In the estimation of modern critics the highest rank as an historian is assigned to Tacitus, and it would indeed be difficult to find his superior in any age or country.  He was born 57 A.D., about forty-three years after the death of Augustus.  He belonged to the equestrian rank, and was a man of consular dignity.  He had every facility for literary labors that leisure, wealth, friends, and social position could give, and lived under a reign when truth might be told.  The extant works of this great writer are the “Life of Agricola,” his father-in-law; his “Annales,” which begin with the death of Augustus, 14 A.D., and close with the death of Nero, 68 A.D.; the “Historiae,” which comprise the period from the second consulate of Galba, 68 A.D., to the death of Domitian; and a treatise on the Germans.  His histories describe Rome in the fulness of imperial glory, when the will of one man was the supreme law of the empire.  He also wrote of events that occurred when liberty had fled, and the yoke of despotism was nearly insupportable.  He describes a period of great moral degradation, nor does he hesitate to lift the veil of hypocrisy in which his generation had wrapped itself.  He fearlessly exposes the cruelties and iniquities of the early emperors, and writes with judicial impartiality respecting all the great characters he describes.  No ancient writer shows greater moral dignity and integrity of purpose than Tacitus.  In point of artistic unity he is superior to Livy and equal to Thucydides, whom he resembles in conciseness of style.  His distinguishing excellence as an historian is his sagacity and impartiality.  Nothing escapes his penetrating eye; and he inflicts merited chastisement on the tyrants who revelled in the prostrated liberties of his country, while he immortalizes those few who were faithful to duty and conscience in a degenerate age.  But the writings of Tacitus were not so popular as those of Livy, since neither princes nor people relished his intellectual independence and moral elevation.  He does not satisfy Dr. Arnold, who thinks he ought to have been better versed in the history of the Jews, and who dislikes his speeches because they were fictitious.

Neither the Latin nor Greek historians are admired by those dry critics who seek to give to rare antiquarian matter a disproportionate importance, and to make this matter as fixed and certain as the truths of natural science.  History can never be other than an approximation to the truth, even when it relates to the events and characters of its own age.  History does not give positive, indisputable knowledge.  We know that Caesar was ambitious; but we do not know whether he was more or less so than Pompey, nor do we know how far he was justified in his usurpation.  A great history must have other merits besides accuracy, antiquarian research, and presentation of authorities and notes.  It must be a work of art; and art has reference to style and language, to grouping of