Tacitus and the Annals

Tacitus: The Death of Claudius (Annals 12)

In this course Professor Chris Whitton (University of Cambridge) explores Book 12 of Tacitus’ Annals. In the first lecture, we provide an introduction to Tacitus’ Annals itself, as a work of history and literature. The following three modules each focus on an important figure in Book 12 – namely, Agrippina the Younger, Nero and Claudius – before we turn in the fifth module to the figure of Tacitus himself and the kind of history he writes in his Annals. In a short sixth module, we provide some suggestions for further reading.

Tacitus and the Annals

In this lecture we provide an introduction to Tacitus and the Annals, focusing in particular on: (i) the figure of Tacitus himself (mid-50s-c.130), his political career and his literary output; (ii) Tacitus’ Annals in particular, including its hexadic macrostructure and annalistic arrangement; (iii) the typical ‘sandwich’ structure of individual years (domestic affairs–military/foreign affairs–domestic affairs) and the ways in which Tacitus varies this structure; (iv) the extent to which the choice of what to include/exclude from a historical narrative is itself a major act of interpretation; (v) the importance of Claudius’ wives to the structure of the second hexad (Books 7-12), and of Claudius, Agrippina and Nero in particular to the structure of Book 12; and (vi) the extent to which the death of Claudius at the end of the second hexad (Book 12) echoes the death of Tiberius at the end of the first hexad (Book 6) and anticipates the death of Nero at the end of the third hexad (Book 18).