Nor is this an end of the marks of imposture about this Second Florence MS.

The reader will admit that a very great (and what looks like an insuperable) difficulty was to be got over by some amazingly clever trick not easily conceivable, when a number of books, as if written by Tacitus, were to precede a history which he had composed, commencing: "When I begin this work"—"Initium mihi operis;" those words which now in all the editions properly stand at the head of a separate and substantive work, "Historiarum Liber I." stand in the Second Florence MS. at the head of what is designated the "Seventeenth Book" of the whole production. The device had recourse to is ingenious in the extreme, yet as arrant a mark of imposture as anything that we have pointed out.

The last Six Books of what we now know as "The Annals" are headed "Cornelii Taciti Historiae Augustae LI. XI. Actionum Diurnalium:" that is, "The Books of the History of the Emperors by Cornelius Tacitus, the 11th of the Daily Transactions." The first book of what we now know as "The History" has this change in the heading: "Actorum Diurnalium XVII."; that is "the 17th book of the Daily Affairs." The implication is that Tacitus meant a vast difference between "Actiones Diurnales" and "Actus Diurnales"; so to leave the reader in doubt as to whether Tacitus had given any explanations as to why he meant to change the character of the narrative but not the numbering of the books, the Sixteenth Book breaks off abruptly; the kind of explanation that must have been given by Tacitus is thus left entirely to the imagination of the reader, for everybody must conjecture, if the affair was genuine, that some sort of explanation was given in the lost part. This is certain that, from the manner in which he wrote the Annals, Bracciolini gave a larger meaning to "actus" than to "actiones," the former meaning "public affairs," and the other "things that were done" of any note or interest; clearly showing that nobody was more conscious than Bracciolini himself how he had failed in attempting to write history in the exact manner in which it was written by Tacitus. I may now place before the reader the astonishment which Seemiller expresses in his "Incrementa Typographica" (pp. 10, 11), that the books about the Emperors of Rome in the first edition of the works of Tacitus printed at Venice in 1469 by the then unrivalled master of his art, Vindelinus of Spire, should not have the titles of "Annals" and "History." The reader now sees the reason why; and, moreover, the reader knows that Seemiller must have seen very few editions of the works of Tacitus.

VI. One or two things more ought to be taken notice of, because they connect Bracciolini with the forged manuscript.

It was usual for monastic transcribers to follow the text of the writer as closely as printers in these days follow the copy of an author. Everybody has his peculiarities: Bracciolini was no exception to this rule. He was in the habit of writing "incipit feliciter" at the commencement of a work: this maybe seen in an old MS. copy of his "Facetiae", preserved in the British Museum, and supposed to have been written at Nuremberg in 1470. This also runs through the headings to the books in the Second Florence MS. To either "feliciter" or "felix," he was so partial, that he shows it in the attestation of Salustius, who is made to write "Ego Salustius legi et emendavi Romae felix."

There is another point, which, though as trifling, is as striking. MSS. were sometimes found with two or more authors bound up together, and these, in the majority of cases, were very old ones. To give the Second Florence MS. an air of antiquity Tacitus is bound up with Apuleius. If an author was to be selected to be bound up with anything done by Bracciolini at this date, and he had been consulted in the matter, there was none more likely for him to have chosen than Apuleius, for his thoughts were now running altogether upon that writer, of whose "Golden Ass" he gave a Latin translation; and the particular part of Apuleius bound up with Tacitus only begins at the 10th chapter, that is, with only what he writes "De Asino Aureo."

These are, as I have said, small points; but looking at surrounding circumstances, they are significant; and stand forth as additional proofs of Bracciolini being concerned not only in the forgery of the last Six Books of the Annals, but also in the forgery of the Second Florence MS.

VII. Another point ought not to be passed over in silence, as it is of much importance.

It has been said in the first part of this investigation that no authentic mention is to be found of the Annals of Tacitus from the second to the fifteenth century; for the simple reason that it was not then in existence. But if it was forged, copied and issued by 1429, it would almost follow that some mention would be made of it not very long after that date: this was actually the case: the first authentic mention of the Annals is by Zecco Polentone, in the Sixth Book of his "De Scriptoribus Illustribus Latinae Linguae": he says that he would "not venture to state very positively what was the number of the books of Tacitus's History; but for himself he had seen the eleventh book (in a fragmentary form) and all the others down to the twenty-first, in which abundant materials had been furnished in an elaborate manner of the life of Claudius and of the succeeding emperors down to Vespasian." This work of Polentone I have never seen, and quote the extract as it is given by the Abbe Mehus in his Preface to the works of Traversari: "Librorum ejus" (Taciti nempe) "numerum affirmare satis certe non audeo. Fragmenta quidem libri undecimi, et reliquos deinceps ad vigesimum primum vidi, in quis vita Claudii, et qui fuerunt postea Caesares ad Vespasianum usque, ornate, ut dixi, et copiose ornavit" (Mehus. Praef. ad Latinas Epistolas Traversarii p. XLVII.). The question now arises when did Polentone write this? It could not have been before 1429, because the last six books of the Annals had not yet been given to the world; nor would it have been after 1463, for that date was, according to Pignorius, the year of his death. The first authentic mention of the last six books of the Annals might then have been in the first year after its publication, or it might not have been till the thirty-third; but this is certain, that those books, as might have been expected from their most remarkable character, attracted attention, as they have not ceased to do down to the present day, in the very first generation when they were placed before the public.

