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Rh person. The stranger and himself happened to sit beside each other among the spectators of the games of the Circus, and for some time relieved the tediousness of familiar and brutal exhibitions by discussing literary subjects. The stranger, a Roman knight, at length asked his neighbour on the bench whether he were a Roman or a provincial? Tacitus replied, "You are acquainted with me and by my pursuits." "Are you, then," was the rejoinder, "Tacitus or Pliny?" But such notoriety was probably due to his reputation as an orator, not as an historian. His 'Agricola' and 'Germany' alone were not likely to have carried his name so widely abroad as this anecdote implies, and the 'Annals' and 'History' were never ranked among the popular literature of either the capital or the provinces.

With Domitian expired, and for a long series of years, the worst effects of Cæsarianism; and the Roman world, for the first time since the death of Augustus, enjoyed the advantages of a strong and just though still irresponsible government. The senate was once again treated with respect, was relieved from anxiety about the lives or property of its members, was intrusted with a large share in the administration of public affairs, and found in the emperor a president, and not a master or an assassin. "Now, at last," writes Tacitus, exulting in his relief from personal fears for his friends or himself, "our spring is returning. We enjoy the rare happiness of times when we may think what we please, and express what we think." The cloud of apprehension, indeed, is not quite lifted. Nerva was an old invalid, Trajan was a warrior, and the chances of war might deprive Rome of his services. "And yet," continues the biographer