III. There can be very little doubt that_Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century

famous individual,--the very rich man, for whom the three

Florentines, Lamberteschi, Niccoli, and Bracciolini, conspired to

get up a forgery of Tacitus. It certainly never once comes out in

the correspondence, in language that can be considered "totus,

teres atque rotundus," that the man who was imposed upon by

Bracciolini and his two accomplices, and who was shamefully

deceived into paying the little fortune of five, six, or even more

hundred gold sequins for a forgery, was their own most affectionate,

intimate, and eminent friend, the merchant of a fortune that placed

him on a level with the princes of Italy, Cosmo de' Medici;--but

Cosmo de' Medici it was: any other man than he would have jumped

at such an offer as having the whole history of Livy, instead

of a small fragment of Tacitus, which Bracciolini was positive

that he could get (because he was positive that he could forge

it); but the illustrious Florentine peremptorily refused the offer,

there being no other historian whom he liked so much as Tacitus,

nor whom he read with so much pleasure and profit, as borne testimony

to by Vossius in his Treatise on the Roman Historians, when speaking

of Tacitus in terms which lend additional strength to the truth of

our theory of forgery. "The diction of Tacitus," he says, "is more

florid and exuberant in the books of the History, terser and drier

in the Annals: meanwhile he is staid and eloquent in both: no other

historian was read with equal pleasure by Cosmo de' Medici, the

Duke of Tuscany, a man, who, if there was one, possessed the

greatest genius for statesmanship, and was clearly made to rule":

--"Dictio Taciti floridior uberiorque in Historiarum est libris,

pressior, sicciorque in Annalibus. Interim gravis utrobique et

disertus. Non alium Historicum aeque lectitaret Cosmus Medices,

Hetruriae Dux, vir, si quis alius, civilis prudentiae intelligentis-

simus, planeque ad imperandum factus" (Vossius. De Historicis Latinis.

Lib. I. c. 30. p. 146). Muretus says the same in the second volume

of his Orations (Orat. XVIII.): "Cosmo de' Medici, who was the

first Grand Duke of Tuscany, a man made to rule, who laid down the

doctrine, that that which is commonly called good fortune consists

in wise and prudent conduct, delighted in the works of Tacitus;

and from the reading of them he derived the most excessive

enjoyment":--"Cosmus Medices, qui primus Magnus Etruriae Dux fuit,

homo factus ad imperandum, qui eam, quae vulgo fortuna dicitur, in

consilio et prudentia consistere docuit, Taciti libros in deliciis

habebat; eorumque lectione avidissime fruebatur."--

IV. We may here observe parenthetically that both Vossius and

Muretus err in speaking of Cosmo de' Medici, the former as "the

Duke," the second as the "First Grand Duke" of Tuscany: it was not

till the sixteenth century that the members of that family

obtained the absolute sovereignty: in the fifteenth century there

was, as Roscoe says in his Life of Lorenzo de' Medici (p. 6), no

"prescribed or definite compact" between them and the people; the

authority which Cosmo de' Medici exercised consisted, according to

that correct and elegant writer, "rather in a tacit influence on

his part, and a voluntary acquiescence on that of the people."

That Roscoe was quite right can be seen by consulting a

contemporary writer, Bartolommeo Fazio; in the biographical

sketches that he has given of the most illustrious men of his

time, who distinguished themselves as poets, orators, lawyers,

physicians, painters, sculptors, private citizens, generals, and

kings and princes, he has placed Cosmo de' Medici under the

heading, "Of Some Private Citizens," ("De Quibusdam Civibus

Privatis"); furthermore, he speaks of him in the following terms:

--"As a civilian he was exceedingly rich, being not only the

wealthiest of all the private men of our age, but in that respect

to be compared, moreover, with princes of no mean standing":

--"Divitiis civilem modum longe excessit omnium non tantum

privatorum hominum nostrae tempestatis locupletissimus, sed etiam

cum non mediocribus principibus ea re conferendus" (Bartol.

Facius. De Viris Illustribus, p. 57. Flor. Ed. 1745).

After he has spoken of the active part that Cosmo de' Medici took

in the administration of public affairs, and the valuable advice

that he gave in matters pertaining to war;--of the churches and

other public buildings that he erected at his own expense;--the

numbers of men whom he raised to public posts;--his beneficence to

the poor;--his liberality to foreigners;--his hospitality to his

countrymen; and the wonderful way in which he had adorned and

embellished his private mansion with Tuscan marble;--Fazio ends by

saying that, "in authority and estimation he was unquestionably

the PRINCE of his native city":--"Auctoritate et existimatione

haud dubie civitatis suae PRINCEPS" (ibid. p. 58). Here we see the

cause of the error committed by Vossius, Muretus, and a number of

historians; not only this phrase of Fazio's, but the manner in

which contemporary Florentines thought of and demeaned themselves

towards Cosmo de' Medici.

We may further state, while thus digressing, that, from what Fazio

says, we know that Cosmo de' Medici was a great lover of books;

for Fazio informs us in his notice of Niccolo Niccoli that Cosmo

de' Medici had his library in the magnificent church which at his

own cost he had erected in Florence, namely, St. Mark's,

("bibliothecae, quae erat in Marci Evangelistae Templo, quam

Cosmus Medices effecerat" (Facius. De Viris Illust. p. 12); "this

library he had built on a very extensive scale," and "adorned" it

"with an infinite number of volumes of both Greek and Latin

authors, of all kinds, and every degree of merit, some of which he

had got at heavy expense from various quarters, others being

copies contracted for with transcribers":--"bibliothecam, quam

amplissimam aedificavit, infinitis librorum voluminibus tum

Greacorum, tum Latinorum, cujusque ordinis, ac facultatis

exornavit partim undique magno impendio quaesitis, partim

conductis librariis exscriptis" (ibid. p. 57).

But to return.--

We see, then, from two such reliable authorities as Vossius and

Muretus, that Cosmo de' Medici took a special delight in Tacitus,

and ardently enjoyed reading him. We can thus clearly perceive,

why it was when a forgery was to be undertaken, it was of an

ancient classic, and the selection made was a continuance to the

History of Tacitus: we, also, know how natural it was when

Bracciolini found, after deliberation and a trial, that there was

little or no sympathy between him and Tacitus, and, certainly, no

identity of genius, that he should strive his utmost to cast off

such a heavy burden and endeavour to carry a lighter load by

fabricating a continuation of Livy; but no guinea is required to

be spent for a visit to the séance of a medium, to call up the

spirit of Cosmo de' Medici by the rapping of a table: in the first

place, the spirit would be sure not to come, however hard the

table might be rapped, from fear of being addressed in Latin or

Italian, as spirits are always sulky when they speak languages

that are unknown to the medium: in the second place, after what we

hear from Vossius and Muretus about the historical studies of the

enlightened Princely Florentine, we want no ghost of his to come

from the grave, and tell us that he would not have taken one

entire book of Livy for one little page of Tacitus. Hence

Bracciolini was forced to go on with a forgery that went against

his grain; but, uncongenial as it was, he executed it with the

skill and power that showed the master mind.

V. The manuscript in the Mediceo-Laurentian library is known as

the Second Florence MS.; all the other MSS. of the last six books

of the Annals are copies of it: as James Gronovius puts it,

"emanated" from it: "ex hoc codice omnia alia scripta Taciti

exemplaria _fluxisse_"; just as the other Florentine MS. is

the only one containing all the books of the Annals, or as Ernesti

says: "it is unique: we have no other manuscript of those books:

--"ille unus est, nec alium scriptum illorum librorum codicem

habemus;" there was no necessity making many transcripts of the

latter codex, for printing had come into use a good half century

before it was found,--or, more properly, said to have been found,

--in the Abbey of Corvey.

Both these manuscripts are spurious; though it concerns us for the

present only to deal with the Second or earlier one:--Of the First

or later one I will speak at the proper time.

