Tacitus and Other Roman Studies

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Tacitus, and Other Roman Studies (1906)
by Gaston Boissier, translated by William G. Hutchison
Gaston Boissier193055Tacitus, and Other Roman Studies1906William G. Hutchison

TACITUS

AND OTHER ROMAN STUDIES


BY

GASTON BOISSIER

PROFESSOR OF LATIN ELOQUENCE AT THE COLLEGE
DE FRANCE; PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF
THE ACADEMIE FRANÇAISE


TRANSLATED BY

W. G. HUTCHISON



LONDON

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE

AND COMPANY, LTD.

1906

Edinburgh, T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty

PREFACE


The Romans had a very just appreciation of the merit of their historians. Quintilian, in his rapid survey of the writers of his country, asserts that there are three literary forms in which they bear comparison with those of Greece. 'Satire,' he says, 'is wholly ours. . . . In the elegy we are their rivals. . . . Our historians take no lower place than theirs.'[1]

Let us note that when Quintilian thus expressed himself he was unacquainted with the works of Tacitus, that is to say of the greatest man among them. In his time it was a question for dispute whether Sallust or Livy were preeminent. The classicists preferred Livy, who delighted them by the pure and abundant flow of his eloquence. The new school was fascinated by the vigorous strokes and the profundity of Sallust, and Martial, who liked to embody in well-turned verses the opinions of his time, had no hesitation in saying:

Crispus romana primus in historia.

To-day we rank Tacitus above the two others; he even enjoys the privilege, in the decline of classical studies, of preserving all his popularity. Not only is he read still, though the ancient authors have scarce any longer readers, but to speak of him is almost a claim to be read. I have no pretension in these few pages to exhaust all that could be said of him. I shall emphasise certain questions which might have been much discussed, both in Germany and amongst ourselves, with respect to the manner in which he conceived of history and on his way of judging events and men.

I crave permission to add to this work on Tacitus some studies published on various occasions, which may serve for its elucidation.

  1. Satira tota nostra est . . . elegia Græcos provocamus . . . non historia cesserit Græcis . . . Inst. orat., x. 1.


 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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Translation:

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse