The History of Tacitus translated into English by A. J. Church ... and W. J. Brodribb. With notes and a map. (Life of Tacitus.)

Preface

. It has been said that Tacitus never has been translated, and probably never will be. No one can know better than ourselves that jn the present work we have attempted a task of peculiar difficulty. The genius and idiom of the Latin language are so different from our own as to be a source of perpetual embarrassment to the translator. There is a neat conciseness and terse vigour about it which it is almost impossible to represent adequately in English. Especially is this the case with the writings of Tacitus. The chief merit of his style is that it possesses these qualities in a very high degree; its fault is that they sometimes degenerate into obscurity and affectation. Thus its principal characteristic is even to exaggerate the special difficulties which always beset the task of translation from Latin into English.

But if no Roman author is more intractable in the hands of a translator, no one, we believe, better repays any labour that may be spent upon him. His writings are indeed of the utmost interest both for their subject-matter and their style. They may be chargeable with many faults ; it may be true, that, as an historian, he has at times I VI

PREFACE.

. sacrificed strict impartiality to his thorough love o-freedom, to his intense hatred of the imperial despotism and of the corruption inseparable from it; it may be equally true, that, as a writer, he is often led astray by the love of effect, and even occasionally prefers obscurity to the least departure from conciseness. But this last, we must remember, was not so much the fault of Tacitus as that of the age, which regarded point and antithesis as the first merits of style. Lucan and Martial, to say the least, display this fault quite as conspicuously as our author. Admitting, however, thus much to his disadvantage, and allowing the value of his works to be so far impaired, we still believe that he must always occupy one of the highest places among historical and political writers. We have been induced by this con sideration, perhaps too by the fascination which belongs to all dangerous enterprises, to attempt the translation of a por tion of his works, though we fear that we may be only add ing to a list of previous failures.

We have selected the History because, though only a fragment, it presents a complete picture of a very interesting period — of the " one long year," to quote the historian's own words, which saw the fall of three Emperors and the establishment of a new dynasty. When we see the fatal facility with which the legions were learning " the secret of empire, that Emperors could be made elsewhere than at Rome," we are being pre pared for centuries of anarchy and confusion. Nor is it less significant to find the Prætorians appearing for the first time as the supporters of a pretender to the throne. Apart too from the interest which attaches to these indications of the future fortunes of the Empire, the period has special claims on the attention of every student of history. The old world was passing away amidst tremendous convulsions, and though we have unhappily lost the narrative of what was perhaps

PREFACE.

. VII the most important event of the age, the fall of Jerusalem, we still possess a singularly graphic and minute record of a great crisis in the history of mankind. We would say a few words on existing translations. So far as we have examined them they appear to us very unsatisfactory. The best known to English readers is, we believe, that of Murphy, which was published at the begin ning of the century. This is a perfectly readable book, and is written in fairly good idiomatic English, and not without a certain vigour ; but its great fault is its excessive diffuse ness. The forcible and sententious brevity of Tacitus quite disappears in its lengthy periods. In fact it is a fair para phrase, but not in any sense a translation. A work which may better claim the latter character is the Oxford Trans lation, of which Mr Boha has published a revised edition.

We cannot, however, think that it is an improvement on Murphy. It is not literal and exact on the one hand, nor is it good English on the other. Besides these, there are the translations of Greenewey and Sir Henry Savile, and of Gordon. The first was published in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Greenewey translating the Annals with the Germany, Sir Henry Savile the History (except the fragment of book V.) and the life of Agricola. Sir Henry Savile was, no doubt, a scholar and a learned man, as his notes testify, but his translation, though generally accurate, is bald and unidiomatic. Gordon's translation appeared in the reign of George II., and was dedicated to Sir Robert Walpole. He seems to have entered on his work with considerable confidence in his own powers, and he takes great pains to disparage the labours of his predecessors.

His own work, however, was a complete failure. Though he claims to imitate the style of his author with peculiar exact ness, his pedantic language bears no resemblauce to the

PREFACE.

