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60-468: Though his work is the most reliable source for the history of his era, its factual accuracy is occasionally questioned: the Annals are based in part on secondary sources of unknown reliability, and there are some obvious minor mistakes (for instance confusing the two daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor , both named Antonia). The Histories , written from primary documents and personal knowledge of

120-505: A central part of their early education, made much use of his criticisms of tyranny and love of the republic —he is one of the authors most often quoted (behind Cicero, Horace, and Plutarch) by the members of the National and Legislative Assemblies and by revolutionary authors such as Jacques Pierre Brissot . Later, during the Reign of Terror , Camille Desmoulins and the writers of

180-564: A few (most notably Giuseppe Toffanin) have argued that Machiavelli had made more use of Tacitus than he let on. In fact, though, Machiavelli had probably not read the first books of the Annals at that time—they were published after The Prince . In his work focused mainly on republicanism, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy , Machiavelli returned to Bruni's republican perspective on Tacitus. Four overt references appear in

240-557: A friend of da Strada, who is also credited with their discovery at Monte Cassino. Regardless of whether the Monte Cassino manuscripts were moved to Florence by Boccaccio or da Strada, Boccaccio made use of the Annals when he wrote Commento di Dante c. 1374 (before the birth of Poggio Bracciolini), giving an account of Seneca 's death directly based on the Tacitean account in Annals book 15 . Francis Newton states that it

300-498: A great man, Tacitus considers Nero as simply despicable. Since the 18th century, at least five attempts have been made to challenge the authenticity of the Annals as having been written by someone other than Tacitus, Voltaire 's criticism being perhaps the first. Voltaire was generally critical of Tacitus and said that Tacitus did not comply with the standards for providing a historical background to civilization. In 1878, John Wilson Ross and, in 1890, Polydore Hochart suggested that

360-547: A greater understanding of the Latin language, and is perceived as less "classical" than the authors of the Augustan age. A remarkable feat was accomplished by Robert Graves : the major gap of text of the Annals that had gone lost regarded the end of Tiberius ' reign, the whole of Caligula 's reign, and the major part of Claudius ' reign (the remaining part of Tacitus's manuscript only took up again at this Emperor's death, for

420-552: A solid basis for his work. Together the Histories and the Annals amounted to 30 books. These thirty books are referred to by Saint Jerome , and about half of them have survived. Although some scholars differ on how to assign the books to each work, traditionally fourteen are assigned to Histories and sixteen to the Annals . Tacitus' friend Pliny referred to "your histories" when writing to him about his earlier work. Although Tacitus refers to part of his work as "my annals",

480-599: A very learned man, he wasn't able to equal those closest [to Cicero]. But he was even way behind Livy—whom he proposed to follow—not only in historical series but in imitation of eloquence. The use of Tacitus as a source for political philosophy , however, began in this era, triggered by the Florentine Republic 's struggle against the imperial ambitions of Giangaleazzo Visconti . Visconti's death from an illness did more than lift his siege of Florence; it sparked Leonardo Bruni to write his Panegyric to

540-511: A very tenuous textual tradition; we depend on a single manuscript for books I–VI of the Annales and on another one for the other surviving half (books XI–XVI) and for the five books extant of the Historiae . His books were clearly used by 2nd – early 3rd century historians such as Cassius Dio 's report on Agricola's exploration of Britain, and Hegesippus may have borrowed from his account of

600-636: Is a poor historian and writer, much inferior to Leo. Reputedly a descendant of the Counts of Tusculum , he was offered in 1115 to the monastery of Monte Cassino. About 1127 he was forced to leave the abbey and retired to the neighbouring Atina ( Atina, Lazio ), because he had supported Abbot Oderisius , who had been deposed by Pope Honorius II . In 1131 he returned to the abbey owing to the death of Pope Honorius. In 1137, he appeared before Emperor Lothair II , then in Italy, on behalf of his monastery. The sovereign

