Читать книгу Tacitus and Bracciolini. The Annals Forged in the XVth Century - John Wilson Ross - Страница 30

I. Nature of the history.—II. Arrangement of the narrative.— III. Completeness in form.—IV. Incongruities, contradictions and disagreements from the History of Tacitus.—V. Craftiness of the writer.—VI. Subordination of history to biography.—VII. The author of the Annals and Tacitus differently illustrate Roman history.—VIII. Characters and events corresponding to characters and events of the XVth century.—IX. Greatness of the Author of the Annals.

I. Before proceeding to point out the imitations, and show where, in the efforts to write, and make history after the likeness of Tacitus, the author of the Annals fails; and, from the signal nature of his failures, his efforts are seen to be counterfeit, I may observe that a constant endeavour on his part to escape detection renders his imposture difficult to perceive and still more difficult to expose. A man of his penetration and power to enter far into subjects was, of course, deep enough to contrive every species of artifice to conceal his fraud; and as we have no record of his having been seen in the act of fabrication, or of his ever having been even suspected of so doing, I must prove the forgery by a detail of facts and circumstances. I can do this only by going through the Annals minutely—examining the matter, manner, treatment, knowledge, views, sentiments, language, style—in fact, a variety of circumstances—everything that can be thought of;—for if it really be a forgery, it cannot be exactly like the History of Tacitus in any one thing, whatever that one thing be;—then I shall leave the reader to himself, to take into account the whole of the circumstances, and judge whether such a combination could have existed in a genuine work by Tacitus, and is compatible with such a production.

We are to look, first, what the nature of the history purports to be;—whether there is nothing peculiar as to its character.

It will be obvious to the least sagacious that the most paramount and absolutely necessary thing to be accomplished was a vast and comprehensive execution that should correspond to the vast and comprehensive execution of Tacitus. Here was something to be done seemingly insuperable; for how can any one hope to imitate the execution of another, with such marvellous nicety that no distinction can be discerned between the two on the minutest test of microscopic investigation? more especially if the execution to be imitated be that of a man of real genius, consequently unparalleled in its way, of a mighty nature, and, in addition to its mightiness, a thing of the purest individuality. Now, the History of Tacitus is an execution of this description; it is a work of real genius; therefore, it is a distinct essence—a realization of all the special aptitude possessed by the master-spirit that penned it. But though this cannot be done, yet any one having genius—and a powerful genius—by following its bent directly, may expect to exhibit in the execution of a work an ability that shall be considered equal to the ability displayed in the execution of another, even though that other be a man of great genius; but it can only be upon this very sage precaution—that he exercises his ability, which must necessarily be of a very different kind, in quite a different manner. The forger of the Annals had much too acute a discernment not to know this;—he was also well aware that he had a very strong forte. We know the department in which he excelled—dealing with despotism, servility and bloodshed. But then, if he was to do this, he would do that, which would be a very strong proof that his work was a forgery; for if he was to do this, he could not take up the continuance of history as Tacitus intended to go on with it namely, with Nerva and Trajan;—that he could not do, because in dealing with those two rulers he would have to deal with men remarkable for mildness, generosity, leniency and good- heartedness;—thus he would have to deal with a subject which must be fatal to his attempt; for it would be opposed to the play of his peculiar gifts, which to be brought out properly required that he should write only of Emperors noted for cruel, unnatural, blood-thirsty tyranny. The plan of his undertaking, to be attended with success, therefore compelled him, whether he liked it or not, to go back to Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.

II. This must have been greatly against his will as a forger, because this difficulty must have risen up before his mental vision in colossal magnitude—that nobody, on careful consideration, could admit that Tacitus would have written the narrative of the half-century from the death of Augustus to the accession of Galba, after what he says at the commencement of his History, that the subject next to engage his attention would be the events that happened in the reigns of Nerva and Trajan. This, I repeat, is a point that brings forcibly before us the certainty of the Annals being forged, unless any one can believe with Niebuhr that, if Tacitus completed his History before the death of Trajan, and could not write of that Emperor as long as that Emperor lived, but "feeling a void," and "desiring to produce another work," he resumed History with the rule of Tiberius; but nobody can believe this, because it gets us into this enormous, nay, inexplicable difficulty—Why the writer, who, in the History, had shown an epic construction, with an epic opening and an epic story, should observe in the Annals quite another arrangement, and distribute the narrative in a studiously annalistic form? when, too, the disjointed record of the journalist was to be combined with the distinct arrangement of the historian who took the continued transactions of a nation in their multiplicity of details as they occurred at the same time in different places, and related them in clear and due unity in the subject.

