“Tacitus had provocatively opened the Annals with Augustus' death.” / In undertaking his history Ab excessu Diui Augusti - now commonly known as Annals - Tacitus faced the problem of where and how to begin. The earlier Histories open with the consuls of 69, and much has been written on the importance of this timing for Tacitus' historiographical aims. In particular, electing to start not with the death of Nero but with the magistrate year establishes a thematic dissonance between the forthcoming narrative of the principates of Galba through Domitian and the traditional means of recording Roman history, which was structured by annual consular dating. But the choice of annalistic format did not oblige Tacitus to begin with 1 January: previous annalistic history had accommodated the different calendars of the Republican year, and events could easily take precedence over the calendar. So Livy elects to use the sack of Rome by the Gauls as the dividing point between his Books 5 and 6; and, though the move from monarchy to Republic is marked by the establishment of consular elections (1.60.3; 2.1.7), he is interested more in the process of change than in the time of year, more in the annual nature of the offices than in any particular annus or part thereof.

ROME AND THE WESTERN PART OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA

The conquest of Illyricum has been examined previously in the context of a general narrative of Roman expansion, as has initial Roman interaction with Illyricum from the perspective of Dalmatian or Pannonian provincial history, and through the analysis of primary sources. This book will examine Roman political conduct in Illyricum, the development of Illyricum in Roman political discourse and the beginning of the process that would integrate Illyricum into the empire and wider networks of the Mediterranean world. It will reveal Roman political and military engagement through the ways in which Roman power was present in Illyricum across the Adriatic and from Aquileia via the Ocra pass between 229 BC, when Roman involvement across the Adriatic starts, and the later Iulio-Claudian era, when permanent control over the Danube is established. In addition, this book will try to explore, as much as it is possible, the different narratives of this process, apart from the Romanocentric narrative of power and Roman military conquest, which dominate the available sources, and earlier scholarly interpretation of the events.

It is highly doubtful that the Romans could organise a grand strategy, apart from the loosely defined idea of the ‘conquest of the world’. We cannot really talk about ‘foreign policy’ in the modern sense, which implies a level of intentionality and consistency of planning during long periods of time. However, the Roman strategy on a regional level appears much clearer and better defined.

Edward Gibbon (1737-94) is today not often read as a 'colleague' by professional historians of Roman or Byzantine history. He is read rather, if at all, as a 'classic' of English literature, of which he is unquestionably an ornament. His luminous and eminently parodiable style has not pleased all his readers equally, however. But its intricate subtleties demonstrate time and again the truth both of Buffon's adage that 'le style c'est l'homme même' and of A.D. Momigliano's mantra that a history - any history - cannot be understood apart from the historian who composed it. Gibbon was besides an outstanding Latinist, and did not merely parade but made consistently excellent practical use of his 'seraglio' (his personal library) of 6,000-7,000 volumes. Though judged weak in source-criticism by the highest contemporary standards applied at Göttingen, Gibbon more than justifies the place he claimed - with David Hume (for some others, the first truly modern historian) and William Robertson - among the triumvirate of leading English-language historians of the second half of the eighteenth century.

The Agricola's first words, echoing the opening of Cato the Elder's Origines (fr. 2P = 2C), are as follows: 'to record for posterity famous men's deeds and characters is an ancient practice not abandoned even in our times' (1.1). There used to be no criticism, even of those who wrote their own Life; 'but now, about to relate a dead man's life, I have needed indulgence, which I should not have sought if planning an invective, so savage and hostile to excellence are the times [infesta uirtutibus tempora]' (1.4). The end of this sentence echoes Cicero's complaint in 46 BC (Orat. 35 tempora . . . inimica uirtuti). Tacitus then recalls how Arulenus Rusticus' Life of Thrasea Paetus, and that of Helvidius Priscus by Herennius Senecio, had resulted in the death penalty for their authors and in their books being burned (2.1). Tacitus did not need to specify that Thrasea and Priscus were senators and Stoics, who had met their deaths for 'opposition'. The fate of Rusticus, Senecio and others, condemned in 93, would be taken up again just before the end of the work (45.1), but for the moment Tacitus continues: 'No doubt they thought that in that fire the voice of the Roman people, the liberty of the senate and the conscience of mankind had been wiped out, since in addition the teachers of philosophy [sapientiae professoribus] had been expelled and all noble accomplishments driven into exile, so that nothing honourable might anywhere confront them' (2.2). Whereas 'the former age [uetus aetas] witnessed an extreme of freedom, we have experienced the depth of servitude' (2.3).

