6. HISTORY.--For the reasons already stated, Rome for a long period could boast of no historian; the perilous nature of the times, and the personal obligations under which learned men frequently were to the emperors, rendered contemporary history a means of adulation and servility. To this class of historians belongs Paterculus (fl. 30 A.D.), who wrote a history of Rome which is partial, prejudiced, and adulatory. He was a man of lively talents, and his taste was formed after the model of Sallust, of whom he was an imitator. His style is often overstrained and unnatural.
Under the genial and fostering influence of the Emperor Trajan, the fine arts, especially architecture, flourished, and literature revived. The same taste and execution which are visible in the bas-reliefs on the column of Trajan adorn the literature of his age as illustrated by its two great lights, Tacitus and the younger Pliny. There is not the rich, graceful manner which invests with such a charm the writers of the Golden Age, but the absence of these qualities is amply compensated by dignity, gravity, and honesty. Truthfulness beams throughout the writings of these two great contemporaries, and incorruptible virtue is as visible in the pages of Tacitus as benevolence and tenderness are in the letters of Pliny. They mutually influenced each other's characters and principles; their tastes and pursuits were similar; they loved each other dearly, corresponded regularly, corrected each other's works, and accepted patiently and gratefully each other's criticism.
Tacitus (60-135 A.D.) was of equestrian rank, and served in several important offices of the empire. His works now extant are a life of his father-in-law, Agricola, a tract on the manners and nations of the Germans, a small portion of a voluminous work entitled "Histories," about two thirds of another historical work, entitled "Annals," and a dialogue on the decline of eloquence. The life of Agricola, though a panegyric rather than a biography, is a beautiful specimen of the vigor and force of expression with which this greatest painter of antiquity could throw off any portrait which he attempted. Even if the likeness be somewhat flattered, the qualities which the writer possessed, his insight into character, his pathetic power, and his affectionate heart, render this short piece one of the most attractive biographies extant. The treatise on the "Geography, Manners, and Nations of Germany," though containing geographical descriptions often vague and inaccurate, and accounts evidently founded on mere tales of travelers, bears the impress of truth in the salient points and characteristic features of the national manners and institutions of Teutonic nations. The "Histories," his earliest historical work, of which only four books and a portion of the fifth are extant, extended from the year 69 to 96 A.D., and it was his intention to include the reigns of Nero and Trajan. In this work he proposed to investigate the political state of the commonwealth, the feeling of its armies, the sentiments of its provinces, the elements of its strength and weakness, and the causes and reasons for each historical phenomenon. The principal fault which diminishes the value of his history as a record of events is his too great readiness to accept evidence unhesitatingly, and to record popular rumors without taking sufficient pains to examine into their truth. His incorrect account of the history, constitution, and manners of the Jewish people is one among the few instances of this fault, scattered over a vast field of faithful history. The "Annals" consist of sixteen books; they begin with the death of Augustus, and conclude with that of Nero (14-68 A.D.). The object of Tacitus was to describe the influence which the establishment of tyranny on the ruins of liberty exercised for good or for evil in bringing out the character of the individual. In the extinction of freedom there still existed in Rome bright examples of heroism and courage, and instances not less prominent of corruption and degradation. In the annals of Tacitus these individuals stand out in bold relief, either singly or in groups upon the stage, while the emperor forms the principal figure, and the moral sense of the reader is awakened to admire instances of patient suffering and determined bravery, or to witness abject slavery and remorseless despotism.