_Versare_. _To be constantly employed_ in increasing the fortune of themselves and others, agitated meanwhile by hope and fear.
_Securi_. Because they have nothing to lose.
_Illis_. Emphatic. _They_, unlike others, have no need, &c. Cf. _apud illos_, 44.
_In medium relinquam_. Leave for the public, i.e. undecided.
_Relinquere in medio_ is the more common expression. Botticher in his Lex. Tac. explains it, as equivalent by Zeugma to _in medium vocatum relinquam in medio_. So in Greek, _en_ and _eis_ often interchange.
AGRICOLA.
The Biography of Agricola was written early in the reign of Trajan (which commenced A.U.C. 851. A.D. 98), consequently about the same time with the Germania, though perhaps somewhat later (cf. notes on Germania). This date is established by inference from the author"s own language in the 3d and the 44th sections (see notes). In the former, he speaks of the dawn of a better day, which opened indeed with the reign of Nerva, but which is now brightening constantly under the auspices of Trajan. The use of the past tense (_miscuerit_) here in respect to Nerva, and of the present (_augeat_) in respect to Trajan, is quite conclusive evidence, that at the time of writing, the reign of Nerva was past, and that of Trajan had already begun.
The other pa.s.sage is, if possible, still more clearly demonstrative of the same date. Here in drawing the same contrast between past tyranny and present freedom, the author, without mentioning Nerva, records the desire and hope, which his father-in-law expressed in his hearing, that he might live to see Trajan elevated to the imperial throne--language very proper and courtly, if Trajan were already Emperor, but a very awkward compliment to Nerva, if, as many critics suppose, he were still the reigning prince.
It is objected to this date, that if Nerva were not still living, Tacitus could not have failed to attach to his name (in -- 3.) the epithet _Divus_, with which deceased Emperors were usually honored. And from the omission of this epithet in connection with the name of _Nerva_, together with the terms of honor in which _Trajan_ is mentioned, it is inferred that the piece was written in that brief period of three months, which intervened between the adoption of Trajan by Nerva, and Nerva"s death (see Brotier and many others). But the application of the epithet in question, was not a matter of necessity or of universal practice. Its omission in this case might have been accidental, or might have proceeded from unknown reasons. And the bare absence of a single word surely cannot be ent.i.tled to much weight, in comparison with the obvious and almost necessary import of the pa.s.sages just cited.
The primary object of the work is sufficiently obvious. It was to honor the memory of the writer"s excellent father-in-law, Agricola (cf. -- 3: honori Agricolae, mei soceri, destinatus). So far from apologizing for writing the life of so near a friend, he feels a.s.sured that his motives will be appreciated and his design approved, however imperfect may be its execution; and he deems an apology necessary for having so long delayed the performance of that filial duty. After an introduction of singular beauty and appropriateness (cf. notes), he sketches a brief outline of the parentage, education, and early life of Agricola, but draws out more at length the history of his consulship and command in Britain, of which the following summary, from Hume"s History of England, may not be unprofitable to the student in antic.i.p.ation: "Agricola was the general, who finally established the dominion of the Romans in this island. He governed it in the reigns of Vespasian, t.i.tus, and Domitian. He carried his victorious arms northward; defeated the Britons in every encounter, pierced into the forests and the mountains of Caledonia, reduced every state to subjection in the southern parts of the island, and chased before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than servitude under the victors. He defeated them in a decisive action which they fought under Galgacus; and having fixed a chain of garrisons between the friths of Clyde and Forth, he cut off the ruder and more barren parts of the island and secured the Roman province from the incursions of the more barbarous inhabitants. During these military enterprises, he neglected not the arts of peace. He introduced laws and civility among the Britons; taught them to desire and raise all the conveniences of life; reconciled them to the Roman language and manners; instructed them in letters and science; and employed every expedient to render those chains which he had forged both easy and agreeable to them." (His. of Eng. vol. 1.)