What, one wonders, was in the history section of Tacitus' library? At the core of the Greek section, we may safely assume, would reside Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon, with Polybius close by. Interestingly enough, however, in his extant writings Tacitus finds no occasion to mention any of these authors (Xenophon is mentioned once, as a philosopher, at D. 31.6); and his debt to the Greek historiographical tradition has never been fully explored - largely because it is not at all clear how great that debt is (in distinct contrast to his predecessors Sallust and Livy, whose respective debt to Thucydides and Herodotus is mentioned explicitly by Quintilian, Inst. 10.1.101). Rather, the influences at work on Tacitus seem to lie more substantially and understandably on the Latin side. Yet even here the list of Roman historians actually named by Tacitus is markedly circumscribed: no early annalist receives mention. In fact, with the exception of Julius Caesar (and two references to the Sullan historian Cornelius Sisenna), he names no historian prior to Sallust and Livy. The historical work of Asinius Pollio receives cursory notice, most significantly in the great speech of the historian Cremutius Cordus at A. 4.34.4. With respect to those writing after Livy, in the Annals Tacitus identifies as sources for various pieces of information Pliny the Elder, Cluvius Rufus and Fabius Rusticus, as well as the memoirs of Agrippina the Younger and the Neronian general Domitius Corbulo.

The relationship of the emperors to the senate is one of Tacitus' most important themes; and a striking feature of his writing, particularly of the Annals, is the large amount of space devoted to senatorial matters, especially the writing of obituaries and the recording of motions, sometimes proposed by men of little consequence. Power in the Roman Republic had been diffused between magistrates, senate and people. Polybius (6.10-18) saw an ideal, balanced constitution, but his and Livy's work allows the inference that after the Second Punic War the senate was the dominant force in the body politic. In the late Republic its power declined in the face of a resurgent populace and the ruthless ambition of magistrates and pro-magistrates. The Principate brought further decline, since Augustus' determination to remove the political conditions that had allowed his own rise meant that, inter alia, the collective will of the aristocracy had to be curbed. With him the senate made, almost unconsciously, a kind of Faustian pact: in return for massively enhanced dignity it surrendered much of its capacity to initiate actions of any real consequence. Augustus and Tiberius made much of consulting the senate, but their dominance rested more on an iron grip on the legions than on senatorial support.

PRELUDE TO THE ROMAN TRANS-ADRIATIC ENGAGEMENT

Roman active political involvement across the Adriatic started in the later third century. Their domination over Italy, and especially its southern part, brought the Romans close to the important axis of communication between the south-eastern tip of the Apennine peninsula and the Balkan peninsula. The foundation of Brundisium as a Roman colony shows Roman awareness of this geo-strategic axis, which was the shortest route between Greece and Italy. Roman initial trans-Adriatic engagement was focused chiefly on the south-eastern Adriatic coast, but they also developed an interest in the control of maritime routes over the whole eastern Adriatic coast in this phase. Roman dealings with the Illyrian kingdom formed part of many significant discussions in the earlier scholarship, and this chapter attempts simply to recognise the global patterns of the events, rather than to give their detailed narrative, because this has been dealt with elsewhere.

The most obvious reasons for the beginning of Roman interest in the south-eastern Adriatic, according to the sources, were the rising influence of the Illyrian kingdom and its endemic piracy in the southern Adriatic and Ionian Sea. This piracy interfered in the trade of Rome's Italian and Greek allies who demanded protection from Rome. Piracy at moments even disrupted the Roman supply routes for North Italy shortly before the second Illyrian war in 220 BC. However, a seemingly even more important factor than piracy that influenced Roman conduct was the possible impact of the Illyrian kingdom on the general political situation in Macedonia and Greece, so that Rome became concerned with the possibility of the establishment of a hostile anti-Roman, Illyrian-Macedonian alliance.

Many of the chapters in this book explore in their different ways the distinctive character of Tacitus as a historian. This one will sketch some of his general conceptions of history and show how he conveys them. / A philosophy of history? / Did Tacitus have a general philosophy of why things happen and, if so, does he make it explicit? Can we look to him for a theory of history, for systematic thinking about human life and its vicissitudes? The signs are not good, for no one who has considered these questions has emerged with a plausible picture of Tacitus as a thinker. On the contrary, opinions are divided between those who blame him for muddle-headedness and those who justify the muddle. 'Certitude is not given to mortals, and Tacitus is redeemed by his respect for the eternal ambiguities', writes Syme at the conclusion of his discussion. B. Walker, charitably, had pointed to a deep pessimism as the only unifying idea.

Tacitus' great reputation owes as much to his style as to the content of his writings, the two being fused in notable harmony. Yet the expression 'his style' is potentially misleading. First, just as a well-trained composer can compose in different genres and styles, so a well-trained Latin writer could write in more than one style. Most of this chapter will be devoted to discussion of the historical styles found in the Histories, the Annals and much of the Agricola, but Tacitus' splendid Dialogus is a virtuoso performance in a neo-Ciceronian style that is the equal of anything in Quintilian. Second, even in his historical works Tacitus' style varies: in particular, speeches tend to have more pointed phrasing and less grand vocabulary than narrative.Third, Tacitus' style developed throughout his writing career, becoming more idiosyncratic as it progressed: compared to the later Annals, the earlier Agricola and the Germania are less taut, compressed and solemn. Even the most distinctive of artists owe much to their predecessors and the fashions of the age in which they worked; we shall see that earlier historians, especially Sallust, and the pointed style fashionable in his own times are the dominant influences on Tacitus' historical style.

