Tacitus and Plutarch

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Alexandria and Rome
Presentation 9 of 14

Tacitus and Plutarch
Histories, Annals, Germanica, and the Reigns of Nero and the Other Caesars
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, August 26, 1982

Transcript:

The development of civilization is never an assured progress. And this has been the caution signal held before persons of wisdom and understanding forever and ever. That there are in fact conditions and times not only of backsliding, but of great retrogression. And so, it has become primordial among those who teach wisdom and bring the requirements for human excellence again and again, before new waves and generations of persons to stress also, the fact that all can be lost. And not only lost but plunged into the depravity of something worse than annihilation. And that is the desecration of man's spirit and nature.

We have been following in this course, thus far, the focusing of energies and excellences, powers and purposes that summed up the ancient world. All of the histories, no matter what they were, no matter how esoteric or how broadly influential they were, were summed up in Alexandria and Rome. And all of those traditions that had their summations in those two cities were read together and braided together by Augustus Caesar. So that the world, the ancient world, the one that has forever mattered was united into a single entity, if you like. A single structure, if you prefer. But in fact, became manifest a universal civilization in 30 B.C.

And it was ironic and appropriate that this marriage should have taken place with Augustus as the scion of the Caesars representing Rowan and Cleopatra, who could have wished for nothing more than to have been the Alexandrian feminine counterpart having her deceased. And Augustus returning back to Rome with his own wife Livia. Having viewed firsthand an enormous collection of energies and power such as had not been seen since the days of Alexander the Great's vision that this was possible. Alexander of course, was unable to extend himself to the West.

And so, it is really Augustus who represents the epitome and the climax of civilization in the ancient world. His name for what he had made was not the Roman empire. He called it the Principate. Principate. Styling himself as Princeps, which we get the word Prince. But what he meant was that he was first among many. But the truth of the fact, in all retrospect, and to those at the time who had a good view of the structural changes that had been rocked by Augustus saw that in fact, what had been achieved was a single empire with one man at the head, at the top. So that for all intents and purposes, divine Augustus was a man raised to the level of being a God in his own time. He was divinized by universal acclaim. And Augustus was able for 44 years to carry in his own person this enormous focus of power and energy. And the flow of its purposes, which extended literally from Britain to India. The known world at that time.

When it goes to this died, this enormous crushing power was transferred to a man, Tiberius, who could not handle it. And Tiberius was increasingly through his life worn thin, frazzled, and finally corrupted by the enormity of the focus of this power. It was as if all the energies of the ancient world had been collected together. And like a laser focus was too hot to handle. Was too potent. And not only was it impossible for Tiberius Julius Caesar to handle it, his successor Gaius Caesar known in history as Caligula, only lasted three years and 10 months and went absolutely crazy. His successor Claudius steeled himself so that he was unable to display emotion even when learning of his wife's public marriage to another man. And he was still unable to present emotion when he was informed finally that several of his companions had murdered her. So, Claudius was literally stunned into a stone-cold zombie-ism for all intents and purposes. And his successor known to history as Nero became increasingly unraveled and depraved until he was displaced four times in one year. 69 A.D. there were four emperors in one year.

We have very little understanding of this phenomenal landslide into primitive depravity from the pinnacle of religious heights. The only trustworthy evidence that we have is then the historian Tacitus. And for a thousand years, Tacitus’ manuscripts lay unread in a few monasteries. And the only copy that we have of his Annals, which gives us the history day by day and year by year from Augustus through Nero to a temporary respite with Vespasian, is due to a manuscript that was found in a monastery and brought to light in the Italian Renaissance. So, Tacitus who had been silent for a thousand years began to be translated and immediately was hailed by those ingenious minds of the Renaissance, namely Machiavelli and [inaudible], as the great genius of the Roman empire who held a complimentary position to Virgil who had been the Epic poet of the empire.

And just as Virgil was the, just as Virgil was the epic poet for Augustus, Tacitus was the epic historian for Trajan. Because it wasn't until the assentation of Trajan that sanity and order and family and religiosity was restored to the world. Even though there was a temporary respite with 10 years of the first Flavian empire. Vespasian very soon the same pressures came to play on his son's Titus and finally Domitian. And the last few years of Domitian are literally referred to as the reign of terror.

During this entire period from Augustus to Trajan then we have the vision of the unraveling of everything that civilization stood for. Every achievement that human understanding and wisdom had put together and had expressed became desecrated. And in the middle of this long century of siege was born Tacitus in 55 A.D. And the other man we're taking tonight, Plutarch who was born in 46 A.D. And both Plutarch and Tacitus lived to 120 A.D. [inaudible] A.D. Trajan was 117.

So that again, we find in the largest picture a dramatic structure unfolding itself in the midst of what seemed to be chaotic human activity on the grandest scale imaginable. There was in fact, a dramatic structure unveiling itself that the two greatest minds of that age, who would finally understand the chaos. Finally piece back together the fabric of the vision that had been lost and desecrated, were born right in the middle of it.
Now it is a curiosity to us that we have very little regard in the 20th century for either Plutarch or Tacitus. And it seems rather a peculiar barometer to persons like myself who understand what had happened and what was at stake. It seems rather to indicate again that ignoring the lessons of history we are, as Santayana reminded us, doomed to repeat them. And it's unfortunate that both Tacitus and Plutarch are just about left out of the education of any individual. Although those who have seen Robert Graves Claudius I, Claudius series, a lot of that is lifted whole from Tacitus. Almost unchanged. And many of Shakespeare's Roman plays are lifted whole from Plutarch, almost unchanged.