The second Florence MS., if a forgery, ought to have many

suspicious marks about it to denote that it is a fabrication; and,

perhaps, there does not exist in the world a more suspicious

manuscript, not in one, but sundry, respects.

In the first place, it is written in Lombard characters; of which

the Benedictines in their "Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique," give

both a description and a specimen; and from the specimen given,

the characters are small and elegant, some being high and ending

in volutes or curves, while there is a "mingling of capitals and

cursives."

But why should the manuscript have been written in Lombard

characters at all? It would seem simply in order to give it an air

of excessively great antiquity;--but a more fatal mistake could

not possibly have been made.

We know from the letters that Bracciolini wrote to Niccoli that he

wanted a very old copy of Tacitus to serve as a guide to the

transcriber at Hirschfeldt: Niccoli sent him a Tacitus in Lombard

characters; his objection to it was not that the characters were

Lombard, but that they were "half-effaced" ("caduca"). We may,

therefore, conclude that the copy finally sent to him as a guide

for the transcriber, was, also, in Lombard characters; those not

"half-effaced," but clear and legible; it is a pity for them, but

a good job for me, that he or Niccoli, or both, did not know that

Lombard characters were not in use in the century when they wanted

it to appear that their forgery was in existence; for they

indulged in a trick to make the reader believe that the MS. was in

existence at the close of the fourth century at the very latest;

and, perhaps, a hundred or two hundred years before, for they put

a note at the end, by which the reader is given to understand, to

his mighty surprise, that the manuscript was in the hands of that

illustrious Heathen Philosopher, Salustius, not the Syrian and

Cynic, of whom an account is given by Suidas, Photius, Fabricitis

and others, for he lived in the fifth century, but the Gaul and

Platonist, who flourished in the preceding century, of whom

Fabricius said that he would "rather ascribe to him who was the

friend of the Emperor Julian and the Platonist, than to the other

Salustius, who was the Cynic, the elegant treatise that was

extant, "On the Gods and the World";--"huic potius Juliani,

Platonico, quam alteri Cynico Salustio tribuerim libellum

elegantem, qui exstat [Greek: peri Theon kai kosmou]" (Biblioth.

Graec. Lib. III. c. 9); Theodoretus also speaks of him in his

[Greek: Historia Ekklaesiastikae] (Lib. I. 3), as well as the

Emperor Julian in one of his Orations (VIII.) and Ammianus

Marcellinus in the 21st and 23rd books of his History. Now, the

very fact that Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of this Salustius is

the very reason why he should have been selected to be the

corrector of the forged MS.; we have already said more than once,

--and it cannot be too often impressed upon the reader,--that

Bracciolini found the historical books of Ammianus Marcellinus;

to all appearances, he had most carefully studied them: it was

therefore, from his being quite familiar with the pages of

Marcellinus, that he had Salustius suggested to him as the best

individual to write the note.

The note is to the effect that Salustius had read and corrected

the manuscript when he was residing in Rome during the Consulate

of Olibrius and Probinus, and that he had again revised it at

Constantinople in the Consulate of Caesarius and Atticus.--"Ego

Salustius legi et emendavi Romae felix, Olibio et Probino vc.

Coss. in foro Martis controversias declamans oratori Endelechio.

Rursus Constantinopoli recognovi Caesario et Attico Consulibus".

Olibrius (not Olibius) and Probinus were the two last consuls in

the reign of the Emperor Theodosius; that, therefore, gives the

date 395; and Caesarius and Atticus were the consuls in the second

year of the Emperor Arcadius, so that that gives the date 397.

All the editors of Tacitus cast no doubt on the authenticity of

these words; they believe they were actually written by Salustius;

the fact is, they have not the slightest suspicion of forgery;

under which circumstance, they had no other alternative but to

regard the manuscript as a palimpsest, with everything erased

except these words, which they believed ought also to have been

expunged, as appertaining to the previous, and not the existing

MS., and which remained through the negligence of the transcriber.

Pichena, accepting everything as genuine, was of opinion that the

manuscript was as old as 395; this is an opinion that everybody

considers ridiculous, on account of the characters being Lombard,

it not being until the sixth century that the Lombards came into

Italy, until which date all Latin manuscripts were written in

Roman characters.

On account of this, there has arisen, among, the cognoscente of

codices, an interminable controversy attended by a startling

divergence of opinion with respect to the length of the existence

of this manuscript.

Unable to agree with Pichena, Jarnes Gronovius, nevertheless,

places it at such an "immense distance in antiquity from all the

others," that one must suppose he considered it coeval with the

immediate arrival of the Lombards into Italy, and, therefore,

about the sixth century. Exterus and Panckoucke, entertaining

pretty much the same opinion as James Gronovius, date its origin

from the seventh or eighth century.

A man who took an enormous interest in all literary matters of

this description, Cardinal Passionei, deputed, in the middle of

the last century, one of the most skilful experts in manuscripts

in Italy, Signor Botari, to ascertain the age of this puzzling

codex. Botari naturally applied to the principal keeper of the

Mediceo-Laurentian Library, Signor Biccioni, who, after

consulting with his colleague, Signor Martini, came to the

conclusion that it did not date further back than the eighth

century.

The Benedictine Brothers, who tell this anecdote, are themselves

of opinion that the manuscript is not older than the tenth

century; and for these reasons, "the characters, the distance

between the words, the punctuation, and some other signs" which

are indicative, they say, of that century: "les caractères, la

distance des mots, la ponctuation et plusieurs autres signes

marquent tout au plus le Xe siècle" (t. III. p. 279).

Other men have given other opinions of the age of this manuscript;

Ernesti, for example, believes that it is as old as the 11th

century; others say the 13th; others again give some other time;

whereas the exact date is known to the reader, who is aware that

it first saw the light in February or March, 1429.

But about this writing of Salustius. Further imposture is shown by

what the Philosopher is made to say about his "declaiming

controversies" in the Forum of Mars before the Orator Endelechius.

There is nothing to show that Salustius, (though he was in Gaul,

the prefect in the praetorium, while Julian, the Apostate, was

proconsul), was ever in Rome. It is doubtful whether Salustius and

Endelechius ever were together; for though both flourished in the

time of the Emperor Theodosius, one lived in Rome and the other in

Constantinople.

Looking at all the circumstances in this investigation it must be

admitted as being uncommonly remarkable, and, therefore,

uncommonly suspicious, that the note should have been made by one

of whom such very little is known as Salustius; consequently, the

very little that would be known of what he did, or what might be

affirmed of him that he did:--we have seen from what is said of

him by Fabricius that it is not positively known, but only

shrewdly conjectured, that he wrote the treatise "De Diis et

Mundo";--it is not ascertained whether he was the Salustius who

was Consul with the Emperor Julian IV. in the year 363;--it is not

settled what were his other names, some, such as Lemprière, taking

them to be Secundus Promo_tus_, others, such as M. Weiss, in

the "Biographie Universelle", Secundus Promo_tius_, a third

set questioning whether he had any such names as "Secundus" and

"Promotus" or "Promotius":--finally, it is not determined how his

name, Salustius, ought to be spelt, whether with one or with two

l's, when in Suidas it is spelt "Salustius" [Greek: Saloustios],

and in Theodoretus "Sallustius" [Greek letters: Salloustios].

And "who shall decide" when a lexicographer and a bishop "disagree?"

