Appendix K: The Political Revival

The psychological relationship between moral decline and political repression we have already traced (Appendix J); readers interested in the more specific topic of political repression and its relationship to libertas may consult Chaim Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge, 1950).It is essential to keep in mind the sharp distinction made by Suetonius, and confirmed by Dio Cassius, that the Julio-Claudian emperors were all “cruel by nature,” whereas the emperors from Vespasian were “not cruel by nature;” it is, of course, almost impossible to separate men’s natures into such categories as “political” and “moral.”