Tacitean studies

Tacitean studies, centred on the work of Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117) the Ancient Roman historian, constitute an area of scholarship extending beyond the field of history. The work has traditionally been read for its moral instruction, its narrative, and its inimitable prose style; Tacitus has been (and still is) most influential as a political theorist, outside the field of history. The political lessons taken from his work fall roughly into two camps (as identified by Giuseppe Toffanin): the "red Tacitists", who used him to support republican ideals, and the "black Tacitists", those who read his accounts as a lesson in Machiavellian realpolitik.

Though his work is the most reliable source for the history of his era, its factual accuracy is occasionally questioned: the Annals are based in part on secondary sources of unknown reliability, and there are some obvious minor mistakes (for instance confusing the two daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, both named Antonia). The Histories, written from primary documents and personal knowledge of the Flavian period, is thought to be more accurate, though Tacitus's hatred of Domitian seemingly colored its tone and interpretations.

Tacitus's contemporaries were well-acquainted with his work; Pliny the Younger, one of his first admirers, congratulated him for his better-than-usual precision and predicted that his Histories would be immortal: only a third of his known work has survived and then through a very tenuous textual tradition; we depend on a single manuscript for books I-VI of the Annales and on another one for the other surviving half (books XI-XVI) and for the five books extant of the Historiae. His books were clearly used by 2nd-early 3rd century historians such as Cassius Dio's report on Agricola's exploration of Britain, and Hegesippus may have borrowed from his account of the Great Jewish Revolt. His difficult historical methods and elliptic literary style, however, went unimitated except by Ammianus Marcellinus, who consciously set out to write a continuation of his works. His popularity waned with time: his unfavorable portrayals of the early emperors could not have earned him favor with Rome's increasingly autocratic rulers, and his obvious contempt for Judaism and Christianity (both troublesome foreign cults in the eyes of a 1st-century Roman aristocrat) made him unpopular among the early Church Fathers. The 3rd century writer Tertullian, for example, blames him (incorrectly—see history of anti-Semitism) for originating the story that the Jews worshipped a donkey's head in the Holy of Holies and calls him "ille mendaciorum loquacissimus", 'the most loquacious of liars'.

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