispatch from the procurator of Gallia Bélgica brings the news of what happened at Moguntiacum.[382] The Emperor’s age and waning authority had already given rise to much talk and intrigue; and Galba himself was meditating the choice of a successor. That act now became urgent. The Emperor suddenly calls together a council, reveals his choice, and delivers a set speech in elucidation.[383]

Like Sallust, Tacitus puts a speech on high policy near the beginning of his Historiae. His oration is a superior and skilful production—no violence to chronology, but dramatic force, insight, irony. Galba’s disquisitions allude to his own elevation, explain his present plight, and enunciate a central doctrine of political theory under the Empire: the contrast between tyranny and constitutional government.

Prologue, general survey, and oration—the structure is impeccable, The prefatory remarks of historians can serve various functions. Livy in his Praefatio discourses at large upon morals and history, upon the present and the past. He produces an essay, easily separable from the narrative that follows, and, indeed, not in organic connexion.[384] Livy says a little too much about his own aspirations. Gracious and engaging though the modesty may be with which he excuses hie undertaking, it is a feeble exordium when an historian in his first sentence conveys not facts or confidence but a doubt.[385] The senatorial writers do not allow themselves to be hampered by qualms about the value of their theme, or the value of success.

Before he embarked upon the ‘res populi Romani’ from the beginning of Rome, Livy’s only compositions had been exercises in the schools of rhetoric, or at the most some philosophical tracts.[386] Admirable as Livy is in the eloquence of a speech, in descriptive colouring, and in narrative movement, he shows no comparable skill when events have to be grouped and interrelated—and no instinct for historical structure. For disposition as for material he is content on the whole to follow his sources. Where the subject is straightforward, or a predecessor has knocked the facts into shape, Livy manages well enough. Thus the ‘decade’ recounting the Hannibal ic War. But the historian’s theme expanded, ever more complicated and menacing. In the preface of a new section after the War of Hannibal Livy avows perplexity— a wide ocean confronts him.[387] To set the stage and explain the ensuing action (Rome’s dealings with the kingdoms of the East), the historian should have furnished a survey of the different powers in the world, from Macedonia down to Egypt. He was not competent to do it, and the result is confusion.

Sallust got practice from writing the monographs, and he displayed in the Historiae a notable talent for arrangement.[388] Tacitus also bene fited from preliminary essays; and the exordium of his Historiae surpasses Sallust. To that great exemplar Tacitus is heavily indebted for structure, episodes, and portraits. By Sallustian language he acknowledges his ancestry, patently and proudly. If that were not enough, there is tone and atmosphere as well.

When civil war came again after thirty years, it took no great effort of the imagination to see the Campus Martius thronged with the ghosts of Sulla’s victims, and the terrible Marius emergent from his sepulchre.[389] Not only was the memory of it alive, but also a number of the agents and spectators. The contest between Pompeius and Caesar was comparatively merciful. After Caesar’s death the renewed convulsions made the whole Sullan age real and tangible again, with proscriptions and the sacking of cities, the ambition of the dynasts, their alliances, and their rivalries. If Livy felt and reflected it, more violent must have been the impact upon Sallust, who had been involved in the wars and politics of the revolutionary age.

Narrating the ‘res populi Romani’ from the consulate of Lepidus and Catulus, he found much that bore upon his sympathies, and even his career. Sertorius, brave, energetic, and resourceful, was an enemy of Sulla and the nobilitas – but not, assuredly, in thought or act an enemy of Rome. A noble picture and a stirring story. Full credence will be denied. There can be little doubt that the portrayal of Sertorius’ dealings has been tinted and arranged. The cause is discovered in sheer partisan bias. It may be deeper and more intimate – Sertorius was, like Sallust, a son of the Sabine country, a novus homo eager to find scope for his ‘virtus’ at Rome, but encountering antagonism and various frustrations.

Sallust brings on a tribune of the plebs with a speech protesting against the tyranny of the Optimates and exhorting the People to vindicate its liberties.[390] The tribune was Licinius Macer, also a writer of history, and the speech is splendid and vigorous. Sallust had been a turbulent tribune. The censors of 70 b.c. expelled a batch of undesirables. Sallust will have been equal to the theme—vice and venality, to be sure, and obscure clients whom the nobiles were glad to discard, but of some the sole offence was integrity or an allegiance.

To one writing under the Triumvirate the affair of Lepidus was startling and contemporary—word and deed and agents. Lepidus the consul, under pretext of the Commonwealth and invoking humanitarian pleas, makes a bid for personal domination. As proconsul he proceeds to violence. A senior consular, Marcius Philippus, denounces Lepidus in a powerful oration, whips the Senate to action, and carries the ultimate decree in defence of the State.[391] With the holders of legitimate authority is associated the young adventurer Pompeius, who later in the year is sent out to Spain as proconsul, though not yet a senator.

The contest between the Roman government and the military power, great orations to save the ‘res publica’, the march on Rome, the private armies and the public enemies, all this had been seen in 44 and 43. The facts were enough. Sallust in his Historiae, without the need of any especial artifice, could exploit a double privilege, openly attacking Lepidus, the parent of one Triumvir, and covertly alluding to another, to Octavianus, in his portrayal of Pompeius—the young man fair of face but dark within.[392] Their paths lay through treachery and violence, with despotic power as the goal.

Before he died, Sallust had the satisfaction of witnessing the calamitous fall of the one Triumvir, M. Aemilius Lepidus. He could discern the final struggle looming ahead, Caesar’s heir against Antonius; for the supreme power, the empire of Rome and the world, permitted no sharing between the monarchic dynasts.

[…]

 

XVI. Historical Sources

Tacitus’ own early experiences may have contributed something to his vivid intense picture of what happened before all men’s eyes in Rome. When twelve or thirteen years old, Tacitus may have surveyed from a temple or a mansion the tumult in the Forum and the killing of Galba; he may have seen the exits and the entrances of emperors and of armies, the fighting in the streets or the suburbs, the flames of the Capitol. To postulate his presence in Rome, however, would be a cheap device, neglecting the quality of Tacitus’ main source for those events – and denying his imaginative powers.

There survived eyewitnesses in abundance. Some had been at the heart of action or behind the scenes, and were ready to tell the truth.[393] Respect for the aged is an amiable feature of aristocratic society; and the elderly senator, if sometimes tedious in his propensity to compare old things and new, might transmit, along with moralizing and anecdote, a copious volume of rare and authentic history. The sagacious Veiento, the Nestor of the age, lived on to adorn Trajan’s Senate for a year or two.[394] SiLius Italicus also survived, consul of the year 68 and present at secret negotiations between the Emperor Vitellius and Vespasian’s brother in the Temple of Apollo.[395] Both Aquillius Regulus and Junius Mauricus were already in the Senate at that time.[396] Above all, three eminent consulars in the circle of Pliny call for a mention – Arrius Antoninus, consul in 69, Julius Frontinus, praetor in 70, and Vestricius Spurinna, who commanded a detachment for Otho in the early stages of the campaign of Bedriacum.

Whether Tacitus ever went on a visit to old Silius in his Campanian retreat, or sojourned with Julius Frontinus on the coast at Tarracina or Formiae, zealous to extract information before it was too late, is a question beyond the asking.[397] He might have applied to Spurinna. What he says of Spurinna’s operations is not only much more full and explicit than the other account surviving. It looks apologetic.[398]

Verbal instruction, and some of it not less valuable, could have been supplied by men of lower rank – legates and tribunes, equestrian officers or procurators. Antonius Primus, whose desperate energy prevailed over the timidity and sloth of the consular commanders on the Flavian side, winning the war for Vespasian in northern Italy, was cheated of public recognition and consigned to retirement. As late as 95 he was still alive, robust and cheerful in his native Tolosa.[399] But the boastful Antonius might not command full credence as a witness – and his earliest notoriety came from his part in the forging of a will.[400] The dashing Cornelius Fuscus, who by contrast benefits from a avourable presentation by Tacitus, had perished commanding Domitian’s army in the invasion of Dacia.

The eloquent and accomplished Julius Secundus, Tacitus’ friend, was secretary to Otho and present at the Emperor’s end after the defeat at Bedriacum.[401] Secundus, however, had been dead many years before Tacitus thought of writing history. By an odd chance, certain equestrian relatives of Pliny enjoyed a remarkably late survival – one who came to grief under Nero, another who had been an officer in the Flavian army invading Italy.[402]

Whatever the information still to be culled from the living, Tacitus did not have to make anxious search and questionings, at least for events in the year 69. Narratives were to hand, some of great merit, others though respectable yet needing to be cautiously appraised. Pompeius Planta, a knight who rose to high office, wrote about the Battle of Bedriacum.[403] For Cremona there was the memoir of the honest Vipstanus Messalla, Tacitus’ friend: he was military tribune and temporarily commanding a legion under Antonius Primus.[404] Certain relevant biographies are also attested.[405] For the events (or intrigues) before the proclamation of Vespasian in the East, the testimony of Licinius Mucianus could have been highly instructive. The great Mucianus did not need to write an apologia – he was vindicated by success and two more consulates. Instead, he compiled volumes of extracts about natural curiosities and edited ancient documents.[406] Vespasian’s own Commentarii existed, not perhaps going beyond the military record of his campaigns in Judaea;[407] and one of the procurators had composed a treatise about the Jews.[408]

The inquiry about the sources of Tacitus involves three historical works of some merit and magnitude, and three authors not a little disparate in character, tastes, and accomplishment.[409] Cluvius Rufus the consular was eloquent and wealthy; he had a mild character and conspicuous social attainments.[410] A favoured figure at the court of Nero, he would act as the announcer when the Emperor performed as a singer, both in the capital and on the peregrination of Hellas.[411] Yet Cluvius never used his influence for noxious purposes. Appointed by Galba to govern Hispania Tarraconensis, he duly transferred his allegiance to Otho, and from Otho to Vitellius. In itself a change of side in civil war need not damage the credit of a senatorial historian. Cluvius, it appears, was more indulgent towards Nero than were other writers. Yet it is judgement and equity rather than any Neronian predilections of Cluvius Rufus that can be detected in a famous edificatory anecdote.

Cluvius, with appeal to the sanctity of history, once asked Verginius Rufus to bear him no ill will if he found in his works some things not wholly to his liking.[412] Verginius gave the answer forthwith: he had done what he did in order that historians might be free to tell the truth. What had Cluvius in mind? The one thing that might need to be palliated or disguised in Verginius’ conduct was his fidelity to Nero, when Vindex rose, when Galba was proclaimed, and for some time afterwards. Verginius in his epitaph made a firm assertion of patriotic loyalty to Rome.[413] Perhaps the words conflate the facts. If the defeat of Vindex saved Rome and the Empire, it should also have saved Nero; and Verginius’ professed allegiance to the Caesar recognized by Senate and People covered allegiance to Nero until Nero was legally deposed.[414] Galba, the ally of Vindex, was not likely to advertise that awkward truth, and the friends of Verginius did not trumpet it abroad. Instead, the comforting story was put out that Verginius and Vindex at a secret meeting agreed to concert their efforts; their

patriotic design was frustrated by Verginius’ army, eager to be at the Gallic rebels.[415] Cluvius (one may conjecture) made the attitude of Verginius quite clear.

The histories of Cluvius perhaps began with Caligula, and embraced the reigns of Claudius and Nero, terminating either with Nero’s death or with the end of the year 68. It is not likely, however, that he went on into the next year to round off the story with Galba, Otho, and Vitellius.

While Cluvius essayed some defence of Nero, and of his own behaviour, another historian, Fabius Rusticus, was relentless against the tyrant, if only because eulogistic of Seneca, his patron. Fabius came from Spain, and was perhaps not a senator.[416] He certainly wrote of Nero’s reign, and he might have dealt with the year 69 as well.[417]

Fabius Rusticus earned the highest of commendations, being reckoned for the splendour of his prose style as equivalent to a new Livy – ‘Livius veterum, Fabius Rusticus recentium eloquentissimi auctores [Livy and Fabius Rusticus, the most graphic of ancient and modern writers].’[418] Style of this essence, or the artistic arrangement of a narrative, was beyond the compass of the elder Pliny. Yet he possessed singular merits of accuracy and diligence. The second of his comprehensive historical works was an annalistic record in thirty-one books, beginning where an earlier writer, Aufidius Bassus, had left off.[419] For the end of Pliny’s own Ilistoriae a convenient point would be the triumph over the Jews in the summer of 71 and the closing of the temple of Janus, with an inspiring epilogue on the new Augustus, the felicity of the times, and the return of order and concord symbolized by monarchy and monarchic succession.

Pliny completed the work some time before the year 77.[420] It was certainly used by Tacitus, and some claim it as the main source perceptible both in his account of Galba and Otho and elsewhere. Various reasons tell against that theory.

Loyalty to a patron or a dynasty was more tenacious and more conspicuous in the knight than in the senator. Pliny was anxious that his histories should not be published in his lifetime lest he incur a suspicion of subservience to the Flavian House.[421] Pliny’s scruple shows that he was aware of a prejudice in favour of the Flavians; and it is clear that he was very bitter against the memory of Nero. Now Tacitus at the end of the second book of his Historiae, expounding the treachery of Vitellius’ general Caecina Alienus, adverts upon the partiality of writers on the Flavian side – they spoke of patriotism and the love of peace, in fraudulent palliation.[422] The censure touches Pliny. Though an honest man and a lover of facts, he was prone to credulity and enthusiasm. The Roman senator took a more sombre view of men and motives.

In the Historiae of Cornelius Tacitus as extant, Pliny is cited once, Vipstanus Messalla twice – but only for the second battle.[423] No other authority is named. The main source remains – or rather the source also used by the biographer Plutarch in his Galba and his Otho. Plutarch shows a remarkable concordance in matter, arrangement, and even here and there in phraseology.[424] The problem has given rise to long discussions, often fruitless. A limited approach, without haste for certitude, may not be wholly unremunerative.

Something can be discovered about the author thus presumed. His style was eloquent and flowing, sometimes ornate, and not without delight in point and antithesis. None the less, he was careful in collecting facts, and critical though not penetrating. Anecdotes attracted him, but he was not interested in the transactions of the Roman Senate, and he does not seem to have been a military man. He was present in Rome at the beginning of January 69. He knew more about the entourage of Otho than about that of Galba (though he was not accurate about Otho’s marriage)[425], and could reveal the fact that Otho got his governorship in Spain through the influence of Seneca.[426] He was an acquaintance of Julius Secundus,[427] he could cite Cluvius Rufus,[428] and he had questioned eyewitnesses about the Battle of Bedriacum.[429]

Finally, the work of the unknown author was not biographical but annalistic. It dealt with Nero, and it included Vitellius as well as Galba and Otho.[430] It was composed later than 79. That conclusion emerges from the picture of Caecina Alienus as he came over the Alps into Italy, arrogant and offensive in his barbarian trousers.[431] Caecina, prospering from treason, enjoyed the favour and friendship of the new rulers – there is even the story of an amicable gladiatorial bout with Titus Caesar.[432] But Caecina in the year 79 was involved in a mysterious plot, alleged accomplice of Eprius Marcellus. After dining one evening with Titus he was summarily executed at the command of his host.

The identity of the nameless historian defies inquiry. More important is the indirect evidence that accrues, illustrating the methods and merits of Cornelius Tacitus. The Greek biographer was constrained to follow the source fairly closely – though he might abbreviate, he could not transmute, it was beyond his capacity, and it was not his intention. The Roman senator was free to add and subtract, remodel and reinterpret in the light of other sources, his own judgement, and his own artistic sense. Between Plutarch and Tacitus there are a number of discrepancies. W hat no mere catalogue can provide, a few salient examples will establish.

Plutarch relating the adoption of Piso is scrappy and inaccurate.[433] On the news that Vitcllius had been proclaimed by the armies of the Rhine, Galba, telling no man of his purpose, sent for Piso, took him to the camp, and there among the Praetorians announced that Piso was to be his son and successor. Tacitus is careful about the chronology – a dispatch had arrived from the procurator of Gallia Bélgica reporting treason and riot at Moguntiacum on the first day of January, but about Vitellius as yet no certain report, only rumours.[434] Furthermore, Galba now calls a crown council (four dignitaries are mentioned).[435] He reveals his intention and his choice, and asks for Piso to be brought in.

If Tacitus in this matter deserted the source followed by Plutarch, it is no sign of especial perspicacity. To his own judgement and taste will be credited what follows, an oration by the old Emperor. By making Galba discourse on the theory of the Principate, Tacitus expounds, at the outset, a high political theme.[436] Galba seems to speak, as the ‘res publica’ should speak, in sober and lapidary language. He presents in the most convincing form the commonplaces of official eloquence and all the special pleadings of politicians. The facts give the lie – the inept choice of Piso Licinianus to be ruler of Rome. And the obituary notice on Galba seals the condemnatory verdict on an Emperor’s incapacity.

The unknown annalist pays his farewell tribute to Galba eloquently and admirably. It contains phrases that Tacitus might have taken over, such as the antithesis between fame and power;[437] and there is force and point in the description of Galba, an old-fashioned and feeble ruler, dominated no less than was Nero by his ministers and his freedmen.[438] But there is something conventional in the rhetoric, revealed by the evocation of Scipio, Fabricius, and Camillus.[439] Tacitus goes his own way. A series of inimitable epigrams, not neglecting the fact that Galba had been a governor on the Rhine and a proconsul of Africa, culminates in ‘capax imperii nisi imperasset [equal to the imperial office if he had never held it]’.[440]

Taking leave of Galba, Tacitus, before passing on to narrate events on the Rhine, inserts, to facilitate the transition, a passage describing the impact made by the proclamation of Vitellius.[441] Civil war was now imminent between Otho and Vitellius. Men openly lamented that fate should have singled out the vilest persons imaginable to be the ruin of Rome. They recalled the Republic and the ominous names of catastrophe – Pharsalia, Philippi, Perusia, and Mutina. Though the contest for primacy shook the world, the victory of Caesar and the victory of Augustus did not break the empire of Rome; and, had Pompeius prevailed, or had Brutus, the ‘res publica’ would have endured. For which pretender now could men offer up their prayers? Only one thing was certain, ‘deteriorem fore qui vicisset [the victor would be the worse]’. Some now turned their thoughts towards Vespasian and the armies of the East. But Vespasian’s repute was ambiguous as yet.

This is pure Tacitus. He also exploits the mutiny of the Guard. There was probably no speech of the Emperor in Plutarch’s source. Tacitus exhibits a deadly technique. Taken in isolation, or taken literally, the oration seems to disclose a new- and exemplary Otho – not the corrupt and ambitious wrastrel, but a ruler sagacious in discourse on the duties of the military, noble and eloquent when he invokes the majesty of Rome, the destiny of the Empire, the prestige of the Senate.[442]

The facts are enough. Otho was not a ‘vir militaris’, supporting like Sulpicius Galba the plea for order and discipline in the army. He was a usurper, created by plot and assassination, through favour and act of the Guard, and trembling or suppliant when they broke into the Palace. He then behaved unheroically, ‘contra decus imperii’.[443] Otho refers to the Guard as a source of aspirants to the Senate – his words can apply only to the officers, not to the ranks.[444] In honorific appellation (and not contradicted by the statistics of recruitment), he salutes them as ‘Italiae alumni et Romana vere iuventus’.[445] In truth, a pack of ruffians. When the Praetorians wrere converted to a semblance of good behaviour, it wfas due not to their Emperor’s exhortations but to hard cash, five thousand sesterces each man.

Defying and scouting the pretensions of his rival Vitellius, Otho claims that he has the ‘res publica’ and the Senate. W hat do these names avail? The senators dispersed in panic from the imperial banquet; and, when the august assembly is next convened, their behaviour is base, cowardly, and ludicrous.[446]

Otho’s departure from Rome for the war in the North furnishes another welcome opportunity. Plutarch gives a summary statement of Otho’s dispositions, how he chose Vitellius’ brother to be of his company on the journey, saw to it that the mother and the wife of Vitellius should come to no harm, and appointed Flavius Sabinus, Vespasian’s brother, to be Prefect of the City.[447] Tacitus in this context chooses to mention only the brother of Vitellius.[448] He prefers to describe the setting and the atmosphere, to review the sentiments of the different orders – the chief men of the Senate, enfeebled by age or the long years of peace, the nobilitas that had lost the taste and tradition of warfare, and the unmilitary knights. Under a false show of alacrity, they only paraded their fears. Some went out in all the pride of horse and armour, others with the equipment of luxury and vice. The prudent thought of peace and the Commonwealth, while others, frivolous or impoverished, were borne up by vain hopes, seeking salvation or profit from hazard and danger.[449]

Such was the Emperor’s retinue. Tacitus appends a digression on the emotions of the mob, now made to feel, for the first time since Augustus established the imperial system, the impact of civil war in its discomforts, its shortages, and its apprehensions.[450] Warfare had been far away, on the frontiers of the Empire. The attempt of Arruntius Camillus, rising against Claudius Caesar, had been crushed as soon as heard of. Rumour, not arms, overthrew Nero. But now a long war was in prospect, with all the resources of West and East. There is nothing of this cither in Plutarch.

On the day of his setting forth, the Emperor summoned an assembly and spoke, extolling among other things the majesty of Rome and the unanimous loyalty of Senate and People.[451] The speech was not his own composition, so it was believed – and some could recognize the manner of Galerius Trachalus, ample and sonorous, familiar and long-famed in the courts of law, and well suited to impress the populace.[452] The adverse comment on the style of Galerius is palpably an addition of the historian who was also an orator, able to achieve solemnity without bombast. The next words tell what he thought of the populace. Their applause was loud and dishonest, as usual. They vied in zeal and devotion as though in attendance upon Caesar the Dictator or Caesar Augustus, but it was servility they took pleasure in, like the slaves of a household, each for his own advantage, and with no feeling for the dignity of the Commonwealth.

Tacitus’ mastery over his materials is further signalized in the prelude to the Battle of Bedriacum. The historical sources reported a strange rumour: the opposing armies might refuse to fight, they might come to an agreement, electing the best candidate among the generals or leaving the choice to the Senate. That was why Otho’s generals counselled delay, especially Suetonius Paullinus (according to Tacitus), for he was the senior consular and invested with the honour of warfare in Britain. In Plutarch’s view the report about the legionaries seems to carry credence. Their ancestors had fought and suffered in the wars of Marius and Sulla, of Pompeius and Caesar; to endure the same fate on behalf of Otho or Vitellius, to treat the imperial power as a plaything for a wastrel or a glutton, that was abominable. Such beyond doubt were the feelings of those soldiers who had the genuine Roman stamp, disciplined in body and soberly reflective.[453]

The consular historian blights and withers these ingenuous and fanciful speculations.[454] In the silence of their hearts a few men may have prayed for peace and a virtuous emperor. But it was an indecent paradox to credit the criminal soldiery' with such innocuous yearnings. Suetonius Paullinus knew better. Moreover, the heterogeneous armies could never have discovered any spring of common action— and most of the officers, needy, avid, and vicious, wanted a prince as depraved as themselves, and docile in return for services rendered.

Tacitus is not content to denounce the troops and their commanders. He fastens on the theme as an excuse for a digression on the love of power; and he evokes the civil wars of the Republic as a device for exposing the gullibility of other historians.[455] Marius, the lowest of the plebs, and Sulla, most savage of the nobiles, crushed by force of arms the liberties of the Commonwealth and installed despotism instead. Not so naked the ambitions of Pompeius, but not less evil. The only prize contended for thereafter was the supreme power. At Pharsalia and at Philippi the legions did not lay down their arms. Much less would the troops of Otho and Vitellius have agreed to renounce fighting. The anger of the gods, and human ambitions, rabid and murderous, impelled them to strife, as before.

Speeches and historical comment of this order are convincing examples of Tacitus’ independence and-power. He also supplements his source or sources with items drawn from official records. By his rank the senator is a part of history, and tradition commands him to write history from the point of view of the high assembly. Not the Senate but Caesar now directed policy. Yet the Senate still had its share. If that share might seem small and passive, the Senate was none the less the body that heard and registered the decisions of the government; its debates provided a running commentary on events, instructive though not unfettered, a judicial calendar, and a dated chronicle. The archives of the Senate were properly kept.[456] The acta contained the record of proposals that might have been forgotten (especially when no action followed), and significant facts not otherwise to be known.[457]

The study of documentary sources had recently been refined and perfected by men of learning. How it was done for the last age of the Republic could be seen in the recent work of Asconius, the Patavine scholar, familiar no doubt to the highly educated senator. Where the acta could help, Tacitus had recourse to them.[458] Indispensable for Domitian’s reign, the acta might yet be of use for the early books, supplying what the military narrations lacked.

Tо achieve dignity or intensity the consular historian discards mere facts without compunction. At the same time, by resort to the acta he brings in other particulars, and constrains, as far as possible, his narrative to take its direction and its colouring from the Senate. Thus Piso, after being adopted by Galba and presented to the troops, comes before the Senate and delivers a speech: the various sentiments and ambitions of the senators arc indicated.[459] Further, the high assembly decides to send an embassy to the German armies, but for one reason or another (and most of them discreditable), no action ensues.[460] Of these transactions Plutarch’s account takes no notice.

Subsequently, after Otho’s accession, arrangements about the consulates of the year are registered, also priesthoods for elderly senators or young nobles returning from exile. And three senators regain rank. They had been condemned for extortion under Claudius and Nero: a clement and dishonest interpretation now made them out to be victims of ‘maiestas’.[461] The names clearly derive from the acta senatus, being noted and selected for the sake of the historian’s satirical comment.

Similarly, in a later place, after Otho has departed for the North, a small detail but significant for the purposes of Tacitus. Vibius Crispus, conspicuous for wealth, influence, and eloquence, arraigned before the Senate a minor informer, and at last secured his conviction, not without discredit to himself— for his own conduct had not been above reproach.[462] Vibius Crispus is scarcely relevant to events in 69, to the fall of Galba, the war of Otho and Vitellius, or the defeat of the Vitellian armies. But Vibius Crispus is close to the central theme of political history – and so is Eprius Marcellus.[463]

That theme emerges powerfully in Book IV of the Historiae. Tacitus recounts in some detail the first meeting of the Senate after the fall of Vitellius, towards the end of December 69.[464] Various motions were submitted and approved. First, the Senate confirmed the powers of the new Princeps, it heard dispatches from Vespasian and from Mucianus, and voted a number of victory honours. Then Helvidius Priscus expressed an opinion. Tacitus inserts an estimate of his character, which suitably introduces the next stage in proceedings – a renewed attack on Eprius Marcellus, prompted and excused by a dispute about the method of selecting an embassy to Vespasian. The assault was vigorous, but Eprius made a firm and statesmanlike defence – of himself and of any who had striven to serve the State under bad emperors. Helvidius was frustrated. Nor was he able to carry his point when urging that the Senate should undertake two matters of moment, namely financial economies and the rebuilding of the Capitol, instead of leaving them to the Emperor. Helvidius’ conduct was noted and remembered. Finally, Musonius Rufus intervened. His proposal to visit condign punishment upon Egnatius Celer, the philosopher and false friend who had testified against Barea Soranus four years previously, was postponed to the next session, and the debate closed.

After an interval in his narrative Tacitus reverts to the Senate with a report of debates held on January 1, 70, and for several days thereafter.[465] The high assembly transacted various items of business. They condemned Egnatius Celer, defended though he was by Demetrius the Cynic. The motion of Junius Mauricus calling for access to the private papers of the Caesars was referred to Vespasian. A number of informers came under fire. One of them rounded on his persecutor, the great Vibius Crispus, with a damaging allegation of complicity. The principal episode was the savage oration of a certain Curtius Montanus against Aquillius Regulus. Though unsuccessful, the action excited such warm approbation that Helvidius was emboldened to set upon his enemy once again. Eprius made as though to leave the house, truculently, and Vibius, smooth and smiling, joined him, but their friends induced them to stay. Much wrangling followed, and the day ended.

When the Senate met again, the young Caesar Domitian spoke for an amnesty, and Mucianus supported his plea. The Senate agreed to drop all proceedings against political offenders. To save prestige, however, and dispel any notion of general impunity for crimes committed under Nero, two senators arc sternly re-directed to the islands of their penalty; traditionalist sentiments are gratified when a town in Italy is rebuked for gross disrespect towards a member of the Senate; and the conviction of a minor proconsul terminates the session. Then, after a short interlude (trouble with the Praetorians), there is another meeting, with several items, including a proposal for a government loan.[466]

The account of these debates goes back to the official register of the Senate. Tacitus looked for himself. T o deny it could only be ignorance or bigotry. The report carries impeccable precision and detail. Thus the debates of January 70 furnish the names of more than thirty persons in half a dozen chapters. Some of them, but only a minority, were to recur in the history of the period. But the historian did not confine himself to reproducing and stylizing the acta\ the narrative is interwoven with free composition of his own.

Though the speeches of senators may not have been consigned to the official record, but only perhaps a summary along with the ‘sentential some orations had no doubt been published.[467] The historian could not perhaps operate in all liberty: yet it was enough if he kept to the main heads of argument, treating them in his own fashion and in his own order. What Tacitus invents comes from his own experience or insight, namely the various comments on the sentiments of the high assembly, for example how they disapproved the arrogance of Mucianus’ dispatch;[468] how in an altercation the majority was sound, but a powerful minority was pertinacious and resentful.[469] Again, characteristically Tacitean is the reference to the set speeches of persons marked by high eminence or long practice in adulation.[470] And the historian was able to exhibit his talent on the unwonted theme of praise and sympathy when producing a character sketch of Helvidius Priscus.[471] All in all, the account of these transactions reveals scruple of investigation and candour of comment.

Finally, with like mastery Tacitus deliberately omits facts. The unknown annalist had a certain propensity to anecdote. Tacitus jettisons his story about Galba and the flute-player;[472] and he passes over the alleged total of Otho’s debts.[473] Plutarch’s account of the killing of Galba in the Forum contains the names of four soldiers. Tacitus has only three. He had deliberately suppressed the fourth, and with it an ugly detail – the bald head of Sulpicius Galba.[474] The senator’s insistence upon the solemnity of his style and his theme is manifest. Plutarch’s Vitellius has not survived, but the Latin biographer can help, furnishing from the same presumed source a precise and curious report of the Emperor’s revolting end.[475] The last to desert Vitellius were his baker and his cook. Tacitus alludes to them as the meanest of his establishment.[476] Vitellius stowed himself away in the porter’s lodge, with the dog chained in front, and the bed and mattress as a barrier. In Tacitus no detail, but only a ‘shameful hiding-place’.[477] The mob cast mud or excrement on their victim, mocked his red face and great belly, and mangled his body. Tacitus is reticent: they reviled Vitellius with the same baseness with which they had fawned upon him when alive.[478]

Tacitus does not merely eschew the squalid and disgusting. Instead, he emphasizes the feelings of the unfortunate Emperor – his terror at the silence and solitude of the Palace.[479] And, to terminate the scene, a balanced obituary. Vitellius’ rank and prominence was due not to any merits of his own, but to his parentage. His supporters did not know him. Though slothful, he gained the affections of the soldiery, lie had certain qualities, such as frankness and generosity. Lacking character, he tried to win friends by paying for them, and failed. That Vitellius should be destroyed was a good thing for Rome, but no credit to his betrayers.[480]

Of Tacitus’ bold independence in the selection of material and the construction of a narrative, the proof is overpowering. Plutarch’s Galba and Otho have not infrequently been invoked to support an extreme and dogmatic thesis, that Cornelius Tacitus for the most part was content to follow a single source. The resemblances have been much exaggerated. On the contrary, it appears that he operated with great freedom and discernment, and he could call at will on the supplementary devices of historical exposition – speeches, digressions, and character sketches. The unknown annalist was an important source in the first two books of the Historiae, and a good source – clear, accurate, and eloquent, although with limitations: he was perhaps not a senator. Other accounts were available, and Tacitus was well equipped to assess them, even if he had not known most of the authors. Tacitus refers a number of times to a plurality of sources, and he must be believed.[481] He used each according to its value. For information Tacitus had recourse to recent writers.[482] His personal knowledge should be rated very high.[483] His models, however, were the classic historians of Rome who recounted the civil wars of the Republic and the strife for power, the fall of the Free State, the establishment of the monarchy.

[...]

 

XVIII. Bias and Equity

Being political, it was difficult for Roman historiography not to be partisan. Banished from the conduct of affairs but not remote from the spectacle, the statesman in his retreat, under a fine show of detachment, prosecuted his ideals or his feuds, with a sharp edge against his enemies, a heavy indictment against the younger generation. In the writing of history, Sallust discovered solace for disappointment, Asinius Pollio an apologia for success, not without rancour. Livy was not a senator, and Livy in certain respects is an incongruous figure in the succession of the annalists, Republican and imperial. Yet Livy’s wrork is a panegyric on the Roman People, a defence of its dominion over the nations.

Sallust is peculiarly vulnerable. He had been a partisan of Caesar; and it has been claimed that his first monograph is no better than a political pamphlet, cunningly contrived to disculpate Caesar from suspicion of any share in Catilinarian designs. An extreme opinion. What partiality Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae shows for Caesar is not outrageous. The balanced confrontation between Caesar and Cato is candid and admirable.[484] Perhaps Cato comes off best; and, although Sallust could not fail to admire Caesar, he could not wholly approve him either.[485]

Sallust’s treatment of Cicero is also in question. The Senate had passed the ultimate decree, and the Senate by debate and vote decided the fate of the conspirators. The role and importance of the consul could be variously estimated.[486] Sallust has done him less than justice.[487] Sallust certainly felt a deep antipathy. He declared it best in his own fashion—by the curious and elaborate creation of an anti-Ciceronian prose style.[488]

The Bellum Jugurthinum can be impugned for its treatment of persons and parties, its artful subversion of the nobiles. And what is known or surmised of the Historiae is far from reassuring.[489] Yet Sallust as he went on made progress not only in technique but in insight, revealing the struggle for power behind the words and pretexts and exposing the fraudulent demagogue as well as the fraudulent conservative.

If his standpoint seemed to become moral rather than political, that was not unmixed gain for an historian. He was liable to be influenced by conventional antitheses between virtue and vice, between energy and sloth, by the inevitable contrast between integrity and civic unity in the ancient days and the rapacity, corruption, and violence that marked the Republic in its last and evil epoch. On a severe interpretation, his moralizing is rudimentary, the character-drawing schematic; the prologues of the two monographs are an amalgam of commonplaces, redeemed from tedium and triviality only by a merciful crispness and brevity.[490] It was asserted, indeed, that they had little relation to the subject.[491] A facile dealer in ethical generalizations could supply a prologue for the asking, and even accumulate a stock.[492] Sallust was not a rapid composer. If the products of his long labours exhibit concentrated gravity and stylistic finish, the material is none the less derivative. The fear of the foreign enemy as a factor constraining the Romans to practise virtue, discipline, and concord is present in both monographs and recurs in the Historiae.[493]

The Sallustian virtues, essential to any history that deserved the name, might not be wholly conducive to a serene judgement. That he will be strictly impartial every Roman annalist proclaims at the outset (and parody echoes the profession).[494] In the preface of the Historiae Tacitus asseverates that he has no personal cause for being unfair to any one of the three rulers Galba, Otho, Vitellius.[495] It does not follow that he must be exempt from strong feelings of one kind or another, devoid of honest prejudice.

Detestation of the soldiery, respect for the ‘res publica’, and admiration for the ancient names might suggest and condone a sympathetic portrayal of the tragedy of Sulpicius Galba. Tacitus refuses to relent. Galba was an anachronism – ‘nocuit antiquus rigor et nimia severitas cui iam pares non sumus’,[496] Forbidding but inert, Galba only shows signs of life and interest when money and discipline are concerned. If Tacitus seems over-harsh, there are the anecdotes of Suetonius for corroboration.[497] Galba used to say that a man ought not to be called to account for what he does out of hours.[498] That was not the opinion held at Rome in the days of the Scipiones.[499]

Otho by contrast – affable, pliant, and corrupt – belonged to his own epoch, a choice luxury product of the Neronian court. It is on Otho when he resolves to end his life that the historian lavishes the resources of talent and sympathy, with the setting of a drama, with magnificent eloquence in farewell, with noble words of consolation for friends and family – and no hint that the capitulation of his forces is imminent or already transacted.[500] What draws Tacitus is manifest. Not merely the opportunity to portray a theatrical suicide, such as the taste of the Romans took delight in, but a suicide more truly to be commended than when a good man took his own life in ostentatious rectitude, but with no advantage to the Commonwealth. Otho’s resolution averted any further shedding of Roman blood in civil war. Other rulers fail by contrast. Nero could not summon energy for action, or dignity at the end. Vitellius, when his armies were lost, sank into lethargy like a fat animal.[501] He let the futile struggle go on, incompetent even to manage aright his own abdication. The artifice of Tacitus is patent. No deception, no conflict with what the historian has previously revealed about the character, actions, and repute of Otho. Tacitus is quite clear. He sets it on record that Otho had been feared and detested much more than Vitellius.[502]

Civil war was the worst of evils, worse even than submitting to tyranny. That verdict was enunciated, not by some time-server or apologist of the monarchy, but by Favonius, the friend of Cato and of Brutus.[503] Nor did the Romans have any confidence in a happy outcome of the armed strife between citizens. When the last of the faction- leaders prevailed, and, consolidating his power, turned for support to good men, the monarchy was accepted as a necessity, not with enthusiasm. The Roman historians were averse from a mere pragmatic justification of success. Tacitus goes so far as to assert that Vespasian was the only one of all the Caesars who changed for the better;[504] and he condemns any ascription of patriotic motives to the traitors who helped Vespasian to power.[505]

Detesting civil strife and suspicious of power and success, Tacitus achieves a sombre and savage impartiality in the portrayal of the crime and violence of the year 69. Tacitus is harsh and bitter, offering no consolation anywhere. His despair is engendered by the contrasts between word and fact, between ambitions and achievement, by the tragic vicissitudes of men and governments. It has yet to be proved that acerbity or gloom is detrimental in an historian.[506]

Tacitus sometimes resorts to sarcasm or a ferocious humour. When the Flavian army drew near Rome, a senatorial embassy went out but was roughly handled, the praetor Junius Rusticus being wounded. Musonius Rufus, though by rank not a senator, had thrust himself on the mission, and Musonius fell foul of the troops when with ‘intempestiva sapientia [untimely moralizing]’ he tried to read them a lecture on the blessings of peace: ‘id plerisque ludibrio, pluribus taedio [many were moved to ridicule by his words, more were bored].’[507] Vespasian at Alexandria was solicited to try his hand at miraculous healing. The diagnosis of medical men is quoted, in professional language pompously stylized. They pronounce for an experiment, for such may well be the will of Providence – and, if it succeeds, glory for the Princeps; if not, the ridicule will fall on the poor cripples.[508]

Irony is all-pervasive, not only in detail or comment, when a brief phrase quickly discloses some supreme incongruity, but in the setting of whole transactions. Men of taste looked for splendour and majesty in orations composed by Cornelius Tacitus. They came upon other qualities as well – and some very disconcerting.

The Emperor Galba delivers a discourse conveying two main arguments – constitutional government against despotism, adoption in preference to blood and kin.[509] This has a clear bearing upon events in Tacitus’ own time – Nerva’s rule with its claim to unite ‘libertas’ with the ‘principatus’, and Nerva’s choice of the best man as partner and successor.[510] One step more, and it can be held that the historian took the doctrine for valid and was urgent to enjoin it.[511]

The antithesis is obvious between legitimate authority and despotic ppwer. It had been formulated long ago, and published often since – and it was suspect to any man of understanding. The phraseology allotted to Galba is conventional, resembling the legends on coinage, and to be assessed accordingly. Galba alleges that he has been summoned to rule ‘deorum hominumque consensu’.[512] In fact, his elevation was due to force and accident, and his regime was now collapsing.

Interpreted in the light of Galba’s predicament, Galba’s oration takes on a different colouring. Rising against Nero, Galba asserted the cause of Senate and People against tyranny.[513] A rebel had no choice, or any other plea. Choosing Piso Licinianus to be ruler for Rome, Galba proclaimed that he was following a principle – ‘optimum quemque adoptio inveniet [adoption will select only the best]’.[514] The adoption itself was an act of despair, ‘remedium unicum [only remedy]’.[515] Galba having no son (or close kin whom he approved and trusted) could not establish a dynasty of his own blood, but did what was nearest to that.

Even honest Piso in his speech cannot tell the entire truth. He glides over violence at Galba’s accession (and bloodshed subsequently), he adjures the Praetorians not to create a pernicious precedent – as though Galba had not been proclaimed emperor by an army in the provinces.[516]

It should seem that the historian Tacitus, so far from ingenuously commending a political doctrine, is employing the same demolitionary technique that presents Otho with a magnificent peroration on the Roman Senate and the ‘aeternitas’ of Rome and the Empire.[517]

The quality of rulers mattered more than any theory or programme. After the end of Julii and Claudii Galba came to the power, the scion of the patrician Sulpicii, but failed in the task; and emperors from the newer stocks, Otho and Vitellius, were found incompetent. Tacitus put emphasis upon the personality of the successive rulers. The crisis of the year 69 was wider: it concerned the whole governing class, and the system of rule. Is Tacitus adequate in his diagnosis of the events he describes?[518]

The causes were various, and the crisis took many shapes. Tacitus, it appears, does full justice. So far as known, his Historiae demonstrate for the first time the full impact of provinces and armies on the Roman government.

The rule of the Caesars had its root and origin in military power. It was their necessary function to protect the frontiers of empire and keep the legions under control. The Caesars, while professing a civilian authority at Rome, had also managed to install a garrison. Hence a plain duty also to curb the Guard.

Nero’s fall gave the impulsion to a sequence of catastrophes. The purple being in open competition, the armed forces broke loose, and the resources of the provinces came into play, imperilling the fabric of empire and the established order of society. Civil war whetted the appetites of the lower classes – the plebs of Rome and the soldiers.[519] Then the subject peoples become involved, tribal rebellions ensued, and danger from the outer nations, as in that earlier age of tribulation, to abate which the monarchy emerged, rescuing the senatorial order and slowing down the process of revolution.

The lesson was enforced once again. Stability demanded a strong monarchy. The steady decline of the Senate would continue. If Galba conceived any programme of ‘constitutional’ government, it was never carried out. As the facts duly reported by Tacitus demonstrate, secret politics prevailed, as before, and a camarilla governed.[520] Nothing in Galba’s reign implies that the Senate as a body had regained authority.

Nor does Tacitus admit any substance behind the professions of an Otho or a Vitellius.[521] Liberty dawned for a brief moment after the fall of Vitellius. It was slight and fallacious. Quarrels broke out in the Senate, and personal feuds revived, with a chance to discredit or destroy some of the agents of despotism. Tacitus provides a vivid and accurate description of several debates.[522]

A scene and setting such as he knew well from his own experiences. Tacitus brings in Eprius Marcellus, to admonish Helvidius Priscus in tones of quiet reason, and contribute a statesmanlike defence of neutrals and time-servers, using words the like of which Tacitus had heard—or had used himself. There were other resemblances, large and small, to the reign of Nerva. Tacitus does not neglect the opportunity to exhibit a speech in fierce denunciation of a notorious prosecutor.[523]

Nothing came of all the talk and exertions (except that a few minor offenders were condemned). That too was a familiar outcome. The subtle Mucianus brought forward an appeal for amnesty, and the ‘patres’ w'ent no further in their aspirations to ‘libertas’. They were able to satisfy their honour by rebuking an Italian town that had shown disrespect to a Roman senator.

So far the Senate in the first days of Vespasian’s reign. The larger actors of future scenes have been clearly delineated. Licinius Mucianus is thrown into prominence by the character-sketch coming so early in Book I;[524] and, soon after the beginning of Book IV, Helvidius Priscus earns a full-length presentation. The clash with Eprius Marcellus is announced in ominous language, momentarily disclosing the theme of ‘saeva pax’.[525]

Tacitus reproduced, in a proper and pessimistic vein, the traditional matter of civil war. That was only one part of his Historiae. The larger portion, after the establishment of peace and order, dealt with the rule of the Flavian dynasty, bright hopes at first, but turning towards oppression and ending in catastrophe. The later books would bring both his honesty and his industry to a more exacting trial.

Tacitus owed status and advancement to the Flavian House—and especially to the Emperor Domitian. He did not allow that to distort his account of Vespasian and Titus. If there was undue prepossession in their favour, it was engendered by the historian’s views about Domitian. How far was impartiality possible or even desirable in the portrayal of a tyrant?

From a persuasion of the complexity of things and a distaste for conventional and schematic judgements, Tacitus insists that both sides of a question be given a hearing—and every aspect of a personality be reckoned with. If he lights upon a character perfectly blended with good and evil components, it is sheer felicity. Elsewhere an acknowledged villain earns a partial or temporary condonation because he governed a province with integrity, displayed desperate energy', or died like a brave man. Tacitus likes to throw in a discordant detail or a subversive annotation. Not content to redeem the wicked, his equity or malice operates to undermine the virtuous by exposing conduct foolish, tiresome, or unprofitable.

It had been easy enough to produce a Domitian, a crafty tyrant as a foil to the discreet and patriotic virtues of Agricola: an encomium permitted licence and exaggeration, and some of the devices there employed by Tacitus were not at all creditable. An historian’s task was different. He had to deal with a long and complicated series of events, with the interplay of numerous factors—and with the theme of the imperial power as influenced, not merely by the character of the ruler but by the secret politics of the governmental oligarchy, by accident, intrigue, or conspiracy.

There were many features for praise in the general administration of Domitian, and he enforced exemplary behaviour on provincial governors.[526] The industry and vigilance of the despot made him the more formidable and the more detestable. Some of the credit might go (it is true) to the policy of his predecessors being continued, to wise counsellors, and to agents who served the Empire rather than the Emperor; and behind certain measures of penalty or amelioration might be suspected an envious and cruel nature. Pretence and guile was the orthodox explanation for the good deeds of a bad ruler, inevitable to men who knew Domitian— and irresistible to the historian Tacitus. He would trace the whole process, how that prince, after a fair show of moderation and clemency, gradually, through the licence and impunity of unlimited power, allowed his ambitions to develop, his true nature to be revealed (like so many Caesars before him), and finally, from pressure of anger and fear, became a monster of iniquity: ‘ilia immanissima belua.’[527]

Various problems of design and balance confronted an author narrating the whole period from 69 to 96. How and where should he divide the work into its two halves? And how dispose each hexad – three groups of two books or two triads?[528] Furthermore, the annalistic fabric: the end of a book might not always fit the end of a year.[529]

Book V opens with the preliminaries to the Roman siege of Jerusalem. It breaks off with the rebellion on the Rhine already collapsing and Julius Civilis in negotiation for a surrender with Petillius Cerialis.[530] There is no means of ascertaining whether this book ended with the fall of the city (in September of 70), with the joint triumph of Vespasian and Titus in the next summer, or at some later point.[531]

Upon the Jewish triumph of 71 followed another ceremony, announcing that peace prevailed by land and sea throughout the world. The Temple of Janus was closed.[532] Much remained to be done. Though order had been restored in Judaea and on the Rhine, every frontier and every province, damaged in some way or at least neglected since the first disturbances that brought down Nero, called for attention – to say nothing of the capital, the Senate, the whole social and governmental framework.[533] The work of repair was symbolized by the censorship of Vespasian and Titus. There was enough material to carry Book V down to the end of 73 – and a dramatic episode was ready to come early in the next book.

The main themes of imperial annals are the wars (foreign and civil) and the relations between Princcps and Senate. The first session of the high assembly after the Flavian forces have captured Rome displays a senator in opposition – Helvidius Priscus. The final clash came some years later, in 74 (so it appears).[534] Vespasian, for all his good sense, became annoyed under criticism; Helvidius was tactless; and Mucianus, the chief minister, never tired of denouncing philosophers as a menace to all ordered government.[535] Helvidius went in for pernicious and subversive doctrines, so it was alleged.[536] He was banished, and later executed against the wish (it was explained) of the Emperor.[537] One of the chief agents in the ruin of Helvidius may be divined – his enemy, Eprius Marcellus, that savage speaker: Eprius was consul for the second time in 74. And one of the historian’s devices may also be divined – an oration from Helvidius Priscus asserting a senator’s dignity and the right of free speech.[538]

For the rest, there was plenty to make up a record if a man had an eye for selection, variety, and digression. The decease of some notable personage, last link with a past age, would be duly chronicled;[539] and there were odd events at Rome or abroad.[540] Frontier operations, even if inconsiderable in themselves, gained significance from the generals who conducted them – the leading men in the military oligarchy, some consular already under Nero, but others (the majority) active or lucky in the recent civil wars. Thus Petillius Cerialis and Julius Frontinus in Britain, or Ulpius Traianus the governor of Syria, averting by prompt action a threat from the Parthians.[541]  Other persons, known to Tacitus, or known as the parents of his coevals, will have taken his fancy for various reasons (and not all for praise).

Some had been quietly noted in the earlier books.[542] Above all, Tacitus would be drawn to the astute survivors, the advocates he had heard, and the great names for senatorial eloquence.[543] As a dramatic and paradoxical finale there offered that conspiracy in the last year of Vespasian (unexplained, and surely never proved) which joined in calamity Eprius Marcellus, the loyal agent of despotism, and Caecina Alienus, who had betrayed Vitellius.

Vespasian’s funeral was remembered for a fine performance by the actor who impersonated the dead man, jokes and all.[544] Though solemn history could not have admitted more than a brief hint of comedy, or a dignified periphrasis, the ceremony, calling up the paradoxical fortunes of a Sabine parvenu, would inspire contrasted verdicts among the spectators, not without malice or sinister forecasts. Not everybody was happy at the prospect of Titus. Men spoke of luxury and cruelty and a second Nero; and the killing of Caecina Alienus was a heavy load for the new ruler.[545]

If the missing portions of Book V along with another book be held adequate to contain the reign of Vespasian down to his death in the summer of 79, a neat solution emerges. The second hexad of the Historiae was devoted to the sons of Vespasian, one book for Titus and five for the fifteen years of Domitian.[546]

The Historiae are something more than a story of emperors. If there is contrast in the Flavian dynasty, there is also continuity. Titus is not merely the heir of Vespasian – he had been partner in the power almost from the outset. The first period of Domitian’s rule (81–85) shows no great change from what had gone before, and the same ministers of state are there.[547] Things began to go wrong with the disasters on the Danube. Two Domitianic books (the one mainly of peace, the other of war) would carry the story to the end of 88. The next year, with Antonius Saturninus proclaimed emperor at Moguntiacum on the first day of January, marked a decisive turn for the worse in Domitian’s rule.[548] It gave the historian a year beginning with sharp action, to recall 69. The events concorded miraculously with the demands of structure. Three books thus become available for the tyranny of Domitian.

On this hypothesis the twelve books of the Historiae acquire firm proportions. The first hexad splits into two halves, namely, Books I–III with the civil wars (Galba, Otho, and Vitellius), and IV–VI with the reign of Vespasian (foreign war on the Rhine and in Judaea, and war succeeded by ordered government). The second hexad also divides. Its first half recounts inner stability and the dynastic' succession, passing before the end to the Danubian wars; while the second is devoted to the rest of Domitian’s reign, from 89 to 96. Thus the last three books of the Historiae form a pendant to the first three, the Domitianic tyranny matching the ‘longus et unus annus’ in which three emperors met their doom.

A brief summary will illustrate the presumed scope and design of the second hexad. Although Titus, ‘amor ac deliciae generis humani’, was cut off after two years and two months (79–81), that brief felicity could expand without discomfort to the bulk of a book – the shows and games when the Flavian Amphitheatre was dedicated, the eruption of Vesuvius, the disastrous conflagration at Rome, and a great pestilence; and for further variety would be invoked Julius Agricola advancing far to the north in his third British campaign,[549] or the strange story of a false Nero who appeared in Asia, gathered a company about him, and marched to the river Euphrates.[550]

To Domitian at the outset of his reign the historian might concede moderate and even meritorious actions (not without incrimination of motive). Domitian’s first military action was deliberate and felicitous. In 83 he marched against the Chatti. The truth demanded that the war against the Chatti be explained not as a cheap and fraudulent substitute for genuine glory (the device in the Agricola), but as a considerable operation, securing the whole frontier of Upper Germany, the credit, however, to belong to the Emperor’s military advisers, among them persons like Julius Frontinus.[551] Future developments, however, were quickly foreshadowed in the scandals of the Palace – Domitian first quarrelled with his consort (Domitia Longiną, the daughter of Corbulo), and then was reconciled, yet before long he lived openly with his own niece, Julia the daughter of Titus, whose husband Flavius Sabinus he killed. Further, moral legislation and the title of ‘censor perpetuus’, which he assumed in the year 85, disclosed the rigid authoritarian.

From this point onwards an historian’s architecture was firmly and elegantly prescribed by the events – the three crises of the reign, two foreign and one internal. The first began with trouble on the Danube – ‘nobilitatus cladibus mutuis Dacus [he Dacians won fame by defeats inflicted and suffered]’.[552] A Roman army was destroyed in Moesia; and soon after, in the invasion of Dacia, occurred the disaster of Cornelius Fuscus, the Prefect of the Guard. Tacitus (it happens to be on record) here imitated Sallust and other writers, refusing to reveal the total of the dead in Roman disasters.[553] An excursus on the Dacians was requisite, and not to be compiled without some study – none of his predecessors among the Roman annalists, so far as known, can have furnished it.[554] And, to set off and enhance calamity on the frontiers of empire, there was pageantry at the capital  – in 86 the institution of the Capitoline Games, in 88 the Ludi Saeculares. Being a member of the sacerdotal college that officiated when the new era was inaugurated, Cornelius Tacitus had scope for knowledge and for irony.[555]

The year 89 opened the next act of the tragedy – a new civil war, but terminated with unexpected rapidity. Then, before the settlement with Dacia (there had been a Roman victory before the end of the previous year), hostilities supervened with Rome’s vassals beyond the middle course of the Danube – Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatians. The Emperor’s celebrations, in summer or autumn of 89, were exposed to damaging comment: no civil war can provide a Roman victory, Dacia had not been conquered, Domitian was triumphing not over foreign enemies but over the legions he had lost.[556] As a suitable sequel came a disaster in Pannonia in 92. Domitian went to the seat of war. His pomp and indolence (instead of marching he preferred to be transported along the rivers) no doubt was set against the hardships of the troops and the silent anger of the generals on his staff, frustrated of action and glory.[557]

So far the foreign wars. In the next year began the internal crisis, with the eradication of the opposition group and the curbing of the Senate. The tyranny was at its height. Though Domitian reduced the Senate to servitude and complicity, and found (so it seems) the right men to hold the armies, his alarm and suspicion became morbid and murderous. The Flavian insistence on dynastic succession proved fatal to the family. In 95 Domitian put to death the nearest in kin, his cousin, Flavius Clemens, a person lacking talent or energy, and banished Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Clemens.[558] The catastrophe of the line was not long delayed.

The year 96 was marked by celestial phenomena without precedent, by portents and omens, and by astrological predictions, some delusive and some verified.[559] The scepticism of Tacitus did not debar him from resort to such effects to deepen the atmosphere of gloom and apprehension. Domitian, pacing the halls of the Palatine by night, sleepless and alone, tortured by his crimes and his fears, was a subject worthy of the historian who recounted the last hours and the end of Vitellius; and the Historias, which began with an emperor murdered in the Roman Forum by the Praetorian Guard, terminate with the assassination of a despot in his bedchamber.

 

XX. Hadrianus Augustus

[...]

Trajan when he came to the power was aged forty-four. Like Trajan, Hadrian succeeded young to the purple, younger even than his predecessor – he was only forty-one. Trajan reached and passed the climacteric, but did not survive to complete another year, while Hadrian was cut short during the ominous sixty-third. For both princes a long tenure might confidently have been predicted. Fate robbed Trajan of his Parthian triumph, also of his Vicennalia’. Hadrian celebrated that anniversary, but without pomp or emphasis, and died soon after in his twenty-first regnal year.

The parallel is close, but fortuitous, and such coincidences are more for the vulgar than for men of understanding. In all things else, so it should seem, the divergence is sharp, the contrast antithetic between reigns and rulers: war and peace, a soldier and a scholar. Trajan seized the imperial power, Hadrian succeeded to it on a claim that was not the less dynastic because not properly announced and prepared. Each, it is true, had passed through the sequence of offices and commands to the consulate, each assumed authority only after long subordination. But the experience was not comparable. While the one had merely to play the sturdy and stylized role of loyal servant to an autocrat, the other, something more than a senator, something less than a crown prince, endured under the eye of his formidable kinsman an apprenticeship from which he might be emancipated too late, if at all. Trajan, by virtue of his accession, rescuing order, peace, and the ‘res publica’, found it easy to enact the show of an Augustan principate, and not least through his own training and personal tastes. Trajan, like Augustus, wanted power, and regarded theory with indifference. Hadrian was hampered by a tortuous character, a keen intellect, and an intensive education.

It is not easy for a ruler to be wholly equitable towards the man marked out to take his place. Trajan could spare himself the effort. The tastes and pursuits of his young kinsman were not at all to his liking – but an added irritant, if they engaged the sympathetic interest of Plotina, who was a subtle and cultivated woman. There was much to draw them together, and perhaps their age as well.[560] Hence, at the least, an amiable propensity in Plotina. Scandal added something more.[561] The Imperator, from uncongenial, may have become crudely oppressive to his wife. Some of his habits are known. And, where Trajan paraded rank and authority, the younger man was prone to see pomposity and inhumanity. Never reluctant to encounter his inferiors, Hadrian comported himself with ease as any man’s equal.[562]

Moreover, Trajan could invoke an excuse, the ‘res publica’ (specious and not quite honest), for deferring the claims of Hadrian; and, if the Imperator gave a thought to the reigns of Caesar Augustus and Tiberius Caesar, he might discover a reason for quiet confidence, hoping to outlive an heir who was only twenty-three years his junior. All of which Hadrian saw. He was constrained to dissemble – and his personality hardened and sharpened under the pressure of an unavowed animosity.

Hadrian’s character was various and peculiar.[563] Of a wondrous native aptitude, he grasped with ease and avidity all arts, all sciences. He wrote abundantly, prose and verse (the poems were marred by preciosity and obscurity), he excelled in painting, music, and sculpture. With a phenomenal memory, decided tastes in literature (he turned with aversion from the Latin classics to the early writers), and no reluctance to talk and argue, Hadrian was a blessing to artists and professors – and a peril, because of the polymath’s pride and jealousy, for he would always mock, contemn, and crush them. When the Emperor tried to force his own plans on the great architect Apollodorus, an angry retort ensued, a quarrel – and Apollodorus was put to death, so it was alleged. The sophist Favorinus, an ostentatious celebrity, took refuge for once in discretion: who can argue with the master of thirty legions?

