HKB
Roman laws. The consul, then addressing himself to Tacitus, the first of the senators, 4 required his opinion on the important subject of a proper candidate for the vacant throne.
4 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August p. 227) calls him “primæ sententia consularis;” and soon afterwards Princeps senatus. It is natural to suppose, that the monarchs of Rome, disdaining that humble title, resigned it to the most ancient of the senators.]
If we can prefer personal merit to accidental greatness, we shall esteem the birth of Tacitus more truly noble than that of kings. He claimed his descent from the philosophic historian whose writings will instruct the last generations of mankind. 5 The senator Tacitus was then seventy-five years of age. 6 The long period of his innocent life was adorned with wealth and honors. He had twice been invested with the consular dignity, 7 and enjoyed with elegance and sobriety his ample patrimony of between two and three millions sterling. 8 The experience of so many princes, whom he had esteemed or endured, from the vain follies of Elagabalus to the useful rigor of Aurelian, taught him to form a just estimate of the duties, the dangers, and the temptations of their sublime station. From the assiduous study of his immortal ancestor, he derived the knowledge of the Roman constitution, and of human nature. 9 The voice of the people had already named Tacitus as the citizen the most worthy of empire. The ungrateful rumor reached his ears, and induced him to seek the retirement of one of his villas in Campania. He had passed two months in the delightful privacy of Baiæ, when he reluctantly obeyed the summons of the consul to resume his honorable place in the senate, and to assist the republic with his counsels on this important occasion.
5 (return) [ The only objection to this genealogy is, that the historian was named Cornelius, the emperor, Claudius. But under the lower empire, surnames were extremely various and uncertain.]
6 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. The Alexandrian Chronicle, by an obvious mistake, transfers that age to Aurelian.]
7 (return) [ In the year 273, he was ordinary consul. But he must have been Suffectus many years before, and most probably under Valerian.]
8 (return) [ Bis millies octingenties. Vopiscus in Hist. August p. 229. This sum, according to the old standard, was equivalent to eight hundred and forty thousand Roman pounds of silver, each of the value of three pounds sterling. But in the age of Tacitus, the coin had lost much of its weight and purity.]
9 (return) [ After his accession, he gave orders that ten copies of the historian should be annually transcribed and placed in the public libraries. The Roman libraries have long since perished, and the most valuable part of Tacitus was preserved in a single Ms., and discovered in a monastery of Westphalia. See Bayle, Dictionnaire, Art. Tacite, and Lipsius ad Annal. ii. 9.]