Filozofski vestnih Volume /Letn ik XXIV • Number/Številka 2 • 2003 • 85-120 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS: 
A D A M EBERT, T A C I T I S M , A N D H O B B E S 
NOEL MALCOLM 
i 
In the Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, there is a little-noticed manuscript entitled 
'Thomas Hobbes De Rebus gestis Olivarij Cromvellj Protectoris sive Historia 
Bellorum Civilium Angliae ab Anno 1640 usq[ue] ad Annum 1660. Lingua 
Anglica in Latinam Francofurti ad Oderam translata A[nn]o 1708' ('Thomas 
Hobbes, On the Actions of the Protector Oliver Cromwell, or, The History of 
the Civil Wars of England, from the year 1640 to the year 1660. Translated 
from the English language into Latin at Frankfurt an der Oder, in the year 
1708'). The translation is preceded by a flowery dedication to King Friedrich 
I of Prussia by the translator, who signs it (in his own hand, as opposed to the 
scribal hands of the manuscript itself) 'Devotissimus subditus Adamus Eber-
tus' ('your most devoted subject Adam Ebert'); a note at the end of the trans-
lation records that it was completed by Ebert on 28 June 1708.1 This is clear-
ly the original manuscript which Ebert gave to the King; it is a fair copy (in 
two scribal hands), on folio paper, handsomely bound. And, so far as one can 
tell, the manuscript has remained ever since in the Royal Library and the 
Staatsbibliothek, its modern successor.2 
As this translation of Behemoth was never published, and does not seem 
to have been cited by any subsequent author in print, its importance must ap-
pear to be extremely slight. The translator, Adam Ebert, is easily identifiable 
as the scholar of that name who was a law professor at the University of Frank-
furt an der Oder for many years until his death in 1735; Ebert receives brief 
1 Staatsbibliothek, Berlin [hereafter: 'SBB'] MS Lat. 2o 129, fos. l r (title), 2v-6r (dedi-
cation), 279v (final note ) . I am very grateful to the staff of the Manuscripts Department 
o f the Staatsbibliothek for their help during my visits there. 
2 O n fo . l r there is an early stamp in red ink: 'Ex Biblioth. Regia Berolinensi' ( ' f rom 
the Royal Library, Berlin' ) . 
8 5 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
mentions in biographical dictionaries, but remains a very little-known figure, 
whose reputation as an academic and littérateur has faded almost to extinc-
tion.3 It would seem, then, that this strangely titled translation of Hobbes's 
work is little more than a curiosity: the product of an obscure individual's in-
tellectual whim (and, no doubt, personal desire for royal favour), it appears 
to have been the object of a more or less private transaction, passing from 
the translator's hands to those of the King's librarian. 
However, while this Behemoth translation may have had litde or no impor-
tance - in the sense of influence on the thinking of others - it does have some 
significance: it can tell us some small but significant things about how Hobbes 
could be interpreted and appreciated in the intellectual world of late seven-
teenth-century and early eighteenth-century Germany. The presentation of 
the manuscript to the Royal Library also deserves further consideration, for 
this was not simply a way of consigning it either to the purely personal use of 
the King, or to oblivion; rather, it was a carefully calibrated form of quasi-pub-
lication. And as for the translator, Adam Ebert, the story of his life also merits 
more detailed investigation - not least because of the hitherto unknown fact 
that he had previously made the acquaintance of Hobbes in England. 
II 
First, however, the translation itself. Ebert was evidently working not 
from a manuscript but from a printed edition of the text: his title page re-
produces the quotations (one from Lucretius, four from Horace) found on 
the title pages of most of the 1679 editions. He also reproduced the erratic 
page-numbering of the original; this shows that he was working from a copy 
of one of the 1679 duodecimo editions.4 Ebert was an attentive reader of the 
text, and in three places he noted that the assignment of material to the 
speakers 'A' and 'B' had gone awry in the original: two of these he correct-
ed, but one was marked with a marginal note which stated 'Here again there 
3 See, for example, R. von Liliencron el at., eds., Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, 56 vols. 
(Leipzig, 1875-1912), v, p. 585. 
4 The pagination (286 pp., with some major anomalies, including the omission of 169-
214) matches that of items 87 (the self-styled 'Second Edition' of 1679) and 87a (a dif-
ferent issue of 87, also dated 1679) in H. Macdonald and M. Hargreaves, Thomas Hobbes: 
A Bibliography (London, 1952), pp. 65-66. Item 88 (also duodecimo, and also dated 1679) 
has a different pagination, extending to 214, not 286. Item 89 (dated 1680), which has the 
same pagination as item 87 and appears to be another issue o f it, can be excluded: it lacks 
three of the quotations from Horace given on the title pages of 87 and 87a, which are re-
produced by Ebert. 
8 6 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
is a confusion of the letters representing the speakers, but it has been allowed 
to remain, for fear that there may be a hidden secret.'5 Another sign of the 
care he took is the substantial index added to the manuscript.6 Also added 
are occasional marginal notes, drawing the reader's attention to key points in 
the argument: for example, 'Religion is a virtue' (against A's ' statement that 
'I have placed religion amongst the virtues'), or 'Hobbes does not recognize 
passive obedience' (against A's ' declaration that 'Every law is a command to 
do or to forbear, neither of these is fulfilled by suffering').7 Several of these 
marginalia reflect the special interest in Cromwell expressed in Ebert's title: 
thus we have 'Why Cromwell refrained from taking the title "King"'; 
'Cromwell's origins'; 'Cromwell the victor here' (against the account of the 
Battle of Marston Moor) ; 'Cromwell's first trick' (with an additional note, in 
Ebert's hand: 'Cromwell holds Parliament in his pocket'); 'How Cromwell 
arranges the murder of the King'; and 'An example of Cromwell's cunning'.8 
Here and there, important passages - for example, Hobbes's comment on 
the Battle of Naseby and its effects on the King's fortunes ( 'for by the loss of 
one great battle, he lost all he had formerly gotten, and at length his life') -
are also given special emphasis by single or double underlinings, in red ink.9 
Some of the other marginalia reproduce phrases from the English: 'by 
Way of Bargain', 'but bought them o f f , 'a Posture of defence', and (in Ebert's 
hand) 'by way of adventure', and 'Vice admiral'. These seem to indicate some 
uncertainty about the translations of those phrases offered in the text, which 
5 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fo . 79v ( 'Hie iterum confusio Literarum colloquentium, sed tol-
erata metu latentis arcani ' ) . T h e passage is on p. 56 o f T. Hobbes, Behemoth, Or, The Long 
Parliament, ed. F. Tonnies (London , 1889) [hereafter: 'Tonnies edn. ' ] , beginning 'Why 
then were they not in all points for the King's power. . . ' , where it is correctly assigned to 
'B'; in the 1679 edition used by Ebert (p. 76), the preceding speech by 'A' has been 
merged with the o n e before it, by 'B' , so that 'B' has two speeches in succession. The oth-
er two passages are SBB MS Lat. 2o 129, fos. 20v (Tonnies edn., p. 8, beginning 'But for 
those that die excommunicate in the Church of England.. . ' , correctly assigned there to 
'B'; in the 1679 edition (pp. 10-11) 'A's' reply to 'B's' question is merged with the ques-
tion, so that 'B ' has two speeches in succession), and 162v (Tonnies edn., p. 126, begin-
ning 'That is to say, by making p o o r people . . . ' , correctly assigned there to 'A'; in the 1679 
edition, p. 1302 (sig. I5v) it is assigned to 'B ' ) . 
6 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fos. 280-85. 
7 Ibid., fos. 68v, 73v (Tonnies edn., pp. 46, 50). 
8 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fos. 140r ( 'Cur Cromvellus Regis titulo abstinuerit'), 156v 
( 'Cromvelli pr imordia ' ) , 167r ( 'Cromvellus hie victor') , I79r ( 'Primum Cromvelli artifici-
um' ; 'Cromwellus Parliamentum in sacculo tenet'), 199v ( ' Q u o m o d o Cromvellus Regis 
caedem machinatur ' ) , 214v ( 'Exemplum Calliditatis Cromvellianae') (Tonnies edn., pp. 
109, 122, 129, 138, 151, 160-61). 
9 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fo . 170r ( 'eventu quippe unius proelii sinistri cuncta perdentis 
tandemqfue ] etv i tam' ) (Tonnies edn., pp. 131-32). 
8 7 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
do vary in adequacy but are in no case seriously wrong.10 From time to time, 
English words are also given alongside their translations in the text: for ex-
ample, 'ex milite provinciali (Train band)', 'Rectum (Righteousness) praescribi 
crebro in Ecclesia audivi', and 'Civibus et istis Equitibus, qui Knights appel-
lantur'.11 Generally, Ebert's grasp of the English is good; there are some puz-
zling errors which may arise merely from hasty mis-reading (such as the trans-
lation of 'by some law' as 'solenni Lege', 'by a solemn law'), and some small 
omissions which may have been the fault of the copyist, not the translator, but 
these are few and far between.12 Ebert's occasional expansions of the sense are 
usually helpful, showing that he has been following the argument intelligent-
ly (for example, his translation of 'from the Emperor's consent' as 'ex tacito 
Imperatoris consensu').13 And although Ebert's own Latin style, as displayed 
in his dedicatory epistle to the King of Prussia, was elaborate to the point of 
affectation, his rendering of Hobbes's English is reasonably straightforward -
occasionally cumbersome, but never obfuscatory.14 Nor does he intrude his 
own opinions on the text, except in one particular - and quite minor — in-
stance. At one point, 'A' criticizes 'those princes that with preferment are 
forced to buy the obedience of their subjects', and offers an ironic interpre-
tation of the story of Hercules and the Hydra: 'For Hercules at first did not 
cut off those heads, but bought them off; and afterwards, when he saw it did 
him no good, then he cut them off, and got the victory.' Ebert, apparendy not 
recognizing the sardonic humour of this remark, adds a marginal comment: 
'Here Hobbes goes against the meaning and the truth of the pagan fables, 
10 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fos. 52v ( 'per modum pacti'), 96r ('sed pretio eadem redemit', 
which fails to convey the sense of buying off), 104v ('Statum Defensionis', which fails to con-
vey the sense of 'posture'), 127v ( 'per m o d [ u m ] casus'), 236r ('vicarius Praetor') (Ton-
nies edn., pp. 32, 72, 79, 99, 175). 
11 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fos. l l r (where the 1679 edition has 'Train'd-bands'), 86r, 93v 
(Tonnies edn., pp. 2 (which has 'trained soldiers'), 63, 70). 
12 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fo. 21v (Tonnies edn., p. 9). Some omissions are ascribable not 
to the copyist but to the 1679 edition, e.g. fo. 112r: 'by the imprisonment of the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and of Judge Bartlet, and the impeachment of other bishops and 
judges' (Tonnies edn., p. 85) is given as 'Archi-Episcopo autem Cantuariensi etjudicibus 
in carcerem consectis', which correctly translates the truncated version in the 1679 edi-
tion (p. 1161 (sig. F l l v ) ) . Much more puzzling is the translation of 'secular and ... regu-
lar priests' (Tonnies edn., p. 14) as 'sacerdotes eorumq[ue] amicos' (fos. 27v-28r), which 
has no warrant in the 1679 edition. 
13 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fo. 24r (Tonnies edn., p. 11). 
14 One of the worst examples of cumbersomeness is his version of the opening phrase, 
'If in time, as in place, there were degrees of high and low... ' as 'Siquidem tempora alia 
majoria alia minora aestimari merentur, quemadmodum spatiis locorum discrimen ejus-
modi convenire videmus... ' (fo. lOr); the quality of the translation does improve there-
after. 
8 8 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
which do in fact teach something different.'15 Otherwise, however, this is a 
sympathetic and faithful presentation of Hobbes's narrative in Latin, which 
could and should have reached a wider European audience through the 
medium of print. Why, then, was it merely deposited in the King of Prussia's 
library? 
I l l 
Ebert's translation of Hobbes was not the only work of its kind to be 
passed by him to the Royal librarian. Between 1695 and 1725 he presented a 
total of twenty such manuscript volumes, consisting of his own translations 
(into Latin, from Spanish, English, French and Italian) of a variety of works, 
mostly historical or political.1'1 The first of these was aversion of one part of 
the biography of Charles V by Prudencio de Sandoval; four subsequent vol-
umes (the last of them dated 1701) contained further extracts from San-
doval's work.17 These were followed by an 'epitome' of Bayle's Dictionnaire (in 
1702); Edward Herbert's The Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth (1706); 
a little-known work on the 'arcana' of Ottoman rule by Antonio Geropoldi, 
the Bilancia historico-politica dell'impero ottomano (1707); and then Hobbes's Be-
hemoth (1708).18 Four years later Ebert presented his translation of Luis de 
Cabrera de Cordova's life of Philip II, in four manuscript volumes; this was 
followed in 1717 by a large volume containing the principal works of Baltasar 
15 Tönnies edn. , p. 72; SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fo . 96r ( 'Hobbes hic sensui et veritati ré-
pugnât fabulis Ethnicis quippe aliud docentibus ' ) . 
16 See the listing in V. Rose, Verzeichniss der lateinischen Handschriften der Königlichen Bib-
liothek zu Berlin, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1901-1919), ii, part 1, pp. 1406-10 (SBB, MSS Lat. 2o 101-
5, 117, 120-30, 132, 177, and MS Theol . 2o 199). The evidence tends to suggest that all 
the volumes presented by Ebert have survived: in the dedicatory epistle to the penultimate 
volume (MS Lat. 2o 104, dated 1723), Ebert wrote that it would bring the total to nine-
teen ( fo . 3v: ' i js fque] augebunt novendeeim Volumina manuscripta'), and this was fol-
lowed by one volume presented in May 1725 (MS Lat. 2o 105). However, in the preface to 
his Historia captivitatis (see below, n. 27) , he mentions one other manuscript prepared by 
him, a translation into French o f the letters o f Charles I to Henrietta Maria during the Civ-
il War (probably taken f rom The King's Cabinet opened; Or, Certain Packets of Secret Letters & 
Papers, urritten by the King's own Hand, and taken in his Cabinet at Naseby-Field (London, 
1645)) ; this does not appear to have survived. 
