Tacitus and The Death of Augustus

Abstract

Tacitus' use and adaptation of phrases from earlier Latin writers is well known. By this means he adds to his own context something of the atmosphere belonging to the context from which the phrase is borrowed. So, for example, when at Ann. 4. 1 he describes Seianus in language modelled on Sallust's description of Catiline (c. 5), the reader is immediately made aware that he is to expect Seianus to display the same resolute villainy that Catiline had shown