Tacitus’ history of politically effective speech: Truth to Power

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. While senators in the Principate experiences limitations and changes to what they can achieve in public life, these do not bar them completely from effective political intervention, and through speech they can aim to create a dimension of political power. Indeed, speeches which senators address to each other and to the ruler create and sustain relations which determine the roles a senator or an emperor will play. Tacitus charts these modes of speech from flattery and aggression to advice, praise, and censure, inviting readers to join him in evaluating each modes’ efficacy and virtue.

In order to creat his histories as critical archives of political efficacy, Tacitus recasts the political authority and presence of senatorial speakers as narrative and historical analysis. Meanwhile, he remedies speech’s limitations under emperors by showing its longer-term effects. This book explores how different modes of speech in Tacitus 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.