1 (return)
[ This treatise was written in the year of Rome 851, A.
[ This treatise was written in the year of Rome 851, A.
Tacitus
With resignation and cheerfulness, from the testimony of those who were present in your last moments, did you meet your fate, as if striving to the utmost of your power to make the emperor appear guiltless.
But to myself and your daughter, besides the anguish of losing a parent, the aggravating affliction remains, that it was not our lot to watch over your sick-bed, to support you when languishing, and to satiate ourselves with beholding and embracing you.
With what attention should we have received your last instructions, and engraven them on our hearts!
This is our sorrow; this is our wound: to us you were lost four years before by a tedious absence.
Everything, doubtless, O best of parents!
was administered for your comfort and honor, while a most affectionate wife sat beside you; yet fewer tears were shed upon your bier, and in the last light which your eyes beheld, something was still wanting.
46. If there be any habitation for the shades of the virtuous; if, as philosophers suppose, exalted souls do not perish with the body; may you repose in peace, and call us, your household, from vain regret and feminine lamentations, to the contemplation of your virtues, which allow no place for mourning or complaining! Let us rather adorn your memory by our admiration, by our short-lived praises, and, as far as our natures will permit, by an imitation of your example. This is truly to honor the dead; this is the piety of every near relation. I would also recommend it to the wife and daughter of this great man, to show their veneration of a husband's and a father's memory by revolving his actions and words in their breasts, and endeavoring to retain an idea of the form and features of his mind, rather than of his person. Not that I would reject those resemblances of the human figure which are engraven in brass or marbles but as their originals are frail and perishable, so likewise are they: while the form of the mind is eternal, and not to be retained or expressed by any foreign matter, or the artist's skill, but by the manners of the survivors. Whatever in Agricola was the object of our love, of our admiration, remains, and will remain in the minds of men, transmitted in the records of fame, through an eternity of years. For, while many great personages of antiquity will be involved in a common oblivion with the mean and inglorious, Agricola shall survive, represented and consigned to future ages.
FOOTNOTES:
A TREATISE ON THE SITUATION, MANNERS AND INHABITANTS OF GERMANY.
1 (return)
[ This treatise was written in the year of Rome 851, A. D. 98; during the fourth consulate of the emperor Nerva, and the third of Trajan. ]
2 (return)
[ The Germany here meant is that beyond the Rhine. The Germania Cisrhenana, divided into the Upper and Lower, was a part of Gallia Belgica. ]
3 (return)
[ Rhaetia comprehended the country of the Grisons, with part of Suabia and Bavaria. ]
4 (return)
[ Lower Hungary, and part of Austria. ]
5 (return)
[ The Carpathian mountains in Upper Hungary. ]
6 (return)
[ "Broad promontories. " Latos sinus. Sinus strictly signifies "a bending," especially inwards. Hence it is applied to a gulf, or bay, of the sea. And hence, again, by metonymy, to that projecting part of the land, whereby the gulf is formed; and still further to any promontory or peninsula. It is in this latter force it is here used;—and refers especially to the Danish peninsula. See Livy xxvii, 30, xxxviii. 5; Servius on Virgil, Aen.
46. If there be any habitation for the shades of the virtuous; if, as philosophers suppose, exalted souls do not perish with the body; may you repose in peace, and call us, your household, from vain regret and feminine lamentations, to the contemplation of your virtues, which allow no place for mourning or complaining! Let us rather adorn your memory by our admiration, by our short-lived praises, and, as far as our natures will permit, by an imitation of your example. This is truly to honor the dead; this is the piety of every near relation. I would also recommend it to the wife and daughter of this great man, to show their veneration of a husband's and a father's memory by revolving his actions and words in their breasts, and endeavoring to retain an idea of the form and features of his mind, rather than of his person. Not that I would reject those resemblances of the human figure which are engraven in brass or marbles but as their originals are frail and perishable, so likewise are they: while the form of the mind is eternal, and not to be retained or expressed by any foreign matter, or the artist's skill, but by the manners of the survivors. Whatever in Agricola was the object of our love, of our admiration, remains, and will remain in the minds of men, transmitted in the records of fame, through an eternity of years. For, while many great personages of antiquity will be involved in a common oblivion with the mean and inglorious, Agricola shall survive, represented and consigned to future ages.
FOOTNOTES:
A TREATISE ON THE SITUATION, MANNERS AND INHABITANTS OF GERMANY.
1 (return)
[ This treatise was written in the year of Rome 851, A. D. 98; during the fourth consulate of the emperor Nerva, and the third of Trajan. ]
2 (return)
[ The Germany here meant is that beyond the Rhine. The Germania Cisrhenana, divided into the Upper and Lower, was a part of Gallia Belgica. ]
3 (return)
[ Rhaetia comprehended the country of the Grisons, with part of Suabia and Bavaria. ]
4 (return)
[ Lower Hungary, and part of Austria. ]
5 (return)
[ The Carpathian mountains in Upper Hungary. ]
6 (return)
[ "Broad promontories. " Latos sinus. Sinus strictly signifies "a bending," especially inwards. Hence it is applied to a gulf, or bay, of the sea. And hence, again, by metonymy, to that projecting part of the land, whereby the gulf is formed; and still further to any promontory or peninsula. It is in this latter force it is here used;—and refers especially to the Danish peninsula. See Livy xxvii, 30, xxxviii. 5; Servius on Virgil, Aen.