There is not yet an end to all the mystery and confusion hanging

around this Praefectus Praetorio. Was he ever a Praefectus

Praetorio? One cannot then understand why Theodoretus, when

speaking of his being [Greek: huparchos] (Hist. Eccl. I. 6

post init.), should express his surprise at it, from Salustius

"being a slave to impiety." The general of the Imperial Guard

could have discharged his duties just as well whether he was pious

or impious: So could the Praefectus Urbi; but this would not have

been the case with the officer who was the superintendent of the

public morals,--the Praefectus Morum: It would therefore seem that

this was the post held by Salustius, when Ammianus Marcellinus

informs us in his History that the Emperor Julian "promoted him to

be Prefect and sent him into Gaul:"--"Salustium Praefectum

promotum in Galliam missus est" (Lib. XXI. c. 8): Otherwise it is

not clear why Theodoretus should write thus in his Ecelesiastical

History:--"At this time Sallustius who was Prefect, ALTHOUGH he

was a _slave to impiety_:--[Greek: Salloustios de hyparchos on

taenikauta, KAITOI tae dussebeia douleuon"] (L. c.)

With all this mystery and confusion attaching to Salustius, there

is almost as much confusion and mystery attaching to Sanctus

Severus Endelechius,--or Severus, as he is mostly known to the

writers of ecclesiastical history. Possevino, the Elder, in the

second volume (p. 398) of his "Apparatus Sacer" speaks of him as a

teacher of oratory and a poet in the Christian world:--"Severi

Rectoris et Poetae Christiani, Carmen Bucolicon". Rheinesius, in

one of his Letters (VIII.) to Daumius, misquotes this, by

substituting "Rhetoris "for "Rectoris"; in the course of the same

letter he makes a remark which causes one to understand what is

meant by "declaiming controversies in the Forum of Mars to the

Orator Endelechius": Rheinesius says that, the custom of

rhetoricians was to bring forward into the forum set matters, or

themes" [Greek: Theseis] "for the sake of intellectual

exercitation":--"solebant enim oratores etiam fictas materias, seu

[Greek: Theseis], in forum producere exercendi ingenii gratia";

--from this being done, we learn towards the close of the letter,

when he is speaking of this very note to the Second Florentine

MS., that "Endelechius was a master to Sallustius"--"Endelechius

... Sallustio magister fuit."

It is clear that Rheinesius believes everything about the note to

the Second Florence MS. But how came a Heathen philosopher,--a

very impious one, too, (according to Theodoretus), like Salustius,

to be so cordially connected in the fourth century with a devout

Christian teacher, like Sanctus Severus Endelechius? Even

admitting that there was this freedom of intercourse between the

two, do dates agree for the kind of relationship that is said to

have existed between them? The time when Salustius was learning

oratory from Endelechius was, as the note tells us, the year 395.

But Endelechius was the contemporary of Paulinus, the date of

whose death was 431, and Endelechius died a little before or after

him, (See Rheinesius Epist. ad Daumium VIII. p. 25.) Endelechius

must have then been a remarkably juvenile instructor in rhetoric.

Shall we say at ten years of age? or eight? or six? or when he was

in his cradle? for he died before he was 50.

Why, also, should there have been any written declaration on the

part of Salustius, that he had revised the copy? Does it not look

as if his certificate of revision was meant to establish this as a

fact not to be contravened,--that the Manuscript is as old as the

fourth century? The trick is clearly the artifice of an impostor,

who wants an attestation, when no attestation is required to

substantiate a thing except when the thing to be substantiated is,

as in this instance, a falsification. The Benedictine monks say in

their "Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique" (III. 279), "they never saw

in any manuscript an attestation of corrections"; more so, when

the manuscript is a copy, and not an original, and does not bear

any corrections on its margin;--"sur un très grand nombre de mss.

que nous avons vus, jamais nous n'ayons rémarqué d'attestations de

corrections, transcrites dans les copies." I will be bound to say

that they never saw in any other manuscript than this, (the vellum

of which is, I suspect, of the 15th century), the letters formed

and the words placed at the distance between each other as

obtained in the tenth century, along with the abbreviations and

the punctuations of that period.

Nor is this an end of the marks of imposture about this Second

Florence MS.

The reader will admit that a very great (and what looks like an

insuperable) difficulty was to be got over by some amazingly

clever trick not easily conceivable, when a number of books, as if

written by Tacitus, were to precede a history which he had

composed, commencing: "When I begin this work"--"Initium mihi

operis;" those words which now in all the editions properly stand

at the head of a separate and substantive work, "Historiarum Liber I."

stand in the Second Florence MS. at the head of what is designated

the "Seventeenth Book" of the whole production. The device had

recourse to is ingenious in the extreme, yet as arrant a mark of

imposture as anything that we have pointed out.

The last Six Books of what we now know as "The Annals" are headed

"Cornelii Taciti Historiae Augustae LI. XI. _Actionum_ Diurnalium:"

that is, "The Books of the History of the Emperors by Cornelius

Tacitus, the 11th of the Daily _Transactions_." The first book of

what we now know as "The History" has this change in the heading:

"_Actorum_ Diurnalium XVII."; that is "the 17th book of the Daily

_Affairs_." The implication is that Tacitus meant a vast difference

between "_Actiones_ Diurnales" and "_Actus_ Diurnales"; so to leave

the reader in doubt as to whether Tacitus had given any explanations

as to why he meant to change the character of the narrative but not

the numbering of the books, the Sixteenth Book breaks off abruptly;

the kind of explanation that must have been given by Tacitus is thus

left entirely to the imagination of the reader, for everybody must

conjecture, if the affair was genuine, that some sort of explanation

was given in the lost part. This is certain that, from the manner in

which he wrote the Annals, Bracciolini gave a larger meaning to "actus"

than to "actiones," the former meaning "public affairs," and the other

"things that were done" of any note or interest; clearly showing that

nobody was more conscious than Bracciolini himself how he had failed

in attempting to write history in the exact manner in which it was

written by Tacitus. I may now place before the reader the astonishment

which Seemiller expresses in his "Incrementa Typographica" (pp. 10, 11),

that the books about the Emperors of Rome in the first edition of the

works of Tacitus printed at Venice in 1469 by the then unrivalled master

of his art, Vindelinus of Spire, should not have the titles of "Annals"

and "History." The reader now sees the reason why; and, moreover, the

reader knows that Seemiller must have seen very few editions of the

works of Tacitus.

VI. One or two things more ought to be taken notice of, because

they connect Bracciolini with the forged manuscript.

It was usual for monastic transcribers to follow the text of the

writer as closely as printers in these days follow the copy of an

author. Everybody has his peculiarities: Bracciolini was no

exception to this rule. He was in the habit of writing "incipit

feliciter" at the commencement of a work: this maybe seen in an

old MS. copy of his "Facetiae", preserved in the British Museum,

and supposed to have been written at Nuremberg in 1470. This also

runs through the headings to the books in the Second Florence MS.

To either "feliciter" or "felix," he was so partial, that he shows

it in the attestation of Salustius, who is made to write "Ego

Salustius legi et emendavi Romae _felix_."

There is another point, which, though as trifling, is as striking.

MSS. were sometimes found with two or more authors bound up

together, and these, in the majority of cases, were very old ones.

To give the Second Florence MS. an air of antiquity Tacitus is

bound up with Apuleius. If an author was to be selected to be

bound up with anything done by Bracciolini at this date, and he

had been consulted in the matter, there was none more likely for

him to have chosen than Apuleius, for his thoughts were now

running altogether upon that writer, of whose "Golden Ass" he gave

a Latin translation; and the particular part of Apuleius bound up

with Tacitus only begins at the 10th chapter, that is, with only

what he writes "De Asino Aureo."

These are, as I have said, small points; but looking at

surrounding circumstances, they are significant; and stand forth

as additional proofs of Bracciolini being concerned not only in

the forgery of the last Six Books of the Annals, but also in the

forgery of the Second Florence MS.

VII. Another point ought not to be passed over in silence, as it

is of much importance.

