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VIRGIL and TACITUS AGAIN It Seems Proper to Start with An 87 VIRGIL AND TACITUS AGAIN It seems proper to start with an explanation of my title, and of my return to this topic. When in 1962 I read to the Society a paper entitled 'Virgil and Tacitus' (1), that paper was a general survey of the problem, and part of an occasional series on 'Virgil and ... (2) which was organised by the then secretary. The paper argued that, although many suggested Virgil/Tacitus parallels were invalid, the influence of Virgil on Tacitus' language and thought was still strong: and that it might sometimes be a deliberate part of his historical presentation. Since then, a certain amount of writing on the subject has flown under sundry academic bridges. (3) Some of the writers see Tacitus' use of Virgilian language as deliberate and evocative, adding a dimension of interpretation-by-association to his historical narrative. Dr Baxter (4), for example, finds that the Virgilian echoes in Histories 3 cluster in the passages describing Cremona, the Capitol and the death of Vitellius, and that most of them come from Aeneid 2: he suggests that they give unity to Tacitus' book, and add a dimension to the narrative. Professor Benario (5) considers that Tacitus' account of the death of Galba in Histories 1 is pointed for the reader by its echoes of Virgil's story of the death of Priam in Aeneid 2 (and to this point we shall return). Dr Bews (6) sees the Virgilian language used of Germanicus in Annals 2 as both helping to set him in an 'heroic' context, and suggesting that he did not always match up to that context. Other scholars consider Virgilian words in Tacitus to be merely a verbal echo (conscious or unconscious), or a device to enhance his own expression, without reference to anything in the original Virgilian context. Battle has been joined. There are, naturally, arguments put forward in support of both positions: and not all of them are negligible. It is true, for example, that Virgil's works were educational textbooks in the first century A.D. (8), and that their language was therefore part of the educated man's intellectual furniture: it is true that Silver Latin prose is 88 much more 'poetical' in its language than is Republican prose, and that a good proportion of that poetical vocabulary would inevitably come from Virgil (9): it is true that commentators tend to cite the Virgilian parallel because Virgil's is the text most familiar to them, that we have little evidence for the stylistic development of historical prose in the years between Virgil and Tacitus, and that there is no contemporary prose stylist of comparable stature whose Virgilianus decor we can set against Tacitus' (10). And yet (if I may be allowed a Tacitean turn) I think the difficulties can be exaggerated and that, if used with reasonable caution and restraint, Virgil/Tacitus parallels can be illuminating. If, as seems clear, both Tacitus and his putative audience knew their Virgil, that could make it all the more likely that, when he used or adapted a Virgilian phrase, he knew exactly what he was doing, and expected it to be recognised. We all pick up words and phrases at second hand, and use them without thought of an original context which we never knew or have forgotten: but if we use or adapt phrases from a source we know well, we remain conscious of that source, even though it may have no particular significance for our immediate purposes. To illustrate: if I wish a colleague in a minor crisis 'a happy issue out of all your afflictions', or remark that Tacitus' Annals are neither short nor simple, I in fact know perfectly well what it is I am misquoting, and I use the 'quotation' only in a context where I believe my 'audience' will know it too. At a much more literary and relevant level, a poet like T.S. Eliot will use quotations from and references to other writers, and will even provide notes to enable the less widely read to find his 'sources': for these references are not mere verbal echoes, used to enhance his own expression, but they are integral to his poetic meaning, and he employs and adapts them for his own poetic purposes. (11). At a still more immediately relevant level, this process of association and allusion is surely part of Virgil's own poetic technique. His use of Homer and Ennius, of Lucretius and Catullus, of Hesiod and Theocritus, often goes far beyond tradition or rivalry, and is used to enlarge our apprehension of his poetic point. (12) This is the way a poet's 89 mind works: and Tacitus has, of