Provincial Soldiers and Imperial Instability in the Histories of Tacitus

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Introduction Whether leading the charge with Vitellius, pillaging in northern Italy, or acting the role of the barbarian when they swim in the Tiber, soldiers of provincial origin appear frequently throughout the extant Histories of Tacitus. They are notably present throughout the civil wars of the first three books as well as the latter portion, which narrates the Batavian revolt along the northern Rhine. This participation—even overrepresentation—in the Histories’ account of the events of AD 69–70 has not elicited the critical attention it deserves, and scholars have focused the attention they have given on the intertextual rather than the historiographical implications.1 Why do the Histories contain this emphasis on provincial soldiers? What is it intended to illustrate for readers? I use the term provincial soldiers to denote subjects of Roman rule from the provinces who may be either legionary or auxiliary soldiers.2 Although legionaries were always citizens at the time of their induction, the Roman legions became increasingly provincial over the course Page 2 →of the first century AD.3 Auxiliaries were composed entirely of soldiers of provincial background. While the Histories ultimately focuses on the rebellion of auxiliaries in the Batavian revolt, Tacitus emphasizes throughout that the entire Roman military is dependent on manpower that is not Roman, not born in Rome or Italy. In the text, these soldiers do not share traditional Roman cultural values or customs. They worship the sun; they seek plunder at the expense of winning a battle and even personal safety; they have little understanding of or respect for Roman monuments or institutions. Furthermore, they are not drawn evenly from all the provinces.4 The provincial soldiers highlighted in the Histories, especially those in the auxiliary units, are not from old, long-settled provincial communities such as Narbonensis or Spain. Instead, they come mostly from the Rhineland and Syria. These soldiers cannot be summarily dismissed as “barbarians,” however, since they have Roman training in the military and live under Roman rule at home. Indeed, the Histories is filled with signs of the service, sacrifice, and more or less enduring loyalty that many provincial communities had devoted to Rome in the century before the death of Galba. More specifically, it shows how much Roman imperialism depends on provincial soldiers and how the bloodiest work of fighting is reserved for them. Yet Roman voices within the narrative insist on maintaining a model of rule and of hierarchy created a century before, which treats provincial soldiers, no matter how large a contribution they make to the Roman military, as virtual slaves.5 The Histories shows that this Page 3 →bargain is not just out of date: it engenders the enthusiastic and uncontrollable participation of these soldiers in, first, the revolts of the contenders and, ultimately, a separatist rebellion. The Romans’ failure to incorporate these subjects more fully into the Roman Empire results in a dangerous level of dissatisfaction, which fuels the instability that reaches catastrophic proportions in AD 69, the year of the four emperors.6 As presented in the Histories, the effects of Rome’s model of raising and rewarding provincial manpower are represented in a way that is best explained by arguing that the historian Tacitus intended to offer readers lessons for their own day—that is, for Trajanic Rome (AD 98–117)—on creating a more stable empire based on more stable provinces. Their participation in the civil wars, followed by the separatist Batavian revolt, shows that provincial soldiers destabilize the empire in two ways. First, since they are not invested in the ruling order they serve, they willingly participate in violent challenges to that order in the form of civil war.7 Second, as the Batavian revolt shows, they harbor dreams of independence that they may act on under certain circumstances—namely, periods of crisis in succession.8 These dreams are threatening to Roman stability because the soldiers prove willing to turn their training and organization against Rome.9 As the narrator of the Histories declares in the opening chapters, Galba’s accession disclosed that emperors could be made in the field. Page 4 →Licinius Mucianius, commander of four legions in Syria and Vespasian’s unscrupulous right-hand man, restates the idea more explicitly in book 2, revealing that the import of emperors made elsewhere is that armies make emperors: “Vitellius himself is proof that an emperor can be made by the army” (et posse ab exercitu principem fieri sit ipse Vitellius documento) (2.76.4). The Histories shows that at this very moment when the armies of Rome experience a dramatic rise in power, they are composed heavily of foreign soldiers whose services are indispensable. Within the military, the auxiliaries

contribute disproportionately. Their provincial origin, the abusive way auxiliaries are treated upon their induction into the military, and the fact that the bloodiest fighting is reserved for them has left these troops restive and eager for a new situation. Thus, the problem of controlling the Roman military, as Tacitus represents it, is not simply one of asserting better leadership over an unruly body; it also involves changing the identity of the fighters themselves. The way forward for the Roman Empire requires a very traditionally Roman concession: greater incorporation of subject peoples into the Roman state. To control the military and thus achieve the desired result of imperial stability requires a policy of reorienting the loyalties and values of these provincial soldiers—that is, manipulating their ethnic identity—in order to make them loyal Romans. By the time Tacitus began writing the Histories, he had already demonstrated an interest in the management of provincials. In the Agricola, Tacitus’ father-in-law, Gaius Julius Agricola, the governor of Britain, brings the uncivilized Britons to heel not only via warfare but also by promoting the adoption of Roman customs and values as a means of pacification.10 He encourages the formerly dispersed and uncivilized peoples to live in centralized Roman-style communities with temples and homes situated around forums.11 Tacitus’ Agricola also goes to work on the very identity of the Britons. He urges them to embrace RomanPage 5 → education: “Further he [Agricola] educated the sons of the leading men in the liberal arts, and he esteemed more highly the abilities of the Britons over the Gauls in education, with the result that those same ones who only recently were refusing to learn the Roman language were striving after eloquence” (iam vero principum filios liberalibus artibus erudire, et ingenia Britannorum studiis Gallorum anteferre, ut qui modo linguam Romanam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent).12 The Britons are depicted as undergoing near-instantaneous change and desiring their governor’s approval. Of their own accord, they start to display outward signs of their embrace of Roman styles and customs, in their clothing, an index of identity and allegiance: “Then even our style of dress became respected among them, and the toga was common” (inde etiam habitus nostri honor et frequens toga).13 The passage in which these observations occur is particularly famous for the sting in its tail. The narrative ends not with the Britons’ adoption of the toga and respect for law but with a descent to enervating vices: “they went astray little by little to the enticements of vices, porticoes and baths and the elegance of dinner parties” (discessum ad delenimenta vitiorum, porticus et balinea et convivorum elegantiam). The end result of this process is British enslavement to Rome: “This was called civilization among the ignorant, although it was part of their enslavement” (idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset).14 Underneath this cynical sententia, one can see Tacitus advocating a strategy of provincial management.15 True pacification of conquered subjectsPage 6 → requires their transformation inside and out, as Agricola replaces their cultural practices and languages with Roman ones. The way to peace and, thus, imperial stability runs through the incorporation of subject peoples, a manipulation of their very identity from Other to Roman. That is the model of the Agricola.16 Later in his literary career, Tacitus returned to his interest in the topic of the transformation of ethnic identity and connected it to the growth and success of the Roman state. In the Annals, he reworks Claudius’ speech on the admission of Gallic tribesmen to the citizenship, as a singularly focused and full-throated affirmation of the benefits conferred on the Roman state by formerly savage, enemy peoples. This passage affords one of the rare opportunities to compare a historian’s version of a speech with a (partially) preserved original.17 The differences are striking, not because the Annals features a dramatically altered version of what Claudius said, but because it reduces the emperor’s more diffuse points into a single-issue declaration: the Roman state has thrived throughout its history because of the incorporation of foreign peoples into the citizenship and their admission to the senate. I am indeed well aware that the Julii were invited into the senate from Alba, the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum, and, lest we focus on old examples, men from Etruria, Lucania, and all of Italy; and finally that Italy itself was pushed to the Alps in order that not only individuals one at a time but lands and peoples might join together into our name.18 (neque enim ignoro Iulios Alba, Coruncanios Camerio, Porcios Tusculo, et ne vetera scrutemur, Etruria Lucaniaque et omni Italia in senatum accitos, postremo ipsam ad Alpes promotam ut non modo singuli viritim, sed terrae, gentes in nomen nostrum coalescerent.)

The Annals’ Claudius lays out the history of the absorption of foreign peoples into the highest level of the traditional Roman state, in Page 7 →order to justify the continuation of that practice. Tacitus’ Claudius also offers a negative exemplum, when he cites the failure to incorporate conquered peoples into Athens and Sparta as the cause of their downfall (Ann. 11.24.6). Although Tacitus wrote this passage after the Histories, it and Agricola 21 establish the historiographical theme of the transformation of allied and provincial identity as contributing to the growth and success of the Roman state.19 With these passages in mind, I approach the Batavian revolt in the fourth and fifth books of the Histories with the premise that Tacitus’ concerns included ethnic identity, Roman absorption of subject peoples, and the success of the state. The role of provincial soldiers within the Histories has been only lightly touched on in recent literary scholarship and has never been addressed there in a comprehensive way. Rhiannon Ash, who has made the single largest contribution to the study of the Histories over the last twenty years, devotes some attention in her monograph on the subject to the presence of these soldiers in the text, especially within her discussion of the collective characterization of the Vitellian army. But her focus is much more on the literary texture of the work than on the historiographical meaning. In a more recent essay, Ash has discussed the narrative arc of the Histories, suggesting that it moves haltingly from identity confusion in the civil wars to more clarity with the Jewish excursus.20 In this reading, the Batavian revolt stands as a partial and complicated transition from the confusion of identities to clarity.21 The treatment of the Batavian revolt and its leader, Julius Civilis, in the fourth and fifth books of the Histories has generated most of the existing discussion of the role of provincials in the text. These studies almost uniformly see the revolt as serving as a reflection of events in Rome, rather than as a vehicle for examining the state of provincial service to Rome or for providing any kind of vision of provincial management. Holly Haynes devotes a chapter of her book on the Histories to the category-defying identity of Civilis.22 She argues that Tacitus uses the Batavian Civilis to deconstruct the dichotomy of self and Page 8 →other. Even when she analyzes Civilis, however, Haynes’ focus is firmly fixed on the crisis at the top of the principate’s hierarchy, where the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and its false image of the restored Roman Republic has precipitated a crisis of legitimacy for the successors. Elizabeth Keitel finds thematic coherence in the speeches of book 4 between events in Rome and along the Rhine.23 In Keitel’s influential reading, the unifying concern of the book is the tendency of discord to emerge in periods of relative freedom for both senators and provincials alike. This process is evident in the senatorial score settling after the accession of Vespasian and among the various Gallic and German tribes participating in the revolt after they take the city of Colonia Agrippinensis—founded as a Roman colony and the home of many people of Roman descent—and argue over whether to sack it. Keitel’s arguments are persuasive but limited, since they identify thematic unity only within book 4. Following the lead of Keitel, Myles Lavan has reviewed the rhetoric of mastery used by both Roman officials and Julius Civilis in the narrative of the Batavian revolt, as part of a broader investigation of the portrayal of Rome’s relationship with its provincial subjects in Latin literature.24 Lavan aims to show the ways in which elite Romans conceived of the relationship between Rome and the provinces. He detects a strong bias in favor of imperialism in Latin authors in general, though he is careful not to declare it outright in Tacitus’ case. With respect to Tacitus’ historical works and the Agricola, Lavan concludes that the rhetoric of slavery is enmeshed in the specific themes of the various works. He does not connect Civilis’ use of metaphors of slavery to broader issues of provincial participation in the events in the Histories, nor does he ask whether Civilis’ language engages with other voices within the Histories. Eric Adler does touch, briefly, on Julius Civilis’ criticism of Rome’s model of provincial management in book 4, though mainly as a way of summarizing potentially meaningful points in Civilis’ speeches.25 Adler is mostly content to see Civilis’ arguments as weak and ineffective, an interpretation for which the Histories provides only some support. We are thus left with a recent spate of valuable work that Page 9 →does not thoroughly investigate the role of provincial soldiers in the action of AD 69–70. A fuller integration of the Batavian revolt into the themes of the extant Histories is still lacking. Although provincial soldiers in the Histories can be found in the legionary forces of the Roman army, the vast majority of noncitizen soldiers were enlisted in the alae and cohortes of the auxilia. Certain areas of the Roman

Empire—different areas at different times—were relied on more than others to supply troops.26 The majority of auxiliary regiments originated in the western half of the empire, but the origins of individual soldiers who sustained these units varied.В Spain, Gaul, Germany, Pannonia, and Thrace (the most significant nonwestern imperial source of troops) were the heaviest suppliers of provincial forces before Hadrian.27 Gaul, Germany, and Pannonia, as well as Thrace, continued to refresh the auxiliary rosters through the third century, while Spain became less significant after AD 96.В Newly conquered areas of the empire, such as Dacia in the second century AD, also supplied new recruits.28 Wherever their place of origin, Rome’s provincial soldiers often ended up serving the empire far from home and among a diverse group of ethnicities.29 The study of these auxiliary forces has a rich scholarly tradition, beginning with Mommsen, von Domaszweski, and Cichorius in the early twentieth century.30 In 2013, Ian Haynes published Blood of the Provinces: The Roman Auxilia and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans, the first monograph-length study of the auxiliariesPage 10 → in the empire since G. L. Cheesman’s The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army appeared in 1914. Haynes’ title is derived from Civilis’ remark at Histories 4.17 that “the provinces are conquered by the blood of the provinces.”31 As Haynes observes, Tacitus’ line matched the historical reality: reliance on the provincial manpower that sustained the expanse of the Roman Empire made the empire “vulnerable to those provincials who, armed and trained to protect its interests, chose instead to pursue their own.”32 Turning away from older strands of scholarship on the Roman army, which focused on the ways in which the army contributed to the success of the Roman Empire from the top down, Haynes seeks to explore the day-to-day situation of auxiliary soldiers and their families across the empire and the ways in which they were incorporated into the Roman world. Blood of the Provinces argues that incorporation was a two-way process, which often was a by-product of the realities of army life and the role of soldiers on a local and individual level rather than the product of any intentional Roman policy. The book assembles an impressive array of epigraphic, papyrological, and archaeological evidence to support its central exploration of “how, at the humblest levels, individuals were incorporated into the networks that defined the Roman Empire.”33 The central role that Tacitus and the Histories in particular play in Haynes’ analysis indicates Tacitus’ importance to modern historians’ understanding of the auxiliary forces of the Roman Empire. Through close readings of the Histories, the present monograph aims to elucidate Tacitus’ view on provincial soldiers and the role they played in the events of AD 69–70. The Histories is, it should always be kept in mind, a fragmentary work. Because more than half of its books are lost, any interpretation of the text must necessarily be even more provisional than the analysis of a completed narrative would be. Nevertheless, we may identify continuities and themesand examine their implications in the text we have. My focus here is on the causes of the chaos of AD 69–70 on the ground level, as it were, of the empire and not—as is most common—at the top, in Rome, where the emperor and senate resided.34 Informing my interpretationPage 11 → is the didactic function of ancient historiography, rather than a desire to examine the historicity of the Histories’ version of events or to discover evidence in it for the real lives or experiences of provincials.35 Scholarship has paid a great deal of attention over the last twenty years to the exemplary tradition of Roman historiography, particularly to the Roman emphasis on images of notable individuals and conduct worthy of imitation or avoidance.36 In the preface to the Histories, the narrator signals his connection to this tradition by stating that however many immoral and unsavory acts his Histories details, the years in question also produced “bona exempla” (1.3.1). The Histories also draws on a broader didactic tradition, dating back to Herodotus and Thucydides, that emphasizes, to varying degrees of explicitness, the utility of history.37 Present in both Herodotus and Thucydides is the premise that because history is repetitive, understanding past events prepares readers, in some way, to deal with similar situations in their own day.38 Thucydides 1.22.4 is the locus classicus for this view. It may be that the lack of a romantic element in my history will make it less of a pleasure to the ear: but I shall be content if it is judged useful by those who will want to have a clear understanding of what happened—and, such is the human condition, will happen again at some time in the same or a similar pattern. It was composed as permanent legacy, not a showpiece for a single hearing.39 Page 12 →The didactic principle espoused here was to have a strong influence on Polybius several centuries later,

when he wrote his history of the rise of Rome.40 Polybius pushes Thucydides’ ideas further, to say that the didactic principle underlies all history writing.41 If earlier chroniclers of human affairs had failed to bear witness in praise of history, it might perhaps have been necessary for me to urge all readers to seek out and pay special attention to writings such as these; for certainly mankind possesses no better guide to conduct than knowledge of the past. But in truth all historians without exception, one may say, have made this claim the be-all and end-all of their work: namely, that the study of history is at once an education in the truest sense and a training for a political career.42 (Hist. 1.1) Here Polybius identifies the aspiring statesman as his intended audience. This passage is only the first time he touches on that topic, however, as he will return to the theme of the education of his readers throughout his Histories. At the start of his ninth book, he reiterates that the only readers for whom he composed the work are men actively involved in affairs of state. .В .В . there is only one type of reader who is likely to judge it favourably and find that it suits his taste, .В .В .В the statesman.В .В .В . Now as I have concentrated my attention strictly upon the last category and made it the exclusive object of my whole composition, the work has been shaped, as I explained, to appeal only to one type of reader.43 (Hist. 9.1) We should conclude that Polybius has composed his work with the statesman or aspiring statesman in mind because historiography has the potential to influence the actions and decisions of men who have Page 13 →authority to act on what they learn from their reading.44 The lessons for these statesmen-readers need not be limited to the small scale of their own personal conduct. Ancient historiography also offered lessons about the “big picture” and about where an entire government or community was heading. To see what kinds of lesson a historian might impart to readers and how he might do so, we should look to the earliest extant classical historiography and Herodotus’ Histories. The didacticism of Herodotus’ Histories, particularly of its final chapters, has been the subject of intensive debate for some time. There is no longer much disagreement with the proposition that the text seeks to inform its readers about their own present and future; at issue, rather, is how specific the lessons are. Does Herodotus warn the Athenians about their aggressive imperialism and the likelihood that this could result in their downfall?45 The answer must be yes—but a qualified yes, because Herodotus never explicitly warns the Athenians. Instead, he leaves it up to readers to draw conclusions themselves. In fact, the ending of his Histories is marked by the lack of any explicit commentary from the narrator. The final three episodes of Herodotus’ Histories begin with a palace sexual intrigue involving the Persian king Xerxes, his sister-in-law (who rejects his advances), and his niece (who is receptive to them) (9.107–13). Herodotus then narrates the story of the successful siege of Sestos led by the Athenians and of the brutal punishment of the Persian official Artayctes, who had earlier plundered the tomb and sacred precinct of Protesilaus, the man believed to be the first Greek killed in the Trojan War (9.114–21). Xanthippus, the father of the Athenian leader Pericles, oversees the crucifixion of Artayctes, who is also forced to witness the stoning of his son. The final chapter of the work is a flashback to one of Artayctes’ forebears, Artembares, who proposes to Cyrus that the Persians, now that they have acquired an empire, move to a more comfortable location than Pasargadae (9.122). For more than a century, scholars have been trying to make sense of this ending. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, GermanPage 14 → scholars in particular argued that the real ending of Herodotus’ Histories must be lost, since these episodes failed to provide any meaningful closure. They argued that the ending of book 9 lacked any explicit closing statements, that the siege of Sestos was not the end of military hostilities between the Greeks and Persians in this conflict, that Herodotus never narrates episodes he had promised earlier in the text, and that the material he does include is at times not particularly elevated.46 The “problems” earlier scholars perceived have more recently been seen as a highly suggestive and appropriate ending to Herodotus’

Histories. In the last generation, scholars have pointed out many thematic connections between the final three episodes and the earlier narrative, especially book 1.47 Xerxes’ pursuits of his sister-in-law and then of his niece recall the very first logos, or discrete story, of the work, the similarly inappropriate love story of Gyges and the wife of the king Candaules. The vengeance enacted on Artayctes for raiding Protesilaus’ tomb recalls one of the original cycles of retribution that Herodotus notes between East and West, the Trojan War. The brutality displayed by the Athenians draws comparisons to earlier brutality by Persian officials. The flashback to Cyrus returns readers’ thoughts to the creator of the Achaemenid Empire, whose rise is detailed over the second half of book 1. Two more abstract themes also reemerge. Cyrus discusses the influence of climate and landscape on culture, specifically how a challenging environment breeds a tougher, freer person, an idea that Herodotus had explored through the first four books in particular. Lastly, the final two words of the text, бј„О»О»ОїО№ПѓО№ ОґОїП…О»ОµПЌОµО№ОЅ (to be enslaved to others), leave readers pondering political freedom and slavery, a central theme of the entire narrative. This is a fitting ending, we now agree, not least of all because it pushes readers, by its very lack of guidance, to think about the past and its implications for the future.48 The ending looks beyond the temporal Page 15 →bounds of the work.49 The themes of rise and fall of empire, of enslaving other, weaker peoples, and of the effects of imperialist aggression on the imperialists themselves have applications to Athens beyond 479 BC.50 As I have noted, one of the most hotly debated points is whether Herodotus is warning Athens about its own imperialist conduct and potential defeat for attempting to extend its authority too far.51 However specific the lessons Herodotus is sharing with his Athenian readers are, scholars agree that the lessons are only implicit. The narrator provides no straightforward message to the Athenians to the effect that they should change their imperial strategy lest they experience a catastrophic reversal of fortune. Carolyn Dewald interprets this as a careful historiographical choice by Herodotus. In her reading, Herodotus refrains from commenting on the Athenian empire “not because Herodotus thought there was no answer, or because he didn’t want to offend someone, or because the answer didn’t matter, but because at the time of his writing this part of the pattern had not yet emerged.”52 In other words, Herodotus’ reticence in the final chapters of his Histories is intended to stoke readers’ thinking about Athens, its empire, and where its imperialism will lead, but the historian holds off on providing any guidance or, indeed, making a prediction. Dewald’s reading, like all the interpretations of the didacticism of Herodotus’ Histories, sees the reader playing a central role. The lack of explicit guidance shifts the responsibility of interpreting both the past and the present onto the readers. They must decide whether Athens is falling into the same pattern as Persia. It is, in her reading, an acknowledgment of the limits of his knowledge. I agree but suggest that it also reflects a didactic principle of historiography. Whereas Persian kings and noblemen lacked access to a work of history akin to that of Herodotus, Athenian decision makers have his Histories. This is a key underpinning of the utilitarian value of historiography more generally: it Page 16 →contains the possibility of affecting the future by presenting its readers with lessons about the past. In effect, the patterns Herodotus points out about aggressive imperialism are not guaranteed to be repeated in Athens, because his readers can take action based on the carefully researched and explicated precedent with which he provides them. Later in this book, when I draw out some of the messages that can be detected in Tacitus’ Histories, I will be led by the principles I have sketched out here in relation to the end of Herodotus’ Histories. First, historical works seek to provide readers with lessons that they can apply to their own times. Second, those lessons are not necessarily explicit. Readers have a vital role to play in the process of learning from history. They must engage carefully with the text and perceive how each episode is interacting with the others. Third, the lessons, while they may only be tentatively drawn, may be “big picture” lessons. As we see in Herodotus’ Histories, a lesson’s subject matter may be as momentous as how the state conducts its policy: if the leaders of Athens wish to avoid the defeats and catastrophes of other empires, they will need to alter how they treat their “allies” in the Delian League. One benefit of identifying and examining the didactic thrust of Tacitus’ Histories is that it allows us to build on the scholarship about the rhetorical nature of ancient historiography, while still connecting historiography to a concern for the accurate presentation of actual events outside the text. Beginning with the work of T. P. Wiseman

and A. J. Woodman a generation ago, English-language study of Latin historiography has largely split from the history narrated in the texts.53 Wiseman and Woodman argued that rhetorical education and rhetorical theory in particular, not the relentless pursuit of truth, determined the way ancient historians constructed their narratives.54 According to this line of thought, ancient historians employed the rhetorical practice of inventio, the discovery of material to support one’s case, to build up their narratives around a core of factual or traditional information. Above all else, these narratives were intended to tell an interesting story: “Historiography was regarded by the ancients as not essentially different from poetry:Page 17 → each was a branch of rhetoric, and therefore historiography, like poetry, employs the concepts associated with, and relies upon the expectations generated by, a rhetorical genre.”55 While this idea had previously been applied to Hellenistic historiography, Woodman argued that the work of all historians from Thucydides to Tacitus was based on this same premise about the nature and purpose of historiography.56 Through a very close reading of consecutive clauses in Cicero’s De oratore (2.62), Woodman argued that, rather than the truth, avoiding the appearance of bias was the principal concern of historians.57 For who does not know the first law of history, that he should dare say nothing false? Then that he should not dare say anything not true? That there should be no suspicion of favoritism in his writing? That there should be no animosity?58 (nam quis nescit primam esse historiae legem, ne quid falsi dicere audeat? Deinde ne quid veri non audeat? ne quae suspicio gratiae sit in scribendo? Ne quae simultatis?) In Woodman’s reading, plausibility, not veracity, was ancient historiography’s guiding principle. Luke Pitcher (among others) has shown that Woodman’s interpretation of the Ciceronian passage is not the only one possible, however. Pitcher reasonably notes that disavowing bias (“ne quae suspicio gratiae sit in scribendo”) suggests an attempt on the author’s part to disclaim any motive for distorting the truth.59 Even when Cynthia Damon accepts Woodman’s theoretical arguments, she cannot Page 18 →find a meaningful distortion of fact caused by the influence of rhetoric in a passage Woodman himself puts forward as exemplifying the effects of rhetoric on historiography.60 Thus, Woodman’s claims about the theoretical nature of ancient historiography are not conclusive, nor do the ancient historians themselves support his premise when they repeatedly criticize one another for fabrication or errors of fact.61 When he published his book in 1988, Woodman felt he was fighting a battle with modern historians who viewed the best of ancient historiography, especially Thucydides’ work, as resembling modern “scientific” histories of the nineteenth century onward.62 The situation in the study of classical historiography today is very different from what it was when Wiseman and Woodman began their assault on the preconceptions of modern scholarship.63 Historians and literary scholars of historiography essentially conduct separate types of research on the same Page 19 →material, with little communication between them. Thus, though it is now indisputable that ancient historiography is different from modern and that ancient historians had much wider latitude not just to make up speeches but to add detail that is conventional, a drawback of emphasizing these two points is that what makes historiography different from other genres of ancient literature is now being overlooked by insightful and knowledgeable literary scholars. Just because we should not trust the accuracy or veracity of each episode or anecdote in ancient historiography does not mean that we should either despair of finding any historical value there or assume that the historians themselves did not care about the veracity of their narratives. Regardless of the influence of rhetoric, these texts focus on instructing their audiences about what history can teach them. The lessons of history remain for us to explore. Writing with a view to the Roman world of his audience, Tacitus, like all ancient historians, takes the history of AD 69–70, selects the events he feels are particularly significant, and structures the whole in such a way as to inform the reader for his own day.64 His discussion of the past is necessarily meant to reflect and even provide a framework for understanding and influencing contemporary events. Thus, for instance, his description of the Batavian revolt, far longer and more involved than descriptions in any other source, may be understood to exist not least because such a careful presentation can inform Tacitus’ audience’s lives, especially as officials and policy makers under Trajan.65

To frame my approach to explicating the lessons expressed or implicit within the text, I adopt Wolfgang Iser’s theory of the implied reader: “the concept of the implied reader designates a network of responseinviting structures, which impel the reader to grasp the text.”66 As the conclusion to Herodotus’ Histories shows, gaining insight from historical works is not always meant to be easy. By pairing speeches, for example, or simply refraining from offering an interpretive framework, historians often place on readers the burden of “understanding”Page 20 → history and drawing lessons from it.67 I see the reader as performing a vital role in the process of interpreting the text of Tacitus’ Histories and working with the often-contradictory ideas and voices found there.68 Again, I follow Iser, who theorizes that “the reader’s role is prestructured by three basic components: the different perspectives represented in the text, the vantage point from which he joins them together, and the meeting place where they converge.”69 The process of interpreting a text involves identifying the “response-inviting structures,” based on the reader’s own knowledge and interest. The two main bodies of scholarship influencing how I analyze Tacitus’ Histories are the modern theory of ethnic soldiers and recent historical work on the awareness of ethnic identity within Roman culture. The theory of ethnic soldiers helps me frame the issues of imperial stability that I perceive the Histories to be illustrating, particularly the dangers posed to the stability of the Roman Empire by relying on provincial subjects to fight on its behalf. The work of Roman historians, especially Emma Dench and Gary Farney, has established the soundness of the premise that Roman discourse understood what we call “ethnic identity” and saw advantages and disadvantages to the participation of people of different ethnicities in the government of the Roman state. Particularly useful for formulating an interpretation of the role of provincial soldiers in the Histories is Carol van Driel-Murray’s adaptation of the theory of ethnic soldiers—a modern theory for modern states—to the experience of the historical Batavians. Using the Histories’ descriptions and the archaeological record of the Batavians, van Driel-Murray has analyzed the experience of the Batavians under Roman rule as an ancient example of “ethnic soldiers.” She draws on the work of Cynthia Enloe, who argues that modern states consciously cultivate Page 21 →military units comprising men of a single ethnicity.70 The intention of creating a special martial status for some ethnicities is to make these soldiers especially loyal to the state. The process begins with a form of ethnography, when colonial powers define certain ethnic groups as more warlike than others.71 Using this information, military officials employ the manpower recruited from these supposedly more belligerent peoples to contribute to imperial ventures. The most elaborate system of categorization of ethnicities based on their abilities in warfare are the “martial races” of India designated under the British Empire of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Gurkhas of Nepal may be the most famous example of an ethnic group deemed especially martial and therefore useful to imperialism.72 The Highland Scots were another source of famously elite warriors for the British Empire.73 Enloe and others show, however, that these ethnic units are not necessarily the reflections of preexisting ethnic identities, as the British recruitment manuals stressed,74 but the product of a dialectical process set in motion by the empires, which deliberately create categories that individual colonial subjects then seek to fill.75 The term Gurkha, for instance, did not originally describe a specific ethnic group in Nepal. It is the name of the town from which a Nepalese kingdom whose rulers came Page 22 →to be called the “House of Gorkha” was formed in the sixteenth century.76 Later when the British took notice of, fought against, and eventually began to exploit this manpower, they used the term Gurkha for anyone living in that region, although this was not an ethnonym that the tribes living in Nepal would employ for themselves. Men of a variety of ethnicities—Gurungs, Magars, Rais, and Limbus—could be defined as “Gurkha.”77 Likewise, the Highlander regiments included not only Scottish Highlanders but Lowlanders and even English and Irish who were willing to earn their pay by military service.78 In other words, colonial powers create categories with some (at times limited) connection to the ethnic groups they see on the ground, but these categories take on a defining force to which native peoples tailor themselves. Van Driel-Murray argues that the term Batavian, much like Highlander and Gurkha, came to refer to a category disconnected from its ethnic and geographical origins, for willing men to fill.79 In his enumeration of the Roman military in his day, Cassius Dio describes “picked foreign horsemen, who were given the name of Batavians after the island of Batavia in the Rhine, inasmuch as the Batavians are excellent horsemen.”80 This passage

suggests that by Dio’s time, Batavian had become simply a generic name for the elite horse guard of the emperor.81 We thus have an ancient analog of the modern process of creating an ethnic category of a martial race that is ultimately filled by volunteers of other ethnicities. For imperial powers, the presumed benefits of “ethnic soldiers” are numerous. First and foremost, they are a remedy for the difficulty military officials have in gauging the loyalty of recruits. Being able to draw on entire “ethnic groups” that have a proven track record of loyal service to the state is desirable: “Ethnicity, so often presumed by outside observers to be an unwanted nuisance, has, in practice, been clutched tightly by state elites. They see it as an eminently useful predictive Page 23 →tool.”82 Imperial powers also aim to create a special bond between the “ethnic group” and the imperial state: “By making military vocations an integral part of a group’s sense of its own ethnicity, the central state elite hopes not only to make the military recruiter’s task easier, but to wed ethnicity to state allegiance.”83 Although imperial powers “honor” ethnic soldiers with special respect or privileges, they have historically never granted them the opportunity of advancement through the ranks of officers.84 Van Driel-Murray shows that the historical Batavians can plausibly be seen as an ancient example of colonial people who are categorized as warlike and who therefore strive to fulfill the expectations of the imperial power. Far from being, as Tacitus presents them, privileged warriors who had a long-existing treaty with Rome that exempted them from tribute, the Batavians were “vulnerable and dependent frontier peoples being manipulated by the military authorities for the strategic purposes of Empire.”85 According to Enloe, the best military from the perspective of a state that wants to perpetuate the status quo is one that is not only effective in battle but also “most dependably acquiescent to state authority.”86 Therefore, following Enloe’s analysis, “the best of all militaries in the eyes of a state elite is one in which the most competent soldiers are also the most politically reliable because they have the greatest stake in the continuation of the current state system.”87 This concept of reliability is a particularly useful way of analyzing the Histories’ presentation of the problems the Batavi and provincial soldiers in general exemplify. They Page 24 →are certainly deemed capable fighters; there is ample support for that within the text. But the text also shows that they have become unreliable in AD 69. A series of incidents of indiscipline and troublemaking in the camps ultimately outweighs the benefits of their capability in war. The bigger problem Tacitus illustrates, however, is that Rome needs Batavian manpower or, if not Batavians, units of soldiers of some other martial ethnicity. In other words, the amount of work the Roman military must do to contribute to Roman imperialism, whether it is controlling the Roman Empire or expanding its boundaries, requires significant exploitation of soldiers to whom the state does not provide sufficient incentives and rewards to remain loyal. The empire does not have a successful system in place to encourage a military that, as Enloe puts it, is “dependably acquiescent.” While Tacitus would not conceive of Rome’s use of Batavian manpower or the Batavian revolt as do modern military and cultural analysts such as Enloe and van Driel-Murray, the theory provides a useful way of framing questions about the problems faced by the Roman Empire as a result of depending on ethnic units.88 Through the description of Batavian indiscipline and the language of the revolt’s instigator, Julius Civilis, the Histories reveals the potential for instability resulting from the arrangement under which Rome raises manpower and rewards the soldiers across its empire. Since Italy does not provide enough manpower to supply the military and to control the imperial space and fight enemies beyond it, the empire must depend on provincial recruits to fill out the ranks. The Histories uses the Batavians, then, to present a paradox of Roman imperial rule. Rome needs the service of these Germanic and largely noncitizen subjects to maintain control of the empire, but the arrangement under which they serve inherently possesses the potential to disrupt the stability of the empire. The Batavian revolt is the Histories’ case study for readers on how to prevent subsequent revolts, which will otherwise be inevitable whoever the Batavi of the future may be. A second modern concept—ethnic identity—is foundational to any discussion of empire and martial races. Though almost every study on Page 25 →the topic discusses the meaning of the term ethnic identity, there is no scholarly agreement on a clean, straightforward definition. In his influential discussion of the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism, Anthony Smith lists six criteria that together make up ethnicity: collective name, common myth of descent, shared history, distinctive shared culture, association with a shared territory, and sense

of solidarity.89 This list is not canonical, however. Within the field of classics, for instance, Jonathan Hall’s influential discussion of the topic, which synthesizes vast amounts of social-scientific research, concludes that only connection to a specific territory and a common myth of descent are necessary criteria for ethnic identity.90 While definitions vary, especially with respect to the necessary criteria, contemporary scholarship comes close to universal agreement in rejecting the idea that ethnic identity is somehow “primordial” and handed down intact through time. The prevalent view is that ethnic identity is socially constructed91 and instrumental: that is, it is something that more powerful individuals manipulate to further some specific aim such as accumulation of power or wealth.92 Enloe and other scholars of martial races share the instrumentalist view that ethnicity is not a fixed or primordial set of qualities handed down over time intact and unaffected by individuals and communities. Instead, they contend, it is constantly renegotiated and can be used as a means of either inclusion or exclusion, depending on the circumstances. But this view, while based on a more sound assumption that ethnic identity is a construct, is also too limited in that it denies agency to the individuals professing membership of an ethnic group. I employ the criteria and assumptions of the modern discussion of ethnic identity as an interpretive tool to help explicate Tacitus’ presentation of the Batavian revolt and the lessons of provincial soldiers in the Histories. In so doing, I am arguing not that Tacitus anticipates the modern definitions of ethnic identity but that his presentation of provincial soldiers in the Histories uses some of the criteria that modern scholars have identified. Tacitus may have possessed “primordialist” views on Page 26 →ethnic identity, but in the Histories, as in the Agricola, we see that ethnic identity can be transformed and manipulated by the ruling state. The rub, as Tacitus presents it, is that this comes at a cost: as the Romans rule and define provincial peoples, those peoples become more interested in acquiring the rights and privileges of Romans. The story of Rome’s absorption of other peoples was one of its central, foundational cultural themes93 and most likely evolved in tandem with Rome’s expansion of its citizenship, within Italy in the late republic and eventually outside of Italy.94 Emma Dench shows that the story of Romulus’ original offer of asylum became a way to imagine Italian citizens of Rome first, then ultimately Spanish or Gallic ones. Throughout its history, Roman discourse displayed an awareness of multiple layers to identity that respond to the expansion of the Roman world in general and of the citizenship in particular.95 Cicero’s articulation in his Laws of the two homelands, duae patriae, of Cato has stimulated rich discussion of this awareness: “I, by Hercules, judge that both he and all people from municipia have two fatherlands, one from nature, and the other from citizenship” (Ego mehercule et illi et omnibus municipibus duas esse censeo patrias, unam naturae, alteram ciuitatis).96 In the same passage, Cicero makes a point of insisting that Roman citizenship trumps one’s birthplace. But it is necessary that the fatherland, from which derives the name of the government and of the entire citizenry, take precedence in our affection. It is this fatherland on behalf of which we ought to die and to which we give ourselves totally and in which we place everything of ours and as it were devote our entire selves.97 (Sed necesse est caritate eam praestare qua rei publicae nomen uniuersae ciuitatis est, pro qua mori et cui nos totos dedere et in qua nostra omnia ponere et quasi consecrare debemus.) Page 27 →Emma Dench reads Cicero’s insistence that Roman citizenship takes precedence over one’s origo as evidence that he was still wrestling with the concept of dual citizenship that he had earlier rejected in his Pro Balbo.98 In defining dual citizenship in these passages, Cicero also seeks to convince his noble Roman audience that possessing another patria does not make one a less trustworthy or even a potentially disloyal citizen. The anxiety to provide the definitive proof of one’s loyalty, evident in Cicero’s “pro qua mori,” may derive from the suspicion that the stamp of one’s origo is deep and irreplaceable. About himself, Ennius famously says that he possesses “three hearts” (tria corda).99 Gary Farney argues that Ennius’ phrase denotes cultural as well as linguistic qualities, in contrast to the interpretation of Aulus Gellius, who preserves the fragment and takes the phrase to have a strictly linguistic meaning, that Ennius spoke three languages.100 Farney must be correct. As Agricola 21 shows, ancient authors knew that a language not only carried with it sounds that

represent things but also defined cultural meaning. Linguistic diversity is a symbol of cultural difference and of ethnic identity.101 Furthermore, Farney shows that what we might call “diversity” could be considered an asset in politics: politicians in the late republic pointed to their families’ ethnic history as a means of differentiating themselves from other candidates and thereby promoting their special qualifications for office.102 Previous scholarship on Roman ethnic identity both justifies the use of the concept for the explication of Roman literature and affects my vantage point for understanding the Histories. Indeed, this book argues that what we call “ethnic identity” is one of the major forces of the instability of AD 69–70. The Batavian revolt shows how unassimilated non-Roman and non-Italian subjects of Rome become unreliable, chafing at the imbalance between the expectations of military service placed on them and the rewards for their sacrifice. Through the text’s presentation of ethnic identity, we see how the path to imperial stability runs through the shifting ethnic identity of the provincial soldiers. In the Page 28 →Histories, both Romans and provincials should recognize that their histories, responsibilities, and fates are shared. Rome can capitalize on this awareness by drawing provincials more closely into the empire, giving them rewards of citizenship and greater responsibility for the management of the empire, which, in turn, will make the entire empire more stable and secure. Both the problems and the solutions of the instability driven by the provincials lie within a nexus the Histories creates, which combines the army, ethnic identity, and imperial stability. Chapter 1 of the present study first establishes the principle, within the Histories and in Roman discourse more broadly, that military service to the Roman Empire by non-Romans was based on the expectation of rewards. The chapter opens with the questions raised in the Histories by Julius Civilis, the primary antagonist of book 4, about the appropriate reward for provincial military service to Rome. While Civilis himself may be a dishonest turncoat, the Histories makes clear, in a variety of ways, that the Batavians and other northern provincials have ample reason to feel dissatisfied with the compensation they receive for their contributions to and sacrifices for the empire. The complaints about the rewards take on additional urgency because, as the final portion of the chapter argues, provincial soldiers are deeply involved in driving the civil wars seen in the first three books of the Histories. The second chapter of this study picks up on the theme of instability caused by provincial soldiers and explores the implications of the opening excursus of the Histories (1.4–11), in which the narrator surveys the state of the empire on January 1, AD 69. By replacing the traditional use of time as the organizing principle of historiographical opening digressions with a spatial organization, this excursus emphasizes the number and variety of sources of instability throughout the Roman Empire, from the Praetorian Guard in Rome to the armies who have shown themselves capable of acting as kingmakers to the discontented provincial communities. Comparison with Augustus’ Res gestae reveals that the excursus is not a confident description of a centrally controlled empire but an unsettling collection of current and future threats to imperial stability. Chapter 3 of this study investigates the annalistic structure of the Histories to show how the structure of the text sets up the fundamental problem of Rome’s failure to incorporate the provincial soldiers doing Page 29 →most of the fighting. Starting with the opening words of the text, the Histories puts pressure on the republican historiographical form of annales as a reflection of traditional Roman identity. This alerts the reader to the programmatic significance of annalistic features. The annalistic form proves to be a conspicuously ill-fitting structure for the events of AD 69–70 and, indeed, is working against the grain of imperial historiography at that time, which was tending toward biography. Within the annalistic structure of the text, we see that there is no longer a clear distinction between domestic and foreign affairs reflected in the absence of external affairs (res externae). The century-old principate and the even older Roman Empire have produced a situation in which Roman and Other are not easily distinguished. The Histories highlights the threat to Roman identity through the tension between the expectations of the annalistic structure and the events of AD 69–70. The fourth chapter of this study returns to the Batavian revolt and examines how participants on both sides of the conflict fail to understand the effects of a century of Roman rule in the northern provinces. The provincial side aspires to either a return to a pre-Roman freedom or an empire of its own. The Roman voices suggest that a return to a rigid ruler/ruled hierarchy is the answer. In fact, the Histories suggests that both sides are wrong. The

provincials and Roman rulers are stuck with one another but will be continually at odds unless they can forge a new understanding. The way forward for both is a new deal that offers far greater rewards to the provincial soldiers while guaranteeing their loyalty and allegiance to the empire. Chapter 5 of this study argues that the Histories not only diagnoses the structural problems of Roman imperial rule but also offers solutions to the instability and identity confusion evident throughout the extant work. By emphasizing throughout the Histories the mutability of identity in Roman history, the Histories suggests that the empire could gain stability through greater incorporation of provincials. The text evokes the era of the Social War several times as a model for this process, suggesting that to achieve a unified empire and ensure the loyal participation of its provincial subjects in the military, a new iteration in the process of uniting Italy is now required.

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Chapter 1 The Batavian Revolt I The Risks of Reliance on Provincial Soldiers Book 4 of the Histories of Tacitus focuses much of its narrative on the Batavian revolt, an insurrection on the northern Rhine that begins with the encouragement of the Flavians but soon grows into a full-fledged revolution seeking independence for a collection of Germanic and Gallic peoples.В The narrator identifies Batavian native and Roman citizen Julius Civilis as the architect of the rebellion.В In articulating one of Civilis’ arguments for the revolt, Tacitus represents him as using a metaphor of accounting in which Roman management of its manpower is construed as a balance sheet: on one side, the Roman Empire demands the ultimate sacrifice from provincial soldiers, and on the other side, it pays nothing in return.103В Even though Civilis is dishonest and treacherous, his criticism provides insight into one of the Histories’ central concerns, the empire’s dangerous reliance on provincial soldiers.В Within the context of the Histories, this criticism appears as the last of three passages in which Civilis Page 31 →asserts that the management of provincials is abusive and unjust,104 passages that together form a broad indictment of Rome’s exploitation of its provincial soldiers. Moreover, because earlier discussions of rewards for soldiers in Latin literature support the notion that military service for Rome is a quid pro quo, Civilis’ remarks have solid intertextual backing. Later in book 4, Tacitus uses a speech of Roman general Petilius Cerialis to answer Civilis’ criticisms and to proclaim the benefits that provincial peoples reap from living under Roman rule.В Cerialis’ statements about the selfless protection that Rome provides for provincials dissolve upon examination, however.В This failure to provide an honest exposition of the benefits of Roman rule leaves Civilis’ criticism undefeated and reaffirms that the metaphors of accounting used by the Batavian antagonist are, in fact, a valuable interpretive tool for understanding the failures of Rome’s model of raising provincial manpower and maintaining imperial stability in the Histories. At a critical moment in the development of the Batavian revolt—the combined Batavian and Germanic forces have scored a series of victories against the remaining Vitellian units that have not marched to Italy, and the former are laying siege to two legions at Vetera—Antonius Primus sends a Gallic messenger, Alpinius Montanus, to Civilis, with a letter telling Civilis to desist from any further military action, because the Flavians have defeated the Vitellians at Bedriacum.105 Primus warns Civilis that the Flavians will consider any further fighting as acts of war against the new regime of Vespasian. Civilis—who has already begun working to win over Gallic auxiliary units—has other ideas, however. He intends not only to ignore Primus’ threat but also to persuade Montanus to join the revolt. Significantly, as a Trevir, Montanus belongs to a tribe that will eventually join the rebellion106 and that serves as the Page 32 →audience for three addresses by both provincial and Roman leaders on the nature of Roman provincial rule, presented throughout book 4.107 Tacitus gives Civilis the first word on the subject of Rome’s imperial management, in Civilis’ indignant address to Montanus, where the language of accounting appears. Splendid payment I have received for my efforts: the murder of my brother, myself in chains, and, from this army, the most savage threats. For these things I, previously sought for execution, demand penalties by the natural law of mankind. You Treviri, on the other hand, and the rest of the spirits of slaves, do you expect any reward for blood spilled so many times except thankless military service, endless taxation, rods, axes, and the whims of slave masters? (4.32.2) (“egregium” inquit “pretium laborum recepi, necem fratris et vincula mea et saevissimas huius exercitus voces, quibus ad supplicium petitus iure gentium poenas reposco. vos autem Treviri ceteraeque servientium animae, quod praemium effusi totiens sanguinis expectatis nisi ingratam militiam, immortalia tributa, virgas, securis et dominorum ingenia?”)

