than, other men, his very decided family policy, which in the person of his brother Lucius especially brought forward a clumsy man of straw as a hero, gave offense to many, and not without reason. While genuine pride protects the heart, arrogance lays it open to every blow and every sarcasm, and corrodes even an originally noble-minded spirit. It is throughout, moreover, the distinguishing characteristic of such natures as that of Scipio-strange mixtures of genuine gold and glittering tinsel that they need the good fortune and the brilliance of youth in order to exercise their charm, and, when this charm begins to fade, it is the charmer him self that is most painfully conscious of the change."

Mommsen's estimate of Scipio differs, in being more moderate, from the admiring one expressed by Milton-"Scipio the highth of Rome."

That noblest of Roman matrons, the great Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, was daughter to this Scipio. Her fame, single almost like the sun in heaven, among the historic women of Rome, reflects a doubled luster backward upon the fame of the father.

We hope many of our readers will be tempted to explore the full text of Livy translated, to find out for themselves what store contained in those pages is left behind, by us unexhausted, of picturesque and romantic recital. Assuredly, Livy, in his story of Rome, supplied to his countrymen an unsurpassed text-book of lofty example, of nobly inspiring tradition.

II.

TACITUS.

A VERY different writer of history from Livy, is Tacitus. Tacitus, however, though different, is not less interesting than Livy. He has an equally entertaining story to tell, and he tells his story every whit as admirably. It is not romance, it is history, with Tacitus. The color is not rose any longer. It is stern, often livid, likeness to life. If Livy is Claude Lorraine, Tacitus is Salvator Rosa: if Livy is Titian, Tacitus is Rembrandt. You read Livy, and you are inspired. You read Tacitus, and you are oppressed. But the oppression somehow at length leaves you, by reaction, braced; while the inspiration somehow at length leaves you, as if through too much elixir, languid. For the inspiration is the effect of romance, and the oppression is the effect of reality. Reality is generally much more somber than romance, and Tacitus is far more somber than Livy.

When Livy wrote, the Roman Empire was young. It had the halo of uncertain hope about it. Augustus had brought back peace to a distracted commonwealth, and Livy wrote in the sunrise of a new era that perhaps would be glorious. When Tacitus wrote, the aureole was gone, for the empire was now a hundred years old. There had been Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero. No wonder if now, for the writing of Roman history, grim realism took the place of blithe

romance.

Of Tacitus himself we know very little. We do not know where he was born. We do not know when he was born. He was probably born about the year 50 of the Christian era. A town in Umbria is named as his birthplace. Pliny was a younger friend, a loyal and affectionate admirer, of the historian. From Pliny we derive what knowledge we

possess concerning his elder and more illustrious compeer; except, indeed, that Tacitus himself makes us know that he held public office in a constantly ascending scale under Vespasian, under Titus, and under Domitian. Later, Tacitus was consul; for there was still a titular consulship, even under the empire. He was also senator; for there was still a titular senate. With the accession of Trajan, the political activity of Tacitus seems to have terminated. That great prince was too strong for individual subjects under his sway to enjoy much freedom of political action. But he was also too strong to feel any necessity of greatly abridging his subjects' freedom of speech. Romans might say what pleased themselves, on the simple condition that they would do what pleased their emperor. Tacitus accordingly turned now decisively from politics to literature; and well it is for us that he did so. Near two centuries from his time will pass, and there will then ascend the throne of the world an emperor who, bearing the same name, the name of Tacitus, will fondly trace his lineage back to this prince in literature, so to derive for himself a prouder than imperial ancestry. Caius Cornelius Tacitus was the full name of the historian. The Cornelian family was one of the very highest in Rome. But whether the possession by Tacitus of their gentile name implied his connection with that family by blood is, perhaps, doubtful.

