tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/tacitus-15040/articlesTacitus – The Conversation2023-04-17T02:28:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2031372023-04-17T02:28:37Z2023-04-17T02:28:37ZCaveat emptor: a new book on the best lines in Latin misses the bigger picture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518907/original/file-20230403-4850-nkisrp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C213%2C2440%2C2237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Preparation of actors for a satyric drama, from the House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of my favourite Roman artefacts to show visiting school groups or beginner’s Latin classes is a floor mosaic from the House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii. The mosaic depicts a chained dog accompanied by the Latin words, <em>CAVE CANEM</em> (“beware of the dog”). </p>
<p>The cute familiarity of the image never fails to generate a chuckle or two. But importantly, it provides me with an opening to explore more important issues with the students, from Roman social history to the intricacies of the Latin imperative (used for commands and entreaties, like “beware”!)</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518902/original/file-20230402-18-vqsrxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518902/original/file-20230402-18-vqsrxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518902/original/file-20230402-18-vqsrxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518902/original/file-20230402-18-vqsrxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518902/original/file-20230402-18-vqsrxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518902/original/file-20230402-18-vqsrxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518902/original/file-20230402-18-vqsrxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518902/original/file-20230402-18-vqsrxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Cave Canem: mosaic at the House of the Tragic Poet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Latin is perhaps most familiar today as the language of practical short-cuts (etc, e.g., i.e.) and quotable lines, beloved by creators of school mottos and political speechwriters alike. </p>
<p>Harry Mount and John Davie’s book, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/et-tu-brute-9781399400978/">Et tu, Brute? The Best Latin Lines Ever</a>, brings together many of Latin’s greatest hits, from “Fortune favours the brave” to “Who will guard the guards?” But collecting the lines is easy – the difficulty is trying to work out what they add up to.</p>
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<p><em>Review: Et tu, Brute? The Best Latin Lines Ever – Harry Mount and John Davie (Bloomsbury)</em></p>
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<p>Mount and Davie take the easy way out. “The fundamental reason for reading Latin is because it’s the language of Western civilization,” they write. </p>
<p>I couldn’t disagree more. We should read Latin because it is fun, challenging, amusing, and exciting, not because it forms part of any putative “inheritance” of the West.</p>
<p>But for these authors, Latin exists within a very limited thought-world. Yes, the book contains some funerary inscriptions and graffiti, and the occasional early modern philosopher, but again and again the authors return to the poetry and prose of the late Republic and early imperial period, which have long been the staple of English public (read: private) school and university (especially Oxbridge) curricula.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that within these traditional boundaries, Mount and Davie know their stuff. We are treated to the poetry of Catullus, Horace and Propertius, the satires and epigrams of Juvenal and Martial, and the histories and biographies of Tacitus and Suetonius. </p>
<p>Cicero’s speeches are likewise combed for memorable lines, from the instantly recognisable <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cui-bono"><em>Cui bono</em> (“Who benefits?”)</a> to his <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0021">invectives against Mark Antony</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-tacitus-annals-and-its-enduring-portrait-of-monarchical-power-107277">Guide to the classics: Tacitus' Annals and its enduring portrait of monarchical power</a>
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<p>The translations themselves are witty and evocative, but the contextual material is often weak or lacking. Catullus’s <a href="https://diotima-doctafemina.org/translations/latin/catullus-16/">Poem 16</a>, which comes billed as “the rudest poem in Latin”, features raw, confronting, sexually violent language. Yet there is no discussion of why Catullus uses such shocking obscenities or of the purposes of sexual invective in Latin.</p>
<p>The treatment of Ovid, most famous for his <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/100142.The_Art_of_Love">Art of Love</a>, is little better. While the authors acknowledge that his sexual advice – that young men should take advantage of drunk women and rape them – is “evil” and “wicked”, they also state that Ovid “wouldn’t last a second these days”, as if modern cancel culture is the problem, rather than the poet’s own words.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-ovids-metamorphoses-and-reading-rape-65316">Guide to the classics: Ovid's Metamorphoses and reading rape</a>
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<p>I acknowledge that, as a university academic who thinks, writes, and teaches about the Romans on a daily basis, I am not the intended audience for this book. Instead, it is clearly aimed at the general reader with no prior knowledge of Latin and Roman history, or those with long-buried school Latin, eager to reacquaint themselves with the language. But I think these readers deserve better than what Mount and Davie have to offer.</p>
<h2>Glossing over women’s stories</h2>
<p>Women, in particular, come off badly in this book. This is admittedly, partly the result of the fact that most surviving Latin literature was written by men. But there is something decidedly uncomfortable about the parade of female lovers, goddesses, and Pompeiian sex workers offered here, which is not really alleviated by the inclusion of the famous <a href="https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/TabVindol291">letter from Vindolanda</a> in which an officer’s wife invites another woman to her birthday party.</p>
