Indeed, men
look to the liberality of their chief for their war-horse and their
blood-stained and victorious lance.
look to the liberality of their chief for their war-horse and their
blood-stained and victorious lance.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v24 - Sta to Tal
How keenly Tacitus had felt the intellectual and
moral servitude enforced upon his countrymen by Domitian's rule
is made clear by a passage of remarkable power contained in the
preface to this work (here quoted).
The best years of Agricola's life had been spent in the service of
his country, and for the most part in the field. His most conspicu-
were achieved in Britain. He had been appointed
governor of that province in 78, and remained there seven years. In
the course of his administration he had not only reduced the entire
island to subjection, as far north as the highlands of Scotland, but
had also established the Roman civilization among the Britons. All
these achievements are pictured in glowing colors and with signal
ous
successes
## p. 14371 (#565) ##########################################
TACITUS
14371
-
affection by the writer. Tacitus's apostrophe to his departed father-
in-law (here quoted), is a lofty and impressive illustration of the
writer's genius.
3. The (Germania. ' This was published in 98 A. D. , the same
year as the Agricola. ' It is a brief treatise on the geography, peo-
ples, and institutions of the Germans. The larger portion of the
work — and by far the most interesting — is devoted to a considera-
tion of those customs and institutions which are common to the Ger-
mans as a whole; such as their political organization, their military
system, the courts, religion, dwellings, clothing, marriage, amuse-
ments, slavery, and industrial occupations. The remainder of the
work treats of the location of the separate tribes, and of the institu-
tions peculiar to each.
The purpose of the 'Germania' has been differently conceived by
different critics. Some have thought that Tacitus's object was, by
holding before his countrymen a picture of the Germans, to mark the
contrast between the two civilizations, German and Roman, and to
commend the rugged simplicity of the one as opposed to the degen-
eracy of the other. Others have regarded the treatise as a political
pamphlet, written in support of Trajan, and intended to justify the
attention which that prince was then bestowing upon the problems
presented by the tribes of the North. Yet others have thought that
the work was prepared as an introduction to the extensive historical
writings which Tacitus had already projected.
But there are serious objections to each of these views; more-
over, it seems improbable that the Germania) was written with any
« tendency” or purpose beyond the natural and obvious one of ac-
quainting its readers with accurate details of German geography and
institutions. The German people had long been known to the Romans,
and for a century and a half had furnished a more or less constant
opposition to the Roman arms. Nor was the subject new: Cæsar,
Livy, Pliny, and others, had given detailed accounts of this interesting
and important race. That Tacitus, therefore, should have undertaken
a fresh presentation of their situation and customs, seems perfectly
natural, without resort to the theory of a special extraneous motive.
Whatever its original purpose, the “Germania) must be recognized as
a mine of authentic information concerning the ancient Germans, and
as a source of the first importance for all modern study of Germanic
institutions.
4. The Histories. ' In the preface to the Agricola,' Tacitus had
already announced his purpose of writing the history of the reigns
of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan. Later, this plan was modified. The
new project embraced the history of the imperial period from the
death of Augustus to the death of Domitian,- a space of eighty-two
## p. 14372 (#566) ##########################################
14372
TACITUS
us.
years. This period naturally fell into two eras: the former that of
the Julian-Claudian dynasties (from the accession of Tiberius to the
death of Nero), the latter that of the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian to
Domitian), including the transition period of turmoil during the brief
reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. It was the latter of these two
eras that Tacitus treated first, giving to the work the title His-
toriæ. ) The events he describes had all occurred within his own
memory, and many within the range of his own observation and
experience. The entire work consisted probably of twelve books,
published at intervals between 104 and 109 A. D. Of these twelve
books only the first four, and half of the fifth, have come down to
The preserved portions begin with the accession of Galba, and
carry the history only to the beginning of the reign of Vespasian.
A vivid picture is given in this narrative of the stormy events of the
years 68 and 69; including the murder of Galba, the defeat and sui-
cide of Otho, the overthrow of Vitellius, the accession of Vespasian,
along with the formidable insurrection of the Batavians under Civilis.
But the descriptions are almost exclusively military. There is less
of the fine psychological analysis which appears later as a striking
characteristic of the Annals. ' Doubtless this feature inay have been
more prominent in the lost books of the Histories) (6-12), which
covered the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. One of the
most interesting portions of the extant books is the account of the
Jews, given at the beginning of Book v. The description of the siege
and capture of Jerusalem by Titus is unfortunately lost.
5. The Annals. ' The second part of Tacitus's programme em-
braced a history of the earlier period, from the accession of Tiberius
to the death of Nero (14-68 A. D. ). The exact title of this work was
(Ab Excessu Divi Augusti’ (From the Decease of the Divine Augus-
tus); but owing to the treatment of events year by year, Tacitus him-
self alludes to his work as (Annals,' and this designation has become
the current one. The Annals, like the Histories,' was probably
published in installments, about 115-117 A. D. The entire work in all
likelihood consisted of eighteen books. These eighteen seem to have
been devoted, in groups of six, to three epochs: the first six to the
reign of Tiberius; the next six to the reigns of Caligula and Claudius;
the concluding six to the reign of Nero. Large portions of the work
have been lost. Books 7-10, along with 17 and 18, have disappeared
completely; while extensive gaps occur in several of the others. The
portions which we still have, deal with the reign of Tiberius, the con-
cluding years of the reign of Claudius, and the reign of Nero down
to 66 A. D. The account of Caligula is entirely lost.
The (Annals' is universally regarded as Tacitus's ripest and great-
est work. While nominally a history of the times, it is in reality a
## p. 14373 (#567) ##########################################
TACITUS
14373
series of masterly character sketches of figures of commanding inter-
est and importance: the emperors, their advisers, their opponents, the
members of the imperial family.
In his psychological analyses, Tacitus can hardly be regarded as
free from prejudice and partisanship; in the case of most of the
emperors and their consorts, he sees no good trait, recognizes no
worthy motive. On the other hand, he is at times guilty of undue
idealization; as in the case of Germanicus, who, though popular with
the soldiers and the people, seems to have been deficient both in
force of character and in military genius.
Tacitus's pictures, however, while overdrawn, give us in the main
an accurate view of the imperial court: they exhibit the tyranny,
cruelty, and wantonness of successive sovereigns, the servility of the
courtiers, the degradation of the Senate, and the general demoraliza-
tion of the aristocracy, in colors as powerful as they are sombre. It
is greatly to be regretted that none of the ameliorating influences
and tendencies of the imperial régime receive recognition at Tacitus's
hands. The contemporary social, industrial, and commercial prosper-
ity are completely ignored: it is the dark side only that is revealed
in his pages.
Tacitus's STYLE. — The artistic form in which Tacitus clothed the
products of his genius is not only unique in itself, but also exhibits
a striking development from his earliest work to his latest. In the
Dialogus) he is manifestly under the influence of Cicero. The
'Agricola' and 'Germania,' published seventeen years later, show an
almost complete emancipation from this early model. The strong
individuality of the writer now reveals itself in greater condensation,
in frequent boldness of word and phrase, and in sombre earnestness
of thought; Sallust's influence is particularly noticeable at this stage.
In the Histories and in the ‘Annals) we note the fullest culmina-
tion of Tacitus's stylistic development. What in the Agricola' and
(Germania' was a tendency, has become in the Histories,' and espe-
cially in the Annals,' a pervading characteristic. Short incisive
sentences follow each other in quick succession: a single phrase or
a single word is often as pregnant with meaning as a paragraph in
another writer; poetic expressions abound (Virgil's influence being
particularly noticeable); while a lofty moral earnestness dominates
the whole.
This striking contrast of style between Tacitus's earliest and lat-
est work is unparalleled in Roman literature; and for a long time
tended to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Dialogus. It is not,
however, without a parallel in other literatures; and the difference
between Carlyle's Life of Schiller) and his Frederick the Great'
)
.
>
## p. 14374 (#568) ##########################################
14374
TACITUS
has been aptly compared with that between the Dialogus' and the
Annals. '
BIBLIOGRAPHY. - The best editions of the works of Tacitus are,-
for the Dialogus,' Gudeman (Boston, 1894): for the Agricola' and
(Germania, Furneaux (Oxford, 1891, 1896); for the Annals,' the same
editor (Oxford, 1884, 1891); for the Histories,' Spooner (Oxford, 1890).
The best English translation is by Church and Brodribb (London,
1885, 1888).
CAE Berett
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN
From (A Dialogue on Oratory)
W
Ho does not know that eloquence and all other arts have
declined from their ancient glory, not from dearth of
men, but from the indolence of the young, the care-
lessness of parents, the ignorance of teachers, and neglect of the
old discipline? The evils which first began in Rome soon spread
through Italy, and are now diffusing themselves into the prov-
inces. But your provincial affairs are best known to yourselves.
I shall speak of Rome, and of those native and home-bred vices
which take hold of us as soon as we are born, and multiply with
every stage of life, when I have first said a few words on the
strict discipline of our ancestors in the education and training
of children. Every citizen's son, the child of a chaste mother, was
from the beginning reared, not in the chamber of a purchased
nurse, but in that mother's bosom and embrace; and it was her
special glory to study her home and devote herself to her child-
ren. It was usual to select an elderly kinswoman of approved
and esteemed character to have the entire charge of all the child-
ren of the household. In her presence it was the last offense to
utter an unseemly word or to do a disgraceful act. With scru-
pulous piety and modesty she regulated not only the boy's stud-
ies and occupations, but even his recreations and games. Thus it
was, as tradition says, that the mothers of the Gracchi, of Cæsar,
of Augustus, - Cornelia, Aurelia, Atia,-directed their children's
education and reared the greatest of sons. The strictness of
## p. 14375 (#569) ##########################################
TACITUS
14375
the discipline tended to form in each case a pure and virtuous
nature, which no vices could warp, and which would at once with
the whole heart seize on every noble lesson. Whatever its bias,
- whether to the soldier's or the lawyer's art, or to the study of
eloquence,- it would make that its sole aim, and imbibe it in its
fullness.
But in our day we intrust the infant to a little Greek servant-
girl, who is attended by one or two- commonly the worst of
all the slaves — creatures utterly unfit for any important work.
Their stories and their prejudices from the very first fill the
child's tender and uninstructed mind. No one in the whole
house cares what he says or does before his infant master. Even
parents themselves familiarize their little ones, not with virtue
and modesty, but with jesting and glib talk; which lead on by
degrees to shamelessness, and to contempt for themselves as well
as for others. Really I think that the characteristic and peculiar
vices of this city-a liking for actors and a passion for gladi-
ators and horses are all-but conceived in the mother's womb.
When these occupy and possess the mind, how little room has it
left for worthy attainments! Few indeed are to be found who
talk of any other subjects in their homes; and whenever we
enter a class-room, what else is the conversation of the youths ?
Even with the teachers, these are the more frequent topics of
talk with their scholars. In fact, they draw pupils, not by strict-
ness of discipline or by giving proof of ability, but by assiduous
court and cunning tricks of flattery.
DOMITIAN'S REIGN OF TERROR
From the Agricola)
W
TE HAVE read that the panegyrics pronounced by Arulenus
Rusticus on Pætus Thrasea, and by Herennius Senecio
on Priscus Helvidius, were made capital crimes; that not
only their persons but their very books were objects of rage, and
that the triumvirs were commissioned to burn in the forum those
works of splendid genius. They fancied, forsooth, that in that
fire the voice of the Roman people, the freedom of the Senate,
and the conscience of the human race were perishing; while at
the same time they banished the teachers of philosophy, and
exiled every noble pursuit, that nothing good might anywhere
confront them. Certainly we showed a magnificent example of
## p. 14376 (#570) ##########################################
14376
TACITUS
SO
patience; as a former age had witnessed the extreme of liberty,
we witnessed the extreme of servitude, when the informer
robbed us of the interchange of speech and hearing. We should
have lost memory as well as voice, had it been as easy to forget
as to keep silence.