It has been said in the first part of this investigation that no

authentic mention is to be found of the Annals of Tacitus from the

second to the fifteenth century; for the simple reason that it was

not then in existence. But if it was forged, copied and issued by

1429, it would almost follow that some mention would be made of it

not very long after that date: this was actually the case: the

first authentic mention of the Annals is by Zecco Polentone, in

the Sixth Book of his "De Scriptoribus Illustribus Latinae

Linguae": he says that he would "not venture to state very

positively what was the number of the books of Tacitus's History;

but for himself he had seen the eleventh book (in a fragmentary

form) and all the others down to the twenty-first, in which

abundant materials had been furnished in an elaborate manner of

the life of Claudius and of the succeeding emperors down to

Vespasian." This work of Polentone I have never seen, and quote

the extract as it is given by the Abbé Méhus in his Preface to the

works of Traversari: "Librorum ejus" (Taciti nempe) "numerum

affirmare satis certe non audeo. Fragmenta quidem libri undecimi,

et reliquos deinceps ad vigesimum primum vidi, in quis vita

Claudii, et qui fuerunt postea Caesares ad Vespasianum usque,

ornate, ut dixi, et copiose ornavit" (Méhus. Praef. ad Latinas

Epistolas Traversarii p. XLVII.). The question now arises when did

Polentone write this? It could not have been before 1429, because

the last six books of the Annals had not yet been given to the

world; nor would it have been after 1463, for that date was,

according to Pignorius, the year of his death. The first authentic

mention of the last six books of the Annals might then have been

in the first year after its publication, or it might not have been

till the thirty-third; but this is certain, that those books, as

might have been expected from their most remarkable character,

attracted attention, as they have not ceased to do down to the

present day, in the very first generation when they were placed

before the public.

VIII. I cannot see that anything I can think of and investigate

invalidates my theory: on the contrary, everything that suggests

itself immediately and strictly tallies with the truth of it; but

if this be not the case with every theory, then that theory is

not, and cannot be correct. Take and test any; take and test the

theory, for example, of Sir George Cornewall Lewis with respect to

the ancient monarchy of Rome; he considered it to be a myth, his

principal argument, in my opinion, being, on account of the number

of years the seven kings had reigned,--244;--he maintained that

such a length of years in such an exceedingly small number of

consecutive reigns is not to be found in the history of any other

country; that may be true enough; but only turn the eye to the

country contiguous to ours; the land which almost seems to present

itself as a matter of course for its great fame and splendour,

France; then turn to the most striking and memorable period of its

monarchy,--the time of the seven last kings, the Henries and the

Louises, just preceding the Great Revolution: the years of their

consecutive reigns number 233, so that there are 11 years to the

good of Sir George Cornewall Lewis's theory; but if two of those

French kings, Henry III. and Henry IV., had not been assassinated,

and the last of them, Louis XVI., deprived of his life by an

infuriated people, the number of years of those seven monarchs'

reigns might have been 270 or 280, possibly even 300. That theory

of Sir George Cornewall Lewis cannot then be accepted; there being

nothing,--for the leading reason given by him,--that should induce

us to question the accuracy of history as regards the Roman

monarchy.

IX. But it does strike me most forcibly that after what I have

advanced, (it may be, feebly,--I am certain in a manner that is

very faulty),--it is simply aversion to novelty that can cause the

reader still to believe that Tacitus wrote that part of his

History which passes by the name of "Annals": I do not see how the

reader can be of that opinion when he ponders over the numerous

literary doubts I have raised as to its authenticity, more

particularly, of the last six books;--when, too, he remembers how

I have shown by facts, dates and circumstances the period when

that portion came into existence;--the year when it was begun and

the year when it was completed;--the people who were engaged in

its production;--the writer who composed it;--the individual who

suggested it;--the book-collector who instigated it;--the monk who

transcribed it;--the rich man who purchased it;--and, just now,

the author who made the first authentic mention of it; and last,

but not least, the condition (that is, the exact age and undoubted

spuriousness) of the oldest MS. that we have of it:--all goes to

prove that, if not the whole work, at any rate, the last Six Books

of the Annals are a forgery;--and a forgery, too, so audacious in

its conception, and so extraordinary in its bungling,--while all

the steps of its execution have been so distinctly set forth

according to data that have been given and authorities that have

been cited,--that it seems to me to be nothing more nor less than

sheer obstinacy, after such clear demonstration, for any body to

entertain a doubt about it.

END OF BOOK THE THIRD.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

THE FIRST SIX BOOKS OF THE ANNALS.

Hunc lege quaeso librum, quem condidit ore disertus,

Et Latiae linguae Poggius ipse decus.

BEBELIUS. _Utilissimus Liber_.

CHAPTER I.

REASONS FOR BELIEVING THAT BRACCIOLINI WROTE BOTH PARTS OF THE ANNALS.

I.--Improvement in Bracciolini's means after the completion of the

forgery of the last part of the Annals.--II. Discovery of the

first six books, and theory about their forgery.--III. Internal

evidence the only proof of their being forged.--IV. Superiority of

workmanship a strong proof.--V. Further departure than in the last

six books from Tacitus's method another proof.--VI. The Symmetry

of the framework a third proof.--VII. Fourth evidence, the close

resemblance in the openings of the two parts.--VIII. The same tone

and colouring prove the same authorship.--IX. False statements

made about Sejanus and Antonius Natalis for the purpose of

blackening Tiberius and Nero.--X. This spirit of detraction runs

through Bracciolini's works.--XI. Other resemblances denoting the

same author.--XII. Policy given to every subject another cause to

believe both parts composed by a single writer.--And XIII. An

absence of the power to depict differences in persons and things.

I. When Bracciolini completed the first instalment of his forgery

he was in his fiftieth year. From that date, for the remainder of

his life, in consequence of the large remuneration he received for

his audacious imposition, he lived in comparatively affluent

circumstances. He permanently fixed his residence in a villa which

he purchased in the pleasant district of Valdarno in the Tuscan

territory;--a villa made profitable by a vineyard, and beautiful

by a garden adorned with tasteful ornaments, fountains and classic

statues, the workmanship of ancient Greek and Roman sculptors.

With the lucrative contingencies attached to his forgery, such as

disposing of copies from the original, a privilege which he,

doubtless, obtained from his friend Cosmo de' Medici, and for

which he must have frequently got large sums of money, he may have

gratified the inclination he expressed six years before to his

friend, Niccoli, of spending 400 gold sequins a year;--"non sum

pecuniosus ... erat animus expendere usque ad CCCC. aureos, non

quod tot habeam." (Ep. II. 3.) He now had the means, that sum

being equivalent to from 8 to 10 thousand pounds a year in these

days. That he made a splendid fortune there can be no question,

were it only for the words used by Poliziano in his History of the

Pazzi and Salviati Conspiracy against Lorenzo de' Medici, while

speaking of his eldest son James "squandering in a few years the

ample patrimony which he had inherited": "patrimonium quod ipse

amplum ex haereditate paterna obvoverat totum paucis annis

profuderat" (Polit. De Pact. Conj. Hist. p. 637), the language

used showing that Jacopo Bracciolini was not sole inheritor but

co-heir with his brothers. Certain it is that the circumstances of

Bracciolini were so much improved after his forgery of the Annals

that from that time he had the opportunity of indulging a

cherished idea of his earlier manhood devoting himself to literary

undertakings. He started off with his treatise on Avarice, (a

subject of which he was a very good judge): composition after

composition then issued rapidly from his pen; they were no longer

anonymous; they were attended by fame; he thus made ample amends

for the "inglorius labor", as he styles it himself (An. IV, 32),

of the Annals.

