...Where they make a desert, they call it peace.

This quote from Tacitus' Agricola is one of my favourites from the whole classical corpus.

I suppose the reason is two fold. Firstly, Tacitus is rallying against the nature of Empire - greed begot by violently enforced tyranny. He's a deeply Republican man, and one of the main themes of the Agricola is a defence of how a man can still be a noble servant to his country even under despotic rulers (in this case Domitian). The idea that the Romans would militarily crush their opposition and then call it "peace" (Pax) never registered as righteous with Tacitus.

Is it truly peace if it only exists because of an oppression carried out by the military? Probably not, thinks Tacitus (and me!).

The second reason I adore the quote is that it is more complex that it initially seems. Our word "peace" has it's roots in the Latin word "pacificare", which means to make peace or to pacify. Now the notion of "peace" and "pacification" are quite different, and what the Romans called "peace" is vastly different to our more modern conception.

For them, "peace" was something that was achieved under the boot of the Roman military, and so this is the idea that Tacitus is against. He's making a mockery of the Roman notion of "peace" and how they concieve of it.

All in all, it's a wonderful quote, and like many such words from Tacitus is highly relevant now (this is as much reading into him as what he actually says), because it also applies, to an extent, to American foreign policy since the 2nd World War. The current military operations in Iraq are dubbed "Operation Freedom", and one must ask, if we decontruct the notion of "freedom" is it being used in a similar manner to the Roman's "peace"? Is it truly freedom, or just how the powerful define it? "The Empire Never Ended" to quote Philip K. Dick.

As ever, the ancients are as vital to understanding ourselves and the modern world. Tacitus especially is almost a rent-a-quote for those of us a little distraught at the state of the world, but it's absolutely essential to remember who he was - a member of the Roman elite rather peeved that his class could no longer rule their Empire - and never to imagine him as the proto-"liberal" commentator that he never can be.

Scalae Gemoniae.

I was reading at About.com that today is the anniversary of Sejanus' execution for treason. Sejanus (occasionally, and properly, Seianus) was the head of the Praetorian guard and under Tiberius managed to establish huge control over the city of Rome, operating tyrannically with a legion of agents and informers that had the whole of Rome in fear. To my mind he's always been somewhat like the head of the Empire Gestapo.

In 31 C.E his conspiratorial plans were rumbled and reported to Tiberius who had the "partner of [his] labours" (Tacitus, Ann. 4.2) promptly executed. Cassio Dio tells us (58.11) that:

"By their order (The Senate's) he was executed and his body cast down the stairway, where the rabble abused it for three whole days and afterwards threw it into the river".

The stairway in question was the (in)famous Scalae Gemoniae or Gemonian Stairs. We have no record of their use prior to Tiberius, but it seems that they overtook the Tarpeian Rock as the favoured spot for bloody executions (the rock being "popular" during the Republic). From Tiberius onwards criminals would be strangled and cast upon the stairs for the people to desecrate their bodies, dogs to eat them and then after a few days tossed in the Tiber.

This interesting article suggests that the exact location of the stairs is unknown, but that they were near the Capitoline and were perhaps where the current Via Di San Pietro In Carcere is, which is a place I've visited during my time in Rome.

What made me especially interested in the stairs today (the anniversary of Sejanus' execution aside) is that they make a rather gruesome set piece in I, Claudius which I was watching recently. After Sejanus' execution (eerily seen from his point of view) he is tossed on the stairs and left to rot.

All in all it's rather harrowing, and goes someway to illustrate just how brutal ancient Rome truly was. Despite the overwhelming evidence of said brutality, it's a fact often overlooked as we study the humanity of the Romans or their achievements, but they were a gruesome lot, and the Gemonian Stairs illustrate that perfectly.

A God In Colchester.

I've now finished watching I, Claudius. Similar to my post below, this is for some (updated) thoughts and reflections - nothing too meaty.

Well, oh well. The second half of the series becomes increasingly dark (and given the amount of poisonings in the first half that's no mean feat!). Augustus is now a memory (although a deified one!) and the reigns of Tiberius and his Grand-Nephew (the Julio-Claudian stemma is pretty much needed to make head nor tails of the series entirely!) Caligula have turned out to be rotten ones. Roman women of good birth are conniving and sleeping (literally) their way through the entire city.

In short, Rome is a festering pit of decadence.