III. Out of this variance in the two works arises another tremendous difficulty which we have to look at:—The Annals and the History are intended, the one to be the complement to the other. Then two works, which are necessary to each other, ought to be, when separated, incomplete: if one man wrote them they would be incomplete when separated; but if two men wrote them, they would be complete in themselves. Now, are the History and the Annals incomplete, when separated? or complete in themselves? Everybody acknowledges that they are complete in themselves; each contains everything requisite for the full understanding and enjoyment of each; each has its peculiar force; each its distinct beauty; and for uniformity to exist in the two many passages in both must be destroyed; and the most ingenious can give no just or adequate cause for the destruction of the passages, even as he can give no just or adequate cause for their existence, except that which I am advancing that it was because two men wrote the two works.

IV. This accounts at once for all the incongruities they owe their existence naturally enough to the following simple causes:—the different kinds of information possessed as well as the different views of things entertained by two different individuals; and, along with these, an occasional failing of the memory; for a man, who forges such a very long work as the Annals, must every now and then forget—however tenacious his memory may be—what the man, whom he simulates, has said, here and there, in this or that work, upon some minor point in Roman history, not associated with nor essential to the principal thing he has always to keep steadily in mind—his main matter. Thus we find no end of little trips in the Annals, many of which we will point out in their proper places as we proceed with this investigation: at present it is sufficient for the illustration of our remark to call the reader's attention to this fact:—In the Annals Augustus is represented having as his successors in the first degree Tiberius and Livia; in the second degree his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and in the third degree the leading nobles, including even some of those whom he hated, such, we may presume, as Labeo, his detractor, Gallus Asinius, who was thirsting for empire, and Lucius Arruntius, who would have made the attempt to unseat him had the opportunity presented itself:—"Tiberium et Liviam haeredes habuit … in spem secundam, nepotes pronepotesque: tertio gradu primores civitatis scripserat, plerosque invisos sibi, sed jactantia gloriaque ad posteros" (An. I. 8). Such an account of Augustus adopting these relations, and, after them, strangers and enemies, "out of vain-glory and for future renown,"—that is, to be admired by posterity for an unexampled display of humanity—could not have been written by Tacitus, being different in every respect from what he relates—and what he says, by the way, is also said by Suetonius—that Augustus, looking for a successor in his own family, placed next to himself in dignity, so as to be prepared to be his successor, his nephew, Marcellus, then his son-in-law, Agrippa, next his grandsons, and lastly, his step-son, Tiberius Nero:—"divi Augusti, qui sororis filium, Marcellum, dein generum, Agrippam, mox nepotes suos, postremo Tiberium Neronem, privignum, in proximo sibi fastigio collocavit" (Hist. I. 15).

Such disagreements, due—in all probability, more than to anything else—to the occasional failure of the memory—are sufficient in themselves to prove that the Annals and the History did not proceed from the same source. Accordingly, the man who forged the Annals, having apparently, this overwhelming and troublesome difficulty ever uppermost in his mind, seems to have taken measures for guarding against it as well as he could, and with as much care as he could. This taking precautions against the failure of memory must have been one of the main reasons, why he elected writing of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, when, as Tacitus, he ought to have written of Nerva and Trajan. He was thus enabled to relate a series of events prior to, and entirely different from the series of events related by Tacitus; there was thereby no possibility of his narrative clashing with that of his archetype; the most trying difficulties were in this way got over with sufficient ease; the only danger was with regard to a few individuals who lived during the two periods, and a few facts, that trailed their circumstances from one period into the other; but his main history would have nothing in common with the main history of Tacitus.

V. To borrow a phrase of Gualterius—he ran the risk of "falling into Scylla in trying to avoid Charybdis":

"Incidit in Scyllam, qui vult vitare Charybdin."

How could he convince the world that Tacitus would act with such twofold inconsistency as to write of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, when he had said that he would not do so, on account of the number of writers who had recorded the occurrences of their reigns, and that if he resumed the duties of an historian it would be with the reigns of Nerva and Trajan. The world—and nobody knew it better than the author of the Annals—is easily convinced; and there is no inconsistency, however monstrous, that it considers unaccountable. He, therefore, set about the task of convincing the world that Tacitus did this. Acting up to his own maxim, that "the way to get out of disgraceful acts that are evident is by audaciousness": "flagitiis manifestis subsidium ab audacia petendum" (An. XI. 26), he resorted to audacity in a trick, which has been hitherto eminently successful—making the world believe from a single remark which he introduced into his narrative as the double of Tacitus, that that noble Roman was really guilty of this twofold inconsistency, so that changeableness, unsteadiness of purpose and self-contradiction should seem to be his leading characteristics. Without ever intending to write the history of Augustus—or he never would have begun the Annals with an introduction in which he epitomizes principal events in the Roman State from its very foundation, otherwise what had he left to himself in a subsequent historical composition of a prior date for an appropriate exordium—he says in his third book that he would make the memorable events in the reign of Augustus the subject of a new history, should his health and life continue:—"cetera illius aetatis memorabo, si plures ad curas vitam produxero" (An. III. 24)—evidently only because Tacitus had said at the commencement of his History, that he had reserved as the employment of his old age, should his life be long enough, the reigns of Nerva and Trajan:—"quod si vita suppeditet, principatum Divi Nervae et imperium Trajani … senectuti seposui" (Hist. I. 1). There was then one and the same man saying in one place:—"I am going to write the History of Augustus when I am an old man;"—(and this being said in the Annals, the author of that book must have wanted the world to presume that the writer would have chosen the form of biography for it):—and in another place: "I am going to write the history of Nerva and Trajan when I am an old man"; (and this being said in the History, the author of the Annals must have supposed that the world might presume that the writer would have chosen the form of history for this continued production).