These works have been extremely valuable in the course of this

inquiry; they are more especially valuable just now in enabling me

to trace home to him the authorship of the first six books of the

Annals; these works were 15 in number, namely 1. Historia

Disceptativa de Avaritia; 2. Two books of Historiae Convivales;

3. An essay De Nobilitate; 4. Ruinarum Urbis Romae Descriptio;

5. A treatise De Humanae Conditionis Miseria; 6. Controversial

Writings; 7. Funeral Orations; 8. Epistles; 9. Fables; 10. Facetiae;

11. A Dialogue De Infelicitate Principum; 12. Another entitled

"An Seni sit Uxor ducenda"? first published in Liverpool in 1807,

and edited by the Rev. William Shepherd; 13. Four books De Varietate

Fortunae first published in 1723 by the Abbé Oliva; 14. History

of Florence in 8 books, published by Muratori in the 20th volume

of his Rerum Italicarum Scriptores; and 15. A Dialogue on

Hypocrisy printed in the Appendix to the Fasciculus Rerum

Expetendarum et Fugiendarum first published at Cologne in 1535 by

Orthuinus Gratius, and in 1689 by Edward Brown with considerable

additions.

But these were not his only literary productions. Fazio tells us

that he wrote a book upon the manners of the Indians: "scripsit

... de Moribus Indorum" (Facius. De Viris Illustr. p. 17): this is

the same as the fourth book of his "De Varietate Fortunae," which

is a translation or version of the travels in India of Niccolo di

Conti. The same authority also informs us that "he translated the

Cyropaedeia of Xenophon, which he dedicated to Alphonso I, King of

Naples, from whom he received a very large sum of money for his

dedication, even as he dedicated to Pope Nicholas V. his

translation of the six books of the historian Diodorus Siculus":

--"Cyripaediam, quam Xenophon ille scripsit, latinam reddidit,

atque Alphonso Regi dedicavit, pro qua a Rege magnam mercedem

accepit. Ejusdem est traductio Diodori Siculi historiographi ad

Nicolaum Quintum Pontificem Maximum libri sex" (L. c.) Another

translation of his was "The Golden Ass" of Apuleius in ten books;

and he edited, (but without notes), the "Astronomicon" of Manilius,

--whom, by the way, he misstyles "Manlius."

The advantage which he obtained from the publication of these

works was as nothing compared to the large and repeated sums he

must have got from his fabrication of the Annals; and the

knowledge that he would always have a ready and munificent

purchaser in Cosmo de' Medici, induced him to continue his

wondrous and daring forgery.

II. We have seen how, at the very least, 500 gold sequins were

given by Cosmo de' Medici, for the last six books of the Annals.

After the lapse of nearly 90 years, exactly the same sum was

awarded for the discovery of the first six books by another

de' Medici, Leo X., to Arcimboldi, afterwards Archbishop of Milan,

--the 122nd, according to the Abbot Ughelli, in his work that

occupied him thirty years,--"Italia Sacra".

Now, it is a very remarkable circumstance that, at the time when

Arcimboldi gave out that he had discovered the first six books of

the Annals in the Abbey of Corvey, the fourth son of Bracciolini,

Giovanni Francesco, then a man 68 years of years, was holding the

same office that his father had held before him in the Pontifical

Court as Papal Secretary. We have no record that Giovanni

Francesco Bracciolini knew anything about the opening books of the

Annals, nor where they were to be found: we are not told that he

was in any communication on the matter with Arcimboldi: all we

know is that he was a colleague in the court of Leo X. of the

finder of those books.

On this fact, nevertheless, I build up the following theory:--That

Bracciolini having found what a good thing he had made of it in

forging the last six books of the Annals, along with the great

success that had attended it, set about forging an addendum, with

a view of disposing of it when completed to Cosmo de' Medici;

--that while he was engaged in the composition, he was surprised by

death on the 30th of October, 1459, leaving behind his friend and

patron, Cosmo de' Medici, to survive him nearly five years, till

the 1st of August, 1464;--that Bracciolini, when he saw that he

was approaching the end of his days, must necessarily and

naturally have made his sons acquainted with the existence of the

work, on account of the great profit that could be made by the

disposal of it whenever the favourable opportunity presented

itself;--that Giovanni Francesco Bracciolini, in 1513 when John

de' Medici was elected to the Pontifical throne, having outlived

all his brothers, had then this MS. in his keeping; knowing that

it was in an unfinished state, from his father being engaged upon

it when he died,--also being aware that there was an ugly gap of

three years between the imprisonment of Drusus and the fall of

Sejanus,--believing in the necessity of this gap being supplied,

--and regarding Arcimboldi as a greater Latinist and scholar

generally than himself, therefore more capable of adding this

fresh matter,--at any rate, of putting the manuscript in order for

transcription,--he apprised the Pope's Receiver of the treasure;

--and that the time which elapsed between the offering of the reward

by Leo X. and the turning up of the first six books of the Annals,

something more than a year, or even a year and a half, was

occupied by Arcimboldi in the revision of the MS. and by a monk in

the Abbey of Corvey in transcribing the forgery along with the

works of Tacitus.

This theory, founded altogether on the imagination, may be right,

or it may be quite wrong; but whether it be wrong or right, it is

impossible to believe that Tacitus wrote those books: it is

equally impossible to believe that they were forged by Arcimboldi,

or that more than one man composed the first six and the last six

books of the Annals, were it only on account of the close identity

of the character, and the conspicuous splendour of the peculiar

ability manifested in both parts.

III. We must, therefore, now endeavour by internal evidence, and

by that alone, to convince the reader that Bracciolini, and nobody

else but he, forged the first portion of the Annals: too many

proofs stand prominently forward to prevent our doubting for a

moment that this really was the case, however unaccountable it may

seem that 86 years should have intervened between the appearance

of the two parts, and 56 after the death of the author.

IV. One strong reason for believing that Bracciolini wrote the

first six books is the far greater superiority of the workmanship

to that in the last six books, showing that the author was then

older, more matured in his mental powers, more experienced in the

ways of the world and better acquainted with the workings of the

human heart;--for if it be true what Goethe said that no young man

can produce a masterpiece, it is, certainly, quite as true that a

man's work in the way of intellect, information and wisdom, is

better after he is fifty than before he reaches that age,--

provided always that he retains the full vigour of his faculties.

Now no one will for a moment say that such workmanship as the

delineation of character, say, for example, of Nero and Seneca, in

the last part of the Annals can stand by the side of the finished

picturing of Tiberius and Sejanus in the first part.

V. Another reason for entertaining this belief is that there is a

still further departure in the first six than in the last six

books from the method pursued by Tacitus: greater attention is

paid to acts of individuals than to events of State: the writer

seems to have been emboldened by his first success to follow more

closely the bent of his genius, and that was, to make of history a

school of morals for imparting instruction by means of revealing

the springs of human action and the workings of the human heart.

VI. That, indeed, the two parts proceeded from the same hand is

seen in the symmetry of the framework. Each book contains the

actions of two, three, four or six years. The latter is the case

in the last part,--in the 12th book,--and in the first part,--in

the 4th and 6th books. The narrative extends to four years in the

13th book, and to about the same time in the 14th in the last

part, and in the first part to the 2nd book; a little more than

three years occupies the 15th book in the last part and the 3rd

and 5th in the first part; two years the 11th and nearly two years

the 1st; in both parts one book is left in a fragmentary state, it

being the 16th in the last part, and in the first part the 5th.

These circumstances go a considerable way towards supporting the

hypothesis that the first six books of the Annals were written by

the same man who wrote the last six books.

VII. A further evidence of the same authorship is found in the

close resemblance which the openings of both parts bear to one

another: each refers to crime, the last part opening with the

hideous accusations against Silius, and the adulteries of

Messalina, while the first part opens with the murder of Agrippa

Posthumus.

VIII. The same tone and colouring, too, are thrown over both

parts: an unbroken moodiness pervades them; one unceasing series

of repulsive pictures of the vices and immoralities of a country

fallen into servility and hastening to destruction; men and women

commit revolting crimes; the human race is a prey to calamity;

individuals are feared and followed by oppression, and that, too,

simply because they are distinguished by nobility of birth, or

because they are excellent rhetoricians, or popular with the

multitude, or endowed with faculties equal to all requirements in

public emergencies and State difficulties: we have the same

terrible deaths of ministers,--Seneca and Sejanus; the same

blending of ferocity and lust in emperors,--Nero and Tiberius; the

same accusations and sacrifices of men who are free of speech and

honourable in their proceedings.