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<img alt="Perpetua as depicted in the Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč, Croatia" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518994/original/file-20230403-28-14bsg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518994/original/file-20230403-28-14bsg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518994/original/file-20230403-28-14bsg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518994/original/file-20230403-28-14bsg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518994/original/file-20230403-28-14bsg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518994/original/file-20230403-28-14bsg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518994/original/file-20230403-28-14bsg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Perpetua as depicted in the Euphrasian Basilica in Poreč, Croatia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I missed texts like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Passion-of-Saints-Perpetua-and-Felicity">The Passion of Perpetua</a>, which contains the first-hand account of a young Christian woman from North Africa, written while awaiting execution at the imperial games in the early third century AD. One cannot but helped be moved by Perpetua’s account of her separation from her baby, whom she was still breastfeeding. </p>
<p>After being granted permission to keep her child with her, Perpetua wrote: “prison was immediately transformed into a palace for me, so that I preferred to be there than anywhere else” (<em>factus est mihi carcer subito praetorium, ut ibi mallem esse quam alicubi</em>). </p>
<p>The resonance of these heartfelt words only increases when Perpetua abandons her child, and her life, for her Christian faith.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518903/original/file-20230402-20-5dooep.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518903/original/file-20230402-20-5dooep.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518903/original/file-20230402-20-5dooep.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518903/original/file-20230402-20-5dooep.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518903/original/file-20230402-20-5dooep.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518903/original/file-20230402-20-5dooep.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1243&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518903/original/file-20230402-20-5dooep.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1243&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518903/original/file-20230402-20-5dooep.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1243&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The rise of Christianity and the entire course of Roman history after the early
second century is not well treated by Mount and Davie. Their account of Roman emperors comes to a sputtering halt with the reign of Domitian, erroneously credited with fighting against the Sarmatians “in modern Iran” – actually eastern Europe. A famous (and misleading) <a href="https://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap3.htm">quotation from Edward Gibbon</a> about the age of the Antonines then suffices for the next hundred years or so. </p>
<p>The poetry, panegyric, and pilgrim’s tales of the vibrant world of Late Antiquity are all but absent. Had they been included we could have journeyed to Persia with the soldier-historian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ammianus-Marcellinus">Ammianus Marcellinus</a> or to the Holy Land with the Christian woman <a href="https://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm">Egeria</a>.</p>
<p>Most of Et tu, Brute? could have been written decades ago with nary a word being changed. Our understanding and appreciation of Latin and Roman culture has long moved on, for the better. <em>Caveat emptor</em> (“Let the buyer beware”).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203137/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caillan Davenport has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. </span></em></p>Collecting choice Latin lines is easy – the difficulty is trying to work out what they add up to. And women, in particular, come off badly in this collection of Latin’s greatest hits.Caillan Davenport, Associate Professor of Classics and Head of the Centre for Classical Studies, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1251962019-12-10T13:55:43Z2019-12-10T13:55:43ZWhat the Roman senate’s grovelling before emperors explains about GOP senators’ support for Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304783/original/file-20191202-66986-1ex138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky speaks to the media with members of the Senate Republican leadership, Oct. 29, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Senate-Republicans/041a739f9db24333aac619b1587259ba/2/0">AP/Jacquelyn Martin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Unhinged leaders, dynastic intrigue, devastation and plunder: For 15 years I have been researching and teaching the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tacitus-Roman-historian">ancient historian Tacitus</a>’ works on the history of the Roman Empire. It has rarely been difficult to find echoes of the history he describes in current events.</p>
<p>I’m not the first person to make this observation.</p>
<p>In a letter dated Feb. 3, 1812, retired President John Adams <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-04-02-0361">wrote</a> to fellow retiree Thomas Jefferson about Tacitus and his fellow historian, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thucydides-Greek-historian">Thucydides</a>. </p>
<p>“When I read them,” wrote Adams, “I Seem to be only reading the History of my own Times and my own Life.”</p>
<p>Over the past three years the world depicted by Tacitus has seemed much more immediate. The U.S. political situation during the Trump presidency has led me to better appreciate the closeness of Tacitus’ observations to our times.</p>