17 SBB, MSS Lat. 2o 132 (1695), 120-22, 123 (1701). The work by Sandoval was his His-
toria de la vida y hechos del emperador Carlos V (Pamplona, 1634). 
18 SBB, MSS Lat. 2o 177, 128, 130, 129. Geropoldi 's work (Bilancia historico-politica del-
l'impero ottomano, overo arcani reconditi del maomettismo (Venice, 1686)) is rare, and appar-
ently not held by any British library; there is a copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 
(pressmark J-3407). 
8 9 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
Gracián.19 Three years after that, he produced a three-volume translation of 
d'Herbelot's Bibliothèque orientale, a ground-breaking encyclopaedia of Arabic 
and oriental scholarship; in 1722 he contributed a version of some of the 
works of the abbé de Brantôme; in 1723 a strange coupling of the life of 
Christopher Columbus by his son, and Gracián 's treatise on the Eucharist; 
and finally, in 1725, another composite volume, containing a version of the 
oriental fables Kalilah ve Dimnah, and the lightweight work by de Mailly, Rome 
galante, ou histoire secrète.20 
The great majority of these manuscripts bear personal dedications to the 
King (or, before 1701, Elector); clearly, attracting favour and patronage must 
have been a primary aim of the entire enterprise. This was in fact a method of 
gaining attention which Ebert had developed at an early stage in his life. As 
his account of his youthful travels round Europe informs us, he ended his stay 
in England in 1678 by presenting his manuscript Latin translation of 
Cavendish's life of Wolsey to the Archbishop of Canterbury; and on his even-
tual return to Brandenburg-Prussia in 1680, he gave copies of his Latin ver-
sion of Sir Kenelm Digby's Observations on Religio medid to the two senior 
preachers at the Elector's court in Berlin.21 Another manuscript, dated 1696, 
ended up in the library of the Freiherr von Schwerin. (Unlike all the others, 
19 SBB, MSS Lat. 2o 124-7; Theol. 2o 199 (containing Gracián 's El criticón-, El discreto-, El 
político Fernando-, El héroe, and El oráculo-, Ebert had probably taken these from the two-vol-
ume collected Obras o f Gracián published at Antwerp in 1669). The work by Cabrera de 
Cordova was his Felipe segundo, rey de España (Madrid, 1619). 
20 SBB, MSS Lat. 2o 101-3, 104, 105. On the significance of d'Herbelot's work see H. 
Laurens, Aux Sources de l'orientalisme: la Bibliothèque orientale de Barthélemi d'Herbelot 
(Paris, 1978). Gracián's El comulgatorio de varias meditaciones de la sagrada comunion was in-
cluded in the two-volume Obras of 1669. The work known as Kalilah ve Dimnah has a com-
plex textual history (see the Introduction to I. G. N. Keith-Falconer, Kalilah and Dimnah, 
or, The Fables of Bidpai (Cambridge, 1885)); the book translated by Ebert was the Spanish 
translation (by a Ragusan) of the first eight chapters of a Turkish version (the Humayun-
namah) : Espejo politico, y moral, para principes, ministros, y todo genero de personas, tr. 'Vicente 
Bratuti' [Vicko Bratutti], 2 vols. (Madrid, 1654-58). On this translation see Keith-Falcon-
er, op. cit., p. lxx, and H. F. von Diez, Über Inhalt und Vortrag, Entstehung und Schicksale des 
königlichen Buchs, eines Werks von der Regierungskunst (Berlin, 1811), p. 151. (Bratutti 
worked first as a dragoman for his native Ragusa in Istanbul, then for the Habsburgs in 
Austria and Spain, and died in 1678; I am grateful to Dr. Robin Harris and Dr Nenad 
Vekaric for their help in identifying him.) The work by de Mailly was first published in 
Paris in 1685; its second edition was entitled Amours des empereurs romains Iules César et Au-
guste (Amsterdam, 1701). 
21 [A. Ebert,] Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, von Franco Porto der Khur-Branden-
burg durch Teutschland, Holland und Braband, England, Frankreich ... ferner nach Turin, gantz 
Italien, Rom, Neapolis ... mitgehend besondere Discourse von Religion, privat- und publique 
Conduite, wie auch galante und remarqvable Consersation, in Europa (Frankfurt, 1724), part 1, 
p. 106; part 2, p. 347. 
9 0 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
this appears to have been an original work, a critical and biographical survey 
of modern historical writers.)22 This last item was also dedicated to the Elec-
tor; whether it was given directly to von Schwerin, or whether he merely failed 
to pass it on to its dedicatee, is not clear. What is evident is that Ebert was hap-
py to kill more than one bird with such stones; his 'epitome' of Bayle, for ex-
ample, which was presented to the Elector's library, bears a dedication to the 
state councillor Baron von Iljen, and the composite Columbus-Graciân vol-
ume, dedicated to the King, is accompanied by a letter to the royal minister 
Baron von Prinzen, which asks him to pass it first to Baron Cocceji (President 
of the royal council), and only thereafter to deliver it to the King's library.23 
But the potential readers of these volumes were more than just multiple 
potential patrons. In several of the manuscripts one finds, after the elaborate 
and honorific dedicatory epistle, a quite separate 'Preface to the Reader' -
just as one might expect to find in a printed book.24 And there is some evi-
dence that Ebert did intend, or at least hope, that some of these manuscripts 
would be printed. The reason he gave for donating his translation of the life 
of Wolsey to the Archbishop of Canterbury was that he knew that his contin-
uing travels would prevent him from making arrangements to get it printed 
at that time.25 The dedicatory epistle placed before his translation of 
Geropoldi (1707) declared (with some metaphorical awkwardness): 'These 
are just some of the flowers that perfume the field which dares to invite Your 
Majesty to walk in it - Your Majesty, all your Court, and, if you wish, all the 
Republic o f Letters' - the last phrase clearly implying that Ebert hoped the 
King would sponsor the work's publication in print.26 In 1715 Ebert did pub-
22 This fo l io MS, which has not survived, is mentioned in G. G. Küster, Des alten und 
neuen Berlin dritte Abtheilung (Berlin, 1756), p. 551, where the title is given as 'Prodromus 
bibliothecae Parnassi complexus examen, vitasque historicorum, qui lingua latina, Ger-
manica, Belgica, Anglica, Gallica, Italica, Hispanica & Portugallica duobus adhinc seculis 
gesta Regum Europae quam opt ime illustrarent' ( 'A forerunner o f the library o f Parnas-
sus, containing an examination, and the lives, o f those historians who, writing in Latin, 
German, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, might best illuminate 
the actions o f European kings in the last two centuries'). 
23 T h e letter to von Prinzen (5 Nov. 1723) is tipped in at the start o f SBB MS Lat. 2o 
104, and has been numbered as fo . 1 ( fo lr: 'Apret [sic] l'avoir communiqué aussi a Mon 
Le Baron Cocceji Le President, j e vous supplie, Monseigneur, de le livrer a la Bibliothèque 
Royale ' ) . 
24 For example, SBB MSS Lat. 2o 101, fos. 9v- l l ; 128, fo. 4; 130, fo. 8r. 
25 Ebert, Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, p. 106 ('weil den Authoren die Continu-
ation seiner Reise nach Frankreich und anderen Landschafften darinnen jetzo verhin-
derte dermahleins zum Druck zu befördern ' ) . 
26 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 130, fo. 7r ( 'Ceux cy sont en partie les fleurs dont respire le camps 
qui ose inviter Votre Majesté a la Promenade, Toute sa Cour, et si Vous voulez, toute la Re-
publique des Lettres'). 
9 1 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
lish a book containing some extracts from his translations of Sandoval, Cabr-
era de Cordova and Herbert.27 And ten years later, when he had completed 
his translation of Kalilah veDimnah, he went to the trouble of announcing, in 
a Leipzig journal, that he intended to have it printed.28 
Why were most of these works never printed? One slightly puzzling piece 
of evidence is supplied by the littérateur Gottlieb Stolle, who recorded, after 
Ebert's death, a conversation he had had with him in 1704 about his version 
of Sandoval's life of Charles V: 'Hereupon he told me that he translated this 
Spaniard's biography of Charles V from the Spanish, but that the King of 
Prussia had some scruple about allowing it to be printed, so the manuscript 
passed to the library in Berlin.'29 The implied suggestion seems to have been 
that this text was thought to be sensitive and unsuitable for general con-
sumption; this fits (as we shall see) Ebert's own obsession with the arcana im-
perii, but hardly fits the nature of the work itself, which had in any case been 
in print for many decades. A simpler explanation might be that Ebert had 
wanted the Elector to sponsor the publication in practical and financial 
terms, and that the Elector had doubted whether it was worth the trouble. 
Nevertheless, it is Ebert's own scruples that matter most of all in this story, as 
they seem to have determined his strategy of conveying works on statecraft to 
his ruler, and leaving it to the ruler's judgement to decide what level of read-
ership they should be allowed to enjoy. (Compare the gradations of reader-
ship set out in the dedicatory epistle quoted above: 'Your Majesty, all your 
Court, and, if you wish, all the Republic of Letters'.) And a similar point is 
made in the dedicatory epistle which Ebert placed before his translation of 
Hobbes: 
27 A. Ebert, tr., Historia captivitatis Francisci I. Galliarum regis, nec non vitae Caroli V. Imper. 
in monasterio, additä relatio vitae mortisque Caroli Infantis Philippi II. Regis Hispaniarum filii: 
authoribus Prudentio de Sandoval ...et Ludovico de Cabrera de Cordua ( 'Milan' [Frankfurt an 
der Oder?], 1715). The brief specimen o f his translation of Herbert consists o f a speech 
by Cardinal Wolsey (pp. 367-72 [mispaginated '370' ] ) . 
28 von Diez, Uber Inhalt und Vortrag des königlichen Buchs, p. 152 ('Ebert hatte auch den 
Druck seiner Ubersetzung durch die leipziger Zeitungen von 1725 angekündigt'). In 1731 
an edition appeared at Frankfurt an der Oder of another work which Ebert had translat-
ed, Grecian's Oräculo, under the title Aulicus, sive deprudentia civili et maxime aulica libersin-
gularis. However, this translation is quite different from Ebert's, being taken from the 
French version by Amelot de la Houssaie (see below, n. 95), and the translator is identi-
fied on the title page as 'Franc[iscus] Glarianus Meldenus, Constantiensis'. 
29 G. Stolle, Anmerckungen über D. Heumanns Conspectum reipublicae literariae, allen Lieb-
habern der Historie der Gelahrheit zu Liebe an den Tag gegeben (Jena, 1738), p. 610 ('Hierauf 
erzehlte er, dass er dieses Spaniers Lebensbeschreibung Kayser Carls des V. aus dem 
Spanischen vertiret, doch habe der König in Preussen Bedencken getragen, es drucken 
zu lassen, daher das Mst. in die Bibliothec zu Berlin gekommen' ) . 
9 2 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
Indeed, Hobbes not only adapted his efforts to demonstrating the sav-
agery of rebellious injustice, but also ... wanted to make known the arts 
by which Cromwell, that unparalleled politician, climbed to the top of 
the ruins of royal power, admired by all the world. So, kneeling before 
your throne, I present this offspring of my industry to you, most sacred 
King; it would be most useful to have it committed to general publica-
tion, to defend the security of princes, which is apt to be undermined 
either by ignorance of the art of ruling, or by envy of royal power 
(dressed up as 'the right of the people'). If, indeed, you consider, once 
again, that such publication would be inadvisable for it, I beg you to 
store away this translation in your Royal library.30 
'Inadvisable' here ('inconsultum') appears to mean something a little 
more than 'undesirable'; the implication is that what is involved is an exer-
cise of royal prudence, perhaps even political judgement. A common theme 
in the literature on 'reason of state' and the arcana imperii was the question 
of whether it was prudent to allow the general population to know about 
such matters; the standard response was a qualified 'yes' (the theorists giving 
this response were, after all, usually doing so in books that were on sale to the 
public), but the qualification was that due deference must be paid to the 
ruler's political needs and requirements.31 In some cases, the rulers did de-
cide that publication would not be in their interest. (A classic example was 
the decision by the authorities in Venice to suppress the manuscript of Boc-
calini's great commentary on Tacitus: the officials who scrutinized it in 1627 
produced a report stating that 'I am not sure how useful it would be for it to 
be distributed in the hands of the people, given that one may read in it about 
those arcana o f rulers which it would be much better to have kept safely in 
private studies than seen and sold in shops'.)32 The safest solution for a def-
30 SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fos. 5-6r ( 'Labores vero suos aptavit Hobbesius non m o d o ad 
demonstrandam injustitiae rebellantis immanitatem, sed et ut . . . vulgarentur illae artes, 
quibus Politicus sineExemplo, Cromvellus ille, regio rudere fastigium omni admirabile mun-
d o evexit. Curvus igitur genu Solio Tuo hosce industriae meae foetus of fero Rex Sacratis-
sime utilissimos typis committi generalibus, ut incolumitas vindicetur Principum, quam vel 
inscitia regnandi vel livor Regiae Magnitudinis obtentu Juris Populi solet attentare. Quod 
si vero iisdem annuere d e n u o inconsultum, supplico, ut Regia versionem hanc recondas 
Bibliothecä'). 
31 See, f o r example, the comments to this effect by Ebert's teacher Johann Christoph 
Beckmann: Conspectus doctrinae politicae brevibus thesibus earumq[ue] demonstrationibus 
propositus (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1691), pp. 5, 12-13. 