VIII. I cannot see that anything I can think of and investigate invalidates my theory: on the contrary, everything that suggests itself immediately and strictly tallies with the truth of it; but if this be not the case with every theory, then that theory is not, and cannot be correct. Take and test any; take and test the theory, for example, of Sir George Cornewall Lewis with respect to the ancient monarchy of Rome; he considered it to be a myth, his principal argument, in my opinion, being, on account of the number of years the seven kings had reigned,—244;—he maintained that such a length of years in such an exceedingly small number of consecutive reigns is not to be found in the history of any other country; that may be true enough; but only turn the eye to the country contiguous to ours; the land which almost seems to present itself as a matter of course for its great fame and splendour, France; then turn to the most striking and memorable period of its monarchy,—the time of the seven last kings, the Henries and the Louises, just preceding the Great Revolution: the years of their consecutive reigns number 233, so that there are 11 years to the good of Sir George Cornewall Lewis's theory; but if two of those French kings, Henry III. and Henry IV., had not been assassinated, and the last of them, Louis XVI., deprived of his life by an infuriated people, the number of years of those seven monarchs' reigns might have been 270 or 280, possibly even 300. That theory of Sir George Cornewall Lewis cannot then be accepted; there being nothing,—for the leading reason given by him,—that should induce us to question the accuracy of history as regards the Roman monarchy.

IX. But it does strike me most forcibly that after what I have advanced, (it may be, feebly,—I am certain in a manner that is very faulty),—it is simply aversion to novelty that can cause the reader still to believe that Tacitus wrote that part of his History which passes by the name of "Annals": I do not see how the reader can be of that opinion when he ponders over the numerous literary doubts I have raised as to its authenticity, more particularly, of the last six books;—when, too, he remembers how I have shown by facts, dates and circumstances the period when that portion came into existence;—the year when it was begun and the year when it was completed;—the people who were engaged in its production;—the writer who composed it;—the individual who suggested it;—the book-collector who instigated it;—the monk who transcribed it;—the rich man who purchased it;—and, just now, the author who made the first authentic mention of it; and last, but not least, the condition (that is, the exact age and undoubted spuriousness) of the oldest MS. that we have of it:—all goes to prove that, if not the whole work, at any rate, the last Six Books of the Annals are a forgery;—and a forgery, too, so audacious in its conception, and so extraordinary in its bungling,—while all the steps of its execution have been so distinctly set forth according to data that have been given and authorities that have been cited,—that it seems to me to be nothing more nor less than sheer obstinacy, after such clear demonstration, for any body to entertain a doubt about it.

END OF BOOK THE THIRD.



BOOK THE FOURTH.

THE FIRST SIX BOOKS OF THE ANNALS.

Hunc lege quaeso librum, quem condidit ore disertus, Et Latiae linguae Poggius ipse decus. BEBELIUS. Utilissimus Liber.



CHAPTER I.

REASONS FOR BELIEVING THAT BRACCIOLINI WROTE BOTH PARTS OF THE ANNALS.

I.—Improvement in Bracciolini's means after the completion of the forgery of the last part of the Annals.—II. Discovery of the first six books, and theory about their forgery.—III. Internal evidence the only proof of their being forged.—IV. Superiority of workmanship a strong proof.—V. Further departure than in the last six books from Tacitus's method another proof.—VI. The Symmetry of the framework a third proof.—VII. Fourth evidence, the close resemblance in the openings of the two parts.—VIII. The same tone and colouring prove the same authorship.—IX. False statements made about Sejanus and Antonius Natalis for the purpose of blackening Tiberius and Nero.—X. This spirit of detraction runs through Bracciolini's works.—XI. Other resemblances denoting the same author.—XII. Policy given to every subject another cause to believe both parts composed by a single writer.—And XIII. An absence of the power to depict differences in persons and things.

I. When Bracciolini completed the first instalment of his forgery he was in his fiftieth year. From that date, for the remainder of his life, in consequence of the large remuneration he received for his audacious imposition, he lived in comparatively affluent circumstances. He permanently fixed his residence in a villa which he purchased in the pleasant district of Valdarno in the Tuscan territory;—a villa made profitable by a vineyard, and beautiful by a garden adorned with tasteful ornaments, fountains and classic statues, the workmanship of ancient Greek and Roman sculptors. With the lucrative contingencies attached to his forgery, such as disposing of copies from the original, a privilege which he, doubtless, obtained from his friend Cosmo de' Medici, and for which he must have frequently got large sums of money, he may have gratified the inclination he expressed six years before to his friend, Niccoli, of spending 400 gold sequins a year;—"non sum pecuniosus ... erat animus expendere usque ad CCCC. aureos, non quod tot habeam." (Ep. II. 3.) He now had the means, that sum being equivalent to from 8 to 10 thousand pounds a year in these days. That he made a splendid fortune there can be no question, were it only for the words used by Poliziano in his History of the Pazzi and Salviati Conspiracy against Lorenzo de' Medici, while speaking of his eldest son James "squandering in a few years the ample patrimony which he had inherited": "patrimonium quod ipse amplum ex haereditate paterna obvoverat totum paucis annis profuderat" (Polit. De Pact. Conj. Hist. p. 637), the language used showing that Jacopo Bracciolini was not sole inheritor but co-heir with his brothers. Certain it is that the circumstances of Bracciolini were so much improved after his forgery of the Annals that from that time he had the opportunity of indulging a cherished idea of his earlier manhood devoting himself to literary undertakings. He started off with his treatise on Avarice, (a subject of which he was a very good judge): composition after composition then issued rapidly from his pen; they were no longer anonymous; they were attended by fame; he thus made ample amends for the "inglorius labor", as he styles it himself (An. IV, 32), of the Annals.