<p>And while commentators have <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-19/trump-new-nero">compared Trump with several</a> <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/04/29/donald-trump-and-romes-mad-emperors">Roman emperors</a>, from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2017/jan/25/donald-trump-president-tyrants-ancient-rome">Tiberius to Nero and Commodus</a>, the comparison that has struck me – and may be most meaningful – is between other elected officials in the U.S. and members of the Roman senate described by Tacitus.</p>
<p>As Tacitus explores, the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/romes-transition-republic-empire/">Roman senate declined</a> from a long-held position of authority under the Roman Republic to become a body almost wholly reliant on the whims of a given emperor. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304787/original/file-20191202-67002-1k4qmry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304787/original/file-20191202-67002-1k4qmry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304787/original/file-20191202-67002-1k4qmry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304787/original/file-20191202-67002-1k4qmry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304787/original/file-20191202-67002-1k4qmry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304787/original/file-20191202-67002-1k4qmry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304787/original/file-20191202-67002-1k4qmry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304787/original/file-20191202-67002-1k4qmry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A modern statue of historian and senator Tacitus, outside the Austrian Parliament in Vienna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus#/media/File:Wien-_Parlament-Tacitus.jpg">Wikipedia, Pe-Jo photographer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Erosion of senatorial sway</h2>
<p>Tacitus (c. A.D. 55 - c. A.D. 120) was himself a Roman senator; his writing shows a particular interest in the conduct of senators.</p>
<p>Prior to Tacitus’ time, Rome had been a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Roman-Republic">republic</a> (509-27 B.C.). In that system magistrates were elected and alternated annually. Those who had served in elected office entered the senate in perpetuity. This body was, in essence, a collective of hundreds of members of the political class, who deliberated and voted on domestic and foreign policy. </p>
<p>During the period Tacitus writes about (A.D. 14-96), the Roman state remained a republic in name, with its institutions more or less intact. Yet one individual, the emperor – known as the princeps – held what were essentially <a href="http://www.vroma.org/%7Ebmcmanus/augustus2.html">emergency powers</a> over domestic and foreign affairs. So the “republic” of this period was functionally an autocracy. This meant that government institutions other than the emperor had little power.</p>
<p>So in the period Tacitus describes, senators still formally convened, gave impassioned speeches and debated issues of the day. But most often resolutions would go nowhere without the “encouragement of the emperor,” as the historian puts it in one <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Tac.+Ann.+15.22&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078">passage</a>. The situation frequently left senators tongue-tied or, worse, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Tac.+Ann.+1.12&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078">“stooping to the most abject supplication.”</a></p>
<p>Their subservience could be seen in, for example, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Tac.+Ann.+15.18&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078">senatorial decrees</a> to celebrate military victories that had not occurred; or, after the emperor Nero snuffed out a plot against him, in the <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Tac.+Ann.+15.74&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078">senatorial motion</a> to erect a Temple to the Divine Nero.</p>
<p>Senatorial fealty to the emperor was perhaps most apparent in the proliferation of prosecutions of other Romans for perceived acts of treason against the emperor. From a successful prosecution a senator could win the favor of the emperor, along with untold riches. Tacitus considered this rash of self-serving prosecutions to be <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D73">“the gravest of destructive forces”</a> under the empire.</p>
<h2>Senatorial timidity</h2>
<p>The writings of the senator-as-historian Tacitus continually explore this paradox of a republican system that was autocratic in practice, asking: What exactly had become of the senate’s role? What did senators understand it to be? What type of governmental system <em>was</em> this?</p>
<p>A revealing moment about the long-term consequences of senatorial dread of a given emperor’s whims takes place in Tacitus’ account of senatorial debate in A.D. 70, soon after the death of the infamous Nero.</p>
<p>The senator Curtius Montanus decries the culture of complacency and deference by senators toward emperors. Condemning their “greed of gain,” he <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Tac.+Hist.+4.42&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0080">says</a> to his fellow senators, “Do you think that Nero was the last of our masters? Those who survived the reigns of (earlier emperors) Tiberius and Caligula thought the same thing.”</p>
<p>Montanus’ speech gets to the heart of the senate’s uncertain status. Assertion of independence was possible, and Tacitus’ works present a number of voices of senatorial independence. But many in the senate – aware of a given emperor’s power to end their political lives and damage their fortunes – were happy to wait it out and hope for a more temperate successor.</p>
