Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century

by John Wilson Ross

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).