Now at last our spirit is returning, And yet, though at the
dawn of a most happy age Nerva Cæsar blended things once
irreconcilable,- sovereignty and freedom; though Nerva Trajan
is now daily augmenting the prosperity of the time, and though
the public safety has not only our hopes and good wishes, but
has also the certain pledge of their fulfillment, — still, from the
necessary condition of human frailty, the remedy works less
quickly than the disease. As our bodies grow but slowly, perish
in a moment, so it is easier to crush than to revive genius and
its pursuits. Besides, the charm of indolence steals over us, and
the idleness which at first we loathed we afterwards love. What
if during those fifteen years,— a large portion of human life, -
many were cut off by ordinary casualties, and the ablest fell
victims to the Emperor's rage, if a few of us survive, - I may
almost say, not only others but our own selves survive, though
there have been taken from the midst of life those many years
which brought the young in dumb silence to old age, and the
old almost to the very verge and end of existence! Yet we
shall not regret that we have told, though in language unskillful
and unadorned, the story of past servitude, and borne our testi-
mony to present happiness. Meanwhile this book, intended to
do honor to Agricola my father-in-law, will, as an expression of
filial regard, be commended, or at least excused.
APOSTROPHE TO AGRICOLA
From the Agricola)
T"
HOU wast indeed fortunate, Agricola, not only in the splen-
dor of thy life, but in the opportune moment of thy death.
Thou submittedst to thy fate, so they tell us who were
present to hear thy last words, with courage and cheerfulness,
seeming to be doing all thou couldst to give thine Emperor full
acquittal. As for me and thy daughter, besides all the bitter-
ness of a father's loss, it increases our sorrow that it was not
permitted us to watch over thy failing health, to comfort thy
weakness, to satisfy ourselves with those looks, those embraces.
## p. 14377 (#571) ##########################################
TACITUS
14377
Assuredly we should have received some precepts, some utter-
ances, to fix in our inmost hearts. This is the bitterness of our
sorrow, this the smart of our wound: that from the circumstance
of so long an absence thou wast lost to us four years before.
Doubtless, best of fathers, with the most loving wife at thy side,
all the dues of affection were abundantly paid thee; yet with too
few tears thou wast laid to thy rest, and in the light of thy last
day there was something for which thine eyes longed in vain.
If there is any dwelling-place for the spirits of the just; if, as
the wise believe, noble souls do not perish with the body, - rest
thou in peace; and call us, thy family, from weak regrets and
womanish laments to the contemplation of thy virtues, for which
we must not weep nor beat the breast. Let us honor thee not
so much with transitory praises as with our reverence; and if our
powers permit us, with our emulation. That will be true respect,
that the true affection of thy nearest kin. This too is what I
would enjoin on daughter and wife: to honor the memory of that
father, that husband, by pondering in their hearts all his words
and acts, by cherishing the features and lineaments of his charac-
ter rather than those of his person. It is not that I would for-
bid the likenesses which are wrought in marble or in bronze; but
as the faces of men, so all similitudes of the face are weak and
perishable things, while the fashion of the soul is everlasting,
such as may be expressed not in some foreign substance, or by
the help of art, but in our own lives. Whatever we loved, what-
ever we admired in Agricola, survives, and will survive in the
hearts of men, in the succession of the ages, in the fame that
waits on noble deeds. Over many, indeed, of those who have
gone before, as over the inglorious and ignoble, the waves of
oblivion will roll: Agricola, made known to posterity by history
and tradition, will live for ever.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GERMANS
From the (Germania)
GOVERNMENT.
INFLUENCE OF WOMEN
TH
HEY choose their kings by birth, their generals for merit.
These kings have not unlimited or arbitrary power, and the
generals do more by example than by authority. If they are
energetic, if they are conspicuous, if they fight in the front, they
## p. 14378 (#572) ##########################################
14378
TACITUS
lead because they are admired. But to reprimand, to imprison,
even to flog, is permitted to the priests alone; and that not as
a punishment, or at the general's bidding, but as it were, by the
mandate of the god whom they believe to inspire the warrior.
They also carry with them into battle certain figures and images
taken from their sacred groves. And what most stimulates their
courage is that their squadrons or battalions, instead of being
formed by chance or by a fortuitous gathering, are composed of
families and clans. Close by them too are those dearest to them,
so that they hear the shrieks of women, the cries of infants.
They are to every man the most sacred witnesses of his brav-
ery -- they are his most generous applauders. The soldier brings
his wounds to mother and wife, who shrink not from counting
or even demanding them, and who administer both food and
encouragement to the combatant.
Tradition says that armies already wavering and giving way
have been rallied by women, who, with earnest entreaties and
bosoms laid bare, have vividly represented the horrors of cap-
tivity; which the Germans fear with such extreme dread on
behalf of their women, that the strongest tie by which a State
can be bound is the being required to give, among the number
of hostages, maidens of noble birth. They even believe that the
sex has a certain sanctity and prescience; and they do not
despise their counsels, or make light of their answers. In Vespa-
sian's days we saw Veleda, long regarded by many as a divin-
ity. In former times too they venerated Aurinia, and many other
women; but not with servile flatteries or with sham deification.
DEITIES
Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship; and on
certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with
human victims. Hercules and Mars they appease with more law-
ful offerings. Some of the Suevi also sacrifice to Isis. Of the
occasion and origin of this foreign rite I have discovered noth-
ing but that the image, which is fashioned like a light galley,
indicates an imported worship. The Germans, however, do not
consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to
confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of
any human countenance. They consecrate woods and groves;
and they apply the names of deities to the abstraction which
they see only in spiritual worship.
## p. 14379 (#573) ##########################################
TACITUS
14379
AUGURIES AND METHOD OF DIVINATION
Augury and divination by lot no people practice more dili-
gently. The use of the lots is simple. A little bough is lopped
off a fruit-bearing tree, and cut into small pieces; these are
distinguished by certain marks, and thrown carelessly and at
random over a white garment. In public questions the priest of
the particular State, in private the father of the family, invokes
the gods; and with his eyes towards heaven, takes up each piece
three times, and finds in them a meaning according to the mark
previously impressed on them. If they prove unfavorable, there
is no further consultation that day about the matter; if they
sanction it, the confirmation of augury is still required. For they
are also familiar with the practice of consulting the notes and
the flight of birds. It is peculiar to this people to seek omens
and monitions from horses. Kept at the public expense, in these
same woods and groves are white horses, pure from the taint of
earthly labor; these are yoked to a sacred car, and accompanied
by the priest and the king, or chief of the tribe, who note their
neighings and snortings. No species of augury is more trusted,
not only by the people and by the nobility, but also by the
priests; who regard themselves as the ministers of the gods, and
the horses as acquainted with their will. They have also another
method of observing auspices, by which they seek to learn the
result of an important war. Having taken, by whatever means,
a prisoner from the tribe with whom they are at war, they pit
him against a picked man of their own tribe, each combatant
using the weapons of their country. The victory of the one
or the other is accepted as an indication of the issue.
COUNCILS
A BOUT minor matters the chiefs deliberate, about the more
important the whole tribe. Yet even when the final decision rests
with the people, the affair is always thoroughly discussed by the
chiefs. They assemble, except in the case of a sudden emergency,
on certain fixed days, either at new or at full moon; for this they
consider the most auspicious season for the transaction of busi-
ness. Instead of reckoning by days as we do, they reckon by
nights; and in this manner fix both their ordinary and their legal
appointments. Night they regard as bringing on day. Their
## p. 14380 (#574) ##########################################
14380
TACITUS
freedom has this disadvantage,- that they do not meet simulta-
neously or as they are bidden, but two or three days are wasted
in the delays of assembling. When the multitude think proper,
they sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by the priests, who
have on these occasions the right of keeping order. Then the
king or the chief — according to age, birth, distinction in war, or
eloquence - is heard, more because he has influence to persuade
than because he has power to command. If his sentiments dis-
please them, they reject them with murmurs; if they are satis-
fied, they brandish their spears. The most complimentary form
of assent is to express approbation with their weapons.
PUNISHMENTS.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
IN THEIR councils an accusation may be preferred, or a capital
crime prosecuted. Penalties are distinguished according to the
offense. Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the coward,
the unwarlike, the man stained with abominable vices, is plunged
into the mire of the morass, with a hurdle put over him. This
distinction in punishment means that crime, they think, ought in
being punished to be exposed, while infamy ought to be buried
out of sight. Lighter offenses, too, have penalties proportioned to
them: he who is convicted is fined in a certain number of horses
or of cattle. Half of the fine is paid to the king or to the State,
half to the person whose wrongs are avenged and to his relatives.
In these same councils they also elect the chief magistrates, who
administer law in the cantons and the towns. Each of these has
a hundred associates chosen from the people, who support him
with their advice and influence.
TRAINING OF THE YOUTH
They transact no public or private business without being
armed. It is not, however, usual for any one to wear arms till
the State has recognized his power to use them. Then in the
presence of the council one of the chiefs, or the young man's
father, or some kinsman, equips him with a shield and a spear.
These arms are what the “toga > is with us, – the first honor
with which youth is invested. Up to this time he is regarded
a member of a household, afterwards as a member of the
commonwealth. Very noble birth or great services rendered by
as
## p. 14381 (#575) ##########################################
TACITUS
14381
the father secure for lads the rank of a chief; such lads attach
themselves to men of mature strength and of long-approved
valor. It is no shame to be seen among a chief's followers.
Even in his escort there are gradations of rank, dependent on
the choice of the man to whom they are attached. These fol-
lowers vie keenly with each other as to who shall rank first with
his chief; the chiefs as to who shall have the most numerous
and the bravest followers. It is an honor as well as a source of
strength to be thus always surrounded by a large body of picked
youths: it is an ornament in peace and a defense in war. And
not only in his own tribe but also in the neighboring States it
is the renown and glory of a chief to be distinguished for the
number and valor of his followers; for such a man is courted by
embassies, is honored with presents, and the very prestige of his
name often settles a war.
WARLIKE ARDOR OF THE PEOPLE
WHEN they go into battle, it is a disgrace for the chief to
be surpassed in valor, a disgrace for his followers not to equal
the valor of the chief. And it is an infamy and a reproach for
life to have survived the chief, and returned from the field. To
defend, to protect him, to ascribe one's own brave deeds to his
renown, is the height of loyalty. The chief fights for victory;
his vassals fight for their chief. If their native State sinks into
the sloth of prolonged peace and repose, many of its noble youths
voluntarily seek those tribes which are waging some war: both
because inaction is odious to their race, and because they win
renown more readily in the midst of peril, and cannot maintain
a numerous following except by violence and war.
Indeed, men
look to the liberality of their chief for their war-horse and their
blood-stained and victorious lance. Feasts and entertainments -
which, though inelegant, are plentifully furnished — are their only
pay. The means of this bounty come rom war and rapine.
Nor are they as easily persuaded to plow the earth and to wait
for the year's produce, as to challenge an enemy and earn the
honor of wounds. Nay, they actually think it tame and stupid
to acquire by the sweat of toil what they might win by their
blood.
## p. 14382 (#576) ##########################################
14382
TACITUS
HABITS IN TIME OF PEACE
WHENEVER they are not fighting, they pass much of their
time in the chase, and still more in idleness, giving themselves
up to sleep and to feasting; the bravest and the most warlike
doing nothing, and surrendering the management of the house-
hold, of the home, and of the land, to the women, the old men,
and all the weakest members of the family. They themselves lie
buried in sloth: a strange combination in their nature, that the
same men should be so fond of idleness, so averse to peace. It
is the custom of the States to bestow by voluntary and individual
contribution on the chiefs a present of cattle or of grain, which,
while accepted as a compliment, supplies their wants. They are
particularly delighted by gifts from neighboring tribes; which
are sent not only by individuals but also by the State, such as
choice steeds, heavy armor, trappings, and neck-chains. We have
now taught them to accept money also.
ARRANGEMENT OF THEIR TOWNS.
SUBTERRANEAN DWELLINGS
It is well known that the nations of Germany have no cities,
and that they do not even tolerate closely contiguous dwellings.
