Germania and Agricola

Germania and Agricola [with
accents]

Project Gutenberg's Germania and Agricola, by Caius Cornelius
Tacitus #4 in our series by Caius Cornelius Tacitus
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Title: Germania and Agricola
Author: Caius Cornelius Tacitus
Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9090] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 4,
2003]

Edition: 10
Language: Latin and English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMANIA
AND AGRICOLA ***

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The GERMANIA and AGRICOLA
Of
Caius Cornelius Tacitus
With Notes for Colleges
By W. S. Tiler
Professor of the Greek and Latin Languages in Amherst College

PREFACE.
This edition of the Germania and Agricola of Tacitus is designed to
meet the following wants, which, it is believed, have been generally felt
by teachers and pupils in American Colleges.
1. A Latin text, approved and established by the essential concurrence
of all the more recent editors. The editions of Tacitus now in use in this
country abound in readings purely conjectural, adopted without due
regard to the peculiarities of the author, and in direct contravention of
the critical canon, that, other things being equal, the more difficult
reading is the more likely to be genuine. The recent German editions
labor to exhibit and explain, so far as possible, the reading of the best
MSS.
2. A more copious illustration of the grammatical constructions, also of
the rhetorical and poetical usages peculiar to Tacitus, without
translating, however, to such an extent as to supersede the proper
exertions of the student. Few books require so much illustration of this
kind, as the Germania and Agricola of Tacitus; few have received more

in Germany, yet few so little here. In a writer so concise and abrupt as
Tacitus, it has been deemed necessary to pay particular regard to the
connexion of thought, and to the particles, as the hinges of that
connexion.
3. A comparison of the writer and his cotemporaries with authors of the
Augustan age, so as to mark concisely the changes which had been
already wrought in the language and taste of the Roman people. It is
chiefly with a view to aid such a comparison, that it has been thought
advisable to prefix a Life of Tacitus, which is barren indeed of personal
incidents, but which it is hoped may serve to exhibit the author in his
relation to the history, and especially to the literature, of his age.
4. The department in which less remained to be done than any other, for
the elucidation of Tacitus, was that of Geography, History, and
Archaeology. The copious notes of Gordon and Murphy left little to be
desired in this line; and these notes are not only accessible to American
scholars in their original forms, but have been incorporated, more or
less, into all the college editions. If any peculiar merit attaches to this
edition, in this department, it will be found in the frequent references to
such classic authors as furnish collateral information, and in the
illustration of the private life of the Romans, by the help of such recent
works as Becker's Gallus. The editor has also been able to avail himself
of Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo Saxons, which sheds not a
little light on the manners of the Germans.
5. Many of the ablest commentaries on the Germania and Agricola
have appeared within a comparatively recent period, some of them
remarkable examples of critical acumen and exegetical tact, and others,
models of school and college editions. It has been the endeavor of the
editor to bring down the literature pertaining to Tacitus to the present
time, and to embody in small compass the most valuable results of the
labors of such recent German editors as Grimm, Günther, Gruber,
Kiessling, Dronke, Roth, Ruperti, and Walther.
The text is, in the main, that of Walther, though the other editors