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Full Description
This study examines how Tacitus' representation of speech determines the roles of speakers within the political sphere, and explores the possibility of politically effective speech in the principate. It argues against the traditional scholarly view that Tacitus refuses to offer a positive view of senatorial power in the principate: while senators did experience limitations and changes to what they could achieve in public life, they could aim to create a dimension of political power and efficacy through speeches intended to create and sustain relations which would in turn determine the roles played by both senators or an emperor.
Ellen O'Gorman traces Tacitus' own charting of these modes of speech, from flattery and aggression to advice, praise, and censure, and explores how different modes of speech in his histories should be evaluated: not according to how they conform to pre-existing political stances, but as they engender different political worlds in the present and future. The volume goes beyond literary analysis of the texts to create a new framework for studying this essential period in ancient Roman history, much in the same way that Tacitus himself recasts the political authority and presence of senatorial speakers as narrative and historical analysis.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Imperial Regimes of Truth
Senatorial Business
Entering the Archive
Modes of Speech
1. Turpe servitium: The Political World of Flattery
The Agency of adulatio
The Art of adulatio
Adulatio and honor
2. Pro incolumitate principis / ex calamitate civium: The Political World of Predatory Accusation
Delatio, maiestas, and Distributed Agency
Majesty and Harm: The World of maiestas
The Speech of delatio
3. Servitium rupit: Counter-Speech
in adulationem lapsos cohibebat
de praemiis accusatorum abolendis
The Critical Archive
4. Existimatio vitae: The Judgement of Character
Emotion, Speech, and Moral Principle
The Critical Archive of Character
5. Narratus et traditus: The Transmission of mores
Genealogies of Practice
Future Communities
Conclusion: sententia
Notes
Bibliography
Index
