Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century

by John Wilson Ross

"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).