Tacitus, and Plutarch present to us again, remind us with learned clarity that the only real focus that we have in time space for manifestation and change is in human character. We can do very little actually. And I know this goes against the current thought. We can do very little to change consciousness. Consciousness like electricity or magnetism is a force as it is. It is manifest or it is hidden, more or less, but it really doesn't change. What changes is character. And human character, especially in terms of developing itself to the spiritual excellence, which it is capable of is in fact, the child most in need of nurturing in terms of phenomenal time space. So, it is human character that both Tacitus and Plutarch point to as being the only real centers around rich wisdom can grow. And as wisdom and understanding slowly accumulate within this cocooning effect comes the butterfly of understanding. And only when we have some focus like human character and the recognition that it alone is a real event, have we any chance at all to take advantage of the epic vision or the historical understanding.

Now Tacitus’ Annals, which is the great work of his, takes the history from the last acts of Augustus 14 A.D. and takes us all the way through to the end of the reign of Nero. We have unfortunately, two large portions of the manuscript that were missing and have never been found. We are missing 10 years from the death of Tiberius to 47 A.D., from 37 to 47 A.D. Those ten years are missing. So, we know almost nothing about the reign of Caligula and the detail which we have for Tiberius. And we're missing the first few years, I think it's seven years of the reign of Claudius. But from then on, we have the rest of the reign of Claudius and all but the final two years of the reign of Nero. Nero lived on until 68, late 68, early 69 A.D.
Other than those two [inaudible] Tacitus with a very famous style relentlessly pursues the human characters who in their movements and interpenetration create the scene of activity. And even though Tacitus himself was a well-traveled man. And I'll get to him in just a moment. He focuses almost his entire story in Rome in the palace structure at the very center of the moving thread of decision to show us, all of us who would come after, that these changes, these degradations took place in persons who had every advantage. They were people who had the power. They had the money. They had the position. They had the social background. They had the economic means. They had the education. They had the best teacher’s money can buy. What they didn't have was an appreciation for the spirit of man and with every other advantage in the world, without that spark there is no flame of eternal wisdom.

And so it is that Tacitus’ style is famous because in his style all of his phrases are very short. Brief. Almost like the motions of a cudgel or a club at times. So that the syntax of Tacitus is accordioned in, telescoped in. Shrunk to just bare essentials, which are given to us in rapid reportage. So, at the style of Tacitus is very dense and to read his Latin takes a lot of concentration. He doesn't have the open rhetorical gracefulness of a Cicero. He doesn't have the wonderful poetic style of a Horace. He has this incredible dense prose. And it is through this style, almost like an artist using the [inaudible] technique that he is able to moment by moment, the transitional accuracy, which he would like us to understand. That this enormous fall from wisdom took place, not through some ambiguous mystery but because of specific detailed decisions and choices made day by day by persons to [inaudible] extents and purposes were rational, educated, and worldly individuals. And he wants us to know that it happened this way exactly and less by the grace of God, go we.

He begins his Annals very, very quickly. You can see in the very first paragraph his style of comprehend. “Rome at the beginning,” he writes,
was ruled by Kings. Freedom and the councilship were established by Lucius [inaudible]. Dictatorships were held for a temporary crisis. The power of [inaudible] did not last beyond two years. Nor was the counselor jurisdiction of the military tribunes of long duration. The despotisms of Cinna and Sulla were brief. The role of [inaudible] and Cassius soon yielded before Caesar. The arms of Lepidus and Antinous before Augustus who when the world was worried by civil strife, subjected it to end empire under the title Prince.
So, you can see how he condenses time. He condenses 750 years of time into just a few sentences. This is his style. This is an example for that. And also, the beginning of The Annals.

“But” he writes, “the successes and reverses of the old Roman people have been recorded by famous historians.” He says, “There are many historians who have done this. And their works are grand and beautiful. And they describe momentous battles and exotic, strange lands and a wonderful heroes like Scipio Africanus”. And so, on. And he says, “I am reduced. I have no great battles to tell you of. I have no fantastic lands to tell you of. I have even very few heroes to promote”. Instead, what he has is the city of Rome at the height of its greatness.

Tacitus assures us that he will not shirk from his task. As he sees it the central theme was the inability of the anyone to assume the mantle of power, which Augustus had formed. And he says, in fact, that while Augustus was alive, he always was enthused by the early vision that was constructed by himself, by the early men of letters like Virgil and Horace. And he had this to go on. And he actually believed that he was representing the old Roman people. And so, when he would style himself Princeps that meant the first in the Senate. And when the role that the Roman Senate was read Augustus name was first. That was the meaning of that term. And that Augustus was able to carry himself with great familiarity through all the problems that would beset the empire, deal with the Senate and so forth. But the problem of succession was the only single massive failing on the part Augustus. That he seemed to be in this particular issue hemmed in by circumstance. Three different successors, which he chose and prepared, educated, died prematurely. So that finally out of just a sheer set of circumstances almost beyond his control, his adopted son Tiberius, his stepson, became the successor.

Now Tiberius was very tall, lanky sort of an individual who tended to have an acne pockmarked face. Sort of a stooped manner. And it was as a young man, a very good military commander. He won many important battles but seem to wary of the fight for succession. Or the fight for being primed for succession. And had taken himself off to Rhodes to study philosophy. And just by those two statements, one begins to think well maybe Tiberius was an interesting individual. Not so. All of these concerns were directed from himself from a state of inner anxiety to try and search out to find something to grasp and hold onto. Because his own inner sense, as Tacitus uses the term again and again, was towards a profligacy of temperament, which would lead him into speculating on the, on fantasies of the voluptuous life on capacities for inner experience.

For instance, Tiberius became curious as to whether astrology was real. Whether it was an accurate science. And he would have astrologers meet him on the roof of one of these houses that he had overlooking the sea. And there was a large cliff down below. And he had this enormous slave with him. And at the end of the evening of predicting and going through the horoscopes, he would ask the astrologer to predict his own horoscope. And when they would predict Tiberius would have the huge slave throw them over the cliff down to their death. Until one astrologer, a very famous man named Thrasyllus from Alexandria was asked this question. He told as he gazed at the chart for the moment he looked up and he said, I am to die. And Tiberius clasping him said Thrasyllus you are a real astrologer; you will not die. And kept Thrasyllus with him for 42 years.