The history of Agricola during this period is of course the history of Britain. Accordingly the author prefaces it with an outline of the geographical features, the situation, soil, climate, productions and, so far as known to the Romans, the past history of the island. Tacitus possessed peculiar advantages for being the historian of the early Britons. His father-in-law was the first to subject the whole island to the sway of Rome. He traversed the country from south to north at the head of his armies, explored it with his own eyes, and reported what he saw to our author with his own lips. He saw the Britons too, in their native n.o.bleness, in their primitive love of liberty and virtue; before they had become the slaves of Roman arms, the dupes of Roman arts, or the victims of Roman vices. A few paragraphs in the concise and nervous style of Tacitus, have made us quite acquainted with the Britons, as Agricola found them; and on the whole, we have no reason to be ashamed of the primaeval inhabitants of the land of our ancestry. They knew their rights, they prized them, they fought for them bravely and died for them n.o.bly. More harmony among themselves might have delayed, but could not have prevented the final catastrophe. Rome in the age of Trajan was irresistible; and Britain became a Roman province. This portion of the Agricola of Tacitus, and the Germania of the same author, ent.i.tle him to the peculiar affection and lasting grat.i.tude of those, whose veins flow with Briton and Anglo-Saxon blood, as the historian, and the contemporary historian too, of their early fathers. It is a notable providence for us, nay it is a kind providence for mankind, that has thus preserved from the pen of the most sagacious and reflecting of all historians an account, too brief though it be, of the origin and antiquities of the people that of all others now exert the widest dominion whether in the political or the moral world, and that have made those countries which were in his day shrouded in darkness, the radiant points for the moral and spiritual illumination of our race. "The child is father to the man," and if we would at this day investigate the elements of English law, we have it on the authority of Sir William Blackstone, that we must trace them back to their founders in the customs of the Britons and Germans, as recorded by Caesar and Tacitus.
With the retirement of Agricola from the command in Britain, the author falls back more into the province of biography. The few occasional strokes, however, in which the pencil of Tacitus has sketched the character of Domitian in the background of the picture of Agricola are the more to be prized, because his history of that reign is lost.
In narrating the closing scenes of Agricola"s life, Tacitus breathes the very spirit of an affectionate son, without sacrificing the impartiality and gravity of the historian, and combines all a mourner"s simplicity and sincerity with all the orator"s dignity and eloquence.
How tenderly he dwells on the wisdom and goodness of his departed father; how artlessly he intersperses his own sympathies and regrets, even as if he were breathing out his sorrows amid a circle of sympathizing friends!
At the same time, how instructive are his reflections, how n.o.ble his sentiments, and how weighty his words, as if he were p.r.o.nouncing an eulogium in the hearing of the world and of posterity! The sad experience of the writer in the very troubles through which he follows Agricola, conspires with the affectionate remembrance of his own loss in the death of such a father, to give a tinge of melancholy to the whole biography; and we should not know where to look for the composition, in which so perfect a work of art is animated by so warm a heart. In both these respects, it is decidedly superior to the Germania. It is marked by the same depth of thought and conciseness in diction, but it is a higher effort of the writer, while, at the same time, it gives us more insight into the character of the man. It has less of satire and more of sentiment. Or if it is not richer in refined sentiments and beautiful reflections, they are interwoven with the narrative in a manner more easy and natural. The sentiments seem to be only the language of Agricola"s virtuous heart, and the reflections, we feel, could not fail to occur to such a mind in the contemplation of such a character. There is also more ease and flow in the language; for concise as it still is and studied as it may appear, it seems to be the very style which is best suited to the subject and most natural to the author. In another writer we might call it labored and ambitious. But we cannot feel that it cost Tacitus very much effort. Still less can we charge him with an attempt at display. In short, an air of confidence in the dignity of the subject, and in the powers of the author, pervades the entire structure of this fine specimen of biography. And the reader will not deem that confidence ill-grounded.
He cannot fail to regard this, as among the n.o.blest, if not the very n.o.blest monument ever reared to the memory of any individual.
"We find in it the flower of all the beauties, which T. has scattered through his other works. It is a chef-d"oeuvre, which satisfies at once the judgment and the fancy, the imagination and the heart. It is justly proposed as a model of historical eulogy. The praises bestowed have in them nothing vague or far-fetched, they rise from the simple facts of the narrative. Every thing produces attachment, every thing conveys instruction. The reader loves Agricola, admires him, conceives a pa.s.sion for him, accompanies him in his campaigns, shares in his disgrace and profits by his example. The interest goes on growing to the last. And when it seems incapable of further increase, pa.s.sages pathetic and sublime transport the soul out of itself, and leave it the power of feeling only to detest the tyrant, and to melt into tenderness without weakness over the destiny of the hero." (La Bletterie.)
