forged the Annals, having apparently, this overwhelming and
troublesome difficulty ever uppermost in his mind, seems to have
taken measures for guarding against it as well as he could, and
with as much care as he could. This taking precautions against the
failure of memory must have been one of the main reasons, why he
elected writing of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, when, as
Tacitus, he ought to have written of Nerva and Trajan. He was thus
enabled to relate a series of events prior to, and entirely
different from the series of events related by Tacitus; there was
thereby no possibility of his narrative clashing with that of his
archetype; the most trying difficulties were in this way got over
with sufficient ease; the only danger was with regard to a few
individuals who lived during the two periods, and a few facts,
that trailed their circumstances from one period into the other;
but his main history would have nothing in common with the main
history of Tacitus.

V. To borrow a phrase of Gualterius--he ran the risk of "falling
into Scylla in trying to avoid Charybdis":

"Incidit in Scyllam, qui vult vitare Charybdin."

How could he convince the world that Tacitus would act with such
twofold inconsistency as to write of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius
and Nero, when he had said that he would not do so, on account of
the number of writers who had recorded the occurrences of their
reigns, and that if he resumed the duties of an historian it would
be with the reigns of Nerva and Trajan. The world,--and nobody
knew it better than the author of the Annals,--is easily
convinced; and there is no inconsistency, however monstrous, that