Tacitus, Annals, 15.20­-23, 33­-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a

whereby (quo)... we depart from the opinion that what each man is held to
be like rests somewhere other than in the judgment of his fellow citizens.’ 83
Thrasea draws a determined line between citizens
and non-citizens. The emphasis on citizenship and on Rome as a civic
community has a republican ring to it. It sidelines, by passing over in
silence, other, more salient distinctions – as the one between the emperor
and everyone else. (Especially for members of the ruling élite, the iudicium
principis was of course a key factor.) Conversely, the notion that the worth
of a person lies in the judgement of some individual or social group goes
against the Stoic principle of the self-sufficiency of excellence, which
does not require external validation of any kind. Thrasea here adjusts his
philosophical affiliations to the realities of Roman politics.
Chapter 21
Olim quidem non modo praetor aut consul sed privati etiam
mittebantur qui provincias viserent et quid de cuiusque obsequio
at nunc colimus externos et adulamur, et quo modo ad nutum alicuius
grates, ita promptius accusatio decernitur.
Thrasea proceeds by drawing a sharp contrast between ‘back then’ (olim) and
‘nowadays’ (nunc). Word order underscores the strength of feeling: the key
adverbs olim and nunc are placed in front position and find reinforcement
through two strategic particles: quidem, which is usually placed directly
after the word it emphasizes and here endows olim with special resonance
(‘in the good old days, as you well know’); and the strongly adversative
at. The order is chiastic: temporal adverb (olim) + particle (quidem) ::
particle (at) + temporal adverb (nunc). Thrasea correlates and contrasts
the past and the present by means of lexical and thematic inversions. For
the past, he invokes the high magistrates of the republic (praetor, consul)
as well as any non-office-holders on top (privati); for the present, he opts
for an undifferentiated ‘we’ (colimus, adulamur), as if to underscore the
contemporary irrelevance of key political categories from republican times
(see further below on privati). The collective self-indictment is reinforced by
the contrast between the collective ‘we’ and the preceding de aestimatione
83 Woodman (2004) 315.