The Master’s Touch – Cornelius Tacitus

 

I.

Except for his spell as a quartermaster, Tacitus (42/56 – 117 AD.) was a civilian – the soldiers he came in contact with were mostly veterans on leave, a haughty lot, stomping by in hordes, shouldering the pedestrians into the gutter. An early memory may have been the victory celebrations over the Parthians in 58 AD. He certainly remembered the second Parthian invasion from 62 AD. It came at the worst possible time.

The regime had concerns about the corn supply from Egypt and the current budget deficit, since the currency had been put on a new footing while Nero’s ministers shook up the civil service and handed out impeachments against corrupt magistrates. Nero even moved to abolish indirect taxes altogether. It speaks for the quality and competence of Nero’s cabinet that the political crisis was resolved without firing a single shot. A masterpiece of diplomacy secured the situation for 51 years. Tacitus was perhaps nineteen or twenty when Rome went up in flames on July 18, 64 AD. The cause may have been a domestic fire, but the angered mob called for a scape goat and the regime prosecuted a group of sectarian radicals for arson. Only later, much later – even the church historian Eusebius (275 – 339 AD.) was blissfully unaware of Tacitus’ Annals – Christian apologists alleged that these sectarians were Christians and had been persecuted for their faith. Nero was declared to be the anti-Christ.

In 65 AD., Senator Piso became the head of a conspiracy against the regime. During the interrogations of suspected accessories, Tacitus, the son of an equestrian family with connections to the Senate, got a first taste of what it means to live in a climate of suspicion and mutual recriminations. The experience left a mark on Tacitus, instilling a habitual distrust for the men in the purple, especially during the difficult days under Emperor Domitian. Tacitus could never bring himself to write anything about a current emperor, not even in the reign of Emperor Trajan, the "optimus," the best of rulers, when he professed to enjoy this “rare happiness of times, when we may think what we please and express what we think.” He knew, this happiness came for a price.

Emperor Trajan was no less of an autocrat than Domitian, but with infinitely better people skills. This most powerful, and perhaps even most humane, of all emperors ran his office as a never ending election campaign. He didn’t need anybody’s consent, but he made sure he had it anyway, and that it was the consent of the majority.

His awareness of security issues went to extraordinary lengths. In one instance Trajan prohibited even the installation of a much needed professional fire brigade in a provincial town (Pliny the younger, Letters), because it could become a gathering point for political rallies. Rome did not acknowledge a right to freely assemble or demonstrate in the streets with “Romani ite domum” – "Romans go home!" – written on the banners. The near disastrous campaign into Iraq has to be seen under this aspect as well. It was as much a propaganda campaign as it was an armed invasion. Together with the usual pay raises, Trajan rewrote the military training manual and introduced improvements in the military equipment. He also introduced public pension schemes for war widows and war orphans. Obviously this could only tighten the bond between the army and the supreme commander. Less conspicuous but of even greater constitutional import was, how Trajan peace meal pruned the Senate’s prerogatives. Positions in the civil service, that should have been assigned to a senator, ever more frequently were filled by professionals from the emperor’s personal staff. For the first time, the budgets of the municipal administration was subjected to imperial auditioning. A new type of public servant emerged, accountable only to the imperial bureau.

All this was implemented with impeccable courtesy and kindness, the Senate was left to debate every motion and the House virtually voted itself out of its privileges while the political master tactician on the throne presented himself to the public as a simple soldier and model husband to a model wife. A grateful public pretended not to notice that Pomeia Plotina and Trajan exchanged their tokens of domestic affection only in public. In the streets it was an open secret, that at home the emperor was far too occupied with his harem of adolescent boys, to pay much attention to his wife.

Emperor Trajan’s actual policies followed the political blueprint laid out by Domitian to a “T.” Although never condoning the predecessor’s conduct, the emperor made sure that Domitian’s assassins were brought to book. Even for Nero he had a good word: “If Nero had had the decency to die after the first six years of his rule, his regime would be remembered as the Golden Age of the empire.” It is easy to forget, that despite of Emperor Nero’s demise and the turbulent aftermath, the continuity of the empire was largely preserved by Nero’s civil service, a very efficient and widely popular administration. The names of key figures from Nero’s list of appointments appear in the records well until the reign of Emperor Hadrian. If the Annals were our only source for Nero, this emperor’s actual popularity would remain an inconceivable mystery. For the poor in Rome and for the provincials in Greece, Nero had become something of a saint; centuries later St. Augustine still saw people laying down flowers at the spot of Nero’s alleged suicide. Lucius Flavius Philostratus (170 – 247), the author of Apollonius of Tyana’s biography, wrote: “The fact is, Nero restored the liberties of Hellas with a wisdom and moderation quite alien to his character; and the cities regained their Doric and Attic characteristics, and a general rejuvenescence accompanied the institution among them of a peace and harmony such as not even ancient Hellas ever enjoyed. Emperor Vespasian, however, on his arrival in the country took away her liberty, alleging their factiousness with other pretexts hardly justifying such extreme severity.” Not everybody would agree.

Emperor Augustus’ constitutional settlement from 23 BC. had assigned Greece to the Senate as a proconsular province. A representative of the senate, such as Tacitus, was more likely to censor Nero for taking away the senatorial franchise, although it was popular with the people, and would give Emperor Vespasian the thumbs-up for restoring it. In the House, the old liberties of a province were on nobody’s mind. We realize that the antagonism between the senate and the man wearing the purple, made the Roman emperor the speaker of the people against the big interests. Since Trajan’s accession, one could become a senator only by appointment, a minimum of 1,2 million sesterces in personal assets was required to qualify for the position. In modern terms, the Roman senate was the legislative assembly, the supreme court and the stock exchange, all rolled in one. It was the senate’s prerogative, however, to bestow on a new emperor the “tribunicia potestas,” the absolute veto power. Usually this would lead to considerable arm-twisting and months of negotiations, before the new emperor could rest secured in the full array of his authority. When the terminally ill Emperor Nerva – himself a senator before he had acceded – appointed a popular colonel from the province, a certain Trajan, as his colleague and successor, it was smiles all around, but the seasoned Tacitus couldn’t help noticing where all this was heading to.