These works have been extremely valuable in the course of this inquiry; they are more especially valuable just now in enabling me to trace home to him the authorship of the first six books of the Annals; these works were 15 in number, namely 1. Historia Disceptativa de Avaritia; 2. Two books of Historiae Convivales; 3. An essay De Nobilitate; 4. Ruinarum Urbis Romae Descriptio; 5. A treatise De Humanae Conditionis Miseria; 6. Controversial Writings; 7. Funeral Orations; 8. Epistles; 9. Fables; 10. Facetiae; 11. A Dialogue De Infelicitate Principum; 12. Another entitled "An Seni sit Uxor ducenda"? first published in Liverpool in 1807, and edited by the Rev. William Shepherd; 13. Four books De Varietate Fortunae first published in 1723 by the Abbe Oliva; 14. History of Florence in 8 books, published by Muratori in the 20th volume of his Rerum Italicarum Scriptores; and 15. A Dialogue on Hypocrisy printed in the Appendix to the Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum et Fugiendarum first published at Cologne in 1535 by Orthuinus Gratius, and in 1689 by Edward Brown with considerable additions.

But these were not his only literary productions. Fazio tells us that he wrote a book upon the manners of the Indians: "scripsit ... de Moribus Indorum" (Facius. De Viris Illustr. p. 17): this is the same as the fourth book of his "De Varietate Fortunae," which is a translation or version of the travels in India of Niccolo di Conti. The same authority also informs us that "he translated the Cyropaedeia of Xenophon, which he dedicated to Alphonso I, King of Naples, from whom he received a very large sum of money for his dedication, even as he dedicated to Pope Nicholas V. his translation of the six books of the historian Diodorus Siculus": —"Cyripaediam, quam Xenophon ille scripsit, latinam reddidit, atque Alphonso Regi dedicavit, pro qua a Rege magnam mercedem accepit. Ejusdem est traductio Diodori Siculi historiographi ad Nicolaum Quintum Pontificem Maximum libri sex" (L. c.) Another translation of his was "The Golden Ass" of Apuleius in ten books; and he edited, (but without notes), the "Astronomicon" of Manilius, —whom, by the way, he misstyles "Manlius."

The advantage which he obtained from the publication of these works was as nothing compared to the large and repeated sums he must have got from his fabrication of the Annals; and the knowledge that he would always have a ready and munificent purchaser in Cosmo de' Medici, induced him to continue his wondrous and daring forgery.

II. We have seen how, at the very least, 500 gold sequins were given by Cosmo de' Medici, for the last six books of the Annals. After the lapse of nearly 90 years, exactly the same sum was awarded for the discovery of the first six books by another de' Medici, Leo X., to Arcimboldi, afterwards Archbishop of Milan, —the 122nd, according to the Abbot Ughelli, in his work that occupied him thirty years,—"Italia Sacra".

Now, it is a very remarkable circumstance that, at the time when Arcimboldi gave out that he had discovered the first six books of the Annals in the Abbey of Corvey, the fourth son of Bracciolini, Giovanni Francesco, then a man 68 years of years, was holding the same office that his father had held before him in the Pontifical Court as Papal Secretary. We have no record that Giovanni Francesco Bracciolini knew anything about the opening books of the Annals, nor where they were to be found: we are not told that he was in any communication on the matter with Arcimboldi: all we know is that he was a colleague in the court of Leo X. of the finder of those books.

On this fact, nevertheless, I build up the following theory:—That Bracciolini having found what a good thing he had made of it in forging the last six books of the Annals, along with the great success that had attended it, set about forging an addendum, with a view of disposing of it when completed to Cosmo de' Medici; —that while he was engaged in the composition, he was surprised by death on the 30th of October, 1459, leaving behind his friend and patron, Cosmo de' Medici, to survive him nearly five years, till the 1st of August, 1464;—that Bracciolini, when he saw that he was approaching the end of his days, must necessarily and naturally have made his sons acquainted with the existence of the work, on account of the great profit that could be made by the disposal of it whenever the favourable opportunity presented itself;—that Giovanni Francesco Bracciolini, in 1513 when John de' Medici was elected to the Pontifical throne, having outlived all his brothers, had then this MS. in his keeping; knowing that it was in an unfinished state, from his father being engaged upon it when he died,—also being aware that there was an ugly gap of three years between the imprisonment of Drusus and the fall of Sejanus,—believing in the necessity of this gap being supplied, —and regarding Arcimboldi as a greater Latinist and scholar generally than himself, therefore more capable of adding this fresh matter,—at any rate, of putting the manuscript in order for transcription,—he apprised the Pope's Receiver of the treasure; —and that the time which elapsed between the offering of the reward by Leo X. and the turning up of the first six books of the Annals, something more than a year, or even a year and a half, was occupied by Arcimboldi in the revision of the MS. and by a monk in the Abbey of Corvey in transcribing the forgery along with the works of Tacitus.

This theory, founded altogether on the imagination, may be right, or it may be quite wrong; but whether it be wrong or right, it is impossible to believe that Tacitus wrote those books: it is equally impossible to believe that they were forged by Arcimboldi, or that more than one man composed the first six and the last six books of the Annals, were it only on account of the close identity of the character, and the conspicuous splendour of the peculiar ability manifested in both parts.

III. We must, therefore, now endeavour by internal evidence, and by that alone, to convince the reader that Bracciolini, and nobody else but he, forged the first portion of the Annals: too many proofs stand prominently forward to prevent our doubting for a moment that this really was the case, however unaccountable it may seem that 86 years should have intervened between the appearance of the two parts, and 56 after the death of the author.