32 Report by Girolamo Lando and Vincenzo Gussoni, cited in H. Hendrix, Traiano Boc-
catini fra erudizione e polémica: ricerche sulla fortuna e bibliografía critica (Florence, 1995), 
p. 144 ( ' non saprei quanto fosse utile che ella si spargiesse per le mani de ' popoli , si 
9 3 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
erential author, therefore, was to let the ruler make the decision himself; but 
at the same time the most self-gratifying way of doing this was to donate the 
work to a library which, although under the ruler's direct control, was nev-
ertheless a semi-public place. 
As recent studies of 'scribal publication' have shown, the distinction 
which now seems so absolute between the worlds of print and manuscript was 
far from clear-cut in the early modern period.33 Only in modern and collo-
quial usage does 'to publish' function as a synonym of 'to print'. To deposit a 
manuscript in a library could also be a form of publication; indeed, it might 
be described as the converse of scribal publication, involving not a multiplic-
ity of copies being made (typically) for individual readers, but rather a mul-
tiplicity of readers coming to make use of an individual copy. Early modern 
writers might consign manuscripts of their writings to libraries for a variety of 
reasons. Modesty - the feeling that the work did not merit the more defini-
tive method of publication in print - was one: for example, the Swiss mathe-
matician Johann Heinrich Rahn explained in the preface to his 'Algebra spe-
ciosa seu introductio in geometriam universalem' (1667) that he knew that 
distinguished men in England and Holland were working on the same topic, 
and that he had therefore decided to deposit his work in the Zurich city li-
brary instead of having it printed.34 Other reasons might include a desire to 
preserve a controversial text for posterity without giving immediate offence 
to certain people (where the text included personal criticisms or accusa-
tions) , and, more generally, a desire to make available to suitable researchers 
the raw materials for future works by others.3" In all cases, what was intended 
was not non-publication, but publication of a specially qualified kind. 
The Royal library in Berlin was also a 'public repository'. In c.1661 the 
practice had been adopted of allowing the public to consult items in the Elec-
tor's library in the afternoons - or, at least, not the general public, but ap-
proved individuals such as court officials and administrators, clerics, profes-
perche in essa leggono quegli arcani de principi che molto meglio stanno custoditi nelle 
secrette che nelle botteghe veduti et venduti'). The work was eventually published (in-
completely and inadequately) in 1677 and 1678. Ebert, who was an enthusiast for both 
Tacitus and Boccalini, would no doubt have taken a special interest in the story of its sup-
pression. 
33 See, for example, H. Love, Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford, 
1993); W. Speed Hill, ed., New Ways of Looking at Old Texts (Binghamton, NY, 1993); A. F. 
Marotti, Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric (Ithaca, NY, 1995). 
34 Zentralbibliothek, Zurich, MS C 114a, fo. IIIv. 
35 Both of these motives were at work in John Aubrey's decision to consign his MSS to 
a 'public repository': see K. Bennett, John Aubrey's Collections and the Early Modern 
Museum', The Bodleian Library Record, 17 (2001), pp. 213-45, esp. pp. 216-18. 
9 4 
BEHEMOTH L A T I N U S - . A D A M E B E R T , T A C I T I S M , A N D I I O B B E S 
sors and scholars. A full-time librarian was employed, and thanks to a very ac-
tive acquisitions policy the collection held, by 1688, no fewer than 20,600 vol-
umes.36 By 1715 this figure had risen to roughly 50,000.37 Many scholars - for 
example, the orientalists Christian Ravius, Hiob Ludolf and Andreas Aco-
luthus - did make regular use of the library; access was also easily gained by 
visiting men of letters such as John Toland, who reported in 1702 that 'In the 
Palace is a Library, which has an annual Fund to augment and to maintain it. 
The Books are well chosen, numerous, and in good case.'38 In 1693 the hours 
of the reading-room had been extended to mornings as well as afternoons; 
however, after some misuse, automatic access was restricted in 1710-11 to state 
counsellors and members of the 'Societät der Wissenschaften'. (Others had to 
apply to a state counsellor to obtain permission.)39 A senior court official was 
entrusted with the post of'Patronus' or overseer of the library: holders of this 
office included Otto, Freiherr von Schwerin (from 1697 until his death in 
1705); Marquard Ludwig, Freiherr von Prinzen (from 1709 until his death in 
1725); and Samuel, Freiherr von Cocceji (from 1730 until his death in 1755) 
- three of the other people whose attentions were solicited by Ebert.*10 The 
Royal library was thus an institution closely tied to the court, and its users 
could be presumed to consist of people authorized (either directly or indi-
rectly) as readers by the King and his immediate circle of political advisers. 
How justified that presumption may have been, in practice, is hard to 
judge. Probably any educated person, with a suitable contact in Berlin socie-
ty, could obtain access. And once access was gained, the reader would have 
found that there were few formal restrictions on the use that could be made 
of the library's materials; with the good will of the librarian, a manuscript 
might even have been copied in toto. There is no direct evidence to show that 
any further copies of Ebert's Behemoth translation were ever made; but there is 
one piece of indirect evidence, a suggestive chronological near-coincidence. 
In 1711 the Leipzig publisher Thomas Fritsch was planning to produce a new 
edition of Hobbes's works, and was chivvying Leibniz for the loan of his copy 
of his 'book about liberty' (either Of Libertie and Necessitie or, more probably, 
36 E. Paunel, Die Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin: ihre Geschichte und Organisation während der ersten 
zwei fahrhunderte seit ihrer Eröffnung, 1661-1871 (Berlin, 1965), pp. 17-18, 23. See also 
K. Tautz, Die Bibliothekare der churfürstlichen Bibliothek zu Cölln an der Spree: ein Beitrag zur 
Geschichte derPreussischen Staatsbibliothek im siebzehnten fahrhundert (Leipzig, 1925), pp. 23-37. 
37 F. Wilken, Geschichte der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin, 1828), p. 87. 
38 Ibid., pp. 38-40; Küster, Des alten und neuen Berlin, p. 23; J. Toland, An Account of the 
Courts of Prussia and Hanover, sent to a Minister of State in Holland (London, 1705) ,p . 13 (let-
ter dated 18 Aug. 1702). 
3i' Paunel, Die Staatsbibliothek, p. 34. 
40 Ibid., p. 25; above, at nn. 22, 23. 
9 5 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
The Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance).41 Fritsch's ambitious 
project thus included the issuing of translations of works that had hitherto 
been available in English only. As Gottlieb Stolle later recalled, commenting 
on Hobbes's Opera philosophica, quae latine scripsit, omnia of 1668: 'the writings 
which he left behind in his mother tongue are not included in it. Thomas 
Fritsch wanted to issue these in a Latin translation, and publish these Opera to-
gether with them, but this project made no progress, because he was not able 
to get hold of all of them.'42 Another reason for the non-appearance of 
Fritsch's edition was that in October 1711 the Elector of Saxony instructed the 
book-licensing authorities in Leipzig to suppress it; intriguingly, his instruc-
tions mentioned that Fritsch was planning to include 'several manuscripts 
which have not previously been printed'.43 The identity of these manuscripts 
(presumably, translations into Latin of English-language texts by Hobbes) 
cannot be ascertained. But it must seem possible - likely, even - that one of 
them was a copy of Adam Ebert's complete translation of Behemoth, which had 
become available to interested members of the public, in the neighbouring 
territory o f Brandenburg-Prussia, just three years before. 
IV 
What was the nature of Ebert's own interest in Hobbes? In order to an-
swer this question, it is necessary first of all to fill in some of the details of the 
story of Ebert's life. 
Adam Ebert was born in Frankfurt an der Oder, some time between 1653 
and 1657.44 He came from a prominent local family, which had supplied 
41 J. Burckhard, Historia bibliothecae Augustae quae Wolffenbutteli est, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1744-
46), ii, p. 336 (Leibniz to Hertelius, 23 July 1711: 'M. Fritsch m'ayant fait presser pour I'Ou-
urage de Hobbes sur la Liberie ). 
42 Stolle, Anmerckungen, p. 975 ('die Schrifften, so er in seiner Muttersprache hinter-
lassen, stehen nicht mit darunter. Thomas Fritsch wollte dieselben lateinisch übersetzen 
lassen, und diese Opera damit gantz heraus geben, allein, wie er sie nicht alle erhalten kön-
nen [sie], so ist dieses Vorhaben Krebsgängig worden' ) . Puzzlingly, Stolle mis-dates the 
Opera philosophica to 1684. In a previous discussion of Fritsch's project I commented that 
he had 'perhaps' planned to commission translations into German, French or Latin (As-
pects of Hobbes (Oxford, 2002), p. 462); this evidence from Stolle, which was not known to 
me then, shows that Latin was the intended language. 
43 Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Dresden, MS 10753 (Oberkonsistorium, Bücher-
sachen, vol. ii (1711-13)), fo. 18, copy o f letter from Elector to 'Büchercommissarien', 11 
Oct. 1711 ('worzu itzo noch etliche Manuscripta, so vorhero nicht in druck gewesen, kom-
men wären'). 
44 Modern reference works such as the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie (see above, n. 3) 
give his date of birth as 1653. The text (by Georg Gottfried Küster) in M. F. Seidel, Bilder-
9 6 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
Lutheran clerics and intellectuals to that city for more than a century. His 
great-great-grandfather had been Frankfurt an der Oder's first Lutheran 
minister; his great-grandfather had been Rector of the city's University in 
1593, 1605 and 1613; his grandfather was a Lutheran minister, and a broth-
er of a Professor of Hebrew at the University; and his father, Gottlieb, was a 
merchant and city councillor.45 Given this family background, there could be 
little doubt as to which university Adam Ebert would attend. He was first reg-
istered at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder - as, in effect, an auditor 
— in 1665; whether he was as young as eight or as old as twelve, he must have 
been a very precocious child. His matriculation took place in December 
1674.46 This university was of a modest size, and would soon be overshad-
owed, in the Elector of Brandenburg's territories, by the new foundation at 
Halle in the 1690s; it also represented a stricter, more old-fashioned brand of 
Lutheranism. But it did possess some intellectual luminaries - among them, 
the law professors Johann Brunnemann and Samuel Stryk, and the historian 
Johann Christoph Beckmann.47 
Ebert graduated in 1677; he then set off on the first of his travels, a 
round trip to Vienna, passing through Silesia on the way there and returning 
via Prague. In the Viennese bookshops he found a satirical pamphlet on the 
fall from favour of Leopold I's minister, Prince Wenzel Lobkowitz, written as 
if by Boccalini (in the manner of his Ragguagli di Parnasso) ,48 Ebert may have 
been already familiar with Boccalini's work, which was still highly popular 
Sammlung, in welcher hundert gröstentheils in der Mark Brandenburg gebohrne, allerseits aber um 
dieselb wohlverdiente Männer vorgestellt werden (Berlin, 1751), gives 1656 (p. 45). In the pref-
ace to his account o f his travels in 1678, 1679 and 1680, however, Ebert refers to himself 
as aged 21, 22 and 23, which would imply that he was born in 1657; and in the text he 
refers to the start o f his 22nd year (i.e., his 21st birthday) in the autumn of 1678 (Ebert, 
Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, sig. 7i4v; part 1, p. 116). In view of his early regis-
tration at the university, however, it may be suspected that he was understating his age in 
these later writings. 
45 Seidel, Bilder-Sammlung, p. 45 (Gottlieb); J. C. Beckmann [ 'Becmanus'] , Notitia Uni-
versitatis Francofurtanae, una cum iconibus personarum aliquot illustrium (n.p., n.d. [Frankfurt 
an der Oder, c .1706]) , pp. 50-51, 71, 116-20 (other ancestors). 
4fa E. Friedländer, ed., Altere Universitätsmatrikeln der Universität Frankfurt an der Oder, 3 
vols. (Leipzig, 1888-91), ii, p. 108. 
47 See C. R. Hausen, Geschichte der Universität und Stadt Frankfurt an der Oder (Frankfurt 
an der Oder, 1800), pp. 17-20. 
48 Ebert, Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, part 1, pp. 18-19. The pamphlet ap-
peared first in 1674 as Der gewonnene Aussgang und plötzliche Fall des ... Fürst Lobkowitzens ... 
geschrieben aus dem Parnas von Trajano Boccalini', it was reissued in both German and Latin 
in 1675 (see R Stötzner, 'Der Satiriker Trajano Boccalini und sein Einfluss auf die 
deutsche Litteratur', Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Litteraturen, 103 
(1899), pp. 107-47; here pp. 144-45). 
9 7 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
throughout Europe, but this was perhaps his first encounter with the genre 
of pseudo-Boccalinian writing, to which he himself would later contribute. In 
January 1678 he travelled to Hamburg, to take a boat to Amsterdam. While 
in Hamburg he met a Major-General von Bulow, who discussed with him, 
over dinner, people of exceptional intelligence who had suffered for their 
cleverness: Machiavelli, Cardano, Boccalini and Campanella. The Major-
General also recommended Bacon's Sermones fideles (the Latin version o f his 
Essays) and Cardano's Arcana prudentiae (his treatise on behaviour in society, 
Proxeneta, sive de arcanis prudentiae civilis liber singularis) ,49 Ebert's destination 
in Holland was Leiden, where he had planned to study jurisprudence; but he 
was quickly disappointed by the quality of the law professors, and abandoned 
the idea. He returned to Amsterdam, where he bought both of the books by 
Cardano and Bacon: the latter he 'read through three times in two months'. 
