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Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:15:10 -0600
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Tacitus, Histories Book II. Edited by RHIANNON ASH. Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 2007. Pp. xiii + 415. Cloth, $99.00. ISBN 
978–0–521–81446–1. Paper, $39.99. ISBN 978–0–521–89135–6.

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Previously published CJ Online reviews are at 
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CJ Online Exclusive: 2008.11.01

This review will fall into two parts. I shall first discuss the present 
volume and then consider what kind of text it is. Be it noted from the very 
beginning, that this is a fine piece of scholarship. Ash (hereafter A.) is 
one of the leading Tacitean scholars of the present day. The book is 
incisive, well-written, and extremely learned. Yet as a college or 
university text it is somewhat of an incongruity, for it offers much more 
exegesis than is customary in college texts. Many students will, I fear, be 
overwhelmed.

There are eleven short sections in the Introduction: (1) Tacitus; (2) 
Ancient historiography; (3) QVO QVO SCELESTI RVITIS? Civil war and Roman 
identity; (4) Histories 2; (5) Dramatis personae; (6) Style; (7) Sententiae 
and moralising allusions; (8) The sources; (9) The parallel tradition; (10) 
Pro-Flavian historiography; (11) The text. This is a large number of 
subjects to discuss in three dozen pages, and a student who has digested 
the material presented herein will possess sufficient background for 
reading and understanding this important year in Rome’s imperial history. 
Further, in the commentary A. introduces sections of the text with fine 
essays.

The Histories are a masterpiece of Tacitean narrative, with the four and a 
half books that have survived covering less than two years. Tacitus has 
here the opportunity to delve deeply into discussion and analysis of events 
and people, in a way that he rarely had in the later Annals. This book 
contains some of Tacitus’ most brilliant presentations, such as the 
evolving character sketch of the emperor Vitellius, the rise of Flavian 
aspirations, the suicide and obituary of Otho, and the terrible events of 
civil war. To all this and more A. does justice, with great detail and 
learning, and, in a book of this scope, remarkable accuracy in 
presentation. [[1]] A commentary of this scope and learning will invariably 
elicit approval or a bemused nod of the head from its reader. A. has 
produced a major contribution to Tacitean studies, for which all students 
of Latin literature will be grateful. It is, without rival, the best 
available commentary on Histories 2. The question remains whether it 
belongs in the series in which it appears, the Cambridge Greek and Latin 
Classics.

In her Preface, A. uses the word “students” several times. But I think 
she has set her goal much higher. I have four other commentaries on the 
entire Histories or on Book II before me. These are W.A. Spooner’s 
complete text and commentary, dating from 1891, which for over a century 
has been the only complete English commentary; A.D. Godley’s The 
Histories of Tacitus. Books I. and II., a volume in Macmillan’s Classical 
Series, published in 1887 and reprinted a dozen times by 1942; A.L. 
Irvine’s Tacitus: Histories, Books I & II, one of Methuen’s Classical 
Texts, first published in 1952 and reprinted several times; and H. 
Heubner’s vast scholarly edition, in German, offering only commentary, 
published in five volumes between 1963 and 1982 by Carl Winter 
Universitätsverlag in Heidelberg. Spooner’s edition was meant to rival 
Furneaux’s text and commentary on the Annals, but, alas, fell short. 
Heubner’s was a match for Koestermann’s splendid Annales, published by 
Winter in four volumes, prepared with admirable speed, from 1963 to 1968. 
Godley’s and Irvine’s books were school texts and performed their jobs 
well, as the numbers of reprints indicate.

Where does A.’s volume fit into this canon? For a simple comparison, I 
selected four passages of two chapters each [[2]], dealing with important 
themes and subjects, and compared the number of lemmata, i.e. in a very 
basic sense, the extent and depth of the editors’ comments. The total 
number of lines in these texts is about 129. Irvine has the smallest number 
of lemmata, 71, followed by Godley with 82 and Spooner with 97. Heubner, 
unsurprisingly, has a quantum increase, with 226. But A. substantially 
surpasses him, with 275. Does such coverage suit a college textbook? Some 
may feel that it does not. In addition, the physical appearance of the book 
is very different from its predecessors in the same series. [[3]] When I 
opened the package in which it was sent to me, I was stunned at its weight. 
Then its size caught my eye; it was more than an inch taller and more than 
half an inch wider. Compared with Cynthia Damon’s edition of Histories I 
(2003) and R.H. Martin’s and A.J. Woodman’s Annals Book IV (1989), this 
volume is of a different order. I would not want to be a student carrying 
it around in a backpack or briefcase.

Any volume that outdoes Heubner in coverage and matches him in the quality 
of essays within the commentary is certainly more than a text. It seems a 
misfit in Cambridge’s green and yellow series, but would, I think, find 
an appropriate home and suitable companions in the Orange series, which 
already offers F.R.D. Goodyear’s two volumes on Annals 1 and 2 and 
Woodman’s and Martin’s Annals 3. Rhiannon Ash has produced a big book, 
and a very good one indeed. Every devotee of Tacitus has reason to rejoice.

HERBERT W. BENARIO
Emory University
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[[1]] At the very beginning of the book, in the list of Abbreviations, 
appeared an error which grated on me, as an old Johns Hopkins man: the 
initial of Basil Gildersleeve’s first name is “B,” not “G.” In 
2.2, it would be worth noting that Titus was not only taking risks by 
sailing in open water but by traveling by sea at all in the winter; also 
the text has the word inclitum, the lemma inclutum. At 5.1, discussion of 
acer militiae gives several similar expressions, but fails to identify the 
kind of genitive (surely one of specification) and directs the reader to 
Kühner-Stegmann’s great German grammar. But how many students, graduate 
or undergraduate, will have this book readily available, and will command 
enough German to consult it? At 11.1, the spelling Boudicca surprised me, 
since it is now routinely accepted, after Webster’s work, that the name 
has only one “c” (G. Webster, Boudica: The British Revolt against Rome 
AD 60, (Totowa, NJ, 1978) 13). At 11.2, the text has the word alae, the 
lemma ales. A brief discussion of the word deforme would have been welcome. 
In 11.3, the expression ante signa pedes ire not only describes Agricola 
but more immediately Vespasian at the beginning of Chapter 5. At 13.2, the 
young lady’s name is Anne Frank. At 14.1, the participle adactae suggests 
compulsion, not free will. At 31.1, the words which describe Otho, luxu 
saevitia audacia, form a splendid tricolon, which underscores Otho’s 
vicious character. He possesses three bad qualities, Vitellius merely two, 
which are actually one. Otho is certainly more to be feared. At 48.1, the 
text reads nec, the lemma necat. At 76.3, trucidatus, which is a much more 
powerful word than others like interfectus or occisus, might have been 
briefly discussed. At 77.3, Mucianus mentions four of Vespasian’s good 
qualities and balances them with three of Vitellius’ vices.

[[2]] Tacitus’ digressions, 37–8; the death and obituary of Otho, 
49–50; Vitellius at Bedriacum and his visit to the battlefield, 69–70; 
and Mucianus’ address to Vespasian, 76–7.

[[3]] The series has changed its physical format in the hopes that the 
binding will last longer.


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