. terseness and dignity of Tacitus. There is one more transla tion, which we just mention because Dryden took a part in it. It was published in 1698, and was undertaken by several persons. Dryden translated the first Book of the Annals, but his translation is altogether disappointing. It is in. fact a careless version of the French translation of Amelot de la Houssaye. We would not omit to express our obligations to the French translator Louandre. He is nearly always accurate, and frequently represents the original with a truthfulness and vigour which cannot be surpassed. We have often envied the sharpness and precision of the language in which he writes. With respect to our own translation, we can only say that we have endeavoured to adhere as closely to the original as we have thought consistent with a proper observance of English idiom.

We have written for English readers, and have tried to avoid whatever might grate harshly and un pleasantly on their ears. At the same time we have made it our constant aim to reproduce, as exactly as we have been able, the precise expressions of the Author. We have added a few explanatory notes. They do not pretend to be anything like a complete critical apparatus. We have, where it has seemed necessary, defended our own reading of obscure or corrupt passages. We have also tried to make allusions which only scholars could understand in telligible to general readers. In two instances we have de parted from the brevity at which we have generally aimed. The History is almost entirely a record of military operations, and we have therefore given as complete an account as we could collect of the Roman army as it was constituted at that time. The campaign too of Civilis, the narrative of which is, in the opinion of Mr Merivale, one of the historian's least

PREFACE.

. IX successful episodes, seemed to require some elucidation. This we have endeavoured to furnish in a note of some length, which we have illustrated with a map containing only the names of places and of tribes occurring in the work. Following the precedent of former translators, which seems to be in accordance with English usage, we have adopted the title ' History ' in preference to the plural ' Histories,' which is the author's own designation. The singular word, which in English has probably a more ex tended signification than in Latin, properly represents a work which, like the present, possesses complete unity of design. CORRIGENDA. Page 14, line 1, and page 221, line 35, for 18th read 22nd ,, 31, „ 8, /of of read for ,, 28, „ 16, for Caminius read Camurius ,, 41, ,, 34, /or was read were » 76, ,, 5, for men from Batavia read Batavians „ 136, „ 12, for 18th read 13th „ 140, „ 7, for Aponius read Aponianus ». 225> „ -25) /<"• family of the Crassi and Orfitus read the families of the Crassi and of Orfitus „ 247, „ 20, for 19th read 10th C. Cornelius Tacitus was probably born about the year 51 or 52 of the Christian era.

The younger Pliny, to whom we are indebted for nearly all that we know about the historian, gives us some particulars that enable us to fix this date with tolerable certainty. Pliny himself we know to have been born A. D. 61 or 62, for he tells us (Epist. VI. 20) that he was in his eighteenth year when the famous eruption of Vesuvius took place (a.d. 79). Now between Pliny and Tacitus there could not have been less than ten years difference in age. The former thus expresses himself in a letter to his friend {Epist. vn. 20), " W'hen I was a very young man (adolescentulus) , and you were at the height of your fame and reputation, I earnestly desired to imitate you." The signification of the term adolescentulus was, it is true, extended by rhetorical usage to very wide limits. In this case, however, it may be definitely fixed by reference to another passage in the Epistles (v. 8), where Pliny tells us that he was in his nineteenth year when he began to speak in the Forum.

Nor does it seem incon sistent with our conjecture, that in the letter first quoted we find Pliny speaking of himself and his friend as being nearly equal in age and rank (œtate et dignitate propemodum œauales). A difference of ten years would seem compara tively small when both had risen to the dignities of Prætor and Consul, and had been associated together in offices of public trust. The town of Interamna (now Terni) in Umbria has been named as the birthplace of Tacitus. The conjecture rests upon no other evidence than the fact that in the third century this town was the seat of the family of the Emperor Tacitus. This prince, who occupied the imperial throne for a few months after the death of Aurelian, claimed to be descended from the historian, and manifested his respect for his great ancestor by ordering that ten copies of his works should be annually transcribed and placed in the public libraries.

