Augustus by Barbara Levick;

Author:Barbara Levick;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317867432
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Unlimited)
Published: 2010-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Tittle-tattle

Refined as the analysis of Raaflaub and Samons is, more allowance could be made for fluctuations of opinion under pressure of internal and external events, for the shock of the new, for tedium as the novelty wore off, or for the re-emergence of buried resentments. Organised conspiracies rarely came to fruition, but they were sensational when they did, or were alleged. We also hear of pamphlets and graffiti, the oral tactics of undermining and in particular of irony employed in Senate and courts. What does not emerge as part of distinct and traceable events is the unremitting subversive dinner-party talk, gossip, ridicule and minor disobedience. It came to the surface at times of crisis. Some of this will have been blatant, intended to reach the ears of the Princeps, even calculated to influence him. We have seen that Augustus was aware of some of it at least, and mentioned it to Tiberius. Tacitus more than once makes a point of telling his reader that even the reclusive Tiberius was also abreast of what was being said and done. His friends and confidential servants will have given him what they knew; it is likely that there were also professional spies and informers, paid piecemeal or on a retainer. 31 All this was risky to the participants in dissent. In a society that is under surveillance or, at a later stage, no longer free to speak openly, it was (and remains) unclear where mocking or dissenting talk, or even thought, ends and subversion begins. The distinction is not made objectively on a graph, but depends subjectively on the ruler’s sense of security. Attempts to discomfit or shame a ruler in possession of autocratic power could be taken as ‘disloyalty’ and under Augustus’ successors often were. Even in-fighting between factions might be represented by the winning side as a failed assault by the defeated on the Princeps himself. 32

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