The Wisdom of Tacitus

[Childress]

The Roman historian Tacitus (56-117AD) who chronicled some of Rome’s most notorious emperors, including Nero and Caligula, and whose portrayal of Roman decadence influences the way we see Rome today. His observations- some penetrating, some wise, some cynical- remain relevant. These quotations are culled from The Annals, Agricola and The Histories- lively reading all. Some find an echo in the aphorisms of Eric Hoffer.

If you would know who controls you see who you may not criticize.

Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.

To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it.

It is a principle of nature to hate those whom you have injured.

(Hoffer: 'We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt.')

Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity.

There was more courage in bearing trouble than in escaping from it; the brave and the energetic cling to hope, even in spite of fortune; the cowardly and the indolent are hurried by their fears,' said Plotius Firmus, Roman Praetorian Guard.

Greater things are believed of those who are absent.

All ancient history was written with a moral object; the ethical interest predominates almost to the exclusion of all others.

Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude.

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. 

Edited November 1, 2015 by Childress

[John Kettler]

Childress,

Very good. I like the quote on the Roman way of war. A succinct and  frighteningly accurate characterization.

They make a desolation and call it Peace. OR They make a desert and call it Peace.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

 

[Childress]

They make a desolation and call it Peace. OR They make a desert and call it Peace.

That's another Tacitus quotation. Also rendered literally as:

'To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace.'

Your version is punchier. More so than English, the Latin language lends itself to aphorisms and parallel constructions. 

Reading Tacitus can be an unsettling experience. He's without doubt the greatest ancient historian, likely unsurpassed until Gibbon, another astringent observer of human foibles.

But for sheer gossipy entertainment Suetonius can't be beat.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Childress

[sburke]

Interestingly I did the tour of the Forum back in 2012.  Seems they are beginning to re evaluate Nero as the histories have mostly been written by his detractors.  Even Tacitus had this to say about the fire.

According to Tacitus, upon hearing news of the fire, Nero returned to Rome to organize a relief effort, which he paid for from his own funds.^[101] Nero's contributions to the relief extended to personally taking part in the search for and rescue of victims of the blaze, spending days searching the debris without even his bodyguards.^{[citation needed]} After the fire, Nero opened his palaces to provide shelter for the homeless, and arranged for food supplies to be delivered in order to prevent starvation among the survivors.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero

[Childress]

Suetonius' magnum opus,The Twelve Caesars, has come down to us in a nearly complete state, only missing the portion dealing with Julius Caesar's early years. His life of the 2nd emperor, Tiberius, was a study in depravity. 

At Capri they still point out the scene of his executions, from which he used to order that those who had been condemned after long and exquisite tortures be cast headlong into the sea before his eyes, while a band of marines waited below for the bodies and broke their bones with boathooks and oars, to prevent any breath of life from remaining in them. Among various forms of torture he had devised this one: he would trick men into loading themselves with copious draughts of wine, and then on a sudden tying up their private parts, would torment them at the same time by the torture of the cords and of the stoppage of their water.

This was one of the milder passages. And, no, given the high tone and rectitude of this board, we won't get into the matter of Tiberius' 'minnows' or spintriae. Google is your friend. Mind, Suetonius' assertions remain uncorroborated by contemporaries.

Tragically, great chunks of Tacitus' oeuvres are lost. For example, the first half of the Annals survived in a single copy of a manuscript from an abbey, and the second half from a single copy of a manuscript from Monte Cassino, and so it is remarkable that they survived at all. The were great hopes of finding lost Latin masterpieces when the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum was excavated. Archaeologists discovered that it was possible to unroll and read the burned and carbonised papyri using spectral imaging. So far they've decoded much of the works of Philodemus, a gaseous Epicurean philosopher. 

Edited November 5, 2015 by Childress

[Childress]

Interestingly I did the tour of the Forum back in 2012.  Seems they are beginning to re evaluate Nero as the histories have mostly been written by his detractors.  

Yet Suetonius fingered Nero as the arsonist as did many contemporaries. Nero coveted the central part of Rome as a site for his sprawling Golden House so he 'could live as a human being". We'll never know the truth.

His dream palace now lies buried under the Coliseum and many artifacts have been retrieved. Nero playing the lyre as the city burned was likely a poetic invention by later Roman historians. But it made for boffo cinema in the 20th century.

Nero blamed a nascent sect, the Christians, for the conflagration.

Tacitus:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.

That was the first mention of Christ by a Roman author. Nero had the city Christians arrested and covered in pitch. Then set ablaze as lampposts to illuminate the night darkened streets of the city.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Childress

[Childress]

It should be noted that three Roman authors in the 1st century who mentioned the Christians- Tacitus, Suetonius and Pliny- knew absolutely nothing about the new religion except as a sect vaguely rooted in Judaism. The destruction of Jerusalem by the legions and the enslavement of the Jews- a turbulent minority- was printed in recent memory. Christians suffered by proximity.

All three men were at one time government officials naturally skeptical if not hostile to any unauthorized cults. Ancient religion was a rather sterile affair thus Romans  had little experience with proselytism, an unsettling novelty. The great persecutions lay a hundred years in the future.

 

Edited November 13, 2015 by Childress

[John Kettler]

sburke,

Most definitely not the Nero I was taught about so long ago! I very much appreciate your posting that.

Childress,

Grisly execution stuff, and I'm well aware of the spintriae. Recollect(?) also something about flinging a servant into a pool full of eels, though that may be a conflation of an account of what happened to a slave of a wealthy man who broke a very expensive glass drinking goblet. The wine torture was shown in "Caligula" being inflicted by the protagonist. I definitely recall reading something about Nero's having used oil soaked crucified Christians as lighting for one of his evening parties. Me? I'll stick to tiki torches. At least they don't scream!

Regards,

John Kettler

 

 

[Childress]

 Recollect(?) also something about flinging a servant into a pool full of eels, though that may be a conflation of an account of what happened to a slave of a wealthy man who broke a very expensive glass drinking goblet.

I believe you're referring to Robert Harris' Novel, Pompeii.