Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century

by John Wilson Ross

If those were the days when Florence had its Cosmo de' Medici, who spent millions of florins in building palaces, churches and charitable foundations to beautify his native town; and when Bourges had its Jean Coeur who was rich enough to furnish Lewis VII. with sufficient gold crowns to support the armies with which that monarch recovered his possessions from the English, London, too, had its Hende, Whittington and Norbury affluent and magnificent enough to lend their sovereign immense sums of money, and adorn the city in which they had amassed their stupendous fortunes with useful and ornamental buildings—Bridewells, Colleges, Hospitals, Guildhalls and Public Libraries. Well might Bracciolini, without the slightest particle of exaggeration, say of London, as he saw it, that it was "COPIA negotiatorum et commeatuum MAXIME CELEBRE" (An. XIV. 33).

In leaving this passage I cannot help remarking that the expression, "copia negotiatorum et commeatuum," has a turn that is frequently found in the Annals; it is a cast of phrase not affected by Tacitus; but it is exactly the manner of arranging words in a sentence to which Sallust is partial: "frequentiam negotiatorum et commeatuum," he says in his "Jugurtha" (47); it is obvious that in this passage Sallust means by "commeatuus," "supplies of corn and provisions," as it is equally obvious that Bracciolini (though following the phraseology of his favourite Latin author,) gives it, in the sentence quoted from the Fourteenth Book of the Annals, a wider meaning, "commodities of merchandize."

III. If Bracciolini erred with respect to London, in magnifying it into a town of superlative commercial splendour in the days of Nero, which, I repeat, is wildly ridiculous, he more grossly erred with respect to our form of government; for when he decried it, and prophesied its decadence and downfall, his sagacity and judgment were impugned.

When he was here our country was in the infancy of its example as a land ruled by the most admirable political arrangements. It can readily be believed with what interest and surprise the proud Italian, who had seen nothing of the kind in his own land of high civilization, must have witnessed our parliaments regularly meeting, as had been the case for generations, since the reign of Edward I. in 1293, knights and burgesses popularly elected by the inhabitants of the counties and boroughs sitting in council with the king, surrounded by his barons and bishops, priors who were peers and abbots who had mitres. With an outspoken contempt of England, and an overweening admiration of Italy, he avails himself of an opportunity of sneering covertly at our harmonious combination of the three forms of government, the monarchy, the oligarchy and the republic.

It is scarcely necessary to say that, as reference is made to the English Parliament, the editors of Tacitus have all been puzzled as to the meaning of the phrase, "delecta ex his et consociata," in the following passage, where the author of the Annals speaks of "the commonalty, or the aristocracy, or a monarch ruling every nation and community"; and that "a form of government based on a SELECTION AND CONJUNCTION OF THESE is easier praised than realised; or if it is realized, cannot last":—"cunctas nationes et urbes populus, aut primores, aut singuli regunt: DELECTA EX HIS ET CONSOCIATA reipublicae forma laudari facilius, quam evenire; vel si evenit, haud diuturna esse potest" (IV. 33). Now the phrase, "delecta ex his," selected from these, that is, the monarchy, the oligarchy and the republic, and meaning that the selections were of all the excellences and none of the faults of each, is in every way applicable to only one form of government,— our Parliamentary government, which is at once legislative and executive, and, as it is now, it almost was in the days when Bracciolini was on a visit to us in the opening days of the infant king, Henry VI. Then not only was the "populus," or "commonalty," represented by knights, citizens and burgesses of their own choosing; but the "primores," or "aristocracy," had their representatives also in the larger barons, bishops, priors who were peers and mitred abbots; priors who were not peers, and abbots who had not mitres, as well as many of the smaller barons, not receiving writs of summons: the king himself, being an infant at the breast, had his representative, the "selection" being from his own family, in the person of his uncle Humphry, Duke of Gloucester, who was his substitute in the Parliament as the Protector or Regent; and even when the king was an adult, and absent in wars, as Edward I. when engaged in the conquest of Wales, he was represented in Parliament by Commissioners, as our sovereign is to this day.

But Bracciolini not only said that the selections were from the monarchic, aristocratic and popular elements, but that they were "associated" or "conjoined"—"consociata." Here all the editors of Tacitus by their silence or otherwise fairly admit that the passage is utterly beyond their comprehension,—"one of those things," in fact, "which," in the words of Lord Dundreary, "no fellow is supposed to understand." As for the word, "consociata," James Gronovius was of opinion that Tacitus must have written "concinnata"; but not having the boldness, after the fashion of Justus Lipsius of making alterations, according to his own sweet pleasure, without the authority of manuscript or edition, he followed Beroaldi, who, as much puzzled as any of the subsequent editors, had substituted "constituta" for the nonsensical word in the blundering MS. "consciata," though common sense should have told him that "consociata" was meant, it being evident that the transcriber, infinitely more puzzled than the editors, for he could not have had the remotest conception of what he was doing, had merely omitted a vowel in his usual careless way. It was not till Ernesti's time, 1772, that the proper word was restored. Ernesti, too, fancied that he had discovered something in the Roman government, according to the description by Polybius, which justified the language in the Annals. "I have no doubt," he says, "but that Tacitus had in his mind (along with other historians) Polybius, who, in the 9th and following chapters of the 6th book of his History, praises the Roman Republic for combining the excellences of all the three forms of government, while avoiding the faults of each, and he speaks of that system of government as being alone perfect which is compounded of these three." "Neque dubito, Tacitum in animo habuisse cum alios historicos, tum Polybium qui 6. 9 sqq. rempublicam romanam laudat hoc nomine, quod omnium illarum trium formarum commoda complexa sit, vitatis singularum vitiis, eamque solam rempublicam perfectam esse dicit, quae sit e tribus istis temperata."