Tiberius was constantly looking for something that he could trust outside of himself because he had nothing within himself that would hold together that he would trust. He was a very shrewd man in many ways. And his shrewdness was such that it forbade him to have a false confidence in his own capacities. In fact, Tacitus goes to great trouble to show us that towards the apex of his power, when Tiberius was assured that there were no competitors on the field, he began to prepare a place of retirement for himself on the Island of Capri while he was still emperor. And he entrusted the running of the empire to a man names to Sejanus. Sejanus.

And in fact, Sejanus taking every opportunity offered to himself began to accrue power for himself at Rome. And he felt that he was in a wonderful position because he could intercede any letters that were going to Tiberius or any deputations from the provinces coming in. and Tiberius who had not extended the empire at all had kept Augustus’ idea that let's just keep the empire as it is, was lulled into the sense that all was well. Then upon discovering that Sejanus under his own encouragement had taken the bit, was taking the reins, was in fact starting to think of himself as a very powerful individual, Tiberius had him put to death. So that this curse of sudden reversal, which had infected the civil war period had been quelled by Augustus again came to the fore.

And in fact, Tacitus says that the last few years of Tiberius’ reign were in effect a reign of terror. Not that people were going around with a sword as they did in Domitian’s day later on, but it was through the application of what were known as the treason laws. The treason laws were a series of laws, very vague individually, but collectively gave the right of prosecutors to investigate almost any aspect of a person's life. Originally treason had to be an act in Roman law. You had to have done something. It wasn't enough to have said something. You had to have done something, but with Augustus, it was [inaudible] legally the [inaudible]. The treason laws were enlarged by Augustus to include anything published. If you, if you wrote and published something, which later on fit it into a pattern of treason you could be held. Under Tiberius what a person said became grounds for these treasonous prosecutions.

So that it became a vogue, a fad If you will, to begin to prosecute or accuse your enemies under these treason laws at the end of the reign of Tiberius. And the last two or three years found incredible numbers of very prominent Romans committing suicide because they had no confidence that they could be exonerated by the court system of the day. And so, in this way, the very foundations of Roman society began to go askew until when Tiberius was in his 78th year, it was reported that he was finally dying and on his so-called death bed he actually came back into strength, but all of his advisors agreed that they had already prepared for the fight for the succession, so they smothered him to death. The fight for succession was so vicious that the person who won was by universal acclamation granted the succession because he was the best survivor. That was his only redeeming quality. Gaius Caesar. And Gaius Caesar was bad enough as himself but had an accident, a fall, and all the classic writers who were allude to it say that he went crazy. He was insane. And finally, the acts of Caligula became so outrageous and wanton that he in turn was murdered by common consent just to get right.

During the day years of Tiberius and Caligula. Caligula was murdered in 41 A.D. Two different strains of the Caesars vied for power, the Julian and the Claudian. And much has been made about the fact that these were rather like political partners, conservative and liberal. The Julian's conservative. The Claudian’s are liberal. I think that that's overstating it, overstepping it. But there was this family homogeneity. And the man and to succeed [inaudible] was Caligula was [inaudible] Claudian family.

Claudius as you might well know was intellectually defect. He was not a bright boy. And because of his stoical and Epicurean training, his upper-class leanings, his rather frail physique. The fact that as Tacitus says, he always prepared himself to be dominated by women. Was always looking for someone to tell him how to do things. And then he felt comfortable that he had a well-lighted path of purpose ahead of him. All of these things added up to the fact that under Claudius the social structure would have, which has started to scale under Tiberias, and had become shocked and alarmed under Caligula suddenly became full of machinations under Claudius.

So that in Rome, the city of Rome became hotbed of intrigue. Persons against persons. Groups against groups. And all this under the aegis of an emperor who prided himself on being unperturbed, even by the worst excesses. His wife's name was Messalina. And as, Tacitus says she was a very, very clever. And Messalina was also very wanton gal. And in fact, she couldn't get the iron of the emperor by any normal kinds of affairs and elicit assignments and so forth. So, she staged at public marriage while Claudius was out in the countryside to just throw in his face all of the old traditions of Rome. And finally, advisers, especially one named Narcissus appropriately enough, came to Claudius and said the man is celebrating a wedding to your wife, take head and check and make sure the Praetorian guard will stand behind you. You may have lost the empire. And it was under this rushing back to Rome with his advisors around him, especially this Narcissus that Claudius was beginning to in his meandering think what to do, what to do. And of course, the advisors realizing his incredible [inaudible], his capacity at being anesthetized by a domineering woman wanted to keep Messalina away from him. Thinking that even with this incredible event, that if she had an hour alone with Claudius, she would see her way through and they would all be killed because she realized then that there was a lot of plotting against her in the interior court.

So, they kept Messalina from him. And through great intrigue tried to think of ways to kill her so as not to offend Claudius too much. And finally, when they realized that they couldn't find the right poisoner they decided to send some Praetorian guard to her. She was in a garden as a captive and to persuade her to kill herself. And this they succeeded in partially, but she couldn't find the right place to put the dagger. And so, one of the Praetorian guards had to grab her hand and plunge the dagger in with her own hands. They interrupted Claudius at his meal. And this is a big Roman banquet. And there was a moment of silence, and he went back to his cups and the banquet resumed.

The wonderful advisors of the emperor knew that in order to have a handle on him to give him stability, they had to provide him with another domineering woman. And so, they chatted among themselves, and they finally decided to bring out of exile Agrippina. And Agrippina was more than glad after 8or 10 years to come out of exile. Not only because she loved the limelight and had very little chance to exercise her wantonness, but she also had a son who's fortune she wanted to further along. And the son of course, was Nero.

