Adulatio: A Word in the Lexicon of the Empire and its Transformations

The chain that links obsequium, adulatio, and adsensus in the works of Tacitus and some of his predecessors has long been known and has been well studied, as have the individual terms; but the relationship that makes adulatio a double-edged sword, which can promote careers but also subject them to the inevitable blackmail of those who promoted them, seems to have escaped the most up-to-date studies.