Roman Historiography

Recent studies of Roman exemplarity have established the significance and utility that exempla and exemplary discourse had for moral and ethical ideologies (Roller 2018; Langlands 2018). Exemplarity was frequently used as an educational tool, instructing Romans on qualities to acquire or avoid, while also providing models they could replicate in order to display admirable characteristics.

Working in the tradition of Syme’s (1958: 700-703) and Miller’s (1968) studies of word usage in Tacitean speeches and their theory that the speeches of Tiberius in the Annales exhibit a distinct diction conditioned by genuine Tiberian speeches, I argue that there is a narrowing of the semantic range of moderatio (and the cognate verb moderor) in Tacitus’ portrayal of Tiberius (as compared to the wider Tacitean oeuvre) that echoes the genuine Tiberian idiom of mode

In Tacitus’ historical works, laetus and its cognates are frequently applied to situations in which one figure’s death or misfortune inspires happiness in another. Although this use of laetus is neither universal in nor unique to Tacitus, it is sufficiently common to be notable.

This paper investigates Tacitus’ views regarding the principate through a close reading of his account of Vibulenus Agrippa’s suicide (Ann. 6.40.1). The episode, in which the accused eques drinks poison in the curia and the emperor’s lictors subsequently hang his lifeless body, has received little scholarly attention.

This paper examines social ambiguity between freedom and enslavement in Tacitus’ Agricola through the lenses of geography and medicine. Previous scholars have independently noted the Agricola’s themes of slavery (Whitmarsh, Lavan), geography (Clarke), and medicine (Leeman, Lavan). However, I argue that these themes are best understood together as commentaries on social turmoil in Domitian’s Rome.

Despite the immense recent interest in the physical environment of Rome, and more particularly the transformations of the city under Augustus (e.g. Favro, Haselberger, Nelis & Royo, Carandini, Loar et al.), one piece of evidence, with far-reaching implications, has been almost entirely overlooked. This paper will be addressing that evidence and its implications.