This thesis considers the geographical and chronological forms of ‘mirroring’ that offer a way of reading 'Annals' 1-6. It looks at how Tacitus’ depictions of non-Romans reflect back on Rome, and at the echoes of Rome’s past and future that can be discerned within his description of Tiberius’ principate. After an introduction that discusses key thematic and methodological questions, Chapter 1 shows that Tiberius’ accession and the Pannonian and German mutinies described in 'Annals' 1 echo Tacitus’ account in 'Histories' 1 of events of AD 69. Moreover, when the Romans attempt to conquer Germany, the Germans’ resistance to this and to other efforts to rule them shows up Roman responses to civil war and autocracy. Chapter 2 begins by examining potential similarities between Roman and both Parthian and Armenian history, and then focuses on Germanicus’ voyage in the east, recounted in 'Annals' 2. His actions associate him with many late republican and early imperial Roman figures, which suggests that there are continuities between those two eras. Chapter 3 extends this theme by discussing the echoes of Sallust and Caesar in the central books of the Tiberian hexad. Intertexts with Sallust’s 'Bellum Catilinae' especially hint that earlier civil conflicts are about to be replayed in some form, as the appearance of Sejanus, the ‘new Catiline’, confirms. Chapter 4 further considers Tacitus’ inferences about the overlap between republican and imperial history, and then examines anti-Roman revolts in 'Annals' 2, 3 and 4. Foreign rebels’ relative success in attempting to reclaim their freedom correlates with their distance from Rome, and this has clear implications for the status of Roman 'libertas' under Tiberius. Finally, the outbreak of ‘civil war within the principate’, and indeed within the imperial house, is analysed. Chapter 5 traces the continuation of this ‘civil war’, and proposes that the last book of the Tiberian hexad again looks directly to 69, as well as to the excesses of other Julio-Claudians. It also considers Tacitus’ account of Roman intervention in Parthia: this episode confirms imperial Rome’s propensity for autocracy and civil war. There follows a short conclusion in which some speculation is offered about how some of the themes discussed in this thesis with reference to the Tiberian hexad may have been represented in the lost central books of the 'Annals'.

Cette thèse consiste en un travail sur la représentation des groupes d’âge et de leurs rapports entre eux, dans le récit de Tite-Live en s’appuyant sur une comparaison avec d’autres écrits à caractère historique datant de l’époque républicaine et du début du principat. Loin d’envisager la question de la définition de ces âges sous l’angle des différents gradus aetatum, il s’agit plutôt de se concentrer sur l’étude comparée de la vision individuelle des âges de la vie chez Tite-Live, Salluste, César, et les historiens de la République. Ce travail propose une définition de ce que nous considérons, selon les critères anthropologiques modernes, comme des catégories d’âge, en tenant compte de la disparité entre termes masculins et termes féminins, de la multiplication des termes pour désigner une même catégorie, et enfin de l’emploi de certains termes à des fins idéologiques. On s’attachera également à dresser une typologie des rapports entre les différents groupes d’âge, et à voir comment ils contribuent à structurer la vie collective en même temps que les rapports interindividuels. La représentation de ces rapports, entre idéal d’obéissance et de concorde et conflits durables, permet également d’envisager les moments d’une réflexion sur ce qui est censé caractériser la société romaine du passé. Car l’intérêt de l’étude repose aussi sur l’époque de bouleversements et de restauration à laquelle sont écrites les œuvres du corpus, où la politique du principat succède aux troubles de la fin de la République, et cherche à renouer avec les anciennes valeurs romaines. Or, ce moment de redéfinition des valeurs implique une réflexion sur ce qui les définit, et de fait une nécessaire innovation dans les définitions. Comparer les différentes représentations des âges de la vie touche alors à l’étude d’une représentation de l’organisation politique et sociale à Rome aussi bien qu’à l’étude des mentalités / The purpose of this work is to investigate the representation of age groups and their relationship in Titus Livius’s Ab Vrbe condita, through a comparison with other historical accounts dating back to the Republican period and the early Principate. This study does not examine how to define age groups by means of the different gradus aetatum, but rather focuses on the comparative study of Livy’s, Sallust’s, Caesar’s and the Roman historians’ own visions of the ages of life. It introduces a definition of what in modern anthropology terms is considered as age category, while taking into account the contrast between grammatical genders, the large number of different words for a same category, as well as the use of lexis for rhetorical purposes. It also presents a typology of the relationship between the different age groups, documenting the part they play in structuring collective life and individual interactions as well. The representation of a relationship ranging from an ideal of obedience and harmony to long-lasting conflicts allows analysing the working of a mind over what supposedly characterizes life in Ancient Rome. As a matter of fact, it is worth noticing that the text corpus of this study is written at a time rife with upheavals and restorations, when the Principate eventually replaces the troubled Roman Republic and attempts to restore its traditional values, which implies working out anew what they actually are. Therefore, comparing the different representations of the ages of life naturally merges into a representation of political and social organisation as well as a survey of mores in Ancient Rome