i should probably get out more
Jun. 15th, 2009 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ricardienneAnd by 'out', I mean both "out" and "into a more reasonable, and less ancient-texts-and-their-biases mindset toward revisionist historians." (Now how hilarious is that, considering my username?)
But this (Annals XVI.28, semi oratio recta'd by yours truly) makes me quite upset and angry:
"It wasn't my fault,* and besides, I suffered just as much from my friendship with the tyrant as you all did from your enmity." Like hell you did, Eprius Marcellus.
*Probably true, actually. Except, you know, for the other three people he dragged in, who weren't part of this until this accusation (per Tacitus at least; not the most reliable source, but I don't think it helps to say "well, they probably wouldn't have been accused in the first place if they hadn't been guilty of something!" [I'm looking at you, R.S. Rogers & Co.!]).
But this (Annals XVI.28, semi oratio recta'd by yours truly) makes me quite upset and angry:
"The Emperor's former leniency has been diminished by insult. Until today, the senate has been far too mild, allowing Thrasea to get away with his seccession unpunished, allowing his son-in-law Helvidius Priscus in the same frenzy, and at the same time Paconius Agrippa, heir to family hatred against the principes, and Curtius Montanus, always making offensive verses.
We would ask for a consular in the senate, a priest in the sacrifices, a citizen in swearing the oath, had Thrasea not shown himself an open traitor and and an enemy against our institutions and rites of our ancestors. In short, let him come accustomed to play the senator and protect the emperor's critics: will would more easily endure him harping at particulars than we now endure his silence, condemning everything.
Is it peace throughout the world or victories without the cost of armies that displeases him? Let's not put a man in possession of perverse ambition, who is grieved at public good and who considers markets, theatres, temples a desert; who threatenes his own exile. These councils are not for him, nor these offices or the Roman City. Let him break off his life away from that state whose affection he has long ago discarded, and whose sight he now has.
"It wasn't my fault,* and besides, I suffered just as much from my friendship with the tyrant as you all did from your enmity." Like hell you did, Eprius Marcellus.
*Probably true, actually. Except, you know, for the other three people he dragged in, who weren't part of this until this accusation (per Tacitus at least; not the most reliable source, but I don't think it helps to say "well, they probably wouldn't have been accused in the first place if they hadn't been guilty of something!" [I'm looking at you, R.S. Rogers & Co.!]).