Then along comes the bumbling Claudius (or the cleverly bumbling in order to be ignored Claudius), and manages to make the Empire friendly towards a benevolent Princeps and decides he must allow Nero to take over the reins and soil the idea of an Emperor once and for all, which would consequently bring back the glorious Republic.

Nero firmly in power, the series ends. Jacobi is amazing in the final episodes, and as the scheming Claudius (a neat juxtaposition of his position in relation to his family - he's the opposite of a schemer and they're scheming all the damn time for most of the series) is ushered into the afterlife, I got a real sense of closure. This is after all Claudius' story - and with him it ends.

I was thinking about the sources for the series (and the novels), which seem primarily to be Tacitus and Suetonius, which I think is abundantly clear in the series. Echoes of Tacitus come through in the let's say "colourful" representation of aristocratic women, especially in the case of Livia. Tacitus is a writer who profoundly misses the Republic and is distrustful of the Principate - especially under despotic rulers. His nervousness about the nature of an Emperor dominated government, and the role of women are manifest in the series no end.

When you take this relatively negative view of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and then let the famous gossip Suetonius loose on the material, it quickly becomes the stuff of sordid soap opera. Compellingly sordid though it is. In many ways I consider the series as a Tacitean account "sexed up" (sexified?) by Suetonius (Graves and the screenwriters are also involved in the sexing up of the show).

Graves, of course, subverts both of these accounts in the case of Claudius because he allows Claudius to be narrating a (fictional) history that he is writing about his family, which in turn allows Claudius to depicted in contrast to how he usually is. Graves adds motive and explanation for why Claudius acted as he did, and I especially enjoy that aspect of the show. Claudius is no idiot - he sees what is going on around him and from his entire family is the only one to survive. Better to be alive with only half your wits than dead with all of them, as he says himself.

The show is just really bloody brilliant. The acting throughout verges on mind blowing (that scene with Brian Blessed comes to mind) and the unique direction, dialogue and score are all way, way above the standard of most TV shows (then or since). At the end of it all, after being a secret passenger to the Julio-Claudian soap opera, one is left with the real feeling that they know or understand these people that before Graves' novel were (perhaps) two dimensional historical figures. Therein is the rub - that's why the series is a triumph - we are Claudius' closet confidants, and through him everything is brought to life.

Like I said, it's just really bloody brilliant.

Oh and to blogdrop (is it even called that?) Juliette at Pop Classics has posts about each I, Claudius episode which go into much greater depth than I do. They're pretty great and available here: Pop Classics. (I don't think the entire series is there though).

Two events of note...

On the 24th of August 79.C.E Mount Vesuvius erupted, sealing the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum (among others) under volcanic ash, essentially "pausing" everyday Roman life, which would give us, almost some 2000 years later (1748), one of our most important windows into Roman society. It's difficult to overestimate how important they are to us.

Among the victims was the Elder Pliny, writer of the huge Natural History encyclopedia. Interestingly his nephew, Pliny the Younger (a prolific letter writer) wrote a letter to his friend, Tacitus, detailing the events of that day and his uncle's activities, which has survived. Conventionally numbered Letter 6.16, it ends with the rather haunting line:

"When daylight returned on the 26th—two days after the last day he had seen—his body was found intact and uninjured, still fully clothed and looking more like sleep than death".

August 24th (this time in 410. C.E) was also the date in which Alaric the Goth sacked Rome, setting the Western Empire ever more on it's doomed path. It had been almost 800 years since Rome had been subdued, causing St. Jerome to say (in a letter labelled Letter CXXVII):

"My voice sticks in my throat; and, as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance. The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken".

His words here go somewhere to explaining the magnitude of these events. Rome - traditionally founded in 753 .B.C.E, Master of the world from at least the mid 2nd Century, had fallen.

Arguably the latter event is the more important for where we find ourselves now, but I wonder how many people know of Pompeii, but couldn't say when the Western Empire fell, or who was behind it.

Interestingly, Vesuvius is getting some news coverage, while the sack of Rome gets very little.

On This Day: Vesuvius Erupts.

I should note that the exact date of Vesuvius' eruption is still up for debate. August 24th is usually the accepted date, but some varying versions of Pliny's letter, and also some archeological evidence (clothes, among other things) suggest it was somewhat later - perhaps as much as two months.

Some thoughts on David Shotter's "Tiberius Caesar".

As part of my effort to look at some slightly later periods of Roman history, I recently managed to find and read David Shotter's "Tiberius Caesar", which I found to be quite interesting, and owing to it's brevity, I managed to read it fully over just two sessions.

