Tacitus: Likeness

Tacitus was Roman senator and historian. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.
Tacitus: 84   quotes 50   likes

“It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.”
Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, et quae sentias dicere licet.

Tacitus book Histories

Book I, 1
Histories (100-110)

Thinking

“The busts of twenty most illustrious families were borne in the procession, with the names of Manlius, Quinctius, and others of equal rank. But Cassius and Brutus outshone them all, from the very fact that their likenesses were not to be seen.”
Viginti clarissimarum familiarum imagines antelatae sunt, Manlii, Quinctii aliaque eiusdem nobilitatis nomina. sed praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non visebantur.

Tacitus book Annals

Book III, 76; Church-Brodribb translation
According to Lippincott's Monthly Magazine https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=P8pGAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA872|:

This line is the origin of Lord John Russell's phrase "Conspicuous by its absence"; of which Russell said "It is not an original expression of mine, but is taken from one of the greatest historians of antiquity". Similar phrases also are found in the tragedy Tiberius of Joseph Chénier and in Les Hommes Illustres of Charles Perrault.
Annals (117)

Family

“No honour was left for the gods, when Augustus chose to be himself worshipped with temples and statues, like those of the deities, and with flamens and priests.”
Nihil deorum honoribus relictum, cum se templis et effigie numinum per flamines et sacerdotes coli vellet.

Tacitus book Annals

Book I, 10; Church-Brodribb translation
Annals (117)

God

“Their shields are black, their bodies dyed. They choose dark nights for battle, and, by the dread and gloomy aspect of their death-like host, strike terror into the foe, who can never confront their strange and almost infernal appearance.”

Tacitus book Germania

Source: Germania (98), Chapter 43

Death , Appearance , Night