Hope for Harvard?
- sofiapbaker
- Mar 18, 2024
- 1 min read
Tacitus at the beginning of his Annals, after brilliantly summarizing all of Roman history in the space of a few paragraphs, ends by providing an answer to a question that must have arisen in the minds of his Roman readers. Why was it that the present generation offered such little resistance to the revolutionary transformation of the republic into a monarchy that Augustus had gradually brought about over the course of three decades? Senators used to stand up for their right to participate in governing the republic; indeed, in the previous century, they had fought a series of civil wars to defend that right. What was different about the present moment? Why did no one care about the end of the republic?
Tacitus answered that Augustus had been clever enough to make sure that the workings of government all looked the same. The senate and the popular assemblies still met and magistrates were elected as usual; the courts still passed judgments as before. Augustus controlled everything himself, of course, behind the scenes, but “the younger men had been born after the victory of Actium; most, even of the elder generation, had been born during the civil wars.” Then comes the famous line—few indeed were left who had seen the republic. Whole generations had come and gone, and those alive now simply had no idea how the old republican system had worked in its heyday. Hence, men accepted their slavery without even realizing they had lost their freedom…