Viewpoints: Et tu, Republican senators?
Unhinged leaders, dynastic intrigue, devastation and plunder: For 15 years I have been researching and teaching the ancient historian Tacitus’ works on the history of the Roman Empire. It has rarely been difficult to find echoes of the history he describes in current events.
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Prior to Tacitus’ time, Rome had been a republic (509-27 B.C.). In that system magistrates were elected and alternated annually. Those who had served in elected office entered the senate in perpetuity. This body was, in essence, a collective of hundreds of members of the political class, who deliberated and voted on domestic and foreign policy.
During the period Tacitus writes about (A.D. 14-96), the Roman state remained a republic in name, with its institutions more or less intact. Yet one individual, the emperor — known as the princeps — held what were essentially emergency powers over domestic and foreign affairs. So the “republic” of this period was functionally an autocracy. This meant that government institutions other than the emperor had little power.
So in the period Tacitus describes, senators still formally convened, gave impassioned speeches and debated issues of the day. But most often resolutions would go nowhere without the “encouragement of the emperor,” as the historian puts it in one passage. The situation frequently left senators tongue-tied or, worse, “stooping to the most abject supplication.”
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