Chapter IX

Second Division of the History of Times into Annals and Journals

HISTORY of times is likewise divisible into annals and journals, according to the observation of Tacitus, where, mentioning the magnificence of certain structures, he adds, “It was found suitable to the Roman dignity that illustrious things should be committed to annals, but such as these to the public journals of the city”; thus referring what related to the state of the commonwealth to annals, and smaller matters to journals. And so there should be a kind of heraldry in regulating the dignities of books as well as persons: for as nothing takes more from the dignity of a state than confusion of orders and degrees, so it greatly takes from the authority of history to intermix matters of triumph, ceremony, and novelty, with matters of state. And it were to be wished that this distinction prevailed; but in our times journals are only used at sea and in military expeditions, whereas among the ancients it was a regal honor to have the daily acts of the palace recorded, as we see in the case of Ahasuerus, king of Persia. And the journals of Alexander the Great contained even trivial matters; yet journals are not destined for trivial things alone, as annals are for serious ones, but contain all things promiscuously, whether of greater or of less concern.