<p>Tacitus attributes this very approach to the senator Eprius Marcellus, who managed to stay influential under a series of emperors. Marcellus, he writes, <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Tac.+Hist.+4.8&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0080">considered</a> the best plan “to admire the past, but conform to the present; to pray for good emperors and tolerate whatever sort you got.” Marcellus’ conformity to his times came out most of all in his willingness to attack a given emperor’s enemies. His skill in this pursuit earned him both prestige and wealth – until, according to the later historian <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/65*.html">Cassius Dio</a>, a successful prosecution against him spelled Marcellus’ end. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304789/original/file-20191202-67011-s8x9ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304789/original/file-20191202-67011-s8x9ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304789/original/file-20191202-67011-s8x9ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304789/original/file-20191202-67011-s8x9ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304789/original/file-20191202-67011-s8x9ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304789/original/file-20191202-67011-s8x9ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304789/original/file-20191202-67011-s8x9ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/304789/original/file-20191202-67011-s8x9ol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, right, has shifted from a Trump critic to a Trump supporter. Here, he speaks at the White House, Nov. 6, 2019, as the president looks on.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/fa5323eb7d5a43a7bbb37f23f6f48c7c/3/0">AP/Patrick Semansky</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Relevance or acquiescence?</h2>
<p>There are countless differences between the Roman and American political systems. But Marcellus’ credo about “conforming to the present” and getting by in the face of a strong-willed executive has found resonances in the words and actions of U.S. senators of late. </p>
<p>Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/magazine/lindsey-graham-what-happened-trump.html">said</a> earlier this year that his about-face – from staunch Trump critic to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/24/lindsey-graham-resolution-trump-impeachment-inquiry/4088121002/">frequent defender</a> and now <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/graham-launches-probe-into-bidens-burisma-and-ukraine/2019/11/21/5a5675b4-0ca5-11ea-97ac-a7ccc8dd1ebc_story.html">investigator</a> of the president’s political rivals – reflects his concern “to be relevant” under changing political circumstances. </p>
<p>This fall, when a constituent brought up the House’s impeachment inquiry and asked Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, “When are you guys going to say, ‘Enough’?,” Ernst <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-impeachment-latest-republicans-senate-ukraine-biden-a9145851.html">responded</a>, “The president is going to say what the president is going to do.”</p>
<p>These comments are matched by more concrete demonstrations of the marginalizing of the Republican-led Senate. Trump has <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/154243/trump-administration-cabinet-acting-department-secretaries">appointed</a> a number of acting secretaries, bypassing the usual Senate confirmation vote. He has circumvented Congress’ power of the purse by using emergency powers to get money to build his border <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/14/senate-votes-to-block-trump-border-wall-national-emergency-declaration.html">wall</a>. He has evaded the requirement for congressional approval of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/us/politics/saudi-arms-sales.html?searchResultPosition=3">arms sales</a> to foreign states, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-vetoes-congresss-attempt-to-block-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia/2019/07/24/7b047c32-ae65-11e9-a0c9-6d2d7818f3da_story.html">vetoed Congress’ attempt to block the sales</a>. </p>
<p>In June he <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/450117-trump-i-do-not-need-congressional-approval-to-strike-iran">asserted</a> that he does not need congressional support for war against Iran – much less to withdraw troops from northern Syria, as he did unilaterally this fall.</p>
<p>While we may chalk up senatorial inaction – in the first or 21st century – to fear of an individual leader’s powers, there is another underlying factor that may align political figures from these two periods: The rise of an autocrat was personally good for them. </p>
<p>New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/opinion/republicans-trump-kurds.html">described</a> this as the “simplest explanation” behind the motivations of many Republican lawmakers. He notes that their independence still emerges in, for example, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/us/politics/senate-vote-syria-afghanistan.html">opposition to the withdrawal from Syria</a>. </p>
<p>But since Trump has pushed for policies long wanted by Republicans, such as lower taxes on the wealthy and minimal regulations, as well as a conservative judiciary, Bouie asks, “Why would any of them stand against a president who has delivered on each count?”</p>
<p>Tacitus made a comparable diagnosis. Of the first princeps Augustus’ emergence in the 30s and 20s B.C., he <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Tac.+Ann.+1.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0080">writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Slowly he rose, dragging to himself the guardrails of the senate, magistrates, and laws – with no one opposing, since the fiercest had died in battle or through proscription, and the rest of the prominent men preferred the security of the present to the dangers of the past. The readier one was for servitude, the more he would be lifted up in wealth and in prestige…”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The members of the political class that for hundreds of years had provided a guardrail for Rome’s republican system now gained both financial prosperity and status from their cooperation with Augustus. </p>
<p>This, Tacitus explains, is how autocracy comes about – and persists.</p>
