| Summary: | This article aims to characterise the vital and intellectual attitude hold by Tacitus under the rule of roman emperors. According to Tacitus’ view, in this context it is convenient to develop an art of acting which allows individuals both to survive, to act with some personal dignity and to bear a “bad conscience” produced by such external social and political conditions. For these reasons, Tacitus’ writings should not be understood as the work of a convinced or notalgic republican but as an advocate of the <em>libertas dicendi</em> of the aristocratic senators. A way of life aware of its own weakeness, in which collaborationism is a capital component of life, seems to be the only way to survive and find some piece of mind
|
|---|