So, Agrippina came into Rome and was married to Claudius. Within five years Claudius was killed. It is not true that he was killed by a pole…bowl of poison mushrooms. He was given the bowl of poison mushrooms. Agrippina saw to it. She knew a very good poisoner, a woman named Locusta, particularly good poisons. But Claudius being so drunk having consumed the bowl of mushrooms, that it was exuded from his system very, very quickly and so was not killed. And so, under the watchful eye of Agrippina seeing that this had happen ordered a physician. She had already paid him off to go and inspect his throat with a feather and the feather was dipped into poison that would really do the job. And as he was inspecting his throat Claudius was pricing by the court physician. He made sure before he got out that he was dead. Then the announcement was made that Claudius had passed out. So, everyone continued with the banquet

Agrippina very much [inaudible] that evening. She had prepared the night very, very well. Her son meantime was told to prepare for the next day because he was it. All of this related and Tacitus’ Annals. All of this given to us, it in runs about 450 pages. Detail by detail by detail. And just when we think that we have seen enough. Just when we think that human sensibility must've been affronted to its ultimate breaking point by all of these machinations, comes the real third act, the reign of Nero, which all the stops to pull out and incredible degradations prevail.

And it is particularly pointed out by Tacitus that Nero had one of the best tutors of the day. When he was brought with his mother in 49 A.D. from exile and brought to Rome because his mother had married the emperor his mother then had plenty of money in contacts and procured for her young son one of the great writers of the day. A man named Seneca as his private tutor. Seneca had written many tragedies. We have, I think, nine volumes of the writings of Seneca. Seneca and a military man named Burrus. A Roman emperor or successor had to be trained in military matters also. Not just the use of the sword, but to think in terms of what is a legion. What are the cohorts? What is a councilship? You can't wheel power unless you know what it is that you're wielding. So, he had to have that kind of education too.

But Tacitus goes to great lengths to show that this man had one of the greatest minds of his day as his private tutor. And, but that made no difference whatsoever because there was no growth of character in Nero. He was in fact developed into a passable poet, a passible dramatist, a passable musician, composer of songs. Which as Nero’s mind became more and more unraveled by the sense of criminal adventure, which was the bait for him. He began to participate in all kinds of contests, music contests and literary contest, poetry contest. But realizing that he wasn't a great poet he instituted them under the name of juvenile contest, but open to everyone. And so, he could get away with this.

The private tutorship of Seneca, who was what we would call a very wise sofis, included taking care of the personality of Nero in respect to providing him with a very attractive slave girl named Acte. Seneca himself sought her out, provided her to Nero. Nero had been married to a daughter of Claudius Octavia so that he had a wife. He had a family situation. In fact, the blood of the Caesars had been joined together because the daughter of Claudius and Nero had been married and there they were. But Seneca realizing that the marriage was not satisfactory to his young pupils’ voluptuous ideas even provided him with an attractive, intelligent slave girl so that he would not go off the deep end and begin to find his interest with the noble ladies at large in Rome. In other words, they tried to minimize the damage. But the damage was not so much in lady friends, as in the desire to experience transgressions that bated Nero.

Nero's personality can best be seen in some incidents that Tacitus puts his finger on it. At one time during a banquet, when they were sort of half inebriated Nero got the idea that they should disguise themselves and go out into the streets of Rome and act like brigands’ act like tough guys and waylay people. Rob them. Beat them up. And they did this. And the next night they did the same. And it became the new entertainment of the court. And in fact, as other wealthy individuals heard of this new game, they began to collect their friends and higher up mercenaries to protect them so they couldn't really get hurt. So that Tacitus says, Rome in the evening began to work like a captive city because roving gangs of nobles who are out to beat other people up. Rob them. Rape them. Just to enjoy the sense of criminality and the transgression of city morality. Or much less human morality. This, this was the key to the personality of Nero.

In fact, his mother Agrippina became worried. Not so much to chastise him. She was playing games herself. But she began, became worried when Nero finally upon hearing from one of his companions, a man named Otho who kept bragging that he had the most beautiful wife in the world and describing his adventurous with his wife. Nero began to covet her, and her name was Poppaea. One of the most beautiful women of the day. Her mother had been a beauty, and she had inherited the beauty and fame. Seneca became quite worried that Nero was beginning to at last go up and to go beyond anyone's control. That even the licensed that were allowed him, even the criminal digressions that were allowed him, were beginning to be insufficient to cage this degenerating tiger of a personality that was coming up in him. So that Seneca asked permission, he was in his late sixties; to retire and he left Rome.
Agrippina began to try to gain her, her son's tensions by all kinds of stratagems. And Nero of course, tried to have her murdered. She was supposed to sail on a ship that had a false bottom, a trick bottom, and the bottom did fall up, but they were close enough to show that she was able to swim ashore. And it was finally that Nero who was so confused by this failure of his plot to murder his mother spent the whole night pacing. What shall I do? What shall I do? He was absolutely terrified. Tacitus writes it this way,
Then paralyzed with terror and protesting that she would show herself the next moment eager for vengeance. Either arming the slaves. Or stirring up the soldiery. Or hasting to the Senate and the people to charge him with the wreck in her room. And with the destruction of her friends. He asked what recess he had against all this? Unless something could be at once devised by Burris or Seneca or somebody. He had instantly summoned both of them and possibly they were already in the secret. There was a long silence on their part. They feared they might [inaudible] straight in vain. Or believe the crisis to be such that Nero must perish unless Agrippina were at once crushed.

Well, the decision was made that the only way to ensure her murder must ascend armed men to her room, which they did. Tacitus briefly writing it this way,
The Assassin's closed in round her couch and the captain of the tri romaine first struck her head violently with a club. Then as the Centurion barred his side for the fatal deed, presenting her person, she explained smite my womb. And with many wounds, she was slain.
So that the mother of the emperor was slain in cold blood in her own chambers by noble Roman citizens.

