| 1. Cicero, Republic, None (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •imperial rule, its debilitating effect Found in books: Isaac (2004) 242 |
| 2. Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico, 6.24.2-6.24.5 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •imperial rule, its debilitating effect Found in books: Isaac (2004) 190 |
| 3. Tacitus, Agricola, 11.5 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •imperial rule, its debilitating effect Found in books: Isaac (2004) 190, 191 |
4. Tacitus, Annals, 14.31 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •imperial rule, its debilitating effect Found in books: Isaac (2004) 191| 14.31. Rex Icenorum Prasutagus, longa opulentia clarus, Caesarem heredem duasque filias scripserat, tali obsequio ratus regnumque et domum suam procul iniuria fore. quod contra vertit, adeo ut regnum per centuriones, domus per servos velut capta vastarentur. iam primum uxor eius Boudicca verberibus adfecta et filiae stupro violatae sunt: praecipui quique Icenorum, quasi cunctam regionem muneri accepissent, avitis bonis exuuntur, et propinqui regis inter mancipia habebantur. qua contumelia et metu graviorum, quando in formam provinciae cesserant, rapiunt arma, commotis ad rebellationem Trinobantibus et qui alii nondum servitio fracti resumere libertatem occultis coniurationibus pepigerant, acerrimo in veteranos odio. quippe in coloniam Camulodunum recens deducti pellebant domibus, exturbabant agris, captivos, servos appellando, foventibus impotentiam veteranorum militibus similitudine vitae et spe eiusdem licentiae. ad hoc templum divo Claudio constitutum quasi arx aeternae dominationis aspiciebatur, delectique sacerdotes specie religionis omnis fortunas effundebant. nec arduum videbatur excindere coloniam nullis munimentis saeptam; quod ducibus nostris parum provisum erat, dum amoenitati prius quam usui consulitur. | 14.31. The Icenian king Prasutagus, celebrated for his long prosperity, had named the emperor his heir, together with his two daughters; an act of deference which he thought would place his kingdom and household beyond the risk of injury. The result was contrary â so much so that his kingdom was pillaged by centurions, his household by slaves; as though they had been prizes of war. As a beginning, his wife Boudicca was subjected to the lash and his daughters violated: all the chief men of the Icenians were stripped of their family estates, and the relatives of the king were treated as slaves. Impelled by this outrage and the dread of worse to come â for they had now been reduced to the status of a province â they flew to arms, and incited to rebellion the Trinobantes and others, who, not yet broken by servitude, had entered into a secret and treasonable compact to resume their independence. The bitterest animosity was felt against the veterans; who, fresh from their settlement in the colony of Camulodunum, were acting as though they had received a free gift of the entire country, driving the natives from their homes, ejecting them from their lands, â they styled them "captives" and "slaves," â and abetted in their fury by the troops, with their similar mode of life and their hopes of equal indulgence. More than this, the temple raised to the deified Claudius continually met the view, like the citadel of an eternal tyranny; while the priests, chosen for its service, were bound under the pretext of religion to pour out their fortunes like water. Nor did there seem any great difficulty in the demolition of a colony unprotected by fortifications â a point too little regarded by our commanders, whose thoughts had run more on the agreeable than on the useful. |
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| 5. Tacitus, Germania (De Origine Et Situ Germanorum), 23.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •imperial rule, its debilitating effect Found in books: Isaac (2004) 191 |
6. Tacitus, Histories, 4.17, 4.64.3 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •imperial rule, its debilitating effect Found in books: Isaac (2004) 191 | 4.17. This victory was glorious for the enemy at the moment and useful for the future. They gained arms and boats which they needed, and were greatly extolled as liberators throughout the German and Gallic provinces. The Germans at once sent delegations offering assistance; the Gallic provinces Civilis tried to win to an alliance by craft and gifts, sending back the captured prefects to their own states and giving the soldiers of the cohorts permission to go or stay as they pleased. Those who stayed were given honourable service in the army, those who left were offered spoils taken from the Romans. At the same time in private conversation he reminded them of the miseries that they had endured so many years while they falsely called their wretched servitude a peace. "The Batavians," he said, "although free from tribute, have taken up arms against our common masters. In the very first engagement the Romans have been routed and defeated. What if the Gallic provinces should throw off the yoke? What forces are there left in Italy? It is by the blood of the provinces that provinces are won. Do not think of Vindex's battle. It was the Batavian cavalry that crushed the Aedui and Averni; among the auxiliary forces of Verginius were Belgians, and if you consider the matter aright you will see that Gaul owed its fall to its own forces. Now all belong to the same party, and we have gained besides all the strength that military training in Roman camps can give; I have with me veteran cohorts before which Otho's legions lately succumbed. Let Syria, Asia, and the East, which is accustomed to kings, play the slave; there are many still alive in Gaul who were born before tribute was known. Surely it was not long ago that slavery was driven from Germany by the killing of Quintilius Varus, and the emperor whom the Germans then challenged was not a Vitellius but a Caesar Augustus. Liberty is a gift which nature has granted even to dumb animals, but courage is the peculiar blessing of man. The gods favour the braver: on, therefore, carefree against the distressed, fresh against the weary. While some favour Vespasian and others Vitellius, the field is open against both." In this way Civilis, turning his attention eagerly toward the Germanies and the Gauls, was preparing, should his plans prove successful, to gain the kingship over the strongest and richest nations. But Hordeonius Flaccus furthered his enterprises at first by affecting to be unaware of them; when, however, terrified messengers brought word of the capture of camps, the destruction of cohorts, and the expulsion of the Roman name from the island of the Batavians, he ordered Munius Lupercus, who commanded the two legions in winter quarters, to take the field against the foe. Lupercus quickly transported to the island all the legionaries that he had, as well as the Ubii from the auxiliaries quartered close by and a body of Treviran cavalry which was not far away. He joined