hall not
escape calumny. Mahaffy declares that, "although all modern historians
quote Thucydides with more confidence than they would quote the
Gospels," the Athenian has exaggerated; he is one-sided, partial,
misleading, dry, and surly. Other critics agree with Mahaffy that he has
been unjust to Cleon, and has screened Nicias from blame that was his
due for defective generalship.

We approach Tacitus with respect. We rise from reading his Annals, his
History, and his Germany with reverence. We know that we have been in
the society of a gentleman who had a high standard of morality and
honor. We feel that our guide was a serious student, a solid thinker,
and a man of the world; that he expressed his opinions and delivered his
judgments with a remarkable freedom from prejudice. He draws us to him
with sympathy. He sounds the same mournful note which we detect in
Thucydides. Tacitus deplores the folly and dissoluteness of the rulers
of his nation; he bewails the misfortunes of his country. The merits we
ascribe to Thucydides, diligence, accuracy, love of truth, impartiality,
are his. The desire to quote from Tacitus is irresistible. "The more I
meditate," he writes, "on the events of ancient and modern times, the
more I am struck with the capricious uncertainty which mocks the
calculations of men in all their transactions." Again: "Possibly there
is in all things a kind of cycle, and there may be moral revolutions
just as there are changes of seasons." "Commonplaces!" sneer the
scientific historians. True enough, but they might not have been
commonplaces if Tacitus had not uttered them, and his works had not been
read and re-read until they have become a common possession of
historical students. From a thinker who deemed the time "out of joint,"
as Tacitus obviously did, and who, had he not possessed great strength
of mind and character, might have lapsed into a gloomy pessimism, what
noble words are these: "This I regard as history's highest function: to
let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation
of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds." The modesty of the
Roman is fascinating. "Much of what I have related," he says, "and shall
have to relate, may perhaps, I am aware, seem petty trifles to
record.... My labors are circumscribed and unproductive of renown to the
author." How agreeable to place in contrast with this the prophecy of
his friend, the younger Pliny, in a letter to the hist