660-802: Is also mentioned briefly in The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe , volume VI, chapter VIII. Peter the Deacon Peter the Deacon (fl. 1115–1159) was the librarian of the abbey of Montecassino and continuator of the Chronicon monasterii Casinensis , usually called the Monte Cassino Chronicle in English. The chronicle was originally written by Leo of Ostia . According to both Chalandon and Lord Norwich , Peter

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720-594: Is better for a prince to be feared than loved. (The original made a very different point: that respect for the Emperor and a desire to conform, not fear and punishment, kept certain senators in line.) Many covert references appear: Machiavelli generally follows Tacitus's decidedly negative slant on the history of Rome under the Emperors . Machiavelli had read Tacitus for instruction on forms of government , republican as well as autocratic, but after his books were placed on

780-582: Is likely that Annals 11–16 were in Monte Cassino during the first half of the rule of Abbot Desiderius (1058–1087) who later became Pope Victor III . Annals 1–6 were then independently discovered at Corvey Abbey in Germany in 1508 by Giovanni Angelo Arcimboldi , afterwards Archbishop of Milan, and were first published in Rome in 1515 by Beroaldus , by order of Pope Leo X , who afterwards deposited

840-549: The Actes des Apôtres used him to denounce the excesses of the Jacobins . Napoleon , on the other hand, attacked his works furiously, both for style and contents. This would-be founder of an Imperial dynasty, praised by amongst others Goethe for his insight in literature, knew the danger that Tacitus's histories might pose to one who wished to go around grabbing for power. François de Chateaubriand , for one, had already compared

900-566: The Histories (written before the Annals ) starts at the beginning of the year AD 69, i.e. six months after the death of Nero and continues to the death of Domitian in 96. It is not known when Tacitus began writing the Annals, but he was well into writing it by AD 116. Modern scholars believe that as a senator, Tacitus had access to Acta Senatus , the Roman senate's records, thus providing

960-704: The Index Librorum Prohibitorum , writers on political philosophy (the so-called "black Tacitists"—see above) frequently used the Roman as a stand-in for the Florentine, and the Emperor Tiberius as a mask for Machiavelli's model of a prince. So, writers like Francesco Guicciardini considered Tacitus's work to be an instruction on how to build a despotic state. Following that line of thought (Catholics in appearance reading Tacitus instead of Machiavelli's still forbidden Prince ),

1020-761: The Agricola , but both know the author only as Cornelius . After Jordanes, Tacitus disappeared from literature for the better part of two centuries, and only four certain references appear until 1360. Two come from Frankish monks of the Carolingian Renaissance : the Annales Fuldenses from the monastery of Fulda used Tacitus's Annals , and Rudolf of Fulda borrowed from the Germania for his Translatio Sancti Alexandri . Some of Tacitus's works were known at Monte Cassino by 1100, where

1080-453: The Annals , Tacitus further improved the style of portraiture that he had used so well in the Historiae . Perhaps the best portrait is that of Tiberius, portrayed in an indirect way, painted progressively during the course of a narrative, with observations and commentary along the way filling in details. Tacitus portrays both Tiberius and Nero as tyrants who caused fear in their subjects. But while he views Tiberius as someone who had once been

1140-526: The First Jewish–Roman War . His difficult historical methods and elliptic literary style, however, went unimitated except by Ammianus Marcellinus , who consciously set out to write a continuation of his works. His popularity waned with time: his unfavorable portrayals of the early emperors could not have earned him favor with Rome's increasingly autocratic rulers, and his obvious contempt for Judaism and Christianity (both troublesome foreign cults in

1200-612: The Humanists of the 14th and 15th centuries, who preferred the smooth style of Cicero and the patriotic history of Livy , who was by far their favorite historian. The first to read his works—they were four: Boccacio, Benvenuto Rambaldi, Domenico Bandini, and Coluccio Salutati —read them solely for their historical information and their literary style. On the merits of these they were divided. Bandini called him "[a] most eloquent orator and historian", while Salutati commented: For what shall I say about Cornelius Tacitus? Although

