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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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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