all prose writers, something of the mind and approach of a poet. (13) I do not think it matters greatly whether an echo can be established as conscious or unconscious (and how can one ever 'establish' such a thing?) What comes out of a great poet's subconscious is likely to be as interesting as what is happening at the conscious level. (Sometimes it can be more so: I find Eliot's 'The Cocktail Party' a thought-provoking play, but I am not sure that I am greatly enlightened by his explanation that it is based on Euripides' Alcestis.) (14) If therefore we can catch reasonably certain resonances between the text of Tacitus and the text of Virgil, (15) we are justified, I think, in pursuing them farther, and asking if they, individually or collectively, have anything to tell us about Tacitus' use of Virgil. It is the purpose of this paper to make such an examination and assessment of Histories 1: and although the inquiry inevitably starts from the text of Tacitus, I hope that the material may be of interest to Virgilians too. Some eighty-four parallels can be listed for this book, and a high proportion of them is illusory. I find it difficult to believe, for example, that sinistra (7,2) has any significant connection with sinistra ... cornix in Eel. 9.15 (if a source is needed for Tacitus' use of the adverb, Horace AP 452 would be a better one). Nor does cohibentur (prouinciae 11,2) seem to be much illuminated by a comparison with o cohibete iras (Aen. 12,314). hue illuc (40,1 and 76,1) is indubitably in Aen 4,363 and elsewhere in Virgil: but it is also to be found in Cicero (Att. 9,9,2) Tibullus (1,3,70), Livy (7,34,9) and many other authors, indecora (simulatione) at Hist. 1,74,1 is not very like noh erimus...indecores (Aen. 7,231) where, as in all his other examples, Virgil uses the form indecoris and uses it of persons: much closer to Tacitus is Livy 21,63,4 (quaestus), Quintilian 11,1,25 (iactatio) and Pliny Epp3,20,4 (confusio). And lymphatis (animis) at 82,1 can be par ailed not only by Aen 7,377 furit lymphata per urbem but by Catullus 90 64,254 lymphata mente, Horace, Od 1,37,14 mentemque lymphatam and Livy 7,17,3 lymphati et attoniti. There are many such examples, which clearly belong to common literary stock, and not to Virgil and Tacitus. Longer phrases, too, are not always what they seem, sceleris instinctor (22,3) is a striking phrase, and instinctor may be a Tacitean coinage: but the phrase is just as likely to have been suggested to Tacitus by Plautus (Capt.661 sator sartorque scelerum et messor) or Cicero (Cat.3,6 scelerum... machinatorem) as by Virgil (Aen. 6,529 hortator scelerum). Galba's famous query quis iussit (35,2) did not need the inspiration of Priam's quis auctor at Aen 2,150: both Plutarch (Galba 26,2) and Dio (64,6,2), who are parallel sources for the episode, have "who ... gave the order?", and the question would appear to have been in the common source (confusingly, Suetonius Galba 19,2 has quo auctore, but that does not bring Virgil and Tacitus any closer), male fidas (prouincias 52,3) may recall Aen 2,23 (statio) male fida: but it is a phrase also to be found in Ovid (Tr.1,6,13), Petrortius (123 v.193), Statius (Th.7,632) and elsewhere: the Virgilian connection is hardly a close one. tota mole belli secuturus (61) sounds splendidly Virgilian: but immani mole secuta (Aen. 9,542) is not really parallel in meaning, and molis belli exists from Accius (615W), is common in Livy (e.g. 33,20,2 tanta mole imminentis belli), and also in Velleius (e.g. 2,95,1 Caesar haud mediocris belli mole experiri statuit). ne turn quidem immemor amorum (78,2) might have been inspired by non ille oblitus amorum (Aen 5,334), but is it really any closer to that than to tenerae coniugis immemor in Horace, Od.1,1,26? Again, there are many phrases in this category. I have laboured this point, because such investigation of even our incomplete evidence for literary and linguistic usage by the classical authors produces the sort of information I have been listing, and underlines the dangers of building Tacitean criticism on what may prove to be very shifting Virgilian sands. By removing examples such as those discussed above, the list of Virgilian 'echoes' can be reduced to twenty nine: and more than half of these are in various degrees doubtful. Can we, for example, 91 confidently connect horror animum subit (37,3) with Aen 10,824 mentem...subiit...imago and 2,559-560 circumstetit horror...subiit...imago, when Livy 39,16,7 offers subit animum timor and Statius Theb.
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