<p>Is this same process playing out in the U.S.? Is the history of our own times, as John Adams put it, replaying the era that Tacitus describes? Or will political figures in the U.S. – or the U.S. electoral process – respond to a growing autocracy in ways that the ancient Romans did not?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Joseph does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Roman senate declined from a long-held position of authority under the Roman Republic to become almost wholly reliant on the whims of a given emperor, writes a classics scholar.Timothy Joseph, Associate Professor of Classics, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1072772019-03-11T18:48:01Z2019-03-11T18:48:01ZGuide to the classics: Tacitus’ Annals and its enduring portrait of monarchical power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248577/original/file-20181203-194941-1w58gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The death of popular prince Germanicus painted by Nicolas Poussin in 1627.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/senex_magister26/7647220174/">Senex Magister/flickr </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sometime in the 9th century AD, a monk in the Benedictine monastery of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Fulda">Fulda</a> in modern Germany copied out an extensive Latin history into <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/Carolingian-minuscule">Carolingian minuscule</a>, a script promoted by the emperor Charlemagne to aid in the reading and comprehension of great works of literature. It is to this monk that we owe the preservation of the first part of what is arguably the greatest history of imperial Rome, the Annals of P. Cornelius Tacitus. </p>
<p>The Annals tells the story of the Roman empire under the Julio-Claudian dynasty, which ruled Rome from 27 BC to AD 68. It begins with the death of the first emperor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Augustus-Roman-emperor">Augustus</a> (27 BC-AD 14), and then covers in detail the reigns of his successors, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tiberius">Tiberius</a> (AD 14-37), <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Caligula-Roman-emperor">Caligula</a> (AD 37-41), <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Claudius-Roman-emperor">Claudius</a> (AD 41-54), and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nero-Roman-emperor">Nero</a> (AD 54-68).</p>
<p>The history was originally composed of 18 books, of which 1-6 are preserved in the manuscript from Fulda, and 11-16 in a second manuscript copied in Italy at the monastery of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Cassino">Monte Cassino</a> in the 11th century.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-suetoniuss-the-twelve-caesars-explores-vice-and-virtue-in-ancient-rome-85608">Guide to the Classics: Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars explores vice and virtue in ancient Rome</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The rest of the work, including the entire reign of Caligula, is entirely lost. What remains, however, is a powerful and at times darkly humorous examination of the workings of the Roman imperial monarchy.</p>
<h2>Without anger and partiality</h2>
<p>Tacitus was a Roman senator, who wrote the Annals in the early second century AD, during the reigns of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Trajan">Trajan</a> (AD 98-117) and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hadrian">Hadrian</a> (AD 117-138). He had previously written a series of minor works, including a biography of his father-in-law <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gnaeus-Julius-Agricola">Agricola</a>, and a major account of the Flavian dynasty (AD 69-96) called the Histories. </p>
<p>The Annals is a modern title, which only became established in the 16th century. The 9th century manuscript from Fulda instead began with <em>Ab excessu divi Aug(usti)</em>, “From the death of the deified Augustus”. The choice of Annals as the conventional title reflects the fact that Tacitus’ history was structured on an annalistic basis, covering events year by year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248239/original/file-20181202-194953-165el0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248239/original/file-20181202-194953-165el0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248239/original/file-20181202-194953-165el0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248239/original/file-20181202-194953-165el0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248239/original/file-20181202-194953-165el0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248239/original/file-20181202-194953-165el0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248239/original/file-20181202-194953-165el0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248239/original/file-20181202-194953-165el0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fragment of the funerary inscription of P. Cornelius Tacitus, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tacitus,_Sepulchral_Inscription.jpg">Kleuske/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most famous statement of Tacitus’ Annals is his proclamation that he would write <em>sine ira et studio</em> (“without anger and partiality”). Such pronouncements of impartiality were a formulaic part of ancient historiography. In this case, Tacitus’ claim is based on the fact that he did not live under the emperors he was writing about, and thus did not benefit from their patronage. The statement did not mean that he would refrain from advancing any strong opinions – far from it. </p>
<h2>Liberty and slavery</h2>
<blockquote>
<p><em>The City of Rome from its inception was held by kings; freedom and the consulship were established by L. Brutus.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>From this, the first line of the Annals, Tacitus lays his cards on the table with an account of Rome’s changing systems of government. Rome had been a monarchy before, in the age of the kings which lasted for nearly 250 years (753 BC-509 BC). In 509 BC, a senator called <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lucius-Junius-Brutus-legendary-Roman">L. Brutus</a> expelled the tyrannical last king, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tarquin-king-of-Rome-534-509-BC">Tarquinius Superbus</a>. This ushered in an era of <em>libertas</em> (“freedom”).</p>