Then he took a boat to England, arriving in London on Easter Saturday.50 
Thanks to the help of the Freiherr von Schwerin, who was then the Elec-
tor of Brandenburg's envoy in London, Ebert obtained a letter of introduc-
tion to the Oxford mathematician John Wallis; his aim was to study under 
him 'the science of encrypting letters in unbreakable code'. But when he met 
Wallis, at his farm outside Oxford, Wallis demanded such exorbitant fees that 
Ebert decided immediately to return to London.51 There he visited the Roy-
al Society, which did not impress him, and the bookshops, which did; he 
bought (among other things) Edward Herbert's life of Henry VIII, Jeremy 
Taylor's Ductor dubitantium and a commentary on Tacitus.52 More surprising-
ly, he also paid a visit to Thomas Hobbes. This meeting - one of the very last 
documented encounters that anyone had with the elderly philosopher - has 
remained unknown to Hobbes scholars; indeed, it has always been assumed, 
on the basis of a statement by Aubrey, that Hobbes left London in 1675 and 
spent the rest of his life in Derbyshire.53 Ebert's account (in which he refers 
to himself in the third person) is therefore worth reproducing in full. 
49 Ebert, Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, part 1, pp. 29-30. 
:,<> Ibid., part 1, pp. 51, 58 ('die er dreymahl in 2. Monathen durchgelesen'), 60. 
51 Ibid., part 1, pp. 61 ('wegen der Wissenschaft Brieffe in unauflöselichen Characteren 
zu verhehlen'), 64. Wallis's activity as a code-breaker on behalf of the Parliamentarian au-
thorities during the Civil War was one o f the things harped on in Hobbes's polemics 
against him. 
52 Ibid., part 1, pp. 70, 73, 106, 109-10. 
53 J. Aubrey, 'Brief Lives', chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey, between the years 
1669 & 1696, ed. A. Clark, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1898), i, p. 346 ('1675, mense ... [jfe], he left 
London cum animo nunquam revertendi ['with the intention o f never returning'], and spent 
the remaynder of his dayes in Derbyshire'). 
9 8 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
He also paid his respects to the world-famous Thomas Hobbes, who, at 
a great age, was lodging with a maker of mathematical instruments, 
Robert Joyle, not far from Fleet Bridge. He expressed his esteem for 
him, and that of all Germany; but he [Hobbes] was so ill and incapable 
that he could scarcely enter into relations with him. He was a tall man, 
with fair or sun-bleached hair. He had to endure many misfortunes dur-
ing Cromwell's time, especially where Dr Wallis was concerned at Ox-
ford University - in such a manner that he was also threatened with im-
prisonment in that very place. After that, he betook himself to King 
Charles II in France, and taught him mathematics, giving him such 
pleasure that the King, at his restoration, not only greeted him while 
making his first entry into London (when he saw him at the window), 
but also, thereafter, had his portrait put up in all his palaces.54 
'Robert Joyle' here was Robert Jole or Choule, a scientific instrument 
maker who was active in London between 1664 and 1704; Ebert's account is 
confirmed by the fact that Jole is known to have had an address in Fleet St in 
1672.55 But what his connection was with Hobbes, or why Hobbes was lodg-
ing with him at this time, remains quite obscure. Some of the details about 
Hobbes's life given here are evidently rather confused, in matters of both fact 
and chronology; nor is it clear whether they are based on what Hobbes told 
Ebert on that occasion, or on other sources of information (the most likely 
being hearsay, the 'Hobbianae vitae auctarium' by Aubrey and Blackburne, 
and Sorbiere's published account of his visit to England). If they derive from 
Ebert's conversation with Hobbes, then the cause of the confusion may have 
been Hobbes's illness (only a temporary one, however, as we know that he 
was capable of perfectly lucid argument one year later); or, more probably, it 
54 Ebert, Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, part 1, pp. 78-79 ( 'Er hat auch dem 
Welt-berühmten Th. Hobbes reverenciret / als er sehr alt zu Londen bey einem Mechanico 
Mathematischer Instrumenten, Robert Joyle, nicht weit von Fleetbridge logirt. Er trug ihm sein Es-
tim, so in gantz Teutschland / vor; allein er war so kranck und unvermögend / dass er sich 
wenig einlassen konte; ein langer Mann / gelb oder basané. Er hatte zu Cromvels Zeiten 
viel Dessastres ausszustehen gehabt / absonderlich auff der Universität zu Ochsfort mit Doc-
tor Vallis, dergestalt / dass er auch mit dem Career daselbst scandalisirt. Nachdem begab er 
sich in Franckreich zum König Carolo II., informirte ihn in Mathematicis mit solchem 
Vergnügen / dass der König bey seiner Restitution ihn nicht allein grüssete / als er seinen 
ersten Einzug in L o n d e n that und ihn im Fenster erblickete / sondern auch nachmahls 
sein Bildnüss in allen seinen Pallästen auffrichten Hess'). 
55 For what little is known o f Jole, see J. Brown, 'Guild Organisation and the Instrument-
Making Trade, 1550-1830: T h e Grocers ' and Clockmakers' Companies' , Annals of Science, 
36 (1979) , pp. 1-34 (here p. 31); G. Clifton, Dictionary of British Scientific Instrument Makers, 
1550-1851 ( L o n d o n , 1995), p. 152. 
9 9 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
may have been linguistic, given the rustiness of Hobbes's Latin and the fact 
that Ebert had been learning English for only a matter of weeks or months.56 
That Wallis could have threatened to have Hobbes imprisoned in Oxford 
seems unlikely; but perhaps there was some other legal threat by him, the de-
tails of which have otherwise not survived. One thing at least is clear: Ebert 
was happy to express his admiration of Hobbes, even though he was well 
aware of his controversial reputation. Not long afterwards, when he was re-
turning to London after a trip to Windsor, he had an agreeable Englishwo-
man as his travelling companion. 'But when she came to talk about the 
world-famous Thomas Hobbes, she exclaimed against him as a child of the 
devil; something for which he was also denounced throughout England, es-
pecially by theologians - in the pulpit, at any rate.'57 
Ebert left England in the autumn of 1678, and spent the next seven 
months in Paris. There he visited Colbert's house, and studied the 'Testa-
ments politiques' of both Colbert and Louvois; he also got to know the his-
torian Antoine Varillas at the Bibliothèque Saint-Victor, who advised him to 
read the works of Sandoval.58 On one occasion he visited Versailles, where, in 
the gardens, he caught a glimpse of the Roi soleil, in clothes glittering with 
pearls and jewels.59 In the summer of 1679 he returned briefly to Holland, 
and then began a long tour of the French coast, starting in the north-west; 
for the first part of this journey he had a travelling-companion, an English 
merchant, who described himself as a cousin of Cromwell. This man was, it 
seems, a source of 'many' stories about the Protector and his family; the on-
ly one Ebert preserved for posterity concerns Charles II summoning one of 
:,<> Quentin Skinner has recently demonstrated that Chatsworth Hobbes MS D 5, which 
contains a fragment of a series of dictated responses by Hobbes to questions by the fourth 
Earl of Devonshire, was a product of the Exclusion Crisis of 1679 (see his edition o f this 
text in the Clarendon Edition of the Works o f Hobbes, forthcoming). So whatever 
Hobbes's medical problems may have been in these final years, it is clear that they did not 
include senility. Hobbes's spoken Latin was already unusably rusty by 1652: see L. Huy-
gens, The English Journal, 1651-1652, ed. and tr. A. G. H. Bachrach and R. G. Collmer (Lei-
den, 1982), pp. 75, 218. 
57 Ebert, Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, part 1, p. 105 ('Als sie aber zu reden 
gekommen von dem Weltberühmten Th. Hobbes, schalt sie denselben vor ein Teuffels-
Kind / davor er auch in gantz England / absonderlich von den Theologis, allerdings auff 
der Cantzel aussgeruffen ward'). 
58 Ibid., pp. 116, 153, 156. Varillas had previously been Royal librarian in Paris (1655-
62), and had published his most famous work, Politique de la maison d'Autriche, in 1658. 
59 Ibid., p. 145. Thirty-six years later Ebert would refer to this encounter when address-
ing one of the three dedications of his translation o f Cabrera, Sandoval and Herbert (see 
above, n. 27) to Louis XIV (the others being to the Kings of Prussia and Spain): Ebert, tr., 
Historia captivitatis Francisci I, p. 'II'. 
1 0 0 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
Cromwell's daughters to an audience soon after the Restoration, at which he 
pinched her nose and repeated the words of the popular song, 'Oliver, Oliv-
er, lend me your nose'.60 Ebert was evidently fascinated by Cromwell; in Eng-
land he had acquired a book about him, and in Holland he bought a medal 
which had the Protector's head on one side, and an olive-tree on the other, 
with (according to Ebert) the motto 'Nunquam tibi deficient oliva'. With a 
slight frisson, Ebert recalled in his travel-book that he had been told 'in se-
cret' by the seller that this medal was in fact made not in 1658 (the date it 
bore) but in 1678, 'because England was not very satisfied with Charles II, 
and wanted thereby to let him know, indirectly or ambiguously, that there 
could soon be another Oliver Cromwell, if he did not improve his rule.'61 
Ebert's tour of French coastal towns took him as far as Marseille and 
Toulon; from there he travelled to Lyon, and from Lyon he set off for Italy. 
He settled for a while in Turin, where he paid a Genoese man to instruct him 
in Italian — not so much because he needed language lessons, as because the 
man was secretary to a senior minister, and was able to tell him 'the most se-
cret things, which had just become known at Court'.6i He also patronized an 
Italian musician who had recently moved to Turin from England, giving him 
money because he liked to hear his stories about the courts where he had 
worked. Unfortunately, he just missed Richard Cromwell, who came to Turin 
at about this time; by then, Ebert himself was on his travels again.63 He went 
first to Venice; anti-Roman books in his luggage were confiscated at the bor-
der, but he persuaded the authorites to give them back. He enjoyed the car-
60 Ebert, Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, part 1, pp. 162 (Hol land) , 192 (story). 
61 Ibid., part 1, pp. 107 ( b o o k ) , 108-9 ('in geheim' ; 'da England auf König Carola II. 
Nicht wohl zu Muth; diesem oblique oder halb und halb dadurch zu verstehen zugeben, es 
könte sich bald ein neuer Olivarius Cromvel f inden / wan er nicht besser regirte'). Ebert's 
m e m o r y was faulty, and his version o f the inscription ungrammatical: the medal, dated 3 
Sept. 1658 (the date o f Cromwell 's death) in fact bears a picture o f a young olive tree 
glowing close to the dead stump o f an old one, with the motto 'NON. DEFITIENT. OLI-
VA' ( 'They [sc. the p e o p l e ] shall not lack an olive-tree') - referring to Richard Cromwell. 
T h e medal was genuinely issued in 1658, by the well-known artist Thomas Simon, but two 
imitations o f it were made later in Holland (see H. W. Henfrey, Numismata cromtoelliana 
( L o n d o n , 1877), pp. 167-72; E. Hawkins, Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain 
and Ireland to theDeath of George II, 2 vols. (London, 1885), i, pp. 433-35). Ebert also noted 
(Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, part 1, p. 202) that the 'cousin' o f Cromwell 
looked just like the portrait on the medal. He refers to the book as 'the Mistakes o f 
Cromvel ' ; in a subsequent c o m m e n t (part 2, p. 348) he appears to identify this with the 
German b o o k Politicus sine exemplo, which was a translation o f the anonymously published 
work by Henry Fletcher, The Perfect Politician (see below, n. 99) . 
62 Ibid., part 1, pp. 257-91 (Marseille-Lyon); part 2, p. 22 ( 'die geheimsten Dinge, so zu 
H o f f nur eclatirten'). 
63 Ibid., part 2, pp. 11, 33. 
1 0 1 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
nival there; then he travelled to Florence (where he admired the manu-
scripts of Tacitus, Apuleius and Virgil in the Medicean library) and on to 
Rome.64 After further trips to Naples and Palermo, he returned to Venice; 
from there he travelled north, through Austria, to his home town, arriving in 
the summer of 1681.65 He was soon calling on various dignitaries in Berlin: 
the court preachers (to whom he gave his translation of Digby), the secre-
taries of state (to whom he presented copies of a book about Cromwell), and 
the Elector's chief minister, Friedrich von Jena. To the last of these, Ebert 
had written a long letter from Toulon, giving his observations on the strength 
of France's coastal and naval defences; it thus seems that Ebert's French tour 
had incorporated an element of amateur espionage. And on the strength of 
this, he obtained an audience with the Great Elector himself, who was so 
charmed by his young subject that he invited him back for further discussions 
on three separate occasions.66 
Given his fascination with courts and politicians, it might have been ex-
pected that Ebert would now embark on a political career himself, perhaps as 
a secretary to some important courtier or minister. That his own interests lay 
in that direction was confirmed by the publication, two years later, of his first 
book, Quinquagenta relationes ex Parnasso - a spirited imitation of Boccalini's 
Ragguagli di Parnasso, discussing history, philosophy, political theory and po-
litical practice from a wide range of countries and periods. Contemporary 
politics was not excluded: one 'relatio' analysed the reasons for the excessive 
power of France (relative to Spain and England), and another contained a 
discussion of the recent Treaty of Nijmegen - to which Ebert appended the 
text of his long letter to von Jena about French ports and the French navy.67 
Overall, this book was a work of some youthful exuberance, containing such 
things as an apologia by Attila the Hun, an argument between St Paul and Nu-
ma Pompilius, a reply by Tacitus to his critics, and a dialogue between Thales 
and Campanella; the only modern scholar to have commented on the quali-
ty of Ebert's work judges it too harshly when he says that it 'completely lacks' 
the vigour and vivacity of Boccalini's own Ragguagli.68 
64 Ibid., part 2, pp. 41-46 (books), 120 (Florence), 127 (Rome) . 
65 Ibid., part 2, pp. 151 (Naples), 175 (Palermo), 258 (Venice), 347 (Frankfurt an der 
Oder). (The date of arrival is given as July T680 ' , but this appears to be a misprint, given 
the chronology up to that point.) 
