this supposed probability is too preposterously extravagant to be
for an instant credited because it cannot for a moment be
comprehended. In short, how marvellous it is! how utterly
unaccountable! how inexpressibly mysterious!

Pliny does not say a word about the Annals. The earliest Latin
father, Tertullian, quotes only the History (Apol. c. 16).
St. Jerome, in his Commentary on Zechariah (iii. 14), cites the
passage in the fifth book of the History about the origin of the
Jews; he also notices what Tacitus says of another important
event, the Fall of Jerusalem, which, having occurred in the reign
of Vespasian, must have been narrated in the History. The "single
book" treating of the Caesars, which Vopiscus says Tacitus wrote,
must have been the "History," ten copies of which the Emperor
Tacitus ordered to be placed every year in the public libraries
among the national archives. (Tac. Imp. x.) Orosius, the Spanish
ecclesiastic, who flourished at the commencement of the fifth
century, has several references to Tacitus in his famous work,
Hormesta. This great proficient in knowledge of the Scriptures and
disciple of St. Augustin quotes the fifth book of the History
thrice (Lib. V., cc. 5 and 10), and thrice alludes to facts
recorded by Tacitus,--the Temple of Janus being open from the time
of Augustus to Vespasian (vii. 3);--the number of the Jews who
perished at the siege of Jerusalem (vii. 9); and the possibly
large number of Romans who were killed in the wars with the Daci
during the reign of Domitian (vii. 10):--all which passages must
have been in the lost portions of the History.

In his Epistles and Poems, that man of wit and fancy, with an
intellect and learning above the fifth century in which he lived,