Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century

by John Wilson Ross

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 more in the style of Livy than Tacitus.

As for Sallust, Bracciolini was never able to conceal his unbounded admiration of him; nor forbear from imitating him: this did not escape the notice of his contemporaries, who likened him to that ancient historian: he is perpetually borrowing his phrases, from the very first words in the Annals: "Urbem Romam a principio reges habuere," after Sallust's "Urbem Romam … habuere initio Trojani" (Cat. 6) down to the close of his forgery, as in the XVth book (36), "haec atque talia plebi volentia fuere," after Sallust's "multisque suspicionibus plebi volentia facturus habebatur" (Fragmenta. Lib. IV. Delph. Ed. p. 317). To give a few instances from the First Six Books of the Annals: his "ambulantis Tiberii genua advolveretur" (I. 13) is Sallust's "genua patrum" advol- vuntur (Fragm.): his "adepto principatu" (I. 7) is Sallust's "magistratus adeptus" (Jug. IV.), and "adepta libertate" (Cat.7): his "spirantem adhuc Augustum" (I. 5) is Sallust's "Catilina paullulam etiam spirans" (Cat. in fin. 61): his "excepere Graeci quaesitissimis honoribus" (II. 53) is Sallust's "epulae quaesitis- simae" (Frag.): his "magnitudinem paecuniae malo vertisse" (VI. 7) is Sallust's "magnitudine paecuniae a bono honestoque in pravum abstractus est" (Jug. 24); and numerous other phrases are so precisely and peculiarly of the same kind as Sallust's, that we know they were taken or stolen from him. But Tacitus does not borrow from anybody; he is himself a great original. As in his unadmitted forgeries, so in his acknowledged works, whether it be a treatise as in his "De Miseria Humanae Conditionis" (I. Op. p. 107), Bracciolini goes on borrowing his choice phrases from Sallust, as "libidini obnoxios fortuna fecit," which is Sallust's "neque delicto, neque libidini obnoxius" (Cat. 52); or whether it be one of his Funeral Orations as in that over Cardinal Florian (Op. p. 258), "nunquam ne parvula quidem nota ejus fama labefactaretur," or one of his essays, as that from which we have just quoted,—"On the Misery of the Human Condition,"—"vires Imperii labefactarent flagitiis" (Op. p. 125), which are both Sallust's "vitiis obtentui quibus labefactatis" (Fragm. p. 357).

So he prefers Sallust's archaic word "inquies"; for just as Sallust writes "humanum ingenium inquies atque indomitum" (Frag. Lib. p. 172), he, too, writes "nox per diversa inquies" (I. 65), and "dies ploratibus inquies" (An. III. 4), forgetting that Tacitus always uses the modern word, "inquietus," as "inquieta urbs" (Hist. I. 20).

VII. The phrase in the Annals "non modo … sed," instead of "non modo … sed etiam" is peculiar, being at variance with the measured style of all the old Roman writers. It occurs several times in the first part, as "non modo portus et proxima maris, sed moenia ac tecta" (III. 1), as well as in the last part, "non modo milites, sed populus" (XVI. 3). In both instances Tacitus would have written "sed etiam moenia—sed etiam populus."

Nor would Tacitus have erred in using the anomalous expressions pointed out by Nicholas Aagard in his treatise about him, entitled "In C.C. Tacitum Disputatio." Tacitus would never have written, as in the Fourth Book of the Annals (56): "missa navali copia, non modo externa ad bella"; he would have used the plural instead of the singular; and, just as he would have used "copiis" instead of "copia", he would have used "ejus" for "sua" in this passage in the sixth book (6): "adeo facinora atque flagitia sua ipsi quoque in supplicium verterant":—we know that he would not have constructed an adjective in the positive when it ought to be in the comparative, as: "quanto quis audacia promtus" (An. I. 57); for we have almost just seen how in such a phrase he properly constructs promtus in the comparative: "tanto ad discordias promtior" (Hist. II. 99).

VIII.—He now and then forgets himself by using words that clearly never could have been known to Tacitus, because they were words that sprang up in an after age. Thus on one occasion he is led into this error from the desire to express a poetical idea by a poetical word: just as Statius writes "distinctus" in the sense that his predecessors of ages before had used "distinctio":

"Viridis quum regula longo
Synnada distinctu variat:"
Sylv. I. 5. 41.;

so he falls into the blunder of making Tacitus say;—"ore ac distinctu pennarum a ceteris avibus diversum" (An. VI. 28); at the same time he commits another mistake, of which he is repeatedly guilty, and which a Roman carefully avoided—using the rhythm of the hexameter in prose,—(if the Greek quantity with "ceterus" be taken:—

"penna/rum a cete/ris avi/bus di/versum."

