The Place of Book 4 in the Annals

Hello.

My name is Ed by Spam,

and I'm a teacher in ancient history at Bra's Nose and ST Hans colleges Oxford.

And today we're going to be talking about testes Annals Book four,

and we're going to begin

by talking about wear. Book four fits into the overall structure of the annals.

We think that the annals ran for 18 books taking us from the accession of Tiberius

through to the suicide of Nero

in 68 a. D.

And we think that that 18 book structure breaks down naturally

into three groups of six or hex ads.

First six books

cover the Reign of Tiberius.

The next six books

covered the brief reign of Gaius or Caligula

and his successor, Claudius,

and the last six books were devoted to

the excesses of the reign of Nero.

But we just need to concentrate from now on the Tiberi in narrative,

often regarded as

the masterpiece. Within

the work as a whole,

the six books of Tiberius

can be broken down into two groups of three,

obviously books 123

and books 4 to 6,

and that gives book for a really central

importance. Book four is the hinge if you like, on which the whole work,

uh, swings.

Book forward what holds the two halves together.

And if you look at the beginning of the fourth book,

testis actually reboots the annals.

He starts it

all over again. He gives the names

of the console to seniors and antis to us

and says, This is the ninth year of Tiberius

and

launches into a survey of the State of the Empire

at that time,

a little bit like the survey of the State of the Empire with which he began annals.

But one.

And these similarities aren't

coincidental

is the kind of thing that you do when you begin a work of history

by giving a survey of where we are,

where we've got up to

looking back but also looking forward.

So book for

is a new beginning

if we think back to analyse one

another. One begins with the very beginning of Roman history.

In the beginning, says Tacitus,

Rome had kings

and he runs through in the 1st 10 chapters, the

death of Augustus

and the establishment of autocracy.

So but one we don't begin with Tiberius,

even though the majority of but one all of two and three is about Tiberius.

One doesn't begin with Tiberius,

and we haven't had

in the Tiberi in books a Tiberi in Beginning.

But now, in Book four,

we get it.

We begin the Tiberi in books again

with Tiberius in the ninth year of his

rain

and all the signs of beginning a work of history.

This idea of going over things are looking back of summarising what's happened,

given the state of

the empire where the armies are, what the resources are like,

what the character of imperial rule is

like. Allow us both to sum up what's happened in books 123

and look ahead for the action, which is going to happen in Books 4 to 6.

But it's a reboot with an importance because we get

the addition in Book four of a very important character,

and you know that.

I mean, Sir Janus

So genius is the central figure of Books four and five,

and in a way he dominates Book six as well.

Much of what we think was in the Lost Book six is a continuation of, um,

the vengeance of Tiberius against Sir Jonas and his supporters and the

rise to prominence of Caligula under the new Praetorian Prefect Macro.

So even though Surgeons doesn't live through to the end of the second part of the hex,

had his influence continues to dominate it right down to the end.

But who is,

sir? Genius?

We'll talk about him a bit more in the next section,

but essentially, he's the Praetorian prefect.

He's the head of the emperor's guards.

He's a key figure in terms of a political advice

and security,

and he's actually a character of quite long standing.

We'll talk a bit more about this in the next section.

What's important to know now is that he's been knocking around

in the background of animals 1 to 3.

He keeps on appearing, making these little cameos and then

retreating. But now he gets a full scale

introduction.

He's brought on

as a character who's been kept back and now brought on stage

at this crucial point where we begin the animals all over again,

and he's introduced us as a central figure.

So it's not just that we begin the

animals finally with Tiberius in this second beginning,

but we begin the annals with Sir genius to

The relationship of these two is the dominant one,

which shapes the whole of book for

In bringing Sir Janus on late like this,

Tacitus is doing something he does repeatedly in the course of Daniel's,

which we'll talk about, uh, a little bit,

which is showing his credentials as a historian,

Tacitus always wants you to be aware that he is a competent,

careful

and responsible historian.

One of the ways he does this is to

make you think of other historical texts which you've read,

and the great predecessor for a late entry

of an important figure in the history

is the late entry of Clear On

in Book three of Facilities History of the Peloponnesian War. One of the great

ancient history is written on the Greek side.

We know that Clinton was important before Book three,

but he doesn't get a proper introduction to the beginning of Book three,

at which point he then becomes a dominant figure.

And like Clinton in facilities, sir, Janus is a body.

He's going to give the whole text a much darker twist,

and testes begins the annals by saying in the consultative of anti STIs

and a serious in the ninth year of the reign of Tiberius,

the state

and the House of the Caesars were flourishing

when fortune began to turn savage

or to give control to savage men.

And that, in itself again, is another historical reminiscence.

The idea of fortune turning savage, recalls Tacitus, Great great predecessor.

Saleh's the Roman historians. Of all the Roman historians,

Tacitus looked up to Saleh's more than anyone else.

You can see it in his language, his style, his structure, his vocabulary,

his whole conception of the corruption of society.

It's very much drawing on the trail that Salazar had blazed 150 years earlier.

And, um,

Salluste uses this concept of fortune turning savage

to introduce the idea of decline in society.

And here, salus here testes does exactly the same thing. He, um,

uses fortune something quite rarely invokes in order to

flag to us that this is going to be

a major change.

So this beginning of the animals at the beginning of

the second tribe signals this is the dark three books.

The previous three books, you might think, have actually been quite dark.

I think that bastard spends a lot of

time insinuating things about how terrible Tiberius is.

So it's very significant that at this point,

rebooting the annals task to stops and looks back and says,

You know what?

Tiberius wasn't actually that bad.

He was a conscientious emperor. He wasn't extravagant. He was modest.

And with the exception of the treason law, which he messed up totally,

his rule was really rather good.

But now we've come to a 0.80 23 beginning of

the fourth book where everything is about to go wrong.