Civilis construes an alliance with Rome in terms of a transaction, in which provincial people offer service in the military (with all the danger and sacrifice this entails), tribute, and toleration of the abuses of the Roman rulers, while the Romans fail to offer meaningful recompense in response. In particular, “pretium laborum recepi” suggests an investment whose return fails to live up to its promise, and “praemium effusi totiens sanguinis” implies a transaction in which the Romans clearly get the better deal.108 Civilis argues that the failure of the empire to provide sufficient returns on the costly investment that the provincial soldiers Page 33 →continuously make justifies reconsidering their terms of service. His solution to the bad deal is rebellion, from which the narrator tendentiously informs readers that the Batavian expects to profit handsomely.109 The Histories is the principal source for the Batavian revolt and the only one of any length and substance.110 Because Tacitus’ account of the revolt is inextricably enmeshed in the themes of the three previous books of the extant Histories and surely also in the lost six and one-half books, attempting to present an outline of the rebellion that does not reflect the idiosyncratic concerns of the Histories as a whole is unlikely to succeed.111 Nevertheless, a brief sketch may be possible. Before the death of the emperor Vitellius, Batavian auxiliaries began a movement that first gained some independent German tribes as allies and later came to include Gallic adherents who were also Roman subjects. After the death of Vitellius, the new emperor, Vespasian, ultimately sent eight legions, under the command of his son-in-law, the veteran general Petilius Cerialis, up the Rhine to quash the rebellion. The revolt wound down in early 70.112 Tacitus’ account provides a number of details that are impossible to verify but that create a compelling example of his distinctive style of historical storytelling. The narrative of the revolt is told across three separate panels within the Histories. The first two occur in book 4, surrounding the turn of the year from 69 to 70 and a brief description of events in Alexandria, where Vespasian still remains, and in Rome, where Mucianus rules in his stead. The final piece of the narrative comes in book 5 and is incomplete because of the loss of the rest of the Page 34 →Histories. In Tacitus’ account, Julius Civilis initiates the revolt (4.13–15), using a brutal Roman levy of Batavian men and boys as the flash point to persuade his fellow Batavians to seek independence. He begins the revolt with the encouragement of the Flavian general Antonius Primus, who hopes to use the Batavians to open up another front in the war against Vitellius (4.13.2). Civilis pretends to be an ally, but—angry at his treatment at the hands of the Romans—he treacherously uses his supposed alliance with the Flavians to provide cover for the rebellion (4.14.1). The Batavian cohorts, whom Tacitus portrays throughout the Histories as a frequent cause of quarrels and dissension within the armies, prove to be eager conspirators. After the aforementioned letter from Primus, following Vitellius’ assassination and the Flavian victory at Bedriacum, fails to persuade Civilis to end the movement (4.32), the Flavians recognize the revolt for what it is but do not yet mobilize against it. In the north, Civilis succeeds in winning over Gallic provincials, notably the Treviri and the Lingones, to the revolt (4.55). Even the large assemblage of experienced forces under the leadership of Petilius Cerialis, the veteran commander sent to suppress the rebellion, does not succeed in definitively crushing it (4.71). They defeat the Gallic elements of the rebellion quickly (4.71), but not Civilis and the Batavians. In the final extant chapter of the Histories, we find Julius Civilis negotiating for peace in response to Cerialis’ overtures and reminding the Romans that he began the entire movement with the encouragement of the Flavian side (5.26). Modern Roman historians have devoted particular attention to discovering the true nature of the revolt.113 Arguing that Tacitus’ account is at times contradictory and incoherent, many attack its trustworthiness as a source. Gerold Walser, Ralf Urban, and Thomas Wiedemann, among others, argue that Tacitus misrepresents the events of what was essentially a continuation of the civil wars, by presenting it as a conventional description of barbarian rebellion. In their interpretation, the historical Batavians were allies of the Flavians but eventually joined forces with defeated Vitellian legions with the goal of forming their own Roman empire. These scholars further argue that Tacitus, following Pliny Page 35 →the Elder and, ultimately, other pro-Flavian accounts, recasts this front in the civil wars as an independent movement because Vespasian would have been embarrassed that he ended up requiring a large campaign to suppress tribes who originally had his support against Vitellius.114 Walser argues that Pliny covered his misrepresentation by exploiting his knowledge of Germany and rhetorical topoi about barbarian revolts and warfare.115 Within Tacitus’ Annals, we can find the use of the topos of revolts that arise from provincial misgovernment.

In that text, Roman officials exploit or even act criminally in their official duties, as they do in the conduct of the levy in the Histories. The narrator in the Annals is quite explicit in blaming the Frisian revolt on the overtaxation of the Frisii. In the same year, the Frisians, a people who live across the Rhine, put aside the peace not so much because they were not able to endure obedience as because of our greed. (Ann. 4.72.1) (eodem anno Frisii, Transrhenanus populus, pacem exuere nostra magis avaritia quam obsequii impatientes.) Later, in the description of Boudicca’s rebellion, the narrator similarly blames the Romans for that uprising. The British king Prasutagus had made the emperor an heir in hopes that his wife and daughters, property, and kingdom would be left alone. The opposite turned out to be the case, when both officials and soldiers committed every variety of crime against his family and kingdom. The Britons were driven to rebellion. On account of this insult and the fear of more severe ones—since they had entered into the form of a province—they took up arms and stirred up to rebellion the Trinovantes and others who had not yet been broken by slavery and had agreed by means of secret meetings to take up their freedom again, with the bitterest hatred for the veterans. (Ann. 14.31.2) Page 36 →(Qua contumelia et metu graviorum, quando in formam provinciae cesserant, rapiunt arma, commotis ad rebellationem Trinouantibus et qui alii nondum seruitio fracti resumere libertatem occultis coniurationibus pepigerant, acerrimo in ueteranos odio.) Tacitus here omits details he might have included, such as arguments for the revolt in direct and indirect speech, but the fundamental point that revolt stems from dissatisfaction with Roman administration of the levy is meaningful and should not be dismissed. The presence of topoi and similar narrative structures across various provincial revolts in his works does not mean that Tacitus was following the same template for each revolt or that he simply adopted a pro-Flavian story in the case of the Batavian revolt. Brutal treatment of subject peoples is going to cause hostility in those peoples, and they often revolt. Simply recognizing a topos does not invalidate either the historical accuracy or the thematic value of an episode. Ronald Syme, P. A. Brunt, and Barbara Levick defend the veracity of the Histories, in contrast to Walser. Brunt forcefully refutes the notion that Tacitus dressed up as a foreign affair what was really just an extension of the civil wars; Brunt argues that Tacitus presented the war as a bid for independence from Rome.116 In their commentary on Histories 4 and 5, Chilver and Townend support Brunt’s position, with minor revisions; Syme accepts the same premise. According to Levick, “The tribe had long been under economic and social pressure caused by recruitment and consequent lack of manpower at home: theirs had to be a separatist movement.”117 More recently, Dieter Timpe has sought a middle ground, arguing that Tacitus does not create a version of the revolt dependent on Flavian propaganda but, rather, devotes so much energy to the events in the Rhineland in order to illustrate the risks of Roman auxiliary forces allying with dangerous German tribesmen beyond the boundaries of the empire.118 Timpe’s approach is the most productive, given that Tacitus’ account is the only significant one that survives and that other forms of evidence are not abundant enough to create an alternative reconstructionPage 37 → of the revolt.119 Readers should approach Tacitus’ Batavian revolt with questions that they can answer or, at least, ones for which they can generate real evidence—namely, questions that seek to understand it within the context of the narrative of the Histories itself. This chapter integrates the Batavian revolt into the themes of the extant Histories to shed light on Tacitus’ presentation of the challenges confronting the Romans as they manage the manpower they need to maintain control of their vast empire. Regardless of whether the Batavian revolt was really a war of independence or a continuation of the civil wars, the Batavian auxiliaries prove capable of destabilizing the empire in the Histories.120 That is the fundamental problem that Tacitus examines.

Whether Tacitus’ Civilis has anything to teach readers is open to doubt, since the narrator portrays him as a dishonest and untrustworthy spokesman for the provincial cause. In the first place, since his name clearly indicates that he is a Roman citizen, Civilis is obviously not the best mouthpiece for complaints about the lack of rewards that alliance with Rome provides. Though the narrator never states it, Civilis’ family must have received the highest distinction the Roman state could confer on allies.121 Moreover, the Histories depicts Civilis as disingenuous: he uses the brutally conducted levy on the Batavians as the pretense for starting the revolt, but his “true” motives are private. His animus toward the Roman Empire is a personal grudge that arises from his treatment by emperors and legionary soldiers. As the narrator has explained earlier in book 4 (4.13.1), both Nero and Vitellius had Civilis placed in chains. The reasons for his punishment demanded by the legions and referred to by Civilis at 4.32.2 (“petitus ad supplicium”) are never explained in the Histories. The split that the narrator emphasizes between Civilis’ private motives and the arguments he uses to win over potential allies establishes Page 38 →that this leader of the revolt is fundamentally dishonest. The narrator reinforces this aspect of Civilis’ character at the outbreak of the revolt, when he takes up arms with the support of Vespasian’s lieutenant Antonius Primus, who wishes to open up a second front in the Flavian battle with Vitellius, and with the encouragement of the commander of the legions, Hordeonius Flaccus (4.13.2–3). Civilis pretends to work with the Flavians and even eventually swears the oath to Vespasian (4.21.1), but the narrator makes clear that the Batavian does all of this with the already fixed intention of starting a revolt. Therefore Civilis was determined to revolt, though he hid his deeper plan for the time being and would gauge what else to do from how things turned out. (4.14.1) (igitur Civilis desciscendi certus, occultato interim altiore consilio, cetera ex eventu iudicaturus.) Civilis deceives even his own allies in the rebellion. He humbly promises the Gauls he persuades to join the movement that he seeks no power over others for himself or for his people and that he is perfectly happy being a foot soldier in this fight. We did not start a war for this reason, so that the Batavians and Treviri have command over other tribes. Such arrogance is far from us. Accept an alliance: I cross over to you, whether you prefer me to be a leader or soldier. (4.66.2) (“non ideo” inquit “bellum sumpsimus, ut Batavi et Treviri gentibus imperent: procul haec a nobis adrogantia. accipite societatem: transgredior ad vos, seu me ducem seu militem mavultis.”) Previously in the book, however, the narrator had stated that Civilis was aiming for control of Gallic and German territory from the outset. [Civilis] was thus focused on the Gauls and Germanies. If his plans had come to fruition, he would hold sway over a kingdom of the strongest and richest peoples. (4.17.6) Page 39 →(sic in Gallias Germaniasque intentus, si destinata provenissent, validissimarum ditissimarumque nationum regno imminebat.) It is all too easy to make the case that Civilis is a treacherous liar and that whatever he says and does should therefore be ignored. The narrator’s explicit statements certainly guide readers toward that conclusion. A closer examination of Civilis’ arguments for the revolt, however, raises the possibility that this dishonest rebel may actually be giving point to a broader historical theme of the Histories, as the implied author Tacitus—that is, the historian we reconstruct from the text, though by no means necessarily the historical Tacitus122—uses Civilis’ words to present an instructively critical perspective on Roman provincial management. Despite all the negative qualities the narrator ascribes to Civilis, the text yields many reasons for taking Civilis’ arguments seriously. At a minimum, the issues Civilis focuses on are worth exploring because they are what Tacitus presents as compelling reasons for provincial soldiers to rebel.123 The narrator writes in the preface to the Histories that he aims to elucidate the “ratio” and “causae” for events (1.4.1). The

arguments Civilis presents to his co-conspirators thus suggest an explanation for why this major revolt, which required eight legions to suppress, happened at all. Dishonest and treacherous though Civilis may be, his criticism of Rome’s treatment of the Batavi echoes the narrator’s own comments. As we have seen, the narrator presents a levy of Batavians as the flash point for the revolt (4.14). Though he has already unequivocally stated that Civilis had decided to initiate a revolt for personal reasons, the narratorPage 40 → makes clear that to gain the popular support necessary to make the rebellion, Civilis draws on the resentment generated by the levy that the Romans conducted criminally. The narrator tells readers in his prefatory remarks that the Romans extorted money in exchange for releasing the old and unfit and that they even raped conscripted boys, actions that significantly aggravated the burden of the levy itself.124 Immediately afterward in the text (4.14.2–4), when Civilis calls prominent Batavians into a private meeting to broach the subject of revolt, he alludes to these crimes as “the outrages, pillaging, and other evils reserved for slaves” (iniurias et raptus et cetera servitii mala enumerat) and expands on the oppressive nature of forced service on behalf of an ungrateful state: “the levy is upon them, by which children are separated from parents, brother from brother, as though for the last time” (instare dilectum quo liberi a parentibus, fratres a fratribus velut supremum dividantur). Civilis characterizes the current Batavian relationship with Rome as slavery, rather than the alliance it had once been (“neque enim societatem ut olim sed tamquam mancipia haberi”). Thus, Civilis grounds his appeals to his countrymen’s emotions in the abuse to which the narrator himself has attested.125 Civilis’ language of investment and reward with which I began this chapter engages with earlier discussions of the same subject in Roman sources. Heinz Heubner catalogs two examples of nearly identical phrasing.126 Perhaps to mark Civilis as another in the line of major enemies of Rome, his entire question “quod praemium expectatis,” addressed to his interlocutor, mirrors the question in section 19 of Sallust’s Letter of Mithridates, “What do you expect from them except treachery in the short term and, later, war?” (quid ab illis nisi dolum in praesens et postea bellum expectas?)127 Likewise, Heubner notes that “effusi totiens sanguinis” recalls Cicero’s climactic appeal to the jury to exonerate Milo: “You, I call on you, bravest men, who have spilled Page 41 →much blood on behalf of the state” (Vos, vos, appello, fortissimi viri, qui multum pro re publica sanguinem effudistis).128 To this list of references should also be added a Sallustian intertext with a notably more relevant context, Pompey’s Letter to the Senate, also from Sallust’s fragmentary Histories. In this letter, dated 75 BC, Pompey requests greater financial support for his forces in Spain who are fighting against the Roman renegade Sertorius. Sallust’s Pompey implies that the senate is failing to live up to its responsibilities, not only to the soldiers but also to the Roman people in general: “Was it with this expectation that the Roman people sent their own sons to war? Are these the rewards for their wounds and blood spilled so many times on behalf of the state?” (hacine spe populus Romanus liberos suos ad bellum misit? haec sunt praemia pro volneribus et totiens ob rem publicam fuso sanguine?)129 More economically, Tacitus’ Civilis condenses Pompey’s “haec sunt praemiaВ .В .В . fuso sanguine” into “praemium effusi totiens sanguinis.” Both speakers connect praemia and military service, suggesting that the soldiers who shed blood on behalf of Rome deserve rewards. Thus, drawing a straight line between Civilis and Sallust’s Pompey, Tacitus creates both historical and historiographical connections for readers to discover. Like the soldiers of the Republic, Civilis feels shortchanged for his dangerous service on behalf of Rome. The allusion to Pompey makes Civilis’ complaints recognizable to the Roman audience as the product of a familiar perspective, rather than an easily dismissed alien one. Civilis’ “praemium effusi totiens sanguinis” also recalls similar language in Quintilian’s Education of the Orator, which, however, makes a different point. In a passage where Quintilian advises speakers on how to make generalizations about groups of people such as freedmen or publicani, an occasional necessity usually best avoided, he cites the topic of the greed of soldiers as an example. He instructs the orator to add praise at the end of a negative generalization: “You may say soldiers are greedy: add that it is no wonder, because they think they are owed greater rewards for the danger they experienced and for the bloodshed” (sic cupidos dicas: sed non mirum, quod periculorum ac sanguinis maiora sibi deberi Page 42 →praemia putent) (11.1.88).130 Civilis’ language picks up on Quintilian’s combination “periculorum ac sanguinisВ .В .В . praemia.” It also marks the

question about rewarding that service as a topos, perhaps a tired one at that. The theme of the greed of soldiers is as well known as the theme of their sacrifice. While the Sallustian intertext confers legitimacy, the passage from Quintilian suggests that Tacitus’ Civilis may just be doing what soldiers were known to do in the Roman world: asking for more than that to which they were entitled. A passage in the Annals also raises the question of how to judge rebellious soldiers’ complaints. In the first book of the Annals, the narrator identifies a former actor named Percennius as a driving force behind the Pannonian mutiny.131 While he is a legionary and not an auxiliary, he raises complaints similar to those of Civilis in a context that also bears some resemblance to that of AD 69. In the aftermath of Augustus’ death, when discipline in the camps has flagged and the situation at the helm of the empire has not yet fully settled under Tiberius, Percennius steps forward to stoke the resentment of his fellow soldiers for the supposedly exploitative bargain under which they serve. He concludes his speech by demanding a clear contract for military service. There is no other alleviation than if military service is undertaken under fixed laws: that soldiers earn a denarius a day; that the sixteenth year bring an end to service; that soldiers not be held beyond that point under banners; but that their reward be paid in cash in the same camps. (Ann. 1.17.5) (Nec aliud levamentum, quam si certis sub legibus militia iniretur: ut singulos denarios mererent, sextus decumus stipendii annus finem adferret, ne ultra sub vexillis tenerentur, sed isdem in castris praemium pecunia solveretur.) Page 43 →This conclusion comes after Percennius has enumerated the brutal and uncertain circumstances of a Roman soldier’s life: their service effectively extends indefinitely and is compensated for, when discharge finally comes, with worthless land; the low pay they receive is further diminished by required expenses and bribes. These kinds of complaints might draw sympathy from a modern reader.132 Within the Annals, however, the narrator has already explicitly defamed Percennius: “insolent in his language and well-versed in stirring up crowds by means of his dramatic zeal” (procax lingua et miscere coetus histrionali studio doctus) (Ann. 1.16.3). If they wish, readers may disregard him as a base opportunist and regard what he says as just another example of “mob oratory.”133 Erich Auerbach famously does just that. He views the whole speech as “a matter of mob effrontery and lack of discipline.”134 He bases this dismissal partly on a premise that ancient historians such as Tacitus were concerned above all with “ethical judgments.”135 This premise prevents Auerbach from examining Percennius’ speech within the thematic context of the Annals or within the military history of the time. Auerbach’s prejudgment about what the speech must be doing causes him to resist the implications of a factor that he himself recognizes, that Percennius makes meaningful points about the high demands and poor rewards of legionary service: “the writer is permitted a certain sympathetic entering into the thoughts of the supposed speaker, and even a certain realism.” Auerbach nevertheless concludes, “EssentiallyВ .В .В . such speeches are products of a specific stylistic tradition cultivated in the schools for rhetors.”136 To maintain his premise that we should never take Percennius’ complaints seriously, Auerbach falls back on another general principle, by maintaining that the argumentsPage 44 → in the speech are conventional.137 But even though Percennius’ complaints and remediesare offered by a speaker whose integrity might not be of the highest, they should not simply be dismissed out of hand. Raises for legionaries were rare.138 Under Augustus, in AD 5–6, the minimum length of legionary service had been extended from sixteen to twenty-five years (twenty years of regular service plus five years in the reserves, which, as Percennius points out, was still active duty).139 Through Percennius, Tacitus raises legitimate issues of the terms of service for regular soldiers and the hardships they face while serving. In another example of tension between narrator and implied author, the text offers reasons for disregarding Percennius’ words. But are readers actually intended to disregard them? Can we find reason to take his complaints seriously—or, in the context of the Histories, to give credence to the complaints of the equally suspect Civilis? We have seen that Civilis engages in two traditional lines of thought—exemplified by Quintilian, on the one

hand, and Sallust’s Pompey and Tacitus’ Percennius, on the other—that emphasize the connection between the risks of service to Rome and the expectation of rewards. His language evokes examples, from the Education of the Orator and Sallust’s Histories, that represent two poles of the ongoing debate in Roman discourse about determining the proper rewards for military service. They are not the only discussions of the topic, however. The fullest exposition of the expectation of rewards for military service comes in Cicero’s Pro Balbo, where military service undertaken on behalf of Rome by a Roman citizen originally from Spain causes Cicero to argue for the principle of rewarding soldiers for their military service and, further, for awarding citizenship to allies who fight for Rome. From this defense speech, we can sketch out a model for Roman rule that insists on rewarding allies for military service. In the Pro Balbo, Cicero extensively develops the argument for rewardingPage 45 → military service on behalf of his client, L. Cornelius Balbus, a native of Gades who rose to great prominence through his friendships with first Pompey and then Caesar.140 The speech was delivered in 56 BC, in the new (and, for Cicero, disappointing) political atmosphere created by the reaffirmation of the alliance between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus at Luca.141 Whether he did so out of gratitude for Balbus’ support during his exile or at Pompey’s suggestion or for some other reason, Cicero gave the final speech of defense for Balbus.142 Because he was wealthy, foreign, and had the most powerful friends possible, Balbus was the object of significant ill will in Rome. He was charged with having improperly acquired the citizenship,143 an attack probably focused not only on Balbus as a crass interloper but also on the freshly reestablished power of Pompey, who had originally granted him the citizenship in 72 BC for his service to Rome in the Sertorian War.144 Throughout his speech, delivered the day after Pompey himself had spoken on Balbus’ behalf, Cicero devotes a large amount of time to establishing a principle by which someone like Balbus might indisputably earn the citizenship.145 This is one of the primary goals of Cicero’s defense, allowing him to use Balbus as an example without dwelling on his special qualities in such a way as to stir up further invidia in the jury. The principle establishes that allies and foreigners should be rewarded for risking their lives in military service to Rome. Cicero enumerates Balbus’ virtues. These are the personal qualities of Cornelius, meritorious service146 to Page 46 →our state, effort, diligence, combat experience, virtue worthy of a top commander, expectation of rewards in return for dangers; the rewards themselves are not in the deed of the one who acquired them but in that of the one who gave them.147 (Haec sunt propria Corneli, merita in rem publicam nostram, labor, adsiduitas, dimicatio, virtus digna summo imperatore, spes pro periculis praemiorum; praemia quidem ipsa non sunt in eius facto qui adeptus est, sed in eius qui dedit.) The list of Balbus’ qualities is long and repetitive. In this political context, labor and periculum are synonymous.148 Dimicatio combines the first two qualities to attest to the fighting that Balbus has done on behalf of Rome. By enumerating the qualities, Cicero makes the case that Balbus has worked hard and risked his life for Rome, a service so distinguished that it has gained the attention of Rome’s finest general. Noteworthy in this passage is Cicero’s contention that Rome’s access to these virtues is contingent on the promise of recompense. In Cicero’s conception, Balbus did not risk his life out of a selfless appreciation for the Roman imperial project; he did so with the expectation of rewards (“spes pro periculis praemiorum”). For Cicero, service to Rome by non-Romans is a quid pro quo: they offer their lives in return for praemia. A key assumption of Cicero’s argument here is that Roman imperial success relies to a significant degree on non-Roman manpower: “For if rewards for valor were abolished, we would no more have use of them [noncitizen soldiers] as supporters than if it were totally forbidden for them to take part in our wars” (nihil enim magis uteremur iis adiutoribus, sublatis virtutis praemiis, quam si omnino iis versari in nostris bellis non liceret).149 Cicero does not go so far as to assert that the military could not succeed without allied or non-Roman manpower, but he nonetheless stresses the importance of that manpower. He also notes an implicit danger in the arrangement. Should the Romans fail to offer these non-Roman soldiers sufficient incentive to continue fighting,

Page 47 →these soldiers may cease offering themselves to Rome.150 But yet, if it will not be permitted to our commanders, the senate, the Roman people to entice out of the states of our allies and friends the bravest and best men to undergo dangers on behalf of our safety, then we must lack the greatest usefulness and often the biggest defense in dangerous and difficult times. But by the immortal gods, what kind of alliance, what kind of friendship, what kind of treaty would it be that would result either in our state lacking in its dangers a Masillian, a Gaditan, or Saguntine defender, or that if someone of those peoples has arisen who by the assistance of his own effort or of his supplies and at his own risk aids our leaders, who has fought with our enemy hand to hand in battle, who has often exposed himself to the weapons of the enemy, to the contest of his life, to death, he would by no condition of this state be able to be endowed with rewards? Indeed, to not be able to exploit those allies who possess surpassing virtue and who wish to unite their dangers with ours is a heavy burden against the Roman people.151 (atqui si imperatoribus nostris, si senatui, si populo Romano non licebit propositis praemiis elicere ex civitatibus sociorum atque amicorum fortissimum atque optimum quemque ad subeunda pro salute nostra pericula, summa utilitate ac maximo saepe praesidio periculosis atque asperis temporibus carendum nobis erit. sed, per deos immortales! quae est ista societas, quae amicitia, quod foedus, ut aut nostra civitas careat in suis periculis Massiliensi propugnatore, careat Gaditano, careat Saguntino, aut si quis ex his populis sit exortus, qui nostros duces auxilio laboris, commeatus periculo suo iuverit, qui cum hoste nostro comminus in acie saepe pugnarit, qui se saepe telis hostium, qui dimicationi capitis, qui morti obiecerit, nulla condicione huius civitatis praemiis adfici possit? Etenim in populum Romanum grave est non posse uti sociis excellenti virtute praeditis, qui velint cum periculis nostris sua communicare.) Page 48 →As shown by the bold type I have introduced into the original above, Cicero creates a nexus of periculum, praemium, and the salus of the Roman state. The point is clear. For the Romans to persuade nonRomans to risk their lives for Rome—an important part of the continued success of Roman imperialism—rewards, especially the reward of citizenship, are necessary. Cicero returns to this point throughout the speech, but he also goes further, arguing that even many citizens require incentive to fight for their own state. Indeed, since few men from the birth of humankind have been found who would expose their own lives to the weapons of the enemy on behalf of their own state unless rewards have been offered, do you think that there would be anyone who would face dangers on behalf of someone else’s state not only with no reward offered but also with a reward forbidden?152 (Etenim cum pro sua patria pauci post genus hominum natum reperti sint qui nullis praemiis propositis vitam suam hostium telis obiecerint, pro aliena re publica quemquam fore putatis qui se opponat periculis non modo nullo proposito praemio, sed etiam interdicto?) Cicero’s strategy throughout his speech suggests that Balbus’ personal “negatives” with the jury rendered focusing on his character unlikely to result in a winning defense. Instead, Cicero shows how Balbus’ history of service to Rome has qualified him for the citizenship because the process of rewarding military service of non-Roman soldiers has been well established over the previous forty years. The points are not necessarily a reflection of a universally held Roman worldview—this is a speech of defense, after all. Nonetheless, this argument provides a background and precedent for justifying individual grants of citizenship to worthy nonRoman people who have fought on behalf of Rome. Most important for understanding Civilis’ arguments in the Histories, Cicero’s argument in favor of Balbus’ reward extensively develops a theory of Roman imperial management that requires the participation Page 49 →and compensation of allied peoples.153 Tacitus’ Civilis engages with this argument directly through his use of the word praemium and by raising similar questions about the proper rewards for military service to Rome by allies.

One of Civilis’ arguments in favor of the revolt stands out as a nightmarish version of the system Cicero depicts in the Pro Balbo. In Cicero’s portrayal, the refusal of non-Roman soldiers to serve Rome because of a lack of rewards is a potential but unexplored threat. Civilis goes further and imagines non-Roman soldiers turning their Roman-trained violence against Rome. Civilis shows confidence in the prospects of revolt because of the weakness he claims Roman forces have shown during the civil wars of AD 69: “accordingly let unencumbered men attack burdened ones, the hale the weary” (proinde arriperent vacui occupatos, integri fessos) (4.17.5).154 Further, he argues that provincial soldiers always do the toughest fighting for the empire: “the provinces are conquered by the blood of the provinces” (provinciarum sanguine provincias vinci) (4.17.2). Our knowledge of the development of the Roman armies over the course of the first century AD supports this claim. During this period, Rome came to rely more and more on provincial manpower to fill out the ranks of soldiers, in both the legions and the auxiliary units. In support of his traveling to the provinces in AD 23 to raise troops for the legions, Tacitus’ Tiberius suggests that the few Italian recruits the legions had been recently receiving were driven by poverty and were not Page 50 →of high quality.155 Pliny (HN 7.149) lists the scarcity of young men fit for service (“penuria iuventutis”) among the problems that afflicted Augustus during his principate. These sources point to a manpower shortage in Italy that the historical record supports. As Keppie points out, “In the century and a quarter between Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul (58–50 BC) and the civil war which brought the Julio-Claudian period to a close (AD 68–9), the Roman army, under the strain of defending and policing a very substantial geographical areaВ .В .В .В , changed from being вЂRoman’ in the sense that the bulk of its manpower was drawn from Rome, or indeed Italy, to an army defending Roman territory and a city which few would ever have the opportunity of visiting during the course of their military service.”156 In particular, it was the auxiliaries, rather than the legions, who were sent in to face the most difficult conditions.157 At Agricola 35, for example, Agricola puts the auxiliaries front and center against the Caledonians at Mons Graupius and holds the legionaries back in reserve. Tacitus’ language in that passage registers the diminishing importance of the legions by characterizing Agricola’s strategy of deploying auxiliary forces first in battle. Tacitus attributes to Agricola the belief that the Romans would win great honor (“ingens decus”) if the victory came at the cost of no Roman blood, as well as the expectation that the legions he placed behind could themselves become an auxilium if the auxiliaries were pushed back.158 Within the Histories, Civilis can point to recent history to demonstrate that even in the case of Vindex’s revolt, which he seems to indicate was also a rebellion, provincial soldiers suppressed Page 51 →the movement: “they should not think about the battle line of Vindex: the Aedui and Arverni were trampled underfoot by the Batavian cavalry” (ne Vindicis aciem cogitarent: Batavo equite protritos Aeduos Arvernosque) (4.17.3).159 Regardless of its historical accuracy, this argument about the martial weakness of the Romans is significant. Tacitus uses Civilis’ arguments for the revolt and, indeed, the narrative of the revolt itself to show readers the dangerous situation in which the Roman Empire finds itself by relying so heavily on provincial soldiers and offering them such meager rewards or, even worse, treating them as slaves. Civilis’ angry complaints about the expectation of provincial sacrifice are given significant persuasive force by the way in which Tacitus grounds them in a long tradition of discussions of the proper rewards for military service to Rome. Civilis himself may be easily dismissed as a dishonest and treacherous turncoat, but his arguments have a backing within Roman tradition and the narrator’s own comments that renders them more formidable. Tacitus does not grant Civilis the last word on Roman imperialism, however. The historian has Petilius Cerialis, the general dispatched to the upper Rhine to put down the revolt, offer a speech in book 4 (4.73–74) that attempts to answer the questions raised by Civilis and to show that any argument for revolt is harmful rhetoric, not a reflection of the realities of Roman rule in Gaul and Germany.160 Cerialis enumerates the benefits of Roman rule while also acknowledging (and immediately depreciating) the problems associated with bad emperors. Because of its dishonesty, however, this speech collapses on itself; and because it cannot honestly answer Civilis’ criticisms, it ultimately reinforces them.161 Page 52 →Some scholars have questioned why the general’s speech comes in book 4 at all, before the revolt has ended.162 Elizabeth Keitel notes that speeches in the Histories often respond to one another and that Tacitus

uses the speech of Cerialis as an opportunity to draw connections within book 4 between events on the Rhine and those in Rome, where leftover vendettas from Nero’s reign bubble back up to the surface.163 Helvidius Priscus, the son-in-law of a famed victim of Nero, Stoic senator Thrasea Paetus, exploits a senatorial discussion about choosing a delegation to send to Vespasian, taking the discussion as an opportunity to attack the character of Eprius Marcellus, one of the informers who prosecuted Paetus. Marcellus delivers a canny defense of his conduct under Nero, by stressing that Nero terrorized everyone, whether they ultimately became his victims or not. Marcellus offers a cynical rule by which he lives: “In my prayers I wish for good emperors; I endure whatever sort they end up being” (bonos imperatores voto expetere, qualescumque tolerare) (4.8.2). Keitel sees a connection—one that knits together book 4 of the Histories—between this sentiment and one offered by Cerialis: “in the way in which you endure drought, too much rain, and other evils of nature, so endure the excess or greed of those with mastery over you” (quo modo sterilitatem aut nimios imbris et cetera naturae mala, ita luxum vel avaritiam dominantium tolerate) (4.74.2). According to Keitel, “Tacitus may well have placed Cerialis’ speech in Book 4, rather than nearer the actual end of the revolt in Book 5, to make the link between Cerialis and Marcellus’ remarks more emphatic by having them envelop the book.”164 Another responsion within book 4 ties in with the themes of provincial management and rewards for military service. Following Keitel’s point that Cerialis’ speech has a “polyvalent function,”165 I submit that it also directly responds to Civilis’ arguments for the revolt and not only serves to draw together the events on the Rhine and in Rome but Page 53 →also has a purpose focused solely on events on the Rhine themselves. Cerialis delivers the speech to the Gallic Lingones and Treviri tribes. The Treviri are a particularly noteworthy audience because Civilis also presents his arguments about the “pretium laborum” and“praemium effusi totiens sanguinis” to a Trevir, Alpinius Montanus.166 The overlapping ethnic composition of the audiences for the two speeches is pointed and brings their messages into competition. Furthermore, it is productive to compare Civilis’ remarks as a whole with Cerialis’ speech, since there is a thematic unity between them: they stand as two opposing views of Roman provincial management. Throughout the first half of book 4, Civilis presents a critical perspective on Roman rule; in the second half, Cerialis counters with a positive view of its fairness and benefit to provincial peoples. Cerialis’ speech seeks to achieve two primary aims: first, to expose the rhetoric in support of the revolt as fraudulent; second, to show that ever since becoming involved in Gallic affairs, Rome has selflessly assured the safety and stability of Gaul. A careful examination of the speech reveals that while Cerialis’ unmasking of the false rhetoric of the rebels is supported by evidence from the narrative of book 4, the benefits he alleges for Roman rule crumble upon the slightest touch. Cerialis is the first participant within the narrative of the Histories to draw attention to the untrustworthiness of the revolt’s supporters. He claims that the rhetoric of freedom is pure pretense. But freedom and other fine-sounding words are being put forward as a screen; no one desires to enslave another and to have complete domination for himself without using those same words. (4.73.3) (ceterum libertas et speciosa nomina praetexuntur; nec quisquam alienum servitium et dominationem sibi concupivit ut non eadem ista vocabula usurparet.) As the narrator has already suggested, Civilis secretly aims to rule an Page 54 →empire that includes Gaul and Germany (4.17). Indeed, directly after this speech, as if to reinforce yet again his disingenuousness, Civilis offers to allow Cerialis to become emperor of Gaul while the rebels rule their own communities—an offer Cerialis does not even dignify with a response (4.75). In this case, then, the narrative of the revolt supports Cerialis’ claim. Cerialis performs the role of the historian in his speech, unmasking the dishonest rhetoric of Civilis. Like the narrator, he reveals the hidden motives of the leader of the revolt. But Cerialis’ critical reading of rhetoric ultimately rebounds on him when he tries to demonstrate the history of Roman altruism and collaboration with its Gallic subjects.167 Like Civilis, Cerialis denies any desire for gain from Rome’s original military

intervention in Gaul. Roman leaders and commanders entered your land and that of other Gauls with no desire for personal gain, but because your ancestors called them in, ancestors whom discord was exhausting to the point of death. The Germans who were invited in as a source of help had imposed slavery equally on ally and enemy. (4.73.2) (terram vestram ceterorumque Gallorum ingressi sunt duces imperatoresque Romani nulla cupidine, sed maioribus vestris invocantibus, quos discordiae usque ad exitium fatigabant, et acciti auxilio Germani sociis pariter atque hostibus servitutem imposuerant.) This passage is filled with half-truths or downright dishonest claims. First of all, Cerialis omits the name of Julius Caesar. His explicit reference to Ariovistus a sentence later confirms that he is purposely erasing Caesar from his history. Instead, he asserts that unnamed “duces” and “imperatores” first answered the Gallic call for help against the Germans and that they did so with “nulla cupido,” a claim that on the face of it seems naive. The omission of Caesar is telling. Because there could be no arguingPage 55 → that Caesar was not selfinterested, and to mention him would definitively prove Cerialis’ rhetoric to be false, Cerialis simply censors the history of the Treviri and Lingones by eliding the conqueror of Gaul. Later in his speech, Cerialis’ own arguments undermine his denial of Rome’s cupidity. In his effort to cast doubt on the Batavians’ motives, he concludes by acknowledging the value of Gaul’s natural resources: “But the greatest danger [from the potential loss of Roman imperial protection] is yours, who possess gold and resources, the principal causes of wars” (sed vobis maximum discrimen, penes quos aurum et opes, praecipuae bellorum causae) (4.74.3). These two statements—that the Romans entered Gaul with no ulterior motive for gain and that the Germans are eagerly anticipating getting their hands on Gallic precious metals—occur at opposite ends of Cerialis’ speech. But the effect is to make it even more obvious that his disingenuous claim that Romans have “nulla cupido” in ruling Gaul is false. Other parts of Cerialis’ rhetoric collapse in on themselves too. His description of the Gauls as having been exhausted by discord takes on an ironic force in the aftermath of AD 69, since one could just as easily apply this very same phrase to the Romans, as Civilis does at 4.17.5. Lastly, Cerialis appears to lie. Arguing that Roman rule is shared and that provincials are empowered to rule themselves, he says, By a universal law of victory we added this thing alone to you, by which we might protect the peace. For neither can peace between the tribes be maintained without weapons, nor weapons without pay for the soldiers, nor pay for soldiers without tribute. Other things are shared. You yourselves for the most part are in charge of our legions; you yourselves rule these and other provinces. Nothing is kept separate or closed off. (4.74.1) (iure victoriae id solum vobis addidimus, quo pacem tueremur; nam neque quies gentium sine armis neque arma sine stipendiis neque stipendia sine tributis haberi queunt. cetera in communi sita sunt: ipsi plerumque legionibus nostris praesidetis, ipsi has aliasque provincias regitis; nihil separatum clausumve.) Virtually nothing Cerialis says after his discussion of the need for draftingPage 56 → manpower and collecting taxes is supported in the historical record. The claim that “other things are shared” is utterly inaccurate. On the contrary, one of the primary reasons for the entire revolt is that the provincials of the northern Rhine regard the relationship as not an alliance but a relationship of master and slave. The claim that mostly provincialscommand legions is also false. It would be true to say that mostly provincials are in charge of auxiliary units—a fact that is very apparent in the Histories. But legions were commanded by Romans only. No non-Italian legionary commander is attested in the Histories. Cerialis’ statement that provincials rule their own provinces is equally untrue. Only Julius Vindex is attested as a provincial who had become governor by AD 69, an exemplum Cerialis is unlikely to cite lest it would call attention to the instability of the Gallic provinces over the past several years.

His final remark, “Nothing is kept separate or closed off,” reflects a denial of reality, which is characteristic of Roman commanders in book 4 of the Histories. Cerialis’ approach in this speech is simply to say that the opposite of every argument for the revolt is true, a patently inaccurate response that his own critical rhetoric subverts. Thus, in the final analysis, Civilis’ arguments for the revolt prove potent, despite his questionable character and motives. Tacitus undergirds them with a weighty series of discussions in Latin literature on the rewards for military service, giving the arguments authority and legitimacy outweighing their speaker’s personal liabilities. Furthermore, he carefully structures Cerialis’ speech, the primary response to Civilis’ arguments, so that it falls back on itself. In the following pages, I will argue that the Histories reveals the failure of the Roman Empire’s model for raising and managing provincial manpower and encourages greater rewards for the provincial soldiers, especially in terms of their greater incorporation into the privileges of the empire. Just before his speech, Petilius Cerialis dismisses Gallic soldiers raised in a recent levy, boasting that Rome does not require provincial manpower: “He sends back to their communities the levies held through Gaul and orders them to announce that the legions are enough for the empire” (dilectus per Galliam habitos in civitates remittit ac nuntiare iubet sufficere imperio legiones) (4.71.2). Here, in response to Civilis’ claim that the provinces are conquered by other provincials (4.17.2), Cerialis seems to wish to show that the legions are manned only by Romans and are alone Page 57 →enough to control the empire.168 This is the counterpoint the text sets out, at any rate. But as is the case with most of Cerialis’ rhetoric, the sentiment is dubious at best. In reality, Cerialis’ legions, whatever their ethnic composition, never succeed in defeating the rebellion in battle. The Histories breaks off with Civilis negotiating a settlement to the revolt, a victory for the Romans, but hardly the kind of exemplum that will deter other provincial soldiers from contemplating revolt ever again. In fact, the narrative undercuts Cerialis’ already dubious assertion that Italian manpower is enough to handle Rome’s imperial needs, by repeatedly showing that the Batavian auxiliaries are extremely valuable fighters. They factor into Vitellius’ decision to revolt (1.52), when Fabius Valens, one of Vitellius’ lieutenants in Lower Germany, persuades the contender to declare himself emperor, by emphasizing the eagerness of “German auxiliaries,” in addition to the legions in Germany and Britain, for new leadership. Vitellius’ legions themselves acknowledge the value of the Batavian auxiliary cohorts to the Roman military. Most notably, in book 2, they mutiny when the news spreads that Valens intends to send the Batavian cohorts away to deal with some minor Othonian victories in Gaul. .В .В . the legions were grumbling that they were bereaved of the assistance of the bravest men; that those experienced soldiers and winners of so many battles were drawn away as it were from the front line after the enemy is in sight. If a province is more important than the city and the health of the empire, let them all follow to that place. But if victory should depend on Italy unharmed, the strongest limbs ought not be ripped away as though from the body. (2.28.2) (.В .В .В fremere legiones. orbari se fortissimorum virorum auxilio; veteres illos et tot bellorum victores, postquam in conspectu sit hostis, velut ex acie abduci. si provincia urbe et salute imperii potior sit, omnes illuc sequerentur; sin victoria incolumi in Italia verteretur, non abrumpendos ut corpori validissimos artus.) The language Tacitus places in the mouths of the soldiers reveals the depth of the connection that the legionaries feel for the Batavian auxiliaries.Page 58 → “Orbari” in particular is a metaphor of the loss of a family member.169 But the connection between the legionaries and the auxiliaries is hardly mutually supportive; indeed, the legionaries and Batavian cohorts quarrel frequently and seem to be unable to inhabit the same camp together peaceably (1.64, 2.66). The reason for the legionaries’ grief is the usefulness of the Batavians in battle. They are “fortissimorum virorum,” “victores,” and “corpori validissimos artus.” If the emended text “sin victoria incolumi in Italia verteretur” is correct,170 it gives point to what the rest of the passage implies: the Batavians are not just helpful auxiliaries but vital to the defense of the very heart of the empire, while the legions do the supporting. Cerialis may suggest all he wants that the legions can provide enough force to maintain the empire, but the rest of the Histories suggests otherwise.