We know very little about Cornelius Tacitus, not even his first name is certain. He and his close friend Pliny the younger were both provincials of considerable means who owed their fortunes to the Flavian emperors. In 78 AD. Tacitus married the daughter of the senator Gnaeus Julius Agricola from the province of Gallia Narbonensis. Tacitus himself may have been of Celtic origin.

In the textbooks Tacitus’ conjectural year of birth is generally given as 52 or 56 AD. and is vaguely based on the age of Tacitus’ friend Pliny the younger who in his letters refers to Tacitus as an older friend. However in the Histories Tacitus himself gives us a pretty precise date for his birth. After the young man had arrived in the capital to seek his fortune at the bar, he had set foot on the lowest rung of the ‘cursus honorum’ – public service – under Emperor Vespasian. “I cannot deny that I originally owed my position to Vespasian, or that I was advanced by Titus and still further promoted by Domitian” ("dignitatem nostram a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domitiano longius provectam") (Histories I:1), he says.

Tacitus became ‘quaestor’ (officer of the exchequer), then in 88 AD. was made ‘praetor’ (police commissioner) of a suburb. Short after he donned the robe of a ‘quindecemir,’ and became augur of the Sybelline books. Between 89 and 93 AD. Tacitus served as a quartermaster in the legion. The Lex Villia Annalis was not always observed, but generally determined the legal age of a candidate for office. This means Tacitus could not have filled the office of quaestor before he’d reached the age of 31 and when he was “advanced by Titus” in the two years between 79 and 81 AD. he must have reached the age of 36 or 37 to become ‘aedile,’ a superintendent of public works. This moves his year of birth down to 44 or 42 AD. It also implies that advanced age must have put a tight schedule on his writing when changes in the political climate allowed him to openly publish under the emperors Nerva (96 – 98 AD.), Trajan (98 – 117 AD.) and Hadrian (117 – 138 AD.). In his commentary on Zecharia, St. Jerome is telling us that the Histories was comprised in “thirty books.” Of these, less than five completed books have reached us. That gives us an idea of the size of this work. It must have been a huge tome and one can only wonder where Tacitus ever found the time to write the Annals? In fact why should he have bothered? According to his own testimony all the remarkable events from the founding of Rome to the age of Emperor Nero had been recorded by many historians “with equal eloquence and liberty” and Tacitus gives this as a reason why he commenced his narrative with the accession of Emperor Servius Galba. So it should really not come as a surprise when there is not a single ancient testimony for the existence of what is now known as Tacitus’ Annals. Instead Fulgentius, the Bishop of Carthage, speaks of a now lost “Book of pleasing Anecdotes” – Facetiae – perhaps a product of idle hours before the accession of Emperor Nerva.

In the monograph about his father in law, Tacitus expresses a deep resentment against the micromanaging Emperor Domitian and his bloodstained despotism. A public servant who wished to advance his fortunes – and Tacitus did advance – could not do so without a certain elasticity in his spine. Tacitus came out of it with self-loathing and cynicism. His resentment may also have contained a drop of envy. Pliny speaks of Tacitus' lifelong passion for hunting and the outdoors. Emperor Domitian, this urban bureaucrat who inspected his armies from a sedan chair, was known as a great archer and could bring down his quarry “with two successive arrows so dexterously placed in the head, as to resemble horns” (Sueton, Domitian).

However it would be misguided to see in Tacitus merely the conservative proponent of the old republican liberties: “The passion for power ingrained in the human race matured with the growth of the empire. When still living in narrow confines, equality was easily preserved among us. But once we had the world at our feet and no other state or king could rival us, we were left free to play the game of power without fear of interruption. It was at this point when patricians and plebeians went for each other’s jugular and tribunes took turns with the consuls in the assumption of unconstitutional powers. It was on the forum where the seeds of civil war were sown. By force of arms, Marius, rising from the dregs of the mob, and Sulla, the most ruthless of the nobles, established dominium over our liberties. Then came Cn. Pompeius, whose aims, though apparent, were no better than theirs. Supreme power in the state became the sole objective. Even at Pharsalia and Philippi the armies formed of Roman citizens would not lay down their arms. How then can we suppose that the troops of Otho and Vitellius should have willingly stopped the war? The same anger of heaven, the same human passions, the same criminal motives, the same discord. True, these wars were settled on a single blow, but that was due more to lack of energy by the generals.” (Histories). Tacitus might have been many things but he certainly was not naive. He knew that the person demanding security will accept the power to be, and the one who is providing, or promising to provide security, will be the one exerting this power.

II.

At some point almost everybody has his moment of fatigue, growing tired of all this litigious hub-hub of commitments, enquiries and petitioning, even of the right to vote and pressing charges, that goes with the exercise of our freedom. It is just becoming too much. We want to be left alone and eat our supper under the pergola in peace and quiet. As a Chinese once said to me, “what business is it of these elderly ladies in England to get engaged in the rescue of stray dogs, don’t they have a home and a family to cook for?” It takes a politician to identify politics with living; the rest of us rather prefer having a life.

