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Tacitus during the late Roman Period and the Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

F. Haverfield
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Extract

While lately engaged with an edition of the ‘Agricola,’ it occurred to me to enquire how far Tacitus was read, and his works copied, during the period between his lifetime and the introduction of printing. Such an enquiry is more necessary than is always realised, if one is to appreciate properly the character and importance of the manuscripts of an ancient author. One needs not only to know their dates, relationships and general merits or demerits, but also to understand what may be called their ‘background,’ that is to know how far the author in question was seriously studied and his works copied during the centuries between his own day and the Renaissance. I therefore tried to work out some account of the history of Tacitus in this respect. I have been able to do this only very briefly, but the sketch, though short, may interest some readers of our Journal, and, being more or less historical, is not alien to its proper scope. Moreover, no quite similar sketch seems to exist, either in English or, so far as I am aware, in any language.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 6 , November 1916 , pp. 196 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © F. Haverfield1916. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 196 note 1 See Peterson, , Dialogus (Oxford, 1893), p. lxiiGoogle Scholar.

page 196 note 2 There are exceptions. A Naples manuscript contains the ‘Dialogus’ (C), ‘Germania,’ also ‘Annals’ 11–16, ‘Histories,’ and in addition some Suetonius.

page 197 note 1 Gudeman (ed. 2), p. 115.

page 197 note 2 If the predecessor be a poet, any mention or even quotation may be derived from an anthology, or ‘florilegium.’ Anthologies of prose writers are naturally rarer than of poets, but it is rather strange that Tacitus's epigrams— ‘solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant,’ and the like—seem never to have been gathered into any ‘florilegium.’

page 197 note 3 For the supposed references to Tacitus cited below, I am partly indebted to the indices of the Vienna Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum and of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, partly to articles by M. Manitius, and a dissertation by Cornelius, E., ‘Quo modo Tacitus in hominum memoria versatus sit, usque ad renascentes litteras’ (Wetzlar, 1887–1888)Google Scholar.

page 198 note 1 The question was raised by Mommsen in Hermes, 1870, see Gesammelte Schriflen, vii, 224–252; cp. also E. G. Hardy, Studies in Roman Hist, i, 295–334 (1906)Google Scholar. Both think that Plut. and Tac. followed one common authority very closely. Mommsen finds this authority in Cluvius Rufus, Hardy in the ‘Histories’ of the elder Pliny, which began ‘where Aufidius Bassus left off,’ probably about A.D. 54. Nipperdey (Introd. to his ed. of the ‘Annals’) vehemently combats the view that Tac. followed any authority very closely.

page 198 note 2 Writing about A.D. 305 in the Historia Augusta (27, 10, 3). The Historia Augusta is of course a poor authority, but this item may pass. On the date of Vopiscus's writings see Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften, vii, 331Google Scholar. Manuscripts of Tacitus, must, then, have been rare about A.D. 275.

page 199 note 1 Gudeman (Dial. ed. 2, p. 12) compares Dial. 34, 7 with Eumenius, ‘pro instaur. scholis,’ 3, 2,Google Scholar ‘velut sudibus ac saxis dimicatur.’ The resemblance, if not quite convincing, is not altogether negligible.

page 199 note 2 Compare, for instance, the quatrain on Galba (Auson. ed. Peiper, p. 189) with Hist. I, 49.

page 200 note 1 See Ritter, introd. p. iv; Furneaux's Annals, vol. i (ed. 2), introd. p. 6;Google Scholar Gudeman, Dial. p. I. That Rudolf had seen the ‘Germania’ and ‘Annals’ (1 and 2) seems unquestionable. Later (about A.D. 950) Widukind of Corbei shows acquaintance with the ‘Annals’ (Manitius, Gescb. der lat. Literatur, i).

page 200 note 2 Loew, Beneventan Script, 1914, p. 11.

page 200 note 3 Sandys, , Hist. of Classical Scholarship (Cambridge, 1906) vol. i, p. 662,Google Scholar note 6.

page 201 note 1 Rhys, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1895, p. 311; see also Anscombe, Y Cymmrodor, xxiv, 1913, pp. 75, 78,Google Scholar table ii. Aircol is in the genealogy given as father of Guortepyr or Vortiporius, whom Gildas (de excidio 31) mentions as prince of the Demetae and as boni regis filius nequam, and who is also (as it seems) known from an inscription (Ephemeris epigraphica, ix, 1030). This would put Aircol somewhere in the sixth century A.D.

page 201 note 2 Dr. Montagu James, Provost of Eton, has suggested to me that, in the time of Alcuin (A.D. 735–804), a manuscript of Tacitus may have existed in the Cathedral library at York. There, according to Alcuin's enthusiastic lines, were:

Historici veteres, Pompeius, Plinius; ipse

Acer Aristoteles; rhetor quoque Tullius ingens

and also copies of Orosius and Cassiodorus (cited by Mullinger, J. B., Schools of Charles the Great (London, 1877), p. 60;Google Scholar see also Migne, 101, 843); if Tacitus was among the ‘historici veteres,’ Alcuin's pupil, Hrabanus Maurus (died 856), might have taken a copy to Fulda or its neighbourhood, in time for Eginhard or others to use it. But a copy of the ‘Agricola’ at York must have surely become known to Bede, and would have been cited by him in the opening of his Hist. Eccl. i, 1–3, in which Pliny, Orosius and Solinus are freely quoted; Bede wrote the H.E. about A.D. 731.

page 201 note 3 There are occasional traces. Guibert of Nogent (North France), who died 1124, must have been quoting the Germania, ch. 19, when he wrote modernum hoc saeculum corrumpitur et corrumpit (Migne, 156,858). Corrumpere et corrumpi recurs in Annals (4, 14, 20). but the use of saeculum by Guibert leaves no room for doubt that he used the Germania here.