In both parts of the Annals "codicillus" is used in the plural as signifying "the codicil to a will" (VI. 9): "precatusque per codicillos, immiti rescripto, venas absolvit"; and in An. XV. 64 Seneca is described as "writing in the codicil of his will" "in codicillis rescripserat." Such Latin not only would not have been written but would not have been even understood by Tacitus; because when he lived his countrymen confined the meaning of "codicillus" to a wooden table for writing on, and thence, figuratively, for "a note" or "letter": it was not till several centuries after,—the first part of the fifth (409-450),—in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger, that the lawyers used the word to signify "an imperial patent or diploma"; for "codicillariae dignitates" in the Theodosian Codex (VI. 22. 7) means "offices given by the patent of the Emperor." It is also put here and there in the same Codex (VIII. 18. 7 and XVI. 5. 40) for the "codicil to a will"; but it is used in the singular: the meaning so given to it in the plural, (as in both parts of the Annals), did not come into vogue till a century after, in the time of Justinian, as may be seen by consulting the Twenty-ninth Chapter of the Pandects which treats of the Law of Codicils ("De Jure Codicillorum"); and Marcian is quoted to this effect: that "a man who can make a will can, certainly, also make a codicil", the language being "codicillos is demum facere potest, qui et testamentum facere potest" (Lib. VI. c. 3. Marcian VII. Instit.). It looks then tolerably clear that the author of the Annals got his Latin about "codicillus" in the plural signifying the "codicil to a will" either from the Institutes of Marcian or the Pandects of Justinian.

IX. Alliterations occur in the Annals at the end of words four times repeated, as "Cui superposit_um_ convivi_um_ navi_um_ aliar_um_ tractu moverentur" (XV. 37), which is in the style not of Tacitus, but Bracciolini, as "ad liberand_os_ praeclarissim_os_ ill_os_ vir_os_ ex ergastulis barbarorum," already quoted from the treatise "De Infelicitate Principum"; or "mul_tis_ cap_tis_, trecen_tis_ occi_sis_," in his History of Florence (Lib. V. See Muratori XX. p.346).

Another very peculiar alliteration of Bracciolini's is with the letter c. Sometimes he alternates it after two words, as in a letter to his friend Niccoli, _C_ommisi hoc idem _c_uidam amico meo _c_ivi Senensi" (Ep. II. 3), exactly as we find it towards the beginning of the first book of the Annals (9) _C_uncta inter se _c_onnexa: jus apud _c_ives modestiam"; or at the end of the second book (88): _c_um varia fortuna _c_ertaret, dolo propinquorum _c_ecidit liberator." He repeats, too, this favourite alliteration four times, sometimes after one word, sometimes after two, as in a letter to Cardinal Julian, the Pope's Legate in Germany: "_c_ertissima quadam _c_onjectura, qua praeteritis _c_onnectens praesentia _c_ausasque" (Op. p. 309). In his History of Florence this quadrupled alliteration of c occurs thus (Lib. II. see Muratori XX. p. 224): "_c_onspiciant; est quippe _c_ommune belluis, quae ratione _c_arent, ut naturali _c_ogente," as we have just seen in a quotation from the fifteenth book of the Annals (31), "gerere _c_othurnos, jacere _c_aput, strepente _c_ircum procaci _c_horo." But these alliterations with c four times repeated, which occur frequently in the Annals generally take place with three or more words intervening between each alliteration, as in this sentence in the first part: "_c_onfertus pedes, dispositae turmae _c_uncta praelio provisa: hostibus _c_ontra, omnium nesciis, non arma, non ordo, non _c_onsilium" (An. IV. 25); or in this sentence in the last part: "_c_ompertum sibi, referens, ex _c_ommentariis patris sui nullam _c_ujusquam accusationem ab eo _c_oactam." (XIII. 43 in med.), which is in the style of one of the numerous beautiful alliterations of his favourite poet, Virgil:

"_C_redunt se vidisse Jovem _c_um saepe nigrantem Aegida _c_oncuteret dextra, nimbosque _c_ieret" Aen. VIII. 353-4.

But it is not at all in imitation of the manner of Tacitus, who, certainly, sometimes has an alliteration after two words, but it is not with the letter c, nor does he alternate it; if an alliteration again occurs immediately afterwards, it is of quite a different character, as in his Agricola (45): "_o_mnia sine dubio, _o_ptime parentum, _a_ssidente _a_mantissima uxore"; and in his History (III. 36) "_p_raeterita, instantia, futura, _p_ari oblivione dimiserat; atque _i_llum _i_n nemore Aricino."

Bracciolini distinctly shows himself to be the author of the Annals by a very peculiar kind of composition to which he is uncommonly partial,—joining together with an enclitic polysyllabic words of the same length and the same long ending, as "contempl_ationem_ cogit_ationem_que" in his "De Miseria Humanae Conditionis" (Op. p. 130); in the first part of the Annals, "extoll_ebatur_, argu_ebatur_que" (I. 9) and in the last part, respec_tantes_, rogi_tantes_que" (An. XII. 69);—and it is difficult to say whether this is to be found oftener in his acknowledged productions or in his famous forgery.