Under Emperor Nerva, Tacitus became the appointed suffect consul – the speaker of the house – the highest office and the pinnacle of his career, after which he retired from public service except for the occasional appointment at the bar. In 100 AD. he teamed up with Pliny the younger and prosecuted Marius Priscus, the governor of North Africa on charges of corruption with "all the majesty which characterizes his style of oratory" (Pliny, Letters II:11). Finally he had the time and opportunity to sit down and write freely about the year 69 – the year of the four emperors – and the period of Flavian despotism until the death of Emperor Domitian in 96 AD.: “I propose to begin my narrative with the second consulship of Servius Galba, in which Titus Vinius was his colleague. Many historians have dealt with the times since the beginning of Rome, and the story of the Roman Republic has been told with ability and truth. After the Battle of Actium and the centralization of all authority in one hand, there followed a dearth of literary ability, which at the same time suffered from the ignorance of politics. It was no longer a citizen's concern, instead a taste grew for flattery and hatred of the ruling house. So torn between malice and servility, the historians find that a tone of flattery soon earns them contempt, whereas people readily listen to the voice of envy, since malice makes a show of independence” (Histories). The man had a story to tell, “rich in vicissitudes, of grim warfare, torn by civil strife, a tale of horror even during times of peace. It tells of four emperors slain by the sword, three civil wars, an even larger number of foreign wars and some that were both at once; of successes in the East, disaster in the West, disturbance in Illyricum, disaffection in the provinces of Gaul, the conquest of Britain and its immediate loss, the uprising of the Sarmatian and Suebic tribes. It tells how Dacia came to blows with Rome, and how a pretender claiming to be Nero almost deluded the Parthians into declaring war. Even Italy, too, was smitten with disaster, calamities it had not witnessed for the longest time.”

“The rich towns at the seaboard of Campania were submerged or buried. Swarms of exiles floated on the sea, and the shores and cliffs of the islands were red with blood. The capital was devastated by fires, ancient temples turned to rubble, and the Capitol itself went up in flames by Roman hands. Sacred rites were grossly profaned, and there were scandals in high places. To be rich or well-born was a crime; men were prosecuted for holding or for refusing office, merit of any kind meant certain ruin. The minions of the secret police were hated either for their crimes or for their spoils; some carried off a priesthood or the consulship (sic!), others won offices and influence in the imperial household, everywhere life was in disarray. Slaves took bribes to betray their masters, freedmen reported on their patrons. If a man had no enemies, his friends were sure to come to his ruin. And yet, the period was not utterly barren of merits, heroism did occur. Mothers followed their sons into exile, and wives went with their husbands. Kinsmen acted with courage and sons-in-law with devotion, faithful slaves would not be broken, even on the rack. Men of distinction faced atrocities with courage and their death equaled the examples of history. There were portents in the sky and on the earth, thunderbolts and premonitions. Surely, never proved the calamity of the Roman people more conclusive that the immortals care not for our happiness, and only think to punish us” (Histories).

Then Tacitus is setting the stage: “Before I commence my task, it seems best to go back and consider the state of affairs in the city, the temper of the armies, the condition of the provinces, and to determine the strengths and weaknesses in different parts of the Roman world. By this we may see not only the actual course of events, which is largely governed by chance (sic!), but also why and how they occurred” (Histories). One should think Tacitus, the ex-quartermaster, will now continue with statistics, details and data. Instead he gives us the newsreel.

“In the meantime from a trifling cause and completely unexpected a riot broke out and nearly ended in the destruction of Rome. Otho had given orders to summon the 17th cohort from the colony of Ostia, and Varius Crispinus, a tribune of the guards, was instructed to provide them with arms. The tribune, anxious to carry out his instructions undisturbed while the camp was quiet, had the arsenal opened and the cohort's wagons loaded after nightfall. The hour aroused suspicion; the motive was questioned; his choice of a quiet moment resulted in an uproar. The mere sight of swords made the drunken soldiers long to use them. They began to accuse their officers of treachery, that the senators' slaves were going to be armed against Otho. Some were too drunk to know what they were saying, but they were not drunken enough to miss a chance for plunder. Most of the others, as usual, were simply eager for a change; who remained loyal waited in vein for orders in the confusion of darkness.”

“When Crispinus tried to check them, the mutineers killed him together with the most determined of the centurions, seized their armour, bared their swords, and mounting the horses, made off at full speed for Rome and the palace. It so happened that a large party of Roman senators and their wives was dining with Otho. The news of the soldiers' outbreak made them wonder whether it was a ruse of the emperor's: would it be safer to flee or to stay and be arrested? They were watching Otho's face, and, as happens when people suspect each other, he was just as afraid himself as they were of him. He promptly dispatched the prefects of the Guards to appease the anger of the troops, and told all his guests to leave immediately. On all sides Roman officials could be seen to throw away their insignia, avoid their suite, and slink off unattended. Old gentlemen and their wives wandered aimless through the unlit streets. Few went home, most of them fled to friends, or sought an obscure refuge with the humblest of their retainers. The soldiers' onrush didn’t stop at the gates of the palace. They demanded to see Otho and invaded the banquet-hall. Julius Martialis, a tribune of the Guards, and Vitellius Saturninus, the commander of the legion’s camp, were wounded trying to hold them off. Swords were brandished and threats hurled against the officers and the whole senate; and since the mob’s wrath couldn’t select any one victim, in a blind frenzy of panic they clamored for a free hand against all the senators. At last Otho letting go of all dignity, stood up on a couch and restrained the rabble with prayers and tears. They returned to their camp unwilling, and with a guilty conscience” (Histories).

So this is the famous Roman army? How could such ill disciplined and loquacious rabble ever have conquered the world? The author continues with psychological insight: “The next day Rome was like a captured city. The houses were shut, the streets deserted, and everybody looking downcast. The soldiers, too, hung their heads, though they were more sulky than sorry for what they had done. Their officers harangued them by companies, some mild, some harsh. They announced to the men a donative of 5,000 sesterces, 180 for each. Only then Otho ventured to enter the camp.”

“The tribunes and centurions flung away the insignia of rank and crowded him begging for a safe discharge. Stung by the disgrace of this – or perhaps out of a sense of abandon – the troops fell quiet, and voices were heard that the ringleaders should be punished. Otho's position was difficult. The soldiers were by no means unanimous. The better sort wanted him to put a stop to the prevalent insubordination, but the great bulk of them liked to see emperors court their favour, and the prospect of riot and plunder, even of civil war. Otho appreciated that a throne won by violence cannot be kept by suddenly enforcing the rigid discipline of earlier days. He was alarmed by the danger for the capital and the senate. To clamor for the destruction of what is the head of the empire, good God,” Otho said in his address to the camp, “not even those Germans whom Vitellus has roused to be sent against us, would dare to do so” (Histories). We hear a voice addressing the soldiery, but Tacitus’ camera angle doesn’t allow for isolating close ups.

