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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six
Annals of Tacitus, by Tacitus

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six Annals of Tacitus

Author: Tacitus

Editor: Arthur Galton

Translator: Thomas Gordon


Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7959]
This file was first posted on June 5, 2003
Last Updated: May 30, 2013

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REIGN OF TIBERIUS ***




Produced by Anne Soulard, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team








THE REIGN OF TIBERIUS, OUT OF THE FIRST SIX ANNALS OF TACITUS

WITH HIS ACCOUNT OF GERMANY, AND LIFE OF AGRICOLA

By Tacitus

Translated By Thomas Gordon

And Edited By Arthur Galton







"Alme Sol, curru nitido diem qui
Promis et celas, aliusque et idem
Nasceris, possis nihil urbe Roma
Visere maius. "



CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION

THE ANNALS, BOOK I

THE ANNALS, BOOK II

THE ANNALS, BOOK III

THE ANNALS, BOOK IV

THE ANNALS, BOOK V

THE ANNALS, BOOK VI

A TREATISE OF THE SITUATION, CUSTOMS, AND PEOPLE OF GERMANY

THE LIFE OF AGRICOLA; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE SITUATION, CLIMATE, AND
PEOPLE OF BRITAIN




INTRODUCTION


"I am going to offer to the publick the Translation of a work, which,
for wisdom and force, is in higher fame and consideration, than almost
any other that has yet appeared amongst men:" it is in this way, that
Thomas Gordon begins The Discourses, which he has inserted into his
rendering of Tacitus; and I can find none better to introduce this
volume, which my readers owe to Gordon's affectionate and laborious
devotion. Caius Cornelius Tacitus, the Historian, was living under those
Emperors, who reigned from the year 54 to the year 117, of the Christian
era; but the place and the date of his birth are alike uncertain, and
the time of his death is not accurately known. He was a friend of the
younger Pliny, who was born in the year 61; and, it is possible,
they were about the same age. Some of Pliny's letters were written to
Tacitus: the most famous, describes that eruption of Mount Vesuvius,
which caused the death of old Pliny, and overwhelmed the cities of
Pompeii and of Herculaneum. The public life of Tacitus began under
Vespasian; and, therefore, he must have witnessed some part of the reign
of Nero: and we read in him, too, that he was alive after the accession
of the Emperor Trajan. In the year 77, Julius Agricola, then Consul,
betrothed his daughter to Tacitus; and they were married in the
following year. In 88, Tacitus was Praetor; and at the Secular Games of
Domitian, he was one of the _Quindecimviri_: these were sad and solemn
officers, guardians of the Sibylline Verse; and intercessors for the
Roman People, during their grave centenaries of praise and worship.

_Quaeque Aventinum tenet Algidumque,
Quindecim Diana preces virorum
Curet; et vobis pueorum amicas
Applicet aures. _

From a passage in "The Life of Agricola," we may believe that Tacitus
attended in the Senate; for he accuses himself as one of that frightened
assembly, which was an unwilling participator in the cruelties of
Domitian. In the year 97, when the Consul Virginius Rufus died, Tacitus'
was made _Consul Suffectus_; and he delivered the funeral oration of his
predecessor: Pliny says, that "it completed the good fortune of Rufus,
to have his panegyric spoken by so eloquent a man. " From this, and from
other sayings, we learn that Tacitus was a famous advocate; and his
"Dialogue about Illustrious Orators" bears witness to his admirable
taste, and to his practical knowledge of Roman eloquence: of his own
orations, however, not a single fragment has been left. We know not,
whether Tacitus had children; but the Emperor Tacitus, who reigned in
275, traced his genealogy to the Historian. "If we can prefer personal
merit to accidental greatness," Gibbon here observes, "we shall esteem
the birth of Tacitus more truly noble than that of Kings.
He claimed his
descent from the philosophic historian, whose writings will instruct the
last generations of mankind. From the assiduous study of his immortal
ancestor, he derived his knowledge of the Roman Constitution and of
human nature. " This Emperor gave orders, that the writings of Tacitus
should be placed in all the public libraries; and that ten copies should
be taken annually, at the public charge. Notwithstanding the Imperial
anxiety, a valuable part of Tacitus is lost: indeed we might argue, from
the solicitude of the Emperor, as well as from his own "distinction,"
that Tacitus could not be generally popular; and, in the sixteenth
century, a great portion of him was reduced to the single manuscript,
which lay hidden within a German monastery. Of his literary works, five
remain; some fairly complete, the rest in fragments. Complete, are "The
Life of Julius Agricola," "The Dialogue on Orators," and "The Account
of Germany": these are, unfortunately, the minor works of Tacitus. His
larger works are "The History," and "The Annals. " "The History" extended
from the second Consulship of Galba, in the year 69, to the murder of
Domitian, in the year 96; and Tacitus desired to write the happy times
of Nerva, and of Trajan: we are ignorant, whether infirmity or death
prevented his design. Of "The History," only four books have been
preserved; and they contain the events of a single year: a year, it is
true, which, saw three civil wars, and four Emperors destroyed; a year
of crime, and accidents, and prodigies: there are few sentences more
powerful, than Tacitus' enumeration of these calamities, in the opening
chapters. The fifth book is imperfect; it is of more than common
interest to some people, because Tacitus mentions the siege of Jerusalem
by Titus; though what he says about the Chosen People, here and
elsewhere, cannot be satisfactory to them nor gratifying to their
admirers. With this fragment, about revolts in the provinces of Gaul
and Syria, "The History" ends. "The Annals" begin with the death of
Augustus, in the year 14; and they were continued until the death of
Nero, in 68. The reign of Tiberius is nearly perfect, though the fall
of Sejanus is missing out of it. The whole of Caligula, the beginning of
Claudius, and the end of Nero, have been destroyed: to those, who know
the style of Tacitus and the lives and genius of Caligula and Nero, the
loss is irreparable; and the admirers of Juvenal must always regret,
that from the hand of Tacitus we have only the closing scene, and not
the golden prime, of Messalina.