[...]

 

XXI. The Structure of the Annales

Cornelius Tacitus decided to begin with the death of Augustus. W hat survives of his annals of the Caesars from Tiberius to Nero (in bulk not much more than the half) indicates a structure of three groups, each containing six books.[564] The first hexad embraces the principate of Tiberius, in two equal portions, sharply and explicitly divided.[565] That the reign of a Caesar fell into two parts, the earlier marked by the hope and profession of good government (and often the performance also), the later declining or corrupted and verging to inevitable discord and calamity, was not merely a persuasion of the vulgar or a convenient literary schema, as exhibited at the crudest in the operations of a biographer: it corresponded not seldom with the facts of autocratic rule, and, even if not wholly valid, might well be confirmed beyond dispute by an assassination, by a revolution, or by the Senate’s refusal to consecrate the deceased emperor.

The reign of Tiberius Caesar began well, the power being safely transmitted; a just and sagacious administration went on for a long time; and, if Roman tradition had not become increasingly preoccupied with the congenial task of converting Augustus into an ideal figure, it could have proclaimed this epoch not merely comparable with the later Augustan years, but far surpassing them for liber ty and for felicity. Yet in the end, after plots and counterplots and the long sequel of judicial murders, the experiment of a constitutional principatc ignominiously collapsing and naked despotism revealed, a morose septuagenarian perished amid the execration of Senate and People.

It remained to speculate about the causes of the change and to register the year or the event that signalized a turn for the worse. The causes were sought for the most part in the personality of the ruler, either as in fluenced by the impact of events or else gradually disclosing its hidden nature. Various themes offered, such as the suspicions and rancour of Tiberius, evoked by (or expressed in) the fear of rivals, and the growth of prosecutions for high treason; and various cardinal dates could be used— the death of Germanicus, the death of Drusus, the retirement of Tiberius from Rome, or even the decease of his mother Livia. Which was the historian to choose?

Germanicus was inescapable. Tacitus exploits him in every way. Not only the radiant figure compounded of all virtues and excellence (and popular in proportion) to set against the dark soul of Tiberius Caesar— the historian needs Germanicus for variety, for movement, and for continuous narration. The young prince takes up wide tracts in the first three books of the Amales: the mutiny of the legions on the Rhine, the elaborate expeditions into Germany, the travels in the eastern lands, the quarrel with Cn. Piso the legate of Syria, the melancholy end at Antioch, and, not least in importance, the official inquiry, with Piso prosecuted before the Senate for high treason. None the less, the death of Germanicus was hardly suitable for the turning-point.[566] To choose the year 19 would curtail unduly the prosperity in government that even the most hostile could never deny to Tiberius Caesar; the reign was still only in its fifth year; and, with Drusus the son of Tiberius alive, both ruler and dynasty seemed secure.

When Drusus died four years later, the succession beckoned to the sons of Germanicus, and the entourage of the Princeps became a ferment of hopes and fears and intrigues. Germanicus left three sons, and the widow was a proud intractable woman, conscious of all she claimed as the granddaughter of Caesar Augustus, and ready to take a second husband. Tiberius was impatient to escape from that noxious environment. He was now in his sixty-fourth year, and he came to depend more and more upon his favourite and counsellor, L. Aelius Scianus, Prefect of the Guard. Three years elapsed, and he left the capital, never to return. Most historians (so Tacitus affirms) gave a reason – the wiles of Seianus. The minister would have in his control the Emperor and access to the Emperor – who in the course of time (old age and the lure of leisure) might be persuaded to hand over the reins of government.[567]

What guides Tacitus is clear. Grouping the second half o f the reign around the figure of Seianus, significant as is Germanicus for the first half, the historian makes a new start with 23, announced at the opening of Book IV by a full-length presentation of Seianus, and emphasized a little further on by a general survey of Tiberius’ acts and policy down to that year.

Book IV exemplifies in various wrays the ambition of Seianus and his influence as it steadily mounted, with Tiberius going away to Campania in 26 and ensconced already on the island of Capreae in 27 – and disposed, it would seem, to resign more and more of the imperial authority to his indispensable minister. Book V ushers in the year 29. After chronicling the death of Livia, the Augusta (a character sketch is added), it proceeds immediately to relate how a missive arrived at Rome from Princeps to Senate, with grave incriminations against Agrippina, the widow of Germanicus, and against the eldest son. Then the narration breaks off,[568] and with it goes most of the history of the years 29–31.

The gap robs posterity of a drama unsurpassed in plot and catastrophe. The final act is known – it was played out in open day, before the high assembly, and in the streets of the capital. Tiberius Caesar had raised up Seianus, and now he resolved to destroy him. A lengthy despatch came from Capreae, ‘verbosa et grandis epistula [a enormous, wordy letter]’.[569] The consul, privy to the Emperor’s design, proceeded to read it out, while Seianus, without suspicion, expected to hear further honours and a full partnership with Tiberius in the imperial power. The artful convolutions ended in a sharp and sudden denunciation. Seianus, deceived and dazed, could offer no resistance. As they dragged him away to death, he saw his statues already being cast down: trusty agents had secured all the city troops, and a new prefect now commanded the Guard.

What led up to the plot devised by Caesar against his minister is another matter. There are many obscurities.[570] Too much to hope that all would be dispelled by the Tacitean narrative. But it wrouId supply at the least some valuable information about the political manœuvres of the years 29–31, revealing the allies of Seianus (those who survived as well as those who perished), and the especial enemies of the ambitious parvenu; and not least, perhaps, the aristocrats who were disposed to stand loyally by Tiberius Caesar, whatever might be their personal likings, their ties of kinship, or their dynastic claims.

The concluding book of the hexad carries a dreary epilogue down to the extinction of the old emperor, with many prosecutions and deaths, with little extraneous or antiquarian matter for variegation. A powerful summary at the end diagnoses the life and character of Tiberius, stage by stage.[571]

Such is the first hexad of the Annales, covering twenty-three years. The second, containing the reigns of Caligula (37–41) and Claudius (41–54), is marred by the loss of its first four books and a part of its fifth. The truncated fragment begins some way through Book XI, in the year 47, and, with a single episode engrossing much space, comes almost to the end of 48. Book XII takes the narrative to the death of Claudius.

The historian split his first hexad into two halves. He could hardly do that with the second, making Caligula equal with Claudius, four years with nearly fourteen; and, as will be seen, there is no trace of any such division in the third. Two books for Caligula and four for Claudius should satisfy the demands of chronology and equity.[572] Those two Caligulan books will have exhibited a sharp and dramatic contrast as the young prince disclosed his tyrant’s nature (sagacious observers had predicted it), and men’s hopes turned to fear and detestation.

Rome after the death of Tiberius was like a city liberated. To the joy of loyal subjects the prince responded with largesse and pageantry, with exemplary conduct and noble professions: ‘pietas’ displayed to the memory of Gcrmanicus his father, extravagant honours for his sisters, and such reverence for the ‘res publica’ that the ruler gave back the elections to the arbitrament of the Roman People.

Concord and felicity persisted for a season, before the perils and the temptations of the supreme power were revealed, and with them the true character of the Emperor. It was not until the year 39 that Caligula grew suspicious about the aristocracy, the generals, and his own relatives. In the autumn he went off in some precipitation to Gaul, ostensibly to conduct armies of invasion into Britain or across the Rhine. The upshot was a plot discovered and suppressed. Young Aemilius Lepidus now perished, who had been for a short time the husband of Drusilla, one of Caligula’s sisters, and who was designated for the succession.[573] What happened was more than a mere murder in the family. Lentulus Gaetulicus was also executed, who had been commander of the army of Upper Germany for the last ten years.[574]

That no doubt marked the turning-point in the reign. Henceforth cruelty, arrogance, and megalomania – and not confined in repercussion to the capital of the Empire. Yet the tyrant was not dethroned by a provincial rising or some general’s proclamation. The conspiracy formed at Rome, officers of the Guard plotting with senators, and Caligula was assassinated on January 24, A.D. 41.[575]

The Senate was convoked. One of the consuls delivered an oration on liberty and spoke of restoring the Republic – from sincere belief, from homage to convention, or in order to gain time; and certain men of birth and consequence were already putting up a claim to the Principate when soldiers of the Guard discovered a forgotten Caesar whom joyously they acclaimed, and, after prolonged and delicate negotiations between the camp and the Senate, the power was duly conferred upon Claudius, the brother of Germanicus.

Claudius never forgot that perilous and awkward interregnum. He soon had other grounds for rancour and suspicion. In the second year of the reign Arruntius Camillus, the legate of Dalmatia, cast off his allegiance.[576] The proclamation was abortive but alarming, not least because of the ancestry of the pretender, the character and quality of certain senators among his adherents.

The principal subjects around which the historian would concentrate his narrative derived from the previous reign, notably palace politics, the influence of the imperial freedmen, and strained relations between Princeps and Senate; and the same persons stood in prominence, the friends of the dynasty and ministers of state. As for foreign affairs, the revolt in Mauretania arose out of the annexation by Caligula and took several years for its suppression; while the Emperor in person superintended the invasion of Britain. Diverse though the two rulers might be in character and in policy, it was not beyond the skill of the historian to exploit the elements of continuity and impart a certain unity to the second hexad. Down to 48 inclusive his treatment is very generous. While Mauretania and Britain offered scope (and welcome it was) for details of warfare and geography, Tacitus would need much domestic material to fill up these three books (IX–XI). He could find it easily. The social life o f the capital was gay and glittering, with wits and orators – and decorative celebrities of both sexes. Display and competition, intrigue, corruption, and crime – nothing was lacking.

Tiberius Caesar had avoided the company of women, and he disliked any ceremonial or fashion. A court was waiting to revive, with a whole cluster of princesses who transmitted the blood of Julii, Claudii, Antonii – and all the discords of the dynasty. In the forefront the three daughters of Germanicus, the daughter of Drusus, the two sisters of Domitius Ahenobarbus.[577] Drusilla died in the second year of Caligula and was emphatically consecrated, but Julia Agrippina and Julia Livilla went on in splendour and scandal. Early in the reign of Claudius allegations of adultery consigned Livilla to exile, where she was promptly killed.[578] Agrippina, left a widow by the decease of Domitius Ahenobarbus, cast about for a new alliance and took the husband of his sister, namely Passienus Crispus, wealthy, witty, and eloquent. The extinction of Passienus not long after is put down to her contriving.[579]

Powerful females of dynastic pedigree and behaviour waged feud with Agrippina or went in for other dangerous practices (incest and magic did not fail to be alleged). Many of the great ladies were avid and ruthless, but nothing is certified to the discredit of Julia, the daughter of Drusus, who, once betrothed to Aelius Seianus, was found a safe and steady husband; and the graceful Junia Calvina wins the tribute of an expert appraiser – ‘festivissima omnium puellarum [the most charming girl of all]’.[580]

Valeria Messallina, the consort of Claudius Caesar, gives her name to the epoch, at least in the more lurid of its manifestations; and political murders tend to be laid to her account. The catalogue includes two princesses, Julia and Julia Livilla.[581] Nor were men of birth and rank immune. Messallina brought about the murder of her mother’s third husband, one of the Junii Silani.[582] In the year 46 died M. Vinicius (who had been married to Julia Livilla), with a public funeral for commemoration: poisoned, they said, by the Empress.[583]

It was a season of sharp enmities, and also of conspiracies, real or fabricated. Two aristocrats who fell under suspicion escaped by reason of their patent futility.[584] But an historic name, aggravated by perilous alliance with the line of Pompeius Magnus, brought destruction on Crassus Frugi. His wife and son shared his fate.[585]

Messallina happens not to be blamed for this transaction. In the next year, however, she went on to compass the ruin of the illustrious consular Valerius Asiaticus. She worked upon the fears of Claudius, her instruments being his chief minister L. Vitellius and the freedmen of the household.

What survives of Book XI opens with that act. Miscellaneous items follow', notably the measures enacted by Claudius when holding the office of censor; and the book is soon engrossed wdth the scandalous behaviour which the Empress carried to a reckless extremity, provoking her fall and death.

The selection of a new wife for Claudius Caesar suitably introduces Book XII. The freedmen passed three candidates in review. W ith Pallas on her side and L. Vitellius adding support, Agrippina won the competition, Germanicus’ daughter and niece of the imperial bridegroom; her arts and influence invade the government of Rome, she persuades Claudius to adopt her son, his claim to the succession is gradually enforced. Thse historian in the meantime, for relief and variety from palace politics, has recourse to a pair of digressions on affairs beyond the eastern frontier under the years 49 and 51 (not of any great moment or relevance);[586] and a resumptive section registers a long period in the Roman subjugation of Britain (since 47), with dramatic interest, not to say pageantry, concentrated upon the insurgent leader Caratacus.[587] Finally, Claudius being disposed of by.the poisoned mushroom, Nero is presented to the Guard as emperor, and the ‘auctoritas’ of the Senate ratifies the choice of the soldiery.

Claudius Caesar, as depicted by Tacitus, is little better than a puppet figure, except for what he did during his censorship. Much of value has perished along with the annals of the first six years. How far the historian conceded merit in this unexpected and paradoxical Caesar, and allowed for deterioration, at w'hat point he put the change, these questions evade certitude. The tradition, as preserved by other writers, shows the Emperor almost from the outset a prisoner of his entourage, helpless in the hands of wife and ministers.[588] Nor is the structure of the missing books at once discernible. Where did Book IX end, and where Book X? And how closely did the author still adhere to the annalistic schema?

The invasion of Britain lent itself for a climax or turning-point in the narration – and perhaps in the reign. Following upon the drama of the accession (no doubt copiously expounded) and the proclamation of Arruntius Cainillus, Britain could round off a substantial book, bound together and unified by a powerful motive – the insecurity of the new emperor and his need for military prestige. Although the next three years (44–46) contained no episodes of comparable magnitude, miscellaneous matters – foreign and domestic – could fill up a book, especially the latter, to be exploited in contrast to the previous emphasis of the reign and to foreshadow Book XI by crime, conspiracy, and sudden death.[589]

Book XI, it m ight be conjectured, began with the year 47: the eighth centenary of the city of Rome, which Claudius Caesar took as an excuse for his Ludi Saeculares.[590] Beside Claudius stood L. Vitellius, holding the consulate for the third time. That honour was without parallel since the earliest epoch of the Principate;[591] and so was the ovation celebrated in this year by A. Plautius, the legate of Britain.[592] Here an historian might recapitulate the British campaigns subsequent to 43 (the Roman armies had been advancing a long way to the west and north). If that was Tacitus’ procedure, Book XI showed careful balance and variety of composition: Britain, the censorship of Claudius, the folly and fate of Valeria Messallina.

Book XII by its compression exhibits a sharp contrast. On any account, when the hexad is examined as a whole, the disparities are significant – something like twelve years spread over Books VII–XI, but, on the other hand, six years crammed into the last book of the hexad, as though the historian, having exhausted his Claudian topics, was impatient to move forward. Much detail had been devoted to Caligula, and much to Claudius, as far as the end of 48. There was very little to be said about the last years.[593]

Nero takes for himself the third portion of the Annales, and that portion by its exordium is powerfully stamped as a fresh beginning. The first crime of the new principate, thus did Tacitus define the killing of Agrippa Postumus, the grandson and adopted son of Augustus, at the outset of the reign of Tiberius.[594] A parallel in deed and phrase ushers in Book XIII with the murder of M. Junius Silanus, the proconsul of Asia.[595]

That is not the only device. The author insists that his narrative shall at once be self-explicatory, without too much knowledge presupposed, or the need for many references backwards. To that end he attaches brief and vivid annotation to persons already familiar from the previous reign, and brings them into a close nexus with one another and with events – a nexus perhaps more close than the facts warranted. The principal Neronian themes can quickly take shape and carry the story unimpeded onwards. Not many historians have been to such pains for the benefit of their readers.

The murder of Silanus is put down to the contriving of Agrippina. Innocuous and unharmed by other rulers (Caligula used to call him ‘the golden sheep’), Silanus was yet suspected by Agrippina – she had killed his brother – and she was eager to remove any rival of dynastic blood and claims. It was widely held (so the author alleges) that a man of mature years was surely preferable to a mere boy like Nero, and Silanus’ lineage was not inferior in the descent from Augustus.[596] Agrippina also drove Narcissus to his death, the freedman of Claudius Caesar, and loyal to his master. There would have been other murders, but Annaeus Seneca and Afranius Burrus intervened (their functions and characters are rapidly conveyed). T hey had to contend against the violent and domineering nature of the Emperor’s mother— and against the influence of Pallas, here recalled as her principal ally in gaining Claudius for husband and inducing him to adopt her son.

The funeral oration keeps Seneca in prominence (he composed it), and furnishes a brief glance back to the reign and character of Claudius Caesar.[597] Subsequent comment on the oratorical attainments of the Roman Caesars sets Nero at the end of a long perspective of history. Further, what Tacitus says about his education and artistic tastes foreshadows later developments. The tone of Tacitus is deceptively amicable. In a similar fashion, the summary of the first speech from the throne, with its promise of a government after the model of Augustus, introduces the theme of Princeps and ‘res publics’[598] – ironically, if the reader reflected on how it was to end, but fitting the context which goes on to chronicle some acceptable or salutary acts, passing neatly from domestic to foreign policy. Rumours of renewed disturbance in the eastern lands cause much talk at Rome, so Tacitus avers: how will a young prince and a new government comport themselves at this critical juncture? A wise decision is made. They dispatch an excellent general, Domitius Corbulo, the national honour will be vindicated, and everybody is content.[599]

The author at the same time both demonstrates a new start and introduces the leading persons and subjects. For Seneca the prime task and effort was to thrust Agrippina aside from the power. That ambitious woman, with the example of the Augusta Livia before her, intended to take a large share in the government. Seneca succeeded. Out of Agrippina’s discontent and her wild threats arises the next important episode: Nero, becoming suspicious, was incited to contrive the poisoning of Britannicus, Claudius’ son, whom he had supplanted.[600] Then the record glides rapidly through the uneventful annals of good government (56 and 57 demand very little space),[601] and foreign affairs fill out most of the rest of Book XIII (recounted under 58).[602]

Soon or late came the inevitable declension towards tyranny. How was an historian to divide and apportion his Ncronian books? Down to 59 a tolerable ‘quinquennium’ offered, if he wished.[603] Book XIV ushered in that year with the murder of Agrippina, related in full detail.[604] Some writers might there discover a significant turn.[605] Yet it was not wholly suitable – Seneca and Burrus were important political factors, and their influence still dominated (so far as known) in the entourage of the prince. Burrus died in 62. That event, according to Tacitus, was decisive. Seneca’s power snapped.[606] Forestalling supersession or disgrace, he approached Nero with the plea of years and infirmities, and the pretext that the Emperor was now mature enough to be his own master. An old friend, ‘nos seniores amici’, asked to be released.[607] The request was granted, and the man of many millions devoted himself to the exquisite refinements of the plain life.

Tacitus nowhere makes so sharp a cut as in the first hexad. Development is more gradual, narration more fluid.[608] He employs, it is true, the removal of Agrippina as a motive: it enabled Nero to indulge without restraint his passion for driving chariots and singing to the harp.[609] And, as Tacitus constructs the story, the retirement of Seneca evokes the sudden emergence of Ofonius Tigellinus to play an evil role as a second Seianus:[610] in quick succession follow the execution of two eminent nobles and the murder of Octavia, the wife of Nero, concluding Book XIV.[611] The climax was yet to come.

Three more years pass. Operations in the East and the great fire at Rome go to fill up most of the first half of Book XV, while the second expounds a large subject in lavish detail, the conspiracy of the year 65, designed to substitute C. Piso for Nero.

That affair showed Nero the hatred he had incurred, the danger from officers in complicity with senators, recalling the fate of Caligula. The feud between Caesar and the ‘res publica’ now became open and savage. Seneca on false incrimination had been driven to suicide; in the aftermath of the conspiracy various other persons were destroyed. Book XVI, opening with an extraneous interlude, carries on that story of murders. Nero soon resolved (in 66) to crush the Senate by an attack upon its most eminent members, two men of austere conduct and high principle, Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. Able and unscrupulous prosecutors were at Nero’s call, and the Senate (not far from the sight and sound of armed men) voted the condemnation of the two consulars.

Book XVI breaks off towards the middle, with an unfinished sentence, the scene being the suicide of Thrasea Paetus.[612] The total of Tacitus’ historical works stands on record as thirty books. That demands twelve for the Historiae, eighteen for the Annales. The notion that into the second half of Book XVI Tacitus crammed the remaining events of the year 66, and everytliing that happened down to the death of Nero (perhaps with an epilogue beyond it), runs counter to good sense.

The matter was rich and remunerative, the main themes being the Hellenic tour, the Jewish insurrection, and the risings in the West. Of those themes, the first two were strikingly relevant to Tacitus’ own time – and to the prejudices of the narrator. Jewish troubles had already in the Annales been adumbrated with Caligula – conflicts with the Greeks at Alexandria and the menace of revolt in Judaea when the tyrant tried to set up his image in the Temple at Jerusalem. The freaks and follies of Caligula were an ominous foreshadowing of Nero. It would involve no undue strain on the imagination to speculate about the structure and arrangement these books received from Tacitus, the balance, the emphasis, and the colouring.[613]

In 66, following close upon the prosecutions against Barea Soranus and Thrasea Paetus, came other victims – exiles, deaths, and the exploits of various 'delatores' who were to turn up again in later reigns.[614] Next, as pendant to spectacles of tyranny and degradation, the extravagant pageantry when the Arsacid Tiridates, the ruler of Armenia, made obeisance to the Emperor at Rome.[615] Nero conceived, advertised, and even prepared grandiose designs of eastern conquest that ranged to the Caucasus and to Ethiopia. All he achieved was a parade of his histrionic accomplishments, earning easy adulation from the Greeks for his generosity towards the home of arts and letters, detestation for his rapacity. He set out from Rome towards the end of the year.[616]

Meanwhile, as a result of Jewish recalcitrance and Roman oppression or reprisals, a great revolt broke out in Judaea, culminating in a serious defeat inflicted on the governor of Syria (late autumn, 66).[617] Nero dispatched one of the consulars from his company in Greece, Flavius Vespasianus, under a special commission to wage war in Palestine, while Licinius Mucianus took up the Syrian command. In the course of 67 Vespasian reduced Galilee, and by the summer of 68, the open country being under control, he might have launched his assault upon Jerusalem. But Vespasian was waiting upon events in the West, and so was Mucianus. Vespasian in Galilee had received a firm prediction that he would be raised up to rule the world.[618]

Nero’s sojourn among the Greeks was signalized by two acts above all, and savage in their contrast – Corbulo was done to death, and Hellas was proclaimed free. Before a great concourse at the Isthmus he announced it (November 28, 67).[619]

But the news from Rome was bad, and he had to return quickly. Nero had crushed conspiracy, he had silenced the Senate. At the same time he neglected the legions and alienated the sympathies of the upper classes in the western lands. Armies and provinces might overthrow him. Not long back in Italy, the Emperor heard about Julius Vindex and the rebellion in Gaul (spring, 68). Then Spain proclaimed Galba. Though Vindex was defeated by a loyal commander, the uncertainty grew, and, on reports of armies or generals revolting, Nymphidius Sabinus induced the Guard to declare for Galba. Nero committed suicide in a back room of his freedman’s house in the suburban vicinity of Rome (June 9).

Such is the compass of the last two and a half books of the Annales. Nero’s death looks like the dramatic finale, managed by fate for the historian and challenging the talent that described how Vitellius ended, and how Domitian. Inevitably, it might seem.[620] Yet there is no certainty that Book XVIII was to conclude precisely at this point. Annalistic practice (so some contend) prescribed that the historian should go on to the end of the year; and he might well wish to bind the last book of the Annales tightly to his earlier work. The argument by itself lacks cogency. It derives support (though not complete) from a passage in Book XV, after the Pisonian conspiracy. Among the loyal friends of Nero then honoured is introduced Nymphidius Sabinus, as a name prophetic of calamity. Tacitus appears to convey a strong hint that he w ill tell the whole story about Nymphidius.[621] Further, as though to enhance this character, he states without trying to discredit it the claim of Nymphidius to be an illegitimate son of Caligula.

It need not be fancied that Tacitus, with merciless detail (and repeating or expanding much of what he had previously brought into the early part of the Historiae), insisted upon carrying the record of Galba’s reign down to the last day of December 68. He could stop well before that. A brief survey would suffice, damagingly selective, and for main episode Nymphidius, the bastard of Julian descent who had dethroned Nero, now making his own bid for power with help of the Praetorians – an ironical epilogue to the annals of the dynasty, and ominous for the future.

In large things and small the Annales reflect wide divergences of selection, proportion, and emphasis. Hexad against hexad, the first and the third permit a confrontation and exhibit a contrast. It is very striking.

In content and in articulation Books I–VI conform with close fidelity to the annalistic prescription. Each book begins with a fresh year, superscribed with the actual names of the consuls – except for the third where the date is given a little later in parenthesis.[622] A closed compartment segregates the events of each year, without overlapping; certain subjects thus have to be apportioned over a series of years; and, so strict is the regard for sequence and chronology that within the same year different stages in a single transaction may be separately registered. Moreover, each book is imperiously conducted to a sharp and dramatic termination: the concluding item, not perhaps in itself noteworthy, generally carries words of point and weight and power, evocative of the past or quietly foreboding.

Book I ends with the first consular elections of the new reign and the public professions of Tiberius Caesar touching procedure and candidatures: though Caesar’s phraseology was noble, the thing was a hollow mockery, and, the fairer the homage paid to Republican forms, the darker the enslavement destined to ensue.[623] As an effective epilogue to Book II, Tacitus evokes the campaigns of Germanicus (whose sad end he had just depicted) by bringing in the death of his adversary Arminius – a bold anticipation upon chronology. Arminius he styles the liberator of the Germans; and he adds a comment on fame and history.[624] The end of the next book recalls the Roman liberators. Sixty-four years after the Battle of Philippi the city witnessed the obsequies of Junia, Cassius’ widow and sister of Brutus, the emblems of twenty-four noble families being exhibited in procession – but the images of Cassius and Brutus were conspicuously absent.[625]

The last item in Book IV is not dramatic in its formulation but sober and ostensibly innocuous – a wedding ordained by Tiberius Caesar. Julia Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus, was consigned in matrimony to Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, not only of illustrious lineage himself, but close kin to the dynasty, and in fact a grand-nephew of Augustus.[626] The names were enough. Tacitus forbore to add what all men knew, the fruit of that marriage. As for Book V, it is generally assumed that it terminated with the fall of Seianus.[627] Otherwise the last event of 31 could serve, a dispute between two consuls, ferocious and not to be allayed by the public intervention of many senators.[628] The choice of episode is neither fortuitous nor inartistic. The two names together recapitulate the signal catastrophe of the year: the one consul had been an adherent of Seianus, the other was among the principal agents in his downfall.[629] Further, consuls discordant in their last days of office served as a lively reminder of Rome’s history under the Republic. The hexad concludes with the verdict upon Tiberius Caesar.[630]

The era of the ‘res publica’ was no more. An historian could not now recount how the Senate held debate, the People voted (laws and elections, war or peace), the magistrates acted. The People had been thrust aside, and fresh elements of power and authority superadded, namely Princeps and soldiers. Hence new formulations and new interrelations. It was the task of Tacitus, employing the old annalistic pattern, to interweave the chronicle of the Caesars with what survived of the ‘res publica’. That survival consisted in official transactions of the high assembly – debates, prosecutions, and the management of the public provinces.

Other writers, engrossed with the story of the Caesars, might have passed almost without a break from the death of Germanicus to the death of Drusus. Tacitus had a different plan. He can abridge and condense when he likes, as in the last years of Claudius and the first of Nero: for his arrangement of the reign of Tiberius, however, he had decided to put the beginning of the second half of the hexad at the year 23. For structure and balance he therefore needed to give space and meaning to the interval after Germanicus’ death and the ensuing inquiry: how was he to fill out the rest of Book III? Senatorial business was the solution – and not at all a makeshift. It demonstrated that there now subsisted ‘quaedam imago rei publicae’;[631] and the senatorial transactions that later came to be reported in the last book of the hexad (mainly the prosecutions of senators and their deaths) would be seen to stand in sharp and melancholy contrast to the early years of a reign that in its course had destroyed that ‘res publica’.

The years in question (20, 21, and 22) were barren of momentous events, except for the rebellion in Gaul of the chieftains Julius Florus and Julius Sacrovir, which is fully narrated.[632] For the rest, Cornelius Tacitus is not dismayed. Africa and Asia stood out among the provinces left to the management of the Senate, with governors consular in rank. The proconsul of Africa could still regard himself as an armed mandatory of the Republic, and he might even earn distinction in the field. In Book III Tacitus can relate the campaigns of two proconsuls against the Numidian insurgent Tacfarinas;[633] and the choice of a competent proconsul, involving negotiation between Senate and Princeps, supplies valuable detail about governmental technique, the capacities of certain aristocrats, and the scrupulous respect of Tiberius Caesar for constitutional proprieties.[634]

Asia was a richer source of business as of history. When the claims of the cities to exercise the right of asylum came up for scrutiny, it was a great day.[635] The Senate held free debate, pronouncing upon privileges conferred by the Roman People in the ancient time, treaties with allied peoples, even the decrees of kings and the cult of the gods. Further, an indictment enables the author to supply (for the first time in the Annales) a full-length exposition of the procedure adopted when a proconsul was put on trial – and when the Princeps felt bound to intervene decisively.[636]

More significant, however, are a number of accessory matters or abortive senatorial discussions. The tradition that a certain priesthood debarred its holder from a province was called into question – but maintained.[637] The Lex Papia Poppaea was discussed and modified – but not in essentials.[638] Nothing came of proposals that proconsuls should be forbidden the company of their wives, or that senators of notorious immorality should be excluded from proconsulates;[639] and Tiberius Caesar skilfully parried a demand that he should undertake governmental action to curb luxury and extravagance.[640]

These items give the historian an excuse for a variety of speeches from prominent senators, and notably from the Princeps;[641] they enable him to introduce digressions on sacerdotal law, the history of legislation, or the changes in Roman morality.[642]

The annalistic structure is thus dominant throughout the first hexad, and strikingly exemplified by the contents of Book III. The third hexad stands in marked contrast. Only Book XIII ends at a year’s end, and the item lacks significance or emphasis.[643] Moreover, the whole treatment is more free and flowing, with events concentrated around personalities or themes, not merely consecutive or segmentated.

The changed exposition is already perceptible in the remnant of the second hexad. Book XI ends with Messallina, and Book XII deliberately introduces Agrippina before the year 48 is brought to its conclusion. Further, the grouping of foreign affairs. In the first hexad the vicissitudes of the rebellion of Tacfarinas in Africa, being related year by year as they occur, figure in three books;[644] and Book II has the provinces and princes of the East in four separate sections.[645] But in Book XII a continuous narrative carries seven years of the Roman conquest of Britain;[646] and the treatment of eastern affairs foreshadows the way Corbulo’s campaigns will be recounted in the Neronian books.[647]

Where is the reason to be sought? Not merely in any difference between the written sources employed by Tacitus, and not in any improvement of his literary skill. The history itself had changed its shape and substance, and the historian’s choice was conscious, or rather enforced. When Tiberius Caesar presided over the Roman State, it could still be regarded as a continuation of the Republic, its annual chronicle to be narrated in the traditional manner. With Nero Rome became dynastic and regal – or rather, already with Caligula, where the second hexad of the Annales began. Caligula was a prince, of the royal blood of Divus Augustus, whereas Tiberius, a Roman aristocrat among the ‘principes civitatis’, was consul and commander of armies before he succeeded, an old man already, to the Principate. With Caligula emerge again the monarchic tendencies which, manifest under Augustus, had been deprecated or resisted by Tiberius Caesar, suppressed or at least disguised in his vain attempt to preserve and perpetuate the forms and spirit of the Commonwealth.

 

XXV. Roman Oratory in the Annales

[...]

One name, however, remains, that of the dominant literary figure in the age of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. The author of the Annales would be primarily concerned with the character, policy, and actions of Annaeus Seneca as a minister of state; but he could not fail to essay somewhere or other an appreciation of his style and talent. Seneca wrote the laudation for Nero to deliver at the obsequies of Claudius. Tacitus is equal to the scene.[648] A characteristic device evokes the emotions of the audience, from earnest attention during the recital of the ancient renown of the gens Claudia to open mockery when they heard the deceased emperor commended for sagacity and forethought. And the old men present had something to say – no ruler before Nero had to depend upon borrowed eloquence. The fiction is barely disguised. It permits Tacitus to pass in review the salient features in the attainments of all the Caesars. The Dictator was peer and rival of the foremost orators. Augustus’ style of eloquence was ready and flowing, befitting a ‘princeps’. Tiberius was a master in the art of weighing well his words, they were full of meaning, and he could be ambiguous at will. Even the mental derangement of Caligula could not impair his force; and when Claudius delivered a set speech, you would not look in vain for elegance.

The brief powerful sentences convey an expert’s summing up. And it is an expert who comments at this juncture upon the oration composed by Seneca: it showed much polish, for Seneca had an elegant talent, and well suited to the taste of that age.[649]

Nero’s address to the Senate, announcing the programme of a constitutional monarchy, is sketched in a brief sequence of contrasting phrases.[650] A little later comes a reference to frequent orations from the Emperor emphasizing ‘dementia’ –  Seneca (says Tacitus) wanted to demonstrate the excellence of his instruction, or indeed advertise his own talent.[651] Tacitus docs not choose to reproduce an official speech. For various reasons— and perhaps such conventional and inevitable themes as the authority of the Senate, the precedents of the Augustan Principatc, and a monarch’s profession of mercy had been adequately expounded when Caligula came to power, and when Claudius.[652]

There was a better way to convey the style and character of Seneca, subtle and unimpeded. The Emperor at last became tired of tutelage, and lent a ready ear to detraction: Seneca (so his enemies alleged) went on piling up riches, putting even the Emperor in the shade by the splendour of his mansions and gardens; he affected a monopoly of eloquence, he had now taken to writing verse with assiduity, to outdo Nero; the other pastimes of the prince he would deprecate or deride; but Nero was old enough to do without a tutor, while tradition and pedigree would teach him all he needed.[653]

Seneca sought audience with Nero. His discourse was elegant (and not less the response, for both speakers had to be diplomatic and evasive: the pupil even surpassed the master).[654] A prince, Seneca suggested, might graciously permit a minister to retire when his work was done. There were valid and Augustan precedents. His modest privilege it had been to instruct Nero in the art of speech. In return he had acquired high rank, with opulence beyond his needs, and at variance with his professions. The recompense was both embarrassing and invidious. He now asked to be relieved of the burden, and gladly would he surrender his great wealth.

The sentiments are highly appropriate to an author of ethical treatises who in fact insisted that mere deprivation of riches does not spell impoverishment to a wise man.[655] More than this, hints or echoes can be caught of an authentic Seneca. He duly cites ‘exempla’ from history.[656] One platitude is unashamed, nothing less than the ‘journey of life’.[657] Another familiar image is accompanied by a deprecatory phrase, as is the fashion of preachers and sermonizers.[658] He can also coin an epigram.[659] And he does not disdain the crude and vigorous.[660]

The language is vivid and rhetorical, with personification of abstractions and metaphors of pomp and splendour. Thus wealth is presented as a thing that dazzles and blinds.[661] Seneca calls up a picture of his own ‘novitas’ all radiant on parade among the ancient emblems of the nobiles.[662] And the philosopher takes his soul to task, reproaching it for proud and ostentatious behaviour.[663]

Of Seneca’s sermons the most eloquent and most notorious necessarily defied the historian. Seneca when life ebbed called for his secretaries and dictated a philosopher’s last message to the world. It was published. Tacitus therefore eschewed a rendering.[664] He cites, however, Seneca’s words of consolation to the wife who wished to share his end – highly antithetical and characterized by close observance of prose rhythm.[665]

Seneca was the greatest figure in Latin literature since the days of Augustus, the creator of a fashion, the embodiment of an epoch. The next generation canvassed his qualities. Educators were disposed to be especially critical. The judicious Quintilian, in his catalogue of orators, reserves Seneca for separate treatment, and explains what was wrong.[666] Seneca’s style, he held, was seductive and corrupting; Seneca was too clever – he lacked discrimination; by his ‘dulcía vitia’ he was a bad influence on the young.

The genius of Seneca was copious and versatile, manifold his productions. Tacitus could allude to some of them. Thus an indirect reference to the treatise De dementia dedicated to Nero, and the faintest of hints about the tragedies.4[667] But he could not mention Seneca’s pasquinade on Divus Claudius. That was alien to the dignity of history.[668]

Literature had no place by its own right alone in the chronicle of the Roman State. In the third year of Tiberius Caesar died the poet Ovid, far from Italy, with no necrological entry from the author of the Annales.[669] Ovid could perhaps have stood in historical record as a victim of the ‘auctoritas’ of Caesar Augustus, among those men who, without sentence by court of law or the Senate’s decree, understood that they had to go.[670]

The aristocratic Aemilius Scaurus was in the front rank of speakers: that he also wrote tragedies, however, would scarcely be registered, had not a ‘delator’ exploited his allusions to a legendary tyrant.[671] When Tacitus inserts a reference to the works of another consular dramatist, Pomponius Secundus, it is justified by what precedes, namely the military distinction earned by Pomponius.[672] In the story of the Pisonian conspiracy the poetry of Lucan was doubly relevant – the initial grievance when Nero from envy prevented him from displaying his talent, and the act of suicide which Lucan performed with recital of his own lines about the dying soldier.[673]

Oratory and legal eminence (‘filustres domi artes’) were the civilian qualification for public honours. Two juristic luminaries adorned the age of Augustus, diverse in character, teaching, and political success. The one, Ateius Capito, astute and subservient to power, got the consulate. Recording his decease, Tacitus is able to circumvent obstacles and commemorate the better man – whom Caesar Augustus deliberately passed over.[674] Even a great orator may have to be omitted from the Afínales if he is not involved with politics;[675] and even history is irrelevant unless composed by a man of senatorial station. The octogenarian Livy passed away in the same year as Ovid, unnoticed;[676] and it is no concern of Tacitus that an historical author of some fame and consequence died about the middle of Nero’s reign, namely Aufidius Bassus.[677]

Not that Cornelius Tacitus could be debarred from alluding to the art and practice of history, with suitable tribute to predecessors, if he so desired. The death of the imperial minister Sallustius Crispus evokes the name of his great-uncle.[678] Digression or oration would permit much more. An excursus in Book IV sets out the superior merits of the Republic as against the Empire.[679] It forms a skilful transition to the case of Cremutius Cordus, prosecuted by two clients of Seianus: he had written in praise of Marcus Brutus, he styled Cassius the last of the Romans. Cremutius in his own defence speaks with dignity, vindicating the freedom of speech and opinion.[680] He cites examples of candour, licence, or governmental toleration from the recent past— which enables Tacitus to pay a handsome compliment to Livy, to allude to the histories of Asinius Pollio and the memoirs of Messalla Corvinus; and certain poets can be noticed who impinged upon political struggles in the closing epoch of the Free State.

The oration of Cremutius ends with a firm appeal to the verdict of posterity.[681] When a maker of verses asserted that he would conquer time and oblivion, nobody minded. Historians (for such was the custom) generally affected more modesty, with dignified emphasis upon the importance or the utility of their task. If an historian’s preface announced no overt and personal claim to immortality, some hint or hope might be inserted elsewhere, unobtrusively, in the guise of generous testimony to the virtues of another writer, or by the visible and avowed emulation of illustrious predecessors.

Mere contemporary applause did not mean that an orator would be remembered. Such is Tacitus’ dismissal of Q. Haterius.[682] Incomparably superior to Haterius was Domitius Afer. When Afer died in 59 he was long past his prime; the record of the last dozen years had not admitted his name; and, like L. Vitellius, he might have slipped away without commemoration at the end, for his character had been delineated long since. But Tacitus can use this bad man. He can match him with a poet or an historian.

According to a speaker in the Dialogus, Afer could have no advantage in personal repute or in enduring fame over the dramatist, Pomponius Secundus.[683] In the Annales Senilius Nonianus is available for contrast by the peculiar coincidence of his death in the same year as Afer. Orator against historian: their talents were equal, but as men they were poles apart.[684]

Tacitus admires Servilius for his ‘elegantia vitae’. The identical quality, ‘elegantia morum’, is discovered in Pomponius Secundus at his first introduction in the pages of the Annales.[685] These labels carry a strong note of social and moral approval. More remarkable, however, than anything else in all the works of Tacitus is the summing-up of Pomponius (in a disguised obituary).

When legate of Germania Superior, Pomponius earned the ornamenta triumphalia: no great accession, says Tacitus, to the glory of one whom posterity holds in such honour for his poetical works.[686] The remark quietly subverts traditional values and the supreme good of the Romans. Not warfare, the service of the State, or the governing of the nations. The consular historian awards the palm to literature.[687]

The performance of men like Pomponius and Afer might well evoke comparison with classical models. Reflecting upon the history of morality at Rome, Tacitus affirms that not all things were better in previous generations. The present epoch, he continues, has an achievement in polite arts that will deserve to be imitated by posterity.[688]

[...]

 

XXVII. Types and Changes of Style

‘Urbem Romam a principio reges habuere.’ At the outset, monumental simplicity of language – and a reminiscence of Sallust, improving upon that author.[689] Again, the exordium of Book IV. The first sentence announces a new phase in the reign of Tiberius, with an ominous expression modelled on Sallust;[690] and Aelius Seianus is promptly brought on the scene – origin, family, career, and historical magnitude. The characterization follows – a quick tight sequence of nouns and adjectives, juxtaposed, antithetic, and lacking verbs.[691]

Open and avowedly, Tacitus brings Seianus on parade as a second Catilina. A female counterpart had been put on exhibit by the narrator o f the conspiracy, namely the notorious Sempronia.[692] Tacitus duly conforms. Poppaea Sabina is ushered in as a seductive and potent influence for evil, enhanced by the distinction (rare in the third hexad) of a full and stylized portraiture.[693] Verbal details proclaim the literary parentage.[694] M ore striking, however, a whole sentence that owes nothing to Sallust’s Sempronia but renders to perfection the studied bareness of his manner – ‘huic mulieri cuncta alia fuere praeter honestum animum []’.

Other parallels offered, of scene or character. Tacfarinas was an obvious pendant to Jugurtha; and the Numidian War (welcome relief from the annals of Rome under Tiberius Caesar) showed speed and movement in the empty lands of the nomads.[695] Sallust’s Historiae were incomparably richer than the monographs: Spain or Cilicia, Lucullus in conquest beyond the Tigris, the portrayal of the regions along the Pontic shore or beneath the mountain of Caucasus. Long narrations in several books of the Annales, escaping from crime or futility at Rome, carried the reader to Nineveh or Adiabene, to realms of legend and the story of the Argonauts.[696]

Sallustian style even crops up among senatorial business or in the summary version of an imperial oration. Discussion and perplexity about a recusant vassal, Mithridatcs the prince of Bosporus, brings in for argument the iron coast and the pathless wastes that had been depicted by the author of the classic excursus De situ Ponti;[697] and, when Byzantium sends an embassy, a digression expatiates upon the past renown of that city, its site of advantage for the transit of armies, and great profit accruing from the waters.[698]

Whole episodes (it appears) have been selected and worked up in the precise design of evoking the great precursor. Sallust furnished a copious narrative of operations conducted by a Roman proconsul against the mountain tribes of the Taurus.[699] It was present to the mind of Tacitus when he resolved to write about Poppaeus Sabinus in Thrace – and write at some length.[700]

More familiar was a certain digression in the Bellutn Catilinae, how a governor of Hispania Citerior, Cn. Piso, came to a violent end.[701] When therefore the record of the year 25 disclosed a member of'that aristocratic family (L. Piso) also assassinated by a native in that country, Tacitus saw his chance and knew his duty. He relates the detail of the affair, terminating with phraseology that qu ietly and firmly establishes the parallel.[702]

Tacitus is not concerned merely with odd resemblances in history and curious repetitions. He aims at a general and pervasive adaptation of Sallust. A single word or short phrase will often furnish the clue, the rest being free composition in the unmistakable vein. It is most easily detected in the portraiture of individuals.

If it happens that a nobleman exhibited accomplishments worthy of his ancestry, Tacitus will honour the man and recall Republican history by a borrowed expression. Thus Marcus Lepidus, whom the historian ‘ascertains to be a wise and weighty man’.[703] The phrase comes from the Bellum Jugurthinum,[704] An oration of Lepidus has the appropriate colouring.[705] Likewise the notice of his death.[706]

Tacitus introduces Cassius Longinus with a sober and impressive commendation, rendering Roman tradition in traditional language. Cassius, who excelled all men in science of the law, had command of the army in Syria.[707] It was a season of peace, discouraging effort. But Cassius enforced the ‘priscus mos’ of stern military discipline, as befitted a name and family not unknown in those parts. When Cassius a dozen years later delivers a speech in the Senate (it concerns another ‘vetus mos’), the exordium contains a clear echo of Sallust.[708] So does the peroration.[709] Thrasea Paetus will also recall ancient dignity in an oration defending the honour of the senatorial order.[710]

Bad men by their number and diversity are more promising, or evil and turbulent times. From first to last a digression on legislation turns out to be an essay in the manner.[711] Not only does Tacitus evoke the period about which Sallust wrote in his Historiae. Coming to the third consulate of Pompeius Magnus, he duly pronounces a strong condemnation on the dynast whom Sallust disliked.[712] The next sentence passes at once to the twenty years of tribulation that ensued before the monarchy was founded.[713]

Elsewhere Sallustian language contemptuously alludes to the decline and fall of the Trium virs Lepidus and Antonius;[714] it brings into sharp relief the crafty contrivings of Tiberius Caesar;[715] it characterizes the class of senators that praise an emperor’s every utterance uniformly;[716] and, as is proper, it also advertises the first manifestation of the ‘delator’ in Book I[717]. Again, in Book III, when a second specimen of the loathsome tribe is delineated: Tacitus devises an elaborate structure of tortuously disjointed antithesis, outdoing Sallust in the evocation of Thucydidean pregnancy.[718]

Even if there be extant no phrase of Sallust for attestation, the colouring alone will often suffice. Thus the portrait of a variegated and dubious character, L. Vitellius – ‘of that man I do not lack knowledge that many loathsome things stand on report, and an evil repute at Rome: yet Vitellius was of ancient virtue in the governance of provinces’, and so on.[719]

Possessing the repertory and freely developing the idiom, Tacitus in the course of his work goes on to produce new Sallustian types. Thus the sinister court-buffoon or the treacherous philosopher.[720] And sometimes, to understand a passage properly, it is expedient to have in mind the deceptive bareness of the archaic manner. At the beginning of the year 37 a man of mark and consequence, L. Arruntius, resolved to die. What was the gain, he asked, if one waited for the extinction of Tiberius? A worse tyranny was on the way. Death would liberate a man from past and future tribulation equally. Speaking thus, with a prophet’s solemnity and passion, Arruntius made an end to his life; and, the historian adds, ‘what followed will stand as proof that Arruntius put death to good employ’.[721] In that comment some detect bathos or an interpolation.[722] On the contrary, supreme artistry: the wilful descent from the fervid eloquence of a vaticination to plainest prose.

When Tacitus asserts the diligence of his inquiries he uses a rare Sallustian word.[723] The historical prose of the Latins avows itself the product of labour and much contriving. To build up his style, Sallust looted Cato.[724] Nobody was deceived, and not everybody blamed him. Sallust was a slow composer, they said – and you could see the effort in his writing.[725] Such is the verdict of Quintilian, and investigation confirms, showing words deliberately taken up or dropped, sudden changes of linguistic habit, and a notable development after the pioneer monograph.[726]

Prose of the imperial age had been drawing more and more of its ornaments and devices from the poets. A speaker in the Dialogus advises orators to exploit Horace, Virgil, and Lucan.[727] The historian Tacitus is not notably in the debt of Horace.[728] Lucan might seem more useful, as well as more congenial by topic and sentiments.[729] It is Virgil who dominates.

Virgilian words and expressions are frequent, showing how well Tacitus knew the text of the classical epic.[730] Not that any catalogue will explain how Tacitus proceeds. As with his use of Sallust, it is rather a matter of sympathetic assimilation.

Virgil had an especial value for Tacitus. Colouring, atmosphere, and emotion, the poet furnished everything that Livy had, and more. A Livian phrase or motive was welcome, it is true, when the historian wished to depict scenes of riot and rhetoric in a Roman camp, or the dramatic vicissitudes of warfare and adventure beyond the Rhine; and heroic figures dominated the action, recalling more spacious days –  Rome’s conquering general, or Rome’s resourceful adversary. When Germanicus Caesar confronts the mutinous legionaries, his appeal carries a reminiscence of Scipio Africanus in a like emergency. The oration also confesses a Virgilian debt.[731]

Describing the storm on the ocean, Tacitus not only echoes Virgil in language, but suggests his pictorial and musical effects. At first the quiet level sea, ‘placidum aequor’ with no sound or motion save the oars and sails of a thousand ships. Then the dark mass of clouds, and sudden fall of hail – ‘mox atro nubium globo effusa grando [soon the hail poured from a black mass of clouds]’ – and finally, all sea and sky surrenders to the might of the south wind – ‘omne dehinc caelum et mare omne in austrum cessit [then all heaven, all ocean, passed into the power of the south wind]’.[732]

More than that, the historian can conjure up the Virgilian strain of mystery, majesty, and compassion. When the Romans approach the place where Varus and the legions lay unburied, the wrhole army is affected. Not with the thought of friends and relatives only. They are moved to meditate upon vicissitudes of war and the general lot of mankind – ‘casus bellorum et sortem hominum [the chances of battle and of the lot of mankind]’. And the ground they tread is mournful – ‘incedunt maestos locos [they pursued their march over the dismal tract]’.[733]

Writing with a poet’s language and imagery, the historian ran the risk of lapsing into metre. Tacitean hexameters have been detected, but they are not wholly genuine specimens, and were certainly not deliberate.[734] The author would also avoid certain collocations of poetical words that might evoke a verse ending. One example is instructive. Tiberius Caesar brought the unfortunate Julia to a lingering death in exile and neglect – ‘omnis spei egenam inopia ac tabe longa peremit [utterly hopeless, to perish of destitution and slow decline]’.[735] Tacitus by a subtle and ironical reminiscence alludes to the forlorn victims of unhappy love – ‘quos durus amor crudeli tabe peredit [those whom stern Love has consumed with cruel wasting]’.[736] He ventures as far as prose permits: ‘longa tabe peremit’ would be detrimental.

The components, derivation, and devices of the Tacitean style have now been touched upon in brief survey. The Roman historians subsequent to Livy have perished utterly, and not all the innovations first attested in Tacitus proceed from his own invention. From first to last his performance reveals an unerring taste in selecting words by their strength and colour, and his original genius is confirmed by the verifiable enhancement between Historiae and Annales. No great regret need be felt for the disappearance of an Aufidius or a Servilius. They were eclipsed by Cornelius Tacitus, who passed beyond Sallust and beyond Livy, more resourceful and ornate than the one, stronger, prouder, and fiercer than the other. Tacitus took possession of the Latin language, bent it to his will, and pushed to the utter limits all that it knew or promised of energy, gravity, and magnificence.[737] If the qualities of Tacitus need a commendation from antiquity, it may be discovered in a Greek writer’s verdict upon Thucydides.[738]

Splendour, intensity, and structural coherence, the Annales are the typical Tacitus – and the first hexad exhibits the manner in mature perfection. Book I has virtuosity and variety on show, with notable ventures in syntax and construction; technical phraseology is defied or skilfully sublimated; and vivid or unusual words occur in conspicuous frequency.[739] All of which might have been expected – and no need for the hypothesis that Book I represents a second edition.

The Annales on analysis turn out by no means uniform. In composition and technique the third hexad goes a different way from the first. Tacitus deviates from the sharp articulation of the annalistic structure and tends to group his material in single episodes. Reported speech becomes more common, there are fewer set orations. Personality tends to express itself in acts and words, largely dispensing with the formal character sketch.

Some of these changes correspond to the changed fabric and content of the history itself. With Nero instead of Tiberius, the author was no longer able to portray the Princeps and the yearly chronicle of the ‘res publica’ bound together and closely interdependent. The Roman Senate hardly ever witnessed a debate of any consequence – and Tacitus inserts only two senatorial orations in direct discourse.[740]

Other phenomena may be noted. What survives of the Claudian section shows no fewer than five digressions (and they were appropriate to that reign).[741] Only two occur in Books X III–XVI.3[742] Fewer digressions, portraits, and obituary' notices – therefore less Sallust; and even where a Sallustian colouring might seem highly suitable (Corbulo in Armenia recalling Lucullus) Tacitus makes no great use of it.

A writer might discard some items of his verbal experimentation, use up the stock of traditional themes, or lose sight of an attractive locution through sheer inadvertence. Coming from the Historiae to the Annales, Tacitus, by departure from his normal tendency, forswears one or two poetical or archaic expressions; and words may occur in the first book, or in the first six books, but never again. What emerges in the third hexad, however, is more serious – not sporadic but variously pervasive. In some ways it resembles the changes perceptible in Livy after the first decade, some (but not all) to be explained by the passage from legend to history. Not only do Livy’s colouring and vocabulary become less poetical. Various forms and words diminish their frequency or disappear outright: especially remarkable is the author’s growing aversion from the frequentative verbs so common in the early books.[743]

Livy moves in a steady line. Tacitus after achieving his developed manner in the first hexad of the Annales, does not sustain it after Book XII. He can still venture a new and notable device of syntax, or a bold and decorative word. But he seems to modify his style in verifiable particulars, reverting to more conventional usages.[744]

Certain changes are striking. The form ‘forem’ won predominance over ‘essem’ in the llistoriae and kept it in the Annales – until the third hcxad, which offers a solitary example. Nor does Tacitus insist any more on ‘quis’ for ‘quibus’: it nearly fades out. As for conjunctions, the relation between ‘quamquam’ and ‘quamvis’ undergoes a complete reversal; and ‘ni’ instead of ‘nisi’, to which the historian took such a fancy, occurs once in Book XIII and never again. The verb ‘coepto’ is dropped. The adjective ‘grandis’ had been banished utterly from the Annales: it now returns, and so does ‘amplus’. Conversely, ‘necessitudo’ disappears, expelled by ‘necessitas’, and ‘claritudo’ occurs only once.

The phenomena are not fortuitous or isolated. Notable elements in the vocabulary seem to be going a different way. Words absent before turn up, some that had occurred sporadically in the earlier works, some nowhere, not even in the Dialogus. A number can be brought under one category: standard and inconspicuous words (often Ciceronian), in sharp contrast to the author’s predilections hitherto. The style is copious, vivid, and elevated; not so tight and ferocious; and not so malignant.[745] The author writes swiftly and confidently, for he is sure of the facts. He docs not have to bother, as in the first hexad, about documents, the enigma of a ruler’s character –  and about style all the time. The new manner is patent in the narration of the great conspiracy against Nero.

The facts are not in dispute. They have even been taken to show a certain lapse in time during the composition of the whole work, between the first hexad and the third – or further, an appreciable interval after the second.[746] The third hexad, it will be recalled, proclaims emphatically a fresh beginning.

It may be so, and it may not. How explain the alteration in style? It could fit the theory of a late date of composition, well into the reign of Hadrian. Language and sentiment, much in Tacitus is a product of opposition, sometimes unconscious, often deliberate. The poetical and archaic manner set his writing at a distance from the ordinary and the conventional. If the historian found that fashion now overtook him, carrying those qualities to an excess of preciosity and antiquarianism, he might have been impelled to revert towards classical usage in grammar and in language.

A firmer explanation offers – the history itself was no more the same. Tiberius, who came to the power as an old man, a century before Tacitus began to write the Annales, was ancient history in his own person. Nero was close to the author’s time – and in many ways contemporary, for men saw much of Nero return with Hadrian.[747] Antique grandeur was out of place.

Not everything is admirable in the third hexad. No decline anywhere, it is true, in power of narration, of grouping events, of depicting character, or inventing an oration. But a decline might be suggested by sundry phenomena of language in Books XV and XVI. The writer is in a hurry, he seems to become negligent.

Perhaps the Annales lacked the final revision.[748] It does not have to be assumed that the last section ended, as it now ends, with a broken sentence in Book XVI – the recorded total of thirty books for Historiae and Annales together speaks for completion. Yet the author, terminating the third hexad, may not have lived long enough to impress upon his text a Tacitean perfection comparable to the earlier books.

Omissions, impediments, or incoherence in the narrative will help that hypothesis – could they be certified. The search is not at first sight remunerative. The extant books have nothing, it is true, about the situation on and beyond the river Danube since the reign of Claudius. Transactions of some note had occurred.[749] Yet they hardly touched the central theme of the historian, and could be kept for a recapitulatory chapter or two.[750] Again, the conspiracy of Piso carries a full catalogue of names and persons, more than thirty o f them packed into a single chapter.[751] Excessive perhaps, and fatiguing. None the less, it would argue a failure to understand what Roman and senatorial history is like if anybody fancied that remorseless documentation about persons is a sign of incompetent or unfinished workmanship.

A more searching inquiry into the third hexad might lay bare a number of compositional stop-gaps, residues of annotation, misleading clues, or imperfectly managed transitions. Though no single item could be convincing, the cumulation of heterogeneous symptoms may tilt the balance. All sections in the Neronian annals did not inspire the historian equally, and it was a temptation to press forward to the climax with its liberating prospect of swift narration in a large field: he could return later to tighten, emend, elucidate, or omit. If such was the procedure of Tacitus, it might leave some traces – episodes fully worked up (such as the campaigns in Armenia and Britain), but not always clearly related in chronology to the annalistic sequence, speeches completed and stylized, hut sometimes lacking proper explanation of their historical context, and miscellaneous items that he might ultimately discard for artistic reasons.

The Tiberian books of the Annales show the historian in his developed idiom, in full mastery of structure and coherence. The style there stands at its uniform perfection –  most Tacitean, with demonstrable efforts and devices. It is not easy to divine why Tacitus should deliberately choose to become less like himself, abating his intensity.[752]

Of what manner shall be the final verdict on Tacitus? His literary genius being incontestable, but not his merit as an historian (for the canons are subject to variation, not to say aberration), a formula has been devised that shall pacify or flatter the professional conscience of scholars: he was not an historian but a poet.[753] Some think by this axiom to dispose of Tacitus, others (and the better) to redeem him. If they mean well by literature, and contribute sensibly to its understanding, they do not render a service to history.[754] The like defence avails for Livy, and there is much truth and persuasiveness in the notion that Livy is a kind of prose Virgil. Since, however, the notion is not fully valid for Livy save where be deals in the mythical or the unverifiable, it must fall a long way short of the truth about Tacitus.

