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The Starting-Point of Tacitus' Historiae: Fear or Favour by Omission?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

J. B. Hainsworth
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Tacitus' Historiae begin in the middle of a series of civil wars: initium mihi operis Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules erunt. This point of time leaves the revolts of Vindex and Galba behind and the revolts of Otho and Vitellius just about to begin. Such a plunge in medias res, more suitable for the novelist than the historian, was at one time sharply criticized. It would have been more logical, it was argued, to begin with the proclamation of Galba at the beginning of April A.d. 68, with the death of Nero on 9 June following, or with the death of Galba himself on 15 January A.d. 69. These points, or others even earlier or later, are better ‘natural breaks’ in the story, and consequently more satisfactory from the literary point of view than the arbitrary breaks of the calendar. On behalf of Tacitus it was maintained that in Roman historiography the annalistic method had the force of law (but what then of the starting-point of the Annales—ab excessu divi Augusti?), or that Tacitus took up the tale where some other historian, Cluvius Rufus perhaps or Fabius Rusticus, had left off (why then the long introduction extending to ch. II? Xenophon, for example, felt no such need for the Hellenica). Tacitus himself does not attempt to justify his choice of starting-point. In fact the use of the future tense (erunt) may be thought to imply that the matter is scarcely worth discussing at all. That was likely, I think, to have been Tacitus' hope and intention. If it was so, it has been realized in the most recent scholarship, which, having failed to make out a conclusive case for or against any other date, has fallen back on the belief that 1 January A.d. 69 was, faute de mieux, inevitable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , October 1964 , pp. 128 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1964

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References

page 128 note 1 Bibliographical references and a concise discussion of the controversy will be found in SirSyme, Ronald, Tacitus (Oxford, 1958), 145 ff.Google Scholar

page 128 note 2 Observe that Sallust, whose prologue to his own Historiae is held to be the model for Tacitus, used the perfect: res … gestas composui.

page 129 note 1 It is probably for this reason that Tacitus has no allusion to the financial crisis. This must have developed in A.d. 68, although it is introduced as something new at i. 20—an instance of the sort of obscurity that the chosen starting-point involves.

page 129 note 2 Thus here trucidatis tot milibus is probably an exaggeration: cf. Plutarch, , Galba 15Google Scholar and Suetonius, , Galba 12.Google Scholar

page 130 note 1 … abolendae magis infamiae ob amissum cum Quintilio Varo exercitum quam cupidine proferendi imperii, Ann. i. 3Google Scholar. For the family relationships the neatness of the Latin terminology is useful: Tib. Neronem et Claudium Drusum privignos; genitos Agrippa Gaium ac Lucium; M. Agrippam generum sumpsit; nepotem Agrippam Postumum; Germanicum Druso ortum. All would know, what is not overtly stated, that Livia was the wife of Augustus.

page 130 note 2 It cannot be stressed too much that the Historiae are a separate work, conceived independently of the Annales and completed much earlier. Doubtless a ‘chapter of Roman History’ ends with the death of Nero, but it does not follow that a chapter or book of the written history must also end with Nero and a new chapter or book begin with Galba. That would be true only of a general history (cf. the C.A.H. for example), never of a special work.

page 130 note 3 Observe the description of the actual subject matter: opus … opimum casibus, atrox proeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum, Hist. i. 2.Google Scholar

page 130 note 4 Since the defects of 1 January A.d. 69 are partly literary and aesthetic, different critics will feel them in varying degrees: some perhaps not at all. This is not the place for elaborate argument: but, to put the matter in a nutshell, the professed aim of ancient historiography is to give non solum quid actum out dictum sit, sed etiam quo modo, et cum de eventu dicatur, ut causae explicentur omnes (Cicero, , De Or. ii. 63Google Scholar, cf. Hist. i. 4)Google Scholar. The question is: Is this aim better served by a leap in medias res, or by beginning at the beginning?