<p>Tacitus describes how freedom was guaranteed by a new form of government, the <em>res publica</em> – the Republic – in which sovereign authority lay with the Roman people. In the first century BC, a series of civil wars waged by powerful men such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Caesar-Roman-ruler">Julius Caesar</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mark-Antony-Roman-triumvir">Mark Antony</a> and Octavian effectively brought about the end of the Republican system of government. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258916/original/file-20190214-1726-o05uit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258916/original/file-20190214-1726-o05uit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258916/original/file-20190214-1726-o05uit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258916/original/file-20190214-1726-o05uit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258916/original/file-20190214-1726-o05uit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258916/original/file-20190214-1726-o05uit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258916/original/file-20190214-1726-o05uit.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roman coin of 54 B.C. celebrating Brutus’ expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus and the new era of freedom in 509 B.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 27 BC, Octavian assumed the name of Augustus (“the revered one”) and became the first emperor. Monarchical rule had returned to Rome. Although the senate still existed, real power now lay with Augustus. Tacitus writes that the people and the senators, grateful for the end to civil wars, offered themselves up in <em>servitium</em> (“servitude”) to Rome’s new leader:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>he (sc. Augustus) drew to himself the responsibilities of senate, magistrates, and laws - without a single adversary, since the most defiant had fallen in the battle line or by proscription and the rest of the nobles […] preferred the protection of the present to the perils of old.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The themes of liberty and slavery permeate the Annals. After the death of Augustus, Tacitus writes that senators turned to acknowledge his stepson Tiberius as emperor, a move which he characterises as “a rush into servitude”. This language was particularly resonant to a Roman audience, as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/classical-studies/ancient-history/slaves-rome-paradigms-empire-roman-culture">Myles Lavan</a> has shown. Servitude was the condition of slaves who answered to a <em>dominus</em> (“master”) – it was not the condition of free men, and especially not of Roman citizens.</p>
<p>Tacitus’ history alternates between civil affairs (concentrating on the emperor, the senate, and the court) and foreign affairs (campaigns and rebellions in the provinces). But each section of his narrative comments on and reflects the themes of the other. </p>
<p>A classic example comes in Book 14. Here Tacitus describes the revolt of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boudicca">Boudicca</a>, queen of the British tribe of the Iceni, against the forces of the emperor Nero in Britain. Before joining battle with the Romans, Boudicca tells her followers that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] she was not, as one sprung from great ancestors, avenging her kingdom and wealth, but as one of the people, her lost freedom, her body battered by beatings, and the abused chastity of her daughters.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To fight and die under the leadership of a woman would enable Britons to avoid slavery under Rome. Boudicca’s speech encourages Tacitus’ readers to reflect on the decadence and depravity of Nero, and the curtailment of freedom under his regime.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mythbusting-ancient-rome-the-emperor-nero-65797">Mythbusting Ancient Rome – the emperor Nero</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The monarchy exposed</h2>
<p>The Annals is not an anti-monarchical work – when Tacitus was writing in the second century AD, there was no chance of the Roman Republic being restored. In his view, monarchical government should be conducted in an open and transparent manner, with the emperor and senate working together. But the reigns of the Julio-Claudians which he describes in the Annals did not live up to this ideal. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248244/original/file-20181202-194922-14pf6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248244/original/file-20181202-194922-14pf6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248244/original/file-20181202-194922-14pf6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248244/original/file-20181202-194922-14pf6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248244/original/file-20181202-194922-14pf6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248244/original/file-20181202-194922-14pf6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248244/original/file-20181202-194922-14pf6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248244/original/file-20181202-194922-14pf6v2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The emperor Tiberius shown on the Grand Camée de France, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Cameo_of_France,_a_five-layered_sardonyx_cameo_divided_into_three_level_and_depicting_members_of_the_Julio-Claudian_dynasty,_circa_23_AD,_Cabinet_des_M%C3%A9dailles,_Paris_(21785177979).jpg">Carole Raddato/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tacitus paints the members of the senate as sycophants, willingly surrendering their authority to their imperial masters. His account of the emperor Tiberius – portrayed as the master of dissimulation who says one thing but does another – features senators turning on one another to curry favour with the emperor, and with his notorious creature, the praetorian prefect <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lucius-Aelius-Sejanus">Sejanus</a>.</p>
<p>In Tacitus’ picture of the monarchy, the real power lies behind closed doors, where senators jockey for favour with men such as Sejanus, not to mention the emperor’s freedmen, slaves, and female relatives. In Book 11, which covers the reign of Claudius, we see a senator’s trial held in the imperial bedroom in the presence of the emperor and his wife Messalina – rather than in the senate itself. </p>