It is possible that Tacitus belonged to the great patrician house of the Cornelii. That he bore the same name can, it is true, hardly be said to be even a presumption in favour of this possibility, for the gentile names had by this time become very widely diffused throughout the population. It seems probable, however, that his family was one of some distinction and opulence. So much may be inferred from his rapid advancement in the state, and from his alliance with the family of Agricola, which, though not possessing hereditary nobility, had become one of the most distinguished in Rome. The elder Pliny (Nat. Hist. vii. 17) speaks of himself as having been acquainted with one Cornelius Tacitus, who filled the office of Procurator in Belgic Gaul. This person, who, to judge from his employment, was probably of equestrian rank, has been supposed by some, but on no other ground than the similarity of name, to have been the father of the his torian.

Lipsius and the Delphin commentator on Pliny, with a singular forgetfulness of chronology, identify him with the historian himself. Tacitus probably spent the first years of his life in Rome. He must have been nearly grown to manhcod when the capital saw the fall of three Emperors in the space of a single year. Wrhen the scene of the narrative which he has left of that stormy period is laid in Rome, the description seems to possess the graphic power which only an eyewitness could impart to it. We may instance the death of Galba (Hist. I. 40), and the entry of the Flavianist troops into Rome (Hist. hi. 83). In the reign of Vespasian he entered upon public life, possibly under the auspices of Agricola, to whose daugh ter he was betrothed in the year 77, while her father was Consul. His marriage was solemnized in the year following (Agricola, c. 9).

He says of himself (Hist. I. 1) that his elevation was " begun by Vespasian, augmented by Titus, and still further advanced by Domitian." What office he held under the first and second of these princes, there are no means of determining. The posts of Ædile and Quæstor were, how ever, the usual steps to the dignity of Prætor, which, as we learn from himself, he filled at the time when Domitian celebrated the Ludi Sæculares (a. d. 88). He was at the same time a member of one of the sacred colleges. In the year following that in which he held the office of Prætor he left Rome, probably, as his father-in-law was still high in the Imperial favour, to undertake some employ ment in the provinces. He was still absent from the capital, when, four years afterwards, Agricola died (a.d. 93). "You," he says (Agricola, c. 45) in his eloquent apostrophe to the dead, "had been lost to us for four years before."

There can be no doubt that he returned to Rome before the death of Domitian. His words in the closing passage of the Life of Agricola, " Our hands dragged Helvidiu3 to prison ; we witnessed the fate of Mauricus and Rusticus ; we were steeped in Senecio's innocent blood," are full of the bitterness of one who had been compelled to witness deeds which he was powerless to prevent. They have even something of self reproach in them, as if the writer, who must by this time have had a seat in the Senate, had been forced to concur in proceedings which seemed to give to these cruelties the authority of law. In a.d. 97, the year after the accession of Nerva, Tacitus was advanced to the dignity of the Consulship. L. Verginius Rufus died during his period of office, and Tacitus was ap pointed to succeed him.

Verginius was a man of the highest distinction, and had shown singular loyalty, courage, and wisdom during the troubles which preceded and followed the death of Nero (see Hist. I. 8, 9, II. 68, &c). It fell to the lot of his successor to pronounce his funeral oration in the Senate. " His eulogy was pronounced," says Pliny (Epist. II. 1), "by the Consul Cornelius Tacitus; his good fortune was crowned by finding the most eloquent of panegyrists." In A. D. 99 he was appointed together with Pliny, who was then Consul-elect, to conduct the impeachment preferred at the instance of the province of Africa against their late Proconsul, Marius Priscus. Pliny describes the trial at length (Epist. II. 4). Of his colleague he says, "Cornelius Tacitus answered him (Salvius Liberatis, who had been speaking on behalf of Marius) most eloquently, and with that dignity (ae/j,vco<;) which belongs in a remarkable degree to his oratory."

