Recognition of the atmosphere in which Tacitus wrote and the objects at which his history aimed helps one to understand why it sometimes disappoints modern expectations. Particular scenes are seared on our memories: persons stand before us lit to the soul by a fierce light of psychological analysis: we learn to loath the characteristic vices of the time, and to understand the moral causes of Roman decadence. But somehow the dominance of the moral interest and the frequent interruption of the narrative by scenes of senatorial inefficiency serve to obscure the plain sequence of events. It is difficult after a first reading of the Histories to state clearly what happened in these two years. And this difficulty is vastly annoying to experts who wish to trace the course of the three campaigns. Those whose interest is not in Tacitus but in the military history of the period are recommended to study Mr. B.W. Henderson’s Civil War and Rebellion in the Roman Empire, a delightful book which makes the dark places plain. But they are not recommended to share his contempt for Tacitus because his accounts of warfare are as bad as, for instance, Shakespeare’s. Tacitus does not describe in detail the tactics and geography of a campaign, perhaps because he could not do so, certainly because he did not wish to. He regarded such details as dry bones, which no amount of literary skill could animate. His interest is in human character. Plans of campaign throw little light on that: so they did not interest him, or, if they did, he suppressed his interest because he knew that his public would otherwise behave as Dr. Johnson did when Fox talked to him of Catiline’s conspiracy. ‘He withdrew his attention and thought about Tom Thumb.’
There is no worse fault in criticism than to blame a work of art for lacking qualities to which it makes no pretension. Tacitus is not a ‘bad military historian’. He is not a ‘military’ historian at all. Botticelli is not a botanist, nor is Shakespeare a geographer. It is this fault which leads critics to call Tacitus ‘a stilted pleader at a decadent bar’, and to complain that his narrative of the war with Civilis is ‘made dull and unreal by speeches’ — because they have not found in Tacitus what they had no right to look for. Tacitus inserts speeches for the same reason that he excludes tactical details. They add to the human interest of his work. They give scope to his great dramatic powers, to that passionate sympathy with character which finds expression in a style as nervous as itself. They enable him to display motives, to appraise actions, to reveal moral forces. It is interest in human nature rather than pride of rhetoric which makes him love a good debate.
The supreme distinction of Tacitus is, of course, his style. That is lost in a translation. ‘Hard’ though his Latin is, it is not obscure. Careful attention can always detect his exact thought. Like Meredith he is ‘hard’ because he does so much with words. Neither writer leaves any doubt about his meaning. It is therefore a translator’s first duty to be lucid, and not until that duty is done may he try by faint flushes of epigram to reflect something of the brilliance of Tacitus’ Latin. Very faint indeed that reflection must always be: probably no audience could be found to listen to a translation of Tacitus, yet one feels that his Latin would challenge and hold the attention of any audience that was not stone-deaf. But it is because Tacitus is never a mere stylist that some of us continue in the failure to translate him. His historical deductions and his revelations of character have their value for every age. ‘This form of history,’ says Montaigne, ‘is by much the most useful ... there are in it more precepts than stories: it is not a book to read, ’tis a book to study and learn: ’tis full of sententious opinions, right or wrong: ’tis a nursery of ethic and politic discourses, for the use and ornament of those who have any place in the government of the world.... His pen seems most proper for a troubled and sick state, as ours at present is; you would often say it is us he paints and pinches.’ Sir Henry Savile, Warden of Merton and Provost of Eton, who translated the Histories into racy Elizabethan English at a time when the state was neither ‘troubled’ nor ‘sick’ is as convinced as Montaigne or the theorists of the French Revolution that Tacitus had lessons for his age. ‘In Galba thou maiest learne, that a Good Prince gouerned by evill ministers is as dangerous as if he were evill himselfe. By Otho, that the fortune of a rash man is Torrenti similis, which rises at an instant, and falles in a moment. By Vitellius, that he that hath no vertue can neuer be happie: for by his own baseness he will loose all, which either fortune, or other mens labours have cast upon him. By Vespasian, that in civill tumults an advised patience, and opportunitie well taken are the onely weapons of advantage. In them all, and in the state of Rome under them thou maiest see the calamities that follow civill warres, where lawes lie asleepe, and all things are iudged by the sword. If thou mislike their warres be thankfull for thine owne peace; if thou dost abhor their tyrannies, love and reverence thine owne wise, iust and excellent Prince.’ So whatever guise our age may assume, there are lessons to be drawn from Tacitus either directly or per contra, and his translators may be acquitted at a time when Latin scholarship is no longer an essential of political eminence.
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Little is known of Tacitus’ life, with Rome being most likely the location of his death
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Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24) Page 308