They live scattered and apart, just as a spring, a meadow, or a
wood has attracted them. Their villages they do not arrange in
our fashion, - with the buildings connected and joined together,
— but every person surrounds his dwelling with an open space,
either as a precaution against the disasters of fire, or because
they do not know how to build. No use is made by them of
stone or tile: they employ timber for all purposes, rude masses
without ornament or attractiveness. Some parts of their build-
ings they stain more carefully, with a clay so clear and bright
that it resembles painting, or a colored design. They are wont
also to dig out subterranean caves, and pile on them great heaps
of dung, as a shelter from winter, and as a receptacle for the
year's produce; for by such places they mitigate the rigor of the
cold. And should an enemy approach, he lays waste the open
country, while what is hidden and buried is either not known
to exist, or else escapes him from the very fact that it has to be
searched for.
## p. 14383 (#577) ##########################################
TACITUS
14383
MARRIAGE LAWS
Their marriage code is strict, and indeed no part of their
manners is more praiseworthy. Almost alone among barbarians
they are content with one wife; except a very few among them,
and these not from sensuality, but because their noble birth pro-
cures for them many offers of alliance. The wife does not bring
a dower to the husband, but the husband to the wife. The
parents and relatives are present, and pass judgment on the mar-
riage gifts, gifts not meant to suit a woman's taste, nor such as
a bride would deck herself with, but oxen, a caparisoned steed,
a shield, a lance, and a sword. With these presents the wife is
espoused, and she herself in her turn brings her husband a gift
of arms.
This they count their strongest bond of union, these
their sacred mysteries, these their gods of marriage. Lest the
woman should think herself to stand apart from aspirations after
noble deeds and from the perils of war, she is reminded by the
ceremony which inaugurates marriage that she is her husband's
partner in toil and danger, destined to suffer and to dare with
him alike both in peace and in war. The yoked oxen, the har-
nessed steed, the gift of arms, proclaim this fact. She must live
,
and die with the feeling that she is receiving what she must
hand down to her children neither tarnished nor depreciated,
what future daughters-in-law may receive, and may be so passed
on to her grandchildren.
Thus with their virtue protected they live uncorrupted by the
allurements of public shows or the stimulant of feastings. Clan-
destine correspondence is equally unknown to men and women.
The loss of chastity meets with no indulgence: neither
beauty, youth, nor wealth will procure the culprit a husband.
No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fash-
ion to corrupt or to be corrupted. Still better is the condition
of those States in which only maidens are given in marriage, and
where the hopes and expectations of a bride are then finally ter-
minated. They receive one husband, as having one body and
one life, that they may have no thoughts beyond, no further.
reaching desires, that they may love not so much the husband
as the married state. To limit the number of their children or
to destroy any of their subsequent offspring is accounted infa-
mous; and good habits are here more effectual than good laws
elsewhere.
## p. 14384 (#578) ##########################################
14384
TACITUS
SCENE OF THE DEFEAT OF VARUS
From the (Annals. ) Translation of Church and Brodribb
N°
ot far hence lay the forest of Teutoburgium; and in it the
bones of Varus and the legions, by report still unburied.
Germanicus upon this was seized with an eager longing
to pay the last honor to those soldiers and their general; while
the whole army present was moved to compassion by the thought
of their kinsfolk and friends, and indeed, of the calamities of wars
and the lot of mankind. Having sent on Cacina in advance to
reconnoitre the obscure forest passes, and to raise bridges and
causeways over watery swamps and treacherous plains, they visited
the mournful scenes, with their horrible sights and associations.
Varus's first camp, with its wide circumference and the measure-
ments of its central space, clearly indicated the handiwork of
three legions. Further on, the partially fallen rampart and the
shallow fosse suggested the inference that it was a shattered
remnant of the army which had there taken up a position. In
the centre of the field were the whitening bones of men, as they
had fled or stood their ground, strewn everywhere or piled in
heaps. Near, lay fragments of weapons and limbs of horses, and
also human heads, prominently nailed to trunks of trees. In
the adjacent groves were the barbarous altars on which they had
immolated tribunes and first-rank centurions. Some survivors of
the disaster who had escaped from the battle or from captivity,
described how this was the spot where the officers fell, how yon-
der the eagles were captured, where Varus was pierced by his
first wound, where too by the stroke of his own ill-starred hand
he found for himself death. They pointed out too the raised
ground from which Arminius had harangued his army, the num-
ber of gibbets for the captives, the pits for the living, and how
in his exultation he had insulted the standards and eagles.
SERVILITY OF THE SENATE
From the (Annals)
S
, part of
A dishonor fell on the extreme Frontiers of the empire. Fear
at home had filled their hearts; and for this they sought
relief in sveophancy. And so, although their advice was asked
## p. 14385 (#579) ##########################################
TACITUS
14385
on totally different subjects, they decreed an altar to Clemency;
an altar to Friendship; and statues round them to Cæsar and
Sejanus, both of whom they earnestly begged with repeated en-
treaties to allow themselves to be seen in public. Still, neither
of them would visit Rome or even the neighborhood of Rome:
they thought it enough to quit the island and show themselves
on the opposite shores of Campania. Senators, knights, a number
of the city populace, flocked thither, anxiously looking to Seja-
nus; approach to whom was particularly difficult, and was con-
sequently sought by intrigue and by complicity in his counsels.
It was sufficiently clear that his arrogance was increased by
gazing on this foul and openly displayed servility. At Rome
indeed hurrying crowds are a familiar sight, and from the extent
of the city no one knows on what business each citizen is bent:
but there, as they lounged in promiscuous crowds in the fields
or on the shore, they had to bear day and night alike the pat-
ronizing smiles and the supercilious insolence of hall-porters, till
even this was forbidden them; and those whom Sejanus had not
deigned to accost or to look on, returned to the capital in alarm,
while some felt an evil joy, though there hung over them the
dreadful doom of that ill-starred friendship.
DEATH AND CHARACTER OF TIBERIUS
Fr
the (Annals )
O
N THE 15th of March, his breath failing, he was believed to
have expired; and Caius Cæsar was going forth with a
numerous throng of congratulating followers to take the
first possession of the empire, when suddenly news came that
Tiberius was recovering his voice and sight, and calling for per-
sons to bring him food to revive him from his faintness. Then
ensued a universal panic; and while the rest fled hither and
thither, every one feigning grief or ignorance, Caius Cæsar, in
silent stupor, passed from the highest hopes to the extremity of
apprehension. Marco, nothing daunted, ordered the old emperor
to be smothered under a huge heap of clothes; and all to quit
the entrance-hall.
And so died Tiberius in the seventy-eighth year of his age.
Nero was his father, and he was on both sides descended from
the Claudian house; though his mother passed by adoption, first
XXIV-900
## p. 14386 (#580) ##########################################
14386
TACITUS
into the Livian, then into the Julian family. From earliest
infancy, perilous vicissitudes were his lot. Himself an exile, he
was the companion of a proscribed father; and on being admitted
as a stepson into the house of Augustus, he had to struggle
with many rivals, so long as Marcellus and Agrippa, and subse-
quently Caius and Lucius Cæsar, were in their glory. Again, his
brother Drusus enjoyed in a greater degree the affection of the
citizens. But he was more than ever on dangerous ground after
his marriage with Julia, whether he tolerated or escaped from
his wife's profligacy. On his return from Rhodes he ruled the
emperor's now heirless house for twelve years; and the Roman
world, with absolute sway, for about twenty-three. His charac-
ter too had its distinct periods. It was a bright time in his life
and reputation while under Augustus he was a private citizen
or held high offices; a time of reserve and crafty assumption of
virtue, as long as Germanicus and Drusus were alive. Again,
while his mother lived, he was a compound of good and evil; he
was infamous for his cruelty, though he veiled his debaucheries,
while he loved or feared Sejanus. Finally he plunged into every
wickedness and disgrace, when, fear and shame being cast off, he
simply indulged his own inclinations.
THE GREAT FIRE AT ROME, AND NERO'S ACCUSATION OF
THE CHRISTIANS
From the (Annals)
A
DISASTER followed — whether accidental or treacherously con-
trived by the emperor is uncertain, as authors have given
both accounts; worse, however, and more dreadful than
any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of
fire. It had its beginning in that part of the Circus which ad-
joins the Palatine and Cælian hills, where amid the shops con-
taining inflammable wares, the conflagration both broke out, and
instantly became so fierce and so rapid from the wind that it
seized in its grasp the entire length of the Circus. For here
there were no houses fenced in by solid masonry, or temples sur-
rounded by walls, or any other obstacle to interpose delay. The
blaze in its fury ran first through the level portions of the city,
then rising to the hills, while it again devastated every place
below them; it outstripped all preventive measures, so rapid was
## p. 14387 (#581) ##########################################
TACITUS
14387
And no
the mischief and so completely at its mercy the city, with those
narrow winding passages and irregular streets which character-
ized old Rome. Added to this were the wailings of terror-
stricken women, the feebleness of age, the helpless inexperience
of childhood; the crowds who sought to save themselves or
others, dragging out the infirm or waiting for them, and by their
hurry in the one case, by their delay in the other, aggravating
the confusion. Often while they looked behind them, they were
.
intercepted by flames on their side or in their face. Or if they
reached a refuge close at hand, when this too was seized by the
fire they found that even places which they had imagined to be
remote were involved in the same calamity. At last, doubting
what they should avoid or whither to betake themselves, they
crowded the streets or flung themselves down in the fields; while
some who had lost their all, even their very daily bread, and
others out of love for the kinsfolk whom they had been unable
to rescue, perished, though escape was open to them.
one dared to stop the mischief, because of incessant menaces
from a number of persons who forbade the extinguishing of the
flames; or because again others openly hurled brands, and kept
shouting that there was one who gave them authority,-- either
seeking to plunder more freely, or obeying orders.
Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome
until the fire approached his house, which he had built to con-
nect the palace with the gardens of Mæcenas, It could not
however be stopped from devouring the palace, the house, and
everything around it. However, to relieve the people, driven out
homeless as they were, he threw open to them the Campus
Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own
gardens; and raised temporary structures to receive the destitute
multitude. Supplies of food were brought up from Ostia and
the neighboring towns, and the price of corn was reduced to
three sesterces a peck. These acts, though popular, produced
no effect; since a rumor had gone forth everywhere that, at the
very time when the city was in flames, the Emperor appeared on
a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing
present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.
Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The
next thing was to seek a means of propitiating the gods; and
recourse was had to the Sibylline Books, by the direction of
which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina.
## p. 14388 (#582) ##########################################
14388
TACITUS
Juno too was entreated by the matrons; first in the Capitol, then
on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to
sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were
sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women.
But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the Emperor, and
the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief
that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently,
to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the
most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations,
called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the
name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the
reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius
Pilatus; and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for
the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source
of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and
shameful from every part of the world find their centre and
become popular. Accordingly an arrest was first made of all
who pleaded guilty; then upon their information, an immense
multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing
the city as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort
was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts,
they were torn by dogs and perished; or were nailed to crosses,
or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly
illumination when daylight had expired.
Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting
a show in the Circus, while he mingled with the people in the
dress of a charioteer, or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for
criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment,
there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed,
for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they
were being destroyed.
## p. 14389 (#583) ##########################################
14389
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
The Teva Poets: Notes on a Poetic Family in Tahiti
BY JOHN LA FARGE
N THE Home of the Ogre I pillowed my head;
I followed in safety the Path of the Dead;
With the Sons of the Shark I lived as a guest;
I saw float before me the Isles of the Blest.
T
I have bathed in the sea where the Siren still sleeps;
The Kiss of the Queen is still red on my lips;
My hands touched the Tree with the Branchings of Gold, -
For a season I lived in the Order of Old.
IT IS
a part of the charm of little Tahiti, or Otaheite, whose
double island is not more than a hundred miles about that it has
been the type of the oceanic island in story.
With its discovery begins the interest that awoke Europe by the
apparent realization of man in his earliest life – a life that recalled
the silver if not the golden age. Here men and women made a
beautiful race, living free from the oppression of nature, and at first
sight also free from the cruel and terrib superstitions of many sav-
age tribes. I have known people who could recall the joyous impres-
sion made upon them by these stories of new paradises, only just
opened; and both Wallis's and Bougainville's short and official reports
are bathed in a feeling of admiration, that takes no definite form,
but refers both to the people and the place and the gentleness of
the welcome.
