Tacitus and Bracciolini | Page 9

passage being in reference to the Romans who fell in the Dacian war. We have no proof that the Annals was in existence in the twelfth century from what John of Salisbury says in his Polycraticon (viii. 18), that Tacitus is among the number of those historians, "qui tyrannorum atrocitates et exitus miseros plenius scribunt;" for in his completed History Tacitus must have expatiated pretty freely on the "atrocious tyranny" of Domitian, and the "unfortunate termination of the lives of tyrants."
From the time of John of Salisbury till shortly before the publication of the Annals, no further reference is made to Tacitus by any writer or historian, monkish or otherwise, not even of erudite Germany, beginning with Abbot Hermannus, who wrote in the twelfth century the history of his own monastery of St. Martin's at Dornick, and ending with Caspar Bruschius, who, in the sixteenth century, wrote an Epitome of the Archbishoprics and Bishoprics of Germany, and the Centuria Prima (as Daniel Nessel in the next century wrote the Centuria Secunda) of the German monasteries. And yet in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, all kinds of writers quote the Annals about as freely and frequently as they quote the History, and that not once or twice, but five or six, and even seven and eight times, in the same work. It would be impossible to mention them all, the writers being "as numerous as the leaves in Vallambrosa's vale";--a figure that can hardly be considered hyperbolic when the enormous number of these writers can be partially guessed from the following catalogue of those who delighted in antiquarian researches, whose productions cited are archaeological, and who made all their references to the Annals for the purpose of merely illustrating archaic matters; nevertheless, the number of such writers alone amounts to as many as a score; moreover, the whole twenty are to be found in one compilation comprised in but five volumes,--Polenus's New Supplement to the collections of Graevius and Gronovius, entitled "Utriusque Thesauri Antiquitatum Romanarum Graecarumque Nova Supplementa";--the Friesland scholar, Titus Popma in his "De Operis Servorum"; the Italian antiquary, Lorenzo Pignorio, Canon of Trevigo, in his treatise "De Servis"; the renowned critic, Salmasius, in his explanation of two ancient inscriptions found on a Temple in the island of Crete ("Notae ad Consecrationem Templi in Agro Herodis Attici Triopio"); Peter Burmann in his "De Vectigalibus"; Albertinus Barrisonus in his "De Archivis"; Merula, the jurist, historian and polygrapher, in his "De Legibus Romanorum"; Carolus Patinus in his Commentary "In Antiquum Monumentum Marcellinae"; Polletus in his "Historia Fori Romani"; Aegyptius in his "De Bacchanalibus Explicatio"; Gisbert Cuper in his "Monumenta Antiqua Inedita"; Octavius Ferrarius in his "Dissertatio de Gladiatoribus"; William �� Loon in his "Eleutheria"; Schaeffer in his "De Re Vehiculari"; Johannes Jacobus Claudius in his "Diatrib�� de Nutricibus et Paedagogis"; Antonius Bombardinus in his "De Carcere Tractatus"; Gutherlethus in his work on the "Salii," or Priests of Mars; the learned Spaniard, Miniana, in his "De Theatro Saguntino Dialogus"; Gorius in his "Columbarium Libertorum et Servorum"; Spon in his "Miscellanea Erudita Antiquitatis" and Jaques Leroy in his "Achates Tiberianus." In fact, the Annals of Tacitus is noticed, or quoted, or referred to, or commented upon at length (as at the commencement of the sixteenth century by Scipione Ammirato), in an endless list of works, with or without the names of the authors, which by itself is all but conclusive that the Annals was not in existence till the fifteenth century, and not generally known till the sixteenth and seventeenth.
But to return for a moment to what was done by two writers, who lived before the fifteenth century,--Sulpicius Severus, who died A.D. 420; and Jornandez, who, in the time of Justinian, was Secretary to the Gothic kings in Italy. Now, it must not be withheld,--for it would be too uncandid,--that identical passages are found in the Annals ascribed to Tacitus and the Sacred History of Sulpicius Severus.
In order that the reader may see the identity of the passages, we place them in juxtaposition, italicising the words that are found in both works:--
Sulpicius (ii. 28). "_Inditum imperatori flammeum, dos et genialis torus et faces nuptiales; cuncta denique, quae_ vel in feminis non sine verecundia conspiciuntur, spectata."
Annals (xv. 37). "_Inditum imperatori flammeum_, visi auspices, _dos et genialis torus et faces nuptiales; cuncta denique spectata, quae_ etiam in femina nox operit."
Sulpicius (ii. 29). "Sed opinio omnium invidiam incendii in principem retorquebat, credebaturque imperator gloriam innovandae urbis quaesisse."
Annals (xv. 10). "Videbaturque Nero condendae urbis novae et cognomento suo adpellandae gloriam quaerere."
Sulpicius (v. 2). "Quin et novae mortes excogitatae, ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent. Multi _crucibus affixi, aut flamma usti_. Plerique in id reservati, ut, CUM _defecisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis urerentur_."
Annals (xv. 44). "Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, _ut ferarum tergis contecti, laniatu canum interirent_, aut