The ancient Greek historians (Harvard lectures) by J. B. Bury.

VII

TACITUS

231

But the chef d'cmvre of Tacitus is his Tiberius.
The author had psychologically reconstructed that
emperor on the assumption that the mainspring
of his character was dissimulation; he never discusses it as a problem, but simply reveals the man
ill this light, interprets his acts and words in this
sense, and uses all the devices of innuendo, of
which he was so subtle a master, to bring it out.
The Tacitean method is illustrated by contrasting
the descriptions of Tiberius in Suetonius and
Velleius Paterculus, who collect together all the
traits of the Emperor and facts which attest them.
It is also evident that Tacitus has produced his
general effect by a limitation of his subject, by
emphasizing certain sides and omitting others.
The Annals are a history of Rome and the crimes
of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The wars of the
period are indeed recorded, but it may be said
with virtual truth that the book ignores the
Empire. No reader of Tacitus would come away
with the smallest conception of the efficiency with
which the Empire as a whole was administered.
Tacitus, like Sallust, looked at history from
an ethical point of view, I mean from the point
of view of the morality which is valid for the individual. He judged actions by the ideals of virtue
and nobility; he was not prepared to take time
and circumstances into account, nor to acknowledge that the standard applied to private conduct
may be inapplicable to public transactions. In
this respect, he occupied the same ground as the