LANGUAGE, ALLITERATION, ACCENT AND WORDS.
I. The poetic diction of Tacitus, and its fabrication
in the Annals.—II. Florid passages
in the Annals.—III. Metrical composition
of Bracciolini.—IV. Figurative words:
(a) “pessum dare”; (b) “voluntas".—The
verb foedare and the Ciceronian use of foedus.—VI.
The language of other Roman writers,—Livy,
Quintus Curtius and Sallust.—VII. The
phrase “non modo ... sed”, and other anomalous
expressions, not Tacitus’s.—VIII.
Words not used by Tacitus, distinctus and codicillus.—IX.
Peculiar alliterations in the Annals and works of
Bracciolini.—X. Monotonous repetition
of accent on penultimate syllables.—XI.
Peculiar use of words: (a) properus; (b)
annales and scriptura; (c) totiens. —XII.
Words not used by Tacitus: (a) addubitare;
(b) exitere.—XIII. Polysyllabic
words ending consecutive sentences. —XIV.
Omission of prepositions: (a) in; (b)
with names of nations.
I. Any student of Thucydides and Tacitus must have
observed that, though both support their opinions
by sober, rational remarks, Thucydides expresses himself
with logical accuracy in the calm and cold phraseology
of passionless prose, whereas Tacitus ever and anon
indulges in figures of rhetoric and poetic diction.
He changes things which can be considered only with
reference to thought into solid, visible forms, as
when he speaks of “wounds,” instead of
“the wounded,” being taken to mothers and
wives: “ad matres, ad conjuges vulnera
ferunt” (Germ. 7). He ascribes to the lifeless
what can be properly attributed only to the living,
as when he makes “day and the plain reveal,”
“detexit dies et campus” (Hist.
II. 62). He speaks of things done in a place
as if they were done by the place itself, as Judaea
elevating Libanon into its principal mountain”:
“praecipuum montium Libanon erigit”
i.e., Judaea (Hist. V. 6). He applies
epithets to objects that are local, as if they were
mental or moral, as we hear of “a chaste
grove” ("nemus castum”) in the
Germany (40).
Any one who had carefully analyzed his writings with
the view of imitating him by forgery could not have
failed to notice this; the consequence is that if
we were to have a forgery, we should have a very close
reproduction of this style of expression, and it would
show itself to be forgery, by being without the boldness,
spontaneity and novelty of the original; it would be
timid, forced, and elaborately close and cramped.
Now just this copying of a fabricator is what we find
in the Annals. Exactly corresponding, to Tacitus’s
“wounds” instead of “the wounded,”
is seeing blood streaming in families,”
meaning “suicides,” and “the hands
of executioners,” meaning “the executed”:
“aspiciens undantem per domos sanguinem