The author of the Annals having done this, opened out before himself the very widest field for indulging in all sorts of contradictions; for, after this, who would not be, and who is not, prepared for any contradictions? The contradictions come; and they are strange and numerous.

VI. There is a systematic subordination of history to biography throughout the Annals, in which imperial events are sacrificed to the prominence and effect of individual delineations: in the History there is a general, comprehensive review of the Empire at the time of Nero's death; Rome is the centre, and the subject matter the condition of a people affected by the imperial system of government. The History conveys political instruction; the Annals supplies materials for studying the human mind and the motives of human conduct: in imparting a knowledge of events respecting the Roman nation, the writer of the History, who is gifted with graphic power, places images before us, whereas the writer of the Annals, aware that in picturesqueness he was inferior to Tacitus, gives us impressions, while he investigates social phenomena and elucidates the principles of human nature. One work is historic, the other philosophic. One man generalizes, the other particularizes. We are presented with one set of interests in the History, with another set in the Annals. In the History we see the struggles of an empire and the convulsions of the world; in the Annals we are shut out from such a prospect, to have our view limited to the deeds of one or two emperors, and a few renowned individuals.

VII. Such differences, so striking and so essential, prove the Annals to be a forged book; for all these differences in the two works can only be ascribed to the entirely different turns of mind peculiar to two writers. Tacitus wrote as he did, from having a profounder knowledge of the springs of action in the political world than the author of the Annals. The author of the Annals, surpassing Tacitus with respect to the moral world, wrote as he did, from knowing better the motives that influence men's minds, and the passions that sway their hearts. The result of two such very different men composing two such very different works, is, that the contrast is almost as great when we turn from the History to the Annals, as when we turn from a general history of England by a Hume or a Lingard where we notice the origin of Englishmen's liberties and privileges, the chivalrous scenes of the past and the proud glories of the present, to the local record of some county, as Kent or Lancashire, by a Hasted or a Baines, embodying information of boroughs and parishes, town councils and corporations, where such things become of substantial importance as the clauses of charters, the collection of market dues, donations of maces and drinking cups to mayors, and gold or silver cradles to their ladies on the birth of babies during the year of office.

If the Annals is really to be considered a forgery, this, instead of being a matter of surprise, ought to be just the thing to be expected; because a clever fabricator, foreseeing that he would be suspected, and eager to foil detection, would know that the curious inquirer into a research of the present description would thus become baffled at every turn from inability, if not to discover it himself, at least, to explain to the satisfaction and conviction of others, the incompatibility of the workings of one spirit in one book with the workings of the other spirit in the other book, when the two compositions were so differently contrived. But if the Annals is to be considered as genuine, then nobody can explain why the same individual should illustrate Roman history in this singular fashion—both works being designed, as universally admitted, the one to be a complement to the other. What should be the inducement of the author of the Annals if he did not wish the world to deny that it was his handiwork to write his book so very differently from the History of Tacitus? For what was there in the times of Rome under Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian so very different from what the Roman Empire was under their immediate predecessors, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, that the part which has to do with events in the days of the first-named four emperors should treat of imperial transactions and be deficient in many of the memorials which claim notice in the part dealing with Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero; and, that the part which has to do with events in the times of the last-named four emperors should all but avoid what is amply recorded in the part, dealing with Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian, imperial occurrences finding but an occasional and almost accidental notice in the Annals, where the mind is encumbered with the minutiae of circumstantial details of individual deeds.

VIII. The author of the Annals, who (as I shall convincingly show hereafter) lived in the XVth century, seems, on account of that, to have had a still stronger reason than those just given for selecting as his subject the half century after the death of Augustus: its characters and events corresponded closely to the characters of the princes who ruled, and the nature of the movements that were going on all over Europe in his time; for in forging history, that was to pass as written by Tacitus, it was incumbent that he should have the same advantage as the Roman—be on the same level with him in the occupation of ground. Now, the ground occupied by Tacitus was the time of himself, which enabled him to give a complete and copious reflex of a period through which he had lived with thoughtful attention. Thus his colours are bright. Unless antiquity supplied the author of the Annals only the framework of his picture, and the events of the time when he lived gave the scenes for the painting, his colours would fail, and his outlines become unsteady. In other words, there could not be the scrupulous minuteness and the perfect freedom which make history live and breathe, unless, like Tacitus, he registered facts in which he took the deepest interest, from feeling their influence directly and powerfully exerted over himself, and the living and loved around him. Thus his hand, by being guided as the hand of Tacitus, would throw life into his work. And, truly, there is as much life in the Annals as in the History; but, instead of the air of the first century breathing around it, it is the air of the fifteenth.

