The Annals Of Tacitus Books 1 6

The first in a four-volume edition of Tacitus Annals 1-6. The Annals are Tacitus' brilliant account of Roman imperial history from the death of Augustus to the death of Nero. Books 1-6 describe the reign of Tiberius. Professor Goodyear's introduction to the series deals concisely with the background to the Annals. He outlines the history of Tacitean scholarship to the present day and shows how Tacitus' historical judgements were sometimes distorted by his preoccupations with style and with the moral function of historical writing. The commentary attends equally to literary, historical and textual questions. There are several appendixes on topics of more specialized interest.

The Annals of Tacitus, which chronicle the years AD 14-68, are arguably the greatest work of the greatest Roman historian. Book 3 of The Annals covers the years AD 20-22, a period including the trial of Calpurnius Piso for treason and the alleged murder of Germanicus. The editors are the first to compare a recently discovered record of this trial with Tacitus' narrative of the same events. Throughout the volume attention is paid to literary matters, and textual. linguistic and historical issues are treated fully.

Books 5 and 6 of Tacitus' Annals cover the last years of the emperor Tiberius. Although most of Book 5 is lost, Book 6 survives complete and offers a vivid narrative of the increasingly tyrannical princeps, secluded on the island of Capri; the book ends with his death and obituary notice, one of the most celebrated passages of classical literature. The volume presents a new text of Books 5 and 6, restoring the division between them which was proposed by Lipsius, as well as a full commentary on the text, covering textual, literary, linguistic and historical matters. An Appendix discusses 'The Tacitean Tiberius'. The volume rounds off the sequence which began with commentary on Books 1 and 2 of Tacitus' Annals by F. R. D. Goodyear (1972, 1981) and was continued by commentary on Book 3 by A. J. Woodman and R. H. Martin (1996).