Tacitus Reviewed [Hardcover]

Tacitus was Rome's greatest historian, and theAnnalshis greatest work. This book collects A.J. Woodman's writings on Tacitus over the past twenty-five years, focusing almost exclusively on theAnnals. Woodman offers new or different interpretations of some of the most famous passages in the work, and argues that, through familiarity, generations of scholars have misread significant passages, thereby gaining and perpetuating a distorted view of what Tacitus had to say, especially about Tiberius. His iconoclastic insights will have major implications for those who wish to use theAnnalsas a source for what happened in the first century AD.

Woodman is a brilliant Latinist...His work is the most important contribution to the study of Tacitus' technique. --Times Literary Supplement

Close analyses of individual passages powerfully support Woodman's thesis....Extensive notes, bibliography, and indexes enhance the work. A permanent contribution to scholarship. Highly recommended for graduates and scholars in classical studies. --Choice

...Woodman's essays bring even greater nuance to a writer already admitted to being magnificently talented....[he] restores the complexity of a text whose subtleties have sometimes been missed. --Bryn Mawr Classical Review