Customer Reviews

Complete Works of Tacitus

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While Tacitus remains the most brilliant, eloquent, and important of all the Roman historians, his translators Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb have purged the excessive verbosity and superfluity of style common in other translations to form a complete and precise representation of Tacitus' original. An amazing anthology at an affordable price...there's no better deal or collective genius of works available.

My experience with Tacitus in the original was brief and without professorial guidance, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the translators; however, Church and Bodribb's English is certainly readable if a bit outdated (A trait I like in translations of ancient authors). The lack of footnotes or maps is what dooms this edition, though it probably is directly related to the excellent price. I would only advise purchasing this book if money is that much of a problem for you or if you're only buying as an aid for translation, you dirty cheat you.

I read this book for a graduate course in Roman history. It is an indispensable primary source for students of Roman history.

On the first page of his Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus wrote that Octavian "seduced the army with bonuses, and his cheap food policy was successful bait for civilians." Tacitus' description of Augustus' transformation of Rome from a republic into an empire is most illuminating as well. "Upper-class survivors found that slavish obedience was the way to succeed, both politically and financially. They had profited from the revolution, and so now they liked the security of the existing arrangement better than the dangerous uncertainties of the old regime."

Sir Ronald Syme relied heavily on the work of Tacitus for his cogent narrative of Octavian's rise to power as Augustus. Syme's in-depth study of Tacitus' life and work was published in 1958. Tacitus' historical accuracy was doubted for centuries and Syme made a project of re-evaluating the accuracy of his historical writings. Syme believed that Tacitus was in a unique position to write about the birth and early political history of the Imperial period in Rome due to his very active political life. Tacitus had served as a senator, consul, and proconsul of Asia. In addition, he was known to be an excellent orator in his day. In his writings, Syme believed that Tacitus provided excellent accounts of Augustus' rise to power and his career as Rome's first Emperor.

Tacitus delved into the machinery of the new government, including Augustus' use of patronage as well as his many thwarted attempts at planning for his own succession. What Syme found was a man that grew very adept politically and whose political maturity rapidly developed at an early age. At eighteen, he was named as heir to Julius Caesar. He grew into the greatest Roman princeps spanning fifty-six years until his death. Augustus knew that to retain power he had to maintain the general consent of the governed. He astutely maintained order not by following the constitution or past precedent, but by using the tremendous resources at his disposal. Augustus kept the plebeians in check making sure they were fed, kept them amused with games, and constantly reminded them that he was protecting them from the oppression of the nobiles.

Augustus became the "leader of a large and well organized political party as the source and fount of patronage and advancement."

Recommended reading for those interested in Roman history, military history.

I became interested in Tacitus while reading Robert Graves' I, Claudius. Having familiarized myself with the labyrinthine Julio-Claudian family tree, I thought I would give the Annals a try. I assumed I would find a chronicle of the debauchery and intrigues of Livia, Tiberius, Sejanus et al, which I did, but I was pleasantly surprised to find much more.

Tacitus rose to prominence in an age of empire, but he nevertheless laments the decadence and complacency of his age, and looks back longingly to the stalwart and uncompromising republic. He caustically criticizes those of his own time who have traded freedom for safety under the imperial system. In the Annals, Tacitus focuses much on Germanicus, who he sees as a throwback to the days of the republic, and doomed never to realize his potential because he is born in the wrong era.

Tacitus' most devastating criticism of empire, however, appears in the later small work, Agricola, which Tacitus wrote as an encomium to his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, a renown Roman general who served in Britain. At one point in the story, Tacitus places a speech in the mouth of a Scottish chieftain named Galgacus, whose force is preparing to do battle with the Romans. Galgacus' speech is at once a condemnation of Roman depredations, and a rousing call to arms to Galgacus' followers. It is a very inspirational speech, containing elements similar to Shakespeare's St. Crispin's Day speech in Henry V and Richard II's sceptr'd isle. Galgacus's speech is the source of the quote now popular among critics of U.S. foreign policy: "They make a desert and call it peace." Although in this translation it is rendered, "They make a solitude and call it peace."

First, there are some things not to like about this edition (why I'm subtracting a star):

* small format pages
* Narrow margins means it's difficult to hold onto book without blocking text.

Really this book needs to be printed on slightly larger paper and given a little more in the way of margin space. Yes, this would make it a bit more expensive but you get what you pay for.

Otherwise, I think this is a good complete translation of the works of Tacitus. I found the translation accessible and quite readable, and the character of the author came across very well. In this book you will find a wealth of information about Roman history as well as some misc. other writings by Tacitus (The Agricola, The Germania, and a dialog on oratory). The work covers a wide range of topics concerning Rome, and provides a clear sense of what Tacitus thought and was trying to achieve with his writings. While one can never put a writing into the author's context in translation, this comes remarkably close.

I'd recommend this edition. I just wish they'd do better book design....

Tacitus is well worth reading; his history is given from the point of view of a Roman, so different form the Jewish viewpoint that I have previously read. To see things from another viewpoint is very useful to one's thinking and understanding. And to see the corroboration with the New Testament is also very useful.

Praise of Tacitus would be superfluous; but this edition is pure gold, unlike other series (ie. Livy) where one would sell it piecemeal the publishers have graciously bundled everything up in one unit, and deserve 5 stars for the effort, buy this book!...NOW!

I have just started reading Tacitus, but I want to respond and thereby get rid of your question.
As stated in the introduction, Tacitus is very difficult to translate. This is also obvious from the text. Frequently two interpretations are possible.
However, the content is well worth reading. You get pretty close to the personalities with their often disagreeable traits. The text reminds me of Herodotus in often starting a discussion, implicitly with the reader.
I look forward to reading the full book. Given the rather heavy substance, I have interrupted it temporarily for "Down the Nile".

This book is an excellent book by Tacitus who wrote down what he saw during the destruction of the temple. I mostly purchased this book as I was told in this one Tacitus saw the sign of the Son of Man just as Jesus predicted was to take place within their generation (Matthew 24:34) which Tacitus saw. Of course he did not see the bodily return which is still future, but this is just further proof of what Jesus really meant in Matthew 24 when He talked about His coming that resulted in carcasses Matthew 24:28, and mourning Matthew 24:30, and not the resurrection type of coming which is found in 1 Thes. 4, 5 which is not up to us to know when. With the bodily return at the end of our age there is no need for a sign in the sky because everyone will visibly see Him which results in resurrection. Due to the lack of the majority of Christians understanding passages like Isaiah 13:9 people easily misunderstand what is meant by His coming in Matthew 23-24. Josephus Wars also records similar sighting of the sign of the Son of Man in the sky. If you have a difficult time determining whether or not God can tell time based on the new testament verses, this is another book to get to prove God can tell time or keep track of His own invention of time.

You simply cannot beat these collected works for witticisms. And all of those sorts of phrases like what the kids mock, in Proust, at the beachhouse- "they ridiculed his Greek attendants" for example, describing the relations between the natives of some blah-stonia and their Roman legate sent to rule over them from a reclined couch strewn with sausages and succulent roast meats - you get the idea. It really is a hoot. The best part though, is that Tacitus is mindful, when writing the history of the emperors, of the moments when the old freedoms of the republic were gladly handed over by their owners to the flattery of the emperor's representatives, He appeals to their vanity and self-righteousness; chest-thumping, etc. It's all so very analogous to the changes the U.S. is undergoing today. Worth a read for anyone interested in politics. There's some stuff about Jesus in it too sort of indirectly, so if you're into all that evangelistianity, it's a new text you can cite predicting the apocalypse.