1260-470: The "directness" of an Emperor pictured to write down his memoirs for private use (linked to the "lost testament of Claudius" mentioned in Tacitus's Annals ), the treatment is also on a year-by-year basis, with digressions not unlike Tacitus's "moralising" digressions, so that in the introduction of the second of these two volumes Graves saw fit to defend himself as follows: Some reviewers of I, Claudius ,

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1320-424: The 30 books referred to by Jerome about half have survived. Modern scholars believe that as a Roman senator , Tacitus had access to Acta Senatus —the Roman senate's records—which provided a solid basis for his work. Although Tacitus refers to part of his work as "my annals", the title of the work Annals used today was not assigned by Tacitus himself, but derives from its year-by-year structure. The name of

1380-399: The 5th century only a few authors seem aware of him: Sidonius Apollinaris , who admires him, and Orosius , who alternately derides him as a fool and borrows passages (including many that are otherwise lost) from his works. Cassiodorus and his disciple Jordanes (middle of the 6th century) make the last known antique references; Cassiodorus draws on parts of the Germania and Jordanes cites

1440-468: The City of Florence (c. 1403), in which he quoted Tacitus ( Histories , 1.1 ) to buttress his republican theory that monarchy was inimical to virtue, nobility, and (especially) genius. The inspiration was novel—Bruni had probably learned of Tacitus from Salutati. The thesis likewise: Tacitus himself had acknowledged that the good emperors Nerva and Trajan posed no threat to his endeavors. Tacitus, and

1500-527: The Flavian period, is thought to be more accurate, though Tacitus's hatred of Domitian seemingly colored its tone and interpretations. Tacitus's contemporaries were well-acquainted with his work; Pliny the Younger , one of his first admirers, congratulated him for his better-than-usual precision and predicted that his Histories would be immortal: only a third of his known work has survived and then through

1560-487: The Roman imperial court fascinated European scholars. By the first half of the seventeenth century editions of and commentaries upon Tacitus were flourishing. The Roman historian was compulsory reading in the political education of any learned man, notably senior magistrates. While authors like Casaubon and Pasquier deemed the precepts of Tacitus pernicious, writers like Justus Lipsius , Scipione Ammirato and Baltasar Alamos de Barrientos set out their reason of state in

1620-496: The argument that all the authors had been born during the waning years of the Roman Republic . Pier Candido Decembrio , a Milanese courtier, addressed the same argument to Bruni in the following year, which Bruni did not bother to rebut, the best counterargument having been made already. The rule of Cosimo de Medici , however, saw the end of these political readings of Tacitus, though his works were now readily available in

1680-593: The authors of the Acts of the Apostles and of the pseudo-gospels of Nicodemus and St. James , and Claudius himself in his surviving letters and speeches. Graves's work reflected back on the perception of Tacitus's work: Graves curbed the "slandering of Emperors" by portraying Claudius as a good-humoured emperor, at heart a republican , resulting in the perception that if the "Claudius" part of Tacitus's annals had survived it probably wouldn't have been all slander towards

1740-400: The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is a spurious interjection, added later, and not written by Tacitus. In Jorge Luis Borges ' short story The Garden of Forking Paths , when Yu Tsun, the main character, takes the train to carry out his final mission in the fictitious town of Ashgrove, among the few persons he encounters on the train is a young man fervently reading Tacitus’ Annals . Tacitus

1800-733: The current manuscript seems to be "Books of History from the Death of the Divine Augustus" ( Ab Excessu divi Augusti Historiarum Libri ). The Annals was Tacitus' final work and provides a key source for modern understanding of the history of the Roman Empire from the beginning of the reign of Tiberius in AD 14 to the end of the reign of Nero , in AD 68. Tacitus wrote the Annals in at least 16 books, but books 7–10 and parts of books 5, 6, 11 and 16 are missing. The period covered by

