Sir ronald syme published hisTacitusin 1958. The elapse of more than thirty years seemed a good moment to reflect on the development of Tacitean scholarship since then and—no less important in these days of interdisciplinary study and interest in the reception of classical authors—on the reading of Tacitus in earlier centuries.

The present volume contains the papers that, in their original form, were delivered at a colloquium in March 1990 at Princeton University and intended representatively to illustrate Tacitus and the Tacitean tradition. Sir Ronald Syme himself had been invited to speak at the colloquium, an...

Ronald syme planned to attend our gathering. He loved symposia, colloquia, round tables, and all convivial occasions at which erudite talk was commingled with good company. This New Zealander who made his home in England was a citizen of the world. He traveled gleefully through it as often as anyone would pay his fare and, in recent years, even when he had to disburse his own carefully protected funds. His colleagues in Europe and America saw him often, if never for long. When he took up an appointment one year in Pittsburgh as a visiting professor, he informed his students,...

It has often been observed that the historian Tacitus took a special interest in the affairs of the province of Asia. In the second book of theAnnalshe describes in detail the petitions of no fewer than twelve cities of the province for assistance from the Roman government after a devastating earthquake.¹ In the third book of the same work he shows exceptional knowledge of the claims to the right of asylum in various shrines of the same province.² By way of introduction to an important new document on Rome and the rights of asylum in Greek sanctuaries, the...

Since the Renaissance scholarly investigation of Tacitus’Dialogus de oratoribushas focused chiefly on placing the work in its historical and literary context. For a long time authenticity was an issue.¹ When at last most had agreed on Tacitean authorship, the question of the date of composition came to the fore. The year A.D. 81 was long favored: that is, the last months of Titus’ reign before the accession of Domitian.² The Ciceronian, or rather neo-Ciceronian, style was the chief reason for postulating an early date: Tacitus needed time to make the 180-degree turn to the completely different style of...

Despite its interesting subject matter, the beginning of the Flavian regime and the Gallic revolt, Book 4 of theHistorieshas attracted little scholarly attention. One can only speculate on the reasons for this lack of interest. Perhaps the large amount of space devoted to events in the provinces holds less appeal for scholars eager to fathom Tacitus’ views onres internae;others may be discouraged by the dearth of comparative material, which makes a close study of Books 1—3 so fascinating.

The study of speeches has gone the way of the book as a whole. Ironically, Martin, who...

What exactly is the problem about the Tacitean Germanicus? There are at least four ways of putting the question. First, for Goodyear it is very much a question of consistency.¹ He stresses the difficulties of reconciling the apparently inept Germanicus of much of Book 1 of theAnnalswith the generally heroic tone in which he is described, and indeed with the much more satisfactory figure presented in parts of Book 2; but Goodyear feels that this is adequately explained if we assume that Tacitus simply makes Germanicus what he needs to be for each episode, glorious when he is...

Reference to the institutions, decisions, or actions of the Roman forebears (maiores) and to ancestral tradition is one of those recurrent features of theAnnalsthat, as Sir Ronald Syme has taught us, can reveal much about Tacitus’ interests and predilections and the important themes of his work.² The contexts in which these references occur and their functions are diverse. Such references are found in speeches and descriptions of speech acts, in letters, in digressions and excursuses, and in the narrative proper.³ They may serve to characterize someone as an upholder or betrayer of the traditions of the past: Augustus,...

The pisonian conspiracy against Nero in A.D. 65 is described as “a dismal failure” in the emperor’s most recent English biography, where the subject is assigned a mere two and a half pages.¹ Similarly Suetonius and Dio provide only brief accounts.² Yet Tacitus devotes to the conspiracy and its aftermath the last twenty-seven chapters ofAnnals15: it is thus the longest single episode in the whole of the extantAnnals³and the longest by far in the later books,⁴ This is a striking discrepancy. Moreover, by making the start of his account coincide with the start of the narrative...

Justus lipsius (1547–1606) was in his day the leading historian of ancient Rome, the most influential interpreter of Roman philosophy, and the best-known Latin philologist. His success in interpreting the ancient world to his contemporaries led to his extraordinary reputation in the period between 1575 and 1650. It also accounts in part for the scorn in which he was held by many of his contemporaries and continues to be held by many modern scholars, both historians and philologists. Throughout his career he never lost sight of his vocation as a teacher of future leaders for the state, the church,...

Scarcely known before 1450, Tacitus was alive and well in the sixteenth century.¹ To suggest the extent and quality of his reception, especially in Germany, here is a bit of doggerel from a contemporary poem “In Praise of the Ancient Germans” (“Ein Lobspruch der alten Deutschen”). I do not think that my rendering is significantly less elegant than the original German jingle:

Good manners to the German

count more than laws to Rome.

Not fraud, nor guile, nor usury

find place in the German home.

Adultery and whoredom are

unknown in the German’s life.

He covets no man’s woman but...

Tacitean history evokes the history of Tacitism. From as early as Boccaccio’s discovery of the manuscript of the Histories in 1362, Tacitus would be pressed into service as a political historian.¹ This truism has been amply and ably studied for the Renaissance, but thinly and poorly studied for the British Restoration and eighteenth century and its remarkable interplay of theoretical and practical politics.² These often are enhanced by the overt and covert presence of Tacitus in particular, and a redefined and gradually diminished classical patrimony in general. Gibbon’sDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire(1776—88) culminates a great...