The Artistry of Tacitus

Whatever may be his weaknesses in other fields, all will agree that as a literary craftsman Tacitus stands in the first rank. Like Lytton Strachey, he writes with an extraordinary verbal felicity, shows an uncanny genius for delineating character, and is a master of innuendo and suggestion.

It would be an entertaining but profitless pastime for my readers to cast themselves for the part of Nero at the beginning of Book XIV and decide how they would elect to liquidate—pardon the modern term—a troublesome mother. I am sure we could each one of us propound half a dozen more convincing schemes than that adopted by the historical Nero. Judged by the standards of the modern novel, the story is utterly fantastic. Yet such is the artistry of Tacitus that we are held spellbound throughout and accept it as vera historia.

He makes an excellent start: ‘Gaio Vipstano C. Fonteio consulibus diu meditatum scelus non ultra Nero distulit.’ How lucky it was for Tacitus he had no chapter-headings to give his secrets away! Subconsciously the reader draws in a breath of eager anticipation, feeling that if Nero is now about to bring off a long-meditated crime, then he is in for an interesting story. But what was the crime? Just wait and see. But to whet our appetite Tacitus gives us in his description of Nero one of those pungent quasi-epigrammatic touches of psychology of which he is so fond. ‘Vetustate imperii coalita audacia.… ’ ‘This unnatural power’, says Burke, ‘corrupts both the heart and the understanding.’