5 ms·

Tacitus’ Perfect Man

34 points by diodorus 9y ago

valuearb 9y ago
This dragged me into quite a wonderful wikipedia sinkhole, which led me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarion Everyone knows how amazing his father, Julius Caesar, was. But popular culture only remembers on the legendary beauty of his mother. Cleopatra was almost certainly a genius. She could speak 10 languages, and was the first Ptolemy ruler to speak Egyptian (she was actually Greek/Macedonian, the Ptolemy descended directly from Alexanders greatest general). She was educated in math, philosophy and astronomy, introduced Julius Caesar to the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria to help create the Julian calendar, and wrote a medical treatise. Sad that the product of two of histories great geniuses had to be killed by Octavian to protect his claim to the empire. Though the child seldom matches their parents, seems like an irreplaceable genetic loss. After Germanicus died, the Roman empire went from bad to worse in it's choice of emperors. Tiberius led to Caligula, then Claudius, then Nero, and his death lead to the tumultuous year of the Four emperors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Four_Emperors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Four_Emperors From that year comes interesting parallel to Germanicus, the story of Lucius Verginius Rufus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Verginius_Rufus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Verginius_Rufus He helped put down uprisings by governors intending to become Emperor and twice that year his armies offered to put him on the throne, and he refused both times. In an era where emperors regularly killed anyone who had the political means to be a threat to their throne, he was able to live to the age of 83, where he was again selected as Consul by Emperor Nero.
- SirensOfTitan 9y ago
  Something else to note here: Julius Caesar lived most of his life working toward great purpose. It almost seemed like he got bored being in the same place for too long. One of the only true times he took a break in his life was with Cleopatra after the Pompean-Caesarian Civil War turned in his favor. It was actually a bit of a disastrous hiatus for him, but I think it speaks to how absolutely engaging Cleopatra was (although many commentators might just say after 10 years of warfare, he just needed a break). > Sad that the product of two of histories great geniuses had to be killed by Octavian to protect his claim to the empire. Though the child seldom matches their parents, seems like an irreplaceable genetic loss. I think this statement jumps on the "nature" bandwagon, but I'd argue that at least Caesar wasn't born a political and military genius, but got there by: 1. Good tolerance of failure. Great Roman military commanders like Pompey and Caesar were known to have an uncanny ability to learn from their defeats. 2. Luck. Certain decision making like going to Britain twice and making the same mistake almost to his end played out well for Caesar. Also decisions to march to save his garrisoned legion during the greater Gallic rebellion during wintertime, while admirable (the safety of his soldiers was of supreme importance to him), worked out where they seemed like they shouldn't most of the time. 3. Stupidity of his enemies. How many times did Caesar attack the Pompeans during the Civil War during winter? They never learned. It's remarkable really. One can also look at Caesar's merciful treatment of enemies during the civil war as evidence of his genius -- he won so many by being gentle, even though he had to fight Ahenobarbus like 4 times because he kept letting him go. With that, Caesar turned into an absolute master by making reasonable calculated risks and surviving them. By the point he was clearing the last of the Pompeans in Africa at the end of the Civil War, he didn't even leave his tent to give commands -- so confident and expertised in warfare that he didn't even have to see the field of battle. This is a bit of a ramble. I really admire Julius Caesar and think there's so much to learn by studying his life and habits.
  - unFou 9y ago
    "By the point he was clearing the last of the Pompeans in Africa at the end of the Civil War, he didn't even leave his tent to give commands" Was this an indication of the experience and initiative of his commanders and non-coms? So Caesar might decide on the overall approach, make sure all his commanders knew what that was, and let them figure out how best to achieve that based on the situation.
    - SirensOfTitan 9y ago
      > Was this an indication of the experience and initiative of his commanders and non-coms? So Caesar might decide on the overall approach, make sure all his commanders knew what that was, and let them figure out how best to achieve that based on the situation. This interestingly largely didn't seem to be the case. By Africa most of Caesar's experienced legions (who campaigned with him during the Gallic Wars and the first half of the Civil War) weren't with him (he campaigned mostly with Pompey's newly raised legions out of Greece). His commanders were either new or of questionable skill. In particular, his most capable commander during the Gallic Wars, Labienus, defected to the Pompey early in the Civil War, and was one of Caesar's chief opponents during his African campaign. As an interesting note, it seems Labienus likely defected from Caesar for two reasons: 1. At the beginning of the Civil War it looked extremely unlikely Caesar would win. 2. Labienus felt as though Caesar took more credit than he ought to have in the Gallic Wars, depriving him of his "auctoritas" (sort of prestige) he felt he rightfully deserved. Caesar's skilled defeat of Pompey and Labienus show his military skill outside of his use of good commanders.
      - fapjacks 9y ago
        I hope you see this after all this time. Do you have a trailhead to lend me so I can read about this instance of not having to leave his tent to give commands? I have never heard this before and it's very interesting to me.
omalleyt 9y ago
It's a symptom of postmodernism that nowhere in this text is it even suggested that Tacitus is maybe just, you know, relating the facts about Germancius as accurately as he can. Instead we're sitting here quibbling over what literary fiction trope "Tacitus's Germanicus" fulfills in his "story"
- benbreen 9y ago
  Reading texts critically, thinking about the context that produced them, and debating the author's rhetorical strategies has a lot more to do with Renaissance humanism than with postmodernism. Simply reading all historical texts with the expectation that the author meant to tell the facts and nothing but leads to the acceptance of frauds like the Donation of Constantine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine
  - omalleyt 9y ago
    Well, it's not like I wholly disagree with what you're saying, but I think the paragraph above is a straw man of what I'm saying. First, here is the element of Postmodern discourse I'm talking about: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction Second, my complaint is that it's not even considered as a possibility that Tacitus is telling the truth. In relation to The Annals (a public document concerning public affairs thousands of contemporaries would have had firsthand experiences of) do you really think it's a forgery? Or do you really think Tacitus is so biased he can't record history accurately? The idea that someone becomes so corrupted by their interests (especially race and class) that they cant be objective is a uniquely postmodern idea. The Enlightenment was premised on the idea that objective rationality was accessible to all. Further, we can test your hypothesis about the Renaissance. The Renaissance writers read Tacitus, and when they mention him, they treat his works like a complete and unmitigated factual account. Also, Tacitus is not engaged in rhetoric. That's the point. He's writing history, not philosophy.
    - swordswinger12 9y ago
      You're letting your modern biases color how you view Tacitus' writings. Most people educated in the last ~hundred years or so were taught "history" as you understand it - an impartial account of the facts of an actual event or person. This view of history is actually pretty recent, and it's widely understood that ancient historians did _not_ practice what we would consider the modern discipline of history. For example, Herodotus is considered the historian ne plus ultra of the ancient world, but he still wrote about lots of weird shit like zombies and races of headless people. It's not so much that modern historians think Tacitus was too "biased" to "record history accurately"; they read his works critically because they know he wasn't really even trying to record history accurately in the way we think about doing that today. EDIT: Another good example of ancient versus modern history is Pericles' Funeral Oration, as related to us by Thucydides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles%27_Funeral_Oration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles%27_Funeral_Oration Thucydides probably edited the speech heavily (even by adding or removing content), and may have even combined multiple different speeches to create what we know as the speech. A modern historian would most likely blanch at the thought of doing this, but Thucydides was fine with it because he wasn't even trying to relay an impartial and 100% accurate account of the events of the Peloponnesian War (as a modern historian would).

