塔西佗历史书写中的“年代记”及其政治功能

The“Annales”in Tacitus' Historical Writing and Its Political Function

塔西佗以传统“年代记”体裁写作自奥古斯都到图密善统治时期的历史。他的历史探讨最深刻的人性与政治的关系,以此论证元首政体的好坏与统治者品性之间的联系。塔西佗的政治生涯大部分在图密善时代度过,在图拉真统治时期开始写作历史。图密善的暴政使他对历史写作持谨慎小心的态度,而暴政带来的影响使他希望通过历史写作给贵族阶层提供政治教诲,培育政治上的审慎美德,以便服务于国家。历史写作上的谨慎和提供教诲的愿望,使他放弃了当时流行的皇帝传记体裁而选择传统“年代记”体裁。尽管“年代记”与皇帝传记一样,都把皇帝作为叙述中心,但塔西佗研究的重点是皇帝的统治技巧、计谋和贵族阶层对此的回应,这种叙述体裁的选择因而也是其写作意图的组成部分。

Tacitus chronicled the history of the Roman Empire from Augustus to Domitian in the Annales.In his historical writing,he discussed the fundamental relationship between humanity and politics.In doing so,he attempted to prove the correlation between rulers'virtues and the quality of principate as a political system.He spent his political career mostly under Domitian's reign,and began writing history during Trajan's period.He was cautious in historical writing due to Domitian's tyrannical rule,on the one hand;on the other hand,he hoped to provide lessons to the noble class through writing history,and to cultivate virtues.For both reasons,he chose the annals rather than the popular genre,imperial bibliographies,in his writing.Although emperors remained at the center of the narrative,Tacitus focused on emperors,ruling skills and trickeries as well as the noble class'response in this work.His way of writing betrays his motive.