Tarda Moles Civilis Belli : The Weight of the Past in Tacitus’ Histories
By Rhiannon Ash
Abstract: This chapter examines three conspicuous instances of historiographical synkrisis in Tacitus’ Histories (Histories 1.50.2–3; 2.38; 3.51) in which the republican civil wars are the lens through which Tacitus invites his readers to respond to the wars of ad 69: the republican past, these digressions suggest, is trumped by the morally bankrupt narrative present. By foregrounding the act of analysis Tacitus also demonstrates the value of the historian’s work for his contemporaries and for posterity.
Chapter in Breed, B., Damon, C., and Rossi, A. (2010) Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars.
Published by Oxford University Press.