While Tacitus makes clear the importance of the Batavian auxiliary cohorts to the war effort, he also details their habit of making trouble in camp and disrupting discipline. The narrator’s first description of them establishes the volatile mixture of martial prowess and propensity to indiscipline that characterizes them throughout the Histories.171 Next, Julius Civilis, particularly powerful among the Batavians, was freed from danger lest the allegiance of that fierce tribe be transferred to someone else because of his execution. There were also eight cohorts of Batavians in the territory of the Lingones, auxiliaries of the fourteenth legion. In that period, on account of the discord of the times, they had departed from the legion: in whichever direction they had turned, they would be a great influence as an ally or opponent. (1.59.1) (Iulius deinde Civilis periculo exemptus, praepotens inter Batavos, ne supplicio eius ferox gens alienaretur. Et erant in civitate Lingonum octo Batavorum cohortes, quartae decimae legionis auxilia, tum discordia Page 59 →temporum a legione digressae, prout inclinassent, grande momentum sociae aut adversae.) Right from the start, it is clear that the Batavians are valuable warriors but difficult for the Romans to control. That they are a “ferox gens” explains both why the empire is eager to employ them in battle and their intractability in camp. Vitellius pardons Civilis so as to avoid inciting the naturally belligerent Batavian cohorts. The phrase “prout inclinassent, grande momentum sociae aut adversae” makes clear their value to any war effort. But Tacitus includes this information among the early deeds of Vitellius, to show that the new emperor was treading lightly around the temperamental Batavi in an effort to keep order while his principate was new. Tacitus is laying the groundwork for his narrative of the revolt: the restiveness that will eventually develop into full-scale revolt is evident here, even if Vitellius finds a way to channel the unstable violence of the Batavi in the short term. The tendency of the Batavians to quarrel with the legions culminates in Vitellius’ decision to send them back to Germany, recorded in book 2. At this point, the narrator draws together the threads and notes that the Batavians’ lack of discipline and their return to Germany provide the conditions under which the revolt will develop: “The Batavian cohorts were sent back to Germany, so that they would not try anything more aggressive. In this way, the Fates prepared the beginning to a war that was simultaneously civil and foreign” (Batavorum cohortes, ne quid truculentius auderent, in Germaniam remissae, principium interno simul externoque bello parantibus fatis) (2.69.1). Tacitus’ Batavians, while they provide extremely valuable manpower, lack the discipline to make a reliable contribution to the Roman military. Both the awareness of their own importance to the success of the Roman state and the lack of investment they have in the status quo not only contribute to the Batavians’ revolt but also explain the enthusiastic participation of the provincial soldiers in the civil wars of AD 69. In this sense, the narrative of the Batavian revolt is a full flowering of the seeds that Tacitus has planted throughout the first three books of the Histories. Although Civilis provides leadership to Batavians and other provincials, the anger and violence that follow are already present in all the provincial soldiers’ participation in the civil wars up to that point. Page 60 →In the discussion that follows, I will show how soldiers of provincial origin, usually but not always auxiliaries, are a driving force behind the Vitellian and Flavian efforts. To provide a better understanding of the implications of Civilis’ complaints about rewards for the demands placed on provincial peoples, I will examine how the first three books of the Histories present provincial soldiers as both vitally important and dangerously unstable elements of the Roman principate. Throughout his narrative of the civil wars, the narrator jarringly characterizes Italy and the city of Rome as though they were foreign places. From the very beginning of the work, he establishes the year’s events as an inversion, when he comments, with great indignation, that in a reversal of history and all that is right, Italy became the place to be captured in the civil wars of AD 69: “the unarmed provinces and, most important, Italy exposed to the servitude of whichever army passed by, would become a prize of war” (inermes provinciae atque ipsa in primis Italia, cuicumque servitio exposita, in pretium belli cessura erant) (1.11.1).172 The use of “cuicumque” shows that he does not differentiate between the two armies that march on Rome in AD 69, the Vitellians and Flavians. Each force will threaten Italy with slavery, and neither of them is more respectful to

the seat of the empire than the other. Each one will do whatever it takes to make its commander emperor, even if this requires conquering Italy. The Histories does not take a side in its narrative of the year’s civil wars: the Vitellian and Flavian sides are equally guilty of committing violence against Rome.173 Rather than moving outward, conquering, and forcing new peoples under Roman rule, the armies of Rome march inward on the capital city from the periphery, to conquer and subdue their supposed home peninsula. The Roman people whose rights are assured by their citizenship are threatened with slavery, a calamity traditionally inflicted on defeated foreign enemies. Tacitus expands this conceit throughout the text, as he intensifies and builds on the imagery of Rome as the target of conquest. At the beginning of the Vitellian revolt, while the newly declaredPage 61 → emperor dithers, his armies drive the action, demanding that the Vitellians initiate the war (“poscere arma”) and that they march south out of Germany. В Italy must be attacked, the city must be occupied; in civil war, when there is a need for action more than planning, there is no safer route to take than haste. (1.62.1) (invadendam Italiam, occupandam Urbem; nihil in discordiis civilibus festinatione tutius, ubi facto magis quam consulto opus esset.) “Invadendam Italiam” and “occupandam Urbem” are terrifyingly perverse formulations, regardless of the speaker. Invasions and occupations are much more appropriately applied to far-off corners of the empire. Yet the Vitellian soldiers not only take on the role of determining how they will be deployed; they demand a course of action that requires an attack on the very seat of the empire they are supposedly defending.174 The Vitellians are not the only army guilty of inverting its proper military aim. Tacitus applies similar language to the Flavians. Indeed, he employs exactly the same phrase, “invadendam Italiam,” to describe Antonius Primus as he prepares his army to wage war against the Vitellians: “snatching up picked troops from the cohorts and some of the cavalry for the purpose of attacking Italy” (vexillarios e cohortibus et partem equitum ad invadendam Italiam rapienti) (3.6.1). Unlike the Vitellians, who enter Rome without a fight, Vespasian’s forces bring the war into Rome to unseat Vitellius. The self-destructive violence reaches its apex during the Flavian attack on the city, when the Capitol, the very symbol of the city and the empire, burns to the ground. Even though the Flavians share the blame for and, indeed, may have committed this act, which the text calls despicable, they emerge victorious.175 By the Page 62 →opening of book 4, with Vitellius dead, they are in control of a Rome that looks like the conquered city it truly is. The description of the aftermath of the Flavian assault on Rome extends the inversions seen in the narrator’s descriptions of the armies by using the urbs capta motif: “everywhere there was wailing, expressions of grief, and the fate of a captured city” (ubique lamenta, conclamationes et fortuna captae urbis) (4.1).176 The description of captured cities provided poets, rhetoricians, and historians of classical literature with a chance to display their skills.177 It is a topos that ultimately owes its shape to tragedy and the many descriptions of the destruction of Troy.178 Over time, the creators of this type of scene relied on a number of stock elements, so much so that Livy could simply refer to “carnage that is accustomed to seem memorable to writers in such a situation.”179 In the opening paragraph to the fourth book of his Histories, Tacitus includes many of the traditional components of such tragic and violent set pieces, including widespread and senseless violence (“plenae caedibus viae”), despoliation of temples (“cruenta fora templaque”), and the city filled with grief (“lamenta, conclamationes”). In so doing, he makes this literary convention do specific historiographical work: the more vivid the scene is, the more it calls attention to the disturbing fact that the place described is Rome, not a city known only from hearsay or even myth. The more readers marvel at Tacitus’ creation of a classic Page 63 →urbs capta, the more they realize the perversity of the events described. The application of this convention raises the question of why Rome has been reduced to the level of just another captured city. The characterization of the city as a foreign place deserving of attack and conquest may point to a deeper crisis for the imperium Romanum: the centrality of Rome is threatened. Dylan Sailor wonders what the city means, now that

emperors can be made elsewhere: “If Rome is not needed in order to make a princeps, what is the city needed for, and by what other kinds of absence might it now be afflicted?”180 He sees the principate, with its de facto permanent state of civil war, at the base of this semiotic crisis for Rome: “[Tacitus] hints that the Principate tends to create a city that is essentially unable to project any sort of stable meaning, and to demolish the distinction between Rome and elsewhere.”181 For Sailor and others, the city’s monuments are the only participants within the Histories that recognize (or that Tacitus makes recognize) the transgressive violence in Rome.182 I wish not so much to dispute Sailor’s interpretation as to contextualize two things within the Histories’ broader program: the violence that Rome experiences in AD 69 and the very meaning of the term “civil war.” First, as the narrator signals at the outset of the work, civil war is a term of only limited usefulness when describing the wars the Histories narrates, which include “three civil wars, more foreign wars, and most of the time a mixture” (trina bella civilia, plura externa ac plerumque permixta) (1.2.1). The phrase “plerumque permixta” points to wars that have both civil and foreign aspects. It would appear that it is the foreign wars (“externa”) that are further qualified by “ac plerumque permixta.”183 Yet, as Tacitus refines the definition of external conflict and folds it into civil war, we can also see in his narrative of the Vitellian and Flavian forces the intrusion of the foreign on Roman civil Page 64 →war.184 In the case of the Vitellian and Flavian attacks on Rome, the presence and significance of provincial soldiers within the ranks of the army introduces a foreign element. While the Roman command of the armies and the rarely mentioned Italian legionaries account for the civil aspect of the war (even within legions, we see evidence for provincial soldiers),185 the participation and importance of provincial soldiers in the violence against Roman territory and Roman citizens suggests that “civil war” is no longer an entirely apt description for the nature of the conflicts. The violence that the imperial seat experiences in the Histories does not come out of nowhere. Tacitus demonstrates that the ways in which the Vitellian and Flavian armies treat the provinces and northern Italy prefigure their violence in and against Rome. This continuum of violence has a leveling effect on Rome, which becomes just another imperial place on which armies inflict violence. It lacks any special protective aura. First, the Vitellian march through Gaul is disastrous. The troops of Aulus Caecina Alienus, one of Vitellius’ two chief lieutenants, attack and plunder the peaceful territory of the Helvetians with little provocation (1.67–68). Just before that episode, the soldiers of Fabius Valens, Vitellius’ other chief lieutenant, sack the town of Divodurum (1.63), in what proves to be a preview of the treatment Rome is to receive. Here, a sudden panic (“subitus pavor”) seizes Valens’ army, and the soldiers begin to slaughter the locals who have received the army in friendship. The commanders have difficulty gaining control of their men, who are motivated by divinely sent rage (“furor”) and madness (“rabies”), not greed. The Flavian army replicates the same kind of out-of-control violence when it attacks the Capitol itself. Just like the Vitellian army, it is out of control: “no commander was present; it was every man for himself” (nullo duce, sibi quisque auctor) (3.71.1). Most important, the same god-sent furor that incited the Vitellians at Divodurum spurs the Flavians on at the Capitol: “an enraged band of troops was present” (furens miles aderat) (3.71.1). The incident at Divodurum, a shameful episode in Roman military history in its own right, takes on an even more frightening significance after the destruction of the Capitol, with the senseless violencePage 65 → in Gaul portending the catastrophe in Rome. Tacitus provides more examples of the continuity of violence between the provinces, Italy, and Rome. In the third book of the Histories, Antonius Primus splits up the forces under his command when they arrive at Bedriacum. Holding back his legion to fortify the camp,186 Primus sends out his auxiliary forces to ravage northern Italy. He gives this order under the pretense of preparing his men for battle, but his intent is really to give them a taste for plundering citizens.187 The narrator’s earlier reference to “plerumque permixta” (1.2.1) raises a question for our interpretation of this passage: is it still civil war if the soldiers are foreign but the commander is Roman? The narrator explicitly notes that Primus has specifically sent out his auxiliary forces, who are by definition non-Roman. We are not confronted, then, with a classic scene where brother attacks brother. These are foreigners participating in Rome’s “civil” war. Why should the damage they do matter to them? They are not savaging their own homes.

This continuum of violence from the provinces through Italy and eventually into Rome itself reinforces Rome’s status as just another place in the empire. Since the narrator groups Rome among the unarmed (“inermes”) provinces that are the prize for the victor (“pretium belli” at 1.11.1), we are led to understand that the city plays no role in determining who controls the empire. Instead, as the narrator states at the very outset of the Histories, Rome is a passive victim of the warring forces. In Tacitus’ presentation, the city—much like the consulship—retains a prestige based on its past significance, not its current authority. While the Histories may not present a scenario in which the capital means nothing, it offers readers a glimpse of a future in which the center of power in the Roman world is wherever the most powerful army is. For the Histories, AD 69 exemplifies the fragmentation of power in the Roman Empire. A crucial driving force of this process is the provincial soldiers. The invading armies treat Rome in the same manner as all of the other places they destroy along their way, not only, as Sailor suggests, because the city’s monuments now fail to signify during an imperial civil war, but also because the soldiers committing the violence do not understand the messages those monuments and buildings send in Page 66 →the first place. They quite literally do not know the language. By definition, armies in civil war direct their aggression and violence inward, so the fact that Tacitus represents Rome as a place that can be invaded and captured, however perverse from the Roman perspective of the narrator, need not be read as totally exceptional.188 Yet there are other signs that the violence turned against Rome in AD 69 is not just another variation on the topoi of civil war literature but stems from issues specific to the Histories’ vision of the empire. Most important, the armies of both Vitellius and Vespasian are composed, at least in large part, of non-Italians. Tacitus demonstrates their ethnic heterogeneity by emphasizing the ethnic origin of auxiliaries and other military units, by highlighting exotic cultural practices of some soldiers, and by stating that the armies do not share a common language. Before the first battle of Bedriacum, the narrator of the Histories claims that because the two armies could not communicate in Latin, the conflict between the Othonians and Vitellians could not be resolved diplomatically. It is not possible that armies that did not speak the same language or operate by the same customs could come together in agreement. (2.37.2) (neque aut exercitus linguis moribusque dissonos in hunc consensum potuisse coalescere.) Since the Othonians were composed almost entirely of Italians (Otho’s base of support was the Praetorian Guard), it is certainly the Vitellians who speak the foreign languages and have the alien customs.189 Indeed, Page 67 →as the Othonian and Vitellian forces taunt one another in the lead-up to the battle, the shouts of the Othonians reinforce the suggestion that the Vitellians are foreigners. Each side encouraged itself: [the Vitellians] praised the strength of their legions and the German army; [the Othonians] praised the glory of the urban soldiers and the praetorian cohorts. Each side also shouted insults at their opponents: [the Vitellians] claimed that [the Othonian troops] were lazy and corrupted by their time spent at the circus and theater; [the Othonians] called [the Vitellians] foreigners and outsiders. (2.21.4) (et diversae exhortationes hinc legionum et Germanici exercitus robur, inde urbanae militiae et praetoriarum cohortium decus attollentium; illi ut segnem et desidem et circo ac theatris corruptum militem, hi peregrinum et externum increpabant.) Furthermore, Tacitus’ Otho himself extensively develops the theme that his forces are Italian while Vitellius’ are German. By Hercules, those Germans, whom Vitellius at this very moment stirs up against us, would not dare to call for the punishment of the head of the empire and the honorable elements of the provinces. Could any nurslings of Italy and truly Roman youth make a demand for the blood and slaughter of an order by the splendor and glory of whom we eclipse the baseness and obscurity of the Vitellian supporters? Vitellius has seized control of some tribes; he holds the death mask of what was once an

army; the senate is with us. (1.84.3) (caput imperii et decora omnium provinciarum ad poenam vocare non hercule illi, quos cum maxime Vitellius in nos ciet, Germani audeant: ulline Italiae alumni et Romana vere iuventus ad sanguinem et caedem depoposcerit ordinem, cuius splendore et gloria sordes et obscuritatem Vitellianarum partium praestringimus? nationes aliquas occupavit Vitellius, imaginem quondam exercitus habet, senatus nobiscum est.) Page 68 →Otho’s desperate speech here, coming after his supporters have burst into a dinner party he is hosting at the palace and have threatened the senate with death (1.82.1), reflects a number of problems that his principate has created.190 Principally, he finds it difficult to assert his own authority after undermining Galba’s.191 To calm his zealous supporters and make them more amenable to the senate’s authority, he uses a variation on the trope of metus hostilis, fear of a foreign enemy.192 He establishes a clear dichotomy, in which the Othonians are native Italians (“Italiae alumni”) supported by the senate (“senatus nobiscum est”), in contrast to the Vitellians, who are Germans accompanied by only a handful of insignificant tribes (“nationes aliquas”). Tendentious as this strategy is—obviously the Vitellians include Italians too, not just northern provincial soldiers—the distinction it makes between the composition of the two sides’ forces is never challenged by the narrator or anyone within the text. Indeed, the description of the Vitellian revolt supports Otho’s claim of an ethnic difference between the two sides. The Vitellians are not the only civil war army to display signs of being foreign. Later in the Histories, we see that the Flavians also differ from the Romans in language and custom. When the narrator describes their rampage through Cremona, he mentions the mixed composition of the attacking force. Such was the diversity in language and customs among the soldiers, some of whom were citizens, some allies, and others foreigners, that the desires of the army were nearly unlimited: everything was morally acceptable to someone, and nothing was forbidden to everyone. (3.33.2) (utque exercitu vario linguis moribus, cui cives socii externi interessent, diversae cupidines et aliud cuique fas nec quidquam inlicitum.) Page 69 →The narrator cannot straightforwardly describe the desires of the men sacking the city, because, like their nationality, the reasons are too variable. The two armies are composed not of Romans only, as would be expected in civil war, but, rather, of foreigners speaking different languages and exhibiting unfamiliar customs. Rhiannon Ash has argued convincingly that Tacitus represents the Vitellians as a new iteration of the Gauls who sacked Rome in the early fourth century BC and that he represents the Flavians as another of the great armies from the East, in particular resembling the Carthaginians.193 In her detailed examination of Tacitus’ presentation of the ethnic variety of the armies, Ash identifies resemblances to earlier examples of linguistic diversity within armies, pointing out that armies from the East typically are linguistically heterogeneous and often are defeated.194 Linguistic diversity suggests ethnic diversity and, therefore, a lack of unity of purpose. Like so much of ancient literature, this topos goes back to Homer, whose presentation is paradigmatic: “Thus the clamor from the immense Trojan muster, / not one voice, one language / but a cacophony of tongues from different lands.”195 But though Homer’s Greeks experience disorder periodically, they are able to resolve it and thus ultimately prevail.196 The theme is developed more explicitly in the later literary tradition: Livy and Silius Italicus apply the same topos to Hannibal’s mercenary army, and Lucan and Appian apply it to Pompey’s forces. Authors in the tradition before Tacitus emphasized the ethnic and linguistic diversity of losing armies—from the Trojans to the Carthaginians to the Pompeians—because such diversity suggests a fragile coalition that is more vulnerable to disintegration than a solid unit of ethnically identical and philosophically united peoples. But whereas Ash considers the resonance of the intertexts in Tacitus strictly from a literary perspective, Tacitus’ engagement with the intertextual tradition of Page 70 →the heterogeneous army serves two additional purposes within the scheme of historical analysis in the Histories. First and most fundamentally, the Vitellians and Flavians

recall foreign armies not just because those earlier narratives of foreign invaders provide intertextually stimulating models but because these armies are actually composed of foreign troops. Beyond that, Tacitus harnesses an old topos to do new work in his narrative, where it has implications for the management and stability of the empire, not just for the Vitellians and Flavians and not just for AD 69, since the composition of the Roman armies only becomes more “foreign” at the end of the first century AD. The failure to provide a unified mission and orientation to armies composed of such diverse peoples results in their turning their violence back on Rome. In Tacitus’ narrative, the practices of the soldiers derive from the part of the world in which they are stationed.197 The Vitellians, whose original base of activity is Lower Germany, not surprisingly exhibit the customs of Germany and Gaul.198 During the early fighting between the Vitellians and Othonians, the narrator describes Vitellius’ German soldiers fighting in their native way: “The German cohorts approached, shaking their shields over their shoulders, singing their barbarian songs, and fighting in the nude, as is their custom” (subeuntes cohortes Germanorum, cantu truci et more patrio nudis corporibus super umeros scuta quatientium) (2.22.1). Later, after they have defeated the Othonians and taken control of Rome, the Vitellians have trouble adjustingPage 71 → to the city. They eventually take up residence in the pestilential area near the Vatican. Some pitched their tents in the notorious Vatican district, and as a result death was common among the crowd of men. Further, the overwhelming desire of the Gauls and Germans for swimming in the Tiber, which flowed right next to them, and their inability to endure the heat, in addition to the fact that they were already prone to sickness, did them in. (2.93.1) (infamibus Vaticani locis pars tetendit, unde crebrae in vulgus mortes, et adiacente Tiberi Germanorum Gallorumque obnoxia morbis corpora fluminis aviditas et aestus impatientia labefecit.) We learn several important pieces of information about the Vitellians from this passage. First, they do not have enough familiarity with the city to know that the Vatican area is malarial. Second, their inability to deal with the heat, coupled with their love of swimming, are stereotypical signs of northern barbarians, further evidence that the Vitellian forces include many Germanic fighters.199 That they go rampaging through the city on their entrance to Rome without the power of the city’s venerable monuments and buildings slowing them down is evidence not simply of the “gross moral debasement” of the Romans, as Rhiannon Ash puts it, but also of the presence and effect of provincial soldiers who lack an awareness of the history and meaning that these structures convey.200 Like the Vitellians, the Flavian forces are partly composed of natives—in this case, of the Judaean and Syrian regions where Vespasian and Mucianus are legates. We see evidence of the “Easternness” of the Flavians in the prelude to the second battle of Cremona, when Antonius Primus gives an inspiring speech to prepare the Flavian soldiers for their final attack.201 The troops, who are evidently Page 72 →of Syrian origin, respond enthusiastically and even salute the sun, “as is the custom in Syria” (ita in Syria mos est) (3.24.3). Tacitus points to provincial soldiers even in the legions.202 Regardless of whether they are Flavians or Vitellians, provincial soldiers who are neither ethnically Roman nor Italian provide crucial fuel for the civil wars. They are the ones who enthusiastically take up the mantle of Vitellius or Vespasian and propel the violence all the way to the Capitol. Thus, Tacitus shows that in the background of the battle being waged between elite Roman generals, these provincial fighters are driving the civil wars because they are not concerned with the status quo. They neither understand nor care about politics in Rome. They have no investment in the stability or success of the empire. It is true that provincial soldiers are hardly the only culprit behind the civil wars of AD 69; this catastrophe has a thousand fathers.203 Nevertheless, Tacitus makes a connection between the ethnic composition of the provincial soldiers and the instability they cause. One of the chief lessons of the civil strife of AD 69, then, concerns a structural problem for the empire. The Romans rely on the service of provincial soldiers who, because they gain no personal benefit from the success of the entire Roman Empire, are overly eager to achieve private gain rather than supporting the broader good of the empire. From these soldiers’ perspective, instability is the shortest route to rewards. Lack of Page 73 →cohesion and the absence of a unifying ideology that a single ethnic identity carries have resulted in a

fragmented and fractious Roman military. As Tacitus’ account of AD 69–70 in the Histories makes clear, provincial soldiers must be given rewards that bring their interests in line with the stability of the empire—an imperative that is all the more pressing because they are becoming increasingly important in the Roman military at exactly the moment when the power of the armies is on the rise. As Mucianus says in a speech urging Vespasian to declare himself emperor, “an emperor can be made by an army” (posse ab exercitu principem fieri) (2.76.4); and as Civilis suggests in urging rebellion, a poorly managed empire can be threatened by the very men who are meant to be defending it. The full extent of these threats to the empire’s stability is laid out by Tacitus at the very outset of the Histories, in an introductory excursus to which I now turn.

Page 74 →

Chapter 2 “Adhuc immotus” The Condition of Roman Dominion In his introductory survey of the state of the Roman Empire at the outset of AD 69, the narrator of the Histories describes the eastern Mediterranean provinces with the ominous phrase “adhuc immotus,” meaning “not yet in revolt” (1.10.1). Although the expression is applied specifically to the region from which the Flavians rise in the early months of AD 69, I will argue in this chapter that it also captures a permanent state of tension that faces the empire in the presentation of the Histories. Along with discussing the Flavians in the East, the survey devotes attention to the German armies, whose revolt, to be declared on the first of the year, is even more imminent than Vespasian’s. The German forces are puffed up because they were instrumental in putting down yet another revolt, that of Julius Vindex in Gaul in AD 68 (1.8.2–9.1). Even a peaceful place brings to mind recent upheaval. The narrator praises the legions in Britain for exercising the greatest restraint shown by the Roman military in the chaotic year of the four emperors. He ascribes this restraint to their having learned to direct their hatred against external enemies, presumably ones such as Boudicca, who had led a major rebellion less than a decade before (1.9.2).204 By characterizing the entire East as spring-loaded for revolt in AD Page 75 →69, Tacitus gets at the nature of managing the empire: some regions offer immediate threats, and some are quiescent, but over even a relatively short period of time, almost all areas within the empire take turns destabilizing some or all of the whole thing. This is one lesson the survey of the imperial space imparts. In Tacitus’ hands, a written map of the empire is a catalog of current threats, recent traumas, and future dangers that can only be imagined. The excursus on the state of the Roman Empire is not a confident statement of Roman dominance over its territories but a reminder of how tenuous Rome’s grasp on its empire is and how unlikely it is that peace will ever endure for long. The Histories employs the historiographical convention of an opening digression to lay out the thematic focus on the challenges of ruling the vast and diverse space of the Roman Empire. The excursus begins to reveal the structural problems with the Roman Empire, not just with the principate that rules it. The excursus on the state of Roman dominion is the third section of the Histories’ eleven chapters of introductory material. In the first section, which includes only chapter 1, the narrator introduces himself and the form of the work and proclaims the collapse of good historiography after the Augustan victory at Actium.205 The second section, encompassing chapters 2 and 3, offers an introduction to the entirety of the Histories. In this preview, the narrator does not go into detail about any event but, rather, prepares readers for the catastrophes the work holds in store, by referring to them generally: “I am approaching a period rich in disasters, bloody from frequent fighting, discordant because of mutinies, and savage even in peace” (Opus adgredior opimum casibus, atrox proeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum.) (1.2.1).206 The aim is not to create a precise table of contents but to whet readers’ appetites with the substance of the following twelve books. The passage tells readers all they need to know about what they will see in the ensuing books: the Histories is a narrative of disaster.207 The final section of the prologue to the Histories, which the narrator calls the Page 76 →“rerum Romanarum status” (1.11.3), is a seven-chapter excursus (1.4–11) on the state of the Roman dominion on January 1, AD 69.208 The “rerum Romanarum status” portrays an empire on the brink of a complete breakup. Surveying the feelings of the people in Rome (“status Urbis”) and then the provinces (“habitus provinciarum”), it is specifically an introduction to the events of the year of the four emperors. Before I set out the things I have planned, it seems worthwhile to look back at the condition of the city, the disposition of the armies, and the situation in the provinces, what in the entire world was healthy, what was ill, so that not only the outcomes and results of events, which are for the most part

products of chance, but also the rationale and causes may be understood. (1.4.1) (Ceterum antequam destinata componam, repetendum videtur, qualis status Urbis, quae mens exercituum, quis habitus provinciarum, quid in toto terrarum orbe validum, quid aegrum fuerit, ut non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed ratio etiam causaeque noscantur.) The excursus has a twofold purpose. First, the section on the “status Urbis” demonstrates that Galba, though nominally in control of the empire, is not up to the job. The Praetorian Guard does not trust him, his lieutenants do what they please, and he is disastrously out of touch with the age he lives in. As the mention of “mens exercituum” and “habitus provinciarum” indicates, the other aim of the excursus is to sketch out the individuals and groups outside the city who play a major role in precipitating the civil wars of AD 69.209 From the perspective of the excursus, the actual sources of power (and instability) lie outside the traditional bases of legal authority (senate and people) and, in a famous phrase, outside the city: “a secret of the empire had been made common knowledge: the emperor could be made somewhere other than Rome” (evulgato imperii arcano posse principem alibi quam Romae fieri) (1.4.3). While, in the estimation of the Histories, Galba never Page 77 →lives up to his promise,210 he does establish a new precedent when he shows that a general may take the principate from the field.211 The imperii arcanum may have been an obvious threat previous to Galba, but the excursus presents its realization as a watershed, a foundational moment that establishes the circumstances under which the year of the four emperors could take place. By framing the excursus as he does, the narrator of the Histories removes the sources of authority for contenders from the confines of Rome and scatters them across the empire, and he elevates the provincial armies to the role of kingmaker. The excursus concisely presents the reasons Galba fails as emperor. For one thing, he refuses to reward the Praetorian Guard with the payoff they require for protecting emperors (1.5.1). They take this slight very badly, especially because they had never really wished to abandon Nero in the first place. Aware that Galba did not owe his rise to their efforts and thus has no reason to favor them (1.5.1), they immediately start looking for an alternative. Galba’s high-minded pronouncement that he chooses his soldiers, rather than buying them (1.5.3), not only further alienates the very soldiers he should be appealing to but also points to a trait of the new emperor that the excursus offers as another reason for his failure: he is out of touch. Tacitus’ Galba is not a man for the era. Whether because of his advanced age, to which the excursus explicitly draws attention (1.6.1, 1.7.3), or simply as a result of his own delusions, Galba does not do what he must to secure the loyalty of the Praetorian Guard. Galba’s age is also a proxy for his inability to rein in his lieutenants, the final reason the excursus gives for his failure. Both in Rome, where Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco are exercising their vices (1.6.1), and in the provinces, where notionally allied commanders are murdering at will (1.6.1, 1.7.1–2), the excursus portrays subordinates who take advantage of Galba’s lack of resolve to pursue their own ideas. Though it seems discordant that the final chapter of the section on the “status Urbis” includes events in the provinces of Africa and Lower Page 78 →Germany, these events serve to highlight, one last time, Galba’s ineffectiveness in Rome: Roman officials are being murdered, but no one is punished for the crimes (1.7.1–2). The following four sections of the excursus, which address the “habitus provinciarum,” examine the support for two of Galba’s rivals. Having already covered the Praetorian Guard, the excursus goes on to devote especial attention not so much to Vitellius and Vespasian, the two men who will follow in Galba’s path and become emperor from the field, but to the sources of their power. In the case of Vitellius, Tacitus offers only a brief mention of the man himself and instead focuses on the achievements of Vitellius’ father as Vitellius’ qualifications for being governor of Lower Germany (1.9.1).212 What makes Vitellius a contender is the angry and unsettled legions he takes over at Galba’s bidding (1.8.2). Though Vitellius only gains command of the armies of Lower Germany, those of Upper Germany are violently unsatisfied with their leadership and thus, we can conclude, are looking for a better commander (1.9.1). When the survey moves southeast, it expends its greatest amount of detail on Licinius Mucianus, the governor of Syria and ultimately the architect of Vespasian’s bid (1.10.1–2). Mucianus is crafty and of questionable morality, but he is decisive and effectual when challenged. Tacitus makes clear the assets that Mucianus provides

to Vespasian: not only does he lead four legions, but he prefers to help Vespasian become emperor, rather than to be one himself.213 The details the excursus offers about Vespasian also help explain his success. He commands three legions battle-tested in the Jewish War, and he is the father of a dutiful adult son. The narrator also includes portents. Though he notes that these kinds of things are more often believed after the fact (“post fortunam”), he admits that perhaps even signs of destiny pointed toward Vespasian’s success as emperor (1.10.3). The final building block of the Flavian cause comes from the survey’s next stop, Egypt (1.11.1). The excursus quickly lays out Egypt’s strategic importance: it is difficult to approach, rich in grain, and prone to superstition.214 Though Tacitus does not explicitly connect this province to Vespasian, its prefect, TiberiusPage 79 → Alexander, is an early supporter of his bid, and Vespasian makes Egypt central to his fight against Vitellius. The Flavians cut off the supply of grain to Rome (3.8.2). Later, the narrative exploits a final detail about the superstitious Egyptians (4.81): Egypt is the site of Vespasian’s own (successful) attempts at faith healing. A model of economy, Tacitus uses a mere chapter and a half to present all of these details intended to show why Vespasian would have been a good bet on January 1 to win and hold the principate. This concision is characteristic of the excursus, which claims to present an overview of the whole empire at the start of AD 69 but actually provides extremely selective coverage. As Ronald Syme observes, “There is no note about the strength of the armies in Britain and in the Danubian provinces, the identity of their commanders. Important facts—but irrelevant, for they do not explain the origins or influence the course of the immediate crisis.”215 Restive legions and scheming generals are as unofficially and illegally powerful as the Praetorian Guard in Rome. Tacitus devotes disproportionate attention to one of each. While Mucianus receives a brief biography in the excursus, the future emperor Otho is left out entirely. It would seem that reference to the dissatisfaction of the Praetorian Guard explains his ascent and suggests, to quote Syme again, “a preoccupation not with events but with the sources of power.”216 While the excursus has a temporal span that covers the roughly six-month period between the death of Nero and the first day of AD 69, it is geography that provides the section’s structure. The description of the foundations of Vespasian’s power, described in chapters 10 and 11, starts in Syria, moves to Judaea, and then goes on to Egypt. To explain the events of AD 69, Tacitus spreads out a written map before his readers. The particulars of who does what in the excursus, who fuels the civil war, who is mentioned, and who is omitted should not crowd out the more fundamental point that the image of the imperial space is one of infinite visible and unseen threats to whoever is trying to rule it all. Using the excursus in this way, with space, not time, as its structuring principle, contrasts sharply with traditional practice. Page 80 →When Tacitus introduces his excursus on the “rerum Romanarum status,” he draws on a historiographic tradition that stretches back to Herodotus.217 In particular, he employs vocabulary and constructions that recall a historical digression from the preface of Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae, known as the Archaeology. Before I set out the things I have planned, it seems worthwhile to look back at the condition of the city, the disposition of the armies, and the situation in the provinces, what in the entire world was healthy, what was ill, so that not only the outcomes and results of events, which are for the most part products of chance, but also the rationale and causes may be understood. (Tac., Hist. 1.4.1) (Ceterum antequam destinata componam, repetendum videtur, qualis status Urbis, quae mens exercituum, quis habitus provinciarum, quid in toto terrarum orbe validum, quid aegrum fuerit, ut non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed ratio etiam causaeque noscantur.) Since the time warns of the morals of the citizenry, the situation seems to encourage me to look back and in a few words discuss the customs of our ancestors at home and at war, by what means they held the Republic, and how great a thing it was that they left behind. (Sal., Cat. 5.9) (Res ipsa hortari videtur, quoniam de moribus civitatis tempus admonuit, supra repetere218 ac paucis instituta maiorum domi militiaeque, quo modo rem publicam habuerint quantamque

reliquerintВ .В .В . disserere.)

The setup of both passages is the same. Each historian claims that a digression will help clarify the story he is about to narrate. Tacitus reproduces Sallust’s language, merely altering “hortari videturВ .В .В . repetere” from the Bellum Catilinae to “repetendum videtur,” a change of one Page 81 →word from infinitive to gerundive.219 Just like his model, Tacitus accumulates a series of indirect questions to be answered by the excursus that follows. However, as is often the case when Tacitus engages with a historiographical model, he takes just that opportunity to illustrate his text’s divergence from its predecessor—or rather, his construction of its predecessor. In this case, Tacitus focuses his excursus on space, rather than following the customary emphasis on time. To appreciate the implications of this change in structure, it is useful to examine the convention of using time as the structuring principle in opening digressions, by comparing the openings of Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides made standard the custom of including an excursus early in a work to provide the context out of which the central conflict of the narrative develops.220 Thucydides’ excursus, the Pentecontaetia (Period of fifty years), comes in book 1, after he has completed his prologue and set out the inciting incidents that led directly to the Peloponnesian War.221 In voting for war on the grounds of breach of the treaty the Spartans were not so much influenced by the arguments of their allies as by their fear of increasing Athenian power, when they could see much of Greece already subject to Athens. There follows an account of how the Athenians reached the position of such growth.222 Page 82 →The purpose of the excursus could not be clearer. Thucydides argues that the growth of Athenian imperialism over the period of fifty years that followed the Persian Wars explains why Sparta felt threatened enough to declare war. He emphasizes this interpretation of events by reiterating an idea he aired more than sixty chapters before: “In my view the real reason, true but unacknowledged, which forced the war was the growth of Athenian power and Spartan fear of it.”223 Two elements of this account that influence later historical narratives are, first, the placement of the excursus early in the work to lay out the background from which the work’s central conflict emerges and, second, the structuring of the excursus around time. Writing three and a half centuries later, Sallust draws heavily on Thucydides as a model for his treatment of the conspiracy of the corrupt nobleman Lucius Sergius Catilina to overthrow the Roman government. Sallust signals his connection to his Greek predecessor in a number of ways. He reworks some of Thucydides’ themes;224 he emulates Thucydides’ paratactic style; and he even attempts to re-create, in a Roman context, the attitude of the Greek historian.225 Lastly, he includes an excursus of his own, the Archaeology, which picks up on the major features of the Pentecontaetia.226 The excursus falls within the work’s elaborate preface (chapters 1–13). In his introduction of Catiline in the fifth chapter, Sallust states that understanding his villain requires an exploration of his context: “Beyond all else, the corrupt morals of the citizenry pushed him onward” (incitabant praeterea corrupti civitatis mores).227 The decayed moral climate of contemporary Rome becomes the departure point for Sallust’s excursus, which traces Roman history to show how the success and failure of the state resulted from the good or bad morality of its citizens. Page 83 →Sallust divides the history of Rome into two parts. Before the destruction of Carthage, the citizen body was overflowing with virtues—discipline, selflessness, and high morality. As a result, there followed the continuous growth and success of the Roman state.228 After Rome defeated its last great rival, however, “fortune began to rage and to throw everything into confusion” (saevire fortuna ac miscere omnia coepit).229 All of the values and qualities that had made Rome grow big and powerful were corrupted and decayed. Avarice, jealousy, self-interest, and luxury displaced the earlier virtues.230 The excursus ends on this point, and in the sentence that immediately follows, Sallust again connects Catiline to the corruption and vice of the previous generations of Roman history and presents him as the product of the city’s immoral

environment: “In so big and so corrupted a state, Catiline surrounded himself with a band of criminals and evildoers, something that was most easily done, as though they were a bodyguard” (In tanta tamque corrupta civitate Catilina, id quod factu facillumum erat, omnium flagitiorum atque facinorum circum se tamquam stipatorum catervas habebat).231 Following the practice of his model Thucydides, Sallust creates an excursus that introduces many of the important themes of the work. Most important for our current purposes, Sallust represents previous history as leading to the subject of his monograph: Catiline is the inevitable product of years of degeneracy and corruption at Rome. Now we may begin to put the “rerum Romanarum status” into perspective. In Sallust’s work, the Archaeology covers a great span of time but focuses only on the people of Rome. Indeed, the opening words of the excursus, “urbem Romam” (6.1), clearly announce the geographical limits of Sallust’s focus. In the Histories, Tacitus widens the scope to cover the entire empire and the people within it, but the excursus encompasses only the brief period just before January of AD 69. The passage of time and the collapse of Roman society do not have the same force as explanatory factors in the Histories as they do in the Archaeology. The civil wars and chaos of AD 69 are not presented as the direct and natural result of a long period of history but, rather, can be explainedPage 84 → from an examination of the map of the empire. Tacitus’ focus is turned on the expanse of the empire, the fragmentation of authority, and the diversity of interests within it. The transference of the organizing principle of the excursus from time to space suggests a different way of understanding the history that Tacitus presents and necessitates a fundamental reorientation on the part of readers. By eschewing the teleology of a Thucydidean/Sallustian historical explanation, Tacitus narrates events as products of the expanse of the empire, rooted in location, distance, and diversity. The volatile history of AD 69 is a reflection of the multiplicity of people, interests, and motives contained within the empire. In other words, Tacitus’ replacement of time with space in the excursus prepares readers to regard the organization and people within the empire as a whole as the driving force behind the events. Geography, ethnography, and cartography were originally related to and virtually the products of imperialism.232 The organization of Herodotus’ Histories is an early literary example.233 Herodotus lays out the geography and customs of Egypt only at the point in the narrative when mad king Cambyses leads his Persians in an attack on Egypt.234 He moves on to the location and ethnography of the Scythians when Cambyses’ successor Darius attempts to conquer them. More than simply related to imperialism, descriptions of space could be used as assertions of the military and political control of their author’s civilization over the space described.235 Indeed, Tacitus’ own Germania has been an object of this kind of analysis. This ethnographic treatise on the customs and tribes of Germany is split into two distinct halves. In the first section (chapters 1–27), Tacitus describes the Germani in general, covering aspects of their environment as well as their common culture. In the Page 85 →second section (chapters 28–46), he catalogs each tribe separately and offers details about each one. According to James Rives’ succinct analysis, “In a sense, Tacitus in the Germania succeeded in doing what Domitian had failed to do, and what Trajan chose not to attempt. That is, he вЂconquered’ Germania by incorporating it into the Roman literary world.”236 Ellen O’Gorman observes how Tacitus represents his text and the Romans in general as giving shape and meaning to Germany, its people, and its products, each of which had been nameless and valueless before the incursion of the Romans.237 She argues further that the very act of writing an ethnography is a suggestion that the Germans are passive objects to be examined by the Romans at will.238 The Germania is not a perfect fit for this kind of analysis, however. The narrator explicitly comments on the fact that the Germans have eluded actual Roman domination for more than two hundred years. Our city was in its six hundred and fortieth year, in the consulship of Caecilius Metellus and Papirius Carbo, when first the arms of the Cimbri were heard. If we count from that time to the second consulship of the commander Trajan, it adds up to nearly two hundred and ten years: for so long a time has Germany been in the process of being conquered. In the midst of so long a period many losses have been dealt back and forth. Neither the Samnites, nor the Carthaginians, nor Spain, nor Gaul, nor even the Parthians have checked us more often. Indeed, German freedom is fiercer than the

kingdom of the Arsacids.239 (Sescentesimum et quadragesimum annum urbs nostra agebat, cum primum Cimbrorum audita sunt arma Caecilio Metello ac Papirio Carbone consulibus. ex quo si ad alterum imperatoris Traiani consulatum computemus, ducenti ferme et decem anni colliguntur: tam diu Germania vincitur. Medio tam longi aevi spatio multa in vicem damna. Non Samnis, non Poeni, non Hispaniae Galliaeve, ne Parthi quidem saepius admonuere: quippe regno Arsaci acrior est Germanorum libertas.) Page 86 →The connection between imperialism and geographic writing is abundantly clear here, but the purpose of the Germania seems to be, more than anything, a search for answers as to why the Germans were able to confound the Roman Empire. While this interest in Germany clearly reflects an imperialist gaze, the level of confidence in the military superiority of the narrator’s culture is low. At least in this one geographic and ethnographic text, the narrator explicitly questions why Roman imperialism does not work against these people. We should keep this expressed motive in mind when we read scholars such as Rives and O’Gorman, who suggest that ethnographies and geographies such as the Germania are attempts by the imperialist culture of Rome to realize or affirm, if only textually, the Romans’ domination of space. There are indeed clear cases where Roman authors use geography and ethnography as a means of proclaiming actual control. From the famous first line of Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, the seven-book commentary on his campaigns in Gaul from 58 to 52 BC, the author-general illustrates the connection between geography, imperialism, and control of space. That work’s opening sentence—“The whole of Gaul is divided into three parts” (Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres)—defines what constitutes Gaul. According to Andrew Riggsby, Caesar places so much emphasis on the boundaries of Gaul because his triumph over the Gauls can be considered complete only if he clearly separates Gaul from Germany, over which he has not gained mastery. Germany remains a largely blank space in Caesar’s text, whereas Gaul and the Gauls are known quantities, a little bit hostile, but able to be controlled.240 Once again, the description of space is tied to imperialism and here asserts control.241 Geography is vital both in the process of conquering, since successful battles depend on knowledge of tactical space, and after conquest, when a thorough knowledge of the place symbolizes and reinforces the control over it. But Caesar pushes his description of space further than is usual for even geographic works. As Riggsby shows, Caesar uses the vocabulary of surveying to assert his claim to Gallic space.242 Imperialism and surveying,Page 87 → the practical art of geography, fundamentally concern the same thing: “both are about possession.”243 It is in Caesar’s interest as triumphant conqueror of Gaul to use geography as a tool to publicize his domination over that space. But his commentarii are part of a much bigger and patently self-interested political project.244 While Tacitus, too, had a public persona he wished to protect—he was a prominent senator and therefore would certainly risk losing face from literary failure—the benefit he gains from the textual “domination” of the empire is much less obvious and more evanescent than Caesar’s literary conquest of Gaul.245 The creation of his authorial persona is not an end in itself but a means (however complicated and itself open to interpretation) of airing ideas about Roman history and the empire. If we start from the assumption that the Histories is not merely a vehicle for the creation of its narrator’s persona but is about what it describes—namely, the history of the Roman Empire in AD 69–96 and what that has to teach readers in roughly AD 110—then the map of hotspots in the empire becomes a meaningful statement about the text’s view of the empire, not just about the author’s authority. The excursus in the Histories turns much scholarly understanding of geography upside down. In this case, representation of space does not suggest selfcongratulatory control over an area but, rather, reveals the absence of real Roman domination. In De Bello Gallico, Julius Caesar merely claims that the Roman state gained control of Gaul by means of his leadership, supporting this claim with seven books of military narrative and geographical and ethnographical description. His posthumously adopted son, Augustus, would make a much more grandiose declaration in the engraved monument to his own achievements, the Res gestae, whose one-sentence Page 88 →preamble explains that the monument will list how he came to control the entire world.246 The thirty-five chapters that follow

survey, in varying detail, the honors Augustus gained during his career, his benefactions to the Roman people, and his achievements in foreign affairs. The final two chapters culminate in a reference to his unsurpassed auctoritas (influence over the Roman state) and the granting to him of the title pater patriae, “father of the fatherland, ” by the people of Rome. According to Claude Nicolet, Augustus’ monument to his own achievements enunciates the connections between the categorization and control of space: “For him, as is clear from the Res Gestae, the Empire was a world, almost a new world which had been discovered, explored, and mastered. It is within a real geographic context that it came about.”247 Because the chapters of the Res gestae that deal with foreign affairs are organized geographically, we can use that work to help us understand Tacitus’ “rerum Romanarum status,” in which we find a startling reversal of the trope of geography as a symbol of domination. When Tacitus wrote his excursus on the status of the empire nearly one hundred years after Augustus’ death, he engaged with the Res gestae’s language and scheme of representation of empire and challenged its vision of Rome’s control over the empire. Suetonius tells us that when Augustus died, he left behind a will and three other documents.248 The first document contained directions for his funeral; the second was the Res gestae, which Augustus ordered to be inscribed in bronze and placed in front of his mausoleum;249 the last was a summary of the military manpower and financial accounts of the empire: “in the third (scroll) was a summary of the entire empire, showing the location and number of men in arms, and how much money was in the state treasury and in the private imperial treasury, and how much was in arrears” (tertio [volumine] breviarium totius imperii, quantum militum sub signis ubique esset, quantum pecuniae in Page 89 →aerario et fiscis et vectigaliorum residuis).250 It is unfortunate that we no longer have this third document, which Cynthia Damon has proposed as a possible point of reference for Tacitus’ “rerum Romanarum status.”251 But I suggest that the chapters of the Res gestae on foreign affairs, which are organized geographically to demonstrate Augustus’ control of the world, are an excellent point of comparison with the scheme of imperial representation in the excursus of the Histories. The preamble to the Res gestae establishes the worldwide scope of Augustus’ expansive view of the territory under his control. Below is a copy of the achievements of the deified Augustus, by which he made the world subject to the rule of the Roman people, and of the expenses which he incurred for the state and people of Rome, as inscribed upon two bronze columns which have been set up at Rome.252 (Rerum gestarum divi Augusti, quibus orbem terrarum imperio populi Romani subiecit, et impensarum quas in rem publicam populumque Romanum fecit, incisarum in duabus aheneis pilis, quae sunt Romae positae, exemplar subiectum.) The monument claims that Augustus did not simply expand the Roman Empire but gained mastery over the entire oikoumene. What appears to be an exaggeration is a deadly serious statement. As Nicolet observes, “The Res Gestae asserts from the very first line that there was Roman control of the inhabited world (orbis terrarum). And it proves this methodically, without symbolism, by using a series of topographic lists that correspond to precise geographical knowledge.”253 Much as Caesar began his De Bello Gallico by establishing the extent of his triumph, the preamble to the Res gestae establishes that for Augustus; but in contrast to Caesar, who wanted to delimit his sphere of conquest so that he could claim total victory, his adopted son’s monument has widened the scope to take into account the entire known world. Without a hint of self-consciousness, the monument declares Augustus to have Page 90 →made all of the inhabitable earth subject to Rome’s authority (“orbem terrarum imperio populi Romani subiecit”). Chapters 25–33 detail Augustus’ military and foreign policy successes and provide the proof for his claim of world domination. These nine chapters touch on a range of military and diplomatic incidents but should not be considered a complete reckoning of his affairs in these spheres. There is a large temporal span throughout the chapters, and their flow is not linear. The first chapter deals with events from the thirties BC, still the early phase of Augustus’ career, but the later chapters skip around with little concern for chronology. They have a thematic and geographic organization. Again, Augustus aims for not a precise accounting of his career but, rather,