The hum and jostle of sometimes blurred figures mobbing the background never ceases, the camera is positioned in the middle of the action and buffeted by the jostling crowd, very different from reading the work of a younger colleague of Tacitus, the historian Suetonius (69 – 122 AD.).

With Suetonius it is like stepping into a room with the windows wide open and the sun shining bright. He gives us an unforgettable mug-shot of Nero: A man of average height with a bad smelling and pustular body; his features “pretty rather than handsome,” the hair flax-blond, the eyes rather dullish blue, the head sitting squat on a plump nape. We can visualize the word picture. It reminds of the verbal snapshots in the warrants for the apprehension of fugitive slaves: “On the 25th of Epiphi a servant of Aristogenes has escaped. His name is Hermon, otherwise Nilus: by race a Syrian of Bambyce, age about 18 years, of medium height, beardless, straight-legged, with a dimple on the chin, a mole on the left of his nose, a scar above the left angle of his mouth; tattooed on the right wrist with foreign characters. He has with him a string-purse with 3 mina of gold. Whoever brings back this fellow shall receive 2 talents of brass. If he is denounced after having reached the asylum of a sanctuary, one talent; if shown to be in the hands of a solvent and responsible person, 3 talents. Information may be given by anyone to the chief magistrate’s officers. His companion in flight is Bion, a slave of Callicrates, the court’s councillor: short of stature, broad shouldered, bowlegged, grey eyed. He also has gone off with a cloak and a child’s jacket and a woman’s toilett case worth 6 talents. Whosoever brings him back shall receive the same amount as for the above named. Information concerning him to be given as well at the chief magistrate’s chancery.”

Now compare Tacitus. He obviously has a problem with physical appearances. Even in the obituary for his father in law, all he manages to get across is a faceless figure, fading away in a distant crowd; a walking coat-hanger for the regalia of his rank, and mind you, this was meant to be an homage and an epitaph! But who knows, there could be an explanation for such inaptitude. Maybe this author had impaired eyesight, an astigmatism, easily corrected today but untreatable in the first century. Tacitus does have stupendous powers of style and psychological insight, but it often plays out in a blur of faceless silhouettes.

Knowing his shortcoming, it looks as if the author is trying to compensate by making his protagonists exist only through the interaction with other figures. Nobody is permitted to be alone by himself, not even in his death: “When the city was taken, Vitellius left the Palace by a rear entrance and was carried in a litter to his wife's house on the Aventine. If he could lie low during the day, he hoped to make his escape to his brother and the guards at Tarracina. He suddenly changed his mind and returned to the deserted palace, where even the lowest of his attendants had fled, or avoided meeting him. Feeling chills, he wandered about the solitude and hushed silence of the vast place, opened closed doors, only to be terrified by another empty room; until at last, exhausted, he crept into some hiding-place. There Julius Placidus, an officer of the guards, found him and dragged him out. His hands were tied behind his back, his clothes were torn, and thus he was led forth. Many hurled insults and no one shed a single tear of pity. On the way a soldier of the German army either aimed an angry blow at him, or tried to put him out of his misery, instead he cut off the officer's ear and was immediately dispatched. On the points of their swords they made Vitellius hold up his head and face their insults, and watch his own statues torn down. He looked at the Rostra and the spot where Galba had been killed. At last he was dragged along to where the body of Flavius Sabinus had lain. Yet his spirit was not entirely broken and he answered to the insults of an officer: 'And yet I was once your emperor.' After that he expired from his wounds, and the mob abused the dead as they had flattered the living, both with as little reason” (Histories).

His epitaph for Vitellus is not lacking in sympathy: “Still he had the qualities of candor and generosity, which without moderation are liable to prove disastrous. Believing that friendship can be bought rather than earned by consistency of character, he deserved more of it than he secured. And although “it was indubitably good for the country that Vitellius should be beaten, those who betrayed him to Vespasian can hardly make a merit of their perfidy, for they were the very men who had deserted Galba for Vitellius” (Histories). As former augur and connoisseur of the Sybellines, Tacitus must have taken a professional interest in the fabric of what Thomas Wolfe called “the secret weavings of dark chance that threads our million lives into strange purposes” (Of Time and the River). In our day and age, we rather prefer speaking of the ‘butterfly effect:’ And so two common soldiers took it upon them to transfer the Roman Empire: and they did,” Tacitus noted, “the secret is out – Emperors can be made in places other than Rome.” (Histories). On the other hand one wonders whether this one-time-prelate (quindecemir) and speaker of a desperate opposition, could really have believed in the prognostic powers of the Sybelline books.

Every author worth his salt is of course interested in what makes people tick. Before the advent of modern advertising and PR, ancient oratory was the most sophisticated methodology of influencing and manipulating people. It would be arrogant to think that a man trained in the arts of persuasion could be lacking in psychological expertise.

Even the wandering bard of the Iliad had already been able to conceptualized the psychology of his cast and presented it as a sequence of discontinuous but recurring stimuli and appetites. Tacitus knew nothing of a “super ego,” of an “id,” of “introverts” or “extroverts,” but his training had provided him with a solid conceptualization in the form of Hippocrates’ four temperaments. Coming to think of it, how little has changed. We use different labels but still the old typology. In an age when the press still had to discover how to mint gold from other people's misery, Tacitus was already fully aware that “the public is always ready to believe any news, provided it is bad” (Histories). So he recorded with a certain glee that “various portents vouched for by many witnesses gave cause to alarm. In the Capitoline Square, it was said, the figure of Victory had dropped the reins of her chariot from her hands; a ghost of superhuman size had suddenly burst out of the chapel of Juno; a statue of the Divine Julius on the island in the Tiber had, on a fine, still day, turned round from the west and faced the east; an ox had spoken in Etruria; animals had given birth to strange monsters” (Histories). Which is followed by a remark typical for Tacitus’ sarcasm: “There were many stories of such occurrences, which in a more primitive age had been observed even in time of peace. Now we only hear of them in times of panic.” As an illustration he offers this example: “But the greatest damage at the moment, and the greatest alarm for the future, was caused by a sudden rising of the Tiber. It carried away the bridges and its current, being stemmed by the debris, flooded not only the flat, low-lying portions of the city, but also districts that had seemed safe from inundation. People were swept away in the streets and visited by the flood in the shops or in their beds at home. It caused a famine, and the poor were deprived of their means of livelihood. Blocks of flats, the foundations of which had rotted in the standing water, collapsed when the river sank. When the panic subsided it was found that the route for Otho’s expedition over the Martian Plain and up the Flaminian Road was blocked. Though probably caused by chance, or the course of Nature, this mishap was turned into a miraculous omen of impending disaster” (Histories).