IX. Statements are made in both parts that appear to be the

outcome only of inventive ingenuity and a malignant humour. Thus

Sejanus, who is depicted as a peril to the State, both when he

flourished and when he fell, has, after his execution, his body

ignominiously drawn through the streets, (which looks, by the way,

like a custom of the fifteenth century), and those who are accused

of attachment to him, including his innocent little children, are

all put to death. This seems to be said merely with the view of

blackening the character of Tiberius, as the character of Nero is

blackened by the statements made about Antonius Natalis. Antonius

Natalis takes part in the Pisonian Conspiracy against Nero (An.

XV. 54, 55); then he betrays Seneca and the companions of Seneca

(ib. 56); after that he gets off with impunity (ib. 71). I may be

wrong, but it strikes me that this statement is merely made with

the view of attacking Nero as a bad administrator for not

punishing a mean conspirator and cruel traitor: Tiberius is

similarly assailed for cruelly killing harmless children.

There are no means of showing that what is said of the children of

Sejanus is fiction; it can only be surmised: but it can be proved

as a fact that what is stated about Antonius Natalis is nothing

more nor less than pure romance. He was dead before the conspiracy

of Piso: Bracciolini could have seen that had he read carefully

the letters of Seneca himself; for the philosopher and statesman

speaks of Natalis at the time when he wrote the letter numbered in

his works 87, as being dead some time, and "having many heirs" as

he had been "the heir of many":--"Nuper Natalis ... et multorum

haeres fuit, et multos habuit haeredes" (Ep. LXXXVII.)

X. This statement then about Nero having no foundation, seems to

have been merely made out of that spirit of detraction which we

have already noticed as characterizing both parts of the Annals:

it is the same spirit which runs through the works of Bracciolini:

first he praises an individual, and then mars the eulogy of him by

introducing some little bit of defamation. To give examples:--We

open his collected works, and begin to read his treatise on

Avarice: turning over the first page we find him speaking of a

great preaching friar, named Bernardino, whom he lauds as most

extraordinary in the command he held over the feelings of his

congregation, moving them, as he pleased, to tears or laughter;

but he adds that Bernardino did not adapt his sermons to the good

of those who heard him, but, like the rest of his class, to his

own reputation as a preacher: "Una in re maxime excellit in

persuadendo, ac excitandum affectibus flectit populum, et quo vult

deducit, movens ad lachrymas, et cum res patitur ad risum....

Verum ... ipse, et caeteri hujusmodi praedicatores, ... non

accommodant orationes suas ad nostram utilitatem sed ad suam

loquacitatem" (De Avaritia. Pog. Op. p. 2). A few pages further

on, we find him speaking of Robert, King of Sicily, as unsurpassed

by any living prince in reputation and the glory of his deeds, but

the meanness of his avarice, we are told, clouded the splendour of

his virtues: "At quid illustrius est etiam hodie regis illius

memoria, fama, nomine, gloria rerum gestarum ... si avaritia in eo

virtutis laudem extinxisset" (ib. p. 14).

XI. Other resemblances in both parts denote identity of

authorship. Mean individuals are magnified and inconsiderable

nations exalted; their wars and deeds are related with pompous

particularity; battles are fought not worth recording, and

enterprizes undertaken not worth reading; Tacitus would have

deemed such incidents unworthy of mention; for he takes no more

notice of the Hermundurians, than to speak of them as a German

tribe faithful to the Romans, and living in friendly relations

with them: but in the Annals they are put forward for the

admiration of posterity as waging a war with the Callians, and

fighting a severe battle with those little creatures. In the last

part of the Annals (XII. 55) the Clitae tribes of Cilician boors

rush down from their rugged mountains upon maritime regions and

cities under the conduct of their leader, Throsobor; so in the

first part (III. 74) Tacfarinas makes depredations upon the

Leptuanians, and then retreats among the Garamantes. The same

Numidian savage in the same part leads his disorderly gang of

vagabonds and robbers against the Musulanians, an uncivilized

people without towns (II. 52); in the last part Eunones, prince of

the Adorsians, fights with Zorsines, king of the Siracians,

besieges his mud-huts, and, the historian gravely informs us, had

not night interrupted the assault, would have carried his moats in

a single day. "These are

"the battles, sieges, fortunes,--

The most disastrous chances

Of moving accidents by flood and field,"

that enlist our sympathies in both parts of the Annals; and of

these people, with their

"hair-breadth 'scapes in the imminent deadly breach,"

"you have little else," says that severe critic of the Annals, the

Vicar of Wrexham (p. 89), "but tumults, advances, retreats, kings

recalled, kings banished, kings slain, and all in such confusion

and hurry," as to be devoid of "satisfaction and pleasure"; and

the Rev. Thomas Hunter likens these mean tribes so signalized by

immortality to the ill-conditioned natives of India whom the Great

Mogul styled "Mountain Rats."

XII. Another great resemblance which induces the reader to believe

that both parts of the Annals were composed by a single author is

a monotony so very peculiar as to be characteristic of the same

individual: it is a monotony quite equal to that of an ancient

mansion in an English county, where one passes from apartment to

apartment to be reminded of Gray's "Long Story," for the rooms are

still spacious, the ceilings still fretted, the panels still

gilded, the portraits still those of beauties rustling in silks

and tissues, and still those of grave Lord Keepers in high crowned

hats and green stockings;--or the monotony is like that which

meets one when walking about a town, where at the corners of all

the streets and squares and the beginning and end of every bridge

and viaduct; the entrance to a palace or a public office; the

gateway to a market or a subway, a park or a garden; the foot of a

lamp-post or a statue; a curbstone running round an open space, or

a wall abutting on a roadway, the same thing is always found for

the purpose of keeping off the wheels of vehicles as they roll

by,--a round stone: so one finds in the Annals always the same

form given to every subject: that form is policy; through policy

everything is done; by policy every person is actuated; policy is

the motive of every action; policy is the solution of every

difficulty.

Augustus on his deathbed chooses a worse master than himself to be

his successor in order that his loss may be the more regretted by

the State. Tiberius makes Piso governor of Syria only that he may

have a spy for Germanicus as governor of Egypt, for he was envious

of the fame and virtues of the successful, popular young general.

Nero sends Sylla into exile from mistaking his dullness for

dissimulation. Arruntius kills himself because he is intolerant of

iniquity. The stupidity of Claudius is discovered to be

astuteness, the bestialities of Nero elegance. Nothing is easy,

nothing natural; everything is forced, everything artificial.

XIII. Nor does Bracciolini shine as a depicter of character. What

a contrast between him and Livy in that respect! And as a

describer of imperial occurrences, what a contrast between him and

Tacitus! He does not touch the Paduese in his grand form of

painting all people and all things in their proper colours: Livy

places before us the Kings of old Rome in their pride and the

Consuls in their variety; the former with their fierce virtue, the

latter with their degraded love of luxury;--Decemvirs in the

austerity of their rule and Tribunes with their popular impulses.