An orator or stylist might turn for solace to dramatic poetry, transferring to an earlier scene the discontents and conflicts of the present. In the estimation of Quintilian, the prime orator among those he had known was Domitius Afer, the prime tragedian Pomponius Secundus;[755] and it might be represented that the latter did not yield to the former in his claim to enduring renown.[756] Legendary subjects now seemed remote or incapable of renovation (Seneca’s productions bore witness), even though some Atreus or Thyestes might come in useful for invective against palace and dynasty, for maxims of subversive statecraft.[757]

Roman history gave scope for poetry and for high politics, notably the catastrop he of the Republic. Hence the Cato composed b y Curiatius Maternus (senator, orator, and poet) whom the young Tacitus knew and admired. And, if Cato or Brutus were exhausted, did not the tragedy of the Caesars embody a sequence of dramatic themes, with ambition, power, and crime recalling the House of Atreus? The aptitude disclosed in the Annales might have found expression and renown with a Sejanus or an Agrippina.

There was also the epic, itself closely germane to history. Lucan showed the way, but Lucan had taken the best theme, Cato and the fall of ‘Libertas’; and the latest heroic poem at Rome, the Punica of Silius Italicus, attested only a praiseworthy intention, a noble nostalgia, a tedious anachronism. The thing had been achieved long ago by Livy. Epic and drama were finished, and so was political eloquence. They could be perpetuated only if transfused into another medium. If history was that medium, it demanded the talents of orator, dramatist, and poet. It would have to be narrated with splendour and dignity and power.

The style of Tacitus exploits to the utmost the native resources of the Latin language; and he writes with that imagination which is the soul of history as it is the soul of poetry.[758] The historian of imperial Rome is the crown and summit of imperial literature. History, however, must also stand the question for accuracy and integrity, for range and depth.

 

XXIX. The Accuracy of Tacitus

Cornelius Tacitus does not need to be vindicated for accuracy. He consulted a variety of sources, and he was at pains to establish the truth. Not pedantically, however – he eschews elaborate refutation, with names and dates and all the paraphernalia, of other men’s mistakes. Tacitus is content with a hint, or a typical example. Similarly, for errors committed in his own earlier works – silent correction. Thus, having made a mistake about Poppaea Sabina, as did others (and it was venial, irrelevant perhaps, whether the lady had in fact been the lawful wedded wife of M. Salvius Otho when she was taken over by his friend the Emperor Nero), Tacitus prefers not to delay the reader and pester him with an elaborate rectification. On the other hand, odd particulars everywhere guarantee him alert and diligent.

Mistakes could not fail to occur – especially if the historian went his own way, scorning to transcribe a corpus of received truth, but independently using research, memory, and judgement (all fallible, in scholars as in senators). Divergences from standard tradition about early Rome will be variously interpreted, and not always to his discredit; but he was imperfectly informed about the last century of the Roman Republic. In a digression he states (part ignorance, part abbreviation) that the dispute about the jury courts was perhaps the main issue in the war between Marius and Sulla.[759] Further, he has one or two peculiar statements about later events, such as the incorporation of Italy in the Roman State;[760] he attributes to Augustus an extension of the sacred circuit of the city;[761] and statements about the tribunicia potestas of Tiberius neglect exact chronology.[762] Not having investigated properly the annals of Augustan Rome, Tacitus could sometimes be taken in by a conventional opinion.[763]

The early Principate had now receded a long way into the past, and the stream of genuine tradition (that is to say, persons and families above all) began to peter out. For the wife of Nero’s grandfather, Tacitus gives the younger daughter of Marcus Antonius, not the elder.[764] Referring in Book I to Caligula, then an infant in his parents’ company on the Rhine, Tacitus labels him as a child of the camp, with allusion to the nickname.[765] The actual place of birth set the learned at variance. Suetonius established the facts by appeal to the ‘acta publica’: nowhere near the Rhine, but at Antium.[766] Suetonius was arguing against weighty authorities – a consular legate, and (more formidable) an erudite procurator who had noticed an inscription.[767] For history it hardly matters. Less pardonable would be mistakes (they can be suspected but not proved) about families whose descendants belonged to Tacitus’ own time and rank.

So many names and agents, such is the nature of senatorial annals; and, if an error here and there, a lack of clarity or an omission is proved against the historian, it does not wreck his credit for diligence. Of positive errors, surely not very many. The author, however, ought sometimes to have been more explicit about a man’s origin, family, or connexions when relevant (as so often) to his career and activities. Several noblemen in the time of Tiberius are inadequately documented. Some were very important.

[...]

 

XXX. The Sceptical Historian

It was a task to overpower any novice, and not to be managed by rhetoric or mere erudition. Tacitus came to the Annales with a proper equipment, mature in experience, and well trained through having written about contemporary events. He is alert and vigilant, if ever historian was. But he came against barriers and limits, those of his time and epoch in the development of human thought. Not to Tacitus was it permitted, or to anybody else, to defy, confute, and explode a century-old tradition supported by the consensus of reputable authorities. The method had not yet been invented.

Still less for the remote past. It might seem wholly beyond the reach of criticism, because consecrated by time and custom, or not conceivably verifiable. A Roman lacked the w ill for disbelief as well as the tools and the technique.[768]

It suited the design of Tacitus to insert at intervals a number of antiquarian notices concerning institutions and topography. No words need be wasted on the fig tree of Romulus or the altar and shrine dedicated by the Arcadian Evander when he received a visit from Hercules.[769] Such things had a place, like the report of ‘prodigia’, in Roman annals, and an author’s belief or disbelief does not come into the question. More vulnerable is Tacitus’ excursus upon the origins of law.[770] The picture of primeval men, living in concord and equality, with no need of reward, or punishment, or legislation, will be allowed to pass as harmless homage to literary or sociological convention; but Tacitus goes on to express anomalous views about Servius Tullius and the code of the Decemvirs.[771] And some may feel disquiet because elsewhere he departs from standard tradition on two points of detail, how the quaestorship arose in the beginning, and when the ‘gentes minores’ were admitted to the patriciate.[772]

About early law and institutions at Rome his studies may have been imperfect or superficial. It is not proved.[773] A small phrase slipping out discloses the scepticism of a powerful intelligence. The sacred and patriotic story told how an Etruscan king, baffled by the heroism of the Romans and disarmed in admiration, offered honourable terms of peace and went away. Tacitus affirms that Rome capitulated.[774]

‘Porsenna dedita urbe [].’ Three words demolish several pages of Livy. Not that it is legitimate to blame Livy for his treatment of the legends or the early history: he was aware of the real character of much that he recounted. The later period demonstrates credulity and lack of political insight. The attack upon the Scipiones was an imbroglio (too late to unravel it), and Livy honestly avows that he is in trouble.[775] Many other things eluded him among the tangled feuds and alliances of those years: the operations of the Roman aristocracy were by no means as honourable as Livy' fancied. He cannot resist or criticize the carefully staged reconciliation of two political enemies, heralded and enjoined by a moving address on ‘concordia’ from the venerable lips of an elder statesman.[776] When the narrative came closer to his own age, he was not proof against elementary misconceptions.[777] And benevolence became a danger. It impelled him to extenuate acts of violence or treachery in the early career of Pompeius Magnus.[778] Nor would Livy wish, for any reason, to undermine the assertions of a leader who took up arms in a just cause, rescued Rome (more than once), and restored the authority of Senate and People.

The prime quality of Cornelius Tacitus is distrust. It was needed, if a man were to write about the Caesars. Eloquence and anger denounce that period as no better than the fraudulent or fragmentary annals of the early Republic.[779] The protest is petulant but instructive.

The Republic in its closing age exhibited history in the full light of day. With the Empire a veil descends, and the truth about many matters of high policy, more or less disguised at the time, became impenetrable to posterity. The sharpest insight might have to confess itself baffled.[780]

About the killing of Agrippa Postumus no official statement was ever published. Sallustius Crispus issued the order to a military tribune, and a centurion carried out the deed.[781] That is certain. The ultimate source and validity of that order remained an enigma, with wide scope for conjecture ever after, as the written sources all attest.[782]

So much for the last grandson of Caesar Augustus. Two years later a false Agrippa turned up, and was quietly put out of the way. Tacitus relates the story with names and details. It was believed that the impostor had friends and partisans. No investigation took place, and Tacitus says nothing more.[783]

The operations of an historian on the borderland of fact and fraud are the most exacting test of his powers. Several episodes establish the superior strategy of Cornelius Tacitus. First, the affair of M. Scribonius Libo. Tacitus affirms that he must expound it in careful detail, as of prime significance in the baneful record of the reign.[784]

This young nobleman had fallen into the snares of the astrologers, the magicians, and the interpreters of dreams. And what might he not hope from his pedigree, being a descendant of Pompeius Magnus? A friend of Libo conceived it his duty to put the Princeps on his guard. Tiberius, however, exhibited no change in his demeanour towards Libo, and allocated him a praetorship for the year 16. Then, in the autumn of that year, a practitioner in magic gave information to a prosecutor of great talent, Fulcinius Trio, who went to the consuls with the demand that the Senate investigate the case.

The trial began. The attitude of Tiberius was neutral and exemplary. The evidence was produced. Another prosecutor added to it. One piece was poor stuff, and childish, revealing only Libo’s craving for fabulous wealth. Another document looked more serious – it contained the names of the imperial family and of senators, with enigmatic or sinister marks appended. Libo denied that it was his handwriting. Whereupon Tiberius gave instructions that his slaves be put to the torture (an innovation in procedure, according to the historian).[785] That caused Libo to ask for an adjournment. He went away to his house, and, when an attempt at private intercession with Tiberius had failed, he dined in despair and alarm, and committed suicide that evening. The indictment, however, was not dropped. W hen the case terminated, the estate of the condemned man was divided among the prosecutors; and seven persons of rank moved their various proposals for public thanksgiving. The Senate ordered all astrologers and magicians to depart from Italy. Two of them were arrested and executed by the consuls.

Attempts have been made to impugn the validity of the Tacitean account. Perhaps Libo was an authentic and formidable conspirator;[786] perhaps Tacitus has been taken in by some family tradition in the aristocracy, which extenuated his guilt.[787] The testimony of Suetonius or Velleius can be played against Tacitus. And there is confirmation unimpeachable: an entry in the state calendar attests the ‘nefaria consilia’ of Libo.[788]

The reconstruction is open to an attack more damaging than any Tacitean narration deserves. Governmental truth under the Principate, with whatever solemnity of word or pageantry proclaimed, will carry its own corrective. Velleius duly reflects it,[789] and enough is known about Velleius. As for Suetonius, he is both trivial and imprudent. He adduces the danger from Scribonius Libo (and from the false Agrippa) among the reasons that made Tiberius hesitate to accept the Principate.[790] So far what passes for evidence. No accomplices in conspiracy can be detected anywhere, save among the adepts of forbidden arts. Nor can a supposed tradition help – as though a noble family even in decay would disown among its ancestors a genuine conspirator against the Caesars and prefer a fool or a coward. That Libo was a fool is abundantly clear. Seneca disposed of him effectively – ‘tam stolidus quam nobiles [as stupid as he was well born]’.[791] The account of Tacitus will stand.[792]

The Emperor was involved much more deeply when the quarrel between Germanicus Caesar and Cn. Piso became the subject of public inquiry, with all manner of allegations and surmise. Tiberius had little sympathy for Germanicus, and some cause for disapproving his conduct in the eastern lands. Piso had been chosen not only to guide the prince, but to curb him. The whole truth could not be let out. Rumour spoke of ‘secreta mandata’ from the Princeps to the governor of Syria.[793] The inference was natural enough.[794] Tiberius had been confronted with an awkward problem. Anybody could see that the relation between a prince of the dynasty, invested with proconsular imperium, and Caesar’s legate in Syria was a tricky matter; and Tiberius remembered the clash between the young Gaius Caesar and M. Lollius twenty years before. Tacitus, recounting the trial of Piso, alludes to a curious piece of evidence (perhaps such a document) on the verbal authority of old men he had known. They had seen the paper in Piso’s hands; and Piso (his friends affirmed) would have disclosed it to the Senate had he not been tricked b y Seianus. Tacitus refuses to sponsor the story.[795] And, winding up that affair, he utters a general warning. There is no certitude to be had about the most important transactions. Some men take any casual rumour for ascertained fact, others convert truth into falsehood, and the passage of time only augments the damage.[796]

The decease of Drusus was an added reason for an historian to be cautious. After describing the funeral ceremony Tacitus inserts a digression.[797] He had adopted the report of the best authorities – poison, administered by the contriving of Seianus and with the complicity of Drusus’ wife, Livia Julia, whom he seduced. Tacitus now intervenes to register and refute a version current even to his own time: Tiberius, having been secretly warned against Drusus by an emissary of Seianus, himself presented the poisoned cup to his son.

The story was wholly unsupported. Capable though they were of anything, the writers hostile to Tiberius never went so far. The thing was incredible, given the sagacity of the Emperor, his slow, deliberate, and suspicious nature. Yet it won belief, so Tacitus proceeds, because Seianus was held the author of each and every crime, and Tiberius was infatuated with his minister; both were objects of detestation – and rumour is relentless when there is death in the dynasty.[798]

With this text and example Tacitus exhorted his readers, solemnly and indeed passionately, to keep to authentic history, like his own Annales, abjuring rumour and sensation. About the death of Drusus the truth only came out eight years later, after the fall of Seianus (as Tacitus reveals and concedes). The woman Apicata was the source, his divorced wife. Before committing suicide she wrote it all down and sent it to Tiberius: a court doctor and a eunuch confirmed her avowals, when put to torture.[799] Nobody seems to have felt disquiet about the validity of those revelations.

The atrocious and childish rumour which Tacitus is at such pains to refute shows the historian acutely aware of a disturbing factor – namely that the craft and the criminal designs of Seianus might be falsely enhanced. Perhaps only intermittently aware, to judge by what he had already said or hinted.[800] Accuracy and a sharp critical sense were not enough to establish the truth. Tacitus soon had to confess his own dubitations in another matter that concerned Seianus. It was Seianus who persuaded the Emperor to leave Rome – that was the version transmitted by most of the authorities.[801] Accepting it, Tacitus can not withhold a certain disquiet, for Tiberius remained on Capreae after the fall of Seianus to the end of his days. Perhaps, therefore, other reasons had to be looked for – in Tiberius’ own nature. The historian adduces some of them. Tiberius (he suggests) wanted to cover up the traces of his cruelty and his vices; he had become sensitive about his age, and also about his physical appearance; and he could no longer stand the disagreements with his mother.[802]

Seianus, if rescued from melodrama and the trappings of a second Catilina, would exemplify more subtly, and in the end more forcibly, the predicaments of minister and monarch. The relationship was nothing new at Rome. On a proper scrutiny Aelius Seianus and Vipsanius Agrippa were closely comparable and mutually illuminative. A contemporary could see it: he was happy to develop the parallel for praise.[803] That contemporary had also heard vague echoes of friction between Augustus and Agrippa.[804] Later writers could enjoy an advantage. If they meditated upon Agrippa (history or legend), they might ask how that man managed to enforce his claims on the ruler – and avoid a fate like that of Aelius Seianus.

Caesar Augustus needed Agrippa; he was compelled to grant him a share in the power, and Julia for wife; had it not been for fate and savage accident, ‘atrox fortuna’, as Augustus confessed,[805] the succession would have gone to the sons of Agrippa and Julia. The other novus homo stood close to the power when chance or his own contriving began to remove the sons of Germanicus and Agrippina, the princes who were grandsons of Agrippa and Julia.

Conspiracy alleged or detected, proved or punished, is an elusive theme. The Emperor Domitian once observed that the lot of a ruler is far from happy – he will never be believed unless and until he is assassinated.[806] The perils that beset the Caesars will be invoked to explain or condone some of their actions. But the reputation of art emperor is not the principal cause of sorrow or perplexity. W hat is conspiracy? When an individual or a group is incriminated for nefarious designs against the person of Caesar or the security of the State, the count can subsume anything from treasonable talk to daggers and poison. Verification is generally precluded, documents are forged or fallacious, and the inquirer must use his own judgement: did a plot exist, who formed it, and with what precise purpose? Not all historians ask these questions when discussing the consul Varro Murena, or his grand-nephew Aelius Seianus.

The comforting assurance that a conspiracy has been unmasked and disarmed with opportune promptness cannot fail to excite a legitimate suspicion in any age; and the surmise w ill often be valid that some court intrigue or a clash of ambitions has disturbed the inner economy of the governmental oligarchy. Varro Murena was condemned in absence, and executed. Cassius Dio at the interval of more than two centuries felt bold enough to admit a doubt about his guilt.[807] Dio was a senator who had lived under despotism, and he enounces principles about the credibility of conspiracies.[808] But Dio was not always on the alert. It is not clear that he interpreted with sufficient perspicacity the kind of situation that compelled Augustus to banish his daughter – and again, nine years later, his grand-daughter. Moral delinquency was alleged, or a harsh penalty to prove it. Men of the time would discern conflict in the Palace, and dangerous ambitions brought to a fall.[809]

An historian might be confronted with fiction as well as deceit. Dio fancied that he had discovered both genuine history and a laudable excuse for prolix moralization when he came across Cinna Magnus, the nobleman who plotted to take the life of the Princeps – and who was brought to his senses by a sermon from Caesar more than two hours long.[810]

Descendants of Pompeius Magnus such as Cinna or Scribonius Libo engrossed more attention than they deserved. It was in the family circle of Augustus that danger was discovered and something closer to treason – Iutlus Antonius perishing on that count, the husband of his niece and alleged paramour of his daughter, then Aemilius Paullus who had for wife the younger Julia. If the Roman knight Aelius Seianus became a menace, it was Tiberius Caesar who made him so.

Seianus rose to such a pinnacle that one of two things must ensue— supremacy or catastrophe. The outcome cast its shadow backwards over all that had gone before; and the story of criminal ambition could not but appear coherent and convincing. Thus adultery and poison in 23. And two years later the historian can report without misgivings a secret petition from Seianus to the Emperor: he asked for the hand of Drusus’ widow.[811] Tacitus might have felt prompted to inquire whether such high aspirations are likely to have taken firm shape so early.

The growing discord between Tiberius and Agrippina showed Seianus how to proceed. He played upon the fears and resentments of the Emperor, and through prosecutions discredited and undermined the party of Agrippina. Y et it was not until the year 29 that the chance offered – not to seize the power but to glide into it gently under the grateful conduct of Tiberius Caesar.

The Senate passed sentence of banishment against Agrippina and her eldest son, Nero. Tacitus relates the affair in immediate sequence to the death of Livia, with an explanation – they had been more or less safe so long as the Augusta lived. Tacitus states that no charge of conspiracy was brought up.[812] His account is full and explicit –  the scene in the senate when Tiberius’ missive arrived, the motion of an eminent consular (Cotta Messallinus). The magistrates hesitated the senator whose duty it was to draw up the official records made a rash intervention, and there came a second letter from the angry Emperor.[813]

Two years later Seianus was consul, as colleague of the Emperor. He received proconsular imperium;[814] and he was betrothed to a princess, Julia, the daughter of Drusus Caesar and Livia Julia.[815] The example of M. Agrippa was before his eyes. Aelius Seianus had everything to gain by time and caution. Why plot to remove Caesar his benefactor, the source of his power? Dynastic loyalty had struck deep roots by now. Seianus could scarcely hope to seize and hold the supreme authority after an assassination.

The Emperor had encouraged his minister long since to extend his patronage through the disposal of honours and provinces.[816] No danger or rival seemed to threaten from the army commanders. Syria and Spain were vacant, without their consular legates these many years.[817] Closest to Italy lay Germany and Pannonia. Lentulus Gaetulicus held Upper Germany, with his father-in-law, L. Apronius, in the other command:[818] it is not known who was the legate o f Pannonia.[819]

At Rome and in the camps of the legions, men saw the statues of Tiberius and Seianus side by side; and their names were conjoined by a loyal Senate’s devotion, commemorating their virtues by altars to clemency and friendship.[820] Nor did Seianus neglect the effort to attach the urban populace, the peculiar clients of the Caesars. W hen he was elected consul, some form of pageantry was staged on the Aventine, the historic plebeian hill.[821] He also took the image of Fortuna from the shrine built by Servius Tullius to be his protecting and domestic deity.[822] Servius was the archetypal novas homo, just, benevolent, and a friend of the Roman plebs. Astute careerists read the signs, eagerly extolling merit against the claims of birth, and entreating the gods to guide Tiberius aright in the transmission of the power.[823]

The succession was passing from the line of Caesar Augustus. Of the sons of Germanicus, Nero was executed this year on his island of banishment; Drusus had been taken into custody the year before; only Caligula remained.

Something went wrong. Tiberius began to waver.[824] He saw that he had committed himself too deeply to his minister. Seianus was hoping for the tribunicia potestas.[825] The messages from the island were vague and ambiguous. Obstacles arose.[826] Several months passed.[827]

A letter from Capreae demolished Aelius Seianus (October 18, 31).[828] Had there been a conspiracy? Seianus numbered personages of mark among his friends and relatives. Yet no man of consular rank (so far as is known) shared his fate except his uncle, Junius Blaesus.[829] Nor were any governors of the armed provinces brought back to Rome in disgrace. The victims were numerous. But victims and an informer do not prove treason. When a man spoke in defence of the innocent adherents of Seianus, it was expedient for him to admit the official or current version of an abominable plot in which they had no share.[830]

Seianus towards the end took (it may be) some imprudent or desperate step, as he felt the toils closing around him. Tacitus adduces the name of an informer – of what credit, it is not at all clear.[831] The alert historian might have seen the need to correct exaggerations of disbelief. However it be, the only plot that can safely be assumed and narrated is the plot devised and executed by Tiberius Caesar. Seianus was deep and crafty. He met his master.[832]

Posterity might well refuse to credit many things that happened at Rome. The consort of Claudius Caesar went through a ceremony of marriage with C. Silius in the open light of day. Tacitus affirms the fact, invoking an unimpeachable tradition, the oral and the written.[833] Similarly, the great conspiracy against Nero. Popular talk at the time suggested that there was nothing in it – only a pretext for Nero to destroy those whom he feared or hated. Tacitus goes out of his way to vouch for authenticity. He appeals to the testimony of conspirators who survived.[834]

It was necessary to be cautious about many of the particulars. An informer denounced Seneca. Nero fixed on the charge with alacrity. Yet, as Tacitus points out, Nero had no valid evidence.[835] It is only as a rumour that Tacitus notices a project emanating from some of the officers (and not unknown to Seneca himself), to kill Piso as well as Nero and install Seneca in the power.[836] The caution of Tacitus is exemplary.[837] It has been left to later writers to pronounce with airs of certitude on the complicity of Annaeus Seneca.[838]

Ignorance or deception tended to multiply the victims of tyranny. In the year after the conspiracy a certain Anicius Cerialis, being denounced to Nero, promptly put an end to his life. Some historians extenuated the earlier career of this man.[839] Tacitus, who had reported his extravagant proposal of a temple for ‘Divus Nero’,[840] exempts the fate of Anicius from any commiseration – men remembered that he had given evidence to Caligula about a conspiracy.[841]

Such is the distrustfulness of Tacitus that even eyewitnesses, reputable old men, may be doubted, or the great Corbulo refused credence – Corbulo made false allegations to enhance the discredit of another general.[842] Most of the historian’s critical work is lost to view, the polemics being veiled, and he seldom cares to specify the grounds for choice or rejection. From time to time a fact, a name, or a comment, while unobtrusively revealing his methods, will show him vigilant all through.

[...]

 

XXXII. Tacitus and Tiberius

‘Sine ira et studio.’ Tacitus professes to relate the truth about the Caesars, with no personal feeling for or against any one of them.[843] Towards the Principate he is harsh and malicious. How will he deal with the Caesars as men, and with what verdict upon the acts and quality of their rule?

It is mainly for his treatment of Tiberius that Tacitus comes under censure. The inquiry starts with a double and varied charge of inconsistency. First, the different stages in the reign. It was clear that the ruler underwent a change.[844] For Tacitus the economy of his first hexad demanded that the change for the worse should begin with the year 23. To omit minor discrepancies, that division is at variance with the stages of decline and deterioration in the character of Tiberius, as enumerated in the epilogue at the end of Book VI. Public report (says the historian) had nothing but praise for the years before Tiberius came to the power ; while the princes Gcrmanicus and Drusus yet lived, craft and dissembling were a shield; until his mother died, a mixture of good and evil; under the influence of Seianus (affection but also fear) he was cruel, but lust was kept out of sight; and finally abominable when, with nothing and nobody to fear or respect, he came out as his true self.[845]

Next, while the words and conduct of Tiberius Caesar are registered by the historian with a fidelity that shows the use of documents, the comments which he subjoins often clash and jar. Tacitus himself seems to become vaguely aware of discrepancies.[846]

The portrait is variously vulnerable. The first problem that arises is literary: is the Tacitean Tiberius largely and mainly the creation of the author? That thesis has been argued with eloquence and ingenuity, and sometimes with obstinacy.[847] Certain reasons tell powerfully against it. Suetonius and Dio are in general concord with Tacitus. They can rank as independent authorities. There is no clear sign that Suetonius used Tacitus. Yet the biographer, though casual and incoherent, reflects the same diagnosis of 'Tiberiu – duplicity, with hidden vices (especially cruelty) gradually breaking out.[848] As for Dio, while it is rash to deny that he cannot anywhere have been influenced by Tacitus, it is also superfluous. The account of Tiberius’ accession makes it clear that Dio went back to sources nearer the events – as, on the face of things, an historian’s duty prescribes.

The memory of Tiberius was not officially condemned at Rome.[849] He had held the supreme power for long years, and faint or scattered hints survive of a tradition less hostile than that which confronted Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dio. It may be that the picture darkened somewhat in the course of the first two generations after his decease – and some will invoke the effects of Domitian’s reign.[850] One fact counsels caution. The written authorities that Tacitus cites (but never names) were uniformly unfavourable to the Emperor. When the historian corrects them, it is to propose a milder version.[851]

About the figure of Tiberius Caesar, as known to the contemporaries of Trajan and Hadrian, a modest and plausible conclusion emerges. Their Tiberius belonged to the consensus of educated opinion. Tacitus took that picture. He cleansed it of trivial accretions, heightened the colours, sharpened the outline, and converted it into a work of art.[852] Literary technique and historical research conspired to the same end. Since Tacitus for his Tiberius drew so much upon documentary sources, distrusting the historians, he could not help adding his own comments and reconstructions in generous measure.

The manner and tone of the Tacitean interpretation acknowledged various influences or constraints, variously to be appraised. The way of thought of the ancients was prone to conceive a man’s inner nature as something definable and immutable. A change in observed behaviour was therefore not a change in essence, but only a manifestation of what was there all the time;[853] and, if Tiberius at the end stood revealed as a bad man and a tyrant, it was legitimate to ask how and when the faults of his character, which previously had been curbed by discipline or disguised by craft, at last came to the surface. There were doubts and hazards in the inquiry – and Tacitus is both over-rigid and inconsistent. He can report a verdict not wholly in harmony with his own schema: for example, it was the tenure of imperial power (said L. Arruntius) that perverted and destroyed Tiberius Caesar.[854]

In the historian’s own experiences there was nothing to predispose him in favour of Tiberius. He knew a reign that went to the bad after it began well on a safe dynastic succession with the promise of equity and moderation. A satirist called Domitian ‘the bald Nero’.[855] The superior insight of an historian might have discerned a juvenile Tiberius. There was deep resentment in Tiberius – and Domitian had been set back by his father and by his brother.

Domitian made a habit of studying the state papers of Tiberius Caesar.[856] Both rulers were noted for a careful management of the Empire, choosing their governors well, repressing abuses, and protecting the subject population. And both reigns were indelibly stamped with the reproach of indictments for high treason. Whatever the causes and the allocation of blame, the reign of Tiberius plunged into a welter of ‘maiestas’.[857] Eager ambition saw its chance, and the warfare of factions in the Senate used the weapon, as is abundantly revealed. The Emperor came to feel insecure; and the Emperor himself seemed amicably disposed towards some of the prosecutors.[858] It therefore became difficult for Tacitus not to regard ‘maicstas’ as a device and instrument of the government. He was impelled to incriminate Tiberius.[859]

None the less it is too simple a view that Tacitus was merely, or largely, rewriting another tyrant, that he could not shake off the memory of the last years under Domitian. It is open to anyone to argue that his Tiberius would be much what it is if Domitian had never been. The weight and consensus of tradition was too much for the historian. That tradition had not been constructed by a single writer shortly after the death of Tiberius, still less could it be overturned by a single writer nearly three generations later.

The principal charges are craft, rancour, and cruelty – for the allegations of secret vice to which Tiberius’ seclusion on the island gave rise may be treated as subsidiary.[860] The dissimulation of Tiberius is an integral part of the tradition.[861] It is also confirmed by facts. Slow, cautious, and secretive, he had learned to cloak his thoughts and repress his feelings. Private affections had been overruled for reasons of high politics, and the ‘dignitas’ of a proud aristocrat suffered outrage more than once from Caesar Augustus; and yet, after multiple humiliations, he must behave as though nothing had occurred, resuming on command from his taskmaster the servitude of office and the mask of cheerful subordination.

The scene and ceremony of the accession prescribed a false attitude, with much official and inevitable hypocrisy in the sequel. On state occasions, and especially when the Senate sat in justice, it was expedient for the holder of the ultimate authority to conceal his true purpose.[862] His own statements might easily reinforce the impression of dishonesty. Tiberius said repeatedly that he would have to go to the provinces and visit the armies: he never went.[863] As late as 23 he still spoke of resigning the power – the consuls or somebody else might have it.[864] All this was nothing to the drama of deceit which the Emperor staged when discarding and destroying his minister. After the letter from Capreae no man could doubt that Tiberius was a master of guile and dissimulation.[865]

Evidence also showed that Tiberius was vindictive. It was alleged that in the first months of the reign he hastened the end of his former wife, the exiled Julia. That cannot be substantiated; but he ordered the execution of her lover, Sempronius Gracchus, an ancient enemy.[866] Tiberius disliked Asinius Gallus.[867] He arranged that the missive denouncing the septuagenarian consular should reach the Senate while he was being entertained at Capreae.[868]

The behaviour of Tiberius after the catastrophe of Seianus and the ensuing revelations confirmed the worst that was believed about his character. Tiberius wrote an autobiography. He there asserted that he punished Seianus because of Seianus’ intrigues against the family of Germanicus.[869] Yet the fall of Seianus brought no release or alleviation for Agrippina or for Dnisus, her second son. They were still kept in close confinement, and when they perished two years later Tiberius did not relent. He was exultant. He recited a documentary and savage indictment against the young prince, with the record of all his days and hours in prison. The decease of Agrippina fell upon the anniversary of Seianus’ destruction. She was lucky, said Tiberius, that she too was not strangled by the executioner, and her bod)' exposed on the Scalae Gemoniae – but, he added, the coincidence deserved to have public thanksgiving and a permanent commemoration in the calendar of the Roman State.[870]

Tiberius on his accession had made a firm statement to the Senate about his own nature: it would never change so long as he remained in control of his intelligence.[871] Later, in an oration that repulsed excessive forms of homage, he uttered a solemn prayer that the gods might vouchsafe repose of mind and a judgement unimpaired to the end.[872] The outcome showed all the malice of fate. The Tiberius of the last years was a warped and unbalanced character.

To understand what had happened, an historian would have to go back, not only to the first period of Tiberius’ government, but even further, and investigate the original predicament of the man in relation to his surroundings, family, and career. Tiberius was in his fifty-fifth year when he came to the power.

On no estimate was the gens of the patrician Claudii a normal or predictable portion of the Roman nobilitas. Tradition made them out to be tyrannical, contemning, and oppressing the common folk. That was the fabricated version of their enemies—not the plebs but the aristocracy.[873] Alert, unscrupulous, and arrogant towards their rivals, the Claudii in the competition for power and honour at Rome exploited demagogic politics, extraneous alliances, and the promotion of novi homines. They did not forget their own origin out of the Sabine country long ago.

Tiberius Claudius Nero united a double Claudian strain, the Pulchri as well as the Nerones.[874] Yet Tiberius was a most anomalous Claudian: not a politician but a general, not an innovator but a conservative. Even his literary tastes were archaic.[875] He liked old-fashioned words; and he was a purist. His preference in poetry went to certain Greek writers whom the previous generation held in esteem; and he showed no interest in the writers of that Augustan prime in which he grew to manhood.

The resentments of Tiberius, personal and political, have an early origin in his life. His father fought against Caesar’s heir in the War of Perusia, and he fled for refuge (taking his wife and son) to Sextus Pompeius in Sicily. Not long after his return to Rome he was forced to surrender Livia Drusilla to the importunate matrimony of his erstwhile opponent.

The mother of Tiberius married the Triumvir, who was the declared enemy of the aristocracy, the destroyer of the Republic. That the victor in civil war should in due course become a legitimate ruler did not improve matters. Tiberius developed his nature and formed his habits in revulsion from his environment.[876] Promoted by his stepfather (but not grateful), aloof and austere amid the grace and ease and smooth perfidy of fashionable society, Tiberius stood in visible and wilful protest against both renegade Republicans and fraudulent Pompeiani.[877]

The greater favour and liking seemed to go to his brother Drusus, whom some alleged to be in truth the son of the Princeps.[878] There were rivals in the family group all the time, and dynastic arrangements that led to friction and culminated in a clash when the supreme design of Augustus became patent and flagrant—rapid exaltation of the princes of his blood, the young Caesars Gaius and Lucius. Augustus intended that his stepson should serve and further that design.

Tiberius rebelled and went away to Rhodes. That episode gave clues to his character that no historian should have missed.[879] Nor did Augustus forget. When, with no choice left, he decided to adopt Tiberius, he made sure that posterity would learn his reasons.[880] The Princeps continued to advertise his disappointment at the loss of his sons, the Caesars Gaius and Lucius.[881] He had also adopted Agrippa Postumus; and he compelled Tiberius to take Germanicus into his family, though he had a son of his own. The inheritance of Caesar Augustus carried a heavy burden of memories, and a sure promise of discord.[882]

Tiberius was grim and inclement.[883] His deliberate ferocity, or ‘diritas’, incurred the disapprobation of Augustus.[884] It grew with the years. His manner and habit is revealed by anecdote or aphorism, showing arrogance, anger, and rancour, things said without tact and things said to wound and annoy. Claudian pride combined with conscious rectitude and a hatred of shams.[885] Not sparing himself, Tiberius would not spare others; and a man who is ‘severus’ can easily pass for ‘tristior’.[886] Some of the admonitions he visited on senators were extremely harsh.[887] Though he was circumspect, and slow to anger, the outburst might be formidable.[888] The Emperor’s resentment lost nothing by being retarded, or conveyed in writing. Through long years the Senate had to listen to a sequence of missives from Capreae, carping or ferocious, ambiguous or deceitful.[889]

Of the Princeps’ deportment in public, Tacitus furnishes some remarkable renderings deriving from an eyewitness, from the documentary record, or from bold divination. After denouncing Hortensius, who made an importunate request for financial subsidy, Tiberius saw that he had gone too far for a Princeps, paused for a time, and resumed in a strain of conciliation.[890] Or again, bitter resentment, as when Tiberius recapitulated the career of Sulpicius Qutrinius. It brought back the history of twenty years before and the humiliations endured at Rhodes. The Emperor could not repress a savage reference to a hated name, that of Marcus Lollius, the author of discord and iniquity.[891]

Tacitus, however, had debarred himself from full insight. He ought to have made the Annales begin at an earlier point. As has been shown, the year 4 would have been highly suitable for narrative and for the grouping of material. Most of the main themes, domestic and foreign, run continuous into the Principate of Tiberius.

There is something else: not continuity but a contrast, authentic, powerful, and illuminating. The period of Tiberius’ absence from Rome had witnessed a strong trend towards the monarchical; and it is not likely that the Princeps encouraged the Senate to hold frequent or public debate during the crisis of the northern wars. Moreover, various signs indicate that the government was not altogether skilful in managing opinion – prosecutions for libel and the burning of books.[892] Friction at Rome, disasters abroad, and scandal in the dynasty – that was the last decade of Caesar Augustus.[893]

The accession of Tiberius marked a restoration of the Republic more genuine in many respects than that proclaimed and enacted by his predecessor – if behaviour be valued higher than legal formula. Tiberius professed an intention of governing like a true ‘princeps’, according to the will and sentiments of the Senate. The profession (though not to be pushed to an extremity of literalistic interpretation) was not all hypocrisy, neither was the intention wholly impracticable. Tiberius was a Roman aristocrat, one of the ‘principes’, not an adventurer who rose out of civil strife to become lord of the world and saviour of the nations. Forty years of internal stability might augur well for a liberal régime under the presidency of a ruler who for the greater part of the previous decade had been fighting the wars of the Republic in the northern lands.

It turned out otherwise. Absence told against him. The new ruler was out of touch – not ten years but thirty, for he had seldom seen the Senate since his praetorship in 16 B.C. Tiberius forgot (or tried to forget) how far that body had been corrupted and debased by Caesar Augustus. At his accession he was confronted by a Senate both suspicious and unduly subservient.[894] Compelled to honour the precedents set by Augustus everywhere, Tiberius was hampered in thought and deed by his own past, and by the oppressive memory of Augustus. Sincere when he made profession of Republican principles, Tiberius was yet gradually driven to subvert those principles through failure, ill chance, or the needs of government.[895] In fine, the historian might have hit upon a strange but captivating idea: after, no less than before, Tiberius was the victim of Augustus.

Many things in Tiberius the historian could not but admire. The review of his administration down to the year 23 is all praise, except for the ruler’s personal demeanour – ‘plerumque horridus []’.[896] It is confirmed by what emerges elsewhere about his good qualities. The prince was imbued with a noble conception of the dignity of the Roman People in its relation to foreign states.[897] He had an exalted notion of a ruler’s duty, above the fear of incurring enmity for the sake of the ‘res publica’ and disdainful of popularity.[898] At the same time it was invidious, he held, that the power of the State should intervene to make men better than they are.[899] Like an aristocrat, Tiberius set enduring fame as the goal, but deprecated extravagant forms of personal homage.[900] His constancy under the blows of fate, his stoical behaviour in the hour of bereavement recalled the Romans of old.[901] No kind of pretence or flattery deceived him, and he never forgave a disloyal friend. He liked freedom of speech; he respected tradition. While according a proper preference to blood and family, the heir of the patrician Claudii none the less insisted upon advancement for merit.[902] Nothing excited his anger more sharply than the subservience of senators or the sloth of nobiles who asserted pedigree as a mortgage upon state endowment: they outraged the honour of their own class, they brought into discredit the whole tradition of the aristocratic Republic.[903]

Above all, the penetration and ferocity of the man. Tiberius mingled sarcasm with serious arguments.[904] He produced his effects either by grave and elaborate irony or by 'a single and demolitionary aphorism. Tacitus approves the eloquence of the Emperor in terms that fit his own style.[905] The verdict encourages speculation. The dignity and power of the Tiberian orations might furnish a clue to certain virtues that contemporaries admired in the consular orator.

Tacitus builds up his Tiberius with careful and loving preoccupation. The process discloses more than he intended: ‘odi et amo [].’ It is a literary or artistic infatuation, of a kind easily paralleled – and something more than that. Certain features in that Tacitean Tiberius, detestable on a superficial view, carried praise, not blame. Tacitus wrote for men of mature and pitiless understanding, as one of them, knowing the slippery paths of power and the devious recesses of human nature. How did a ruler survive for long years, save by deep counsels and dissimulation?

Tiberius Caesar showed consummate ability as a ruler – and he had need to be vigilant if he wished to introduce an unwonted freedom of debate. On his guard in small matters, he detected the traps laid by dishonest or adulatory senators. In the larger perils he was able to retrieve his own errors through craft and patience. Whatever the rights and wrongs in the quarrel between Germanicus and the legate of Syria, Cn. Piso (it is patent) was guilty of high treason for levying war, Piso was Tiberius’ choice, and an old friend. Yet Piso had to be thrown over. The thing was managed. Discovering signal merit and loyalty in his minister Aelius Seianus, Tiberius committed himself imprudently. He drew back in time. Both factions were destroyed, that of Seianus after that of Agrippina. Tiberius Caesar survived.

Some of those who, writing about men and government, affect and advertise the highest moral ideals, are ready to concede that the people may be deceived for the people’s good, at least intermittently. Others are more liberal in the indulgence they accord to authority – or more accurate in their diagnosis of behaviour. Tacitus was not compiling a manual of statecraft – he presupposes it all, and discreetly furnishes the material for subsequent compilers, or thinkers. Among the virtues requisite in the prince (given his predicament and his enemies) ‘aissimulatio’ will stand foremost. Tiberius Caesar cherished ‘dissimulatio’ as his favourite virtue: he was annoyed if it were seen through.[906] In his last hours, when bodily strength begins to collapse and life wanes, the Emperor’s power of dissembling endures to the end.[907]

So accurate and discriminatory is Tacitus’ portrayal of Tiberius that it can be exploited to its own detriment or subversion. The other accounts that survive are defective, trivial, or miserable. Tacitus went to the documents, and he was a sceptical inquirer. Convention and tradition proved too strong for him.[908] Otherwise his Tiberius might have been wholly acceptable – less literary and more complex, closer to history, and in the end more tragic.

It is unprofitable as well as unjust to dwell exclusively upon the shortcomings of Tacitus. A graver charge involves many of his critics. Another age, disdainful of Tacitus in its writing of Roman history, often reproduces his defects without the compensating merits: it accepts patterns, of ancient origin or recently devised, and it is unduly deferential to consecrated beliefs.

The closing epoch of the Republic, the wars of the dynasts, and the establishment of the monarchy might have been interpreted as a chapter in the history of oligarchy at Rome. For oligarchy is the one thing that stands and endures when rulers come and go and names change, but not substance (and sometimes the empty names abide). Instead, the biography of one man, or two, or three. Most is known about Cicero, whose genius and fame created an epoch in the literature of the Latins. But Cicero was not an independent force in politics or the leader of a party. Caesar wras that; and Caesar, having overthrown the Republic, emerged in act, if not intent, as an autocrat. But the power of Caesar was brief in duration – fresh wars were needed, rapid events, and a genuine revolution before monarchic rule could be established as a system and in permanence. The Caesar who in youth conceived the vast ambition, and saw clearly the path to the throne, is a literary figment, not unworthy of Cornelius Tacitus.[909]

It would have been better to build up Pompeius Magnus. Julius Caesar, until he became consul, pursued the normal career of a Roman nobilis. Pompeius from the outset was revolutionary and exorbitant – a private army raised in civil war, special mandates, and the consulate before he was even a senator, with great commands in the Empire thereafter, and the holding of imperium barely interrupted until war and battle deposed him. The last age of the Republic is the age of Pompeius Magnus.

Magnus might be rehabilitated under the rule of Caesar Augustus, likewise the Republic (certainly Cato, though Brutus and Cassius lay under an official interdict), but Marcus Antonius was damned by foreign allies, the Egyptian woman, and the curse of civil war renewed. The victory of Caesar’s heir seems as inevitable as it proved to be salutary.

When a narration about Caesar Augustus is allowed to take its beginning from the War of Actium, the harm is not irreparable: victory made him sole master of Rome and the world. The restoration of the Republic imparts error and distortion. So Caesar Augustus willed it, and historians conform. No more violence and usurpation. The years of tribulation are buried and forgotten: the First Citizen now governs through prestige, and by an authority which Senate and People have delegated.

By convention, the law and the constitution are held to determine the history and behaviour of the Roman People. The despot benefits. He exploited legal or public definitions – not always with extreme pedantry, and not always in an honest fashion. As a result the history of his reign tends to be interpreted in those terms, with juristic argumentation in the place of political analysis. The root or essence of power is neglected.

The Princeps could not hope to deceive men of the time about the nature of his predominance. Yet he might lay claim upon their complicity when he tried to expunge the recent past. Not anxious apologia – silence was safer. It was a good thing to forget the civil wars.[910] Many acquiesced, few resisted. The ‘prudentes’ at the funeral of Caesar Augustus expatiate on the career of the revolutionary adventurer and tyrannical Triumvir, violence and deceit from first to last. Tacitus (it might seem) is disproportionate, unjust, malicious. Yet equity and verisimilitude demanded that the unedifying origins of resplendent success should be mercilessly exposed. Men must have said those things.[911]

The ‘prudentes’ go on to censure the record of Augustus in the years of peace and principate.[912] They did not exhaust the theme. The historian, who proclaimed in his prologue that he would have very little to say about Augustus, discovered, before he was far forward with the Tiberian books, all manner of items that demanded elucidation or whetted his avid curiosity, with no propensity to benevolence. Notably the vicissitudes of individuals, calling to mind old scandals and discord in the dynasty.[913]

There is something else – deliberate choice and design, revealed in the digressions. The author goes out of his way to show up the acts and institutions of the Augustan Principate. Discussing ‘maiestas’, he insists that it was Augustus who first extended charges of treason from deeds to words.[914] An excursus on the praefectura urbis, by introducing the name of Maecenas (who held no office), undermines and discredits the Republican and constitutional precedents which (it may be presumed) had been claimed to justify the innovation.[915] The laws of Pompeius Magnus are linked to the enactments of Augustus in his sixth consulate by a rapid and insidious presentation;[916] and, bold and subversive, Tacitus arraigns the whole moral and social programme of the Princeps, a failure when it was not deleterious.[917]

Tacitus is impelled to bring up forgotten facts, damaging parallels, and any uncomfortable truth. The other aspect had been advertised by tradition and the historians – abundantly. The benefits of the new order were manifest. The favourable tribute of Tacitus (some will object) is unduly brief. Yet it is not perfidious or grudging. It is monumental.[918]

Tacitus’ account of that reign, had he survived to write it, would amply exhibit his virtues of dramatic presentation and political insight. A broad survey of the facts and resources of power covering Rome and Italy, provinces and armies, was requisite for introduction, and a sharp analysis of the Princeps’ relations with the different orders in society. Tacitus excels in this technique. Not confining himself to the acts and performance of the government, he w'ould unravel the complicated story of ambition and intrigue, of dissension and plotting. And especially the truth behind official professions and public attitudes. When, on January 13, 27 B.C., the Senate learned from the lips of Caesar’s heir that Rome had now entered upon the full enjoyment of liberty and the Republic, that scene called for nothing less than the peculiar talents of Cornelius Tacitus.[919]

One of the essential Augustan ambiguities is the attitude of Caesar’s heir towards Caesar. Though ‘Divi filius’, he seeks his legitimation in and from the Republic: like the Triumvir, the Dictator was better forgotten. The writers who most faithfully reflect governmental opinion, namely Virgil, Horace, and Livy, agree in what they say (or do not say) about Caesar the Dictator.[920] The clearest testimony comes from Virgil. The parent of Aeneas, when passing in review the heroes of Rome from the beginning, names next after Romulus that Caesar who will establish the Golden Age, ‘Augustus Caesar divi genus [Augustus Caesar, son of a god]’.[921] Julius Caesar is banished from that context, to be introduced in another place, along with Pompeius. Both are warned against the sin of civil war – and Caesar is solemnly adjured to disarm before Pompeius.[922]

Though linked to Augustus by the ruler’s filiation and nomenclature, ‘Divus Julius’ could be dissociated from persons and events, precisely because he had become a god. At the funeral procession of Augustus the ancestors were paraded in their imagines, also Romulus, the heroes of the old Republic, and the generals who augmented the dominion of Rome. Among them Pompeius Magnus – but not the conqueror of Gaul.[923]

Magnus, whatever the craft and violence of his career, ended on the side of the Republic. Favour to the memory of Magnus combined with doubts or silence about Caesar, and that suited Augustus very well. A tradition formed and prevailed. Livy was influential. In the upper and middle classes there were sentimental Pompeiani who identified Pompeius and the Republic; and the aristocracy harboured genuine Pompeiani, the descendants of the dynast. In the course of time even Marcus Antonius might earn some rehabilitation, but there was nobody to speak for Caesar. Emperors omitted his name when they held discourse on policy and precedents.[924]

Seneca saw no deception in the schematic contrast between Pompeius and Caesar. Seneca’s nephew in the epic poem made Pompeius out to be a sage as well as a patriot. Moral and political doctrines or hostility towards the Caesars embellished steadily the fame of Magnus. Tacitus broke free. Already in the Historiae he was on the alert – ‘occultior non melior []’, that is Pompeius Magnus in the line of the dynasts whose alliances and quarrels overthrew the Republic.[925] He is more explicit in the Anuales when he discusses Pompeius in the context of Augustan legislation. Magnus in his third consulate passed laws but broke them; his predominance rested on force and he lost it in war, with twenty years of anarchy ensuing. Not only that. Tacitus in this passage adapts a formulation that other writers had applied to the autocracy of Caesar.[926]

Tacitus mentions Julius Caesar very frequently, and never with dispraisal or malice. Banished by artifice or convention, the Dictator at length regains his place in the line of the Caesars.[927] The phenomenon is noteworthy. Time, the patent fact of monarchic rule, and the obsolescence of Republican affectations all contributed.[928] The epoch of Trajan felt the attraction of a Caesar who was also a conqueror; and the author of the Anuales was guided by a familiarity with the western provinces, by an understanding of the world empire in its perspective and panorama, and by an extreme distrust of Augustan valuations.

 

XXXVII. Tacitus and Hadrian

[...]

Of Trajan not even the name stands anywhere in the Annales.[929] Tacitus pays homage to the Imperator after his own fashion – and not without ambiguity. Allusion to Hadrian is also covert, but not perhaps always discreet.

Hadrian impinges variously upon the author’s thoughts. The treatment of Tiberius at his first presentation betrays disquieting symptoms. Not merely the hints and rumours inserted to the ruler’s detriment – Tacitus overloads the narrative and impairs its proportions. Perhaps there is something more – a pervasive influence. In so far as any later emperor coloured his whole portrayal of Tiberius, it might be Hadrian rather than Domitian.[930] Convinced (and with some excuse) of rancour and dissimulation in Hadrian (and unwilling to blame Trajan), Tacitus eagerly embraced a presumption about the heir and successor of Caesar Augustus, and cherished it to excess, despite the reasons that disposed him to approbation of Tiberius – and his avowals (weighty though intermittent) of doubt and perplexity.

At the same time, and conversely, Tacitus from a distant point of vantage should have been able to assess the arduous tasks and unhappy dilemmas that confronted the earlier rulers. Empire, as one of them told his friends, was a monster that had to be faced and mastered.[931] Tacitus might have admitted (could it be known) various palliations for Hadrian. The indulgence, it seems, was slight or muted. Anger and despair silenced charity. Soon or late, each of the Caesars went wrong before the end. Hadrian’s reign had not even begun well. It opened with a suspicious adoption, the killing of a nobilis, and the execution of four consular marshals. An historian’s studies confirmed a senator’s insight into men and governments. What had been before would come again, and nothing stood certain except fate or chance and the ‘ludibria rerum mortalium cunctis in negotiis []’.[932]

An emperor who was also a philosopher meditated upon the eternal recurrence of things. As history is, so it was and shall be. Out of a man’s experience or from the chronicle of old times it unfolds before his eyes in a sequence of stage plays. The theatre is the same, only the actors are different.[933]

The writing of history was esteemed a benefit when it abated discord, embellished the past, and strengthened the present age in felicity and contentment.[934] The epoch of the Julian and Claudian Caesars, however, was something better forgotten: only a chronicle of crime and tyranny, without any valid lesson. No emperor could approve a work like the Annales of Cornelius Tacitus. An evil past had come to life again. The evocation was vivid, insidious, and subversive. There are many talents in Tacitus, and one is for satire.

The living were immune. Junius Juvenalis proclaims that his attacks will be confined to those whose ashes arc entombed beside the Latin or the Flaminian Way.[935] Of necessity. The poems confirm. Juvenal cannot visit scorn and derision on the men who have wealth and place and power. He anxiously avoids the new aristocracy now dominant, that issued largely from Spain or Narbonensis, and the dynastic houses from the eastern lands.[936] Nor can he touch the themes of imperial policy. Literature or fiction furnish most of his requirements, with an especial debt to the reigns of Nero and Domitian.[937]

Juvenal belonged to a family of equestrian fortune (not much by the standards of the metropolis). He was coeval with Suetonius Tranquillus, and a dozen years junior to Tacitus. The scholarly Suetonius benefited from the patronage of Pliny, but Pliny gives no hint of Juvenal’s existence. Suetonius sought, acquired, and then surrendered a post as military tribune – Pliny had solicited the legate of Britain in his favour.[938] Juvenal may (or may not) have served a stage in the ‘militia equestris []’.[939] He could not resist the call of the metropolis. Martial knew him, and sympathized with his early struggles for advancement.[940] Juvenal frequented the law courts and the schools of rhetoric. Whatever the nature and compass of his ambitions – success, money, a name as ah advocate, or an advantageous employment in the imperial secretariat – he suffered some disappointment, with teaching perhaps as the last resort, and the writing of satire as his revenge.[941] No senatorial patrons arc honoured in his poems, or even any of the high equestrian dignitaries and heads of departments.[942] In the first line of the seventh of his satires Juvenal appeals to Caesar as the sole support of polite letters – ‘et spes et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantum []’. Hadrian gave no encouragement.

The chronology of Juvenal’s writings has an importance transcending the mere biography of a poet. In the first satire he alludes to the enormities of Marius Priscus, the proconsul of Africa, and the lenience of exile as a penalty.[943] A recent event (it has been urged), and a clue for dating. Not at all. The case was notorious – and probably the latest prosecution of a proconsul of consular rank. Juvenal mentions Priscus again.[944] Marius Priscus need only be an allusion to a modern work of classic rank, the letters of Pliny – or to that eminent orator who was still alive and writing history. There is no proof that Juvenal published anything before the death of Trajan. Nor is the term of his literary activity precise. In the penultimate satire he refers to one of the consuls of 127 as not long ago.[945] If the period of the satires be put roughly at 115–30, a conclusion of some interest emerges. For a part at least of the way the satires of Juvenal run parallel with the Annales: a name, a theme, or an incident here and there might derive from Tacitus.

Not that the satirist need be supposed deeply in the debt of the historian, or catching from him the notion that a savage indignation might profitably glut itself upon the dead. Tacitus and Juvenal could be regarded as parallel and coeval phenomena. Style, tone, and sentiments are comparable. Juvenal has point and concentration, command of rapid narrative and of pictorial evocation – and a dramatic power supremely manifested in scenes like the fall of Seianus or the demoniac energy of a debauch.[946]

Remorseless preaching of the ancestral morality, denunciation of vice, and sloth, and foreigners – the national Roman spirit speaks with a fervour and a fury never known to the conquering Republic or to the pride of the Augustan Empire. It was now on the defensive, passionately insistent on ancient virtue and ancient heroism. Loud and perhaps over-loud in their protestations, Juvenal and Tacitus betray symptoms of defeat or insecurity. They are the last great names in the literature of the Romans.

Political oratory had been perpetuated for a season, as it were, in the shape of political history. That ended now. Erudite compilation held the field, gossip writing, or ethical tracts. Suetonius conceived the notion of an encyclopedia to embrace the whole of Latin literature arranged biographically (and not omitting the grammarians and professors).[947] The device, which was congenial to his talents, may have suggested another enterprise. Suetonius went on to describe the lives and habits of the Caesars, with a predilection for odd and scandalous detail.[948]

The documentation was formidable – even extracts which Suetonius culled from the private correspondence of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. His occupation helped, with access to the archives – for Suetonius after the tentative or thwarted aspirations of a scholar’s existence, wavering between books and a career, in the end slipped into the secretariat after the accession of Hadrian.[949] He became Hadrian’s adviser ‘a studiis’. Then he was put in charge of the imperial libraries at Rome. Before long he acquired the important office ‘ab epistulis’. Suetonius’ patron was a friend of the deceased Pliny, namely Septicius Claras, who became commander of the Guard in 119; and along with Septicius he lost favour and employ in 122, when the Emperor was in Britain.

The work De vita Caesarum bore a dedication to Septicius, apparently with the title of his prefecture.[950] Six books, one for each ruler, embraced the Caesars in their dynastic sequence from the Dictator to Nero: a fitting term and climax, rounded off with a brief epilogue about a spurious Nero.[951] Suetonius furnished two more books, one for the three emperors of the year 69, the other for the three Flavians, concluding an epoch and announcing a happier season.[952] The sequel o f emperors after Nero might be a later addition.[953]

The Vitae vary greatly in value, the furthest from his own lifetime being the best, for they demanded less original work. Though precise with detail concerning the emperors after Augustus, Suetonius is chary in citation of authorities. Of the Roman annalists subsequent to Livy, he names only one, precisely Cremutius Cordus.[954] For his information, Suetonius had recourse to a great variety of sources. Method and design separated him from the historians – and the master of erudite technique may not have been reluctant to enhance the divergence, to parade a familiarity with abstruse documents, and sometimes to read them a lesson in the art of verification.[955]

Common sources were employed by Suetonius and by Tacitus, notably for the year of Tiberius’ accession and for the year 69. The biographer may, or may not, have drawn upon the senatorial historian. He has been discreet – perhaps of set purpose. No single instance can be certified: at the most, perhaps veiled allusions expressing disagreement with the eminent consular.

Suetonius estimated correctly the taste and market of the times. Readers were drawn to the personal items that formal history disdained. There was room for a rival or supplement to the Anrtales – and the chronicle of ancient folly and depravity, compiled by a government official, carried no political danger.

Another feature of the age was a reaction against all writers of the Empire, not merely the most recent. Men were already conducting a retreat a long way into the past. A taste for Sallust was respectable and laudable. Hadrian preferred Coelius Antipater.[956] Hadrian was only twenty years younger than Tacitus. Yet Hadrian and others were going back beyond Cicero to Cato for oratory; they neglected Virgil, they extolled Ennius. Before long, archaistic predilections in vocabulary and style were matched by a discreet enthusiasm for suburban archaeology, sentimentally effusive about the quaint relics or ruins in the towns of early Latium.[957] Such pursuits could inspire no joy or vigour. There was nothing worth doing, and nothing worth writing about.[958]

The especial glory of the times was Cornelius Fronto (an orator and the tutor of an emperor) whom the virtues of the plain style cannot redeem from a feeble aridity.[959] Fronto pronounced upon history as upon other topics, and he conceded that it ought to be written with splendour.[960] He even composed a stylized and laudatory history.[961] Fronto discusses Sallust very frequently, and comments with approbation upon the early annalists.[962] But no mention of Tacitus.[963] A long oblivion covered his name and writings.[964]

Nor did any Roman annalist or political historian take up the inheritance of Tacitus. When, in the age of turmoil after the peace of the Antonines, one of the marshals of Septimius Severus, a certain Marius Maximus, turned to authorship, he evaded the true subject and confined himself to the biographies of emperors, continuing Suetonius.[965] Contemporary events ought to have pulled a man back to the theme and manner of the consular historian. The past had returned, bringing the fate of a dynasty that had lasted for a century, the brief interlude before emperors were proclaimed by the armies, the sequence of wars.[966]

The type and model of Suetonius Tranquillus prevailed for centuries in the literature of the Latins, with late exponents in the line of Marius Maximus.[967] If biography is cheap and easy, so is edification. The age of Hadrian set the tone. An epitome or school manual provided a vehicle for conveying history without exertion or genuine enlightenment. A person called Florus set down the record of all the wars of the Romans from Romulus to Caesar Augustus.[968] The tone is pious and ecstatic, condensed Livy.