Tacitus is having us understand that we have fallen all this way from Augustus, but not the worst yet. The worst was the wonderful entertainment capacities which Nero’s imagination then began to dream up for himself. He began to treat the city of Rome, as Tacitus says, as his private living room. And his entertainments began to include parties that would strew themselves. They would have prostitutes surrounding the entire Circus Maximus and the party would go on in the center of the Circus Maximus. And when you were desiring one could leave at any exit with waiting ladies and other items available. But this was yet not enough for Nero, and it was then that he engineered the great fire of Rome. A fire is so severe that almost the entire central portion of Rome was consumed by flames that night. This seem to be for Tacitus the ultimate image of Rome in degradation. That the entire city should be sacrificed to an entertainment game was like the epitome of madness.

But then Tacitus in The Annals goes on for several books to show that though this was the madness of Nero, it was even worse to understand that the madness of the Roman people had permitted it. Had let it happen. Had let it go unpunished. Uncalled for. So that Nero reigned for several years after the great fire of Rome. Three more years. And it is in this light, that Tacitus really finally brings the blame down. Not to those four emperors who had been crushed by this enormous cosmic power that had been engendered. But that the Roman people themselves had proved an inadequate vessel to hold this power themselves. And they had cracked like a flawed vessel and allowed the consecrated liquid of religious and family and moral and social ties to simply leak out and bespatter with the ground. And so that the entire Roman population in Tacitus’ eyes were completely depraved. And they looked for some solution, some outside help to come in and save them.

And it's interesting to note, and we'll take a break in just one minute. It's interesting to note that in the long history of Rome there was not a single one that the great Roman intellects and writers who was born in Rome. They all came from the provinces. None of them were native to the city. The city of Rome, the eternal city, never produced a genius in her own right.

Well, let's take a break and then we'll come back, and we'll try and lighten this up.

As [inaudible] would say the moral of the story is don't put your trust in anything except the inner spirit, because you can have all the rest of it and it won't mean a thing.
The chronic, The Annals of Tacitus are the most convincing proof that we have from the antique world, that there is no substitute whatsoever for spiritual direction. There is no combination of other factors, even all of them together. There are no advantages, either singly or in groups, that can stand in the stead of enlightenment and the purposes, which are commensurate with its engendering.

So that we have in the midst of this terrible skein of events and unraveling, the actual fact of the birth of two individuals who went very, very far to reinstating the unraveled psyche of the time. And I'd put some of the dates up here and you can see from these dates and from some of the, the activities that they were quite extraordinary individuals. Personally.

First Tacitus. He was born in 55 A.D. The year after the assentation of Nero. So that he would have been 14 years old in 69 A.D. when four different persons were elevated with within a few months of each other, to the position of emperor.

The final person, the fourth person, founded a new dynasty. The Flavian dynasty. It only lasted 27 years. Three emperors. But the Caesars were finished, and the Flavians came in. The Julian and the Claudian families had run their course. The Flavians came in and with the Flavians came this soldier Vespasian whose troops made him emperor. And it was the first time that a Roman emperor was made in the field by the armies and not in Rome by the political machinery. And so, it was really a death now to the political process in Rome. Whether it was manipulated by a strong individual or whether it was engendered by an oligarchic fashion. No matter what it's a process of manipulation, political power had passed to the military. And Vespasian for 10 years sought to reinstate something of the old Augustan principate under a new dynasty. Tacitus says that he was brought up in this wonderful hiatus of Vespasian from 69 to 79 A.D.

In this time as Tacitus grew to a man and became quite distinguished know as a young man about Rome. He married the daughter of one of the most distinguished Romans of his day. The man known as a Agricola, Julius Agricola. And Agricola in 78 A.D. was made the governor of the province of Britian. Under Claudius many of the outline kingdoms and protectorates of Rome were made into provinces. And Britain was made into a province, if I recall, I think it was 43 or 46 A.D. that Britain became a province.

Agricola, Julia Agricola was one of the most distinguished Romans of his day. Came from a family of Roman Knights, the [inaudible]. The [inaudible]. And his daughter, very distinguished and upright young woman. So, the marriage of Titianus and the daughter of Agricola was somewhat of an event in Rome.

Tacitus later on in his life when he began his writing career wrote a biography of his father-in-law, which is one of Tacitus’ great short works called The Agricola. Which is the life of this distinguished man. The only work before The Agricola is The Dialogue on Oratory [A Dialogue Concerning Oratory or the Causes of Corrupt Eloquence]. And in this Tacitus, is a very young man, probably about the time he was married in The Dialogue on An Oration aspect question, why has education failed in our time? And the summation of his answer was that education had put its preferences, its confidence, in training individuals, especially the men to become shrewd manipulators of the social constructs. They were schooled to be retributions to convince their peers and others of their viewpoint in terms of an adjustment to a social machinery, which was neither natural, nor adequate. And Tacitus puts his finger on this as being one of the great causes of the decline of the Roman mind. Literally that the ignorance of the populace of Rome had permitted these tremendous excesses to arise in their midst.

In writing later of his father-in-law Julius Agricola, he sought to place before the Roman public an exemplary life, the biography of someone who had kept the dignity and his humanity alive during this tremendous period of unraveling. And that had succeeded to the extent that he became the governor of the province of Britain. Tacitus himself was appointed as a council in 88 A.D. And this was under one of the sons of Vespasian. An emperor named Domitian. Titus was another son who had reigned for three years and then Domitian came in. Reigned for a period, I think about 13 years, if I remember. 12 or 13.

Tacitus returned to Rome in 93 A.D. just in time for the onslaught of the reign of terror Domitian. And while he had been busy writing what he thought were short, little tracks, like The Agricola and The Dialogue on Oratory praising the, the coming of sanity and manhood back to Rome. It looked like all was lost again, because in Domitian’s reign of terror people were literally dragged out of their houses and slaughtered in the streets for suspicion of being against the emperor two weeks ago, last Sunday or something like that.

