Customer Reviews

Tacitus: Histories, Books I-III (Loeb Classical Library No. 111) (Bks. 1-3)

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The Histories (Books I-III) by Tacitus must be one of the best historical writings of the ancient world. A chronicle of the turbulent events taking place in the years 69 A.D. and 70 A.D., these books capture what it must have been like to be where the action was taking place. It (the account) begins almost immediately with the brutal murder of the emperor Galba. It continues with most brief reign of Otho, an essentially defensive war against his most fearsome rival, Vitellius. Vitellius then captures Rome, kills Otho, and then himself is emersed in a war against Vespasian, who eventually defeats Vitellius. This history is wonderful firstly for its relative lack of biassed opinion. Almost all actions of the historical figures in the books are represented with the utmost objectivity. Only Suetonius, author of The Twelve Caesars surpasses him in this way. The books are filled with the most captivating descriptions of people and places. As one reads, one senses the terror of civil war and of battle. The reader is "put into the shoes" of thoses present at those awesome events. The descriptions of the second battle at Cremona, the documentation of the atrocities, are enough to make one's stomach turn. Tacitus was lucky to have had access to eyewitnesses and the imperial archives while writing these histories. The only thing to be truly aware of are the speaches quoted on the books. For anyone who is no familiar with ancient writings: it was not uncommon practice to "fill the gaps" with artificial speaches. You will, however get a good sense of what was on in the supposed orator's mind. Recommendations to anyone utterly obsessed with the history of imperial Rome seen through the eyes of people who were there. I'm in the process of reading books IV-V of the histories and they have just the same flavour! I hope you'll enjoy these histories as much as I have.

Since there are so many of these darn things the review shall be divided into three sections. First, a brief description of the Loeb series of books and their advantages/disadvantages. Second shall be my thoughts on the author himself, his accuracy, as well as his style and the style of his translator. This is of course only my opinion and should be treated as such. The final part shall review what this particular book actually covers.

The Loeb series date back to the turn of the last century. They are designed for people with at least some knowledge of Greek or Latin. They are a sort of compromise between a straight English translation and an annotated copy of the original text. On the left page is printed the text in Greek or Latin depending on the language of the writer and on the right side is the text in English. For somebody who knows even a little Greek or Latin these texts are invaluable. You can try to read the text in the original language knowing that you can correct yourself by looking on the next page or you can read the text in translation and check the translation with the original for more detail. While some of the translations are excellent mostly they are merely serviceable since they are designed more as an aid to translation rather than a translation in themselves. Most of them follow the Greek or Latin very closely. These books are also very small, maybe just over a quarter the size of your average hardcover book. This means that you'll need to buy more than just one book to read a complete work. They are also somewhat pricey considering their size. The Loeb Collection is very large but most of the more famous works can be found in better (and cheaper) translations elsewhere. If you want to read a rarer book or read one in the original language then you can't do better than the Loeb Editions.

There are five volumes of Tacitus in the Loeb Classical Library. This includes all his surviving works. Tacitus is one of the most famous writers of the Roman Empire. He wrote most of his works in the early second century but they all deal with the events of the previous century. He is generally considered to be the Empire's best and most accurate historian. His earlier works include the Germania which is an account of the Germanians, the Agricola which is an account of his father-in-law and his governorship of Britain, and his Dialogues which is basically just a rhetorical exercise. His most famous works are his Histories and his Annals. Strangely, the order of these two is reversed, a fact which is carried through in the Loeb editions. He began with the Histories which cover from the death of Nero through Domitian intending to continue on through Nerva and Trajan. Instead he went backwards and started his Annals with Tiberius continuing on until he filled in all of the Julio-Claudians after Augustus. His writing style is impossible to reproduce in English. In what surely must have been an intentional feature he refuses to include the parallelisms much beloved by all other Latin authors. This is where a writer compares two things using the same structure. Instead he will make the comparisons but change the way the second thing is presented grammatically. It's difficult to express in English how strange that seems. The other feature of his style is the frequent use of epigrams at the end of his sentences. These are pithy and often sarcastic comments that wittily sum up the essence of what he means. The most famous of these is probably "They make a desert and call it peace," from the Agricola. There are many good translations of Tacitus. This one isn't too bad but the Oxford World Classics translations of the Agricola and Germania, The Annals and The Histories are probably the best. Be warned though, the translation achieves its quality by being rather loose at times. The most accurate translation is the Loeb one, but it really depends what you're looking for in the book. Other useful sources for this period include Suetonius and Cassius Dio.

This is the first volume of Tacitus' Historia. As I said before he began with more recent history before going back to cover what came before. This volume covers the year of four emperors following the death of Nero. It does so in commendable detail as well and it is very interesting to see the different personalities who came to the throne in this time of crisis.

Publius/Gaius Cornelius Tacitus was born c. 55 A.D. under Nero's reign and his family seems to have had at least an equestrian rank. The date of his death is uncertain but placed at the close of Trajans reign in c. 117 A.D. Tacitus is considered by many to be the first modern Roman historian due to his avoidance of the praiseful oratory so common with other historiographers such as Livy. Tacitus tended to explain the events and persons as they existed and then delve into empirical speculation as to motives or causes.

This volume covers the close of Nero's reign in 68 A.D. and of the Julio-Claudian dynasty that Caesar had started. The lack of succession created a power vacuum in Rome filled by Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and eventually Vespasian in 69 A.D. The book offers a good insight as to what was really nothing more than a continuation of the power struggles between military commanders that were so pervasive in the Republic: mainly, who will be the new dictator/emperor? In addition to providing information about the aristocracy in Imperial Rome, Tacitus gives valuabe information on the workings of the Principate, the Imperial Roman army, and the notorious Praetorian Guard.

The Loeb library is reknown for its publications of classical texts in English and either Latin or Ancient Greek depending on the author. If you're a student or teacher of classics you can't go without this publication. This translation is a pleasant work to read. All of Tacitus' volumes by Loeb are presently availble. This is a very good investment for anyone who wants to be illuminated as to what humanity achieved over 2000 years before we even existed: it's priceless!