He is much given to placing together several words ending with i, as in the first part of the Annals: "sed pecorum modo, trah_i_, occid_i_, cap_i_" (IV. 25); and in the last part "illustri memoria Poppae_i_ Sabin_i consular_i" (XIII. 45).

X. He is fond of monotonously repeating the accent on the penultimate syllable of trisyllabic words, as in describing the trial of Jerome of Prague (Ep. I. 11.),—if we are to consider "quae vellet" as equivalent to a trisyllable:—"de_in_de loq_uen_di quae _ve_llet fa_cul_tas da_re_tur"; this most disagreeable monotonous sound, which resembles, more than anything else, the pattering of a horse's feet when the animal is ambling, and which may, therefore, be called the "tit-up-a-tit-up" style, I will be bound to say, is not to be found in anybody else's Latin compositions but Poggio Bracciolini's all the way down from Julius Caesar to Dr. Cumming, —(the famous epistle of the reverend gentleman's to the Pope in which he endeavoured to procure an invitation from his Holiness to attend the Oecumenical Council of 1870): there is the dreadful sound again,—in the first six books of the Annals (II. 17),—just as it strikes the ear in the Letter describing the trial and death of Jerome of Prague—exactly as many as five times repeated,—when Bracciolini, (for now we know it is he, and nobody else but he, who wrote the Annals), is giving an account of the battle between the Cherusei and the Romans: "ple_ros_que tra_na_re Vi_sur_gim con_an_tes, in_jec_ta"; this sound occurs four times consecutively, in the last part of the Annals, when Bracciolini is speaking of Curtius Rufus fulfilling by his death the fatal destiny prognosticated to him by a female apparition of supernatural stature: "def_unc_tus fa_ta_le prae_sa_gium im_ple_vit" (An. XI. 21). Sometimes this very abominable monotony is accompanied by most horrible assonances, as in one of his letters (Ep. III. 23) "err_o_rum tu_o_rum certi_o_rem"; —we catch it again, or something like it, in the last part of the Annals (XIV. 36) in "im_bel_les in_er_mes ces_su_ros," and in the first part: (I. 41) "_or_ant ob_sis_tunt, re_di_ret, ma_ne_ret."

XI. We find in both part of the Annals a very peculiar use of "properus," with the genitive: in the last part: "Claudium, ut insidiis incautum, ita irae properum" (XI. 26): in the first part: "libertis et clientibus potentiae apiscendae properis" (IV. 59). This is not to be met with in the writings of any of the old Romans; it would seem, then, that the Annals was, as is alleged, a spurious composition of the fifteenth century, and that the same hand wrote both parts.

When Bracciolini wants to put into Latin:—"Nobody will compare my history with the books of those who wrote about the ancient affairs of the Roman people"; he expresses himself:—"Nemo annales nostros cum scriptura eorum contenderit, qui veteres populi Romani res composuere" (An. IV. 32): it is not only a very true observation, but, as far as concerns the use of "annales" and "scriptura," the exact counterpart of what we read in his "Description of the Ruins of the City of Rome", ("Ruinarum Urbis Romae Descriptio"), when he observes: "though you may wade through all the books that are extant and pore over the whole history of human transactions", he writes: "licet … omnia scripturarum monumenta pertractes, omnes gestarum rerum annales scruteris" (Pog. Op. p. 132), where it will be observed that in both sentences not only "annales" and "scriptura" occur almost together, but the former has the meaning of "a history" and the latter of "a book," with which significations Tacitus never uses the two words: indeed Tacitus never uses the two words at all.

The use of "totiens," or its equivalent "toties," is peculiar to the author of the Annals: it is never found in Tacitus, but frequently in the writings of Bracciolini, as "tuam toties a me reprehensam credulitatem" (Ep. I. 11):—"toties has fabulas audisti" (ibid):—"toties … hoc biennio delusus sum in hac re libraria" (Ep. II. 41). So in the Annals: "An Augustum fessâ aetate, toties in Germania potuisse" (II. 46):—"anxia sui et infelici fecunditate fortunae totiens obnoxia" (II.75): —"totiens irrisa resolutus" (IV. 9), and in other passages. Bracciolini is so partial to the word that he uses it in its compound as well as simple form, as in one of his letters to Niccoli: "Multoties scripsi tibi" (Ep. I. 17), and at the beginning of the second book of the "Convivales," "addubitari, inquam, multotiens" (Op. p. 37).

