Tacitus uses a diverse set of words with the central meaning of death to illustrate Augustus’s reign and Tiberius’s sneaky ascent into power through the demise of his rivals. An accomplished writer such as Tacitus prefers to have a variety of words when writing, so the reader is not seeing the same word over and over again. A lack in word variety makes the writer appear unintelligent and unable express their ideas. In the second paragraph, Tacitus uses “caesis,” “exotique,” “interfecto,” and “partibus,” when writing about Augustus’s rise to ruling, how he showed himself to be barely a Consul, leaving the title of triumvir behind. He seemed to be a true tribune of the plebs, running all his orders and ideas through the senate and waiting for …show more content…
This ties into Tacitus’s many words for death and dying because it shows the difference between appearance and reality, between what was rumor and what was true. Augustus seemed to be a good ruler of Rome, a ruler that listened to the opinions of the Senate and the Roman people. In truth, Augustus employed nepotism and the cronyism, appointing his friends and relatives into power underhandedly. Using words and phrases meaning “expired,” “pushed aside,” “conceded life,” Tacitus makes the potential murder of the Roman politicians more palatable and less sinister. He leaves the door open for Agrippa’s death to potentially be due to Livia’s hand, instead of outright saying that Livia murdered Agrippa. Lucius and Caius Caesar were “cut off by destiny,” not killed. Their fates were cut short by an untimely death, which sounds much more pleasent and poetic than “Lucius and Caius Caesar were murdered.” Tiberius and Livia had a juvenile murdered after Augustus’s death and then denied the order to the messenger who reported it done. The killing of Roman people is hidden in this writing, disguised in a more poetic