The state of nature had just then been the staple reference in the
polemic literature of the century about to close. The refined and
dry civilization of the few was troubled by the confused sentiments,
the dreams, and the obscure desires of the ignorant and suffering
many. Their inarticulate voice was suddenly phrased by Rousseau.
With that cry came in the literary belief in the natural man, in
the possibility of analyzing the foundations of government and civ-
ilization, in the perfectibility of the human race and its persistent
goodness when freed from the weight of society's blunders and op-
pressions.
## p. 14390 (#584) ##########################################
14390
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
Later, Byron :-
«— the happy shores without a law,
Where all partake the earth without dispute,
And bread itself is gathered as a fruit;
Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams:
The goldless age, where gold disturbs no dreams. )
There is no doubt that at the moment of the discovery our
islanders had reached the full extent of their civilization; that,
numerous, splendid, and untainted in their physical development, they
seemed to live in a facility of existence, in an absence of anxiety
emphasized by their love of pleasure and fondness for society,— by
a simplicity of conscience which found no fault in what we repro-
bate,- in a happiness which is not and could not be our own. The
"pursuit of happiness in which these islanders were engaged, and
in which they seemed successful, is the catchword of the eighteenth
century.
People were far then from the cruel ideas of Hobbes; and the
more amiable views of the nature of man, and of his rights, echo in
the sentimentality of the last century like the sound of the island
surf about Tahiti.
The name recalls so many associations of ideas, so much romance
of reading, so much of the history of thought, that I find it difficult
to disentangle the varying strands of the threads. There are many
boyish recollections behind the charm of Melville's Omoo) and Stod-
dard's Idylls, or even the mixed pleasure of Loti's Marriage. '
I believe too that my feelings are intensified because they are
directed towards an island, a word, a thing of all time marked by
man as something wherein to place the ideal, the supernatural, the
home of the blest, the abode of the dead, the fountain of eternal
youth, as in Heine's song about the island of Bimini:-
« Little birdling Colibri,
Lead us thou to Tahiti! ))
Captain Cook and Bougainville and Wallis first appealed to me
with the name of Otaheite or Tahiti; and I remember the far-away
missionary stories and the pictures of their books, the shores fringed
with palm-trees, the strange, impossible mountain peaks, the half-
classical figures of natives, and the eighteenth-century costumes of
the gallant discoverers. And I remember grewsome pictures in which
figure human sacrifices and deformed idols, and still the skirts of the
uniform of Captain Cook. Long ago there lay, by a Newport wharf,
an old hulk, relic of former days. We were told that this had been
one of the ships of Captain Cook, – the once famous Endeavor. Here
## p. 14391 (#585) ##########################################
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
14391
was the end of her romance; now slowly rotted the keel that had
plowed through new seas, and first touched the shores of races dis-
connected from time immemorial.
On that little ship, enormous to her eyes, had been Oberea, the
princess, the Queen of Otaheite, whose name comes up in the stories
of Wallis or of Cook, and early in the first missionary voyages.
Oberea was the tall woman of commanding presence, who, undis-
mayed, with the freedom of a person accustomed to rule, visited Wal-
lis on board of his ship, soon after his first arrival and the attempt
at attacking him (July 1767). She, you may remember too, carried
him, a sick man, in her arms, as easily as if he had been a child.
I remember her in the engraving, stepping towards Wallis, with a
palm branch in her hand, while he stands with gun in hand at the
head of his marines.
And do you remember the parting: how the Queen could not
speak for tears; how she sank inconsolable on the stern of her canoe,
without noticing the presents made her; and how the gallant cap-
tain's eyes filled with tears ? Surely this is no ordinary story,– this
sentimental end of an official record of discovery.
When Wallis arrived in June 1767, Tahiti and its neighboring
island Moorea were under the rule of a chief, Amo or Aamo, as he
is called by Wallis and Cook. He was their great chief,—a word
we have managed to translate as king. It was a moment of general
peace; and the “happy islanders ” enjoyed, in a “terrestrial paradise,»
pleasures of social life, of free intercourse, whose description even at
this day reads with a charm of impossible amenity. The wonderful
island, striking in its shape, so beautiful apparently that each suc-
cessive traveler has described it as the most beautiful of places, was
prepared to offer to the discoverer expecting harsh and savage sights,
a race of noble proportion, of great elegance of form, accustomed to
most courteous demeanor, and speaking one of the softest languages
of man.
Even the greatest defects of the Polynesian helped to make
the exterior picture of amiability and ease of life still more grateful.
The harsher side added to the picture the interest of mystery and
contradiction. Just as Wallis left one side of the island, Bougainville
the Frenchman came up to the other, different in its make, differ-
ent in the first attitude of the natives, but with the same story
of gracious kindness and feminine bounty; so that the Frenchman
called it the New Cytherea, and carried home images of pastoral,
idyllic life in a savage Eden, where all was beautiful, and untainted
by the fierceness and greed imposed upon natural man by artificial
civilization. So strong was the impression produced by what he had
to say, and by the elaborations of Diderot and the encyclopædists,
that the keen and critical analysis of his own mistakes in judgment
(
>>
## p. 14392 (#586) ##########################################
14392
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
which Bougainville affixed to his Journal,' was, as he complained,
passed over, because people wished to have their minds made up.
Last of all came Captain Cook, whose name has absorbed all
others. Twice he visited Tahiti, and helped to fix in European minds
the impression of a state nearer to nature, which the thought of the
day insisted upon.
That early figure of Purea (Oberea), the queen for whom Wallis
shed tears in leaving, remains the type of the South Sea woman.
With Cook she is also inseparably associated; and the anger of the
first missionaries with her only serves to complete and certify the
character.
Her residence and that of her husband Amo was at Papara, on the
south shore of Tahiti. Both belonged to a family whose ancestors
were gods; and they lived a ceremonial life recalling, at this extreme
of civilization, the courtesies, the adulation, the flattery, the super-
stitious veneration, of the East.
This family and its allies had reigned in these islands and in the
others for an indefinite period. The names of their ancestors, the
poetry commemorating them, were still sung long after the white
man had helped to destroy their supremacy.
Now Oberea was the great-great-grand-aunt of the old chiefess
Arii Taimai, or Hinarii (Mother of Chiefs), whom I visited in her coun-
try home.
This great lady, the greatest in all the islands, is the
last link of the old and new. With her will go all sorts of traditions
and habits; and both she and her daughter, Queen Marau, were very
affable and entertaining, telling us legends and stories. The mother
of our old chiefess was known by at least thirteen different names,
each of which was a title, each of which conveyed land: so for in-
stance she was Marama in the island of Moorea, and owned almost
all of it; so she was Aromaiterai in Papara. This investiture would
be received by a child, as child to a chief, and it would be carried to
the family temple to be made sacred, as was done in this case,
thirteen different temples having received the child, the mother of
our chiefess. She repeated to us, with curious cadences and intona-
tions unknown to the people here to-day, some of the forms of salu-
tation through which a visitor addressed the honored person that he
visited, or was addressed by him. These words gave names and sur-
names, and references to past history, and made out the proper titles
to descent. They were recited in the form of a lamentation, and
there were pauses, she said, when the speaker was supposed to weep;
and in committing them to memory, she learned also when this
wailing was to come. Once, she said, she had visited the island Rai-
atea with her friend, the famous late queen, Pomare, to call upon the
queen of that island; and Queen Pomare, less versed than herself,
## p. 14393 (#587) ##########################################
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
14393
are
ery words
asked her to speak these salutations for her, as they walked along
upon their official visit. “It was difficult,” said the old lady: "I
had to walk just so, and to repeat all this at the same time, with-
out an error, and at the proper places to lament. ” For our hostess
is a lady of the greatest family,- of greater family than Queen
Pomare's, though her affection for her prevents her saying what she
. thinks.
The famous Queen Pomare's name was known to all sea-going
people in that half of the globe. She was the Pomare of Melville's
Omoo' and of Loti's Marriage. ' The Pomares date only from the
time of Cook. They were slowly wresting the power from the Tevas
by war, and by that still more powerful means, marriage. The old
lady Hinaarii is the chiefess representing that great line of the Teva,
alongside of which the Pomares - the kings through the foreigner-
new people. Some years ago King Kalakaua of Hawaii had
wished to obtain the traditions and genealogies of her family; but
the old lady had never been favorable. This, the earliest of the tra-
ditions of the family, was told me at different times by Queen Marau;
so that in many cases what little I shall quote will be the
of our royal historian.
The great ancestress Hototu, from whom come all the Tevas, was
the first queen of Vaieri. She married Temanutunu, the first king of
Punauia. (Temanutunu means Bird that Let Loose the Army. ) This
was at the time when gods and men and animals were not divided
as they are to-day, or when, as in the Greek stories, the gods took
the shapes of men or beasts.
In the course of time this king
left the island, and made an expedition to the far-away Pomotu. It
is said that he went to obtain the precious red feathers that have
always had a mysterious value to South Sea Islanders, and that he
meant them for the maroura or royal red girdle of his son. The
investiture with the girdle, red or white according to circumstances,
had the same value as our form of crowning, and took place in the
ancestral temples. While the king was far away in the pursuit of
these red feathers, to be gathered perhaps one by one, the queen
Hototu traveled into the adjoining country of Papara, and there met
the mysterious personage Paparuiia. This wonderful creature, half
man, half fish, recalls the god of Raratonga, who himself recalled to
the missionaries the god Dagon. With Paparuiia, or Tino-iia as he
was also called, the queen was well pleased; so that from them
was born a son who later was called Teva. But this is anticipating.
While the king was still away, his dog Pihoro returned; and finding
the queen he ran up to her and fawned upon her, to the jealous dis-
gust of Tino-iia, one half of whom said to the other, “She cares for
that dog more than for me. ” Then he arose and departed in anger,
- telling her, however, that she would bear a son whom she should
## p. 14394 (#588) ##########################################
14394
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
-
call Teva: that for this son he had built a temple at Mataua, and
that there he should wear the maro tea, the white or yellow girdle;
his mother the queen, and her husband the king, being the only
ones that had the right to the maroura, the red maro or girdle — for
which, you will remember, the king was hunting. Then he departed,
and was met by Temanutunu, the king, who entreated him to return;
but he refused, saying that his wife was a woman too fond of dogs. .
When I asked if he never came back, the queen told me that
since that day the man-fish had been seen many times.
When I asked about the old divinity of the family, the shark, I
was told that he still frequents — harmless to his friends — the water
inside the reef; changing his size when he comes in or out, because
of the small passage.
The old songs that she orders to be sung to us are not hymns
but himenes, a name now applied to all choral singing. The mode of
singing has not changed for its being church music — it is the South
Sea chant: a buzzing bass brum-brum that sounds almost instrumental,
and upon this ground a brocading of high, shrill cadencing, repeated
indefinitely, and ending always in a long i-é-e-i-é-e,- a sound that
we first heard in Hawaii, and afterwards as an accompaniment to the
paddling of Samoan boats.
I shall transcribe in prose some of the poems that are
into the story of the family.
Some of these form parts of
methods of addresses; that is to say, of the poems or words recited
upon occasions of visiting, or that serve as tribe-cries and slogans.
Such for instance are the verses connected with the name of Tau-
raatua that are handed down. The explanations may confuse it;
but they make it all the more authentic, because all songs handed
down and familiar must receive varying glosses.
Where one sees,
for instance, a love-song, another sees a song of war. The chief,
Tauraatua, of that far-back day was enamored of a fair maiden whose
name was Maraeura, and lived with or near her. This poem, which
is an appeal to him to return to duty or to home, or to wake him
from a dream, is supposed to be the call of the bird messenger and
his answer. The bird messenger (euriri) repeats the places and
names of things most sacred to the chief, — his mount, his cape, his
temple. To which the chief answers that he will look at his mis-
tress's place or person on the shore.
Woven
.
.
«« Tauraatua, living in the house of Roa,”
(Says) the bird that has flown to the rua rua,
« Papara is a land of heavy leaves that drag down the branches.
