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TITLE: TACITUS AND BRACCIOLINI
AUTHOR: JOHN WILSON ROSS
EBOOK: E06278 (O'Briens Book Cellar)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

TACITUS AND BRACCIOLINI.

THE ANNALS FORGED IN THE XVth CENTURY.

by JOHN WILSON ROSS (1818-1887)

Originally published anonymously in 1878.

    Non ulli Tacitus patuit manifestius unquam.
                                         SOSSAGO. _Epigrammata_.

    Excellentissimum Poggium, immortalem quidem virum, sed prope
    hac aetate sepultum, redivivium donaveris nobis.
               BICCIONI. _Epistola Hyacintho de Lan inscripta._

    Is ... reliquit, quae et facundiam, et mirificam ingenii
    facilitatem ostendunt. Tendebat toto animo, et quotidiano
    quodam usu ad EFFINGENDUM ... Sed habet hoc dilucida illa
    divini hominis in dicendo copia, ut estimanti se imitabilem
    praebeat, _experienti spem imitationis eripiat_. Eam
    igitur dicendi laudem POGGIUS si non facultate, at _certe
    voluntate_ complectebatur. Scripsit ... Historiam ...
    magnuum munus.
         PAOLO CORTESE (Bishop of Urbino). _De Hominibus Doctis_.

    Quaestio ... contra communem totius orbis traditionem ac fidem,
    contra tot historicocum ... nemine contradicente, consensum,
    demum agitari coepta est; et a nobis ... tam abunde ventilate,
    ut magis copia quam inopia laborare videamur.
         GISBERT VOET. _Spicilegium ad Disceptationem Historicam de
                       Papissa Johanna._

LONDON: 1878

I DEDICATE
TO MY ESTEEMED AND ESTIMABLE BROTHER
ROBERT DALRYMPLE ROSS

This Research
into
The Authorship of the Annals of Tacitus

AS A VERY SLIGHT TOKEN
OF MY AFFECTION
AND ALSO
OF MY ADMIRATION
FOR HIS RARE ASSEMBLAGE OF QUALITIES
LOFTY MORAL RECTITUDE
THE KINDLIEST FEELINGS OF THE HEART
DEVOTION TO HIGH OCCUPATION
APTITUDE FOR BOOKS AS FOR AFFAIRS

AND

A REFINED ENLIGHTENMENT
TO APPRECIATE
THE GENIUS OF TACITUS AND OF BRACCIOLINI

AND

FULLY TO APPREHEND
AN INVESTIGATION UNDERTAKEN
IN THE TRUE INTERESTS OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE.

PREFACE

The theory broached in this book involves a charge of the
grossest fraud against a most distinguished man, who rose to high
posts in public affairs and won imperishable fame in letters.
There being blots on his moral character, it would be censurable
to fasten upon his memory this new imputation of dishonesty, were
it not substantiated by irresistible evidence.

The title of this book quite explains what its design is,--to
contribute something towards settling the authorship of the Annals
of Tacitus, which encomiastic admirers imagine to be the most
extraordinary history ever penned, and the writer "but one degree
removed from inspiration, if not inspired." This wondrous writer I
assert to be the famous Florentine of the Renaissance, Poggio
Bracciolini, in favour of which view I have tried to make out a
case by bringing forward a variety of passages from the "History"
and the "Annals" to show an extensive series of contradictions as
to facts and characters, departures from truth about matters
connected with ancient Roman life, laches in grammar and use of
words that never could have proceeded from any patrician or
plebian of the world-renowned old Commonwealth, with a number of
other things that will readily strike the intelligent and sober
mind as utterly inconsistent with the existing belief of the
"Annals" being the production of Tacitus. All this is case in the
shade for the fullest light to be thrown on the subject, when not
wishing to make my theory a matter of speculation but founded in
common sense, I give a detailed history of the forgery, from its
conception to its completion, the sum that was paid for it, the
abbey where it was transcribed, and other such convincing minutiae
taken from a correspondence that Poggio carried on with a familiar
friend who resided in Florence.

A reader of acumen and critical faculty following a writer in an
inquiry of this nature places himself in the position of a lawyer
who will not accept the interpretation of an Act of Parliament, or
even a clause in it, as correct, except,--as his phrase goes,--it
"runs upon all fours:" he knows that it is with a speculation in a
literary matter as with a chapter of a statute: he struggles to
raise only a single valid objection against what is advanced: if
successful he at one destroys the whole of the theory, from thus
exposing it to view as not "running upon all fours;" the fabric
is, in fact, discovered to be reared on a false foundation; it
must, therefore, fall as at the slightest breath a child's house
built of cards; and the theory becomes one more added to the list
of those that are apocryphal. If on examination it should be
agreed that the theory in this book is without a flaw, I conceived
that I shall have done not a small, but a considerable service to
the cause of true history.

LONDON, _April_ 3, 1878.

CONTENTS.

BOOK THE FIRST.

TACITUS.

CHAPTER I.

TACITUS COULD BARELY HAVE WRITTEN THE ANNALS.

 I. From the chronological point of view.
 II. The silence preserved about that work by all writers till
 the fifteenth century.
 III. The age of the MSS. containing the Annals.

CHAPTER II.

A FEW REASONS FOR BELIEVING THE ANNALS TO BE A FORGERY.

 I. The fifteenth century an age of imposture, shown in the
 invention of printing.
 II. The curious discovery of the first six books of the Annals.
 III. The blunders it has in common with all forged documents.
 IV. The Twelve Tables.
 V. The Speech of Claudius in the Eleventh Book of the Annals.
 VI. Brutus creating the second class of nobility.
 VII. Camillus and his grandson.
 VIII. The Marching of Germanicus.
 IX. Description of London in the time of Nero.
 X. Labeo Antistius and Capito Ateius; the number of people
 executed for their attachment to Sejanus; and the
 marriage of Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, to the
 Elder Antonia.

CHAPTER III.

SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER OF THE ANNALS FROM THE POINT OF TREATMENT.

 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 in the XVth century.
 IX. Greatness of the Author of the Annals.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW THE ANNALS DIFFERS FROM THE HISTORY.

 I. In the qualities of the writers; and why that difference.
 II. In the narrative, and in what respect.
 III. In style and language.
 IV. The reputation Tacitus has of writing bad Latin due to the
 mistakes of his imitator.

CHAPTER V.

THE LATIN AND THE ALLITERATIONS IN THE ANNALS.

 I. Errors in Latin, (_a_) on the part of the transcriber;
 (_b_) on the part of the writer.
 II. Diction and Alliterations: Wherein they differ from those
 of Tacitus.

BOOK THE SECOND.

BRACCIOLINI.

CHAPTER I.

BRACCIOLINI IN ROME.

 I. His genius and the greatness of his age.
 II. His qualifications.

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