Tacitus makes us see the movements of mighty events, as clearly as

we behold objects shining in the broad light of day,--their

vicissitudes, relations, causes and issues;--armies with their

temper and feelings; provinces with their disposition and

sentiments;--the Empire in the elements of its strength and

weakness; the Capital in its distracted and fluctuating state;

--all political phaenomena that marked the dreary reality of

dominion in the declining days of the Roman Commonwealth. But

Bracciolini puts before us nothing like this;--only incongruous,

unimaginable and un-Romanlike personages,--people who gibber at

us, as idiots in their asylums, as that unfortunate simpleton, the

Emperor Claudius;--murderous criminals who glower and scowl upon

us, as those two monsters of iniquity, Tiberius and Nero;--pimps

and parasites beyond number, who so plague us with their perpetual

presence, that the revolted soul at length wonders how so many

such beings can be acting together, and be so degenerate, when

Nature might have designed most, if not all, of them, for greater

and more salutary purposes. While Bracciolini does not, in the

least, resemble either of the two great historians of Rome, he is

the very reverse of the historical classic of Spain, Mariana, who,

in the thirty volumes of his Historia de Rebus Hispaniae, places

before us the different characters of different people,

distinguishing Mussulmans from Christians, Moors from Arabs, and

Carthaginians from Romans; whereas, in the Annals, we perceive no

difference between the Parthians and the Suevians, the Romans and

the Germans, the Dandarides and the Adiabenians, the Medes and the

Iberians.

CHAPTER II.

LANGUAGE, ALLITERATION, ACCENT AND WORDS.

I. The poetic diction of Tacitus, and its fabrication in the

Annals.--II. Florid passages in the Annals.--III. Metrical

composition of Bracciolini.--IV. Figurative words: (_a_)

"pessum dare"; (_b_) "voluntas".--The verb foedare and the

Ciceronian use of foedus.--VI. The language of other Roman

writers,--Livy, Quintus Curtius and Sallust.--VII. The phrase

"non modo ... sed", and other anomalous expressions, not

Tacitus's.--VIII. Words not used by Tacitus, distinctus and

codicillus.--IX. Peculiar alliterations in the Annals and works

of Bracciolini.--X. Monotonous repetition of accent on

penultimate syllables.--XI. Peculiar use of words: (_a_)

properus; (_b_) annales and scriptura; (_c_) totiens.

--XII. Words not used by Tacitus: (_a_) addubitare; (_b_)

exitere.--XIII. Polysyllabic words ending consecutive sentences.

--XIV. Omission of prepositions: (_a_) in; (_b_) with

names of nations.

I. Any student of Thucydides and Tacitus must have observed that,

though both support their opinions by sober, rational remarks,

Thucydides expresses himself with logical accuracy in the calm and

cold phraseology of passionless prose, whereas Tacitus ever and

anon indulges in figures of rhetoric and poetic diction.

He changes things which can be considered only with reference to

thought into solid, visible forms, as when he speaks of "wounds,"

instead of "the wounded," being taken to mothers and wives: "ad

matres, ad conjuges _vulnera_ ferunt" (Germ. 7). He ascribes

to the lifeless what can be properly attributed only to the

living, as when he makes "day and the plain _reveal_,"

"_detexit_ dies et campus" (Hist. II. 62). He speaks of

things done in a place as if they were done by the place itself,

as Judaea _elevating_ Libanon into its principal mountain":

"praecipuum montium Libanon _erigit_" i.e., Judaea (Hist. V. 6).

He applies epithets to objects that are local, as if they were

mental or moral, as we hear of "a _chaste_ grove" ("nemus

_castum_") in the Germany (40).

Any one who had carefully analyzed his writings with the view of

imitating him by forgery could not have failed to notice this; the

consequence is that if we were to have a forgery, we should have a

very close reproduction of this style of expression, and it would

show itself to be forgery, by being without the boldness,

spontaneity and novelty of the original; it would be timid,

forced, and elaborately close and cramped. Now just this copying

of a fabricator is what we find in the Annals. Exactly corresponding,

to Tacitus's "_wounds_" instead of "the wounded," is seeing _blood

streaming_ in families," meaning "suicides," and "the _hands of

executioners_," meaning "the executed": "aspiciens _undantem_ per

domos _sanguinem_ aut _manus carnificum_ (An. VI. 39). Precisely

akin to Tacitus's "day and the plain revealing" is "night _bursting_

into wickedness": "noctem in scelus _erupturam_" (An. I. 28).

For "a country lifting up a mountain into its highest altitude,"

is the analogous substitute, "the upper part of a town on fire

_burning_ everything": "incensa super villa omnes _cremavit_"

(An. III. 37): Here, too, is a further extension of poetical

phraseology, more clearly proving forgery by denoting the hand

of nobody so much as Bracciolini, who was remarkably fond of

borrowing the language of Virgil, (never resorted to by Tacitus),

"super" for "desuper":

"Haec _super_ e vallo prospectant Troies"

(Aen. IX. 168).

For Tacitus's "chaste grove" we have the expression, like the note

of a mockbird, "_just_ places",--when places do not favour either

combatant: ("fundi Germanos acie et _justis locis"_ An. II. 5).

This imitation is found not only in the first but also in the last

part of the Annals.

By tropes of verbs, nouns, adjectives, and in other ways, Tacitus

produces effects that we look for in poets, but not in historians,

as he uses "bosom" or "lap" ("sinus"), in the metaphorical sense

of a "hiding place", ("latebrae"), in the History (II. 92), and of

"a retreat", ("recessus"), in the Agricola (30). So, instead of

his "bosom," or "lap", for "hiding place," or "retreat," we find

"tears" for "weeping persons," where Seneca endeavours to recall

his distracted friends to composure by words of suasion or authority:

"Simul _lacrymas_ eorum modo sermone, modo intentior in modum

coercentis, ad firmitudinem revocat" (An. XV. 62).

The close crampness of the whole of these instances raises a very

strong suspicion that it cannot be the writing of Tacitus, but

merely a servile imitation of his manner. It shows, too, that both

parts of the Annals proceeded from the same hand.

II. When in the course of the autumn before last an announcement

was made of this work in some of the public journals, the

compliment was paid to me in one of the most enlightened of them,

the _Daily News_, by a brilliant and learned writer, who was

a perfect master of his subject, questioning whether it could be

possible that Bracciolini had forged the Annals, on account of his

mode of composition being so thoroughly different from that of

Tacitus. The passages of Bracciolini were properly pronounced to

be florid at times, and to bear resemblance to the high-flown

magniloquence of Chateaubriand rather than the classic staidness

of Tacitus. I have already pointed out how varied was Bracciolini

in style, and his variety proved how by an effort he could, if it

pleased him, imitate anybody. Still there is truth in the remark,

that let him be as guarded as he might, he would, sometimes, fall

quite unconsciously into a natural peculiarity. It might then be

questioned whether he had forged the Annals unless it can be shown

that in both parts of that work he now and again fell into the

florid style found in his "Ruinarum Urbis Romae Descriptio", as

quoted by the accomplished writer in the _Daily News_, (who took,

as he said, the translation of Gibbon), to wit: "The temple is

overthrown, the gold is pillaged, the wheel of Fortune has accomplished

her revolution."

I cannot do better than give the four instances that are adduced

by Famianus Strada in his Prolusions (II. 3) by way of illustrating

how every now and then Bracciolini wrote sentences that are marked

by the qualities of poetry rather than of prose.

The first occurs in the eleventh book, where Messalina is described

in the following manner: "such was her furious lust, that, in mid

autumn, she would celebrate in her home the vintage festival; the

presses were plied, the vats flowed, and women girt with skins

bounded about like sacrificing or raving Bacchantes, she, with

hair flowing loosely, waving the thyrsus, and Silius by her side

wreathed with ivy and shod with the cothurnus, tossing his head,

while a crew of female wantons shrieked around them":--"Messalina

non alias solutior luxu, adulto autumno, simulacrum vindemiae per

domum celebrabat: urgeri prela, fluere lacus, et faeminae pellibus

accinetae assultabant, ut sacrificantes vel insanientes Bacchae;

ipsa crine fluxo, thyrsum quatiens, juxtaque Silius hedera vinetus,

gerere cothurnos, jacere caput, strepente circum procaci choro."

(An. XI. 31). It is not possible in any translation to convey

an adequate notion of the all but rhythmical flow of the last few

concluding words, as may be more clearly seen by their being arranged

thus:--

"Juxtaque Sillus,

Hedera Vinctus,

Gerere _c_othurnos,

Jacere _c_aput,

Strepente _c_ircum

Procaci _c_horo."

