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Comment by 082349872349872 | Hacker News Reader

wow, full context from Gibbon is great:

> It has been objected to Marcus, that he sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a worthless boy; and that he chose a successor in his own family, rather than in the republic. Nothing however, was neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of virtue and learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to render him worthy of the throne for which he was designed. But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy...

compare (~500 years earlier for MA; a couple of thousand for EG)

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext... et seq. (93c-95a; great foreshadowing by Anytus...)

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Glad that helped! Sleeping on it, it was even more likely that NB was correctly quoted by the still unremembered English historian as having taken issue with Tacitus’ (cf the famous convo with Wieland) coverage of one or more of the emperors’ motivational techniques

The major divisions of Tacitean studies seem to be based on whether one rehydrates his dry narrative with anger* or with zeal?

  le rouge  ira
  le noir   studio

(what line might white or green Taciteans take?)

> Gesetze sind wie Würste, man sollte besser nicht dabei sein, wenn sie gemacht werden. —OELvB

> Les empires sont comme des saucisses ; pour les déguster, mieux vaut ne pas savoir comment ils sont fabriquées —not NB

("empires are like sausages: to enjoy them, better not see how they're made")

* The Onion was not supposed to be a how-to guide

EDIT: (in defence of Bonaparte re. Wieland: having both read Linebarger's Psychological Warfare covering the general theory, and myself noted a tendency, in modern US corporations as in ancient chinese imperial tales, to attach great importance to making your predecessor look bad, it's certainly a consistent position for one emperor, in reading about others, to be annoyed less by any red anti-tyrannical subtext, and more by a certain willingness to believe told tales that smacks more of cluelessness than psychopathy. I would not be surprised if Bonaparte would've claimed Bulgakov's Pilate to have been more realistically depicted.)

EDIT2: Tacitus was born (as the web seems to agree) an Equestrian, yet followed the cursus honorum (ought to be in official records), which implies imperial Rome was less vertically stratified than republican Rome?

Voltaire anticipated Bonaparte with the position "could history please have some credible villains?": https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1064250n/f48.image.r=...

[Just as I believe Bonaparte could easily have had ulterior motives in attacking a pro-republican Tacitus, I believe christian monks could easily have had ulterior motives in bothering to make copies of only the most sensational descriptions of roman emperors — especially considering Nero Claudius "never let a crisis go to waste" Caesar Augustus Germanicus had it coming, having framed them for the fire and all]

Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ

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