Shotter's short monograph (the main body of the work constitutes just 80 pages) on the Principate of Tiberius functions as a welcome and useful introduction to the man and his reign. The work is, of course, not meant to be all encompassing, but rather function as a starting point on any study of Tiberius. In that respect the work joins the ever increasing volume of monographs written by respected scholars that is both short enough and simplified enough to appeal to the general reader.

The work is separated into easy digestible chunks, covering Tiberus' early life, his accession to the role of Emperor, his relations to his contemporaries (the senate and Sejanus specifically), his administration and policies and finally his retirement and death. Treating the life of Tiberius under these headings (as opposed to studying his character outright) is, to my mind, the best way to try and understand the man and his reign, without becoming bogged down in gossip or exaggeration.

The analysis therein is generally of a high standard. Shotter's aim is to try and see behind the cruel and sadistic caricature that Tiberius is often portrayed as. Nevertheless, Shotter makes it abundantly clear throughout that Tiberius was somewhat of an awkward man, and the resulting depictions of him and his reign are an offshoot of the fact that he was misunderstood and not trusted by his contemporaries.

The illustrations are generally useful, although not referred to at all often. The images of coinage are fascinating, even if they feel a little tacked on. The stemma showing Tiberius' relations to the aristocracy is highly interesting, and the stemma of the Imperial family similarly so. Maps of both Italy and the Empire in 14 A.D are useful, although the former is clogged with cities never mentioned in the book and would benefit from a little simplification (Capri is discussed when the map is printed, although it's hard to find because of a plethora of towns around it).

The introductory sections are well written, and indicate the difficulty of pinning down Tiberius, as well as highlighting the topics that will be discussed later in the book. One bone of contention is when Shotter mentions the "inevitability" of the Republic's "disintegration" during his scene setting preamble (pg.7). Whether this is true or not is certainly up for debate, although Shotter doesn't mention it. I'm still to read his work on the end of the Republic, and so I will reserve judgement until I read that work and see if Shotter outlines his position more fully.

Shotter makes it clear from the offset that Tiberius was an odd character, especially in comparison to his predecessor, Augustus. He sets the scene for Tiberius' Principate well, indicating the early events that point towards his character (his forced divorce from his family, which he adored, and his reactions being such an example). Interestingly, Shotter also employs some modern psychology (pg.12) which is both welcome and interesting.

Coming out of the introductory sections Shotter makes one very much aware that Tiberius was a very private character, and while not "evil" as he is often painted, he certainly lacked a certain tact in his dealings with his contemporaries. Shotter uses examples to illustrate this, taking Tiberius's inability to hide his ultimate power in both a debate on rowdiness in the theatre and also sitting in court (pg. 30+31).

Shotter does well here to show the "square peg, round hole" nature of Tiberius in Augustan Rome, and not only the reluctance of Augustus to select him as a successor, but also the reluctant acceptance of it by Tiberius himself. All the while, Shotter manages to keep the readers conception of Tiberius away from the popularly slanderous ones, which is admirable.

One of the main focus' of the monograph is on the workings of the Imperial family, and especially the increasing factionalisation of it. This is evident in the fact that Shotter has two chapters named "Tiberius and the family of Germanicus" and "Sejanus" respectively. In the former Shotter makes much of the tension between the Claudian elements of the family (Tiberius himself, as well has his mother and Augustus' widow, Livia) and the Julian ones (Germanicus and his family). The discussion is light but fruitful, and serves to highlight the family politics of the period which Tiberius sincerely disliked.

The Sejanus chapter continues this discussion insomuch as it shows how Sejanus played Tiberius against Germanicus and his wife, Agrippina (especially the later), and how the increasingly factional nature of the Imperial family played into Sejanus' hands. Again the discussion is light, but very useful in understanding Tiberius and his role.

Shotter, by this point, has made his readers quite aware that Tiberius, if a little bumbling in his relationships, private and political, is not the deviant he is oft depicted as. Much effort is made by shotter to see behind the "dark hand" of Tiberius (pg.44) and that is a thoroughly worthy element of the work. On that topic, the later sections of the book, which correspond to Tiberius' later life, are refreshing.

Shotter pays little heed to rumours of sexual deviancy, rather he points out the relative modesty of the villa on Capri and mentions only once the skin condition that Tiberius exhibited in this period, and concluding that it was going around at the time, and not specific to Tiberius (pg.67). This is emblematic of Shotter's whole approach, as Tiberius skin condition and tales of it are intricately related to the stories of his perversions and maliciousness while in retirement.