The second instance given by Famianus Strada is in the first part

of the Annals, where the Roman commander in Lower Germany, Aulus

Caecina, is beset by Armin and the Germans at the causeway called

the Long Bridges. Speaking of both armies, the historian says: "It

was a restless night to them from different causes whilst the

barbarians with their festive carousals, their triumphal songs or

their savage yells woke the echoes in the low-lying parts of the

vallies and the resounding groves, among the Romans there were

feeble fires, broken murmurs, and everywhere the sentinels leant

drooping against the pales, or wandered about the tents more

asleep than awake: awful dreams, too, horrified the commander; for

he seemed to see and hear Quinctilius Varus, smeared with blood

and rising out of the marsh, calling aloud, as it were, to him he

paying no heed, and pushing back the hand that was held forth to

him." "Nox per diversa inquies: cum barbari festis epulis, laeto

cantu aut truci sonore subjecta vallium ac resultantis saltus

complerent; apud Romanos invalidi ignes, interruptae voces, atque

ipsi passim adjacerent vallo, oberrarent tentoriis, insomnes magis

quam pervigiles; ducemque terruit dira quies: nani Quinctilium

Varum sanguine oblitum et paludibus emersum, cernere et audire

visus est, velut vocantem, non tamen obsecutus, et manum intendentis

repulisse" (An. I. 65). As in the preceding sentence the closing

words are arranged in musically measured cadences, as will be more

clearly distinguished when thus presented to the eye:

Sanguine oblitum

Et paludibus emersum,

Cernere et audire

Visus est, velut vocantem,

Non tamen obsecutus,

Et manum intendentis repulisse. [Endnote 357]

Famianus Strada was also struck at the extravagantly florid

phraseology in the fifteenth book with respect to Scaevina's

dagger being sharpened to a point the day before the intended

execution of a plot: "Finding fault with the poniard which he drew

from its sheath that it was blunted by time, he gave orders it

should be whetted on a stone, and be made to FLAME UP _into a

point_." "Promptam vagina pugionem 'vetustatem obtusum,'

increpans, asperari saxo, et in _mucronem_ ARDESCERE" (An. XV. 24).

High-flown, poetical language is also used in the first book when

the Romans visit the scene of the defeat of Varus. "Caecina," says

the historian, "having been sent on to explore the hidden recesses

of the forest, and make bridges and conveyances over the waters of

the bog and the insecure places in the plains, the soldiers reach

the _sad spot, hideous both in its appearance and from association_."

"Praemisso Caecina, ut occulta saltuum scrutaretur, pontesque et

aggeres humido paludum et fallacibus campis imponeret, incedunt

_moestos locos, visuque ac memoria deformes_" (An. I. 61).

III. A writer so poetically inclined would naturally fall every

now and then without being aware of it into metrical composition;

Bracciolini frequently does so: for instance: writing to his

friend Niccoli from London, he says that at that moment he fancies

he is speaking to him, "hearing his tones and returning his speeches":

--"jam jam videor tecum loqui, et au/dire no/tas et/reddere voces"

(Ep. II. 1).

In another of his letters he falls into hexametrical measure:

"la/bris nos/tris om/ni re/rum strepi/tu vacu/us" (Ep. II. 17),

about as inharmonious as the complete, inelegant hexameter which

we find him writing in the opening words of the Annals:--

"Urbem / Romam a / principi/o re/ges habu/ere."

The whole of this is in imitation of his two favorite authors,

--Sallust, who occasionally wrote in hexametrical measure as, "ex

vir/tute fu/it mul/ta et prae/clara re/i mili/taris." Jug. V.;

--and Livy, who, if Sallust sometimes exceeded the number of feet,

sometimes fell short of them, as in the opening words of the

Preface to his History: "factu rusne oper/ae preti/um sim."

IV. Another circumstance which causes us to credit Bracciolini

with having written the first part of the Annals is that we find

there certain poetical or figurative words, which are nowhere to

be found in any of the works of Tacitus. One of these is "pessum

dare," which means literally "to sink to the bottom," but is

figuratively used for "destroying" or "ruining," as when

Bracciolini in one of his letters says that he is "desirous of

guarding against the weight of present circumstances _sinking

him to the bottom_," that is "ruining him:" "id vellem curare,

ne praesentiarum onus me _pessumdaret_" (Ep. II. 3). So in

the first book of the Annals (9), he speaks of Mark Antony being

"sunk to the bottom," that is "ruined" "by his sensualities": "per

libidines _pessum datus_ sit"; or of the over-eagerness of

Brutidius to grasp at honours undoing him, as it had "sunk to the

bottom" "many, even good men": "multos etiam bonos _pessumdedit_"

(An. III. 66).

Bracciolini uses "voluntas" as the equivalent of "benevolentia."

In the second "Disceptatio" of his Historia Tripartita, "where he

means to speak of laws being framed for the good they do the

greatest number," he expresses himself: "leges pro _voluntate_"

(_i.e._ benevolentia) "majorum conditae" (Op. p. 38). So in the

first part of the Annals when he says that "there was no getting

any good to be done by Sejanus except by committing crime," he

expresses himself in the same way: "neque Sejani _voluntas_"

(_i.e._ benevolentia) "nisi scelere, quaerebatur" (An. IV. 68).

V. The meaning "to disgrace," or "dishonour" is given to the verb

"foedare." In the first part of the Annals when it is said that

silk clothes are _a disgrace_ to men," the expression is "vestis

serica viros _foedat_" (II. 33). When in the last part eloquence

(periphrastically styled "the first of the fine arts") is spoken

of as "_disgraced_ when turned to sordid purposes," the phrase is

"bonarum artium principem sordidis ministeriis _foedari_" (An. XI. 6).

This meaning is not to be found in any ancient Roman work, in prose

or poetry; it might then be taken to be mediaeval; but it seems to

be classical; for this reason: Bracciolini in one of his letters to

Niccoli says, and truly enough, that he had formed himself on Cicero:

whence it is easy to see that the idea occurred to him of coining

that signification for the verb from the meaning which is given to

the adjective by the writer whom he regarded as the greatest among

the Romans, for Cicero certainly gives that meaning to "foedus" in

this passage in his "Atticus" (VIII. 11) "nihil fieri potest miserius,

nihil perditius, nihil _foedius_," that is, "nothing can be more

miserably, nothing more flagitiously, nothing more _disgracefully_

done"; and this other passage in his Offices (I. 34): "lust is most

_disgraceful_ to old age": "luxuria ... senectuti _foedissima_ est":

directly following Cicero, and altogether ignoring Tacitus, Bracciolini

in the first part of the Annals, when speaking of the dishonourable

fawning of the Roman senators, expresses "that _disgraceful_ servility,"

"_foedum_ illud servitium" (IV. 74).

VI. As this is the language of Cicero, and not Tacitus, so we find

in other places in both parts of the Annals Bracciolini using the

language of other leading Roman writers, in preference to that of

the historian whom he was feigning himself to be. The following

few instances will suffice:--Tacitus makes the adjective agree

with the substantive: Livy does not. In imitation of Livy Bracciolini,

throughout both parts of the Annals, puts the adjective in the neuter,

and makes the substantive depend upon it in the genitive. Tacitus

never uses the rare form "jutum." It is used in both parts of the

Annals (III. 35, XIV. 4). Quintus Curtius uses the form of ere

instead of erunt as the termination of the third person plural

of the perfect active: it is then in imitation of Quintus Curtius

that Bracciolini uses the form ere so constantly throughout the

Annals. Tacitus always uses "dies" in the masculine, but Livy

sometimes in the feminine when speaking of a specified day.

"Postera die" in the third book of the Annals (10 _in._) is then

III. There can be very little doubt that Cosmo de' Medici was the