 

XXXVIII. Tacitus and the Greeks

If Latin letters declined Greek civilization now rose again and flourished exuberantly. Its notable heralds were Dio Cocccianus and the amiable Plutarch – the sophist of Prusa and the sage of Chaeronea. Dio came to Rome and prospered, being taken up by a person of high rank. His patron – a cousin of Domitian – was condemned to death, and Dio was banished.[969] He travelled widely, and, returning under Nerva, soon earned the esteem of Trajan. The talents of Dio were variously exemplified— mythology and moral homily for the guidance of an emperor, exhortation of rival cities to peace and concord, and a firm deprecation of unrest among the poor.

The fame and wealth of Dio did not escape the envy and hatred of his fellow citizens.[970] The life of Plutarch passed without disturbance. A young student at Athens when Nero visited Greece, he lived on into the reign of Hadrian.[971] The governing class at Rome approved his doctrines, and the friend of the proconsuls proclaimed the harmony and parity of the two peoples in a sequence of historical biographies, Roman worthies paralleled with Greek.

Other scholars were not so usefully employed. This was not a renascence of science and of learning, of history or poetry: only eloquence, though it might carry the mask of philosophy.[972] Perceptible under the Flavian dynasty, the movement gains strength in the time of Trajan. Pliny happens nowhere to mention the teachings of Dio or of Plutarch; but Nicetes of Smyrna had been his instructor in rhetoric, and he chronicles with applause the advent of Isaeus at the beginning of Trajan’s reign.[973] Tacitus was immune and hostile – the Dialogus has a cutting reference to the Asiatic declaimers.[974] Other senators were attracted, both the Italian and the provincial.

The Romans from the western provinces not only strengthened the governmental order – they were now in control. Yet by paradox they might seem (some of them at least) to be agents for the furtherance of Greek civilization rather than Roman. Their addiction to the higher education was largely the cause. Plutarch had eminent Romans for friends and patrons, among them members of Pliny’s circle, such as Sosius Senecio and Minicius Fundanus.[975] The Greek influence grew stronger and deeper. It was strikingly manifested in the generation of men some twenty years junior to Tacitus. Hadrian was passionately devoted to everything that was Greek.

The professors soon came to dominate the age. They paraded before their worshippers at international festivals, and famous cities might compete for the honour of a sophist’s birthplace, the advantage of his lectures and his residence. They guided governments by persuasion and counsel, led embassies, and rose to be friends and favourites of the Caesars. Trajan had not disdained them; and, whatever his personal tastes, he saw their utility for advertising contentment with the Roman government.[976] Hadrian stood out as their patron, their accomplice – and even their rival. Rewards and renown were exorbitant. A single fact will symbolize a whole period – in 143 Herodes Atticus consul ordinarius, with Cornelius Fronto among the stiffecti o f the year.[977]

Fronto, the pride of Latin eloquence, came from the colony of Cirta in Numidia. Herodes was the great Athenian sophist, a millionaire, and a very nasty fellow.[978] If the productions of the Greek publicists, to judge by survivals or surmise, were generally feeble or bombastic (and the nullity of Favorinus, for example, is convincingly attested),[979] their conceit and arrogance knew no bounds. A Roman magistrate might have to give way. Polemo, returning to Smyrna, found that his mansion had been occupied by Aurelius Fulvus, proconsul of Asia. He evicted the intruder. The mild Aurelius bore no malice.[980]

The pretensions of the sophists were often inflated by pedigree as wrell as by worldly success. Polemo belonged to that family of Laodicea – it displayed wealth and eloquence even then – which had supplied Antonius and Augustus with a capable ruler over vassal kingdoms.[981] Though a few among the sophists (and especially the earlier) made their mark by talent alone, most of them derived from old dynastic or sacerdotal families, claiming descent from the founders of cities. While the Roman peace revived the prosperity o f the world, and of the eastern lands in particular, the benefits went to a minority, and the rich grew richer.[982]

Rome in the past controlled the Empire through oligarchies in the cities, chieftains and dynasts in the country districts. Socially equal though local magnates might then be with the Roman governing order, and acceptable through birth, wealth, and education, they were not political equals. Their descendants, first through the patronage of the Caesars, and then by their own mass and importance, invade the Senate and help to rule the Empire. The new imperial aristocracy, in its Antonine development, embodies the alliance of the propertied classes, east and west, in concord under the monarchy.

The arms of Rome and the arts of Hellas, such, in the world empire, was the correct and predictable partnership. It worked out otherwise. Orientals of Greek speech and habit as consuls and proconsuls – that was more than had been expected. Whose the praise or blame? An easy indictment would lie against Hadrian, that ‘Graeculus’. Justice and a few facts disclose a paradoxical revelation about the military emperor, his predecessor.

The emergence of the Greeks in the governing class at Rome marks the culmination of the many triumphs of Hellenic civilization. The process is long and intricate, with many factors operating. It concerns literature and education as well as money, power, and government; and it is best conveyed not by abstractions but by persons and by social classes.

[...]

The customary and normal scorn of a Roman for any contemporary Greeks must now undergo some abatement or disguise. Juvenal derides the needy adventurer –  smooth, versatile, and corrupt – outwitting by low devices the ethical and dignified Roman.3 Superior material was waiting for a genuine satirist, namely the great sophists in their greed and vanity – the voluble Favorinus who was a eunuch (or rather perhaps a hermaphrodite);[983] the intolerable Polemo, in perambulation from country to country with a princely household, with horses and hunting dogs;[984] the virtuous Dio rebuking the indigent at Prusa with the assertion that poverty is the mother of orderly behaviour.[985] Juvenal did not dare to use it. Nor could he touch the descendants of kings and tetrarchs.

The pride of nationalism found its most passionate adepts among Romans of municipal or provincial extraction, with many to echo Cato in aversion from a people of talkers, triflers, and technicians. ‘Vitiorum omnium genitors []’, thus did the elder Pliny stigmatize the Greeks, because they used olive oil at their gymnastics.[986] But it is for Greek doctors that he reserves, like Cato, his fiercest tirades.[987]

The sentiments of Tacitus do not evade forecast. No educated Roman could deny the intellectual primacy of Hellas, the magnitude of the debt owed by the Romans to their instructors in all the arts of peace. The great writers of the Greek past defied criticism or dispraise: Tacitus quotes with approbation Plato’s diagnosis of the souls of tyrants.[988] Honour rendered to the classics, however, might absolve a man from recognizing anything that had subsequently been done by Greeks in the kingdoms founded by the successors of Alexander.[989] He was free to draw the contrast between the inhabitants of Asia, who were a pack of luxurious and degenerate orientals, and the genuine sons of ancient Hellas.[990] At the worst, if Athens and Sparta were called up to bear witness, then those republics had indubitably failed. Failure resulted from a narrow' and unenlightened policy. Diverse but equally culpable, neither Athens nor Sparta could establish an empire and bring the vanquished into concord and partnership with the victors.[991]

The Roman proconsul distrusted the Greeks for various reasons: cleverness and mendacity, subservience and volubility, and a cynical frankness about discreditable conduct. The Roman annalist, insistent on facts, nursed a double grievance against them – one Greek vice was fable and fiction about the remote past, the other was the magnification of historic glories. Sallust became sceptical: did the exploits of the Athenian People correspond with the report? Athens produced writers of genius: the Athenian authors enlarged the fame of the city.[992] Livy for his part succumbs to a prolonged bout of patriotic indignation. Greeks when they extolled Alexander pushed their effrontery to the limit.[993] They asserted that the Macedonian conqueror could easily have disposed of the Roman Republic in the age of its wars against the Samnites. Not only ignorance but criminal frivolity – some of them glorified the Parthians against Rome.[994]

The Historiae, so far as preserved, show a Tacitus uncommonly lenient towards the Greeks. No denunciation – he gently chides their propensity to antiquarian fabrications.[995] Hostility seems to grow as the years pass. Distasteful experiences may have supervened when Tacitus was proconsul of Asia; and a general resentment angered the Roman as he contemplated the tide of Hellenism resurgent ail around. Athens lay on the way to the province of Asia. G oing or returning, Tacitus may have seen a Roman senator in the robes and office of a Greek magistrate – for the young consular Aelius Hadrianus was archon in this year.[996]

The travels of Germanicus enable Tacitus to strike not once but twice. He tells how Athens welcomed the prince with the choicest attentions, with boasting about past glories in history and literature to confer dignity and importance on flatter.[997] Shortly afterwards Cn. Piso, the secret enemy of Germanicus, descended upon the city with angry fulminations: they were the dregs of all the nations, he exclaimed, the authentic Athenians had perished long ago.[998] And he recapitulated the errors and transgressions of the Athenians in their dealings with the Romans, or previously with the Macedonians.

Even the obituary notice of Arminius invited exploitation. From the Romans, says Tacitus, the champion of German liberties did not get the honour he deserved. The exaggerated prestige of Republican history is at fault – ‘dum vetera extollimus recentium incuriosi []’. But that is not all. The Greeks reverence only what is Greek –  ‘sua tantum mirantur []’. Their historians do not even mention Arminius.[999]

Such was the pride and conceit of the Greeks. It did not inhibit them from bowing to superior force. They paid homage to their masters with the greater alacrity in that they knew it undeserved – and the deceit appealed to their cleverness. Nor would the proconsuls of the imperial Republic, bearing an authority that was regal, disdain the honours which the eastern lands so freely accorded to their saviours and benefactors. When, howrever, the worship of power, along with other prerogatives, became a monopoly for the advantage of the Caesars, the Roman and the senator promptly discovered that such practices jarred upon the tradition of the race, the dignity of the governing aristocracy.

To label a Princeps as good or bad, his attitude towards divine honours furnished the easiest of criteria. Malice might find scope almost anywhere. Against the descendants of Theophanes was assigned among counts to their detriment the deification of their ancestor. ‘Graeca adulatio’, that is Tacitus’ term for the cult of Theophanes.[1000] It did not always suit his purpose to be contemptuous. When Tiberius Caesar declined a temple, the historian produces comment, including censure of the Emperor for his indifference to renown.[1001] Subsequent developments in the cult of the Caesars could have provided genuine material for deriding both Greeks and emperors. There was also Greek erudition.

When Tiberius withdrew to Capreae, he took a small company with him: only one senator, but a number of scholars, especially Greeks, to entertain him with their converse.[1002] No allusion to the quality of the entertainment. It could have been elucidated and mocked somewhere in Book V. The diversions on Capreae were learned and pedantic – the mother of Hecuba, what name Achilles assumed among the maidens, and what song the Sirens sang. They could also be dangerous. The Emperor would read up subjects and vex the experts over dinner.[1003]

With Claudius, erudition again. Seneca saw its value for mockery, and for oblique allusion. Men complain (he says) that life is short. They are too busy. Yet most of their occupations are vain and futile – official business and the social round, vice, gaming, or athletic recreation.[1004] Much that passes for scholarship is pure frivolity, and noxious. It was a malady of the Greeks – ‘Graecorum iste morbus fuit [a foible confined to the Greeks]’ – to compute the total of Ulixes’ crew or discuss the authorship of the Homeric poems.[1005] Rome has now become infected. A man will discourse learnedly on antiquities and origins, whence came the cognomen of a Claudius or a Valerius.[1006]

Seneca winds up with a reference, pointed and contemporary, to the sacred precinct of the city of Rome. Sulla had been the last to extend the pomerium. The Mons Aventinus was not included. Of what profit can it be to weigh the reasons that antiquarians adduce? Or a myriad other things, fiction or the like – ‘quae aut paria sunt mendaciis aut similia [either crammed with falsehood or are of the same sort].’[1007]

The historian Tacitus duly makes fun of pedantry or fraud under the grave show of deference – his delight in the phoenix gives more than a hint of his technique.[1008] The antiquarian emperor, when censor, added three letters to the Roman alphabet: hence excuse for a learned digression, going back to the Trojan War, to Cadmus, to Cecrops.[1009] In the year 53 the city of Ilium asked for privileges. Its cause was urged before the Senate by the boy Nero, recently adopted into the family of his great-uncle, Claudius. The youthful orator expatiated upon the Trojan origin of the Romans, upon Aeneas the ancestor of the Julian line – and, the historian is careful to add, other ancient matters not far removed from fable.[1010] The understatement reveals what Tacitus thought of sacred and legendary history.

In the same year Claudius Caesar proposed that the island of Cos should be exempted from all taxation. He orated at great length about the antiquities of Cos, about Aesculapius the founder of medicine; and he retailed the catalogue of his descendants, famous practitioners, down to Xenophon the court doctor. For Xenophon’s sake Claudius Caesar made the plea for Cos.[1011] The occasion was welcome to Tacitus – ridicule of Hellenic science and of a Roman emperor, and irony. A year later the historian comes to the ultimate service that Xenophon rendered. When the poisoned mushroom seemed to fail its effect, Agrippina used the doctor to finish Claudius.[1012]

For the prejudices of Tacitus full scope came with Nero, as the monarch’s aspirations unfolded in a graduated assault upon publicity. So far the historian’s adversions upon the Greeks and their habits might be put down largely to literary tradition, or the spirit of mockery. With Nero the addiction to all things Greek is exposed by Tacitus, not only as a scandal. It was a menace.

Nero had long been possessed of a yearning to drive chariots and sing to the harp.[1013] His mother’s murder removed the last restraints. After some experimentation, he began with ‘ludi iuvenales’ in the gardens beyond the Tiber. Audience and performers were select. Men and women of the aristocracy acted in stage plays, and the Emperor himself displayed his talent for song. A cohort of the Guard was in attendance with officers, and even the Prefect; and a company of Roman knights was enrolled, the ‘Augustiani’, to second and applaud their ruler’s efforts.[1014] He also took up the composition of poetry with great seriousness and a group of experts to help him.[1015]

In the next year Rome witnessed the regular institution of a quinquennial festival, the Neronia, on the Greek model: it included song and speech, athletics, and horse-racing. Like other innovations, the Neronia had a mixed welcome. Tacitus, in digression on the history of public spectacles at Rome, reproduces the arguments.[1016] On the one side, the historian eloquently invokes (and strains) the resources of conservative indignation – Greek gymnasia with their adherent immorality, Roman senators degraded by stage performances. The next thing would be knights neglecting military service for athletics; and, becoming judges of voice production and musical connoisseurs, they would cease to be of use in the courts of law. And finally, with performances at night, anything might happen.[1017]

Tacitus cannot resist the opportunity for declamation and satire. It is double-edged.[1018] He goes on to furnish sober arguments in favour;[1019] and he admits that the festival passed off quietly and decently, with no scandal at all.[1020]

Nero persisted. He favoured the city of Neapolis (in 64), and, emboldened by his reception there, made his first exhibition as a singer before the Roman People at the second Neronia in the next year.[1021] The imperial actor, however, was thinking of a larger stage, of Hellas and the sole audience worthy to adjudicate upon his virtuosity.

The first attempt had been abortive. From Neapolis Nero went on as far as Benevcntum, but turned back.[1022] And I lellas soon yielded to more potent visions of desire – athe lands of the Orient, and especially Egypt.[1023] That also came to nothing. In the end Nero did not leave Rome until late in the year 66.

The Hellenic tour was no doubt narrated with lavish detail for the ludicrous pageantry, exposing the vanity of the Greeks, the retribution that now befell them, and the criminal folly of their Roman patron. Hitherto in the Annates Tacitus had not reproduced any public discourse of this emperor. He might now, w ith gaiety and with malice, undertake to stylize Nero’s proclamation at the Isthmus of Corinth.[1024] The language was pompous and condescending. Unexpected might be the gift, said the imperial orator, though no manifestation of Nero’s noble generosity should come as a surprise. Not even in the days of their prosperity had the Hellenes all enjoyed freedom, being then enslaved either by men o f their own race or by foreigners. 'The Emperor would have preferred to benefit Hellas in the epoch of her strength. What he now grants, however, issues not from compassion but from good will, and to requite the gods of Hellas for watching over him in their providence.[1025]

The Annales convey several warnings to the address of the Emperor Hadrian. W ith Tiberius Caesar the author presents a ruler’s devious and suspicious nature, resentful from disappointments, further distorted and darkened by the exercise o f the supreme power. Indictments for high treason were the indelible blot upon that reign. Embracing not only acts but words and opinions, they subverted all freedom of speech. The historian Cremutius Cordus was threatened with a prosecution on various counts, not his writings only or principally. Tacitus renders, or rather invents, this man’s eloquent vindication of an historian's rights. He appends his own comment – how can one not deride the brute stupidity of those who hold the power! Let them punish opinion, they can never destroy it. Foreign tyrants or their imitators at Rome only perpetuate their own ignominy.[1026]

Tacitus was writing about the time of Tiberius, he recalled Domitran – and he was not oblivious of the present.[1027] Nor would his treatment of Claudius lack point and relevance – an omniscient emperor interfering everywhere, with a strong trend towards bureaucratic government. Above all, Nero. Here the peril lay in aesthetic tastes, Hellenic habits, and intellectual megalomania. Hadrian shared Nero’s aptitude for certain of the arts, even painting and sculpture. Tacitus labels Nero in a striking phrase of his own creation as ‘incredibilium cupitor’ [“passion for the incredible”][1028]. It suits Hadrian very well.

Nero might come again. So the world hoped, or feared. The age of Tacitus witnessed a sequence of false Neros. The sudden disappearance of Nero, the terror or the admiration his name evoked, and the prevalence of apocalyptic delusions won support for these impostors – and some were a nuisance to the Roman government.[1029]

Nero (it was fancied) had fled over the Euphrates to find succour among the Parthians, and, although the Parthians surrendered a Nero to Domitian, faith held firm under Trajan. Most men believe that Nero still lives, so Dio of Prusa confessed.[1030] When the Roman war failed in Mesopotamia and the Jews rose everywhere, a season arrived most propitious for his emergence.

Rome could not endure for ever. Destiny had ordained a term, and it was foretold in oracles that the East would have the power again.[1031] The cycle of ages might be variously computed, and various portents would announce the end. One such prediction (a ruler of the world arising in Judaea) had incited the Jews to rebel fifty years earlier.[1032] That prophecy was indeed fulfilled, so the Romans argued – by the proclamation of Vespasian. The Jews refused to be convinced; and Jewish composers of Sibylline verses soon annexed the theme of Nero’s return and wove it into their imprecations of revenge and deliverance.[1033]

Nor had Nero yet passed wholly into the realm of the supernatural. The last Caesar of Augustus’ line was only sixteen years older than Trajan. When Hadrian came to the power, Nero would be completing his eightieth year.

So far the delusions of rebels and fanatics. Cornelius Tacitus was well trained in the science of oracles, he knew the frivolous or fraudulent reckoning of numerical cycles. Eager to refute vain fancies about kings coming out of the East and the doom of Rome, he would be no less alert to the true relevance of Nero.

On a sober reflection much of Nero had already returned with Hadrian. That could be known or forecast from the first days of the reign, though none could have divined the full measure of his later extravagances – Hadrian as second founder of Athens, displacing Theseus, the title ‘Olympius’, or his infatuation for the beautiful Antinous. To Tacitus and to some of his friends it was no consolation to know that what in Nero’s philhellenism had been ridiculous, premature, or calamitous now corresponded with the rational policy of whoever ruled a Graeco–Roman world.

The Empire had various ‘arcana’, some known long ago in the revolutionary age but covered up in the Augustan peace, to be abruptly disclosed later on, or emerging through a progressive revelation. Thus the military and provincial origins of the new form of government, its hostility to the Roman nobilitas, its congenital preference for knights against senators. One of those potent secrets was the dual nature of the Empire – Roman and Greek. With Antonius it threatened to split the imperial dominions or subjugate the West to the East. With Hadrian it was manifest and acknowledged, barely five generations from the defeat of Antonius and the victory of the West.

 

XL. The Personality of Tacitus

Reticence was enjoined by the dignity of history. Historiae and Annales grudgingly concede two brief notes about the w author’s career as a senator, nothing about his origin, nothing about family or friends.[1034] People known to Cornelius Tacitus must have been involved in the Pisonian conspiracy and its aftermath, suffering death or banishment – and some perhaps close to his family.[1035] Nothing is said. The civil war of 69 touched persons of his acquaintance in the Rhineland, in the province of Narbonensis, and in northern Italy.[1036] Again no sign. The mother of Julius Agricola was killed by soldiers at Albintimilium.[1037] What the historian relates, when that town is sacked, is the heroic behaviour of an ordinary' Ligurian woman.[1038]

Some argue that Tacitus despised women.[1039] The documents fall a long way short of proof. A consular in the Senate under Tiberius uses strong language. Women, he says, are not merely the weaker sex – they can be cruel, ambitious, and avid for power.[1040] The speaker is deprecating their interference in military and civil affairs, he refers to the wives of functionaries, and he is fortified by a recent example: how the wife of Cn. Piso behaved in Syria.[1041] Nor is there much weight in other allusions to the detriment of women.[1042]

The daughters and wives of the nobiles asserted a proper claim to the prerogatives of birth and station; and indeed, aristocratic descent on the female side enjoyed recognition and validity.[1043] Women emulated men in arrogance and licence. The last age of the Free State knew its political ladies – avid, unscrupulous, and unbridled.[1044] The type was perpetuated and enhanced in the women of the dynasty. Tacitus’ portrayal is terrible and truthful. Julia Agrippina, the mother of ISrero, is wholly authentic.

Pride and insolence had its good side, in women as in men. Sharing the ambition of the husband (and by no means unconcerned in the making of his career), the wife shared the hazards also, going with him into exile or constant in the face of death. Such women did not fail to be commemorated in senatorial history for their 'fides' and their ‘constantia’.[1045]

The Romans were not tender-hearted. Least of all the governing order. There was no such word in the language. Cornelius Fronto affirms it.[1046] However, a man cannot be a Roman, a senator, or a philosopher all the time.[1047] As often, the biography of Julius Agricola supplies tone or facts as a corrective. Tacitus extols the wisdom and the chastity of Agricola’s mother. She was firm but discreet in control of dangerous tendencies in the young man’s education;[1048] and Agricola’s wife enables Tacitus to combine good sense with a delicate perception.[1049] Which side had the historian’s favour when the Senate held debate about proconsuls’ wives may surely be divined: undue deference to grim archaic standards (the ‘duritia veterum’) is out of place, the age has become humane and civilized, and the men deserve the greater share of censure if their consorts misbehave.[1050]

Catonian attitudes or conventions persisted. They might sometimes be eluded. The mother of Annaeus Seneca acquired a liberal education, despite her husband’s ‘antiquus rigor’ which forbade her all but the rudiments of philosophy.8 There were not many avowed champions of women’s rights at Rome. Musonius Rufus, it is true, argued that boys and girls should go through the same course of education. But Musonius, who insisted on philosophy for women, marriage for philosophers, and rigorous continence in both sexes, was an oddity.[1051]

Anything can be discredited if it is turned into a doctrine, and men will concede to practice what they deny as theory. Seneca himself owed much to women. He is warmly grateful to Helvia, his mother’s sister, for the affectionate care she devoted to him in infancy.[1052] Helvia was a modest woman, shunning publicity. Egypt and the city of Alexandria, where her husband was Prefect, could invent no evil against her.[1053] The name of Seneca’s first wife is not known.[1054] To his second, Pompeia Paullina, he was deeply attached, as the historian Tacitus with sympathy attests.[1055]

Seneca’s knowledge was not confined to home and family. Wit and words could take a man anywhere. Seneca won entrance to a circle where feminine influences were dominant – the lively sisters of Caligula, two aunts of Nero, and other ladies unrestrained. If he is alleged the lover of a princess, the charge may be false, but it is not idle.[1056] Seneca gained in poise and guile, in diplomacy and insight.[1057] Tacitus may also have benefited from elegant frequentations.[1058] The grave historian is sometimes a prisoner of his profession. If Tacitus makes imputations against the fair sex that are not always borne out in the experience of a liberal society, it is far from certain that he was a grim puritan.[1059] He depicts gracefully the charms of Poppaea Sabina;[1060] there is point and comedy in the reproaches with which she assails a dilatory bridegroom;[1061] and a gentle malice shows up the society ladies who come to visit Agrippina after her fall from power.[1062]

[…]

The irony of Tacitus pervades whole episodes, such as the interchange of letters between Seianus and Tiberius, or is compressed into a curt phrase. His sarcasm took from Tiberius a sharper edge. Another emperor deepened and widened his sense of humour – Claudius Caesar, erudite, pompous, or silly. There was rich material in the public pronouncements. Tacitus exploits it, but not unduly. For example, the Roman Emperor, in sage admonishment, equips an Arsacid prince with the conventional precepts of civil government: the ruler will not be a despot, he must remember to treat the Parthians as citizens, not as slaves.[1063] And, gratefully accepting the Senate’s homage to Pallas, Claudius affirms that his freedman prefers to waive the grant of a sum of money, being modestly content to abide within the limits of h.is ‘prior paupertas’.[1064]

There is gaiety in Tacitus, and parody.[1065] When Claudius Caesar, ‘caelibis vitae intolcrans’, has been left a widower and wavers between the advertised attractions of three ladies, he summons the freedmen of the household, commanding a debate in proper form – for such is the setting contrived by the historian, in mockery of a cabinet council.[1066] To convince the Senate that the Emperor must be united in matrimony to his niece, that was a task that called for the diplomatic talents of L. Vitellius, who duly produced an oration – in the manner of his master. Again, Seneca, ornate and subtle, outdoes his own performances in a private discourse to Nero; and Cossutianus Capito is made to parody the eloquence of the prosecutors, grotesque in exaggeration if it were not sinister and murderous.

The humour is often cruel. An ominous cloud hangs over the light and frivolous at the garden party of Valeria Messallina.[1067] The predicament of Roman knights at a compulsory entertainment under Nero is rendered in excruciating detail: they were crushed in the crowd, they fell mortally ill sitting there day and night, they were persecuted and terrorized all the time.[1068]

Tacitus wears a grim impersonal mask. He will not relent even for the innocent Britannicus, in whom some incautiously discovered the promise of future virtues.[1069] A proud reserve was congenial to his nature – or had become so.

The fifteen years of Domitian might leave their mark on a man. Those who emerged from the ordeal were maimed in Spirit, dazed and blunted, so Tacitus asserts.[1070] Tacitus himself had not been condemned to silence all the time, and he made a good career.[1071] Other senators were in a like case. Not all (and perhaps not Tacitus) deserve commiseration. Pliny in the last years of the reign benefited by a more conspicuous advancement. If Pliny conceived anger and remorse, the Letters betray no sign of lasting effects on his character.

The biography of Agricola offers a temperate defence of political opportunism. It is interrupted by a violent and personal outburst, challenging those who praise to excess the defiant enemies of despotism.[1072] Courage and integrity perished, but the time-servers came through. Guilt and compunction (it can be argued) dwelt with Tacitus ever after, and revenge impelled him to write about the Caesars. Despotism was the subject. The author’s contribution to the struggle for liberty and honour came late, it was equivocal, it was conveyed in words only. The writing mirrors the discord in his own soul.[1073]

Exile or a setback can be the making of an historian. Even the enhancement of a grievance will help. Sallust would have been nowhere but for the vicissitudes in his career. Turning to authorship for consolation, he almost acknowledges the benefit.[1074] Tacitus may have become uncomfortably aware of his own good fortune, oppression being a useful school for historians, if it does not extinguish them.

None the less, public life at Rome was enough, even without experience of the tyranny. Deceit and pretence held sway, with many hazards for a man who strove to rise by talent, and fierce competition everywhere among the orators. Success (and Tacitus had been very successful) brought on envy and detraction – from decayed speakers who could not bear to be condemned to silence, and from the acrid emulation of the young. Tacitus, who loathed subservience and had every reason for pride in what he had achieved, expresses an almost morbid fear of ostentation and ‘iactantia’.[1075] He may have encountered trouble and discomfort from the rancorous, from the pretentious— and from the men who put earnestness before truth, secure under the cover of an approved sanctity.

The senatorial life predisposed an historian to universal suspicion about human motives.[1076] His experience made him eager to go beneath the surface, to show up hypocrisy and demolish every comforting belief.[1077] Yet it does not follow that Tacitus was harsh and gloomy as a person.[1078]

From the writings something may be inferred about his nature— pride and intensity, the admiration of grandeur, a feeling for colour and movement. The imagery is vivid and violent. Disharmony appears to dominate, yet the structural quality of the author’s intelligence stands out clearly, in the perfectly turned episode, and no less in the far-reaching design. An acute sense for words is paired with an unerring memory. Hence echo and allusion everywhere, favouring the play of wit and malice. Tacitus selects words or discards them, imperiously, the choice reflecting antipathies not merely verbal, and even obsessions. Wilful, contemptuous, and ever-conscious of the effort of style, a writer who could summon the unfailing resources of wide reading, who had formed the habit of documentary inquiry, and who was ferociously accurate in small details, may easily in his personal dealings have become censorious and intractable.

What could be known about those matters? There is tact and poise and tolerance in the Dialogus, which was composed (it may well be) when the historian was already immersed in the turbulent theme of civil war. Various passages in the Annales show a gift for rendering contrary opinions in a spirit of equity.[1079] Moreover, his personal inclination towards the humane solution can often be divined. Tacitus was an old man now. Age hardens and embitters. Tacitus is careful not to appear querulous about innovation, or hostile to youth.[1080]

Nothing forbids the guess that he was robust, at least intermittently cheerful, and not unhappy as a husband. If his portrayal of angry and domineering women is lively enough to excite a suspicion, on the other side will be set the compassion and the pathos that go out to Octavia and to Pompeia Paullina. Conjecture is vain about the historian’s manner of living.[1081] What nothing else could disclose, a casual item reveals – Tacitus was a keen huntsman.[1082]

Writing to Pliny, Tacitus urbanely describes himself as one who could learn as well as teach.[1083] He also related how he once fell into conversation with a stranger whose spontaneous remarks likewise conveyed a parity of renown between the two orators.[1084] Nothing was lost by courtesy – and not much is revealed. Friends of Pliny cannot always have felt at ease with this aloof man who detested exuberance and complacency. Tacitus and Pliny shared the prosecution of a proconsul, and they exchange letters. Otherwise they are not discovered in the same company. There are hardly any references to mutual friends.[1085] Some of Pliny’s advances may have been gently brushed aside. He once wrote a letter to Tacitus deprecating brevity in orators (for the best speeches are the longest), and craving a reasoned reply.[1086]

Pliny exhibits most of the virtues that earn approbation, notably a disinclination to look beneath the surface. Unlike Tacitus, he admires all votaries of literature and the higher thought; and he is zealous to show' respect towards the Greeks and their culture, in a conventional fashion. Pliny appears well equipped for the role he elected, to be a benevolent chronicler of Roman life. Not that artifice or pretence is absent. On the contrary, the letters are carefully contrived. Parading candour, and not loath to be thought guileless, the author plays down that alert ambition which brought success swift and replendent. He is matched, unequal but not inept, against the majesty and the subtlety of Cornelius Tacitus.

The ironical manner of Tacitus derives its strength from a keen and malicious insight, which he scarcely troubles to disguise. It was not the act of a friend to compose a treatise on the decay of oratory so soon after Pliny’s cherished Panegyricus; and there are passages that might allude to Pliny or to Pliny’s instructor, the unimpeachable Quintilian. In the Annales the historical performance of Pliny’s uncle comes in for criticism, once by name and at least once indirectly. Furthermore, in choice of episode or in the manner of comment, the historian often has his eye upon persons living in his own age.

Not all provinces of human behaviour interest him equally. Crimes arising from sexual desire, jealousy, or repulsion receive due attention. Thus the praetor who threw his wife out the window. The incident had a political significance as well – it illustrated Tiberius’ exact care for justice, and the influence of Livia’s friends.[1087] Tacitus reports a shocking case of incest in a senatorial home:[1088] some of his readers knew that the family was not some degenerate aristocratic stock but a new consular family from Patavium, that exemplary city in the northern zone of Italy.[1089] The case of Octavius Sagitta, the magistrate who killed his mistress, created a stir at the time—and it fitted the dramatic structure admirably, for the next item brings on the fatal beauty of Poppaea Sabina.[1090]

Sex is not among the main preoccupations of Tacitus—the senator knew that ambition or vanity is stronger. Nor is greed and rapacity, to which Sallust reverts repeatedly, with an obsession that may well excite grave doubts about the author. But Tacitus has a keen eye for money and inheritance. He notes how Agrippina in the last emergency was alert about a friend’s possessions, Seneca about his own testament.[1091]

Tacitus, as befits one who concentrates upon power in the political field, seizes and emphasizes ambition in the individual and the effort for social advancement, with the accompaniments of envy, hypocrisy, or conceit. No class or person is exempt. The results come out in the character and demeanour of the soldier who becomes an officer, the parvenu who rises to the consulate.[1092] Rancour or secret aspirations are involuntarily revealed by some word or act; and the historian is not averse from chronicling the unedifying origins of a fortune and the moral lapses of good men.[1093]

The father of Domitius Corbulo complained that he had been insulted by a young nobilis; and he made a great clamour about the roads in Italy, loudly denouncing corruption and neglect. He was ready and eager when invited to rectify the abuses. His zeal had deleterious results.[1094] Corbulo himself does not go unscathed: Tacitus brings charges of pomposity, incomplete veracity, and prejudice. The first introduction of the virtuous Barea Soranus shows him prime mover of the Senate’s notorious decree in honour of the imperial freedman Pallas;[1095] and Helvidius Prisais comes on view, exploiting public business to satisfy a private quarrel.[1096] Other characters destined for prominence in the later narrative arc likewise brought on the scene for a brief moment, insidiously.

Tacitus, who had heard much declamation on the subject of Roman virtue (and who, in his writing, was impelled to honour the past), takes a quiet revenge, allowing it to be seen that the ancients were not always right—or their modern imitators genuine and useful. The old nobilitas had asserted a proud intransigence of speech and demeanour: it could be carried too far, degenerating into ‘ferocia’, a savage defiance both futile and histrionic.[1097] ‘Fides’ and ‘constantia’ stood invulnerable together as an ideal of aristocratic conduct;[1098] but ‘constantia’ was liable to harden into inhumanity, or cruel acts—‘pro constantia rigor’.[1099] Tiberius Caesar liked to be grim, he was enamoured of austerity.[1100] Tiberius and others were rigorous to excess. In the army commanders stem discipline earned praise.[1101] It was not so easy for them to show energy or judgement. The ‘severitas’ which commended (and shielded) the generals might prove negative—and deceptive.[1102] Sulpicius Galba failed the test. Curtius Rufus was obsequious as well as harsh.[1103] Q. Veranius, the legate of Britain, had a great reputation, but in the end he was found out: vanity and adulation of Nero.[1104]

Conversely but similarly, Tacitus points to the good side of bad men. Sometimes the indulgence is illusory. A man is permitted to make a speech of ostensible force and conviction, only to discredit himself by the contrast with the facts.[1105] Yet there are unequivocal testimonials for redemption. The old Republic knew that vice and energy are not incompatible. That was not forgotten under the Empire. In the selection of proconsuls Tiberius Caesar deprecated any moral bar or inquisition.[1106] Tacitus is glad to produce mixed characters or variegated careers.[1107] So long as L. Vitellius governed provinces abroad, he conducted himself admirably, with ‘prisca virtus’. Rome, the court, and his friendship with Claudius Caesar debased him.[1108] Salvius Otho, sent away to Lusitania as a virtual banishment, proved a competent governor.[1109] Likewise Petronius in Bithynia.[1110]

Tacitus metes out a subversive justice, an equity without benevolence. He thus imparts a uniform and gloomy colouring to the whole picture of human life under the Caesars. For style he owes much to Sallust, and he has also assimilated the sentiments of that writer. Sallust put his own shortcomings to the utmost profit. Poverty of vocabulary and resources engendered monotony; but monotony is somehow overcome by rapidity and concentration. Tacitus is incomparably more subtle and more varied: yet all of one piece and colouring.

The Annales convey the traveller through a bleak land, without light or hope. ‘Humanitas’ and ‘integritas’, obsolete equipment, have long been discarded;[1111] while Veritas’ and ‘prudentia’ now cease to have any value.[1112] Fear holds domination, or fraud.[1113] What abides for ever is discord and tyranny.[1114]

The Revolution at Rome worked itself out in two stages, the one sudden, the other slow. The first act destroyed the Republic in civil war, the second wore down liberty and the aristocracy in the years of peace. Sallust is the child of the one epoch, Tacitus of the other.

Tacitus looks at history much as Sallust does. Yet it will not be fair to say that he simply imposes his own conceptions upon the history of Rome under the Caesars. The history was like that. The events colour, infect, and dominate the historian. Livy, when he relates the venerable past, confesses that his thoughts take on an antique hue.[1115] Tacitus has withheld his avowal, but cannot evade scrutiny. The Tacitean Tiberius is a familiar and fatiguing subject. Another inquiry was relevant: how far has the historian been influenced by the Emperor, by the sombre, reticent, and sagacious figure of Tiberius Caesar?[1116]

Tacitus is a poet and a dramatist, not different in that from other historians (such as deserve the name), but better. Of his personality and aspirations something may perhaps be gleaned on a negative count from characters he selects for censure, especially in the obituary notices. Thus a fluent and voluble speaker who earned easy success without lasting fame; a lawyer who debased his learning through subservience to the government; a prosecutor of genius who had no grace or dignity in the manner of his living.[1117] More significant arc the persons with whom he appears to identify himself – Cremutius Cordus, the historian, in magnificent argument for liberty of speech, Pomponius Secundus the consular dramatist, or even Annaeus Seneca, the imperial minister and man of letters.

 

XLI. Doctrines and Government

It is not easy to nail down this elusive and complex character. How shall his political opinions be discovered and defined? W ere they ever constant ? Does a single doctrine obtain, from the first writings to the last? M ay not the author have changed w ith the passage of time, overcome by disillusion with the new era o f enlightened autocracy or yielding to sombre thoughts as he studied the struggle between liberty and tyranny under the Caesars?

At first sight and on the surface he is hostile to the monarchy. Not only bitter against the Caesars, but mocking the Principate for its inner falsity and perpetual contrast between promise and performance. One layer deeper, and something different is disclosed. For peace and stability, the rule of one man cannot he avoided. Hence acceptance of the monarchy, from pessimism or despair, from the lessons of experience and the logic of events. The argument is set forth with eloquence and power, and (as is typical of Tacitus) by a bad man trying to pass for plain and honest, none other than the orator Eprius Marcellus: he knew about the Republic, and he also knew the times one lived in; he rendered proper homage to the past while keeping in step with the present; one prays for a good emperor, and puts up with what comes along.[1118]

That plea had no doubt been heard again in the high assembly, and too often – and it perhaps became painful for Tacitus to recall in the sequel. Obedience to authority (‘obsequium’), once fervently extolled as duty to the Commonwealth whoever the ruler might be, began to wear thin and look shabby, not least if the despot were benevolent: that kind of despotism enfeebles the will and blunts intelligence. Ideal or tradition (Livy, Sallust, and the writing of senatorial history), a man might turn in the contrary sense, inclining his sentiments towards the Republic.

It would be advisable to ascertain what meaning the term had. If the Principate was equivocal, so were its enemies or its critics. Political language tends to be highly ambiguous; and the Romans, whose religion lacked dogma, found comfort and compensation in devout zeal for the ‘res publica’. A pretender, insurgent against one of the Caesars, will assert the rights of Senate and People and stand as a champion of ‘Libertas’. If he succeeds, he has vindicated constitutional principles and established legitimate government. Which is proper and comprehensible.[1119] The imperial power, in so far as its source is legal, derives from delegated authority. That is irrefragable. Howlegitimation is in fact induced or enforced is another matter.

Tacitus may concede Republican aspirations, or rather (for he is very careful), report beliefs and rumours. Hence a reason for the popularity of Germanicus Caesar;[1120] and that senator of admirable spirit Julius Vestinus, who hated and despised Nero, was believed to be a Republican, and therefore not liked by those who had C. Piso for their candidate.[1121]

To bring back the Republic meant free competition for the consulate, government of every province by proconsuls, and the Senate in control of finance and armies and imperial policy. In short all that the Free State found impracticable, all that Caesar Augustus abolished. Nobody faced (and few confessed) the full implication.

Tacitus is devoid of illusions about the old order. In his own day (or rather in the times of which he wrote) some nobleman might express in word or attitude (less often by actions) a Republican allegiance, some novus homo, detesting subservience, might emulate the aristocratic traditions of pride and freedom. In the best of men it was not always convincing; and Tacitus had before his eyes the repugnant evidence of contemporary affectations when a Roman knight, the steady servant of the government, set up his statues of Republican heroes or eminent victims of imperial despotism.[1122]

It early became evident that one man held all the power and authority. And it was not long before a theory developed, to save appearances and permit the senator to maintain his dignity: precisely the ideal of the middle path, liberty but not licence, discipline but not enslavement.[1123] It suited Senate and senator. Like the claim or pretext of ‘res publica’, that ideal might be equivocal or fraudulent. The honest name of compromise lent itself to deceit or abasement. It was captured and paraded by bland intriguers, subtle careerists, or avowed agents of autocracy.

Yet Tacitus does not abandon all hope. Some aristocrats honourably avoided the extremes of abrupt contumacy and degrading servility. The prime model is Marcus Lepidus, deemed capable of empire. His character and conduct made a powerful impression on the historian. When Lepidus intervened in the Senate, he spoke for good sense and moderation: his quality is commended by Tacitus in solemn language.[1124] There is also praise for L . Piso, the Prefect of the City.[1125] L. Arruntius, uniting in his person vigour and graceful talents, preserved honour to the end, and showed dignity in the manner of his exit.[1126] Again, L. Volusius Saturninus, who reached the age of ninetythree: the friendship of the Caesars had not impaired his safety or his reputation.[1127] Nor were the newer consular families devoid of encouraging examples.[1128]

Monarchy or Republic, that was not the real antithesis. Phrases, professions, and doctrines obscure the truth. The Romans themselves enjoyed a robust advantage: they had long been almost immune against political speculation. It was foreign – and it looked feeble when set against their own achievement in law and government.[1129] Reputable thinkers, it is true, discovered at Rome the lineaments and substance of the mixed constitution, with three kinds of power operating in an even balance. Tacitus briefly registers the notion, only to brush it aside.[1130] When the Republic went down, the system that emerged is the product of known and assessable forces. There had been doctrines about – but no sign of their domination in the field of history.[1131]

The Princspate (as was natural) quickly mustered support on various pleas, the words following the facts: Roman tradition and ethical claims were duly advertised. Tacitus knew the phraseology. Before long the dynasty b y its duration engendered a habit of mind, and a loyalty; and, when the power came to Nero, the argument Could be published at Rome that rule by a king is the best dispensation, since the king is the guardian of the Commonwealth.[1132] Sober men saw the apparent ridicule and solid advantages of hereditary succession.[1133] They could profit from it without inner belief and without ceasing to profess a normal or deceitful devotion to the ideals of the Tes publica’. The monarchy now being so deeply rooted, a chance offered for the Palace and the Senate to live in amity and collaborate usefully, if the young prince gave heed to his counsellors. The first pronouncement from the throne, after alluding to the abuses of the previous reign (with promise of redress), went on to delimit the respective spheres of Caesar and the ‘res publica’.[1134]

It was too simple, it had all been heard before and would surely recur. Yet something might be gained by skill and patience – and by Seneca.[1135] Tacitus gives careful attention to that minister of state. Not that Tacitus’ preoccupations are wholly or narrowly political. He is perhaps more deeply concerned with moral and social matters. More important than the name or fabric of the Commonwealth, than the system of its laws and institutions, are ‘mores virique’.

Domitius Corbulo is with the armies, Seneca and Thrasea Paetus occupy and share the domestic annals of Rome under Nero. Men who knew Seneca questioned his career and his principles; and in later days neither enemies nor friends (the latter in a minority) have found it easy to do him justice.

The historian Cassius Dio draws up a damaging indictment. It was not enough for Seneca to debauch a princess. He was exiled, but exile had not made him a better man. He now turned his attentions to Nero’s mother. All his actions ran counter to the principles he advertised. Declaiming against tyranny, Seneca instructed a despot, and he abased himself in copious flatter)' of the freedmen of the court. A declared enemy of wealth, he acquired great riches and lived in luxury. Ethical preaching was no bar to unnatural vice – and the philosopher encouraged Nero in such practices.[1136]

Cassius Dio, as a convinced advocate of absolute power in the State, is hostile to philosophers. In a discourse on high politics he puts firm counsel into the mouth of Maecenas. Not only are all innovators in religion a menace to the stability of society. The ruler will be on his guard against the purveyors of ideas: they have caused unnumbered woes to men and commonwealths.[1137]

Dio’s prejudices involve him in sorry misconceptions.[1138] He regards Seneca primarily as a philosopher; and his aversion may be heightened by a double prejudice, literary and political – against one of the foremost names in Latin letters, and against a colonial Roman from the western lands.[1139] Tacitus at once shows discrimination. It is Seneca the statesman that matters. Men of books and theory tend to be too rigid: Seneca is a diplomat and a man of the world. Some writers (but not Tacitus) would extol also the practical genius of the banker and manager of property.[1140] The historian, when introducing Seneca in the first transactions of Nero’s reign, commends his union of moral strength with social tact – ‘honesta comitas’.[1141]

He would not be Tacitus if he omitted to throw off a passing allusion not altogether complimentary to the prose style of Seneca or to the Neronian orations in which the imperial tutor paraded a sovereign’s clemency and his own talent.[1142] Some of the charges against Seneca were obvious – money, power, and the traffic in honours. They are conceded – or robbed of their full force by being lumped together w ith false allegations in the calumnies of a discredited advocate, Suillius Rufus, or retailed to Nero by anonymous detractors (among whom the alert reader would divine Ofonius Tigellinus).[1143]

There was worse. For the security of the dynasty Seneca had to condone crime, more than once. His conduct after the death of Britannicus came in for criticism, which Tacitus duly puts on record.[1144] Again, Nero’s dispatch to the Senate, retailing all the incriminations against Agrippina, with the whole clumsy story about the shipwreck. It was generally believed that Seneca had lent his talents to the composition of that damaging avowal, and he incurred severe blame.[1145] It is not clear, however, that Tacitus shared that belief.

Shielding Seneca, Tacitus for once puts to benevolent employ his own sharp insight into human ambiguities and dilemmas.[1146] Insight into government rendered another and necessary service. How great was Seneca’s influence on affairs? It is not easy to reach a just estimate.[1147] If, in an age that was coming to take doctrines and teachers more seriously, the uncritical might be prone to overvalue the philosopher behind the throne, there was a contrary danger, and greater: malice or ignorance would darken the truth with posterity. Without the testimony of Tacitus, Seneca the statesman could hardly exist.[1148] Seneca’s own writings furnish no adequate clue. But Seneca mattered. Along with personal prestige among the educated he had allies of some use – and even a policy.

Seneca’s policy was the best available. It derived from recognition of a fact, the monarchy. With that admitted (and no awkward questions asked), the government proceeded to operate through diplomacy, persuasion, and pretence. Not much was achieved – or attempted. The minister held no authority in his own right, only by grace and favour of Caesar. He could never oppose to the end, but must give way and be thankful; and he learned, as others before him, how impermanent is the friendship of princes.

Compromise is inherent in the nature of civil government. A contradiction between sermons and statecraft would not distress a Roman consular unduly. Whatever value be set upon the moral essays of Annaeus Seneca (and they were far from dogmatic),[1149] in Thrasea Paetus, it should seem, was a man who ordered his life by the tenets of an established creed and school.

Philosophy encountered a deep distrust among the Romans – it dealt in words and ratiocination, it might lead to subversive opinions or mystical aspirations. The name embraced the high and the low, taking in all manner of sects and pursuits. It covered magic or theosophy. Street preachers were also noxious, for they exploited social discontent and troubled the peace of the cities. But skill or sanctity could rise high, and philosophers, like other experts or charlatans from the gifted peoples of the Greek East, win admittance to the mansions of the aristocracy as spiritual directors, and are suitably installed, along with doctors and astrologers, in the palace of the Caesars.

Some kept a reputation for honesty and sagacity, friends of the dynasty and useful agents of the government. Others were found out. The allegations range from repulsive habits to crime, vice, and conspiracy. The general charge was hypocrisy. When claims to ethical superiority collapse, the vulgar exult. Satire and declamation scored easy triumphs from the shaggy beards and the intimidating eyebrows.[1150] At the same time, sober and respectable critics were not loath to speak out. Quintilian bears witness. he profession easily became a disguise for idleness, a refuge for the ignorant and pretentious. Quintilian utters a just pronouncement – ‘philosophia enim simulari potest, eloquentia non potest []’.[1151]

Quintilian was defending the educational primacy of style and rhetoric: the enemies were petty lawyers or arrogant and superficial moralists. He wrote at a season when philosophy incurred something more than suspicion and dislike. The government proscribed it, and many of the professors went into exile.

Tacitus (it appears) strains almost to parody various traditional attitudes of the Roman. His hostility to doctrines and their addicts recalls Cato the Censor or that newer type of the old Roman, the parent of Seneca, rigorously guarding wife or son from temptation.[1152] In Tacitus care for choice language works to the same end as prejudice, and he is revealed in both. The standard and inoffensive term ‘professor’ is used once in the Agricola and then discarded;[1153] he exploits ‘professorius’ for derision;[1154] ‘philosophia’ is not found in the Annales, and ‘philosophus’ is there admitted only once, when Suillius Rufus launches a diatribe against Seneca.[1155]

Tacitus has a keen flair for the spurious and the pretentious. Nero, so he records, admitted philosophers to his company. Not from curiosity or benevolence, but to enjoy their wrangles. They were brought in after dinner, and men of grim demeanour did not disdain to purvey palace entertainment.[1156]

[...]

Tone and language may be deceptive. The writer has wrapped himself in his subject. None of the Roman historians can refuse an allegiance to tradition. Conformity does not prove them narrow and conservative. Tacitus allows the eminent lawyer Cassius Longinus to expound an impressive defence of old Roman practices – Cassius is convinced that all change is for the worse.[1157] The personality of Cassius (but not perhaps his argument in this instance) commanded the esteem of the historian. Jurists under the Principate were often the servants of expedience or power. Cassius, like the famous Antistius Labco, was Republican by family and sentiment.

Averse from the new order of Caesar Augustus, Labeo in his teaching stood by the witness of the old books.[1158] Cassius, when demanding that the slaves in the household of Pedanius Secundus, the Prefect of the City, should all be put to death, appealed to the rigour of a ‘vetus mos’. It is not clear that he was correct.[1159] Moreover, recent legislation had taken the contrary course.[1160] Cassius, as the historian is careful to indicate, was feared for his ‘severitas’[1161] – and his example might be pernicious. When the slaves had been executed, another senator went so far as to propose that the freedmen should also be punished, by deportation. The government had to intervene.[1162]

The Romans were inordinately addicted to embellishing the national past, Augustus, by system and programme, superadded a fresh layer of deceit. He was able to enlist the complicity of senators, especially such as had recently come to station and riches. Senators under the Empire were hostile to change, and they would have liked to be obstructive. Claudius Caesar knew that they would shudder at the idea of any innovation.[1163]

It was not easy for a novus homo to be liberal in outlook. Tacitus saw through social pretence and conventional attitudes. Aware of long perspectives in history, and fortified by the study of style in its varieties and development, he was redeemed from a blind devotion to antiquity — and from idle fancies about the steady decline of Roman morality from century to century.[1164]

An oration from the son of Messalla Corvinus conveys a graceful plea that the times change, and not always for the worse.[1165] And Tacitus speaks in his own person for his own epoch of imperial Rome: ‘nec omnia apud priores meliora []’.[1166] H e there affirms not only a sounder morality than hitherto, but a proud achievement in arts and letters. N or will it be safe to assume him an unqualified admirer of the noble houses. W hen Roman historians appeal to the ancient glories of the nobiles, it is commonly to review and arraign the pretensions of their descendants. They attack the aristocracy with its own weapons.

 

XLII. Novus Homo

[...]

A facile antithesis contrasted nobiles and novi homines. On the one side, luxury and inertia; on the other, energy and integrity. The formulas were devised by novi homines of the Republic in the struggle for office and advancement. The Empire took them over, careerists or their patrons exploited them – and the uncritical concur.

Tacitus brings the corrective. A series of summary portraits reveals the qualities that political success under the Caesars demanded or produced. Military merit, oratory, and proficiency in legal studies, such were the channels of advancement for novi homines according to the traditional prescription at Rome, which the monarchy inherited.[1167] A trio of detestable old men surviving into the reign of Tiberius exemplify the system – and demolish any comforting generalizations about the solid worth of Augustan consulars.

From humble origins in a small town of Latium, Sulpicius Quirinius rose by military talent to the consulate, with high commands thereafter and signal services to Augustus. Unlike some hasty careerists, he was careful to pay court to Tiberius at Rhodes, and he benefited all through – wealth, honours and influence, resplendent marriages, and a state funeral. A footnote to the obituary notice adds that Quirinius was bitterly hated for his greed and rancour.[1168]

Q. Haterius, that fluent orator, was bold and free in the schools of rhetoric, where he would declaim against despotism and deplore the extinction of liberty.[1169] But nowhere else. To make up for a lack of tact in debate, Haterius grovelled before Tiberius Caesar.[1170] And he once proposed that certain decrees should be inscribed in letters of gold, for permanent exhibition in the Curia. Such was Haterius, ‘senex foedissimae adulationis’.[1171] His descendants conform— the son cruel and vicious, the grandson a wastrel.[1172]

No less notorious for subservience to the government was the learned lawyer Ateius Capito, whose grandfather had been a centurion in Sulla’s army. Augustus gave him the consulate, passing over his rival, whose scholarship was equal if not superior— and whose sentiments were independent and Republican.[1173] The historian exhibits Ateius in action. When Tiberius Caesar quashed an indictment for treason, Ateius put up a show of virtuous indignation, deceiving nobody. Wickedness, he protested, ought not to go unpunished. Caesar might be magnanimous, but was it right to condone an offence against the ‘res publica’ ? Tiberius saw what he was about; and the expert (human law and divine ritual) incurred reprobation and dishonour.[1174]

New men thnisting forward to wealth and honours were avid, unscrupulous, obsequious, if nothing worse: Quirinius, Haterius, and Ateius Capito might seek cover under that plea. But there was something much worse. The orator of talent, turning prosecutor to make a career or win the favour of court and ministers, dealt in confiscation and exile, in judicial murder or constrained suicides. The greatest of all the orators, Domitius Afer, earned an eviL repute. Suillius Rufus fell short of Afer in success as in eloquence; and L. Vitellius was not so much a speaker as a diplomat and a manager of patronage. Matched with these men, his coevals, Seneca comes out very creditably – his earlier career did not march through prosecutions to fame and opulence; and when he held power as chief minister for Nero, he was temperate in its exercise – and, enormous though his profits might be, profit was not his incentive.[1175]

The great novus homo of the age was also its great literary figure, ‘princeps eruditorum’[1176] Seneca’s writings, as well as his public role and performance, came in for damaging criticism.[1177] Depreciation was easy, and there were few or none to defend. A family, a faction, and a cause might cherish the memory of Thrasea Paetus. Seneca, also a victim of Nero, was yet not a martyr to liberty. Comparable in this to Cicero (whom true and strict Republicans refused to reckon among their own), he lacked Cicero’s claims upon posterity.[1178] The historian Tacitus redressed the balance. His sympathetic understanding reveals something of his own personality and ideals— in short, the man of letters who serves the ‘res publica’ to the best of his ability, without illusions and with little hope.[1179]

The name of Seneca evoked fame, fashion, the hazards of survival— and the long warfare unabating that talent is forced to wage against birth and privilege, envy and detraction. Tacitus went on with that warfare. His first steps in the career of honours brought the young orator against the entrenched positions, and rivals from families either old or recent (the latter not always much superior in rank to his own). If he met disappointment in his path then and later, and took offence, he may not have discarded all the set beliefs that served to protect and embellish the fame of the Roman aristocracy in times before his own. When, however, he came to the Annales and studied the conduct of nobtles in the reign of Tiberius, what he discovered was enough to dispel any residual prepossessions about the ‘magna nomina’. Taking courage from things said or done by Tiberius Caesar, the historian indicted the nobilitas for its failings, but was able at the same time, like Sallust, to assess his own class without indulgence, not sparing the whole senatorial order.

It was a good thing for an historian to be a novus homo. His origin would not in itself tempt him to write local or regional history – that was antiquarian or trivial. In the larger and central theme he could understand Italy as well as Rome, the provinces no less than Italy.[1180] Many of the newer Romans, it is true, honouring the past, and susceptible to the creeds and observances of high society, might be unduly deferential to tradition in the persons of the surviving relics of aristocracy. Yet genius or confidence could break free. The judgements of the novus homo, like his status, derived from his own efforts. In pride of achievement, putting himself on a level with the older stocks when they first won rank by merit, he might look their descendants in the face – or pass them by. The contemporary Asinii were negligible. It was their ancestor that Tacitus honoured – and outdistanced in the writing of Roman history.[1181]

First and last, the theme of Cornelius Tacitus in Historiae and Annales is not merely the story of ten emperors from the death of Caesar Augustus to the assassination of Domitian. It is the struggle between the imperial power and the Roman Senate. Oligarchy is the enduring fact of all Roman history, whether Republican or imperial, and constant in most things, save in its composition. The recruitment of that oligarchy, its titles to rank, its behaviour and its vicissitudes, such is the constant preoccupation of the historian Tacitus.

In political contests the protagonists are not always the real adversaries, still less the eventual victors. When the strife o f aristocratic factions at Rome developed and changed, involving Italy and the whole world, forces were unloosed that made an end of the Republican system of government and brought forth the monarchy. And the monarchy, while it imposed concord and preserved the nobilitas for a season, none the less wrought its ruin steadily in the years of peace. Caesar needed agents and ministers; and novt homines sawr every avenue open at last for talent and ambition, and all barriers down.