IV. One strong reason for believing that Bracciolini wrote the first six books is the far greater superiority of the workmanship to that in the last six books, showing that the author was then older, more matured in his mental powers, more experienced in the ways of the world and better acquainted with the workings of the human heart;—for if it be true what Goethe said that no young man can produce a masterpiece, it is, certainly, quite as true that a man's work in the way of intellect, information and wisdom, is better after he is fifty than before he reaches that age,— provided always that he retains the full vigour of his faculties. Now no one will for a moment say that such workmanship as the delineation of character, say, for example, of Nero and Seneca, in the last part of the Annals can stand by the side of the finished picturing of Tiberius and Sejanus in the first part.

V. Another reason for entertaining this belief is that there is a still further departure in the first six than in the last six books from the method pursued by Tacitus: greater attention is paid to acts of individuals than to events of State: the writer seems to have been emboldened by his first success to follow more closely the bent of his genius, and that was, to make of history a school of morals for imparting instruction by means of revealing the springs of human action and the workings of the human heart.

VI. That, indeed, the two parts proceeded from the same hand is seen in the symmetry of the framework. Each book contains the actions of two, three, four or six years. The latter is the case in the last part,—in the 12th book,—and in the first part,—in the 4th and 6th books. The narrative extends to four years in the 13th book, and to about the same time in the 14th in the last part, and in the first part to the 2nd book; a little more than three years occupies the 15th book in the last part and the 3rd and 5th in the first part; two years the 11th and nearly two years the 1st; in both parts one book is left in a fragmentary state, it being the 16th in the last part, and in the first part the 5th.

These circumstances go a considerable way towards supporting the hypothesis that the first six books of the Annals were written by the same man who wrote the last six books.

VII. A further evidence of the same authorship is found in the close resemblance which the openings of both parts bear to one another: each refers to crime, the last part opening with the hideous accusations against Silius, and the adulteries of Messalina, while the first part opens with the murder of Agrippa Posthumus.

VIII. The same tone and colouring, too, are thrown over both parts: an unbroken moodiness pervades them; one unceasing series of repulsive pictures of the vices and immoralities of a country fallen into servility and hastening to destruction; men and women commit revolting crimes; the human race is a prey to calamity; individuals are feared and followed by oppression, and that, too, simply because they are distinguished by nobility of birth, or because they are excellent rhetoricians, or popular with the multitude, or endowed with faculties equal to all requirements in public emergencies and State difficulties: we have the same terrible deaths of ministers,—Seneca and Sejanus; the same blending of ferocity and lust in emperors,—Nero and Tiberius; the same accusations and sacrifices of men who are free of speech and honourable in their proceedings.

IX. Statements are made in both parts that appear to be the outcome only of inventive ingenuity and a malignant humour. Thus Sejanus, who is depicted as a peril to the State, both when he flourished and when he fell, has, after his execution, his body ignominiously drawn through the streets, (which looks, by the way, like a custom of the fifteenth century), and those who are accused of attachment to him, including his innocent little children, are all put to death. This seems to be said merely with the view of blackening the character of Tiberius, as the character of Nero is blackened by the statements made about Antonius Natalis. Antonius Natalis takes part in the Pisonian Conspiracy against Nero (An. XV. 54, 55); then he betrays Seneca and the companions of Seneca (ib. 56); after that he gets off with impunity (ib. 71). I may be wrong, but it strikes me that this statement is merely made with the view of attacking Nero as a bad administrator for not punishing a mean conspirator and cruel traitor: Tiberius is similarly assailed for cruelly killing harmless children.

There are no means of showing that what is said of the children of Sejanus is fiction; it can only be surmised: but it can be proved as a fact that what is stated about Antonius Natalis is nothing more nor less than pure romance. He was dead before the conspiracy of Piso: Bracciolini could have seen that had he read carefully the letters of Seneca himself; for the philosopher and statesman speaks of Natalis at the time when he wrote the letter numbered in his works 87, as being dead some time, and "having many heirs" as he had been "the heir of many":—"Nuper Natalis ... et multorum haeres fuit, et multos habuit haeredes" (Ep. LXXXVII.)

X. This statement then about Nero having no foundation, seems to have been merely made out of that spirit of detraction which we have already noticed as characterizing both parts of the Annals: it is the same spirit which runs through the works of Bracciolini: first he praises an individual, and then mars the eulogy of him by introducing some little bit of defamation. To give examples:—We open his collected works, and begin to read his treatise on Avarice: turning over the first page we find him speaking of a great preaching friar, named Bernardino, whom he lauds as most extraordinary in the command he held over the feelings of his congregation, moving them, as he pleased, to tears or laughter; but he adds that Bernardino did not adapt his sermons to the good of those who heard him, but, like the rest of his class, to his own reputation as a preacher: "Una in re maxime excellit in persuadendo, ac excitandum affectibus flectit populum, et quo vult deducit, movens ad lachrymas, et cum res patitur ad risum.... Verum ... ipse, et caeteri hujusmodi praedicatores, ... non accommodant orationes suas ad nostram utilitatem sed ad suam loquacitatem" (De Avaritia. Pog. Op. p. 2). A few pages further on, we find him speaking of Robert, King of Sicily, as unsurpassed by any living prince in reputation and the glory of his deeds, but the meanness of his avarice, we are told, clouded the splendour of his virtues: "At quid illustrius est etiam hodie regis illius memoria, fama, nomine, gloria rerum gestarum ... si avaritia in eo virtutis laudem extinxisset" (ib. p. 14).

