Annals I.1

Rome at the beginning was ruled by kings. Freedom and the consulship were established by Lucius Brutus. Dictatorships were held for a temporary crisis. The power of the decemvirs did not last beyond two years, nor was the consular jurisdiction of the military tribunes of long duration. The despotisms of Cinna and Sulla were brief; the rule of Pompeius and of Crassus soon yielded before Caesar; the arms of Lepidus and Antonius before Augustus; who, when the world was wearied by civil strife, subjected it to empire under the title of "Prince." But the successes and reverses of the old Roman people have been recorded by famous historians; and fine intellects were not wanting to describe the times of Augustus, till growing sycophancy scared them away. The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and after their death were written under the irritation of a recent hatred. Hence my purpose is to relate a few facts about Augustus - more particularly his last acts, then the reign of Tiberius, and all which follows, without either bitterness or partiality, from any motives to which I am far removed.

Ah, here we are at the beginning of the Annals (written by Tacitus in around 115 AD). This should be fun. I hope you’ll read through Tacitus with me and give me your thoughts on each passage. If you don’t know anything about Roman history, don’t worry, I’ll try to make it easy on you. If you do, we’ll still all certainly learn some new stuff. The Annals covers the history of Rome from Tiberius through Nero (AD 14 – AD 68), though some of it is lost.

Tacitus begins with a prologue. He starts us out with kings. There were seven of them until Lucius Brutus overthrew the last one and established the Republic (side note: it was Marcus Brutus who later overthrew Julius Caesar). Starting with kings is an interesting and seemingly logical choice at first glance. Livy, though, in his Founding of the City, starts his Roman history out with Aeneas and Troy. Tacitus has purposely removed a connection to divinity. From Venus, came Aeneas and from Aeneas’ line came the Caesars. With the death of Nero and the Julio-Claudians (the Caesars), the emperors’ “divinity” ended. Tacitus claimed that the death of Nero “divulged that secret of the empire, that emperors could be made elsewhere than at Rome.” (Tacitus, Hist. I.4) With Emperor Trajan in power during the time of writing, the last thing Tacitus would want is to bring up anything that would legitimize the Julio-Claudians.

So, Tacitus says there were kings (753 BC – 510 BC), and then there was a Republic with consuls rulings (510 BC – 27 BC). Tacitus calls this change a success. Then he brings up brief interruptions. He mentions the dictators (there were about two dozen of them over the five centuries of the Republic, normally ruling six months, except Sulla and Julius Caesar). He mentions the decemvirs (a council of ten oligarchs who ruled from 451 to 449 BC) and the Consular Tribunes (who ruled sometimes instead of consuls between 444 BC and 367 BC). Tacitus mentions Sulla (who stopped Cinna from taking control of the Republic and ruled for two years) and Julius Caesar (who Pompey and Crassus failed to stop). He then finishes off his list of temporary tyranny with the trimumvirate of Lepidus, Mark Antony and Augustus. Then come the Emperors (then called “princeps”, meaning “first citizen”).

Tacitus is clearly saying that there were kings and then, again, there were kings. He even goes as far to say that the Emperors are a reversal of success. Tyrants and not consuls are the subjects of his writings.

Tacitus also seems to be saying that there was and should be a precedent of republican liberty. Yet, he gives a pretty exhausting list of exceptions and it is clear that the 500 years of the Roman Republic had plenty of time without the rule of consuls. To be fair, though, this time was never more than 24 years and Tacitus was writing in a time when the Emperors had ruled for close to 150 years. Still, with only 1 year of civil war (AD 69) in 150 years of imperial rule, the fragility of the Republic must be apparent to Tacitus. It is all very cynical. Liberty is unstable, while tyranny is enduring.

So, let’s now get to the meat- the princeps. Tacitus claims that the history of Augustus is flawed due to sycophancy, yet he doesn’t write on it either, other than a “few facts”. Kind of hypocritical, but whatever. Okay, let’s move on to Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, then. Their histories are said to be too positive from historians who wrote under them and too negative from historians who wrote after them. Well, not one of the positive histories survived, but at least we know they existed. As for the negative histories, they didn’t survive either, but Suetonius’ Lives of Caesars and few other sources give us a pretty clear idea what crazy slander was in them. Tacitus recognizes that Flavian (the princeps from AD 69 – AD 96) influence darkened the lives of the Julio-Claudians and now he wants to correct it. How noble. He also claims that he is impartial. Right. We’ll see.