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1 results

  • 32 - History and biography

  • from PART V - EARLY PRINCIPATE
  • Edited by E. J. Kenney, W. V. Clausen
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Classical Literature
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    18 March 1982, pp 639-666

  • Summary

    Several major historians, including Aufidius, Servilius, and Pliny, flourished in the century between Livy and Tacitus. Of the historical writing of this period only two representatives survive, Curtius and Velleius. Velleius is much indebted to Livy and Sallust, more to the former, though he sets great store by brevity. Curtius writes volubly, almost precipitately, as if embarrassed by a surplus of material, but he is never in real difficulties. Tacitus never became a classic or school-book in antiquity, for he arrived too late to enter a limited repertoire. As a traditionalist in an age of declining standards he was averse from outline history and scandalous biography, and his brevity defied the tribe of excerptors and abbreviators. In the Agricola, his earliest work, Tacitus amalgamates biography and historical monograph. Tacitus' historical style is a masterful and strange creation, difficult to characterize.