Classical World

Two contemporary texts in different languages, Plutarch’s Precepts and Tacitus’ Agricola, display remarkable commonalities in how they present elite political activity. Specifically, both texts idealize figures who do work for their communities that is useful but apparently lacks glory and requires subordination to superiors in the imperial hierarchy. The authors attempt to reconcile these activities with the traditional aristocratic ethic, while at the same time characterizing overt resistance to the hierarchy as useless display. This article will trace this rhetoric through both texts and place it in its immediate historical setting (alongside contemporary authors including Dio Chrysostom) and in the larger context of Roman imperial discourse.