66 Ibid., part 2, pp. 347-51. 
67 A. Ebert, Quinquagenta relationes ex Parnasso de variis Europae euentibus (Hamburg, 
1683), pp. 1-7, 242-49, 250-58. 
68 Stotzner, 'Der Satiriker Trajano Boccalini', p. 146 ( 'Seinem Vorbilde aber steht Ebert 
weit nach, es fehlt ihm vollig die Frische und Lebhaftigkeit, die an Boccalini so wohl 
gefallt'). 
1 0 2 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
At the end of the list of contents of this book, Ebert gave a listing of the 
works he planned to produce: these included an edition of Tacitus (with a 
'supplement' to the Annals), a work entiüed 'XXXIV. Libri Historiarum Eu-
ropae, a primordio hujus seculi ad Pacem usque Noviomagensem' ('Thirty-
four books o f the histories of Europe, from the beginning of this century to 
the Peace of Nijmegen'), and one called 'Pallium Religionis fraudes Gentili-
um,Judaeorum, Christianorum & Mahumetanorum obtegens' ('The cloak of 
religion, which covers up the frauds of the heathen, the Jews, the Christians 
and the Muslims').69 None of these, however, was to see the light of day. And 
instead of pursuing a career as a littérateur, composing these or other such 
works on history, politics and religion, Ebert returned to the University of 
Frankfurt an der Oder to undertake a doctorate in law. This was accomplished 
in 1685, under Professor Stryk; Ebert's doctoral dissertation, 'De eo quod fit 
ipso jure' , was an ambitious study of the concept (in Roman law) of that which 
is done 'by right itself, as opposed to that which is done by either the right of 
a minister of the state, or the right of a subject. Published thirteen years later, 
it filled more than 200 pages; characteristic touches included references to 
Taylor's Ductor dubitantium (on Mosaic law) and an opening section based on 
Tacitus's account of the origin of law in book 3, ch. 26, of the Annals.'[) In the 
following two years Ebert presided over the presentation of two other sub-
stantial dissertations, on diplomatic immunity and on the legal justification of 
the policies of Philip II of Spain; and in October 1686 he was appointed 'pro-
fessor extraordinarius' in the faculty of law.71 But after giving a course of lec-
tures on the whole of Grotius's De jure belli ac pads, he 'preferred to move on', 
69 Ebert, Quinquagenta relationes, sig. *7v. The other works included a treatise on the re-
latedness o f the R o m a n c e languages, and one on shorthand. 
70 J. C. Beckmann [ 'Becmanus ' ] , Catalogus bibliothecaepublicae Universität. Francofurtanae 
(Frankfurt an der O d e r ) , p. 92, gives its date o f publication as 1698 (in 'Voll. Dispp. Fran-
coff.'). N o copy o f this edition is known to me. A 2nd edition ( 'denuo ed. ' ) was published 
in 1699: Tractatus de eo, quod fit ipso iure (Frankfurt an der Oder) ; there is a copy in the Uni-
versitäts- und Landesbibliothek, Münster, pressmark la 4097+ a-5, 12. Another edition 
('Revisus & d e n u o editus' ( 'revised and re-published')) was issued in Hanover and 
Leipzig in 1699 (203 pp . ) ; there are multiple copies o f this in the Universitäts- und Lan-
desbibliothek, Halle. 1 have used the later printing in S. Stryk, ed., Dissertationum juridi-
carum francofortensium volumen novissimum sive Vtum, ex jure publico, privato, feudali et statu-
tario materias exhibens (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1744), pp. 374-460: see pp. 374 (Tacitus), 
402-3 (Taylor). 
71 T h e dissertations are: Dissertatio de immunitate legatorum, quam ... praeside Dn. Adamo 
Eberto, f. U.D & P.P. in auditorio Jctorum ad diem XXVI. Augusti anno MDCLXXXVI. ... sistit 
aut. & resp. Andreas Johann Liscovius Cöslino-Pom. (n.p, n.d. [Frankfurt an der Oder, 1686]) ; 
Dissertatio academica, dejustitia actionum Philippi II. Hispaniae & Indiarum regis, quam Adamo 
Eberto, D. & prof essore juris extraordinario 1687. ad diem 28. Maj. Publicae eruditorum censura 
exhibiturus Gustavus Andreas Bornemann, Wernigerodensis (Frankfurt an der Oder, n.d. 
1 0 3 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
as he would later put it, 'to studying the ways in which not only natural law but 
also the law of nations and civil law were put into practice by k i n g s ' . I n some 
of his later accounts he gave the impression that he had been put off, either 
by the 'thorny and useless' nature of Roman law, or by the fact that the theo-
retical basis of civil law had plenty of teachers already.73 But in moving away 
from pure theory, he was simply renewing his long-standing interest in the 
study of political action. In his preface to the dissertation on diplomatic im-
munity of 1686, he had announced that he would embark on a series of stud-
ies of the 'jus' (right, or legality) of the actions of great princes down the ages; 
the long list of suitable subjects which he appended there included Xerxes, 
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Charles V, Mehmet II, Süleiman the Mag-
nificent, Henry VIII, Philip II, Mazarin, and Queen Christina of Sweden.74 
None of these studies (with the exception of his pupil's dissertation on 
Philip II, to which Ebert may have contributed substantially) ever appeared.'5 
Instead, Ebert's work in this field seems to have been confined to extending 
his knowledge of the historical-political literature, and, as we have seen, 
translating some specimens of it, for the benefit of his royal patron and oth-
ers. In 1715, the year in which he published extracts from his translations of 
Sandoval, Cabrera de Cordova and Herbert, a new edition of his Quinqua-
[1687]). The titles indicate that Ebert's appointment as professor took place between 
those two dates; a four-page prospectus of his inaugural lecture (dated 31 October) was 
printed as Ab augusto sereniss. & potentissimo domino Friderico Wilhelmo, Electore Brandenburgi-
co ... professionem iuris extraordinariam clementissime demandatam iussa solennitate auspicandi 
ad explicationem tituli imperatoris Iustiniani die 31. octobris in auditorio publico proponendam ... 
invitat AdamEbertusD. (Frankfurt an der Oder, n.d. [1686]). (There is a copy in the Säch-
sisches Landesbibliothek - Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Dresden, pressmark Coli. 
Diss. B. 129, misc. 19.) The title 'professor extraordinarius' signified merely that he was 
outside the offical complement of law professors, which was fixed by the statutes at no 
more than five (G. Kaufman and G. Bauch, eds., Acten und Urkunden der Universität Frank-
furt a. 0., Heft 3, 'Die Facultätsstatuten und Ergänzungen zu den allgemeinen Statuten 
der Universität Frankfurt a. O.', ed. P. Reh (Breslau, 1900), p. 50). Under these statutes, 
the curriculum concentrated solidly on the Pandects, Institutes, and other texts of Roman 
law (pp. 52-53). 
72 Ebert, tr., Historia captivitatisFransisci /., sig. * 2v ('ad Praxin transgredi Regiam placuit, 
JURIS NATURAE nimirum, GENTIUM QUE & CIVILIS'). 
73 The former comment ('Spinosa ac inutili jurisprudentia') is from a note added by 
Ebert to the end of his 1685 dissertation: Stryk, ed., Dissertationum juridicarum, p. 460. The 
latter is contained in a brief autobiographical text by Ebert, printed in Seidel, Bilder-Samm-
lung, p. 45. 
74 Ebert, praes, Dissertatio de immunitate legatorum, sigs. 2A1-2. 
7:> The dissertation was attributed to Ebert by Stolle: Anmerckungen, p. 609. According to 
Küster, Ebert's manuscript works did include a life of Alexander the Great (as well as a 
commentary on the Annals of Tacitus, and several legal treatises): Seidel, Bilder-Sammlung, 
p. 46. But those manuscripts have not survived. 
1 0 4 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
genta relationes ex Parnasso also appeared; and eight years later he published 
the long account of his youthful travels, Aulii Apronii Reise-Beschreibung.7() (His 
nom-de-plume, 'Aulus Apronius', was adapted from the name of a minor 
character in the Annals of Tacitus, Lucius Apronius.)77 A certain element of 
boastfulness was apparent in the preface to this last book. Ebert remarked 
that some people might wonder whether a young man of 21, 22 or 23 could 
have had the intellectual ability to observe and understand all the things con-
tained in the book, but retorted: 'Where then did the Relationes ex Parnasso 
come from in 1681?'78 Some readers found an answer to that question: seiz-
ing on a passage in the travel-book in which Ebert said that he had gained 
material for his Relationes ex Parnasso from the Italian musician whom he had 
cultivated in Turin, they supposed that that work was little more than a piece 
of plagiarism. The accusation was made after Ebert's death by the bibliophile 
E. G. Rinck, whose general verdict on Ebert was that 'he was tormented by 
enormous ambition'.79 Ebert's reputation did not improve with time; an 
anonymous owner o f the British Library copy of the 1715 edition of the Re-
lationes ex Parnasso wrote that 'He was a most extraordinary man, having al-
most become deranged in consequence of an excess of vanity and self-im-
portance.'80 But those who had known him personally wrote about him in a 
way that, while making allowance for his stylistic exuberance, treated him 
with respect and admiration. Gottlieb Stolle, writing soon after Ebert's death 
in 1735, noted his love of 'the high-faluting, affected style of the Spanish', 
and observed that 'he therefore cultivated a concentrated way of writing'; 
Samuel Strimesius, writing twelve years earlier, had praised him for possess-
ing 'a pen wonderfully skilled in European and learned languages'.81 
76 T h e 2nd edition o f the Quinquagenta relationes was entitled Anecdota sive historia arcana 
Europae ( 'Cosmopol is ' [Amsterdam?], 1715). Copies of the 1st edition o f Auli Apronii Reise-
Beschreibung (Frankfurt an der O d e r ) are rare; there is one in the Niedersächsische Staats-
und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen, pressmark 8 ITIN, 164 EXE:02. I have used the 
more c o m m o n 2nd (and enlarged) edition, Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung. 
77 See Tacitus, Annals, 1.29 and 3.64. 
'8 Ebert, Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, sig. 7t4v ( 'wo sind dann Anno 1681. die 
Relationes ex Parnasso ... hergekommen? ' ) . Ebert had mis-remembered the date o f pub-
lication, perhaps substituting inadvertently the date o f composition. 
79 A. F. Glafey, ed., Bibliotheca rinckiana, seu suppellex librorum quos ... collegit... Eucharius 
Gottlieb Rinck (Leipzig, n.d. [1747] ) , pp. 240 ( 'enormi ambitione vexabatur'), 847-48 (pla-
giarism). T h e statement made by Ebert about his debt to the musician does not begin to 
support such a charge. 
80 Ebert, Anecdota, BL pressmark 9073 b. 13, note on blank leaf before title page. 
81 Stolle, Anmerckungen, p. 609 ( 'd ie hochtrabenden gezwungnen Manieren der Spa-
nier' ; 'einer tiefsinnigen Schreibart beflissen'); Strimesius, quoted in Küster, Den alten und 
neuen Berlin, p. 550 ( 'e ine in den Europäischen und gelehrten Sprachen wunder-erfahrne 
1 0 5 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
V 
Some of the elements of Adam Ebert's intellectual formation will already 
be apparent from this brief sketch of his life. From his early adulthood on-
wards, he had been influenced by what seemed to him a particular tradition, 
even a canon, of political writers. The canon is delineated most clearly in his 
Quinquagenta relationes, where Apollo, giving advice on reading to a group of 
German 'studiosi', lists Machiavelli, Cardano and Bacon as the greatest writ-
ers on 'civil prudence', and declares that the best theorists on politics are 
Machiavelli, Cardano, Bacon and Campanella: Cardano and Bacon taught 
people how to advise themselves, he explains, while Machiavelli and Cam-
panella taught them how to advise princes. Exercising some prudence o f his 
own, Ebert also announced that the best guide to morals was the Bible; but 
he added, significantly, that the truth of the Christian religion 'is simple, nor 
would there ever have arisen any controversies about it, except where they 
were needed for domination'.82 Interest was the driving force of all political 
action, and in order to attain mastery in the art of politics it was necessary to 
study all the strategems and devices by means of which successful rulers en-
sured that their own interest prevailed. Such a study was necessarily histori-
cal; and of all the historians who had written about politics, none was more 
important than Tacitus, the veritable lode-star of Ebert's intellectual life. He 
worked for many years on an edition of, 'supplement' to, and /or commen-
tary on Tacitus; he took his own nom-de-plume from a Tacitan character; his 
Quinquagenta relationes were modelled on the writings of Boccalini, the most 
prominent of modern literary Tacitists; and in his travel-book he not only 
mentioned his inspection of the Medicean manuscript in Florence, but also 
cited and discussed Tacitus' works repeatedly.83 Tacitus appears several times 
in the Quinquagenta relationes, defending himself from not very substantial 
criticisms by two writers who were themselves heavily influenced by him, Jus-
tus Lipsius and Virgilio Malvezzi. Blamed for teaching the secrets of rulers to 
all and sundry, he explains that he never teaches such 'arcana' directly, but 
uses phrases which lead the intelligent reader to search them out; and in any 
case, the 'arcana imperandi' can never be understood by the vulgar.84 
Feder'). Strimesius had been Rector of the University of Frankfurt an der Oder in 1688, 
1694 and 1699. 
61 Ebert, Quinquagenta relationes, pp. 180-81 ('simplex est, nec unquam de eadem motaefuis-
sent controversiae nisi ubi illis indiguerit Dominatio'). 
83 Ebert, Auli Apronii vermehrte Reise-Beschreibung, part 1, pp. 208, 268; part 2, pp. 122, 
144, 232, 239. 
84 Ebert, Quinquagenta relationes, pp. 135-46 ('arcana': p. 143), 182, 197, 269-78 (reply to 
criticism). 
