gainer; no flowery octaves could match the soldier's jerky, honest phrases.

We do not know when Don Alonso died, nor how. "Hung, king of an isle, governor of a city, monk, beggar, brilliant officer?" asks the French translator; for in life he had been all but the first. We do not know. But we will take oath that the old warrior set his face to the foe, and that the reaper did not conquer him without a struggle.

TACITUS AND SOME ROMAN IDEALS*

JEFFERSON ELMORE

In the first book of the Annals1 Tacitus relates the case of two Roman knights who were charged with impiety, the one for having sold a statue of Augustus along with the pleasure garden in which it stood, and the other for having sworn a false oath by the divinity of Augustus. The accusations, which were first made before the consuls, came to the attention of the emperor Tiberius, who decided that no offence had been committed. "There was no impiety," he said, "in including a statue of Augustus, as of any other deity, in the sale of houses or gardens. As for the perjury it should be judged as if the name of Jupiter had been taken in vain; the gods must avenge their own wrongs. In this last sentence Tacitus states the great principle of religious toleration, which, except in cases of suspected political disaffection, was the fundamental policy of the Roman government. It was doubtless a somewhat cynical toleration. "To the mass of the Romans" says Gibbon, "all religions were equally true, to the magistrates they were all equally useful, and to the philosophers all equally false." However this may be, Roman tolerance as a rule

* President's address delivered before the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast in San Francisco, November 29, 1915. 1 i 73.

2 The passages cited from the Annals are for the most part given in Ramsay's rendering, those from the Histories and the Agricola, in Fyfe's.

left the mind free, and it is glory enough for Tacitus to have singled out for approval and special record the principle which the modern world has only recently put into practice, and to have given it a powerful and altogether fitting expression.

Likewise in his theory of life in general the significance of Tacitus is in his relation to already existing beliefs.3 What is the dominating principle in human affairs? Is it providence, or chance, or necessity, or freedom? In certain passages he speaks as if the things that happen were determined by the gods, but he realizes that the difficulty of this doctrine is that the evil so often flourish while the good are cast down. It may be that there is a moral good which exists independently of external circumstances a solution of the problem to which we ourselves frequently resort. More commonly Tacitus sees in events the work of chance. This is not the Latin Fortuna so much as Túxn, the powerful Greek goddess; or, if it be regarded more scientifically, it is a cause whose factors are so complex and so unknown that its operation can not be predicted. It is the same principle which plays so great a part in the modern theory of the origin of new species and which with its assumption of accidental variations, expressly disclaims the idea of purpose. Tacitus' favorite explanation of events is necessity or fate or destiny. To every one, in some mysterious way, is given one choice of life after which every thing is immutably fixed whether by the influence of the stars or by the sequence of natural causes. This doctrine which belongs both to astrology and Stoicism, being in fact the contribution of the former to the latter, played a great part in the ancient world, to say nothing of its reappearance in the all-pervading determinism of modern science. In giving the principle so much importance in the affairs of life Tacitus is a true inter

* I am indebted here to Pöhlmann's die Weltanschaung des Tacitus.

4 Kellogg, Darwinism Today, pp. 13 and 375.

preter of the Italian mind both of his own day and of the present. Finally, Tacitus raises the question whether after all men are not free to act as they will and to be the arbiters of their own fortunes. Here then we have four possible hypotheses. Necessity and chance may be in final analysis different aspects of the same thing, but it is obvious that they can not be reconciled either with providence or with free will. Tacitus makes no attempt to reconcile them. Indeed, as historian he is concerned with them only in secondary fashion, and is content like the most of us to leave unsolved the great question of destiny and freedom.

So far I have spoken of Tacitus in his relation to certain current ideas, which gave little opportunity for original thought. Let us now turn for a moment to his treatment of matters of more immediate experience, and first of all his observation of human character. In this field he suffered from a drawback which I think has not been sufficiently emphasized: I mean his adherence to the Stoic philosophy as a practical scheme of life. Its great object, tranquility of mind in the midst of the evils of the world, which it sought to secure by making reason the supreme guide, put it ever on guard against the disturbing influences of passion and pleasure. Its tendency was to suppress or ignore the whole emotional part of human nature. Stoicism thus, as Renan has somewhere remarked, declared war on life except in the one domain of duty. Now as a protection of the individual against the assaults of evil, this method has proved its worth both in ancient and modern times, but as a preparation for observing and understanding the world it has the defect of narrowing the vision. If one feels bound to hold himself morally aloof from certain things as dangerous or wrong, he will have little intellectual interest in them, or little power of imagination to understand them; indeed, true comprehension of certain phases of experience is possible only to those who have actually participated in them.

In the case of Tacitus this limiting influence is everywhere apparent. He had no eye for the refinements and elegancies of the civilization in which he lived and which flowered in a hundred great cities about the Mediteranean. The baths and banquets and lounges which the Britons took over from the Romans were so many Roman vices employed to complete the slavery of the vanquished. Even peace is enervating, while the works of peace form but an inglorious theme for the historian.' The only blessings, as he said of Agricola, were the virtues. Under such a conception much of life must remain for Tasitus an unopened book.

For this reason, if for no other, one would not expect in Tacitus a comprehensive grasp of human nature. The characters whom he brings before us are usually engaged in some phase of the great struggle with chance or fate, and are drawn with reference to one or more dominating traits. Likewise the reflections which Tacitus permits himself from time to time in his work deal with a comparatively narrow range of human qualities, some of them however, being of extraordinary penetration. Thus speaking of ostentation he says that "some people are imposed on by it, taking it for liberality," which of course is a great mistake. Liberality itself is not an unmixed blessing. "Benefactions," he tells us, (and doubtless maximo omnium consensu) "are welcome so long as it seems possible to repay them; when they go far beyond that limit, hatred takes the place of gratitude. '10 a remark which is as true as it is characteristically Roman. Again in the same tone he says "It is always easier to requite an injury than a service; gratitude is a burden but revenge is bound to

5 Agr. 21.

6 Agr. 11.

7 An. iv 32.

8 Agr. 44.

9 Hist. i 30.

10 An. iv 18.