a highlight reel that shows the extent of his achievement. The presentation attempts to demonstrate that Augustus truly has subjected the entire world to the rule of Rome and that the maintenance of the world order totally depends on its author, Augustus himself. Augustus opens the inscription’s portion on foreign affairs with a startling metaphor for his domination, when he states that he pacified the sea by ridding it of pirates (“mare pacavi a praedonibus”). He represents himself as acting not on the pirates (or, rather, the naval forces of Sextus Pompey, whom he calls “pirates”) but on the sea itself (“mare pacavi”) (Res gestae, 25.1).254 He builds toward this assertion of Neptunian power throughout the Res gestae. As we have already seen, the preamble promises to show the means by which Augustus subjected the entire world to the authority of the Roman people. In the third chapter, Augustus states that, along with the land, the sea was an important venue for his glory: “I waged many civil and foreign wars on land and sea across the whole world” (Bella terra et mari civilia externaque toto in orbe terrarum saepe gessi). Augustus’ control of the entire world thus extends even to the uninhabitable sea. At the outset of the foreign affairs section of the inscription, just as in the preamble, the representation of space is a means of extolling his domination. After Augustus’ initial boast of maritime authority, he uses the remaining chapters of the section on foreign affairs to pursue two Page 91 →(slightly) less symbolic goals. First, he establishes that each corner of the oikoumene does feel the effects of his authority. Second, he shows that the many different groups of people that inhabit the vast space bounded by those corners recognize and honor Roman rule. Chapter 26 deals with military expansion and expeditions, covering disparate points on the map. I brought peace to the Gallic and Spanish provinces and similarly to Germany, where Ocean forms a boundary from Cadiz to the mouth of the Elbe.В .В .В . My fleet sailed through Ocean eastwards from the mouth of the Rhine to the region of the rising sun as far as the territory of the Cimbri.В .В .В . Under my command and under my auspices two armies were led almost at the same time into Ethiopia and Arabia which is called Fortunate. 255 (Gallias et Hispanias provincias, item Germaniam, qua includit Oceanus a Gadibus ad ostium Albis fluminis pacavi.В .В .В . classis mea per Oceanum ab ostio Rheni ad solis orientis regionem usque ad fines Cimbrorum navigavitВ .В .В . meo iussu et auspicio ducti sunt duo exercitus eodem fere tempore in Aethiopiam et in Arabiam quae appellatur Eudaemon.) Chapter 26 presents a shorthand version of the limits of the world. By citing individual locations that stand for the corners of the oikoumene, Augustus employs a technique recognizable from Woody Guthrie’s classic Depression-era ballad This Land Is Your Land. The American folk singer captures the vast extent of the United States with a reference to just four places, each one at an opposite corner of the country from the other: “From California to the New York island / from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream watersВ .В .В .” California represents the southwestern boundary of the country; New York, the northeastern boundary. The redwoods represent the Pacific Northwest; the gulfstream waters, Florida, and the southeast. In just two lines that mention a mere four points, Guthrie represents the entire geographic expanse of the United Page 92 →States.256 The points on the map that Augustus refers to in chapter 26 of the Res gestae perform the same function. Spain signifies the western edge of the oikoumene, the ocean the northern, Ethiopia the southern, and Arabia the eastern. By establishing that the geographies of the empire and the oikoumene are identical, this chapter begins to prove Augustus’ initial claim that he subjected the entire world to Roman authority. Though the amount of space bounded by these corners of the world is large, Augustus’ aim in this portion is merely to show that Rome’s authority extends to these termini. Chapter 27 of the Res gestae focuses on eastern affairs and seeks to show that even in places where the Romans are not nominally in charge, Augustus’ will is obeyed. He first mentions his annexation of Egypt for the Roman state—which he passes by in just one sentence, even though it was the single most significant land acquisition of his rule—and his involvement in affairs in Armenia. Augustus counterintuitively expends three times as many words on Armenia as on Egypt. His strategy, however, is to demonstrate that his decision not to

annex Armenia did not mean that the place did not fall under his control. By emphasizing that he organized affairs in the kingdom without being officially its ruler, he amply proves that he was in charge. Even though I could have made Greater Armenia a province after the murder of Artaxes its king, I preferred to follow the example of our ancestors and hand that kingdom over to Tigranes, the son of the king Artavasdes.В .В .В . and later I handed the same people over to be ruled by the king Ariobarzanes, son of Artabazus king of the Medes.257 (Armeniam maiorem interfecto rege eius Artaxe cum possem facere provinciam malui maiorum nostrorum exemplo regnum id Tigrani regis Artavasdis filioВ .В .В . et eandem gentem posteaВ .В .В . regi Ariobarzani, regis Medorum, Artabazi filio regendam tradidi.) Page 93 →With these sentences on Armenian affairs, Augustus forestalls the argument that his claim to have subjected the entire world to Roman rule is false. With the exemplary case of Armenia, he shows that direct Roman control need not be the sole method of subjection. After three chapters (28–30) that focus on various military matters, ranging from establishment of veteran colonies to the recovery of lost standards and from wars in Pannonia to those in Dacia, Augustus provides another series of examples that demonstrate his auctoritas over the peoples of the world who are not legally under Rome’s control. Chapter 31 features a who’s who of strange and uncivilized peoples. All the tribes or places mentioned have in common the fact that they sent embassies to Augustus. Embassies from kings in India were often sent to me, such as have not ever been seen before this time in the presence of any Roman general. The Bastarnae sought our friendship through envoys, and the Scythians, and the kings of the Sarmatians who are on both sides of the river Don, and the king of the Albanians and of the Hiberians and of the Medes.258 (Ad me ex India regum legationes saepe missae sunt non visae ante id tempus apud quemquam Romanorum ducem. Nostram amicitiam appetiverunt per legatos Bastarnae Scythaeque et Sarmatarum qui sunt citra flumen Tanaim et ultra reges, Albanorumque rex et Hiberorum et Medorum.) Again, as in chapter 26, the list is not exhaustive. To prove world domination, Augustus merely needs to give a sampling of the supposedly complete list of peoples who obeyed his authority. He begins with India, a place apparently as far from Rome as one could imagine. Then he shifts toward the uncivilized tribes that inhabit the unknown reaches of eastern Europe and the regions beyond there. Even these kings, in their lack of cultivation, knew enough to seek Augustus as their patron. Through chapters 26 and 31, Augustus has proven that his claim to have subjected the world to the authority of Rome is true. In chapter 26, Page 94 →he establishes that the maps of the empire and the oikoumene are coterminous. In chapter 31, he demonstrates that all the peoples contained within the world are his subjects. The section of the Res gestae that covers foreign affairs concludes with the Parthians, Rome’s only rival empire at this time.259 Even they sent ambassadors to Rome and requested that Augustus choose their king. His proof of domination of the people of the earth is complete. After this, the emperor brings the monument to himself to a close by making clear one final time that the Roman Empire and the new world order depend on him. It seems unnecessary to remind the reader that everything detailed in the first person in an inscription called the “Achievements of the Divine Augustus” was his doing. Nonetheless, the final two chapters reinforce the message that Augustus is the linchpin.260 He has already (in chapter 13) called attention to his role as guarantor of worldwide harmony, noting that the gates of Janus, a symbol of the Roman state in peace when shut and at war when open, had been closed more often during his time as princeps than during the entire previous history of Rome. Our ancestors wanted Janus Quirinus to be closed when peace had been achieved by victories on land and sea throughout the whole empire of the Roman people; whereas, before I was born, it is recorded

as having been closed twice in all from the foundation of the city, the senate decreed it should be closed three times when I was leader.261 (Ianum Quirinum, quem claussum esse maiores nostri voluerunt cum per totum imperium populi Romani terra marique esset parta victoriis pax, cum, priusquam nascerer, a condita urbe bis omnino clausum fuisse prodatur memoriae, ter me principe senatus claudendum esse censuit.) But it is not until the end of the Res gestae that Augustus makes explicit the connection between his status as leading citizen of the state and guarantor of world peace. He begins the penultimate chapter with Page 95 →a reference to the post-Actium period, when he already was effectively the sole ruler of the state: “although by everyone’s agreement I had power over everything, I transferred the state from my power into the control of the Roman senate and people” (per consensum universorum potens rerum omnium, rem publicam ex mea potestate in senatus populique Romani arbitrium transtuli).262 At this time, he was granted the title Augustus and other honors. Augustus admits to surpassing all other Romans in influence over the affairs of state, but not because of any illegal or nontraditional offices: “After this time I excelled everyone in influence, but I had no more power than the others who were my colleagues in each magistracy” (post id tempus omnibus praestiti, potestatis autem nihilo amplius habui quam ceteri qui mihi quoque in magistratu conlegae fuerunt).263 This observation affirms, for the last time, that Rome, which rules the entire oikoumene, belongs to Augustus. The original inscription of the Res gestae, Suetonius tells us, was to be put in Rome in front of the Mausoleum of Augustus. That exemplar of the inscription does not survive. The Res gestae came to the modern world in one, largely intact copy with Latin and Greek versions side by side, found in the Temple of Roma and Augustus in Ancyra (modern Ankara), from which the inscription gets the title Monumentum Ancyranum. Two more copies, significantly mutilated, are extant from Apollonia and Antioch, which, like Ancyra, are also located in the Greekspeaking province of Galatia in Asia Minor.264 The Latin preamble makes clear that the inscriptions in Ancyra and the many other provincial cities in which the text was set up were copies. The real thing, the preamble tells the reader, was cut into bronze and set up on two columns in Rome (“incisarum in duabus aheneis pilis, quae sunt Romae positae”). This preface makes clear to the people of the empire that they are merely being given access to a message meant for the eyes and ears of the people of Rome.265 In the body of the inscription itself, Augustus Page 96 →speaks almost exclusively to a Roman audience. In the section on expenditures (chapters 15–24), Augustus describes benevolent deeds, which are generally directed, with only a few exceptions, toward the people of Rome.266 He begins the enumeration of his munificence with his sights set firmly on the urban plebs: “To the members of the Roman plebs I paid 300 sesterces each in accordance with my father’s will” (Plebei Romanae viritim HS trecenos numeravi ex testamento patris mei).267 Gifts directed solely toward the people of Rome in cash, games, or public improvements are the subject of seven of the ten chapters in this section. The emperor’s veterans form the only other audience to whom he devotes significant attention. While provincials may be given access to the inscription, the Res gestae makes clear that Roman citizens, who live in the city itself, are Augustus’ constituency. The emperor points to the centrality of Rome not only by directing his message solely at a Roman audience but also by making the city (and himself in it) the place from which the control of the empire emanates and to which the peoples of the oikoumene come to pay homage to their ruler. The lists of embassies (in chapter 31) and of kings who sought refuge with Augustus (in chapter 32) reveal that Rome is the capital of the world. Crucial to Rome’s status as center of the world is Augustus’ presence in it. He collapses the distinction between himself and the city: “Phraates, son of Orodes, King of the Parthians, sent all his sons and grandsons into Italy to me” (Ad me rex Parthorum Phrates Orodis filius filios suos nepotesque omnes misit in Italiam).268 To send hostages or embassies to Augustus is necessarily to send them to Rome. This last passage is Augustus’ statement that the periphery of the empire recognizes and honors himself and Rome at its heart. Rome, as the home of the emperor who dominates the entire oikoumene, stands as the center of that world. Like the Res gestae, the Histories’ excursus on the “rerum Romanarum status” claims to present a survey of the entire known world. The narrator’s reference in the first sentence to the orbis terrarum recalls

the Page 97 →crucial phrase that Augustus employs in the preamble and in chapter 3 of the Res gestae to proclaim his all-encompassing vision of the Roman Empire.269 But while Tacitus engages with Augustus’ claim, he also reverses it. Instead of a balanced world order with Rome and the emperor at the center, the excursus portrays an unstable orbis terrarum in which there are multiple competing centers of strength and authority. Tacitus’ survey of the city and the provinces demonstrates not the centralized control of the empire by Rome but, rather, the fragmentation of authority across the entire empire. The world order held together in the middle by the emperor is undone. The excursus reveals the growing restiveness of the Praetorian Guard in Rome, the people in Rhineland Gaul, the armies of Upper and Lower Germany, and the calculating mind of Mucianus. The position of emperor is suddenly up for grabs, and Tacitus identifies multiple places from which contenders will emerge. The survey does not triumphantly present a series of passive objects of the imperialist historian’s gaze but shows empowered actors agitating against the current order of the Roman Empire. The excursus, in short, presents a global vision of control not achieved. In Augustus’ vision, honoring the authority of the emperor and honoring the people of Rome are intertwined. The Histories’ narrative of AD 69, with its specific emphasis, in the excursus, on the widely scattered actors who will precipitate coups, works to undo this connection. Tacitus twice calls attention explicitly to the fact that armies now have the power to make emperors (1.4.2, 2.76.4). This new reality simultaneously makes any powerful commander of a provincial army a potential contender and diminishes the status of Rome—which, like the Praetorian Guard based there, is no longer the sole kingmaker in the empire. Arthur Pomeroy has argued that the emergence of emperors from the periphery does not threaten the centrality of Rome: “Rather than endangering the Romano-centric view of the world, the events of the civil wars may begin at Cologne or Alexandria, but, by focusing the struggle on the capture of Rome, they only confirm the city’s preeminence.”270 But for how long will Rome remain preeminent in the empire when it no longer provides the foundation of power for its emperors? The Histories identifies a paradigm shift in how emperors gain Page 98 →power, and the city loses much in this new situation. Whereas Augustus’ Res gestae presumes and speaks to an almost exclusively Roman audience, the new breed of emperor owes his status to his armies, the same armies that heavily rely on non-Roman, nonItalian provincial soldiers. While the Histories may not present a scenario in which the capital means nothing, its opening excursus, with the highly selective tour of the periphery, offers readers a glimpse of a future in which the center of power in the Roman world is wherever the most powerful army is. But the danger for Rome is not that it will become a backwater overnight. Rather, civil wars that began with Galba have, once and for all, broken Rome’s monopoly on creating emperors. Further, unlike Augustus, whose primary constituency in the Res gestae was the people living in the city itself, future emperors will be as indebted to the men of their armies as to the people of Rome. It is not as if Rome has, at one stroke, become an insignificant city. Rather, it now faces the prospect of being only one of many centers of power in the empire. The immense size of the empire becomes a problem of maintaining control as well as a challenge to the central authority of Rome and any emperor sitting there. In Tacitus’ hands, geography is a means of demonstrating not control of space but the lack of such control.

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Chapter 3 The Annalistic Structure of the Histories In the excursus on Roman domain, as we have seen, Tacitus reverses the traditional use of Roman geographic description. With the annalistic structure of the Histories, he again makes innovative use of a traditional form of historiography. Tacitus invests significant energy in showing both that the Histories is annalistic and that the events he narrates do not fit into the traditional annalistic structure. We should attend to the passages where the narrator points out to readers the difficulties of employing the annalistic mode for the history of a civil war of the principate, because these incongruities have historiographical and interpretative importance. By placing them in the text, Tacitus spurs readers to reflect on both the traditional purpose of the annalistic form and the meaning of the category-defying events he tries to fit into that form. As I will discuss at the end of this chapter, one of the categories that most challenges the historian’s application of annals to imperial history is res externae. Even though Tacitus spends much of his text on military activity outside Rome, a type of event that traditionally falls into the annalistic category of res externae, he finds few opportunities to write about affairs that he may confidently call foreign. Thus, we find the same tension at the formal level of the Histories as we see in the content. Rome has subsumed foreign peoples into its domain but has not meaningfully incorporated them into the empire. This failure to incorporate provincial soldiers not only fuels the catastrophic civil wars but also results in a historiographical challenge. What do annals mean when the events of history no longer fit into their traditional categories? Page 100 →

The Form of Imperial History Cassius Dio reflects, in a famous passage (53.19), on the challenges facing a historian of the principate.271 He begins by noting that the history of the principate cannot be narrated in the same fashion as that of the republic, since affairs are no longer handled in the open by the senate and popular assemblies. In the previous era, information about events and policy was public, and anyone who wished to could write about state affairs. Under the new regime, the ruling group—the emperor and his cadre of advisors—oversees the maintenance of the empire in secret, keeping information about events and their decisions concealed: “But after this time most things that happened began to be kept secret and concealed.”272 The narrator of the Annals addresses this same issue, in a much more sinister context. He describes the advice of Sallustius Crispus to Livia when the new emperor Tiberius allows a senatorial inquiry into the murder of Agrippa Postumus. He admonished Livia that the secrets of the house, the counsels of friends, the services of soldiers ought not become common knowledge, nor ought Tiberius undo the force of the principate by calling all matters before the senate; this is a contractual provision of being emperor, that the account would not balance unless it was rendered to just one. (monuit Liviam: ne arcana domus, ne consilia amicorum, ministeria militum vulgarentur, neve Tiberius vim principatus resolveret cuncta ad senatum vocando: eam condicionem esse imperandi, ut non aliter ratio constet, quam si uni reddatur.)273 Dio’s sentiment, although expressed more respectfully, is fundamentally the same. The third-century historian does not doubt that the principate ensured security for the people and that life on the whole is consequently better, but the changes in the form of government have Page 101 →necessarily made it more difficult for the historian to write an accurate history. He claims to handle the problem simply by trying his best with the imperfect information available. This passage dates to around AD 215, but Dio’s point can be applied to all historians and biographers of the principate. It touches on something that is more than a source issue, by bringing to mind the question of how historians adapted the form of their work to the changes in political

conditions. The historiographical problem precipitated by the advent of the principate and its emphasis on secrecy was not simply the result of a lack of information but a question of how to create a literary structure that reflected the political situation the author was narrating. The new order challenged writers because imperial secrecy obscured the decision-making process. More fundamentally, the decision-making process was no longer based on the traditional offices, governing bodies, and procedures that had been characterized by their openness and by precedent. In response, the emperor became the primary organizing principle of imperial historiography, and biography eventually emerged as the historical mode deemed most fitting for the principate.274 Biography was not an invention of the imperial period.275 In embryonic form, it was deeply embedded in Roman culture.276 But not until the time of emperors could the entire history of a period be structured around the life of a single Roman. Velleius Paterculus had already begun to experiment with biography in a longer historical narrative in the time of Tiberius, when he made that emperor the focal point of his narrative. Suetonius was working on his Lives of the Caesars within the lifetime of Tacitus. The Historia Augusta, a string of biographies of emperors, is one of the few sources of information about the emperors from the second through third centuries.277 Even when a historian like Cassius Page 102 →Dio was not writing biography, he structured the history of the principate around the life of each emperor.278 Biography acknowledged the centrality and paramount importance of the emperor in the Roman government. Since all of the authority within the Roman state now fell on one man, a historiographical form that recognized that individual’s importance became the means of commemorating how the state functions. If part of the point of writing history is to attempt to explain why things happened,279 a portrait of the single most powerful man in the state becomes a logical tool for gaining that understanding. So long as access to the actual reasons for decisions is limited, the next best option is to scrutinize the character and actions of the one in charge of making those decisions. Such an approach is a cruder, much less accurate tool for analyzing history, but it nevertheless provided a means of recording history that responded to the overwhelming importance of the emperor and the concomitant dearth of evidence.280 Quite the opposite of biography, annals focus on constitutional processes that renew themselves every year. They emphasize the diffusion of authority, not just between the consuls, but also among the proconsuls in the provinces, the various priests maintaining the pax deorum, and the censors who took office every five years. Most significantly, annals employ the year as the periodizing principle. It cannot be said that the emperor succeeded in affecting even the seasons of the year, but his dominance rendered the republican rhythm obsolete and irrelevant. Different individuals still entered and exited office yearly or, in many cases, more frequently than that, but periods came to be measured in reigns or parts of reigns. Biography stands as the anti-annals. It has very little prescribed content. The character of the individual determined the direction a biography would take, just as the character of the emperor determined the direction the Roman state would take. Page 103 →Despite its modern title,281 the Histories announces, from its first sentence, that it is to be a work of annalistic historiography. The use of this mode implies the inclusion of material that Roman historians had long considered of dubious significance, such as omens, grain shortages, and elections. But although the Histories includes all of this material, Tacitus uses it to his own ends and in a way that specifically addresses the culture of Rome in AD 69–70.282 That the narrator felt a need to make these traditional categories relevant to his narrative of an imperial civil war points to a difficulty with applying the annalistic mode to the history of the principate. In addition to specific types of content, the annalistic form also prescribed a year-by-year structure built around the republican political and military calendar. That calendar, which had already lost much of its significance under the emperors, was even less relevant in the uniquely chaotic year of AD 69. By examining how the Histories frames the annalistic structure and how it diverges from its supposedly fixed formula, we can gain further insight into Tacitus’ views about the events the text relates.

Key Features of the Annalistic Tradition

According to Roman tradition, the annals of the pontifex maximus formed the foundation of annalistic historiography. In the early republic, the pontifex maximus began to keep a whitewashed board (tabula dealbata) on public display outside his house, on which he chronicled events of public significance. When this practice began and what was written on the board remains largely speculation.283 There are only a handful of references to these annals. Servius writes, Page 104 →Each year the pontifex maximus kept a whitewashed board, on which he first wrote the names of the consuls and the other magistrates and then recorded the deeds worthy of memory both at home and in war, on land and sea, day by day. Men long ago published the annual notes of their efforts in eighty books, which they gave the name annales maximi from the pontifex maximus by whom they were made.284 (Tabulam dealbatam quotannis pontifex maximus habuit, in qua praescriptis consulum nominibus et aliorum magistratuum digna memoratu notare consueverat domi militiaeque terra marique gesta per singulos dies, cuius diligentiae annuos commentarios in octoginta libros veteres retulerunt eosque a pontificibus maximis, a quibus fiebant, annales maximos appellarunt.) Cicero writes something similar. For the purpose of keeping a public record, the pontifex maximus committed to writing every event of each year from the earliest days of the Roman state all the way to the pontificate of Publius Mucius. He published it on a white board and placed that tablet at his house in front so that the people might have the opportunity to see it; these tablets are still now called the annales maximi.285 (memoriaeque publicae retinendae causa ab initio rerum Romanarum usque ad P. Mucium, pontificem maximum, res omnes singulorum annorum mandabat litteris pontifex maximus referebatque in album et proponebat tabulam domi, potestas ut esset populo cognoscendi; eique etiam nunc annales maximi nominantur.) From these passages, we learn that the pontifical annals were something close to a daily record (“per singulos dies” in Servius, “res omnes” in Cicero) of whatever events the pontifex felt were worthy of commemoration (“digna memoratu”). Even though the pontifex maximus was a religious official, there is little indication that the information was Page 105 →exclusively of a sacred nature. If anything, Cicero gives the impression that the annals were kept as a kind of newspaper apprising the people (“populo”) of the events taking place in Rome and wherever the Romans were active in war. A fragment from Cato hints at the type of information contained on the tabulae, when he dismisses the contents of annals as insignificant notices about banal events: “I do not wish to write what is on the tablet of the pontifex maximus, how often grain was scarce, or how often there were solar or lunar eclipses, or what caused the eclipse” (non lubet scribere quod in tabula apud pontificem maximum est, quotiens annona cara, quotiens lunae aut solis lumine caligo aut quid obstiterit).286 The evidence for the annals of the pontifex gives the impression of a great deal of data, some of it religious and some secular, from Rome and abroad, of great and minor significance, thrown together with no thematic organization and little concern for separating the important from the mundane. Whatever the drawbacks of the annals of the pontifex, Quintus Fabius Pictor adopted them as the model for his historical work in the final decade of the third century BC, the first work of history written by a Roman.287 Pictor melded annales, the distinctly Roman form of historical memorialization, with the Greek language, the lingua franca of the Mediterranean intelligentsia, to produce what Cicero describes as “Graeci annales.”288 Pictor’s work covered nearly the entire span of Roman history from Romulus to roughly the First Punic War.289 Little specific can be stated about the annalistic form of his work, other than that it featured consular dating for its chronology.290 Though Pictor likely synchronized major events in Roman history with the Olympiad dating system (indicative of his greater project of situating Rome within the broader Greek context), he nevertheless retained the uniquely Roman system of dating, as the backbone of his historical account.291 Pictor established the form of historiography that was to be dominant for the better part of the next century and

that would continue for a century after that. While his followers mostly eschewed Greek and Page 106 →wrote in their native Latin, they maintained the practice of organizing their narratives by year. A. Postumius Albinus (consul in 151, still writing in Greek), L. Cassius Hemina (fl. 140s BC), C. Sempronius Tuditanus (consul in 129), and L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul in 133) all wrote annals of varying lengths, moral fervor, and literary merit.292 These annalists maintained Pictor’s practice of writing Roman history from the earliest history up through recent times. It is safe to say that annals had become established as the primary historiographical form at Rome by the middle of the second century. But no sooner had this golden age arrived than senatorial authors began to turn away from the annalistic form and toward a more contemporary and autobiographical form of historical writing.293 Almost from its inception, annalistic historiography had detractors. In the early second century BC, Cato wrote the Origines, a nonannalistic history of Rome and Italy that not only eschewed consular dating but also avoided using the names of consuls—and, to a great extent, of other prominent individuals—and was arranged by topic rather than chronology.294 The fragment quoted above attests to Cato’s feeling that annals did not capture the important events in history. The historian Sempronius Asellio, from the late second century BC, followed in this line, claiming that annals did little more than recite what happened. Annals only point out what happened and in which year, which is similar to writing daily records, which the Greeks call ephemerida. In my opinion, I do not think it is enough to declare only what happened, but also to show why or for what reason things were done. (Annales libri tantummodo, quod factum quoque anno gestum sit, ea demonstrabant, id est quasi qui diarium scribunt, quam Graeci ephemerida vocant. Nobis non modo satis esse video, quod factum esset,Page 107 → id pronuntiare, sed etiam, quo consilio quaque ratione gesta essent, demonstrare.)295 According to Sempronius Asellio, annals were limited by their format and did not offer analysis of the events chronicled in them.296 Even more damning than his criticism of their form is his claim that annals failed to move the reader to action: “Indeed annals cannot in any way make men more eager to defend their country, or more reluctant to do wrong” (nam neque alacriores ad rem publicam defendundam neque segniores ad rem perperam faciundam annales libri commovere quicquam possunt).297 This key strain of criticism suggested that the information conveyed by the form was so banal as to make no difference in the lives of its readers. Annals presented the events of history but not the lessons. Perhaps with these criticisms in mind, senatorial authors had begun to turn away from annalistic history by the end of the second century BC. Sometime in the final two decades of that century, L. Coelius Antipater wrote the first monograph (about the Second Punic War). P. Rutilius Rufus composed an autobiography after going into exile in 92 BC. L. Cornelius Sisenna, another senator, wrote a well-respected history of the Social War and the civil wars. Ernst Badian convincingly argues that, aside from their desire to continue their political battles in literary form, these senatorial authors took up contemporary or near-contemporary history because they valued the use of untapped source material. Their desire to uncover new sources and to produce something novel drew these writers away from annals and toward a different kind of contemporary history. From the end of the second century BC until Tacitus’ day, senators had little to do with annalistic history except for a brief period in the first century BC, when the so-called linen books (libri lintei) containing magistrate lists appeared in the temple of Page 108 →Juno Moneta and when Licinius Macer and Aelius Tubero composed annals that began with the founding of Rome. These two authors likely returned to the annalistic form because access to previously unseen sources allowed them to write fresh accounts of well-covered events.298 Nonsenatorial authors continued to write annals through the first century BC. Gnaeus Gellius had already expanded Roman history in the later second century BC, reportedly writing more than ninety-seven books from the founding of the city, so elaboration of bare source material was hardly new by the time of the last two annalists before the Augustan era, Claudius Quadrigarius and Valerius Antias.299 Claudius wrote an annalistic history beginning with the sack of Rome by the Gauls, in roughly twenty-four books. Antias started at the founding of the

city and continued down at least to 91 BC, in nearly one hundred books. More than by the length of their narratives, these two annalists were characterized by their elaboration of stories, with little concern for historical accuracy.300 They are often maligned by modern critics for focusing less on producing thoroughly researched contributions to Roman historical knowledge and more on telling dramatic (i.e., false) tales.301 Criticism of their lack of credibility and of their interest in dramatic storytelling over all else is already found in Livy.302 About Antias’ inflated casualty figures, Livy renders an encompassing judgment: “so much is there no limit to his lying” (adeo nullus mentiendi modus est).303 Yet, in many ways, Livy himself continued this nonsenatorial annalistic tradition, with his very long history (142 books) of Rome from its foundation, based predominantly on the work of earlier historians.304 It Page 109 →used to be accepted in modern scholarship that his extant republican books hew closely to the traditional annalistic format.305 For a typical year, Livy splits events between the city and abroad (the “domi militiaeque” of Servius). He begins each year with the consuls, adopting the practice dating all the way back past Pictor to the pontifical annals. Livy’s annalistic year follows the movement of the consuls over the course of their tenure and is composed of three parts. It opens with events in Rome, such as the entry of magistrates into office, allotment of provinces, embassies to the senate, and the expiation of prodigies. The middle portion of the year focuses on the consuls in the field, their campaigns abroad, and the expansion of Roman dominion. Rome again serves as the setting for the final portion of the annalistic year. The end chapters include the elections of the following year’s magistrates, triumphs, and sundry other administrative and religious matters, as well as special material such as obituaries and descriptions of building projects. The format Livy inherited from the annalistic tradition was felt to be restrictive. Writing in the generation before Livy, Cicero detailed its limitations. In the second book of the De oratore, Marcus Antonius, one of Cicero’s interlocutors in the dialogue, criticizes previous Latin historiography before moving on to provide a summary of how to write proper history. Just before the passage in which he describes the contents of the Annales maximi (quoted above), he says that Latin historical writing was merely a dry list of people and places, without any elaboration of theme or style. History writing was nothing more than a compilation of the annals.В .В .В . Indeed, many have followed a similar writing style: without any elaboration, they only leave behind a record of the times, men, places, and events.306 (erat enim historia nihil aliud nisi annalium confectio.В .В .В . Hanc similitudinem scribendi multi secuti sunt, qui sine ullis ornamentis monumentaPage 110 → solum temporum, hominum locorum gestarumque rerum reliquerunt.) A little later, Cicero has Antonius describe his ideal form of historiography. After insisting that a historian be free from bias,307 he offers his recommendations for the writing of history. These foundations are of course recognized by everyone, but the actual superstructure consists of content and style. It is in the nature of content, on the one hand, that you require a chronological order of events and topographical descriptions; and also that you need—since in the treatment of important and memorable achievements the reader expects intentions, the events themselves, and consequences—in the case of intentions, to indicate whether you approve of the intentions, of the events themselves, to reveal not only what was said or done but also in what manner, and of consequences, to explain all the reasons, whether they be of chance or intelligence or impetuousness, and also to give not only the achievement of any famous protagonist but also his life and character. The nature of style and type of discourse, on the other hand, require amplitude and mobility, with a slow and regular fluency without any of the roughness and prickliness associated with the lawcourts.308 (Haec scilicet fundamenta nota sunt omnibus, ipsa autem exaedificatio posita est in rebus et verbis: rerum ratio ordinem temporum desiderat, regionum descriptionem; vult etiam, quoniam in rebus

magnis memoriaque dignis consilia primum, deinde acta, postea eventus exspectentur, et de consiliis significari quid scriptor probet et in rebus gestis declarari non solum quid actum aut dictum sit, sed etiam quo modo, et cum de eventu dicatur, ut causae explicentur omnes vel casus vel sapientiae vel temeritatis hominumque ipsorum non solum res gestae, sed etiam, qui fama ac nomine excellant, de cuiusque vita atque natura; verborum autem ratio et genus orationis fusum atque tractum et cum lenitate quadam aequabiliter profluens sine hac iudiciali asperitate et sine sententiarum forensibus aculeis persequendum est.)

Page 111 →Cicero’s elaborate historiographical program builds on criticisms similar to those that Sempronius Asellio voiced about annals a half century or so earlier. A bare catalog of who, what, when, and where is not satisfactory. Cicero calls for exposition and explanation. Lastly, but vitally, this more advanced level of historiography requires a smooth prose style. Livy deftly responds to the perceived limits of the mode (and the main lines of criticism) by developing an elaborate periodic writing style and by including frequent exempla throughout his work, making it both a good and an edifying read.309 Still more innovative is Livy’s recognition that annals are themselves the literary analogue to the republican form of government. Livy claims that including prodigies, a category of events that people had long since stopped believing in, is a way to connect with the values of the Romans of past eras, regardless of contemporary cynicism. I am not unaware that it is the same disregard that leads people commonly now to believe that the gods foretell nothing, that no portents at all are reported officially or recorded in our annals. But somehow my mind becomes old-fashioned when I write about ancient affairs, and a certain scruple keeps me from regarding what those most wise men of former times thought worthy of public concern as something unworthy to be reported in my history.310 (Non sum nescius ab eadem neglegentia qua nihil deos portendere vulgo nunc credant, neque nuntiari admodum ulla prodigia in publicum neque in annales referri. Ceterum et mihi vetustas res scribenti nescio quo pacto antiquus fit animus et quaedam religio tenet, quae illi prudentissimi viri publice suscipienda censuerint, ea pro indignis habere, quae in meos annales referam.) The values of the old Romans are built into the historiographic form. Indeed, in the hands of Livy, writing under the Augustan principate, the annalistic form itself takes on an ideological weight not previously exploited. The first words of his second book, which covers the first Page 112 →year of the republic, explicitly connect the form with the republican government: “I shall now cover the deeds of the Roman people, henceforth free, in peace and at war, the annual offices, and the authority of laws more powerful than men” (Liberi iam hinc Romani res pace belloque gestas, annuos magistratus, imperiaque legum potentiora quam hominum peragam).311 Just as the annual turnover of offices characterizes the free Romans of the republic, so the repetitive structure of annals captures the essence of the republic itself. By contrast, during the constitutional crisis of the sixth book, when the government is, in effect, stopped by plebeian dissent, Livy ceases to record events in the annalistic style. As Christina Kraus observes, “The absence of curule magistrates means that there are no officials by whom to date a year. But Livy is writing annales, a kind of history based on the annual magistrate lists, and without them there can be no historiographical narrative from 375 to 371. By eliminating the authorities by whom time is measured the tribunes effectively take control of narrative authority as well, while the state and its record simply stop.”312 Livy thus creates a narrative echo of the constitutional crisis: when the government ceases to function normally, the annalistic form does not function either. In the Augustan age, Livy exploits the repetitive formula of the annalistic year—a formula that earlier critics like Sempronius Asellio and Cicero had regarded as a hindrance to good historical narrative—to show that the restrictive historiographical form mirrored the processes of the previously free government of the republic.

When Tacitus came to write the Histories, few authors since Livy had written annals.313 To write imperial history in the annalistic mode was an unusual and potentially inappropriate choice. First, Tacitus would have to revive a tradition in which, after an initial burst, senators had not taken part for generations. Second, he would have to grapple with the discordance between the republican expectations of annals fleshed out by Livy and the reality of the monarchical imperial history that his text would describe. The Histories places in front of readers, as a thematic element in the text, the challenge of responding to the tensionPage 113 → between annalistic expectations and imperial civil war. It urges readers to interpret the annalistic structure of the text as a dynamic thematic element interacting with and commenting on the events described within the narrative. Over the last generation, several scholars have focused attention on the annalistic structure of Livy’s Ab urbe condita and Tacitus’ Annals.314 Judith Ginsburg set the parameters with her illuminating study of the first six books of the Annals,315 in which she argues that Tacitus had no interest in preserving the traditional annalistic structure as received from Livy. According to Ginsberg, the only imperative Tacitus observes is to record events under the year in which they happened, “suum quaeque in annum referre.”316 Any aspect of the traditional formula he conforms to, such as including reports of consular elections and relating foreign affairs, res externae, or even observing chronology, contributes toward the exposition and development of his themes. In Annals 1–6, Tacitus focuses primarily on the personalities of Germanicus and Tiberius and the conflict between them; the centrality of domestic affairs at Rome; Tiberius’ total control over the Roman state; and the corresponding impotence and irrelevance of the senate. Tacitus manipulates the annalistic structure in order to keep the focus on these themes. Insofar as the traditional annalistic format can be understood (inferred, more or less, from Livy), Tacitus adheres to it only when it suits his paramount purpose of developing his themes. In short, Ginsburg says, Tacitus abuses the annalistic structure to amplify his thematic interests. He forces his content into an outdated mold that no longer easily represents the functioning of the Roman state.317 Page 114 →Ginsburg never fully explains why Tacitus “has rejected traditional annalistic history, butВ .В .В . has not rejected its form.”318 She suggests that although republican offices and procedures are still found in the Annals, they are a sham, concealing the fact that the emperor is the true locus of authority under the principate. This line of argument suggests that the annalistic form itself represents the republic and that Tacitus’ disregard for many of its traditional aspects reflects the perversion of the enervated republic. Ginsburg never makes her point in these terms, however. She privileges the category of “themes” over that of “structure.” She does not consider the possibility that the text’s variations on the traditional annalistic structure are themselves a point of the work, meant to be interpreted in their own right. No comprehensive study comparable to Judith Ginsburg’s analysis of the Annals is available for the annalistic structure of the Histories. The more than four extant books of the Histories cover only a little more than a year, so the sample size of annalistic years is small. But this difficulty should not prevent us from considering the use of the annalistic mode in the text we do have. Close scrutiny of how the Histories frames the annalistic structure and how it diverges from its supposedly fixed formula yields insight into Tacitus’ views about the events he relates. As we will see, the narrator conspicuously chafes against the “limits” of the annalistic mode, as a way of encouraging the reader to think about imperial history’s relationship to the past and to ponder the lessons offered by the tension between form and content.

The Programmatic Value of Consular Dating The starting point for Tacitus’ Histories has generated much scholarly debate.319 The opening date—January 1, 69—strikes many as an inappropriate beginning, because it seems to set the story in motion in medias res. Some have argued that an earlier starting point would have been better—perhaps the death of Nero, as this event would have allowedPage 115 → a more thorough exposition of the background for the events of AD 69.320 Others think a later date would have been more fitting—perhaps the beginning of Vespasian’s reign, as that would have allowed Tacitus to bypass the origins of the Flavian establishment of power and focus exclusively on the dynasty. Private motives have been adduced for the starting point Tacitus actually uses.321

Rather than seeking a negative explanation for why the text does not start on some other date, a more fruitful approach is to seek positive reasons for its actual starting point. Syme does just that in his classic study of Tacitus, suggesting that beginning the work on the first day of the New Year contributes to the exposition of the year’s events. The revolt in Germany begins that day, an event that precipitates Galba’s only major decision of the year, the adoption of Piso Licinianus. That adoption incites Otho to a coup of his own. These factors, Syme observes, combine to make January 1 a “vital and inevitable” starting point for the year. While most other discussions of the starting point are more speculation than argument, Syme’s is the best example of an argument that seeks reasons within the text for how the starting point contributes to Tacitus’ analysis of the year’s events. More than simply making sense as a way to explain the story of AD 69, the starting point of the Histories has a literary significance: it enables the narrator to assert that this text is annalistic. The opening words of any work of literature are programmatic.322 Gian Biaggio Conte states that Romans began to read a new work of literature with a Page 116 →question on their minds: “To what genre does this new text belong?”323 In ancient historiography, the standard was even more rigid: tell the reader in the first sentence what the text is about.324 The narrator of the Histories obliges at the outset, where he places the classic signal of the annalistic mode: “The beginning of my work will be the second consulship of Servius Galba and the first of Titus Vinius” (initium mihi operis Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules erunt) (1.1.1). The presence of the names of consuls in the opening words evokes the annalistic practice of beginning each year’s narrative with the consuls, a practice that stretches back to Pictor. Tacitus’ principal inspiration, Sallust, also begins his Historiae with consular dating: “I have compiled the military and civil history of the Roman people for the consular year of Marcus Lepidus and Quintus Catulus, and for the years thereafter” (Res populi Romani M. Lepido Q. Catulo consulibus ac deinde militiae et domi gestas composui).325 Likewise, Livy employs consular dating for the history of the republic: “Next Publius Valerius (for the second time) and Titus Lucretius were made consuls” (Inde P. Valerius iterum T. Lucretius consules facti).326 Livy repeats the practice of naming the consuls at the opening of the year for the entirety of his republican narrative, with only a few exceptions (e.g., for the years 375–371 BC, as noted above).327 Consular dating is a traditional and strongly marked signal of the annalistic mode. Thus, when the narrator of the Histories says his work will begin with Galba and Vinius, he provides not merely the opening date of the narrative but a declaration of what the form of his work will be. January 1 is a perfect starting point for the work, an opening that allows the narrator to establish tensions within both the structure and the plot of the narrative. The opening of the Histories, it turns out, is a tease.328 The first sentence,Page 117 → which employs the future tense of the verb meaning “to be” (“erunt”), delays the “official” start of the text’s annalistic narrative.329 It promises us that the work will begin when Galba and Titus Vinius are consuls. The narrator fulfills this promise at the end of the eleventh chapter, when he reiterates the names of these consuls: “Such was the state of the Roman empire when the consuls Servius Galba (for the second time) and Titus Vinius began the final year of their lives and nearly the last for the state” (Hic fuit rerum Romanarum status, cum Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules inchoavere annum sibi ultimum, rei publicae prope supremum) (1.11.3). This sentence in the eleventh chapter marks the “official” beginning of the annalistic Histories. The narrator provides new details in this reiteration of the consular names. He reveals that this year is to be the last for Galba and Vinius, preparing us for the deaths that will occur at the midpoint of book 1. He also warns that this year nearly saw the final destruction of the Roman state, a claim that establishes the frightening depths the work will reach, but one that comes with the assurance that the res publica will survive. Most important, with the phrase “inchoavere annum,” he foregrounds the magistrate year, the characteristic unit of measure of the annalistic form. By fulfilling the promise to begin the work with the names of the consuls, this sentence declares that the form is in place. But by mentioning the deaths of the consuls at the moment they are seen to enter office, it already suggests that the content will not be a match for the form. The opening sentence and its corollary in chapter 11 serve two programmatic functions. First, as we have now seen, they announce and then reaffirm that the text will be annalistic.330 This effort to establish the mode shows that the nature of the form will be a theme of the work and an active part of the creation of meaning for and the

analysis of events. Second, in retrospect, the two references to the consuls’ names mark the prefatory material in the eleven chapters placed between them as nonannalistic, thereby establishing tensions, on the formal level, over what Page 118 →constitutes annalistic material.331 Tacitus thus exerts a great deal of pressure on the annalistic mode from the start and already begins to produce a narrow definition of annals. He posits this limited annalistic model (one that requires an apology for any deviation from a strictly progressively linear model) as a foil for his narrative, which, in comparison, will appear to diverge from the norm. The narrator again employs consular dating when he marks the beginning of AD 70, the second year of his narrative: “Meanwhile Vespasian (for the second time) and Titus entered into the consulship in absentia” (interea Vespasianus iterum et Titus consulatum absentes inierunt) (4.38.1). His adherence to annalistic practice, however, should not be interpreted as indication of his confidence in the maintenance of the republican form of government and specifically in the importance of the consul. Elsewhere in the text, he shows that the very office used to signal the mode does not retain its previous authority.332 The true authority lies with the emperors who bestow the consulship on others as a gift or take the office themselves to establish their rule. Throughout the year and a half covered by the extant Histories, new consuls take office and old ones are replaced at the whim of the emperors. The narrator sets the tone in the second chapter of the work, where he provides a preview of the disasters that his text will feature. At 1.2.3, he states the lows to which honors and the consulship in particular have sunk: “Nobility, wealth, and honors were lost or gained depending on criminality. Virtue guaranteed death. The rewards for informers were no less hateful than their crimes. Some gained priesthoods and consulships as their spoils, others procuratorships.” (nobilitas, opes, omissi gestique honores pro crimine, et ob virtutes certissimum exitium. Nec minus praemia delatorum invisa quam scelera, cum alii sacerdotia et consulatus ut spolia adepti, procurationes alii.) The consulship is just another reward for acting dishonorably in the service of an emperor. The text reinforces this programmatic criticism time and again throughout the narrative, highlighting the frequent and often frivolous Page 119 →change of consuls. In one instance, Vitellius seeks to create openings on the consular roster so that he can install Caecina and Valens in the office (2.71.2). Later, after Caecina has defected to the Flavian side and left one day of his term open, Rosius Regulus brings shame on himself and Vitellius by offering himself for and receiving the consulship for just that one day (3.37.2). Toward the end of his reign, Vitellius creates a list of consuls for years to come (3.55.2), as though he can leave his stamp on history regardless of his own demise. Domitian voids the entire list one book later, after the defeat of the Vitellians (4.47). The ease with which the honor is granted and revoked points to the cheapness of the office. The consulship holds only as much authority and significance as the current emperor is willing to grant to it. The narrator advertises the annalistic structure of the Histories from the outset, principally by means of emphasizing the consular dating. Yet his analysis of the frequent change of consuls and their often dubious credentials reveals how this signifier of the annalistic mode does not retain the authority that originally made it the focus of annals. Thus, right from the start of the text, the narrator both introduces the annalistic mode and begins to demonstrate how it has difficulty accommodating the history of AD 69–70. Annals have not only a prescribed structure—dictating what comes first, second, and last—but a prescribed content as well.333 Aside from the consular dating, this content includes omens, grain shortages, obituaries of famous men, and temple dedications.334 The mode expects certain types of events to be commemorated, and the Histories preserves much of the most traditional annalistic content. Taken individually, each element of the annalistic mode may merely be “the stuff of history,” as Gerald Verbrugghe says,335 but within a narrative that strives Page 120 →so overtly to be annalistic, each one also serves as further confirmation of the text’s engagement with the annalistic tradition. The Histories weaves the themes of the work into traditional categories and integrates them into the context of AD 69.336 This traditional material helps exemplify the perversion of the Roman state. As in the case of the consulship, the Histories succeeds in making the history of AD 69–70 fit into some of the traditional categories, but in a way that draws attention to the degraded state of Roman affairs and the Roman people.