34 points by diodorus 9y ago

This dragged me into quite a wonderful wikipedia sinkhole, which led me to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesarion Everyone knows how amazing his father, Julius Caesar, was. But popular culture only remembers on the legendary beauty of his mother. Cleopatra was almost certainly a genius. She could speak 10 languages, and was the first Ptolemy ruler to speak Egyptian (she was actually Greek/Macedonian, the Ptolemy descended directly from Alexanders greatest general). She was educated in math, philosophy and astronomy, introduced Julius Caesar to the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria to help create the Julian calendar, and wrote a medical treatise. Sad that the product of two of histories great geniuses had to be killed by Octavian to protect his claim to the empire. Though the child seldom matches their parents, seems like an irreplaceable genetic loss. After Germanicus died, the Roman empire went from bad to worse in it's choice of emperors. Tiberius led to Caligula, then Claudius, then Nero, and his death lead to the tumultuous year of the Four emperors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Four_Emperors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Four_Emperors From that year comes interesting parallel to Germanicus, the story of Lucius Verginius Rufus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Verginius_Rufus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Verginius_Rufus He helped put down uprisings by governors intending to become Emperor and twice that year his armies offered to put him on the throne, and he refused both times. In an era where emperors regularly killed anyone who had the political means to be a threat to their throne, he was able to live to the age of 83, where he was again selected as Consul by Emperor Nero.