An other nugget about human nature is something the proponents of “positive thinking” never take to heart, although it plays out in plain sight on their rallies and TV shows at the very moment of the announcement: “With every fresh piece of news that rumor carried into the crowd, men's feelings and the expression on their faces changed. They were afraid to be found lacking in confidence when things looked doubtful, or in joy when they went well for Otho” (Histories).

Not a single word may have dropped from Tacitus’ pen by accident. By comparison, the younger Suetonius doesn’t seem interested in rhetorical effects, he tries, simply, letting the facts speak for themselves. Reading Tacitus is like rising from the sleep to feel the damp of a nippy morning on your face, reminding you, that you’ve left your house too early.

It is a considered effect; and we know of course, the right choice of the ‘mot juste’ can be enormously effective: “Down the shining tracks a half mile away, the black snout of the locomotive swung slowly round the menacing bend of the rails” (Of Time and the River). “Menacing,” where did this come from? It is the perfect word to depict the unconcerned power of a railway track baking under the sun and it makes us see the “clumped dusty autumn masses of the trees that bordered the track upon the left,” smell the “thick exciting hot tarred caulking of the tracks, the dry warmth and good worn wooden smell of the powerful railway ties,” and look at the “dull rusty red, the gaping emptiness and joy of a fright car” (Of Time and the River). A majestic performance but in the case of Thomas Wolfe I don’t feel it amounting to anything. A garland of purple patches illustrating trite people doing trite things. Wolfe is very good at provoking in the reader an emotional responses to often beautifully presented perceptions of characters involved in activities not really worth knowing. And that is clearly the writer’s fault: his first and foremost task should be to keep us interested in his story, not in the subtleties of his syntax. All things considered, one must agree with Jorge Luis Borges, that “the perfect page, the page in which not a word can be altered without harm is the most precarious of all. Changes in language erase shades of meaning and the “perfect” page is precisely the one that consists of those delicate fringes that are so easily worn away. The page that becomes immortal, on the other hand, can traverse the purgatory of typographical errors, paraphrasing translations, and inattentive or erroneous readings without losing its soul in the process. I do not wish to foment negligence, nor do I believe in a mystical virtue of the awkward locution and the shoddy epithet, but genuine literature is as indifferent to the rough hewn phrase as it is to a smooth sentence” (The superstitious Ethics of the Reader). In other words, there is no such thing as “good style” without substance. Only the exceptional writer will give us the best of both worlds:

“On that day there was no one so indifferent to the tragedy of human life as to be unmoved by this spectacle. A Roman emperor, yesterday still master of the inhabited world, left the seat of his authority, and was now passing through the streets of the city, through the crowding populace, quitting the throne. Such a sight had never been seen or heard of before. The dictator, Caesar, had been the victim of sudden violence; Caligula of a secret conspiracy.”

“Nero's attempted escape to some obscure country house under cover of night. Piso and Galba could be said to have fallen on the field of battle. But here was Vitellius, before the assembly of his own people, with his own soldiers protecting him, with women looking on, when he uttered a few suitable words expressive of his misery. He said it was in the interest of peace and of his country that he now resigned. He begged them to retain his memory in their hearts and to take pity on his brother, his wife, and his little innocent children. As he said this, he held out his son to them and commended him to the care of the odd individual and to the whole assembly. At last tears choked his voice. Turning to the consul, Caecilius Simplex, he un-strapped his dagger and offered to surrender it as a symbol of his power over the life and death of his subjects. The consul refused. The people in the assembly shouted 'No'. So he left them with the intention of depositing the regalia in the Temple of Concord and then going to his brother's house. But he was faced with a still louder uproar. They refused to let him enter a private house, and shouted to him to return to the palace. They blocked every other road and only left open the way to the Via Sacra. Not knowing what else to do, Vitellius returned to the palace” (Histories).

III.

In a curiously myopic way the great Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) has applauded Tacitus for, what I feel, all the wrong reasons: “There are in Tacitus more precepts than stories, Montaigne says, “it’s not a book to read, it’s a book to study and learn, full of sententious opinions, whether right or wrong, a nursery of ethics and political discourse for the use and ornament of those who govern.” Clearly the essayist has completely missed Tacitus’ greatest forte, his stupendous power as a storyteller. Or did he? Montaigne’s apropos regarding the Annals leaves something niggling underneath, something, I couldn’t lay my finger on for the longest time: “His pen seems most proper for a troubled and sick state as ours; you can’t help realizing it is us he paints and pinches across the ages.” Oh really? (By “us” meaning of course the people of the 16th century.)

Even great admirers of Tacitus haven’t failed to recognize that “in comparison to the Historiae, the Annales are rather less fluid and more incongruous.” As a critic has put it: “The verbal forms lack harmony, there are many violent metaphors and audacious uses of personification, otherwise without parallel in Tacitus’ work. The author of the Annals often uses poetic styles, especially that of Virgil (sic!). For example, the description of Germanicus’ foray onto the field of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in search of the destroyed legions of Varus follows the style of Virgil's description of Aeneas’ descent into the underworld. The style is shifting throughout the work. From the 13th book on, Tacitus uses a more traditional method, closer to the fundamentals of the classic style. The writing becomes richer, more elevated, less concise, less sharp, and less insinuating. In choosing between synonyms, Tacitus changes from the use of selected and decorative expressions to the use of more normal and more moderate expressions. The occasional carelessness in the 15th and 16th books has led some to the opinion that the available editions of these books were not the final revision, but an earlier draft.”

