Useful Vices: Tacitus's Critique of Corruption

Abstract

Tacitus’s works on imperial Rome build on the themes of an earlier historiography that discusses corruption as a plague that infected the body politic.1 Yet a paradox that emerges from his portrait of Tiberian Rome (Annales 1–6) is that the various forms of deviant activity are also central to the formation of the elite’s political identity and the power of the regime. Although corrupt behavior remains questionable from a moral or ethical perspective, Tacitus raises the possibility of a different type of corruption: one that works in tandem with state institutions. In this paper, I analyze Tacitus’s writing on corruption in order to expose the crucial role played by corrupt (and violent) activity in the making and preservation of state power. I argue that Tacitus reveals corruption as a phenomenon that worked formatively within the imperial regime, while the institutions in place to prevent corruption, such as the law and punishment, worked to stimulate and/or legitimize corrupt acts. This line of enquiry will allow us to move beyond a moralistic conception of corruption (corruption as an absence of mores or as vice) and explore instead