<p>Claudius’ second wife, his niece Agrippina, ushered in a new form of female tyranny. Tacitus memorably remarks:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] there was universal obedience to a female who did not, like Messalina, sport with Roman affairs through recklessness: it was a tightly controlled and (so to speak) manlike servitude.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In producing his account of political intrigues, Tacitus often conducted archival research. In Books two and three he describes the mysterious death of Tiberius’ adopted son <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Germanicus">Germanicus</a> in Syria after he clashed with the governor of the province, Calpurnius Piso. Tacitus recounts the outpouring of grief for Germanicus in Rome, and the subsequent trial of Piso. </p>
<p><a href="http://eda-bea.es/pub/record_card_1.php?rec=948">Bronze fragments</a> of a senatorial decree recording the outcome of the trial were discovered in Spain in the 1980s. A comparison of the text of the inscription with the Annals shows that Tacitus used these senatorial records in writing about the death of Germanicus. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248241/original/file-20181202-194925-193wekt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248241/original/file-20181202-194925-193wekt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248241/original/file-20181202-194925-193wekt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248241/original/file-20181202-194925-193wekt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248241/original/file-20181202-194925-193wekt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248241/original/file-20181202-194925-193wekt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248241/original/file-20181202-194925-193wekt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248241/original/file-20181202-194925-193wekt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus by Benjamin West.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Agrippina_Landing_at_Brundisium_with_the_Ashes_of_Germanicus_by_Benjamin_West.jpeg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Tacitus does not accept the authorised version of events wholesale. He shapes his narrative of the incident to focus on the dissimulation of the emperor Tiberius and his mother Livia, whom he alleges were secretly happy at the death of the popular prince Germanicus:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tiberius and Livia refrained from public appearance, deeming it would belittle their sovereignty to lament openly – or lest, with everyone’s eyes examining their demeanour, their falsity be understood.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We cannot know what Tiberius and Livia were really thinking, but Tacitus uses the power of rumour and suggestion to imagine the motives of the parties involved. The historian <a href="https://zenon.dainst.org/Record/000648376/Access">Werner Eck</a> has drawn parallels between this incident and the aftermath of death of Princess Diana, when popular grief was famously greeted by a prolonged silence from the Queen. </p>
<h2>A powerful legacy</h2>
<p>Given Tacitus’ gift for laying bare the realities of power, it is somewhat surprising that he was never a popular author in the Roman world. Indeed, Tacitus was little read before the publication of the first editions of the Annals in the 16th century. His history struck a chord with Italian humanists, who found in the Annals a work which helped them to comprehend and critique the monarchical regimes of Europe. </p>
<p>Tacitus’ style influenced <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francesco-Guicciardini">Francesco Guicciardini’s History of Italy</a>, which recounted events in the peninsula between 1494-1534, and the relevance of the theme of liberty to contemporary monarchy was brought out in <a href="https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb11298475_00005.html">Virgilio Malvezzi’s Discourses on Tacitus</a> (1635). The impact of the Annals was also felt in England, where Tacitus’ words encouraged statesmen to challenge the restrictions placed on them by the Stuart kings, lest they too fall under the thumb of a Tiberius or Nero. </p>
<p>The subsequent influence of Tacitus’ Annals on great thinkers such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Hobbes">Hobbes</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Montesquieu">Montesquieu</a> has ensured that it has become a paradigmatic text for understanding one-man rule, both in ancient Rome and in the modern world. It encourages us to consider the dangers of accepting and acquiescing to an autocracy which has no checks and balances. </p>
<p><em>The translations used in this article come from A. J. Woodman, Tacitus: The Annals, Hackett Publishing Company (2004).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caillan Davenport receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Tacitus’ Annals is a powerful and darkly humorous examination of imperial Rome. Though his work was little read in the Roman world, it has influenced great thinkers such as Hobbes and Montesquieu.Caillan Davenport, Senior Lecturer in Roman History, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/378782015-02-23T10:56:46Z2015-02-23T10:56:46ZBrian Williams, Herodotus, and eyewitness reporting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72683/original/image-20150222-21879-b2vtea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The NBC Nightly News of ancient Greece...</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Brian Williams was born too late. </p>
<p>Earlier this month, the realization that the “NBC Nightly News” anchor had misrepresented experiences in Iraq led to a six-month suspension and outcry for his termination. His tales of harrowing experiences in the French Quarter during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are also under scrutiny. </p>
<p>But Williams’s penchant for reaching and at times overreaching for eyewitness authenticity puts him in good company – with the reporters who stand at the very beginning of the Western tradition.</p>
<h2>Eyewitness reporting in ancient times</h2>
<p>The historians of ancient Greece and Rome placed a high priority on eyewitness reporting, on being there and seeing for oneself. </p>
<p>Time and research “in the field” and the accompanying brushes with danger gave an historian credibility and authority. Eyewitness accounts also engaged the audience, who could follow in the footsteps of the author’s derring-do. </p>