1 0 6 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
Ebert was thus a late representative of the Tacitist tradition - a tradition 
which, thanks to writers such as Arnold Clapmarius in the early seventeenth 
century, had become closely intertwined with a particular branch of the 
Machiavellian tradition, identifying the stratagems of the Machiavellian 
prince with the Tacitan 'arcana imperii'.85 It was no less closely connected 
with the theory of 'reason o f state', which justified the exceptional measures 
taken by rulers to defend the state, and/or preserve their own rule. (Ebert's 
own most striking use o f this phrase was in the long essay which he ap-
pended to his Quinquagenta relationes, entitled 'Ratio status Davidis, Judaeo-
rum regis' ( 'The reason o f state of David, king o f the Jews') - a study of the 
political arts by which David came to power.)86 The general assumptions of 
anyone who adhered to these interconnected traditions in the seventeenth 
century might be summarized as follows. 'Interest' is the driving force not 
only of politics, but o f all human affairs. The common people, though al-
ways eager to advance their own crude interests, are stupid, and easily 
tricked. An ambitious demagogue can deceive them, making them think 
that they will advance their interests when they will in fact only promote his; 
and a wise ruler can, and in some ways should, deceive them, both by keep-
ing them in awe of unknown powers, and by giving them those 'simulacra' 
of liberty which will make them content. Much of the art of ruling thus con-
sists of knowing how to simulate and how to dissimulate. This does not mean 
that ruling is unconnected with moral values, merely that, in order to fur-
ther those values, it is necessary for the wise man to adapt his actions to the 
conditions of cupidity and stupidity that prevail among the people. Similar-
ly, the interests of the state can properly be furthered by actions which 
would otherwise, without such a justification, be immoral. In the case of 
some writers, this pattern of thought enjoyed an affinity with neo-Stoicism; 
it encouraged a separation between an inner world of belief and intention, 
where true virtue is located, and an outer one, where actions must inevitably 
85 On this identification see especially P. S. Donaldson, Machiavelli and Mystery of State 
(Cambridge, 1988), pp. 110-40. O n Tacitism see J. von Stackelberg, Tacitus in der Romania: 
Studien zur literarischen Rezeption des Tacitus in Italien und Frankreich (Tübingen, 1960) ; E.-L. 
Etter, Tacitus in der Geistesgeschichte des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Basel, 1966); G. Spini, 'The 
Art o f History in the Italian Counter Reformation' , in E. Cochrane, ed., The Late Italian 
Renaissance (London , 1970), pp. 91-133 (esp. pp. 114-33); K C. Schellhase, Tacitus in Re-
naissance Political Thought (Chicago, 1976); the essays by P. Burke, 'Tacitism', in T. A. 
Dorey, ed. , Tacitus ( L o n d o n , 1969), pp. 149-71, and 'Tacitism, Scepticism, and Reason o f 
State', i n j . H. Burns and M. Goldie, eds., The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-
1700 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 479-98; and R. Tuck, Philosophy and Government, 1572-1651 
(Cambridge, 1993), pp. 31-136. 
8<> Ebert, Quinquagenta relationes, pp. 317-76. 
1 0 7 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
be compromised by circumstance. And this set of attitudes also tended to 
promote a view of true religion as an essentially internal affair: all the ex-
ternalities of religion, meanwhile, needed to be placed under the ruler's 
control, since religion would otherwise be too powerful a tool in the hands 
of demagogues and plotters intent on gaining political power for them-
selves. 
For writers who held such assumptions, the issue of whether it was right 
to expose the strategems of statecraft to public view was not just a matter of 
authorial prudence; it raised much larger political or ideological questions. 
One classic study divides the authors of this period into 'black' and 'red' Taci-
tists - in other words, monarchical and popular.87 The former wrote about the 
devices and deceptions used by skilful monarchs to show that they were nec-
essary and justified; the latter wrote about them to teach the people how not 
to be deceived. Naturally, there were many possible gradations between the 
red and black ends of this spectrum. So-called 'liberal' monarchist Tacitists, 
for example (such as Malvezzi) wrote essentially from the monarchical point 
of view, but advised the ruler that it was against his interests to thwart the in-
terests of his people; the German professor of politics and counsellor to the 
Count of Hesse Cyriacus Lentulus used Tacitus - in his Princeps absolutus (Her-
born, 1663) - to teach the ruler the difference between a 'princeps bonus', 
such as Trajan, and a 'princeps pessimus', such as Nero.88 On the 'red' side of 
the argument, by far the most influential writer was Boccalini; but his own 
precise place on the spectrum was hard to locate, thanks to the stylistic devices 
(of irony, the dramatization of argument, and so on) which rendered his most 
widely-read work, the Ragguagli, so piquant and intriguing. Throughout that 
work, a parallelism operates between Tacitus and Machiavelli, and while the 
latter is denounced at the surface level of the text, he is nevertheless implic-
itly commended as a truthful writer; both Tacitus and Machiavelli are accused 
(by other, hostile speakers - this is one of Boccalini's literary devices) of en-
dangering princes by unmasking their tricks. (The charge against Machiavel-
li is that he has taught sheep the tricks of dogs; that against Tacitus is that he 
has given the people 'political spectacles', which have enabled them to see 
through the pretences of princes.)89 That Boccalini opposed the Spanish 
87 G. Toffanin, Machiavelli e il 'tacitismo' (Padua, 1921). 
88 Tuck, Philosophy and Government, pp. 74-78 (Malvezzi); Etter, Tacitus in der Geistes-
geschichte, pp. 167-68 (Lentulus). 
89 See T. Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnasso, ed. G. Rua and L. Firpo, 3 vols. (Bari, 1910-
48), i, pp. 326-28 (cent. 1, rag. 89); ii, pp. 247-49 (cent. 2, rag. 71). The most penetrating 
study of Boccalini's attitude to Tacitus and Machiavelli is M. Sterpos, 'Boccalini tacitista di 
fronte al Machiavelli', Studi secenteschi, 12 (1971), pp. 255-83. Many 17th-century writers 
1 0 8 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
monarchy and favoured the Venetian republic was clear enough from the text 
appended to his Ragguagli, the Pietra del paragone politico', on this basis, his work 
was often used or adapted by anti-absolutist writers in northern Europe in the 
two or three generations after his death.90 But the passionately anti-monar-
chical nature of his thinking became fully apparent only when substantial 
parts of his commentary on Tacitus were finally published in Switzerland in 
1677 and 1678. 'So beware,' he wrote, 'you who negotiate with princes, of 
their malicious thoughts, and of the poultice of their soft words; for when 
they sing sweetly, they are weaving cruel spells. Their tongues are moved by 
interest, not by justice, nor by love of the public good.'91 
It might be thought, therefore, that in producing a work so closely mod-
elled on Boccalini in 1683, Adam Ebert was signalling an anti-monarchic 
ideological position. This would have been a strange tactic, however, for 
someone who had gone to such trouble to ingratiate himself not only with 
senior courtiers in Berlin, but also with the Great Elector himself. In fact 
there is nothing anti-monarchical in his Quinquagenta relationes; a text which 
includes a very reasonable-sounding apologia by Attila the Hun is unlikely 
to be read as a denunciation of the cruelty of princes. Instead, Ebert finess-
es the red-black problem by adopting a distinctive shade of grey: in his view, 
the essential function o f Tacitus' historiography and analysis is neither to 
justify princes nor to give power to the people, but rather to instruct 
'courtiers' - a category that appears to include all politicians operating un-
der a monarchy - in the arts o f survival and self-promotion. Thus Apollo de-
clares that 'Tacitus described the arcana of courtiers'; and he also recom-
mends that among the Latin historians, 'Tacitus and Justinus should be read 
carefully - the former because he would teach the reader how to be a 
penetrated less far, however; the Dutch scholar Theodore Ryck, editing Tacitus, distin-
guished Machiavelli (a supporter o f tyrants) f rom Tacitus (an exposer of the devices o f 
princes) , and blamed Boccalini for assimilating Tacitus to the Machiavellian tradition 
(Tacitus, Opera quae exstant, ed. T. Ryck ['Ryckius'] (Leiden, 1687), sig. *9). 
90 For such use o f Boccalini see M. Stolleis, Arcana imperii und Ratio status: Bemerkung zur 
politischen Theorie des frühen 17. fahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1980), pp. 26-29. 
91 La bilancia política di tutte le opere di Traiano Boccalini, ed. G. Leti, 2 vols. ('Castellana' 
[Geneva] , 1678), i, p. 85 ( 'Guardatevi dunque voi, che negoziate co ' Prencipi, dai con-
cetti maliziosi, e dall 'empiastro di morbide parole; perché quando dolcemente cantano, 
allhora crudelmente incantano. L'interesse muove la loro lingua, non la giustizia, e non 
l 'amore del Ben-publ ico ' ) . In the Introduction printed before the other edition o f this 
commentary, Boccalini explained that he had written the Ragguagli 'with a mask on my 
face ' ( ' c on la Maschera sul vo l to ' ) ; now, he said, he wanted to show 'the deeds and secret 
intentions o f princes past and present' ('i fatti, e l'intentioni secreti de ' Principi passati, e 
presentí ') (Comentarii di Traiano Boccalini romano sopra Cornelio Tácito, 2nd edn. ('Cos-
mopo l i ' [Geneva?], 1678), sig. f 4 . 
1 0 9 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
courtier, the latter, how to be a counsellor.'92 (This distinction seems to im-
ply that a courtier is someone who acts in his own interest, as opposed to 
someone who attends to the interest o f the monarch.) The only potentially 
subversive element here is the possibility that Tacitus teaches courtiers not 
merely how to survive, but how to usurp the power of the ruler; this is the 
main point at issue in the discussions Ebert presents between Tacitus and 
both Malvezzi and Lipsius, which focus on Tacitus' account of the rise to 
power of Sejanus. Thus Malvezzi says to Tacitus at one point: 'You, the lead-
ing writer at the court of the emperors of the human race, taught posterity 
the ways in which one can deceive kings and overcome one's equals.'93 Lip-
sius accuses Tacitus of contradiction, since he writes at one point as if Se-
janus brought about Tiberius's retirement to Capri, and at another point as 
if Tiberius willed it himself. Tacitus replies that Sejanus strengthened a pre-
existing inclination on the emperor's part; but, with studied ambiguity, he 
explains his own role as follows. 'He did not describe what Sejanus did, but 
rather, taught what another person could have done. He recommended that 
art to every historian. For the writer should be concerned not so much with 
the history, as with the use of it.'94 
An obsession with courtiers runs through all o f Ebert's work; even his 
nom-de-plume converts the name taken from Tacitus, Lucius Apronius, into 
'Aulus' Apronius. ('Aulus' was an authentic Roman name; but Ebert seems 
to have chosen it for its association with 'aula' (court) and 'aulicus' (cour-
tier).) His selection of texts to translate was dominated by such concerns: 
Gracian's Oraculo, for example, taught the reader how to behave as a 'great 
man', whether courtier or ruler, and its popular French translation by 
Amelot de la Houssaie (who also translated Machiavelli and wrote a com-
mentary on Tacitus) was entitled L'Homme de cour.95 The role of 'ministers' at-
tracted Ebert's special attention; his interest may have been first drawn to the 
92 Ebert, Quinquagenta relationes, pp. 182 ('Taciturn &Justinum diligenter legendos; il-
ium quod Aulicum formaret, hunc vero quod Consiliarium'), 197 ('Taciturn scribere Ar-
cana aulicorum'). 
93 Ibid., p. 136 ('tu primus Aulae Imperantium generi humano scriptor, docuisti pos-
teritatem modos decipiendi Reges superandique aequales'). 
94 Ibid., p. 272 ('se non, quid fecerit Sejanus, scripsisse; sed quid alios facere posset, 
docuisse. Illamque artem se recommendare unicuique Historicorum. Nam non adeo His-
toriae quam ejusdem usui scriptorem decere esse intentum'). 
95 B. Gracian, L'Homme de cour, tr. N. Amelot de la Houssaie (Paris, 1684); this was 
reprinted fourteen times between 1686 and 1716 (see B. Gracian, The Oracle, ed. and tr. 
L. B. Walton (London, 1962), p. 44). The first German translation, by j . L. Sauter, was sim-
ilarly entitled L'Homme de Cour, oder der heulige politische Welt- und Staats-Weise (Frankfurt am 
Main, 1687). Gracian was himself deeply influenced by Boccalini: see Hendrix, Traiano 
Boccalini, pp. 75-84. 
1 1 0 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
Spanish version of Kalilah ve Dimnah by the fact that it was entitled Espejo 
politico, y moral, para principes, ministros, y todo genero de personas ('A political 
and moral looking-glass for princes, ministers and all sorts of people'). In his 
Quinquagenta relationes he strongly recommended the Relaciones and Aphoris-
mos o f Antonio Pérez, the minister of Philip II who had fallen from grace, 
been imprisoned, and subsequently fled to England; the Aphorismos in par-
ticular are full o f advice on how a senior courtier should conduct himself.96 
And when characterizing his Quinquagenta relationes in 1715, Ebert described 
it - rather misleadingly - as 'comprising the arcana of the Minister, Count 
and Duke Olivares, Cardinal Richelieu and Cardinal Mazarin, the Earl of 
Clarendon, Griffenfeld, and others'.97 
Oliver Cromwell, o f course, could not be placed precisely in this catego-
ry; his rise to power was not based on ministerial office. But he was, like the 
others just mentioned, someone who came to exercise state power through 
his own skill, not through the accident of inheritance. Indeed, he had gone 
much further than the others: he was a consummate usurper who had en-
tirely supplanted the hereditary ruler, a Sejanus who had had Tiberius put to 
death. Ebert, who had been under Cromwell's spell for thirty years before he 
translated Behemoth, seems to have regarded him as the ultimate exponent of 
those arts and strategems which ambitious courtiers and politicians needed 
to master: he knew how to deceive the people, how to enlist other holders of 
power in his own support, and how, in the end, to take that power from 
them. 
