The speeches in Tacitus ' « Dialogus » (5, 3-10, 8 ; 11, 1-13, 6 ; 16, 4-23, 6 ; 25, 1-26, 8 ; 28, 1-35, 5 ; 36, 1-41, 5), despite being at variance with one another in other respects, develop with increasing sophistication a single account of literary history with a complex interrelation of aesthetic and political factors.
When one seeks to slot the « Dialogus » itself into that account, however, one finds that the form in which the work is written appears to challenge the very analysis that it has developed.