The resolution which the Senate finally adopted in the matter included a vote of thanks to the two prosecutors for the efficiency with which they had conducted their cause. Here, as far as we know, terminated the public life of Tacitus. We hear indeed in one of Pliny's letters (vi. 9) of his interesting himself in the candidature of one Julius Naso for some public office. WTe may gather from this letter that he was not then living in Rome, and, perhaps, as he seems to have been ignorant of the fact that Naso had started under the auspices of Pliny, that he knew but little of what was going on in the capital. The life of Tacitus thus seems to divide itself into two periods, the political and the literary. The date of the accession of Trajan (a. d. 98) nearly marks the termination of the one, and the commencement of the other.

The new government was so vigorous that it left no room for that liberty of action which statesmen of ability had enjoyed under weaker princes. At the same time its strength was such that it could allow perfect liberty of speech. Of this privilege Tacitus was not slow to avail himself. The Dialogue on Oratory is indeed generally ascribed to a much earlier period. One of the speakers (c. 17) uses the words "the sixth year of this happy reign with" which Vespasian makes the Commonwealth prosperous." The ex pression was, perhaps, intended only to fix the date of the imaginary conversation, which the author, like Cicero with his famous Dialogues, may have found it convenient to refer to a time considerably earlier than that at which he was writing. Though the question of the authorship of this work is foreign to our present purpose, it may be remarked that the tone of this and of other passages (see c. 9) is different from that which Tacitus employs in the History when speaking of Vespasian (see II. 84, ill. 34, &c).

It appears, however, that Tacitus had acquired early in Trajan's reign considerable reputation as a man of letters. Pliny consults him (Epist. iv. 13) about a school or college which he wished to establish for the benefit of Comum, his native place. " Will you," he writes, " among those many learned men who from admiration of your talents frequent LIFE OF TACITUS. XVI your company, look out for teachers to whom we may apply." The life of Agricola was published shortly after the accession of Trajan (see c. 3). We may conjecture that it was followed by the treatise on Germany. Two of Pliny's letters (vn. 20 and Vin. 7) acknowledge the receipts of works, not as yet published, we may suppose, which his friend had submitted to his criticism. Meanwhile Tacitus was collecting the materials for his History.

The famous letters (vi. 16 and 20) in which Pliny describes the great eruption of Vesuvius were addressed to the historian, and were written at his request, to supply authentic particulars which he might introduce into his work. There is an allusion to the sub ject in the opening chapters (Hist. I. 2). In a subsequent letter (vn. 33), Pliny narrates some particulars of his own conduct in the prosecution of Bæbius Massa for which he is anxious to obtain some notice. This prosecution took place A.D. 93, and Tacitus was at that time absent from Rome. " I know," he says " that your History will be immortal, and this makes me the more anxious, I frankly confess, that my name should be introduced into it." We may gather from this that considerable progress had by this time been made with the work.

Perhaps it was the book of which Pliny speaks in Epist. vni. 7. We are strongly inclined to believe that another very interesting letter refers to it. "Some one," Pliny writes (is. 27), "had publicly read a very truth-telling book, reserving part of it for another day ; when lo ! there came to him the friends of a certain person, begging and praying him not to read the rest. So ashamed were these men to hear of what they had done, these men who felt no shame in doing what yet they blushed to hear of. He granted their request indeed; honour per mitted him to do it. Yet the book, like the past, remains, LIFE OF TACITUS. xv.i and will remain, and will always be read, read the more, because not read at once." This letter may be ascribed to the year 101 (compare IX. 31). To about the same time may be referred an incident which we have from the same source (Epist.

IX. 23) : " I was never more pleased than I was lately by a remark of Cornelius Tacitus. He told me that at the last games in the Circus there sat next to him a Roman knight. After much learned talk his neighbour asked him, 'Are you of Italy, or from the Provinces?' Tacitus replied, 'You know me, and that from your reading.' Then said the other ' Are you Tacitus or Pliny? ' " The letters of Pliny do not refer to any period later than the year 103, or, possibly, 106. The failure of this source of information leaves us in complete ignorance of the later years of Tacitus. Of the Annals, we know that they were written after the publication of the History. He refers in that work (xi. 13) to the " book in which he had recorded the transactions of Domitian's reign." It has been conjectured, from the language of the first chapter of the History, that he survived the Emperor Trajan.