That, however, would be unusual indeed. To publish anything incomplete was not a common practice in the second century, although some manuscripts had been published without much editing, like the collection of letters Cicero had written to his banker.

The Annals are unusually devoted to biographical presentation, unusual not when held against the work of Tacitus’ younger colleagues, such as Suetonius and Plutarch, but unusual when held against Tacitus himself. Even the Agricola is less a study of the protagonist’s character, than a history of events in which General Agricola was the leading cast. Tacitus, although a man of deep psychological insight, is not much of an psychoanalyst, he rather prefers showing the mind in action and how this is affecting the surrounding world. Hero-worship is not his cup of tea, but writing biography was the bread and butter for Sueton and Plutarch; in Tacitus’ old age the public began developing a new taste for the moral example. After all, this also was the age where the gospels had emerged.

Before 1469, we can find the not infrequent reference to the Histories, but not a single specific mentioning of the Annals. Sulpicius Severus in 420 AD. seems to give us a quotation, but the passage is clearly a paraphrase, written in much better Latin than the “original,” and without actually mentioning the Annals as the source. There is also the monk Rudolphus of Fulda, whose now lost testimony from the 9th century seems to testify for at least a fleeting acquaintance with a manuscript containing the two first books of the Annals. Then there is a long silence and only from the 16th century onward the commentaries on Tacitus’ Annals suddenly proliferate, keeping the aficionados intrigued ever since. The Latin in the Annals doesn’t always make sense, the sentences are punctured with lacunae, and some of these omissions seemed already present in the manuscript Rudolphus had before him. The problem is made worse by copyists in the 15th century, who thought they knew how to improve the Latin of the original and actually made it worse. Nothing unusual for the history of a manuscript and modern editions have a large critical apparatus, explaining why the editors chose to reconstruct the text in the way they did. If the tradition of a manuscript is bad, half of the page may be filled with a snowstorm of alternative readings and suggestions in small print.

But what is one to think when the eminent expert on Tacitus, Tony Woodman, identifies a battle in the Annals, that Tacitus had “copied from himself” at another point in this historical account? It is because of the Annals, that Tacitus the military writer is held in low esteem, undeserved as everybody can tell who read the Histories and the Agricola. Tacitus has a way to involve the reader in his battle descriptions; we march with the first line, see the enemy falling back, but orders arrive not to rush forward and instead hold the position, because the general “recognizes the enemy’s stratagem” (Histories). (After Hannibal had annihilated an entire Roman army rushing into his trap, Canae had become textbook in the Roman military manual.)

Archaeology is not always helpful and can be misleading if the findings are arranged to fit a preconception. In Britain, well up to 1984, Tacitus’ father in law became the second best known Roman known to the British people, thanks to a relentless presentation of findings supposed to confirm Tacitus’ Agricola. Context was something that happened only to Tacitus, but not on site. Since then, more exacting standards in carbon dating and dendrochronology, the old standbys of numismatic and pottery, and the whole gamut of new forensic tools have lifted the bar. We now know that there was a past before the events in his monograph, which Tacitus had elected to ignore in order to heighten the coloring of his hero. This doesn’t make Tacitus – as the churchfather Tertulian would have it – “most loquacious in falsehood.'' In his own introduction to the Agricola, Tacitus praises the good old times when good men did great deeds and then wrote about them, while under Domitian to do so could lead to charges of treason. He therefore is going to provide the biography of a good man who was condemned to silence about his accomplishments in bad times. And since it is meant to be an achiever's record, Tacitus does not refrain from shifting the actual order of events, when it serves his purpose.

From the historian Cassius Dio’s report, we know that Agricola was governor in Britain, that he fought battles and that he circumnavigated Britain, proving that it was an island, and that for this reason Titus accepted his 15th acclamation as imperator in 79 AD. Tacitus, too, mentions the circumnavigation of Britain, but he moves it to the end of Agricola’s term as the crowning achievement and in parallel to the decisive victory at Mons Graupius in 83/84 AD. By then Domitian was already emperor. So by shifting the date and order of events, Tacitus created a suitably happy ending to a successful career, with a suspicious emperor frowning at the scene.

Compared with the accounts by Suetonius, Velleius Paterculus, Lucius Annaeus Florus und Cassius Dio Cocceianus, the Annals (I. 65:2-4) give us the most confused and confusing account of General Varus’ disaster against the Germans of Arminius. It is utterly useless for the archaeologist. The excavations at the Kalkrieser Berg near Osnabrück and the topography of the region suggest a very different course of events.

The leader of the Germans, Arminius, had previously been an officer of the Roman auxiliaries. He knew Roman tactics and had trained his army at the Roman model. The fatal engagement, far from being an ambush in treacherous swamps, was a pitched battle in open, slightly hilly territory, carefully prepared by the attacker with his reserves positioned in camouflaged trenches. The Romans walked into a trap and were beaten at their own game. One of the most unfortunate events in European history. Had the Romans succeeded to extend their cultural influence to the river Elbe, many things would be very different in our days. I must admit, I have a hard time to accept that the same Tacitus, who was so well informed about the affairs in Britain and introduces us to the action in battles and public gatherings with unsurpassed immediacy, should suddenly become so inadequate and cryptic when it comes to the Roman campaigns in Germany. It is after all supposed to be the same author who wrote an anthropological monograph on the Germanic tribes; the first of its kind by any Roman, meant to warn of potential dangers.

Much of the discrepancies can be explained by the conditions of copying and preserving the text. But not everything. I am told it was Voltaire who as the first suggested that portions of Tacitus’ work, especially the Annals, could be a forgery. Even carbon dating of the vellum would be inconclusive because such forgeries were being made on old parchments with the former content bleached away. The Messrs John William Ross, Hochart, and Leo Weiner have written thick tomes about the hundreds of factual inconsistencies and the thousands of stylistic doubts and grammatical blunders in the Annals. It tallies badly when held against the concise and versatile master of Latin prose in the Histories, the Agricola, and the Germania.

