Tacitus for courtiers
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Roland Mayer is now Emeritus Professor of Classics at King’s College London. Most of his scholarly publication has been in the form of commentaries, a traditional medium in which our honorand is much interested. But he has also ventured into reception studies, particularly regarding Horace and Seneca, and most recently with a comprehensive cultural history of the ruins of ancient Rome.
Abstract
The Tacitist movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries occupied numerous writers across western Europe. The movement began in northern Italy and rapidly spread across the continent. It was predicated upon the conviction that Tacitus’s description of autocracy in the early Roman Empire had lessons to teach contemporary Europeans whose states were ruled by monarchs. Modern students of this widespread movement justifiably tend to focus on its political aspects, such as autocracy and “reason of state.” It is the aim of the present essay, however, to draw attention to a complementary concern of Tacitist authors, many of whom were themselves courtiers: the value of the Roman historian for an understanding of their own condition as the subjects of autocrats.
Abstract
The Tacitist movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries occupied numerous writers across western Europe. The movement began in northern Italy and rapidly spread across the continent. It was predicated upon the conviction that Tacitus’s description of autocracy in the early Roman Empire had lessons to teach contemporary Europeans whose states were ruled by monarchs. Modern students of this widespread movement justifiably tend to focus on its political aspects, such as autocracy and “reason of state.” It is the aim of the present essay, however, to draw attention to a complementary concern of Tacitist authors, many of whom were themselves courtiers: the value of the Roman historian for an understanding of their own condition as the subjects of autocrats.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Dedication V
- Preface V
- Acknowledgements
- Contents XV
- Christina S. Kraus: Publications to Date XVII
- Polybius and Livy’s Sentence Structure 1
- Narrative Inconsistencies and Ethical Constructions in Livy Book 31 29
- “I Want to Be Great Too – but How?” Alexander, Augustus, and Livy 43
- There and Back Again: Structure and Crossing in Livy’s Third Decade 61
- Livy on the Tiber Island: Writing Rome a Solo 77
- Recapturing the Capitol: Yet More Livian Refoundations 93
- Caesar’s Shrinking Lexicon 109
- On Endings and Beginnings in Caesar’s Bellum civile 125
- Cicero’s Caesarian Histories 143
- Tacfarinine Disorder: Sallustian and Livian Color at Tacitus, Annals 3.20–1 157
- Shadows of History: Sallustian Perspectives on Book 2 of Augustine’s Confessions 177
- Camilla and the Guys 197
- How Is Maecenas Like a Syllogism? Seneca on Style in the Moral Epistles 215
- The divergent epistolary cultures of greece and rome 400 BCE–400 CE 231
- The clades variana: literary commemoration of a roman military disaster 253
- Tacitus for courtiers 265
- Sex and empire: caesar and henry higgins 277
- The silence of the frogs: an experiment with paratragedy 293
- List of Contributors 293
- General Index
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Dedication V
- Preface V
- Acknowledgements
- Contents XV
- Christina S. Kraus: Publications to Date XVII
- Polybius and Livy’s Sentence Structure 1
- Narrative Inconsistencies and Ethical Constructions in Livy Book 31 29
- “I Want to Be Great Too – but How?” Alexander, Augustus, and Livy 43
- There and Back Again: Structure and Crossing in Livy’s Third Decade 61
- Livy on the Tiber Island: Writing Rome a Solo 77
- Recapturing the Capitol: Yet More Livian Refoundations 93
- Caesar’s Shrinking Lexicon 109
- On Endings and Beginnings in Caesar’s Bellum civile 125
- Cicero’s Caesarian Histories 143
- Tacfarinine Disorder: Sallustian and Livian Color at Tacitus, Annals 3.20–1 157
- Shadows of History: Sallustian Perspectives on Book 2 of Augustine’s Confessions 177
- Camilla and the Guys 197
- How Is Maecenas Like a Syllogism? Seneca on Style in the Moral Epistles 215
- The divergent epistolary cultures of greece and rome 400 BCE–400 CE 231
- The clades variana: literary commemoration of a roman military disaster 253
- Tacitus for courtiers 265
- Sex and empire: caesar and henry higgins 277
- The silence of the frogs: an experiment with paratragedy 293
- List of Contributors 293
- General Index