Annalistic Content in the Histories: Grain Shortages and Obituaries Few annalistic categories are more traditional than grain shortages. As we saw above, when Cato wished, in the second century BC, to exemplify the triviality of annals, the first element that he singled out was the commemoration of grain shortages. The Catonian passage, written more than two and a half centuries before the Histories, reinforces this element’s generic importance, through the very act of disparaging it. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Histories frequently recounts actual or impending grain shortages. The Histories’ inclusion of these episodes is smoothly integrated into the narrative and contributes to characterization and the development of its themes. In fact, the episodes are so seamlessly woven into the work that their annalistic significance can appear attenuated. The text relates the story of a grain shortage—or, more specifically, the threat of one—no fewer than five times in the extant books of the Histories.337 In every single episode, the grain shortage is believed, by either the narrator or the people of Rome, to have been caused by a person seeking political gain. Three of the examples center on Vespasian’s strategy to exploit his control of Egypt and North Africa to defeat the Vitellians in Italy. First, Vespasian plans to cut off the importation of grain to Italy, so that the Vitellian forces will starve and be compelled to surrender Page 121 →(3.8.2).338 Later, after the Flavians succeed at Bedriacum, Vespasian again enforces his blockade in order to sow dissension among his remaining enemies (3.48.3).339 Finally, in early AD 70, preparing to return to Rome from North Africa, he sends grain ships in advance (4.52.2).340 Vespasian’s ultimately successful plan to starve Rome into submission follows an earlier failed attempt at the same strategy by one Calvia Crispinilla. Among other crimes, the narrator informs readers that she tried to prevent grain from being imported to Rome from Africa in support of the revolt of the legate there, Clodius Macer.341 She fails but sets a dangerous precedent that Vespasian picks up, consciously or not. There is only one instance of a potential grain shortage attributed by the narrator to natural circumstances. This occurs at the outset of AD 70: Rome’s grain stores dwindle to ten days’ supply, and the winter weather delays shipment from North Africa (4.38.2). But even in this case, the crowd in Rome, having already experienced Vespasian’s strategy, incorrectly attributes the shortage to a power play of the governor, Lucius Piso.342 These incidents provide a disturbing index of the state of the empire, in which individuals aspiring to power are willing to prevent the importation of grain to Rome—that is, to starve the city—in order to advance their private interests. Blockading an enemy is a traditional military technique, one that the Romans will employ against Jerusalem in book 5, but its application to Rome indicates the confusion of Roman with foreign territory. Indeed, in a further demonstration of the revelation that emperors can be made elsewhere (the imperii arcanum of book 1), we learn from the passages on grain shortages that power over Rome Page 122 →can be won by controlling the northern territories of Africa. It is within this context that Tacitus fits a most traditional component of annals into the Histories. The Histories also exploits obituaries, another traditional category of annals, as a means to elaborate on many of the themes of AD 69.343 Containing damning anecdotes about ill-spent youth, incidents of betrayal, expositions of the motives of those close to men in power, and the complications of being the brother to one in power, these obituaries do not so much commemorate the lives of individuals as they demonstrate their track record of debauchery, corruption, and treachery. In an ironic twist on the tradition, the Histories’ obituaries do not provide portraits of men whose lives ought to be imitated; rather, they supply backstories and explanations for how men of debased character came to contribute to the perverse violence of 69. The obituary for Titus Vinius is paradigmatic (1.48.2–4). The narrator vividly elaborates on the dissolute aspects of Vinius’ life story while quickly noting his success in unadorned and nonspecific terms. The account of Vinius’ life exemplifies the broader themes of the Histories, such as indiscipline in Roman camps, decadence, and conspiracy, but at the expense of actually accounting for Vinius’ rise to power. Two defamatory anecdotes provide the structure for the obituary, each followed by brief notices of Vinius’ honorable service to the state. First, as a soldier early in his career, Vinius had an affair with his commander’s wife, whom the narrator presents as attempting to play the role of commander herself.344 Second, he was accused

by Claudius himself of stealing one of the emperor’s cups and was then served on earthenware at a later meal. The narrator also notes that Vinius successfully rose through the cursus honorum and later competently commanded a legion. Likewise, even after his humiliation by Claudius, he governed Gallia Narbonensis honestly and well. Yet, as in other, shorter biographies in the Histories, such as that of Mucianus, Tacitus refuses to uncouple Vinius’ talent from his iniquity: “Vinius was bold, wily, ready to act, and, depending on what he put his mind to, corrupt and hardworking, with equal energy (audax callidus promptus et, prout animum intendisset, Page 123 →pravus aut industrius, eadem vi)” (1.48.4). While acknowledging positive contributions to the state, the narrator makes sure to make Vinius’ dishonorable actions the more memorable. The notices of Vinius’ service to the state are short and bald. Neither one is accompanied by a dramatic story of his leadership or governing ability. The Histories conspicuously does not elaborate on the honorable aspects of his rise to prominence or offer an unambiguously positive account of Vinius’ virtues. With his emphasis on the sensational incidents from his life, the narrator leaves us with the impression that dishonor is the defining trait of this man.345 Even in a case where the Histories presents a largely positive portrayal of an individual’s life, negative themes creep into the account and overshadow any commemorative functions of the obituary. The obituary of Vespasian’s older brother Flavius Sabinus, who suffered a grisly execution at the hands of the Vitellians (3.74.2),346 comes closest to being a eulogy, but it focuses less on a well-lived life worthy of imitation than on potential imperial discord. The narrator notes Sabinus’ long years of service to the state and the renown he won in military and administrative affairs. Sabinus’ fairness and honesty cannot be questioned. The opening sentence, “This was the end of a man who cannot at all be justly ignored” (hic exitus viri haud sane spernendi) (3.75.1), suggests that insufficient attention has been paid to Sabinus, a man whom the narrator informs us later in the passage was the more powerful Flavian before Vespasian became emperor.347 The obituary presents itself as setting the record straight on a man who was overshadowed by the later success of his brother.348 With his emphasis on Sabinus’ greater importance before 69 and the hindsight that has obscured it, the narrator hints at the issue of fraternal rivalry—a theme touched on in Galba’s speech of adoption of Piso Licinianus, who Galba notes had an older brother, and then also with Titus and Domitian.349 These themes, however,Page 124 → are latent; the narrator does not explicitly enunciate them. He simply frames the obituary as doing good historical work, establishing what really happened and dispelling misconceptions.350 The narrator’s final thought on the death of Sabinus openly addresses the issue of court rivalry and ends the obituary on a disturbing note. The narrator suggests (through citing other authorities) that Mucianus was pleased with Sabinus’ death, since, had he lived, Sabinus would have been a formidable rival at the court of Vespasian: “I have heard that Sabinus’ murder pleased Mucianus. Many said that it was even helpful for peace that the rivalry was avoided between two men, one of whom would think of himself as the emperor’s brother and the other the co-heir of power” (caedem eius laetam fuisse Muciano accepimus. ferebant plerique etiam paci consultum dirempta aemulatione inter duos, quorum alter se fratrem imperatoris, alter consortem imperii cogitaret) (3.75.2). Even in this case, where the text has ample praise for Sabinus and is not defaming him, what could have been a positive account of Sabinus’ life finishes with the ominous implications of a hypothetical scenario. The lasting themes of the obituary are rivalry (whether between Sabinus and Vespasian or between Sabinus and Mucianus) and consolidation of power, not the lifetime of service Sabinus performed on behalf of the state. Again, the inclusion of traditional annalistic material becomes an opportunity to elaborate on the themes of particular relevance to the imperial civil war of AD 69. Though the Histories maintains the traditional annalistic practice of including obituaries for men who died over the course of the year, it does not concern itself with commemorating the lives of the deceased or even with explaining how they earned a place within the work. Instead, it weaves their stories into the greater themes of the narrative. In a year when conspiracy, dissolution, and catastrophic rivalry for power are all in evidence, the text employs obituaries to exemplify these themes in miniature. Thus, the obituaries are not eulogistic whitewashingsPage 125 → of men’s lives but, rather, very pointed anecdotal denunciations.351 In the rare cases where they are positive, they nevertheless address disturbing aspects of civil conflict. Still more exemplary for the demonstration of the morals and violence of AD 69 are the Histories’ two obituaries for destroyed

cities. Tacitus famously remarks at Annals 4.32 that his subject does not allow him to narrate stories that equal those of the past, such as major wars and assaults on great cities.352 In the Histories, the narrator does relate major wars and assaults on cities, but the wars are civil, and the cities assaulted are Roman. The Romans founded Cremona (3.30–34) as a protection for Italy against foreign invasion in the days of Hannibal and menacing northern tribes: “It was founded during the consulship of Tiberius Sempronius and Publius Cornelius, at a time when Hannibal was driving into Italy, as a bulwark against the Gauls who were causing trouble across the Po and against any attack from beyond the Alps” (condita erat Ti. Sempronio P. Cornelio consulibus, ingruente in Italiam Hannibale, propugnaculum adversus Gallos trans Padum agentes et si qua alia vis per Alpes rueret) (3.34.1). The reference to the original purpose of the city contrasts sharply with the cause of its demise: it was “untouched in foreign wars, unfortunate in civil ones” (bellis externis intacta, civilibus infelix) (3.34.1). The obituary contrasts the united and courageous Italy of Hannibal’s era and the splintered, self-interested citizenry of Primus’ time.353 The sack of Cremona serves as a prelude to the profane and perverse nadir of the work, the burning of the Capitoline temple: “This deed was the most mournful and foulest ever to befall the government of the Roman people, and it was not caused by a foreign enemy” (id facinus post conditam urbem luctuosissimum foedissimumque rei publicae populi Romani accidit, nullo externo hoste) (3.72.1). The temple Page 126 →was founded by Tarquinius Priscus, with high hopes for what Rome might become. Under the republic, the consul Horatius Pulvillus dedicated the structure, which was so large that future generations of Rome could merely decorate and not enlarge it. Although the temple escaped destruction by both Porsenna and the Gauls, the narrator concedes that it had been burned down already, during a time of civil war: “The Capitol had burned down once before during a civil war, but by the treachery of an individual. Now it was openly blockaded and openly burned” (arserat et ante Capitolium civili bello, sed fraude privata: nunc palam obsessum, palam incensum) (3.72.1). This information complicates the text’s claim that the event was the most grievous and abominable in the city’s history. The important distinction that the Histories makes is between the role of the private individual and the role of the state-sanctioned actor. What it decries is not the burning of the Capitol per se but its authorization under the principate by those fighting to take control.354 When it burned in 83 BC, individuals were fighting for individual extralegal domination; in AD 69, Roman armies are fighting for the official control of the empire. The Histories marks the burning of the Capitoline as both a continuity and discontinuity with the late republic. The discontinuity lies not only with the principate’s one-man rule but also with the Roman state’s and, in particular, the Roman military’s absorption of foreigners. State-sanctioned armies are destroying the symbol of Rome not just because of moral degeneracy but because the whole apparatus has become too diverse and disunified to manage.

The Limits of the Histories’ Annals To generate the tensions between form and content, to raise questions about continuities and discontinuities between the history of AD 69 and the republican expectations of the mode, Tacitus posits a limited annalistic model.355 We have already seen how the narrator excludes the Page 127 →prefatory material of the first eleven chapters from his annales. With the treatment of the civil war, the narrator draws attention to the way the annalistic narrative is forced again to diverge from its traditional chronologically linear format by the overabundance of story lines developing throughout the empire. Tacitus develops the limited frame throughout the work, particularly in instances when the narrator gives advance notice of a story that he claims he will narrate later in the text. In these cases, the narrator refuses to reveal the outcome of the story, telling the reader that this disclosure would force him to break from linear chronology. This technique has the effect of creating anticipation and presenting a preview of episodes to come.356 The narrator’s refusal to relate an event that does not happen in the year in question also establishes chronological restrictions for his model of the annalistic mode. In passages of this sort, Tacitus strives to shape the way the reader views the annalistic structure by setting out its “rules.” Rather than interpreting these references to the limits of the annalistic mode as complaints—as

have ancient authors like Cato, Asellio, and Cicero, as well as some modern scholars—it is more profitable to evaluate the historiographical and literary advantage he gains from figuring the annalistic mode in such a restrictive way.357 The narrator twice mentions a person who will play a role in a future episode in the narrative, but in both cases, he explicitly refrains from revealing the later events before reaching their proper chronological context: according to him, annals demand strict chronology. The first example comes early in book 2, where a man pretending to be Nero stirs up unrest in the provinces of Asia and Achaia until the governor of Galatia and Pamphylia captures and executes him. The narrator pledges to chronicle the appearances of more Neronian imposters as they occur: “I will narrate the results and efforts of the other false Page 128 →Neroes in the sequence of my work” (ceterorum casus conatusque in contextu operis dicemus) (2.8.1). This clause does double duty. First, the explanation for not relating the story of the other impersonators implicitly claims to adhere to an annalistic principle requiring that events be narrated in the order in which they happen.358 Further, by previewing the appearance of other false Neroes, the narrator ensures that the shadow of the last Julio-Claudian emperor will continue to loom over the Histories, even though he has died before the starting point of the text.359 This passage generates anxiety over the appearance of more false Neroes but defers the resolution until their later, supposedly proper moment. The narrator reinforces the chronological limits of the annalistic mode again in the fourth book, when Julius Sabinus, an impetuous leader of the Gallic Lingones, conducts an ill-fated attack on the neighboring Sequani. Sabinus burns down his own home to give the impression that he has committed suicide (as would be fitting in the aftermath of a defeat in which he has demonstrated cowardice and a lack of forethought). The narrator notes that this incident was not to be the end for Sabinus: “By what means and in which hiding spots he drew out his life over nine more years, and also the endurance of his friends and the outstanding example of his wife Epponina, I will relate in their proper place” (sed quibus artibus latebrisque vitam per novem mox annos traduxerit, simul amicorum eius constantiam et insigne Epponinae uxoris exemplum suo loco redemus) (4.67.2). Again, the narrator informs the reader that a story does not end where he begins it, but he refuses to narrate the rest until the proper time (“suo loco”). By drawing attention to moments when he forces himself to meet the limits of his version of the annalistic mode head-on, he reinforces those limits. Like the earlier example, this passage also serves as a preview of action to come, an inducement to keep reading, while insisting that the narrative not wander beyond its chronological boundary.360 Page 129 →These two examples of advance notice, a form of prolepsis, demonstrate the text’s aim to narrate events in their proper chronological sequence and to restrict the flexibility of the annalistic mode.361 The Histories refuses to narrate in full events out of chronological context. To get the full story, one must keep reading. Yet the fact that we do not get the full story on Sabinus or more false Neroes upon their first mention does not establish an unbreakable precedent promising that the text will maintain a progressive linear story. The narrator interrupts the forward flow of the narrative by including (among other things) analepses, or flashbacks. These interruptions of the text’s momentum do not indicate that the narrator has forgotten the rigid annalistic structure posited in other passages. Instead, he draws attention to his deviations from the progressive flow of time by clearly marking these flashbacks with virtual apologies. He “defends” them as a necessity because of his already established preference for narrating complete episodes. Rather than jumping back and forth between events happening simultaneously, he follows one thread until the end and then travels back in time to pick up the other. The Histories employs analepsis for the history of the Vitellian revolt (1.51), for a sedition within Valens’ army (2.27), and for the first part of the Batavian revolt (4.12). Each of these episodes is an example of “internal analepsis,” that is, flashbacks to a period of the year already traversed, but from another perspective.362 The first example comes from book 1. The first forty chapters (after the prefatory material) focus on events in Rome, which culminate with Galba’s assassination and the ascendance of Otho to the principate on January 15, 69. At 1.51, the text shifts focus to the revolt in Germany, which has been mentioned only in passing up to this point. To explain its origins, the narrator goes back to the aftermath of the Vindex revolt and the arrival of Vitellius in Germany in December of 68, moving to a time earlier than the opening Page 130 →temporal

limit of the work. From that starting point, he then details the development of the revolt in Germany through the end of December and into January, through the same fifteen days already covered in the assassination narrative. Faced with the challenge of narrating events occurring simultaneously in two different geographic spheres, Tacitus responds by simply keeping the story lines of the events separate until they merge at Bedriacum. He devotes most of book 1 to two (effectively) discrete stories: the assassination of Galba and the development of the revolt in Germany. Since the author keeps them so separate, each one has its own starting point, and each one covers the same period of the year but from very different perspectives. Until the armies of Otho and Vitellius meet in northern Italy, we read parallel narratives, making the battle seem all the more climactic. The stringent rules that the narrator lays down for skipping forward in time do not apply to moving back in time. The narrator uses simple language to mark the abrupt shift away from the story of Galba’s assassination in Rome to the rebellion in Germany. He introduces the Vitellian revolt as follows: “Now I will explain the beginning and causes of the Vitellian revolt” (Nunc initia causasque motus Vitelliani expediam) (1.51.1). The transitional “nunc” marks the fact that he has reached the end of one episode and can commence narrating the next one. The narrator speaks in his voice and in his time. Loosely translated, he is saying, “At this point in the narrative, I can move on to explain the origins of the Vitellian revolt.” The Latin of the sentence is as simple as any Tacitus will write. It features no subordination and barely includes more than an implied subject, verb, and object. The directness and simplicity of the language, so different from Tacitus’ usual syntax, underscore the text’s change in direction. While this sentence does not qualify as an apology for moving backward in time, it does create a strong break between the first narrative of book 1 and the second. Like Vitellius, Julius Civilis is a character who defies easy description, and just as with Vitellius’ revolt, Tacitus employs analepsis as a way to inform the reader of the history and development of Civilis’ revolt. The placement of this story in the fourth book necessitates going back in time, to the period when Vitellius still ruled—a period that came to a close at the end of book 3. The narrator explicitly figures his account Page 131 →of the first half of the revolt as a step backward: “I will move back in time to explain why this war developed and by which rebellion of foreign and allied people it became inflamed” (id bellum quibus causis ortum, quanto externarum sociarumque gentium motu flagraverit, altius expediam) (4.12.1). This situation is similar to the background of the Vitellian revolt, where Vitellius’ army revolts against Galba, only to find that he dies before they make any progress. Now Vitellius, the emperor against whom the Batavians revolt, has already been killed at an earlier point in the narrative. That story reached a climax in book 3, with the attack on Rome itself, the burning of the Capitol, and, finally, the execution of Vitellius on December 15. When the narrative backtracks to the time when Vitellius lived, to describe other events that happened simultaneously but did not impinge on the central narrative of the battle for the principate, the narrator must avoid a feeling of anticlimax. Of course, the very fact that he “must” go back to this period to narrate events that he could not fit into his original description of AD 69 is marked because of his complaints and apologies for having to break chronology. His apologies and excuses for the challenge of fitting everything in the overstuffed year of AD 69 into the narrative is itself instructive for readers. The very act of breaking from chronology and excusing or complaining about doing so is a commentary on the events. Rather than offering an explicit statement that the events challenge the historian’s traditional methods of narration, he makes the structure reveal it. The account of the Batavian revolt begins with the reception of the news in Rome: “In those same days, the capital took up the story of the disaster in Germany without the slightest bit of distress” (isdem diebus crebrescentem cladis Germanicae famam nequaquam maesta civitas excipiebat) (4.12.1). By focusing on the reception of the story in Rome, the placement of the story mimics its original reception in Rome: like the people of Rome, the narrator must look back to see what has happened in the distant north. By pointing to the general lack of understanding of the import of the revolt as it developed, he effectively excuses his delay. Of course, Vitellius and Vespasian were intent on defeating one another and not concerned with the trouble around the empire that did not directly help or harm their causes.363 The narrator Page 132 →falls back on the “defense” that since the Roman leaders and the people of Rome were not concerned with the revolt as it developed, it is reasonable for him not to be either.364 But the way he has already trained readers to take notice of the breaks in his chronology draws attention to the placement of events from mid-69 in book 4, after he has

already reached December of 69. The narrator’s discomfort with the abundance of story lines and his difficulty relating them in a coherent and flowing narrative point to a problem with the events themselves. At one point, the narrator does directly address his technique of keeping the different geographic spheres of action separate and the concomitant need to keep including internal analepses. In the second book, he makes a show of excusing himself for failing to narrate the sedition within Valens’ army when it happened: “Moreover, a serious mutiny had flared up, which I will relate from an earlier starting point, for interrupting the order of deeds done by Caecina would not have been right” (gravis alioquin seditio exarserat, quam altiore initio (neque enim rerum a Caecina gestarum ordinem interrumpi oportuerat) repetam) (2.27.2). The narrator claims to have delayed recounting the story of the sedition because he was relating a small battle that occurred at the same time between the Othonians and the Vitellians under Caecina. In this passage, the narrator admits to valuing discrete episodes told in their entirety over frequent shifts between events happening simultaneously, even at the risk of breaking the forward momentum of his account. Thus, the narrator admits analepses only “grudgingly,” excusing himself for using them and claiming that the complexity of the year’s history forces him to create separate narratives for events that happened simultaneously. His defense of the flashbacks he includes gives the impression that he would prefer to write a strictly progressive and linear narrative. The flashbacks share a theme that explains why the narrator diverges from his ideal narrative format at these particular points: they all describe rebellions. He uses these three incidents to show, in miniature, the challenge that civil war presents to the traditional annalistic form. The narrator’s “struggle” to fit the events of the civil wars into the annalistic form illustrates, within the structure of the Page 133 →text, the chaos and collapsing distinctions that we see within the events of AD 69 themselves.

The Annalistic Categories Res Internae and Res Externae Crucial to the classic annalistic year is the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs, res internae and res externae. During the republic, once all the magistrates had entered office and all religious matters had been attended to, the consuls would lead their armies into the field against a non-Roman foe. Especially in the midrepublic, warfare was an annual rite for men of fighting age.365 Res externae are the chronicle of Rome’s pursuit of imperium over the known world, the orbis terrarum. As the ghost of Anchises tells Aeneas in Aeneid 6, Rome’s sacred mission is to conquer the world: “these will be your arts: to teach the ways of peace to those you conquer, to spare defeated peoples, and to tame the proud (hae tibi artes, pacique imponere morem / parcere subiectis et debellare superbos).366 Though the Romans occasionally suffered individual defeats, res externae are, on the whole, the story of Roman military success. The annalistic form incorporated the military calendar into its structure of the year. The role of foreign affairs and its position within the year diminished between the Augustan writing of Livy and the composition of the Annals in the early second century AD, because of the different forms of government under which each author wrote and the altered perspective of each narrator. In Livy, foreign affairs, especially through the extant republican books, are the chronicle of Roman imperial growth, but in Tacitus’ Annals, res externae function largely as a foil for domestic affairs and, more specifically, the politics of the principate.367 Importantly, both Livy’s history and Tacitus’s Annals still accept a distinction between domestic and foreign affairs. Regardless of whether these histories feature the military campaign as the year’s centerpiece, both accept that there are Romans and that there are Others. In the Histories, the narrator does not make so confident a distinction. Instead, he exploits Page 134 →the reader’s expectations of the distinction between internal and external affairs, Roman and Other, to draw attention to the state of Roman rule and the complexity of identity that the empire has created. The Histories presents a special challenge for studying the organization of the annalistic year, because we have only one year in its entirety and the first months of a second. Necessarily, then, analyzing this text’s use of res internae and res externae is a restricted and provisional project that involves tracking the location of action through just over one year. Rather than attempting a Ginsburg-like synthesis of res internae and res externae in

the Histories, my objective is to understand the role res externae play within the events of this single, “long” year. That the extant narrative mostly centers on a civil war further complicates matters. As we have seen, civil war causes the breakdown of Livy’s annalistic narrative. Furthermore, that the absence of metus hostilis results in civil unrest is a topos of Roman literature.368 Thus, we know, from earlier Roman historiography, that regardless of the causes of the civil war of AD 69, we are assured that foreign affairs will be neglected. Contrary to the conventional pattern described above, the account of AD 69 mixes a very small sample of res externae with res internae but in no obviously regular pattern. In fact, over the course of the first four books, the narrator explicitly characterizes only six chapters as foreign material.369 This fact marks the year as divergent from the annalistic norm and therefore worthy of investigation. Is the underrepresentation of res externae simply the result of the narrative focus on the story of the multifront civil war? What role do res externae play in the larger narrative? The first explicit section of res externae confirms the traditional analysis that the Roman state disregards foreign affairs during times of civil war: “While everyone’s attention was focused on civil war, foreign affairs were not given a thought” (conversis ad civile bellum animis externa sine cura habebantur) (1.79.1). The casual phrasing belies the significancePage 135 → of the observation. Inattention to foreign affairs is not just neglect of a duty but a betrayal of the Romans’ fundamental mission (as described by Anchises in the Aeneid) to rule the world. The narrator makes clear that this civil war is no different; the conflict completely distracts the Romans from their primary duty. The sentence introduces a brief one-chapter narrative of a successful counterattack on the Rhoxolani, who previously had crossed into Moesia (roughly modern Serbia and parts of surrounding countries on the Balkan peninsula), destroyed two Roman cohorts, and plundered the area. Otho greets the news of the success enthusiastically and grants honors greater than the action merits: “An elated Otho claimed glory for himself, as though he had been the one who succeeded in the battle and as though it had been through the efforts of his commanders and his army that he had expanded the state” (laeto Othone et gloriam in se trahente, tamquam et ipse felix bello et suis ducibus suisque exercitibus rem publicam auxisset) (1.79.5). Otho understands that military success against a foreign enemy confers prestige and, even more important, legitimacy on his new rule. While the narrator caustically notes Otho’s pretense that the battle was important and that he had chosen the commanders, the emperor’s instincts are good nevertheless. Regardless of how Otho came to power or who had selected the generals in the field, success against a foreign enemy under Otho’s aegis makes Otho look like a legitimate emperor steering the empire in the right direction. Of course, the more legitimacy Otho gains, the more illegitimate the Vitellians appear. The successful response to the incursion awakens Otho to the fact that the best way to gain legitimacy is through the proper functioning of the empire. Unfortunately for Otho, this chapter constitutes the only section of res externae in the text while he lives. There are only two other explicit sections of res externae through the first four books. Both reflect the traditional view that foreign affairs are neglected to Rome’s detriment during periods of internal dissension. In one of the passages, the Histories attributes knowledge of this axiom to Aponius Saturninus, governor of Moesia in AD 69.370 Before he crosses into Italy with his army at the direction of Flavian leaders, Saturninus makes a pact to enroll in the Roman army the leaders of the Iazyges, a Page 136 →tribe living north of Moesia across the Danube, so that he can be assured that the province he and his legions are deserting is not open to attack from beyond the boundaries of the empire.371 Saturninus recognizes that dedicating the Moesian army’s effort to defeating the Vitellians prevents them from doing their job of protecting Moesia from foreign attack. He escapes from the dilemma not by refraining from engaging in civil war but by incorporating some leading men of the Iazyges into the Roman army so that the rest of the Iazyges will not attack in his absence. The Iazyges accept the alliance and even extend an offer to contribute to the invading force, which Saturninus refuses. The narrator states Saturninus’ reasoning: “He refused this offer, lest they take advantage of the civil discord to work for their own foreign benefit, or reject what is legal and just because of greater payment from another quarter” (remissum id munus, ne inter discordias externa molirentur aut maiore ex diverso mercede ius fasque exuerent) (3.5.1). Saturninus understands that the Iazyges might try to seek gain for themselves while the Romans are weak from their violent internal strife, a

version of the Batavian revolt that is at least temporarily avoided through Saturninus’ pragmatic and effective leadership. He seeks to minimize the threat by making a pact with the Iazyges but refusing their aid. This incident provides another bitter example of the dereliction of duty—that is, the lack of proper attention to res externae—necessitated by the civil war. But it also shows a process that is perfectly characteristic of Roman history: the expansion of the state through the incorporation of foreign peoples. While few chapters of the Histories feature traditional res externae, a substantial portion of the work focuses on events and battles that take place outside of Rome. The Vitellian revolt develops in Lower Germany and travels south from there. The Flavian movement gains strength from individuals and legions in Judaea, Syria, and Egypt. Twice, armies determine the fate of Rome in northern Italy. The civil war that convulses the empire draws strength from all corners of it. Significantly, this crisis develops not from the inside out but (after the assassination of Galba) from the outside in.372 The periphery of the empire, foregrounded Page 137 →and succinctly surveyed in the opening chapters of the work, attacks the center. A definitional problem emerges: which events are res internae and which are res externae? As we have seen, the narrator explicitly characterizes only six chapters of the narrative of AD 69 as res externae. Furthermore, the leadership of the various sides and the forces are Roman, in name at least—and this is, after all, a civil war. Most of the events, however, take place outside of Rome and outside of Italy. The nature of the conflict reflects aspects of both res internae and res externae. The first book appears to have the structure of a classic annalistic year, beginning with the entry of consuls into office. The first part of the book focuses on events in Rome. The middle episode gives an account of military affairs in Germany. The focus of the final ten chapters shifts back to Rome. In theory, this looks as though it would describe a proper annalistic year—opening with administrative matters in the city, going abroad in the middle, and then closing back at Rome. Yet this synopsis could not be more misleading. The opening narrative, while focusing on magisterial business, features the assassination of the year’s consuls, one of whom happens to be the emperor. The middle narrative, notionally res externae, moves to Germany, but only to detail the developing revolt of part of the army. The Roman legions of Upper and Lower Germany prepare to march south on Rome. The final section of the chapter returns to Rome, but not for end-of-the-year administrative matters. In fact, the year is not even three months old, and the new emperor is preparing an expedition north to counter the German revolt. Tacitus thus creates a subtle tension between the form and content of book 1, filling the space that appears to be devoted to res externae with the account of the origins of Vitellius’ revolt. There can be no confusion about what this account entails: “Now I shall set forth the beginning and the causes of Vitellius’ revolt” (nunc initia causasque motus Vitelliani expediam) (1.51.1). He does not toy with the readers’ expectations; instead, the narrator challenges them to think annalistically and to notice the disjunction between what he includes in this section (the narrative of the motus Vitelliani) and what the mode wants him to include (the most recent chapter in the expansion of the Roman empire). The location of the revolt and its placement within the book combine to obscure the character of this story line. Is it a narrative of civil war and therefore res internae? Does the fact that it takes place in Germany and occupies the slot usually reserved for res externae render the war foreign?Page 138 → The core issue is the blurring of the civil war and the foreign war. The narrator blends the two wars to establish, on the structural level, the narrative conceit that Vitellius and his legions occupy a strange space—not Roman, but not foreign either. They appear hybrid. Here, then, is an explanation of the minimal amount of explicit res externae in the text. Of course, the Romans neglect foreign affairs during a time of civil war, but Tacitus is suggesting that something else is happening too. As I discussed in chapter 1 of the present study and will discuss again in chapter 4, he characterizes the participants in the conflict as foreign. He uses the expectations of the annalistic mode to make this point on the structural level. To make the Vitellians appear German, Tacitus’ text does not simply show that they like to swim, drink too much, and wear trousers.373 It places them in a confused space in the narrative, part res internae and part res externae, to amplify their non-Romanness. The narrator’s conspicuous focus on the annalistic form highlights the text’s divergence from it (or, rather, the theoretical format posited for it along the way). The tension between what the narrator leads readers to

expect from the form and the events he actually narrates is justly taken to signal Tacitus’ pessimism and a desire to cut through the republican facade to the underlying reality of imperial rule.374 But when considered in light of biography (the more common alternative for historical writing under the principate), Tacitus’ use of the annalistic form need not be the cynical analysis it is often seen to be. The application of annals to imperial history, in however altered a form he intends it to be, points as much to continuity as to disjunction with the Roman past. The fit is imperfect. Untangling continuities from discontinuities and useful exempla from negative exempla is one of the points of the use of annals. Nevertheless, the survival of the mode may signal that the form of government that spawned it may still have some life left in it. It is left to the reader to make the events over which he has control a better fit for future annalistic histories.

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Chapter 4 The Batavian Revolt II Failures of Imagination By favorable fortune and our own discipline of eight hundred years, this structure grew together into a unified whole, which is not able to be pulled apart without the destruction of those pulling it apart. But the greatest danger is to you, who possess gold and resources, the principal causes of wars. (Hist. 4.74.3) (octingentorum annorum fortuna disciplinaque compages haec coaluit, quae convelli sine exitio convellentium non potest: sed vobis maximum discrimen, penes quos aurum et opes, praecipuae bellorum causae.) In his speech chastising the Treviri and Lingones for participating in the Batavian revolt, Cerialis describes the Roman Empire as a compages, a collection of joints.375 As a metaphor, compages suggests a physical structure, such as a ship or a wall, composed of pieces attached together.376 It may also be used of a body, human or even elephantine.377 It is a well-chosen metaphor for Cerialis’ purposes, because it seems to suggest, before he says it explicitly in the next clause, that the Roman Empire cannot be divided into pieces without the destruction of all the Page 140 →constituent parts: a ship will sink if part of its planking is torn away; a wall will collapse if a section of it is removed. The narrator of the Histories, focusing on the mental states of the empire’s inhabitants, avoids so limiting and rigid a metaphor. For him, the empire is a more fluid collection of ideas and emotions: the status of the city, the mental state of the armies, and the condition of the provinces.378 He concludes the excursus with the phrase “hic fuit rerum Romanarum status” (1.11.3), in which the word “status,” while it suggests fixity in the moment, also implies the possibility of change and thus establishes the excursus as a transitory image of a mutable landscape. The comparison between these two characterizations of the empire reveals Cerialis’ investment in the view that its fixed structure is enduring. In this sentence, we hear Cerialis insist on the themes of inseparability and immutability. Yet, as with the other assertions he makes in his speech, the Histories supports only half of what Cerialis says. On closer inspection, his metaphor disintegrates: while a ship that loses its planking will sink, an individual plank can survive on its own, and as Romans well knew, stones salvaged from a collapsed wall can be reused, intact; the destruction of a unified whole does not guarantee the destruction of its constituent parts. Though Cerialis’ analysis is flawed and his metaphor unconvincing, readers ought to pay attention to what he is saying with his highlighting of the issues of inseparability and immutability. Inseparability and change are two core issues in the Histories’ narrative of the Batavian revolt. On their side, the rebels assert that they can break free from Roman control and form a state of their own. The Romans, in attempting to suppress the revolt, simply try to force the rebels back into place as obedient subjects. Both sides claim to seek the status quo ante, though they have very different starting points. Whereas Romans such as Cerialis and Dillius Vocula want to return to the “normal” imperial hierarchy of the past century or so, the rebels want to recover the way things were before the Romans came. The rebels are presented in the Histories as long-serving provincials, not barbarians or slaves. They no longer fit into the old categories on which Rome’s provincial management is based. That they are different from before does not mean, however, that the Histories affirms their readinessPage 141 → for self-rule. On the contrary, it supports Cerialis’ assertion that freedom for the rebels means discord, duplicity, and incessant fighting. In other words, the provincials are stuck: though they find their current status to be intolerable, they cannot break free from Roman rule without plunging themselves into new wars. Through diagnosing the failures of the participants of the Batavian revolt, Roman and provincial, books 4 and 5 of the Histories point the way to lessons for how to regain a lasting stability in the provinces.

In this account, provincial soldiers and communities—desperately unhappy with the compensation for their service on behalf of the Romans and emboldened by their sense of importance in the military—attempt unsuccessfully to become independent. At first glance, their failure to achieve anything more than a negotiated surrender can be attributed simply to practical considerations. But as Tacitus makes clear, they fail on a more fundamental level, because they lack an understanding of who they have become after multiple generations of Roman rule. Breaking away from the Romans and reverting to their earlier condition is impossible, because they have been thoroughly affected by the Romans culturally, ideologically, and even genetically, as some provincials are the offspring of the Romans. Thus, the rebels fail to understand that political freedom from Roman rule will not and cannot eliminate the influence and impact of Rome. For their part, the Roman rulers, despite their success in suppressing the revolt, are equally ignorant about what the provincials have become. Their wish to revert to an earlier situation in which militarily and culturally superior Romans rule the inferior provincials springs from very attitude that is generating the unhappiness among the rebels. The present chapter starts with the narrator’s characterization of the rebellion as partially civil and partially foreign, to suggest that the Batavian revolt is a sustained illustration of the inseparability of provincial from Roman. In support of this claim, I make three arguments. First, the Batavian side of the revolt is doomed to failure because it has absorbed Roman ideology to such a degree that it is unable to offer an alternative political organization to Roman rule. Second, during the conflict, the Romans fail to reassert the Roman/Other polarity, because that distinction no longer reflects the lived experience, engendered by the Roman military, of working and living together. Third, the debate Page 142 →over the fate of the Roman colony of Cologne demonstrates the impossibility of a reversion to an earlier, non-Roman identity. Each side of the revolt displays ignorance about the state of ethnic identity within the Roman Empire in AD 69. Their failure to enforce their way of thinking necessitates a new way of conceiving of the relationship between Romans and provincials. Even though it is victorious, Roman rule is not simply vindicated by the narrative. Indeed, the revolt reveals that the previous paradigm of subjection is no longer a fitting means of control and that fuller incorporation of the provincials is necessary. The story of the Batavian revolt is a meditation on the category-defying qualities of AD 69. In the aftermath of the first battle of Bedriacum, the narrator notes the difficulty of classifying the revolt either as an extension of the year’s civil wars or as a foreign war in its own right, foreshadowing it as “a war that would be both civil and foreign at the same time” (interno simul externoque bello) (2.69.1). By appending a preview of Civilis’ revolt to the story of Vitellius’ decision to send the Batavian cohort home, Tacitus highlights the challenge of determining whether the revolt is a domestic or foreign problem. Significantly, he employs the vocabulary of the annalistic mode to describe the challenge of classifying the conflict (“internoВ .В .В . externoque”). This war defies categorization not only for the Roman participants but also for an annalist writing about it. The complicated events of AD 69–70 have produced a situation in which one cannot easily determine whether an event falls under the rubric of res externae or res internae. At the very outset of the Histories, the narrator refers generally to wars that are a mixture of civil and foreign, among which one can surely count the Batavian revolt. Four emperors were assassinated; there were three civil wars, more were foreign and mostly a mix of both. (1.2.1) (Quattuor principes ferro interempti; trina bella civilia, plura externa ac plerumque permixta.) The mixed nature of the conflict is made explicit as the narrator introduces the revolt in book 4. Page 143 →I will move back in time to explain why this war developed and by what great rebellion of foreign and allied people it became inflamed. (4.12.1) (Id bellum quibus causis ortum, quanto externarum sociarumque gentium motu flagraverit, altius expediam.)

How could a revolt in Germany appear to be a civil war? A partial explanation can be found in a passage from slightly later in book 4. On one side there were the standards of veteran cohorts, on the other images of wild animals brought out of the forests and groves, according to the custom of each tribe as they entered battle. The appearance of the war that was both civil and foreign stunned the besieged Roman soldiers. (4.22.2) (Hinc veteranarum cohortium signa, inde depromptae silvis lucisque ferarum imagines, ut cuique genti inire proelium mos est, mixta belli civilis externique facie obstupefecerant obsessos.) The Romans are facing enemy lines composed partially of Roman-trained allies and partially of German tribesmen. The text vividly captures this aspect of the war by drawing attention to the bewilderment of the besieged Roman soldiers as they react to the sight of their opponents (“obstupefecerant obsessos”), some of whom look and act like themselves and muster around standards (“signa”), while others carry exotic symbols of wild beasts. The rebel units carrying the Roman standards are defectors from the eight Batavian cohorts in the Roman army that have been mentioned earlier in the narrative. This passage is similar to one describing an incident, earlier in the revolt, in which Roman forces witness the defection of German auxiliaries in the midst of battle. At the beginning of the fight, a Tungrian cohort is arrayed alongside the Romans, but its members then cross to the German side and commence killing the soldiers beside whom they had stood only moments before: “The Tungrian cohort did not delay very long before they transferred their standards to Civilis. The Roman soldiers were stricken by the unforeseen defection and were slaughtered Page 144 →by allies and enemies alike” (nec diu certato Tungrorum cohors signa ad Civilem transtulit, perculsique milites improvisa proditione a sociis hostibusque caedebantur) (4.16.2). Ostensibly, then, the narrator designates the war as both domestic and foreign because many of the soldiers on the Batavian side had recently served in the Roman army and, after defecting to the native forces, then fought alongside tribal warriors. Furthermore, the revolt begins with the encouragement of the Flavian leaders and therefore initially could be viewed as another front in the year’s civil wars. But challenging the categories of civil and foreign exposes deeper causes of instability in the empire. We have already seen that Tacitus injects energy into the trope of representing familiar places as foreign in civil war. Here in the narrative of the Batavian revolt, the mixed characterization of the conflict points to the degree to which the provincial Other has been assimilated to the Roman. Even though both sides in the fight wish to frame the conflict as one of natives choosing ethnic ties over the alliances they have made with Rome, the Histories demonstrates that such a clear choice no longer exists. The indeterminacy of ethnic identity underlying the Batavian revolt has led a number of scholars to explore the meaning of the hybrid identity of Julius Civilis and the revolt in general. There is general agreement that the revolt, with its elements of civil and foreign war and its leading by Roman citizens with Roman names who formerly held positions of command within the Roman military, challenges concepts of Roman and Other. Scholars usually take this hybridity as a strategy used within the narrative to mark a transition between the chaotic civil wars of the year of the four emperors and the newly settled Flavian dynasty’s foreign action against the Jews.379 In effect, the Batavian revolt is a step in the direction of separating Roman from Other within the arc of the narrative. In my reading, the lack of clear distinctions in identity has implications for the management of the empire. Roman imperialism holds the premise that the distinction between Roman and Other is easily discerned. The Romans’ military superiority betokened a right to rule and guide the conquered. But that was the old model, when Rome Page 145 →ceaselessly expanded and folded new peoples into its domain. Not only are the provincials doing the work of Roman imperialism by AD 69, but the previous century of Roman rule has also changed the provincials. They have long taken steps away from being an Other and are now moving on a continuum toward being Roman. Freedom from Roman rule means different things to different tribes. To the Tencteri, whom I will consider in detail below, it means total obliteration of any sign of Roman contact. The Gallic communities involved in the revolt are not quite as extreme. In fact, they hope to form a Gallic version of the Roman Empire, an “imperium

Galliarum.” From the passages that detail their involvement in the revolt, it is possible to sketch out what the political structure of the independent Gallic state would look like. A Gallic Caesar would rule the “imperium Galliarum” (4.59, 67) and would bind his people to him by an oath, a “sacramentum Galliarum” or “verba Galliarum” (4.59, 4.60). There would be a senate to assist the emperor (5.19). Lastly, a general wearing the insignia would lead the army (4.59). This state would possess the structure and values of the Roman Empire, but it would be created of, by, and for the Gauls. Because the Gauls are tightly bound to the Romans by the subtle but overwhelming force of Roman ideology, however, they will not be able to break free. In Tacitus’ works, Roman cultural and ideological influences are not just obstacles to rediscovering a people’s real identity; they irrevocably alter those people influenced by them. The effects of assimilation to Roman thought are clearly stated in the famous passage from the Agricola examined in the introduction to the present book.380 There, rhetorical education and other symbols of Roman civilization and refinement, along with the vices of Roman culture, such as porticoes, baths, and banquets, are not superficial habits but penetrating practices that replace previous customs and render the people entirely different from before. The Batavian revolt is another proof of this claim. The Gauls have become so Romanized that they are unable to envision reverting to their pre-Roman condition. They do not posit a different type of political or social organization. Instead, they have internalized Roman ideology to the point that all they can wish for is an Page 146 →imperium of their own. As Holly Haynes expresses the point, “Classicus and the Gauls provide a mirror of the changes in Roman imperium: their actions fully demonstrate the degree to which it has penetrated and been assimilated by the provinces.”381 In other words, the Gauls wish to adopt the system of Roman rule but to fill it with Gallic officials and a Gallic Caesar. The most extreme example of a rebel who embraces all the trappings of Rome is Julius Sabinus, a Roman citizen from the Gallic tribe of the Lingones and a conspirator in the rebellion.382 Sabinus illustrates the unself-conscious absorption of Roman ideology that characterizes the Gallic partisans in the revolt. After Colonia Agrippinensis surrenders and more Gallic communities join the rebellion, Sabinus declares himself Caesar.383 He appears to take on this title not only because he fancies himself the new emperor of Gaul but because he is a descendant of the conqueror of Gaul. Pride from imagined ancestry inflamed Sabinus beyond the limit of his usual foolish conceitedness: there was a story that his great-grandmother had an adulterous affair with the Divine Julius while he was fighting in Gaul. (4.55.2) (Sabinum super insitam vanitatem falsae stirpis gloria incendebat: proaviam suam divo Iulio per Gallias bellanti corpore atque adulterio placuisse.) Whether or not Sabinus really has a blood connection to the Romans (the narrator denies it), he clearly thinks that he gains prestige from his claimed connection to Caesar.384 He demonstrates individually what the rebellious Gauls show collectively: that the possibility of breaking free from Roman political control is hampered by the Gauls’ inability Page 147 →to avoid Roman modes of thinking. In fact, the Gauls are incapable of entertaining the thought that it might be desirable to break from a Roman style of governance. They want freedom, but what they imagine freedom to be is wholly conditioned by a century of living under Roman rule. Even when the rebels attempt to demonstrate their hostility to Rome, they reveal their long history of connections to it. Julius Classicus, a Treviran who had formerly been a prefect of the Roman cavalry, brags that his ancestors include more enemies of Rome than allies (ipse e maioribus suis hostis populi Romani quam socios iactabat) (4.55.1). This statement suggests that at least some of Classicus’ ancestors were loyal Roman subjects. More important, it illustrates the inescapable fact that Trevirans and Romans had already had a shared history for generations. Thus, Classicus’ boast, rather than bolstering his rebel credentials, shows just how difficult it is for the rebels to create a sense of their own identity (distinct from Rome), on which they might build their own form of government. Julius Civilis, the Batavian rebel who—like Classicus—had formerly been a prefect of a cohort, also attempts

to prove his native credibility but struggles to differentiate himself from the pervasive influence and history of Rome. He provides the third and most complicated example of the assimilation of Roman ideology. There is no greater symbol of the ambiguous nature of identities and events in AD 69–70 than the leader of the Batavian revolt. On the one hand, his credentials as a Batavian are impeccable. He was born in Batavia and comes from royal stock; he consistently draws the ire of Roman rulers, from Nero to Vitellius; most important, he spearheads this revolt that seeks independence for Germany from the Roman Empire. But beginning with his name, Julius Civilis occupies a middle space—not Roman, but not wholly Batavian either. Civilis himself attempts to draw attention to his native character, but these efforts only further reveal his hybrid identity. The leader of the separatist revolt possesses many qualities characteristic of the society he wishes to banish from his country. He is the incarnation of “a war simultaneously civil and foreign” “internum simul externumque bellum.” The text consistently challenges Civilis’ status as a Batavian and forces the reader to grapple with the fundamental indeterminacy of Page 148 →identity in AD 69–70. Unlike the foreign enemies in earlier Roman historiography, such as the Gallic Vercingetorix, Numidian Jugurtha, Carthaginian Hannibal, and even Caledonian Calgacus in the Agricola, Civilis bears a name that is not just familiar but Roman. His nomen, Julius, suggests that his family gained citizenship under Caesar, Augustus, or Tiberius.385 His cognomen could not be a better signal of Roman influence, as it recalls both the qualities of a Roman citizen (civis) and the Roman institution of civil war.386 Tacitus frequently plays on names throughout his corpus, especially “speaking names.”387 Patrick Sinclair cites examples from the Annals in which individuals such as Junius Rusticus and Caecina Severus live up to their cognomens.388 In the Histories, as I will discuss in chapter 5 of the present study, Tacitus capitalizes on Caecina Alienus’ and Vitellius’ names to reflect on the current state and past history of identity in Italy. Similarly, in a year filled with civil war and in the context of a revolt whose true nature is unclear, Civilis’ name provides a provocative reminder of the complicated state of identity in the empire. It establishes expectations, for his nationality and also for his loyalties, that are wholly at odds with his separatist endeavors. Tacitus uses this discordance to raise questions about who Civilis is, what he is trying to accomplish, and why the Roman readership should care. Holly Haynes has written that Civilis is not really a barbarian, that he just plays one during the revolt: “Civilis’ barbarism, a surface characteristic unlike his inner (civilized) intelligence, consists of вЂpassing himself off.’ .В .В . Civilis appears to play rather than be a barbarian.”389 There is ample evidence for this claim. Tacitus’ Civilis seems to recognize his potentially compromised status as a Batavian and takes steps to shore up the visibility of his native character. After the surrender of the Roman troops besieged at Vetera and the division of the camp’s goods, he trims his hair, which he had dyed and allowed to grow long in accordance with a vow. Page 149 →Civilis, who made a barbarian vow to grow his hair long and dye it red after he first took up arms, cut it when the slaughter of the legions was at last accomplished. (4.61.1) (Civilis barbaro voto post coepta adversus Romanos arma propexum rutilatumque crinem patrata demum caede legionum deposuit.) This act may reflect the performance of a ritual of the Chatti from whom the Batavians descend, in which a warrior cuts his hair only after he has killed an enemy.390 But based on the previous characterization of Civilis, the passage seems to strike a different note within the presentation of the Histories. It suggests that Civilis feels the need to perform his “Batavianness” by growing his hair long and dyeing it red. These actions follow a script for dressing up as a German that is reported elsewhere in the literature of the period. In his life of Caligula, Suetonius tells us that the emperor selected a number of tall Gauls and had them grow out their hair and dye it red for his fraudulent triumph over the Germani.391 Civilis’ case is not that extreme. Unlike Caligula’s Gauls who pretend to be German, he does not have to pretend that he is Batavian. Instead, his masquerade recognizes the ambiguity of his identity as a Batavian and suggests that he feels the need to augment his native credentials to signal his commitment to the Batavian cause. But there is a danger for Civilis in basing the revolt on his native identity: he cannot escape the fact that he possesses a character as much Roman as it is Batavian.

