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Tacitus, Dialogus 13.4

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael Winterbottom*
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Extract

At Dialogus 13.4, Tacitus makes Maternus decry the good fortune of the orators Vibius Crispus and Eprius Marcellus: ‘Nam Crispus iste et Marcellus, ad quorum exempla me uocas, quid habent in hac sua fortuna concupiscendum? Quod timent, an quod timentur? Quod, cum cotidie aliquid rogentur, ii quibus praestant indignantur? Quod alligati cum adulatione nec imperantibus umquam satis serui uidentur nec nobis satis liberi? Quae haec summa eorum potentia est? Tantum posse liberti solent’

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1999

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References

1 Lipsius thought that a second clause might be added to fill out the period in ‘ii quibus praestant indignantur’

2 As at Dial. 5.2 ‘Saleium Basssum, cum optimum uirum tum absolutissimum poetam’

3 For the contrast cf. e.g. Hist. 2.87.2 ‘quidam metu, multi per adulationem’.