Go to Teva; at Teva is thy home,
Thy golden land.
moral servitude enforced upon his countrymen by Domitian's rule
is made clear by a passage of remarkable power contained in the
preface to this work (here quoted).
The best years of Agricola's life had been spent in the service of
his country, and for the most part in the field. His most conspicu-
were achieved in Britain. He had been appointed
governor of that province in 78, and remained there seven years. In
the course of his administration he had not only reduced the entire
island to subjection, as far north as the highlands of Scotland, but
had also established the Roman civilization among the Britons. All
these achievements are pictured in glowing colors and with signal
ous
successes
## p. 14371 (#565) ##########################################
TACITUS
14371
-
affection by the writer. Tacitus's apostrophe to his departed father-
in-law (here quoted), is a lofty and impressive illustration of the
writer's genius.
3. The (Germania. ' This was published in 98 A. D. , the same
year as the Agricola. ' It is a brief treatise on the geography, peo-
ples, and institutions of the Germans. The larger portion of the
work — and by far the most interesting — is devoted to a considera-
tion of those customs and institutions which are common to the Ger-
mans as a whole; such as their political organization, their military
system, the courts, religion, dwellings, clothing, marriage, amuse-
ments, slavery, and industrial occupations. The remainder of the
work treats of the location of the separate tribes, and of the institu-
tions peculiar to each.
The purpose of the 'Germania' has been differently conceived by
different critics. Some have thought that Tacitus's object was, by
holding before his countrymen a picture of the Germans, to mark the
contrast between the two civilizations, German and Roman, and to
commend the rugged simplicity of the one as opposed to the degen-
eracy of the other. Others have regarded the treatise as a political
pamphlet, written in support of Trajan, and intended to justify the
attention which that prince was then bestowing upon the problems
presented by the tribes of the North. Yet others have thought that
the work was prepared as an introduction to the extensive historical
writings which Tacitus had already projected.
But there are serious objections to each of these views; more-
over, it seems improbable that the Germania) was written with any
« tendency” or purpose beyond the natural and obvious one of ac-
quainting its readers with accurate details of German geography and
institutions. The German people had long been known to the Romans,
and for a century and a half had furnished a more or less constant
opposition to the Roman arms. Nor was the subject new: Cæsar,
Livy, Pliny, and others, had given detailed accounts of this interesting
and important race. That Tacitus, therefore, should have undertaken
a fresh presentation of their situation and customs, seems perfectly
natural, without resort to the theory of a special extraneous motive.
Whatever its original purpose, the “Germania) must be recognized as
a mine of authentic information concerning the ancient Germans, and
as a source of the first importance for all modern study of Germanic
institutions.
4. The Histories. ' In the preface to the Agricola,' Tacitus had
already announced his purpose of writing the history of the reigns
of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan. Later, this plan was modified. The
new project embraced the history of the imperial period from the
death of Augustus to the death of Domitian,- a space of eighty-two
## p. 14372 (#566) ##########################################
14372
TACITUS
us.
years. This period naturally fell into two eras: the former that of
the Julian-Claudian dynasties (from the accession of Tiberius to the
death of Nero), the latter that of the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian to
Domitian), including the transition period of turmoil during the brief
reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. It was the latter of these two
eras that Tacitus treated first, giving to the work the title His-
toriæ. ) The events he describes had all occurred within his own
memory, and many within the range of his own observation and
experience. The entire work consisted probably of twelve books,
published at intervals between 104 and 109 A. D. Of these twelve
books only the first four, and half of the fifth, have come down to
The preserved portions begin with the accession of Galba, and
carry the history only to the beginning of the reign of Vespasian.
A vivid picture is given in this narrative of the stormy events of the
years 68 and 69; including the murder of Galba, the defeat and sui-
cide of Otho, the overthrow of Vitellius, the accession of Vespasian,
along with the formidable insurrection of the Batavians under Civilis.
But the descriptions are almost exclusively military. There is less
of the fine psychological analysis which appears later as a striking
characteristic of the Annals. ' Doubtless this feature inay have been
more prominent in the lost books of the Histories) (6-12), which
covered the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. One of the
most interesting portions of the extant books is the account of the
Jews, given at the beginning of Book v. The description of the siege
and capture of Jerusalem by Titus is unfortunately lost.
5. The Annals. ' The second part of Tacitus's programme em-
braced a history of the earlier period, from the accession of Tiberius
to the death of Nero (14-68 A. D. ). The exact title of this work was
(Ab Excessu Divi Augusti’ (From the Decease of the Divine Augus-
tus); but owing to the treatment of events year by year, Tacitus him-
self alludes to his work as (Annals,' and this designation has become
the current one. The Annals, like the Histories,' was probably
published in installments, about 115-117 A. D. The entire work in all
likelihood consisted of eighteen books. These eighteen seem to have
been devoted, in groups of six, to three epochs: the first six to the
reign of Tiberius; the next six to the reigns of Caligula and Claudius;
the concluding six to the reign of Nero. Large portions of the work
have been lost. Books 7-10, along with 17 and 18, have disappeared
completely; while extensive gaps occur in several of the others. The
portions which we still have, deal with the reign of Tiberius, the con-
cluding years of the reign of Claudius, and the reign of Nero down
to 66 A. D. The account of Caligula is entirely lost.
The (Annals' is universally regarded as Tacitus's ripest and great-
est work. While nominally a history of the times, it is in reality a
## p. 14373 (#567) ##########################################
TACITUS
14373
series of masterly character sketches of figures of commanding inter-
est and importance: the emperors, their advisers, their opponents, the
members of the imperial family.
In his psychological analyses, Tacitus can hardly be regarded as
free from prejudice and partisanship; in the case of most of the
emperors and their consorts, he sees no good trait, recognizes no
worthy motive. On the other hand, he is at times guilty of undue
idealization; as in the case of Germanicus, who, though popular with
the soldiers and the people, seems to have been deficient both in
force of character and in military genius.
Tacitus's pictures, however, while overdrawn, give us in the main
an accurate view of the imperial court: they exhibit the tyranny,
cruelty, and wantonness of successive sovereigns, the servility of the
courtiers, the degradation of the Senate, and the general demoraliza-
tion of the aristocracy, in colors as powerful as they are sombre. It
is greatly to be regretted that none of the ameliorating influences
and tendencies of the imperial régime receive recognition at Tacitus's
hands. The contemporary social, industrial, and commercial prosper-
ity are completely ignored: it is the dark side only that is revealed
in his pages.
Tacitus's STYLE. — The artistic form in which Tacitus clothed the
products of his genius is not only unique in itself, but also exhibits
a striking development from his earliest work to his latest. In the
Dialogus) he is manifestly under the influence of Cicero. The
'Agricola' and 'Germania,' published seventeen years later, show an
almost complete emancipation from this early model. The strong
individuality of the writer now reveals itself in greater condensation,
in frequent boldness of word and phrase, and in sombre earnestness
of thought; Sallust's influence is particularly noticeable at this stage.
In the Histories and in the ‘Annals) we note the fullest culmina-
tion of Tacitus's stylistic development. What in the Agricola' and
(Germania' was a tendency, has become in the Histories,' and espe-
cially in the Annals,' a pervading characteristic. Short incisive
sentences follow each other in quick succession: a single phrase or
a single word is often as pregnant with meaning as a paragraph in
another writer; poetic expressions abound (Virgil's influence being
particularly noticeable); while a lofty moral earnestness dominates
the whole.
This striking contrast of style between Tacitus's earliest and lat-
est work is unparalleled in Roman literature; and for a long time
tended to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Dialogus. It is not,
however, without a parallel in other literatures; and the difference
between Carlyle's Life of Schiller) and his Frederick the Great'
)
.
>
## p. 14374 (#568) ##########################################
14374
TACITUS
has been aptly compared with that between the Dialogus' and the
Annals. '
BIBLIOGRAPHY. - The best editions of the works of Tacitus are,-
for the Dialogus,' Gudeman (Boston, 1894): for the Agricola' and
(Germania, Furneaux (Oxford, 1891, 1896); for the Annals,' the same
editor (Oxford, 1884, 1891); for the Histories,' Spooner (Oxford, 1890).
The best English translation is by Church and Brodribb (London,
1885, 1888).
CAE Berett
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN
From (A Dialogue on Oratory)
W
Ho does not know that eloquence and all other arts have
declined from their ancient glory, not from dearth of
men, but from the indolence of the young, the care-
lessness of parents, the ignorance of teachers, and neglect of the
old discipline? The evils which first began in Rome soon spread
through Italy, and are now diffusing themselves into the prov-
inces. But your provincial affairs are best known to yourselves.
I shall speak of Rome, and of those native and home-bred vices
which take hold of us as soon as we are born, and multiply with
every stage of life, when I have first said a few words on the
strict discipline of our ancestors in the education and training
of children. Every citizen's son, the child of a chaste mother, was
from the beginning reared, not in the chamber of a purchased
nurse, but in that mother's bosom and embrace; and it was her
special glory to study her home and devote herself to her child-
ren. It was usual to select an elderly kinswoman of approved
and esteemed character to have the entire charge of all the child-
ren of the household. In her presence it was the last offense to
utter an unseemly word or to do a disgraceful act. With scru-
pulous piety and modesty she regulated not only the boy's stud-
ies and occupations, but even his recreations and games. Thus it
was, as tradition says, that the mothers of the Gracchi, of Cæsar,
of Augustus, - Cornelia, Aurelia, Atia,-directed their children's
education and reared the greatest of sons. The strictness of
## p. 14375 (#569) ##########################################
TACITUS
14375
the discipline tended to form in each case a pure and virtuous
nature, which no vices could warp, and which would at once with
the whole heart seize on every noble lesson. Whatever its bias,
- whether to the soldier's or the lawyer's art, or to the study of
eloquence,- it would make that its sole aim, and imbibe it in its
fullness.
But in our day we intrust the infant to a little Greek servant-
girl, who is attended by one or two- commonly the worst of
all the slaves — creatures utterly unfit for any important work.
Their stories and their prejudices from the very first fill the
child's tender and uninstructed mind. No one in the whole
house cares what he says or does before his infant master. Even
parents themselves familiarize their little ones, not with virtue
and modesty, but with jesting and glib talk; which lead on by
degrees to shamelessness, and to contempt for themselves as well
as for others. Really I think that the characteristic and peculiar
vices of this city-a liking for actors and a passion for gladi-
ators and horses are all-but conceived in the mother's womb.
When these occupy and possess the mind, how little room has it
left for worthy attainments! Few indeed are to be found who
talk of any other subjects in their homes; and whenever we
enter a class-room, what else is the conversation of the youths ?
Even with the teachers, these are the more frequent topics of
talk with their scholars. In fact, they draw pupils, not by strict-
ness of discipline or by giving proof of ability, but by assiduous
court and cunning tricks of flattery.
DOMITIAN'S REIGN OF TERROR
From the Agricola)
W
TE HAVE read that the panegyrics pronounced by Arulenus
Rusticus on Pætus Thrasea, and by Herennius Senecio
on Priscus Helvidius, were made capital crimes; that not
only their persons but their very books were objects of rage, and
that the triumvirs were commissioned to burn in the forum those
works of splendid genius. They fancied, forsooth, that in that
fire the voice of the Roman people, the freedom of the Senate,
and the conscience of the human race were perishing; while at
the same time they banished the teachers of philosophy, and
exiled every noble pursuit, that nothing good might anywhere
confront them. Certainly we showed a magnificent example of
## p. 14376 (#570) ##########################################
14376
TACITUS
SO
patience; as a former age had witnessed the extreme of liberty,
we witnessed the extreme of servitude, when the informer
robbed us of the interchange of speech and hearing. We should
have lost memory as well as voice, had it been as easy to forget
as to keep silence.
