Auguror, nec me fallit augurium, historias tuas immortales futuras. Respondit Cornelius Tacitus eloquentissime et, quod eximium orationi ejus inest, σεμνῶς. NEW YORK: PLIN. Epist. 2, 11 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1875. HARVARD COLLEGE KIRAKY FROM THE GIFT OF CHARLES HERBERT THURBER Mar 5, 1926 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1549, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern PREFACE. THE text of this edition follows, for the most part, Orelli's, Zurich, 1848, which, being based on a new and most faithful recension of the Medicean MS. by his friend Baiter, may justly be considered as marking a new era in the history of the text of Tacitus. In several passages, however, where he has needlessly departed from the MS., I have not hesitated to adhere to it in company with other editors, believing, that not unfrequently "the most corrected copies are the least correct." The various readings have been carefully compared throughout, and, if important, are referred to in the notes. The editions which have been most consulted, whether in the criticism of the text or in the preparation of the notes, are, besides Orelli's, those of Walther, Halle, 1831; Ruperti, Hanover, 1839; and Döderlein, Halle, 1847. The notes of Orelli are judicious and tasteful. Walther is sagacious, shrewd and independent, sometimes to a fault. Ruperti's edition is chiefly valuable as a repository of facts and opinions, selected with no great care and put together with little skill. Döderlein is concise and discriminating, but is excessively fond of originality and bold conjecture. His Essay on the Style of Tacitus, besides this fault in the matter, is also wanting in ease and elegance of language; yet it has been esteemed worthy to be translated for this edition, as on the whole one of the best treatises on that subject. Bötticher's Lexicon Taciteum, Berlin, 1830, is marked by a felicitous expression, as well as a just appreciation, of our author's merits as a his |