Tacitus was personally since he was an ex-council, very high up and the political structure during the reign of Domitian. And saw firsthand all of these atrocities. And it was at this time that he was determined to write what we have as The Annals and its sequel the Histories, just show how all this came about originally from the decline of the power of Augustus. As Tacitus began to write and piece together. He did this quietly and secretly of course; one couldn't express oneself under Domitian in the reign of terror. There was an enormous change. Domitian was displaced for one year, actually, it was about 16 months, by an honorable old man named Nerva. And Nerva became emperor for about one year, simply on the basis of the fact that he had no enemies, and they could quickly get this old man in and get rid of the reign of terror.

Nerva was unable to consolidate any power. He really wasn't an emperor. But it gave them a breathing space to look around to find someone who could make stick the reforms that Vespasian had brought in. And searching the field they found the right man in the emperor Trajan. One of the great [inaudible] of human history. Trajan very, very much like Augustus himself, an extraordinarily tenaciously, honest soldier, primarily. But also given to having one of these strategic minds that's capable of envisioning the entire full process of a labyrinth, such as the Roman empire.

And ironically enough Trajan was born in Spain in the town that was founded by now 300 years before by Scipio Africanus. And so, it was like the saving grace of the empire tottering again on what seemed to be this time, not just the brink of madness, but the abyss of total terror. Trajan came in and saved the day. And Trajan as a great individual, we'll cover next week. Trajan in fact, set up a century of what given called the most golden time in the history of man. Trajan and his successor, who he provided for his adopted son, Hadrian. And Hadrian’s successor was the great Antoninus Pius. Named Pius by the unanimous consent of the Senate of Rome devout. And his successor the great emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Really is so that we had with the exception of Trajan a period of some 85 or 90 years of four great emperors who not only brought the glory of the Augustan Principate back into focus, but actually extended it. So that the Roman empire fulfill its destiny of humanizing under one language and one vision of humanity. Most of what we know now is the classical world.

Well, it was with the excision of Trajan on this final plateau. If you imagine this station as being sort of a little plateau and then this decline, and then the Trajan, and then the rest of the [inaudible]. [inaudible] that Tacitus had looked back on upon this desolate plane of the prevail and degradation, stretching back to the mountain peak in the distance that was the Augustan Principate, that led him to devote most of his time personally to writing The Annals and the Histories.

And he was of course, aware of the fact that he had like Virgil been singled out by circumstance, by religious vision, by family integrity and by historical purpose for this task. And he like Virgil was given the aegis of protection and position and power by the emperor himself. Trajan promoted Tacitus to become the pro-council of all of Asia, all the provinces of Asia. which he held for many years. So that Tacitus was a confrere of the emperor much like Virgil had been of Augustus. And during this time published publicly and openly with the consent of Trajan these tremendous Histories, which when they were published at the time were held to be in such a great regard, the classical Roman term for Tacitus was Solemnus. Solemnus. Solemn Tacitus. So that later on when there were satirists writing like Marchelle (sp?) and [inaudible] and so forth, and they were parroting all kinds of writers. They never touched where Virgil. And they never touched Tacitus. He was held in all religious veneration and regard.

At the same time that Tacitus was living writing during his life, Plutarch was born and in Chaeronea in Boeotia. The Island off the Greek coast, that long Island that runs along off the coast of the Thebes area. Marathon is on the coast, just directly across from Boeotia.

When he was 20 years old, he was taken to Athens and trained peripatetic schools there. The Academy and the Lyceum both. Became a tutor in Greek culture in the Greek language. And under that this aegis was taken to Rome. And he spent some time in Rome. And while he was there, he was chosen by Trajan to become the tutor of his adopted son Hadrian. So that one of the sources of the great cosmopolitan personality of Trajan, of Hadrian, is due to the fact that his personal tutor was Plutarch. One of the really fine minds and spirits of the antique world.

Plutarch then was appointed by Trajan as the governor of all of Greece. He held many possessions in Greece. He was a priest of the Pythian Apollo. He was an intimate of the Delphic Oracle hierarchy. But he returned back to his native Boeotia to his little village town of Chaeronea. And there proceeded to write an enormous body of work. We have a list from antiquity that was some 227 works of Plutarch. One of which is enormous tome The Parallel Lives. So that Plutarch wrote in a massive avalanche of material books. His purpose in writing was to try and reinstate the classical learning that had become unraveled for a century and desecrated by all of these events that we have narrated. And bring back into the focus the basic purposes for which man has always discovered as creation.

The Parallel Lives, which took a Greek and Roman and brought them together. Partly on the surface, I imagine to show the Romans that there had been plenty of distinguished Greeks before them. That they could be matched man for man easily. The first pair of lives we've lost Scipio Africanus was compared to an ancient Greek name Epimenides, but we do have the second set of lives and some 22 of the other sets of lives. [inaudible] the first Roman King and Lycurgus. Alexander and Julius Caesar and so on and so forth.

These parallel lives also disclose a religious purpose. That is that right the delineation of human character is so complex of form to engender that it requires an equally complex receptive background against which to display and manifest this form of a human character in full. So that the background is another human person. So, then the comparison of the two, they emerge manifest as themselves clearly into form. Because we cannot see any form unless there is a background to permit it. Articulation as a principle has this interplay of a form and receptivity. It's a universal constant.

So that The Parallel Lives of Plutarch, which took him obviously many decades to actually finish. It's an enormous work. We have all of this left from antiquity and there was more of it then. It is this enormous tapestry of learning of his to disclose that human character can be understood. Beautiful as it is, and affable as it may be, it can be seen. And not only seen and understood, it can be embodied in ourselves. So that we may have a purpose to our education to allow our character, to grow, to manifest that quality of spiritual understanding that is permissible.