Now at last our spirit is returning, And yet, though at the
dawn of a most happy age Nerva Cæsar blended things once
irreconcilable,- sovereignty and freedom; though Nerva Trajan
is now daily augmenting the prosperity of the time, and though
the public safety has not only our hopes and good wishes, but
has also the certain pledge of their fulfillment, — still, from the
necessary condition of human frailty, the remedy works less
quickly than the disease. As our bodies grow but slowly, perish
in a moment, so it is easier to crush than to revive genius and
its pursuits. Besides, the charm of indolence steals over us, and
the idleness which at first we loathed we afterwards love. What
if during those fifteen years,— a large portion of human life, -
many were cut off by ordinary casualties, and the ablest fell
victims to the Emperor's rage, if a few of us survive, - I may
almost say, not only others but our own selves survive, though
there have been taken from the midst of life those many years
which brought the young in dumb silence to old age, and the
old almost to the very verge and end of existence! Yet we
shall not regret that we have told, though in language unskillful
and unadorned, the story of past servitude, and borne our testi-
mony to present happiness. Meanwhile this book, intended to
do honor to Agricola my father-in-law, will, as an expression of
filial regard, be commended, or at least excused.
APOSTROPHE TO AGRICOLA
From the Agricola)
T"
HOU wast indeed fortunate, Agricola, not only in the splen-
dor of thy life, but in the opportune moment of thy death.
Thou submittedst to thy fate, so they tell us who were
present to hear thy last words, with courage and cheerfulness,
seeming to be doing all thou couldst to give thine Emperor full
acquittal. As for me and thy daughter, besides all the bitter-
ness of a father's loss, it increases our sorrow that it was not
permitted us to watch over thy failing health, to comfort thy
weakness, to satisfy ourselves with those looks, those embraces.
## p. 14377 (#571) ##########################################
TACITUS
14377
Assuredly we should have received some precepts, some utter-
ances, to fix in our inmost hearts. This is the bitterness of our
sorrow, this the smart of our wound: that from the circumstance
of so long an absence thou wast lost to us four years before.
Doubtless, best of fathers, with the most loving wife at thy side,
all the dues of affection were abundantly paid thee; yet with too
few tears thou wast laid to thy rest, and in the light of thy last
day there was something for which thine eyes longed in vain.
If there is any dwelling-place for the spirits of the just; if, as
the wise believe, noble souls do not perish with the body, - rest
thou in peace; and call us, thy family, from weak regrets and
womanish laments to the contemplation of thy virtues, for which
we must not weep nor beat the breast. Let us honor thee not
so much with transitory praises as with our reverence; and if our
powers permit us, with our emulation. That will be true respect,
that the true affection of thy nearest kin. This too is what I
would enjoin on daughter and wife: to honor the memory of that
father, that husband, by pondering in their hearts all his words
and acts, by cherishing the features and lineaments of his charac-
ter rather than those of his person. It is not that I would for-
bid the likenesses which are wrought in marble or in bronze; but
as the faces of men, so all similitudes of the face are weak and
perishable things, while the fashion of the soul is everlasting,
such as may be expressed not in some foreign substance, or by
the help of art, but in our own lives. Whatever we loved, what-
ever we admired in Agricola, survives, and will survive in the
hearts of men, in the succession of the ages, in the fame that
waits on noble deeds. Over many, indeed, of those who have
gone before, as over the inglorious and ignoble, the waves of
oblivion will roll: Agricola, made known to posterity by history
and tradition, will live for ever.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GERMANS
From the (Germania)
GOVERNMENT.
INFLUENCE OF WOMEN
TH
HEY choose their kings by birth, their generals for merit.
These kings have not unlimited or arbitrary power, and the
generals do more by example than by authority. If they are
energetic, if they are conspicuous, if they fight in the front, they
## p. 14378 (#572) ##########################################
14378
TACITUS
lead because they are admired. But to reprimand, to imprison,
even to flog, is permitted to the priests alone; and that not as
a punishment, or at the general's bidding, but as it were, by the
mandate of the god whom they believe to inspire the warrior.
They also carry with them into battle certain figures and images
taken from their sacred groves. And what most stimulates their
courage is that their squadrons or battalions, instead of being
formed by chance or by a fortuitous gathering, are composed of
families and clans. Close by them too are those dearest to them,
so that they hear the shrieks of women, the cries of infants.
They are to every man the most sacred witnesses of his brav-
ery -- they are his most generous applauders. The soldier brings
his wounds to mother and wife, who shrink not from counting
or even demanding them, and who administer both food and
encouragement to the combatant.
Tradition says that armies already wavering and giving way
have been rallied by women, who, with earnest entreaties and
bosoms laid bare, have vividly represented the horrors of cap-
tivity; which the Germans fear with such extreme dread on
behalf of their women, that the strongest tie by which a State
can be bound is the being required to give, among the number
of hostages, maidens of noble birth. They even believe that the
sex has a certain sanctity and prescience; and they do not
despise their counsels, or make light of their answers. In Vespa-
sian's days we saw Veleda, long regarded by many as a divin-
ity. In former times too they venerated Aurinia, and many other
women; but not with servile flatteries or with sham deification.
DEITIES
Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship; and on
certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with
human victims. Hercules and Mars they appease with more law-
ful offerings. Some of the Suevi also sacrifice to Isis. Of the
occasion and origin of this foreign rite I have discovered noth-
ing but that the image, which is fashioned like a light galley,
indicates an imported worship. The Germans, however, do not
consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to
confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of
any human countenance. They consecrate woods and groves;
and they apply the names of deities to the abstraction which
they see only in spiritual worship.
## p. 14379 (#573) ##########################################
TACITUS
14379
AUGURIES AND METHOD OF DIVINATION
Augury and divination by lot no people practice more dili-
gently. The use of the lots is simple. A little bough is lopped
off a fruit-bearing tree, and cut into small pieces; these are
distinguished by certain marks, and thrown carelessly and at
random over a white garment. In public questions the priest of
the particular State, in private the father of the family, invokes
the gods; and with his eyes towards heaven, takes up each piece
three times, and finds in them a meaning according to the mark
previously impressed on them. If they prove unfavorable, there
is no further consultation that day about the matter; if they
sanction it, the confirmation of augury is still required. For they
are also familiar with the practice of consulting the notes and
the flight of birds. It is peculiar to this people to seek omens
and monitions from horses. Kept at the public expense, in these
same woods and groves are white horses, pure from the taint of
earthly labor; these are yoked to a sacred car, and accompanied
by the priest and the king, or chief of the tribe, who note their
neighings and snortings. No species of augury is more trusted,
not only by the people and by the nobility, but also by the
priests; who regard themselves as the ministers of the gods, and
the horses as acquainted with their will. They have also another
method of observing auspices, by which they seek to learn the
result of an important war. Having taken, by whatever means,
a prisoner from the tribe with whom they are at war, they pit
him against a picked man of their own tribe, each combatant
using the weapons of their country. The victory of the one
or the other is accepted as an indication of the issue.
COUNCILS
A BOUT minor matters the chiefs deliberate, about the more
important the whole tribe. Yet even when the final decision rests
with the people, the affair is always thoroughly discussed by the
chiefs. They assemble, except in the case of a sudden emergency,
on certain fixed days, either at new or at full moon; for this they
consider the most auspicious season for the transaction of busi-
ness. Instead of reckoning by days as we do, they reckon by
nights; and in this manner fix both their ordinary and their legal
appointments. Night they regard as bringing on day. Their
## p. 14380 (#574) ##########################################
14380
TACITUS
freedom has this disadvantage,- that they do not meet simulta-
neously or as they are bidden, but two or three days are wasted
in the delays of assembling. When the multitude think proper,
they sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by the priests, who
have on these occasions the right of keeping order. Then the
king or the chief — according to age, birth, distinction in war, or
eloquence - is heard, more because he has influence to persuade
than because he has power to command. If his sentiments dis-
please them, they reject them with murmurs; if they are satis-
fied, they brandish their spears. The most complimentary form
of assent is to express approbation with their weapons.
PUNISHMENTS.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
IN THEIR councils an accusation may be preferred, or a capital
crime prosecuted. Penalties are distinguished according to the
offense. Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the coward,
the unwarlike, the man stained with abominable vices, is plunged
into the mire of the morass, with a hurdle put over him. This
distinction in punishment means that crime, they think, ought in
being punished to be exposed, while infamy ought to be buried
out of sight. Lighter offenses, too, have penalties proportioned to
them: he who is convicted is fined in a certain number of horses
or of cattle. Half of the fine is paid to the king or to the State,
half to the person whose wrongs are avenged and to his relatives.
In these same councils they also elect the chief magistrates, who
administer law in the cantons and the towns. Each of these has
a hundred associates chosen from the people, who support him
with their advice and influence.
TRAINING OF THE YOUTH
They transact no public or private business without being
armed. It is not, however, usual for any one to wear arms till
the State has recognized his power to use them. Then in the
presence of the council one of the chiefs, or the young man's
father, or some kinsman, equips him with a shield and a spear.
These arms are what the “toga > is with us, – the first honor
with which youth is invested. Up to this time he is regarded
a member of a household, afterwards as a member of the
commonwealth. Very noble birth or great services rendered by
as
## p. 14381 (#575) ##########################################
TACITUS
14381
the father secure for lads the rank of a chief; such lads attach
themselves to men of mature strength and of long-approved
valor. It is no shame to be seen among a chief's followers.
Even in his escort there are gradations of rank, dependent on
the choice of the man to whom they are attached. These fol-
lowers vie keenly with each other as to who shall rank first with
his chief; the chiefs as to who shall have the most numerous
and the bravest followers. It is an honor as well as a source of
strength to be thus always surrounded by a large body of picked
youths: it is an ornament in peace and a defense in war. And
not only in his own tribe but also in the neighboring States it
is the renown and glory of a chief to be distinguished for the
number and valor of his followers; for such a man is courted by
embassies, is honored with presents, and the very prestige of his
name often settles a war.
WARLIKE ARDOR OF THE PEOPLE
WHEN they go into battle, it is a disgrace for the chief to
be surpassed in valor, a disgrace for his followers not to equal
the valor of the chief. And it is an infamy and a reproach for
life to have survived the chief, and returned from the field. To
defend, to protect him, to ascribe one's own brave deeds to his
renown, is the height of loyalty. The chief fights for victory;
his vassals fight for their chief. If their native State sinks into
the sloth of prolonged peace and repose, many of its noble youths
voluntarily seek those tribes which are waging some war: both
because inaction is odious to their race, and because they win
renown more readily in the midst of peril, and cannot maintain
a numerous following except by violence and war.
Indeed, men
look to the liberality of their chief for their war-horse and their
blood-stained and victorious lance. Feasts and entertainments -
which, though inelegant, are plentifully furnished — are their only
pay. The means of this bounty come rom war and rapine.
Nor are they as easily persuaded to plow the earth and to wait
for the year's produce, as to challenge an enemy and earn the
honor of wounds. Nay, they actually think it tame and stupid
to acquire by the sweat of toil what they might win by their
blood.
## p. 14382 (#576) ##########################################
14382
TACITUS
HABITS IN TIME OF PEACE
WHENEVER they are not fighting, they pass much of their
time in the chase, and still more in idleness, giving themselves
up to sleep and to feasting; the bravest and the most warlike
doing nothing, and surrendering the management of the house-
hold, of the home, and of the land, to the women, the old men,
and all the weakest members of the family. They themselves lie
buried in sloth: a strange combination in their nature, that the
same men should be so fond of idleness, so averse to peace. It
is the custom of the States to bestow by voluntary and individual
contribution on the chiefs a present of cattle or of grain, which,
while accepted as a compliment, supplies their wants. They are
particularly delighted by gifts from neighboring tribes; which
are sent not only by individuals but also by the State, such as
choice steeds, heavy armor, trappings, and neck-chains. We have
now taught them to accept money also.
ARRANGEMENT OF THEIR TOWNS.
SUBTERRANEAN DWELLINGS
It is well known that the nations of Germany have no cities,
and that they do not even tolerate closely contiguous dwellings.
