Works

The extant works of Tacitus are, the Life of Julius Agricola, a treatise on the Germans, Annals, Histories, and a Dialogue on the Causes of the Decline of Eloquence. It is not certain if Tacitus left any orations : no fragments are extant. (Meyer, Oratorum Roman. Fragm. p. 604. 2d ed.)

Assessment

The Annals of Tacitus, the work of a mature age, contain the chief events of the period which they embrace, arranged under their several years ( 4.71). There seems no peculiar propriety in giving the name of to this work, simply because the events are arranged in the order of time. The work of Livy may just as well be called Annals. In the Annals of Tacitus the Princeps or Emperor is the centre about which events are grouped, a mode of treating history which cannot be entirely thrown aside in a monarchical system, but which in feeble hands merges the history of a people in the personality of their ruler. Thus in Tacitus, the personal history of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero, fill up a large space. Yet the most important public events, both in Italy and the provinces, are not omitted, though every thing is treated as subordinate to the exhibition of imperial power. The Histories which were written before the Annals, are in a more diffuse style, and the treatment of the extant part is different from that of the Annals. Tacitus wrote the Histories as a contemporary; the Annals as not a contemporary. They are two distinct works, not parts of one; which is clearly shown by the very different proportions of the two works : the first four books of the Histories comprise about a year and the first four books of the Annals comprise fourteen years.

It was his purpose in the Annals to show the general condition of the empire of which Rome was the centre, and the emperor the representative : not only to show the course of events, but also their causes ( 1.4); for this remark, which is made in the Histories, may be applied also to the Annals. But the history of despotism in any form does not convey the political instruction that is derived from the history of a free people. Tacitus claims the merit of impartiality ( 1.1), because he lived after the events that he describes; but a writer who is not a contemporary may have passions or prejudices as well as one who is. In his Histories (1.1) he states that neither to Galba, nor to Otho, nor to Vitellius, did he owe obligations, nor had he received from them any wrong. From Vespasian and his sons, Titus and Domitian, he had received favours; yet, in the commencement of his life of Agricola, he has recorded the horrors of Domitian's reign; nor can we suppose that in the lost books of the Histories, he allowed the tyrant to escape without merited chastisement.

The history of the empire presents the spectacle of a state without any political organisation, by which the tyranny of a ruler could be checked when it became insupportable. The only means were assassination; and the only power that either the emperor could use to maintain himself, or a conspirator could employ to seize the power or secure it for another, was the soldiery. From this alternate subjection to imperial tyranny and military violence, there were no means of escape, nor does Tacitus ever give even the most distant hint that the restoration of the republic was either possible or desirable; or that there were any means of public security, except in the accident of an able emperor to whom a revolution might give the supreme power. Yet this empire, a prey to the vices of its rulers, and to intestine commotion, had its favourable side. The civilised world obeyed a revolution which was accepted in Rome, and the provinces were at peace with one another under this despotic yoke. France did not invade Italy nor Spain; Greece was not invaded by barbarians from the north; Asia Minor and Syria were protected from the worse than Roman despotism, the despotism of Asia; and Egypt and the north of Africa enjoyed protection against invaders, even though they sometimes felt the rapacity of a governor. The political condition of the Roman empire under the Caesars is a peculiar phase of European history. Tacitus has furnished some materials for it; but his method excluded a large and comprehensive view of the period which is comprised within his Annals. The treatment in the Histories has a wider range. The general review of the condition of the empire at the time of Nero's death is a rapid, but comprehensive sketch (1.1, &c.).

