Jennifer Devereaux
In this paper, I suggest that the power of Tacitean prose – and what has caused him to be designated as the greatest of all Roman historians (cf., e.g., Martin 1981: 234) – is that it meets the Gibbonian ideal that “the style of an author should be the image of his mind”. Not, however, in the typical sense that “le style c’est l’homme même” – namely, that an author’s style is indicative of his moral character (a view much advocated by, e.g., Seneca the Younger: cf. Dominik 1997). What I mean is that the ability of Tacitus’ narration to work its effects on his readers depends on a sharing of sensorimotor and perceptual images between author and reader through the text: in other words, on an “embodied historiography”. Succinctly contextualizing Tacitus’ writing style within its political, philosophical, and intellectual milieu, I analyze two passages of the Annals (3.12 & 13.25) that demonstrate the kind of rhetorical historiography Tacitus practices (cf. Goodyear 1972: 195; Woodman 1988). In fact, his use of language can be paralleled with Ciceronian invective (cf. Phil. 2.27.6, wherein multiple words denoting either consumption or a pouring out appear in context with Antony being metaphorically characterized as Charybdis (effuderit, absorbere, potabatur, consumpta, devorare, etc.). Through the use of similar rhetorical devices, Tacitus demonstrates that his strategy is to create an experiential “feel” that tells a certain kind of truth that the facts alone do not, and perhaps in Tacitus’ view, cannot. I argue that Tacitus’ compressed style, necessitated by conditions in imperial Rome, reflects his oratorical training in the use of “vivid illustration” (enargeia) and “imagination” (phantasia) to make audiences ‘see’ situations in their minds and react suitably, and that such vivid illustrations are representative of the unified mind and body of the Stoics (cf. Inst.6.2.29-32). That is to say, regardless of Tacitus’ commitment to stoicism in the broad strokes, his writing demonstrates knowledge of Stoic theories that support the notion that “readers, by means of their embodied minds, are physically present and engaged in the imaginary world of the story in ways extending beyond exteroception” (Kuzmičová 2013: 114). Moving beyond the notion of sight being the only modality involved in the successful creation of enargeia and phantasia, I argue that the cognitive “simulation” of experience enables Tacitean narrative to “work” persuasively and affectively by attracting the attention of the reader through the use of extended metaphors that elicit sensorimotor activity and constitute specific models for reasoning about portrayed historical events. This sort of inquiry into the rhetoric of Tacitean historiography is made possible, it would seem, at least in part because of Tacitus’ understanding of the mind-body connection theorized by the Stoics and confirmed by modern brain studies, and it is through this connection that we may come to better appreciate Tacitus’ historiographical strategy, presentation of literary truth, and rhetorical savvy. Therefore, a neurocognitive approach to narrative – in suggesting that the boundary between real and imagined worlds is less distinct than one might expect – aligns with the connection of the body to the mind observed by ancient authors and rhetoricians, and supports the idea that the evocation of common experience in the fashioning of literary truth (cf. Grant, 1995) could evoke emotional responses that aid in directing the reasoning of the readers of history.