Tacitus' annals had survived it probably wouldn't have been all slander towards the emperors of the 1st century. The more explicit defence of republicanism in Graves' work (that is: much more explicit than in Tacitus' work) also made any further direct defense of black Tacitism quite impossible (as far as Napoleon, by not advocating a black Tacitism line of thought hadn't already made such interpretation obsolete). By the end of 20th century, however, a sort of inverted red tacitism (as the new variant of black tacitism could be called) appeared, for example in publications like Woodman's Tacitus reviewed: the new theories described the emperors of the principate no longer as monarchs ruling as autocrats, but as "magistrates" in essence defending a "republican" form of government (which might excuse some of their rash actions), very much in line with Graves' lenient posture regarding crimes committed under the rule of princeps Claudius (for instance the putting aside of the elder L. Silanus, showing the emperor's lack of conscience according to Tacitus, Ann. XII,3; while Graves' account of the same incident appears not to incriminate Claudius). Twenty-first century One of Tacitus' polemics against the evils of empire, from his Agricola (ch. 30), was often quoted during the United States invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, by those who found its warnings as applicable to the modern era as to the ancient (see for example The Guardian). It reads, in part: {|- |Raptores orbis, postquam cuncta vastantibus defuere terrae, iam mare scrutantur: si locuples hostis est, avari, si pauper, ambitiosi, quos non Oriens, non Occidens satiaverit [...]Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. | |Brigands of the world, after the earth has failed their all-devastating hands, they probe even the sea; if their enemy be wealthy, they are greedy; if he be poor, they are ambitious; neither the East nor the West has glutted them [...]They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace. |} (Punctuation follows the Loeb Classical Library edition) See also Classical republicanism and Republicanism: Tacitus' view on the republican form of government Res publica, meanings of this "mixed bag" concept in Tacitus' writings Notes Mellor, 1995, p. xvii Burke, 1969, pp. 162–163 Cassius Dio, 66.20; see Mendell, 1957, pp. 226, 228–229 Mellor, 1995, p. xix; Mendell, 1957, p. 228 Mendell, 1957, p. 226;