Writing and Empire in Tacitus examines how Tacitus' historiographical career serves as an argument about his personal autonomy and social value under the peculiar political conditions of the early Roman empire. Following the arc of his career from Agricola through Histories to Annals, this book focuses on ways in which Tacitus' writing makes implicit claims about his relationship to Roman society and about the political consequentiality of historical writing. In a sense, this book suggests, his literary career and the sense of alienation his works project form the ideal complement to his very successful political career, which, while desirable, might nonetheless give the impression of degrading submission to emperors. The discussion combines careful attention to the historian's explicit programmatic discussion of his work with larger-scale analysis of stretches of narrative that have unspoken but significant implications for how we view the function and importance of Tacitus' work.

At 4.20.5–11, Livy famously interrupts his narrative to report hearing that Augustus had discovered an inscribed linen corselet in the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius. The inscription, Livy tells us he has heard, said that A. Cornelius Cossus had dedicated the corselet as spolia opima when he was consul. Augustus's story thus contradicts the account Livy has just related, in which Cossus dedicated spolia opima as military tribune. Livy's treatment of Augustus's testimony, I argue in the first part of this paper, associates this discovery with prominent episodes early in the Ab Urbe Condita in which persons of authority fabricate supernatural stories and use them to influence persons of lower status. The association distances Livy and his readers from Augustus's account. This distancing, I argue in the paper's second part, has implications for our understanding of Livy's literary project and offers scope for reflection on the interrelationship of historiographical and political authority at the beginning of the Principate.

The first half of Aiskhylos' "Agamemnon" presents three crimes of the House of Atreus: the sacrifice of Iphigeneia (184-247), the wasting of young Argive lives at Ilion (355-487) and the treading of the materials as the victorious king reenters his palace (810-974). We argue that the sequential presentation of the crimes of the House, which are connected thematically, stylistically, and causally, radically redefines the nature of transgression within contemporary models of the polis community. Crime as defined in relationship to oikos alone is displaced by crime as defined in relationship to both oikos and the broader polis community; transgression moves from an aristocratic (oikos alone) to an isonomic (oikos within polis) context. This redefinition culminates in the "Carpet-Scene." We reread Agamemnon's nostos as a contest of epinikia. The king represents himself as victorious idiôtês, and Klutaimestra strives to figure him as returning tyrant. She succeeds in the stichomythia, where Agamemnon fails to recognize the crucial distinction between φθόνος and ζῆλος. Aristotle differentiates the terms at Rhet. 1387-88, where φθόνος is envy toward a social superior and ζῆλος the emotion one experiences in rivalry between equals; we document the development of the terms from the archaic period onwards, demonstrate that Aristotle's distinction is valid for the late archaic and classical periods, and suggest that it arose in an attempt to outline relationships of appropriate and inappropriate competition among fellow-citizens. Agamemnon's failure to recognize this important distinction betrays his misunderstanding of the dynamics of, and his agreement to walk on the materials is an offense against, isonomic community. The rearticulation of the nature of transgression completed by this crime of Agamemnon against the polis does fundamental ideological work for the rest of the Oresteia, offering an aetiology of the claims of the polis against the aristocratic oikos.

I argue that the prologue of Tacitus' Agricola is at pains to maintain for the work the option to be important or to be inconsequential. The goal of this effort is to anticipate a spectrum of possible receptions: if the work is welcomed by its audiences, it can serve as the first step in a prestigious literary career; if it meets with indifference or hostility, Tacitus' already-existing social self can find protection behind the claims to limited importance. In the first section, I describe the rhetorical strategies through which Tacitus advances this doubled set of claims. In the second, I discuss Agricola's relationship to Sallust's monographs and adduce for comparison Pliny the Younger's career as a Catullan poet; I show that claims to write after the manner of a canonical author directly serve the aim of ““keeping options open.””

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