during the eruption of Vesuvius, though the hot ashes were threatening
to overwhelm the villa in which he was staying, or when he quotes the
really execrable verses which some scribbler of the day composed in his
honour, with the most exquisite self-complacency, one is tempted to show
a little impatience at such extravagant self-satisfaction. Tacitus
again--that supreme master of irony--must have occasionally curled his
thin lip on reading some of the epistles which were addressed to him by
his friend Pliny. It is a tribute to Pliny's powers of literary
discernment that he appreciated the marvellous ability of Tacitus,
though had he failed to do so, we should have rated him for his
blindness. No cultured Roman could fail to see that Tacitus had brought
a new literary style to a pitch of the highest perfection, and his fame
throughout his lifetime was enormous. So apparently was Pliny's, and
the latter boasts that their names are mentioned together in everyday
conversation, and in the last wills and testaments of people with
literary taste. Tacitus one day was sitting at the games, and got into
conversation with a stranger sitting in the next seat. It took a
literary turn, and the stranger was delighted with the learning that
Tacitus displayed. "Are you a Roman, or from the country" said he.
"You know me quite well," answered Tacitus, "from the books you have
studied." "Then," rejoined the stranger, "you must be either Tacitus or
Pliny." It was Tacitus himself who told Pliny the story, and one can
imagine how it would delight him. He promptly sits down and tells it to
his friend Maximus, and adds another story of a similar character. But
the most extraordinary passage of all occurs in a letter (vii. 20) to
Tacitus himself. In it Pliny says that when he was a young man and
Tacitus was already famous, he determined to make him his model. There
were, he said, many brilliant geniuses, but you--such was the affinity
of our natures--seemed to me to be the most easy to imitate, and the
most worthy of imitation. Maxime imitabilis, maxime imitandus