The clients of the Caesars took over the inheritance o f the nobilitas. They seized control of patronage, and the ruler of the world was caught up in their meshes; they managed the imperial dominions of Rome, they excelled in all arts, they even set the tone of society. On the face of things merit prevailed. Reflection might engender misgivings. Would the new classes prove equal to their task?

Aristocratic tradition was not enough to guard the old families from the perils or the temptations of life under the Caesars. The new men had not known liberty; they advanced through conformity with the imperial system; native energy might not hold out against the blandishments of success or the routine habits of a bureaucratic system. Under the Republic open competition had been valuable and invigorating. The memory of that spirit persisted into the Empire. But competition was curbed through the ‘disciplina Caesaris’, and the career of a senator became in the end a safe occupation. 'Securitas’ took the place of ‘libertas’. Something had been lost in the process. The Empire and its servants might soon be needing all their strength, whether to resist the northern barbarians, if they came again in force and fury, or to maintain the Roman spirit intact against the steady invasion of the resurgent East.

The typical novus homo was now a provincial. After Italy the western lands came to power at Rome, and men from Spain wore the purple of the Caesars. Thus terminated the latest chapter of the central theme in the history of the Roman People. Tacitus, it might seem, has missed an opportunity. He ought to have written that chapter. Perhaps he did, in his own fashion. The theme is not explicit — but it emerges through a quiet hint, asi evocative name, or the choice and emphasis of single but related incidents. The triumph of the provincial Romans was the consummation of a long development, and it calls for an inquiry far back into the past. What explains Trajan and Hadrian may also explain Cornelius Tacitus.

 

XLV. The Origins of Cornelius Tacitus

If an historian claims to be better than an antiquarian or a purveyor of received truths, it is expedient to know something about the country of his origin and his rank in society – all the more when he happens to be bound up with the process he describes, not merely narrating the record of events but in his own person an historical document. Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a consul. The Historiae recount what happened in his own time and experience. And, although in the Anuales he went back and began with the accession of Tiberius Caesar, his narrative was designed to link the two compositions. The man, the methods, and the preoccupations are the same. Taken together, the Am ales and the Historiae were suitably regarded as a single work in thirty books.[1182]

Tacitus writes according to the spirit and the categories of the past. What is his relation to the present? Does he come from the old aristocracy or the new? And if the new, will his ‘patria’ be sought in Italy or in the provinces?

[...]

Extreme views being discarded, the argument can converge on the class and country of Cornelius Tacitus. It is dear that the Roman knight of that name, financial agent of the government in Gallia Belgica and the two Germanies, is the parent of the senator. In the preface to the Historiae Tacitus plainly states that he owes his rank to the Emperor Vespasian.[1183] These Cornelii are a new family, rising through the service of the Caesars and discovered at the moment of transition.

Tacitus exhibits a keen interest in the Rhineland; he has accurate knowledge or odd details about Colonia Claudia; and he carefully registers certain transactions round about the years 55–58. The elder Pliny was then passing his third and last period of equestrian service with the armies on the Rhine. Pliny records that he had seen a son of the procurator who died in infancy.[1184] Another son may have seen the light of day somewhere in Belgica or in the Rhineland, perhaps at Augusta Trevirorum or Colonia Claudia. It does not matter much. The place where a man happens to be bom is a mere accident, telling nothing about rank or origin. It is not his ‘patria’.[1185]

‘Tota Italia’ triumphed with Caesar Augustus. Before long, first with officers and procurators and then with senators and consuls, an impressive contingent comes from three territories – from the Transpadane tract of northern Italy, from Gallia Narbonensis, and from Spain. These regions, showing wealth and vitality in the last age of the Republic, furnished decisive resources of power in the struggle for mastery at Rome. Dragged into faction and civil war in the train of the monarchic party-leaders, the new Romans (colonial, native, and mixed in origin) find scope for talent and ambition. They surge irresistibly forward under the patronage of the Caesarian dynasty.

Transpadane Italy, Narbonensis, or Spain— somewhere in that provincial and dynamic zone is the home of Cornelius Tacitus. To narrow the quest, various arguments can be invoked. First, his marriage. The procurator’s son, making his start in the career of honours, may have required, when he took a wife, the backing of influential senators from his own country; and Julius Agricola, looking for character, education, and promise in a son-in-law, may have preferred not to look beyond the borders of Narbonensis.[1186]

Next, the friends of Cornelius Tacitus. The Dialogus might furnish some guidance. Four persons appear in that treatise. One of them is Curiatius Matemus, senator and dramatic poet. His origin lacks attestation, nothing connects his name or family with any of the of the Gallic provinces. The second is Julius Secundus, an orator of repute. A Gaul, it is true, but not from Narbonensis. He comes from somewhere in Tres Galliae: the distinction between Gallia Comata and Narbonensis was primordial in the conception of the Romans. Similarly the third character in question, M. Aper – probably a Gaul rather than a Narbonensian, and perhaps a Julius.

The fact that Julius Secundus and M. Aper are prominent in the Dialogus has no relevance to the origin of Cornelius Tacitus. It attests the singular fame and proficiency attained in the field of oratory by provincials – and by Gauls especially. The young Tacitus attached himself to the leading forensic speakers, precisely Secundus and Aper. Like the official career, the pursuit of education took a man far outside his regional friendships, into the company of teachers and students from every land. The fourth character in the Dialogus is Vipstanus Messalla, immeasurably superior to the others by distinction of birth. Though his stock was ultimately municipal, it had risen to the consulate two generations before, and had been found worthy of a matrimonial alliance with a house of the old patriciate.[1187] To round off the argument about the Dialogus, and indeed to dispose of it, will be added the dedicant, Fabius Justus (who forswore oratory and elected the career of provinces and armies). Like most other Fabii of note under the Empire after the extinction of the patrician Fabii, he might be Spanish.[1188]

Fabius Justus and the four interlocutors in the Dialogus permit no decision between Narbonensis and Transpadane Italy. Apart from the Dialogus, the sole source of knowledge about friends of Tacitus is the correspondence of Pliny. That Tacitus, like Pliny, was a son of Italia Transpadana is an attractive and reasonable notion. There is no proof. The letters fail to yield any single item that can convince. Pliny publishes no fewer than eleven missives to the address of Cornelius Tacitus: nothing about ‘Italia nostra’ as a common loyalty, no mention of any mutual friends as linked by a common origin in the North.[1189] Though Pliny asks Tacitus for advice when seeking a schoolmaster for the town of Comum, no regional claims reinforce the appeal to the mature judgement of the educational expert.[1190] Again, Pliny describes to a friend the obsequies of the great Verginius Rufus, with emphasis on the fact that Verginius was his own guardian, that the territories of their towns marched, and so did their estates. An eloquent speaker delivered the funeral eulogy, none other than the consul Cornelius Tacitus.[1191] Pliny does not say that the choice of tfie orator had any geographical point or propriety. Nor need it have: a state funeral explains the consul.

The argument from silence cannot go very far. An author does not have to mention facts with which his readers may be presumed familiar. Pliny nowhere documents the northern origin of his consular friends Corellius Rufus and Vestricius Spurinna; and his language towards Cornelius Tacitus, who was senior in years and renown, is suitably marked by distance and deference.

Not but what the lack of personal links between Tacitus and Pliny’s circle of northern friends calls for remark. Patriotism and vanity ought to have testified somewhere. In all the correspondence there are only two passages that bring Tacitus into relation with any known and named third person. Though not conclusive, they tell against Transpadana.[1192]

Inferences of this kind cannot but be faint and flimsy. The historian’s own writings might disclose some arguments in support. When Nero in the progress of his enormities exhibited his histrionic and vocal talent before die public, Tacitus records how indignant were visitors from the remote towns and from that Italy which still kept the rigorous habit of the old morality.[1193] The words recall Pliny’s tribute to the virtue of ‘ilia nostra Italia’, but offer no guidance.[1194] The thing had become a commonplace, the Transpadana superseding the Sabine land as domicile and paragon of the ancient ways.[1195] Nor would it perhaps be fair to invoke Tacitus’ account of the campaigns of the year 69, and especially the difficulty about the battle near Bedriacum, as contributing to disprove a northern origin.

So far the discussion has been confined in the main to miscellaneous and fragmentary items. A more adventurous interpretation may delve into the style and thought of Tacitus, there to discover the qualities and essence of the Celt. Of old the natives of Gaul, fervently addicted to oratory, affected a manner of discourse both majestic and epigrammatical;[1196] and their eager talent soon put them among the masters of rhetoric at Rome. The pride, the passion, and the invective of the Celt, blending with the temper and the traditions of the Roman  governing order, might go a long way towards explaining the genius of Cornelius Tacitus.

The invocation of the Celtic spirit is a familiar device in criticism and in biography. The poet Valerius Catullus is taken as a prime example, for his fire and passion, his tenderness and pathos, the spontaneity o f his loves and hates. N or is Mantua’s poet omitted.[1197] Catullus came from Verona, and the cognomen may be Celtic. Mantua, however, is an ancient foundation of the Etruscans. Not that it matters much. Even if it be proved that the name ‘Vergilius’ is Etruscan, the nomenclature of the North is so tricky, its ethnic amalgam so complex, that no valid conclusions about the stock of the poet in relation to his writings (or anything else) are likely to emerge.[1198]

Arguments have sometimes been based upon the race of the historian Livy – Patavium was the capital of the Veneti, a nation whose language was certainly not Celtic. It would be more pertinent to draw attention to the things that Livy and Virgil have in common, despite all that separated their cities in origin and history, in speech and in customs.[1199]

That is not to deny the survival of local divergences north of the Po, or elsewhere in Italy, still less to depreciate the force of local patriotisms. There was something in L. ivy that could be opprobriously designated as ‘Patavinitas’. How much the inner ‘Patavinitas’ of the historian had to do with race or region is another matter. N or will a prudent man try to assess what is Umbrian in Propertius, what is Paelignian in Ovid.

The facile and delusive play with racial origins in Latin literature has been almost entirely concentrated upon the Celtic strain in poets from the North, as though it were certain what ‘Celtic’ meant. Spain might engender doubts about operations of this kind. If Spanish characteristics were sought in members of the Seneca family, it would be well to recall that the Annaei are of Italian colonist stock. Their town is Corduba, in the south-west, in Baetica. Celtiberia is a very different part of Spain. Both Quintilian and Martial were born in that country – of native ancestry, it may be presumed.[1200] Nobody has been able to isolate a Celtiberian element in the language, style, and thought of Quintilian or Martial. Martial gives full and loving detail about the mountains and rivers in his own region.[1201] But who could have surmised the origin of Quintilian if it were not attested? That author mentions Spain only once – and then it is with the curious affectation of not knowing much about a certain local word.[1202]

The supreme examples of the new Roman from the western provinces are the Emperor Trajan and the rulers of the Antonine dynasty. In the estimate of their personality as men and emperors, zealous speculation has run riot with the supposed influences of race and blood, of soil and landscape – Umbro-Illyrian in the Italian ascendance of Trajan, the Gaditane mother of Hadrian, the Narbonensian climate for Antoninus Pius, the fable of a Sabine descent from Numa Pompilius in the genealogy of Marcus Aurelius. It is all vanity. The things that matter are education and national spirit, wealth and energy and rank.

To return to Cornelius Tacitus. No erudition or fancy has yet devised a criterion for deciding between Naxbonensis and Italia Transpadana. The assumption that Tacitus came from the Celtic zone does not depend upon inferences from style or personality. It derives from external evidence, from his relationship with Julius Agricola and his friendship with Pliny. Not from those facts alone. Otherwise, Spain would be a fair guess. Martial addresses a poem to Pliny:[1203] he does not anywhere name the orator and consul Cornelius Tacitus, senior in rank and reputation to Pliny. The verses of Martial would not endear him to a man of grave habit, preoccupied with the problems of education and morality. Had Tacitus been a Roman from Spain, there is no guarantee that Martial must have mentioned him.[1204]

The truth is almost revealed in an incident which Tacitus himself reported to his friend. At the games he found himself seated next to a Roman knight. Their converse was varied and literary. After a time the knight was emboldened to ask his companion whether he was Italian or provincial. Tacitus gave a veiled answer – ‘your acquaintance with Roman oratory should tell you who I am’. At once the man rejoined ‘are you Tacitus or Pliny?’[1205]

If the mention of oratory enables the Roman knight to defeat the evasiveness o f Cornelius Tacitus and identify his interlocutor as one of two persons, that may not have been the only thing he went by. Manner and accent might give a clue – something that Tacitus shared with Pliny. That something need not have been confined to Transpadana, but may be common to Transpadana and Narbonensis.

‘Italicus es an provincialis?’ The terms are mutually exclusive, but the alternatives need not imply any great difference. If they did, the Roman knight would not have had to put his question. The resemblances between Transpadana and Narbonensis are patent. Of the ‘provincia’ it was with truth proclaimed ‘Italia verius quam provincia’.[1206] By the same token, the Transpadane tract of the Cisalpina is provincial rather than Italian. Almost every one of its towns had been in origin the capital of some native people – Celtic, Raetian, Venetic, or Illyrian.[1207] Nomenclature suggests that the indigenous elements survived in preponderance.

In so far as concerns Cornelius Tacitus, external reasons weaken the case for a north Italian origin; and some might be disposed to believe that his diffidence when questioned at the games indicates the provincial rather than the Italian.[1208]

Transpadane or Narbonensian, the distinction does not count for much. Immigrants from central Italy may be detected among the local aristocracies of the northern towns.[1209] Yet the criteria are often deceptive, especially where names of an Etruscan type are concerned; and most of the Transpadane senators seem to come from the various and mixed indigenous stocks. As for the ‘provincia’, Roman settlement, though intense in some places, modified but did not overpower the native substratum. Narbonensis exhibits a signal paradox. It might have been expected that the Roman colonies would account for the great majority of senators in the first century of the Empire. It turns out not to be so. The ancient colony of Narbo cannot show a senator until the time of Hadrian – and he is a person of no consequence.[1210] By contrast the tribal capitals Nemausus, Vienna, and Vasio are triumphant and overwhelming. Furthermore, some of the colonial notables such as Julius Agricola from Forum Julii and Pompeius Paullinus from Arelate had native ancestors, enfranchised before ever the colonics existed, and incorporated when they were founded.[1211]

Consuls and emperors, poets and orators, it is the same story. To explain their character and talent, there is no call to speculate about the questionable influences of race and blood and climate. Not that the town or region is indifferent. On the contrary. The new Romans of the North and the West derive from zones of prosperity

and energy. Cornelius Tacitus is a part of the process that carries them forward to the conquest of the Empire, superseding both the Roman aristocracy and the aristocratic Caesars.

Spain and Narbonensis also out-distanced the native sons of Italy, whom they excelled in various ways. A number of the Italian novi homines could not face the test of birth and education (being flagrantly of low extraction, sordid gains, or recent enrichment) when set against the class of property holders in the western lands, resident in Spain long since or descended from chieftains in Narbonensis. The historian, recording the deaths of Augustan consulars, is alert for facts of discredit – Ateius Capito grandson of a mere centurion, Sulpicius Quirinius a small-town upstart.[1212] In his own time or memory, those parvenu orators and political managers, Eprius Marcellus and Vibius Crispus, came from no known families in their places of origin.[1213] Seneca the Corduban had been their superior in social rank. Similarly, Agricola and Trajan were much more presentable than Vespasian.

In earlier days Italy had its own dignity for protection against the arrogance of Rome. The better sort despised the Roman plebs or soldier)', and might disdain to seek office and honours at the metropolis. But Italy sagged in strength and wealth and honour as other regions rose; and Italy was reduced under the monarchy very close to the condition of a province. The old towns faded before the splendid and prosperous cities of the western world, and suffered affront. The persons whom Tacitus rebukes for their lowly or municipal origin are Italian, with hardly an exception.[1214] The historian’s pose is dramatic and mimetic, reproducing Roman tradition and annexing the manner of the nobilitas. It is not only that. The pride of the provincial aristocracy finds expression, and a compensatory revenge.

Origins were known or patent by various signs. Though reticent or even evasive, Cornelius Tacitus could not wholly baffle an interlocutor. Posterity can turn its scrutiny upon the shape and colour of a Roman name, often with sudden and startling recognition.

First, a man’s gentilicium, which may be rare and regional. ‘Cornelius’ is too common to be of any value, being transmitted and spread, not merely by the enfranchisement of slaves and aliens, but through fashion and imitation. Nothing can be got from the search for early municipal Cornelii, in Italy or abroad. Nor will it help to compile the record of equestrian and senatorial Cornelii in this age. Some might be kinsmen of the historian, but there is no proof to be had anywhere.

The cognomen is another matter. Although ‘Tacitus’ has a meaning in Latin, there is no reason to suppose it a Latin, word by origin any more than ‘Vindex’, the cognomen of the Aquitanian noble Julius Vindex.[1215] Nor is Etruscan plausible for guess or argument, however wide and various that term may be. Region and social status plainly indicate that the name is native, indigenous to northern Italy and to the barbarian fringe. The easy assumption is that ‘Tacitus’ is Celtic; and a Celtic derivation can be duly furnished. If doubt be conceived (as well it may be) about etymologies, the regional indication may suffice, and the limits of science can be respected by a modest hint at the terms ‘Celto-Ligurian’ or ‘Celto-Illyrian’. A negative clue may be added. There is a strong Celtic element in the nomenclature of northern and western Spain. Yet Spain furnishes not a single example of the name ‘Tacitus’.

It has been supposed from time to time and for various reasons, not all of them adequate, that Cornelius Tacitus was native by ultimate extraction. Precise inquiry strengthens the case, and practically confirms it, putting his origin somewhere in Cisalpine Gaul or Gallia Narbonensis. It would be tempting to go further, to balance Narbonensis against the Transpadane zone of Cisalpina. Two of the three instances of the cognomen in Transpadane cities are instructive – they are borne by members of families notable among the local aristocracies in the last age of the Republic.[1216] Narbonensis has four Taciti, all from towns or regions that are not colonial but native.[1217] One of them deserves to be singled out. At the capital of the Vocontii a man called Tacitus set up a dedication, to the god of war and to the town itself, Vasio.[1218]

The high civilization of Vasio in the early imperial epoch is attested by the splendour of its monuments. More impressive is the record of the Vocontii in the arts of peace and war, in letters, in politics, and in government. Chieftains of the Vocontii led the cavalry of their tribe in the campaigns of Pompeius Magnus, and gained the Roman citizenship as the reward of their loyalty. The son of a chieftain became the confidential secretary of Caesar; and his son was the historian Pompeius Trogus.[1219] The next notice about the men of Vasio shows them high in office and influence at the capital. After long service as a procurator to members of the dynasty, Afranius Burrus emerges as Prefect of the Guard; and, not unrelated as a fact, the senator Duvius Avitus becomes consul and passes at once to command the army of Lower Germany. Decisive promotion in the career of the knight Cornelius Tacitus, the procurator of Gallia Belgica, probably falls in this period when patronage was so generously and so patently managed by two provincial ministers of state, Afranius Burrus and Annaeus Seneca.[1220]

The historian is amicably disposed towards Burrus, whose role in counsel and government he enhances, with nowhere so much as a hint that honest Burrus was flagrantly lacking in ‘tides’ and ‘pietas’ towards Agrippina, the author of his elevation. When introducing Burrus and when taking leave of him, Tacitus neglects to register the town and origin. A writer will often by inadvertence omit precisely those items that are most familiar to him personally.[1221] Not all readers are so well placed. Writing in the Atmales about Seneca, Tacitus could dispense with annotation about Corduba – the world knew it, and all posterity, as long as Latin letters would endure. Afranius Burrus was an ephemeral phenomenon.[1222]

Tacitus writes of the Gallic lands with knowledge, discernment, and sympathy.[1223] W ere his origin thence derived, nobody would expect to see it announced by a writer who discards personal concerns, insisting upon the majesty of history and the validity of his own exposition. Any allusion will be discreet, or even ironical.

When the counsellors of Claudius Caesar attempt to dissuade their imperial master from admitting the Gallic ‘principes’, they take refuge in a farrago of protestations. Italy, they plead, is not decadent. That is a calumny – Italy furnished Rome with senators in old days, and the Republic is good enough for anybody.[1224] It was shameful enough that Insubres and Veneti from the Transpadana broke into the Curia. What dignity will be kept intact for the surviving Roman nobiles, and Latium’s impoverished senators? The new invaders bring with them a deluge of wealth. They are the vanquished of old – and a pack of foreigners. Their ancestors besieged Divus Julius at Alesia – and think of the consecrated memory of Romans who fell in battle to defend the Capitol against the Gallic hordes!

Anger and pathos are helped out (it happens often) by the appeal to race or history, with arguments crude, feeble, or spurious. So Tacitus intended.[1225] He made them up, to refute them majestically. The historian also invented a sentence to strengthen and ennoble the spineless oration of Claudius Caesar, echoing and refuting the invocation of Italy and the Republic. ‘The Balbi arc good enough, who came from Spain, and men no less illustrious from Gallia Narbonensis; their descendants are among us, they do not yield to us in devotion to Rome.’[1226]

The irony is restrained and impressive. When Tacitus wrote, colonials and provincials from the Latin West occupied the place of the Caesars. There was only one higher pinnacle: literary renown. To that also the epoch of Trajan and Hadrian might confidently aspire. Men and dynasties pass, but style abides.[1227]

 

---

[1] Pliny, Epp. II. 1. 6.

[2] Agr. 3. 3: ‘non tamen pigebit vel incondita ac rudi voce memoriam prioris servitutis ac testimonium praesentium bonorum composuisse. hic interim liber honori Agricolae soceri mei destinatus professione pietatis aut Iaudatus erit aut excusatus [But after all I shall not regret the task of recording our former slavery and testifying to our present blessings, even though with unpractised and stammering tongue. Meanwhile this book is dedicated to the glory of my father-in-law Agricola: its plea of filial duty will commend or, at least, excuse it.].’

[3] 3. 1.

[4] 44. 5.

[5] Compare Frontinus’ treatise – ‘ab Nerva Augusto’ (De aquis I. 1), and ‘imperatoris piissimi Nervae’ (88. 1). Yet Nerva is twice denominated ‘divus’ (102. 4 and 118. 3), and the author brings in his successor as ‘Imperatorem Caesarem Nervam Traianum Augustum’ (93. 4).

[6] 42. 4: ‘non contumacia neque inani iactatione Iibertatis famam fatumque provocabat [in whom was no truculence, no fatuous parade of independence, to invite renown and ruin].’

[7] ib. 5: ‘sciant, quibus moris est inlicita mirari, posse etiam sub malis principibus magnos viros esse, obsequiumque ac modestiam, si industria ac vigor adsint, co laudis excedere quo plerique per abrupta sed in nullum rei publicae usum <enisi> ambitiosa morte inclaruerunt [Let those whose way it is to admire only what is forbidden learn from him that great men can live even under bad rulers; and that submission and moderation, if animation and energy go with them, reach the same pinnacle of fame, whither more often men have climbed by perilous courses but, with no profit to the state, have earned their glory by an ostentatious death.].’

[8] 45. 1.

[9] 45. 5.

[10] Hist. IV. 8. 3 (the oration of Eprius Marcellus).

[11] cf. R. Syme, Rom. Rev. (1939), 81 ff.; 359 ff.; 449 ff.

[12] 44. 4.

[13] Ann. XVI. 5. 1, cf. Epp. I. 14. 4.

[14] R. Syme, o.c. 513 ff.

[15] ib. 13 f.; 517. Observe the contrast between Republic and Principate – ‘ipsa inimicitiarum gloria’ [the glory you gained by being at daggers drawn with them] (Tacitus, Dial. 40. 1) and ‘quietis Gloria []’ (Pliny, Pan. 86. 2).

[16] Ann. IV. 20. 3 (M. Lepidus).

[17] 42. 5 (cited above). Compare his conduct as a legionary legate, 'peritus obsequi’ (8. 1); ‘virtute in obsequendo’ (8. 3).

[18] The following examples of ‘obsequium’ in Pliny will be instructive: Epp. VIII. 23. 5; X. 3a. 3; 100; Pan. 9. 3 and 5; 78. 1.

[19] Pan. 69. 5.

[20] Mommsen was premature: when he denied that there was any political literature in Rome of the Empire (Reden u. Aufsätze (1905), 149).

[21] This political element in his Agricola has generally been recognized. Compare Anderson in his edition (Oxford, 1922), xxxviii ff., who, however, minimizes the strain of apologia. For the literary genre of the treatise, its honesty, and its veracity, see Ch. XI.

[22] 44. 5: ‘quod augurio votisque apud nostras auris ominabatur [].’

[23] HA, Hadr. 2. 10 (before 101).

[24] Assuming him born in 53.

[25] Germ. 37. 2.

[26] 33. 1 f.: ‘nam ne spectaculo quidem proelii invidere. super sexaginta milia non armis telisque Romanis, sed, quod magnificentius est, oblectationi oculisque ceciderunt [nay, Heaven did not even grudge us the sight of a battle: over sixty thousand men fell, not before the arms and spears of Rome, but – what was even a greater triumph for us – merely to delight our eyes].’

[27] Spurinna’s exploit might be another aspect of the same episode – he intimidated the Bructeri and made them take back their king (Pliny, Epp. II. 7. 2).

[28] 33. 2: ‘maneat quaeso duretque gentibus, si non amor nostri, at certe odium sui, quando urgentibus imperii fatis nihil iam praestare fortuna maius potest quam hostium discordiam [long may it last, I pray, and persist among the nations, this – if not love for us – at least hatred for each other: since now that the destinies of the Empire drive it on, Fortune can guarantee us nothing better than discord among our foes].’

[29] Livy V. 36. 6: ‘iam urgentibus Romanam urbem fatis []’, echoing the doom of another city, Veii, ‘postremo iam fato quoque urgente []’ (ib. 22. 8). The note of fate is also enhanced by another verb, ‘deorum monita ingruente fato spreta []’ (32. 7). Compare also Lucan on Alexander, ‘perque Asiae populos fatis urgentibus actus []’ (X. 30) – that is, the doom of Asia.

[30] Polybius I. 6. 6; II. 20. 8 ff.

[31] Virgil, Aen. I. 278 f.; Tibullus II. 5. 23; Livy IV. 3. 4; XXVIII. 28. 10. Compare, though not yet so positive, Cicero, Pro C. Rabirio perduellionis reo 33.

[32] cf. Sallust, Cat. 2. 4 ff.

[33] Hist. IV. 54. 2.

[34] Germ. 37. 2.

[35] ib. 6: ‘triumphati magis quam victi [more triumphs over them than victories].’

[36] ib. 3: ‘non Samnis, non Poeni, non Hispaniae Galliaeve, ne Parthi quidem saepius admonuere: quippe regno Arsacis acrior est Germanorum libertas [neither Sammite nor Carthaginian, neither Spain nor Gaul, nor even the Parthians have taught us more lessons. The German fighting for liberty has been a keener enemy than the absolutism of Arsaces].’

[37] 41. 2: ‘flumen inclutum et notum olim; nunc tantum auditor [a river once known and famous; now a name only.].’

[38] Extreme opinions have been held about the ‘purpose’ of the Germania – a moralizing satire or a political pamphlet; and, as a pamphlet that reveals the German menace, designed either to incite Trajan to action or indirectly to commend him for having done nothing rash. For a sagacious exposition sec J. G. C. Anderson, o.c. IX ff.; also J. Perret in his edition (Budé, 1949), 6 ff. For the literary genre to which the treatise belongs, Ch. XI. The violent language in the digressions on the Bructeri (Germ. 33) and on the whole history of the relations between Romans and Germans (37) can fairly be taken as a clue to the author’s own sentiments. Observe also the contemptuous note in Tacitus’ reference to the natives of the ‘decumates agri [“the ten lands”, i.e. the “ten cantons” between the rivers Rhine, Main and Danube]’ (29. 4), annexed by the Flavians.

[39] The sole known exception, undated and unexplained, is M’. Laberius Maximus (suff. 89, II ord. with the Emperor in 103): in 117 he is discovered in exile on an island (HA, Hadr. 5. 5).

[40] For this conception cf. R. Syme, CAH X (1934), 380 f.

[41] The legions II Traiana Fortis and XXX Ulpia Victrix were presumably enrolled before or during the Second Dacian War; while two taken from the Rhine (X Gemina and XI Claudia) did not go back there. That would give thirteen in the Danubian armies; but, Arabia having been annexed, an extra legion would be needed in the East; cf. R. Syme, Laureae Aquicenses 1 (1938), 267 ff.

[42] Pan. 15. 4 (where the phrase ‘magnus hospes [noble person]’ deserves attention).

[43] 82. 6: ‘nec vero per se magnopere laudaverim duritiam corporis ac lacertorum.’ Hercules is alluded to in the next section – ‘maritos dearum ac deorum liberos [].’

[44] Pan. 9. 3: ‘ad prindpatum obsequio pervenisti [it was your obedience which raised you to the principate]’; 5: ‘obsequii gloria [glory in obedience].’ Compare Trajan, in obedience to Domitian, paralleled by ‘ille genitus Iove [Jupiter’s great son]’ to his ‘rex’ (14. 5).

[45] Agr. 42. 5.

[46] He uses the phrase of Galba (Hist. I. 49. 4) and of Titus (II. 77. 1, cf. II. 1. 2). Note also Ann. I. 11. 1: ‘solam divi Augusti mentem tantae molis capacem []’; 13. 2: ‘capacem sed aspernantem [].’ For the Greek equivalent note Plutarch, Galba 29: τοὺς μὲν οὐδεὶς ἠξίωσε τῆς ἡγεμονίας, οἱ δ᾿ ἑαυτοὺς ἀπηξίωσαν [some were by all men deemed unworthy of the imperial dignity, and others deemed themselves unworthy], also Otho 15: εἰ τῆς Ῥωμαίων ἡγεμονίας ἄξιος γέγονα [if I was worthy to be Roman emperor]. Similarly, Dio LXIX. 17. 3 (with Boissevain’s note): τῆς αὐταρχίας ἄξιον [capable of filling even the imperial office] (Trajan’s [Hadrian’s rather] estimate of Julius Servianus). Also, on the events after the assassination of Caligula, Josephus BJ II. 205: κρινεῖν ψήφῳ τὸν ἄξιον τῆς ἡγεμονίας [to elect by suffrage a leader worthy of the empire].

[47] Sidonius Apollinaris twice calls him ‘Gaius’ (Epp. IV. 14. 1; 22. 2). However, the Codex Mediceus I has ‘P. Corneli’ at the subscriptions to Books I and III of the Annales. It is preferable to neglect the ‘P. Corneli’ in small capitals on the top right-hand margin of the first page, with ‘Taciti’ added by a Renaissance hand: cf. now R. P. Oliver, TAPA LXXXII (1951), 234.

[48] HA, Tacitus 10. 3.

[49] ILS 2927 (Comum).

[50] NH VII. 76 (discussing children of abnormal physical growth): ‘ipsi non pridem vidimus eadem ferme omnia praeter pubertatem in filio Corneli Taciti equitis Romani Belgicae Galliae rationes procurantis [].’ The context implies that the creature died.

[51] Note the poet from Comum (Catullus 35).

[52] cf. Pliny on some of his friends, Epp. I. 14. 9: ‘nescio an adiciam esse patri eius amplas facultates []’; VII. 22. 2: ‘natus splendide, abundat facultatibus []’ (equestrian families at Brixia and at Bergomum).

[53] Perhaps L. Caecilius C. f. Secundus, a local magistrate (CIL, Supp. It. 745). Another magistrate, L. Caecilius L. f. Cilo (ILS 6728), might be a relative. The nomen, however, is common.

[54] The letter to Baebius Macer (III. 5) chronicles his writings and his habits. The fundamental inquiry (drawing copiously on details in the NH) is that of F. Münzer, Bonner Jahrbücher CIV (1899), 67 ff. The recent article of K. Ziegler (P-W XXI, 271 ff.) adds nothing. A phalera found at the legionary camp of Vetera is inscribed ‘Plinio praefec.’ (CIL XIII, 10026²²). The inscription from Aradus (OGIS 586), recording [greek], an equestrian officer and deputy of Ti. Julius Alexander in Judaea (69/70), cannot be assigned to Pliny (for a renewed attempt, P-W XXI, 277 ff.).

[55] On whom cf. C. Cichoriua, Römische Studien (1922), 423 ff. Attested in 50, Ann. XII. 27. 2. By his full nomenclature, ‘[? P. Calv]isius Sabinus Pomponius Secundus’, cf. CIL XIII, 5201 and 5237; 11515 (of the year 51).

[56] Such a post is not excluded, to be sure. Of his procuratorships only Tarraconensis is directly attested – or convincingly to be dated (c. 73).

[57] Suetonius (ed. Roth, p. 300): ‘procurationes quoque splendidissimas et continuas summa integritate administravit.’ Münzer (o.c. 103 ff.) argues for Narbonehsis, Africa, Tarraconensis, and Belgica. The sequence might well seem too rapid. Narbonensis seems the least secure. For Tarraconensis (conjecturally 73/74), observe the census statistics cited in NH III. 28. The consular legate was Vibius Crispus (AE 1939, 60). Cf. R. Syme, Rev. ét. anc. LVIII (1956), 236 ff.

[58] Epp. III. 5. 9: ‘ante lucem ibat ad Vespasianum imperatorem (nam ille quoque noctibus utebarur), inde ad delegatum sibi officium [].’

[59] The three praefecti annonae are C. Tettius Africanus (CIL XI, 5382), L. Julius Ursus (AE 1939, 60), and L. Laberius Maximus (ILS 5049). Tettius had previously held the vigiles. For their tenure of Egypt, see A. Stein, Die Präfekten von Ägypten in r. Zeit (1950), 41 ff.; R. Syme JRS XLIV (1954), 116 f.

[60] Epp. VI. 16. 4: ‘erat Miseni classemque imperio praesens regebat [].’ The adjective ‘praesens’ could suggest that the commander was not regularly there; hence his ‘officium’ at Rome might not be what is conjectured above, the charge of the vigiles.

[61] VI. 20. 5.

[62] III. 5. 16: ‘nam perire omne tempus arbitrabatur quod studiis non impertiretur [].’

[63] NH 11. 18: ‘deus eat mortali iuvare mortalem, et haec ad aetemam gloriam via. hac proceres iere Romani, hac nunc caelesti passu cum liberis suis vadit maximus omnis aevi rector Vespasianus Augustus fessis rebus subveniens [].’

[64] NH, praef. 20. For the historical writings, Ch. XVI.

[65] ib. 18: ‘profecto omnia vita vigilia est’; cf. Seneca, Epp. 96. 5: ‘atqui vivere, Lucili, militare est [And yet life, Lucilius, is really a battle]’; 82. 3: ‘otium sine litteris mors est et hominis vivi sepultura [].’ Compare Pliny’s complaints about the decline of arts and sciences, of invention and discovery, because men love ease and wealth (NH II. 117 f.; XIV. 2 ff.).

[66] Observe Turranius, who, dismissed ‘post annum nonagesimum [after his ninetieth year]’, took it as a death sentence, ‘nec finivit ante tristitiam quam labor illi suus restitutus est [did not end its sorrow, until his accustomed work was restored to him]’ (Seneca, De brevitate vitae 20. 3).

[67] Epp. III. 5.9.

[68] NH, praef. 3: ‘et nobis quidem qualis in castrensi contubernio [].’ Cf. Suetonius, Divus Titus 4. 1.

[69] Hist. I. 1. 3: ‘dignitatem nostram a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domitiano longius provectam haud abnuerim; sed incorruptam fidem professis neque amore quisquam et sine odio dicendus est [I cannot deny that my political career owed its beginning to Vespasian; that Titus advanced it; and that Domitian carried it further;1 but those who profess inviolable fidelity to truth must write of no man with affection or with hatred].’

[70] cf. Julius Naso, a friend of Tacitus and of Pliny (Epp. VI. 6. 4).

[71] Among sons of procurators observe M’. Laberius Maximus (suff. 89, II ord. 103), the orator (? Cn.) Lucceius Albinus (consul before 103), and C. Valerius Paullinus (suff. 107). There is no reason for doubting that Tacitus was the son (or possibly nephew) of the procurator of Belgica: cf. further Ch. XLV.

[72] Tacitus was now ‘iuvenis admodum [quite a youth]’ (Dial. 1. 2). Compare Helvidius Priscus – ‘ingenium inlustre altioribus studiis iuvenis admodum dedit []’ (Hist. IV. 5. 1). Agricola nearly succumbed to philosophy at this season (Agr. 4. 4).

[73] Dial. 17. 3.

[74] There were now, it appears, twenty-nine legions – but two were in Egypt, without laticlavii.

[75] Agr. 9. 7.

[76] Patricians will normally hold this post, cf. S. Brassloff, Hermes XXXIX (1904), 618. Furthermore, all of the epigraphically attested quaestores Augusti in the period 70–120 except two (ILS 1000; 1003) are known to have reached the consulate: mostly patrician, but also some later commanders of military provinces (e.g. ILS 1021; 1040; 1053). A novus homo of literary talent might stand a chance, however.

[77] Dig. 1. 2. 2. 32. Titus abolished one place, but Nerva restored it.

[78] Ann. XI. 11. 1: ‘nam is quoque edidit ludos saecularis iisque intentius adfui sacerdotio quindecimvirali praeditus ac tum praetor [].’

[79] Suetonius, Dom. 8. 3 f.; Pliny, Epp. IV. 11. 5 ff.

[80] Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 50: οἱ δ᾿ ἱερεῖς παρἐγένοντο τῇ τοῦ γάμου διαλύσει, πολλὰ φρικώδη καὶ ἀλλόκοτα καὶ σκυθρωπὰ δρῶντες [the priests were present at that ceremony of divorce and performed many horrible, strange, and gloomy rites].

[81] The stated 110 years take one back from A.D. 88 to 23 B.C.; and, according to Zosimus (11. 4), Domitian followed the Augustan computation. Various reasons suggest that Augustus originally intended to hold the Ludi Saeculares in 23 or 22 B.C., cf. O. Hirschfeld, Kl. Schr. (1913), 444; M. P. Nilsson, P-W 1 A, 1710. When, however, Augustus decided to postpone and needed justification for 17 B.C., a series of earlier Ludi (at the proper intervals) was duly produced from the commentarii of the XVviri (Censorinus, De die nataii XVII. 8; 10 f.).

[82] For their status, Ann. III. 64. 3 f.; Dio LVIII. 12. 5.

[83] For the different sacerdotia, M. W. Hoffman Lewis, The Official Priests of Rome under the Julio-CIaudians (1955). The arvales of the period are persons of some distinction for the most part (o.c. 121 ff.). [Cf. Ronald Syme, Some Arval Brethren, Clarendon Press, 1980.]

[84] e.g. ILS 5034 (from the Acta of 87). A social decline can be discovered by comparing the arvales of 78 (ILS 5027) with those of 58 and 59 (229 f.).

[85] See the fifteen other names discoverable between 70 and 120. Among them, Trajan’s father, Fabricius Veiento, the poet Valerius Flaccus, the highly presentable Arruntius Stella.

[86] cf. Hist. IV. 42. 4 (in the speech denouncing the young Aquillius Regulus). For the importance of birth, cf. Hist. I. 77. 3 – priesthoods for ‘honorati iam senes [old men who had already gone through the list of offices]’ and for ‘nobiles adulescentuli [young nobles]’.

[87] The Acta Fratrum Analium, by thanksgivings on September 22, 87, ‘ob detecta scelera nefariorum’ (CIL VI, 2165, l. 62), indicate the unmasking of a conspiracy.

[88] Epp. VII. 20. 4: ‘equidem adulescentulus, cum iam tu gloria famaque floreres, te sequi, tibi longo sed proximus intervallo et esse et haberi concupiscebam [I was still a young man when you were already winning fame and glory, and I aspired to follow in your footsteps and be “far behind but still the nearest”].’

[89] The notion that Tacitus owed everything to Agricola (E. Paratore, Tacito (1951), 52, cf. 73) cannot be accepted.

[90] Juvenal IV. 75 ff. Cf. G. Highet, Juvenal the Satirist (1954), 259 ff.; J. Crook, Consilium Principis (1955), 50 f. Add presumably M. Cocceius Nerva; but the enigmatic Julius Ursus had not yet become joint commander of the Guard with Cornelius Fuscus. Ursus was succeeded by L. Laberius Maximus (cf. P. Berol. 8334).

[91] For patricians (old or new) with no post between praetorship and consulate, ILS 999; 1044; 1049; AE 1914, 267.

[92] Of about fifty discoverable proconsuls of praetorian rank between 70 and 120, not more than half a dozen are known to have governed later a military province. Nor does the post of legate to a proconsul (except in Asia or Africa) indicate promise.

[93] Hence the suggestion made to the conqueror of Britain (Agr. 42. 1) was not wholly outrageous.

[94] Three pairs (89, 91, 94, 96) or the Emperor and six other consuls (87, 92, 95) can be taken as ‘normal’.

[95] For this type of promotion cf. Agricola’s career.

[96] Agr. 45. 5. Cf. 44. 1.

[97] No reference at all to Britain – but three to Domitian’s German operations in 83 (Strat. I. 1. 8; 3. 10; II. 11. 7).

[98] Of the complete and detailed cursus of consulars (other than patricians) between 70 snd 120 only three fail to show that post, viz. ILS 8819 (A. Julius Quadratus); 2927 (Pliny); 1024 (Comutus Tertullus).

[99] The epigraphic instances in the Flavio-Trajanic period are, for Hispania, ILS 1021; 1016; Britain, 1011; 1015; Cappadocia, 8971; 8819; 1017. Add Larcius Licinus (PIR¹, L 54), in Spain c. 73. The title iuridicus is not applied to the praetorian legates in the Cappadocian province.

[100] e.g. P. Tullius Varro (ILS 1002), or C. Salvius Liberalis, proconsul of Macedonia after his legionary command (ILS 1011).

[101] A. W. Braithwaite in his edition of Suetonius, Divus Vespasianus (Oxford, 1927), 51 f. Add presumably L. Javolenus Priscus (ILS 1015), and also Sex. Lucilius Bassus (cf. PIR¹, L 283).

[102] Twelve names, besides the Emperor’s.

[103] Observe the peculiar story in Dio – malefactors with poisoned needles causing many deaths at Rome and throughout the world (LXVII. 11. 6, under 90 or 91).

[104] e.g. Ummidius Quadratus (Syria) in 60 (Ann. XIV. 26. 2); T. Atilius Rufus (Syria) in 84 (Agr. 40. 1); L. Antistius Rusticus (Cappadocia) c. 93 (Martial IX. 30, cf. AE 1925, 126: his cursus, and his edict in a season of famine).

[105] In 93 Agricola – and, about the same time, Cn. Domitius Lucanus (suff. c. 79), cf. Martial IX. 51. Also T. Aurelius Fulvus (cos. 89). M. Otacilius Catulus (suff. 88) died in or before 95 (cf. Dig. XXXI. 29 praef.).

[106] e.g. Valerius Flaccus (Quintilian X. 1. 90), and Severus, the (younger) son of Silius Italicus (Martial VIII. 66, cf. IX. 86; Pliny, Epp. Ill. 7. 2).

[107] The son of Silius (Martial VIII. 66. 4) may be identified as L. Silius Decianus (suff. 94); the consulates of the Neratii are in 95 and 97.

[108] e.g. Q. Pomponius Rufus (IRT 537), suffectus in 95, or A. Julius Quadratus (ILS 8819) in 94.

[109] The notion that Tacitus might have governed Belgica, common since Borghesi (Oeuvres VII (1872), 323), and believed helpful for the Germania, was invoked to explain his absence from Rome in the period 89–93 (Agr. 45. 4). Belgica, however, is not the kind of province a junior ex-praetor can govern.

[110] ILS 1021.

[111] Hist. I. 77. 2.

[112] Epp. II. 1. 6.

[113] II. 11. 2 ff. The defence had good advocates, namely C. Salvius Liberalis and Ti. Catius Fronto: presumably among the best of the time

[114] Priscus was probably proconsul in 97/98. For the delay cf. Pompeius Silvanus, proconsul of Africa in 53/54 (IRT 338), prosecuted in 58 (Ann. XIII. 52. 2).

[115] Juvenal I. 49 f.: ‘exul ab octava Marius bibit et fruitur dis | iratis, at tu victrix provincia ploras [Marius in exile starts his boozing in the afternoon and savours the anger of the gods, while you, Province, the winner of the case, are in tears].’

[116] When Cicero, incited to write history, spoke of the need for leisure, Atticus came out with an appropriate suggestion – ‘legationem aliquam nimirum ista oratio postulat aut eius modi quampiam cessationem liberam atque otiosam [this statement seems to call for your appointment on an embassy, or some similar holiday that will give you absolute and entire freedom]’ (De legibus I. 10). The amount of time given by senatorial Romans to administrative duties tends to be overestimated by modern inquirers.

[117] Epp. IV. 13. 1: ‘salvum in urbem venisse gaudeo [I am glad to hear of your safe arrival in Rome].’ The Ciceronian examples of this formula imply a journey of some distance. The letter refers to Pliny’s visit to Comum (ib. 3), and therefore is of late 104 at the earliest. Tacitus’ absence is also alluded to in VI. 9. 1: ‘si te Romae morante ipse afuissem [had I been away and you still in Rome].’

[118] For the curatores operunt publicorum see the list drawn up by A. E. Gordon, Univ. of California Pub. in Class. Arch. II, 5 (1952), 279 ff. The curatores as a collegiate consular pair are not attested before the last years of Hadrian. Nearest in date to Tacitus are Ti. Julius Celsus Polemaeanus (ILS 8971), Q. Pomponius Rufus (IRT 537), and C. Julius Proculus (ILS 1040), consuls suffect in 92, 95, and 109. The Tiber Conservancy was held by Ti. Julius Ferox (suff. ?99), attested in 101 and 103 (CIL VI, 31549 f.). The cura aquarum was a more senior post. The next holders after Julius Frontinus (appointed by Nerva) were L. Silius Decianus (CIL XV, 7302) and L. Neratius Marcellus (ILS 1032), suffecti in 94 and 95.

[119] C. Cornelius Gallicanus (suff. 84), under Trajan (ILS 6675), followed by T. Pomponius Bassus (suff. 94), before the end of 102 (ILS 6106, cf. 6675).

[120] Thus P. Calvisius Ruso (suff. 79) in charge of an unnamed road subsequent to his proconsulate of Asia (AE 1914, 267). Cornutus Tertulfus (suff. 100) was appointed to the Aemilia c. 104 (ILS 1024, cf. Epp. V. 14. 1), perhaps in connexion with the alimenta.

[121] e.g. ILS 1024 and 1040.

[122] That is, unless the roll of consular provinces is full at this time. No legate of Germania Superior is attested. The other Germania appears to have been held by Q. Acutius Nerva (suff. 100). Note also that Sosius Senecio (cos. 99) is holding an army command c. 103 (Epp. IV. 4. 1).

[123] A. Julius Quadratus (suff. 94, II ord. 105), cf. ILS 8819.

[124] Thus Licinius Sura, Sosius Scnecio, and Fabius Justus.

[125] The inscription (OGIS 437) was found at Mylasa: revised by R. Meister, Jahreshefte XXVII (1932), Beiblatt 242.

[126] I. 5. 8.

[127] I. 11. 2: ‘fac aciam quid agas, quod sine sollicitudine summa nescire non possum [].’ Perhaps a legionary legate.

[128] VII. 2. 2: ‘patiar ergo aestatem inquietam vobis exercitamque transcurrere [].’ The possibility that the ‘Iustus’ to whom the letter is addressed might be the elderly knight Minicius Justus (Groag in PIR², F 41) need not detain.

[129] AE 1940, 210 (nr. Palmyra). For his career, R. Syme, JRS XLVII (1957). 131 ff. [“The Friend of Tacitus”, reprinted in Ten Studies in Tacitus, Clarendon Press, 1970, 110–118.]

[130] X. 2. 1 (of 98), cf. III. 17. 3.

[131] IV. 30; VII. 27 (Sura); I. 13; IV. 4 (Senecio); I. 11; VII. 2 (Justus).

[132] ILS 1021. Others who have no letters are M’. Laberius Maximus, A. Cornelius Palma, and L. Publilius Celsus – all, lake Glitius Agricola, rising to second consulates.

[133] PIR, V 389. Add that he perhaps comes from Verona, Epp. VI. 34. 1; Martial I. 7 (a reference to ‘tuus Catullus [your Catullus]’).

[134] Appointed Prefect of the Guard in 119 (HA, Hadr. 9. 4). He could perhaps have been praefectus vigilum at an earlier stage. Local origin not established. Uncle of Sex. Erucius Clarus (suff. 117).

[135] IX. 28. 1 (Voconius Romanus, of Saguntum).

[136] He comes very close with Pedanius Fuscus (IX. 36 and 40). That young man’s promise is extolled (VI. 11. 1 ff.), and Julius Servianus is congratulated for choosing him as bridegroom for his daughter (VI. 26. 1) – i.e. Julia, the niece of Hadrian.

[137] Notably M. Annius Verus (suff. 97) and, coeval with Pedanius Fuscus, the young T. Aurelius Fulvus (cos. 120); but also Cn. Domitius Tullus (suff., c. 79, II 98), L. Dasurnius (?93), and L. Ceionius Commodus (cos. 106).

[138] L. Arruntius Stella (suff. ?101). For details, PIR², A 1151. Another absentee is M. Vitorius Marcellus (suff. 105).

[139] Martial I. 61. 4. Presumably related to ‘M. Arruntius [’ and to M. Arruntius Aquila, suffecti in 66 and 77. For the latter, ILS 980 (Patavium),

[140] From Vercellae (Dial. 8. 1): governor of Hispania Citerior when Pliny’s uncle was procurator.

[141] By his full nomenclature, ‘Ti. Catius Asconius Silius Italicus’, cf. the inscription from Aphrodisias (published in CR XLIX (1935), 217). The nomen ‘Asconius’ inevitably suggests Patavium, whence came the scholarly Asconius, whom Silius himself evokes (Pun. XII. 212 ff.). The claims of Mediolanium or Ticinum will not be omitted – note the Insubrian Ti. Catius, an Epicurean philosopher, from the same town as Cornelius Nepos (Cicero, Ad fam. XV. 16. 1, cf. Pliny, Epp. IV. 28. 1).

[142] For his career and habits cf. the necrological letter III. 7 (of 101). Add the inscription CR XLIX (1935), 217, showing a blameless action when proconsul: an edict to prevent people from interfering with the sacred doves of Aphrodite.

[143] III. 21 (probably of 102). Martial departed in 98, and after a ‘triennium’ published his last book (XII, praef.). He alludes to the consulate of Arruntius Stella (XII. 2. 10), which fell in an October (ILS 6106): presumably in 101.

[144] Compare the firm and cordial appreciation of Mommsen, concluding Roman Spain, in The Provinces of the Roman Empire I (1886), 77.

[145] Agr. 3. 1: ‘ingenia studiaque facilius oppresseris quam revocaveris. subit quippe etiam ipsius inertiae dulcedo, et invisa primo desidia postremo amatur [so also it is easier to damp men’s spirits and their enthusiasm than to revive them: for listlessness itself has a certain subtle charm which comes over us, and the languor we hate at first we learn to love].’

[146] I. 10. 1; III. 18. 5.

[147] I. 13. 1.

[148] One man, Vergilius Romanus, even essayed both ‘mimiambi’ and the ‘vetus comoedia [old comedy]’ (VI. 21. 2 ff.).

[149] IV. 27. 4: ‘canto carmina versibus minutis / his olim qui bus et meus Catullus [my verse is light and tender, as Catullus long ago]’, &c.

[150] I. 16 (Pompeius Satuninus). As for Voconius Romanus ‘epistulas quidem scribit ut Musas ipsas Latine loqui credas [the letters he writes would make one believe that the Muses speak Latin]’ (II. 13. 7).

[151] VI. 15. 3: ‘est omnino Priscus dubiae sanitatis, interest tamen officiis, adhibetur consiliis atque etiam ius civile publice respondet [It is true that Priscus is somewhat eccentric, but he takes part in public functions, is called on for advice].’ The date is about 106. There was nothing wrong with Javolenus, for he taught P. Salvius Julianus (Dig. XL. 2. 5), the consul of 148. The poet is C. Passennus Paullus Propertius Blaesus. (ILS 2925: Asisium).

[152] V. 10.

[153] I. 18. 1.

[154] Ill. 8. 1. The commander was L. Neratius Marcellus.

[155] Suetonius, De gram. 24.

[156] Ch. XXXVII.

[157] V. 5.

[158] IV. 21. 3; VII. 30. 4 f.; IX. 13. 1, cf. I. 2. 2.

[159] Perhaps related to Fannia (PIR², F 118), daughter of Thrasea Pactus and wife of the elder Helvidius Priscus.

[160] VIII. 12, cf. V. 8.

[161] Vlll. 12. 1: ‘ipsarum denique litterarum iam senescentium reductor ac reformator [it is he in fact who has restored and reformed literature itself when it was on the decline].’ Anticipated in this beneficent function by a patron of Staciua – ‘Manilius certe Vopiscus, vir eruditissimus et qui praecipue vindicat a aitu litteras iam paene fugientis [Manilius Vopiscus, a very learned gentleman and one who more than most others is rescuing our now almost vanishing literature from neglect]’ (Silvae I, praef.).

[162] I. 17.

[163] ILS 1448.

[164] VII. 4. 2 f.

[165] ib. 4 ff., with the hexameters quoted. He produces some prosaic elegiacs in VII. 9. 11. Two lines deserve to be quoted – ‘utque sacri fontes non sola incendia sistunt | saepe etiam flores vernaque prata lavant [The sacred springs can quench a flame, | Or gladden the flowers and fields].’

[166] IV. 14. 4 ff.; V. 3. 1 ff.

[167] V. 3. 6: ‘non quidem hi senatores, sed sanctitas morum non distat ordinibus [it is true they were not senators, but moral integrity knows no class distinctions].’

[168] IX. 39.

[169] II. 13 (Priscus); III. 17 (Julius Servianus); IV. 4 (Sosius Senecio); IV. 26 (Metilius Nepos); VII. 2 (Justus); IX. 2 (Sabinus); IX. 16 and 25 (Mamilianus).

[170] e.g. II. 6 (different food and drink for different categories of guests); II. 14. 2 ff. (bad manners of ‘adulescentuli [youngsters]’ in the centumviral court); VIII. 23. 3 (conceit and dangerous originality among the young); IX. 12 (an over-austere parent).

[171] I. 5; II. 20; IV. 2 and 7; VI. 2. Regulus is referred to as deceased in the last of these letters. Perhaps already dead when the others were published – hence a clue to the date of publication.

[172] VI. 15, cf. Ch. VIII. The letter is addressed to Voconius Romanus, for whom Pliny had solicited an army commander called Priscus (II. 13) – probably in vain.

[173] cf. R. Syme, JRS XXVIII (1938), 218, reviewing M. Durry's edition of the Panegyricus [Roman Papers I, Clarendon Press, 1979, 76–87].

[174] Statius, Silvae I. 3 (the Tiburtine villa of Manilius Vopiscus); I. 2 (the epithalamium for Stella); III. 3 (Claudius Etruscus); I. 4 (Rutilius Gallicus). Poetical panegyrics of consular worthies are a notable development. Statius also lauds the career of M. Vettius Bolanus (V. 2), legate under Corbulo and governor of Britain. Titinius Capito versified ‘clarissimi cuiusque vitam [the lives of his greatest heroes]’ (Epp. I. 17. 3).

[175] III. 21. 6.

[176] Inferred from the letter to Titinius Capito (V. 8).

[177] IX. 2. 3.

[178] Agr. 46. 1: ‘si quis piorum manibus locus, si, ut sapientibus placet, non cum corpore extinguuntur magnae animae [if there be any habitation for the spirits of the just; if, as wise men will have it, the soul that is great perish not with the body],’ &c. Cf. Seneca, Epp. 63. 16: ‘si modo vera sapientium fama est recipitque nos locus aliquis [if only the tale told by wise men is trueb and there is a bourne to welcome us]’, &c.

[179] Hist. IV. 6. 1 (on Helvidius Priscus): ‘erant quibus adpetentior famae videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima exuitur [].’ For the τοπος, P. Wendland, Hermes LI (1916), 481.

[180] Cited in VI. 10. 4: ‘hic situs est Rufus, pulso qui Vindice quondam | imperium adseruit, non sibi sed patriae [Here lies Rufus, who once defeated Vindex1 and set free the imperial power | Not for himself, but for his country].’

[181] IX. 19. 6: ‘impensa monumenti supervacua est: memoria nostri durabit si vita meruimus.’ The letter has an explicit reference to VI. 10 – and it is addressed to Ruso, i.e. P. Calvisius Ruso Tullus (cos. 109), son of P. Calvisius Ruso Julius Frontinus (suff. 79). Clearly a relative of Frontinus.

[182] IX. 14 (to Tacitus): ‘posteris an aliqua cura nostri, nescio, nos certe meremur ut sit aliqua, non dico ingenio (id enim superbum), sed studio et labore et reverentia posterorum [].’

[183] Dial. 38. 2: ‘et maxime principis disciplina ipsam quoque eloquentiam sicut omnia depacaverat [by reason also of the working of the great imperial system, a hush had fallen upon eloquence, as indeed it had upon the world at large].’

[184] Ann. I. 74. 2.

[185] Quintilian XII. 11. 3, cf. X. 1. 118.

[186] Ann. XIV. 19 (Servilius Nonianus).

[187] Dial. 8. 1: ‘Capuae aut Vercellis, ubi nati dicuntur [Capua or Vercellae, which are mentioned as the places of their birth].’ For Eprius cf. the dedication found near Capua, ILS 992.

[188] There would be no reason to deny descent from the Aquillii of the Republic.

[189] Hist. IV. 42. 4, cf. Pliny, Epp. I. 5. 3.

[190] Hist. IV. 6.

[191] IV. 6 ff.; 43 (once again).

[192] IV. 42.

[193] IV. 8.

[194] Regulus’ mother had married again, a Vipstanus – perhaps L. Vipstanus Poplicola Messalla (cos. 48), whose cognomina will permit the conjecture that his parent had married a daughter of the illustrious Valerii Messallae.

[195] His witticisms, Quintilian V. 13. 48; VIII. 5. 15; Suetonius, Dom. 3. 1; Dio LXV [sic: LXIV]. 2. 3.

[196] Dial. 8. 3: ‘ab ipso principe cum quadam reverentia diliguntur [by Vespasian himself they are regarded with an affection that is not unmixed with deference].’

