historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

Chapter 2. Intellectual context
seventeenth century Tacitus was the most prominent ancient historian. 68 It
became a fashion to write in the style of Tacitus, a style characterised by brevity
and irregularity amongst others. 69 As we have already noted, Dutch scholars
like Heinsius and Grotius tried to imitate Tacitus’s style and, as we shall
see in chapter 3, so did Boxhorn.
Tacitus was not only popular because of his literary style, but also because of
the content of his works. 70 In his works Tacitus talked about rebellions and civil
wars, intrigues at the imperial court and the Roman Senate, and ‘the mysteries
of command’ (arcana imperii), the secrets that are connected to the art of ruling.
To those living in Europe in the last decades of the sixteenth and the first
half of the seventeenth century, a time when Europe was plagued by religious
strife, civil wars, and belligerent princes, the topics Tacitus discussed and the
events he narrated were felt to be especially relevant to their own time. For
Marc-Antoine de Muret (1526-1585), for example, the French humanist scholar
and one of Lipsius’s teachers at the University of Rome, the topicality of Tacitus
for his own age was what made the Roman historian useful to him and his
contemporaries. 71
In his works Tacitus ‘looks at things as they really are’, that is, as he thinks
things really are. 72 His view on human behaviour is pessimestic. Man, according
to Tacitus, is a power hungry animal and most people are driven by self-
68 Peter Burke, “A Survey of the Popularity of Ancient Historians, 1450-1700”, in History and Theory:
Studies in the Philosophy of History, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1966), pp. 135-52, esp. pp. 150-51, and Donald
R. Kelley, “Tacitus Noster: The Germania in the Renaissance and Reformation”, in idem, The Writing of
History and the Study of Law, pp. 152-67, 185-200. For the influence of Tacitus on early modern Dutch
historiography, see Simon Groenveld, “Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft en de geschiedenis van zijn eigen
tijd”, in P.A.M. Geurts and A.E.M. Janssen (eds.), Geschiedschrijving in Nederland: studies over de historiografie
van de Nieuwe Tijd, Vol. 1: Geschiedschrijvers (Martinus Nijhoff; The Hague, 1981), pp. 65-94;
Haitsma Mulier, “Grotius, Hooft and the Writing of History in the Dutch Republic”, pp. 56-72; J.D.M.
Cornelissen, “Hooft en Tacitus: bijdrage tot de kennis van de vaderlandse geschiedenis in de eerste helft
van de zeventiende eeuw”, in idem, Eendracht van het land: cultuurhistorische studies over Nederland in de
zestiende en zeventiende eeuw. Met een essay over leven en werk door E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier en A.E.M.
Janssen (De Bataafsche Leeuw; Amsterdam, 1987), pp. 53-101; Leopold Peeters, “P.C. Hooft en P.C. Tacitus:
Nederlandse historie in Romeins gewaad”, in Klaas Grootes and J. den Haan (eds.), Geschiedenis,
godsdienst, letterkunde (Nehalennia; Roden, 1989), pp. 114-20; Lesley Gilbert, “Hooft as Historian and
Political Thinker”, in Dutch Crossing, No. 49 (1993), pp. 130-45, that contains a critical assessment of
both Simon Groenveld and J.D.M. Cornelissen; Leopold Peeters, “Hooft, Tacitus en de Medici: een Florentijnse
variant van een Romeinse moordzaak”, in Jeroen Jansen (ed.), Omnibus idem: opstellen over P.C.
Hooft ter gelegenheid van zijn driehondervijftigste sterfdag (Uitgeverij Verloren; Hilversum, 1997), pp. 101-5;
E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier, “De humanistische vorm: over de stilering van de politiek”, in Jo Tollebeek, Tom
Verschaffel and L.H.M. Wessels (eds.), De palimpsest: geschiedschrijving in de Nederlanden 1500-2000, Vol.
1 (Uitgeverij Verloren; Hilversum, 2002), pp. 39-43; Waszink, “Tacitisme in Holland”, pp. 240-63.
69 See Waszink, “The Ideal of the Statesman-Historian: The Case of Hugo Grotius”, p. 116.
70 As has been argued by Jan Waszink, ‘in Tacitus’s unique “style”, content cannot be separated
from style (form) in the narrower sense of the word’. Ibidem.
71 See Gajda, “Tacitus and Political Thought in Early Modern Europe”, p. 254.
72 Waszink, “Your Tacitism or Mine?”, p. 375.
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