Tacitus’ A nnals OXFORD APPROACHES TO C L LASSICAL ITERATURE SERIES EDITORS Kathleen Coleman and Richard Rutherford Ovid’s Metamorphoses ELAINE FANTHAM Plato’s Symposium RICHARD HUNTER Caesar’s Civil War WILLIAM W. BATSTONE CYNTHIA DAMON Polybius’ Histories BRIAN C. McGING Ta c i t u s ’ A nnals Ronald Mellor 2010 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2010 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mellor, Ronald. Tacitus’ annals / Ronald Mellor. p. cm. — (Oxford approaches to classical literature) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-19-515192-3—ISBN 978-0-19-515193-0 1. Tacitus, Cornelius. Annales. 2. Tacitus, Cornelius—Criticism and interpretation. 3. Rome—Historiography. I. Title. PA6705.A9M45 2010 937 ′ .07—dc22 2009047671 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Nepoti Carissimo Eric Abraham Mellor Et Parentibus Suis Nancy Balter et Blake Mellor This page intentionally left blank Editors’ Foreword The late twentieth and early twenty-fi rst centuries have seen a massive expansion in courses dealing with ancient civilization and, in particular, the culture and literature of the Greek and Roman world. Never has there been such a fl ood of good translations avail- able: Oxford’s own World Classics, the Penguin Classics, the Hackett Library, and other series off er the English-speaking reader access to the masterpieces of classical literature from Homer to Augustine. The reader may, however, need more guidance in the interpretation and understanding of these works than can usually be provided in the relatively short introduction that prefaces a work in translation. There is a need for studies of individual works that will provide a clear, lively, and reliable account based on the most up-to-date scholarship without dwelling on minutiae that are likely to distract or confuse the reader. It is to meet this need that the present series has been devised. The title Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature deliberately puts the emphasis on the literary works themselves. The volumes in this series will each be concerned with a single work (with the excep- tion of cases where a “book” or larger collection of poems is treated as one work). These are neither biographies nor accounts of literary vii movements or schools. Nor are they books devoted to the total oeuvre of one author: our fi rst volumes consider Ovid’s Metamor- phoses and Plato’s Symposium, not the works of Ovid or Plato as a whole. This is, however, a question of emphasis, and not a straight- jacket: biographical issues, literary and cultural background, and related works by the same author are discussed where they are obviously relevant. Authors have also been encouraged to consider the infl uence and legacy of the works in question. As the editors of this series, we intend these volumes to be accessible to the reader who is encountering the relevant work for the fi rst time; but we also intend that each volume should do more than simply provide the basic facts, dates, and summaries that hand- books generally supply. We would like these books to be essays in criticism and interpretation that will do justice to the subtlety and complexity of the works under discussion. With this in mind, we have invited leading scholars to off er personal assessments and appreciations of their chosen works, anchored within the main- stream of classical scholarship. We have thought it particularly important that our authors be allowed to set their own agendas and to speak in their own voices rather than repeating the i dées re ç ues of conventional wisdom in neutral tones. The title O xford Approaches to Classical Literature has been chosen simply because the series is published by Oxford University Press, USA; it in no way implies a party line, either Oxonian or any other. We believe that diff erent approaches are suited to diff erent texts, and we expect each volume to have its own distinctive character. Advanced critical theory is neither compulsory nor excluded: what matters is whether it can be made to illuminate the text in question. The authors have been encouraged to avoid obscurity and jargon, bearing in mind the needs of the general reader; but, when impor- tant critical or narratological issues arise, they are presented to the reader as lucidly as possible. This series was originally conceived by Professor Charles Segal, an inspiring scholar and teacher whose intellectual energy and range of interests were matched by a corresponding humility and generosity of spirit. Although he was involved in the commissioning viii | Editors’ Foreword of a number of volumes, he did not—alas—live to see any of them published. The series is intended to convey something of the ex- citement and pleasure to be derived from reading the extraordi- narily rich and varied literature of Greco-Roman antiquity. We hope that these volumes will form a worthy monument to a dedi- cated classical scholar who was committed to enabling the ancient texts to speak to the widest possible audience in the contemporary world. Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University Richard Rutherford, Christ Church, Oxford Editors’ Foreword | ix