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

to remain active in public life through several regime changes: he
seems to have done equally well under emperors he excoriates in his
writings (in particular Domitian) and under emperors he deems worthy
of praise (Nerva, Trajan). This raises an interesting, and potentially
awkward, question, well articulated by A. J. Woodman: ‘Tacitus’ smooth
progression from office to office – and in particular his relatively early
acquisition of a major priesthood and his culminating proconsulship of
Asia – bespeak of someone who was more than happy to take advantage
of the political opportunities which the system had to offer and whose
debt to the emperors listed in the preface to the Histories [on which
see below] was not inconsiderable. It is thus all the more curious that,
as usually interpreted, his treatment of the early empire in the Annals
represents a general indictment of the system from which he had derived
such personal benefit.’ 8 Curious indeed. Does Tacitus just indict specific
emperors? Or certain dynasties? Or the entire system of the principate?
Or only variants thereof? And why? The scholarly verdict is divided...
principate
It is easy to think of Roman emperors as omnipotent rulers who could do
(and did) whatever struck their fancy. The truth is more complex – and
arguably more interesting (if less sensational). The duration and success
of an emperor’s reign depended not least on the way he interacted with a
range of individuals and groups, which needed ‘to accept’ him: 9
Augustus ediderat, spectati sunt. utriusque principis rationes praetermitto, satis narratas
libris quibus res imperatoris Domitiani composui. nam is quoque edidit ludos saecularis iisque
intentius adfui sacerdotio quindecimvirali praeditus ac tunc praetor; quod non iactantia refero
sed quia collegio quindecimvirum antiquitus ea cura et magistratus potissimum exequebantur
officia caerimoniarum. [Under the same consulate (= 47 AD), eight hundred years from the
foundation of Rome, sixty-four from their presentation by Augustus, came a performance
of the Secular Games. The calculations employed by the two princes I omit, as they have
been sufficiently explained in the books which I have devoted to the reign of Domitian
(= the closing books, now lost, of the Histories). For he too exhibited Secular Games, and,
as the holder of a quindecimviral priesthood and as praetor at the time, I followed them
with more than usual care: a fact which I recall not in vanity, but because from of old this
responsibility has rested with the Fifteen, and because it was to magistrates in especial
that the task fell of discharging the duties connected with the religious ceremonies.]
8 Woodman (2004) xi.
9 Noreña (2011) 7. His conception of imperial Rome owes much to Paul Veyne (1976) and,
in particular, Egon Flaig (1992) (2010).