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HUM 110
Michael Breen
Feb. 20, 2002
Between Republic and Empire
Outline
I.) Tacitus’s Legacy
II.) An Ironic History of Imperial Rome
III.) The Necessities of Empire
IV.) Autocracy & Virtue: Prudence & Moderation
V.) Conclusion
Terms
Auctoritas Dominatio
Potentia Libertas
Principatus Res Publica
Moderatio Prudentia
Laesae Maiestatis Domus
Solitudo (Solitudinem)
Quotations
1.) "These accounts have their uses. But they are distasteful. What interests and stimulates readers is a geographical description, the changing fortune of a battle, the glorious death of a commander. My themes on the other hand concern cruel orders, unremitting accusations, treacherous friendships, innocent men ruined—a conspicuously monotonous glut of downfalls and their monotonous causes." (Annals, 173)
2.) "This form of history is by far the most useful. … [Tacitus’s Histories] is not a book to read, it is a book to study and learn; it is so full of maxims that you find of every sort, both right and wrong; it is a nursery of ethical and political reflections for the provision and adornment of those who hold a place in the management of the world."
Michel de Montaigne, "On the Art of Discussion" (Essays, III:8 – tr. D. Frame, p. 719)
3.) "My task from now on will be to trace the history in peace and of a free nation, governed by annually elected officers of state and subject not to the caprice of individual men, but to the overriding authority of law." (Livy, 105)
4.) "I invite the reader’s attention to the much more serious consideration of the kinds of lives our ancestors lived, of who were the men and what was the means both in politics and war by which Rome’s power was first acquired and subsequently expanded; I would then have him trace the process of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of its foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them. The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of the human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid." (Livy, 34)
5.) "[M]y chronicle is quite a different matter from histories of early Rome. Their subjects were great wars, cities stormed, kings routed and captured. Or, if home affairs were their choice, they could turn freely to conflicts of consuls with tribunes, to land-and corn-laws, feuds of conservatives and commons. Mine, on the other hand, is a circumscribed, inglorious field." (Annals, 172-3)
6.) "Yet even apparently insignificant events such as these are worth examination. For they often cause major historical developments. … [N]ow that Rome has virtually been transformed into an autocracy, the investigation and record of these details concerning the autocrat may prove useful. Indeed, it is from such studies—from the experience of others—that most men learn to distinguish right from wrong, advantage and disadvantage. Few can tell them apart instinctively." (Annals 173)
7.) "So he [Gaius Sallustius Crispus] warned Livia that palace secrets, the advice of friends, and services performed by the army, were best undivulged; and Tiberius must not weaken the throne by referring everything to the senate. The whole point of autocracy, Crispus observed, is that the accounts will not come right unless the ruler is their only auditor." (Annals, 35)
8.) "It is not for us to comment on the man whom you elevate above others and on your reasons. The gods have given you supreme control—to us is left the glory of obeying! … Research into the emperor’s hidden thoughts and secret designs is forbidden, hazardous and not necessarily informative." (Annals, 205 – Emphasis added)
9.) "Nevertheless, [Tiberius] did not convince people of his Republicanism. For he revived the treason law. The ancients had employed the same name, but had applied it to other offenses—to official misconduct damaging the Roman State, such as betrayal of an army or incitement to sedition. Action had been taken against deeds, words went unpunished. The first who employed this law to investigate written libel was Augustus, provoked by Cassius Severus, an immoderate slanderer of eminent men and women. The Tiberius, asked by a praetor, Quintius Pompeius Macer, whether cases under the treason law were to receive attention, replied: the laws must take their course. Like Augustus he had been annoyed by anonymous verses. These had criticized his cruelty, arrogance, and bad relations with his mother." (Annals, 73 – Original emphasis)
10.) "How truly the wisest of men used to assert that the souls of despots, if revealed, would show wounds and mutilations—weals left on the spirit, like lash-marks on a body, by cruelty, lust and malevolence. Neither Tiberius’s autocracy nor isolation could save him from confessing the internal torments which were his retribution." (Annals, 202-3)
11.) "In my sixth and seventh consulships, after I had put an end to the civil wars, having attained supreme power by universal consent, I transferred the state from my own power to the control of the Roman senate and the people. … After that time I excelled all in authority, but I possessed no more power than the others who were my colleagues in each magistracy." (Res Gestae, 34)