<p>But in their efforts to win over their audiences, Greek and Roman historians also fudged or fabricated their time in the field. </p>
<h2>Suspect Greek measurements in Egypt</h2>
<p>The Western historical tradition begins with the Greek Herodotus in the fifth century BCE. The second book of his <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.2.ii.html">Histories</a> is a long and detailed discussion of the geography, history, and culture of the Egyptians, and it remains an indispensable resource for the study of ancient Egypt. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72684/original/image-20150222-21899-r3rjuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72684/original/image-20150222-21899-r3rjuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72684/original/image-20150222-21899-r3rjuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72684/original/image-20150222-21899-r3rjuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72684/original/image-20150222-21899-r3rjuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72684/original/image-20150222-21899-r3rjuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72684/original/image-20150222-21899-r3rjuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Herodotus without his measuring stick.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Herodotus often refers to his own visit to Egypt –- but even more often he gets things wrong. Of the famous pyramids of Giza he writes, with bravado, “I myself measured them!” The image of the historian, measuring stick in hand, scaling the pyramids is one that grabs the reader, but much of what he writes about the pyramids’ appearance and construction does not hold up. The inconsistencies in this and other passages have led <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40000131?sid=21105415704281&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739696&uid=3739256">scholars</a> to question whether Herodotus went to Egypt at all. </p>
<p>Herodotus, however, kept a place of authority and esteem in antiquity. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=r9oNAAAAYAAJ&dq=cicero%20on%20the%20laws&pg=PA389#v=onepage&q&f=false">Cicero</a>, the Roman politician and polymath from the first century BCE, in his work <em>On the Laws</em> dubbed Herodotus “the father of history,” a title he keeps to this day in the West. </p>
<p>In the same breath Cicero says that Herodotus tells “innumerable fabulous stories.” Telling entertaining tales, Cicero indicates, had been a part of historical writing from the start. </p>
<h2>‘Being there’ in Rome and Iraq</h2>
<p>Tacitus, who is commonly regarded as the greatest Roman historian, published a biography of his father-in-law <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Tac.+Ag.+45&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0081">Agricola </a>in 98 CE. In it he refers to the emperor Domitian’s execution of the senators Helvidius and Senecio in 93 CE. </p>
<p>A senator himself, Tacitus writes with great guilt about the senate’s complicity in these tyrannical acts: “our hands led Helvidius to his dungeon … Senecio spattered us with innocent blood.” </p>
<p>The scene is striking, but modern historians surmise that </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72685/original/image-20150222-21887-kk360n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72685/original/image-20150222-21887-kk360n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72685/original/image-20150222-21887-kk360n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72685/original/image-20150222-21887-kk360n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72685/original/image-20150222-21887-kk360n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72685/original/image-20150222-21887-kk360n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72685/original/image-20150222-21887-kk360n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">But was he there? Tacitus.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tacitus may not have been in Rome at that time. The insertion of himself as an eyewitness and remorseful actor in these events is very likely a fabrication.</p>
<p>During an appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman” in 2013, Brian Williams employed the first-person plural much like Tacitus did some 1900 years earlier. </p>
<p>To Letterman and an audience on the edge of their seats, Williams said of the helicopter attack in 2003, “So, we got hit, we set down, everyone was okay – our captain took a Purple Heart injury to the ear in the cockpit – but we were alone.” </p>
<p>Williams’s “we” is not unlike Tacitus’s. Just as the Roman was a senator at the time, albeit not in Rome for his colleagues’ deaths, Williams was in a helicopter on that day, albeit one that joined the struck helicopter an hour or so after the attack. </p>
<p>In both cases the stretch of the truth in the word “we” is effective: Tacitus and Williams take us there, share the lived experience of eyewitnesses, and keep our rapt attention.</p>
<p>In the February 14 <em>Washington Post</em> an anonymous “NBC Nightly News” journalist <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/storytelling-ability-connected-williams-with-his-viewers-but-also-led-to-his-downfall/2015/02/14/def95228-b3a4-11e4-854b-a38d13486ba1_story.html?tid=pm_pop">said</a> of his colleague, “Brian’s not a liar. He’s a guy who gets caught up in the story. He’s a great storyteller. But sometimes storytellers embellish.” This take on Williams sounds a lot like Cicero’s description of Herodotus, the “father of history” who was prone to tall tales. </p>
<p>But our expectations from “history” are different from ancient expectations. Williams’s colleague goes on to say, “But you don’t embellish about getting hit by an RPG.” </p>
<p>Williams’s manner of engaging the audience is welcome – and as old as reporting itself – but perhaps he should stop rivaling Herodotus and Tacitus so closely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37878/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Joseph does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Greek and Roman historians were also known to fudge or fabricate their time in the field.Timothy Joseph, Associate Professor of Classics, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.