The conclusions of the work are, in my opinion, decidedly fair. Shotter depicts Tiberius as a slightly tragic figure, one undeserving of how he is usually conceived. Shotter prefers to focus on Tiberius as an excellent administrator, a reluctant Princeps and someone who was ultimately uncomfortable in Augustan Rome, the two latter of which contributed significantly to how his Principate is conventionally understood to be negative.

Ultimately, Shotter calls Tiberius' reign a "stepping stone" (pg.80), that illustrated that Augustan policy could continue after Augustus and that essentially Augustan Rome could be Augustusless and still function. Arguably Tiberius unwittingly set the tone for the reigns of the later Julio-Claudians through his inability to hide his powers, but Shotter makes much effort to show that this was not from any active malevolence on Tiberius' part, but just his lack of tact. I agree with Shotter when he considers Tiberius' rule to both symbolise the continuation of Augustan Rome, but also it's inevitable consequences.

Like most of these such works, the book contains no referencing, but has a useful, if short, bibliography with recommended further reading. It also has a useful glossary of Latin terms, although the book itself is especially light on using them. Two useful sections are also tacked on at the end. One is a discussion of the primary sources for Tiberius' life and the other a brief discussion on numismatics.

The latter is short but interesting (it ties in nicely with the illustrations throughout the work, usually at the end of chapters, of coinage from Tiberius' reign) while the former is essential reading. Shotter summarises the inherent problems with Valleius Paterculus, Cassius Dio and Suetonius quite well, but it is in his short discussion of Tactitus that some excellent material can be found, which is perhaps expected considering Shotter's other extensive work on Tactitus.

I believe Shotter depicts Tiberius as the quintessential "Tacitean" Emperor. Tacitus was a senator with very strong Republican sentiments and so Tiberius' depiction in Tacitus' "Annals" is quite negative, but not excessively so. Tacitus exerts much energy showing how Tiberius had a terrible relationship with the senate, and in this respect Tiberius is the worst "Tacitean" Emperor - for he lacks the tact to deal with the senate effectively, and as a result his autocratic power is shown in the worst possible light. Tacitus longed for the Republic when the senate was so vital, and in Tiberius inability to deal with it correctly, he illustrated it's essential pointlessness under the Principate, and so Tacitus could do nothing but depict Tiberius negatively.

Admittedly, some of these thoughts are my own, but they are derived from Shotter's highly interesting discussion of Tacitus as a source.

Shotter's work is an interesting and thoughtful introduction to Tiberius. He admirably avoids the caricature, and rather seeks to understand the real Tiberius, who was altogether a rather more tragic and uncomfortable figure. One retains an overwhelming feeling of Tiberius' awkwardness, but also as a sense of sympathy for the man and his situation. Generally then, Shotter has given us a fair appraisal, and as much a taste of Tiberius' reign as such a short introduction can allow.

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Relevant bibliography: Shotter, D, "Tiberius Caesar", Routledge (2004)

Augustus' Social Legislation: a case study.

The following small case study on Augustus' social legislation was prepared by me several years ago to be presented in a Masters tutorial class. I have edited it only very slightly, and so the text seen here represents, essentially, the presentation as it originally was. Generally speaking, I still like the small commentary, and I think the views therein, while hardly controversial, are quite correct. Tasked to overhaul it entirely, I may write it somewhat differently, but generally I'm quite happy with it even in this form.

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The social legislation of Augustus is one of the defining characteristics of his reign, although it is problematic in many respects. There has been a tendency in the sources and in scholarship to glaze over the entire Augustan period as having a cohesive and systematically planned objective. Zanker, for example, speaks of a “goal orientated cultural program” enacted by Augustus throughout his reign. Ostensibly, it would seem, that the purpose of this program was to heal Rome from the wounds of civil war and strife.

The aim, according to this view, is to regain the pietas of a bygone age (albeit perhaps an idealised and imagined one) – the age where Romans were real men, their women loyal and their masculine domination of Rome’s neighbours rigid and complete. The consensus was that Rome had become decadent and immoral (a view espoused by moralising writers such as Livy and Sallust) and that it was this immorality – of which adultery and debased sexuality were a feature – that had caused the gods to abandon their favoured city of Rome and allow her to almost destroy herself.