They live scattered and apart, just as a spring, a meadow, or a
wood has attracted them. Their villages they do not arrange in
our fashion, - with the buildings connected and joined together,
— but every person surrounds his dwelling with an open space,
either as a precaution against the disasters of fire, or because
they do not know how to build. No use is made by them of
stone or tile: they employ timber for all purposes, rude masses
without ornament or attractiveness. Some parts of their build-
ings they stain more carefully, with a clay so clear and bright
that it resembles painting, or a colored design. They are wont
also to dig out subterranean caves, and pile on them great heaps
of dung, as a shelter from winter, and as a receptacle for the
year's produce; for by such places they mitigate the rigor of the
cold. And should an enemy approach, he lays waste the open
country, while what is hidden and buried is either not known
to exist, or else escapes him from the very fact that it has to be
searched for.
## p. 14383 (#577) ##########################################
TACITUS
14383
MARRIAGE LAWS
Their marriage code is strict, and indeed no part of their
manners is more praiseworthy. Almost alone among barbarians
they are content with one wife; except a very few among them,
and these not from sensuality, but because their noble birth pro-
cures for them many offers of alliance. The wife does not bring
a dower to the husband, but the husband to the wife. The
parents and relatives are present, and pass judgment on the mar-
riage gifts, gifts not meant to suit a woman's taste, nor such as
a bride would deck herself with, but oxen, a caparisoned steed,
a shield, a lance, and a sword. With these presents the wife is
espoused, and she herself in her turn brings her husband a gift
of arms.
This they count their strongest bond of union, these
their sacred mysteries, these their gods of marriage. Lest the
woman should think herself to stand apart from aspirations after
noble deeds and from the perils of war, she is reminded by the
ceremony which inaugurates marriage that she is her husband's
partner in toil and danger, destined to suffer and to dare with
him alike both in peace and in war. The yoked oxen, the har-
nessed steed, the gift of arms, proclaim this fact. She must live
,
and die with the feeling that she is receiving what she must
hand down to her children neither tarnished nor depreciated,
what future daughters-in-law may receive, and may be so passed
on to her grandchildren.
Thus with their virtue protected they live uncorrupted by the
allurements of public shows or the stimulant of feastings. Clan-
destine correspondence is equally unknown to men and women.
The loss of chastity meets with no indulgence: neither
beauty, youth, nor wealth will procure the culprit a husband.
No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fash-
ion to corrupt or to be corrupted. Still better is the condition
of those States in which only maidens are given in marriage, and
where the hopes and expectations of a bride are then finally ter-
minated. They receive one husband, as having one body and
one life, that they may have no thoughts beyond, no further.
reaching desires, that they may love not so much the husband
as the married state. To limit the number of their children or
to destroy any of their subsequent offspring is accounted infa-
mous; and good habits are here more effectual than good laws
elsewhere.
## p. 14384 (#578) ##########################################
14384
TACITUS
SCENE OF THE DEFEAT OF VARUS
From the (Annals. ) Translation of Church and Brodribb
N°
ot far hence lay the forest of Teutoburgium; and in it the
bones of Varus and the legions, by report still unburied.
Germanicus upon this was seized with an eager longing
to pay the last honor to those soldiers and their general; while
the whole army present was moved to compassion by the thought
of their kinsfolk and friends, and indeed, of the calamities of wars
and the lot of mankind. Having sent on Cacina in advance to
reconnoitre the obscure forest passes, and to raise bridges and
causeways over watery swamps and treacherous plains, they visited
the mournful scenes, with their horrible sights and associations.
Varus's first camp, with its wide circumference and the measure-
ments of its central space, clearly indicated the handiwork of
three legions. Further on, the partially fallen rampart and the
shallow fosse suggested the inference that it was a shattered
remnant of the army which had there taken up a position. In
the centre of the field were the whitening bones of men, as they
had fled or stood their ground, strewn everywhere or piled in
heaps. Near, lay fragments of weapons and limbs of horses, and
also human heads, prominently nailed to trunks of trees. In
the adjacent groves were the barbarous altars on which they had
immolated tribunes and first-rank centurions. Some survivors of
the disaster who had escaped from the battle or from captivity,
described how this was the spot where the officers fell, how yon-
der the eagles were captured, where Varus was pierced by his
first wound, where too by the stroke of his own ill-starred hand
he found for himself death. They pointed out too the raised
ground from which Arminius had harangued his army, the num-
ber of gibbets for the captives, the pits for the living, and how
in his exultation he had insulted the standards and eagles.
SERVILITY OF THE SENATE
From the (Annals)
S
, part of
A dishonor fell on the extreme Frontiers of the empire. Fear
at home had filled their hearts; and for this they sought
relief in sveophancy. And so, although their advice was asked
## p. 14385 (#579) ##########################################
TACITUS
14385
on totally different subjects, they decreed an altar to Clemency;
an altar to Friendship; and statues round them to Cæsar and
Sejanus, both of whom they earnestly begged with repeated en-
treaties to allow themselves to be seen in public. Still, neither
of them would visit Rome or even the neighborhood of Rome:
they thought it enough to quit the island and show themselves
on the opposite shores of Campania. Senators, knights, a number
of the city populace, flocked thither, anxiously looking to Seja-
nus; approach to whom was particularly difficult, and was con-
sequently sought by intrigue and by complicity in his counsels.
It was sufficiently clear that his arrogance was increased by
gazing on this foul and openly displayed servility. At Rome
indeed hurrying crowds are a familiar sight, and from the extent
of the city no one knows on what business each citizen is bent:
but there, as they lounged in promiscuous crowds in the fields
or on the shore, they had to bear day and night alike the pat-
ronizing smiles and the supercilious insolence of hall-porters, till
even this was forbidden them; and those whom Sejanus had not
deigned to accost or to look on, returned to the capital in alarm,
while some felt an evil joy, though there hung over them the
dreadful doom of that ill-starred friendship.
DEATH AND CHARACTER OF TIBERIUS
Fr
the (Annals )
O
N THE 15th of March, his breath failing, he was believed to
have expired; and Caius Cæsar was going forth with a
numerous throng of congratulating followers to take the
first possession of the empire, when suddenly news came that
Tiberius was recovering his voice and sight, and calling for per-
sons to bring him food to revive him from his faintness. Then
ensued a universal panic; and while the rest fled hither and
thither, every one feigning grief or ignorance, Caius Cæsar, in
silent stupor, passed from the highest hopes to the extremity of
apprehension. Marco, nothing daunted, ordered the old emperor
to be smothered under a huge heap of clothes; and all to quit
the entrance-hall.
And so died Tiberius in the seventy-eighth year of his age.
Nero was his father, and he was on both sides descended from
the Claudian house; though his mother passed by adoption, first
XXIV-900
## p. 14386 (#580) ##########################################
14386
TACITUS
into the Livian, then into the Julian family. From earliest
infancy, perilous vicissitudes were his lot. Himself an exile, he
was the companion of a proscribed father; and on being admitted
as a stepson into the house of Augustus, he had to struggle
with many rivals, so long as Marcellus and Agrippa, and subse-
quently Caius and Lucius Cæsar, were in their glory. Again, his
brother Drusus enjoyed in a greater degree the affection of the
citizens. But he was more than ever on dangerous ground after
his marriage with Julia, whether he tolerated or escaped from
his wife's profligacy. On his return from Rhodes he ruled the
emperor's now heirless house for twelve years; and the Roman
world, with absolute sway, for about twenty-three. His charac-
ter too had its distinct periods. It was a bright time in his life
and reputation while under Augustus he was a private citizen
or held high offices; a time of reserve and crafty assumption of
virtue, as long as Germanicus and Drusus were alive. Again,
while his mother lived, he was a compound of good and evil; he
was infamous for his cruelty, though he veiled his debaucheries,
while he loved or feared Sejanus. Finally he plunged into every
wickedness and disgrace, when, fear and shame being cast off, he
simply indulged his own inclinations.
THE GREAT FIRE AT ROME, AND NERO'S ACCUSATION OF
THE CHRISTIANS
From the (Annals)
A
DISASTER followed — whether accidental or treacherously con-
trived by the emperor is uncertain, as authors have given
both accounts; worse, however, and more dreadful than
any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of
fire. It had its beginning in that part of the Circus which ad-
joins the Palatine and Cælian hills, where amid the shops con-
taining inflammable wares, the conflagration both broke out, and
instantly became so fierce and so rapid from the wind that it
seized in its grasp the entire length of the Circus. For here
there were no houses fenced in by solid masonry, or temples sur-
rounded by walls, or any other obstacle to interpose delay. The
blaze in its fury ran first through the level portions of the city,
then rising to the hills, while it again devastated every place
below them; it outstripped all preventive measures, so rapid was
## p. 14387 (#581) ##########################################
TACITUS
14387
And no
the mischief and so completely at its mercy the city, with those
narrow winding passages and irregular streets which character-
ized old Rome. Added to this were the wailings of terror-
stricken women, the feebleness of age, the helpless inexperience
of childhood; the crowds who sought to save themselves or
others, dragging out the infirm or waiting for them, and by their
hurry in the one case, by their delay in the other, aggravating
the confusion. Often while they looked behind them, they were
.
intercepted by flames on their side or in their face. Or if they
reached a refuge close at hand, when this too was seized by the
fire they found that even places which they had imagined to be
remote were involved in the same calamity. At last, doubting
what they should avoid or whither to betake themselves, they
crowded the streets or flung themselves down in the fields; while
some who had lost their all, even their very daily bread, and
others out of love for the kinsfolk whom they had been unable
to rescue, perished, though escape was open to them.
one dared to stop the mischief, because of incessant menaces
from a number of persons who forbade the extinguishing of the
flames; or because again others openly hurled brands, and kept
shouting that there was one who gave them authority,-- either
seeking to plunder more freely, or obeying orders.
Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome
until the fire approached his house, which he had built to con-
nect the palace with the gardens of Mæcenas, It could not
however be stopped from devouring the palace, the house, and
everything around it. However, to relieve the people, driven out
homeless as they were, he threw open to them the Campus
Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own
gardens; and raised temporary structures to receive the destitute
multitude. Supplies of food were brought up from Ostia and
the neighboring towns, and the price of corn was reduced to
three sesterces a peck. These acts, though popular, produced
no effect; since a rumor had gone forth everywhere that, at the
very time when the city was in flames, the Emperor appeared on
a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing
present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.
Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The
next thing was to seek a means of propitiating the gods; and
recourse was had to the Sibylline Books, by the direction of
which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina.
## p. 14388 (#582) ##########################################
14388
TACITUS
Juno too was entreated by the matrons; first in the Capitol, then
on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to
sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were
sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women.
But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the Emperor, and
the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief
that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently,
to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the
most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations,
called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the
name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the
reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius
Pilatus; and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for
the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source
of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and
shameful from every part of the world find their centre and
become popular. Accordingly an arrest was first made of all
who pleaded guilty; then upon their information, an immense
multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing
the city as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort
was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts,
they were torn by dogs and perished; or were nailed to crosses,
or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly
illumination when daylight had expired.
Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting
a show in the Circus, while he mingled with the people in the
dress of a charioteer, or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for
criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment,
there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed,
for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they
were being destroyed.
## p. 14389 (#583) ##########################################
14389
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
The Teva Poets: Notes on a Poetic Family in Tahiti
BY JOHN LA FARGE
N THE Home of the Ogre I pillowed my head;
I followed in safety the Path of the Dead;
With the Sons of the Shark I lived as a guest;
I saw float before me the Isles of the Blest.
T
I have bathed in the sea where the Siren still sleeps;
The Kiss of the Queen is still red on my lips;
My hands touched the Tree with the Branchings of Gold, -
For a season I lived in the Order of Old.
IT IS
a part of the charm of little Tahiti, or Otaheite, whose
double island is not more than a hundred miles about that it has
been the type of the oceanic island in story.
With its discovery begins the interest that awoke Europe by the
apparent realization of man in his earliest life – a life that recalled
the silver if not the golden age. Here men and women made a
beautiful race, living free from the oppression of nature, and at first
sight also free from the cruel and terrib superstitions of many sav-
age tribes. I have known people who could recall the joyous impres-
sion made upon them by these stories of new paradises, only just
opened; and both Wallis's and Bougainville's short and official reports
are bathed in a feeling of admiration, that takes no definite form,
but refers both to the people and the place and the gentleness of
the welcome.
