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- Description
About this Course
About the Course
In this course, Dr Chris Whitton (University of Cambridge) explores the story of Germanicus and Piso in Tacitus’ Annals. In the first module, we think about the figure of Germanicus himself, Tiberius’ adopted son and his heir-apparent. After that, we turn to the character of Piso – is he a villain or a victim? In the third and fourth modules, we explore the roles of the three major female characters in the story – Agrippina, Plancina and … a mysterious third – before turning in the fifth module to consider Tacitus as a historian. What choices has he made when crafting these events into a continuous narrative? In a short sixth module, we provide some suggestions for further reading.
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.
