‘Tacitus gives little away’: this famous phrase, penned by R. Syme (Tacitus [1939], p. 520), finds support in widely divergent political interpretations of Tacitus’ writing. On one side are ‘black’ Tacitists, who read him as endorsing the Principate and what G. Botero termed ‘reason of state’; on the other side are ‘red’ Tacitists, such as T. Jefferson, who read him as a critic or opponent of monarchy. In between are those like J. Lipsius, seeing Tacitus as a moderate, or a realist, seeking a middle way between rejection of monarchy and uncritical acceptance. In this volume S. seeks, in his words, to ‘develop an argument for the revival of the Red Tacitus interpretation’ (p. 5). He argues methodically, carefully and through an engagement with scholarship ranging from Classics to political philosophy to political science. The result is an important book that scholars of Tacitus, Roman political thought and the early empire will take seriously.

The book consists of five substantive chapters, along with a brief introduction and epilogue. The narrative arc begins with Chapter 1, ‘Libertas and the Political Thought of Tacitus’. Rejecting biographical readings of Tacitus’ thought, which (as with the historians T. Mommsen or G. Boissier) centre on his status as a collaborator with the Principate, S. also rejects readings of Tacitus (including my own in D. Kapust, Republicanism, Rhetoric, and Roman Political Thought [2011]) as a middle-way thinker. Instead, S. asserts that Tacitus is a republican: Tacitus holds a view of libertas as non-domination, to use the phrasing popularised by the political philosopher Philip Pettit. This view entails not simply the absence of interference, but the absence of arbitrary interference, potential or actual. Moreover, libertas entails free participation in political life. Crucial to S.’s understanding of Tacitus’ republicanism and critique of the institution of the Principate is the antithesis between ‘libertas in the Republic’ and the ‘autocratic rule’ of the Principate (p. 32).

Given this antithesis, S. documents the corrupting effects of the Principate on institutions and practices, along with Tacitus’ efforts at republican restoration. Chapter 2, ‘The Principate and the Corruption and Restoration of Military Libertas’, centres on the obstacles that the Principate posed to military efficacy and the free action of commanders such as Agricola, Germanicus and Corbulo. Corbulo, in S.’s view, in particular ‘points to a future restoration of libertas and the res publica’ (p. 68) through his pursuit of the public good via his military service, and thus ‘reveals his libertas’ (p. 76). The third chapter, ‘The Corruption and Restoration of Libertas Senatoria’, focuses on Tacitus’ negative portrayal of the delatores and their symbiotic relationship with the Principate along with the virtuous action of M. Aemilius Lepidus, Thrasea Paetus and Helvidius Priscus. Lepidus uses the regime's ideology (misericordia and clementia) against it, deploying it against Tiberius on behalf of the Senate; Paetus, a ‘citizen’ first (p. 105) and not a philosopher, for S., penetrates and shatters the ‘façade’ (p. 108) of the Principate through his attention to ‘small deeds’ (p. 107). Chapter 4, ‘The Corruption and Restoration of Libertas as Freedom of Speech and Expression’, hones in on adulatio, Tacitus’ description and criticism of it, and the example of Cremutius Cordus as allowing Tacitus to highlight the discontinuity between Republic and Principate, shattering the legitimating illusion of continuity. ‘A Historian after Libertas’, the final substantive chapter, moves to an interpretative theory of Tacitus’ distinctive style given his overarching political project: Tacitus wrote ‘with a spirit of republican libertas’ (p. 168), his style echoing the discontinuity and ruptures of the reality whose illusions he shatters.

S.’s project – restoring the ‘Red Tacitus’ – is most clearly displayed in the context of his discussion of Eprius Marcellus. Not only is Marcellus ‘the stereotype for the delator’ well into Late Antiquity, Tacitus is, more broadly, ‘reminding his readers that even the optimus princeps restricts libertas, and thus any state ruled by a princeps was going to see its freedom arbitrarily diminished’ (p. 127). Tacitus’ republicanism, for S., is a function of him being an opponent and critic not just of particular principes (Tiberius, Nero, Domitian and so forth), but of the institution itself. Short of restoring the Republic, then, the antithesis between libertas and the Principate could not be overcome.

This brings me to my reservations about S.’s very impressive book: my view is that S. treats as an antithesis what I think he often shows in his narrative to be a matter of degrees rather than kind. Some of this has to do with how S. defines libertas: if libertas is the absence of arbitrary interference, and if the Principate qua institution is the antithesis of libertas, it strikes me as odd that individuals in S.’s account are able to act with libertas at all. To the extent that these individuals can act freely, their success suggests that libertas and the Principate are not antithetical; to the extent that libertas is connected to the pursuit of the common good rather than the good of the individual, it also seems to me that one can act freely under the Principate, as S.’s analysis shows.

A deeper paradox lurks behind S.’s book, one that lurks in Tacitus’ writing itself. As S. puts it in opening Chapter 5:

Tacitus could have written of Nerva or Trajan, and chose to write of the past, and Tacitus depicts the Julio-Claudians in a decidedly negative light. This could show Tacitus avoiding consent and praise for Trajan and Nerva, but what better form of praise for the new dynasty than excoriating its predecessors? If under Domitian one needed to avoid praising the past lest one seem to blame the present, what better depiction of the present than blaming the past? Tacitus could be read as endorsing Nerva and Trajan (new rulers for a new regime) just as readily as he could be read as rejecting the Principate tout court. Like Pliny's Panegyric, Tacitus could be emblematic of an ideological way forward, a way followed by Nerva and his successors through the reign of Marcus Aurelius.

S.’s book is timely: he notes in the epilogue that ‘We may long for simpler systems, which do not require the back and forth of democratic wangling … Tacitus, however, reminds us why we tolerate and even participate in such political conflict, why we must be willing to walk on the dangerous side of political partisanship, for these are the signs of a democratic republic’ (p. 186). For in addition to the libertas/Principate dichotomy that frames his narrative, another (and to me more pressing) distinction looms: liberty versus security. The irony is that many of our would-be autocrats thrive on and magnify violence and disorder.