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."
CHAPTER III.
MISTAKES THAT PROVE FORGERY.
I. The Gift for the recovery of Livia.—II. Julius Caesar and the Pomoerium.—III.—Julia, the wife of Tiberius.—IV. The statement about her proved false by a coin.—V. Value of coins in detecting historical errors.—VI. Another coin shows an error about Cornutus.—VII. Suspicion of spuriousness from mention of the Quinquennale Ludicrum.—VIII. Account of cities destroyed by earthquake contradicted by a monument.—IX. Bracciolini's hand shown by reference to the Plague.—X. Fawning of Roman senators more like conduct of Italians in the fifteenth century.—XI. Same exaggeration with respect to Pomponia Graecina and the Romans.— XII. Wrong statement of the images borne at the funeral of Drusus.—XIII. Similar kind of error committed by Bracciolini in his "De Varietate Fortunae".—XIV. Errors about the Red Sea.— XV. About the Caspian Sea.—XVI. Accounted for.—XVII. A passage clearly written by Bracciolini.
It is now, however, time to pass on to other matters more interesting and important, and, it may be, more convincing.
I. Famianus Strada is very much surprised in his Prolusions (I. 2 Histor.) that it should be stated in the third book of the Annals (71), that when a gift for the recovery of Livia was to be presented to Fortune the Equestrian, it had to be made at Antium, where, it is stated, there was a temple which had that title, there being none in Rome that was so named. Here are the words of Bracciolini, in his own style, too, and his own history, neither of which is, nor could be that of Tacitus: "A debate then came on about a matter of religion, as to the temple in which the offering was to be placed, which the Knights of Rome had promised to present to Fortune the Equestrian for the health of the Imperial Princess" (a phrase which no Roman would have used); "for though there were many shrines of that Goddess in Rome, yet there was none with that name: it was resolved:—'that there be a temple at Antium which has such an appellation, and that all religious rites in towns in Italy, and temples and statues of Gods and Goddesses, be under Roman law and rule': consequently, the offering was set up at Antium": "Incessit dein religio, quonam in templo locandum erat donum, quod pro valetudine Augustae equites Romani voverant Equestri Fortunae: nam etsi delubra ejus deae multa in urbe, nullum tamen tali cognomento erat; repertum est, 'aedem esse apud Antium quae sic nuncuparetur, cunctasque caerimonias Italicis in oppidis, templaque et numinum effigies, juris atque imperii Romani esse': ita donum apud Antium statuitur" (An. III. 71). This, however, was not the case; for Famianus Strada says that there was a temple in Rome which had been dedicated to Fortune the Equestrian for more than 200 years by Quintus Fulvius after the war with the Celtiberians, when he was Praetor; and, afterwards when he was Censor, he erected a magnificent edifice in honour of the goddess: the gift and the temple are both mentioned by Livy (XL. 42), also by Vitruvius, Julius Obsequens, Valerius Maximus, Publius Victor, and other historians and antiquaries. One cannot then well understand how a fact like this could have been unknown to Tacitus, who must have been acquainted with all the public buildings in Rome, especially the Temples; though it is quite easy to conceive how the slip could have been made by a writer of the fifteenth century: indeed, it would be odd if Bracciolini had not, now and then, fallen into such errors, which, though trivial in themselves, become mistakes of mighty magnitude in an inquiry of this description.
II. A writer who could be so ignorant about the temples in Rome is just the sort of writer who would display ignorance about the public works in that city. Cognate then with this blunder in the first part of the Annals is the blunder in the last part about that ancient right, the enlargement of the pomoerium. We are told that those only who had extended the bounds of the Empire by the annexation of countries which they had brought under subjection were entitled to add also to the City, and that the only two of all the generals who had exercised this privilege before the time of Claudius, were Sylla and Augustus. "Pomoerium urbis auxit Caesar more prisco, quo iis qui protulere imperium, etiam terminos urbis propagare datur. Nec tamen duces Romani, quamquam magnis nationibus subactis, usurpaverant, nisi Lucius Sulla et divus Augustus" (An. XII. 23). Justus Lipsius, at this misstatement, is, strange to say, quite contented by merely remarking in a merry mood: "I am not going to defend you, Cornelius: you are wrong: an enlargement was also made by Julius Caesar, who was 'pitched in'" ("interjectus") "between these two." "Non defendo te, Corneli: erras: etiani C. Caesar auxit interjectus inter eos duos." Any critic ought not to be facetiously playful, but seriously startled and unaccountably puzzled, that Tacitus, or any Roman of his stamp, should have been ignorant of a fact which must have been known to all his well informed countrymen, from its having been borne testimony to by so many eminent writers;—by Cicero in his Letter to Atticus (I. 13), by Cassius Dio in the 43rd Book of his History, by Aulus Gellius in his "Noctes Atticae" (XIII. 14), and, omitting all the antiquaries such as Fulvius and Onuphrius, Mark Antony in his Funeral Oration over the remains of Caesar, where he bewails the fate of an Emperor, who had been slain in the City, the pomoerium of which he had enlarged: [Greek: en tae polei enedreutheis, ho kai to pomaerion autaes apeuxaesas] (Cas. Dio. XLIV. 49). This fact seems to have been unknown just as well to Shakespeare as to Bracciolini; or our great national poet would have taken cognizance of it somewhere, perhaps in that part of Mark Antony's speech, where reference is made to what Caesar did for the Romans:
"Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours, and new-planted orchards
On this side Tiber: he hath left them you,
And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures,
To walk abroad and recreate yourselves."
(Jul. Caesar, Act III. sc. 2)