12.) "Pompey, in his third consulship, was chosen to reform public life. But his cures were worse than the abuses; and he broke his own laws. Force was the means of his control, and by force he lost it. During the twenty years of strife that followed, morality and the law were non-existent, criminality went unpunished, decency was often fatal. Finally, Caesar Augustus, when consul for the sixth time, felt sure enough of his position to cancel all that he had decreed as Triumvir, in favor of a new order: peace and the Principate." (Annals, 133)
13.) "Augustus attracted everybody’s goodwill by the enjoyable gift of peace. Then he gradually pushed ahead and absorbed the functions of the senate, the officials and even the law. Opposition did not exist. War or judicial murder had disposed of all men of spirit. Upper-class survivors found that slavish obedience was the way to succeed, both politically and financially. They had profited from the revolution, and so now they liked the security of the existing arrangement better than the dangerous uncertainties of the old regime. Besides, the new order was popular in the provinces. There, government by Senate and People was looked upon skeptically as a matter of sparring dignitaries and extortionate officials." (Annals, 32)
14.) "But there are no tribes beyond us, nothing indeed but waves and rocks, and the yet more terrible Romans, from whose oppression escape is vainly sought by obedience and submission. Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude [solitudinem] and call it peace." (Agricola, 30 – Emphasis added)
15.) "While he [Tiberius] was a private citizen or holding commands under Augustus, his life was blameless; and so was his reputation. While Germanicus and Drusus still lived, he concealed his real self, cunningly affecting virtuous qualities. However, until his mother died there was good in Tiberius as well as evil. Again, as long as he favored (or feared) Sejanus, the cruelty of Tiberius was detested, but his perversions unrevealed. Then fear vanished, and with it shame. Thereafter he expressed only his own personality—by unrestrained crime and infamy." (Annals, 226-7)
16.) "If Tiberius, in spite of all his experience, has been transformed and deranged by absolute power, will Gaius do better? Almost a boy, wholly ignorant, with a criminal upbringing, guided by Macro the man chosen to suppress Sejanus, though Macro is the worse man of the two and responsible for more terrible crimes and national suffering. I foresee even grimmer slavery ahead." (Annals, 225)
17.) "I do not forget the times in which I have been born, or the form of government which our fathers and grandfathers established. I may regard with admiration an earlier period, but I acquiesce in the present, and, while I pray for good Emperors, I can endure whomsoever we may have." (Histories, IV.8)
18.) "Even if I were describing foreign wars and patriotic deaths," he writes, "this monotonous series of events would have become tedious both for me as for my readers. For I should expect them to feel as surfeited as myself by the tragic sequence of citizen deaths—even if they had been honorable deaths. But this slavish passivity, this torrent of wasted bloodshed far from active service, wearies, depresses, and paralyzes the mind." (Annals, 388)
19.) "How much finer to die for the good of your country, calling for men to defend its freedom! The army may fail you, the people abandon you. But yourself—if you must die early—die in a way of which your ancestors and posterity could approve! But Piso was unimpressed, After a brief pubic appearance, he shut himself in his house and summoned up courage for his end, waiting for the Guardsmen. …But Piso died by opening the veins in his arms. He loaded his will with repulsive flattery of Nero. This was done because Piso loved his own wife Satria Gulla, though she was low-born and her beauty her only asset." (Annals, 374)
20.) "I find that this Marcus Lepidus played a wise an noble part in events. He often palliated the brutalities caused by other people’s sycophancy. And he had a sense of proportion—for he enjoyed unbroken influence and favor with Tiberius. This compels me to doubt whether, like other things, the friendships and enmities of rulers depend on destiny and the luck of a man’s birth. Instead, may not our own decisions play some part, enabling us to steer a way, safe from intrigues and hazards, between perilous insubordination and degrading servility?" (Annals, 167)
21.) "[Y]et the Emperor, not withstanding his irascible temper and an implacability proportioned to his reserve, was softened by the moderation and prudence of Agricola, who neither by a perverse obstinacy nor an idle parade of freedom challenged fame or provoked his fate. Let it be known to those whose habit it is to admire the disregard of authority, that there may be great men even under bad emperors, and that obedience and submission, when joined to activity and vigor, may attain a glory which most men reach only by a perilous career, utterly useless to the state, and closed by an ostentatious death." (Agricola, 42)
Bibliography
Hum 110 | Reed Classics | Reed Library | Reed | Perseus