Tacitus: Liberty and Tyranny in the Annals
This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty and Tyranny in Tacitus' Annals.”
Liberty and Tyranny in Tacitus’s Annals
Topic
Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome is a leading source of ideas about political institutions and the corruption of power for the Founding generation of the United States and it is one of the central texts for understanding the ideas which influenced the formation of the American constitutional.
Guide to the Readings
Editions used:
- Publius Cornelius Tacitus, The Works of Tacitus. In Four Volumes. To which are prefixed, Political Discourses upon that Author by Thomas Gordon. The Second Edition, corrected. (London: T. Woodward and J. Peele, 1737). Vol. 1.
- Publius Cornelius Tacitus, The Works of Tacitus. In Four Volumes. To which are prefixed, Political Discourses upon that Author by Thomas Gordon. The Second Edition, corrected. (London: T. Woodward and J. Peele, 1737). Vol. 2.
See also in the Online Library of Liberty:
- Collections: The American Revolution and Constitution
- Collections: The Founding Fathers of the U.S. Constitution
- Collections: Founding Fathers' Library
For additional reading see:
- Tacitus (56-120)
- Bibliography: Founding Father's Library
- Thomas Gordon
Session I: Tiberius and the Rush to Servitude
Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome, vol. 1
Session II: The Tyrant and the Law
Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome, vol. 1 and 2
Session III: Tiberius’s Reign of Terror
Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome, vol. 2
Session IV: Claudius’s Women
Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome, vol. 2
Session V: Nero’s Tyrannical Debauchery
Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome, vol. 2
Session VI: Nero’s Tyrannical Theatricality
Tacitus' The Annals of Imperial Rome, vol. 2
Reading Lists
- Addison and Smith: Freedom and Responsibility
- American Liberty in Political Documents before 1787
- An Introduction to the Major Writings of Ludwig von Mises
- Banned Books
- British and French Sources of American Constitutionalism
- Burlamaqui, Bayle: Freedom Tolerance, Natural Law
- Cato’s Letters: Liberty and Responsibility
- Cobden: Liberty and Peace
- Constant’s Principles of Politics
- Emerson on Anti-slavery
- Eric Mack, An Introduction to the Political Thought of John Locke
- Gibbon and the Rise of Christianity and Islam
- Homer’s Iliad: Liberty and Responsibility
- Hume, Smith, and Ferguson: Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption
- Hume: History of England
- James Tyrrell on Authority and Liberty
- Jefferson-Hamilton Debate
- John Milton: Liberty in his Prose and Poetry
- Major Political Thinkers: Plato to Mill
- Mandeville: Vice, Virtue and Liberty
- Mill-Macaulay Debate on Government
- Old Testament and English Political Thought
- Political Sermons of the Founding Era
- Readings from the OLL Reader
- Rousseau and Hume: Contrasting Views of Liberty
- Shakespeare and Marlowe: Liberty in Four Plays
- Shakespeare: Liberty and Responsibility
- Socialist Tracts
- Sophocles and Aeschylus: Blood Justice and the Founding of Legal Order
- Tacitus: Liberty and Tyranny in the Annals
- The Ruling Class and the State: An Anthology
- Thomas Paine and American Liberty
- Thucydides: War, Empire, and Liberty