The Augustan answer to this problem was in 18 and 17 B.C.E (followed later by a revision in 9 C.E) to enact legislation making adultery a public offence, and through a system of punishment and reward to induce higher birth rates and suitable marriage among the desirable peoples of Rome. Narrowly these laws are referred to as the Lex Julia or the Julian laws.

The ancient sources for this legislation are somewhat hazy. Suetonius mentions Augustus’s revision of old laws or enactments of new ones on “extravagance, adultery, chastity, bribery and on the encouragement of marriage among the various classes”, but he doesn’t really go into the specifics, preferring, instead, to paint Augustus’s seriousness on these matters by not conceding to complaining Romans in the theatre about the strictness of these laws.

In fact Suetonius has Augustus bring out Germanicus (his grandson, through the marriage of Agrippa and his daughter Julia) and his family as an exemplar, seemingly saying nothing other than epigrammatically sitting with the children on his lap (thus using the young man as a example for all to follow). The only specific Suetonius does mention is that, a revolt upon some of the law’s provisions resulted in increased rewards for childbirth and the allowing of a three year exemption on the obligation to marry following the death of a husband or wife.

That these laws were challenged in some form attests to the difficulty in glazing over the Augustan period as one in where Augustus systematically introduced planned reform across the entire social and public strata(s) to great applause and uniform acceptance.

Some more specifics for these laws can be garnered in the Digest of Paul (as part of a greater compendium of Roman law ordered by Justinian in the 6th century). One of the main aims of these laws was to punish the extramarital affairs of women. A father (a legal paterfamilias- Head of the family) was now allowed to murder his married daughter and her lover, if caught in his house or his son-in-laws committing adultery. Although he must kill both, for if only one was killed then he may be tried for murder.

The law also stipulated that a husband could not kill his wife if he found her committing adultery, but he could kill the lover without repercussions, but only if he was a criminal, actor, prostitute, slave and perhaps if he was a freedman. Furthermore, where he could kill the lover he was also allowed to injure him. If the lover was killed the husband had to divorce his wife within three days and instigate adultery charges against her. If he didn’t then he could be charged himself (it’s all rather complicated). Nevertheless, essentially adultery became a public offence, and was no longer to be dealt with privately, as such permanent law courts were set up to deal with it.

Moreover, the legislation also covered who could marry whom. The essential thrust of this legislation was to prohibit senators and up to their 3rd generation descendants marrying ex-slaves.

Another facet of the laws would seem to paint them as reactionary to the increasing immorality and influence of women. Sempronia in Sallust and Clodia in Cicero, for example, highlighted the growing promiscuity of women. Indeed the moralising here understands these women as immoral and to be acting utterly outside the correct parameters for female behaviour. Although this leads to an extensive debate on gender tensions, for the sake of this small commentary it is enough to highlight the notion that the legislation can also be read as – at least partly – reactionary to the antics of women in the recent past (the past which the laws set out to fix).

Overwhelmingly these various pieces of social legislation seem to form a cohesive policy. The stimulation of marriage and reproduction between desirable Romans and the continued chastity and security of the unions there built seems to be its aim. It’s perhaps a little dangerous to buy into that picture wholesale, though. Our knowledge of the laws is scattered, and the fact that they encountered resistance points towards the idea that implementing them was not a smooth process (indeed that a revision was required in A.D 9 also suggests this).

I think any attempt to understand the laws needs to understand the context surrounding their enactment. The idealised view is of a streamlined cultural policy enacted by Augustus as part of his greater reorganisation of the Roman state into a monarchy. The reality, I think, is a great deal muddier.

For example, the bringing back of traditional Roman pietas which in the Res Gestae Augustus tells us he instigated (8.5) by the restoration of the practices of their ancestors and the idea that Rome was born again after her dissent into moral debasement - espoused in Horace’s Carmen Saeculare, for example, where he speaks of Rome being reborn and the return of faith, peace and ancient modesty, even asking the Gods to help bring to fruition the new laws on marriage and birth – is often accepted as an imagined fiction. Analogously, even today people imagine the past as a bastion of moral excellence, and the same mechanism drove the Romans to be forever imagining their stern and masculine forebears that honoured the gods and brought many peoples under their dominion even if they may never have genuinely existed.

Even if the enactors of the laws and those affected by it believed this moral revolution tale, I think it still highlights a problem for us in fitting the legislation smoothly into the Augustan period.