XII. "Addubitare" is a word which Tacitus never uses, only the author of the Annals, as "paullum addubitatum, quod Halicarnassii" (IV. 65). So in the "Ruinarum Urbis Romae Descriptio," when speaking of Marius sitting amid the ruins of Carthage, Bracciolini writes: "admirantem suam et Carthaginis vicem, simulque fortunam utriusque conferentem, _addubitantem_que utriusque fortunae majus spectaculum extitisset" (Op. p. 132).

"Extitere" is a word never used by Tacitus;—or, more properly, he so avoids it that he uses it but once. Bracciolini, on the contrary, is very much given to the use of it. In the Annals it is repeatedly met with; in the last part, (take the fifteenth book,) "centurionem extitisse" (XV. 49), "auriga et histrio et incendiarius extitisti" (ib. 67):—in the first part, "extitisse tandem viros" (III. 44), "socium delationis extitisse" (IV. 66), and on other occasions. So it runs throughout the works of Bracciolini, as in his essay on "Avarice": "si amator extiterit sapientiae" (Op. 20); on "The Unhappiness of Princes," "cogitationesque dominantium extiterunt," (Op. 393); on "Nobility," "autorem nobilitatis filiis extitisse (Op. p. 69); on "The Misery of the Human Condition," splendidissimas in illis civitatibus extitisse (Op. p. 119); in his Letters, "egenorum praesidium, oppressorem refugium, extitisti" (Ep. III. 17); in his "History of Florence," "quae verba si execranda, et digna odio extitissent" (Muratori XX. p. 235);—in fact, in all his productions, whether forged or unforged.

There are, in fact, a number of words, and also phrases, used by Bracciolini that are no where to be found in any of the works of Tacitus. To illustrate this, we will confine ourselves to two examples only of each, and to the first part of the Annals and the History of Florence. To begin with words, and to take "pervastare": in the first part of the Annals: "spatium ferro flammisque pervastat" (I. 51): the History of Florence (Lib. I) "caede, incendio, rapinis pervastatis" (Muratori tom. XX. p. 213). "Conficta," in the sense of "fabricated": in the first part of the Annals: "in tempus conficta" (I. 37): in the History of Florence (Lib. III): "confictis mendaciis" (ib. p. 254). To pass on to phrases, and to take (a word never used by Tacitus) "impendium" with "posse": in the first part of the Annals: "impendio diligentiaque poterat" (IV. 6): in the History of Florence (Lib. V.) "impendio plurimum damni inferre potuissent" (ib. 320). "Bellum" with "flagrare": in the first part of the Annals: "flagrante adhuc Poenorum bello" (II. 59): in the History of Florence (Lib. V.): "Gallia omnis bello flagraret Florentinos" (ib. 320).

XIII. Whenever Tacitus ends a sentence with a polysyllabic word of five syllables he avoids its repetition at the close of the next sentence. The reverse is the case in the Annals, as, (take the first book of the last part (XI. 22), "rem militarem comitarentur, —in the sentence after, "accedentibus provinciarum vectigalibus," —in the sentence after that, "sententia Dolabellae velut venundaretur"; (or take the first book of the first part (I. 21-2), "eo immitior quia toleraverat,"—the sentence after, "vagi circumspecta populabantur,"—the sentence after that, "manipularium parabantur," —where, to be sure, in the last instance a syllable is deficient, but it is made good by the sonorous sesquipedalian penultimate,— manipulariam. So in the works of Bracciolini: "aures tuae recusabantur," in the following sentence, "domi forisque obtemperares," in the next sentence, "factorum dictorumque conscientiae" (Op. 313).

XIV. A peculiarity in composition, if not actually proving, at least raising the suspicion, that the same hand which wrote the last part of the Annals also wrote the first part is observable in the omission of the preposition in, when rest at a place is denoted;—the omission, it is to be remarked, is not where there is a single word, but when two words are coupled together, as in the last six books,—in the description of the Romans bearing on their shoulders statues of Octavia, which they decorate with flowers and place both in the forum and in their temples: "Octaviae imagines gestant humeris, spargunt floribus, foroque ac templis statuunt" (XIV. 61); and in the first six books in the description of servile Romans following Sejanus in crowds to Campania, and there without distinction of classes lying day and night in the fields and on the sea shore:—"ibi campo aut litore jacentes, nullo discrimine noctem ac diem" (IV. 74).

Tacitus, in common with all other Roman prose-writers, uses the names of nations (when the verb implies motion) with a preposition, which is not required with the names of countries. The Roman poets are not so particular in this respect, Virgil, for instance, writes, after the Homeric fashion, by the omission of the preposition:

"At nos hinc alii sitientis ibimus Afros:
Ecl. I. 65;

for "ad Afros." So after Virgil, whom he is always quoting and imitating, Bracciolini writes "ipse praecepts Iberos, ad patrium regnum pervadit" (An. XII. 51), for "ad Iberos, in patrium."