The works of Tacitus are too great for a Camelot volume; and, therefore,
I have undertaken a selection of them. I give entire, "The Account of
Germany" and "The Life of Agricola": these works are entertaining, and
should have a particular interest for English readers. I have added to
them, the greater portion of the first six books of "The Annals"; and
I have endeavoured so to guide my choice, that it shall present the
history of Tiberius. In this my volume, the chapters are not numbered:
for the omission, I am not responsible; and I can only lament, what I
may not control. But scholars, who know their Tacitus, will perceive
what I have left out; and to those others, who are not familiar with
him, the omission can be no affront. I would say briefly, that I
have omitted some chapters, which describe criminal events and legal
tragedies in Rome: but of these, I have retained every chapter, which
preserves an action or a saying of Tiberius; and what I have inserted
is a sufficient specimen of the remainder. I have omitted many chapters,
which are occupied with wearisome disputes between the Royal Houses
of Parthia and Armenia: and I have spared my readers the history of
Tacfarinas, an obscure and tedious rebel among the Moors; upon whose
intricate proceedings Tacitus appears to have relied, when he was at a
loss for better material. To reject any part of Tacitus, is a painful
duty; because the whole of him is good and valuable: but I trust, that I
have maintained the unity of my selection, by remembering that it is to
be an history of Tiberius.

Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar, the third master of the Roman world,
derived his origin, by either parent, from the Claudian race; the
proudest family, and one of the most noble and illustrious, in the
ancient Commonwealth: the pages of Livy exhibit the generosity, the
heroism, and the disasters, of the Claudii; who were of unequal fortune
indeed, but always magnificent, in the various events of peace and
war. Suetonius enumerates, among their ancestral honours, twenty-eight
Consulships, five Dictators, seven Censorial commissions, and seven
triumphs: their _cognomen_ of Nero, he says, means in the Sabine tongue
"vigorous and bold," _fortis et strenuus_; and the long history of the
Claudian House does not belie their gallant name. Immediately after the
birth of Tiberius, or perhaps before it, his mother Livia was divorced
from Claudius, and married by Augustus: the Empress is revealed
mysteriously and almost as a divine being, in the progress of "The
Annals. " The Emperor adopted the offspring of Claudius: among the
Romans, these legal adoptions were as valid as descent by blood; and
Tiberius was brought up to be the son of Caesar. His natural parts were
improved and strengthened, by the training of the Forum and the camp.
Tiberius became a good orator; and he gained victory and reputation, in
his wars against the savages of Germany and Dalmatia: but his peculiar
talent was for literature; in this, "he was a great purist, and affected
a wonderful precision about his words. " He composed some Greek poems,
and a Latin Elegy upon Lucius Caesar: he also wrote an account of his
own life, an _Apologia_; a volume, which the Emperor Domitian was
never tired of reading. But the favourite pursuit of Tiberius was Greek
divinity; like some of the mediaeval Doctors, he frequented the by-ways
of religion, and amused his leisure with the more difficult problems in
theology: "Who was Hecuba's mother? " "What poetry the Sirens chaunted? "
"What was Achilles' name, when he lay hid among the women? " The writings
of Tiberius have all perished; and in these days, we have only too much
cause to regret, that nothing of his "precision" has come down to us.
The battles of Tiberius are celebrated in the Odes of Horace: one of the
Epistles is addressed to him; and in another, written to Julius Florus,
an officer with Tiberius, Horace enquires about the learned occupations
of the Imperial cohort.