It is, certainly, somewhat strange to find an author under taking, even with the reservation there expressed, to write the history of an Emperor who was still upon the throne, and who was, besides, a younger man than himself. But the absence of the title ' Divus,' which is prefixed to the name of Nerva, seems to shew conclusively, even if there were no other arguments, that Trajan was still alive. It seems certain that the intention announced in this chapter was never executed, not because ' the writer's life was not long enough,' but because his purpose was changed. Doubtless he found it easier to write of the past than of his own times. The records of an extinct dynasty must have furnished a subject ' less anxious,' if not ' more fertile,' than LIFE OF TACITUS. the reign of even so liberal a ruler as Trajan.

Thus, we find him writing the Annals after the History, and in the Annals (in. 24) alluding to some future work which would embrace the time of Augustus. Great as was the reputation which Tacitus had acquired among his contemporaries, he seems to have been almost forgotten by succeeding generations. Scarcely an allusion is made to him : there are no quotations which might have preserved for us some fragments of the missing portions of his works. We scarcely even know how much we have lost. S. Jerome tells us indeed that Tacitus wrote a history of the Cæsars in thirty books1. We may suppose that the Annals were included in sixteen books, or, perhaps, con sidering that two years of Nero's reign remained to be recorded, that they extended to a seventeenth. The History, if the whole was written upon the scale observed in the surviving portion of it, must have greatly exceeded the limits thus reserved for it.

But the story of the first eventful year was probably told at greater length and with more detail than was required by those that followed it. It may be interesting to notice what may, possibly, be an exception to the statement, that we have not a single frag ment of the lost books of Tacitus. The ingenuity of a recent German critic (Jacob von Bernays) has extracted from the text of the chronicle of Sulpicius Severus a passage which may very well have been written by Tacitus. It runs as follows : " Titus, calling a council, considered the question whether he should destroy so vast an erection as the Temple. Some thought that a consecrated building, famous throughout the whole human race, ought not to be destroyed; that were it preserved, it would be a memorial of Roman moderation ; 1 Commentary on Zachariah ch. xm.

The reference is to a part of the History which has perished, the account of the fall of Jerusalem. that its overthrow would leave an indelible mark of cruelty. But on the other hand some, and Titus himself among them, were of opinion that the Temple more than anything else must be destroyed, that so the Jewish and the Christian superstitions might be thoroughly eradicated. These superstitions, though mutually opposed, had had their origin in the same people; the Christians had risen up from among the Jews ; if the root was removed, the stem would soon perish1." The critic, it should be remarked, has previously shown that Severus has elsewhere borrowed from Tacitus, reproducing, for instance, the somewhat remarkable language in which the historian describes Nero's persecution of the Christians.

If we may accept the passage as thus restored, it would be peculiarly interesting as contradicting the account which the Roman partisan, Josephus, has given of the destruction of the Temple. The French translator, Louandre, ascribes to Tacitus a let ter which is generally included among the Epistles of Pliny (IX. 10). We are not aware that this supposition rests upon any authority, but the letter in question certainly reads as if it might be a reply on the part of Tacitus to a playful epistle in which Pliny recommends his friend to combine the amusements of hunting and literature (i. 6). It is even difficult to understand how the two letters could have been written by the same person. 1 Titus adhibito consilio deliberavit an templum tanti operis everteret. Etenim [nonnullis] videbatur, ædem sacratam inter omnes mortales nobilem non debere deleri, quæ servata modestiæ Romanæ testimonium, diruta perennem crudelitatis notam præberet.