1860-520: The death of Augustus Caesar in AD 14, and his succession by Tiberius . As in the Histories , Tacitus maintains his thesis of the necessity of the Principate . He says again that Augustus gave and warranted peace to the state after years of civil war, but on the other hand he shows us the dark side of life under the Caesars . The history of the beginning of the principate is also the history of

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1920-478: The emperors of the 1st century. The more explicit defence of republicanism in Graves's work (that is: much more explicit than in Tacitus's work) also made any further direct defense of black Tacitism quite impossible (as far as Napoleon, by not advocating a black Tacitism line of thought hadn't already made such interpretation obsolete). By the end of 20th century, however, a sort of inverted red tacitism (as

1980-458: The emperors" whom, he averred, the Roman people had loved. By the 20th century authenticity of the remaining texts ascribed to Tacitus was generally acknowledged, apart from some difference of opinion about the Dialogus . Tacitus became a stock part of any education in classical literature – usually, however, only after the study of Caesar, Livy, Cicero, etc., while Tacitus's style requires

2040-459: The end of the political freedom that the senatorial aristocracy, which Tacitus viewed as morally decadent, corrupt, and servile towards the emperor, had enjoyed during the republic. During Nero's reign there had been a widespread diffusion of literary works in favor of this suicidal exitus illustrium virorum ("end of the illustrious men"). Again, as in his Agricola , Tacitus is opposed to those who chose useless martyrdom through vain suicides. In

2100-581: The eyes of a 1st-century Roman aristocrat) made him unpopular among the early Church Fathers . The 3rd-century writer Tertullian , for example, blames him (incorrectly—see history of anti-Semitism ) for originating the story that the Jews worshipped a donkey's head in the Holy of Holies and calls him " ille mendaciorum loquacissimus ", 'the most loquacious of liars'. In the 4th century there are scattered references to his life and work. Flavius Vopiscus, one of

2160-452: The form of commentaries on his work. Even the Jesuit political philosoher Giovanni Botero , who put together Tacitus with Machiavelli as the leading authorities for those who advocated an amoral reason of state, was thoroughly acquainted with the work of the Roman historian. Gerolamo Cardano in his 1562 book Encomium Neronis describes Tacitus as a scoundrel of the worst kind, belonging to

2220-502: The history of the Roman Empire during the 1st century AD. Tacitus' final work, modern historians generally consider it his magnum opus which historian Ronald Mellor says represents the "pinnacle of Roman historical writing". Tacitus' Histories and Annals together amounted to 30 books, although some scholars disagree about which work to assign some books to, traditionally 14 are assigned to Histories and 16 to Annals . Of

2280-525: The initial deadline for the dating of the codex Casinense 47, in whose obituary on February 26 his name is marked (Petrus diaconus et monacus), the only one, among those of many deacons of the same name commemorated there, which appears written in capital letters. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia describes Peter as "vain and occasionally untruthful, but an entertaining writer". His works, enumerated in Patrologia Latina , CLXXIII, 763-1144, include

2340-609: The manuscript in the Medicean Library in Florence. In Donna Leon 's third Commissario Brunetti novel Dressed for Death (1994), the protagonist reads Tacitus' Annals in his spare time in the evenings, and various references to that material are made throughout the novel. In Mikhail Bulgakov 's The Master and Margarita Tacitus’ Annals is referenced, as the MASSOLIT editor Berlioz asserts that its mention of

2400-412: The manuscript of the Annals 11–16 and the Histories out of Monte Cassino to Florence , in the 1360s or 1370s, that Tacitus began to regain some of his old literary importance. His Annals survive only in single copies of two halves of the works, one from Fulda and one from Cassino. Boccaccio's efforts brought the works of Tacitus back into public circulation—where they were largely passed over by