Let us then see exactly what it is that Polybius does say. After speaking of a balance between the three forms of government in the Roman administration being so fine that it was no easy matter to decide whether the government was aristocratic, democratic or monarchical (VI. 11), he proceeds to point out the several powers appropriated to each branch of the constitution;—the apparently regal rule of the Consuls, the aristocratic authority of the Senate, and the share taken by the people in the administration of affairs (ibid. 12, 13, 14). This done, his endeavour is to show not that there was any "selection and conjunction" as stated in the Annals, of the several forms, but quite on the contrary, "counteraction and co-operation": to this he devotes an entire chapter, with these remarks by way of preface:—"With respect, then, to the several parts into which the government is divided, the nature of every one of them has been shown; and it now remains to be pointed out how each of these forms is enabled to COUNTERACT the others, and how, on the other hand, it can CO-OPERATE with them:—[Greek: "Tina men oun tropon diaergaetai ta taes politeias eis ekaston eidos, eirgaetai tina de tropon ANTIPRATTEIN boulaethenta, kai SYNERGEIN allaelois palin hekasta ton mergan dunatai, nun phaethaesetai.">[ (VI. 15.)

After this, it cannot be supposed that reference is made to the Commonwealth of Rome. Still less so, when, in the very next sentence the author of the Annals attempts to show that an equally blended administration cannot endure, because of the example afforded by Rome (proving how well he knew that the Romans had mixed together in their government the elements of the three forms); he says, that when the Plebeians had the principal power, there was submission to the will of the populace; when the Patricians held the sway, the wishes of the aristocratic section of the community were consulted; and when Rome had her emperors, the people fared no better than during the reign of the kings: here are his words:—"Therefore as in the olden time" (during the Republic), "when the plebeians were paramount, or when the patricians were superior in power," (in the first instance) "the whim of the populace was ascertained and the way in which their humour was to be dealt with, and" (in the second instance) "those persons were accounted astute in their generation and wise who made themselves thoroughly conversant with the disposition of the Senate and the aristocracy; then when a change took place in the Government" (from the Republic to the Empire), "there was the same state of things as when a King was the ruler":—"Igitur, ut olim, plebe valida, vel cum patres pollerent, noscenda vulgi natura et quibus modis temperanter haberetur, senatusque et optimatium ingenia qui maxime perdidicerant, callidi temporum et sapientes credebantur; sic, converso statu, neque alia rerum quam si unus imperitet." (l.c.)

What he is striving in his usual dark way to establish is this:— Here was the failure of the Roman form of administration; the Romans were the most accomplished people in the art of government; the English, who are semi-barbarous, can know nothing about government; it is then idle on their part to imagine that they are endowed with such a vast amount of political knowledge as to be qualified by their own reflections alone to build up a new and magnificent form of government; when, too, that form of government is essentially different from our superb oligarchies in Italy, the most civilized and cultivated part of the world in everything, especially politics; the English style of government is, also, strictly based on the old Roman mode of administration, and when that failed, how can any sensible man deem that the English method of administration will ever work successfully. Hence his remarks: "raking up and relating this," (namely, how the Roman government never worked well at any time,) "will be of benefit," (to whom? forsooth, the English,) "because few" (in matters of statesmanship), "by their own sagacity distinguish the good from the very bad, the practicable from the pernicious; the many gain their wisdom from the acts of others; yet as examples bring benefit so do they meet least with a probation." If that be not the meaning of his words, then they must remain, as in all translations, without meaning. Yet the Latin, crabbed as it is, (and it is always crabbed in the Annals), seems to me to be simple enough:—"haec conquiri tradique in rem fuerit; quia pauci prudentia honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis, discernunt; plures aliorum eventis docentur; ceterum ut profutura ita minimum oblectationis adferunt" (l.c.).

That he does not mean the Roman form of government is further seen by his remark that the kind of administration spoken of is "easier to be commended than realized"—"laudari facilius, quam evenire"; just as it is easy to see from his language that he has before him an instance of some government framed like that which he says will not exist for any length of time; for whenever he employs the hypothetical particle, "si" about anything that is absolute and beyond doubt, he always uses it with the indicative and not the conditional. As he then writes, "si evenit," (not "si eveniat"), "if it is realized," (not "if it be realized,") he really has in his mind some State constituted according to his description.