XI. Other resemblances in both parts denote identity of authorship. Mean individuals are magnified and inconsiderable nations exalted; their wars and deeds are related with pompous particularity; battles are fought not worth recording, and enterprizes undertaken not worth reading; Tacitus would have deemed such incidents unworthy of mention; for he takes no more notice of the Hermundurians, than to speak of them as a German tribe faithful to the Romans, and living in friendly relations with them: but in the Annals they are put forward for the admiration of posterity as waging a war with the Callians, and fighting a severe battle with those little creatures. In the last part of the Annals (XII. 55) the Clitae tribes of Cilician boors rush down from their rugged mountains upon maritime regions and cities under the conduct of their leader, Throsobor; so in the first part (III. 74) Tacfarinas makes depredations upon the Leptuanians, and then retreats among the Garamantes. The same Numidian savage in the same part leads his disorderly gang of vagabonds and robbers against the Musulanians, an uncivilized people without towns (II. 52); in the last part Eunones, prince of the Adorsians, fights with Zorsines, king of the Siracians, besieges his mud-huts, and, the historian gravely informs us, had not night interrupted the assault, would have carried his moats in a single day. "These are

"the battles, sieges, fortunes,— The most disastrous chances Of moving accidents by flood and field,"

that enlist our sympathies in both parts of the Annals; and of these people, with their

"hair-breadth 'scapes in the imminent deadly breach,"

"you have little else," says that severe critic of the Annals, the Vicar of Wrexham (p. 89), "but tumults, advances, retreats, kings recalled, kings banished, kings slain, and all in such confusion and hurry," as to be devoid of "satisfaction and pleasure"; and the Rev. Thomas Hunter likens these mean tribes so signalized by immortality to the ill-conditioned natives of India whom the Great Mogul styled "Mountain Rats."

XII. Another great resemblance which induces the reader to believe that both parts of the Annals were composed by a single author is a monotony so very peculiar as to be characteristic of the same individual: it is a monotony quite equal to that of an ancient mansion in an English county, where one passes from apartment to apartment to be reminded of Gray's "Long Story," for the rooms are still spacious, the ceilings still fretted, the panels still gilded, the portraits still those of beauties rustling in silks and tissues, and still those of grave Lord Keepers in high crowned hats and green stockings;—or the monotony is like that which meets one when walking about a town, where at the corners of all the streets and squares and the beginning and end of every bridge and viaduct; the entrance to a palace or a public office; the gateway to a market or a subway, a park or a garden; the foot of a lamp-post or a statue; a curbstone running round an open space, or a wall abutting on a roadway, the same thing is always found for the purpose of keeping off the wheels of vehicles as they roll by,—a round stone: so one finds in the Annals always the same form given to every subject: that form is policy; through policy everything is done; by policy every person is actuated; policy is the motive of every action; policy is the solution of every difficulty.

Augustus on his deathbed chooses a worse master than himself to be his successor in order that his loss may be the more regretted by the State. Tiberius makes Piso governor of Syria only that he may have a spy for Germanicus as governor of Egypt, for he was envious of the fame and virtues of the successful, popular young general. Nero sends Sylla into exile from mistaking his dullness for dissimulation. Arruntius kills himself because he is intolerant of iniquity. The stupidity of Claudius is discovered to be astuteness, the bestialities of Nero elegance. Nothing is easy, nothing natural; everything is forced, everything artificial.

XIII. Nor does Bracciolini shine as a depicter of character. What a contrast between him and Livy in that respect! And as a describer of imperial occurrences, what a contrast between him and Tacitus! He does not touch the Paduese in his grand form of painting all people and all things in their proper colours: Livy places before us the Kings of old Rome in their pride and the Consuls in their variety; the former with their fierce virtue, the latter with their degraded love of luxury;—Decemvirs in the austerity of their rule and Tribunes with their popular impulses. Tacitus makes us see the movements of mighty events, as clearly as we behold objects shining in the broad light of day,—their vicissitudes, relations, causes and issues;—armies with their temper and feelings; provinces with their disposition and sentiments;—the Empire in the elements of its strength and weakness; the Capital in its distracted and fluctuating state; —all political phaenomena that marked the dreary reality of dominion in the declining days of the Roman Commonwealth. But Bracciolini puts before us nothing like this;—only incongruous, unimaginable and un-Romanlike personages,—people who gibber at us, as idiots in their asylums, as that unfortunate simpleton, the Emperor Claudius;—murderous criminals who glower and scowl upon us, as those two monsters of iniquity, Tiberius and Nero;—pimps and parasites beyond number, who so plague us with their perpetual presence, that the revolted soul at length wonders how so many such beings can be acting together, and be so degenerate, when Nature might have designed most, if not all, of them, for greater and more salutary purposes. While Bracciolini does not, in the least, resemble either of the two great historians of Rome, he is the very reverse of the historical classic of Spain, Mariana, who, in the thirty volumes of his Historia de Rebus Hispaniae, places before us the different characters of different people, distinguishing Mussulmans from Christians, Moors from Arabs, and Carthaginians from Romans; whereas, in the Annals, we perceive no difference between the Parthians and the Suevians, the Romans and the Germans, the Dandarides and the Adiabenians, the Medes and the Iberians.



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 cothurnos, Jacere caput, Strepente circum Procaci choro."

