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80 "The difficulties which embarrass an historical narrative of times preceding that of the writer, were for those of Tacitus really insurmountable. Tiberius had succeeded, after Germanicus had quitted Germany, in reducing the world"—we suggest that Rome and Italy would be more correct—"to a state of torpid stillness, and in overspreading it with the silence of the grave. Its history is now confined to himself and his unfortunate house, to the destruction of the victims of his tyranny and the servitude of the senate. In this dreary silence we shudder, and speak in a whisper: all is dark and wrapt in mystery, doubtful and perplexing. Was Germanicus poisoned? Was Piso guilty? What urged him to his mad violence? Did the son of Tiberius die by poison,—Agrippina by the stroke of an assassin? All this was just as uncertain to Tacitus as to us."

And the doubts which hang over this reign increase when we turn from the pages of Tacitus to those of other writers, whether contemporaries of Tiberius or of a somewhat later period. In them we shall find that the admissions in his favor which the historian makes, reluctantly fall short of rather than exceed the truth. Those who were nearest to the time have generally treated the emperor with respect or indulgence.

Nor should it be forgotten, while admitting the darkness of the narrative, and trying in vain to reconcile the inconsistencies it presents, that among the materials employed by Tacitus in the composition of the 'Annals' were, by his own confession, the 'Memoirs' of the younger Agrippina, the unworthy daughter of Germanicus, the wife of the unfortunate Claudius, and