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INTRODUCTION
impartially, and was a diligent student and compiler of materials,
aiming at basing his narrative on a ' consensus auctorum.' But
like other ancient historians he probably had little sense of the
necessity of correctly estimating the intrinsic merits of the authors
from whom he drew his material. And in the earlier part of the
Attnals it is more than probable that his portrait of Tiberius is
unfairly coloured, because he has drawn for his facts upon au-
thorities violently prejudiced against that monarch. P"or such
suspicions against the subject-matter of the four last books there is
less foundation. The events there recorded took place in Tacitus'
own childhood: as a young man he must have had frequent
opportunity of meeting and talking with people who had lived
under Nero, and in the light of what he heard from them he
would be less likely to be misled by the writers whom he con-
sulted, if they were guilty of misrepresentation. And these
writers were certainly in a position to know the facts.
Tacitus' conception of the /unction of history.
§ 5. Tacitus' professed purpose in writing history is a moral
one, 'to rescue virtue from oblivion, and that base words and
deeds should have the fear of posthumous infamy' (iii 65, i) ; he
wishes, in fact, to influence men in the right direction by holding
up examples of noble conduct for imitation, of base conduct for
avoidance. At the same time it is his aim to point out the right
political conduct for the subjects of the principate ; ' how even
under bad princes there can be good citizens' {Agr. 42, 5) ; that
the best course is at the same time the safest, and is one of digni-
fied moderation, such as that followed by Manius Lepidus under
Tiberius, Memmius Regulus under Nero, and Agricola under
Domitian, avoiding on the one hand the vile obsequiousness of
the flatterers and tools, who after all were discarded by their master
or punished by his successor, and on the other such truculent and
ostentatious opposition as that of Helvidius Priscus, inviting and
incurring destruction.
This point of view gives his work a wider range than that of
a mere biographer like Suetonius. To Tacitus the general working
of the Roman system is interesting as a field for the display of
character, and events are selected and represented in illustration
viii
impartially, and was a diligent student and compiler of materials,
aiming at basing his narrative on a ' consensus auctorum.' But
like other ancient historians he probably had little sense of the
necessity of correctly estimating the intrinsic merits of the authors
from whom he drew his material. And in the earlier part of the
Attnals it is more than probable that his portrait of Tiberius is
unfairly coloured, because he has drawn for his facts upon au-
thorities violently prejudiced against that monarch. P"or such
suspicions against the subject-matter of the four last books there is
less foundation. The events there recorded took place in Tacitus'
own childhood: as a young man he must have had frequent
opportunity of meeting and talking with people who had lived
under Nero, and in the light of what he heard from them he
would be less likely to be misled by the writers whom he con-
sulted, if they were guilty of misrepresentation. And these
writers were certainly in a position to know the facts.
Tacitus' conception of the /unction of history.
§ 5. Tacitus' professed purpose in writing history is a moral
one, 'to rescue virtue from oblivion, and that base words and
deeds should have the fear of posthumous infamy' (iii 65, i) ; he
wishes, in fact, to influence men in the right direction by holding
up examples of noble conduct for imitation, of base conduct for
avoidance. At the same time it is his aim to point out the right
political conduct for the subjects of the principate ; ' how even
under bad princes there can be good citizens' {Agr. 42, 5) ; that
the best course is at the same time the safest, and is one of digni-
fied moderation, such as that followed by Manius Lepidus under
Tiberius, Memmius Regulus under Nero, and Agricola under
Domitian, avoiding on the one hand the vile obsequiousness of
the flatterers and tools, who after all were discarded by their master
or punished by his successor, and on the other such truculent and
ostentatious opposition as that of Helvidius Priscus, inviting and
incurring destruction.
This point of view gives his work a wider range than that of
a mere biographer like Suetonius. To Tacitus the general working
of the Roman system is interesting as a field for the display of
character, and events are selected and represented in illustration
viii
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Early Gaelic Book Collections > Matheson Collection > Cornelli Taciti annalium > (12) |
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Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/76567087 |
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Description | Items from a collection of 170 volumes relating to Gaelic matters. Mainly philological works in the Celtic and some non-Celtic languages. Some books extensively annotated by Angus Matheson, the first Professor of Celtic at Glasgow University. |
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Description | Selected items from five 'Special and Named Printed Collections'. Includes books in Gaelic and other Celtic languages, works about the Gaels, their languages, literature, culture and history. |
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