[197] Dio LXVI [sic: LXV]. 16. 3 f.; Suetonius, Divus Titus 6. 2. For Tigellinus’ exit, Hist. I. 72. 3.

[198] As may be deduced from the invective, Hist. IV. 42. 5: ‘invenit aemulos etiam infelix nequitia: quid si fioreat vigeatque? et quem adhuc quaestorium offendere non audemus, praetorium et consularem ausuri sumus? []’ Cf. R. Syme, JRS XLIII (1953), 161.

[199] Epp. I. 5.

[200] I. 20.

[201] VI. 2. 2. For Hortensius cf. Macrobius III. 13. 4. He was called a dancing girl (Gellius I. 5. 3), and professional actors took lessons from him (Val. Max. VIII. 10. 2).

[202] IV. 7. 4.

[203] I. 20. 14.

[204] His decease is first noted in VI. 2.

[205] II. 11. 17: ‘respondit Cornelius Tacitus eIoquentissime et quod eximium orationi eius inest, σεμνῶς [Cornelius Tacitus made an eloquent speech in reply, with all the majesty which characterizes his style of oratory].’

[206] ib. 14.

[207] III. 18. 8 f.

[208] VI. 2.

[209] In addition to the six advocates whose style is characterized by Pliny, note Libo Frugi (III. 9. 33); Baebius Macer (at this point ‘cos. des.’) and Caepio Hispo (IV. 9. 16); Cornelius Priscus (V. 20. 7); Acilius Rufus (V. 20. 6 and VI. 13. 5). Tacitus was perhaps away from Rome in 101–4.

[210] Quintilian X. 1. 122: ‘habebunt, qui post nos de oratoribus scribent, magnam eos, qui nunc vigent, materiam vere laudandi. sunt enim summa hodie, quibus illustratur forum, ingenia. namque et consummati iam patroni veteribus aemulantur et eos iuvenum ad optima tendentium imitatur ac sequitur industria [Those who write about orators in the future will find ample material for genuine praise in those who are now in their prime, for the talents which grace the courts today are very great. The mature advocates rival the ancients, and the efforts of the promising and aspiring young imitate and follow them.].’

[211] So far as known, all consuls of the period 96–102, except Salvius Liberalis, by far the most senior (suff. c. 84): his cursus is extant, ILS 1011.

[212] Dial. 1. 1: ‘horum autem temporum causidici et advocati et patroni et quidvis potius quam oratores vocantur [calling good speakers of the present day “pleaders,” “advocates,” “counsel” – anything rather than “orators”].’

[213] 1. 2, cf. 17. 3. Presumably in 75.

[214] 2. 1: ‘cum offendisse potentium animos diceretur, tamquam in eo tragoediae argumento sui oblitus tantum Catonem cogitasset, eaque de re per urbem frequens sermo haberetur [when court circles were said to have taken umbrage at the way in which he had thrown himself in the play heart and soul into the role of Cato, with never a thought of himself. The thing was the talk of the town].’ The prosecution and banishment of the modern Cato, Helvidius Priscus, can (and perhaps should) be dated to 74,

[215] 2. 2, cf. Quintilian X. 1. 120 f.; 3. 12; XII. 10. 11.

[216] Perhaps recalling also the manner of Messalla Corvinus – ‘nitidus et candidus []’ according to Quintilian (X. 1. 113). Cf. Dial. 18. 2. Tacitus’ friend may be a descendant of the orator.

[217] 7. 1, cf. 10. 2.

[218] 2. 2: ‘Aper omni eruditione imbutus contemnebat potius litteras quam nesciebat, tamquam maiorem industriae et laboris gloriam habiturus si ingenium eius nullis alienarum artium adminiculis inniti videretur [Aper was a man of all-round learning, who as regards literature was not so much ignorant as disdainful, believing that his industry and application would redound more to his credit if it were thought that his natural talents did not need the prop of any extraneous accomplishments].’

[219] 5. 3 ff.

[220] 6. 5: ‘vulgata dicentium gaudia et imperitorum quoque oculis exposita percenseo: illa secreta et tantum ipsis orantibus nota maiora sunt [it is the notorious delights of speech-making that I am enumerating – those that are full in view even of the uninitiated; but there is far more in those that are not so obvious].’

[221] 15. 1: ‘cum oblitus et tuae et fratris tuae eloquentiae neminem hoc tempore oratorem esse contenderes [maintaining, with never a thought of how eloquent you are yourself, or how eloquent your brother1 is, that we have no orator with us today].’

[222] 17. 4.

[223] Quintilian X. 1. 120. A friend and coeval (X. 3. 12). Quintilian was born c. 33.

[224] Hist. III. 9. 3.

[225] Quintilian, from anxious loyalty to the dynasty, left out Eprius Marcellus altogether.

[226] Hist. IV. 8.

[227] 12. 2: ‘lucrosae huius et sanguinantis eloquentiae [the gain-getting rhetoric now in vogue, greedy for human blood].’

[228] That Tacitus, knowing well (and wishing to suggest) the Ciceronian dialogues, had in mind the orators M. Antonius and Q. Hortensius, does not weaken this conjecture. The practical and vigorous Antonius despised doctrine and pretended to be ignorant of Greek writers (De oratore II. 4, cf. Aper in Dial. 2. 2); while the flamboyant and worldly Hortensius scouted philosophy in the lost dialogue that bore his name (De finibus I. 2. 2). Those who knew Regulus would not miss the parallel between Regulus and Hortensius.

[229] K. Keyssner, Würzburger Studien IX (1936), 113. He argues that Tacitus, portraying Aper and Maternus, equips them writh two conflicting portions of his own personality (o.c. 108).

[230] 11. 3: ‘iam me deiungere a forensi labore constitui [And now I have determined to throw off the yoke of my practice at the bar].’ The metaphor is vigorous, the word ‘deiungo’ exceedingly rare.

[231] 4. 2: ‘sanctior illa et augustior eloquentia [eloquence in its higher and holier form].’

[232] Cicero, De oratore. I. 70; Quintilian X. 1. 31.

[233] 3. 2 [sic: 3. 4]: ‘Domitium et Catonem, id est nostras quoque historias et Romana nomina [a Domitius1 and a Cato, that is to say, stories from our own annals too, with Roman names].’

[234] Velleius II. 84. 2; Plutarch, Antonius 56. Hence relevant to the theme ‘Titus and Berenice’.

[235] 11. 2: ‘improbam et studiorum quoque sacra profanantem Vatinii potentiam fregi [I broke the power of Vatinius, that unconscionable usurper who was desecrating even the sanctity of letters].’ Cf. J. Stroux, Philologus LXXXVI (1931), 338 ff. Vatinius is contemptuously characterized in Ann. XV. 34. 2.

[236] A wonderful theme for anti-dynastic rhetoric and maxims: compare Seneca’s Thyestes.

[237] 11. 4: ‘nam statum cuiusque ac securitatem melius innocentia tuetur quam eloquentia, nec vereor ne mihi umquam verba in senatu nisi pro alterius discrimine facienda sint [everyone finds in uprightness a readier protection than in eloquence for his personal standing and peace of mind; and I am not afraid of ever having to address the senate except in the interests of someone else who is in jeopardy].’

[238] Dio (LXVII. 12. 5, under the year 91) reports that Domitian put to death a sophist called Maternus.

[239] For the oratory of Eprius, Dial. 5. 6 [sic: 5. 7]: ‘accinctus ac minax [ready for the fray and breathing defiance]’; Ann. XVI. 29. 1: ‘torvus ac minax [].’ Even a ready speaker might fail, cf. Ann. III. 67. 2: ‘proprio in metu qui exercitam quoque eloquentiam debilitat [].’

[240] I. 6 and 20; IV. 13; VI. 9, 16, and 20; VII. 20 and 33; VIII. 7; IX. 10 and 14. Tacitus is mentioned in II. 11. 2 and 17; IV. 15. 1; IX. 23. 2 f. Only two persons are expressly designated as common friends, viz. Asinius Rufus (IV. 15. 1) and Julius Naso (VI, 9. 1). Others, however, may be divined, notably Fabius Justus.

[241] VII. 20. 1; VIII. 7. 1.

[242] VII. 20. 2 f.

[243] VII. 20. 6; IX. 23. 3: ‘Tacitus es an Plinius?’ The testament of L. Dasumius, drawn up in the summer of 108, has the juxtaposed names ‘] Secundo, Cornelio [‘ (CIL VI, 10229, l. 17).

[244] It is Tacitus the orator, not the historian, who is praised and exalted in VII. 20; and observe IX. 23. 3: ‘quod uterque nostrum his etiam ex studiis notus, quibus aliter ignotus [].’

[245] II. 19. 8. The speech (no name or title) is called 'pugnax atque contentiosa []’. The oration described in 1. 2 is presumably the invective against Publicius Certus (cf. IV. 21. 3; VII. 30. 4 f.; IX. 13. 1).

[246] VII. 20. 1; VIII. 7. 1.

[247] VIII. 7. 1: ‘neque ut magistro magister neque ut discipulo discipulus (sic enim scribis), sed ut discipulo magister (nam tu magister, ego contra; atque adeo tu in scholam revocas, ego adhuc Saturnalia extendo) librum misisti [].’

[248] Pliny referred to the neglect of Verginius’ monument at Alsium ‘post decimum mortis annum []’ (VI. 10. 3).

[249] I. 20.

[250] Ann. XI. 11. 1: ‘quod non iactantia refero [a fact which I recall not in vanity]’ (his status and functions in the year 88).

[251] IX. 14. 1: ‘nec ipse tibi plaudis, et ego nihil magis ex fide quam de te scribe [You are never satisfied with yourself, but I never write with such confidence as when I write about you.].’ Clearly a response to some deprecatory remark in a letter of Tacitus.

[252] IX. 23. 6: ‘neque enim vereor ne iactantior videar, cum de me aliorum iudicium, non meum profero, praesertim aput te, qui nec ullius invides laudibus et faves nostris [for I’m not afraid of appearing too boastful when I have other people’s opinions to quote and not only my own, especially when talking to you: for you are never envious of anyone’s reputation and are always furthering mine].’ The letter is addressed to Maximus, perhaps C. Vibius Maximus, himself a writer (IX. 1. 1 ff.).

[253] Detraction of Secundus and of Aper is alluded to in Dial. 2. 2.

[254] III. 9. 8.

[255] VI. 10.

[256] I. 5. 11.

[257] VII. 12.

[258] cf. the allusion to ‘tenuitas vestra [your ultra-refinement]’ (VII. 12. 5). For C. Minicius Fundanus (suff. 107), about whom a number of details are known, see the alert and sympathetic picture drawn by E. Groag, P–W XV, 1820 ff.

[259] IX. 26. For ‘sanitas’, cf. Dial. 23. 3 ff.; Quintilian XII. 10. 15.

[260] VII. 20. 6: ‘nec desunt qui utrique nostrum praeferantur [there may be writers who are ranked higher than either of us].’

[261] Brutus 45: ‘pacis est comes otiique socia et iam bene constitutae civitatis quasi alumna quaedam eloquentia [upon peace and tranquillity eloquence attends as their ally, it is, one may say, the offspring of well-established civic order].’ Cf. De oratore I. 30; II. 30.

[262] Dial. 40. 2: ‘sed est magna illa et notabilis eloquentia alumna licentiae, quam stulti libertatem vocitant, comeg seditionum, effrenati populi incitamentum, sine obsequio sine severitate, contumax temeraria adrogans, quae in bene constitutis civitatibus non oritur [really great and famous oratory is a foster-child of licence, which foolish men called liberty, an associate of sedition, a goad for the unbridled populace. It owes no allegiance to any. Devoid of discipline, it is insulting, off-hand, and overbearing. It is a plant that does not grow under a well-regulated constitution].’

[263] 38. 2.

[264] For a list of Ciceronian motives, A. Gudeman (ed. 2, Berlin, 1914), 83 ff.; for deliberate remodelling of stock Ciceronian phrases, 28. See further F. Leo, Gött. gel. Anz. 1898, 169 ff.; R. Helm, Neue Jahrbücher XXI (1908), 474 ff.; E. Koestermann, Hermes LXV (1930), 396 ff. Tacitus’ close study also comes out in small details. Three citations drawn from lost works of Cicero look more accurate than the parallels in Quintilian: Dial. 32. 6 = Inst. Or. XII. 2. 33; 35. 1 = II. 4. 42; 18. 5 = XII. 10. 2. Cf. R. Güngerich, Class. Phil., XLVI (1951), 159 ff

[265] As has been argued from VII. 20. 1 and from VIII. 7. 1.

[266] If a man were writing (or meditating) the reign of Vespasian, he might well be impelled, by the fame and fate of Eprius Marcellus, to consider the use and function of oratory in diverse epochs. Regulus was also a striking figure (Hist. IV. 42).

[267] Epp. VIII. 12. 4 f.: ‘scribit exitus inlustrium virorum, in his quorundam mihi carissimorum. videor ergo fungi pio munere, quorumque exequias celebrare non licuit, horum quasi funebribus laudationibus, seris quidem, sed tanto magis veris interesse [He is writing on the deaths of famous men,1 some of whom were very dear to me; so I feel that I am performing a pious duty in being present at something like their funeral orations when I could not attend their funerals: a tribute no less sincere for being thus delayed.].’

[268] II. 1. 10 f.: ‘si tamen fas est aut flere aut omnino mortem vocare qua tanti viri mortalitas magis finita quam vita est. vivit enim vivetque semper atque etiam latius in memoria hominum et sermone versabitur postquam ab oculis recessit [if indeed it is right to grieve or even to give the name of death to what has ended the mortal existence rather than the life of so great a man. For he lives and will live for ever, and in a wider sense in our memories and on our lips, now that he has left our sight.].’ Compare Agr. 46. 1 and 4. Another parallel in Pliny is VIII. 14. 9 with Agr. 3. 1 f. It has been asserted that there is no trace of Pliny’s having read Agricola or Germania (M. Schuster, Wiener Studien XLVI (1928), 234). For echoes in the Panegyricus, R. T. Bruère, Class. Phil, XLIX (1954), 162 ff.

[269] Agr. 1. 1 – which adapts the exordium of Cato in his Origines (cited in Cicero, Pro Plancio 66): ‘clarorum virorum atque magnorum [great and eminent men].’ Or perhaps something else from Cato (Tusc. Disp. IV. 3), cf. B. Wijkström, Apophoreta Gotoburgensia Vitelmo Lundstroöm Oblata (1936), 158 ff.

[270] I. 4, cf. Cicero, Orator 35: ‘tempora timens inimica virtuti [this age so unfriendly to virtue]’ (the rule of Caesar the Dictator).

[271] 16. 2 ff., (Petronius Turpilianus, Trebellius Maximus, and Vettius Bolanus).

[272] 17.

[273] The son-in-law of Frontinus, Sosius Senecio, was a man of taste and talent.

[274] 22. 1: ‘tertius expeditionum annus novas gentes aperuit, vastatis usque ad Tanaum (aestuario nomen est) nationibus [he third year of campaigning brought new tribes before the curtain: the natives were harried as far north as the estuary of the Tay].’ That Tanaus can be (and should be) the Tay has been too readily ruled out, e.g. by J. G. C. Anderson in his edition (Oxford, 1922). In the next year Agricola consolidated on the isthmus between Clota and Bodotria (23) – not unnaturally some way behind his extreme point of penetration.

[275] Compare the detailed narrations of British campaigns in the Annales, which presuppose knowledge of where the legions were.

[276] 10. 1: ‘ita quae priores nondum comperta eloquentia percoluere rerum fide tradentur [where earlier writers embroidered with rhetoric a theme still legendary, there will be found only a faithful narration of facts].’ Critics of Tacitus have not always been immune from error.

[277] Tacitus furnishes names and sequence (14; 16. 3–17. 3).

[278] 39. 1 ff.; 40. 2; 43. 2. In the last two items the author protects himself with ‘credidere plerique []’ and ‘constans rumor []’. He knew what such beliefs and rumours were worth in imperial Rome. For the episode of the declined proconsulate (42. 1 ff.) see H. W. Traub, Class. Phil. XLIX (1954), 255 f.; K. v. Fritz, ib. LII (1957), 7s3 ff.

[279] 44. 2: ‘quod si habitum quoque eius posteri noscere velint, decentior quam sublimior fuit: nihil impetus in vultu: gratia oris supererat, bonum virum facile crederes, magnum libenter [].’

[280] 22. 2.

[281] 20. 2: ‘loca castris ipse capere, aestuaria ac silvas ipse praetemptare [].’ Cf. the procedure of Vettius Bolanus (in Armenia, not in Britain), Statius, Silvae V. 2. 41 ff.: ‘Bolanus iter praenosse timendum | Bolanus tutis iuga quaerere commoda castris | metiri Bolanus agros, aperire malignas | torrentum nemorumque moras [Bolanus would reconnoiter a dangerous route, Bolanus seek out a ridge suitable for safe encampment, Bolanus measure the terrain, open up malignant obstacles of torrent or forest].’

[282] 21. 1: ‘hortari privatim, adiuvare publice, ut templa fora domos exstruerent [],’ &c. Note one of the Neronian governors (16. 4): ‘Trebellius segnior et nullis castrorum experimentis comitate quadam curandi provinciam tenuit, didicere iam barbari quoque ignoscere vitiis blandientibus [].’

[283] Tacitus cannot help moralizing about Agricola’s measures (21. 3): ‘paulatimque discessum ad delenimenta vitiorum, porticus et balnea et conviviorum elegantiam. idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset [].’

[284] 10. 1: ‘quia tum primum perclomiu est [].’

[285] ILS 1025 shows a tribune in charge of m vexillatio of IX Hispana, decorated by the Emperor; but all four (along with the legions of Upper Germany) are represented in the detachments commanded by Velius Rufus (ILS 9200). See further CAH XI (1936), 163 f.

[286] viz. II Adiutrix. The legion is next heard of on the Danube, by 92 (ILS 2719), if not earlier (ILS 9193). The latter inscription records a centurion decorated ‘ab imp. Caesare Aug. bello Dacico.’

[287] At Inchtuthil, a dozen miles north of Perth. An as of Domitian of 87, in mint condition, was found in a demolition layer. See M. V. Taylor, JRS XLV (195s), 122 f., summarizing a report of the excavations of I. A. Richmond; also the latter, briefly, in Proc. Brit. Ac. XLI (1955), 313.

[288] Hilt. 1. 2. T. For ‘missa’ (where many editors since Lipsius have preferred ‘<o>missa’), cf. E. Norden, AIlgermanien (1934), 28; E. Löfstedt, Vermischte Studien (1936), 126.

[289] And, be it added, in archaeological investigation.

[290] Compare Fannius’ books on the victims of Nero (Epp. V. 5. 3): ‘inter sermonem historiamque medios [midway between the discursive and historical].’

[291] Hist. I. 1. 1: ‘ita neutris cura posteritatis inter infensos vel obnoxios [so between the hostility of the one class and the servility of the other, posterity was disregarded].’

[292] Polybius X. 21. 8, cf. Nepos, Pelopidas 1; Plutarch, Alexander 2. Compare Cicero’s invitation to L. Lucceius (Ad fam. V. 12. 3).

[293] Compare the firm protests of D. R. Stuart, Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography (1928), 253; C. Marchesi, Tacito³ (1944), 57 (deprecating ‘vaniloquio filologico []’).

[294] Sallust, Jug. 17–19; Hist. III, fragments 61–80 (‘de situ Ponti’); Livy, Per. CIV: ‘prima pars libri situm Germaniae moresque continent [].’

[295] Servius on Aen. VI. 154; IX. 30. Also, for India, Pliny, NH VI. 60.

[296] Strabo VII. 290, &c.

[297] Germ. 19. 3.

[298] 19. 5: ‘plusque ibi boni mores valent quam alibi bonae leges [good habits have more force with them than good laws elsewhere].’ Cf. Horace, Odes III. 24. 35 f.

[299] Ad Helviam 19. 4[–6]. The wife of C. Galerius, prefect from 16 to 31.

[300] Jug. 17–19.

[301] Mela, praef.: ‘orbis situm dicere aggredior, impeditum opus et facundiae minime capax [].’

[302] Pliny, NH VI. 140 f. (‘nostri negotiators []’ and ‘arma Romana []’).

[303] The notion that he could have been legate of Gallia Belgica in the period 89–93 must be firmly dismissed

[304] Consular legates of the Germanies still extant in 98 were Vestricius Spurinna, Lappius Maximus, and Javolenus Priscus; and Julius Frontinus might have been on the Rhine with Domitian in 83

[305] Pliny had been at the source of the Danube (NH XXXI. 25); near the mouth of the Rhine, ‘extremoque in margine imperii []’ (XII. 98); at Aquae Mattiacae across the river (XXXI. 20); and also among the degraded Chauci, presumably with Domitius Corbulo in 47 (XVI. 2).

[306] Germ. 1. 1: ‘Germania omnis a Gallis Raetisque et Pannoniis Rheno et Danuvio fluminibus, a Sarmatis Dacisque mutuo metu aut montibus separator [Germany as a whole is separated from the Gauls and from Raetians and Pannonians by the rivers Rhine and Danube: from the Sarmatians and Dacians by mutual misgivings or mountains].’ Cf. V. Lundström, Eranos XXV (1927), 249 ff.

[307] ib.: ‘nuper cognitis quibusdam gentibus ac regibus, quos bellum aperuit [whose peoples and their kings have but recently become known to us: war has lifted the curtain].’ Clearly during the Augustan invasions, not since, cf. the reference to the Elbe (41. 2), and to Oceanus (34. 2 f.).

[308] Thus the Hermunduri, freely crossing the Danube into Raetia: ‘passim et sine custode transeunt [they cross the river everywhere without supervision]’ (41. 1). Further, as for Lower Germany, the status ascribed to the Batavi (29. 2) is not plausible after 70.

[309] 42. 2: ‘vis et potentia regibus ex auctoritate Romana, raro armis nostris, saepius pecunia iuvantur [the force and power of the kings rest on the influence of Rome. Occasionally they are assisted by our armed intervention: more often by subsidies].’ Cf. Ann. XII. 30. 2; Hist. III. 5. 1.

[310] 37. 6: ‘proximis temporibus triumphati magis quam victi sunt [they have even in recent years gratified us with more triumphs over them than victories].’

[311] 33.

[312] 29. 4: ‘non numeraverim inter Germaniae populos, quamquam trans Rhenum Danuviumique consederint, eos qui decumates agros exercent: levissimus quisque Gallorum et inopia audax dubiae possessionis solum occupavere; mox limite acto promotisque praesidiis sinus imperii et pars provinciae habentur [I should not count among the people of Germany, though they have established themselves beyond the Rhine and Danube, the tribes who cultivate “the ten-lands.” All the wastrels of Gaul, plucking courage from misery, took possession of that debatable land: latterly, since the frontier line has been driven and the garrisons pushed forward, these lands have been counted an outlying corner of the Empire and a part of a Roman province].’

[313] The Martiaci precede (29. 3), the Chatti follow, ‘ultra hos Chatti [beyond these people, the Chatti...]’ (30. 1). That definition of the Chatti should place them in relation to the Mattiaci, not to the people in the ‘decumates agri []’. The latter passage (29. 4) is therefore an addition, cf. R. Syme, cited by J. G. C. Anderson in his edition (Oxford, 1938), 151.

[314] Asciburgium happens to be a fort (Hist, IV. 33. 1), but it is named in the Germania only for an antiquarian legend (3. 3). The Historiae show a remarkable knowledge of place-names in the Rhineland.

[315] The Germania should not, however, be regarded as a political pamphlet, designed to recommend any action (or inaction). It is an ethnographical treatise, as Mommsen argued (Reden u. Aufsätze (1905), 149), and as Norden and others have proved.

[316] ll. 51 ff. Not the whole story. Hellenistic theory, better practice (a large subject), cannot here be discussed. For one of its aspects, B. L. Ullman, TAPA LXXIII (1942), 25 ff.; for Cicero’s views, M. Rambaud, Cicéron et l’histoire romaine (1953).

[317] De legibus I. 7: ‘is tamen neque orator in numero vestro umquam est habitus et in historia puerile quiddam consectatur [he has never been considered an orator of your rank, and in his historical writing he has an almost childish purpose in view].’ Cf. Brutus 228.

[318] I. 5.

[319] Ad Att. XIV. 14. 5; XVI. 13b. 2.

[320] In fact, among the ‘abiecti homines ac perditi [abandoned ruffians]’ who called Cicero a ‘latro et sicarius [highwayman]’ (Pro Milone 47, cf. Asconius 44).

[321] For the governorship in Africa, Dio XLIII. 9. 3. For his political career see now W. Allen, Studies in Philology LI (1954), 1 ff. No account is here taken of the Epistulae ad Caesarem senem, the authenticity of which is highly dubious.

[322] Sallust, Cat. 3. 1 ff.

[323] It also appealed to the senator L. Lucceius, cf. Cicero, Ad fam. V. 12. 2.

[324] De oratore II. 64: ‘genus orationis fusum atque tractum et cum lenitate quadam aequabiliter profluens [the kind of language and type of style to be followed are the easy and the flowing, which run their course with unvarying current and a certain placidity].’ Cf. II. 54.

[325] For the style of Sallust cf. especially E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa I (1898), 200 ff.; W. Kroll, Glotta XV (1927), 280 ff.; E. Löfstedt, Syntactica II (1933). 290 ff.; K. Latte, ‘Sallust’. Neue Wege zur Antike II, 4 (1935); E. Skard, ‘Sallust und seine Vorgänger’. Symbolae Osloenses, Supp. XV (1956).

[326] K. Latte, o.c. 56 ff.

[327] R. Syme, Rom. Rev. (1939), 248 ff.

[328] Livy, Per. LXXIII: ‘Herio Asinio praetore Marrucinorum occiso [].’

[329] Plutarch, Caesar 13; Pompeius 47.

[330] Horace, Odes, II. 1. 1 ff.: ‘motum ex Metello consule civicum | bellique causas et vitia et modos | ludumque Fortunae gravisque | principum amicitias et arma | nondum expiatii uncta cruoribus | periculosae plenum opus aleae | tractas, et incedis per ignis | suppositos cincri doloso

[the civil strife that began with Metellus’ consulship, the causes, and blunders, and phases of war, Fortune’s sport, the protagonists’ deadly friendships, weapons smeared with still unexpiated blood – that is your theme, a dangerous gamble at every point; you walk over fires still burning beneath the treacherous ash].’

[331] For Pollio’s Historiae and their traces in subsequent writers cf. E. Kornemann, Jahrbücher für cl. Phil., Supp.-Badd XXII (1896), 557 ff.; J. André, La Vie et I'oeuvre d'Asinius Pollion (1949), 41 ff. E. Gabba, Appiano e la Storia delle Guerre Civili (1956).

[332] Jerome (p. 154 H) brackets Livy with Messalla Corvinus (cos. 31 B.C.) under 59 B.C. Too late for Messalla, as demonstrated by H. Schulz, De M. Valerii Messallae aetate (Prog. Stettin, 1886), 6. Rather 64 B.C. The consequence for Livy is drawn by G. M. Hirst, Collected Classical Papers (1938), 12 ff.

[333] V. Lundström, Eranos XXVII (1929), 1 ff.

[334] Martial XI. 16. 8; Pliny, Epp. I. 14. 6; Cicero, Phil. XII. 10; Macrobius I. 11. 22.

[335] Plutarch, Comp. Dionis et Bruti 5; Suetonius, De rhet. 6.

[336] S. G. Stacey, Archiv für. lat. Lex. X (1898), 17 ff.

[337] E. Norden, o.c. 234; E. Skard, o.c. 8 ff.

[338] Livy, praef. 2: ‘dum novi semper scriptores aut in rebus certius aliquid allaturos se aut scribendi arte rudem vetustatem superaturos credunt [he constant succession of new historians, who believe either that in their facts they can produce more authentic information, or that in their style they will prove better than the rude attempts of the ancients].’

[339] Seneca, Controv. IX. 2. 26; 1. 14.

[340] Orator 32: ‘huius tamen nemo neque verborum neque sententiarum gravitatem imitatur, sed cum mutila quaedam et hiantia locuti sunt, quae vel sine magistro facere potuerunt, germanos se putant esse Thucydidas [no one, however, succeeds in imitating his dignity of thought and diction, but when they have spoken a few choppy, disconnected phrases, which they could have formed well enough without a teacher, each one thinks himself a regular Thucydides].’

[341] [Livy] praef. 10: ‘hoc illud est praecipue in cognitione rerum salubre ac frugiferum omnis te exempli documenta in inlustri posita monumento intueri; inde tibi tuaeque rei publicae quod imitere capias, inde foedum inceptu foedum exitu quod vites [what chiefly makes the study of history wholesome and profitable is this, that you behold the lessons of every kind of experience set forth as on a conspicuous monument; from these you may choose for yourself and for your own state what to imitate, from these mark for avoidance what is shameful in the conception and shameful in the result].’

[342] ib. 5: ‘ut me a conspectu malorum quae nostra tot per annos vidit aetas cantisper certe, dum prisca ilia tota mente repeto, avertam [that I may avert my gaze from the troubles which our age has been witnessing for so many years, so long at least as I am absorbed in the recollection of the brave days of old].’

[343] ib. 4: ‘festinantibus ad haec nova, quibus iam pridem praevalentis populi vires se ipsae conficiunt [for they will be in haste to reach these modern times, in which the might of a people which has long been very powerful is working its own undoing].’ For oblique criticism of Sallust in the Praefatio cf. L. Amundsen, Symbolae Osloenses XXV (1947), 31 ff.

[344] viz. LXXI–LXXX and LXXXI–LXXXIX.

[345] Per. LXXX: ‘vir cuius si examinentur cum virtutibus vitia, haud facile sit dictu utrum bello melior an pace perniciosior fucrit. adeo quam rem p. armatus servavit eam primo togatus omni genere fraudis postremo armis hostiliter evertit [].’

[346] ib. LXXXVIII: ‘pulcherrimam victoriam crudelitate quanta in nullo hominum fuit inquinavit [].’

[347] cf. Horace, Odes II. 1. 7 f.

[348] Ann. IV. 34. 3: ‘Titus Livius, eloquentiae ac fidei praeclarus in primis, Cn. Pompeium tantis laudibus tulit ut Pompeianum eum Augustus appellaret; neque id eorum amicitiae offecit [].’

[349] Seneca, NQ V. 18. 4.

[350] Cited by Jerome, In Hoseam II, praef.

[351] Macrobius II. 4. 18.

[352] Ann. IV. 34. 4 (referring to Asinius Pollio and Messalla Corvinus).

[353] Cited by the elder Seneca, Suas. VI. 22.

[354] See further Ch. XXVIII.

[355] At least he does not seem to have been followed by Cassius Dio for the period after the Battle of Actium.

[356] Seneca, Ad Marciam 1. 1 ff.; 26. 1; Tacitus, Ann. IV. 34 f. Possibly the source of Appian, cf. E. Kornemann, Klio XVII (1921), 33 ff.

[357] Quintilian X. 1. 102 f. The others are an anonymous historian still living (who must be Fabius Rusticus) and Cremutius Cordus (the name has fallen out, but the person is clearly indicated). Note that the list omits the consulars Asinius Pollio and Cluvius Rufus.

[358] Ch. XVI.

[359] Quintilian X. 1. 102: ‘pares eos magis quam similes [these two were equal rather than alike].’

[360] Servius on Aen. I. 382.

[361] R. Pichon, Les Sources de Lucain (1912), 51 ff.

[362] Livy, Per. CIII; Florus II. 13. 8 ff.; Velleius II. 44. 1.

[363] Lucan I. 84 ff.

[364] I. 125 f.

[365] I. 158 ff.

[366] I. 144 ff.: ‘sed nescia virtus | stare loco, solusque pudor non vincere bello; I acer et indomitus, quo spes quoque ira vocasset I ferre manum et nuuquam temerando parcere ferro I successus urguere suos, instare favori | numinis, impellens quidquid sibi summa petenti I obstaret, gaudensque viam fecisse ruinis [].’

[367] II. 45 ff.

[368] IX. 190 ff.

[369] IX. 204 ff.: ‘olim vera fides Sulla Marioque receptis | libertatis obit: Pompeio rebus adempto | nunc et ficta perit [].’

[370] IX. 265 f.: ‘unum fortuna reliquit | iam tribus e dominis [].’

[371] Dial. 20. 5.

[372] cf. H. Schmaus, Tacitus ein Nachahmer Vergils (Diss. Erlangen, 1884); L. Robbert, De Tacito Lucani imitatore (Diss. Göttingen, 1917).

[373] IV. 808 f.: ‘si libertatis superis tam cura placeret | quam vindicta placet [].’ Cf. Hist. I. 3. 2: ‘non esse curae deis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem [the gods care not for our safety, but for our punishment].’

[374] VIII. 489 ff.: ‘sceptrorum vis tota perit si pendere iusta | incipit, evertitquc arces respectus honesti. | libertas scelerum est, quae regna invisa tuetur | sublatusque modus gladiis. facere omnia saeve | non inpune licet nisi cum facis. exeat aula | qui volt esse pius. virtus et summa potestas | non coeunt: semper metuet quem saeva pudebunt [].’

[375] Hist. I. 1. 1: ‘initium mihi operis Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules erunt [I begin my work with the second consulship of Servius Galba, when Titus Vinius was his colleague].’

[376] Tacitus has been frequently censured for his decision: see, for example, Mommsen, Hermes IV (1870), 228 = Ges. Schr. VII (1909), 299; O. Hirschfeld, Hermes XXV (1890), 363 = Kl. Schr. (1913), 855; O. Seeck, Rh. Mus. LVI (1901), 227; E. Courbaud, Les Procédés d’art de Tacite dans les 'Histoires' (1918), 33 ff. For more reasonable opinions, F. Münzer, Klio I (1901), 300 ff. Mommsen assumed that Cluvius Rufus ended with thse end of 68. Similarly, but preferring Fabius Rusticus, Seeck.

[377] I. 2. 1: ‘opus adgredior Ϯ opibus casibus, atrox proeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum’, &c. Most editors print ‘opimum’, which is not plausible. Better ‘rapidum’ (Madvig) or ‘varium’ (Koestermann).

[378] E. Courbaud, o.c. 26. Ph. Fabia, however, held that an ‘esprit sérieux’ would not be taken in – ‘le prestige des mots s’évanouit, découvrant les vices du fond. La page est spécieuse, elle n’est pas bonne’ (Rev. ét. anc. III (1901), 76).

[379] cf. R. Syme, Rom. Rev. (1939), 9. For Lucan’s influence on Tacitus’ prologue, E. Courbaud, o.c. 39 ff.; E. Paratore, Tacito (1951), 352 ff.

[380] I. 11. 1 (echoing I. 1. 1): ‘hic fuit rerum Romanarum status cum Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules inchoavere annum sibi ultimum, rei publicae prope supremum [].’

[381] I. 4. 1: ‘ceterum antequam destinata componam repetendum videtur qualis status urbis, quae mens exercituum, quis habitus provinciarum quid in toto terrarum orbe validum, quid aegrum fuerit, ut non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed ratio etiam causaeque noscantur [].’

[382] 12. 1: ‘paucis post kalendas Ianuarias diebus []’, &c.

[383] I. 15 f.

[384] It is therefore given a separate pagination in modem editions.

[385] praef. 1: ‘facturusne operae pretium aim []’, &c.

[386] Seneca, Epp. 100. 9: ‘scripsit dialogos quos non magis philosophiae adnumerare possis quam historiae, et ex professo philosophiam continentis libros [wrote both dialogues (which should be ranked as history no less than as philosophy), and works which professedly deal with philosophy].’ These works might fall later than the inception of the history – as (presumably) the letter to his son extolling Demosthenes and Cicero (Quintilian X. 1. 39).

[387] XXXI. 1. 5: ‘iam provideo animo, velut qui proximis litori vadis inducti mare pedibus ingrediuntur, quidquid progredior, in vastiorem me altitudinem ac velut profundum invehi [].’

[388] K. Bauhofer, Die Komposition der Historien Sallusts (Diss. Munich, 1935), 74 ff. He wrote ‘structe’ according to Fronto, p. 114 N = Haines II, p. 48.

[389] Lucan I. 580 ff.: ‘e medio visi consurgere Campo | tristia Sullani cecinere oracula manes | tollentemque caput gelidas Anienis ad undas | agricolae Marium fracto fugere sepulcro [].’

[390] III. 48.

[391] I. 77.

[392] II. 16: ‘oris probi animo inverecundo’ []; 17: ‘modestus ad alia omnia nisi ad dominationem [].’

[393] cf. Hist. IV. 81. 3 (on the miracles of Vespasian at Alexandria): ‘utrumque qui interfuere nunc quoque memorant, postquam nullum mendacio pretium [].’

[394] Last attested in 98 (Pan. 58. 1), but long known to Tacitus as a member of the XVviri s.f.

[395] III. 65. 2.

[396] IV. 42. 1 (Regulus); 40. 4 (Mauricus, cf . Plutarch, Galba 8, referring to the year 68).

[397] Frontinus at Tarracina (Martial X. 58. 1); at Formiae (Aelian, Tactica, praef., cf. PIR², A 128). Frontinus could have told something about his military operations in Gaul in 70, against the Lingones (Strat. IV. 3. 14), to say nothing of later events. Other persons of note who had been active in 68 or 69  were Q. Pomponius Rufus (suff. 95) who had a post under Galba (IRT 537), and Cn. Pompeius Longinus (suff. 90) – if he could be identified with Galba’s friend Pompeius Longinus, tribune in the Guard (Hist. l. 31. 3).

[398] Not, however, that Tacitus’ account need derive anywhere directly from Spurinna, although the old fellow was still alive c. 105 (Epp. V. 17).

[399] Martial X. 23.

[400] Ann. XIV. 40. 2.

[401] Plutarch, Otho 9.

[402] L. Calpurnius Fabatus (Ann. XVI. 8. 3), the grandfather of Pliny’s third wife (Epp. IV. 1, &c.), and Minicius Justus, praef. castrorum of the Seventh Legion (Hist. III. 7. 1), husband of a Corellia (Epp. VII. 11. 4), and named in the testament of L. Dasumius in 108 (CIL VI, 10229 , l. 19).

[403]  Schol. on Juvenal II. 99: ‘horum bellum scripsit Cornelius, scripsit et Pompeius Planta, qui ait Bebriacum vicum esse a Cremona vicesimo lapide [].’ Planta died c. 108, cf. Pliny, writing to his enemy Maximus (i. e. C. Vibius Maximus, also an ex-prefect of Egypt), and urging him now to publish his attack on Planta (Epp. IX. 1).

[404] III. 9. 3: ‘claris maioribus, egregius ipse et qui solus ad id bellum bonas artes attulisset [].’ He is cited in III. 25 and 28. There is no harm in making Messalla the principal and preferred source for the campaign of Cremona, cf. E. Paratore, Tacito (1951), 574 ff.

[405] Not merely the famous biography of Helvidius Priscus by Herennius Senecio. A certain Ti. Claudius Pollio (Epp. VII. 31, cf. ILS 1418) wrote a life of L. Annius Bassus, legate of XI Claudia in 69 (Hist. III. 50. 2, where his conduct is praised).

[406] Dial. 37. 2: ‘haec vetera, quae et in antiquariorum bibliothecis adhuc manent et cum maxime a Muciano contrahuntur, ac iam undecim, ut opinor, Actorum libris et tribus Epistularium composita et edita, sunt [the ancient records which are still extant in the libraries of collectors, and which are even now being compiled by Mucianus: they have already been arranged and edited in eleven volumes, I think, of Proceedings and five of Letters].’ As for his mirabilia, thirty-two items are preserved in Pliny NH: quoted in Peter, HRR II (1906), 101 ff.

[407] Josephus, Vita 342 [64]. They have been discussed at great length by W. Weber, Josephus und Vespasian (1920), 106 ff., who, however, insists that Tacitus only knew them through Pliny the Elder (o.c. 148).

[408] That is, if M. Antonius Julianus (Josephus, BJ VI. 238) is the same as the Antonius Julianus in Minucius Felix, Octavius 33. 4. E. Norden was strongly in favour of their identity, Neue Jahrbücher XXXI (1913), 664. Tacitus’ source for Jewish antiquities and history has been the subject of much discussion, cf. A. M. A. Hospers-Jansen, Tacitus over de Joden (Diss. Utrecht, 1949). A number of scholars claim Pliny as the sole or principal source. One support is invalid, for it is not to be believed that Pliny is the Ignotus of the inscription OGIS 586 (Aradus), an equestrian officer present at the siege of Jerusalem; cf. the arguments of F. Münzer, Bonner Jahrbücher CIV (1899), 103 ff. As evidence of Tacitus’ own erudition, note the claim he prefixes to his digression on Serapis – ‘origo dei nondum nostris auctoribus celebrata []’ (IV. 83. 1).

[409] Namely Cluvius Rufus, the elder Pliny, and Fabius: all sources for the reign of Nero. The book of Ph. Fabia, Les Sources de Tacite dans les Histoires et les Annales (1893), is erudite but doctrinaire. A better guide is E. Groag, Jahrbücher für cl. Phil., Supp.-Band XXIII (1897), 711 ff. The opinions of these and other scholars are briefly discussed in App. 29.

[410] I. 8. 1: ‘vir facundus et pacis artibus, belli inexpertus [].’

[411]  Suetonius, Nero 21. 2; Dio LXIII [sic: LXII]. 14. 3.

[412] Epp. IX. 19. 5.

[413]  VI. 10. 4, cited above [n. 223].

[414] cf. R. Syme, AJP LVIII (1937). 12 f.

[415] Dio LXIII. 24, cf. Plutarch, Galba 6.

[416] PIR², F 62. For Fabii Rustici in Spain, CIL II, 1070 (Arva); 2015 = ILS 1354 (Singilia Barba): not, however, of any consequence.

[417] The contrary assumption of Fabia (o.c. 211) is too positive – and certain other scholars have simply neglected Fabius Rusticus.

[418] Agr. 10. 3. It is generally assumed that Fabius is indicated in Quintilian X. 1. 104: ‘superest adhuc et exornat aetatis nostrae gloriam vir saeculorum memoria dignus, qui olim nominabitur nunc intellegitur [there still survives, to enhance the glory of our times, a man worthy to be remembered in future ages].’ Still alive in 108, if he is the Fabius Rusticus in the testament of L. Dasumius (CIL VI, 10229, l. 24).

[419] Epp. III. 5. 6.

[420] cf. NH, praef. 20.

[421] NH, praef. 20: ‘ubi sit ea quaeres? iam pridem peracta sancitum et alioqui statutum erat heredi mandare, ne quid ambitioni dedisse vita iudicaretur [].’

[422] II. 101. 1. For these writers see now A. Briessmann, ‘Tacitus und das flavische Geschichtsbild’ (Hermes, Einzelschriften 10, 1955).

[423] III. 28 (Pliny and Messalla); 25. 2 (Messalla).

[424] See App. 29. Suetonius also used this source.

[425] I. 13. 3; Plutarch, Galba 19; Suetonius, Otho 3. 1. Tacitus was later able to correct this error, silently (Ann. XIII. 45. 4).

[426] Plutarch, Galba 20.

[427] Otho 9: καὶ τοῦτο μὲν διηγεῖτο Σεκοῦνδος ὁ ῥήτωρ [his is the account given by Secundus the rhetorician].

[428] Otho 3: Κλούβιος δὲ Ῥοῦφος εἰς Ἰβηρίαν φησὶ κομισθῆναι διπλώματα... τὸ τοῦ Νέρωνος θετὸν ὄνομα προσγεγραμμένον ἔχοντα τῷ τοῦ Ὄθωνος [Cluvius Rufus tells us that “diplomas”... were sent to Spain, in which the cognomen of Nero was added to the name of Otho]. Cf. Suetonius, Otho 7. 1. On the interpretation of this passage see App. 29.

[429] Otho 14.

[430] That it was used by Plutarch for his Nero may be inferred (from Galba 2). The continuance of the same source till the end of 69 is proved by concordance between Tacitus, Hist. III and Suetonius, Vitellius.

[431] II. 20. 1; Otho 6.

[432] Dio LXVI [sic: LXV]. 15. 2.

[433] Galba 23. O. Seeck, however, argued that Plutarch is here more credible than Tacitus, Festschrift für Hirschfeld (1903), 45 ff.

[434] I. 12. 1, cf. 14. 1.

[435] 14. 1 (T. Vinius and Cornelius Laco, also Marius Celsus, consul designate, and Ducenius Geminus, the Prefect of the City).

[436] 15 f.

[437] Galba 29: τῇ δόξῃ μᾶλλον ἢ τῇ δυνάμει καθελεῖν Νέρωνα [it was by his high repute, rather than by his military power, that he overthrew Nero].

[438] ib.: ἄκρατος ἦν καὶ ἀρχαῖος αὐτοκράτωρ, Οὐινίῳ δὲ καὶ Λάκωνι καὶ τοῖς ἀπελευθέροις πάντα τὰ πράγματα πωλοῦσι παρέχων ἑαυτόν, οἷον Νέρων παρεῖχε τοῖς ἀπληστοτάτοις [he was an “imperator” of a severe and ancient type; but just as Nero put himself in the hands of his most insatiate favourites, so Galba put himself in the hands of Vinius and Laco and their freedmen].

[439] ib.: ὡς Σκηπίων ἦρχε καὶ Φαβρίκιος καὶ Κάμιλλος [as Scipio and Fabricius and Camillus used to command]. Cf. Pliny, Pan. 13. 4; Juvenal II. 153 f. Instead of stock figures Tacitus would have preferred something like ‘antiqui duces [ancient heroes]’.

[440] I. 49. 4.

[441] I. 50.

[442] 83 f.

[443] 82. 1.

[444] Tribunes commanding the Guard cohorts can pass rapidly into the procuratorial career and thus, belonging to the ‘equestris nobilitas’, are eligible for the Senate. It was not common for a soldier to go so far. Note, however, under Nero, Vettius Valens who rises to the procuratorship of Lusitania (ILS 2648: Ariminum).

[445] 84. 3.

[446] 85. 3.

[447] Otho 5.

[448] I. 88. 1.

[449] 88. 2 f.

[450] 89.

[451] 90. 2: ‘maiestatem urbis et consensum populi ac senatus pro se attollens [extolled the majesty of Rome, and praised the enthusiasm of the people and senate in his behalf].’

[452] ib.: ‘et erant qui genus ipsum orandi noscerent, crebro fori usu celebre et ad implendas populi auris latum et sonans [which was well known, because he frequently appeared in court, and which was copious and sonorous in order to fill the ears of the people].’ Cf. Quintilian X. 1. 119: ‘et vocis, quantam in nullo cognovi, felicitas et pronuntiatio vel scaenis suffectura [a lovely voice, unique in my experience, a delivery which would have graced the stage].’

[453] Otho 9: καὶ οὐκ ἀπεικός ἐστι... ἐπιπίπτειν τοιούτους διαλογισμοὺς <τοῖς> γνησίοις καὶ διαπόνοις καὶ σωφρονοῦσι τῶν στρατιωτῶν [it is not unlikely that the real soldiers, those who knew what hardship was and had sense, should be led to reflect].

[454] II. 37.

[455] 38.

[456] The acta were in charge of a senator of quaestorian rank, e.g. ILS 1032; 1039; 1040. The earliest attested is the Junius Mauricus ‘componendis pat rum actis delectus a Caesare []’ (Ann. V. 4. 1).

[457] A senator would normally have access. Pliny looks up the s.c. about the freedman Pallas (Epp. VIII. 6. 2).

[458] cf. especially Mommsen’s unfinished study, Ges. Schr. VII (1909). 253 ff. Groag, o.c. 711 ff.; A. Stein, Jahresberichte der I. deutschen Staats-Realschule in Prag XLIII (1904), 5 ff. Fabia suggests that Tacitus hardly needed to consult the acta senatus as long as he had the elder Pliny for guide, but concedes his use of them for the history of Domitian (o.c. 262).

[459] I. 19. 1: ‘multi voluntate, effusius qui noluerant, medii ac plurimi obvio obsequio, privatas spes agitantes sine publica cura [many did this from good-will, those who had opposed the adoption with more effusion, the indifferent – and they were the most numerous – with ready servility, for they had their private hopes in mind and cared nothing for the state].’

[460] 19. 2: ‘foeda inconstantia nominati excusati substituti, ambitu remanendi aut eundi, ut quemque metus vel spes impulerat [with disgraceful lack of firmness he named men, excused them, made substitutions, as they pleaded with him to stay or go, according to their fears or hopes].’

[461] I. 77. 3: ‘placuit ignoscentibus verso nomine, quod avaritia fuerat videri maiestatem, cuius tum odio etiam bonae leges peribant [those who pardoned them decided to shift the name so that what had really been greed should seem treason, which was now so odious that it made even good laws null and useless].’

[462] II. 10.

[463] II. 53 – another stray incident, a ‘notabile iurgium’ among the senators at Mutina, involving Eprius Marcellus.

[464] IV. 3–10.

[465] 39–45; 47.

[466] 47.

[467] Groag (o.c. 711) argued that there was a verbatim record of senators’ speeches, citing Fronto (p. 26 N = Haines I, p. 110): ‘ut laudatio mea non in actis senatus abstrusa lateat [].’ Mommsen, however, refused to go so far, Ges. Schr. VII (1909), 254. The orations of notable performers like Vibius and Eprius would tend to get published (or at least circulated).

[468] 4. 1: ‘si privatus esset, cur publice loqueretur [“If,” they said, “he were a private citizen, why this official language?]’, &c.

[469] IV. 43. 2: ‘cum glisceret certamen, hinc multi bonique, inde pauci et validi pertinacibus odiis tenderent, consumptus per discordiam dies [as the quarrel grew, the larger number and the more honourable senators ranged themselves on one side, while on the other were a few strong men, all contending with obstinate hate; so the day was spent in discord].’

[470] 4. 3: ‘pauci quibus conspicua dignitas aut ingenium adulatione exercitum compositis orationibus adsentiebantur [a few of conspicuous dignity or whose nature was well trained in flattery expressed themselves in formal speeches]’.

[471] 4. 5.

[472] Plutarch, Galba 16, cf. Suetonius, Galba 12. 3

[473] Galba 21.

[474] I. 41. 3. According to Plutarch (27), the soldier Fabius Fabullus cut off Galba’s head, but could not carry it about in his hands, because it had no hair. Similarly Suetonius (Galba 20. 2), who mentions no names. For Galba’s baldness and jokes about it, cf. also Plutarch, Galba 13. Tacitus, however, is dignified and reticent, cf. I. 7. 3: ‘ipsa aetas Galbae inrisui ac fastidio erat adsuetis iuventae Neronis et imperatores forma ac decore corporis, ut est mos vulgi, comparantibus [].’ Compare further, on the bald head of Tiberius Caesar (Ann. IV. 57. 2). That Tacitus, Plutarch, and Suetonius should treat the data of one and the same source in such different ways is in keeping with their idiosyncrasies. Momigliano, however, finds it an ‘enorme stranezza [enormous oddity]’. He argues that Plutarch follows Tacitus here – and supplements him with an added detail from another source (Stud. it. fil. cl. IX (1931/2)), 178.

[475] Suetonius, Vit. 16 f.

[476] III. 84. 4: ‘dilapsis etiam infimis servitiorum aut occursum eius declinantibus [for even the meanest of his slaves had slipped away or else avoided meeting him].’

[477] ib.: ‘pudenda latebra semet occultans [he concealed himself in an unseemly hiding-place].’

[478] 85: ‘et vulgus eadem pravitate insectabatur interfectum qua foverat viventem [and the people attacked his body after he was dead with the same base spirit with which they had fawned on him while he lived].’

[479] 84. 4: terret soltudo et tacentes loci; tempeat clausa, inhorrescit vacuis [the solitude and the silent spaces filled him with fright: he tried the rooms that were closed and shuddered to find them empty].’

[480] 86. 2: ‘rei publicae haud dubie intererat Vitellium vinci, sed imputare perfidiam non possunt qui Vitellium Vespasiano prodidere, cum a Galba descivissent [undoubtedly it was to the advantage of the state that Vitellius should fall, but those who betrayed him to Vespasian cannot make a virtue of their own treachery, for they had already deserted Galba].’

[481] II. 37. 1; 101. 1; III. 29. 2; 51. 1; IV. 83. 1; V. 2. 2 f.; 6. 4

[482] The account of the death of the elegant and aristocratic Junius Blaesus (III. 38 f.) looks like an insertion from a subsidiary source. More important, the suppression of a proconsul of Africa, L. Piso, coming between the funeral of Vespasian’s brother (IV. 47) and the narration of Vespasian’s own activities – ‘at Vespasiano post Cremonensem pugnam [but Vespasian, after learning of the Battle of Cremona]’, &c. (IV. 51. 1). The episode is fully told. It concerned Baebius Massa, at that time procurator of Africa, ‘iam tunc optimo cuique exitiosus et inter causas malorum quae mox tulimus saepe rediturus []’ (IV. 50. 2). Massa, promoted to the Senate, was prosecuted by Herennius Senecio in 93 (Agr. 45. 1, cf. Pliny, Epp. VII. 33. 4 ff.).

[483] The mention of Claudia Sacrata, a lady of Colonia Claudia, alleged mistress of Petillius Cerialis (V. 22. 3), might be a useful clue. Observe also Tacitus’ familiarity with Narbonensis.

[484] Cat. 53. 6 ff.

[485] Some will have it that Cato is the real hero, thus E. Skard, Symbolae Osloenses IX (1930) 69 ff.; V. Pöschl, Grundwerte römischer Staatsgesinnung in den Geschichtswerken des Sallust (1940), 10 ff.; F. Lämmli, Mus. Helv. III (1946), 94 ff.

[486] Brutus’ view made Cicero very angry (Ad Att. XII. 21. 1).

[487] E. Schwartz, o.c. [Hermes XXXII (1897)] 576 ff. Some of Sallust’s defenders go to the other extreme, e.g. W. A. Baehrens, Neue Wege zur Antike IV (1926), 35 ff.

[488] G. Boissier, Journal des Savants 1903, 66. But that is not the whole story.

[489] Chs. XII f.; XLII.

[490] E. Howald, Vom Geist antiker Geschichtsschreibung (1944), 146. For more friendly opinions, G. Boissier, Journal des Savants 1903, 59 ff.; M. Rambaud, Rev. ét. lat. XXIV (1947). 115 ff. A. D. Leeman, Mnemosyne⁴ VII (1954), 323 ff.; VIII (1955), 38 ff.

[491] Quintilian III. 8. 9.

[492] Cicero, Ad Att. XVI. 6. 4: ‘id evenit ob cam rem quod habeo volumen prohoemiorum. ex co eligere soleo cum aliquod σνγγραμμα institui [This happened because I have a volume of prefaces from which I am in the habit of selecting when I have put a work in hand].’

[493] Cat. 10. 1; Jug. 41. 2 ff.; Hist. I. 12. For this, and other notions, perhaps deriving from Posidonius, cf. F. Klingner, Hermes LXIII (1928), 165 ff.

[494] Seneca, Apocol. 1. 1: ‘nihil nec offensae nec gratiae dabitur [it will be done without malice or favor].’

[495] I. 1. 3: ‘rnihi Galba Otho Vitellius nec beneficio nec iniuria cogniti [I had no acquaintance with Galba, Otho, or Vitellius, through either kindness or injury at their hands].’

[496] I. 18. 3.

[497] Galba 2 (snobbery); 9 (cruelty); 12 (avarice); 20 (conceit); 22 (gluttony and homosexuality). Tacitus naturally passed over most of this stuff. Not that he approved of Galba as a man and an emperor, as stated by J. Vogt, Tacitus als Politiker (Antrittsrede, Tübingen, 1924), 13. For inconsistencies in his portrayal see now E. Koestermann, Navicula Chiloniensis (1956), 191 ff.

[498] ib. 9. 1: ‘quod nemo rationem otii sui reddere cogeretur [no one could be forced to render an account for doing nothing].’

[499] At least by Cato – ‘clarorum virorum atque magnorum non minus oti quam negoti rationem exstare oportere [great and eminent men should attach as much importance to their hours of relaxation as to their hours of toil]’ (cited by Cicero, Pro Plancio 66).

[500] For a defence of Tacitus’ portrayal see F. Klingner, Sächsische S-B, Phil.-hist. Kl. XCII, I (1940), 1 ff.

[501] III. 36. 1: ‘ut ignava animalia, quibus si cibum suggeras, iacent torpentque [like those lazy animals that lie inactive and never move so long as you give them abundant food].’

[502] II. 31. 1.

[503] Plutarch, Brutus 12: χεῖρον εἶναι μοναρχίας παρανόμου πόλεμον ἐμφύλιον [civil war was worse than illegal monarchy].

[504] I. 50. 4.

[505] II. 101. 1, cf. III. 86. 2.

[506] cf. G. Boissier, Tacite (1903), 131. By contrast, P. Wuilleumier, Tacite, I’homme et I’oeuvre (1949), 102: ‘le pessimisme ne convient pas á l’historien, qui doit rester impartial, sinon même impassible [pessimism does not befit the historian, who must remain impartial, if not indeed impassive].’ Note an early verdict of Fabia – ‘pour nous, modemes, l’historien est médiocre: son unique mérite est d’avoir fait un louable effort vers l’impartialité [to us moderns, the historian is mediocre: his only merit is having made a praiseworthy effort towards impartiality]’ (Les Sources de Tacite dans les Histoires et les Annales (1893), 310).

[507] III. 81. 1.

[508] IV. 81. 2: ‘medici varie disserere: huic non exesam vim luminis et redituram si pellerentur obstantia; illi elapsos in pravum artus, si salubris vis adhibeatur, posse integrari. id fortasse cordi deis et divino ministerio principem electum; denique patrati remedii gloriam penes Caesarem, inriti ludibrium penes miseros fore [Their reply treated the two cases differently: they said that in the first the power of sight had not been completely eaten away and it would return if the obstacles were removed; in the other, the joints had slipped and become displaced, but they could be restored if a healing pressure were applied to them. Such perhaps was the wish of the gods, and it might be that the emperor had been chosen for this divine service; in any case, if a cure were obtained, the glory would be Caesar’s, but in the event of failure, ridicule would fall only on the poor suppliants.].’

[509] I. 15 f.

[510] Hence parallels in what Pliny says about adoption in the Panegyricus. That Pliny drew upon Tacitus has been supposed by E. Wölfflin, Archiv für Lat. Lex. XII (1900), 350; J. Mesk, Wiener Studien XXXIII (1911), 71 ff.; N. Terzaghi, Maia II (1949), 121 ff.; E. Paratore, Tacito (1951), 454; K. Büchner, Rh. Mus. LXXXXVIII (1955), 289 ff.; R. Güngerich, Festschrift Bruno Snell (1956), 145 ff. Against, E. Hohl, Rh. Mus. LXVIII (1913), 461 ff. The parallels (being indeed obvious commonplaces) do not amount to much, despite R. T. Bruére, Class. Phil. XLIX (1954), 161 ff.