In the end it is the language giving away the game. It is always the language. It distinguishes the author and gives away the imitator. My “little Latin and lesse Greek” came late to me and has always been a labor. In other words, other people are more competent than I to expand on the finer points of Latin syntax and style. Yet even the untutored eye can see that the real Tacitus fine-tuned his idiomatic figures according to the occasion. To belong to the top brass he brings across as “leading the van” – “primum pilum ducere” -– a military term. To get on with business is “to gird the loins” – “accingi.” The author of the Annals on the other hand is all over the place with his figures of speech, choosing his metaphors haphazard from the workshops, accountancy and seamanship, a hallmark of Livy’s easygoing style of writing, but very unlike the other works of Tacitus. The Annals barely venture into military jargon, even when appropriate. 

The digressions in Tacitus’ genuine narratives are called for by incident and situation; we learn about the history of the capitol on an occasion when people pass from hand to hand pails of water to prevent the building from burning down. The writer of the Annals on the other hand is all giddy and can’t wait for his cue to jabber just about everything that tickles his fancy, from the deluge and Deucalion – the Roman Noah – to the laws of Lycurgus and the wars of the Amazons. The Annals make absurd claims about the finer points of the jus Romanum, Latinum and Italicum, when in fact Italians from the province did not have the same civil rights as a Roman and therefore were "non eos esse cives Romanos" (Livy, XXXIV: 42). And this is supposed to be written by a barrister and elder statesman, practiced in the law of the land?

Are we expected to believe that Tacitus did ascribe legislation on usury to the Twelve Table Law, when it had been introduced centuries later by the tribunes Duillius and Moenius and passed the floor of the House under the consulate of Lucius Manlius Torquatus and Caius Plautius (Livy XVI:27)? In fact the Annals make the preposterous claim that after the issuing of the Twelve Tables legislation virtually ceased altogether except for the occasional penal enactment and on account of decrees for attaining illegitimate honors or banishing distinguished citizens: "compositae duodecim tabulae, finis aequi juris; nam secutae leges, etsi aliquando in maleficos ex delicto, saepius tamen dissensione ordinum, et apiscendi illicitos honores, aut pellendi claros viros, aliaque ob prava, per vim latae sunt" (Annals III: 27). Obviously the Lex Canuleia which legalized the intermarriage of patricians and plebeians, and the Leges Liciniae, opening access to public offices for both orders, to mention only an example, came never to the annalist’s attention. Instead we are told that Brutus – the ancestor of Caesar’s assassin – created a new class of nobility when in fact it was Tarquinius Priscus who enlarged the patrician body. The new dignity conferred on the senators was purely titular; until then Roman senators had been addressed as "patres," now they referred to their club as "patres conscripti." Not even the average Roman in the streets could have been ignorant of this, least of all someone who was himself a conscript father. In the Annals we read: "for though there were many shrines of Fortuna in Rome, there was none of Fortuna the Equestrian” (Annals III:71), when Livy is telling us that there was such temple which had been “dedicated by Quintus Fulvius after the war with the Celtiberians” (Livy, XL:42), a fact confirmed by Vitruvius, Valerius Maximus, and Publius Victor. How could this have escaped a man who was an augur by profession, and as a superintendent had attended to the public buildings? The Annals want us to believe, that somebody consulted the Colophonian Oracle of Apollo Clarius under Emperor Claudius (Annals XII:22). How so? The geographer Strabo, living in the time of Augustus, is telling us that "the grove of Apollo Clarius, in which there used to be the ancient oracle" no longer existed” (Strabo, XIV. I:27). Had Tacitus suddenly become senile?

The Annals are an unrelenting and monotonous libel. The real Tacitus had of course his pet-peeves about Emperor Domitian, but nowhere in his genuine work does he stoop to personal insult. Where the unsubtle Suetonius accuses Vitellus of matricide and having one of his sons executed, Tacitus is presenting us with a tender father, protective of his children and trying with timely abdication to shield his parents from retribution. In the monograph about Emperor Tiberius, Suetonius is speaking of no more than twenty executions in the aftermath of Sejanus’ fall, the Annals revel in “uncounted corpses of all sexes, age, and rank, piling up in heaps.” Suetonius introduces Tiberius as an emperor who officiated with clemency; Cassius Dio confirms that Tiberius never evicted anybody, nor confiscated any man's possessions, nor exacted money by force. Compare this with the conceited tyrant in the Annals.

IV.

All this must raise the suspicion of heavy tampering with the text. Yet before I am ready to condemn the Annals wholesale as a forgery, we should remember that neither of the two early manuscripts in existence is preserved in its original form. They are now bound together with other items in two volumes at Medicis’ library.

So who is to say, that what has reached the Renaissance in the 15th century could not have been in a much worse condition as it appears now, say, as an originally barely legible text with “battle-sized” lacunae, very much in need of “restoration;” say, a mere 40% of the text we now believe to know? Filling the gaps became a restorative job and was done, perhaps, with the best intention, by taking clues from what was still legible on the parchment, not unlike Nodot, who quietly had filled the gaps in Petron’s Satyricon. The grafting on of Woodman’s battle scene may indeed testify to the audacity of a grifter, if it wasn’t an act of restorative desperation. In the end the “restored” manuscript changed hands for 500 sequins in gold; in today’s money this would buy you some decent real estate. So what is the truth?

Only the Annals tell us of Christians and their prosecution on charges of arson under Nero, something no other historian of the period cares to mention. A flawed testimony by any standard, even conservative critics have a problem with the authenticity of the phrasing. Tacitus was an imperial writer, and no imperial document would ever refer to Jesus as "Christ."

