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

conducive to Thrasea’s argument – raise interesting questions about his
character (and Tacitus’ use of characterization). Are we to imagine Thrasea
deliberately deviating from the truth to further his case? Or would he and
his audience (perhaps even Tacitus?) share a somewhat inaccurate and
certainly nostalgic conception of republican times?
The verbs of the relative clause – viserent and referrent – are in the subjunctive,
indicating purpose: these people, Thrasea claims (incorrectly: see previous
note), were sent in order to inspect and report. What did they report on?
Thrasea supplies the answer in the indirect question (hence the subjunctive)
quid ... videretur. video in the passive with neuter pronoun as subject means
‘to seem good, right, proper’, so in essence, these Roman visitors issued
reports on ‘what seemed proper about the obedience of each individual.’
There is an insidious, subjective touch to videretur: videri, in the sense ‘to
seem’, presupposes the eye of a beholder to whom something appears to
be the case without it necessarily being the case, and the verb therefore
routinely takes a dative of a person whose perspective is at issue. Thrasea
could have added eis but leaves it out, generating a wrong impression of
objectivity.
The word makes clear that Thrasea imagines the inspection
and reporting to have been far-reaching, extending to every single
provincial – a hyperbole bordering on the absurd. It evokes association of
Hesiod’s droves of immortals who walk the earth in disguise and report on
the conduct of humans (Works & Days 252–55) or the prologue of Plautus’
Rudens, where the minor divinity Arcturus develops a ‘Big Jupiter is
watching you’ theology – or, indeed, modern totalitarian regimes and their
systems of mass-surveillance.
The -que, so rare in
Thrasea’s speech, links mittebantur (cause) and trepidabant (effect) particularly
tightly. The overall design is chiastic – subject (praetor, consul, privati) verb
(mittebantur) :: verb (trepidabant) subject (gentes) – which results in the
emphatic placement of trepidabant at the beginning of the second main clause
and underscores the dynamic of ‘cause and effect.’ The contrast between
gentes (entire nations) and singulorum (individuals) brings out the power
individual magistrates were able to exercise in the old days. aestimatio here