Sometime in the 800s, an anonymous monk in the abbey of Fulda–now in modern Germany–copied out a Latin history in one of the great inventions of the age, the handwriting known as Carolingian miniscule, which is more or less they system that we use today to print the English alphabet. Thanks to that monk, today we have the first part of the Annals of P. Cornelius Tacitus, arguably the greatest surviving history of imperial Rome.

But who was Tacitus? Why is he important? How could such an opinionated historian proclaim that he was writing without “anger and partiality”? Was he a champion of Roman liberty, or simply a grumpy aristocrat?

With me to discuss Tacitus is Dr. Eric Adler, Professor and Chair of Classics at the University of Maryland. His scholarly interests include Roman historiography, Latin prose, the history of classical scholarship, and the history of the humanities. This is his second time on the podcast. His last appearance was in Episode 195, which dropped on January 20, 2021, in which we discussed his then third book, The Battle for the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today.

 

For Further Investigation

Eric Adler recommends "some scholarship" on Tacitus's Agricola:

Clarke, Katherine. 2001. “An Island Nation: Re-Reading Tacitus’ Agricola.” Journal of Roman Studies 91: 94-112.

Liebeschuetz, W. 1966. “The Theme of Liberty in the Agricola of Tacitus.” Classical Quarterly n.s. 16.1: 126-139.

Momigliano, Arnaldo. 2012 (1990). “Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition.”In Tacitus, edited by Rhiannon Ash. 411-433. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sailor, Dylan. 2004. “Becoming Tacitus: Significance and Inconsequentiality in the Prologue of Agricola.” Classical Antiquity 23.1: 139-177.

Syme, Ronald. 1958. Tacitus, vols. 1-2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.