Tacitus and Bracciolini | Page 5

year 819, going over ground that, according to his own account, had been gone over before most admirably, every one of the numerous historians having written in his view, "with an equal amount of forcible expression and independent opinion"--"pari eloquentia ac libertate." Thus, by his own showing, he performed a work which he knew to be superfluous in recounting events that occurred in the time of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.
What authority have we that he did this? Certainly, not the authority of those who knew best--the ancients. They do not mention, in their meagre accounts of him, the names of his writings, the number of which we, perhaps, glean from casual remarks dropped by Pliny the Younger in his Epistles. He says (vii. 20), "I have read your book, and with the utmost care have made remarks upon such passages, as I think ought to be altered or expunged." "Librum tuum legi, et quam diligentissime potui, adnotavi, quae commutanda, quae eximenda arbitrarer." In a second letter (viii. 7) he alludes to another (or it might be the same) "book," which his friend had sent him "not as a master to a master, nor as a disciple to a disciple, but as a master to a disciple:" "neque ut magistro magister, neque ut discipulo discipulus ... sed ut discipulo magister ... librum misisti." That Tacitus was not the author of one work only is clear from Pliny in another of his letters (vi. 16) speaking in the plural of what his friend had written: "the immortality of your writings:"-- "scriptorum tuorum aeternitas;" also of "my uncle both by his own, and your works:"--"avunculus meus et suis libris et tuis." In the letter already referred to (vii. 20), Tacitus is further spoken of as having written, at least, two historical works, the immortality of which Pliny predicted without fear of proving a false prophet: "auguror, nec me fallit augurium, historias tuas immortales futuras." From these passages it would seem that the works of Tacitus were, at the most, three.
If his works were only three in number, everything points in preference to the Books of History, of which we possess but five; the Treatise on the different manners of the various tribes that peopled Germany in his day; and the Life of his father-in-law, Agricola. Nobody but Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, Bishop of Carthage, supposes that he wrote a book of Facetiae or pleasant tales and anecdotes, as may be seen by reference to the episcopal writer's Treatise on Archaic or Obsolete Words, where explaining "Elogium" to mean "hereditary disease," he continues, "as Cornelius Tacitus says in his book of Facetiae; 'therefore pained in the cutting off of children who had hereditary disease left to them'": "Elogium est haereditas in malo; sicut Cornelius Tacitus ait in libro Facetiarum: 'caesis itaque motum elogio in filiis derelicto.'" (De Vocibus Antiquis. p. 151. Basle ed. 1549). Justus Lipsius doubts whether the Discourse on the Causes of the Corruption of Latin Eloquence proceeded from Tacitus, or the other Roman to whom many impute it, Quintilian, for he says in his Preface to that Dialogue: "What will it matter whether we attribute it to Tacitus, or, as I once thought, to Marcus Fabius Quinctilianus? ... Though the age of Quinctilianus seems to have been a little too old for this Discourse to be by that young man. Therefore, I have my doubts." "Incommodi quid erit, sive Tacito tribuamus; sive M. Fabio Quinctiliano, ut mihi olim visim? ... Aetas tamen Quinctiliani paullo grandior fuisse videtur, quam ut hic sermo illo juvene. Itaque ambigo." (p. 470. Antwerp ed. 1607.) Enough will be said in the course of this discussion to carry conviction to the minds of those who can be convinced by facts and arguments that Tacitus did not write the Annals.
Chronology, in the first place, prevents our regarding him as the author. Though we know as little of his life as of his writings-- and though no ancient mentions the date or place of his birth, or the time of his death,--we can form a conjecture when he flourished by comparing his age with that of his friend, Pliny the Younger. Pliny died in the year 13 of the second century at the age of 52, so that Pliny was born A.D. 61. Tacitus was by several years his senior. Otherwise Pliny would not have spoken of himself as a disciple looking up to him with reverence as to "a master"; "the duty of submitting to his influence," and "a desire to obey his advice":--"tu magister, ego contra"--(Ep. viii. 7): "cedere auctoritati tuae debeam" (Ep. i. 20): "cupio praeceptis tuis parere" (Ep. ix. 10); nor would he describe himself as "a mere stripling when his friend was at the height of fame and in a proud position": "equidem adolescentulus,