[511] It is a natural temptation to regard the oratio Galbae as ‘il filone aureo’ (E. Paratore, Tacito (1951), 464) or ‘das politische Glaubensbekenntnis’ (E. Kornemann, Tacitus (Wiesbaden, 1947), 27).

[512] I. 15. 1; also ‘consensus generis humani [the consent of all mankind]’ in Piso’s address to the Guard (I. 30. 2). On these phrases, H. U. Instinsky, Hermes lxxv (1940), 265 ff. Note also the legend SALVS GEN. HUMANI (BMC, R. Emp. I, 314 f.), with Instinsky’s comments, Hamburger Beiträge zur Numismatik I (1947), 5 ff.

[513] Suetonius, Galba 10. 1: ‘consalutatusque imperator legatum sc senatus ac populi R. professus est [].’ For the coin-legends, C. M. Kraay, Num. Chron.⁶ IX (1949), 129 ff.

[514] I. 16. 1.

[515] 14. 1, cf. Pan. 8. 3 (on Nerva’s action): ‘unicum auxilium fessis rebus [his sole support in time of crisis].’

[516] 29 f.

[517] 84. 4, ‘Aeternitas’ had been quickly enlisted for imperial publicity. Observe ILS 157 (of A.D. 32): ‘providentiae Ti. Caesaris Augusti nati ad aeternitatem Romani nominis [].’ Senatorial coins of Domitian’s reign carry the legend AETERNITAS AVGUSTI (BMC, R. Emp. II, 364 f. On the eternity of Rome, and of itss rulers, cf. F. Cumont, Rev. d’hist. et de litt. rel. I (1896), 435 ff.; M. Vogelstein, Kaiser-Idee, Rom-ldee (1930), 42; M. P. Charlesworth, Harv. Th. Rev. XXIX (1936), 107 ff.; H. U. Instinsky, Hermes LXXVll (1942), 313 ff.; J. Beaujeu, La Religion romaine à l’apogèe de l’empire I (1955). 141 ff. Tacitus did not like the word: elsewhere only Agr. 46. 4, and once in the Annales (XI. 7. 1 – in reported discourse).

[518] The problem (with the various modem views) is discussed by P. Zancan, La Crisi del principato nell’ anno 69 d. C. (Padova, 1939), 121 ff., who states that Tacitus ‘ha tradotto la crisi del 69 in una critica della nobiltà [he translated the crisis of ‘69 into a critique of the nobility]’, which is too narrow. Rostovtzeff’s account is marred by a serious error – that the Rhine legions rose in protest against Otho and the Guard (Soc. and Ec. Hist, of the R. Empire (1926), 84 f.).

[519] Not merely the sack of Cremona (III. 33): observe I. 85. 1; II 56. 1; IV. 1.

[520] I. 13. 1.

[521] Though such has been asserted, for Otho. by G. Manfré, La Crisi politico dell’ anno 68–69 d. Chr. (Padova, 1947), 90, cf. 94; for Vitellius, by A. Momigliano, Stud. it. fil. cl. IX (1931/2), 122 f.

[522] IV. 3 ff.; 39 ff.

[523] 42 – Curtius Montanus attacking M. Aquillius Regulus. No doubt highly relished by Trajanic readers.

[524] I. 10.

[525] IV. 4. 3: ‘isque praecipuus illi dies magnae offensae initium et magnae gloriae fuit [].’

[526] Suetonius, Dom. 8. 2.

[527] Pan. 48. 3, cf. 95. 3: ‘ille insidiosissimus princeps [that most treacherous of emperors].’ For the declension in Domitian to cruelty, to greater cruelty, and to rapacity, &c., Suetonius, Dom. 10. 1 ff.

[528] Historiae and Annales comprised thirty books, cf. Jerome, Comm. ad Zach. III. 14: ‘Cornelius Tacitus, qui post Augustum usque ad mortem Domitiani vitas Caesarum triginta voluminibus exaravit [].’ It will here be assumed that twelve go to the Historiae.

[529] For the structure and proportions of the lost books there is not much guidance to be got from Suetonius or from Cassius Dio. The biographer’s method and choice of materials was sharply (and deliberately) divergent; while Dio (preserved in abbreviations or fragments) appears to have given one book to each of the three Flavians.

[530] V. 26.

[531] The preliminaries, it is true, are narrated at some length; but it would have been a sin against history and proportion to allow Jerusalem and the Jewish triumph to occupy almost a whole book.

[532] Orosius VII. 3. 7; 19. 4, citing Tacitus (= fr. 4 f. in the editions of Fisher and Koestermann).

[533] Suetonius, Divus Vesp. 8. 1: ‘prope afflictam nutantemque rem p. stabilire primo, deinde et omare [].’

[534] No source supplies a clear indication of date. In support of 74 note the atmosphere at Rome when Curiatius Matemus recited his Cato (Dial. 2. 1).

[535] Dio LXVI [sic: LXV]. 13. 1a.

[536] ib. 12. 2 f.

[537] Suetonius, Divus Vesp. 15.

[538] There had been no speech of Helvidius hitherto, only a brief attack on Eprius Marcellus in reported discourse (IV. 7).

[539] The great jurist C. Cassius Longinus (suff. 30) came back from exile and died in Vespasian's reign (Dig. I. 2. 2. 52).

[540] Compare the technique in parts of the Annales where Tacitus needs to fill out a book (Ch. XXI).

[541] Hence discreet compliment to the Emperor – and (better) the chance to compensate Frontinus (recently deceased) for the brevity of Agr. 17. 3 [sic: 17. 2]: ‘subiit sustinuitque molem Iulius Frontinus, vir magnus, quantum licebat [Julius Frontinus was, so far as a subject of the emperor could be, a great man, and he shouldered and sustained the burden cast on him].’

[542] Thus, belonging to a certain group, Junius Rusticus (Ill. 80. 2), his brother Mauricus (IV. 40. 4), Musonius Rufus (III. 81. 1; IV. 10; 40. 3), and the energetic Verulana Gratilla (III. 69. 3), perhaps the wife of Rusticus (Pliny, Epp. V. 1. 8); the legionary legates Aurelius Fulvus and Tettius Julianus (I. 79. 5, cf. for the latter II. 85. 2; IV. 39. 1; 40. 2); the infamous Baebius Massa (IV. 50. 2); and, of course, Aquillius Regulus (IV. 42).

[543] Notably Eprius Marcellus, Vibius Crispus, and Fabricius Veiento; also Silius Italicus and Galerius Trachalus.

[544] Divus Vesp. 19. 2.

[545] Divus Titus 6 f.

[546] Theories that assume six books for Domitian cramp unduly the reigns of Vespasian and Titus.

[547] Divus Titus 7. 2. In the first place Vibius Crispus and Fabricius Veiento (the latter’s second consulate falls only a few months after the ruin of Eprius). See Juvenal IV. 75 ff. The satirist may have suppressed some (reputable) names.

[548] Dom. 10. 5: ‘verum aliquanto post civilis belli victoriam saevior [].’

[549] He would presumably be brief on Agricola. What the epitomator of Dio provides (LXVI. 20) is garbled – and mainly devoted to the episode of the Usipi.

[550] This false Nero was called Terentius Maximus (Dio LXVI. 19. 3 b–c).

[551] Note the references in Strat. I. 1. 8; 3. 10; II. 11. 7. Frontinus was praetor in 70; Domitian went to Gaul (Hist. IV. 85 f.), and so did Frontinus: the Lingones surrendered to him (Strat, IV. 3. 14).

[552] Hist. I. 2. 1. Though the trouble may have started the year before, Tacitus could have reserved it till the beginning of 86 as an effective début for his second Domitianic book.

[553] Orosius VII. 10. 4 = fr. 6: ‘nisi Cornelius Tacitus, qui hanc historiam diligentissime retexuit, de reticendo interfectorum numero et Sallustium Crispum et alios auctores quam plurimos sanxisse et se ipsum idem potissimum elegisse dixisset [].’

[554] Perhaps dimly to be divined in Orosius VII. 34. 5 = fr. 7. This book would also note the legendary origin of the desert tribe of the Nasamones in Libya (Servius on Aen. Ill. 399 = fr. 8) – and therefore presumably their habits. And, for trouble in Mauretania, cf. ILS 9200.

[555] Ann. XI. 11. 1, cf. Ch. VI.

[556] Orosius VII. 10. 4: ‘Domitianus tamen pravissima elatus iactantia sub nomine superatorum hostium de extinctis Iegionibus triumphavit []’; Dio LXVII. 9. 6: Ὁ μὲν οὖν Δομιτιανὸς τοιαῦτα νικητήρια, ἢ ὥς γε ὁ ὅμιλος ἔλεγε, τοιούτους ἐναγισμοὺς ἐπὶ τε τοῖς ἐν τῇ Δακίᾳ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς ἐν τῇ Ῥώμῃ τεθνηκόσιν ἐποίησε [such was the triumphal celebration, or, as the crowd put it, such was the funeral banquet that Domitian held for those who had died in Dacia and in Rome]. The coincidence deserves attention – for the preceding sentence of Orosius (= fr. 6) actually cites the authority of Cornelius Tacitus. Hence a further ‘fragment’. Note also exact and surprising knowledge about German peoples in scraps from Dio – LXVII. 5. 1 (a king of the Cherusci); 5. 2 (envoys from the Lugii to Domitian); 5. 3 (the king of the Semnones, along with a priestess, on a visit to Domitian).

[557] cf. Pan. 82. 4 f.

[558] Suetonius, Dom. 15. 1. Dio LXVII. 14. 1 f. Clemens’ brother T. Flavius Sabinus (PIR¹, F 355), ordinarius in 82 and husband of Julia, the daughter of Titus, had been destroyed quite early in the reign.

[559] Dom. 15 f.; Dio LXVII. 16.

[560] Plotina might have been nearly twenty years younger than Trajan; and no certainty that she was his first wife. For the coins, BMC, R. Emp. III (1936), 106 f.; 124; 229 f.; 245 f.; her iconography, R. West, R. Porträtplastik II (1941), 75 ff., who emphasizes the Capitoline and Vatican heads (pl. XIX, 70 and 73). She looks a little weary, but amused around the eyes.

[561] The motive of ‘favor Plotinae’ recurs in HA, Hadr. 2. 10; 4. 1; 4. 4. Also ‘factio Plotinae’, 4. 10. Dio speaks of ἐρωτικῆ φιλία (LXIX. 1. 2, cf. 10. 3). Who can tell?

[562] HA, Hadr. 20. 1: ‘in conloquiis etiam humillimorum civilissimus fuit, detestans eos qui sibi hanc voluptatem humanitatis quasi servantes fastigium principis inviderent []’; 17. 6: ‘fuit et plebis iactatissimus amator []’; 17. 5 f. (bathing publicly in anybody’s company); 16. 10 (a friend of Epictetus).

[563] For the details, HA, Hadr. 14. 8 ff.; 15. 10 ff.; 20; Dio LXIX. 3 ff.

[564] The plan can stand, even if the author did not survive to complete the Neronian hexad. The title (or perhaps subtitle) of the work was ‘ab excessu divi Augusti []’, as the Codex Mediceus shows: cf. R. P. Oliver, TAPA LXXXII (1951), 235. It has been asserted that Tacitus himself used the title ‘annales’ (F. Jacoby, Atthis (1949), 111). That rests upon a misconception. In Tacitus, ‘annales’ is the normal, as it is the traditional and Latin, term for ‘history’, e. g. Ann. III. 65. 1: ‘quod praecipium munus annalium reor []’, &c.; IV. 34. 1 (the books of Cremutius Cordus). When he says ‘annalis nostros []’ (IV. 32. 1), he means ‘the history I am writing’. Compare Livy XLIII. 13. 2: ‘ea pro dignis habere quae in meos annales referam [something unworthy to be reported in my history].’ There is a negative test: Tacitus never employs ‘historia’ (singular or plural) with the meaning of ‘history’.

[565] IV. 1. 1: ‘C. Asinio C. Antistio consulibus nonus Tiberio annus erat compositae rei publicae []’, &tc.

[566] Dio emphasized it, LVII. 7. 1 f.; 13. 6; 19. 1; 19. 8. Cf. Suetonius, Cal. 6. 2.

[567] IV. 57. 1, cf. 41.

[568] At V. 5. The manuscript exhibits an interval of only three or four letters. The narration then passes to an event late in the year 31 (numbered V. 6 in modern editions): the first sentence is an isolated fragment, but without any mark of hiatus before or after.

[569] Juvenal X. 71.

[570] Despite Dio’s full account of the year 31 (LVIII. 7. 2–16. 7, beginning with an extract from Xiphilinus but passing quickly to the original). That there was a ‘conspiracy of Seianus’ remains to be proved.

[571] VI. 51.

[572] Dio, after two books for Tiberius, allots one to Caligula (LIX); and the next book probably takes Claudius down to the end of 46, cf. Boissevain in his edition (Berlin, 1898) II, xxii.

[573] PIR², A 371.

[574] PIR², C 1390.

[575] The full story is given by Josephus, AJ XIX. 17–273 (reproducing a good Latin source).

[576] PIR², A 1140 (L. Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus, cos. 32).

[577] Observe also Junia Calvina and Junia Lepida, whose maternal grandparents were L. Aemilius Paullus (cos. A.D. 1) and the younger Julia.

[578] PIR¹, J 444.

[579] Suetonius (ed. Roth, 1898), p. 290. His previous wife was Domitia, PIR², D 171.

[580] Seneca, Apocol. 8. 2. Cf. Ann. XII. 4. 1: ‘sane decora et procax []’.

[581] Dio LX. 18. 4; 8. 5.

[582] ib. 14. 3 f. He was C. Appius Junius Silanus (cos. 28), husband of Domitia Lepida (PIR², D 180).

[583] Dio LX. 27. 4.

[584] Suetonius, Divus Claudius 13. 2, cf. Dio LX. 27. 5. Statilius Corvinus is named (cos. 45), and an Asinius Callus.

[585] M. Licnius Crassus Frugi (cos. 27), his wife Scribonia, their son Cn. Pompeius Magnus.

[586] XII. 10–21; 44–51.

[587] 31–40.

[588] Suetonius, Divus Claudius 25. 5, cf. 29. 1; Dio LX. 2. 4; 14. 1 ff.

[589] There were operations in Thrace, in the Black Sea regions – and in Cilicia Aspera (conducted by Q. Veronius, cf. AE 1953, 251)

[590] cf. Dio LX. 29. 1 – where Boissevain puts the beginning of LXI.

[591] i. e. since M. Agrippa, cos. in 27 B.C.

[592] Dio LX. 30. 2. No senator had been allowed to celebrate a triumph after 19 B.C.

[593] Compare the distribution in Dio: one book for Caligula, one for Claudius down to the end of 46, but the next book, condensing the later years of Claudius, runs into Nero’s reign, so it appears, terminating at the end of 58, cf. Boissevain II, XII f. In Tacitus the brief record of 49–57 inclusive (XII. 5 – XIII. 33) covers one-sixth of his period (nine years out of fifty four). Note also how much of Book XII is devoted to foreign affairs, not all important.

[594] I. 6. 1: ‘primum facinus novi principatus fuit Postumi Agrippae caedes [].’

[595] XIII. 1. 1: ‘prima novo principatu mors Iuni Silani proconsulis Asiae [].’

[596] XIII. 1. 1: ‘quippe et Silanus divi Augusti abnepos erat [].’ See the stemma in PIR¹, J 550. It runs through Julia, the granddaughter of Augustus.

[597] 3.

[598] XIII. 4.

[599] 6 ff.

[600] 15 ff. Tacitus, to avoid clogging the narrative with names, and dispersing the interest, had carefully kept the name of Britannicus out of the opening chapters of the book. Similarly, Octavia, the wife of Nero, is first mentioned in c. 12.

[601] 25–30; 31–33.

[602] 34–41 (Armenia); 53–57 (Germany).

[603] That can hold, whatever view be taken of the peculiar passage in Victor, De Caes. 5. 2: ‘quinquennium tamen tantus fuit, augenda urbe maxime, uti merito Traianus saepius testaretur procul differre cunctos principes Neronis quinquennio [].’ J. G. C. Anderson, emphasizing the buildings, argued that the ‘quinquennium’ which Trajan had in mind was the last period of Nero’s reign, JRS I (1911), 173 ff. Compare also F. Haverfield’s comment – ‘perhaps 60–65, if any definite period was meant’ (ib. 178 f.). Victor a little later says ‘eo dedecore reliquum vitae egit []’, &c. (5. 4, and cf. the Epitome 5. 2 ff.): therefore Victor took the good part of Nero’s reign to be at the beginning (cf. Anderson, o.c. 176)

[604] XIV. 1-13.

[605] Dio probably made his book LXI begin with 59.

[606] XIV. 52. 1: ‘mors Burri infregit Senecae potentiam [].’

[607] 53 f.

[608] It could be argued that Tacitus had not yet made up his mind about certain parts of the third hexad.

[609] 14. 1: ‘vetus illi cupido erat []’, &c.

[610] 57. 1. He had already been casually mentioned in 48. 1.

[611] 57–64. T he actual end of the book is a brief note (65), containing a forward reference to the conspiracy of Piso.

[612] XVI. 35. 2: ‘post Ientitudine exitus gravis cruciatus adferente, obversis in Demetrium.... []’

[613] On the hypothesis (be it understood) that he survived to complete the Annales.

[614] Notably M. Aquillius Regulus (cf. Hist. IV. 43).

[615] Suetonius, Nero 13; Dio LXIII 1 ff.

[616] CIL VI, 2044.

[617] These events could have been narrated at the beginning of Book XVII.

[618] Hist. V. 13. 2; Josephus, BJ VI. 312 f., &.

[619] SIG³ 814 = ILS 8794. Suetonius (Nero 24. 2) explicitly puts the proclamation at the end of the Hellenic tour. On the other side, Dio, in a rhetorical antithesis (LXIII. II. 1).

[620] That was the opinion of Justus Lipsius. Cf., at great length, Ph. Fabia, Journal des Savants 1901, 423 ff.; 563 ff.

[621] XV. 72. 2: ‘consularia insignia Nymphidio * * * quia nunc primum oblatus est pauca repetam: nam et ipse pars Romanarum cladium erit. Igitur []’, &c. The sentence is interrupted by a lacuna. The word ‘erit’ deserves emphasis, and Tacitus would not have reckoned Nymphidius’ desertion of Nero among ‘Romanae clades’, cf. C. Bretschneider, Quo ordine ediderit Tacitus singulas Annalium partes (Diss. Strassburg, 1905), 73.

[622] III. 2. 3

[623] I. 81. 1: ‘speciosa verbis, re inania aut subdola, quantoque maiore libertatis specie tegerentur, tanto eruptura ad infensius servicium [].’

[624] II. 88. 3: ‘caniturque adhuc apud barbaras gentis, Graecorum annalibus ignotus, qui sua tantum mirantur, Romanis haud perinde celebris, dum vetera extollimus recetium incuriosi [].’

[625] III. 76. 2: ‘sed praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non visebantur [].‘

[626] IV. 75: ‘in Domitio super vetustatem generis propinquum Caesaribus sanguinem delegerat; nam is aviam Octaviam et per earn Augustum avunculum praeferebat [].’

[627] Lipsius opted for the end of 31. But the Codex, which registers the conclusions of Books I–IV, gives no similar sign at this point (i.e., after V. 11 in the standard numbering of chapters). H. Haase insisted on the value of this clue (Philologus Ill (1848), 152 f.), since when all modern editors have assumed that V. 1–11 belongs to Book VI. Without those chapters (and some more), it is argued, that book (VI. 1–51) would be disproportionately brief

[628] V. 11. 2: ‘multisque patrum orantibus ponerent odia in perniciem itura, mansere infensi ac minitantes donee magistratu abirent [].’

[629] L. Fulcinius Trio and P. Memmius Regulus: each a character of some interest to Tacitus. For Trio, [II. 28–32, III. 10]; for Regulus, XIV. 47.

[630] VI. 51.

[631] The phrase itself belongs to a later reign (XIII. 28. 1).

[632] III. 40–46.

[633] 20 f.; 73 f.

[634] 32; 35.

[635] 60. 3: ‘magnaque eius diei species fuit []’, &c.

[636] 66–68 (C. Silanus, proconsul of Asia).

[637] 58 f.; 71.

[638] 25, cf. 28

[639] 33 f.; 69.

[640] 52 ff.

[641] 33 f. (Caecina Severus and Valerius Messallinus); 53 f.; 69 (Tiberius Caesar). Note also the noble speech of M. Lepidus (50) in abatement of a penalty.

[642] 58 (in the disguise of reported speech); 26 f.; 55.

[643] XIII. 58 (a prodigy that seems to portend nothing).

[644] II. 52; III. 20 f. and 73 f.; IV. 23–26.

[645] II. 1–4; 42; 56–62; 68 ff.

[646] XII. 31–40.

[647] 10–21 (taking up from XI. 8–10); 44-51.

[648] XIII. 3.

[649] ib. 1: ‘quamquam oratio a Seneca composita multum cultus praeferret, ut fuit illi viro ingenium amoenum et temporis eius auribus accommodatum [].’ The remark befits one who presumably shared some of Quintilian’s opinions (X. 1. 125 ff.).

[650] 4.

[651] II. 2: ‘clementiam suam obstringens crebris orationibus quas Seneca testificando quam honesta praeciperet, vel iactandi ingenii, voce principis vulgabat [].’

[652] cf. the professions of Caligula (Dio LIX. 6. 1), and his successor’s oath ‘per Augustum’ (Suetonius, Divus Claudius 11. 2). Claudius in his message from the Praetorian camp announced (how could he not?) that he would be a προστάτης [a virtuous ruler], not a τύραννος [tyrant] (Josephus, BJ II. 208).

[653] XIV. 52. 2 f.

[654] 53–56.

[655] Seneca, De vita beata 26. 4: ‘sapienti quisquis abstulerit divitias omnia illi sua relinquet [but the wise man – whoever steals away his riches will still leave to him all that is his own].’ The whole chapter is instructive.

[656] XIII. 53. 3: ‘utar magnis exemplis nec meae fortunae sed tuae. abavus tuus Marco Agrippae Mytilenense secretum, C. Maecenati urbe in ipsa velut peregrinum otium permisit [].’ The former example is bad history.

[657] 54. 2: ‘in hoc itinere vitae [].’ Cf. De brevitate vitae 9. 5: ‘hoc iter vitae adsiduum et citatissimum [this unceasing and most swift journey of life].’

[658] 53. 4: ‘studia, ut sic dixerim, in umbra educata [].’

[659] Maecenas’ 'peregrinum otium’ in the heart of Rome (53. 3).

[660] ‘nec me in paupertatem ipse detrudam []’ (54. 3).

[661] 54. 3: ‘traditis quorum fulgore praestringor [].’ For the collocation of the two words cf. Ad Polybium 12. 3 (on Claudius): ‘fulgor eius illos, ut nihil aliud possint adspicere, praestringet [].’ There is only one other instance of ‘fulgor’ in all Tacitus, in the letter of Seianus (IV. 39. 2); also of ‘praestringo’ used metaphorically (Hist. I. 84. 3, in the speech of Otho).

[662] 53. 5: ‘inter nobilis et longa decora praeferentis novitas mea enituit? []’ For the expression cf. De clementia I. 9. 10: ‘tantumque agmen nobilium non inania nomina praeferentium, sed eorum qui imaginibus suis decori sunt [the great line of nobles, who are not the representatives of empty names, but add distinction to their pedigree].’ For ‘novitas mea’, Sallust, Jug. 85. 14 (Marius); Cicero, Ad fam. I. 7. 8.

[663] ib.: ‘ubi est animus ille modicis contentus? talis hortos extruxit et per haec suburbana incedit et tantis agrorum spatiis, tam lato faenore exuberat? []’ The reference to ‘suburbana’ is not general (as Furneaux ad loc.), but precise, to Seneca’s Nomentanum (Epp. 104. 1; 110. 1; Pliny, NH XIV. 51). And, as for ‘tam lato faenore []’, the historian knew the story about Seneca’s loans in Britain,

[664] XV. 63. 3: ‘quae in vulgus edita eius verbis invertere supersede []’.

[665] ib.: ‘vitae, inquit, delenimenta monstraveram tibi, tu mortis decus mavis: non invidebo exemplo. sit huius tam fortis exitus constantia penes utrosque par, claritudinis plus in tuo fine [].’ Norden suggested that these are the actual words of Seneca, his greek (Die Antike Kunstprosa I (1898), 332).

[666] Quintilian X. 1. 125 ff.

[667] XIII. 11. 2 (‘clementia’ in official orations); 52. 3 (Seneca’s ‘carmina’).

[668] Likewise the Satiricon, which, however, might be implied in Tacitus’ tribute to Petronius, XVI. 18. 1: ‘ac dicta factaque eius quanto solutiora et quandam sui neglegentiam praeferentia, tanto gratius in speciem simplicitatis accipiebantur [].’ Cf. H. Bogner, Hermes LXXVI (1941), 223 ff., citing ‘novae simplicitatis opus’ from the poem in Sat. 132.

[669] Jerome (Chron. p. 171 H.) has 17, perhaps a year too early.

[670] cf. III. 24. 3: ‘exilium sibi demonstrari intellexit [].’ This was D. Silanus, one of the lovers of the younger Julia (banished in A.D. 8). Ovid’s disaster, about the same time, was not wholly unrelated to that scandal. Ovid’s relegation, however, was enjoined (or confirmed) by an edictum of Augustus (Tristia II. 135 f.).

[671] VI. 29.3.

[672] XII. 28. 2.

[673] XV. 49. 3; 70. 1.

[674] III. 75.

[675] viz. Julius Africanus, cf. Dial. 15. 3: ‘Afer aut Africanus [Afer or Africanus]’; Quintilian X. 1. 118; XII. 10. 11.

[676] Jerome, Chron. p. 171 H.

[677] Seneca, Epp. 30.

[678] III. 30. 2: ‘C. Sallustius, rerum Romanarum florentissimus auctor [].’

[679] IV. 32. 1.

[680] 34 f. The speech is all Tacitus. Cremutius’ writings were not the sole, or even the main, charge against him: the testimony of Seneca is here valuable (Ad Marciam 1. 2 ff.; 22. 4). Cf. G. Columba, Atene e Roma IV (1901), 361 ff.; R. S. Rogers, Criminal Trials and Criminal Legislation under Tiberius (1935), 86 f.

[681] 35. 3: ‘nec deerunt, si damnatio ingruit, qui non modo Cassii et Bruti aet etiam mei meminerint [].’

[682] 61.

[683] Dial. 13. 3.

[684] XIV. 19: ‘ille orando causas, Servilius diu foro, mox tradendis rebus Romanis celebris et elegantia vitae, quam clariorem effecit, ut par ingenio ita morum diversus [].’

[685] V. 8. 2. It is also used of Junius Blaesus (Hist. III. 39. 2). Compare further the whole portrayal of the ‘elegantiae arbiter’, Petronius (XVI. 18. 2).

[686] XII. 28. 2: ‘decretusque Pomponio triumphalia honos, modica pars famae eius apud posteros in quis carminum gloria praecellit [].’

[687] This praise for poetry is more striking than Cicero’s exaltation of the ‘magnus orator [great orator]’ over the ‘minuti imperatores [mediocre military leader]’ (Brutus 256).

[688] Ill. 55. 5: ‘nec omnia apud priores meliora; sed nostra quoque aetas multa laudis et artium imitanda posteris tulit. verum haec nobis <in> maiores certamina ex honesto maneant [].’ A Virgilian echo should be noted here, cf. Georgics II. 174: ‘res antiquae laudis et artis [].’ Observe also the historian’s (ostensible) depreciation of his own theme – ‘nobis in arto et inglorius labor []’ (IV. 32. 2). What he wished to suggest, but could not claim, was ‘in tenui labor: at tenuis non gloria []’ (Georgics IV. 6).

[689] Sallust, Cat. 6. 1: ‘urbem Romam, sicuti ego accepi, condidere atque habuere initio Troiani [the city of Rome, as I have learned, was at the outset founded and inhabited by Trojans].’

[690] IV. 1. 1: ‘cum repente turbare fortuna coepit, saevire ipse aut saevientibus vires praebere [].’ Cf. Cat. 10. 1: ‘saevire fortuna ac miscere omnia coepit [Fortune began to be savage and to throw all into confusion].’

[691] ib. 3: ‘corpus illi laborum tolerans, animus audax; sui obtegens, in alios criminator; iuxta adulatio et superbia; palam compositus pudor, intus summa apiscendi libido [],’ &c. Cf. Cat. 5. 3 ff.

[692] Cat. 25.

[693] XIII. 45. 1 ff.

[694] e.g. Cat. 25. 5: ‘verum ingenium eius haud absurdum [nevertheless, her intellect was by no means contemptible].’ Cf. Ann. XIII. 45. 3: ‘sermo comis nec absurdum ingenium.’

[695] It is superfluous to exemplify the Sallustian colouring of the chapters about Tacfarinas.

[696] VI. 31–37; 41–44; XI. 8–10; XII. 10–20; 44–51.

[697] XII. 20.

[698] 62 f.

[699] Sallust, Hist. II. 87.

[700] IV. 46–51.

[701] Cat. 19.

[702] IV. 45. 3: ‘sed Piso Termestinorum dolo caesus habetur [that Piso fell a victim to a Termestine conspiracy].’

[703] 20. 2: ‘hunc ego Lepidum temporibus illis gravem et sapientem virum fuisse comperior [this Lepidus, I gather, was, for his period, a man of principle and intelligence].’

[704] Jug. 45. 1: ‘Metellum... magnum et sapientem virum fuisse comperior [Metellus... no less a great and prudent man than he was in waging war].’ Tacitus nowhere else has the verb in the deponent form. Observe also a little further down ‘pergere iter’ (cf. Jug. 79. 5).

[705]  III. 50, showing reminiscences of Cat. 15. 4 and 51. 8. Further, Lepidus refers to the person concerned (the poet Clutorius Priscus) in pure Sallustian language – ‘studia illi ut plena vecordiae, ita inania et fluxa sunt [his occupations are as futile and erratic as they are charged with folly]’.

[706] VI. 27. 4: ‘quippe Aemilium genus fecundum bonorum civium, et qui eadem familia corruptis moribus, inlustri tamen fortuna egere [the Aemilian race has been prolific of patriots, and those of the family who have borne degenerate characters have yet played their part with the brilliance of their high fortunes].’

[707] XII. 12. 1: ‘ea tempestate Cassius ceteros praeminebat peritia legum: nam militares artes per otium ignotae, industriosque aut ignavos pax in aequo tenet. ac tamen quantum sine bello dabatur, revocare priscum morem [In that period, Cassius stood unrivalled as a jurist: for the arts of war are lost in a quiet world, and peace maintains on a single level the man of action and the sluggard. Still, so far as was possible, he reintroduced the old code of discipline],’ &c.

[708] XIV. 43. 1: ‘ne nimio amore antiqui moris studium meum extollere viderer [I had no wish to seem to be exalting my own branch of study by an overstrained affection for ancient usage].’ Cf. Jug. 4. 2. Like Cato (Cat. 52. 7) he uses ‘saepe numero’, old-fashioned by the time of Tacitus and nowhere else admitted by him.

[709] XIV. 44. 4: ‘nam et ex fuso exercitu cum decimus quisque fusti feritur [when every tenth man of the routed army drops beneath the club].’ For the military allusion so fitting on the lips of Cassius compare Ill. 21. 1 (a scene in Africa): ‘sorte ductos fusti necat [flogging to death every tenth man]’, which is taken from Sallust, Hist. IV. 22.

[710] XV. 20 f. Note ‘aequabilius atque constantius [steadiness and consistency]’ (21. 4), from Cat. 2. 3 [self-restraint and evenhandedness].

[711] III. 26 ff.

[712] 28. 1: ‘suarumque legum auctor idem ac subversor, quae armis tuebatur armis amisit [this maker and breaker of his own enactments, lost by the sword what he was holding by the sword].’

[713] ib.: ‘exim continua per viginti annos discordia, non mos non ius; deterrima quaeque impune ac multa honesta exitio fuere [there followed twenty crowded years of discord, during which law and custom ceased to exist: villainy was immune, decency not rarely a sentence of death].’

[714] I. 9. 4: ‘postquam hic socordia senuerit, ille per libidines pessum datus sit [when Lepidus grew old and indolent, and Antony succumbed to his vices].’ Cf. Jug. 1. 4: ‘ad inertiam et voluptates corporis pessum datus est [the mind has been captivated by depraved desires and has sunk to sloth and sensual pleasures].’

[715] II. 30. 3: ‘callidus et novi iuris repertor [applying his talents to the discovery of a new jurisprudence,].’ Cf. Sallust, Hist. IV. 69. 7: ‘callidi et repertores perfidiae [crafty inventors of faithlessness]’ (Mithridates on the Romans).

[716] II. 38. 4: ‘ab iis quibus omnia principum, honesta atque inhonesta, laudare mos est [the habitual eulogists of all imperial actions honourable or dishonourable].’ Cf. Jug. 80. 5: ‘quis omnia honesta atque inhonesta vendere mos erat [whose habit it was to traffic in everything, honorable and dishonorable].’

[717] I. 74. 1 f. For ‘ex contemptis metuendi [from being despirsed to being feared]’ cf. Sallust, Hist. I. 77. 3: ‘se <e> contempto metuendum effecit [from being contemptible into someone who is to be feared].’

[718] III. 66. 4: ‘quod multos etiam bonos pessum dedit, qui spretis quae tarda cum securitate praematura vel cum exitio properant [an infirmity fatal to many, even of the good, who, disdaining the sure and slow, force a premature success, though destruction may accompany the prize].’ For ‘pessum’ cf. I. 9. 4; 79. 2. The preceding sentence has the Sallustian ‘si rectum iter pergeret [if he kept the straight road,]’, for which phrase cf. IV. 20. 3 [to walk a straight road] and Jug. 79. 5.

[719] VI. 32. 4: ‘eo de homine haud sum ignarus sinistram in urbe famam, pitraque foeda memorari; ceterum regendis provinciis prisca virtute egit [the man, I am aware, bore a sinister reputation at Rome, and is the subject of many a disgraceful tale; yet, as a governor of provinces, he acted with a primitive integrity]’, &c.

[720] XV. 34. 2 (Vatinius); XVI. 32. 3 (Egnatius Celer).

[721] VI. 48. 3: ‘documento sequentia erunt bene Arruntium morte usum [that Arruntius did well to die the sequel will demonstrate].’ The expression ‘bene uti’ is presumably archaic, cf. Plautus, Cist. 23: ‘beneque amicitia utier [to cultivate friendship].’

[722] The text of H. Fuchs (Ed. Helv., 1946) encloses the sentence in brackets.  

[723] VI. 7. 5: ‘ab aliis incelebrata [even though unchronicled by others],’ cf. Sallust, Hist. I. 88.

[724] Suetonius, Divus Aug, 86. 3; De gram. 15; Quintilian VIII. 3. 29.

[725] Quintilian X. 3. 8: ‘et sane manifestus est etiam ex opere ipso labor [wrote in this way, and indeed his effort is plain enough from the resulting product].’

[726] cf. A. Kunze, Sallustiana III (Leipzig, 1897), 49 ff.; E. Löfstedt, Syntactica II (1933), 290 ff.

[727] Dial. 20. 5.

[728] The closest echo is II. 14. 4: ‘taedio viarum ac maris [weary of road and sea]’, cf. Epp. I. 11. 6.

[729] Yet not extensively drawn upon, as L. Robbert confesses, De Tacito Lucani imitatore (Diss. Göttingen, 1917), 94 f.

[730] cf. H. Schmaus, Tacitus ein Nachahmer Vergils (Diss. Erlangen, 1884). For a short list, A. Draeger, Uber Syntax und Stil des Tacitus³ (1882), 126 f.; H. Furneaux, I (ed. 2 ,1896), 74.

[731] I. 42.

[732] II. 23.

[733] I. 61. 1.

[734] A. Draeger, o.c. 121. V. Lundström even claimed the first sentence of the Annales as a hexameter from Ennius (Eranos XV (1915), 1 ff.).

[735] I. 53. 2.

[736] Aen. VI. 442. The parallel seems to have been missed by commentators and collectors.

[737] The style is patently a creation, a ‘Kunstsprache’, cf. R. Reitzenstein, Gött. gel. Nachr. 1914, 268 f. Hence ‘lingua morte, con una luminosità opaca c una sonorità senza più eco nelle nostre orecchie [a dead language, with a matte luminosity and a resonance that no longer echoes in our ears]’ (C. Marchesi, Tacito³ (1944), 289). E. Kraenkel describes it as relentless and fatiguing (Neue Jahrbücher VIII (1932), 232 f.). For a more sympathetic verdict, E. Norden, Die antihe Kunstprosa I (1898), 342 f.

[738] Dionysius, De Thuc. 24: greek []. Tacitus’ qualities conform to the critic’s estimate – but do not derive from Thucydides himself. Cf. J. Perret, Rev. ét. anc, LVI (1954), 111.

[739] e.g. ‘morti deposcit’ (23. 5), ‘incessitque itineri et proelio’ (51. 2), ‘in prominenti litoris’ (53. 5), ‘umido paludum’ (61. 1); ‘virgines Vestae’ (8. 1), ‘campus Martis’ (8. 5); ‘in cassum’ (4. 2), ‘in domo regnatrice’ (4. 4), ‘pessum datus’ (9. 4).

[740] XIV. 43 f. (Cassius Longinus); XV. 20 f. (Thrasea Paetus).

[741] And there is other antiquarian material, probably from Claudius.

[742] XIII. 29 (the aerarium Saturni); XIV. 20 f. (theatrical history).

[743] S. G. Stacey, Archiv für lat. Lex. X (1898), 17 ff.; E. Löfstedt, Syntactica II (1933), 294 ff. For criticism, which does not invalidate Stacey’s thesis at all points, see K. Gries, Constancy in Livy’s Latinity (Diss. Columbia, 1949).

[744] As argued by E. Löfstedt, o.c. 282 ff.; N. Eriksson, Studien zu den Annalen des Tacitus (Lund, 1934).

[745] Much less malicious comment, cf. I. S. Ryberg, TAPA LXXIII (1942), 383 ff.

[746] E. Löfstedt, o.c. 289, N. Eriksson, o.c. 108.

[747] Ch. XXXVIII.

[748] E. Koestermann, Gnomon XI (1935), 322. That scholar also suggests that Tacitus may have been interrupted by death.

[749] cf. the elogium of Ti. Plautius Silvanus Aelianus, governor of Moesia (ILS 986).

[750] cf. Ph. Fabia, Rev. ét. anc. XXXIV (1932), 139 ff.

[751] XV. 71.

[752] The difference of subject is perhaps the best answer to that question. It does not, however, cover all the phenomena perceptible towards the end of the Annales as extant. The various deficiencies cannot prove, but might make it plausible, that the author did not live to achieve his plan. And, if it were further to be argued that he wrote no more than what now exists of Book XVI, the theory that the Historiae account for twelve books (not fourteen) in the total  of thirty (Ch. XVIII) becomes vulnerable.

[753] F. Leo, Tacitus (Kaisergeburtstagsrede, Göttingen, 1896). And dramatic Hellenistic history-writing can be adduced in comparison, cf. E. Norden, Die r. Literatur⁵ (1955), 93.

[754] The greatness of his work is not impaired by his understanding even less of politics than of warfare, according to E. Bickel, Bonner Jahrbücher CXXXIII (1928), 27. And, to E. Fraenkel, Tacitus is an historian without a subject (Neue Jahrbücher VIII (1932), 231).

[755] Quintilian XII. 11. 3; X. 1. 98.

[756] Dial. 13. 3.

[757] Thus Seneca’s Thyestes, that of Curiatius Maternus (Dial. 3. 3), or the Atreus of the consular orator Aemilius Scaurus (Dio LVIII. 24. 3 f., cf. Ann. VI. 27. 3). The Atreus of Accius had produced the classic ‘oderint dum metuant [Let them hate, if only they fear]’ (Cicero, De off. I. 97).

[758] Cf. H. Taine, Essai sur Tite-Live (1860), 332: ‘si le but de l’histoire est de ressusciter le passé, nul historien n’égale Tacite [if the goal of history is to resurrect the past, no historian equals Tacitus].’ To Mommsen, historians belong rather with the ‘Künstler’ than with ‘die Gelehrten’ (Reden u. Aufsätze (1905), 11).

[759] XII. 60. 3 – in a digression, presumably from Claudius Caesar.

[760] XI. 24. 3 (in his version of the Oratio Claudi Caesaris)

[761] XII. 23. 2 (clearly from Claudius).

[762] I. 3. 3. More serious is the misleading way in which the adoption of Germanicus (A.D. 4) is introduced, I. 3. 5: ‘at hercule Germanicum Druso ortum octo apud Rhenum legionibus imposuit adscirique per adoptionem a Tiberio iussit [].’ Germanicus’ Rhine command began early in 13.

[763] At least he allows Seneca to say ‘abavus tuus Augustus Marco Agrippae Mytilenense secretum... permisit []’ (XIV. 53. 3). The reference is to Agrippa’s retirement in 23 B.C., reported by a number of sources. A legend – and a total misconception, cf. Rom. Rev. (1939), 342.

[764] IV. 44. 2: Likewise in XII. 64. 2. The error would arise from an unconscious assumption that the elder Antonia went to Drusus, the stepson of the Princeps, not to L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (PIR², D 128). However, the latter (cos. 16 B.C.) was about ten years older than Drusus.

[765] I. 41. 2.

[766] Cal. 8. 1.

[767] viz. Lentulus Gaetulicus and the elder Pliny.

[768] At Rome history began in tradition and remained patriotic: among the Greeks history was critical and could transcend state and nation.

[769] XIII. 58; XV. 41. 1.

[770] III. 26 f.

[771] Servius Tullius as a legislator (Ill. 26. 4), the ‘duodecim tabulae []’ as ‘finis aequi juris []’ (27. 1).

[772] XI. 22. 4; 25. 2.

[773] Rather should he be convicted of perverse erudition derived from speeches of Claudius Caesar.

[774] Hist. III. 72. 1. In all the writings of the Romans the only other trace is in Pliny, who states that a treaty with Porsenna forbade the use of iron weapons (NH XXXIV. 139). Similarly, against the patriotic consensus of the annalists, there may have been a tradition that the Gauls captured the citadel of Rome, cf. O. Skutsch, JRS XLIII (1953), 77 f.

[775] Livy XXXVIII. 56.

[776] XL. 45 f. For a reconstruction of the manœuvres, F. Münzer, Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (1920), 200 ff.

[777] Livy, if the epitomator of Book LX be trusted, reported a proposal of C. Gracchus to add six hundred members to the Roman Senate and thus treble its size. Which is incredible.

[778] The Livian version of the death of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus in Africa (in Orosius V. 21. 13) is contradicted by Valerius Maximus (VI. 2. 8); as for the killing of M. Brutus after his capitulation at Mutina, Pompeius had sent contradictory reports to the Senate (Plutarch, Pompeius 16), and there was sore need for apologia (cf. Orosius V. 22. 17). See Münzer, P–W V, 1328; X, 973.

[779] Mommsen exclaims that ‘the tales told of Fabricius and of the emperor Gaius are almost equally insipid and equally mendacious’ (The Provinces of the Roman Empire I (1886), 4).

[780] Dio LIII. 19

[781] This is clear from Tacitus. Suetonius (Tib. 22), and Dio (LVII. 3. 5 f.) are confused about the agent; and neither names Sallustius Crispus. Velleius Paterculus did his best to dissociate the incident from the accession of Tiberius (II. 112. 7), and recent inquirers have recourse to ingenious apologia. Perhaps Agrippa died a natural death, W. Allen, TAPA LXXXVIII (1947), 131 ff.; perhaps there was a plot, justifying his execution, A. E. Pappano, Class. Phil. XXXVI (1941), 30 ff.

[782] In Suetonius and Dio, as in Tacitus. For the view that Augustus before his decease had decided the matter (Tacitus chose to regard the responsibility of Tiberius and Livia as ‘propius vero’), cf. E. Hohl, Hermes LXX (1935), 350, followed in Rom. Rev. (1939), 439.

[783] ll. 40. 3. For a sober but acute analysis, J. Mogenet, L’Antiquité classique XXIII (1954), 321 ff.

[784] II. 27. 1: ‘eius negotii initium ordinem finem curatius disseram, quia turn primum reperta sunt quae per tot annos rem publicam exedere [].’

[785] 30. 3.

[786] A. Lang, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Kaisers Tiberius (Diss. Jena, 1911), 26 ff.; E. Ciaceri, Processi politici e relazioni intemazionali (1918), 290 ff. and Tiberio² (1944), 266 ff.; R. S. Rogers, Criminal Trials and Criminal Legislation under Tiberius (1935), 12 ff. and Studies in the Reign of Tiberius (1943), 115 ff.

[787] F. B. Marsh, Class. Phil., XXI (1926), 291 ff.; The Reign of Tiberius (1931), 59 f.

[788] CIL I², p. 244 (Fasti Amitermini).

[789] Velleius II. 129. 2: ‘quam celeriter ingratum et nova molientem oppressit []’; 130. 3: ‘quid hic meruit, primum ut scelerata Drusus Libo iniret consilia?’

[790] Tib. 25. 1. Dio (LVII. 15. 4 f.), inaccurate, like Suetonius, about the man’s praenomen, is brief and adds nothing.

[791] Epp. 70. 10. For the stemma, PIR¹, S 214. Not only Pompeian blood and a link with the dynasty (because of Scribonia, once married to Augustus, and mother of Julia), but (presumably) a second link, with relatives of Livia: note M. Livius Drusus Libo (cos. 15 B.C.), about whom nothing is known. But for Tacitus (II. 29. 2), the conspirator’s brother likewise would be only a date on the Fasti (cos. A.D. 16). The strength of the Pompeian faction now resided with L. Arruntius, a man of personal distinction.

[792] As demonstrated by A. Passerini, Studi giuridici in memoria di P. Ciapessoni (Pavia, 1947), 219 ff. That scholar demolishes completely the notions of Lang, Ciaceri, Marsh, and Rogers. All that can be held against Tacitus is his allegation that the Emperor at first dissembled his resentment against Libo – ‘adeo iram condiderat []’ (II. 28. 2). Not much – and it might be a justifiable inference.

[793] II. 43. 4.

[794] L. Piso the pontifex (cos. 15 B.C.) was given ‘secreta mandata’ by Augustus for his Thracian War, also by Tiberius when he was praefectus urbi (Seneca, Epp. 83. 14).

[795] III. 16. 1. A document may well have existed.

[796] 19. 2: ‘adeo maxima quaeque ambigua sunt, dum alii quoquo modo audita pro compeitis habent, alii vera in contrarium vertunt, et gliscit utrumque posteritate [].’

[797] IV. 10 f.

[798] II. 2: ‘sed quia Seianus facinorum omnium repertor habebatur, ex nimia caritate in eum Caesaris et ceterorum in utrumque odio quamvis fabulosa et immania credebantur, atrociore semper fama erga dominantium exitus [].’

[799] Highly suspect, cf. H. Dessau, Gesch. der r. Kaiseizeit II (1926), 32; E. Paratore, Maia II (1949), 113 f.

[800] e.g. IV. 1. 1: ‘quo facinore dominationem raptum ierit [].’

[801] 57. 1.

[802] The digression in IV. 57 extends from ‘causam abscessus []’ to the end of the chapter. The notion of discord between mother and son is a late motive in the first hexad – and the reference to Rhodes is a patent (and unskilful) insertion in the digression itself.

[803] Velleius II. 127. 1.

[804] 93. 2.

[805] Suetonius, Tib. 23 (from the will of Augustus).

[806] Dom. 21: ‘condicionem principum miserrimam aiebat, quibus de coniuratione comperta non crederetur nisi occisis [].’

[807]  Dio LIV. 3. 4. He doubts the complicity of Murena – but not the fact of the conspiracy engineered by Fannius Caepio.

[808] 15. 1 ff.

[809] Dio expatiates on the immoralities of Julia (LV. 10. 12 ff., cf. Seneca, De ben. VI. 32. 1). For the political significance of this obscure transaction, Rom. Rev. (1939), 427. Dio’s account of the younger Julia (A.D. 8) is lost through a gap in the manuscript. Her husband, L. Aemilius Paullus (cos. A.D. 1), was executed for conspiracy, cf. Suetonius, Divus Aug. 19. 1 – the sole clear record of his fate. The younger Julia was brought to the notice of Tacitus by the return to Rome of D. Junius Silanus (III. 24. 1 ff.).

[810] Dio LV. 14 ff. (under A.D. 4), cf. Seneca, De clem. I. 9 (apparently indicating the period 16–13 B.C.). It hardly matters. The episode is edifying fiction, cf. Rom. Rev. (1939), 414 .

[811] IV. 39 f. One might wonder where the historian discovered this item, which he exploits to its full irony.

[812] V. 3. 2: ‘verba erant quaesita asperitate: sed non arma, non rerum novarum studium, amores iuvenum ct impudicitiam nepoti obiectabat [].’

[813] It has been argued that Tacitus distorted the order of events, that the attack on Agrippina occurred earlier, in 27. See M. P. Charlesworth, Class. Phil. XVII (1922), 260 f., followed by D. M. Pippidi, Ephemeris Dacoromana VIII (1938), 45 = Autour de Tibère (1944), 61, and by R. S. Rogers, Studies in the Reign of Tiberius (1943), 57 ff. Meanwhile, the author of that suggestion had unobtrusively retreated, but still asserted (against the plain statement of Tacitus) that conspiracy must have been alleged (CAH X (1934), 635). That theme had been developed at some length by R. S. Rogers, TAPA LXII (1931), 141 ff. Apologists of Tiberius can be ingenuous and insatiable.

[814] Dio LVIII. 7. 4.

[815] Zonaras XI. 2, cf. Ann. V. 6. 2; VI. 8. 3; Dio LVIII. 7. 5. She is PIR¹, J 422, her mother L 211. Suetonius and Dio call her mother Livilla.

[816] IV. 2. 3.

[817] VI. 27. 2 f.

[818] 30. 2 ff. Cf. PIR², C 1390; A 971.

[819] The governor of Dalmatia was perhaps the aged L. Volusius Saturninus (suff. 3), cf. ILS 923, &c. The novus homo C. Poppaeus Sabinus (cos. 9) was in Moesia (VI. 39. 3): like Volusius, surely a safe support of the dynasty – yet his son-in-law T. Ollius was an adherent of Seianus and perished in 31 (XIII. 45. 1).

[820] IV. 2. 3; 74. 2.

[821] ILS 6044: ‘improbae comitiae / [q]uac fuerunt in Aventino ubi / [Sei]anus cos. factus est [].’ Cf. R. Syme, Hermes LXXXIV (1956), 257 ff.

[822] Dio LVIII. 7. 2. Cf. Pliny on the vestments of the statue, which endured intact for five hundred and sixty years ‘ad Seiani exitum []’ (NH VIII. 197).

[823] Velleius II. 127 f.; 131.

[824] He received a warning from Antonia (Josephus, AJ XVIII. 181 f.). Perhaps, as many assume, about a threat to Caligula: cf. Ann. VI. 3. 4.

[825] Suetonius, Tib. 65. 1, cf. Dio LVIII. 9. 4.

[826] Thus he was thwarted in an attempt to have L. Arruntius prosecuted (Dio LVIII. 8. 3).

[827] The indications in Dio are very useful.

[828] ILS 158 (Gortyna in Crete), cf. 157 (Ineramna Nahars): ‘sublato perniciosissimo hoste p(opuli) R(omani) [].’

[829] V. 7. 2.

[830] VI. 8 (the speech of the knight M. Terentius).          

[831] viz. Satrius Secundus (VI. 47. 2, cf. 8. 5). It appears that he did not succeed in saving his skin.

[832] IV. 1. 2: ‘quippe isdem artibus victus est [].’

[833] XI. 27: ‘sed nihil compositum miraculi causa, verum audita scriptaque senioribus tradam [].’

[834] XV. 73. 2: ‘ceterum coeptam adultamque et revictam coniurationem neque tunc dubitavere quibus verum noscendi cura erat, et fatentur qui post interitum Neronis in urbem regressi sunt [].’ Observe the proud and plain solemnity of language – ‘verum noscendi cura.’ The historian himself had just been demonstrating diligence by a catalogue of twenty-four names (XV. 71).

[835] 60. 2: ‘non quia coniurationis manifestum compererat [].’

[836] 65.

[837] It is not likely that Seneca, a ‘sagacissimus senex [shrewd old man, cf. Suetonius, Cal. 11]’, wanted the power – or fancied that he could hold it.

[838] E. Ciaceri, Processi politici e relazioni intemazionali (1918), 370; A. Momigliano, CAH X (1934), 728. They can appeal to Dio (LXII. 24. 1) – not at all good evidence for anything concerning Seneca. Moreover, his account (fragmentary) does not happen to name Piso.  

[839] Dio LIX. 25. 5.

[840] XV. 74. 3.

[841] XVI. 17. 6.

[842] XV. 16. 3 : ‘augendae infamiae composita [].’

[843] On this famous phrase see J. Vogt, Würzburger Studien IX (1936), 1 ff. It is necessary, however, to keep carefully in mind what follows – ‘quorum causas procul habeo’. How Tacitus’ ‘professio’ should be interpreted is shown by Hist. I. 1. 3: ‘mihi Galba Otho Vitellius nec beneficio nec iniuria cogniti [in my own case I had no acquaintance with Galba, Otho, or Vitellius, through either kindness or injury at their hands].’

[844] The dichotomy which the tradition asserts in the reign of each Caesar may appear suspect and artificial. Yet it reflects facts. Furthermore, Tacitus had experience of Domitian, and he would soon discover that the reign of Augustus fell easily into contrasted halves.

[845] VI. 51. 3.

[846] cf. IV. 31. 2: ‘quo magis mirum habebatur gnarum meliorum et quae fama elementiam sequeretur tristiora malle [].’

[847] cf. especially D. M. Pippidi, Ephemeris Dacoromana VIII (1938), 233 ff. = Autour de Tibère (1944), 11 ff.: against, J. P. V. D. Balsdon, JRS XXXVI (1946), 168 ff.

[848] Tib. 42. 1; 57. 1; 61 f.; Cal. 6. 2.

[849] F. Vittinghoff, Der Staatsfeind in der r. Kaiserzeit (1936), 85 ff.; M. Grant, Roman Anniversary Issues (1950), 48; 85; 97.

[850] e.g. F. B. Marsh, The Reign of Tiberius (1931), 222.

[851] Ph. Fabia, Les Sources de Tacite dans les Histoires et les Annales (1893), 371. Tacitus neglected those who had written under Tiberius, naturally.

[852] M. Gelzer, P–W X, 535; G. A. Harrer, AJP XLI (1920), 57 ff.

[853] Compare Plutarch’s diagnosis of Philip V (Aratus 49): not the conception of Polybius.

[854] VI. 48. 2: ‘cum Tiberius post tantam rerum experientiam vi dominationis convulsus et mutatus sit.’

[855] Juvenal IV. 38.

[856] Suetonius, Dom. 20.

[857] Seneca, De ben. III. 26. 1: ‘sub Tiberio Caesare fuit accusandi frequens et paene publica rabies [under Tiberius Caesar there was such a common and almost universal frenzy for bringing charges of treason].’

[858] III. 19. 1 (Fulcinius Trio); IV. 52. 4 (Domitius Afer).

[859] Similarly Domitian. If more were known about his reign, private ambitions and feuds would presumably be discovered behind many of the treason trials.

[860] But instructive. The abominations on Capreae are a late motive in Tacitus (VI. 1). He transfers the theme of secret vice to Rhodes, cf. the (presumed) insertions at I. 4. 4 and IV. 57. 2. If there were serious contemporary allegations, it is strange that they did not appeal to Seneca, who had probably been on the island (cf. Suetonius, Tib. 73. 2). The source of some stories may be in covert defamations of Domitian: thus aquatic diversions (not quite of the same nature) of each emperor, cf. Tib. 44; Dom. 22.

[861] Suetonius, Tib. 24 f.

[862] Ill. 22. 2 (the prosecution of Aemilia Lepida): ‘haud facile quis dispexerit ilia in cognitione mentem principis [].’

[863] IV. 4. 2: ‘exim vetus et saepe simulatum proficiscendi in provincias consilium refertur [].’

[864] IV. 9. 1: ‘ad vana et totiens inrisa revolutus, de reddenda re publica utque consules seu quis alius regimen susciperent, vero quoque et honesto fidem dempsit [].’

[865] Cf. Suetonius’ account of his ‘dolus et astus []’ (Tib. 65).

[866] I. 53.

[867] I. 12. 4: ‘nec ideo iram eius lenivit, pridem invisus [].’

[868] Dio LVIII. 3. 3 f. It is strange that Marsh should claim that Tiberius was neither suspicious nor vindictive (The Reign of Tiberius (1931), 190; 223).

[869] Suetonius, Tib. 61. 1. The biographer becomes indignant.

[870] VI. 25. 3. By contrast, E. Ciaceri, Tiberio² (1944), 309: ‘la Ieggenda dell’ odio di Tibcrio contra (a famiglia di Germanico è in pieno contrasto coi fatti [].’

[871] Suetonius, Tib. 67. 3: ‘similem se semper sui futurum nec umquam mutaturum mores suos, quam diu sanae mentis fuisset [].’

[872] IV. 38. 3: ‘ut mihi ad finem usque vitae quietam ei intellegentem humani divinique iuris mentem duint [].’ The archaic form ‘duint’ is notable and appropriate.

[873] Th. Mommsen, Römische Forschungen I² (1864), 285 ff.; G. C. Fiske, Harvard Studies XIII (1902), 1 ff.

[874] The father of Livia Drusilla, M. Livius Drusus Claudianus, was probably a Pulcher, perhaps son of C. Claudius Pulcher (cos. 92 B.B.).

[875] Suetonius, Tib. 70 f.

[876] See the searching psychological study of J. H. Thiel, Mnemosyne³ II (1935), 245 ff.; III (1935/6), 177 ff.; IV (1936/7), 7 ff. Thiel regards Tiberius as ‘Vertreter eines oppositionellen Typs [representative of an oppositional type]’. Also the medical man G. Marañon, Tiberio. Historia di un resentimiento (Buenos Aires, 1939; translated: Paris, 1941; Munich, 1952; London, 1956).

[877] For his Pompeian loyalties, Rom. Rev. (1939), 424. It was surely Tiberius rather than Augustus who made Cinna Magnus (the grandson of Pompeius) consul in A.D. 5.