_Quid studiosa Cohors operum struit? Hoc quoque curo. _

It was from his commerce with the Ancients, as I always think, that
George Buchanan derived his opinion, strange to modern ears, that "a
great commander must of necessity have all the talents of an author. "
Velleius Paterculus, who served with Tiberius in his campaigns, tells us
of his firm discipline, and of his kindness to the soldiers.

The Caesars Caius and Lucius, grandsons of Augustus, Marcellus his
nephew, and Drusus the brother of Tiberius, all died: they died young,
rich in promise, the darlings of the Roman People; "Breves et infaustos
Populi Romani amores;" and thus, in the procession of events, Tiberius
became the heir. "The Annals" open with his accession, and Tacitus has
narrated the vicissitudes of his reign. Velleius Paterculus has written
its happier aspects: he describes how the "Pax Augusta," the "Roman
Peace," delivered every quarter of the world from violence. He
celebrates the return of Justice and prosperity, of order, of mild and
equable taxation, of military discipline and magisterial authority. It
is like the Saturnian Reign, which Virgil sings in the Eclogue "Pollio. "
The first action of Tiberius was to canonise his father, and Augustus
was translated to the banquet of the Gods:

_Quos inter Augustus recumbens,
Purpureo bibit ore nectar. _

Augustus was his great example; "he not only called him, but considered
him, divine;" "non appelavit eum, sed facit Deum. " The Latin of
Paterculus is here so elegant and happy, that, for the pleasure of the
learned, I transcribe it: for others, I have already given something
of the sense. "Revocata in forum fides; submota e foro seditio, ambitio
campo, discordia curia: sepultaeque ac situ obsitae, justitia, aequitas,
industria, civitati, redditae; accessit magistratibus auctoritas,
senatui majestas, judiciis gravitas; compressa theatralis seditio;
recte faciendi, omnibus aut incussa voluntas aut imposita necessitas.
Honorantur recta, prava puniuntur. Suspicit potentem humilis, non timet.
Antecedit, non contemnit, humiliorem potens. Quando annona moderatior?
Quando pax laetior? Diffusa in Orientis Occidentisque tractus, quidquid
meridiano aut septentrione finitur, Pax Augusta, per omnes terrarum
orbis angulos metu servat immunes. Fortuita non civium tantummodo, sed
Urbium damna, Principis munificentia vindicat. Restitutae urbes
Asiae: vindictae ab injuriis magistratuum provinciae. Honor dignis
paratissimus: poena in malos sera, sed aliqua. Superatur aequitate
gratia, ambitio virtute: nam facere recte cives suos, Princeps optimus
faciendo docet; cumque sit imperio maximus, exemplo major est. "

Tiberius reigned from the year 14, to the year 37. He died in the villa
of Lucullus, and he was buried in the mausoleum of the Caesars. The
manner of his death is variously related: Tacitus gives one account;
Suetonius, another. According to the last writer, he died like George
II. , alone, having just risen from his bed; and he was thus found by
his attendants: "Seneca cum scribit subito vocatis ministris, ac nemine
respondente, consurrexisse; nec procul a lectulo, deficientibus viribus,
concidisse. " Tiberius was tall, and beautiful. Suetonius tells us of
his great eyes, which could see in the dark; of his broad shoulders,
his martial bearing, and the fine proportion of his limbs: he describes,
too, the unusual strength of his hands and fingers, especially of the
left hand. His health was good; because, from his thirtieth year, he
was his own physician. "Valetudine prosperrima usus est, tempore quidem
principatus paene toto prope illesa; quamvis a trigesimo aetatis anno
arbitratu eam suo rexerit, sine adjutamento consiliove medicorum. " The
Emperor Julian describes him "severe and grim; with a statesman's care,
and a soldier's frankness, curiously mingled:" this was in his old age.

_Down the pale cheek, long lines of shadow slope;
Which years, and curious thought, and suffering give. _

At Rome, is a sculpture of Tiberius; he is represented young, seated,
crowned with rays, exceedingly handsome and majestic: if the figure were
not known to be a Caesar, the beholder would say it was a God.