2460-466: The manuscripts containing the Annals goes back to the Renaissance . While Bracciolini had discovered three minor works at Hersfeld Abbey in Germany in 1425, Zanobi da Strada (who died in 1361) had probably earlier discovered Annals 11–16 at Monte Cassino where he lived for some time. The copies of Annals at Monte Cassino were probably moved to Florence by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375),

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2520-503: The modern era as to the ancient (see for example The Guardian ). It reads, in part: (Punctuation follows the Loeb Classical Library edition) Annals (Tacitus) The Annals ( Latin : Annales ) by Roman historian and senator Tacitus is a history of the Roman Empire from the reign of Tiberius to that of Nero , the years AD 14–68. The Annals are an important source for modern understanding of

2580-509: The new Emperor of the French to the worst emperors of Rome, warning that a new Tacitus would someday do for Napoleon what Tacitus had done for Nero. The Emperor's reaction was vicious: to Goethe and Wieland he complained that " Tacitus finds criminal intention in the simplest acts; he makes complete scoundrels out of all the emperors to make us admire his genius in exposing them". To others he swore that Tacitus, ce pamphlétaire , had "slandered

2640-440: The new variant of black tacitism could be called) appeared, for example in publications like Woodman's Tacitus reviewed : the new theories described the emperors of the principate no longer as monarchs ruling as autocrats , but as "magistrates" in essence defending a "republican" form of government (which might excuse some of their rash actions), very much in line with Graves's lenient posture regarding crimes committed under

2700-436: The other two certain references appear: Peter the Deacon 's Vita Sancti Severi used the Agricola , and Paulinus Venetus , Bishop of Pozzuoli , plagiarized passages from the Annals in his mappa mundi . Hints and reminiscences of Tacitus appear in French and English literature, as well as German and Italian, from the 12th to the 14th century, but none of them is at all certain. It was not until Giovanni Boccaccio brought

2760-735: The prefatory volume to Claudius the God , suggested that in writing it I had merely consulted Tacitus's Annals and Suetonius 's Twelve Caesars , run them together, and expanded the result with my own "vigorous fancy." This was not so; nor is it the case here. Among the Classical writers who have been borrowed from in the composition of Claudius the God are Tacitus, Cassius Dio, Suetonius, Pliny , Varro , Valerius Maximus , Orosius , Frontinus , Strabo , Caesar , Columella , Plutarch , Josephus , Diodorus Siculus , Photius , Xiphilinus , Zonaras , Seneca , Petronius , Juvenal , Philo , Celsus ,

2820-474: The public library of Florence. Instead, scholars such as Leone Battista Alberti and Flavio Biondo used him in academic works on the history and architecture of 1st century Rome. His laconic style and bleak outlook remained unpopular. At the beginning of the 15th century, following the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, their return, and the foreign invasions of Italy , Tacitus returned to prominence among

2880-463: The reigns of Caligula and Claudius . Books 7 through 10 are missing. Books 11 and 12 cover the period from the treachery of Messalina to the end of Claudius' reign. The final four books cover the reign of Nero and Book 16 cuts off in the middle of the year AD 66. This leaves the material that would have covered the final two years of Nero's reign lost. Tacitus documented a Roman imperial system of government. Tacitus chose to start his work with

2940-425: The rich senatorial class and always taking their side against the common people. Early theoreticians of raison d'état used Tacitus to defend an ideal of Imperial rule. Other readers used him to construct a method for living under a despotic state, avoiding both servility and useless opposition. Diderot , for example, used Tacitus's works, in his apology for Seneca, to justify the collaboration of philosophers with

3000-531: The rule of princeps Claudius (for instance the putting aside of the elder L. Silanus , showing the emperor's lack of conscience according to Tacitus, Ann. XII,3; while Graves's account of the same incident appears not to incriminate Claudius). One of Tacitus's polemics against the evils of empire, from his Agricola (ch. 30), was often quoted during the United States invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq , by those who found its warnings as applicable to