Civilis’ self-presentation is meant to give him more barbarian and anti-Roman credibility among his fellow northern rebels, especially at the beginning of the rebellion, when he is still building support. But he ultimately makes himself appear more familiar to Roman readers. The Roman readers see in him a well-groomed Roman citizen and commander of an auxiliary cohort, who has to dress up to look foreign. The Page 150 →Histories explores Civilis’ not-quite-Batavian identity starting with his formal introduction in book 4 (4.13).392 After a few comments about Civilis’ frequent arrests under Nero and Vitellius, the narrator praises the rebel’s ingenuity, which he claims exceeds that of other barbarians. Immediately afterward, the text asserts that Civilis styles himself another Hannibal or Sertorius, because he has, like them, a facial disfigurement: he has only one eye. But Civilis, cleverer than the average barbarian, styled himself a Sertorius or Hannibal because he shared a similar disfigurement of the face. (4.13.2) (sed Civilis ultra quam barbaris solitum ingenio sollers et Sertorium se aut Hannibalem ferens simili oris dehonestamento. ) A certain mystique commonly surrounds one-eyed generals, whether ancient or modern.393 Plutarch begins his life of Sertorius by marveling at the fact that (in his estimation) the most warlike generals have all been oneeyed.394 Civilis wishes to exploit this legacy, to strengthen his position as the head of the revolt. Not only does he wish to become a mortal enemy of Rome, but he wants to join the more exclusive list of Rome’s legendary one-eyed enemies. Civilis finds two such figures to emulate. The choice of Hannibal is obvious enough: the Carthaginian commander had long ago become so legendary a threat to Rome that he had evolved into a bogeyman. The choice of Sertorius, however, is more problematic. Like Hannibal, Sertorius had only one functioning eye; but quite unlike him, he was a Roman. Someone like Arminius would have been a more straightforward choice as a legendary opponent of Roman rule. Arminius had annihilated several legions in Germany and had full native credibility, while also being a Roman citizen with the nomen Julius, like Civilis.395 But in his insistence (in the Page 151 →Histories’ narrative, of course) that his models have the same deformity as he does, Civilis invites a comparison with a much more complex individual than Arminius. Tacitus heightens Civilis’ specific connection to Sertorius by creating an intertextual link with an earlier treatment of the Roman rebel through the uncommon noun dehonestamentum.396 At base, dehonestamentum signifies a disgrace or a shameful act, but it had also come to mean “disfigurement.” In his Histories, Sallust applies this same noun to none other than Sertorius, in a nearly identical context. He was not distressed on account of these [scars and his missing eye]. Indeed he took especial pleasure in the disfigurement of his body because he gloriously retained the rest of it intact.397 (Neque illis [cicatricibus et effosso oculo] anxius, quin ille dehonestamento corporis maxime laetabatur, quia reliqua gloriosus retinebat.) Syme originally noticed the allusion to Sallust but never explored its significance in relation to Tacitus’ portrayal of Civilis.398 In my reading, Tacitus uses the doubly reinforced connection between Civilis and Sertorius to underscore the degree of Roman influence on Civilis. Because Civilis attaches so much weight to his native identity, any suggestion that his identity also includes Roman elements becomes a challenge to his entire project. The choice of Sertorius as an exemplar does just that: even though he is a figure positioned between Roman and Other, he possesses far more connections to Rome. Although Sertorius was declared an enemy of Rome and led a mixed force of native Spanish and Italians against a series of Roman generals, he did not aspire to break his connection to Rome.399 He styled himself a proconsul in Spain and actively fostered Roman culture and a Roman style of government, even to the point of convening a senate.400 Sertorius became a renegade not because he rejected the Roman state but because the Roman state—which,Page 152 → at that time, was effectively the dictator Sulla—rejected him. He did not disregard or wish to destroy Roman cultural practices and political structures. He did not foresee a competing empire that could overtake Rome. Instead, forced out of Rome, he attempted to create a colony bearing all the hallmarks of its mother city. If anything, the Sertorius from the Sallustian/Plutarchan tradition is a figure whose talents were wasted. He wished only to serve a Rome

unwilling to accept him. Sertorius seems an unlikely precursor for a non-Roman provincial rebel who wishes to break his native province away from Rome and all the evils that it represents. Yet, for the reader, Sertorius is a very suggestive figure of comparison. The Sertorian war could be called an “internum simul externumque bellum,” as the Histories designates the Batavian revolt (2.69.1), since it pitted a hybrid Roman contingent against the Roman state. Civilis is similar to Sertorius in that he is a citizen who is rejected by the state and then seeks to create a separate provincial world that includes a replica of the Roman governing structure, with a place for himself. In this reading, Civilis can be understood to exemplify a contributor to Rome looking for an outlet for his talents. Even his performance of his “Batavianness” may be just an attempt to convey his connection to his constituency. Plutarch informs us that Sertorius gained the confidence of the Spanish fighting under him by claiming to receive divine instructions from a doe.401 In dressing up as a German, Civilis may simply have been using the same type of technique in order to inspire his followers.402 In the end, Tacitus does not provide the link to Sertorius as a means of pinpointing Civilis’ true identity. Rather, as aspects of Civilis’ identity and his own selfrepresentation pull in different directions, they do not so much demonstrate that Civilis was one thing or another but, rather, highlight the indeterminacy of identity in AD 69–70 and the impossible task of separating Roman from provincial. In response to the Batavian revolt and the disconcertingly Roman aspect of the German and Gallic behavior, the Romans try, throughout book 4, to assert the polarity of “us versus them.” This opposition proves outmoded and fails, since, as we have seen, Tacitus crafts figures Page 153 →like Civilis and Julius Sabinus in such a way as to defy categorization and dismissal as Others. Three participants on the Roman side strive to reestablish the distinction between the Romans and their enemies. They are Dillius Vocula, the doomed commander of the legions of Upper Germany; Petilius Cerialis, the final general sent to Germany to suppress the Batavian revolt; and the narrator. Their failures to achieve their aim are instructive for the readers of the Histories. The speech of Dillius Vocula, the legate of the twenty-second legion (Primigenia) and the last unsuccessful commander in Upper Germany before the arrival of Cerialis, is paradigmatic for negative reasons. In a desperate speech to his soldiers—who, he knows, are considering defecting to the side of the rebels—Vocula attempts to reassert a fundamental distinction between Roman and Other and to convince the men to stay true to the Roman cause. Not for the last time in book 4, the speech reveals a lack of awareness about the state of ethnic identity of provincials and, specifically, the degree to which they are no longer simply Other.403 Both Vocula’s failure to persuade his men to stand firm in their commitment to Rome and his murder upon the completion of the speech show that a reassertion of the distinction of Roman versus Other, regardless of how insistently it is proclaimed, will fail to stabilize the empire. In his speech, Vocula describes an obscene scenario: Gauls and Germans leading Roman legions will attack Rome. Please do not let the abomination become known on this earth, that Civilis and Classicus will invade Italy with you as henchmen. Or if the Germans and Gauls lead you to the walls of the city, will you bear arms against your fatherland? My mind revolts at the thought of such a horrible deed. Will Tutor the Treviran lead the night watches? Will the Batavian give the signal for battle? Will you fill out the German units? What will be the outcome of this wickedness, when Roman legions muster against you? (4.58.5) (ne hoc prodigium toto terrarum orbe vulgetur, vobis satellitibus Civilem et Classicum Italiam invasuros. An si ad moenia Urbis Germani Gallique duxerint, arma patriae inferetis? horret animus tanti flagitii Page 154 →imagine. Tutori Treviro agentur excubiae? Signum belli Batavus dabit? Et Germanorum catervas supplebitis? Quis deinde sceleris exitus, cum Romanae legiones se contra direxerint?) Vocula’s speech reveals a stark lack of awareness about the events that have transpired over the course of AD

69, as Tacitus depicts them in the Histories. Vocula refuses to admit (or, worse, does not seem to realize) that his frightening hypothetical scenario of legions fighting one another has been happening all year. The very vocabulary he uses for describing a northern invasion of Italy, “Italiam invasuros,” echoes the words Tacitus has the Vitellians say when they begin their march on Rome: “Italy must be invaded” (invadendam Italiam).404 Vocula’s nightmare, meant to shock his soldiers back into discipline, is not shocking at all. Tacitus portrays a Vocula who does not understand what has happened around him. He exhibits some recognition of the diverse interests of his enemy, when he mentions Batavians and Trevirans. Nevertheless, he treats the various provincial tribes (and even citizens) as an undifferentiated mass of barbarians. He imagines a simple and easily distinguished opposition between Roman and Other and fears that a surrender in Germany will result in the Other beginning to take control of the Romans. Vocula’s aims in the speech are not lofty; his understanding of the evolving identity of the Romans and their subjects is limited. With his life hanging in the balance, he aims simply to remind the men that they are Roman and that their allegiance is to Rome. Money recently served as the donative, and regardless of whether you prefer to think of it as a gift from Vespasian or from Vitellius, you certainly got it from a Roman emperor. (4.58.3) (pecunia nuper etiam donativo suffecit, quod sive a Vespasiano sive a Vitellio datum interpretari mavultis, ab imperatore certe Romano accepistis.) Vocula’s strident speech fails to convince his men. He is assassinated immediately after delivering it; the camp surrenders to Classicus; and Page 155 →Roman soldiers swear an oath to the “imperium Galliarum.” The first half of Vocula’s greatest fear is realized. Because he advocates an obsolete worldview, Vocula fails to compel his men to make one last stand. His failure is all the more noticeable because he employs the same basic strategy that Petilius Cerialis uses in his speech to the Trevirans and that the narrator uses throughout book 4. We saw earlier that when Petilius Cerialis arrives in Germany to quell the revolt, he tries to assert a distinction between the Romans and their foreign subjects, by sending home all the new recruits raised by a recent levy in Gaul. He wants to send the message that the Romans can handle their problems in Gaul and Germany with strictly Roman manpower. Cerialis sees the reassertion of Roman opposition to a foreign enemy as a vital step in suppressing this rebellion and achieving stability in the empire. The incessant warfare of AD 69 has revealed the confusion of the categories of Roman and foreign, res internae and res externae. Cerialis, like Vocula, tries to reassert those distinctions, in hopes that a return to normality will carry with it both a vindication of the existing model of provincial rule and the return of military success. Although Cerialis does not experience the instant and dramatic rejection that Vocula does, he does not succeed in definitively reestablishing Roman dominance. While the Romans score a series of victories under his command, Cerialis’ lack of attention to detail and inability to follow up on successes in the battlefield leave him with a negotiated surrender by Civilis, based partly on secret messages (“occultos nuntios”) that promise pardons to Civilis and other Batavian leaders (5.24.1). Thus, with only partial victories in battle and with his inability to destroy the rebellion, Cerialis’ attempt to activate a sense of distinction between Roman and Other in order to reinforce Roman military success, like Vocula’s, ultimately fails. These two case studies prove that using the distinction between Roman and Other as the foundation of Roman provincial management is unworkable. As Tacitus shows his readership, the us-versus-them distinction is a tendentious and inaccurate reflection of reality. It is all the more notable, then, that the narrator employs the same strategy throughout the Batavian revolt. The narrator makes a more subtle and persuasive attempt—than either Vocula or Cerialis—to construct a binary opposition between the Romans and the rebels. The first-person plural pronoun nos is almost entirely absent through the first three books of the Histories, apart from Page 156 →the direct speeches of figures within the text.405 But beginning in the fourth book, the narrator uses various forms of this pronoun repeatedly, effectively making himself, as narrator, a partisan in the struggle against the Germans and Gauls. For example:

1. The deserting Batavian cavalry exposed the left side and then immediately turned back against us. (4.18.3) (Nudaverat sinistrum cornu Batavorum ala transfugiens statimque in nos versa.) 2. We sustained the greater number of casualties on that day, but they were some of our weaker soldiers, whereas the Germans lost their best men. (4.33.4) (Caesorum eo die in partibus nostris maior numerus et imbellior, e Germanis ipsa robora.) In these passages, the narrator explicitly aligns himself with the Romans fighting to suppress the revolt. This comes as quite a change after three books of civil war narrative in which the use of “we” could suggest only partisanship in the battle between pretenders, not ethnicity or status. This development, then, is a sign of the narrator’s increasing confidence that the Roman side is once more becoming distinct and that, as a result, he can finally align himself with it. The use of the pronoun nos also points to the reemergence of the narrative category of res externae. This suggestion is confirmed by looking back on one of the few passages from the first three books in which the narrator uses a form of nos.406 In the passage, Tacitus is describing the messy results of Roman involvement in local conflicts. Cartimandua, the queen of the British tribe of Brigantes, spurns her husband Venusius in favor of his arms bearer, and a civil war ensues. As an old ally of the emperor Claudius, Cartimandua seeks asylum with the Romans, leaving her ex-husband’s army for the Roman military in Britain to handle. Page 157 →Our cohorts and cavalry fought a few battles with mixed results but nevertheless saved the queen from danger; the kingdom was left to Venusius, the war to us. (3.45.2) (et cohortes alaeque nostrae variis proeliis exemere tamen periculo reginam; regnum Venusio, bellum nobis relictum.) Significantly, this is also one of the few sections of narrative that the narrator explicitly characterizes as res externae. We can learn from this example that forms of nos indicate the confidence of the narrator in making a distinction between the Roman and Other sides. The frequent use of forms of nos in the fourth book of the Histories, along with the concomitant suggestion that the narrator, not some Roman general trying to inspire his troops, sees the reemergence of a distinction between domestic and foreign affairs and between Roman and Other, coincides with the end of the narrative of AD 69 (4.38). This takes place in the middle of book 4 and only a third of the way through the description of the Batavian revolt. Thus, just as the nightmarish year comes to a close, signs emerge that AD 70 will bring with it a more secure sense of distinction between Roman and Other. While the Batavian revolt may mark a transition for the Flavian dynasty, its lesson is that this kind of rebellion is the “new normal” of the empire. No matter how much a general shouts that Romans and provincials are different from each other or even how much a narrator insists that he and the legions are in it together, the description of the revolt shows otherwise. The debate between the Tencteri, a free German tribe living on the Rhine, and the citizens of the Romanized city of Colonia Agrippinensis across the river demonstrates, once and for all, that the old opposition is dead and that any successful stabilization of the empire will have to acknowledge both sides as partners. The debate follows the surrender of the Roman legions at Vetera. Although it contributed to the Vitellian revolt, the city of Cologne has been unwilling to participate in the Batavian revolt and now finds itself at the mercy of the German and Gallic rebels. Civilis and Classicus are uncertain whether they should destroy the city. On the one hand, the city’s wealth is enticing; on the other hand, a reputation for clemency would be useful. A debate ensues between the Tencteri, one of the rebel Page 158 →German tribes, and the Agrippinenses. The Tencteri do not insist on destroying the city. Instead, they suggest that a return to the German fold is possible for the Agrippinenses if they remove all sign of Roman contact. The Agrippinenses respond that although they are kinsmen to the Germans, they have also developed blood ties to the Romans. To remove all traces of Roman influence would be impossible, since that would require them to kill members of their own families. The possibility of returning to an earlier, pre-Roman condition is at the heart of the argument between the legates of the Tencteri and the Agrippinenses. The crucial subject of hybrid identities, implicit throughout much of the

Histories, comes to the fore as they ask whether the changes resulting from Roman influence can be undone. The situation of the Agrippinenses offers an especially good opportunity for a reflection on the influences of Roman rule on northern provincial identity, because they have a long history of working with the Romans and appear, to the other Germans, to be collaborators with the oppressor. The narrator effectively endorses this impression when he notes that the Agrippinenses were formerly known as the Ubii but gave up their German homeland and prefer to be called by their Roman name: “gens Germanicae originis eiurata patria Romano nomine Agrippinenses vocarentur” (4.28.1).407 Whatever they may be called, the Agrippinenses have been an ally of Rome for over a hundred years by the time of the Batavian revolt. Their special relationship with Rome began under Caesar, who used their territory as a base of operations against opponents in Germany.408 Much later, Claudius founded a veterans’ colony on the site of Cologne and named it after his wife Agrippina, who was born there.409 In the Germania, Tacitus refers to Cologne’s special status and defends its independence. He claims that the Romans moved the Ubii west from their original territory on the east side of the Rhine so that they would be a bulwark against enemies, not so that they themselves would be imprisoned.410 Tacitus’ apologia in that earlier treatise for the Roman transfer of the Ubii to the site of Colonia AgrippinensisPage 159 → exposes a tension to which the Tencteran speaker also draws attention: does their preferential treatment suggest that the Agrippinenses were allies of the Romans, or were they prisoners? The German takes the position that the Agrippinenses are enslaved to the Romans but not beyond saving. He opens his speech with congratulations to the Agrippinenses for beginning the process of becoming free again. In the legate’s speech, the antithesis of slavery versus freedom is closely tied to identity. From the outset, he asserts a connection between being free and being German. We thank our shared gods and the greatest of them, Mars, that you have returned into the body and name of Germany. We also congratulate you, because at last you will be free men among other free men. (4.64.1) (redisse vos in corpus nomenque Germaniae communibus deis et praecipuo deorum Marti grates agimus, vobisque gratulamur, quod tandem liberi inter liberos eritis.) To the Tencteri, the return to the German fold (“corpus nomenque Germaniae”) is the key step toward achieving freedom. To be free among free men is to be a German tribe among German tribes. But before the Agrippinenses can be German again, they must become decontaminated from Roman influence. The first word of the speech, “redisse,” establishes the theme of returning to the community of Germans.411 In a speech characterized by excessive ferocity, the Tencteran speaker paints an optimistic picture: the Agrippinenses can go back to being the Ubii of the pre-Roman period. The speaker touches on the theme of return several times toward the end of the speech, saying, Let both of us inhabit both sides of the river, as our ancestors did at one time. (4.64.3) (liceat nobis vobisque utramque ripam colere, ut olim maioribus nostris.) Page 160 →He adds at the end, Just as nature opened the light of day to all men, so did it open all land to brave men. Take up again your ancestral ways and customs. (4.64.3) (quo modo lucem diemque omnibus hominibus, ita omnes terras fortibus viris natura aperuit. instituta cultumque patrium resumite.) The Tencteri will welcome back their brothers with open arms, but only on the condition that the Agrippinenses entirely rid themselves and their city of Roman influence. The Tencteran demands reveal the ferocious side of their personality, a characteristic of which the reader has

already been apprised.412 But so that our friendship and alliance may be everlasting, we demand that you tear down the walls of your colony, the bulwark of your slavery (even wild animals forget their virtue when locked up), that you slaughter all Romans within your boundaries (freedom and slave masters do not easily mix); let the goods of those killed be ceded into a common store, so that no one hides anything or separates his own interest. (4.64.2) (Sed ut amicitia societasque nostra in aeternum rata sint, postulamus a vobis, muros coloniae, munimenta servitii, detrahatis (etiam fera animalia, si clausa teneas, virtutis obliviscuntur), Romanos omnes in finibus vestris trucidetis (haud facile libertas et domini miscentur); bona interfectorum in medium cedant, ne quis occulere quicquam aut segregare causam suam possit. The Tencteri suggest that a wholesale slaughter of Romans and appropriation of their property will help restore the Agrippinenses to their pristine Ubian condition. These demands are too much for the Agrippinenses, however, and not only because they are a transparent power play by which the Tencteri and other German tribes attempt to put themselves in a more powerful position than Cologne and enrich themselves at the Agrippinenses’ expense. The deal is impossible because Page 161 →the Agrippinenses know that they cannot simply revert to a freer and happier pre-Roman condition. The speaker for the Agrippinenses gently refuses the conditions by acknowledging his people’s dual heritage. He opens by asserting kinship with the Tencteri and other Germans. When the first opportunity for freedom was given, we took it up more eagerly than cautiously, so that we would be joined to you and all other Germans, our kinsmen. (4.65.1) (quae prima libertatis facultas data est, avidius quam cautius sumpsimus, ut vobis ceterisque Germanis, consanguineis nostris iungeremur.) To capture the goodwill of the potentially hostile audience and to establish the Agrippinenses’ bona fides as true-blue Germans, the Agrippinensian speaker addresses the audience as his German brethren (“consanguineis nostris”).413 Right at the outset, the speaker asserts a kinship between the two sides, in hopes of breaking down any opposition and of showing that the fates of both sides are linked. It is vital for the Agrippinenses to emphasize their common German heritage first. In order to refuse the conditions of the Tencteran speaker, the Agrippinensian must own up to his people’s unbreakable blood connection to the Romans. He asks how the Tencteri could expect the Agrippinenses to kill their own parents, brothers, and children, just because they are descendants of the Romans. This is the fatherland for those colonists who at one time came and united with us by marriage and for those who were the offspring soon after. We do not judge you to be so prejudiced that you would wish our fathers, brothers, and sons to be killed by us. (4.65.2) (deductis olim et nobiscum per conubium sociatis quique mox provenere haec patria est; nec vos adeo iniquos existimamus, ut interfici a nobis parentes fratres liberos nostros velitis.) Page 162 →This is the crucial sentence of the speech. The Ubii and Romans have formed bonds that are far more significant than commercial interests, wearing the toga, or some other easily discarded habit. In a contemporary twist on the tale of the Sabine women before them, the Agrippinenses cannot simply rid Cologne of Roman influence, because the people of the city have absorbed Roman people into their families and now have children in common. Cologne must retain a living Roman presence in the city. Civilis accepts their argument and spares the city and its Roman citizens (4.65.4). The response of the Agrippinenses to the Tencteri reveals that talk of return to an earlier condition is out of step

with reality. Leaving aside the fact that a return to the early days of a free Germany is, in the first place, simply not desirable to the people of Cologne (given the degree to which they have profited from their relationship with Rome), such a return is impossible. There is no way for the Agrippinenses to become the Ubii again. The Agrippinenses cannot just drop their connections to Rome and resume their ancient German practices. They are a new composite of people, a fact that alters both their demographics and their cultural practices. Their hybrid identity, part German and part Roman, is created by blood and cannot be undone. Those who wish for a reintegration of the Agrippinenses into the German brotherhood must take account of this difference and create a space for it. Of course, the Tencteri do not understand or perhaps do not wish to acknowledge this point. Therefore, they never stand a chance of winning the assent of the Agrippinenses, even if their strength following the German victories at the beginning of the revolt allows them to force the Agrippinenses temporarily into alliance.414 Like the Tencteri, Vocula fails to persuade his audience because he advocates an obsolete worldview. Cerialis succeeds in gaining control of the Gauls only because of strength, not because he persuades them to Page 163 →accept his antiquated vision of their relationship of ruler and ruled. Time and time again, Tacitus homes in on individuals such as Sabinus or Civilis and on communities like Cologne that have nuanced, hybrid identities, to show that the Roman Empire cannot simply be reduced to Roman and provincial Other. Each side of that dichotomy has too many variations and—most important—shares many characteristics with the other side. Since the two categories do not exist any more, any attempt to reassert them, either in declarations of freedom or in the assertion of an either-or opposition that undergirds Roman provincial management, is guaranteed to fail. These examples demonstrate that the people of the empire are stuck with one another. Any attempt to create stability will necessitate a creation of a new ruling order that incorporates the elite, regardless of ethnicity.

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Chapter 5 “Chattorum quondam populus” Lessons of the Histories In a passage from Tacitus that has generated much discussion, Annals 4.32–33, the bitter and perhaps ironic voice of the narrator expounds on the ostensible triviality of his imperial annals.415 The narrator tells readers that his annals are not comparable to Republican ones, because earlier Roman history had more exciting events to write about: among other things, big wars (“ingentia bella”), dramatic sieges of cities (“expugnationes urbium”), defeated and captured kings (“fusos captosque reges”), and divisive domestic politics (“discordias consulum adversum tribunos”). Yet even if the material in the Annals is not as entertaining as earlier history writing, he claims, the work itself is not lacking in didactic value: “Nevertheless, it will not have been useless to examine carefully those things that at first sight seem trivial, out of which often the movements of great things arise” (non tamen sine usu fuerit introspicere illa primo aspectu levia ex quis magnarum saepe rerum motus Page 165 →oriuntur).416 Even here, as the narrator is depreciating the entertainment value of his work, his choice of the word usus affirms its educational value for readers. A paragraph later, he makes this point explicitly: “although these things are going to be beneficial, nevertheless they confer a minimum of pleasure” (ceterum ut profutura, ita minimum oblectationis adferunt) Ann. 4.33.3. The narrator imagines himself not just as a passive chronicler of the past but as an educator of his readership: “it will be useful that these things [which at first sight seem trivial]417 be searched out and handed down, because few men by their intelligence separate honorable things from worse ones, useful ones from harmful, and more men are taught by the outcomes of others” (haec conquiri tradique in rem fuerit, quia pauci prudentia honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis discernunt, plures aliorum eventis docentur) Ann. 4.33.2.418 The narrator of the Histories, in a comparable passage, also insists that his book has lessons for its readers. .В .В . it seems worthwhile to look back at the condition of the cityВ .В .В . so that not only the outcomes and results of events, which are for the most part products of chance, but also the rationale and causes may be understood. (1.4.1) (.В .В .В repetendum videtur qualis status urbisВ .В .В . ut non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed ratio etiam causaeque noscantur.) Page 166 →In both passages, the word eventus, “outcome,” is used to signal a means of judging history, one that is convenient but not necessarily best. According to the Annals, the majority of men simply look at how things turn out and assume that understanding begins there (“plures aliorum eventis docentur”). In the Histories, the narrator says that occurrences and outcomes (“casus eventusque”) are the products of chance. Taken together, the two passages create an interpretation of history suggesting that outcomes are at least partially contingent on factors beyond the control of the actors involved and that the role of historians is therefore to judge actions and events preceding and independent of the outcomes. The point of history writing in the Tacitean corpus, in short, is not to assume causes from outcomes. That is explicitly noted as the common and ignorant approach. The point is, rather, to examine the meaning and implication of the reasons of events (“ratioВ .В .В . causaeque” at Hist. 1.4.1), independent of how they turned out. Based on this principle, the significance of the Batavian revolt (and, for that matter, everything narrated in the Histories) is not whether it succeeded or failed but what the large amount of attention the text devotes to the description of its many facets can teach its readers. We have seen what the revolt says about the failures of Rome’s model of managing the manpower the empire requires and the effects of a century of colonial rule and interaction with northern provincials. In this chapter, we will see that through its discussion of the Batavian revolt, with its emphasis on lack of distinction between Roman and provincial identities, the

Histories also offers readers a prescription for stabilizing the provinces. If the precise identity of Julius Civilis is hard for readers to pin down—he is a citizen but Batavian royalty, a commander in the Roman army but an enemy of the state—we should not be surprised, because the Histories emphasizes that the Batavians are themselves a people in flux. We are told that they have not inhabited their homes on the northern Rhine since time immemorial. The Batavians, so long as they were living across the Rhine, were part of the Chatti. Pushed out because of an internal strife, they took over uninhabited places on the further shore of Gaul and at the same time the island located between the channels. (4.12.2) Page 167 →(Batavi, donec trans Rhenum agebant, pars Chattorum seditione domestica pulsi extremae Gallicae orae vacua cultoribus simulque insulam inter vada sitam occupavere.) Tacitus makes the same point a little more economically in a passage in the Germania from which I take this chapter’s title. At one time a people of the Chatti, because of internal sedition they moved into those places in which they might become part of the Roman Empire.419 (Chattorum quondam populus et seditione domestica in eas sedes transgressus in quibus pars Romani imperii fierent.) Both the Histories and the Germania highlight the transition of the Batavi from the uncivilized world of German tribes to become a new people, who also are subjects of Rome. Right from the outset, the possibility of transformation of identity is built into the way they are characterized.420 In the Histories, we find the Batavians—currently Roman subjects, formerly Chattian—eager for another change.421 These transformations set out a crucial question for the Histories’ readers: what will the Batavi be next? The Batavians are only the last example in the Histories of individuals or whole peoples who have a long history of being something else before Roman rule.422 This process of making a transition to Roman from something else is a special theme of the text, in which secondary episodes or incidental information often draw attention to changes in status and identity of various actors or communities. The text often features what I call an “embedded history”: a word, a phrase, or even a single adjective or noun used to evoke a person’s previous status as a member of a tribe or ethnic group different from the one in which that Page 168 →person currently is agreed by the other individuals in the text to have membership. What historiographical work are “embedded histories” doing? How do they help us gain lessons from the events of AD 69 and 70? A more detailed examination of the way in which the Batavians are introduced is instructive here. In the compact introduction of the Batavian revolt, coming as an interruption in the natural flow of the annalistic structure, each clause matters.423 The challenge for readers is to understand what each one adds. In those same days, the capital took up the story of the disaster in Germany without the slightest bit of distress. Armies cut down, winter camps of legions taken, the Gauls rebelling, they were talking about these events as though they were not evils. I will explain this war by going a little further back in time,424 for what reasons it arose, by how great a movement of foreign and allied peoples it became enflamed. The Batavians, so long as they were living across the Rhine, were part of the Chatti. Pushed out because of an internal strife, they took over uninhabited places on the further shore of Gaul and at the same time the island located between the channels, which Ocean flows around from the front, the Rhine River from the back and sides. And since their wealth is not worn away, rare in an alliance with stronger men, they supply only men and weapons to the empire. They trained for a while in the German wars, and soon after, their glory was increased through Britain, to which place their cohorts had been transferred. By old custom, the noblest men were ruling their cohorts. There was also a select cavalry, with an especial enthusiasm for swimming, which was experienced at retaining

control of their arms and horses while crossing the Rhine in intact columns. (Isdem diebus crebrescentem cladis Germanicae famam nequaquam maesta civitas excipiebat; caesos exercitus, capta legionum hiberna, descivisse Gallias non ut mala loquebantur. Id bellum quibus causis Page 169 →ortum, quanto externarum sociarumque gentium motu flagraverit, altius expediam. Batavi, donec trans Rhenum agebant, pars Chattorum seditione domestica pulsi extremae Gallicae orae vacua cultoribus simulque insulam inter vada sitam occupavere, quam mare Oceanus a fronte, Rhenus amnis tergum ac latera circumluit. Nec opibus (rarum in societate validiorum) adtritis425 viros tantum armaque imperio ministrant, diu Germanicis bellis exerciti, mox aucta per Britanniam gloria, transmissis illuc cohortibus, quas vetere instituto nobilissimi popularium regebant. Erat et domi delectus eques, praecipuo nandi studio, arma equosque retinens integris turmis Rhenum perrumpere peritus.) The setup of this brief ethnographical digression is vital to understanding what might, at first glance, appear to be simply a workmanlike version of a generic convention of ancient historiography. Polybius spells out the reasons for including geographic and ethnographic information in historical narratives: “That my narrative may not be altogether obscure to readers owing to their ignorance of the topography I must explain whence Hannibal started.”426 According to a much-discussed passage of Cicero’s De oratore (2.63), geographic description is a fundamental part of historiography.427 Sallust, as one would expect, includes geographic and ethnographic digressions in his narratives. He usually marks these kinds of digressions (indeed, all digressions) with formulaic language centering on the idea that the occasion calls for introducing some background material: “the situation seems to demand an explanation of the location of Africa and those peoples” (res postulare videtur Africae situm paucis exponere et eas gentis).428 With this rich and clearly defined tradition and, we may also assume, with sophisticated readers’ expectations behind it, the Histories Page 170 →does not present a formulaic “Since the situation calls for it, here is some background on the Batavi.” Instead, it creates a hinge from the main narrative to the digression that serves a specific and crucial corrective purpose. The people in Rome care little about the Batavians even after news of disasters start flowing into the city. They greet with inappropriate calm the information coming from the northern Rhine, which we understand, from the text, to be extremely alarming (“nequaquam maesta excipiebat” and “non ut mala loquebantur”).429 The frame of the digression thus makes explicit that information about the Batavians and their potential threat to the empire has been misunderstood once before, at the Romans’ peril. If readers of the Histories are to learn from its lessons, they will be well served by paying careful attention to the background on the Batavi. If they do so, this text warns, perhaps a future provincial rebellion will be attended to more seriously or prevented from happening at all. After that censorious introduction, the Histories should have the attention of its readers. What vital information does the digression then proceed to offer?430 Broadly, it provides three categories of information: who the Batavi are (formerly something else), where they are located (as far away as possible), and why they matter (they are outstanding fighters). The first bit of information readers receive is that the Batavians were not always the Batavians: formerly part of the Chatti, they became who they are not solely by their natural talents but by service on behalf of the empire. They “trained” (“exerciti”) in the wars against their former kinsmen in Germany and then showed the fruit of that experience in Britain.431 Lesson number one of the ethnography of the Batavians, then, is that whereas they used to be German, living and serving under Rome has transformed them into warriors of the first rank for the empire. Lesson number two for readers to understand before learning about Page 171 →the revolt is that the Batavi live in a land beyond which there is no more land. After being forced out of Germany and across the Rhine, the Batavi took up empty territory and settled on an island surrounded by the Rhine on three sides and the ocean on the other. They are literally on the edge of the empire. While this information is most certainly expected in ethnographic digressions that explain the habitat of “exotic” peoples, we should note its specific analytical work here. Even these seemingly impotent refugees living at the edge of the empire are capable of forcing the emperor to

send nearly ten legions to suppress their rebellion.432 Furthermore, any attempt these people make to change their situation necessarily involves harming the empire. Hemmed in by Roman provinces, ferocious German tribes, and the ocean, they cannot retreat further from Rome or the empire. Any attempt to assert their own freedom necessarily means reducing the size of the empire.433 The final key piece of information that this introduction gives us about the Batavi is that they are fearsomely accomplished warriors. Rome has taken these refugees and, by deploying them in Germany and Britain, turned them into a powerful fighting force whose impact far outweighs their distant location and relatively small numbers. There is also a hint that the lack of discipline the Batavians demonstrate in the camps through AD 69 not only is related to their anger over the terms of their service but might also be built into their character. The Batavi left Germany and the Chatti because they were ejected as a result of a “seditione domestica.” These fractious people, then, may be just acting according to their nature. While it shows that there are built-in challenges to Rome’s reliance Page 172 →on non-Roman manpower, the digressive introduction to the Batavi does not change the thrust of the Histories’ overall argument. The Roman Empire needs the Batavians or other people like them. They do the toughest fighting. They win the wars and give confidence to the legions. We have already seen that the Romans and Batavi are inseparable. The Batavi have no place to go anyway. Their own history and their transformation from Chatti to Batavi, however, offers the solution to the problems inherent in their arrangement with Rome. The Romans must fully embrace the Batavi and offer them one last transformation of identity—or, rather, the completion of the transformation that is already under way after a century of Roman rule. They must go from Batavian to Roman. Their ethnic identity must be changed one more time. To appreciate this point in full, we must carefully examine other instances of the transformation of identity in the Histories, to see how the work structures the transformative process as a general concept. A passage from the third book provides a clear demonstration of how the Histories embeds a history of identity transformation in its description of an individual or community. In one of the explicit episodes of res externae, the Histories narrates the story of a man who leads a rebellion in Pontus. The rebels succeed in slaughtering a Roman cohort but are eventually betrayed by a local king. What stands out in the passage is the fact that every individual, group, and place in it used to be something else. A barbarian slave, who formerly had been prefect of the royal fleet, had stirred up a sudden attack throughout Pontus. A freedman of Polemo, he was named Anicetus and had once been very powerful but later was unable to endure the changeover of the kingdom to a Roman province. Therefore, under the banner of Vitellius, he recruited some tribes that live in Pontus, baiting the neediest of them with the prospect of plunder. Leading this not insignificant band, Anicetus made a surprise attack on Trapezus, an ancient city founded by the Greeks on the farthest reaches of the Pontic shore. A cohort was cut down there. They had at one time been a royal auxiliary, but after they were granted citizenship, they held Roman standards and arms but retained the indolence and license of the Greeks. (3.47.1–2) Page 173 →(Subita per Pontum arma barbarum mancipium, regiae quondam classis praefectus, moverat. Is fuit Anicetus Polemonis libertus, praepotens olim, et postquam regnum in formam provinciae verterat, mutationis impatiens. Igitur Vitellii nomine adscitis gentibus, quae Pontum accolunt, corrupto in spem rapinarum egentissimo quoque, haud temnendae manus ductor Trapezuntem, vetustam civitatem, a Graecis in extremo Ponticae orae conditam, subitus inrupit. Caesa ibi cohors, regium auxilium olim; mox donati civitate Romana signa armaque in nostrum modum, desidiam licentiamque Graecorum retinebant.) There are four main players in this passage: Anicetus, Pontus, Trapezus, and the Roman cohort. The Histories provides a backstory of identity transformation for each one. The description of Anicetus comes first and is the most detailed. Before even telling us Anicetus’ name, the narrator brands him with the dismissive phrase “barbarum mancipium,” indicating to readers that Anicetus’ status as a foreign slave is the most

important and determining aspect of his identity. This is another case of tension between the narrator’s presentation and the didactic purpose of the implied author, and it requires the reader’s close attention as such. If we focus on the scornful dismissal in the first sentence, we might miss the deeper implications of the passage, in which the narrator goes on to call attention to Anicetus’ highly successful career as a freedman. Indeed, the narrator informs us that Anicetus had achieved the position of the prefect of the royal fleet of Pontus. After the kingdom was transformed into a Roman province, Anicetus lost his powerful position. His dissatisfaction with his condition led him to collect a band of allegedly needy men and to attack the city of Trapezus. The Histories provides a brief history of Trapezus, reporting that this city was originally a Greek foundation far out on the Pontic shore but is now in the Roman province of Pontus. In that ancient city, Anicetus and his band cut down an entire Roman cohort. The narrator diminishes this success by noting that the cohort had only recently been a royal auxiliary of the king of Pontus. Though they have been granted Roman citizenship and all the equipment of a Roman cohort, they have not acquired the fighting skill of a true cohort. The narrator encourages us to believe that the cohort’s true identity is that of its previous self, just as he pushes us to see Anicetus’ true character as that of a slave. Page 174 →Thus, even though the royal auxiliary force looks Roman in its dress and has attained Roman status with citizenship, it is still the lazy and weak group it had been before. The narrator’s hostility in this passage is itself instructive. True, it is traditionally Roman to resist the expansion of the privileges of the citizenship and Roman identity more generally.434 Here again, however, a reading that accepts the narrator’s framing has the potential to obscure one of the most important aspects of the passage: the process of identity transformation. Though the narrator is eager to deny that the changes in the cohort’s status have a deeper impact on its members’ actual identity, they nevertheless have begun to shift along the scale from Other to Roman. The changes began from the outside: the members of the cohort were granted citizenship and the equipment and standards of a Roman military unit. Whether or not they have become fully Roman is not significant. Regardless of the way the narrator frames it, the crucial point is that this group is engaged in the process that will render them (or the next generation of them) as authentically Roman as the inhabitants of Italy. In this passage, where the royal guard of Pontus wears a Roman uniform, clothing functions as a crucial index of where an individual or a community falls along the sliding scale of identity. A dense passage in the second book describes the reaction of toga-wearing, northern Italian townsmen to Caecina Alienus, an Italian-born citizen and one of Vitellius’ chief lieutenants, when he dares to address them wearing a type of military cloak identified with various barbarian tribes and—that most barbarous garment of all—trousers. His outfit signals two different things at once. To his audience in northern Italy, he appears to be inappropriately dressed in military regalia. They take this as an insult, when, in fact, they should recognize that it presages the violence his army will commit against other Italian towns. More broadly within the themes of the Histories, his clothing suggests that he has adopted the Germanic identity of his army. But it was as though Caecina had left his savagery and license on the other side of the Alps as he made a restrained advance through Italy. The local towns and colonies interpreted his clothing as a sign of arrogance,Page 175 → because he addressed men in togas while he wore barbarian garb of a multicolored cloak and trousers. (2.20.1) (At Caecina, velut relicta post Alpes saevitia ac licentia, modesto agmine per Italiam incessit. Ornatum ipsius municipia et coloniae in superbiam trahebant, quod versicolori sagulo, bracas, barbarum tegmen, indutus togatos adloqueretur.) This complicated passage packs a great deal of history and several perspectives into two sentences. The narrator distances himself from the negative reaction of the townsmen (emphasizing, with “in superbiam trahebant,” that it was their perception). Their concerns seem small, as they focus on the disrespect that Caecina’s uncouth dress on the occasion shows.435 But we should not let that pettiness distract us from the loaded and

instructive contrast between Caecina’s “versicolori sagulo” and “bracas” and the townsmen’s togas. Caecina’s unwillingness to take off his military regalia paints him as an invader, not a friendly native general who is just passing through on his way to Rome. By dilating on this confrontation, the Histories nudges readers to comprehend the fact that Caecina’s dress suggests ominous things about how he and the army he brings in tow will treat these townspeople and the rest of Italy. We have already seen how Valens’ army brutally pillaged its way through Gaul. Caecina’s conduct there was even worse: “Caecina swallowed up more plunder and blood” (plus praedae ac sanguinis Caecina hausit) (1.67.1). His recent track record, then, suggests that he will pillage and slaughter his entire way to Rome. Indeed, the narrator’s use of “velut” to begin the ablative absolute insinuates that his restraint is only temporary. A little anxiety on the part of the locals, even if it seems misplaced, is understandable. Not only would their fright have been justified in theory, but later in the narrative, after the Page 176 →Vitellians have defeated the Othonians, the Histories records that the victorious forces do commit horrible violence against other Italian “municipia et coloniae” of Italy: “spread out through the towns and colonies, the Vitellians pillage, steal, and befoul by means of violence and rape (dispersi per municipia et colonias Vitelliani spoliare, rapere, vi et stupris polluere) (2.56.1). While the municipia and coloniae of this passage may not be the same as those of Histories 2.20, the townspeople there were proven right to be anxious. The tension between appearance and intent in this episode prefigures a similarly revealing faux pas that Vitellius nearly commits when entering Rome a little later in book 2 (2.89). On horseback and dressed in full battle gear, Vitellius reaches the doorstep of the city, but his advisors impress on him the inappropriateness of his attire and mode of entry, which makes him appear to be a conqueror. Heeding their advice, he dismounts, puts on a toga (“sumpta praetexta”), and walks in (“incessit”).436 The self-presentation of Vitellius up to the moment he enters Rome and of Caecina in northern Italy reflects their ambiguous status not just as tactless civil war generals but also as foreign invaders. In civil war accounts, it is normal to characterize one side or the other as foreign; Octavian’s casting of Antony as a corrupt “Easterner” may be the most famous example. But this passage of the Histories suggests that such characterization is more than just slander in Caecina’s case. He appears to be shifting away from his native Roman identity and adopting a German one. Wearing the toga to the meeting with Caecina indicates that the northern Italian townspeople regard the occasion as a deadly serious moment, which requires them to display their citizenship and their culture, the very hallmarks of their status as legitimate and peaceful Romans. It is a gesture that Caecina not only fails to reciprocate but almost seems to disdain. Plutarch, recording this same incident in his Life of Otho, explicitly makes Caecina a Gaul: “Caecina had neither the speech nor the outward appearance of a Roman citizen, but was offensive and strange, a man of huge stature, who wore Gaulish trousers and long sleeves, Page 177 →and conversed by signs even with Roman officials.”437 Obviously, the Histories presents a significantly more toned-down version of this meeting and shifts the focus of the passage from Caecina, as hulking, savage Gaul, to the reaction of the northern Italian townsmen. In several discussions, Ash concurs with Plutarch that Caecina’s appearance here is specifically Gallic. But his clothing, aside from being martial, has a generically barbarian style. Trousers (bracae) are nearly a universal symbol of barbarism.438 The type of military cloak he wore (sagulum) is also applied to many different barbarians, but Tacitus notes in the Germania that it is the one garment common to all German tribes, typically fastened by a brooch or a thorn.439 The Histories provides no explicit guidance on the nature of Caecina’s barbarism. It is the readers’ job to put it into context within the work. I suggest that Caecina’s barbarian clothing takes on a specifically German tinge because of the German composition of his army. Caecina’s appearance as a foreign invader accords with the emphases of the descriptions of his army in other passages in the Histories. In the presentation of the Histories, Caecina’s army is German, and as the passage allows us to see, he himself looks German. Caecina’s apparent transition from Roman to German is brought into greater relief by the fact that he interacts with Italians who meticulously display their Romanness in their formal dress.440 Here, togatos carries much weight. The toga was not everyday attire; it was worn rarely and only for particularly formal occasions.441 Beginning in the Page 178 →Augustan age, the toga was given a cultural meaning and value, most famously by

