Tacitus

- He is influenced by the time that he lived.

o He looks at different things like how you can be a good person in
a bad regime.
- He thinks about how you can be happy in a bad regime and if that is
even possible. If good government is essential to happiness, can you
be happy/great/excellent in a bad regime?
- They provide a tangible model to what the great man from Aristotle
would look like.
History and philosophy
- Why are we reading Tacitus history in a political science class?
o It ties into some things that we have learned from Aristotle. You
cant have a very good discussion about philosophy unless you
have a history.
o The future is unknowable and the present is very small and
failing. History is going to be the database of knowledge and will
be the best record we have of human nature. How we can learn
about all things political and all things human.
o Tacitus views history that through this history we can see these
things emerging. These principles are going to be just as true in
history as they are today.
The Agricola
- Written about his father-in-law. It doesnt admit that this is his bias. He
calls it an ode to virtue and excellence. It is meant to praise his fatherin-law (a great general and statesmen). He is saying that Agricola is
someone who understand virtue and is able to be virtuous while living
in a bad regime.
An era so Savage
- He apologizes about his work, and that he is writing a book that
praises virtue. The time that he lives is very virtuous to all things great,
that it requires an apology that he is writing this.
- The great things are viewed as being no appreciated and are feared.
- Great individuals are an insult to equality
o They are an insult to the people that say they are great but really
arent.
o The empire (someone who says he is great and wise yet isnt), a
faade, but is actually ignorant.
Envy and Ingratitude
- Dwight giving good gifts to other people so that they are indebted to
him and owe him. But andy keeps giving things back so he doesnt
owe Dwight anything and defeated dwights plan.

Instead of praising the virtue of others and being grateful for it, we
hate and attack it.
Instead of being happy that they brought you something we feel that
we owe them.
Tacitus is telling us that:
o There is a tied between envy and gratitude. Two responses to
when someone does something for us that we cant do for
ourselves.
o Gratitude because we understand that they did something we
cant do by ourselves.
o Offer some degree of devotion because they did something to us.
o The second response is that of envy. Rather than except that
there are people better than us, we hate them and fight
against it.
o We dont even have to understand the height of the persons
virtue to hate them, we just need to understand that
o The truly grate people can either foster envy or gratitude in
people.

Life under Domitian

- The goal is to eliminate all threats to his power. He wants to kill
conscience, burn philosophers writings., excellence and do all of that
so that nothing honorable might anywhere meet ones gaze.
- He is trying to reshape the moral universe and reshape the world they
live in. Eliminate everything that will provide a counterclaim to his rule.
- Not just eliminating actual people but anything that can help the belief
arise.
- The end goal would be to eliminate the memories of the truly great.
The necessity and Danger of Silence
- The ruler is able to do things that no one was able to do. In such an
environment the great and excellent must be silent to survive and
thuse silence and inactivity become prudent and necessary in such an
environment.
- The goal of Agricola is always to downplay his excellence to lie low and
not develop a following.
- He cant develop the habit of being silent and being a coward but he
cant speak out that much either.