There is another personage in "The Annals," whose history there is
mutilated, and perhaps dissembled; of whose character my readers may
like to know something more, than Tacitus has told them: I mean Sejanus,
a man always to be remembered; because whatever judgment we may form
about his political career, and on this question the authorities are
divided, yet it is admitted by them all, that he introduced those
reforms among the Praetorian Cohorts, which made them for a long time,
proprietors of the throne, and the disposers of the Imperial office. To
this minister, Paterculus attributes as many virtues as he has bestowed
upon Tiberius: "a man grave and courteous," he says, "with 'a fine
old-fashioned grace'; leisurely in his ways, retiring, modest; appearing
to be careless, and therefore gaining all his ends; outwardly polite and
quiet, but an eager soul, wary, inscrutable, and vigilant. " Whatever he
may have been in reality, he was at one time valued by Tiberius. "The
whole Senate," Bacon says, "dedicated an altar to Friendship as to a
Goddess, in respect of the great Dearness of Friendship between them
two:" and in the Essay "Of Friendship," Bacon has many deep sentences
about the favourites of Kings, their "Participes Curarum. " I would
summon out of "The Annals," that episode of Tiberius imprisoned within
the falling cave, and shielded by Sejanus from the descending roof.
"Coelo Musa beat:" Sejanus has propitiated no Muse; and although
something more, than the "invida taciturnitas" of the poet, lies heavy
upon his reputation, he shall find no apologist in me. But over against
the hard words of Tacitus, it is only fair to place the commendations
of Paterculus, and even Tacitus remarks, that after the fall of Sejanus,
Tiberius became worse; like Henry VIII. , after the fall of Wolsey. Livia
and Sejanus are said by Tacitus, to have restrained the worst passions
of the Emperor. The two best authorities contradict one another; they
differ, as much as our political organs differ, about the characters of
living statesmen: and who are we, to decide absolutely, from a distance
of two thousand years, at our mere caprice, and generally without
sufficient evidence, that one ancient writer is correct; and another,
dishonest or mistaken? This is only less absurd, than to prefer the
groping style and thoughts of a modern pedant, usually a German as
well, to the clear words of an old writer, who may be the sole remaining
authority for the statements we presume to question; or for those
very facts, upon which our reasonings depend. And how easy it is to
misunderstand what we read in ancient histories, to be deceived by the
plainest records, or to put a sinister interpretation upon events, which
in their own time were passed over in silence or officially explained
as harmless! Let me take an illustration, of what I mean, from something
recent. Every one must remember the last hours of the Emperor Frederick:
the avenues to his palace infested by armed men; the gloom and secrecy
within; without, an impatient heir, and the posting to and fro of
messengers. We must own, that the ceremonials of the Prussian Court
departed in a certain measure from the ordinary mild usage of humanity;
but we attributed this to nothing more, than the excitement of a
youthful Emperor, or the irrepressible agitation of German officials.
But if these events should find a place in history, or if the annals of
the Kings of Prussia should be judged worth reading by a distant Age;
who could blame an historian for saying, that these precautions were not
required for the peaceful and innocent devolution of the crown from a
father to his son. Would not our historian be justified, if he referred
to the tumults and intrigues of a Praetorian election; if he compared
these events to the darkest pages in Suetonius, or reminded his
readers of the most criminal narratives in the authors of the "Augustan
History"? From Sejanus and the Emperor William, I return once more to
Tiberius; from the present _Kaiser_, to a genuine Caesar.

It is not my purpose here to abridge Tacitus, to mangle his translator,
nor to try and say what is better said in the body of the volume: but
when my readers have made themselves acquainted with Tiberius, they may
be glad to find some discussion about him, as he is presented to us in
"The Annals"; and among all the personages of history, I doubt if there
be a more various or more debated character. Mr. Matthew Arnold thus
describes him:

_Cruel, but composed and bland,
Dumb, inscrutable and grand;
So Tiberius might have sat,
Had Tiberius been a cat. _