Many of his other essays, and many of his other books are collected under the aegis of a title called Moralia in Latin. It's called Moralia in an English translation. In Greek it's called [inaudible] because the skeleton of character is the ethics. The ethics. That's what holds the articulation of the purposes of character.

In Plutarch's writing. Just to give you an example of a few titles. He wrote a series of essays. The first one was on The Cessation of Oracles, or Why Do Oracles no Longer speak in our time [On the Failures of Oracles] which he's writing about 90 or 100 A.D. Why do the Oracles not speak to us anymore?

And following up, that was an essay on the Pythian responses. Why are these Pythian responses that used to come down in verse and antiquity now in prose? Was there a change in the language and structure of the Gods? And in fact, what is the correct understanding of the Gods? And Plutarch goes on to show us that there are in fact, four levels of existence that can be delineated by the human intellect. That in fact there are the Gods and then below them are what Plutarch called the daemons. The daemons. D-a-e-m-o-n-s. And below them the heroes and below them men. And all four of these levels are rational beings. Well, it's easy enough for us to understand men, although it's difficult in seeing it through obviously. We can. And heroes like Odysseus, or like Augustus are men writ large. And we can understand the Gods, but what about those demons or daemons in between the heroes and the Gods.

And Plutarch goes into this and his essay On the Cessation of Oracles. And I'll just give you a little tidbit. All of this is available in our library. And I hope if I do my job right, you'll, you'll be reading until midnight in the library. He writes,
Of daemons, some few and long process of time have been thoroughly purified by means of virtue. Have become partakers of divinity. Whilst with others it comes to pass that they do not contain themselves but become relaxed and dissolve again into mortal bodies.
In other words, demons, daemons were originally the spirits of persons living on beyond their death. And that the good ones seem to become partakers of divinity and become thus helpers to man. Become like angelic beings, halfway between man and God. And those that are unable to contain themselves, become relaxed and dissolve back again into material form and take mortal bodies again. Reincarnation.

Then Plutarch goes on to ask,
What of these daemons that become angelic partakers of divinity? Do they become eternal? Or do they have a temporal existence? And if so, how could we compute this? And he says…writes, “but Hesiod,” Hesiod was Greek writer of about the 6th century B.C. “But Hesiod is of opinion that after certain periods of time daemons themselves have an end. For, he says, speaking in the person of the Naiad and even obscurely defining the period.” And then he gives Plutarch gives us a little quatrain. Actually, five lines.
Nine generations lives the noisy crowd of [inaudible] four times the [inaudible]. The stag, three stags outlives the raven. But the phoenix, nine times the raven, ten phoenixes weave the long hair nymps daughters of mighty Job.
And this is all an esoteric mathematics. Plutarch goes on then to elucidate it because he's what would you call a professor of divinity of the Pythian Apollo. He knows these things. So, I'll cheat a little and read his description. So, I don't have to imagine that I know what he's talking about. “This space is calculated at a vast extent of time by people incorrectly understanding the word generation for it really means a year.” Generation, generation is the concept of turning, a full turn. And this rotation generates. It generates it's turn, its rotational energy, and also, it's radiant understanding capacity. So, this is generation.

It really means a year so that they could make the total duration of the life of daemons to be 9,720 years. Most mathematicians assigned them a shorter duration. None a longer. Pindar has said in verse, nymphs that have a lot of them a term of life equal to a trees, fall which caused to people called them hamadryads. And whilst he was speaking, Demetrius interrupting him said, how do you mean that a generation of man means a year for such a period as neither that of a life that is young or that it is old as some people read the passage. But those who read young wrecking the generation at 30 years.
And then he goes on to talk about the Plato's generation of souls. And how the count comes out that in terms of nature there are revolutions, cycles, that can be computed. And then rest of about 30 pages of The Cessation of Oracles, Plutarch goes into this arcane religious mathematics. Just to bait you into getting to the books to yourselves.

In there, it's interesting that Plutarch mentions phoenixes. And we would think that this would be something Chinese. Or that in fact none of this really could happen. This would be according to myth. But it's interesting. I probably won't be able to turn to it right away, but there's a passage on the Phoenix being seen in Egypt by Tacitus. And right in the middle of Tacitus, who is impeccable in his facts and writing style. It's in the fourth book of The Annals. I'm not, I'm not quite sure where it is. He says that there was a report that the Phoenix had been seen in Egypt and that this bird has seen only every 500 years. And that it had not been 500 years since the last time the Phoenix had been seen in the time of Augustus. So that something was wrong here. That time was out of kilter. That's what Tacitus was trying to say. But it's interesting too, because he goes on to describe the Phoenix. And saying that this was quite a real bird that in fact it has been seen. It is credible. It does reoccur. And in his description, tells us that the Phoenix does is not reborn out of fire as the popular statement would have. But that the Phoenix, when it gives birth to the young dies, and it is the young, when the wings are strong enough that pick up the old Phoenix and take it to the place of its sacred roosting. Which is the sacred fire in Heliopolis in Egypt. And that Heliopolis being the home of the sun God Ra, the Phoenix is the sacred augur omen of the sun God. And that the consecration of the sun God's reality, of his manifestation, always takes place with ceremonies, as Plutarch then says, “with a certain kind of an incense whose secret is entrusted,” secret ingredients of making it, “is entrusted to a small priestly class.”

And at the end of Isis and Osiris, one of Plutarch's most famous books, he gives us a description that there are two phases in the ceremonials. And the one takes an incense which is made by the process of the son alone and is called myrrh. And that myrrh is a sacred religious incense resin because it is made from the sweat of certain trees by the intense action of the heat of the sun. So that its qualities and its nature are religious by virtue of the fact that the sun alone without any help makes it. And further makes it in midday when usually everything else evaporates in Egypt. So that myrrh became a city divine incense in this sense.

