Tacitus - Studies and Reception History

Studies and Reception History

From Pliny the Younger's 7th Letter (to Tacitus), §33:

Auguror nec me fallit augurium, historias tuas immortales futuras.

I predict, and my predictions do not fail me, that your histories will be immortal.

The historian was not much read in late antiquity, and even less in the Middle Ages. Only a third of his known work has survived; we depend on a single manuscript for books I-VI of the Annales and on another one for the other surviving half (books XI-XVI) and for the five books extant of the Historiae. His antipathy towards the Jews and Christians of his time — he records with unemotional contempt the sufferings of the Christians at Rome during Nero's persecution — made him unpopular in the Middle Ages. He was rediscovered, however, by the Renaissance, whose writers were impressed with his dramatic presentation of the Imperial age.

Tacitus is remembered first and foremost as the greatest Roman historian. Encyclopædia Britannica opines that he "ranks beyond dispute in the highest place among men of letters of all ages." His work has been read for its moral instruction, dramatic narrative, and for its prose style; but it is as a political theorist that he has been and remains most influential outside the field of history. The political lessons taken from his work fall roughly into two camps, as identified by Giuseppe Toffanin: the "red Tacitists," use him to support republican ideals, and the "black Tacitists," read him as a lesson in Machiavellian realpolitik.

Although his work is our most reliable source for the history of his era, its factual accuracy is occasionally questioned. The Annals are based in part on secondary sources, and there are some obvious mistakes, for instance the confusion of the two daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, who are both called Antonia. The Histories, however are written from primary documents and intimate knowledge of the Flavian period, and are therefore thought to be more accurate.