Nero is portrayed by all the ancient literary sources as a dilettante with artistic pretensions, a ruler who disgraces himself by performing publicly as a chariot racer, lyre player and actor. He is also a murderer who wreaks havoc on his own family and the upper classes at Rome, the ruinous conclusion to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. In terms of composition and structure, the Neronian books are significantly different from Books 1-6. Instead of one major contrasting character to the princeps, such as Germanicus in Annals 1-2, Tacitus presents many. As Syme observed, Tacitus did not want the history of this period to be just the history of Nero. Many of these characters are put to death at the order of the princeps. By focusing on Tacitus' accounts of these deaths, we can see clearly how the historian frequently uses them to bring out strong contrasts between the characters of the victims and that of Nero, or, on occasion, to show their similarities. Such an examination will also touch on some of the central themes of the Neronian narrative.

Virtually all ancient historians give a high prominence to speeches. This is a complex reflection of various related strands of the societies of Greece and Rome. For one thing, in antiquity persuasion through speeches played a central political role, and hence speeches needed to be represented as a significant causal factor in history. But there is a second aspect too: precisely because of the key political role of oratory, rhetoric was central in the education of the upper classes from whose ranks historians were invariably drawn. Hence historians found it very natural to interpret history through the presentation of speeches that both discussed and putatively influenced that history, and indeed to insert speeches largely or entirely of their own composition to illustrate key themes underlying historical events. Such speeches were often constructed to appear realistic - they were presented in direct speech and thus strongly mimetic, purporting to represent the speaker's actual words. But that formal similarity to real speeches is to some degree an illusion, for it is surprisingly rare for a political speech that appears in an historical text genuinely to be something that could actually have been delivered on the purported occasion. The most obvious point is that real speeches, such as those published by Demosthenes or Cicero, tend to be considerably longer than their counterparts in historians. The latter, though sometimes following a traditional oratorical format in outline, are typically far more terse and selective in developing their arguments.

Tacitus' first historical work can be dated with unusual precision. Internal evidence indicates that he was writing the preface to the Agricola between October 97 and late January 98 and that he was finishing the work after Trajan had become emperor (3.1, 44.5). Since we know from Pliny (Ep. 2.1.6) that Tacitus was suffect consul in 97, he may even have started writing the Agricola while still in office. Tacitus described the Agricola (3.3) as an 'interim book' and said that in due course he would write a larger work covering both the reign of Domitian (81-96) and the present time. This larger work, which we know as the Histories and which in the event covered the years 69-96 but excluded the present time, was in progress around 107, since that is the approximate date of the letter in which Pliny refers to it (Ep. 7.33.1). In the Histories (1.1.4) Tacitus repeated his promise of writing about the present time, but in his last and most celebrated work, the Annals, he went further back still to the years 14-68. The composition of the Annals seems to belong to the period after 113, when he returned from his proconsulship of Asia, but the precise dates are unknown. Of his two other shorter works, the Germania is assumed to have been written in 98; the date of the Dialogus remains unclear: the most likely year is perhaps 102, when Fabius Iustus (to whom the work is dedicated) was consul; but this is not certain and the evidence is disputed.

The work of Tacitus most single-mindedly focused on war (at least in its surviving portion) is unquestionably the Histories. From the point when Vitellius begins his invasion of Italy (1.51) war stands consistently at the centre of the narrative, as the war between Vitellius and Otho gives way to one between Vitellius and Vespasian, which is almost immediately succeeded by the narrative of the revolt of Civilis, punctuated in Book 5 by the beginning of the Jewish War. Although this may be part of what has made the Histories considerably less popular than the Annals among modern readers - military history appealing to a narrower audience than political and dynastic intrigue - it is entirely expected of a historical narrative in the ancient world. Indeed it was commonplace for an entire history to focus on (as it might be) 'the Peloponnesian War' or 'the Jugurthine War'; and even when (as with Livy) the history purported to cover all the events, domestic as well as foreign, of a state over a longer period, war was often used for the purposes of structural articulation within the narrative (so Livy groups many of his books in 'pentads' and 'decades' according to the wars that were taking place in them).

With the benefit of hindsight Tacitus can single out a moment for emphasis that may seem trivial when viewed from a contemporary perspective. Claudius is the subject of one such moment in 20. Thanks are proposed in the senate to individual members of the imperial family for avenging the death of Germanicus. L. Asprenas draws attention to the omission of Claudius' name, and it is added at the end. Pondering the moment, insignificant in itself, Tacitus is struck by 'the mockeries made of mortal affairs in every business: in fame, in hope, and in veneration everyone was destined for imperial power rather than the future princeps whom fortune was keeping in hiding' (3.18.4). Tacitus clearly relished the irony of the situation, and it gave him the opportunity to glance forward in his work.In 20 Claudius had been forgotten, as he would later be in 41 before the discovery that resulted in his elevation to Empire; and his liminal presence under Tiberius prefigures his marginality in his own reign. Claudius' passivity will become the central feature of Tacitus' portrait of an emperor dominated by his wives and freedmen.