Book I

1. I begin my work with the time when Servius Galba

BOOK I.

was consul for the second time with Titus Vinius for his The Au colleague. Of the former period, the 820 vears dating; from thorsPlan °_ r jo and pur the building of the city, many authors have treated ; and pose. while they had to record the transactions of the Roman people, they wrote with equal eloquence and freedom. After the conflict at Actium, and when it became essential to peace, that all power should be centred in one man, these great intellects passed away. Then too the truthfulness of history was impaired in many ways : at first through men's ignorance of public affairs, which were now wholly strange to them, then through their passion for flattery, or, on the other hand, their hatred of their rulers. With neither was there any regard for posterity between the enmity of the one and the servility of the other.

But from a writer's adulation we should instinctively shrink, while we lend a ready ear to detraction and spite, because to flattery there attaches the shameful imputation of servility, to malignity the false appearance of independence. I myself knew nothing of Galba, of Otho, or of Vitellius, either from benefits or from inju ries. I would not deny that my elevation was begun by Vespasian, augmented by Titus, and still further advanced by Domitian ; but those who profess inviolable truthfulness must • speak of no one with partiality and of all without hatred. TAC. HIST.

BOOK I

Tlie character of the times. I have reserved as an employment for my old age, should my life be long enough, a subject at once more fruitful and less anxious in the reign of the Divine Nerva and the empire of Trajan, enjoying the rare happiness of times, when we may think what we please, and express what we think. 2. I am entering on the history of a period abounding in disasters, which to the horrors of war joined the distraction of civil strife, and in which even peace was full of cruelty. Four emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil wars ; there were more with foreign enemies ; there were often wars that had both characters at once. There was success in the East, and disaster in the West. There were disturbances in Illyria : Gaul wavered in its allegiance : Bri tain was thoroughly subdued and immediately abandoned: the tribes of the Suevi and the Sarmatæ rose in concert against us : the Dacians had the glory of inflicting as well as suffering defeat: the armies of Parthia were all but set in motion by the fraud of a counterfeit Nero.

Now too Italy was prostrated by disasters either entirely novel, or that recurred only after a long succession of ages : cities in Cam pania's richest plains were swallowed up and overwhelmed : Rome was wasted by conflagrations, its oldest temples con sumed, and the Capitol itself fired by the hands of citizens. Sacred rites were profaned ; there was profligacy in the high est ranks ; the sea was crowded with exiles, and its rocks polluted with bloody deeds. In the capital there were yet greater horrors. Nobility, wealth, the refusal or the acceptance of office, were grounds for accusation, and virtue ensured destruction. The rewards of the informers were no less odious than their crimes; for while some seized on consul ships and priestly offices, as tlieir share of the spoil, others on procuratorships, and posts of more confidential authority, they robbed and ruined in every direction amid universal hatred and terror.

Slaves were bribed to turn against their masters, and freedmen to betray their patrons ; and those who had not an enemy were crushed through their friends. 3. Yet the age was not so barren in noble qualities, as EOOK I. not also to exhibit examples of virtue. Mothers accompanied the flight of their sons ; wives followed their husbands into exile ; there were brave kinsmen and faithful sons in law ; there were slaves whose fidelity defied even torture ; there were illustrious men driven to the last necessity, and enduring it with fortitude; there were closing scenes that equalled the famous deaths of antiquity. Besides the manifold vicissitudes of human affairs, there were prodigies in heaven and earth, the warning voices of the thunder, and other intima tions of the future, auspicious or gloomy, doubtful or not to be mistaken.

Never surely did more terrible calamities of the Roman People, or evidence more conclusive, prove that the Gods take no thought for our happiness, but only for our punishment. 4. I think it proper, however, before I commence my The state purposed work, to pass under review the condition of the°^_c capital, the temper of the armies, the attitude of the pro vinces, and the elements of weakness and strength that existed throughout the whole empire, that so we may become acquainted, not only with the vicissitudes and the issues of events, which are often matters of chance, but also with their relations and their causes. Welcome as the death of Nero State of had been in the first burst of joy, yet it had not only roused £0™3tn various emotions in Rome, among the Senators, the people, or the soldiery of the capital, it had also excited all the legions and their generals ; for now had been divulged that secret of the empire, that emperors could be made elsewhere than at Rome.