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

additional offence outweighs the others in seriousness. But the correlation
of contumeliam senatus with iniuriam minorum hints at irony: one is made to
wonder what sort of political system it is, in which a verbal slight of superiors
counts as a more serious transgression than the systematic exploitation of the
powerless. (It is worth bearing in mind that Tacitus composed the Annals after
a long public career that included the administration of the plum province.)
(= dictitavisset) Normal Latin verbs can be re-formed with -to
or -so (first conjugation) to produce so-called ‘frequentative’ forms. This
indicates that the action keeps happening: so rogito = I keep asking, ask
persistently (from ‘rogo’); curso = I run about constantly (from ‘curro’). Here,
dictito re-doubles the frequentative form ‘dicto’ (formed from ‘dico’) to
bring out that Timarchus kept bragging about his power incessantly. The
subjunctive mood indicates that it is not a fact that Timarchus said these
things but an accusation (with an implied verb that governs the indirect
statement): ‘because (people claimed) he had kept saying that...’ Miller
calls it ‘subjunctive of the charge, virtual oblique.’ 74 This subtlety of Latin
is one of the ways in which Tacitus can report scurrilous allegations in his
history without actually endorsing them himself.
in sua potestate situm an pro consulibus qui Cretam obtinuissent
Here we have the insult that grated with the senate (via
the proconsular governor, the senate’s representative in the province):
Timarchus claimed that it was his decision whether votes of thanks were
given to the proconsuls in charge of the province. The exposed position of
in sua potestate underscores the hubris of Timarchus. Meanwhile, age-old
myth maintained that ‘All Cretans are liars’ – and made merry with the
paradox that arises when a Cretan tells you so...
pro consulibus ... grates agerentur: pro and consulibus (in the dative) are to
be taken together (‘proconsuls’ – originally ‘stand-ins for consuls’). grates is
in the nominative plural; the word is a poeticism: ‘grates was originally a
religious term for thanks to a god but was first used = gratias by poets and then
(from Curtius) by writers of elevated prose. In [the Annals] Tacitus greatly
prefers it to gratias, which he reserves for speeches.’ 75 At the time, provincial
assemblies could decree a vote of thanks for their Roman governors, which
74 Miller (1973) 69.
75 Martin and Woodman (1989) 140.