Jupiter in the Aeneid, when he assures Venus that even Juno will favor the Romans. But Juno, who is right now wearying the sea, lands, and sky with fear, will change her plans for the better and, with me, will favor the Romans, masters of things, the toga-wearing people.442 (Quin aspera Iuno, quae mare nunc terrasque metu caelumque fatigat, consilia in melius referet, mecum fovebit Romanos, rerum dominos gentemque togatam.) The context of these words reinforces their significance. To calm Venus’ nerves after Aeneas and his companions have been devastatingly buffeted by a storm at sea sent by Juno, Jupiter offers the long view. Not only will Aeneas survive Juno’s wrath, but his toga-wearing offspring will rule the world forever (as indicated by “sine fine” in the verses just before these). In the final position of the last verse’s hexameter, the togata is elevated to the symbol of Romanness and the Romans’ divine right to rule.443 But even the seemingly “bigoted” reaction of the townsmen in the Histories is worth exploring, because it, too, has something to offer about the identity of the townsmen and the memory of former insults.444 These northern Italians are particularly sensitive to a potential slight to their status, because they themselves have made the transition from non-Roman to Roman. The narrator metonymically refers to the toga-clad men who come to meet Caecina as “municipia et coloniae.” Within the context of identity, status, and appearance, this generic-sounding phrase should be read as an embedded history of status and identity changes. In this passage, the original meanings of the terms municipia and coloniae are crucial to understanding the reactions of the townsmen to Caecina. Page 179 →Tacitus uses some permutation of the expression municipia et coloniae often through the extant books of the Histories.445 Simply using those words need not indicate that a major exploration of identity is in the offing. But in this setting where Romanness and how one presents it are so clearly issues, the pairing of municipia and coloniae deserves further consideration. In general, by AD 69, the terms had come to denote little more than towns and villages, usually ones in Italy.446 In an earlier era, however, each term had designated something more specific, and the differences between them were considerable.447 A municipium was a town whose residents held civitas sine suffragio, citizenship without the vote.448 Residents of a colonia might or might not have held citizenship, depending on whether it was a colonia civium Romanorum (colony of Roman citizens) or colonia Latina (colony of Latins).449 The use of the phrase municipia et coloniae to designate towns brings to the reader’s attention that the current standing of these towns in the year 69 bears traces of an earlier, precitizenship status. The reaction of the townspeople seems to acknowledge that they could be denigrated as not truly Roman. This is why the narrator represents the citizens of the municipia and coloniae as being so sensitive to Caecina’s decision not to dress in the formal toga.450 Whether Caecina intends to or not (the narrator emphasizes the townsmen’s reaction rather than Caecina’s intent), he implicitly questions their Romanness when he does not bother to wear this quintessentially Roman garment. Although he is on the Italian side of the Alps and in the land of the legitimate core of Roman identity, he is treating these Roman citizens as though they were just transalpine provincials. The locals perceive the slight and are offended. They are sensitive to any potential suggestion that they are not legitimate Romans (with all the honors that entails), because they retain the memory of their admission into the club that is Roman citizenship and hence invest much emotion in wearing the toga. When a Roman legate addresses them, they expect to be treated with the proper respect that wearing the formal citizen uniform symbolizes.Page 180 → Thus, the townspeople’s perception of a slight by Caecina reveals that the seemingly commonplace phrase municipia et coloniae contains defining historical information. One particular attack Cicero makes in his invective against Piso, delivered in 55 BC and published a year later,

clarifies the force of the insult and the potential for the sensitivity of the townspeople.451 To intensify the effect of calling Piso a “disgrace,” Cicero suggests that, on his mother’s side, Piso is a descendant of Gauls.452 But truly how did you enter Rome itself, O you disgrace, I will not say on the Calpurnian family but on Calventian, nor on this city but on the municipium of Placentia, not on your paternal birth but on your trouser-wearing relations?453 (Romam vero ipsam [foedavit adventus tuus], o familiae non dicam Calpurniae sed Calventiae, neque huius urbis sed Placentini municipi, neque paterni generis sed bracatae cognationis dedecus, quem ad modum ingressus es?) Note that we are in exactly the same geographical area in this passage as Caecina and the townsmen are in the Histories. The language contains the same words, too: “municipium” and braca in its adjectival form. Cicero uses the fact that Piso’s grandfather is a native of the northern Italian municipium of Placentia to suggest that Piso is an embarrassment even to his barbarian ancestors. This is a stock invective technique whose import in Cicero’s attack need not detain us further. I do not mean to suggest that this passage from Cicero’s In Pisonem is necessarily a model per se for the passage in the Histories. Its value for our interpretation of the Histories passage is that it shows starkly that the area of northern Italy around Placentia, variously called TranspadaniaPage 181 → (places across the Po) or, earlier, Cisalpine Gaul and then Gallia Togata (toga-wearing Gaul), is liminal, just this side of places that could be called barbarian.454 Using a form of braca is symbolic of the barbarism that lies beyond the Alps. Thus, more than a hundred years after Cicero calls a native of Placentia a wearer of trousers, the Histories shows its readers that people of northern Italy still feel the anxiety of their location. Caecina has just come over the Alps, the Histories tells us. He is not showing long-established Roman citizens of northern Italy the respect of treating them as the citizens they are. His dress recalls the sorts of insults Cicero directed at Piso. Like the passage about the rebellion in Pontus, this one highlights the sliding scale of status and identity, as well as the memory of changes along that scale. The men of the municipia and coloniae, who have moved into citizenship status, have completed the process that the cohort in Pontus had halfway completed. These northern Italians look, act, and are Roman. But this passage also introduces another aspect of the scale: Caecina is sliding away from being Roman, in the direction of becoming a barbarian, as the embedded history within his own cognomen, Alienus (Foreigner), implies. At this point, like the Roman cohort in Pontus, his transition is symbolized by his dress. The emphasis on Caecina’s attire suggests that just as one can move progressively from being non-Roman to being Roman, one can move back the other way, from Roman to non-Roman. While his name alone casts doubt on Caecina’s Romanness, the Germanic composition of the force he commands exerts pressure on his identity. The emperor Vitellius offers the most interesting case study of an individual making a transition away from being Roman in the direction of becoming foreign. He is the nominal head of the eponymous Vitellian movement yet does remarkably little throughout the Histories.455 Vitellius’ greatest accomplishment is being an accomplished man’s son. The narrator points out that his father was three times consul and once censor (1.9.1), apparently qualifications enough for his son to be emperor. Somewhat harshly, the narrator states again later, in the obituary for the emperor, that all Vitellius’ accomplishments came not by any Page 182 →merit of his own but as a result of his father’s fame.456 Among his other unflattering characteristics in the narrative, Vitellius—like Caecina and the bulk of his army—appears to be sliding toward becoming German. At the beginning of his revolt, he refuses to take the honorific name Caesar but agrees to Germanicus (2.62.2).457 In a memorable passage from the second book, the Histories records the response of Vitellius’ mother, Sextilia, to the news that her son has accepted this new title.458 And with equal uprightness was the mother of the Vitellii, Sextilia, who was of the old school. She was said to have responded to the first letter from her son that not Germanicus but, rather, Vitellius was born from her. (2.64.2)

(Et pari probitate mater Vitelliorum Sextilia, antiqui moris: dixisse quin etiam ad primas filii sui epistulas ferebatur, non Germanicum a se, sed Vitellium genitum.) On the surface, Sextilia’s quip is simply a mother’s way of deflating her son’s swollen ego. Deeper down, however, it contains a pun based on the resemblance of the name Vitellius to the Oscan word for Italy, vГ-tel(l)iГє.459 When Sextilia says that she gave birth not to a Germanicus but to a Vitellius, her words suggest that her son is not German but Italian, specifically Oscan Italian. By placing Germanicus and Vitellius in opposition, the phrase highlights the ethnic element at the base of each term. Rather than suggesting that Vitellius is the conqueror of the Germans, as Germanicus normally implies, Sextilia’s language insinuates that the honorific means that her son has joined the German side as a result of his time spent commanding forces on the Rhine. Therefore, the Page 183 →title does not reflect control of the place but intimates that Vitellius is a product of the locale. The placement of Germanicus in direct contrast to Vitellius draws out the resemblance of the emperor’s name to the Oscan vГ-tel(l)iГє.460 Tacitus frequently plays on individuals’ names as a means of commenting on their characters. While Tacitean wordplay is common, it may initially seem unlikely that a pun based on Oscan would have had any meaning in the early second century AD, by which point the non-Latin languages of Italy were long dead. Indeed, Oscan was mostly lost by the time of the Social War, when the Italian allies461 named their country vГ-tel(l)iГєin a symbolic act of linguistic opposition.462 Nearly two centuries before Tacitus’ day, vГ-tel(l)iГєhad become simply a slogan whose meaning did not depend on a speaker’s knowledge of the language.463 Oscan, however, did survive the next several centuries in this bite-size form. Evidence from Pompeii suggests that in the mid-first century, families of Oscan origin revived words and phrases, likely as a way of celebrating their heritage.464 The Vitellii, natives of Luceria, in the heart of formerly Oscan-speaking lands, were precisely the sort of prominent family that would have celebrated its Oscan roots in this period. Thus, Tacitus and his audience could reasonably have known the meaning and significance of vГ-tel(l)iГєand perhaps a handful of other Oscan words as well, because of the prominence of vГ-tel(l)iГєin Roman history and because of the modest revival of the language. Wordplay involving other Italian or even non-Italic languages appears elsewhere in Latin literature.465 A notable example is Vergil’s application of maliferae, “apple-bearing,”466 as an etymological gloss of the Oscan town Abella, which seems ultimately to be derived from the GallicPage 184 → word for apple.467 These puns are not mere rhetorical ornamentation, however. They reflect and amplify themes of the work. Sextilia’s pun is no exception: it forcefully reminds her son of his native Italian roots, at this moment when he is approaching Rome with a victorious civil war army composed heavily of Germans. With her quip, the emperor’s mother, having grasped the threat that the Vitellian forces represent to the Romans, may be trying to refocus her son’s attention on his true responsibilities to his homeland. Acutely aware of his dangerous shift toward the German, she is attempting to rein him in by reminding him of his native Italianness. Yet since the pun uses Vitellius’ name to stand for Italy, the problematic embedded history of Italy itself is brought to the fore. Indeed, the word Italia, while likely borrowed from Greek into Latin, originally derives from the Oscan vГ-tel(l)iГє.468 The presentation of the pun in the alternative Italian language of Oscan highlights the fact that Italy has never been the unitary entity filled with Latin-speaking Romans that the pun suggests at first sight. Indeed, it reminds the reader that Italy always included diverse communities with differing languages and cultures and even competing imperial ambitions. Instead of reasserting a clear distinction between “us” and “them,” the pun challenges the idea of Italianness implicit in Sextilia’s admonition. The use of Oscan points not to a united Latin-speaking Italy (led by Rome) but to the formerly fragmented and competing non-Latin and non-Roman Oscan communities of Italy. What could be the point of the pun’s meaning something entirely different from what Sextilia seems, at first glance, to intend? The answer, I suggest, lies in the fact that the statement recalls the short-lived country established during the Social War, vГ-tel(l)iГє, and thus brings to mind the conflict that united the previously multiethnic Italy under the banner and citizenship of Rome, once and for all. Sextilia’s pun contains an embedded history of Roman rule of Italy. It points to a time when Latin-speaking Rome was one of many communities on the peninsula. Ultimately, of course, Rome became the dominant power, and its language became

the lingua franca of the land, at the expense of the Page 185 →other languages. But to achieve this dominance, Rome had to suppress those other languages and cultures and incorporate their people and culture into itself.469 Thus, Sextilia’s punning statement contains the varied Italian identities embedded within itself and serves as a reminder that the identity transformation and crisis of AD 69 are not unprecedented in Roman history. In much the way that the non-Roman Italians became Romanized, so, in time, will the Germans be absorbed into the Roman identity. Rather than viewing the year of the four emperors as just another tragic and horrifically destructive power struggle in Roman history, Tacitus presents it as the latest stage in the process of the internal consolidation of the empire. The Histories draws on the tumultuous period at the beginning of the first century BC as a model in order to place the civil wars and mixed conflicts of AD 69–70 into historical perspective. Using allusions and digressions, the Histories insinuates that the issues and conflicts of AD 69 and 70—while they may have occurred on an unprecedented scale—had been seen before, in the first generation of the first century. The allusion to vГ-tel(l)iú—and, by implication, the lost non-Roman Italian identities and the Social War—is a second example, accompanying Civilis’ connections to Sertorius, of the Histories’ use of the first quarter of the first century BC as a frame of reference.470 A third, explicit example of engagement with this same period comes in a digression in book 2, just before the first battle of Bedriacum. Just at the moment that the Othonians and Vitellians line up opposite one another, the Histories breaks off from the narrative of the battle and offers a rumor that had currency in AD 69 and in other sources after the fact: namely, that the two sides had considered forgoing battle and referring the matter of who should be emperor to the senate. The narrator provides many reasonsPage 186 → for distrusting the veracity of the anecdote.471 The longest explanation he offers for the falseness of the rumor is a digression that comes in the following chapter (2.38). The internecine conflict that characterizes the year of the four emperors is the product of something peculiar not to that time but to the Romans throughout their history. The old desire for power, long ago implanted in men, grew to maturity, as the size of their dominion increased, and sprouted. Under moderate circumstances, equality was easily maintained. But after the world had been ploughed under, rival cities and kings cut down, free time to desire wealth without worry arose, and the first fights flared up among the senators and the plebs. At one moment, there were troublemaking tribunes; at another, exceedingly powerful consuls; and in the city and forum, immature attempts at civil wars. (2.38.1) (Vetus ac iam pridem insita mortalibus potentiae cupido cum imperii magnitudine adolevit erupitque; nam rebus modicis aequalitas facile habebatur. sed ubi subacto orbe et aemulis urbibus regibusve excisis securas opes concupiscere vacuum fuit, prima inter patres plebemque certamina exarsere. Modo turbulenti tribuni, modo consules praevalidi, et in Urbe ac foro temptamenta civilium bellorum.) Here the Histories evokes several key elements of the history of the late republic, alluding to the aftermath of the defeat of Carthage, with “aemulis urbibus,” and to the rise of the Gracchi (“turbulenti tribuni”) and Marius and Sulla (“consules praevalidi”).472 The deteriorating state of Roman politics in this period leads to Rome’s first, inexperienced attempts at civil war (“temptamenta civilium bellorum”). The narrator identifies the exceedingly powerful consuls in the next sentence, in which he identifies Marius and Sulla as mirror images of one another Page 187 →(one from the plebs, one from the nobles) who are equally destructive to the Roman state. Continuity is the theme:473 “the same anger of the gods, the same madness of men, the same causes of wickedness drove them to discord” (eadem illos deum ira, eadem hominum rabies, eadem scelerum causae in discordiam egere) (2.38.2). From this continuity, the narrator draws two implications, which provide the link back to the deferred description of the first battle of Bedriacum. First, the Roman world’s falling to pieces in AD 69 is hardly unprecedented. Second, because the same lust for power that destroyed the republic was not going to be replaced in an instant in AD 69 with a concern for peace, the narrator rejects the veracity of the whole anecdote. It is an altogether bleak vision of both the state of affairs in AD 69 and previous Roman history. The narrator’s closing formula for the digression places the events and participants of the late republic and

AD 69 alongside one another for a final time: “But this consideration of old and new customs has taken me rather far afield: now I return to the order of events” (sed me veterum novorumque morum reputatio longius tulit: nunc ad rerum ordinem venio) (2.38.2).474 The passage’s discussion of the period from roughly 146 through the end of the republic, with Marius and Sulla featured so prominently, should cue the reader to think about this time—particularly the years from the Social War (91–89) through the final reign of Sulla (81–79)—as a specific model for AD 69 and 70. In outline, both periods share a central narrative: the rapid defection of allies; a major war, with elements of both civil and foreign affairs, that engulfs much of the Roman world; and an ensuing period of political and military instability in which a series of individuals seize power for a relatively brief time. Also, as both the Histories and modern scholars emphasize, the violence that surfaced in the period of acute crisis had already been building in one way or another for decades. In its references to the period from the Social War through Sulla, the digression at Histories 2.38 accommodates both the acute political crisis of AD 69 and the one that comes to a boil after a long period of time in the provinces. Page 188 →The outlines of the Social War only hint at its usefulness for the Histories as a model for the prevention of future provincial rebellions. Following the war, the allies who revolted were enrolled as citizens in the Roman state. Roman literary discourse later came to present the Social War as a civil war in which the allies fought for full integration into the state, rather than for freedom or to dislodge Rome from its position of predominance in Italy. Florus475 offers this view most explicitly. Although it is called the war with the allies to diminish the distastefulness, if we wish to speak the truth, that was a war between citizens.476 (Sociale bellum vocetur licet, ut extenuemus invidiam; si verum tamen volumus, illud civile bellum fuit.) Florus then elaborates on this characterization of the Social War as, in actuality, a violent demand by the allies for citizenship and full incorporation into the Roman state. Thus, when the allies most justly demanded the citizenship of the state, which they had increased by means of their force, and for which hope Drusus had roused them in his desire for domination, and after he was overwhelmed by an internal crime, the same torch that consumed him inflamed the allies into arms and into the attack on the city.477 (itaque cum ius civitatis, quam viribus auxerant, socii iustissime postularent, quam in spem eos cupidine dominationis Drusus erexerat, postquam ille domestico scelere oppressus est, eadem fax, quae illum cremavit, socios in arma et in expugnationem urbis accendit.) In his explanation of the causes of the Social War, Velleius Paterculus offers arguments on behalf of the thesis that the war was a fight for citizenship and incorporation. His arguments are quite similar to Civilis’Page 189 → allusions to risk and reward for provincial soldiers in the Histories. Velleius Paterculus writes, They [the allies] sought that citizenship whose authority they protected with weapons. Through all the years and wars, they provided double the number of soldiers and knights and yet were not accepted into the rights of that state, which through them had arrived up to that very apex from which it could look down on men of the same race and blood as though they were unrelated and foreign.478 (Petebant enim eam civitatem cuius imperium armis tuebantur: per omnes annos atque omnia bella duplici numero se militum equitumque fungi neque in eius civitatis ius recipi, quae per eos in id ipsum pervenisset fastigium per quod homines eiusdem et gentis et sanguinis ut externos alienosque fastidire posset.) We see in Velleius the same point that Cicero asserts in the Pro Balbo, that sharing in the dangers of wars (“imperium armis tuebantur” and “perВ .В .В . omnia bella”) naturally and obviously earns people their incorporation into the state.479 Here, we have the key connections between the reception of the Social War

and the Histories’ presentation of the Batavian revolt. Civilis’ arguments mirror fairly precisely those found in Velleius. Soldiers who fight on behalf of a state as allies deserve respect and something else. Though the something else Civilis offers (separation from Roman rule) is different from that in Velleius (incorporation), we can see how the comparison leads readers to reach the intended conclusion on their own. The didactic purpose of the comparison, along with the construction of the Batavian revolt throughout the Histories, should cause readers to see the parallels between the two events in Roman history and should persuade them to follow not the lead of Civilis (who has been shown to be a treacherous opportunist) but the precedent set in the aftermath of the Social War. The solution to preventing future Batavian revolts is incorporation into the citizenship and the state. Page 190 →Velleius’ text, like Florus’ after it, takes the unequivocal position that the Social War was simply a demand for citizenship (“petebant enim eam civitatem”), a common but not necessarily accurate analysis. With his thoroughgoing examination of the historiography of the Social War, beginning with the ancient sources and continuing through modern historians, Henrik Mouritsen has shown that we should in no way trust that the war was really as Velleius and Florus describe.480 Mouritsen shows that a very strong additional strand in the ancient evidence suggests that the allies intended to dislodge Romans from their position of dominance in Italy.481 But this very range of interpretation of the aims of the allies within the sources only enriches the use of the Social War as a frame of reference in the Histories. That inability to decipher the causes mirrors the lack of clarity about the nature of the Batavian revolt. As we have seen, the Histories makes a number of claims about the causes of that event—some understood by the participants, some not.482 But if readers think the allies did intend to break free from the Romans, the Social War precisely mirrors the Batavian revolt. This uncertainty is ultimately secondary to the larger lessons that the Histories’ readers can take from the Social War. There was never another significant internal problem within Italy after the Social War. As the decades rolled on, non-Roman Italy and Rome came to be seen as birds of a feather. Whatever the causes of the Social War and whatever the motives of its participants, this is the lesson to be drawn from the conflict: that peace and unity were achieved by the incorporation of all the allies into the citizenship. Using the Social War as a model for understanding the Batavian revolt makes the later event a case study for more effective management Page 191 →of the empire. A key phrase in the digression at Histories 2.38 that has not received the attention it deserves is “imperii magnitudine.” This phrase introduces another historical explanation for the collapse of the republic: namely, that the task of managing the vast imperial space provided the context for the rise of the ultimately fatal lust of individual power in Rome and, thus, for the collapse of the republic.483 Again, as in the excursus at the outset of the Histories, the text emphasizes the essential difficulty of managing the empire. It suggests that the state was not capable of handling the demands of a far-flung, diverse, and volatile empire. From this point of view, the rise of tension between the plebs and patricians, the rise of powerful individuals, and the fractiousness and violence that more or less continued unabated until after the Battle of Actium were responses to the challenge of managing an empire that had been acquired over the course of several centuries.484 Thus, we once again find in the Histories an additional, historical explanation for the instability of AD 69. Integrated into a simplistic view of moral degeneracy of individuals is an explanation that emphasizes a challenge to the imperial system of government. The principate codified the one-man rule that was pioneered in the early first century BC, but as in that period, it eventually began struggling to maintain stability, because of the challenges posed to it from its empire. The narrative of the Batavian revolt reminds Romans that people scattered over the empire have desires and opinions of their own. Their assent and obedience, especially when much is asked of them, cannot be guaranteed simply by Roman prestige or anything else. Who rules in Rome and how power is shared mean very little to the Batavians and other Page 192 →provincial soldiers fighting and dying on behalf of the empire. Their participation in the state and their willingness to contribute is largely irrespective of affairs in Rome, though their willingness to take advantage of a distracted Rome is related to them. Viewing the civil war of AD 69 through the prism of the Social War places the seemingly catastrophic events of the year of the four emperors into a historical framework, the ultimate didactic purpose of which may actually be reassuring. Just as the full integration of Italians into the Roman state required a climactic civilish war, so might the empire require a civil war to absorb all the different peoples into the Roman system and to establish a new

balance. This process takes time. In the aftermath of the Social War, Italy was not magically transformed into the unified whole suggested by the first-century BC slogan “Tota Italia.”485 Largely in the speeches of politicians like Cicero and, later, in the works of Varro and Vergil, Rome began to reimagine itself as the heart of a unified peninsula.486 But from the perspective of the early second century AD, learning from the Social War that an effective response to an allied rebellion is incorporation, not punishment or an attempt to force subjects into a more subservient role, could help create a more unified empire in the coming decades. Understanding something like the Batavian revolt as a new incarnation of the Social War does significant didactic, historiographical work. By tying the two periods together, Tacitus encourages readers to see the earlier event as a model for the later. It provides a suggestion for a way forward. The Romans had a long history of incorporating foreigners into their state, whether it was the Claudii from Sabinum or whole Italian communities after the Social War. As far back as Velleius Paterculus in the early first century AD, historians have tended to see these expansions of the citizenship as natural and logical.487 The idea of absorbing as distant and notionally distinct a community as the Batavians may seem to stretch Rome’s fabled generosity with its citizenship to the breaking point, even if a few Batavians had already earned citizenship. Yet the narrator of the Histories, by presenting readers with the reactions of the Page 193 →municipia and coloniae to Caecina’s dress and with Sextilia’s Oscan pun, has already made the claim that Italy was not always a unified peninsula but was the site of numerous competing communities and of great cultural diversity. Within this context, the Batavian revolt is yet another moment when the Romans are forced, at the point of a sword, to reconsider how they rule their subjects and to examine whether the status they apply to their subjects befits the level of the subjects’ contribution to the state.

Page 194 →

Conclusion As this book has argued, the Histories of Tacitus shows the Roman Empire’s model of exploiting and rewarding provincial military service to be both out of date and a source of dangerous instability. By developing episodes of identity transformation and alluding to the era of the Social War, the Histories suggests that a new iteration of the process of the unification of Italy is required, this time for the entire empire. The succession crisis of AD 69 that ends with the establishment of the Flavian dynasty is not solely a problem for those at the highest levels of power in Rome. Stability at the top is no guarantee of stability anywhere else. On the contrary, the excursus that opens the Histories shows a map of the empire in which Augustus’ vision of peace emanating from Rome is replaced by infinite potential threats from all corners. Thus, at its very outset, the Histories lays out this problem of imperial instability and challenges readers to find solutions within the narrative. The Batavian revolt, to which Tacitus devotes so much attention, is the first and best place to look for answers. Here, provincial soldiers—the cream of the crop at that—revolt against the Romans, in whose army they serve. In the narrative of that rebellion, we find that the arrangement the Romans have previously offered to provincials is skewed too far in Rome’s favor by AD 69. It asks too much of provincials and offers too little in return. What should Rome offer as compensation? By carefully interpreting the rebels’ concerns and the Roman responses to them, readers can gain insight into how to prevent future instability. The Histories leads us to conclude that the empire should offer the same Page 195 →thing to the provincial populations who provide the manpower for the military that it offered to the Italian allies after the Social War: general enfranchisement and participation in rule. In other words, the Romans should actually grant the provincials the privileges that Petilius Cerialis falsely claims they already enjoy: command of legions, governorships of provinces—in short, “nothing separate, nothing closed off” (nihil separatum, clausumve). The Histories anticipates that its elite Roman readers may be hostile to the suggestion of making northern Gallic and Germanic provincials equal partners in the state. We have seen evidence for that hostility within the Annals, with the voices of opposition to Claudius’ enfranchisement of the “long-haired Gauls”; we have also seen it outside the Tacitean corpus, in Suetonius’ reporting of Caesar’s introduction of other Gallic elites to the senate. In a speech of consul Marcus Popilius Laenas during a midrepublican battle against Gauls, Livy puts a fine point on the nature of this elite opposition. “Why are you standing still, soldiers?” he said. “You are not dealing with a Latin or Sabine enemy, whom once conquered you could make into an ally from an enemy; we have drawn our swords against beasts; their blood must be drained or ours given.”488 (“quid stas, miles?” inquit “non cum Latino Sabinoque hoste res est, quem victum armis socium ex hoste facias; in belvos strinximus ferrum; hauriendus aut dandus est sanguis.) Roman discourse imagined Italians, even if they had been enemies at one time, as natural kinsmen. Livy shows that there was not the same assumption of a natural kinship with peoples from beyond the Alps, however. The Histories emphasizes the transformation of identity over time and presents the Social War as a point of comparison precisely because it anticipates that its elite Roman readership will recoil in horror at the prospect of sharing their privileges with northern provincial “beasts.” Rather than seeing incorporation as a sign of the growth and Page 196 →strengthening of the state, Roman voices often stridently asserted that it threatened Rome’s very essence. Those voices of dissent are clearly on the wrong side of history in the works of Tacitus and in Roman discourse more generally. The dissenters lost out after the Social War, after Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, and after the admission of those “long-haired Gauls” as senators. In actual Roman history outside of literature, the changing relationship between the Roman center and the provincial periphery coincided precisely with Tacitus’ lifetime, as provincials gained more power and privileges.489 The Histories recognizes that the tide is running against Roman opposition to further incorporation of provincial peoples. Furthermore, it shows that

contemporary provincials, unlike those of Caesar’s or Augustus’ day, can no longer be easily dismissed as “barbarian.” In the case of a place like Colonia Agrippinensis, the inhabitants are virtually Roman: they have married and formed families together. This literal amalgamation is also evident on a more metaphorical level. Provincials, trained by the Romans in the military for a century, have absorbed Roman ideologies as a result of their participation in the Roman Empire. An enemy with Civilis’ keen insights into the Roman state could only emerge during the principate. Civilis understands Roman fractiousness and knows that the Romans rely on provincial manpower to a dangerously high degree. In the Histories’ telling, knowledge of these factors, combined with his own personal grievances, leads Civilis to revolt. In the century after the Histories was written, the principate increasingly came to treat provincials as participants in the state, rather than merely subjects. When the privilege of citizenship was extended to everyone in the empire, 490 provincials achieved the legal recognition that is so important in the Histories. Of course, new ways of differentiating status emerged, but residence in Italy was no longer the defining and exclusive attribute it had once been.491 The Histories is attuned to this process of transformation wrought by ruling the empire. The text impliesPage 197 → that the diffusion of Roman rule ultimately results in the diffusion of authority. In the Histories, we see the city of Rome already becoming merely one extremely powerful place—a clear demotion. Still the most powerful place, it is no longer the center of the world. It is important to note one last time that the Histories are a single, long fragment. We do not know what came next in the text. There was most likely a shift away from the focus on provincial identity and its effects on imperial stability that characterizes the discussion of the civil wars and Batavian revolt of AD 69–70, to events such as the siege of Jerusalem, the eruption of Vesuvius,492 and, eventually, the reign of Domitian. Recognizing that any interpretation of the Histories must come with an asterisk, the present study nonetheless takes advantage of the surviving text to elucidate the themes and lessons that are developed over the four complete books that remain to us. In my discussion of these, I have purposely left out the Jews and the Jewish excursus of book 5. But the question must now be asked: what does my thesis mean for the Histories’ Jews? Described and reviled through a long ethnographic digression at the beginning of book 5, they seem, at first sight, to disprove my argument about the empire’s need to incorporate provincial peoples. They do not participate in the Roman state in the way most other provincials in the Histories do. They never are cited as serving in the Roman armies. What are they doing in the Histories? With the conclusion of the civil wars of AD 69 and the successful establishment of a new dynasty, one might expect that the text would move on to different themes from those of the first three and a half books, which encompass the narrative of the one long year. Certainly, we have seen this argument adduced for the narrative arc of the extant Histories. One point on which there is little disagreement in scholarship is that with the Jews, a clear distinction between Roman and Other begins to emerge: as Ash puts it, “Where we can really detect a shift in gears and a sense of recovery of Roman national identity is in Tacitus’ famous (or infamous) ethnographical excursus on the Jews.”493 In the truncated fifth Page 198 →book, we see the Flavian forces preparing for the siege of Jerusalem and the final suppression of the Jewish revolt. From all appearances, this war presents the opportunity for a classic conflict between Roman and Other. Indeed, it may be an opportunity to expiate the pollution of civil war and establish the members of the Flavian dynasty as proper Roman conquerors.494 Tacitus is incomparably more interested in the earliest beginnings (primordia) of Jerusalem than in the causes of the revolt that results in its capture. As he presents it, Jewish acceptance of Roman rule simply runs out: “the Jews’ patience nevertheless endured until Gessius Florus was procurator: under him the war arose” (duravit tamen patientia Iudaeis usque ad Gessium Florum procuratorem: sub eo bellum ortum) (Hist. 5.10.1). While Tacitus offers no direct comment on the causes of the revolt, he does offer two chapters on the history of Roman rule in Judaea, suggesting that Roman misrule contributed to the revolt. Tacitus asserts that the Roman leadership of the province was of low quality and abusive. Antonius Felix, a procurator installed by Claudius, was savage, lustful, and tyrannical.495 In the Annals, Tacitus again returns to the unjust rule of Antonius Felix. Felix, imposed for a long time already on Judaea, thought that all his evil deeds would be unpunished because he relied on such powerful support. It is also true that the Jews offered the appearance of

revolt. (12.54.1) (FelixВ .В .В . iam pridem Iudaeae impositus et cuncta malefacta sibi impune ratus tanta patientia subnixo. Sane praebuerat Iudaei speciem motus.) In the Annals, Tacitus pairs Roman mismanagement with percolating Jewish restiveness. In the Histories, he also insinuates that the Jews are not the most obedient of subjects. In his history of Jerusalem, the narrator cites the fickleness of the crowd (“mobilitate vulgi”) as a cause for their inability to abide their native kings (5.8.3). But most relevant to the Page 199 →siege of Jerusalem is the narrator’s observation that the Jews were riven with internal strife.496 Josephus invests much of his narrative of the Jewish revolt in illustrating the devastating effects of stasis, a Thucydidean concept that explains the destruction that violent factional discord can inflict on a community.497 Tacitus nods toward this tradition in his description of the walls of Jerusalem. There were three leaders with as many armies: Simon, whom they also called Bargiora, held the outermost and longest of the walls; John held the middle wall, and Eleazar the temple.В .В .В . Soon, after he had sent men under the guise of sacrificing to kill Eleazar and his troop, John held the temple. Thus the state separated into two factions, until, with the Romans coming near, a foreign war created concord. (5.12.3–4) (Tres duces, totidem exercitus: extrema et latissima moenium Simon, quem et Bargioram vocabant, mediam urbem Ioannes, templum Eleazarus firmaverat.В .В .В . mox Ioannes, missis per speciem sacrificandi qui Eleazarum manumque eius obtruncarent, templo potitur. Ita in duas factiones civitas discessit, donec propinquantibus Romanis bellum externum concordiam pareret.) Following the report of John’s assassination of Eleazar, the ominous phrase “in duas factiones civitas discessit” suggests that John and Simon would have continued to fight one another had not metus hostilis caused them to set aside their internecine strife to fight the Romans. For Tacitus’ Jews, the arrival of a clearly external enemy helps them see their profound unity. The text shows that the Jews are not the opposite of the Romans that, on the surface, they appear to be. The Jews are notionally so foreign that the narrator devotes the only long ethnographical excursus of the extant text to them. This is guaranteedPage 200 → to have high entertainment value as an example of traditional historiographical focus on exotic curiosities, though the excursus adds no new information to the ancient tradition.498 Whatever it does or does not say about the Jews, contextualizing the excursus within the themes of the extant Histories is a good way to start understanding what thematic work it does. It begins in the fifth book, with little introduction: “But since we are about to transmit the final day of a well-known city, it seems fitting to reveal its beginnings” (sed quoniam famosae urbis supremum diem tradituri sumus, congruens videtur primordia eius aperire) (5.2.1).499 This is a simple and explicit transition to an ethnographical digression in the style of Sallust, very different from the carefully structured transition that introduces the much briefer digression on the Batavians. One reason the Histories does not offer a more pointed framework for the excursus may be that it has already given an explanation of its purpose in book 2, after Titus hears that Galba is dead. At that point in the narrative, Vespasian begins to think about making a bid for the principate. He has three legions under his command, and his war in Judaea is coming to a close. The siege of Jerusalem is the only task remaining for his army. This moment offers a proleptic explanation for the excursus. Vespasian had nearly completed the Jewish war. The siege of Jerusalem was all that remained: this would be a difficult and arduous task because of the nature of the mountain and the stubborn superstition of the Jews, rather than because those who were blockaded had enough strength to endure the extreme straits they were in. (2.4.3) (Profligaverat bellum Iudaicum Vespasianus, obpugnatione Hierosolymorum reliqua, duro magis et arduo opere ob ingenium montis et pervicaciam superstitionis quam quo satis virium obsessis ad tolerandas necessitates superesset.)

Page 201 →The Jews would display tenacious endurance under the Roman siege because of the advantage provided by the natural setting and the obstinacy of their faith. When the text returns to the Jews before the siege of Jerusalem in book 5, it structures the excursus around the development of the superstition of the Jews and the physical plan of the temple. These two themes explain the difficulty of taking Jerusalem. Scholarship on the content of the excursus has tended to focus on Tacitean anti-Semitism.500 The historian is seen as an exemplar of conventional Greco-Roman Judeophobic views.501 The sources of Tacitus’ account are sought and disputed.502 Chilver and Townend even go so far as to apologize for the lower-than-normal quality of research in the excursus.503 These approaches do little to enhance our understanding of the Histories, however, and are caught up in scholars’ own modern sensitivities and later developments in European history, over which Tacitus had absolutely no control.504 A far more fruitful avenue of exploration is to ask what specific work the distasteful portrait of the Jews is doing within the text. How does the excursus’ provocative presentation of the Jews fit into Tacitus’ overall program? What themes does it develop or introduce? These questions are more to the point. Certainly, for the first time in the text, we see a people who can indisputably be described as Other: “They hold everything profane that we consider sacred; likewise, whatever we consider unholy, they allow” (profana illic omnia quae apud nos sacra, rursum concessa apud illos quae nobis incesta) (5.4.2). It would seem that the Histories’ Jews are presented as the opposite of the Romans, much as the Egyptians of Herodotus are represented as opposites of the Greeks.505 Page 202 →To explain Jewish opposition to the rest of humanity, the Histories offers a version of the story of Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt. The narrator says that when the Jews were wandering across the desert and becoming demoralized by thirst, Moses stepped forward and told the people that they had been deserted by gods and men and could only rely on themselves.506 This supposed abandonment by the gods and men makes the Jews hostile toward both. It also has the effect of making them all the more dedicated to one another. As a group, they are incredibly self-reliant: “because of their stubborn loyalty toward one another, they show pity toward one another, but toward everyone else, they show only the hatred due an enemy” (et quia apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu, sed adversus omnes alios hostile odium).507 The Jews’ “fides obstinata” here is a variation on their pervicacia superstitionis cited above. One could go on, yet my purpose is not to provide a detailed examination of the language of the Jewish excursus but, rather, to demonstrate how it advertises itself as a possible end point to the identity confusion of the first four books of the Histories.508 The Jewish war offers the Flavians a prime opportunity to use this foreign conquest for the establishment of their principate, much as Otho tried to do when a few Roman units wiped out a group of Sarmatians.509 At first sight, the Histories presents the Jews not only as indisputably foreign but, indeed, as the inverse of the Romans. The narrator’s provocative tone, however, should give us pause. He conspicuously pours scorn on the Jews, who allegedly were the source of a plague in Egypt (5.3.1) and whose laziness caused them to extend their weekly Sabbath to an entire year every seventh year (5.4.3). Andrew Feldherr suggests that the heavy-handed pressure the narrator exerts in the excursus is not to be accepted at face value: “On the small Page 203 →scale, his defamation of Jewish practices seems less the direct product of personal or cultural prejudice than a deliberately crafted literary device, a perspective to be challenged and interrogated.”510 As we have seen, when the narrator of the Histories most obviously attempts to frame the reception of the content of the narrative, such as with his use of nos during the Batavian revolt, readers should be wary of accepting his framing. Further, readers ought to see these moments as ones where the narrator’s role as a participant in the text is brought to the fore and, thus, as moments that should be examined and interpreted like any other aspect of the narrative. Feldherr’s point about the narrator is part of his broader argument that we should not be too quick to accept the assertion of difference between the Romans and the Jews in the ethnography. He shows that military victory not only can establish the superiority of the Romans over the defeated but also can remind the Romans of their own vulnerability. In the fall of Carthage, Scipio Aemilianus sees a potential fate for Rome. Feldherr understands the narrator as an agent who is forcing a Judeophobic attitude while the content of the description shows a people who are remarkably similar to the Romans: “One answer then to the question of what makes the Jews unlike the Romans is that the difference depends entirely on the perspective of the narrator.”511 In the end, because of this dissonance between narrator and content, Feldherr feels unsure of how to interpret the Jewish excursus.

Further connections between Jewish superstition and individual Jews also bridge the gap that the narrator conspicuously creates between the Romans and Jews. Eastern superstitio, of which the Jews are the ultimate example, is not actually foreign to the Flavians.512 At the end of the fourth book, Vespasian is in Alexandria, dabbling in faith healing (4.81). Earlier in the text, when the aspiring emperor visits Mount Carmel (which the narrator notes lies between Judaea and Syria), a priest named Basilides reads the entrails as indicating that whatever Vespasian might venture upon—building a new house, expanding his fields, or increasing his number of slaves—will turn out successfully (2.78). More important than the prophecy, which transparently portends the principate for Vespasian, and than Basilides’ name, Page 204 →which derives from the Greek word for king (basileus), is the description of the location of the altar and the absence of any image of a deity.513 Carmel was a sacred Jewish site. Even though the narrator does not make this explicit, his explanation that it is “Iudaeam inter Syriamque” and his reference to the absence of an iconic image of a god (“nec simulacrum deo”) calls to mind the Jews’ refusal to venerate a human image of their god (2.78.3). In the excursus, he notes that they do not build statues to their god: “The Jews comprehend their one god only in their minds. They consider people profane who make representations of the gods with human materials in the image of men.В .В .В . Therefore they set up no statues in their cities or even in their temple” (Iudaei mente sola unumque numen intellegunt: profanes, qui deum imagines mortalibus materiis in species hominum effingant.В .В .В . igitur nulla simulacra urbibis suis, nedum templo sistunt) (5.5.4). The absence of an image of a god on the altar at Carmel implicitly signals that the proof of Vespasian’s future rule is coming from a Jewish site. There are more Flavian connections to Jewish individuals. Titus is in love with a powerful Jewish princess, Berenice, the daughter of Herod Agrippa I.514 The narrator reports that on his voyage to pay respect to Galba, a trip cut short by Galba’s murder, Titus may have turned back in order to see her (2.2.1). Berenice’s first husband had been the noted philosopher Philo of Alexandria’s nephew, Marcus, the brother of Tiberius Alexander, who, as legate of Egypt, was instrumental in the acclamation of Vespasian (2.74.1) and merits inclusion in the opening excursus in the Histories (1.11.1). These specific connections to the Jews and Jewish cult are only part of the general picture the Histories paints of the Flavian relationship with what the text presents as Eastern superstition in general.515 We have already seen that one of the Flavian legions worships the sun and that many of the soldiers stationedPage 205 → in Syria had married local women.516 Holly Haynes argues persuasively that Vespasian uses the realm of the supernatural to legitimate his rule—though he uses the Jews to make his superstitio proper religion.517 Thus, though the Jewish excursus is offered as a promising turning point in the text, the moment when Roman can finally be distinguished from Other, it proves to be no such thing. While the narrator of the excursus does aggressively make the Jews seem Other, the previous characterization of Vespasian, Titus, and the entire Flavian force as underwritten by Jewish superstitio adds a qualification to the clean separation that the narrator’s barbarization of the Jews suggests exists between Roman and Other. In fact, the presentation of the Jews appears to be very much a setup intended not to show that Rome finally has an enemy it can call foreign but to highlight the untraditional means by which Vespasian legitimates his authority. Throughout this volume, I have chosen to emphasize the big picture, the didactic nature of historiography, because it gets away from the narrow and sometimes misrepresentative focus on such topics as Tacitus’ view of the emperor, Tacitus’ view of the principate, or, in the case of the Jewish excursus, Tacitus’ Judeophobia.518 I have been careful to designate only an implied author Tacitus, because the historical man stands outside the text. Even the narrator, who clearly states in the first chapter of the Histories that he is the actual Tacitus, should not be associated simplistically with the senator. The voice of Tacitus has the reputation of being cynical, bitter, and caustic. While there are plenty of examples of his biting sententiae or bleak, moralizing presentation of history, these constitute only one strand of his texts’ presentation.519 Overemphasis on this aspect of the historical works crowds out the fact that these moralizing interventions are themselves doing work within the broader program of the text. Again, remembering that the historiographical texts are supposed to teach readers something means that however congenial the particularly biting quotations of the Histories’ Page 206 →narrator are to modern skepticism, pulling them out of the text as a sign of Tacitean pessimism risks missing a bigger point. Even in its fragmented state, the Histories offers a vision of the empire and how to make it more stable. In emphasizing the narrator’s dismissive presentation of Civilis’ motives, for example, we risk losing sight of the important lessons to be learned from his example. Though presented as a villain, he is nonetheless vital to understanding the lessons of the Histories: provincials must be compensated in proportion to

their contribution to the empire. Transformations of peoples and places are real and, though they take time, result in the emergence of different peoples. Roman officials ought to remember that (as Agricola did). Within the literary map revealed in the excursus and the ensuing books, the existing empire occupies the Histories’ focus. We have there a vision of the imperial space that Appian, in a passage that has inspired much discussion, calls the бјЂПЃП‡бЅґ.520 Possessing the best part of the earth and sea they have, on the whole aimed to preserve their empire [бјЂПЃП‡бЅґ] by the exercise of prudence, rather than to extend their sway indefinitely over poverty-stricken and profitless tribes of barbarians, some of whom I have seen at Rome offering themselves, by their ambassadors, as its subjects, but the emperor would not accept them because they would be of no use to him.521 This passage has sparked debate, because it is one of the crucial pieces of evidence used in support of the theory that the principate had a “grand strategy” of maintaining and defending fixed borders.522 The бјЂПЃП‡бЅґ is defined as the area under direct Roman control, where administrative staff and not client kings permanently manage the affairs of the subjects. This present volume is not a study of the possibility of a “grand strategy” from Rome.523 For the obvious reason that the Roman Page 207 →military’s focus is turned inward, the Histories is not concerned with the expansion of the empire or with defining borders that may or may not have been conceived of as fixed boundaries. What we do have in the Histories, however, is a text that develops a vision of the бјЂПЃП‡бЅґ. The Histories imagines a single space that requires a coherent policy of management. Now that Augustus’ vision of imperial control has collapsed or simply been proven ineffective, the Histories aims to offer suggestions on how to replace it. Eliminating the position of the emperor appears to be off the table. The Histories signals that in its prologue, when it hails the new age of freedom under which the text is written, “in the unusual good fortune of times when you may feel what you wish and say what you feel” (rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet) (1.1.4). For the Histories, questions about how to improve stability are structural. Its vision of how best to manage the бјЂПЃП‡бЅґ, by incorporating provincial soldiers into the management of the empire and its military, is pragmatic and inclusive. Evidence for the lives of real-life provincials—or even for the actual reconstruction of their participation in the events of AD 69–70—is beyond the scope of the present study. Rather, my focus has been on the Histories’ construction of provincials. For thirty years or more, scholars have been chastising ancient authors who write about foreign peoples, for not really bothering to investigate them properly and, instead, producing stereotyped accounts aimed more at rhetorical and literary effect than at accuracy.524 These scholars are notionally making the point that the ancient literature is fundamentally different from our own. Nevertheless, while they have labored to correct earlier generations of scholarship that were too credulous, these later scholars themselves have to answer for their own modern values. Their disgust for the lack of authentic interest in people deemed Other reflects as much what they care about as what the ancients did not. Writing in the wake of this revisionist scholarship, I do not take the Histories’ characterization of non-Roman peoples or even historical events at face value. That understanding,Page 208 → however, does not drain the Histories of value for the modern reader interested in the history of Rome’s relationship with its provinces. We have to interpret and explore the Histories’ vision of Rome’s relationship with the provinces, of what the provinces contribute to Rome, and of how the provincials can effect Rome. Those are real questions we can explore without committing the sin of being credulous. Thus, in addition to making a specific argument about the Histories (though I approach it from a historiographical perspective and not a historical one), my aim for this study has been to reconnect historiography and history. Interpreting ancient works of history writing in light of the last few decade’s insights into its rhetorical nature need not divorce historiography entirely from history. We should not go backward and try to reconstruct events and the characters of “great men” (or evil men, for that matter) from the works of ancient historians. But by focusing on the didactic principle of ancient historiography, we can explore what lessons the Histories and other ancient historical works might be setting out before their readers.

