LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET BRITISH 21JU76 MUSEUM PREFACE. COMPILATIONS of extracts from classical writers have been produced in profusion of late years. I claim for the text, at all events, of this little book something more than the excuse for such works which is often by no means unnecessary. 1. Tacitus is, because too difficult, not read by those who, I hope, may now make their acquaintance with him through these pages. Teacher and pupil may alike be glad to quit, once in a while, the beaten path of Cæsar and Livy for a fresher field. 2. The episode of Germanicus is most easily and naturally detached from the context, and forms a story complete in itself. 3. Some of the most picturesque and spirited passages in Tacitus are contained in the chapters which deal with his hero, and if it is romance he has written, his defects as an historian are for the present purpose a positive gain. I do not therefore feel that the objections, some |