The period when the Annals were discovered was one of hunting the monasteries for ancient manuscripts. Huge amounts of money changed hands for recently “unearthed” new texts, especially if they seemed to bolster the claims of Christian legend. We now know that Pilate was not a "procurator" but a prefect, so why should Tacitus not have known it too? It is true, no ancient historian ever researched the public archives – there weren’t any. All to go by were the memoirs of distinguished persons, collections of private letters, funeral orations and the acta senatus – the recorded minutes of the sessions in the House. The acta populi or acta diurna, the first ever gazette to inform the public, was pasted on walls and washed away under the rain. To describe the events, Tacitus would have needed to take recourse to his own childhood memories, provided he already had taken residence in the capital at the time, and for this alone it is a complete mystery how the Annals possibly could speak of Christians in Nero’s Rome as a “vast multitude,” when even in Judea and the East the small number of Christians made them virtually invisible. In fact the so called "Neronian persecution" is unrecorded by every other historian of the day. Seneca (BC. 4 – 65 AD.) was Nero’s Prime Minister and should have witnessed such persecution. He wrote an essay On Superstition, a stinging attack on pagans and Jews alike, now no longer available. But according to St. Augustine, who still had access to Seneca’s piece, (City of God, Book X), it doesn’t mention Christians at all. Nor are Christians mentioned or alluded to by Tacitus' in his genuine writings, not even once!

V.

We use to print together with Virgil’s original works the Appendix Virgiliana, texts that once were thought to be from Virgil’s own hand, and still are considered of high quality. As far as I am concerned, Tacitus is the author of the Histories, the Agricola, and perhaps the Germania. About the Orator the verdict may still be out; the author of the Annals belongs into the appendix. It just doesn’t sound like a concern the real Tacitus would have had, had he written about these events. He‘d rather cast a scowling eye on the incompetence of leadership: "The senate had allowed Galba to nominate the commissioners and he showed the most miserable indecision, now making nominations, now rescinding them, now replacing his own nominees, yielding always to pressures and excuses from the candidates. Nero had squandered in lavish presents two thousand two hundred million sesterces. Galba gave instructions that these monies should be recovered from the individual recipients, leaving each a tithe of their original gift. However, in each case there was scarcely a tenth part left, for these worthless spendthrifts had run through Nero's money as freely as they had squandered their own: though living in luxury they had no real property or capital left. Thirty of the knights were entrusted with the duty of recovering the money. This commission, for which there was no precedent, proved vastly unpopular owing to the scope of its authority, and the large number of the victims. Everywhere the streets resounded with auctions and litigation. And yet the discovery that the beneficiaries of Nero's bounty were as poor as the victims of his greed was received with a sense of glee” (Histories).

The real Tacitus would never have ceased to be intrigued by his bête noire – the mob: “The crowd stood by and watched the fighting, cheering and applauding like spectators at a gladiatorial contest. Whenever either side gave way, the crowd clamored to drag into the open and butcher the soldiers hiding in the shops or seeking refuge in a private house, and while the soldiers were busy with bloodshed and massacre, the spoils fell to the crowd. The scene throughout the city was hideous and terrible: fighting and wounded men, coolly beheld by the people crowding the baths and taverns; heaps of bleeding dead, and next to prostitutes on the beat plying their trade as if nothing was happening. All the vice and licence of luxury and peace, shoulder to shoulder with all the crime and horror of a captured town. One might well have thought the city went mad with fury and mad with pleasure at the same time. Armies had fought in the city before this, twice when Sulla mastered Rome, and once under Cinna. There were no less horrors then. What was new was the people's indifference. Not for one minute did they interrupt the life of pleasure, as if the fighting added spice to their holiday. Caring nothing for either party, they enjoyed themselves in riotous dissipation and took pleasure in their country's disaster” (Histories). But Tacitus also doesn’t hesitate to give credit where credit is due for a piece of practical leadership skill.

“Valens set his lictors to work to check the mutiny. Yet the mutineers threw stones at the general and chased him out of the camp, shouting that he was concealing the spoils of Gaul and the gold from Vienne, the due reward of their labours. They looted the baggage, ransacked the general's quarters, and even rummaged in the ground with javelins and lances. Valens, disguised in a slave's garb, took refuge with a cavalry officer. Gradually the disorder began to die down. Alfenus Varus, then forbade the centurions to go the rounds nor was the bugle to be sounded to summon the men to their duties. No one had anything to do: they eyed each other in astonishment, dismayed above all at having no one to command them. At first by silent submission, finally with tears and entreaties, they sought forgiveness.”

“Valens appeared, haggard and in tears, but above all expectation safe and sound, which moved them to joy, pity, and cheers! Their revulsion was just that of a mob, always going to the extreme either way. They surrounded the general with the eagles and standards, and carried him to the Tribunal with praises and congratulations. With wise moderation he demanded no punishment, but, to disarm suspicion of his good faith, he criticized one or two of them severely. He was well aware that in civil war the men are allowed more licence than their officers” (Histories).

The following reads almost like a commentary on a recent event. Needless to say, nobody in the Whitehouse or in Whitehall has cared to notice.

“With the death of Vitellius the war had indeed come to an end, but peace had yet to begin. The victors remained under arms, and the defeated Vitellians were hunted through the city with implacable hatred, and butchered promiscuously wherever they were found. The streets were choked with corpses; squares and temples reeked with blood. Soon the riot knew no restraint; they began to hunt for those who were in hiding and to drag them out. Who was tall and young, whether soldier or civilian, he was cut down indiscriminately. Then suddenly the instinct of greed prevailed. On the pretext of hunting for hidden Vitellianists, they would leave no door unopened and regard no privacy. Thus they began to rifle private houses and an owner’s resistance provided the excuse for murder. The lowly and poor, too, and the most worthless of slaves, didn’t fail to betray their wealthy patrons and masters; friends sold out friends. Everywhere was mourning and misery. Rome was like a captured city. People even longed to have the insolent soldiery of Otho and Vitellius back again, much as they had been hated. The leaders of the Flavian party, who had fanned the flame of civil war with such energy, were incapable of checking the abuses of victory. In riot and disorder the worst characters take the lead; peace and quiet call for the highest qualities” (Histories).

© – 4/24/2007 – by michael sympson, 10,125 words, all rights reserved