page 131 note 1 There are sundry illustrations in the Pliny letters of the pressures felt by historians: in Epist. ix. 19Google Scholar Cluvius Rufus attempts to mitigate an offence (against Verginius Rufus, a significant fact, as will appear) by an appeal to the veracity expected of history: in Epist. ix. 27Google Scholar an historian is silenced by a deputation. Though not in the same class as Cicero's letter to Lucceius (Ad Fam. v. 12)Google Scholar, Epist. vii. 33Google Scholar solicits Tacitus for a complimentary mention, and the account of his uncle's death (Epist. vi. 16)Google Scholar makes it clear what image Pliny expects Tacitus to give the public.

page 131 note 2 Cf. the outburst at Agricola 42Google Scholar: the same point, in more moderate language, is made both in Historiae iv. 8Google Scholar (Eprius Marcellus speaking) and Annales xv, 52Google Scholar. It is not so much that history would reopen old wounds; it plunged rather into the heat of current controversy. Roman public life did not let bygones be bygones. Thus a pamphlet against Arulenus Rusticus in A.d. 93 or 94 harked back to a minor incident of 69—‘Vitelliana cicatrice stigmosum’ (quoted Pliny, , Epist. i. 5)Google Scholar, cf. Hist. iii. 80Google Scholar. Pliny alludes to the murder of Calpurnius Piso by Festus, Valerius, Epist. iii. 7Google Scholar, cf. Hist. iv. 50Google Scholar; to Regulus' part in the murder of Licinianus, Piso, Epist. ii. 20Google Scholar, cf. Hist. iv. 42Google Scholar; to his prosecutions under Nero, , Epist. i. 5Google Scholar; and to Silius Italicus' besmirched fame under Nero, , Epist. iii. 7.Google Scholar

page 132 note 1 This is the natural implication of the epigram, but the laconic style is inevitably consistent with other conceivable hypotheses. Thus ‘pulso Vindice’ has been taken as a merely temporal construction. In his own lifetime Verginius was discreet enough not to boast too much of his achievement (Epist. ix. 19).Google Scholar

page 132 note 2 Kraay, C. M., Numismatic Chronicle, 1949, 129ffGoogle Scholar. There is a discussion by Chilver, G. E. F., JRS 47 (1957), 29ff.Google Scholar

page 132 note 3 Variously identified as Elder Pliny, Cluvius Rufus, Fabius Rusticus, or an Unknown: cf. Syme, , Tacitus, 178ffGoogle Scholar. The argument from amicitiae developed below damages the claims of Pliny and Rusticus.

page 133 note 1 Historia 11 (1962), 86ff.Google Scholar

page 134 note 1 Cf. the tenderness towards Cornelius Fuscus and Vestricius Spurinna, and contrast the rough handling of Antonius Primus and Fabius Valens. Fuscus may have a link with Tacitus (cf. Syme, , Tacitus, 623, n. 4)Google Scholar; Spurinna had influence with the Younger Pliny, (Epist. i. 5).Google Scholar

page 134 note 2 See Syme, , Tacitus, 63ff. and 611 ff.Google Scholar, for a critical survey.

page 135 note 1 Epist. ii. 1Google Scholar. His touchiness comes out well in ix. 19 when his friend Ruso ventured a criticism.

page 135 note 2 Among recent writers Mendell, C. W., Tacitus: the man and his work (New Haven, 1957), 15ff.Google Scholar, advocates the closest links: Syme, , Tacitus, 112ff.Google Scholar, is far more cautious.

page 136 note 1 Tacitean attitudes in the Annales may have been different. The death of Pliny, the author's retirement from public life, his increasing pessimism, the prospect of posthumous publication would all help to increase his independence and sharpen the acerbity of his judgements. He did not then spare the Elder Pliny's uncritical erudition, an unthinkable assault at the time of the Historiae, and may well have gone on to complete the true story of Nero's fall.