The state of nature had just then been the staple reference in the
polemic literature of the century about to close. The refined and
dry civilization of the few was troubled by the confused sentiments,
the dreams, and the obscure desires of the ignorant and suffering
many. Their inarticulate voice was suddenly phrased by Rousseau.
With that cry came in the literary belief in the natural man, in
the possibility of analyzing the foundations of government and civ-
ilization, in the perfectibility of the human race and its persistent
goodness when freed from the weight of society's blunders and op-
pressions.
## p. 14390 (#584) ##########################################
14390
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
Later, Byron :-
«— the happy shores without a law,
Where all partake the earth without dispute,
And bread itself is gathered as a fruit;
Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams:
The goldless age, where gold disturbs no dreams. )
There is no doubt that at the moment of the discovery our
islanders had reached the full extent of their civilization; that,
numerous, splendid, and untainted in their physical development, they
seemed to live in a facility of existence, in an absence of anxiety
emphasized by their love of pleasure and fondness for society,— by
a simplicity of conscience which found no fault in what we repro-
bate,- in a happiness which is not and could not be our own. The
"pursuit of happiness in which these islanders were engaged, and
in which they seemed successful, is the catchword of the eighteenth
century.
People were far then from the cruel ideas of Hobbes; and the
more amiable views of the nature of man, and of his rights, echo in
the sentimentality of the last century like the sound of the island
surf about Tahiti.
The name recalls so many associations of ideas, so much romance
of reading, so much of the history of thought, that I find it difficult
to disentangle the varying strands of the threads. There are many
boyish recollections behind the charm of Melville's Omoo) and Stod-
dard's Idylls, or even the mixed pleasure of Loti's Marriage. '
I believe too that my feelings are intensified because they are
directed towards an island, a word, a thing of all time marked by
man as something wherein to place the ideal, the supernatural, the
home of the blest, the abode of the dead, the fountain of eternal
youth, as in Heine's song about the island of Bimini:-
« Little birdling Colibri,
Lead us thou to Tahiti! ))
Captain Cook and Bougainville and Wallis first appealed to me
with the name of Otaheite or Tahiti; and I remember the far-away
missionary stories and the pictures of their books, the shores fringed
with palm-trees, the strange, impossible mountain peaks, the half-
classical figures of natives, and the eighteenth-century costumes of
the gallant discoverers. And I remember grewsome pictures in which
figure human sacrifices and deformed idols, and still the skirts of the
uniform of Captain Cook. Long ago there lay, by a Newport wharf,
an old hulk, relic of former days. We were told that this had been
one of the ships of Captain Cook, – the once famous Endeavor. Here
## p. 14391 (#585) ##########################################
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
14391
was the end of her romance; now slowly rotted the keel that had
plowed through new seas, and first touched the shores of races dis-
connected from time immemorial.
On that little ship, enormous to her eyes, had been Oberea, the
princess, the Queen of Otaheite, whose name comes up in the stories
of Wallis or of Cook, and early in the first missionary voyages.
Oberea was the tall woman of commanding presence, who, undis-
mayed, with the freedom of a person accustomed to rule, visited Wal-
lis on board of his ship, soon after his first arrival and the attempt
at attacking him (July 1767). She, you may remember too, carried
him, a sick man, in her arms, as easily as if he had been a child.
I remember her in the engraving, stepping towards Wallis, with a
palm branch in her hand, while he stands with gun in hand at the
head of his marines.
And do you remember the parting: how the Queen could not
speak for tears; how she sank inconsolable on the stern of her canoe,
without noticing the presents made her; and how the gallant cap-
tain's eyes filled with tears ? Surely this is no ordinary story,– this
sentimental end of an official record of discovery.
When Wallis arrived in June 1767, Tahiti and its neighboring
island Moorea were under the rule of a chief, Amo or Aamo, as he
is called by Wallis and Cook. He was their great chief,—a word
we have managed to translate as king. It was a moment of general
peace; and the “happy islanders ” enjoyed, in a “terrestrial paradise,»
pleasures of social life, of free intercourse, whose description even at
this day reads with a charm of impossible amenity. The wonderful
island, striking in its shape, so beautiful apparently that each suc-
cessive traveler has described it as the most beautiful of places, was
prepared to offer to the discoverer expecting harsh and savage sights,
a race of noble proportion, of great elegance of form, accustomed to
most courteous demeanor, and speaking one of the softest languages
of man.
Even the greatest defects of the Polynesian helped to make
the exterior picture of amiability and ease of life still more grateful.
The harsher side added to the picture the interest of mystery and
contradiction. Just as Wallis left one side of the island, Bougainville
the Frenchman came up to the other, different in its make, differ-
ent in the first attitude of the natives, but with the same story
of gracious kindness and feminine bounty; so that the Frenchman
called it the New Cytherea, and carried home images of pastoral,
idyllic life in a savage Eden, where all was beautiful, and untainted
by the fierceness and greed imposed upon natural man by artificial
civilization. So strong was the impression produced by what he had
to say, and by the elaborations of Diderot and the encyclopædists,
that the keen and critical analysis of his own mistakes in judgment
(
>>
## p. 14392 (#586) ##########################################
14392
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
which Bougainville affixed to his Journal,' was, as he complained,
passed over, because people wished to have their minds made up.
Last of all came Captain Cook, whose name has absorbed all
others. Twice he visited Tahiti, and helped to fix in European minds
the impression of a state nearer to nature, which the thought of the
day insisted upon.
That early figure of Purea (Oberea), the queen for whom Wallis
shed tears in leaving, remains the type of the South Sea woman.
With Cook she is also inseparably associated; and the anger of the
first missionaries with her only serves to complete and certify the
character.
Her residence and that of her husband Amo was at Papara, on the
south shore of Tahiti. Both belonged to a family whose ancestors
were gods; and they lived a ceremonial life recalling, at this extreme
of civilization, the courtesies, the adulation, the flattery, the super-
stitious veneration, of the East.
This family and its allies had reigned in these islands and in the
others for an indefinite period. The names of their ancestors, the
poetry commemorating them, were still sung long after the white
man had helped to destroy their supremacy.
Now Oberea was the great-great-grand-aunt of the old chiefess
Arii Taimai, or Hinarii (Mother of Chiefs), whom I visited in her coun-
try home.
This great lady, the greatest in all the islands, is the
last link of the old and new. With her will go all sorts of traditions
and habits; and both she and her daughter, Queen Marau, were very
affable and entertaining, telling us legends and stories. The mother
of our old chiefess was known by at least thirteen different names,
each of which was a title, each of which conveyed land: so for in-
stance she was Marama in the island of Moorea, and owned almost
all of it; so she was Aromaiterai in Papara. This investiture would
be received by a child, as child to a chief, and it would be carried to
the family temple to be made sacred, as was done in this case,
thirteen different temples having received the child, the mother of
our chiefess. She repeated to us, with curious cadences and intona-
tions unknown to the people here to-day, some of the forms of salu-
tation through which a visitor addressed the honored person that he
visited, or was addressed by him. These words gave names and sur-
names, and references to past history, and made out the proper titles
to descent. They were recited in the form of a lamentation, and
there were pauses, she said, when the speaker was supposed to weep;
and in committing them to memory, she learned also when this
wailing was to come. Once, she said, she had visited the island Rai-
atea with her friend, the famous late queen, Pomare, to call upon the
queen of that island; and Queen Pomare, less versed than herself,
## p. 14393 (#587) ##########################################
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
14393
are
ery words
asked her to speak these salutations for her, as they walked along
upon their official visit. “It was difficult,” said the old lady: "I
had to walk just so, and to repeat all this at the same time, with-
out an error, and at the proper places to lament. ” For our hostess
is a lady of the greatest family,- of greater family than Queen
Pomare's, though her affection for her prevents her saying what she
. thinks.
The famous Queen Pomare's name was known to all sea-going
people in that half of the globe. She was the Pomare of Melville's
Omoo' and of Loti's Marriage. ' The Pomares date only from the
time of Cook. They were slowly wresting the power from the Tevas
by war, and by that still more powerful means, marriage. The old
lady Hinaarii is the chiefess representing that great line of the Teva,
alongside of which the Pomares - the kings through the foreigner-
new people. Some years ago King Kalakaua of Hawaii had
wished to obtain the traditions and genealogies of her family; but
the old lady had never been favorable. This, the earliest of the tra-
ditions of the family, was told me at different times by Queen Marau;
so that in many cases what little I shall quote will be the
of our royal historian.
The great ancestress Hototu, from whom come all the Tevas, was
the first queen of Vaieri. She married Temanutunu, the first king of
Punauia. (Temanutunu means Bird that Let Loose the Army. ) This
was at the time when gods and men and animals were not divided
as they are to-day, or when, as in the Greek stories, the gods took
the shapes of men or beasts.
In the course of time this king
left the island, and made an expedition to the far-away Pomotu. It
is said that he went to obtain the precious red feathers that have
always had a mysterious value to South Sea Islanders, and that he
meant them for the maroura or royal red girdle of his son. The
investiture with the girdle, red or white according to circumstances,
had the same value as our form of crowning, and took place in the
ancestral temples. While the king was far away in the pursuit of
these red feathers, to be gathered perhaps one by one, the queen
Hototu traveled into the adjoining country of Papara, and there met
the mysterious personage Paparuiia. This wonderful creature, half
man, half fish, recalls the god of Raratonga, who himself recalled to
the missionaries the god Dagon. With Paparuiia, or Tino-iia as he
was also called, the queen was well pleased; so that from them
was born a son who later was called Teva. But this is anticipating.
While the king was still away, his dog Pihoro returned; and finding
the queen he ran up to her and fawned upon her, to the jealous dis-
gust of Tino-iia, one half of whom said to the other, “She cares for
that dog more than for me. ” Then he arose and departed in anger,
- telling her, however, that she would bear a son whom she should
## p. 14394 (#588) ##########################################
14394
TAHITIAN LITERATURE
-
call Teva: that for this son he had built a temple at Mataua, and
that there he should wear the maro tea, the white or yellow girdle;
his mother the queen, and her husband the king, being the only
ones that had the right to the maroura, the red maro or girdle — for
which, you will remember, the king was hunting. Then he departed,
and was met by Temanutunu, the king, who entreated him to return;
but he refused, saying that his wife was a woman too fond of dogs. .
When I asked if he never came back, the queen told me that
since that day the man-fish had been seen many times.
When I asked about the old divinity of the family, the shark, I
was told that he still frequents — harmless to his friends — the water
inside the reef; changing his size when he comes in or out, because
of the small passage.
The old songs that she orders to be sung to us are not hymns
but himenes, a name now applied to all choral singing. The mode of
singing has not changed for its being church music — it is the South
Sea chant: a buzzing bass brum-brum that sounds almost instrumental,
and upon this ground a brocading of high, shrill cadencing, repeated
indefinitely, and ending always in a long i-é-e-i-é-e,- a sound that
we first heard in Hawaii, and afterwards as an accompaniment to the
paddling of Samoan boats.
I shall transcribe in prose some of the poems that are
into the story of the family.
Some of these form parts of
methods of addresses; that is to say, of the poems or words recited
upon occasions of visiting, or that serve as tribe-cries and slogans.
Such for instance are the verses connected with the name of Tau-
raatua that are handed down. The explanations may confuse it;
but they make it all the more authentic, because all songs handed
down and familiar must receive varying glosses.
Where one sees,
for instance, a love-song, another sees a song of war. The chief,
Tauraatua, of that far-back day was enamored of a fair maiden whose
name was Maraeura, and lived with or near her. This poem, which
is an appeal to him to return to duty or to home, or to wake him
from a dream, is supposed to be the call of the bird messenger and
his answer. The bird messenger (euriri) repeats the places and
names of things most sacred to the chief, — his mount, his cape, his
temple. To which the chief answers that he will look at his mis-
tress's place or person on the shore.
Woven
.
.
«« Tauraatua, living in the house of Roa,”
(Says) the bird that has flown to the rua rua,
« Papara is a land of heavy leaves that drag down the branches.
Go to Teva; at Teva is thy home,
Thy golden land.