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 superpositum convivium navium aliarum tractu moverentur" (XV. 37), which is in the style not of Tacitus, but Bracciolini, as "ad liberandos praeclarissimos illos viros ex ergastulis barbarorum," already quoted from the treatise "De Infelicitate Principum"; or "multis captis, trecentis occisis," 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, Commisi hoc idem cuidam amico meo civi Senensi" (Ep. II. 3), exactly as we find it towards the beginning of the first book of the Annals (9) Cuncta inter se connexa: jus apud cives modestiam"; or at the end of the second book (88): cum varia fortuna certaret, dolo propinquorum cecidit 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: "certissima quadam conjectura, qua praeteritis connectens praesentia causasque" (Op. p. 309). In his History of Florence this quadrupled alliteration of c occurs thus (Lib. II. see Muratori XX. p. 224): "conspiciant; est quippe commune belluis, quae ratione carent, ut naturali cogente," as we have just seen in a quotation from the fifteenth book of the Annals (31), "gerere cothurnos, jacere caput, strepente circum procaci choro." 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: "confertus pedes, dispositae turmae cuncta praelio provisa: hostibus contra, omnium nesciis, non arma, non ordo, non consilium" (An. IV. 25); or in this sentence in the last part: "compertum sibi, referens, ex commentariis patris sui nullam cujusquam accusationem ab eo coactam." (XIII. 43 in med.), which is in the style of one of the numerous beautiful alliterations of his favourite poet, Virgil:

"Credunt se vidisse Jovem cum saepe nigrantem Aegida concuteret dextra, nimbosque cieret" 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): "omnia sine dubio, optime parentum, assidente amantissima uxore"; and in his History (III. 36) "praeterita, instantia, futura, pari oblivione dimiserat; atque illum in 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 "contemplationem cogitationemque" in his "De Miseria Humanae Conditionis" (Op. p. 130); in the first part of the Annals, "extollebatur, arguebaturque" (I. 9) and in the last part, respectantes, rogitantesque" (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, trahi, occidi, capi" (IV. 25); and in the last part "illustri memoria Poppaei Sabini consulari" (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:—"deinde loquendi quae vellet facultas daretur"; 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: "plerosque tranare Visurgim conantes, injecta"; 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: "defunctus fatale praesagium implevit" (An. XI. 21). Sometimes this very abominable monotony is accompanied by most horrible assonances, as in one of his letters (Ep. III. 23) "errorum tuorum certiorem"; —we catch it again, or something like it, in the last part of the Annals (XIV. 36) in "imbelles inermes cessuros," and in the first part: (I. 41) "orant obsistunt, rediret, maneret."

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 fessa 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, addubitantemque 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."



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)

III. A writer who could entirely overlook such a memorable achievement of Julius Caesar distinctly shows himself in his incorrectness about the career of such a distinguished member of the Augustan family as Julia, the wife of Tiberius: she is spoken of as having died in the first year of the reign of Tiberius, after having been banished by her father for infamous adulteries to the island of Trimetus, where, deserted by her husband, she must have speedily perished, in lieu of languishing in exile for twenty years, had she not been supported by the bounty of "Augusta". "Per idem tempus Julia mortem obiit quam neptem Augustus convictam adulterii damnatus est, projeceratque haud procul Apulis littoribus. Illic viginti annis exilium toleravit, Augustae ope sustentata" (An. IV. 71).

IV. A very small brass coin preserved in the National Collection in Paris informs us that Julia was alive at least three years after that date. So far from having been doomed by her husband to perish through want, Tiberius held her in such uncommon esteem that he ordered a coin to be struck in her honour in the fourth year of his reign for the money bears the inscription, in Greek capitals, [Greek: IOULIA], with the initials, [Greek: LD], signifying in the fourth year of Tiberius after the death of Augustus.

V. Now let the reader bear in mind that when we find in the Annals a statement so contrary to what we gather from an old coin, we must set down that statement as a pure figment of history; for nothing can be so valuable for correct and exact information as coins, which were always struck among the ancient Romans by public authority, by the decrees of the Senate or the Comitia Curiata, or by the edicts of the Decuriones (Councils of the Municipal towns or Colonies), and of the Propraetors or Proconsuls of the Provinces.

VI. A coin of the latter description lays bare another very gross error committed in the first part of the Annals in making Caius Caecilius Cornutus governor of Paphlagonia in the time of Tiberius (An. IV. 28): Cornutus must have been a Proconsul of that province in the time of either Galba or Otho. The coin, which is a large brass one, exhibits, on its obverse side, Cornutus with a helmet on his head, and underneath [Greek: AMISOU], meaning that he was the Governor of Paphlagonia, of which "Amisus" was the capital, while on the reverse side are the words [Greek: EPI GAIOU KAIKILIOU KORNOUTOU]; Rome, sitting upon shields, holds the Roman world in her right hand Victory stretches forth hers to place a crown on the head of Cornutus, and beneath is [Greek: ROMAE], which, during the period of the Empire, was inscribed on coins, but only in the time of Galba and Otho, because Amisus, that is Paphlagonia, was then subject to Rome, that is, the Senate, under Caius Caecilius Cornutus, as Africa was under Caius Clodius Mucrinus.

VII. No one would have been more willing than Bracciolini himself to have acknowledged the ample sufficiency of this argument to prove in the cases of Julia and Cornutus the forgery of the Annals; for he was himself a great collector of the coins and medals of antiquity, from which he gained a great deal of his historical information: he must, for example, have had in his possession, or have seen somewhere one of those medals which antiquaries say were struck in the time of Nero with a table, a garland, a pot, and the inscription: "Certa: Quinq. Rom. Co. Se." meaning "Certamen, Quinquennale Romae constituit"; for in the fourteenth book of the Annals (20) he makes mention of a set of games by the name "Quinquennale Ludricum," and in the sixteenth (4) by the title "Lustrale Certamnen, though no one has been able to decide, or even divine, what games these were on account of their exceeding insignificance: his object, then, in mentioning them, when their chief constituents or principal prizes were a table, a garland, and a pot, was evidently to impress his reader with his most intimate knowledge of ancient Roman customs, and leave his reader to infer with certainty that the Annals must have proceeded from a native Roman; but here it strikes me that he altogether defeated his own purpose; for if the Annals had been written by Tacitus, that grave historian took such high ground that he would have deemed it beneath him to notice any such trivial amusements, just as Hume and Henry, in tracing the history of the people of England, did not descend to make any inquiry into or mention of the precise time when such popular games were instituted, as the Maypole or country fairs, horse-racing or football.