3060-573: The sovereign. During the Enlightenment Tacitus was mostly admired for his opposition to despotism. In literature, some great tragedians such as Corneille , Jean Racine and Alfieri , took inspirations from Tacitus for their dramatic characters. Edward Gibbon was strongly influenced by Tacitus's historical style in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , The French Revolutionaries , for whom Tacitus had been

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3120-546: The supposed Scriptores Historiae Augustae , mentions him twice ( Aurelian 2.1 , Probus 2.7. ) and names him among the disertissimi viri , the most eloquent men. Ammianus Marcellinus, as mentioned, started his history where Tacitus had finished. Jerome knew of him, and Sulpicius Severus either used his Annales as a source for passages on Nero or, according to Aurthur Drews, the passage in Sulpicius Severus's Chronicles later found its way into Annales . By

3180-555: The theorists of classical republicanism . Niccolò Machiavelli was the first to revive him, but not (at first) in the republican model which Bruni and others had followed. One quotation from the Annals ( 13.19 ) appears in The Prince (ch. 13 ), advising the ruler that "it has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain or unstable as fame or power not founded on its own strength". The idealized Prince bears some resemblance to Tacitus's Tiberius;

3240-404: The theory that Bruni based on him, played a vital role in the spirited debate between the republicans of Florence and the proponents of monarchy and aristocracy elsewhere. Guarino da Verona , in 1435, used the literary flowering of Augustus's era—which included Livy, Horace , Virgil , and Seneca —to argue against Bruni's contention; Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini countered with

3300-490: The thinkers of the Counter-Reformation and the age of absolute monarchies used his works as a set of rules and principles for political action. In the late 16th century Tacitus came to be regarded as the repository of the “secrets of the power” (“arcana imperii”, as Tacitus had called them in his Annals , 2.36.1). Tacitus's description of the artifices, stratagems, and utterly lawless reign of power politics at

3360-414: The title of the work Annals used today was not assigned by Tacitus himself, but derives from its year-by-year structure. Of the sixteen books in Annals , the reign of Tiberius takes up six books, of which only Book 5 is missing. These books are neatly divided into two sets of three, corresponding to the change in the nature of the political climate during the period. The next six books are devoted to

3420-674: The transition to the reign of Nero ). Robert Graves's novels I, Claudius (1934) and Claudius the God (1935) filled the gap perfectly: all the missing parts of the Annals , up to the latter part of the reign of Claudius himself, were covered by a coherent story. Of course part of it can be considered "mockumentary" in the Augustan History tradition (for example how Claudius really felt about republicanism , heavily elaborated by Graves sometimes based on "reconstructed" historical documents, will probably never be really established). Graves borrowed much from Tacitus's style: apart from

3480-482: The whole of the Annals had been forged by the Italian scholar Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459). According to Robert Van Voorst this was an "extreme hypothesis" which never gained a following among modern scholars. Voorst, however, does not address any of Ross' objections regarding numerous purported historical inaccuracies in the Annals, but only faults Hochart on a few points in a footnote. The provenance of

3540-469: The work. Chapter 1.10 follows Tacitus ( Histories 1.1), and Bruni, on the chilling effects of monarchy. Chapter 1.29 quotes the Histories ( 4.3 ) on the burden of gratitude and the pleasure of revenge. Chapter 3.6 quotes Tacitus: "men have to honor things past but obey the present, and ought to desire good Princes, but tolerate the ones they have". 3.19 twists a line from Tacitus ( 3.55 ) into something very similar to Machiavelli's famous maxim that it

3600-513: Was so pleased with him that he appointed him his chaplain and secretary, and would probably have attached him permanently to his person had not Abbot Wibald considered Peter's return necessary to the abbey. In 1131 on his return to Monte Cassino Peter became librarian and keeper of the abbey archives. After a long period during which historical sources report nothing about him, his name, Petrus Egidii Tusculanensis, last appears in an act of donation of 1154. His death had to take place after 1159,

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