[878] Suetonius, Divus Claudius I. 1, &c.

[879] Rhodes helps to explain Capreae; but the notion only occurred to Tacitus at a late stage. Suetonius (Tib. 10) adduces a variety of motives, quite in the Tacitean manner – as indeed the theme demanded.

[880] Suetonius (Tib. 23) quotes the exordium of his will – ‘quoniam atrox fortuna Gaium et Lucium filios mihi eripuit []’, &c. Cf. Res Gestae 14: ‘eripuit for[tuna]’.

[881] The coin series C. L. CAESARES continued for a number of years after A.D. 4; and it was not till A.D. 10 that Tiberius was allowed to have his name and portrait on the currency. Cf. C. H. V. Sutherland, Coinage in Roman Imperial Policy 31 B.C.–A.D. 68 (1951), 73 ff. Nor was Tiberius allowed to equal M. Agrippa with a third consulate.

[882] There lies the clue to all the discords of the next reign, cf. E. Paratore, Maia II (1949), 108.

[883] Pliny, NH XXVIII. 23: ‘tristissimus, ut constat, hominum [].’

[884] Suetonius, Tib. 21. 2; cf. the ‘acerbitas et intolerantia morum []’ about which Augustus complained in ‘codicilli’ sent to Livia (ib. 51. 1). For ‘diritas’, K. Scott, AJP LIII (1932), 139 ff.

[885] Suetonius, Tib. 59. 2: ‘oderint dum probent [].’

[886] Hist. I. 14. 2 (Piso Licinianus). Tiberius is the only person in the Annales about whom the word ‘tristitia’ is used (I. 76. 4).

[887] Seneca, Epp. 122. 10; De ben. II. 7. 2 (a ‘contumeliosa admonitio [offensive admonition]’).

[888] III. 69. 5: ‘prudens moderandi, si propria ita non impelleretur []’; IV. 71. 3: ‘lentum in meditando, ubi prorupisset, tristibus dictis atrocia facta coniungere [].’

[889] Observe the personal attack on Junius Gallio, ‘violenter increpuit velut coram rogitans []’ (VI. 3. 1), or the despair of Galba’s brother who committed suicide, ‘tristibus Caesaris litteris provinciam sortiri prohibitus []’ (VI. 40. 2). The rhetorical reference to ‘cruentae epistulae []’ in III. 44. 3, however, is anachronistic.

[890] II. 38. 4.

[891] III. 48. 1 f.: ‘Tiberium quoque Rhodi agentem coluerat: quod tunc patefecit in senatu, laudatis in se officiis et incusato M. Lollio, quem auctorem Gaio Caesari pravitatis el discordiarum arguebat [].’

[892] Rom. Rev. (1939), 486 f. (the history of T. Labienus and the libellous pamphlets of Cassius Severus).

[893] Belying entirely the pious prophecies of Velleius (II. 103. 4).

[894] II. 87.: ‘unde angusta et lubrica oratio sub principe qui libertatem metuebat adulationem oderat [].’

[895] For the temperate and ‘Republican’ character of his rule see especially E. Kornemann, Bayerische S-B, phil.-hist. Kl. 1947, Heft 1. For the detrimental results of allowing free and unprepared discussions in the Senate, J. Crook, Consilium Principis (1955), 131 f.

[896] IV. 7. 1.

[897] II. 63. 2 f. (Maroboduus); 88 (a proposal to poison Arminius); III. 73. 2 (Tacfarinas).

[898] Tiberius is made to allude three times (twice in direct speech) to ‘offensiones’ incurred for the common weal (III. 54. 6; IV. 38. 1; VI. 15. 2).

[899] III. 53 f.; 69.

[900] IV. 37 f. He refused to let Livia be deified: ‘sic ipsam maluisse []’ – so he asserted (V. 2. 1).

[901] IV. 8 (after the death of Drusus, a noble speech).

[902] IV. 6. 2: ‘mandabatque honores, nobilitatem maiorum claritudinem militiae inlustris domi artes spectando, ut satis constaret non alios potiores fuisse [].’

[903] II. 38 (M. Hortensius Hortalus).

[904] VI. 2. 4: ‘Tiberius tamen, ludibria seriis permiscere solitus, egit grates benevolentiae partum []’ (the proposal of the ridiculous Togonius Gallus).

[905] XIII. 3. 2: ‘validus sensibus aut consulto ambiguous [].’

[906] IV. 71. 3: ‘nullam aeque Tiberius, ut rebatur, ex virtutibus suis quam dissimulationem diligebat: eo aegrius accepit recludi quae premeret [].’

[907] VI. 50. 1: ‘iam Tiberium corpus iam vires, nondum dissimulatio deserebat [].’

[908] The excess of innuendo against Tiberius derives largely from the attempt to square the traditional concept of Tiberius with the results of his own researches.

[909] viz. the Caesar of Mommsen or of Carcopino

[910] As T. Labienus (no friend of the régime) once observed, ‘optima civilis belli defensio oblivio est []’ (Seneca, Controv. X. 3. 5).

[911] That is not always allowed for by scholars who severely criticize the passage, e.g. H. Willrich, Hermes LXII (1927), 54 ff. On the other hand, the originality and boldness here shown by Tacitus in the hostile presentation of Augustus are perhaps exaggerated by F. Klingner, Bayerische S-B, phil.-hist. Kl. 1953, Heft 7, 21; 24.

[912] I. 10. 4: ‘pacem sine dubio post haec, verum cruentam []’, &c.

[913] I. 53 (Julia); III. 24. 3 and IV. 71. 4 (the younger Julia); IV. 44. 3 (the son of Iullus Antonius).

[914] I. 72. 3.

[915] VI. 11. 2.

[916] III. 28. I.

[917] III. 24. 2; 25; 28. 3 f.; 54. 2; 55. 1.

[918] I. 9. 5, ending with: ‘man Oceano aut omnibus longinquis saeptutn imperium; legiones provincias classis, cuneta inter se conexa; ius apud civis, modcatiam apud socios; urbem ipsam magnifico ornatu; pauca admodum vi tractata quo ceteris quies csset [].’

[919] As Gibbon observed in his third chapter, ‘It would require the pen of Tacitus (if Tacitus had assisted at this assembly) to describe the various emotions of the senate; those that were suppressed, and those that were affected’, &c. The historian could have spared the parenthesis.

[920] Rom. Rev. (1939), 317 f.; A Roman Post-Mortem (Todd Memorial Lecture 3: Sydney, 1950), 12 ff.

[921] Aen. VI. 792.

[922] 834 f.

[923] Dio LVI. 34. 2 f.

[924] Thus Claudius discussing the quaestorship (XI. 22. 6) and the pomerium (XII. 23. 2); also in ILS 212 (Lugdunum) where he ascribes a ‘novus mos []’ to Augustus and Tiberius.

[925] Hist. II. 38. 1. As in Ann. III. 28, Saliustian studies saved him from any danger of idealizing Magnus.

[926] III. 28. 1: ‘quae armis tuebatur armis amisit [].’ Compare Velleius II. 57. 1.: ‘laudandum experientia consilium est Pansae atque Hirtii qui semper praedixerant Caesari ut principatum armis quaesitum armis teneret [].’

[927] Explicitly when the historian assesses the eloquence of those ‘qui rerum potiti essent []’ (XIII. 3. 2).

[928] Republicanism ended in the year 98, cf. A. Alföldi, Röm. Mitt. L (1935), 13. Especially notable is Trajan’s series of commemorative coins (c. 108), on which Caesar receives an honouring more varied and emphatic than Augustus. There are three types. One of the heads resembles Trajan more than it does Caesar. Cf. M. Grant, Roman Anniversary Issues (1950), 100; Roman Imperial Money (1954), 197 ff. Suetonius leads off with Caesar; and Appian some forty years later is emphatic that Caesar is the founder of the Roman monarchy (proem. 6).

[929] Naturally enough. Some, however, deduce a disappointment with Trajan. For exaggerated notions about Tacitus’ political credo and consequent disillusionment see p. 219. The debacle in the East is another matter.

[930] His conception of Hadrian’s character can have taken shape before Trajan’s death.

[931] Suetonius, Tib. 24. 1: ‘ignaros, quanta belua esset imperium [].’

[932] III. 18. 4.

[933] M. Aurelius, Ad se ipsum X. 27: Συνεχῶς ἐπινοεῖν, πῶς πάντα τοιαῦτα, ὁποῖα νῦν γίνεται, καὶ πρόσθεν ἐγίνετο· καὶ ἐπινοεῖν γενησόμενα. καὶ ὅλα δράματα καὶ σκηνὰς ὁμοειδεῖς, ὅσα ἐκ πείρας τῆς σῆς ἢ τῆς πρεσβυτέρας ἱστορίας ἔγνως, πρὸ ὀμμάτων τίθεσθαι, οἷον αὐλὴν ὅλην Ἁδριανοῦ καὶ [bear in mind continually how all such things as now exist existed also before our day and, be assured, will exist after us. Set before thine eyes whole dramas and their stagings, one like another, all that thine own experience has shewn thee or thou hast learned from past history, for instance the entire court of Hadrianus].

[934] To have rendered Republican history politically innocuous was one of Livy’s principal achievements, cf. H. Dessau, Gesch. der r. Kaiserzeit I (1924), 545.

[935] Juvenal I. 170 f.

[936] cf. R. Syme, Rom. Rev. (1939), 490. Negative evidence of this kind impairs the view that Juvenal was a sincere and vigorous satirist of contemporary Roman society

[937] As in the eighth satire, and in the fourth.

[938] Epp. III. 8. 1.

[939] For the inscr. from the vicinity of Aquinum, ILS 2926 (not seen since the eighteenth century).

[940] Martial VII. 24 and 91 (in 91 or 92); XII. 18 (100 or 101).

[941] It has been argued that he was banished by Domitian (with lasting effects on his character), see especially G. Highet, TAPA LXVIII (1937), 480 ff.; Juvenal the Satirist (1954), 23 ff. That view derives (with necessary modifications) from Scholia or Vitae of late antiquity. The principal Vita (in the Codex Pithoeanus) cites VII. 90 ff. and asserts that that the poet incurred an emperor’s resentment through attacks on an actor: ‘ac statim per honorem militiae quamquam octogenarius urbe summotus est missusque ad praefecturam cohortis in extrema parte tendentis Aegypti []’. A fictitious construction.

[942] At least so far as can be established. The persons addressed in the last five poems look like real persons, viz. Corvinus, Calvinus, Fuscinus, Volusius Bithynicus, and Gallius.

[943] I. 49 f.

[944] VIII. 120.

[945] XV. 27, cf. XIll. 17.

[946] X. 54 ff.; VI. 314 ff.

[947] It is here assumed that De viris illustribus is prior to the imperial biographies. It need not be the work that Pliny incited Suetonius to publish (Epp. V. 10).

[948] Objectivity could cover prurience as well as detraction. But it would prove nothing thar this polymath also wrote greek (Lydus, De mag. III. 64).

[949] See now the details provided by the honorific inscription set up by the people of Hippo Regius (AE 1953, 73).

[950] Lydus, De mensibus II. 6.

[951] Nero 57. 2. The continuation begins with ‘progenies Caesarum in Nerone defecit []’ (Galba 1).

[952] Dom. 23. 2: ‘sicut sane brevi evenit, abstinentia et moderatione insequentium principum [].’

[953] This could only be conjecture – but would be helpful if Divus Titus 4. 1 depends on autopsy.

[954] Divus Aug. 35. 2 (for a fact); Tib. 61. 3 (without the name); Cal. 16. 1.

[955] Divus Aug. 7. 1 (the ‘imaguncula’ of the young Octavius, with the inscription attestinsg the cognomen ‘Thurinus’, which Suetonius gave to Hadrian); Cal. 8 (epigraphic evidence about the place and date of a Caesar’s birth); Nero 52 (autographs of poems). The last item is relevant to Ann. XIV. 16.1. For Suetonius’ deliberate opposition to the historians, observe the sagacious remarks of Boissier, Tacite (1903), 96 f.

[956] HA, Hadr. 16. 6.

[957] M. Aurelius writes about an archaic religious inscription at Anagnia (Fronto, p. 66 N = Haines I, p. 174). Antoninus Pius was bom at Lanuvium (HA, Pius 1. 8), and other rulers liked living there. For Roman and Italian antiquities on the coins of Pius (in contrast to Hadrian’s cosmopolitanism) see J. M. C. Toynbee, CR XXXIX (1925), 170 ff.

[958] E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa I (1898), 344.

[959] For his style, E. Norden, o.c. 362 ff. Fronto is overvalued on most counts by E. K. Rand in CAH XII (1939), 572 ff.

[960] p. 126 N = Haines II, p. 142: ‘historia tamen potius splendide perscribenda [].’

[961] On the exploits of L. Verus in the Parthian War.

[962] p. 113 f. N = Haines II, p. 48.

[963] It may afford entertainment to compare the feeble and imperfect remarks of Fronto on the eloquence of the Caesars (p. 123 N = Haines I, pp. 136 f.) with Ann. XIII. 3. 2.

[964] F. Haverfield, JRS VI (1916), 196 ff. The letters of Pliny fare much worse in late antiquity, cf. S. E. Stout, ТАРА LXXXVI (1955), 250 ff.

[965] For this person (PIR¹, M 233), consul suffect c. 198, and his writings, cf. G. Barbieri, Riv. di fil. LXXXI (1953), 36 ff.; 262 ff.

[966] A Latin historian of the Severan age, comparable to Tacitus, and in some respects superior, was invented by E. Kornemann, Kaiser Hadrian und der letze [sic] große Historiker von Rom (1905), 119. There was only the Greek senator Cassius Dio, almost the exact coeval of Marius Maximus.

[967] viz. the Historia Augusta. The heir of Tacitus, in every sense, is Ammianus Marcellinus, ‘a principatu Caesaris Nervae exorsus []’ (XXXI. 16. 9).

[968] Annius Florus, or Annaeus Florus (PIR², A 650).

[969] For the essential facts, PIR², D 93. His patron was T. Flavius Sabinus, the consul of 82 (cf. PIR², F 355).

[970] Dio, Or. XLVI, 6 f. (rioting at Prusa); cf. also Pliny, Epp. X. 81 (his rivals and enemies). For his wealth, Or. XLVI. 5 ff.; his family, XLIV. 3f.

[971] K. Ziegler, P–W XXI, 639 ff. His full name is (L.) Mestrius Plutarchus (SIG³ 829, cf. 844), patently derived from L. Mestrius Florus (suff. c. 72),

[972] For the shady side of the ‘Greek Renaissance’ see Wilamowitz, Der Glaube der Hellenen II (1932), 458 ff.

[973] Epp. VI. 6. 3 (Nicetes); II. 3. 1 (Isaeus).

[974] Dial. 15. 3.

[975] K. Ziegler, P–W XXI, 687 ff. (the full list). Along with Sosius and Minicius, T. Avidius Quietus (suff. 93) and his brother (the parent of C. Avidius Nigrinus) deserve special mention (PIR², A 1410; 1407). Plutarch’s consular friends cover a wide span, from Mestrius Florus, with whom he visited the battlefield of Bedriacum (Otho 14), to Minicius Fundanus (proconsul of Asia, 122/3).

[976] Plutarch in his Praec. ger. r. p. [Praecepta gerendae reipublicae] (17. 813 ffs.) insisted that the Greeks should always remember that they were subject to the authority of Rome, and be careful not to provoke government encroachment through the greek [].

[977] Less spectacular, perhaps, but no less significant are the ordinarii of the previous year, L. Cuspius Pactumeius Rufinus from Pergamum (PIR², C 1637) and L. Statius Quadratus, an Athenian (cf. IG II², 2044; 3704, &c.).

[978] P. Graindor, Un milliardaire antique. Hérode Atticus et sa famille (Cairo, 1930). For the bare facts about Ti. Claudius Atticus Herodes, PIR², C 802.

[979] See the tract greek (P. Vat. gr. II).

[980] Philostratus, Vit. Soph. I. 25. 3. This proconsul is the future emperor Antoninus Pius (cos. 120).

[981] Polemo, son of the orator Zeno, and King of Pontus, PIR¹, P 405; Antonius Polemo the Sophist, PIR², A 862.

[982] For the wealth of the eastern provinces in the FIavio–Antonine period, as shown especially by buildings and donations, D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor I (1950), 582 ff.; for greek [], ib. 599 ff.; on the role and behaviour of the greek [], J. H. Oliver, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, N.S. XLIII, 4 (1953), 953 ff.

[983] Philostratus, Vit. soph. I. 8. 1; 25. 9, cf. the robust retort of a Cynic philosopher (Lucian, Demonax 12).

[984] Philostratus, Vit. soph. 1. 25.

[985] Or. XLVI. 11: greek [].

[986] NH XV. 19, cf. Silius, Punica XIV. 136 ff.

[987] NH XXIV. 4; XXIX. 14. The hostility of Cato to all things Greek has been uncritically exaggerated: see D. Kienast, Cato der Zensor (1954), 115 f.

[988] VI. 6.: ‘neque frustra praestantissimus sapientiae firmare solitus est []’, &c.

[989] The voluminous works of Cicero show few traces of any interest. For a typical Roman view, Lucan VIII. 696 f.: ‘cum Ptolomaeorum manes seriemque pudendam | pyramides claudant indignaque Mausolea [].’ On Tacitus and Hellenistic history see now P. Treves, Il mito di Alessandro e la Roma di Augusto (1953), 159 ff. (not everywhere convincing).

[990] Cicero, Pro Flacco 61; Ad Q. fratrem I. 1. 16. Compare Pliny to Maximus (Epp. VIII. 24. 2).

[991] XI. 24. 4: ‘quid aliud exitio Lacedaemoniis et Atheniensibus fuit, quamquam armis pollerent, nisi quod victos pro alienigenis arcebant? []’ Not in the surviving parts of Claudius’ oration – but not novel, cf. Dionysius, Ant. Rom. II. 17; XIV. 6.

[992] Cat. 8. 2 ff.

[993] IX. 17 ff.

[994] 18. 6: ‘Ievissimi ex Graecis, qui Parthorum quoque contra nomen Romanum gloriae favent [].’ Presumably the historian Timagenes is meant, cf. P. Treves, o.c. 39 ff.

[995] Hist. II. 4. 1: ‘quaeque alia laetum antiquitatibus Graecorum genus incertae vetustati adfingit [].’

[996] It is pure conjecture that Hadrian may have gone to Athens to assume the office in person: for the year, presumably 112/13, cf. PIR², A 184.

[997] II. 53. 3.

[998] 55. 1: ‘non Athenienses tot cladibus exstinctos sed conluvionem illam nationum [].’

[999] 88. 3. For Tacitus’ extreme xenophobia in this passage see the comments of E. Norden, Die germanische Urgeschichte in Tacitus Germania³ (1923), 143 f.; Neue Jahrbücher  I (1925), 44. For ‘sua tantum mirantur []’, cf. Pliny, NH V. 4: ‘omnia sua mirantibus [].’ It is difficult to conceive which ‘Graccorum annales’ Tacitus could have in mind. Dessau called hia complaint ‘ein fast sinnloser Ausfall [an almost pointless outburst]’ (Gesch. der. r. Kaiserzeit II (1926), 101).

[1000] VI. 18. 2.

[1001] IV. 38. 4 f. Tacitus, however, seems to be satirizing the critics of Tiberius.

[1002] IV. 58. 1.

[1003] Suetonius, Tib. 70 (not in reference to Capreae).

[1004] De brevitate vitae 12.

[1005] 13. 2. Cf. Epp. 88. 6 ff.; 37 ff.

[1006] 13. 4 f.

[1007] 13. 9.

[1008] VI. 28.

[1009] XI. 14 .

[1010] XII. 58. 1: ‘Romanum Troia demissum et Iuliae stirpis auctorem Aeneam aliaque haud procul fabulis vetera [].’ Observe the verbal felicity of the poetic ‘demissum’ (Virgil, Georg. Ill. 35: Aen. I. 288; Horace, Sat. II. 5. 63).

[1011] XII. 61.

[1012] 67. 2: ‘provisam iam sibi Xenophontis medici conscientiam adhibet [].’ Claudius had testified to Xenophon’s ‘scientia’ (XII. 61. 2).

[1013] XIV. 14. 1.

[1014] 15.

[1015] 16. 1.

[1016] XIV. 20. 1: ‘varia fama, ul cuncta ferme nova [].’ Cf. the discussion in Livy provoked by a modification in the ludi Romani: it is introduced by the phrase ‘sicut omnia novitas sold []’ (XXXIV. 54. 4).

[1017] ib. 5: ‘an iustitiam auctum iri et decurias equitum egregium iudicandi munus expleturos si fractos sonos et dulcedinem vocum perite audissent? noctes quoque dedecori adiectas []’, &c.

[1018] For the deliberate (and damaging) exaggeration compare the words Tacitus puts into the mouth of Cossutianus Capito (XVI. 22).

[1019] 21. 3: ‘oratorum ac vatum victorias incitamentum mgeniis allaturas; nec cuiquam iudici grave aures studiis honestis et voluptatibus concessis impertire [].’

[1020] ib. 4: ‘sane nullo insigni dehonestamento id spectaculum transit [].’

[1021] XIV. 4. The historian may (or may not) have known a shocking fact – Nero as Apollo Citharoedus on the coinage of Rome (BMC, R. Emp. I (1923), CLXXX; 245.

[1022] XV. 34.

[1023] XV. 30. 1: ‘provincias Orientis, maxime Aegyptum, secretis imaginationibus agitans [].’ The word ‘imaginatio’ is uncommon and powerful, cf. Pliny, NH XX. 68: ‘libidinum imagina tiones in somno [].’ Hadrian, that curious and peregrinatory emperor, might have been expected to visit the land of marvels before long: observe that in 122 he was ‘Alexandrina seditione turbatus, quae nata est ob Apidem []’ (HA, Hadr. 12. 1).

[1024] SIG³ 814.

[1025] For Nero’s ‘magnitudo animi []’ (XIII. 50. 2).

[1026] IV. 35. 5: ‘quo magis socordiam eorum inridere libet qui praesenti potentia credunt extingui posse etiam sequentis aevi memoriam. nam contra punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas, neque aliud externi reges aut qui eadem saevitia uai sunt nisi dedecus sibi atque illis gloriam peperere [].’

[1027] Even a taste for the ‘contiones’ in Livy could be incriminated under a bad emperor (Suetonius, Dom. 10. 3).

[1028] XV. 42. 2.

[1029] From what Tacitus says of the first (Hist. II. 8. 1) it follows that there were two more (at least) before 96: one under Titus (Dio LXVI. 19. 3 b–c, cf. Or. Sib. IV. 130 ff.), one in 88/89, much more formidable (Hist. I. 2. 1; Suetonius, Nero 57. 2), who was surrendered by the Parthians (cf. Statius, Silvae IV. 3. 110).

[1030] Or. XXI. 10.

[1031] Lactantius, Div. Inst. VII. 15. 11: ‘Romanum nomen quo nunc regitur orbis – horret animus dicere, sed dicam quia futurum est – tolletur e terra et imperium in Asiam revertetur ac rursus Oriens dominabitur atque Occidens serviet [].’ Cf. H. Windisch, ‘Die Orakel des Hyataspes’, Verhandelingen der kon. Ak. van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, N.R. XXVIII, 3 (1929); H. Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom in der antiken Welt (1938), 31 ff.; A. Peretti, La Sibilla babilonese (1943), 303 ff.

[1032] Hist. V. 13. 2; Suetonius, Divus Vesp. 4. 5; Josephus, BJ VI. 312. See esp. E. Norden, Neue Jahrbücher XXXI (1913), 637 ff.

[1033] Or. Sib. IV. 130 ff., &c. Nor will Apocalypsis Ioannis (especially c. 17) be neglected: the problems of that document are too complex to be discussed here.

[1034] Hist. I. 1. 3; Ann. XI. 11. 1.

[1035] The catalogue (XV. 71) is very lengthy.

[1036] Thus his friend Vipstanus Messalla (Hist. Ill. 9. 3, &c.); and he has exact information about an earlier post held by Valerius Paullinus, procurator of Narbonensis and a friend of Vespasian (III. 43. 1).

[1037] Agr. 7. 1 f.

[1038] Hist. II. 13. Also, he refrains from mentioning the adhesion of Agricola to the Flavian cause – which was not perhaps as rapid as suggested in Agr. 7. 3: ‘statim in partis transgressus est [immediately passed over to his side].’

[1039] e.g. P. Wuilleumier, Tacite, l’homme et l’oeuvre (1949), 80.

[1040] Ann. III. 33. 3: ‘non inbecillum tantam et imparem laboribus sexum sed, si licentia adsit, saevum ambitiosum potestatis avidum [].’

[1041] Note the verbal echo from Ill. 33. 3 to II. 55. 6. The allusion also touches Agrippina, though the speaker (Caecina Severus) had been a legate under Germanicus on the Rhine.

[1042] e.g. XIV. 4. 1: ‘facili foninarum credulitate ad gaudia [].’

[1043] Thus Rubellius Plautus, ‘cui nobilitas per matrem ex Iulia familia []’ (XIV. 22. 1).

[1044] The Sempronia of Sallust (Cat. 25) – or, better, Servilia and Fulvia.

[1045] Hist. I. 3. 1: ‘comitatae profugos liberos matres, secutae maritos in exilia coniuges [mothers accompanied their children in flight; wives followed their husbands into exile].’ Of the women in the famous group persecuted by Nero and by Domitian, Arria (widow of Thrasea Paetus), Fannia (her daughter), and Anteia were alive in 97 (Pliny, Epp. IX. 13. 5). For Tacitus virtue in women consists not merely in ‘pudicitia [chastity]’ but in ‘constantia [steadfastness]’ end ‘fides [fidelity]’, cf. R. Feger, Würzburger Jahrbücher III (1948), 315.

[1046] Fronto, p. 176 N = Haines I, p. 280: ‘philostorgus cuius rei nomen apud Romanos nullum est [].’ M. Aurelius learned from Fronto ὅτι ὡς ἐπίπαν οἱ καλούμενοι οὗτοι παρ᾿ ἡμῖν εὐπατρίδαι ἀστοργότεροί πως εἰσίν [as a general rule, those amongst us who rank as patricians are somewhat wanting in natural affection] (Ad se ipsum I. 11).

[1047] Glimpses of private life show deep affection and sympathy; above all, Pliny on the death of Minicius Fundanus’ daughter (Epp. V. 16).

[1048] Agr. 4. 2 ff.

[1049] 6. 1: ‘idque matrimonium ad maiora nitenti decus ac robur fuit. vixeruntque mira concordia, per mutuam caritatem et in vicem se anteponendo [the marriage proved at once a distinction and a strength to him in his upward path; their life was singularly harmonious, thanks to mutual affection and putting each other first].’

[1050] III. 34 (the oration of Valerius Messallinus). Tacitus took his wife with him abroad (Agr. 45. 4). His father may have done the same.

[1051] For a text end translation of the fragments, С. E. Lutz, Yale Classical Studies X (1947), 3 ff.; for a sympathetic appreciation, M. P. Charlesworth, Five Men (1936), 33 ff. Seneca in youth became addicted to unworldly doctrines. His father was able to redeem him from vegetarianism (Epp. 108. 22).

[1052] Ad Helviam matrem 19. 2.

[1053] ib. 6. Her husband was C. Galerius (PIR¹, G 25).

[1054] cf. PIR², A 617. She shared his exile, and it was presumably to her that he dedicated De matrimonio.

[1055] XV. 63. 2: ‘sibi unice dilectam [].’ She survived for a few years ‘laudabili in maritum memoria []’. Tacitua records, but does not support, the cheap imputation (‘ut est vulgus ad deteriora promptum []’) about her rescue from the joint suicide (64. 2). Paullina happens to be mentioned only once by her husband (Epp. 104. 2).

[1056] Dio LX. 8. 5 (Julia Livilla, the daughter of Germanicus), cf. Ann. XIII. 42. 3 (in the invective of Suillius Rufus).

[1057] His writings, however, tend to reproduce conventional or predictable opinions about the female sex, cf. Ch. Favez, Rev. ét. lat. XVI (1938), 335 ff.

[1058] cf. G. Boissier, Tacite (1903). 27 – a writer himself not unfamiliar with ‘les salons’.

[1059] Commenting on the seduction of Livia Julio by Seianus he says ‘neque femina amissa pudicitia alia abnucrit []’ (IV. 3. 3). It elsewhere suite his purpose to affirm that Augustus transgressed against the ‘clementia maiorum []’ when he punished ‘culpam inter viros ac feminas vulgatam []’ (III. 24. 2). Tacitus, lke Tiberius, disapproved of moral regimentation.

[1060] XIII. 45. 3: ‘sermo comis nec absurdum ingenium. modestiam praeferre et lascivia uti []’, &c. Tacitus can report that Poppaea’s mother had been the beauty of her day. He also notices that the lovely Livia Julia was ugly as a girl (IV. 3. 3).

[1061] XIV. 1. 2: ‘cur enim differri nuptias suaa? []’ &c.

[1062] XIII. 19. 1: ‘nemo solan, nemo adire praeter paucas feminas, amore an odio incertas [].’ There is much more about women in the third hexad than in the first: the history had changed, not the views of the historian. Absent from I–VI, ‘blanditiae []’ and ‘blandimentum []’ occur in XIII—XVI twice and four times respectively.

[1063] XII. 11. 2: ‘ut non dominationem et servos sed rectorem et cives cogitaret [].’

[1064] XII. 53. 3, cf. Pliny, Epp. VIII. 6. 8 ff. The setting is instructive – senators expelled ‘qui remanendo impudentiam paupertati adicerent []’ (52. 3), and Pallas author of penalties against women who had relations with slaves (53. 1).

[1065] Many have failed to see it, and have damaged their vocation. Thus V. Scramuzza – ‘Tacitus would have been a better historian if he too had had a sense of humour’ (The Emperor Claudius (1940), 21).

[1066] XII. 1 f. For the placing of this scene, after tragic events and at the beginning of a book, cf. the treasure hunt in Africa (XVI. 1 ff.).

[1067] XI. 31.

[1068] XVI. 5. 2.

[1069] XII. 26. 2: ‘neque enim segnem ei fuisse indolem ferunt, sive verum, seu periculis enmmendatus retinuit fimam sine experiment [].’ See also XIII. 17. 1.

[1070] Agr. 3. 1 f.

[1071] The early priesthood must again be emphasized (Ch. VI).

[1072] Agr. 42. 5.

[1073] B. Walker, The Annals of Tacitus (1952), 198 f.; 202; 234 f.

[1074] Cat. 4. 1: ‘igitur ubi animus ex multis miseriis. atque periculis requievit [accordingly, when my mind had found peace after many perilous misfortunes]’, &c.

[1075] XI. 11. 1. Observe his fancy for the depreciatory ‘histrionalis’ (Dial. 26. 2; 29. 3; Ann. l. 16. 3). A unique word, cf. TLL [Thesaurus Linguae Latinae].

[1076] e.g. Agr. 42. 4: ‘odisse quem laeseris [to hate those whom you have injured].’

[1077] cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (discussing Theopompus): greek (Ad Pompeium 6. 7). For the psychological penetration of Tacitus, which is sometimes doubted, it being argued that his characters are stock types, see J. Cousin, Rev. ét. lat. XXIX (1951), 228 ff. For the value of his pessimistic insight, G. Boissier. o.c. 131.

[1078] E. Howald, Vom Geist der antiken Geschichtsschreibung (1944), 225.

[1079] XI. 6 f. (advocates’ fees); XIII. 26 f. (freedmen); XIV. 20 f. (Greek games at Rome).

[1080] The elder Seneca was not so cautious (Controv. I. 8).

[1081] He might have lost his wife (death in childbirth was common), or divorced her. Baseless speculation about discord in another marriage, that of Agricola, deemed slow in his official career and hence blamed by his spouse, has been produced by E. Paratore, Tacito (1951), 90.

[1082] Pliny, Epp. I. 6; IX. 10.

[1083] Tacitus used the words ‘ut magistro magister, ut discipulo discipulus [not as one master to another, nor, as you say, as one pupil to another]’ (Epp. VIII. 7. 1).

[1084] For this anecdote: Epp. IX. 23. 2 f.

[1085] The Letters nowhere reveal Tacitus in any personal relation to men of rank and consequence (i.e. to contemporary orators or consulars).

[1086] I. 20. There is no trace of an answer.

[1087] IV. 22. Tacitus had already taken note of Urgulania, the praetor’s mother, in another connexion (II. 34, cf. IV. 21. 1).

[1088] VI. 49.

[1089] The offender was the wife (her family name is not furnished) of Sex. Papiniųs Allenius (cos. 36), a Patavine (ILS 945). The fate of her younger son was presumably to be narrated in rhe Caligulan books (cf. Seneca, De ira III. 18. 3).

[1090] XIII. 45.

[1091] XIV. 6. 3; XV. 62. 1: ‘ille interritus poscit testamenti tabulas [].’

[1092] I. 20. 2 (the praefectus castrorum Aufidienus Rufus): ‘eo immitior quia toleraverat []’; XI. 21. 3 (Curtius Rufus).

[1093] Tacitus in the obituaries is able to add precise detail about the antecedents of novi homines, e.g. III. 48. 1 (Sulpicius Quirinius); 75. 1 (Ateius Capito). Or he can be deliberately silent, XI. 21. 1 (Curtius Rufus). [Cf. “Obituaries in Tacitus”, American Journal of Philology, LXXIX (1958), 18–31, reprinted in Ten Studies in Tacitus, Clarendon Press, 1970, 79–90.]

[1094] III. 31. 3 ff.

[1095] XIII. 53. 2.

[1096] XIII. 28. 3.

[1097] Foe ‘ferocia’, H. W. Traub, TAPA LXXXIV (1953), 250 ff. But there is hardly dispraise in ‘de Calpurnio Pisone, nobili ac feroci viro []’ (IV. 21. 1).

[1098] Foe ‘constantia’ as an upper-class and Stoic virtue, M. Grant, Num. Chron.⁶ X (1950), 23 ff. The word has a column and a half in Gerber–Greef [Lexicon Taciteum], ‘fides’ four columns.

[1099] Seneca, De ira I. 18. 3, who narrates the savage execution of a soldier and a centurion by Cn. Piso (cos. 7 B.C.), Tiberius’ friend. Galba had ‘antiquus rigor []’ (Hist. I. 18. 3).

[1100] l. 75. 4: ‘cupidine severitatis in iis etiam quae recte faceret acerbus [].’

[1101] XII. 12. 1 (Cassius Longinus).

[1102] And Tacitus may have come to conceive doubts about the impressive military façade of Trajan

[1103] XI. 21. 3.

[1104] XIV. 29. 1: ‘magna, dum vixit, severitatis lama, supremis testamenti verbis ambitionis manifestus: quippe multa in Neronem adulatione addidit subiecturum ei provinciam fuisse si biennio proximo vixisset [].’

[1105] Hist. IV. 8 (Eprius Marcellus).

[1106] III. 69.

[1107] As was also Sallust (e.g. his Sulla, Jug. 95). See F. Krohn, Personendarstellungen bei Tacitus (Diss. Leipzig, 1934), 96 ff.

[1108] VI. 32. 4.

[1109] XIII. 46. 3: ‘integre sancteque egit [].’ In Hist. l. 13. 4 it was only ‘comiter administrata provincial []’.

[1110] XVI. 18. 2.

[1111] ‘Humanitas’ only in Germ. 21. 3, and in Agr. 21. 3: ‘idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset [the simple natives gave the name of “culture” to this factor of their slavery].’ And ‘integritas’ only in Agr. 9. 4.

[1112] ‘Veritas’ is not found after the first hexad, nor is ‘prudentia’. The latter word had been employed three times in the Agr., then twice in the Hist., and in Ann. IV. 11. 1 and 33. 2.

[1113] The word ‘metus’ occupies eight and a half columns in Gerber–Greef [Lexicon Taciteum].

[1114] The emphatic adverbial form ‘aeternum’ occurs twice, attached to those themes (Ill. 26. 2; XII. 28. 2). It is no surprise to discover that ‘felicitas’ is admitted only in speeches in the Annales (XIII. 42. 4; XIV. 53. 2), that ‘felix’ occurs once there (XIII. 46. 1), ‘beatus’ twice (VI. 22. 2; XI. 20. 1), ‘tranquillus’ once (I. 3. 7).

[1115] Livy XLIII. 13. 2: ‘mihi vetustas res scribenti nescio quo pacto antiquus fit animus [].’

[1116] Tiberius is the most impressive orator in the Annales.

[1117] IV. 61 (Q. Haterius); III. 75 (Ateius Capito); XIV. 19 (Domitius Afer).

[1118] Hist. IV. 8.

[1119] For this type of political language, R. Syme, Rom. Rev. (1939), 155.

[1120] I. 33. 2.

[1121] XV. 52. 3.

[1122] Pliny, Epp. I. 17 (Titinius Capito).

[1123] Hist. I. 16. 4: ‘imperaturus es hominibus qui nec totam servitutem pati possunt nec totam libertatem [].’ Cf. Dio LVI. 43. 4: greek [].

[1124] IV. 20. 3: ‘unde dubitare cogor fato et sorte nascendi, ut cetera, ita principum inclinatio in hos, offensio in illos, an sit aliquid in nostris consiliis liceatque inter abruptam contumaciam et deforme obsequium pergere iter ambitione ac periculis vacuum [].’ For SalIustian language here, and in the context, and in a speech of Lepidus (III. 50), [Ch. XXVII above].

[1125] VI. 10. 3: ‘nullius servilis sententiae sponte auctor et, quotiens necessitas ingrueret, sapienter moderns [].’ Only one instance appears to be recorded (III. 68. 2).

[1126] VI. 48 (with a solemn and Sallustian comment).

[1127] XIII. 30. 2 (the cos. suff., of A.D. 3).

[1128] XIV. 47. 1: ‘Memmius Regulus, auctoritate constantia fama, in quantum praeumbrante imperatoris fastigio datur, clarus [].’

[1129] Cicero, De re publica I. 36 (the opinion of Scipio Aemilianus); II. 1 f. (that of Cato).

[1130] IV. 33. 1. An indication of the author’s anti-Ciceronianism.

[1131] R. Syme, o.c. 318 ff. The notion (widely entertained in recent times) that the political theorizing of Cicero exercised a powerful influence on the form of government established after the Civil Wars would have staggered a Roman and a consular.

[1132] Seneca, De clem. I. 4. 3: ‘principes regesque et quocumque alio nomine sunt tutores status publici [kings and princes and guardians of the public order, whatever different name they bear]’; De ben. II. 20. 2: ‘cum optimus civitatis status sub rege iusto sit [though a state reaches its best condition under the rule of a just king].’

[1133] cf. Cibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. vii, init.

[1134] XIII. 4. 2: ‘discretam domum et rem publicam. teneret antiqua muni a senatus, consulum tribunalibus Italia et publicae provinciae adsisterent: illi patrum aditum praeberent, se mandatis exercitibus consulturum [].’

[1135] Who, it is relevant, was proclaiming about this time that Caesar and Commonwealth were indissolubly (and beneficently) intertwined – ‘olim enim ita se induit rei publicae Caesar ut seduci alterum non possit sine utriusque pernicie [at an earlier day, in fact, Caesar so clothed himself with the powers of state that neither one could be withdrawn without the destruction of both]’ (De clem. I. 4. 3). Further, Seneca is present at no senatorial debate reported by Tacitus.

[1136] Dio LXI. 10 (at some length). He also asserts that Seneca instigated Nero to murder his mother ([LXII.] 12. 1); that he conspired against Nero ([LXII.] 24. 1); that he insisted that the unwilling Pompeia Paullina should die with him ([LXII.] 25. 1). That being so, it is incautious, at the least, to accept Seneca’s responsibility for the rebellion in Britain (LXII. 1. 1).

[1137] LII. 36. 4: μυρία γὰρ κακὰ καὶ δήμους καὶ ἰδιώτας τὸ πρόσχημά τινες τοῦτο προβαλλόμενοι δρῶσι [for infinite harm, both to communities and to individuals, is worked by certain men who but use this profession as a screen]. Compare the zest with which he retails Mucianus’ denunciation of the Stoics (LXVI [sic: LXV]. 13. 1a.).

[1138] e.g. on Helvidius Priscus – ταραχώδης τε ἦν καὶ τῷ ὄχλῳ προσέκειτο [he was a turbulent fellow who cultivated the favour of the rabble] (LXVI [sic: LXV]. 12. 2).

[1139] Compare his dispraisal of Trajan’s origin (LXVIII. 4. 1).

[1140] Pliny, discussing his vineyards, styles him ‘minime utique mirator inanium []’ (NH XIV. 51).

[1141] XIII. 2. 1

[1142] 3. 1; 11. 2.

[1143] 42; XIV. 52 – Tigellinus is introduced in the preceding chapter. Tacitus’ indirect technique shows him a defender of Seneca, cf. R. Waltz, Vie de Sénèque (1909), 15; I. S. Ryberg, TAPA LXXIII (1942), 400.

[1144] 18. 1: ‘nес defuere qui arguerent vires gravitatem adseverantis quod domos villas id temporis quasi praedam divisissent []’, &c. Seneca’s own defence emerges in De ben. II. 18. 6: ‘dat tyrannus crudelis et iracundus qui munus suum fastidire te iniuriam iudicaturus est [if the giver is a cruel and hot-tempered tyrant, who will deem the spurning of his gift an affront].’

[1145] XIV. 11. 3: ‘ergo non iam Nero, cuius inmanitas omnium questus antibat, sed Seneca adverso rumore erat quod oratione tali confessionem scripsisset [].’ Quintilian cited the words ‘salvum me esse adhuc nec credo nec gaudeo [I neither believe nor rejoice that I am still alive]’, assigning them to Seneca (VIII. 5. 18).

[1146] It has been argued that Tacitus could not make up his mind about Seneca, or deal successfully with him, because he did not fit into the ‘Tacitean biographic scheme’ (W. H. Alexander, Univ. of Cal. Pub. in Classs. Phil. XIV, 8 (1952), 269 ff., esp. 377). But what if Tacitus’ portrayal be pronounced a masterpiece, indicating an advance in technique and in historical imagination?

[1147] cf., deprecating exaggerations, J. Crook, Consilium Principis (1955), 119 ff.

[1148] Suetonius, for example, is miserable (Nero 7. 1; 35. 5; 52).

[1149] Quintilian X. 1. 129: ‘in philosophia parum diligens, egregius tamen vitiorum insectator [he was not a good enough scholar in philosophy, though a notable denouncer of vice].’

[1150] Juvenal II. 1 ff. 

[1151] Quintilian XII. 3. 12. He had been describing persons ‘pigritiae arrogantioris... subito fronte conficta immissaque barba... in publico tristes domi dissoluti [hose slothfulness had more arrogance in it... suddenly put on a solemn face and let their beards grow.... dour in public and dissolute at home].’ Also praef. 15: ‘vultum et tristitiam et dissentientem a ceteris animum pessimis moribus praetendebant [they put on a gloomy face and an eccentric form of dress as a cover for their immorality].’ Further, Pliny (Epp. I. 22. 6; III. 11. 6) – the venerable Euphrates, of course, was very different (I. 10. 6 f.).

[1152] Ad Helviam matrem 17. 3; Epp. 108. 22. For Cato, doctrines were no better than dirges, ‘mera mortualia’ (cited by Gellius XVIII. 7 . 3).

[1153] Agr. 2. 2.

[1154] XIII. 14. 3 (Agrippina on Seneca).

[1155] XII. 42.4.

[1156] XIV. 16. 2: ‘nec deerant qui ore vultuque tristi inter oblectamenta regia spectari cuperent []’.

[1157] XIV. 43. 1: ‘melius atque rectius olim provisum et quae converterentur <in> deterius mutari [].’

[1158] Gellius XIII. 12. 2 (citing remarks by his adversary, Ateius Capito).

[1159] The practice is deduced from Cicero, Ad fam. IV. 12. 3, which is hardly valid. When the unspeakable Hostius Quadra was murdered, Augustus refused to take any action whatsoever (Seneca, NQ I. 16. 1).

[1160] XIII. 32. 1 (of 57), cf. Dig. XXIX 5. 3. 17. For difficulties in Tacitus’ account, R. H. Barrow, Slavery in the Roman Empire (1928), 56 ff. The hypothesis that the third hexad was not completed may help.

[1161] XIII. 48: ‘quia severitatem eius non tolerabant []’ (the townsfolk of Puteoli).

[1162] XIV. 45. 2: ‘id a principe prohibitum est ne mos antiquus quem misericordia non minuerat per saevitiam intenderetur [].’

[1163] ILS 212, col. i, l. 3 f.: ‘ne quasi novam istam rem introduci exhorrescatis [].’

[1164] Such fancies still obtain: for example, to vindicate the veracity of a satirist, ‘the long degeneration of Roman morals’ (G. Highet, Juvenal the Satirist (1954), 102). The testimony of Tacitus and of Pliny tends to be ignored.

[1165] III. 34.

[1166] III. 55. 5 (after a digression on the rise and fall of luxury). Seneca was hostile to conventional notions about decadence, cf. De ben. I. 10. 1: ‘hoc maiores nostri questi sunt, hoc nos querimur, hoc posteri nostri querentur [the complaint our ancestors made, the complaint we make, the complaint our posterity will make]’ &c.

[1167] IV. 6. 2 (Tiberius’ practice): ‘mandabatque honores nobilitatem maiorum, claritudinem militiae, inlustres domi artes spectando [].’ Cf. Livy on Cato, ‘ad summos honores alios scientia iuris, alios eloquentia, alios gloria militaris provexit []’ (XXXIX. 40. 5).

[1168] III. 48. Before Aemilia Lepida (once betrothed to L. Caesar, cf. III. 22 f.), Quirinius had been married to a Claudia, ‘Ap. f.’ (CIL VI, 15626, cf. 37865). For his career, R. Syme, o.c. 399. The home town of Quirinius (Lanuvium) was presumably stated by Tiberius himself in his oration to the Senate.

[1169] Seneca, Suas. 6. 1: ‘Cicero, quid in alieno saeculo tibi? iam nostra peracta sunt []’; 7. 1: ‘quod ad me quidem pertinet, multum a Cicerone absum: tamen non taedet tantum me vitae meae sed pudet [].’ For the damning obituary, Ann. IV. 61.

[1170] I. 13. 6: ‘constat Haterium, cum deprecandi causa Palatium introisset ambulantisque Tiberii genua advolveretur, prope a militibus interfectum, quia Tiberius, casu an manibus eius impeditus, prociderat [].’

[1171] III. 57. 2.

[1172] For the description of the son, Haterius Agrippa, VI. 4. 4.

[1173] Ill. 75. It was Ateius Capito who interpreted the Sibylline Oracles as requisite for Augustus’ celebration of 17 B.C., producing (so it appears) justification for a (new) cycle of one hundred and ten years (Zosimus II. 4, cf. M. P. Nilsson, P–W l A 1710). The historian’s allegation (‘consulatum ei adceleraverat Augustus []’) can hardly stand.

[1174] Ill. 70. 2: ‘Capito insignitior infamia fuit quod humani divinique iuris sciens egregium publicum et bonas domi artes dehonestavisset [].’ Like 'dehonestamentum’, ‘dehonesto’ is a raee and powerful word, used by Tacitus for effect.

[1175] De vita beata 23. 1: ‘habebit philosophus ampias opes, sed nulli detractas nec alieno sanguine cruentas [the philosopher shall own ample wealth, but it will have been wrested from no man, nor will it be stained with another’s blood].’

[1176] Pliny, NH XIV. 51.

[1177] In style Seneca was against Cicero (Epp. 114. 16); also against the archaists (17 f.), and therefore not liked by the contemporaries of Cornelius Fronto.

[1178] The heroes of Marcus Aurelius are Cato, Brutus, Helvidius, and Thrasea (Ad se ipsum I. 14).

[1179] For the equity of Tacitus towards Seneca, R. Waltz, Vie de Sénèque (1909), 15. But perhaps it is a little more than equity. On the other side, hostility is assumed by B. Walker, The Annals of Tacitus (1952), 222 ff.; E. Paratore, Tacito (1951), 669; 689.

[1180] Like Cato the Censor – or, better, the poet who wrote Annales, Ennius with his ‘tria corda [three hearts]’ (Messapian, Greek, and Roman), cf. Gellius XVII. 17. 1.

[1181] Pollio, [Ch. XII above].

[1182] Jerome, Comm. in Zach. III. 14.

[1183] Hist. I. 1. 3 (quoted above, n. 112).

[1184] NH VII. 76 (quoted above, n. 63).

[1185] Hadrian was born at Rome (HA, Hadr. 1. 3), but Italica is described as his ‘patria’ (2. 1).

[1186] Agricola’s own occupations between 70 and 77 would not favour his coming to know the young Tacitus. His own wife was Narbonensian (Ch. III).

[1187] Their first attested member (suff. 18), is only a name; but the nomenclature of the second, L. Vipstanus Messalla Poplicola (cos. 48), implies descent from the Valerii Messallae on them aternal side (Ch. IX). Hence a singular appropriateness in the role of Vipstanus Messalla in the Dialogus.

[1188] But Narbonensis is not at all excluded. Narbo shows a cluster of L. Fabii, mostly libertine (CIL XII, 4791, 4794–6, 4798, 5218), and there are six other instances in the provincia (e.g. 694: Arelate).

[1189] Italy is not among the ‘tot vincula [so many ties]’ that bound the two friends (Epp. VII. 20. 7).

[1190] Epp. IV. 13.

[1191] II. 1. 6.

[1192] viz. Asinius Rufus (IV. 15) and Julius Naso (VI. 6; 9).

[1193] Ann. XVI. 5. 1: ‘sed qui remotis e municipiis severaque adhuc et antiqui moris retinente Italia []’, &c.

[1194] Epp. I. 14. 4: ‘patria est ei Brixia ex illa nostra Italia quae multum adhuc verecundiae frugalitatis atque etiam rusticitatis antiquae retinet ac servat [his native place is Brixia, one of the towns in our part of Italy which still retains intact much of its honest simplicity along with the rustic virtues of the past].’

[1195] And elsewhere the historian does not seem to infuse ‘Italia’ with a heavy message of emotion. It is not very significant that he should denounce an admiral at Ravenna ‘quod... velut infimam nationum Italiam luxuria saevitiaque adflictavisset []’ (Ann. XIII. 30. 1). ‘Italia’ is used sentimentally in the speech of Tiberius (Ill. 54. 4), and in two passages that may derive from Claudian orations (XI. 15. 1; XII. 43. 2). Cf. the opening words of the senatus consultum ILS 6043, which may embody Claudian language.

[1196] Diodorus V. 31. 1: κατὰ δὲ τὰς ὁμιλίας βραχυλόγοι καὶ αἰνιγματίαι [they converse with few words and in riddles].

[1197] Thus, on both Catullus and Virgil, H. W. Garrod in The Oxford Book of Latin Verse (1912), XIX ff.

[1198] The poet’s mother was Magia, a name prima facie Osean. Observe N. Magius of Cremona (Caesar, BC I. 24. 4) – an old Latin colony.

[1199] R. Syme, o.c. 465.

[1200] The gentilicia ‘Fabius’ and ‘Valerius’ are indicative. Their towns, Calagurris and Bilbilis, were not coloniae.

[1201] Martial I. 49; IV. 55, &c. Cf. A. Schulten, Neue Jahrbücher XXXI (1913), 462 ff. That scholar, however, outran the evidence (and confused the question) by scouting Iberian blood on the grounds that Martial’s parents were both ‘Römer’ (ib. 463).

[1202] Quintilian I. 5. 57: ‘et gurdos, quos pro stolidis accipit vulgus, ex Hispania duxisse originem audivi [I have heard that gurdus, the vulgar word for “fool,” comes from Spain].’

[1203] Martial X. 20, cited in Epp. III. 21. 5.

[1204] Martial I. 35. 1 ff.: ‘versus scribere me parum severos | nec quos praelegst in schola magister, I Corneli, quereris [Cornelius, you grumble that I write risqué verses, not the sort a schoolmaster would dictate in class].’ Perhaps a real person, possibly Tacitus.

[1205] Epp. IX. 23. 2 f.: ‘hunc post varios eruditosque sermones requisisse: “Italicus es an provincialis?” se respondisse: “nosti me et quidem ex studiis.” ad hoc ilium: “Tacitus es an Plinius?” [who engaged him in conversation on several learned subjects and then asked if he came from Italy or the provinces. “You know me,” said Tacitus, “from your reading.” At which the man said, “Then are you Tacitus or Pliny?”]’

[1206] Pliny, NH III. 31.

[1207] The most notable exceptions are the old Latin colonies of Cremona and Aquileia and the Augustan veteran colony of Augusta Praetoria.

[1208] A man of consequence would not care to make the avowal, ‘provincialis sum’. It may (or may not) be held significant that the historian did not reproduce or adapt from Claudius’ oration the passage beginning ‘quid ergo? non Italicus senator provinciali potior est? []’ (ILS 212, col. ii, ll. 5–8).

[1209] Thus C. Pontius Paelignus (ILS 942: Brixia). And M. Arruntius Aquila (suff. ? 77) has the ‘Teretina’ (ILS 980: Patavium), which is the tribe of Atina, the home of L. Arruntius (cos. 22 B.C.). cf. PIR¹ A 1129. For L. Arruntius Stella of Patavium (suff. ? 101).

[1210] ILS 1064 (L. Aemilius Arcanus, an equestrian officer and local magistrate, adleeted by Hadrian). Lugdunum (only geographically in Tres Galliae) offers a supporting parallel: nobody before the senator with the mutilated name ‘Fidus A[.....] Gallus [P]acc[‘ (CIL XIII, 1803, cf. PIR², F 153), and even he may not be from Lugdunum. The reason is clear – Lugdunum with its small territorium had few magnates. Relevant to Claudius’ assertion ‘ex Luguduno habere nos nostri ordinis viros non paenitet []’ (ILS 212, col. ii, I. 29).

[1211] There is no reason to suppose Agricola’s ancestor a mere veteran soldier. The colonia was founded probably c. 36 B.C., but Forum Julii existed before that – and had produced C. Cornelius Cn. f. Gallus (ILS 8995), presumably of reputable local stock, cf. R. Syme, CQ XXXII (1938), 39 ff. According to Pliny, who could know, Pompeius Paullinus of Arelate was ‘paterna gente pellitus []’ (NH XXXIII. 143).

[1212] Ann. III. 75; 48.

[1213] Dial. 8. 1.

[1214] The historian refuses to disclose the antecedents of the unspeakable Curtius Rufus (XI. 21. 1). A Q. Curtius Rufus can be adduced, duumvir at Arausio (CRAI 1951, 238), but the nomenclature is not distinctive.

[1215] Names of persons and places with the root ‘vind-’ (meaning ‘white’) need no exemplification. On the same principle cognomina such as ‘Tutor’ or ’Verax’ are not to be explained from Latin if borne by natives.

[1216] viz. P. Sepullius P. f. Fab. Tacitus (CIL V, 3037: Patavium); Aufillena Tacita (3507: Verona). In northern Italy Sepullii are found only at Patavium (three other instances): P. Sepullius Macer was monetalis at Rome in 44 B.C. An Aufillena of Verona occurs in Catullus 100; 110 f. The third instance is the sevir P. Valerius P. l. Tacitus (5895 = ILS 6734: Mediolanium).

[1217] CIL XII, 3515 (Nemausus); 5691⁸ (an oculist’s stamp at Nemausus); 1301 (Vasio); 1517 (the eastern Vocontian territory). For confirmation observe the derived gentilicium ‘Tacitius’ – I. l. de Gaule 496 (Nemausus); CIL XII, 2803 (territory of Nemausus).

[1218] CIL XII, 1301 = ILS 4841: ‘Marti / et Vasioni / Tacitus.’ Several Cornelii make dedications to Mars at Vasio, among them Sex. Cornelius Sacratus (1300 = ILS 4542) and T. Cornelius Pegasus (1297). For the use of the bare cognomen by a man of station, cf. CIL III, 1081 = ILS 3594 (Sarmizegethusa): ‘I. o. m. / et dis Pe/natibus/Scauria/nus.’ D. Terentius Scaurianus was the first governor of Dacia – and probably a Narbonensian.

[1219] Justin XLIII. 5. 11 f. Further, Burrus’ ancestor presumably got his nomen from Pompeius’ partisan L. Afranius (cos. 61 B.C.).

[1220] Tacitus was born in 56 or 57 (Ch. 6) – possibly in Belgica (Ch. XLV).

[1221] Thus, perhaps, the colonia of Cornelius Fuscus (Hist. II. 86. 3), or the origin of the consular pair Arrius Antoninus and Marius Celsus (I. 77. 2).

[1222] The preceding remarks (along with the evocation of a Tacitus at Vasio) are not quite strong enough to prove the historian’s ‘patria’. It might have been some other city of Narboncnsis, possibly the ‘vetus et inlustris Foroiuliensium colonia [he ancient and illustrious Roman colony of Forum Julii]’ (Agr. 4. 1) – which, indeed, could he the colonia of Cornelius Fuscus, whom Tacitus treats favourably, when he could easily have represented him otherwise

[1223] Not at all out of keeping with this origin would be a remark here and there in dispraisal of the Gallic addiction to oratory. Thus Petillius Cerialis begins – ‘neque ego umquam facundiam exercui et populi Romani virtutem armis adfirmavi: sed quoniam apud vos verba plurimum valent []’, &c. (Hist. IV. 73. 1). That, of course, is conventional. Another matter when Agricola is made to prefer the untutored talents of the insular Celts – ‘ingenia Britannorum studiis Gallorum anteferre [to give a preference to the native talents of the Briton as against the trained abilities of the Gaul]’ (Agr. 21. 2).

[1224] Ann. XI. 23. 2: ‘non adeo aegram Italiam ut senatum suppeditare urbi suae nequiret. sufiecisse olim indigenas consanguineis populis nec paenitere veteris rei publicae [].’

[1225] Compare the technique employed in the invectives of Suillius Rufus (XIII. 42) and Cossutianus Capito (XVI. 22)

[1226] XI. 24. 3: ‘num paenitet Balbos ex Hispania nec minus insignis viros e Gallia Narbonensi transivisse? manent posteri eorum nec amore in hanc patriam nobis concedunt [].’

[1227] IV. 61: ‘meditatio et labor in posterum valescit [].’ Clearly Tacitus’ testimony to his own quality – he condemns the ephemeral notoriety of the fluent Haterius. For another veiled and personal claim, III. 55. 5: ‘nec omnia spud priores meliora; sed nostra quoque aetas multa laudis et artium imitanda posteris tulit []’.