VIII. Monuments as well as coins may be relied upon for correcting errors made by historians. There is a monument at Puteoli erected in the time of Tiberius A.D. 30, containing the names of fourteen cities in Asia Minor that were destroyed by a series of earthquakes that took place during seven years in the course of the reign of Tiberius, the first being Cilicia (Nipp. I. 233), which was destroyed A.D. 23, and the last, and greatest of all, being Ephesus, which was reduced to ruins A.D. 29. A passage in the second book of the Annals (47) describes twelve famous cities of Asia owing their sudden destruction to an earthquake occurring at night. We are told that "the usual means of escape by rushing into the open air was of no avail: the yawning earth swallowed up everybody: huge mountains sank down, level plains rose into hills, and lightning flashed throughout the catastrophe." Substitute "villages" for "famous cities," "hills" for "huge mountains," and we have, perhaps, as good an account as can be found in such few words of one of those dreadful calamities of nature,—though it happened not in the reign of Tiberius but three years before the death of Bracciolini,—the entire destruction of the city of Naples and its surrounding villages in 1456, when all the inhabitants perished, men, women and children, to the number of no fewer than 20,000 souls. "Eodem anno duodecim celebres Asiae urbes conlapsae nocturno motu terrae; quo improvisior graviorque pestis fuit. Neque solitum in tali casu effugium in aperta prorumpendi, quia diductis terris hauriebantur. Sedisse immensos montes, enisa in arduum quae plana fuerint, effulsisse inter ruinam ignis memorant." (II. 47).

IX. It will be here seen that the only thing mentioned as breaking out more suddenly and being more dreadful in its devastation than an earthquake is the "plague": "quo IMPROVISIOR GRAVIORque PESTIS fuit." Bracciolini spoke from personal observation. When he was here in England in 1422, he would not venture abroad nor leave London, on account of the plague which raged in the provinces and extended over almost the whole island (Ep. I. 7.). Details of this pestilence have not come down to us, but we see how terrible must have been its character, when this strong and lasting impression was left on the memory of Bracciolini, that he avails himself of it in this passage of the Annals to serve as a symbol of the worst species of destructiveness, from which we needs must gather that nothing could have broken out so unexpectedly and without apparent cause as the plague in England in 1422, nor have been more frightful and more rapid in its fatality.

X. Another instance in the first part of the Annnals of how Bracciolini modified circumstances from his own period, and then, —knowing that human actions are ever repeating themselves, just as that the human passions remain the same in all ages,—remitted them to the first century, is his account of the fawning of the Roman Senators, when he represents them imploring Tiberius and Sejanus to deign to vouchsafe to the citizens the honour of an audience: the Emperor and the Minister refuse the supplication; their condescension extends no further than to their not crossing over to the island of Caprea, but remaining on the coast of Campania: thither the Senators, the knights, and the vast mass of the commonalty of the City resort to exhibit a disgraceful spirit of sycophancy and servility; they hurry continually to and from Rome, crowd into Campania in such numbers that they are forced to lie in the open fields night and day, some on the bare sands of the seashore, without distinction of rank; and they put up with the insolence of the porters of Sejanus, who deny them ingress to the Minister. "Aram Clementiae, aram Amicitiae effigiesquecircum Caesaris ac Sejani censuere; crebrisque precibus efflagitabant, visendi sui copiam facerent. Non illi tamen in urbem, aut propinqua urbi digressi sunt: satis visum, omittere insulam, et in proximo Campaniae adspici. eo venire patres, eques, magna pars plebis, anxii erga Sejanum; cujus durior congressus, atque eo per ambitum, et societate consiliorum parabatur. Satis constabat auctam, ei adrogantiam, foedum illud in propatulo servitium spectanti. quippe Romae, sueti discursus; et magnitudine urbis incertum, quod quisque ad negotium pergat: ibi campo aut litore jacentes, nullo discrimine noctem ac diem, juxta gratiam aut fastus janitorum perpetiebantur" (An. IV. 74).

A man must be credulous beyond measure who can believe that such degrading servility was ever manifested among all classes by the ancient Roman people; the picture, nevertheless, seems to have much truth in it, though tinged with exaggeration; but the painting must be transferred from the first to the fifteenth century: there was then a schism in the Church: every now and then the Pope would leave Rome, and stay at Florence, Reate, Ferrara, or some other city in Italy; thereupon crowds of sycophantic devotees, of whom the Roman Church has always had multitudes, would crouch into the presence of the Sovereign Pontiff, and put themselves to a wonderful amount of inconvenience, by thronging into towns beyond the power they possessed of affording accommodation: these flying visits of the Popes into small country towns always occurred during the heats of summer; hence the pilgrims lay in the open air; and all this suffering they submitted to with the patient spirit of martyrs, only to obtain an audience, to have a sight of and a blessing from the Holy Father. When we remember too what was the power of the Popes in those days, we can easily fancy how true is the remainder of the picture when those to whom an audience was denied returned home in alarm, and how ill-timed was the joy of those whose unfortunate friendship with some cruel Papal Minister portended their imminent death. "Donec idque vetitum. et revenere in urbeni trepidi, quos non sermone, non visu dignatus erat: quidam male alacres, quibus infaustae amicitiae gravis exitus imminebat" (l. c.)