The moral dignity of Tacitus is impressed upon his works; the consciousness of a love of truth, of the integrity of his purpose. His great power is in the knowledge of the human mind, his insight into the motives of human conduct; and he found materials for this study in the history of the emperors, and particularly Tiberius, the arch-hypocrite, and perhaps half madman. We know men's intellectual powers, because they seek to display them : their moral character is veiled under silence and reserve, which are sometimes diffidence, but more frequently dissimulation. But dissimulation alone is not a sufficient cloke; it merely seeks to hide and cover, and, as the attempt to conceal excites suspicion, it is necessary to divert the vigilance of this active inquisitor. The dissembler, therefore, assumes the garb of goodness; and thus he is hypocrite complete. The hypocrite is a better citizen than the shameless man, because by his hypocrisy he acknowledges the supremacy of goodness, while the shameless man rebels against it. The hypocritical is the common character, or society could not exist. In the Annals of Tacitus we have all characters; but the hypocritical prevails in a despotic government and a state of loose positive morality. There may be great immorality and also great shamelessness, but then society is near its dissolution. Under the empire there was fear, for the government was despotic; but there was not universal shamelessness, at least under Tiberius : there was an outward respect paid to virtue. The reign of Tiberius was the reign of hypocrisy in all its forms, and the emperor himself was the great adept in the science; affectation in Tiberius of unwillingness to exercise power, a lesson that he learned from Augustus, and a show of regard to decency; flattery and servility on the part of the great, sometimes under the form of freedom of speech. To penetrate such a cloud of deception, we must attend even to the most insignificant external signs; for a man's nature will show itself, be he ever so cautious and cunning. In detecting these slight indications of character lies the great power of Tacitus : he penetrates to the hidden thoughts through the smallest avenue. But the possession of such a power implies something of a suspicious temper, and also cherishes it; and thus Tacitus sometimes discovers a hidden cause, where an open one seems to offer a sufficient explanation. Tacitus employed this power in the history of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Suetonius tells us of a man's vices simply and barely; Tacitus discovers what a man tries to conceal. His Annals are filled with dramatic scenes and striking catastrophes. He laboured to produce effect by the exhibition of great personages on the stage; but this is not the business of an historian. The real matter of history is a whole people; and their activity or suffering, mainly as affected by systems of government, is that which the historian has to contemplate. This is not the method of Tacitus in his Annals; his treatment is directly biographical, only indirectly political. His method is inferior to that of Thucydides, and even of Polybius, but it is a method almost necessitated by the existence of political power in the hands of an individual, and modern historians, except within the present century, have generally followed in the same track from the same cause.

Tacitus knew nothing of Christianity, which, says Montaigne, was his misfortune, not his fault. His practical morality was the Stoical, the only one that could give consolation in the age in which he lived. The highest example of Stoical morality among the Romans is the emperor Aurelius, whose golden book is the noblest monument that a Roman has left behind him. Great and good men were not wanting under the worst emperors, and Tacitus has immortalised their names. Germanicus Caesar, a humane man, and his intrepid wife, lived under Tiberius; Corbulo, an honest and able soldier, fell a victim to his fidelity to Nero. The memory of Agricola, and his virtues, greater than his talents, has been perpetuated by the affection of his son-in-law ; and his prediction that Agricola will survive to future generations is accomplished. Thrasea Pactus and Helvidius Priscus were models of virtue ; and Arria, the wife of Paetus, remembered the virtnes of her mother. The jurists of Rome under the empire never forgot the bright example of the Seaevolae of the republic : strange, though true, the great lawyers of Rome were among the best men and the best citizens that she produced. As to the mass of the people we learn little from Tacitus : they have only become matter for history in recent days. The superficial suppose, that when rulers are vicious the people are so too; but the mass of the people in all ages are the most virtuous, if not for other reasons, they are so because labour is the condition of their existence. The Satires of Juvenal touch the wealthy and the great, whose vices are the result of idleness and the command of money.

Tacitus had not the belief in a moral government of the world which Aurelius had; or if he had this belief, he has not expressed it distinctly. He loved virtue, he abhorred vice; but he has not shown that the constitution of things has an order impressed upon it by the law of its existence, which implies a law-giver. His theology looks something like the Epicurean, as exhibited by Lucretius. A belief in existence independent of a corporeal form, of a life after death, is rather a hope with him than a conviction. (Compare 100.46, 3.18, 6.22, and the ambiguous or corrupt passage, 1.4.)

The style of Tacitus is peculiar, though it bears some resemblance to Sallust. In the Annals it is concise, vigorous, and pregnant with meaning; laboured. but elaborated with art, and stripped of every superfluity. A single word sometimes gives effect to a sentence, and if the meaning of the word is missed, the sense of the writer is not reached. He leaves something for the reader to fill up, and does not overpower him with words. The words that he does use are all intended to have a meaning. Such a work is probably the result of many transcriptions by the author; if it was produced at once in its present form, the author must have practised himself till he could write in no other way. Those who have studied Tacitus much, end with admiring a form of expression which at first is harsh and almost repulsive. One might conjecture that Tacitus, when he wrote his Annals, had by much labour acquired the art of writing with difficulty.

