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

in which he employed yet another genre (the dialogue) to explore whether
or not the quality of public oratory had deteriorated under the principate – a
traditional preoccupation going back to Cicero who already diagnosed the rise
of autocracy as fatal for high-quality speech in the civic domain owing to a
disappearance of freedom of expression. These three works are often labelled
Tacitus’ opera minora, his ‘minor works.’ They are all ‘historical’ in one way or
another and thus set the stage for the two major pieces of historiography: the
Histories and the Annals.
The Histories
The opening paragraph of the Histories contains the most detailed selfpositioning
of Tacitus as a writer of history and is worth a detailed look.
Already the opening sentence – Initium mihi operis Servius Galba iterum Titus
Vinius consules erunt: ‘I begin my work with the second consulship of Servius
Galba, when Titus Vinius was his colleague’ – is jaw-dropping. What makes
it so, is not so much what’s in it but what isn’t. At the beginning of AD 69,
when Tacitus begins his Histories, Galba was not just consul for the second
time – he was also emperor! As Nero’s successor he had already been in
power since 6 June 68. Tacitus, however, blithely glosses over this not entirely
insignificant fact, preferring instead to give a historiographical shout-out to
Galba in his role as ‘republican’ high magistrate. This programmatic keynote
sets the tone for the rest of the work – and the remainder of the opening
paragraph (Histories 1.1): 26
nam post conditam urbem octingentos et viginti prioris aevi annos multi
auctores rettulerunt, dum res populi Romani memorabantur pari eloquentia
ac libertate: postquam bellatum apud Actium atque omnem potentiam ad
unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere; simul veritas
pluribus modis infracta, primum inscitia rei publicae ut alienae, mox
libidine adsentandi aut rursus odio adversus dominantis: ita neutris cura
posteritatis inter infensos vel obnoxios. sed ambitionem scriptoris facile
averseris, obtrectatio et livor pronis auribus accipiuntur; quippe adulationi
foedum crimen servitutis, malignitati falsa species libertatis inest. mihi
Galba Otho Vitellius nec beneficio nec iniuria cogniti. dignitatem nostram
a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domitiano longius provectam
non abnuerim: sed incorruptam fidem professis neque amore quisquam et
sine odio dicendus est. quod si vita suppeditet, principatum divi Nervae
26 We cite the text and translation by C. H. Moore in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge,
Mass., 1925).