XI. The same love of extraordinary exaggeration is found in the last as in the first part of the Annals, showing thereby that the whole work came from the same source. In the thirteenth book Pomponia Graecina is described as changing not her weeds nor her lamenting spirit for "forty" years,—mourning, too, as she was, not for a husband, a son or a father, but Julia, the daughter of Drusus, who was murdered by Messalina. "Nam post Juliam, Drusi filiam, dolo Messalinae interfectam, per 'quadraginta' annos, non cultu nisi lugubri, non animo nisi moesto egit." (An. XIII. 32). Lipsius saw something so extraordinary in this, that, in his usual way, without any authority of manuscript or edition, he cut short the term, substituting "fourteen" for "forty,"—"quatuordecim" for "quadraginta."

XII. A mistake which no Roman could have made occurs in the first part of the Annals, where, we are told that, at the funeral of Drusus, the father of Germanicus, "the images of the Claudii and the Julii were borne around his bier":—"circumfusas lecto Claudiorum Juliorumque imagines" (III. 5). Should the reader turn for the venfication of this curious statement to some modern edition of the works of Tacitus, it is possible that he may find "Liviorum" instead of "Juliorum," for reasons which will be immediately given; but if he will consult any of the MSS. or editions prior to the time of Justus Lipsius, he will find the passage as given. The error was so monstrous, that Lipsius corrected it; because the Romans, at the obsequies of their great, only carried around the bier the images of the ancestors of the deceased. Accordingly Lipsius asks the very pertinent question, how at the funeral procession of Drusus, who was no member of the Julian family, not even by adoption, the images of members of that house could be borne? He, therefore, substituted a family to which Drusus belonged, the Livii. Freinshemius followed him, and some of the subsequent editors, among them Ernesti, who observes he could see no reason why the images of the Livii should have been omitted at the funeral of Drusus; nor anybody else, except for the very strong and simple reason that the author of the Annals, being Bracciolini, was not acquainted with the fact, which must have been familiar to Tacitus, that the Livii, and not the Julii, were the great ancestors of Drusus.

XIII. That Bracciolini was just the sort of man to fall into glaring mistakes, oftener than otherwise from perverseness, or some peculiar humour, such as a resolution to be in the wrong, would appear to be the case from the remarkable error which he commits in his "Historia de Varietate Fortunae," respecting the beginning of the French kingdom which he puts down at "a little beyond the year 900,"—"paulo ultra nongentesimum annum" (Hist. de Var. For. II. p. 45), thus entirely discarding the Merovingian and Carlovingian dynasties, and ascribing the commencement of the French kingdom to the beginning of the Capetian house; and he gives his reason; for he says that until "a little beyond 900," France had been divided among a number of Princes; but so it was even when Hugh Capet, putting an end to the system of anarchy which had prevailed before his time, established real monarchy; yet monarchy, after all, was not so real then as it was in the time of Charlemagne: Capet was only the most powerful prince among a number of others, who, nominally acknowledging him as king, were absolute in their own rights, raised taxes, dispensed justice, framed laws, coined money and made war. It is true that it is not very easy to get at the proper history of France at the period in question, from there not being the requisite authority for a correct knowledge of those dark and distant times: a great deal of obscurity and conjecture, too, exist as to the actual character of the monarchy,—as to whether, for example, Clovis and his predecessors were real kings, or merely knights errant, and whether their successors were as absolute as the Emperors among the Romans, or more magistrates than sovereigns as among the Germans, all sorts of doubts having been raised and mistiness thrown over these and other important matters by the ingenuity of such writers as Adrien de Valois, Boulainvilliers, Daniel, Dubos, Mad'lle de Lezardiere, Mably, Montesquieu, Mad'lle Montlozier, Velly and others: still the historians of France are all unanimous in agreeing, that the French monarchy commenced hundreds of years before the date fixed by Bracciolini, namely, at the commencement of the fifth century, some preferring to begin with Marchomir, Duke of the Sicambrian Franks, and others with Pharamond, (though Marchomir, before Pharamond, was, certainly, king of Gallic France).

XIV. We are told in the first part of the Annals (II. 61) that the boundaries of the Roman Empire extended to the Red Sea. This is generally supposed to allude to the possession of Mesopotamia, Assyria and Armenia by the Romans, which they held only for two years, from 115 to 117. Now, none of these provinces, only Arabia, Susiana, Persis, Carmania and Gedrosia, bordered upon what the Romans called "The Red Sea," and we "The Indian Ocean"; for the ancients believed that from about twelve degrees south of the sources of the Nile, from a country named by them Agyzimba, there was a continuation of land stretching from Africa to Asia, an opinion entertained by all the old geographers, from Hipparchus to Marinus of Tyre and Ptolemy, and never abandoned, until long after the death of Bracciolini, when the Portuguese under Vasco de Gama, doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and hugging the shores of eastern Africa and of Asia, reached India by the sea towards the close of the fifteenth century. The Indian Ocean having then been known for many hundred years by the name of the Red Sea, and looked upon as a vast body of inland water, like the Mediterranean, we have, unquestionably, a gross error with respect to the geography of Asia, as it was known in the time of Tacitus, when it is written in the Annals: "Exin ventum Elephantinen ac Syenen, claustra olim Romani Imperii, quod nunc RUBRUM AD MARE patescit."(An. II. 61).