Tacitus

On Augustus who got the game going

After Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, and the people with cheap corn, he slowly concentrated in himself the powers of the senate, the magistrates, and laws. In this, he was unopposed for the boldest spirits had fallen in battle or been murdered in the proscriptions. The remaining nobles, the readier they were to be slaves; they were raised the higher by wealth and promotion. So aggrandized were they by revolution they preferred the safety of the present as opposed to the dangerous past.

Much of what I have related and shall have to relate, may perhaps, I am aware, seem petty trifles to record. But no one must compare my annals with the writings of those who described Rome in the old days. They told of great wars, of the storming of cities, of the defeat and capture of kings, or whenever they turned by preference to home affairs, they related, with a free scope for digression, the strifes of consuls with tribunes, land and corn-laws, and the struggles between the commons and the aristocracy.

Still, it will not be useless to study those at first sight trifling events out of which the movements of vast changes often take their rise.

All nations and cities are ruled by the people, the nobility, or by one man. A constitution, formed by selection out of these elements, it is easy to commend but not to produce; or, if it is produced, it cannot be lasting. Formerly, when the people had power or when the patricians were in the ascendant, the popular temper and the methods of controlling it had to be studied, and those who knew most accurately the spirit of the senate and aristocracy, had the credit of understanding the age and of being wise men. So now, after a revolution, when Rome is nothing but the realm of a single despot, there must be good in carefully noting and recording this period, for it is but few who have the foresight to distinguish right from wrong or what is sound from what is hurtful, while most men learn wisdom from the fortunes of others. Still, though this is instructive, it gives very little pleasure. Descriptions of countries, the various incidents of battles, glorious deaths of great generals, enchain and refresh

https://articlevblog.com/2016/06/tacitus-the-annals-ii/