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Tacitus: The Accession of Tiberius (Annals 1)

 
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About this Course

About the Course

In this course we explore Book 1 of Tacitus’ Annals, in which Tacitus describes the death of Augustus, the accession of Tiberius and the mutinies of the army in Pannonia and Germania. We consider not just what happened in those years, but especially how Tacitus presents and analyses it – and what sort of interpretations he might be inviting us to make.

Translations:
- A. J. Woodman (trans.), Tacitus, The Annals. Translated with Introduction and Notes. (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett, 2004)
- J. C. Yardley (trans.), Tacitus. The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. With introduction and notes by Anthony A. Barrett (Oxford World Classics, 2008)

Commentary:
- Norma Miller (ed.), Tacitus: Annals I: Bk 1 (1959, republished 1992)

Further Reading:
- Rhiannon Ash, Tacitus ( Ancients in Action) (2006)
- A. Woodman (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Tacitus (2009)

About the Lecturer

Christopher Whitton is Professor of Latin Language at the University of Cambridge. He works on Latin literature of the early Roman Empire, especially Pliny the Younger and Tacitus, with particular interests in prose style, intertextuality and the intersection of literature and history. His main research projects at the moment are a 'green and yellow' commentary on Tacitus Annals 14 and a monograph provisionally entitled Tacitus Revoiced: Reading the Histories with Pliny the Younger.