es in privatos dicatior, cum in ipsos principes tam
facile inveharis, et tamen nullius injuria, aut vitae
contumelia facit, ut tam sis promptus, aut copiosus
in eorum objurgationem. Novi nonnullos qui abs
te excipi deberent ab reliquorum caterva viri docti,
egregii, omnique laude et commendatione dignissimi.
Unde mecum saepius cogitans addubitare cogor quaenam
sit potissimum causa, cur in vituperando sis quam,
&c.” (Pog. Op. p. 394)
We who live in these days and know how exemplary,
as a rule, for piety and excellent conduct, are Popes,
Cardinals, Bishops and, in fact, the clergy in the
Church of Rome, as well as the dignitaries and pastors
in all the other ecclesiastical establishments of
Europe, and who, at the same time, honour and admire
crowned heads and princes, ministers and great men
for their position and virtues, cannot realize to
ourselves how there ever could have been such hatefully
contemptible personages in the sovereign and loftiest
places as are depicted in the Annals, page after page,
nor can we bring ourselves to believe that there ever
existed such a bevy of brilliant malefactors, except
in the judgment and fancy of one who did not shine
among the most amiable of mankind as he, certainly,
shone among the most able.
FURTHER PROOFS OF FORGERY.
I. “Octavianus” as the name of Augustus
Caesar.—II. Cumanus and Felix as joint
governors of Judaea.—III. The blood
relationship of Italians and Romans.—IV.
Fatal error in the oratio obliqua.—V.
Mistake made about “locus".—VI.
Objections of some critics to the language of Tacitus
examined.—VII. Some improprieties
that occur in the Annals found also in Bracciolini’s
works.—VIII. Instanced in (a)
“nec ... aut”, (b) rhyming and
the peculiar use of “pariter".—IX.
The harmony of Tacitus and the ruggedness of Bracciolini
illustrated.—X. Other peculiarities
of Bracciolini’s not shared by Tacitus:
Two words terminating alike following two others with
like terminations; prefixes that have no meaning;
and playing on a single letter for alliterative purposes.
I. If there be one man more than another who might
easily fall into the error of supposing that an ancient
Roman could take in the most capricious and arbitrary
way any name he pleased, Flavius, or Julius, or Pius,
it would be a man like Bracciolini, who, as Secretary
of the Popes for forty years, was in the habit of
seeing every now and then, and that, too, at very brief
intervals, a Cardinal, on being raised to the dignity
of the Papacy, take any name from whim or fancy, and,
sometimes a very queer name, too, as a Cossa taking
the name of John, or a Colonna the name of Martin.
This being admitted, it seems quite consistent that
Bracciolini should speak of Augustus Caesar, before
he was Emperor, as “Octavianus.”
When we read in the XIIIth book of the Annals (6),
“imperatori” (Bracciolini’s word