Such, in fact, was the standard view of Cromwell in the writings about him 
published in continental Europe. Soon after his death, a popular satirical pam-
phlet by an anonymous German author presented a discussion between 
Cromwell and Oxenstierna in the underworld; this work, itself an imitation of 
Boccalini, was filled with references to Tacitus, and praised Cromwell as a mas-
ter of the Tacitan arts of 'ratio status'. As one character remarks to Cromwell, 
discussing his retention of the House of Commons after he had abolished the 
House of Lords: 'For your Highness arranged for the English to have only 
"umbrae" and "simulacra", shadows and pictures, as Tacitus and Boxhorn (in 
96 Ebert, Quinquagenta relationes, pp. 182, 204. On Pérez see G. Marañón, Antonio Pérez 
(el hombre, el drama, la época), 7th edn., 2 vols. (Madrid, 1963): for details of the original 
printings o f these works see ii, pp. 954-55. Ebert probably read the Relaciones and the var-
ious sets o f Aphorismos in the 1676 Geneva edition, Las obras y relaciones de Antonio Perez, for 
examples o f court-related aphorisms see pp. 402, 404, 727, 731. 
97 Ebert, tr., Historia captivitatis Francisci /., sig. *2r ('arcana Ministerii Comitis & Ducis 
OLIVARII RICHELIIQUE & MAZARINI Cardinalium, CLARENDONIIQUE Comitis & 
Greifenfeldii al iorumque complexae ' ) . Peder Schuhmacher Griffenfeld was the powerful 
minister o f the Danish kings Frederick III and Christian V. 
I l l 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
his 17th Emblem) call them.'98 Also widely read in Germany was a translation, 
published in 1663, of Henry Fletcher's The Perfect Politician (1660): this was the 
work to which Ebert referred, under the first part of its title, when he used the 
phrase Politicus sine exemplo in the dedication of his Behemoth translation.99 
Fletcher's book, which was written just before the Restoration, was a mainly 
positive appreciation of Cromwell's political skills. 'He shewed himself to be in 
Policy as far above the Peoples Capacities, as Saul in Stature was above the Israelites 
... In his rise, he never cut down one step before another was built to support 
him ... Secrecy in carrying on Designs, is the principal part of a Prince: at this 
he was excellent.'100 The beauty of this characterization of Cromwell was that 
it equally served the purposes of those who wished to damn him; thus the fer-
vently pro-Royalist Ferrarese writer Alfonso Paioli could describe Cromwell as 
the incarnation of the Machiavellian Prince, a 'politico' par excellence, while not 
denying that 'he was a person of extraordinary talents'.101 Such an attitude, 
hostile but at the same time admiring, was expressed in the two books that en-
joyed the widest circulation in Europe: Ferdinand de Galardi's La Tyrannie 
heureuse, ou Cromwel politique, avec ses artifices & intrigues (Leiden, 1671), and 
the Historia, e memorie recondite sopra alia vita di Oliviero Cromvele, detto il tiranno 
senza vizi, il prencipe senza virtü (2 vols., Amsterdam, 1692), by Gregorio Leti, 
the editor of Boccalini's commentary on Tacitus. As Leti put it (quoting, as he 
claimed, his English patron, the Earl of Anglesey), 'the earth never had a ruler 
more prudent than he, nor a commander more skilled in advancing his own 
fortune ... He was a friend without loyalty, an enemy without rancour, a judge 
98 Schreiben welches der vorlengst verstorbene hochgelahrte Herr Don Franciscus de Queuedo ... 
übershcicket betreffende einige statistische ... Discursen so zwischen denen verstorbenen Hn: Protec-
tore von Engellandt dem schwedischen Reichs-Cantzler Ochsenstern und Lilienströhmen (n.p., 
1659), e.g. sigs. C3v (on Cromwell's arrangement of his son's succession, calling it 'ratio 
status'), C4r (on his gradual accumulation of power), C4v ( 'Indem Ew. Hoheit den En-
gelländern nur umbras und simulacra, nur Schatten und Bildnüsse, wie Tacitus und Box-
hornius, Embl. 17. es nennen, hergemachet') . There were several editions and continua-
tions of this work: see G. Berghaus, Die Aufnahme der englischen Revolution in Deutschland, 
1640-1669 (Wiesbaden, 1989), pp. 316-19. Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn taught at Leiden Uni-
versity, and published an edition of Tacitus in 1643. This reference is to his Emblemata po-
litico, 2nd edn. (Amsterdam, 1651), pp. 134-36. 
99 [H. Fletcher,] Politicus sine exemplo, oder kurtzer Begriff der Kriegs- und Staatshandlungen 
seiner Hoheit Olivier Cromwels, tr. anon (Nuremberg, 1663). For Ebert's reference see 
above, n. 30. 
100 [H. Fletcher,] The Perfect Politician, 2nd edn. (London, 1680), p. 281. The German 
translator's Preface praises his political skills even more highly: Politicus sine exemplo, 
pp. 1-2. 
101 A. Paioli, Vite del Turena, del Mazarini e del Cromvele (Bologna, 1680), pp. 234 (Machi-
avelli), 239 ('isquisitamente Politico'), 240 ( 'non puö negarsi ch'egli fosse soggetto di 
straordinari talenti'). 
1 1 2 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
without justice, a great politician among disorders ... in short, he was a com-
pendium of the worst evil, and a summation of the greatest good.'10" 
VI 
Such, then, was the fascination of Cromwell for Ebert, and, because of it, 
the appeal to him of Hobbes's work. But was Ebert responding, at the same 
time, to elements that are genuinely present in Hobbes's account? Is it pos-
sible that this Ebertian reading of Behemoth may have at least something pos-
itive to contribute to our understanding of that work? Behind such questions 
there lurks a larger one: should Hobbes's political thought be viewed as es-
sentially a product of the Tacitist tradition? 
To see Hobbes in this way would not be a novel development. One per-
son who did so was the influential writer Johann Christoph Beckmann, who 
was first Professor of History, then Professor of Politics, at the University of 
Frankfurt an der Oder. Beckmann would write admiringly of Ebert when 
they were colleagues in later years; Ebert had probably attended Beckmann's 
lectures as a student, we may guess that it was thanks to Beckmann - one of 
the most outspoken defenders of Hobbes in Germany at the time - that he 
had acquired such a keen interest in Hobbes that he sought him out in Lon-
don in 1678.103 In his MecLitationes politicae (1674), Beckmann tried to weld to-
gether Hobbesian natural law theory and the entire Tacitist tradition of po-
litical analysis. His list of recommended modern writers on politics included 
Bacon, Boccalini, Boxhorn and Clapmarius, and culminated in Grotius, 
Hobbes and Pufendorf; substantial parts of the book were devoted to the de-
fence and praise of Hobbes, whom he called 'ingeniosissimus'. His chapter 
102 Leti, Historia, i, p. 5 ('la Terra non hebbe mai un Governatore piu prudente di Lui, 
ne un Condottore piu destro della sua propria fortuna ... Egli fu amico senza fede, ne-
mico senza rancore, Giudice senza Giustitia, gran Politico tra li disordini ... & in somma 
un c o m p e n d i o del maggior male, & un 'Epi logo del piu gran bene ' ) . It is also noteworthy 
that de Galardi de fended the style he had adopted by reference to a French translation of 
Tacitus: La Tyrannie heureuse, sig. *5r. There is no general study o f continental represen-
tations o f Cromwell. For a very brief overview, see W. C. Abbott, The Writings and Speeches 
of Oliver Cromwell, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1937-47), iv, pp. 883-4. 
103 On Beckmann see C. G. Jocher, Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon, 4 vols. (Leipzig, 1750-
51) , i, cols. 994-95, and F. Palladini, Discussioni seicentesche su Samuel Pufendorf scritti latini, 
1663-1700 (n.p. [Bo logna] , 1978), pp. 284-85. For his praise o f Ebert see his Notitia uni-
versitatis francofurtanae, pp. 118-19. Beckmann may also have given Ebert the idea o f be-
coming a translator o f politically interesting texts: he published a translation of James I's 
Basilikon doron (Jacobi donum regium, sive de institutione principis (Frankfurt an der Oder, 
1679)) . 
115 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
on 'ratio status' began by explaining that while the name was new (invented, 
he said, by Italians in modern times), the theory was ancient, and could be 
found in the works of Tacitus.104 As an exposition of it he recommended the 
Dissertatio academica, cuius pars prima de ratione status ... by Wilhelm von 
Schroder, a highly controversial work which had been denounced on its first 
appearance as an extreme statement of 'Hobbism'.105 Beckmann's own ar-
gument, which followed quite closely in Hobbes's tracks, was that people act 
out of interest; that individual interests necessarily clash; that self-preserva-
tion is an overriding interest, which requires human beings to create sover-
eign authority; and that that authority can and should then act in whatever 
ways are necessary to advance the interest of the whole state. 
Put in those terms, Hobbes's theory does seem to flow quite naturally 
from a Tacitist world-view. We can be confident, too, that Hobbes had read not 
only Tacitus, but also the works of some of the key writers in the modern Taci-
tist tradition. In the Chatsworth library catalogue which he drew up in the late 
1620s (making some further additions in the early 1630s), we find, for exam-
ple, 'Ammiratus in Tacitu[m]' (Scipione Ammirato, Dissertationes politicae, sive 
discursus in C. Taciturn ('Helenopolis', 1609), the Latin version of his Discorsi 
sopra Cornelio Tacito (Florence, 1594)); 'Cleland. Institution of a Nobleman' 
(John Cleland, Propaedeia, Or, The Institution of a Young Noble Man (London, 
1607) - a work written by the tutor of the young Prince Charles, which draws 
moral advice from Tacitus); 'Lipsij opera'; 'Lipsij Politica'; 'Tacitus English' 
(The Annates of Cornelius Tacitus, tr. R. Greenwey (London, 1598)); 'Ammira-
to. Discorsi sopra Tacito'; 'Boccalinj Ragguaglij di Pernasso'; 'Boccalinj Pietra 
di Parangone' [sic]; 'Tacito Lat. Italian by Dati. 2. vol.' (C. Cornelij Taciti opera 
latina, cum versione italica (Frankfurt, 1612), which included the translation by 
G. Dati, first published in Venice in 1563); 'Tacito Ital. by Politi' (Annali, et is-
torie, di G. Cornelio Tacito, tr. A. Politi (Venice, 1615-16)); 'Tacitus wth Apho-
rismes in Spanish' (Tacito espariol, ilustrado con aforismos, tr. B. Alamos de Bar-
104 J. C. Beckmann, Meditationes politicae, iisdemque continuandis & illustrandis addita po-
litica parallela (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1679), pp. 5-7 (writers), 24 ('Ingeniosissimum 
Hobbes), 31 ('ratio status'), 47-53, 85-86, 417-18 (defence o f Hobbes). (This edition, the 
third of the Meditationes, includes the first printing of a second work, the Politica parallela.) 
All references to Hobbes were omitted from his later political treatise, Conspectus doctrinae 
politicae, but the essential theory remained unchanged; and that work did also include the 
statement that 'Machiavelli too is not as bad as he is popularly supposed to be' ('Machi-
avellum quoq[ue] tarn malum non esse, qvam vulgo creditur': p. 6). 
105 W. von Schröder [ 'Schröter'], Dissertatio academica, cuius prima pars de ratione status, 
altera de nobilitate, tertia de ministrissimo (Jena, 1663); this dissertation was presided over by 
S. C. Olpe, Rector Magnificus of the University of Jena, and Beckmann refers to it as his 
work (Meditationes, p. 44). On the reaction to it see Malcolm, Aspects of Hobbes, pp. 512-13. 
1 1 4 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
rientos (Madrid, 1614)); and 'Tacitus in french' (Les Oeuvres de C. Cornelius 
Tacitus, tr. C. Fauchet and E. de la Planche (Paris, 1584)).106 m e n Hobbes's 
pupil William Cavendish (the future second Earl of Devonshire) published -
anonymously - a book of his essays in 1620, it included a 'Discourse upon the 
Beginning of Tacitus'; although the claim by its two modern editors that this 
discourse was written by Hobbes may be doubted, the work nevertheless pro-
vides important evidence of the intellectual preoccupations of the person to 
whom Hobbes was most closely attached at that time.107 
Many of the assumptions of the Tacitists, about human nature in gener-
al and political action in particular, can be found in Hobbes's works, implic-
itly or explicitly; and in few works are they more explicit than in Behemoth,108 
Of the Scottish gentry, 'B' remarks that 'in their lives they were just as other 
men are, pursuers of their own interests and preferments'; and more gener-
ally he insists that 'people always have been, and always will be, ignorant of 
their duty to the public, as never meditating anything but their particular in-
terest'.109 In some cases the pursuit of such interest is crude and straightfor-
ward (as with the soldiers who supported Cromwell only because 'they aimed 
at rapine and sharing the lands and goods of their enemies'); in other cases, 
while it rests on equally obvious foundations, it may have gained a little su-
perstructure of pseudojustification (as with the merchants who support re-
bellions because their 'profession is their private gain', but who claim to be 
taking a principled stand agains the 'grievance' of taxation).110 
However, in many cases — above all, the religious demagogues, on whom 
Hobbes lays the primary blame for the Civil War - the pseudo-justification 
seems to have corrupted even the understandings of those who use it, so that 
it becomes hard to tell whether they are cynical hypocrites fooling the people, 
or whether they have, so to speak, fooled themselves, thereby becoming sin-
cere fanatics. Thus on the one hand 'A' explains that the Presbyterians were 
'impious hypocrites' who sought political power in order to 'fill their purses'; 
yet on the other hand he declares that 'this was the design of the Presbyterian 
1()fa Chatsworth, MS H o b b e s E 1 A (unfoliated; the entries are given here in the order 
in which they appear) . A for thcoming edition o f this MS, by the late Richard Talaska, has 
been promised by the Philosophy Documentation Center, Bowling Green, Ohio. 