Augustus’s apparent seriousness over the laws is well attested, the example Suetonius relates about the family of Germanicus in the theatre being one such example. Suetonius also tells us (89) that Augustus read a speech to the senate by a Censor called Metellus from 131.B.C about increasing the birth-rate “as if it had just been written” (the links between the past and the Augustan period in relation to social policies being highlighted). Furthermore, Tacitus tells us (3.24) that Augustus exiled his own daughter Julia (his only natural child) for breaking the adultery laws, and Tacitus also seems to feel that Augustus was perhaps overly harsh in his treatment – which could indicate just how seriously he took the laws and their enforcement.

Nevertheless, the idea that Augustus was coerced in some ways to enact these laws is also prevalent in some sources. Cassius Dio (54.16.3) suggests that Augustus only instituted the legislation under pressure from the senate and Ronald Syme (Roman Revolution, pg 453) posits the idea that the provincial elites were putting pressure on him also. These ideas conflict with the notion of Augustus being in complete charge of implementing a policy of social change and suggest that perhaps the “Augustan Party” that Syme speaks of played a larger role in seeing the laws come to fruition.

Suetonius (69) even suggests that Augustus was an adulterer, which again sets the smooth conception and enforcement of a homogeneous social policy against a rather more complex and greyer background. That he was seemingly exempt from the laws himself (he only had one daughter – Julia), highlights not only the difficulty in understanding the laws, but also the nature of Augustus’ rule – he was above everyone else – the rules, even his own ones, did not apply to him. This idea is powerfully argued by Werner Eck in the work reviewed below.

Further to these difficulties, Tacitus sees the laws as somewhat sinister (Annals. 3.28) mentioning the “tightening of the shackles”. Although Tacitus is a notorious sympathiser for the Republic, the idea he highlights about the legislation being perhaps too oppressive is reflected in Suetonius’s mention of “open revolt” and the subsequent revision of the 18/17 B.C laws in AD.9.

Overall, the social legislation of Augustus is problematic. It doesn’t quite fit into the period as easily as first understood. It is rather a mix of reactions to the period directly before Augustus secured sole rule and a mode to fix (what it believes) are the problems that caused the Civil Wars. I think they must be understood as part of a fragmentary whole. The laws were not smoothly accepted, and it’s possible that Augustus himself was not quite the moral beacon he intended to be (explaining, maybe, his treatment of his daughter in her exile and the way in which he brought her back to a more comfortable life in Italy some years later). In concluding, in abstract terms, I think it’s reasonable to see the laws as cohesive, they do seem to set out with the same ideas in mind, but with many things, once they are set into the context of genuine human relations and interaction they became much more complex.

A note on the merit of secondary sources and materials.

This debate is far too lengthy, and complex, for me to elucidate here, but I feel I should make a brief statement of my thoughts on the topic, especially considering the fact the question was brought up in my thoughts on Robin Seager's "Pompey: A political biography".

The myriad of philosophical and historiographical views on whether secondary sources are indeed useful are difficult to wade through, and so my immediate thoughts are to consider a more simple understanding, which I hope to, briefly, explain.

I think secondary sources have inherent worth. The amount of extant works we have from the classical corpus is extremely limited, and while the focus should always be on trying to make sense of the primary sources, secondary studies are, to my mind, necessary for further understanding. Essentially I'm walking, what I consider at least, a pragmatic line - it's unlikely that we'll find any more classical manuscripts and so to avoid stagnation, secondary literature is essential.

The amount of scholarship on the pitfalls of historiography generally is legion, and while I don't advocate disregarding it entirely (I think it's useful to be familiar with the intrinsic faults of any system one uses/is a part of), I believe that truly great secondary literature drives forward discussion and understanding of the primary literature, and regardless of any possible weaknesses, that cannot fail to be helpful.

For example, Ronald Syme's "Roman Revolution" and his works on Tacitus have driven forward interpretations of both Tacitus and the Late Republic/Early Empire with great enthusiasm and vim, whether or not one holds to his views now (it's unlikely anyone does now entirely, although the are still highly respected) is irrelevant, for the jolt he gave to scholarship was immense, and one can hardly say reading him did not force them to reevaluate the primary sources with a keener eye.

Generally these are my views. I'm aware of the debate, and also of the various problems of historiography, but I choose to skim over them somewhat in order to spend more time considering the secondary sources and in the light of those (and sometimes not in the light of those) reread the primary ones, always aware of the inherent problems of historical research and interpretations but choosing not to get lost in them.