This can be tested by many a character; one will suffice, that of Caius Piso in the fifteenth book (48). Pliny and Juvenal tell us that Piso was consul suffectus under Claudius: the Tabulae Arvales add that he was a member of the College of Twelve who offered sacrifice when there was increase in the produce of the soil. Writers and records of antiquity say no more of Caius Piso, not even mentioning the name of his father. On such a little known man a forger of Roman history could safely expatiate; the author of the Annals does so in a portraiture that bears the stamp of the fifteenth century: this is particularly observable when Piso is spoken of as "of brilliant repute among the populace for virtues," or, rather, "qualities that wore the form of virtues,"—"species virtutibus similes";—that he was "far from being morosely moral, or restrained by moderation in pleasures; mild in temper and soft in manners; given to pompous show and occasionally steeping himself in luxurious excesses,"—"procul gravitas morum, aut voluptatum parsimonia: lenitati ac magnificentiae et aliquando luxui indulgebat." This does not appear to be at all applicable to the character of any conspicuous personage belonging to the Roman Empire in the first century, when Romans were warriors still, preserving, amid some effeminacy, much of the hardy vigour of their Republican predecessors, ever and anon throwing aside the toga for the sagum, and rushing from the Forum to the field, to battle with ferocious and demi-nude savages, whom ever subduing they carried home captives chained to their triumphal chariots; but it does seem to be uncommonly applicable to a time when many a priest, whose writings manifest a lax habit of thinking and betray a levity, indeed, licentiousness, ill according with a religious turn of mind, rose to the position of a great dignitary of the Church and a powerful arbiter of the destinies of his kind. As that was an age when Alexander VI. was a Pope, and Lucretia Borgia the daughter of a Pontiff and consort of a reigning Duke of Italy, we can readily credit the author of the Annals, and laud him for admirable, life-like portraiture, when he says that a character and conduct, such as Piso's, "met with the approbation of a large number of people, who, indulging in vice as delightful, did not want at the head of affairs a strict practiser of the moral duties and an austere abstainer from vice:"—"pluribus probabatur, qui in tanta vitiorum dulcedine summum imperium non restrictum nec perseverum volunt."

The character is too vague in its outlines to be any particular individual's; but as all its points fit many an Italian priest who became a Cardinal or a Bishop and a chief minister to a prince, in the time of the Renaissance, as well as in the period immediately before it, and that immediately after it—it shows how men reflect the age they live in—how the principal biographies in any certain time convey a pretty accurate idea of the tone of mind then prevailing; further, and above all, it shows to what a great degree the books of the Annals reflect the chief features of the period when they were written, and how deeply their author enters into the spirit of his age.

As with characters so with events. Heaps of passages in the Annals read like incidents in the fifteenth century. It is more like a picture in an Italian court at that period than in a Roman Emperor's in the first century, when the arrest is made of Cneius Novius for being found treacherously armed with a dagger while mixing with the throng of courtiers bowing to the prince; and then when he is stretched on the rack, no confession being wrung from him as to accomplices; and the doubt that prevailed whether he really had fellow-conspirators. "Cneius Novius, eques Romanus, ferro accinctus reperitur in coetu salutantium principem. Nam, postquam tormentis dilaniabatur, de se non infitiatus conscios non edidit, incertum an occultans." (An. XI. 22.)

IX. In this way do I fancy I perceive the author of the Annals chose his subject and worked his materials, so as to do most justice to his talents, and more easily reach the height attained by Tacitus. When he had apparently thus sketched the plan of his edifice, and set about struggling with the difficulties of the elaboration, he encountered these with such eminent success that the reality of his literary labour is one of the most surprising facts in the history of the human mind. He seems never to have once deviated from his design nor to have ever been perplexed by embarrassments in the course of his undertaking, notwithstanding the voluminousness of its nature. In such a procedure, where the time he chose to descant upon fits in with all he wanted to accomplish, we see the first indication of the vast judgment he possessed, as well as the correct notion he had formed of the extent of his superior powers. In detecting in the author of the Annals so much judgment and such an exact estimate of his great mental faculties, we see the difficulty to be coped with in distinguishing between him and Tacitus, and thus in distinguishing between the spurious and the genuine: but this distinguishing can be accomplished by a minute, and only a most minute examination of the two works.