I. _Usitatum_. A participle in the acc. agreeing with the preceding clause, and forming with that clause the object of the verb omisit.-- _Nequidem_. Cf. G. 6, note.
_Incuriosa suorum_. So Ann. 2, 88: dum vetera extollimus, recentium incuriosi. _Incuriosus_ is post-Augustan.
_Virtus vicit--vitium_. Alliteration, which is not unfrequent in T. as also h.o.m.oeoteleuta, words ending with like sounds. Dr.
_Ignorantiam--invidiam_. The gen. _recti_ limits both subs., which properly denote different faults, but since they are usually a.s.sociated, they are here spoken of as one (_vitium_).
_In aperto_. Literally, _in the open_ field or way; hence, _free from obstructions_. Sal. (Jug. 5) uses it for _in open_ day, or clear light.
But that sense would be inappropriate here. _Easy_. Not essentially different from _p.r.o.num_, which properly means _inclined_, and hence _easy_. These two words are brought together in like manner in other pa.s.sages of our author, cf. 33: vota virtusque _in aperto_, omniaque _p.r.o.na_ victoribus. An inelegant imitation may be thus expressed in English: down-hill and open-ground work.
_Sine gratia aut ambitione. Without courting favor or seeking preferment.
Gratia_ properly refers more to the present, _ambitio_ to the future. Cf.
Ann. 6, 46: Tiberio non perinde gratia praesentium, quam in posteros ambitio. _Ambitio_ is here used in a bad sense (as it is sometimes in Cic.) For still another bad sense of the word, cf. G. 27.
_Celeberrimus quisque_. Such men as Pliny the elder, Claudius Pollio, and Julius Secundus, wrote biographies. Also Rusticus and Senecio. See chap. 2.
_Plerique_. Not most persons, but _many_, or _very many_. Cf. His. 1, 86, and 4, 84, where it denotes a less number than _plures_ and _plurimi_, to which it is allied in its root (ple, ple-us, plus, plerus. See Freund ad v.)
_Suam ipsi vitam. Autobiography_. Cic. in his Epist. to Lucceius says: If I cannot obtain this favor from you, I shall perhaps be compelled to write my own biography, _multorum exemplo et clarorum virorum_. When _ipse_ is joined to a possessive p.r.o.noun in a reflexive clause, it takes the case of the subject of the clause. Cf. Z. 696, Note; H. 452, 1.
_Fiduciam morum_. _A mark of conscious integrity_; literally confidence of, i.e. in their morals. _Morum_ is objective gen. For the two accusatives (one of which however is the clause _suam--narrare_) after _arbitrati sunt_, see Z. 394; H. 373. A gen. may take the place of the latter acc., _esse_ being understood, Z. 448.
_Rutilio_. Rutilius Rufus, consul A.U.C. 649, whom Cic. (Brut. 30, 114.) names as a profound scholar in Greek literature and philosophy, and Velleius (2, 13, 2.) calls the best man, not merely of his own, but of any age. He wrote a Roman history in Greek. Plut. Mar. 28. His autobiography is mentioned only by Tacitus.
_Scauro_. M. Aemilius Scaurus, consul A.U.C. 639, who wrote an autobiography, which Cic. (Brut. 29, 112.) compares favorably with the Cyropaedia of Xenophon.
_Citra fidem_. Cf. note G. 16.--_Aut obtrectationi_. Enallage, cf. note, G. 15. Render: _This in the case of Rutilius and Scaurus did not impair_ (public) _confidence or incur_ (public) _censure_.
_Adeo_. _To such a degree_, or _so true it is_. _Adeo_ conclusiva, et in initio sententiae collocata, ad _mediam_ latinitatem pertinet. Dr. Livy uses _adeo_ in this way often; Cic. uses _tantum_.