And these verses express the popular belief, with great felicity: I
must leave my readers, to make their own final judgment for themselves.
Whether Tacitus will have helped them to a decision, I cannot guess: he
seems to me, to deepen the mystery of Tiberius. At a first reading, and
upon the surface, he is hostile to the Emperor; there is no doubt, that
he himself remained hostile, and that he wished his readers to take away
a very bad impression: but, as we become familiar with his pages, as
we ponder his words and compare his utterances, we begin to suspect our
previous judgment; another impression steals upon us, and a second, and
a third, until there grows imperceptibly within us a vision of something
different. Out of these dim and floating visions, a clearer image is
gradually formed, with lineaments and features; and, at length, a
new Tiberius is created within our minds: just as we may have seen
a portrait emerge under the artist's hand, from the intricate and
scattered lines upon an easel. Then it dawns upon us, that, after all,
Tacitus was not really an intimate at Capri; that he never received the
secret confidences of Tiberius, nor attended upon his diversions. And at
last it is borne in upon us, as we read, that, if we put aside rumours
and uncertain gossip, whatever Tiberius does and says is unusually fine:
but that Tacitus is not satisfied with recording words and actions;
that he supplies motives to them, and then passes judgment upon his
own assumptions: that the evidence for the murder of Germanicus, for
instance, would hardly be accepted in a court of law; and that if Piso
were there found guilty, the Emperor could not be touched. At any rate,
we find it stated in "The Annals," that "Tiberius by the temptations of
money was incorruptible;" and he refused the legacies of strangers,
or of those who had natural heirs. "He wished to restore the people to
severer manners," like many sovereigns; unlike the most of them, "in his
own household, he observed the ancient parsimony. " Besides the "severa
paupertas" of Camillus and Fabricius, he had something of their
primitive integrity; and he declined, with scorn, to be an accomplice in
the proposed assassination of Arminius: "non fraude neque occultis, sed
palam et armatum, Populum Romanum hostes suos ulcisci. " He protected
magistrates and poor suitors, against the nobles. He refused to add to
the public burdens, by pensioning needy Senators: but he was
charitable to poor debtors; and lavish to the people, whether Romans or
Provincials, in times of calamity and want. Not least admirable was his
quiet dignity, in periods of disturbance and of panic: he refused to
hurry to the mutinous legions, or to a mean rebellion in Gaul; and he
condescended to reason excellently about his behaviour, when his
people were sane enough to listen. He was both sensible and modest: he
restrained the worship of Augustus, "lest through being too common
it should be turned into an idle ceremony;" he refused the worship of
himself, except in one temple dedicated equally to the Senate and to
the Emperor. Tiberius could be pathetic, too: "I bewail my son, and ever
shall bewail him," he says of Germanicus; and again, "Eloquence is not
measured by fortune, and it is a sufficient honour, if he be ranked
among the ancient orators. " "Princes are mortal;" he says again, "the
Commonwealth, eternal. " Then his wit, how fine it was; how quick his
humour: when he answered the tardy condolences from Troy, by lamenting
the death of Hector: when he advised an eager candidate, "not to
embarrass his eloquence by impetuosity;" when he said of another, a
low, conceited person, "he gives himself the airs of a dozen ancestors,"
"videtur mihi ex se natus:" when he muttered in the Senate, "O homines
ad servitutem paratos:" when he refused to become a persecutor; "It
would be much better, if the Gods were allowed to manage their own
affairs," "Deorum injurias Dis curae. " In all this; in his leisured
ways, in his dislike of parade and ceremonial, in his mockery of
flatterers and venal "patriots"; how like to Charles II. , "the last
King of England who was a man of parts. " And no one will deny "parts"
to Tiberius; he was equal to the burden of Imperial cares: the latest
researches have discovered, that his provincial administration was
most excellent; and even Tacitus admits, that his choice of magistrates
"could not have been better. " He says, in another passage, "The
Emperor's domains throughout Italy, were thin; the behaviour of his
slaves modest; the freed-men, who managed his house, few; and, in his
disputes with particulars, the courts were open and the law equal. " This
resembles the account of Antoninus Pius, by Marcus Aurelius; and it is
for this modesty, this careful separation between private and public
affairs, that Tacitus has praised Agricola. I am well contented, with
the virtues of the Antonines; but there are those, who go beyond. I have
seen a book entitled "The History of that Inimitable Monarch Tiberius,
who in the xiv year of his Reign requested the Senate to permit the
worship of Jesus Christ; and who suppressed all Opposition to it. " In
this learned volume, it is proved out of the Ancients, that Tiberius was
the most perfect of all sovereigns; and he is shown to be nothing
less than the forerunner of Saint Peter, the first Apostle and the
nursing-father of the Christian Church. The author was a Cambridge
divine, and one of their Professors of mathematics: "a science,"
Goldsmith says, "to which the meanest intellects are equal. "

Upon the other hand, we have to consider that view of Tiberius, which is
thus shown by Milton;

_This Emperor hath no son, and now is old;
Old and lascivious: and from Rome retired
To Capreae, an island small but strong,
On the Campanian shore; with purpose there,
His horrid lusts in private to enjoy. _

This theme is enlarged by Suetonius, and evidently enjoyed: he
represents Tiberius, as addicted to every established form of vice;
and as the inventor of new names, new modes, and a new convenience, for
unheard-of immoralities. These propensities of the Emperor are handled
by Tacitus with more discretion, though he does not conceal them. I wish
neither to condemn nor to condone Tiberius: I desire, if it be
possible, to see him as he is; and whether he be good or bad, he is very
interesting. I have drawn attention to what is good in "The Annals,"
because Tacitus leans with all his weight upon the bad; and either
explains away what is favourable, or passes over it with too light a
stroke. At the end, I must conclude, as I began, that the character of
Tiberius is a mystery. It is a commonplace, that no man is entirely good
nor entirely evil; but the histories of Tiberius are too contradictory,
to be thus dismissed by a platitude. It is not easy to harmonise
Paterculus with Suetonius: it is impossible to reconcile Tacitus with
himself; or to combine the strong, benevolent ruler with the Minotaur of
Capri. The admirers of an almost perfect prose, must be familiar with a
story, which is not the highest effort of that prose: they will remember
a certain man with a double nature, like all of us; but, unlike us,
able to separate his natures, and to personate at will his good or evil
genius. Tiberius was fond of magic, and of the curious arts: it may be,
that he commanded the secrets of which Mr. Stevenson has dreamed!