The materials which Tacitus had for his historical writings were abundant; public documents ; memoirs, as those of Agrippina; histories, as those of Fabius Rusticus and Vipsanius Messala ; the Fasti, Orationes Principum, and the Acta of the Senate; the conversation of his friends, and his own experience. It is not his practice to give authorities textually, a method which adds to the value of a history, but impairs its effect simply as a work of art. He who would erect an historical monument to his own fame will follow the method of Tacitus, compress his own researches into a narrow compass, and give them a form which is stamped with the individuality of the author. Time will confer on him the authority which the rigid critic only allows to real evidence. That Tacitus, in his Annals, purposely omitted every thing that could impair the effect of his work as a composition, is evident. The Annals are not longer than an epitome would be of a more diffuse history ; but they differ altogether from those worthless literary labours. In the Annals Tacitus is generally brief and rapid in his sketches; but he is sometimes minute, and almost tedious, when he comes to work out a dramatic scene. Nor does he altogether neglect his rhetorical art when he has an opportunity for displaying it : a Roman historian could never forget that a Roman was an orator. The condensed style of Tacitus sometimes makes him obscure, but it is a kind of obscurity that is dispelled by careful reading. Yet a man must read carefully and often, in order to understand him; and we cannot suppose that Tacitus was ever a popular writer. His real admirers will perhaps always be few : his readers fewer still. Montaigne read the history of Tacitus from the beginning to the end. and he has given an opinion of Tacitus in his peculiar way; and his opinion is worth more than that of most people. (Montaigne's Essays, iii. ch. 8 Of the art of discoursing.) Montaigne justly commends Tacitus for not omitting to state rumours, reports, opinions; for that which is generally believed at any time is an historical fact, though it may be fact in no other sense.

Collected Editions

The first edition of Tacitus, which is very rare, was printed at Venice, 1470, by Vindelin de Spira : it contains only the last six books of the Annals, the Histories, the Germany, and the Dialogue on Oratory.The edition of P. Beroaldus contains all the works of Tacitus. That of Beatus Rhenanus, Basil, 1533, folio, was printed by Froben. Subsequent editions are very numerous; and for a list of them, such works as Hain's and Schweigger's may be consulted. The edition of Ernesti by Oberlin, Leipzig, 1801, 8vo.,is useful. for it contains the notes and excursus of Justus Lipsius. The edition of G. Brotier, Paris, 1771, 4 vols. 4to., has been much praised, and much bought; but it is a poor edition. There is an edition by I. Bekker, Leipzig, 1831, 2 vols. 8vo.; and by Orelli, Zürich, 1846 and 1848, 2 vols. 8vo.

Lexica and commentaries

The Lexicon Tacitcum, of Bötticher, Berlin, 1830, 8vo., is not complete enough, nor exact enough, though it is of some use. The labours of Ruperti on Tacitus are of little value. The modern commentators are in all respects inferior to Lipsius, who did every thing that could be done at the time. Measured by his means, he is infinitely above all other commentators on Tacitus.

Editions of Individual Works

There are many editions of the several parts of Tacitus, particularly the the and the The edition of G. L. Walch, Berlin, 1827, 8vo., contains the text and a German translation of the with notes. J. Grimm published the text of the and all other passages relating to Germany, selected from the other parts of Tacitus, Göttingen, 1835, 8vo. The best and most complete edition of the is by J. C. Orelli, Zürich, 1830, 8vo.

Translations

There are translations of Tacitus, or parts of Tacitus, in almost every European language. The Italian translation of Davanzati is considered to have great merit; and perhaps the Italian language, in able hands, is one of the best adapted for a translation of Tacitus. The French translations have little merit. D'Alembert translated various passages from Tacitus. There are English versions by Greenway, 1598, of the and the and by Henry Savile. 1598, of the and the also versions by Gordon and by Murphy. Gordon's is a harsh version, but, in the whole, faithful. That of Murphy is excessively diffuse; perhaps it is only a dilution of Gordon.