The monograph under review consists of an introduction, five evenly distributed chapters and a very brief conclusion prior to endnotes, bibliography and a general index. In her introduction O'G. presents several claims that echo and then expand upon the book's title: Tacitus’ narrative on senatorial activity provides a representation of what was politically effective in the imperial system, senatorial activity had multiple aims and outcomes, and socio-political activity did not always travel on an immediate and single axis from emperor to senate. Mixed with such clear claims are some rather complicated outlines of her underlying terminology and methodology, with a focus on an adaptation of M. Foucault's ‘truth-regime’, some criticism of ‘Republicanism’ as an approach to understanding imperial senatorial activity and the introduction of her ‘critical archive’ as Tacitus’ ‘researching, commenting on, and passing down practices from which future readers can learn’ (p. 25).
Drawing especially on the Tiberian books of the Annals and the first book of the Histories, O'G.'s first chapter examines adulatio (‘flattery’), arguing that it is ultimately an antisocial mode of speech that undermines the spirit of deliberation. By flattering rulers, subjects become implicit in the creation of a perpetuating cycle of flattery–isolation–fear. Tacitus’ narratives condemn flattery in a manner that suggests the possibility of honorific speech that neither isolates the ruler nor disgraces the subject. The second chapter turns to delatio (‘predatory prosecution’) primarily in the late years of Tiberius’ and Nero's regimes. Here O'G. observes distributed senatorial agency, Tacitus’ sometimes imprecise descriptions of the process of delatio and maiestas charges, and a paradox in which delatio is at once uncivic and overlapping with senatorial speech. The third chapter rounds out Part 1 by reviewing strategies to counter the previously charted deleterious modes of speech (adulatio and delatio). The success of counter-speech, however, is limited, as illustrated primarily through Helvidius Priscus’ response to adulatio and Gaius Silius’ to delatores. O'G. presents iudicium (‘senatorial judgement’), illustrated through Marcus Lepidus and Thrasea Paetus, as the most effective intervention, even if it is often only symbolic.
Focusing on Tacitus’ narratives surrounding Eprius Marcellus, Helvidius Priscus and Marcus Lepidus, the fourth chapter identifies ethos as an important way of distinguishing between deleterious modes of speech and productive ones that can affirm or redirect community values. Here O'G. deploys her ‘critical archive’ by which readers might, through Tacitus’ narrative, ‘re-experience’ events in such a way that ethical values transcend achievements of the agents’ own lifetimes and extend to the debates of Tacitus’ time. The fifth chapter moves to mores, arguing that Tacitus’ narratives of senatorial intervention, repeated and imitated over years and generations, from Thrasea Paetus to Pliny the Younger, reveal tactics for effective senatorial action. The very brief conclusion suggests that sententiae – both Tacitus’ and those of the senators he represents – might provide a way forward in understanding experience and its transmission.
The provocative book succeeds in many ways. Its wide-ranging use of examples from the Histories and Annals nicely eschews cherry-picking and illustrates themes across Tacitus’ magna opera. The discussions of deleterious speech in the initial chapters provide fine overviews and analyses of the rhetorical effects of adulatio and the distributive process of delatio. These will serve not only Tacitean scholars, but Roman historians writ large. Most significantly, the book is a well-reasoned call to reconsider Tacitus’ representation of the agency of the imperial senate and to understand the implications in terms of his political philosophy. O'G. refreshingly argues that Tacitus’ senators were not as insignificant as often viewed and encourages us to read beyond Tacitus’ pessimism and doublespeak for pragmatic political directives.
I found myself rethinking several ideas that are central to this study, not least ‘power’ and ‘speech’. To the first point, O'G. maintains that the imperial senate had agency and, with the help of Tacitus’ representation, was capable of ‘long-term or delayed efficacy’ (p. 156). Past senators could become ‘reactivated’ historical agents, and Tacitus’ contemporaries could participate in past political communities (pp. 125–6). This significant element in O'G.'s argument introduced – for me, at least – a new perspective on the relationship between time and agency. While this refigured perspective was often welcome, the argument for senatorial effectiveness sometimes felt overstated. For example, diversion and refashioning are the only recourse for subjects when rulers do not reject adulatio (pp. 87–8), mitigation of death to confiscation and exile in response to delatio provides ‘some degree of salvation’ (p. 102), the ethos-based interpretative system is one of ‘small victories’ (p. 123), and a crowning moment of senatorial success through Pliny is a ‘symbolic victory’ (p. 161). Even with a call to the ‘critical archive’ that ‘re-activates’ previous senatorial speech, the power of the senate still seems to me limited.
The question of agency remains relevant to the second point on ‘speech’ and the impossibility of capturing it in its original ancient form. One must transfer theories of historiography to senatorial speech (p. 7), trust Tacitus’ ‘objective’ narrative point of view (pp. 127–8) and accept reported speech as honest representation of the original speakers (p. 186 n. 34). Of course, these problems and necessary partial solutions are not unique to O'G.'s study. O'G.'s ‘critical archive’ that represents the politically effective, however, is not solely, or perhaps even primarily, ‘entechnic’ (performed within speeches themselves) (p. 115), but requires interweaving of speech performance with awareness of long-term context and narrative presentation with the benefit of hindsight. While O'G. makes a strong case for Tacitus’ demonstration of a sustained political philosophy through his narrative of ethos and mores, are we dealing with a ‘history of politically effective speech’ or a politically effective historiographical narrative? Readers will probably approach and respond to such questions differently, but the book is worth reading partly because it provokes such questions about the nature of agency and transmission of speech.
The book's weaknesses are few. Typographical errors are scarce, and none jeopardises intended meaning. O'G. demonstrates the expertise of a career Tacitean scholar in engaging with a healthy variety of relevant scholarship, both recent and seasoned. No work of this sort could be exhaustive, but one might miss potentially fruitful intersections between her ‘critical archive’ – especially when reading Pliny and Tacitus together – and works on memory and exemplarity (e.g. A. Gowing, Empire and Memory [2005]) or those on senatorial self-representation (e.g. J. Geisthardt, Zwischen Princeps und Res Publica [2015]). I missed more discussion of the Dialogus de oratoribus and was surprised to find no treatment of Maternus’ final speech on the possibility or relevance of oratory under Vespasian. Finally, I noticed a couple of instances of slippery translation. One discussion on Tacitean character sketch proceeds from the interpretation of exemplar adulatorii dedecoris (Ann. 6.32.4) as a ‘noun-heavy term’ translated as ‘example … of the dishonourable flatterer’ (pp. 31–2). O'G.'s evocation of P. Sinclair's (Sententious Historian [1995]) arguments for universalising sententiae from individual agents, however, seems curious, given that adulatorius is already adjectival. A.J. Woodman's (2004) translation, ‘sycophantic disgrace’, would not only be more accurate, it would also prevent unnecessary argumentation. Later, O'G. translates dubia voluntate Galbae, multis senatorum deprecantibus (Hist. 4.6.2) as ‘when Galba seemed to be less supportive, and since many senators were pleading’ (p. 132). Separating parallel ablative absolutes into a temporal clause that softens the emperor's agency and a causal clause that increases the senate's makes for a translation that may be a bit too convenient in a book that argues for senatorial effectiveness.
While the critic must find a few such minor points of contention, any reader interested in Tacitean historiography and political thought, the imperial Roman senate and rhetorical and ethical power in any era will learn and benefit from this effective and powerful book.