The readers of "The Annals" have seen enough of blood, of crime, and of
Tiberius; and I would now engage their attention upon a more pleasing
aspect of Imperial affairs: I wish to speak about the Empire itself;
about its origin, its form, its history: and, if my powers were equal to
the task, I would sketch a model Emperor; Marcus Aurelius, or the elder
Antonine. Gibbon has described the limits of the Roman Empire; which
"comprised the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion
of mankind. " Its boundaries were "the Rhine and Danube, on the north;
the Euphrates, on the east; towards the south, the sandy deserts of
Arabia and Africa;" and upon the west, the Atlantic ocean. It was over
this extensive monarchy, that Caesar reigned; by the providence of
Caesar, was the whole defended and administered.

_Quis Parthum paveat? Quis gelidum Scythen
Quis, Germania quos horrida parturit
Fetus, incolumi Caesare? _

The frontiers of the Empire, and its richest provinces, had been
obtained for the most part in the long wars of the Republic. The
conquest of Gaul, and the establishment of the Empire, was achieved
by Julius Caesar; and to him, the civilised world is indebted for that
majestic "Roman Peace," under which it lived and prospered for nearly
nineteen centuries: the Eastern Empire was maintained in Constantinople,
until 1453; and the Empire of the West continued, though in waning
splendour, until the last Caesar abdicated his throne at the order of
Napoleon. The nations of modern Europe were developed out of the ruin
of Caesar's Empire; and from that, the more civilised among them have
obtained the politer share of their laws, their institutions, and their
language: and to Caesar, we are indebted for those inestimable treasures
of antiquity, which the Roman Empire and the Roman Church have preserved
from the barbarians, and have handed on for the delight and the
instruction of modern times. There are those, who can perceive in Caesar
nothing but a demagogue, and a tyrant; and in the regeneration of the
Commonwealth, nothing but a vulgar crime: among these, I am sorry to
inscribe the name of Thomas Gordon. The supporters of this view are
generally misled, by the specious allurements of the term "Republic. "
Tiberius, it may be, was not a perfect ruler, and other sovereigns were
even more ferocious; but the excesses of the most reckless Emperor are
hardly to be compared to the wholesale massacres and spoliations,
which attended the last agonies of the expiring Commonwealth. After
the Macedonian and Asiatic wars, we find a turbulent and servile crowd,
instead of the old families and tribes of Roman citizens; instead of
allies, oppressed and plundered provinces; instead of the heroes of the
young Republic, a set of worn-out, lewd, and greedy nobles. By these,
the spoils of the world were appropriated, and its government abused:
Caesar gave the helpless peoples a legal sovereign, and preserved them
from the lawless tyranny of a thousand masters. He narrates himself,
that "he found the Romans enslaved by a faction, and he restored their
liberty:" "Caesar interpellat; ut Populum Romanum, paucorum factione
oppressum, in libertatem vindicat. " The march of Caesar into Italy was
a triumphal progress; and there can be no doubt, that the common
people received him gladly. Again he says, "Nihil esse Rempublicam;
appellationem modo, sine corpore et specie;" "The Republic is nothing
but an empty name, a phantom and a shadow. " That Caesar should have seen
this, is the highest evidence of his genius: that Cicero did not see it,
is to himself, and to his country, the great misfortune of his career;
and to his admirers, one of the most melancholy events in Roman history.
The opinions of Tacitus were not far removed from the opinions of
Cicero, but they were modified by what he saw of Nerva and of Trajan:
he tells us, how Agricola looked forward to the blessings of a virtuous
Prince; and his own thoughts and writings would have been other, than
they are, had he witnessed the blameless monarchy of Hadrian and the
Antonines. The victims of a bad Emperor were taken usually from among
the nobles; many of them were little better, than their destroyer; and
his murders were confined, almost invariably, within the walls of Rome:
but the benefits of the Imperial system were extended into all the
provinces; and the judgment-seat of Caesar was the protection of
innumerable citizens. Many were the mistakes, many the misfortunes,
deplorable the mischiefs, of the Imperial administration; I wish neither
to deny, nor to conceal them: but here I must content myself with
speaking broadly, with presenting a superficial view of things; and,
upon the whole, the system of the Emperors was less bad than the decayed
and inadequate government, out of which it was developed. For the
change from the Republic to the Empire was hardly a revolution; and
the venerable names and forms of the old organisation were religiously
preserved. Still, the Consuls were elected, the Senate met and
legislated, Praetors and Legates went forth into the provinces, the
Legions watched upon the frontiers, the lesser Magistrates performed
their office; but above them was Caesar, directing all things,
controlling all things; the _Imperator_ and Universal Tribune, in whose
name all was done; the "Praesens Divus," on whom the whole depended; at
once the master of the Imperial Commonwealth, and the minister of the
Roman People.

