This article is aimed at some critical observations on the relationship between writing in the present and writing in the past. As a starting point we will look at two conceptual axes: memory and forgetfulness in Paul Ricoeur. We understand memory as support of remembrance, a support of the past, which, in other words, means the construction of images of a past under the emblem of a "manipulated memory", which are narratives of oblivion. From this analytical framework, we will draw some thoughts on the division of powers between the emperor and senate, from the first century AD, in order to analyze the varieties of discourse in the testimony of Seneca and Tacitus, and in that same line, understand the construction of contemporary historical discourse and its projections at present in the features and gestures of the past, especially in the narrative of Tacitus. Palavras-chave : Memory; Forgetfulness; Discursiveness; Rome.