ricardienne | (no subject)

So I started Roman Revolution this week. Syme is very entertaining, not least because he thinks he's Tacitus. Which makes it very readable. This is my favorite quote so far:

That the private life of the Caesarian soldier [sc. Antony] was careless, disorderly, and even disgraceful, is evident and admitted. He longed to a class of Roman noles by no means uncommon under Republic of Empire, whose unofficial follies did not prevent them from rising, when duty called, to services of consicuous ability or the most disinterested patriotism. For such men, the most austere of historians cannot altogether suppress a timid and perhaps perverse admiration. A blameless life is not the whole of virtue, and inflexible rectitude may prove a menace to the Commonwealth.*
*Tacitus commends to the voluptary Petronius, an excellent proconsul of Bithynia (Ann. 16, 18), Otho, who governed Lusitania with integrity (ib. 13, 46) and took his own life rather than prolong a civil war (Hist. 2, 47) and L. Vitellius: 'eo de homine haud sum ignarus sinistram in urbe famam, pleraque foeda memorari; ceterum regendis provinciis prisca virtute egit' (Ann. 6, 32). The same historian's cool treatment of the virtuous Emperor Galba will not escape notices (Hist. 1, 49)-- 'magis extra vitia quam cum virtutibus'.

In other words: the wicked and debauched are sometimes more fun, and it's okay to like them (I love the juxtaposition of austere historians and their timid and perverse admirations -- it makes me think of elderly British dons doing a Walter Mitty) because Tacitus did to. I think this is an excellent rule for historiography.