1117 T h e claim is made in 'T. Hobbes ' (attrib.), Three Discourses: A Critical Modem Edition 
of Newly Identified Work of the Young Hobbes, ed. N. B. Reynolds and A. W. Saxonhouse 
(Chicago, 1995). For the original text o f this discourse see Anon. [W. Cavendish], Horae 
subsecivae: Observations and Discourses (London , 1620), pp. 223-324. 
108 Cf. Richard Tuck's comments in his 'Hobbes and Tacitus', in G. A. J. Rogers and 
T. Sorell, eds., Hobbes and History ( L o n d o n , 2000), pp. 99-111, esp. p. 109. 
109 Tonnies edn., pp. 29, 39. 
110 Ibid., pp. 126, 136, 
1 1 5 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
ministers, who taking themselves to be, by divine right, the only lawful gover-
nors of the Church, endeavoured to bring the same form of government into 
the civil state'.111 Fixated as he is on the idea that everything in the political 
realm depends, in the end, on the beliefs that exist in people's heads, Hobbes 
cannot operate with a simple dichotomy between the foolish multitude, 
whose beliefs are subject to manipulation, and their manipulators, the clever 
politicians, who act on a clear-sighted view of their own advantage - for the lat-
ter may also have beliefs in their heads that lead them to act in irrational 
ways.112 When 'B' exclaims, 'What silly things are the common sort of people, 
to be cozened as they were so grossly!', 'A' replies: 'The craftiest knaves of all 
the Rump were no wiser than the rest whom they cozened. For the most of 
them did believe that the same things which they imposed upon the general-
ity, were just and reasonable...'113 His interest in this issue thus seems to have 
propelled Hobbes some way beyond the Tacitist position. 
There are, it is true, plenty of passages in Behemoth which consist of analy-
ses of political 'arts', 'artifices', deceptions and tricks, performed - sometimes 
with real skill - by both Presbyterians and Parliamentarians. Such passages do 
indeed show what a Tacitist grounding there was to Hobbes's understanding 
of political action. But as the work progresses, the Parliamentarians are in-
creasingly shown to have been dupes themselves, always liable to be fooled or 
out-manoeuvred by others; and the Presbyterians are increasingly depicted as 
driven by an almost frenzied malice. Only one figure emerges on the rebel 
side who seems, for the most part, to have been neither a fool nor a fanatic: 
Oliver Cromwell. Here was someone who had both a long-term aim (to take 
sovereign power from the King and exercise it himself: 'His main end was to 
set himself in his place') and an interim strategy of self-advancement ('I can-
not believe he then thought to be King; but only by well serving the strongest 
party, which was always his main polity, to proceed as far as that and fortune 
would carry him').114 Hence the passages illustrating Cromwell's political skill, 
to which Ebert drew special attention with his marginal notes - above all, 
those describing his manoeuvrings in the period 1647-8, in what Hobbes por-
111 Ibid., pp. 26, 75, 89. 
112 For a valuable analysis of how non-rational behaviour can be found at all levels of 
Hobbes's argument, see S. Holmes, 'Political Psychology in Hobbes's Behemoth', in M. G. 
Dietz, ed., Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory (Lawrence, Kansas, 1990), pp. 120-52. 
113 Tonnies edn., p. 158. 
114 Ibid., pp. 143, 147. Both statements are by 'A', and the apparent contradiction be-
tween them is largely mitigated by the comments with which he introduces the latter state-
ment: Cromwell had a series of necessary steps to take before he could seize kingly pow-
er, each of them difficult and risky, so that his strategy involved pitching his ambitions no 
higher than one step at a time. 
1 1 6 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
trays, in a grand extended metaphor, as 'a game at cards' between Cromwell 
and Parliament. Here Ebert was responding to elements that are genuinely 
present in the text - even though he may not have appreciated all the nuances 
of Hobbes's writing. (When he translated 'This was the first trick Cromwell 
played' using the word 'artificium', and repeated it in his marginal note, he 
probably did not notice the card-game metaphor at work.)113 
However, although Hobbes is happy to credit Cromwell with consider-
able political skill, he is far from portraying him as 'the perfect politician'. 
Even during that crucial political card-game, Cromwell is shown to have 
made a potentially devastating mistake, when he arranged for the King to es-
cape from captivity; had the King actually fled abroad, he might have re-
turned with a victorious French army, and it was only the unexpected actions 
of the Governor of the Isle of Wight that prevented that from happening.116 
Nor was Cromwell's judgement faultless in military affairs: Hobbes goes out 
of his way to emphasize that, during his last Scottish campaign, 'all his glo-
ries had ended in shame and punishment, if fortune and the faults of his en-
emies had not relieved him'.117 And although Hobbes says almost nothing 
about Cromwell's religious convictions, he does allow 'B' to comment that he 
was 'superstitious' in his belief in 3 September as a lucky day - which suggests 
that there was room for at least some foolish beliefs in Cromwell's otherwise 
calculating brain.118 The overall assessment of Oliver Cromwell seems to be 
that he was a flawed but great politician: he may never have achieved any one 
thing quite so magnificent as Monck's march on London ('the greatest 
strategem that is extant in history'), but he did display impressive political 
skills in a whole series of contests for power over a long period. (And, it must 
be said - though Hobbes does not of course make the comparison explicitly 
— he is shown to have been a much more skilled politician than Charles I, 
who failed to take the initiative at crucial moments, and allowed his advisers 
to talk him into pursuing a hopeless strategy of would-be negotiation.)119 
One key term is used to characterize Cromwell's undoubted talent for 
power-politics: Hobbes refers to it as 'wit'. Describing Cromwell's seizure of 
sovereign power from Parliament, 'A' remarks: 'Therefore he called a Par-
115 Ibid., p. 138 (and cf. the continuation of the metaphor on p. 139: 'These were the 
articles that put them to their trumps') ; SBB, MS Lat. 2o 129, fo. I79r. Tuck notes paral-
lels between Hobbes 's treatment o f Cromwell here and that o f Augustus by Tacitus, as 
c o m m e n t e d on in the 'Discourse u p o n the Beginning of Tacitus' ( 'Hobbes and Tacitus', 
pp. 109-10). 
118 Tonnies edn., pp. 143-44. 
117 Ibid., p. 167. 
118 Ibid., p. 183. 
119 Ibid., pp. 102-3, 125. 
1 1 7 
N O E L M A L C O L M 
liament, and gave it the supreme power, with condition that they should give 
it to him. Was not this witty?'120 The adjective may have overtones of humor-
ous ingenuity, but the substantive stands for an important human attribute, 
a kind of natural prudence or cunning. In an earlier passage, 'A' described 
the plans of the Presbyterians to engineer a transfer of power from the King 
to the House of Commons, which they were confident they could control: 
'wherein they were deceived, and found themselves outgone by their own dis-
ciples, though not in malice, yet in wit' - those disciples being, apparently, 
first the Independents, and then Cromwell.121 The significance of this par-
ticular human attribute is brought home most strongly in an important 
speech delivered by 'A' near the beginning of the fourth dialogue: 
You may perhaps think a man has need of nothing else to know the du-
ty he owes to his governor, and what right he has to order him, but a 
good natural wit; but it is otherwise. For it is a science, and built upon 
sure and clear principles, and to be learned by deep and careful study, 
or from masters that have deeply studied it ... Your calling the people 
silly, obliged me by this digression to show you, that it is not want of wit, 
but want of the science of justice, that brought them into these trou-
bles. Persuade, if you can that man that has made his fortune, or made 
it greater, or an eloquent orator, or a ravishing poet, or a subtle lawyer, 
or but a good hunter or a cunning gamester, that he has not a good wit; 
and yet there were of all these a great many so silly, as to be deceived by 
the Rump and yet were members of the same Rump. They wanted not 
wit, but the knowledge of the causes and grounds upon which one per-
son has a right to govern, and the rest an obligation to obey; which 
grounds are necessary to be taught the people, who without them can-
not live long in peace amongst themselves.122 
The inclusion of cunning gamesters in this list of people with 'a good 
wit' is also significant: it reminds us that Hobbes's metaphor of the Crom-
wellian game of cards was not chosen lightly. Throughout his political writ-
ings, Hobbes resorts to metaphors of games of chance or skill (or some com-
bination of the two) to characterize what true politics is not. In De cive he ob-
serves that wars of aggression are like games with dice ('sicut alea'), in most 
cases making the aggressors poorer in the long run.123 And, famously, in 
Leviathan he declares: 'The skill of making, and maintaining Common-
120 Ibid., p. 181. 
121 Ibid., p. 75. 
122 Ibid., pp. 158-60. 
123 T. Hobbes, De cive (Paris, 1642), XIII. 14. 
1 1 8 
BEHEMOTH LATINUS-. ADAM EBERT, TACITISM, AND I IOBBES 
wealths, consisteth in certain Rules, as doth Arithmetique and Geometry; not 
(as Tennis-play) on Practise onely: which Rules, neither poor men have the 
leisure, nor men that have had the leisure, have hitherto had the curiosity, or 
the method to find out.'124 
This, surely, is where Hobbes departed from - and went far beyond - the 
Tacitist tradition. That tradition was fixated on the study of political history, 
because it did not believe that there was any 'method' that would yield certain 
rules for political action comparable to the rules of arithmetic and geometry; 
the most that any method could achieve was to extract maxims and aphorisms 
from a comparative study of discrete units of political experience. Hobbes, on 
the other hand, believed in the possibility of working out a true civil 'science' 
— a system of certain knowledge, not a mere accumulation of prudence. And 
he believed not only that that possibility had been realized (in his own writ-
ings), but also that it was necessary to teach the basic conclusions of that sci-
ence to the people, so that they would have a clear understanding of their own 
political duties. That is the central theme of Behemoth-, and every passage, every 
comment that emphasizes the importance of people's beliefs as the basis of 
their actions is itself an expression of that theme. 
Hobbes made large claims about the ability of his 'science' to furnish all 
the essential principles needed for 'maintaining', as well as 'making', com-
monwealths: in other words, he seems to have thought that it could provide 
not only a formal system of rights and duties, but also, in some ways at least, 
the actual contents of governmental policies. Nevertheless, he did not ex-
clude the need for knowledge of contingencies, or for the prudential skills re-
quired to manage them. Listing the qualities of a good 'Counsellor' in 
Leviathan, he put first a true understanding 'of the Rights of Government' 
(i.e. his 'science of justice'), and then added that knowledge was also required 
of 'the Strength, Commodities, Places, both of their own Country, and their 
Neighbours' - which, he said, 'is not attained to, without much experience'. 
He concluded: 'When for the doing of any thing, there be Infallible rules ... 
all the experience in the world cannot equall his Counsell, that has learnt, or 
found out the Rule. And when there is no such Rule, he that hath most ex-
perience in that particular kind of businesse, has therein the best Judgement, 
and is the best Counsellour.'123 At one point in Leviathan he even seemed to 
imply that governing a state consisted, most of the time, of the exercise of 
such prudence: 'To govern well a family, and a kingdome', he suggested, were 
both applications o f prudence, albeit 'to different sorts of businesse.' That was 
124 T. Hobbes , Leviathan ( L o n d o n , 1651), p. 107. 
125 Ibid., pp. 134-35. 
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the prudence which he had just defined as follows: 'When the thoughts of a 
man, that has a designe in hand, running over a multitude of things, observes 
how they conduce to that designe; or what designe they may conduce unto; if 
his observations be such as are not easie, or usuall, This wit o f his is called 
PRUDENCE; and dependeth on much Experience, and Memory of the like 
things, and their consequences heretofore.'126 
In this sense, the story of how Cromwell exercised his political 'wit' may 
well have had some value, in Hobbes's eyes, as an example of how natural 
prudence could adapt to circumstances and carry an agent through to his 
long-term goal. But this can only have been a secondary purpose for Hobbes 
- not a primary one, as Ebert's re-titling of the entire work seemed to imply. 
If there was any didactic value in the story of Cromwell's prudential actions, 
it lay only in exhibiting the general functioning of such prudence (and at the 
same time, as we have seen, qualifying it as no guarantee of success); it did 
not consist, as Ebert and the Tacitists would have supposed, in furnishing a 
set of specific tricks and manoeuvres. For, as 'A' puts it in a dismissive com-
ment about the Parliamentarians, 'If craft be wisdom, they were wise enough. 
But wise, as I define it, is he that knows how to bring his business to pass (with-
out the assistance of knavery and ignoble shifts) by the sole strength of his 
good contrivance.'127 Prudence is easily converted into craft by knavery: 'To 
Prudence, if you adde the use of unjust, or dishonest means ... you have that 
Crooked Wisdome, which is called CRAFT.'128 The politician who based his 
actions on 'the science of justice', however, could never be perverted in this 
way; his actions - which, of course, might well be described as 'tyranny' by 
those who disliked their effects - would, by definition, never make use of un-
just means. The Tacitist description of a world of craft and deception was not 
dismissed out of hand by Hobbes. On the contrary, he recognized it as a de-
scription o f the real world - the reality of which had been made painfully 
clear in the British Isles between 1642 and 1660. But instead of trying to ex-
tract, from such a description, a set of techniques of deception which had 
proved successful before and might possibly be successful in the future, he 
aimed at something quite different: a true science of politics, which would 
guarantee the certainty of success for future rulers by systematically unde-
ceiving the people. Tacitism mattered for Hobbes, but it did so only because 
it described the problem. To that problem, he offered a fundamentally dif-
ferent solution. 
126 Ibid., p. 34. 
127 Tönnies edn., p. 38. 
128 Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 34. 
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