He says. Plutarch writes. This is the Elizabethan translation. I have to transpose the letters.
But setting aside these considerations, both resin, as well as myrrh may be he looked upon as the workmanship of the sun himself. The trees from whence each of these is gathered, weeping it out by the heat of his beams. Whereas many of the ingredients which compose the kuphi,
K-u-p-h-i. The kuphi. The kuphi was the sacred incense that was born of mystical visionings and made at the nighttime. Burned in the nighttime.

The kuphi may be properly distilled from plants of the night being found to thrive and moist cold winds and the shade and dues and in moisture. So again, the light of the day is one and simple myrrh, with no compound ingredients. And at night is a mystical compound made by sacred visions and many other components and parts.
So that Plutarch at the end of his mystical treatise on Isis and Osiris is trying again to remind people after all of this travail and the unravel of religious purpose in society, to re-educate a new generation of people coming up. To the fact that all of these ceremonies, all of these rights and processes, have an understandable origin and they are guarded by mysteries because of their sacredness not of any wish to perpetrate ambiguity upon unsuspecting populace. That the mysteries are mysteries because of consecration and not because of ambiguity. That's the point.

And at the beginning of his essay on Isis and Osiris, Plutarch brings to the fore the fact that Isis really according to the Greek interpretation of the name means knowledge. And that knowledge is always opposed to an adversary who is named in Greek Typhon. Typhon later transformed into a Python. Zeus and Typhon and Apollo and Python. That's how [inaudible] that came.

But Typhon really is indolence and pride. Indolence and pride. So that the great serpent that would bind us and keep us from growth is indolence and pride. Not a big snake, but pride. And to counteract this knowledge or the Goddess embodiment of it, Isis. Or later on, of course, Sophia, is engendered. And Plutarch then says,
This Goddess is more over set by some authors to be the daughter of Hermes. And some others say of Prometheus's both of them famous for their philosophic turn of mind. The latter, Prometheus, being supposed to have first taught mankind wisdom and foresight. As the former, Hermes, has the reputation of having invented letters and music.
That is those capacities, the alphabet and harmony, music, which allow for the manifestation of form. So, Hermes, invented letters and music.

For the same reason, likewise, they call the former of the two muses at Hermopolis Isis, as well as justice. The none other to, as too said then wisdom pointing out the knowledge of divine truth to her votaries. The true [inaudible] now by the former of these are men such who carry about them locked up in their souls, as in a chest, the sacred doctrine concerning the Gods.
And the sacred doctrine of course, is italicized because Plutarch means it to be a specific identifiable traditional learning collected together and understood. The secret doctrine. Or the sacred doctrine. Concerning what? The Gods.
Purified from all such super fluidities as superstition may have a next to it whilst the holy habit with which the latter of them adorn the statutes of these deities. Partly of a dark and gloomy. partly of a more bright and shining color. Seems aptly enough to represent the notions, which this doctrine teaches us to entertain of the divine nature itself. Partly clear and partly obscure.

And then he goes on to say that the devotees of Isis, like the ancient traditional wisdom wrap up the bodies at death in wrappings, make them mummies, because they holy doctrine still abides with those manifestations. And that is the reason why they are wrapped and become mummies. So that,
This Holy doctrine still abides with them. And that this alone accompanies them into another life. For it is not the length of the beard and the coarseness of the habit, which makes a philosopher. So, neither will those frequent shavings or the mere wearing of a linen vestment, constitute a rotary of Isis. But he alone is a true [inaudible] or follower of the Goddess who after he has heard and has been made acquainted in a proper manner with the history of the actions of these Gods, searches into the hidden truths, which lie concealed under them. And examines the whole by the dictates of reason and philosophy.
And so that's how Isis and Osiris begins. And you heard previously how it ends.

All of this learning was brought back into play by Plutarch. Specifically, because it had been lost. Specifically, because all of the great Hellenistic learning that had been put together in Alexandria and then had been shifted enmasse with Augustus to Rome had come unraveled and had been lost, seemingly forever. Until individuals like Tacitus and Plutarch brought it back together again. Of course, it seemed to them being no longer naive that there was a progressive improvement in history that the question was how to preserve this learning and pass it on to future generations. The problem was bad enough to re-engender it again, even when there were persons who still remembered it from their childhood or could still hear it from sages who survive somehow this [inaudible]. But how to preserve this holy doctrine, this sacred wisdom, became increasingly a problem for the wise persons of antiquity.

Well, we'll see you next week with Trajan and Hadrian, how the bright glory of excellence came back into the world for a while. And then after with Origen and Clement and [inaudible] and Hermes and Hypatia and Marcus Aurelius and Plotinus. You'll see in those lectures the increasing concern that there be some way to preserve the learning and the understanding because it was seen to be more and more precarious. That it was only because of the excellent cooperation of many individuals that had produced the second golden age of Trajan and Hadrian and Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. But already they could see quite clearly that all of this was precarious. That human history had in fact, somehow taken the baton from the Gods, and it was up to man to carry that himself. And that he was as yet too young, too wild, too precocious, and too ignorant to know that he had to do it himself. And so was from generation to generation, beginning to stumble. And they feared that the light might permanently go out.

And so, the great sages of antiquity from this time forward wrestled with the problem of how to put it together in a transmissible form so that it would stay together and could be reconstructed. Whether like unfolded out again of seeds that could be carried on through time space. And we'll see how that happens. And I think, I think it will take at least three lectures to go through that process.

Then we'll end the lecture series with Constantine. Who after this grand golden age of four great emperors Rome had 29 emperors in a hundred years. They couldn't find anyone who was capable. And so finally in a religious vision, Constantine not only got the Roman empire, but said it's time to move it. Took it on to a new city.

Oh, we'll see how that works out.

Thank you. Thanks.

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