Tacitus had probably, before Trajan's accession, already produced his Dialogue on Oratory. Shortly after Trajan's accession, he published his life of Agricola, his own fatherin-law. His tract on Germany, we may suppose, soon followed. The principal historical works of Tacitus are two; the History, or Histories, distinctively so called, and the Annals. The Annals, though subsequent in composition, treat of an earlier period than the History. The History Tacitus seems never to have completed according to his original design for that work. He alludes to projects in his

tory entertained by him, of which, if he ever fulfilled them, we have utterly lost the fulfillment. We do not know, we have not even the means of guessing, what and how much we have lost of literature that flowed from the pen of Tacitus. He enjoyed great renown in his own day, but sank soon after his death into unaccountable neglect. We thus lack the notice of him, and the extracts from him, in later ancient literature, that might otherwise have saved to us some precious fragments from his unknown perished works. But neglect of such a writer as Tacitus could not continue. He had an immortality in him that no length of dormancy could extinguish. He stands forth to-day an historian confessedly without superior in the republic of letters. If he does not flash like Livy, he burns as steady and as strong as Thucydides. No more weighty, no more serious, no more penetrating, no sounder, truer, manlier mind than Tacitus, perhaps, ever wrote history.

We shall chiefly draw from the "Annals," to give our readers their taste of the quality of Tacitus. First, however, for the double sake of a certain striking parallel suggested, and of a certain particular description exceptionally interesting to all modern heirs of Christianity, we introduce two passages from the "History." The first passage consists of the majestic sentences in which, at the beginning of the work, the historian sets forth the object proposed by him, and passes in rapid review the whole course of the history. The reader will find it very interesting and suggestive to compare the opening of Macaulay's History of England. Tacitus:

I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, frightful ir its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors. Fou emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil wars; there were more with foreign enemies; there were often wars that had both characters at once. There was success in the East, and disaster in the West. There were disturbances in Illyricum; Gaul wavered in its alle.

giance; Britain was thoroughly subdued and immediately abandoned; the tribes of the Suevi and the Sarmatæ rose in concert against us; the Dacians had the glory of inflicting as well as suffering defeat; the armies of Parthia were all but set in motion by the cheat of a counterfeit Nero. Now, too, Italy was prostrated by disasters either entirely novel, or that recurred only after a long succession of ages; cities in Campania's richest plains were swallowed up and overwhelmed; Rome was wasted by conflagrations, its oldest temples consumed, and the Capitol itself fired by the hands of citizens. Sacred rites were profaned; there was profligacy in the highest ranks; the sea was crowded with exiles, and its rocks polluted with bloody deeds. In the capital there were yet worse horrors. Nobility, wealth, the refusal or the acceptance of office, were grounds for accusation, and virtue insured destruction. The rewards of the informers were no less odious than their crimes; for while some seized on consulships and priestly offices, as their share of the spoil, others on procuratorships, and posts of more confidential authority, they robbed and ruined in every direction amid universal hatred and terror. Slaves were bribed to turn against their masters, and freedmen to betray their patrons; and those who had not an enemy were destroyed by friends.

Yet the age was not so barren in noble qualities, as not also to exhibit examples of virtue. Mothers accompanied the flight of their sons ; wives followed their husbands into exile; there were brave kinsmen and faithful sons-in-law; there were slaves whose fidelity defied even torture; there were illustrious men driven to the last necessity, and enduring it with fortitude; there were closing scenes that equaled the famous deaths of antiquity. Besides the manifold vicissitudes of human affairs, there were prodigies in heaven and earth, the warning voices of the thunder, and other intimations of the future, auspicious or gloomy, doubtful or not to be mistaken. Never, surely, did more terrible calamities of the Roman people, or evidence more conclusive, prove that the gods take no thought for our happiness, but only for our punishment.

I think it proper, however, before I commence my purposed work, to pass under review the condition of the capital, the temper of the armies, the attitude of the provinces, and the elements of weakness and strength which existed throughout the whole empire, that so we may become acquainted, not only with the vicissitudes and the issues of events, which are often matters of chance, but also with their relations and their causes.

The clause," with their relations and their causes," reveals a feature of the method of Tacitus in which he differs from