SirensOfTitan 9y ago
Something else to note here: Julius Caesar lived most of his life working toward great purpose. It almost seemed like he got bored being in the same place for too long. One of the only true times he took a break in his life was with Cleopatra after the Pompean-Caesarian Civil War turned in his favor. It was actually a bit of a disastrous hiatus for him, but I think it speaks to how absolutely engaging Cleopatra was (although many commentators might just say after 10 years of warfare, he just needed a break). > Sad that the product of two of histories great geniuses had to be killed by Octavian to protect his claim to the empire. Though the child seldom matches their parents, seems like an irreplaceable genetic loss. I think this statement jumps on the "nature" bandwagon, but I'd argue that at least Caesar wasn't born a political and military genius, but got there by: 1. Good tolerance of failure. Great Roman military commanders like Pompey and Caesar were known to have an uncanny ability to learn from their defeats. 2. Luck. Certain decision making like going to Britain twice and making the same mistake almost to his end played out well for Caesar. Also decisions to march to save his garrisoned legion during the greater Gallic rebellion during wintertime, while admirable (the safety of his soldiers was of supreme importance to him), worked out where they seemed like they shouldn't most of the time. 3. Stupidity of his enemies. How many times did Caesar attack the Pompeans during the Civil War during winter? They never learned. It's remarkable really. One can also look at Caesar's merciful treatment of enemies during the civil war as evidence of his genius -- he won so many by being gentle, even though he had to fight Ahenobarbus like 4 times because he kept letting him go. With that, Caesar turned into an absolute master by making reasonable calculated risks and surviving them. By the point he was clearing the last of the Pompeans in Africa at the end of the Civil War, he didn't even leave his tent to give commands -- so confident and expertised in warfare that he didn't even have to see the field of battle. This is a bit of a ramble. I really admire Julius Caesar and think there's so much to learn by studying his life and habits.
- unFou 9y ago
  "By the point he was clearing the last of the Pompeans in Africa at the end of the Civil War, he didn't even leave his tent to give commands" Was this an indication of the experience and initiative of his commanders and non-coms? So Caesar might decide on the overall approach, make sure all his commanders knew what that was, and let them figure out how best to achieve that based on the situation.
  - SirensOfTitan 9y ago
    > Was this an indication of the experience and initiative of his commanders and non-coms? So Caesar might decide on the overall approach, make sure all his commanders knew what that was, and let them figure out how best to achieve that based on the situation. This interestingly largely didn't seem to be the case. By Africa most of Caesar's experienced legions (who campaigned with him during the Gallic Wars and the first half of the Civil War) weren't with him (he campaigned mostly with Pompey's newly raised legions out of Greece). His commanders were either new or of questionable skill. In particular, his most capable commander during the Gallic Wars, Labienus, defected to the Pompey early in the Civil War, and was one of Caesar's chief opponents during his African campaign. As an interesting note, it seems Labienus likely defected from Caesar for two reasons: 1. At the beginning of the Civil War it looked extremely unlikely Caesar would win. 2. Labienus felt as though Caesar took more credit than he ought to have in the Gallic Wars, depriving him of his "auctoritas" (sort of prestige) he felt he rightfully deserved. Caesar's skilled defeat of Pompey and Labienus show his military skill outside of his use of good commanders.
    - fapjacks 9y ago
      I hope you see this after all this time. Do you have a trailhead to lend me so I can read about this instance of not having to leave his tent to give commands? I have never heard this before and it's very interesting to me.

omalleyt 9y ago

It's a symptom of postmodernism that nowhere in this text is it even suggested that Tacitus is maybe just, you know, relating the facts about Germancius as accurately as he can. Instead we're sitting here quibbling over what literary fiction trope "Tacitus's Germanicus" fulfills in his "story"

benbreen 9y ago
Reading texts critically, thinking about the context that produced them, and debating the author's rhetorical strategies has a lot more to do with Renaissance humanism than with postmodernism. Simply reading all historical texts with the expectation that the author meant to tell the facts and nothing but leads to the acceptance of frauds like the Donation of Constantine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donation_of_Constantine
- omalleyt 9y ago
  Well, it's not like I wholly disagree with what you're saying, but I think the paragraph above is a straw man of what I'm saying. First, here is the element of Postmodern discourse I'm talking about: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction Second, my complaint is that it's not even considered as a possibility that Tacitus is telling the truth. In relation to The Annals (a public document concerning public affairs thousands of contemporaries would have had firsthand experiences of) do you really think it's a forgery? Or do you really think Tacitus is so biased he can't record history accurately? The idea that someone becomes so corrupted by their interests (especially race and class) that they cant be objective is a uniquely postmodern idea. The Enlightenment was premised on the idea that objective rationality was accessible to all. Further, we can test your hypothesis about the Renaissance. The Renaissance writers read Tacitus, and when they mention him, they treat his works like a complete and unmitigated factual account. Also, Tacitus is not engaged in rhetoric. That's the point. He's writing history, not philosophy.
  - swordswinger12 9y ago
    You're letting your modern biases color how you view Tacitus' writings. Most people educated in the last ~hundred years or so were taught "history" as you understand it - an impartial account of the facts of an actual event or person. This view of history is actually pretty recent, and it's widely understood that ancient historians did _not_ practice what we would consider the modern discipline of history. For example, Herodotus is considered the historian ne plus ultra of the ancient world, but he still wrote about lots of weird shit like zombies and races of headless people. It's not so much that modern historians think Tacitus was too "biased" to "record history accurately"; they read his works critically because they know he wasn't really even trying to record history accurately in the way we think about doing that today. EDIT: Another good example of ancient versus modern history is Pericles' Funeral Oration, as related to us by Thucydides: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles%27_Funeral_Oration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles%27_Funeral_Oration Thucydides probably edited the speech heavily (even by adding or removing content), and may have even combined multiple different speeches to create what we know as the speech. A modern historian would most likely blanch at the thought of doing this, but Thucydides was fine with it because he wasn't even trying to relay an impartial and 100% accurate account of the events of the Peloponnesian War (as a modern historian would).