_At nunc_, etc. _But now_ (in our age so different from those better days) _in undertaking to write_ (i.e. if I had undertaken to write) _the life of a man at the time of his death, I should have needed permission; which I would not have asked_, since in that case _I should have fallen on times so cruel and hostile to virtue_. The reference is particularly to the time of Domitian, whose jealousy perhaps occasioned the death of Agricola, and would have been offended by the very asking of permission to write his biography. Accordingly the historian proceeds in the next chapter to ill.u.s.trate the treatment, which the biographers of eminent men met with from that cruel tyrant. _Opus fuit_ stands instead of _opus fuisset_. Cf. His. 1, 16: _dignus eram_; 3, 22: _ratio fuit_; and Z. 518, 519. The concise mode of using the future participles _narraturo_ and _incursaturus_ (in place of the verb in the proper mood and with the proper conjunctions, if, when, since) belongs to the silver age, and is foreign to the language of Cicero. Such is the interpretation, which after a thorough reinvestigation, I am now inclined to apply to this much disputed pa.s.sage. It is that of Ritter. It will be seen that the text also differs slightly from that of the first edition (_in-cursaturus_ instead of _ni cursaturus_). Besides the authority of Rit., Dod., Freund and others, I have been influenced by a regard to the usage of Tacitus, which lends no sanction to a transitive sense of _cursare_. Cf. Ann. 15, 50; His. 5, 20. In many editions, _mihi_ stands before _nunc narraturo_.
But _nunc_ is the emphatic word, and should stand first, as it does in the best MSS.
II. _Legimus_. Quis? Tacitus ejusdemque aetatis homines alii. Ubi? In actis diurnis. Wr. These _journals_ (Fiske"s Man. p. 626., 4. ed.) published such events (cf. Dio. 67, 11), and were read through the empire (Ann. 16, 22). T. was absent from Rome when the events here referred to took place (cf. 45: longae absentiae). Hence the propriety of his saying _legimus_, rather than _vidimus_ or _meminimus_, which have been proposed as corrections.
_Aruleno Rustico_. Put to death by Domitian for writing a memoir or penegyric on Paetus Thrasea, cf. Suet. Dom. 10.
_Paetus Thrasea_. Cf. Ann. 16, 21: Trucidatis tot insignibus viris, ad postremum Nero _virtutem ipsam_ exscindere concupivit, interfecto Thrasea Paeto.
_Herennio Senecioni_. Cf. Plin. (Epist. 7, 19), where Senecio is said to have written the life of Helvidius at the request of Fannia, wife of Helvidius, who was also banished, as accessory to the crime, but who bore into exile the very books which had been the cause of her exile. For the dat. cf. note, G. 3: _Ulixi_.
_Priscus Helvidius_, son-in-law of Thrasea and friend of the younger Pliny, was put to death by Vespasian. Suet. Vesp. 15; His. 4, 5; Juv.
Sat. 5, 36.
_Laudati essent_. The imp. and plup. subj. are used in narration after _c.u.m_, even when it denotes time merely. Here however a causal connection is also intended. H. 518, II.; Z. 577, 578.
_Triumviris_. The Triumviri at Rome, like the Undecimviri (_oi endeka_) at Athens, had charge of the prisons and executions, for which purpose they had eight lictors at their command.
_Comitio ac foro_. The comitium was a _part_ of the forum. Yet the words are often used together (cf. Suet. Caes. 10). The _comitium_ was the proper place for the punishment of criminals, and the word _forum_ suggests the further idea of the publicity of the book-burning in the presence of the a.s.sembled people.
_Conscientiam_, etc. _The consciousness_, i.e. _common knowledge of mankind_; for _conscientia_ denotes what one knows in common with others, as well as what he is conscious of in himself. Cf. His. 1, 25: _conscientiam facinoris_; Cic. Cat. 1. 1: _omnium horum conscientia_. In his Annals (4, 35), T. ridicules the stupidity of those who expect by any _present_ power, to extinguish the memory also of the _next_ generation.
The sentiment of both pa.s.sages is just and fine.
_Sapientiae professoribus. Philosophers_, who were banished by Domitian, A.D. 94, on the occasion of Rusticus"s panegyric on Thrasea. T. not unfrequently introduces an _additional circ.u.mstance_ by the abl. abs., as here.
_Ne occurreret. Ne_ with the subj. expresses a negative intention; _ut non_ a negative result. H. 490; Z. 532.
_Inquisitiones. A system of espionage_, sc. by the Emperor"s tools and informers.--_Et_==etiam, _even_. Cf. note, 11. Al. _etiam_.
_Memoriam--perdidissemus_, i.e. we should not have _dared_ to remember, if we could have helped it.