to these forces a squadron of Batavian cavalry, which, although already won over to the other side, still pretended to be faithful, that by betraying the Romans on the very field itself it might win a greater reward for its desertion. Civilis had the standards of the captured cohorts ranged about him that his own troops might have the evidence of their newly-won glory before their eyes and that the enemy might be terrified by the memory of their defeat; he ordered his own mother and his sisters, likewise the wives and little children of all his men, to take their stand behind his troops to encourage them to victory or to shame them if defeated. When the enemy's line re-echoed with the men's singing and the women's cries, the shout with which the legions and cohorts answered was far from equal. Our left had already been exposed by the desertion of the Batavian horse, which at once turned against us. Yet the legionary troops kept their arms and maintained their ranks in spite of the alarming situation. The auxiliary forces made up of the Ubii and Treveri fled disgracefully and wandered in disorder over the country. The Germans made them the object of their attack, and so the legions meanwhile were able to escape to the camp called Vetera. Claudius Labeo, who was in command of the Batavian horse, had been a rival of Civilis in some local matter, and was consequently now removed to the Frisii, that he might not, if killed, excite his fellow-tribesmen to anger, or, if kept with the forces, sow seeds of discord. |
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7. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.4.3 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •imperial rule, its debilitating effect Found in books: Isaac (2004) 192 | 62.4.3. However, even at this late day, though we have not done so before, let us, my countrymen and friends and kinsmen, â for I consider you all kinsmen, seeing that you inhabit a single island and are called by one common name, â let us, I say, do our duty while we still remember what freedom is, that we may leave to our children not only its appellation but also its reality. For, if we utterly forget the happy state in which we were born and bred, what, pray, will they do, reared in bondage? "All this I say, not with the purpose of inspiring you with a hatred of present conditions, â that hatred you already have, â nor with fear for the future, â that fear you already have, â but of commending you because you now of our own accord choose the requisite course of action, and of thanking you for so readily co-operating with me and with each other. 62.4.3. Indeed, we enjoy such a surplus of bravery, that we regard our tents as safer than their walls and our shields as affording greater protection than their whole suits of mail. As a consequence, we when victorious capture them, and when overpowered elude them; and if we ever choose to retreat anywhere, we conceal ourselves in swamps and mountains so inaccessible that we can be neither discovered or taken. |
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| 8. Gellius, Attic Nights, 12.1.17 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •imperial rule, its debilitating effect Found in books: Isaac (2004) 192 |
9. Strabo, Geography, 7.3.7 Tagged with subjects: •imperial rule, its debilitating effect Found in books: Isaac (2004) 242 | 7.3.7. Just now I was discussing the Thracians, and the Mysians, hand-to-hand fighters, and the proud Hippemolgi, Galactophagi, and Abii, men most just, because I wished to make a comparison between the statements made by Poseidonius and myself and those made by the two men in question. Take first the fact that the argument which they have attempted is contrary to the proposition which they set out to prove; for although they set out to prove that the men of earlier times were more ignorant of regions remote from Greece than the men of more recent times, they showed the reverse, not only in regard to regions remote, but also in regard to places in Greece itself. However, as I was saying, let me put off everything else and look to what is now before me: they say that the poet through ignorance fails to mention the Scythians, or their savage dealings with strangers, in that they sacrifice them, eat their flesh, and use their skulls as drinking-cups, although it was on account of the Scythians that the Pontus was called Axine, but that he invents certain proud Hippemolgi, Galactophagi, and Abii, men most just — people that exist nowhere on earth, How, then, could they call the sea Axine if they did not know about the ferocity or about the people who were most ferocious? And these, of course, are the Scythians. And were the people who lived beyond the Mysians and Thracians and Getae not also Hippemolgi, not also Galactophagi and Abii? In fact, even now there are Wagon-dwellers and Nomads, so called, who live off their herds, and on milk and cheese, and particularly on cheese made from mare's milk, and know nothing about storing up food or about peddling merchandise either, except the exchange of wares for wares. How, then, could the poet be ignorant of the Scythians if he called certain people Hippemolgi and Galactophagi? For that the people of his time were wont to call the Scythians Hippemolgi, Hesiod, too, is witness in the words cited by Eratosthenes: The Ethiopians, the Ligurians, and also the Scythians, Hippemolgi. Now wherein is it to be wondered at that, because of the widespread injustice connected with contracts in our country, Homer called most just and proud those who by no means spend their lives on contracts and money-getting but actually possess all things in common except sword and drinking-cup, and above all things have their wives and their children in common, in the Platonic way? Aeschylus, too, is clearly pleading the cause of the poet when he says about the Scythians: But the Scythians, law-abiding, eaters of cheese made of mare's milk. And this assumption even now still persists among the Greeks; for we regard the Scythians the most straightforward of men and the least prone to mischief, as also far more frugal and independent of others than we are. And yet our mode of life has spread its change for the worse to almost all peoples, introducing amongst them luxury and sensual pleasures and, to satisfy these vices, base artifices that lead to innumerable acts of greed. So then, much wickedness of this sort has fallen on the barbarian peoples also, on the Nomads as well as the rest; for as the result of taking up a seafaring life they not only have become morally worse, indulging in the practice of piracy and of slaying strangers, but also, because of their intercourse with many peoples, have partaken of the luxury and the peddling habits of those peoples. But though these things seem to conduce strongly to gentleness of manner, they corrupt morals and introduce cunning instead of the straightforwardness which I just now mentioned. |
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