"The Annals," and the history of Tiberius, have detained us, for the
most part, within the capital: "The Agricola" brings us into a province
of the Empire; and "The Account of Germany" will take us among the
savages beyond the frontier. I need scarcely mention, that our country
was brought within the Roman influence by Julius Caesar; but that
Caesar's enterprise was not continued by Augustus, nor by Tiberius;
though Caligula celebrated a fictitious triumph over the unconquered
Britons: that a war of about forty years was undertaken by Claudius,
maintained by Nero, and terminated by Domitian; who were respectively
"the most stupid, the most dissolute, and the most timid of all the
Emperors. " It was in the British wars, that Vespasian began his great
career, "monstratus fatis"; but the island was not really added to the
Empire, until Agricola subdued it for Domitian. "The Life of Agricola"
is of general interest, because it preserves the memory of a good and
noble Roman: to us, it is of special interest, because it records the
state of Britain when it was a dependency of the Caesars; "adjectis
Britannis imperio. " Our present fashions in history will not allow us
to think, that we have much in common with those natives, whom Tacitus
describes: but fashions change, in history as in other things; and in
a wiser time we may come to know, and be proud to acknowledge, that
we have derived a part of our origin, and perhaps our fairest
accomplishments, from the Celtic Britons. The narrative of Tacitus
requires no explanation; and I will only bring to the memory of my
readers, Cowper's good poem on Boadicea. We have been dwelling upon the
glories of the Roman Empire: it may be pardonable in us, and it is not
unpleasing, to turn for a moment, I will not say to "the too vast orb"
of our fate, but rather to that Empire which is more extensive than the
Roman; and destined to be, I hope, more enduring, more united, and more
prosperous. Horace will hardly speak of the Britons, as humane beings,
and he was right; in his time, they were not a portion of the Roman
World, they had no part in the benefits of the Roman government: he
talks of them, as beyond the confines of civility, "in ultimos orbis
Britannos;" as cut off by "the estranging sea," and there jubilant in
their native practices, "Visum Britannos hospitibus feros. " But Cowper
says, no less truly, of a despised and rebel Queen;

_Regions Caesar never knew,
Thy posterity shall sway;
Where his Eagles never flew,
None invincible as they. _

The last battles of Agricola were fought in Scotland; and, in the pages
of Tacitus, he achieved a splendid victory among the Grampian hills.
Gibbon remarks, however, "The native Caledonians preserved in the
northern extremity of the island their wild independence, for which
they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valour. Their
incursions were frequently repelled and chastised; but their country was
never subdued. The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of
the globe turned with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter
tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely
heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of
naked barbarians. " The Scotch themselves are never tired of asserting,
and of celebrating, their "independence"; Scotland imposed a limit to
the victories of the Roman People, Scaliger says in his compliments to
Buchanan:

_Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia lines. _

But it may be questioned, whether it were an unmixed blessing, to
be excluded from the Empire; and to offer a sullen resistance to its
inestimable gifts of humane life, of manners, and of civility.

