Towards the end of his second term as President, Thomas Jefferson received a letter from his granddaughter, Anne Cary Bankhead, who mentioned that she had been reading from the works of the Roman historian Tacitus (c. AD 55-117). In his reply, Jefferson wrote: “Tacitus I consider the first writer in the world without a single exception. His book is a compound of history and morality of which we have no other example” (1808). Although part of his enthusiasm for Tacitus may have stemmed from a desire to encourage his granddaughter in her reading, Jefferson’s correspondence in the years immediately following his Presidency nevertheless suggests that his praise for Tacitus may not, in fact, be mere hyperbole. For example, to David Howell, Jefferson wrote, “I read one or two newspapers a week, but with reluctance give up even that [time] from Tacitus and Horace” (1810), and, to John Adams, “I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier” (1812). Given that Jefferson was extraordinarily well-read, one cannot help but wonder what he found so compelling. To be sure, we would expect certain themes in Tacitus to resonate with Jefferson – such as the decline of Roman morality, the tyrannical behavior of the Roman emperors, and the subtle ways in which the Roman Republic had become the Roman Empire – but similar themes can also be found in the work of Sallust and Livy, which Jefferson knew equally well. I would suggest that in order to understand Jefferson’s unique claims for Tacitus we need to consider two questions from Jefferson’s perspective: “What is the historian’s role in a democratic republic?” and “Does Tacitus fulfill that role?”

Writing in 1779, for example, Jefferson explicitly comments on the role of the historian in preventing tyranny:

“The most effectual means of preventing this [i.e., tyranny] would be to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibiteth, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompted to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.”

Here, Jefferson suggests that the best way for people to combat the rise of tyranny is for them “to know ambition under all its shapes” – i.e., to recognize the characteristics of both well- and ill-intentioned ambition, the latter of which may lead to tyranny – and that the best way to help people recognize such potentially destructive ambition is to familiarize them with the historical record. Jefferson also indicates which ancient historians are especially useful in such a capacity:

“[I] take refuge in the histories of other times, where, if they also furnish their Tarquins, their Catilines, and Caligulas, their stories are handed to us under the brand of a Livy, a Sallust, and a Tacitus, and we are comforted with the reflection that the condemnation of all succeeding generations has confirmed the censures of the historian, and consigned their memories to everlasting infamy, a solace which we cannot have with the Georges and Napoleons but by anticipation.”

For Jefferson, the writings of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus are useful not simply because they have the power to censure and to bestow “everlasting infamy,” but because they have a didactic purpose, as well: to lay bare the characteristics and methods of tyrants (Tarquin, Caligula) and would-be tyrants (Catiline). Many years later, in 1823, Jefferson would assert that the historian’s censure and bestowal of everlasting infamy has the additional benefit of deterring citizens from potentially destructive behavior: “This I hold to be the chief duty and office of the historian, to judge the actions of men, to the end that the good and the worthy may meet with the rewards due to eminent virtue, and that pernicious citizens may be deterred by the condemnation that waits on evil deeds at the tribunal of posterity.”

Jefferson also articulates less obvious, yet no less important, benefits to be derived from reading history. For example, in 1824, upon learning about the establishment of the Jefferson Debating Society of Hingham (MA), Jefferson wrote to its president, David Harding:

“The object of the society is laudable, and in a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion, and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line antiquity has left us the finest models for imitation; and he who studies and imitates them most nearly, will nearest approach the perfection of the art. Among these I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as pre-eminent specimens of logic, taste, and that sententious brevity which using not a word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer.”

It is, I think, especially striking that Jefferson should single out Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus – historians, not orators – as the best authors from whom to learn “the art of reasoning,” which Jefferson considers “of first importance” for citizens of a republican nation. High praise indeed, if we consider Jefferson’s extensive knowledge of orators such as Demosthenes and Cicero.

Jefferson also reserved a place for Tacitus in the University of Virginia’s curriculum. In an 1825 letter, Jefferson directed that the following authors be included in a course on ancient history: “In all cases I prefer original authors to compilers. For a course of ancient history, therefore, of Greece and Rome especially, I should advise the usual suite of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Diodorus, Livy, Caesar, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Dion, in their originals if understood, and in translations if not.”

Finally, I would like to suggest that a portion of Jefferson’s admiration for Tacitus stemmed from his appreciation of the Roman historian’s Latinity. Over the years, there has been a great deal of debate among scholars as to the depth of the Founders’ engagement with Greek and Latin authors in the original languages, but in the case of Jefferson and Tacitus, at least, there is ample evidence to support the claim that Jefferson did indeed read Tacitus in Latin. For in addition to demonstrating a familiarity with specific Latin editions of Tacitus, several of which he tried to procure while serving in France from 1784-1789, Jefferson displays a specialist’s appreciation of Tacitean grammar, syntax, and style in an 1823 letter to Edward Everett, Professor of Greek at Harvard University:

“I acknowledge myself at the same time not an adept in the metaphysical speculations of Grammar. By analyzing too minutely we often reduce our subject to atoms, of which the mind loses its hold. Nor am I a friend to a scrupulous purism of style. I readily sacrifice the niceties of syntax to euphony and strength. It is by boldly neglecting the rigorisms of grammar, that Tacitus has made himself the strongest writer in the world. The Hyperesitics call him barbarous; but I should be sorry to exchange his barbarisms for their wise-drawn purisms. Some of his sentences are as strong as language can make them. Had he scrupulously filled up the whole of their syntax, they would have been merely common.”

Jefferson’s sophisticated analysis of and praise for Tacitus’ Latin – which leads to the pronouncement of Tacitus as “the strongest writer in the world” (neatly echoing the language of his 1808 letter) – further suggests why Jefferson held Tacitus in such high esteem.

Given the value that Jefferson placed on reading history, then, it should come as no surprise that he reserves his highest praise for an historian. That Jefferson considered Tacitus, in particular, “the first writer in the world without a single exception” is intelligible on the grounds that the work of Tacitus fulfills precisely the role that Jefferson himself assigned to the historian.

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