PROFESSOR HOLBROOKE'S ANNALS OF TACITUS.* As edition of the Annals
is a formidable undertaking, on which, since Mr. Frost published his volume in the Bibliotheca Classico, no English scholar has cared to embark. The Clarendon Press, which at last promises us one, has been strangely slow in add- ing to its list a classic of so high a rank. The truth, probably, is that the greater part of the Annals lies outside the ordinary range of Academical reading, and that the Press, as one of the mainstays of University finance, has been content to confine 'its operations to more profitable publications. It is somewhat humiliating to Englishmen to find so obvious a want supplied 'by a scholar from the other side of the Atlantic. We can hardly, indeed, regard Professor Holbrooke's work as final, but its value -and utility are beyond question. The student who uses it along with Orelli, whose edition, for certain purposes, will scarcely be superseded, will find himself well equipped.
Professor Holbrooke begins with a biography of the historian, which, though brief, tells us all that is known of him. Some particulars, that really rest on conjecture only, are put a little -too positively; but the only statement that is seriously open to criticism is that which gives the number of the books of the Annals as sixteen, and that of the Histories as fourteen. These numbers should surely be eighteen and twelve. Chapter xxxv. of the sixteenth book brings us down no further than A.D. 66. Two years and more, full of important incident, remain to be narrated; and these could hardly have been compressed within 'half the average limits of a book. It is a much more probable con- jecture that the whole work consisted of three portions, each of which contained six books, and whieh respectively narrated the reigns of Tiberius, of Cains and Claudius, and of Nero. This would assign about twenty-three years to the first, seventeen to the second, and fourteen to the third, and allow for the increase of detail which we should naturally expect as the historian comes nearer to his own time. If he was born, as Professor Holbrooke thinks, as early as 53, he may well have been a com- petent eye-witness of much that happened in Nero's last days. An abridgment of Drager on "Peculiarities of the Language and Style of Tacitus," and tables of the "Family of Augustus," follow. The prolegomena, on the whole, are somewhat meagre. There are many things in Tacitus, and especially in the Annals, where all his 'peculiarities appear in their fullest development, which call for a. treatment more extended than can be given in a running commentary. We must give, however, a word of praise to an excellent index, which is not a bare list of names and references, but an epitomised classical dictionary, supplying, temporarily at least, much that the reader wants, without sending him to books of reference. The four useful maps which the volume contains ought not to be passed over without acknowledgment.
Of the continuous commentary, of which it remains to speak, we may say that it seems to be, as far as we have been able to examine it, careful, sound, and, on the whole, judicious, —judicious, that is, in what it gives, and in what it omits. Whatever fault, indeed, it has, is fault of omission. It is -obvious to any one who knows how much annotation may be piled up, so to speak, on Tacitus, without a single superfluous line being written, that the space within which Professor Holbrooke has contracted his notes is scarcely adequate to what may be called absolute necessities. For this it would be -unfair to blame him. Reasons, which are not less cogent because they are quite remote from literary considerations, may compel an editor who would gladly extend his work over two volumes to content himself with one. He can be called to account only for the use which he has made of the space which circumstances may have permitted him to use. This use has to be governed by a discretion which needs continual exercise. The most ingenious of editors cannot hope to say much that may not be found in books of reference by those who are able and willing to use them. But no one who comes to his work with 'the benefit of practical experience will commit the mistake of sup- posing that he is working for ideal students, with an unlimited command of books, and unlimited time for consulting them. He will consult needs that are actually likely to occur, and his usefulness will be in proportion to the judgment with which he discerns and estimates them. Judged by this standard, Pro- dessor Holbrooke's work may fairly be given high rank. We miss, indeed, the interesting and valuable illustra. Cows from Dio Cassius and Suetonius with which Orelli • The Annals of Tacit**. Edited, with Note., by George A. Holbrook', M.A., IProtessur ot Latin in Trinity College, Hartford. Landon: Haoutillau and Co. supplies his readers, but feel that exigencies of space are a sufficient excuse for their absence. References without quotations are of very little use, and quite as well omitted. Of difficulties that occur in the interpretation of the text, we do not observe any serious neglect. Here and there—and we do not profess to have examined the whole of Professor Holbrooke's work—we have noticed passages to which notes might have been given with advantage; but the whole result is satisfactory The chief defect which we would point out is the failure to take adequate notice of the peculiarities of the Tacitean diction. Such peculiarities must be pointed out as they occur, and not left to be discovered from a general treatise, however admirable, and even exhaustive, if the wants of the average student are to be adequately supplied. We may give a few instances of what we mean. In vi., 3, " snmmum supplicium decernebatur in pro- gressus indicium foret" might well have a note on the use of the imperfect indicative, though, of course, this is not peculiar to Tacitus. And space might have been found by striking out the comment," Gaio Cresari = Calignlae." A reader could. hardly have got so far in the Annals without learning so much. In the next chapter, "131 vero Latinium Latiarem ingressus " is translated, and probably rightly, by " when he began with Latinius Latiaris," but the usage of ingressus is peculiar, and demands notice. In c. 9, the strange brevity of " Immiti rescripto venae resolvit " is passed over. In c. 12, the force of per, in "Leeto per magistros et zestimatoque carmine," might easily escape the attention of a student. In c. 14, "Nullas probabiles causas longinqua,e peregrinationis adferebat " (said of a Senator who was arrested in the Straits of Messina), is passed over without comment. It is an interesting expression, as bearing on a passage of disputed meaning, in i., 53 (also passed over), where Tacitus says of Tiberius that he calculated that the death of the elder Julia, " Obscuram fore longinquitate exilii " (Julia had been exiled to Rhegium). This seems conclusively to fix the meaning of longinquit ate as distance," though it is not easy to understand how the Straits of Messina could be considered distant enough from Rome to cause an exile to be forgotten. The curious word versura (16) seems to require a note. Doubtless, it means here, as it is translated, "compound interest ;" but it is not obvious that this is so, because the capital and interest are treated as a fresh loan, not because such a loan is actually made by the debtor having recourse to a new creditor (the true meaning of the word). In c. 24, " Extrema vitae alimenta" is translated by "the barest sustenance ;" should it, not rather be "meanest, vilest?"
It will be seen that we have little or nothing that is serious to object to Professor Holbrooke's work, nothing, certainly, that should hinder the general acceptance which we hope it will and from English students.
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