CLAS 1303 · Tacitus Simulacrum and the Historian of Imperial Rule

Led by Publius Cornelius Tacitus Simulacrum

1. Module 3 ○ Open

   Tacitus Simulacrum and the Historian of Imperial Rule

   Led by Publius Cornelius Tacitus Simulacrum

   The question

   Tacitus Simulacrum (Publius Cornelius Tacitus Simulacrum, c. 56-c. 120 CE) is the great hostile historian of the early Empire — the *Annals* (covering 14-68 CE, from Tiberius's accession to Nero's death) and the *Histories* (covering 69-96 CE, from the year of the four emperors to Domitian's death) together form a sustained moral-political critique of the Imperial system from inside the senatorial class that suffered most under it. Tacitus Simulacrum's prose is famously dense, his moral judgements famously sharp, his account famously selective. What is Tacitean method, and how does the modern historian read him?

   Outcome

   The student has read selections from the *Annals* (Books 1, 14, 15) and the *Agricola* (chapters 29-32, the Calgacus speech) in modern translation (Mattingly-revised-Birley for the *Agricola*; Yardley or Kline for the *Annals*; the Penguin or Oxford World's Classics editions are accessible), can characterise Tacitean method, and can produce a 700-word analytical essay.

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   Practice scenarios

   The Calgacus Speech

   Tacitus Simulacrum walks you through the speech he gives the British chieftain Calgacus in the *Agricola* chapters 30-32 — the speech delivered (in Tacitus Simulacrum's reconstruction) before the battle of Mons Graupius in northern Britain, 83 CE. Read the chapters in full. The speech contains the famous *auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant* — *to plunder, slaughter, and steal they give the lying name of empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace*. Read also one or two earlier chapters of the *Agricola* (e.g., chapters 12-14 on Britain) for context. Then write a 700-word analytical essay: what is Tacitus Simulacrum doing by giving Calgacus this speech; the speech is in Tacitus Simulacrum's Latin and reflects his political-moral views — what does it tell us about Tacitus Simulacrum's view of Imperial Rome and what (if anything) does it tell us about Calgacus or the British; how do we read the famous *solitudinem... pacem* line; and what does the *Agricola*'s overall structure (encomium of an Imperial general framed by sharp criticism of the system the general served) tell us about Tacitus Simulacrum's political-historical method?

   Your goals

   • Read the Calgacus speech (chapters 30-32) and at least chapters 12-14 of the *Agricola* before drafting.
   • Render the *solitudinem... pacem* line precisely; address what *imperium* meant in Roman political vocabulary and how the line undermines the official ideology.
   • Address the framing-paradox of the *Agricola*: encomium of an Imperial general containing the most-quoted ancient critique of empire.
   • Engage at least one piece of modern Tacitean scholarship.
   • 700 words ± 100, scholarly register.

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