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TACITUS
Verbal sharpness, concomitant with brevity, is of the essence of Tacitus'
style. He extracts the maximum force from individual words and their collocations,
sometimes unexpected and paradoxical. This continual seeking for
effect is most obviously apparent in sententiae, the craze and curse of his
generation as of several generations preceding. 1 By common consent Tacitus'
sententiae rank as the best in Latin prose, probably because he troubled himself
about content as well as form. Some convey ideas not found before. Others
have a long history: Tacitus added the final polish. Here are some examples:
Agr. 30.4 ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant 'where they make a desert,
they call it peace', Hist. 2.77.3 ?"' deliberant, desciuerunt 'discussion of rebellion
is rebellion', Hist. 3.25.3 factum esse see/us loquuntur faciuntque 'they tell of
crime done and do the same', Ann. 3.27.3 corruptissima republicaplurimae leges
'the more corrupt a state, the more numerous its laws'. Tacitus, more successfully
than most writers, blends point and epigram into his narrative, as a longer
excerpt, Arminius' obituary {Ann. 2.88.2—3), will show:
. . .liberator haud dubie Germaniae et qui non primordia populi Romani, sicut alii
reges ducesque, sed florentissimum imperium lacessierit, proeliis ambiguus, bello non
uictus. septem et triginta annos uitae, duodecim potentiae expleuit, caniturque adhuc
barbaras apud gentes, Graecorum annalibus ignotus, qui sua tantum mirantur,
Romanis haud perinde Celebris, dum uetera extollimus recentium incuriosi.
. . . beyond doubt Germany's deliverer and one who, unlike other kings and generals,
challenged not an infant Rome, but Rome's empire at its height, with various fortune
in battles, unconquered in war. He lived thirty-seven years and had power for twelve,
and he is sung of still by barbarian tribes, albeit unknown to Greek histories {the
Greeks only admire their own achievements), nor properly noticed in ours, for we
celebrate the remote past, uninterested in things recent.
Volumes have been devoted to Tacitus' opinions, thought, and outlook on
the world. But there is little to show for all this effort. A few ideas, attitudes,
and special interests may securely be attributed to Tacitus. Beyond that uncertainty
reigns, largely because we cannot often tell whether views which Tacitus
reports, above all in speeches, are views which he himself shares. Again, views
presented in one place are sometimes contradicted in another. To put it harshly,
he can be confused and inconsistent, or, to put it mildly, complex and elusive.
But fault, if fault there be, lies rather with those who want a historian also to be
a philosopher.
Tacitus' attitudes are coloured by his class and rank. He has often to relate
the degradation and servility of the Senate, but to do so pains and embarrasses
him {Ann. 14.14.3), and he continues to regard the Senate as centrally important
(see perhaps Hist. 1.84.4). For the urban plebs he displays much contempt
1
A sententia is a thought briefly and pointedly expressed, self-contained and therefore, if originally
linked to a context, separable from it.
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