To these things, the Germans also have manifested a strong dislike; and
they are more censurable than the Scotch, because all their knowledge of
the Romans was not derived from the intercourse of war. "The Germany"
of Tacitus is a document, that has been much discussed; and these
discussions may be numbered among the most flagrant examples of literary
intemperance: but this will not surprise us, when we allow for the
structure of mind, the language, and the usual productions of those,
to whom the treatise is naturally of the greatest importance. In the
description of the Germans, Tacitus goes out of his way to laugh at the
"licentia vetustatis," "the debauches of pedants and antiquarians;"
as though he suspected the fortunes of his volume, and the future
distinctions of the Teutonic genius. For sane readers, it will be enough
to remark, that the Germany of Tacitus was limited, upon the west, by
the natural and proper boundary of the Rhine; that it embraced a portion
of the Low Countries; and that, although he says it was confined within
the Danube, yet the separation is not clear between the true Germans and
those obscurer tribes, whose descendants furnish a long enumeration
of titles to the present melancholy sovereign of the House of Austria.
Gibbon remarks, with his usual sense, "In their primitive state of
simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the discerning
eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, the first
historian who supplied the science of philosophy to the study of facts.
The expressive conciseness of his descriptions has deserved to exercise
the diligence of innumerable antiquarians, and to excite the genius and
penetration of the philosophic historians of our own time. " Upon a
few sentences out of the "Germania"; which relate to the kings, to the
holding of land, to the public assemblies, and to the army; an imposing
structure of English constitutional history has been erected: our modern
historians look upon this treatise with singular approval; because
it shows them, they say, the habits of their own forefathers in their
native settlements. They profess to be enchanted with all they read;
and, in their works, they betray their descent from the ancestors they
admire. Gibbon says, prettily, "Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in
those beautiful episodes, in which he relates some domestic transaction
of the Germans or of the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve
the attention of the reader from an uniform scene of vice and misery. "
Whether he succeeds, I must leave my readers to decide. Tacitus
describes the quarrels of the Germans; fought, then with weapons; now,
with words: their gambling, their sloth, their drunkenness. "Strong
beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat or barley,
and _corrupted_ (as it is strongly expressed by Tacitus) into a certain
semblance of wine, was sufficient for the gross purposes of German
debauchery. " Tacitus informs us, too, "that they sleep far into the day;
that on rising they take a bath, usually of warm water; then they eat. "
To pass an entire day and night in drinking, disgraces no one: "Dediti
somno ciboque," he says; a people handed over to sloth and gluttony.
Some of these customs are now almost obsolete; the baths, for instance.
In others, there has been little alteration since the Age of Tacitus;
and the Germans have adhered, with obstinate fidelity, to their
primitive habits. Tacitus thought less of their capacity, upon the
whole, than it is usual to think now: "The Chatti," he says, "for
Germans, have much intelligence;" "Leur intelligence et leur finesse
étonnent, dans des Germains. " But let us forget these "Tedeschi lurchi,
non ragionam di lor;" and pass on to those manly virtues, which Tacitus
records: To abandon your shield, is the basest of crimes, "relicta non
bene parmula;" nor may a man thus disgraced be present at their sacred
rites, nor enter their council; many, indeed, after escaping from
battle, have ended their infamy with the halter. And to more shameful
crimes, they awarded a sterner punishment:

_Behind flock'd wrangling up a piteous crew
Greeted of none, disfeatured and forlorn:
Cowards, who were in sloughs interr'd alive;
And round them still the wattled hurdles hung
Wherewith they stamp'd them down, and trod them deep,
To hide their shameful memory from men. _

Having now surveyed the compositions in this volume, it is proper that
we should at length devote some of our notice to Gordon himself, and to
his manner of presenting Tacitus. Thomas Gordon was born in Scotland;
the date has not yet been ascertained. He is thought to have been
educated at a northern university, and to have become an Advocate.
Later, he went to London; and taught languages. Two pamphlets on
the Bangorian controversy brought him into notice; and he wrote
many religious and political dissertations. "A Defence of Primitive
Christianity, against the Exhorbitant Claims of Fanatical and
Dissaffected Clergymen;" "Tracts on Religion, and on the Jacobite
Rebellion of '45;" "The Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken;" "A
Cordial for Low Spirits;" are the titles of some of his compositions.
In politics, and in theology, he was a republican and free-thinker: he
translated and edited "The Spirit of Ecclesiastics in All Ages;" he
was a contributor to "The Independent Whig;" and in a series of "Cato's
Letters," he discoursed at ease upon his usual topics. The Tacitus was
published in 1728, in two volumes folio: long dissertations are inserted
in either volume; the literature in them excellent, the politics not so
good: the volumes, as well as the several parts of them, are dedicated
to some Royal and many Noble Patrons. Gordon has also turned Sallust
into English: the book was published in 1744, in one handsome quarto;
"with Political Discourses upon that Author and Translations of
Cicero's Four Orations against Cataline. " Walpole made Gordon the first
commissioner of wine licences. It is handed down, that Gordon was a
burly person, "large and corpulent. " It is believed, that he found his
way into "The Dunciad," and that he is immortalised there among the
"Canaille Écrivante;" the line

_Where Tindal dictates and Silenus snores_,

is taken to be Pope's description of him. Gordon died in 1750; at the
same time as Dr. Middleton, the elegant biographer of Cicero: Lord
Bolingbroke is said to have observed, when the news was told him, "Then
is the best writer in England gone, and the worst. " That Bolingbroke
should have disliked Gordon and his politics, does not surprise me; but
I cannot understand for what reason he, and other good judges, despised
his writings. "The chief glory of every people arises from its authors,"
Dr. Johnson says; and happy the people, I would assert, who have no
worse writers than Thomas Gordon. I wish to draw attention to Gordon's
correct vocabulary, to his bold and pregnant language, and to his
scholarly punctuation.