Footnotes 1. Ash 1999, especially 37–49. 2. The meaning of the term provincia evolved over the history of the Roman Empire, from “appointment or task” to “sphere of authority for an imperium holder” to “a geographical area subject to Roman authority.” On the term, see Lintott 1993, 22–23; Richardson 2008. By no means were all provinces ruled on a single model. In fact, even within provinces, diversity of privileges, law, and tax collection is characteristic. At Histories 1.8.1, we may glimpse resentments in southern Gaul arising from the extension of citizenship and tax relief to Lyons and not to other cities. Tacitus not only provides evidence for different privileges within provinces but points out that provinces were not all ruled in the same way, noting that the province of Egypt required its own unique form of rule (1.11.1). The differences between the provinces or even within provinces do not diminish the defining distinction between Italy and the rest of the empire, however: see Lintott 1993, 191. 3. On the provincialization of the legions, see the discussion in chapter 1. It was the practice as early as 25 BC and onward to grant citizenship to provincials so that they could serve in the legions. See Keppie 1997, 93–94, 97. An inscription from Coptos in Egypt from the Julio-Claudian period (ILS 2483) details the various origins of legionaries and auxiliaries who work to repair water tanks in the desert. On the inscription, see D. L. Kennedy 1985. 4. Rome tended to conscript or recruit auxiliary forces in concentrated areas of the empire at different times. Rome’s auxiliaries in the late first century AD required at most 10,500 fresh recruits each year according to I. Haynes (2001, 63), fewer according to Scheidel (2010, 432), so only a small fraction of the subject peoples of the empire were affected by the process of raising manpower. 5. Under Augustus, the Roman army fully realized its status as a permanent, professional force charged with the maintenance of the empire. On the establishment and structure of the imperial army in general, see Keppie 1984; Goldsworthy 1996. On the Augustan reforms, see Suet., Aug. 49, with Keppie 1984, 147–48; I. Haynes 2013, 38–50 (particularly on the implications for auxiliary troops). In Augustus’ vision, auxiliaries were treated as second-class soldiers. The first princeps did not grant them citizenship upon discharge, a practice that we know (from military discharge certificates) only became standard in the second half of the first century AD. 6. Cf. Keppie 1997, 101: “There is little sign that historians such as Tacitus saw this change, from an Italian to a provincial force, as particularly significant.” 7. Though citizenship was a prerequisite for serving in the legions, the legionaries in the Histories nevertheless show little concern for maintaining the status quo. Auxiliaries typically earned citizenship only upon discharge, so they were not even vested members of the citizen community. 8. Drawing on research on the experience of patients in asylums (Goffman 1961), Shaw (1983) argues that the army was a carefully regulated and isolated culture unto itself. Citing the violent suppression of the Gordianus revolt of AD 238 by the legion in the Numidian garrison, Shaw defined legions as a “total institution” that stripped its members of their previous identities and provided them with a new institutional one. Pollard (2000, 7–8) softens Shaw’s “total institution” to “institutional identity,” which allows for not quite as complete a disassociation from previous identities. Pollard does see service in the military as one defining identity. The debate among historians continues (see I. Haynes 2013, 18–19, for discussion), but it seems that most, if not all, would accept that soldiers retained ties to their previous communities and identities. Certainly, in the Histories and elsewhere, Tacitus assumes that ethnic ties remain strong and that ethnic identity is a major driver of individual action. 9. The Batavian revolt in the Histories begins among auxiliaries but succeeds in winning over significant portions of the legions I Germanica and XVI Rapax. 10. Here and elsewhere, I avoid the term Romanization. First coined by F. Haverfield (1906), it is now commonly rejected, according to the critique of Woolf (1998, 7), as a term with “no explanatory potential, because it was not an active force.” Woolf’s critique is accepted and quoted by I. Haynes (2013, 22). On the rejection of Romanization as a concept, see also Mattingly 2011, especially 203–7. On the connection between Haverfield and British imperialism of the early twentieth century, see Hingley 2000, 109–55; Hingley 2008, 313–25; Freeman 2007.

11. Agricola 21.1. 12. Ibid., 21.2. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. 13. Ibid. 14. This passage evokes Herodotus 1.155, where Cyrus seeks the counsel of his conquered enemy, Lydian Croesus, on how to manage the defeated Lydian king’s former subjects. Croesus saves the Lydians from outright slavery by advising Cyrus to transform them from resistant to obedient,by forbidding them the right to carry weapons, introducing nonwarlike practices such as wearing tunics and slippers, and educating them in music and administrative practices. Croesus promises, “Soon enough, my lord, you shall see them become women instead of men, so that they will be no further threat to you as rebels.” (Grene 1987 104 trans.) It might be tempting to disregard the portrayal of Agricola’s actions in Tacitus’ biography as merely the application of a topos. On the contrary, the topos suggests the endurance of the idea of imperial management by introducing pacific cultural practices, an ancient variation on the “hearts and minds” strategy. 15. Cf. Lavan 2013b, 128, 135–36. This sentence seems to cast a shadow over Agricola’s exemplary service. Liebeschuetz (1966) identifies the “consequences of the loss of freedom” as the unifying theme of the Agricola. On the dark implications of Agricola’s actions, see also Bastomsky 1985. 16. See Mattingly 2011, 219–36, for a recent analysis of the effects of Roman rule in Britain and the variety of responses on the ground. Tacitus clearly does not provide a remotely complete picture of the results of Roman rule of Britain. 17. See Griffin 1982, 411; Malloch 2013, 339–84. 18. Ann. 11.24.2. 19. Malloch (2013, 341) notes, “He [Tacitus] very likely saw in Claudius’ support for the Gauls an important step in the development of attitudes to provincials’ participation in Roman public life that would see provincials such as himself successful at Rome and in time a Spaniard as princeps.” 20. Ash 2009. 21. Ibid., 96. 22. H. Haynes 2003, 148–77. 23. Keitel 1993. 24. Lavan 2013b, 142–47. 25. Adler 2011, 130–34. 26. For example, Spain was the primary source after the Social War: see I. Haynes 2013, 32. 27. See I. Haynes 2013, 105; Holder 1980, 109–40. Tacitus, Annals 4.46–51 narrates a revolt of the Thracians that the narrator ascribes partly to the demands of the levy. 28. See I. Haynes 2013, 106, for discussion of how certain areas of the empire supplied troops to another area, such as Asia Minor to Egypt. 29. See, e.g., CIL 3.14214 = ILS 9107; I. Haynes 2013, 1–2. Haynes opens his book on the auxiliaries with this tropaeum in Romania, which lists the names of fallen auxiliaries from Noricum, Raetia, Africa, Britain, Spain, and Gaul. 30. Mommsen 1854–56; Mommsen 1884; von Domaszewski 1967; Cichorius 1893 (revised by Spaul in 1994); Cichorius 1900 (revised by Spaul in 2000). See I. Haynes 2013, 6–27, for a comprehensive overview of the scholarship on auxilia. Cheesman 1914 was the first monograph dedicated exclusively to the auxiliary forces of the Roman army. I. Haynes (2013, 7–8) seeks to illuminate and remedy Cheesman’s colonial perspective and misconceptions. For specific aspects of auxilia, see, on the evidence of the ancient historians from Augustus to Trajan, Holder 1980; for Caesar to Vespasian, Saddington 1982; on recruitment, Kraft 1951. For regional studies of the Roman army, see the overview in I. Haynes 2013, 9 n. 38. On the incorporation of soldiers into a greater military community, see MacMullen 1984; James 1999; James 2001, 7–8. 31. Hist. 4.17.2: “provinciarum sanguine provincias vinci.” 32. I. Haynes 2013, 3. 33. Ibid., vii. 34. There is no doubt that the failure of the model of the principate, including the ineffective leadership at the lower levels of governors and other commanders, fuels the civil wars in the Histories. Ample recent scholarship details the failures of the emperors and the principate. The fullest exploration of the

Histories’ account of failures of the principate to govern the empire is Sailor 2008, 119–82. Even when productive attention is paid to Tacitus’ handling of events in the provinces, however, those episodes are shown merely to amplify the political situation in Rome (Keitel 1978, 1993). But Tacitus’ texts do far more complex work than simply assigning all blame to the bad old principate. Indeed, it is not clear in the first place that Tacitus’ works present the principate as a bad thing for provincial peoples. In the Annals, the narrator concedes that Augustus was a benefactor for provincials, since he curtailed abuse by Roman provincial officials and strengthened the laws to which provincials could resort (Ann. 1.2.2). 35. Ando 2000 explores the question of why, with minor exceptions, provincials accepted the rule of Rome for centuries on end. 36. See Roller 2004, 2009, 2011; Chaplin 2000 (with particular emphasis on Livy); HГ¶lkeskamp 1996, 2003. 37. See Avenarius 1956, 22–26; Marincola 1997, 43 n. 28 (for a list of explicit prefatory statements on the utility of history); Chaplin 2000, 5–29 (for a general discussion of the lessons of history, with particular emphasis on the development of the exemplary tradition before Livy); Fornara 1983, 104–20 (for a more limited view of the didactic purposes of Herodotus and Thucydides). 38. See especially Chaplin 2000, 7–10. 39. Thuc. 1.22.4 (trans. Martin Hammond 2009, 12): ОєО±бЅ¶ бјђП‚ ОјбЅІОЅ бјЂОєПЃПЊО±ПѓО№ОЅ бјґПѓП‰П‚ П„бЅё ОјбЅґ ОјП…Оёбї¶ОґОµП‚ О±бЅђП„бї¶ОЅ бјЂП„ОµПЃПЂО-ПѓП„ОµПЃОїОЅ П†О±ОЅОµбї–П„О±О№В· бЅ…ПѓОїО№ ОґбЅІ ОІОїП…О»О®ПѓОїОЅП„О±О№ П„бї¶ОЅ П„Оµ ОіОµОЅОїОјО-ОЅП‰ОЅ П„бЅё ПѓО±П†бЅІП‚ ПѓОєОїПЂОµбї–ОЅ ОєО±бЅ¶ П„бї¶ОЅ ОјОµО»О»ПЊОЅП„П‰ОЅ ПЂОїП„бЅІ О±бЅ–ОёО№П‚ ОєО±П„бЅ° П„бЅё бјЂОЅОёПЃПЋПЂО№ОЅОїОЅ П„ОїО№ОїПЌП„П‰ОЅ ОєО±бЅ¶ ПЂО±ПЃО±ПЂО»О·ПѓОЇП‰ОЅ бј”ПѓОµПѓОёО±О№, бЅ П†О-О»О№ОјО± ОєПЃОЇОЅОµО№ОЅ О±бЅђП„бЅ° бјЂПЃОєОїПЌОЅП„П‰П‚ бј•ОѕОµО№. ОєП„бї†ОјО¬ П„Оµ бјђП‚ О±бј°ОµбЅ¶ Ојбѕ¶О»О»ОїОЅ бјў бјЂОіПЋОЅО№ПѓОјО± бјђП‚ П„бЅё ПЂО±ПЃО±П‡ПЃбї†ОјО± бјЂОєОїПЌОµО№ОЅ ОѕПЌОіОєОµО№П„О±О№. 40. Polybius, Histories 12.25b picks up on the claims of Thucydides 1.22.4. On Polybius’ didacticism, see PГ©dech 1964, 21–43; Meissner 1986; Walbank 1990; Marincola 1997. 41. See Walbank 1972, 6: “His purpose in writing is repeatedly stated: it is to be of use, to produce a history that will be П‡ПЃО®ПѓО№ОјОїОЅ [useful].” 42. Ian Scott-Kilvert, trans. 1979, 41. 43. Ian Scott-Kilvert, trans. 1979, 386. 44. See Davidson 2009, 129–30, on the difficulty of gauging Polybius’ influence on Roman historiography because the ideas he expresses are already prevalent in the early Roman historians of the second century BC. See also chapter 3 below. 45. Moles leaves no room for confusion in his 1996 article “Herodotus Warns the Athenians.” 46. Pohlenz 1937, 163–77; Jacoby 1913, 372–79; Wilamowitz-Moellendorf1893, 26. Boedeker (1988, 30–31) and Dewald (1997, 75–77) discuss these criticisms. 47. See Welser 2009, especially 359–61, for discussion of the development of the debate about the didacticism of Herodotus’ Histories. 48. See Flower and Marincola 2002, 303. On the concluding narrative of Herodotus’ Histories, see Boedeker 1988; Herington 1991; Dewald 1997; Desmond 2004; Marincola 2005, 298–300; Welser 2009; Pelling 2013; Grethlein 2013, 205–23. 49. Grethlein (2013, 206–8) summarizes the key points in Herodotus’ Histories that look beyond the time of the ending. 50. Arguments about Herodotus’ criticism of Athens have a long history: Strasburger 2013, first published in German in 1955, and Fornara 1971 revised the then-traditional view that the work was laudatory of Athens. Strasburger (2013, 297) provides a sampling of the opinions of scholars who argued that Herodotus was pro-Athenian. 51. Raaflaub (1987), Stadter (1992), and Moles (1996) all make contributions to this argument. See Moles 2002 for a summary of the issue, with significant bibliography. 52. Dewald 1997, 81. 53. See Lendon 2009 for an extremely critical examination of the Latin historiographical scholarship that

followed in the wake of Wiseman and Woodman. 54. See Wiseman 1979, 1–8, 27–40, on the influence of rhetorical education on ancient historians. 55. Woodman 1988, x. 56. G. A. Kennedy (1972, 292, 421) makes large claims for the impact of rhetoric on historiography in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds and cites a variety of studies in support of his suggestion. Brunt (1980) responds not only to Kennedy but also to a large number of German scholars who had made claims similar to Kennedy’s about the rhetorical nature of historiography. Barwick (1928) was already responding to some of those same German scholars, in his case arguing that historical narrative was considered categorically different from rhetorical narrative. 57. Woodman 1988, 82–83. 58. Cic., De or. 2.62. 59. Pitcher 2009, 14–24. Cf. Marincola 1997, 160–62; Luce 1989 (on the ancient view of the effects of bias on truth in historiography). Fox (2007) and Northwood (2008) have offered readings of De oratore 2.62–63 that counter Woodman. Woodman 2008 responds to their criticisms. Cape 1997 and Feldherr 2003 add further contextualization to the passage. 60. Damon 2007, 444–45. 61. See Pitcher 2009, 19–23. 62. Woodman cites only de Ste. Croix (1972) and Finley (1985) as examples of historians who appropriately distrust the veracity of ancient historiography. He is indisputably correct to point out the anachronistic use of the term scientific for ancient historiography. For example, Walsh (1961, 20) and Brunt (1980, 336) apply it to some ancient historians, especially Thucydides. Woodman does not, however, always clearly explain the nuanced views of previous scholars. For example, Walker (1952, 33–77, on Tacitus), Walsh (1961, 20–45), and Luce (1977, 143, on Livy) all acknowledge a fundamental distinction between ancient and modern historiography, a distinction that contemporary historians accepted. In particular, Woodman (1988, 52 n. 55) cites A. W. Gomme’s discussion of speeches in his commentary on Thucydides (Gomme 1945, 140–41) in support of the claim that “numerous scholars, convinced that Thucydides is a unique figure, credit him with the unique achievement of reproducing more or less exactly what a given speaker actually said” (Woodman 1988, 11). Gomme does not say that at all: he argues that Thucydides wrote the speeches in his own style (Gomme 1945, 141) and was “objective in a historian’s sense” (145); that is, the speeches were composed according to the historian’s judgment based on the available evidence. Gomme then discusses differences between the types of evidence at a modern historian’s disposal and that available to Thucydides (147–48). Woodman similarly distorts a direct quotation of P. A. Brunt, who only suggests that providing biographical detail of particularly important political figures is not much different from modern practice (Brunt 1980, 318). Woodman (1988, 80) applies this specific comparison to modern practice to the entirety of Brunt’s thinking about the principles that Antonius lays out at De oratore 2.62–64. 63. The debate Woodman energized occurred in the same year as the appearance of Peter Novick’s That Noble Dream: The Objectivity Question and the American Historical Profession, which similarly sparked renewed discussion about the rising and falling confidence within the American historical profession about the possibility of achieving objectivity. See Kloppenberg 1989 for a review that emphasizes a middle ground between “the noble dream of scientific objectivity and the nightmare of complete relativism” (1030). See Potter 1999, 102–6, 121–38, on the subjectivity/objectivity debate within the context of classical literature. 64. Marincola (2009b, 22) writes of ancient historians, “The desire to write something that would have continued applicability, either political or moral, determined what they focused on and how they formed their interest.” 65. Marincola (2009a, 12) notes, “The first and foremost audience for Roman historiography was the elite orders, whether senators, equestrians, or the domi nobiles, local Italian aristocrats.” See also Giua 2003. 66. Iser 1978, 34. 67. The paired speeches of Caesar and Cato in Sallust’s War with Catiline (Cat. 51–52) have generated an extensive bibliography of arguments on behalf of each speaker as Sallust’s favorite. McGushin (1977, 309–11) surveys the views up to his time. Drawing on Syme (1964, 103–20) and

Seel (1930, 43-46.), he renders his own verdict that the speeches are complementary: Caesar and Cato each reflect aspects of virtus that could have preserved the Roman Republic if applied together but that will not do so when fragmented. Batstone (1988) also sees fragmentation, but he holds that it occurs because of the competition of virtues. 68. See Pelling 2010 on the “polyphony” of contrasting voices in Tacitus’ Histories. 69. Iser 1978, 36. 70. Because ethnic soldiers is a modern term that Enloe and others apply exclusively to soldiers of the eighteenth century and later, I prefer to use the term provincial soldiers, which consciously evokes the paradigm of ethnic soldiers but does not carry with it the full context of the modern theory. This terminology thus marks a distinction between what the Histories conceptualizes and the critical tools of modern historians and theorists of empire that can be used to illuminate it. 71. See Streets 2004, 7–13, on how slippery and changeable the criteria were. Rand and Wagner (2012) discuss these shifting criteria in light of the development of identity within the communities themselves. 72. Gurkhas continue to serve the British military today, including in Afghanistan: see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13619825 and http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2009/12/fromhimalayas-to-helmand/31439. 73. The list goes on and is not unique to British imperialism. Enloe (1980, 26) notes, “Almost every multi-ethnic society has one or two groups that have been stereotyped as being prone to, and adept at, soldiering. They include some of the most popular subjects in romanticized military history: Gurkhas, Bedouin, Scots, Sikhs, Ibans, Berbers, Cossacks, Maori, Mongols, Kurds, Zulus, Irish, Montenegrins. Such a list brings to mind deeds of daring, attitudes of fidelity and a communal exclusiveness that only the most persistent and imaginative outsiders can penetrate.” 74. See MacMunn 1911, 1933. 75. I. Haynes (2013) employs this approach in his study of the experience of auxiliaries. See Bhabha 1989 for the concept of the “third space,” which is a result of the hybridization that occurs when colonial powers rule local populations. 76. See Gould 1999, 31–32. 77. See Caplan 1995, 91–96; Gould 1999, 13. For a recent example of a romantic view of Gurkha service for Britain, see E. D. Smith 1998; that book’s title, Valour: A History of the Gurkhas, makes clear its romantic perspective. 78. See Streets 2004, 9–10. 79. Van Driel-Murray 2003, 204; see also Speidel 1991, 279. 80. 55.24, trans. E. Cary (Loeb). 81. See Speidel 1991, 279; van Driel-Murray 2003, 204. 82. Enloe 1980, 17. 83. Ibid., 25. 84. Caplan (1995, 68) quotes a statement of Roberts (1897, 444)—“eastern races . . . do not possess the qualities that go to make leaders of men”—as representative of the ethos of martial race theorists. Only in 1957, after nearly two hundred years of Gurkha service, did Britain agree to admit a small handful of Gurkha soldiers to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Tuition and fees were to be remitted, but the pay of these future commissioned Gurkha officers was to be lower than that of their British counterparts. See Gould 1999, 337–40. 85. Van Driel-Murray 2003, 200. See Hist. 4.12.3: “viros tantum armaque imperio ministrant”; Germ. 29.2: “manet honos et antiquae societatis insigne; nam nec tributis contemnuntur nec publicanus atterit; exempti oneribus et collationibus et tantum in usum proeliorum sepositi, velut tela atque arma, bellis reservantur.” Cf. I. Haynes 2013, 114: “This is in no sense a traditional model of Romanization; rather, it is a case of incorporation where the state ultimately drains a community of life to serve its own needs.” 86. Enloe 1980, 16. 87. Ibid., 23. 88. Vegetius (De re militari 1.2) suggests that the best place to look for soldiers is the cooler northern regions, which produce men who are less intelligent ( “inconsultiores”) but have a greater amount of blood (“largo sanguine redundantes”), rendering them “ad bella promptissimi.”

89. Smith 1986, 22–31. 90. Hall 1997, 25. 91. Barth 1969, 9–38, is the pioneering work for the socially constructed nature of ethnic identity. 92. Malkin (2001, 15–19) observes that although ethnic identity is a social construct, it is experienced as primordial. 93. Farney (2007, 3), drawing especially on Cicero’s Pro Balbo, notes, “The legends of early Rome uniformly insist that the state was a multiethnic venture.” 94. Dench 2005, 93–151. 95. Dench 2005; Farney 2007. 96. Laws 2.5. See Mason Hammond 1951; Rawson 1991, 457; Gasser 1999, 24–25; Dyck 2004, 255–60; Farney 2007, 5–11. 97. Laws 2.5. See Dyck 2004, 259, for discussion of the textual difficulties of the relative clause “ qua . . . est.” 98. Dench 2005, 132, with n. 124 to Balb. 28–30. She pivots from this passage to the meaning of citizenship in the local contexts in Italy and beyond, but I would like to keep our focus on Rome itself. 99. Aulus Gellius, NA 17.17. 100. Farney 2007, 7–8. 101. Linguistic diversity can also be used as a literary trope to signal disunity of purpose. 102. Farney 2007, 11–26. 103. I. Haynes (2013, 100) makes the point that the guaranteed food and shelter that military life provided to auxiliaries was hardly “universally appealing,” since earning them required twenty-five long years of separation from family and home. The same might be said for the long wait for citizenship, which, as is attested on military diplomas, was granted to auxiliaries upon discharge. Roxan 1978–93 and Roxan and Holder 2003 collect the diplomas, the earliest of which date to AD 54. 104. Civilis’ three arguments for the revolt occur in indirect speech to Batavian co-conspirators (4.14), indirect speech to Gallic leaders (4.17), and direct speech (4.32) to the Treviran messenger Montanus. Laird (1999, 116–52) shows that we need not put excessive weight on the truth-value of direct versus indirect speech in historical writing. 105. Primus selects Montanus, a prefect of a Gallic cohort, because he fought for Vitellius at the second battle of Bedriacum and would therefore be a trusted source of the news that the Vitellian war effort had failed (3.35.4). 106. Civilis allows captured Gallic auxiliaries who stayed loyal to Rome and had opposed the first battles the Batavians fought against the armies either to go home with spoils or to join the rebellion. He adds to this act of calculated generosity by sending word to Gallic tribes about the oppressive nature of Roman rule and the need for provincial peoples to be free to rule themselves (4.17). 107. In addition to this passage, the Treviri are among the addressees of a contemptuous speech—occurring just as the Gallic auxiliary forces defect—by legionary commander Dillius Vocula, at 4.57.1–2, and of Petilius Cerilialis’ lecture to the newly obedient Gauls on the risks of listening to talk of freedom and the benefits of Roman rule, at 4.73–74. 108. OLD, s.v. “pretium,” 2: “+ gen. something which repays or compensates for (something else), return.” 109. 4.17.6: “If his plans had turned out well, he would hold sway over a kingdom of the strongest and richest tribes” (si destinata provenissent, validissimarum ditissimarumque nationum regno imminebat). 110. Cf. Jos., BJ 1.5, 7.75–88; Dio 66.3. 111. It is tempting to see the Batavian revolt as transitional within the structure of the complete Histories. It is a mixed war—partially civil, partially foreign—that marks the bumpy return of the Roman Empire to a settled dynasty and a renewed focus on fighting foreign opponents. H. Haynes (2003, 148–78) and Ash (2009, 95–99) offer this reading, with some reservations. It would mark the first three books as a unit, with books 4–6, covering the reign of Vespasian (and perhaps Titus), as the second of four three-book units within the Histories (Syme 1958, 686–87). 112. To reconstruct the revolt is necessarily to take a stand on the veracity of Tacitus’ account. As a result, there exists no single modern summary of the revolt that does not either largely accept Tacitus’ version of events or dispute it. Wiedemann (1996, 280–81 in CAH X2), for instance, takes the view that

Tacitus misrepresents the real aims of the revolt. 113. See Timpe 2005 for a thorough review of the bibliography and arguments about the nature of the Batavian revolt. Josephus (BJ 7.75–81), like Tacitus, presents the revolt as a true separatist uprising. 114. MГјnzer 1899; Walser 1951; Urban 1985; Wiedemann 1996, 280–81. 115. Walser 1951, 96, 127. Cf. Urban 1985, 21, citing the rhetoric before the revolt of Julius Florus and Julius Sacrovir (Ann. 3.40) as a close parallel to that of Civilis in the Histories. 116. Brunt 1971; Chilver and Townend 1985, 8–15; Syme 1958, 172–75. 117. Levick 1999, 108; italics mine. 118. Timpe 2005, 161. 119. There is extensive archaeological research into the Batavians in Holland, but it has yielded nothing specific enough to shed light on this brief moment in time. For general archaeology of Batavians, see Roymans 1990, 2001, 2004; Derks and Roymans 2006; Willems 1984, and Slofstra 2002. 120. The narrator of the Histories makes quite clear, at 4.13.2–3 and 4.32.1, that the revolt received active encouragement from the Flavians, especially Antonius Primus and Hordeonius Flaccus. 121. See Slofstra 2002, 25–26, for an explanation of how the Batavian Iulii may have become powerful. 122. I adopt the concept of an implied author from Wayne Booth’s seminal study The Rhetoric of Fiction. Most important for my approach here and later is the distinction he draws between the narrator and implied author: “None of our terms for various aspects of the narrator is quite accurate. вЂPersona, ’ вЂmask,’ and вЂnarrator’ are sometimes used but they more commonly refer to the speaker in the work who is after all only one of the elements created by the implied author and who may be separated from him by larger ironies. вЂNarrator’ is usually taken to mean the вЂI’ of the work, but the вЂI’ is seldom if ever identified with the image of the artist” (Booth 1983, 73). Whenever I use the name Tacitus, I am referring to the implied historian Tacitus, not the historical individual. 123. That Civilis’ arguments are compelling is not in doubt. Within the world of the Histories, his words are effective in fomenting a very large and widespread revolt. Given that he persuades many men and communities to join the fight (including Montanus, whom he is addressing at 4.32), what he says is clearly convincing enough to compel his audiences to act. 124. Hist. 4.14.1: “Iussu Vitellii Batavorum iuventus ad dilectum vocabatur, quem suapte natura gravem onerabant ministri avaritia ac luxu, senes aut invalidos conquirendo, quos pretio dimitterent: rursus impubes et forma consipicui (et est plerisque procera pueritia) ad stuprum trahebantur.” 125. Lavan (2013b, 142–47) explores the implications of the rhetoric of slavery in this passage. The language of provincial slavery in the Histories is not an end unto itself but a part of the bigger issue of Rome’s failing model of provincial management. Cf. Adler 2010, 130–34. 126. Heubner 1976, 77. 127. Sall. Hist. 4.69.19. On the letter of Mithridates, see Adler 2011, 15–58; McGushin 1994, 175–201; Ahlheid 1988. 128. Cic., Mil. 101. 129. Sal., Hist. 2.98.2. 130. The context of the passage strongly supports the acceptance of the insertion of “milites.” In the final analysis, though, it is clear that soldiers are the object of “dicas.” 131. On Tacitus’ narrative of the Pannonian mutiny, see Woodman 2006; PagГЎn 2005. There is an inscription commemorating a Percennius from Legio VII in Dalmatia (CIL 3.14933). The connection to Tacitus’ Percennius is not secure. 132. Keppie (1997, 93) suggests that the picture painted by Percennius “was closer to the normality of experience than many in ancient or modern times care to admit. It is hardly surprising that the percentage of Italians in the legions soon fell away.” 133. Goodyear 1972, 205. 134. Auerbach 2003, 37. About Percennius and Vibulenus, another of the troublemakers in the revolt, PagГЎn (2005, 418) writes, “These two had absolutely no redeeming qualities.” Perhaps they did not have redeeming qualities as individuals, but they might have didactic value for readers. 135. Auerbach 2003, 38. 136. Ibid., 39. 137. Indeed, Syme and, more recently, M. F. Williams construe them as having real historical import. Syme

(1958, 375 n. 3) notes, “Not all is turbulence and drama. Observe valuable items such as the grievances of the soldiers expounded in the speech of Percennius (1.17).” See also Williams 1997, 47. 138. See I. Haynes 2013, 47–48; Alston 1994, 113–14. Domitian increased legionary pay in AD 83 (Suet., Dom. 7.3), the first such increase since Augustus (Suet., Aug. 49.2). The next attested raise came under Septimius Severus in 197 (Herodian 3.8.4). 139. See Dio 54.25.5–6 (on Augustus’ formal declaration in 13 BC of sixteen years of service for legionaries), 55.24.9–25.6 (for Augustus’ final change, in AD 5–6, to twenty-five years of service). On these changes, see Corbier 1977, 200–201; Keppie 1997, 90–92. 140. See Münzer 1901, 1260–68; Syme 1939, 71–72 and passim; Nicolet 1974, 853–55. Balbus continued to have good fortune after Caesar’s demise. In 43 BC, he became the first non-Italian-born citizen to win the consulship. 141. On the political situation behind the trial, see Gruen 1974, 312–13. On Cicero’s unhappiness, see Cic., Fam. 1.7.10; Cic., Att. 4.5. 142. Cicero cites Balbus’ support during his exile (Balb. 59.1). 143. See Brunt 1982. 144. See Steele 2001, 99, 108–9. Cicero concludes the speech with the statement that Pompey is the real target of the attack: “Lastly, gentlemen of the jury, hold the following thing fixed in your minds: you are going to render judgment in this trial not about a crime of Lucius Cornelius but about a favor of Gnaeus Pompeius” (postremo illud, iudices, fixum in animis vestris tenetote, vos in hac causa non de maleficio L. Corneli, sed de beneficio Cn. Pompei iudicaturos) (Balb. 65). 145. For an analysis of the structure and persuasive strategies of the speech, see Barber 2004. See Hanchey 2013 for a comparison of the structures of the Pro Balbo and the Pro Archia. 146. The manuscript for this word is particularly problematic. I follow the Teubner edition of Maslowski (2012) and use “merita,” but other editors have suggested “pietas.” For the purpose of explicating Cicero’s connection of military service and praemia, however, the textual uncertainty is not significant. 147. Cic., Balb. 26. 148. See Hellegouarc’h 1963, 249–50. 149. Cic., Balb. 26. 150. Here I would mildly challenge Steel’s argument that Cicero uses non-Roman military service on behalf of Rome as a sign of the success of Roman domination (Steel 2001, 111–12). Cicero’s rhetoric may imply that signification, but it makes clear that domination comes at a cost and is put at risk should Rome cease to offer rewards. 151. Cic., Balb. 22–24. 152. Ibid., 26. 153. Cicero did not invent, for his Pro Balbo, the idea of rewarding allies. The Bronze of Ascoli (CIL 1.709) from 89 BC commemorates a grant of citizenship to an entire unit of Spanish horsemen, the “turma Salluitana,” for helping break the siege at Asculum during the Social War. The commander of the Roman forces and instigator of the grant was Pompeius Strabo, whose name runs across the top of the plaque. I. Haynes (2013, 32) suggests that the grant of citizenship illustrates the understanding that Rome had to offer rewards for service: “Rome’s relationships with subject communities did not stop at assigning rights and obligations; they also opened the prospect of further promotion.” 154. Adler (2010, 131, 133) suggests that Civilis’ arguments about the weakness of Roman military might are proven false by the subsequent defeat of the Batavians. On the face of it, this is disputable. The Romans never succeed in defeating the Batavians outright. The war appears to come to an end as the Histories breaks off, not only because the Batavians begin to lose heart (5.25), but because Cerialis himself initiates discussion of peace with Civilis (5.24). But even if Adler were correct about the failure of Civilis’ assessment of the Roman military, rebellions that take many legions to suppress are, from the perspective of the Romans, best avoided entirely. The Histories explores the conditions that produce such a level of dissatisfaction among the provincials as to foment rebellion. 155. Ann. 4.4.2: “plerumque inopes ac vagi sponte militiam sumant.” 156. Keppie 1997, 89. Keppie (1984, 180) is representative in claiming that the Roman legions were more than 50 percent non-Italian by the Flavian period and nearly 80 percent non-Italian by Trajan’s era. On

the evolution of the ethnic composition of the soldiers serving in the legions through the first century AD, see Forni 1953, 1974; Brunt 1974; Mann 1983; Keppie 1984, 180–86. 157. See I. Haynes 2013, 272. 158. Ogilvie and Richmond (1967, 272) suggest that using auxiliaries in this way is a new phenomenon in the later first century AD. Gilliver (1996), however, argues that Agricola and other generals (including Germanicus, fifty years earlier at Idisiaviso) regularly used auxiliaries when marshy or otherwise difficult terrain put the heavy armed legionaries at a disadvantage. I. Haynes (2013, 272) also questions Tacitus’ characterization of the strategy, while nevertheless maintaining that auxiliaries faced an increasing workload over the course of the first century AD. Still, correcting Tacitus is a different thing from asking what the Agricola is trying to show readers. Both it and the Histories clearly present auxiliaries as expendable assets, deployed to do the bloodiest fighting. 159. At the start of the decisive final against Civilis himself, Tacitus has Cerialis holding the legions back and placing the auxiliaries out front (Hist. 5.16.1). See Goldsworthy 1996, 134, for discussion and a schema of the array. 160. On speeches in the Histories, see Keitel 1991, 1993; Levene 2009. On speeches in the works of Tacitus more generally, see Ullmann 1927; Miller 1964. Martin 1967 is devoted to the prose rhythm of Tacitean speeches in general and Curtius Montanus’ speech at Hist. 4.42 in particular. See also Dangel 1989; Laird 2009; Marincola 2007. 161. Lavan (2013b, 144) suggests that Cerialis’ unmasking of Civilis’ rhetoric prompts the reader to doubt his own rhetoric. Rutherford (2010, 326) rather mildly calls Cerialis’ assertions of the benefits of Roman rule “overstatement”; H. Haynes (2003, 168) calls them “self-contradictory.” 162. For the most recent discussion of this question, see Rutherford 2010, 323–24, which builds on the highly influential work in Keitel 1993. 163. Keitel 1993. 164. Ibid., 56. Keitel also notes that the premature speech of triumph meshes with the presentation of Cerialis as hasty. A further connection is that the rebels’ newly acquired freedom, however briefly held, instantly results in fractiousness and disagreement, which parallels the discord the senate experiences in the brief period before the Flavian principate fully takes hold (ibid., 42–43; see also Hose 1998). 165. Keitel 1993, 53. 166. Montanus had initially been sent to Germany to give a firsthand account of Vespasian’s victory over Vitellius (3.35.2) and, as we have seen, was subsequently dispatched to Civilis to urge him not to revolt. Dillius Vocula also speaks to an audience of Treviri and Lingones in book 4 (4.57). 167. Bastomsky (1988) also views the speech critically and challenges the previously accepted premise that Tacitus approves of Cerialis’ defense of Roman imperialism. H. Haynes (2003, 168–71) and Lavan (2013b, 144) also suggest that Cerialis’ rhetoric contradicts itself. Rutherford (2010, 324) acknowledges this weakness but still interprets the speech as the winning formulation of Roman imperialism for the participants in the narrative. 168. This action also mirrors Civilis’ decision to allow Gallic auxiliaries to go home if they did not wish to join the rebellion (4.17). 169. Civilis’ comments at the end of his initial speech encouraging revolt pick up on the theme of loss of family (4.14). There he says that the levy separates children from parents and brothers from brothers as if for the last time. It would seem that the Batavian soldiers are desperately needed both at home and in the field, and their loss in each theater is felt acutely. 170. “Victoria incolumni” is a suggestion of Hadley’s. The manuscript is quite uncertain here. 171. Their first mention comes at 1.52.3, in a speech that Fabius Valens gives to encourage Vitellius to revolt. Valens cites the “auxilia Germanorum” as one of the powerful supporters on whom Vitellius could draw. 172. I translate “cuicumque” as “whichever army passes” because I see it as picking up on “cuique exercitui” in the preceding sentence: “duae Mauretaniae, Raetia, Noricum, Thraecia et quae aliae procuratoribus cohibentur, ut cuique exercitui vicinae, ita in favorem aut odium contactu valentiorum agebantur.” 173. Ash (1999, 65–70) also argues against the suggestion that Tacitus handles the Flavians with kid gloves.

174. “Nihil in discordiis . . . opus esset” alludes to Sal., Cat. 43.3 (“facto non consulto in tali periculo opus esse”), where Sallust reports Cornelius Cethegus’ feeling that “in danger, action, not deliberation, is needed.” The echo reinforces the need for haste over thought in the mind of rebels when a coup is in the making. 175. At 3.71.4, the narrator offers the two possibilities (“hic ambigitur”) that Vitellians pressing their attack set the fire or that Flavians started it to prevent the Vitellian surge from reaching them. Refraining from supporting one version or the other, he notes that the more common rumor (“crebrior fama”) is that the Flavians did it. 176. Tacitus applies the phrase urbs capta to Rome six other times, from the perspective of both the narrator and various unnamed sources in the text. The Flavian “conquest” of Rome at 4.1 is the realization of earlier quasi “captures” of Rome, first by the Othonians and then by Vitellius. As the result of misinterpreting an arms delivery (1.80–82), Otho’s overzealous and violent supporters burst into a dinner party that the new emperor is holding. At the peak of their frenzy, under escalating emotion and the effects of alcohol, these Othonians threaten the entire senate. On the following day, everyone in Rome hides behind locked doors, as though the city had been captured (“velut capta Urbe”). At 2.89.1, Vitellius, about to enter Rome for the first time as emperor, must be advised not to arrive on horseback and in his general’s garb, lest it look as though he were coming into a conquered city (“ut captam Urbem ingrederetur”). Once in the city, however, Vitellius still has trouble remembering that he is among fellow Romans, when he gives a speech “as if he were addressing the senate and people of some other state” (tamquam alterius civitatis senatum populumque). In addition to these quasi captures, both unnamed Romans (1.50.1) and Gauls (4.54.2) recount earlier captures of the city, specifically using forms of the words urbs capta. See Keitel 1984, 307–12, on Tacitus’ use of the urbs capta motif in the Annals and Histories. 177. See Paul 1982. 178. See ibid., 146–48. On Tacitus’ use of Greek tragedy in the Annals, see Santoro L’Hoir 2006. 179. Livy 21.57.15 (cited in Paul 1982, 144): “neque ulla, quae in tali re memorabilis scribentibus videri solet, praetermissa clades est.” 180. Sailor 2008, 188. 181. Sailor 2008, 191, with bibliography on how Tacitus presents the principate as making permanent the civil war of the late republic. 182. See Rouveret 1991, 3069–72; Edwards 1996, 74–82; Ash 2007b. 183. See Damon 2003, 84; Ash 2009, 263 n. 7. Heubner (1963, 21) reads the phrase “plura externa” here as indicating that civil and foreign wars occurred simultaneously, as with the invasion of the Rhoxolani at the time of the Vitellian revolt against Otho, for example, and the Batavian revolt during the ascendance of Vespasian. Thus, Heubner sees not the melding of foreign and civil war but the simultaneous existence of both. 184. See chapter 3 for discussion of the fusion of annalistic categories of res internae and res externae. 185. Sailor (2008, 191) reads “plerumque permixta” as assuming two separate categories of external wars and internal ones as represented by delatores. 186. Hist. 3.15.2: “ legionibus ad muniendum retentis.” 187. Ibid.: “auxiliares cohortes in Cremonensem agrum missae, ut specie parandarum copiarum civili praeda miles imbueretur.” 188. Keitel (1984, 310–12) shows Cicero treating Catiline, Clodius, and Antony as foreign enemies. Horace (Ep. 9) presents Antony as a hostis (a term that usually but not necessarily indicated a foreign foe) and as the latest in a line of defeated African enemies (9.23–28). See Mankin 1995, 159–82; at 172–73, Mankin notes that Horace uses two double-edged exempla, Scipio Africanus and Marius, generals who had previously found success in Africa. In general, Augustan authors omit Antony from their praise of Augustus (as Horace does at Odes 1.37) and replace him with Cleopatra as Octavian’s vanquished foe. See Nisbet and Hubbard 1970, 406–21; see 408 for references to other Augustan treatments of Actium and Cleopatra. 189. Ash (1999, 67) is not sure whether Tacitus presents the Othonians and Vitellians here as ethnically different from one another or whether the variety was within each army. The context of the Histories that I

have described above strongly supports the notion that the difference was between the two armies. 190. See Keitel 1987, 75–77, on this passage. 191. Hist. 1.83.1: “[Otho] reputans non posse principatum scelere quaesitum subita modestia et prisca gravitate retineri.” 192. Sallust (Jug. 41.2) coins the term metus hostilis, though he had already developed the concept at Cat. 10.1. See Earl 1961, 13–16, 41–59; Paul 1984, 124; Vretska 1976, 200–206; Levene 2000, 178–79 (on the complexity of Cat. 10.1); Kapust 2008, 353–73 (on classical discourse on political fear); Ash 2009, 95–99 (on the partial reemergence of the concept in book 4 of the Histories). 193. Ash 1999, 71. 194. While noting the Flavians’ resemblance to Hannibal’s forces, Ash’s analysis does not fully take into account the linguistic heterogeneity of the Vitellians, who are equally diverse. 195. Iliad 4.437–38: ОїбЅђ ОібЅ°ПЃ ПЂО¬ОЅП„П‰ОЅ бј¦ОµОЅ бЅЃОјбЅёП‚ ОёПЃПЊОїП‚ οὐδ’ бјґО± Оібї†ПЃП…П‚, бјЂО»О»бЅ° ОіО»бї¶ПѓПѓО± ОјО-ОјО№ОєП„Ої, ПЂОїО»ПЌОєО»О·П„ОїО№ δ’ бј”ПѓО±ОЅ бј„ОЅОґПЃОµП‚. Cf. also Iliad 2.804. 196. Hilary Mackie (1996, 19) has argued that this very diversity hinders the defense of Troy, in that the dissonance of the defenders’ forces prevents them from achieving kosmos, the organization and cohesion necessary to succeed. 197. Tacitus is not always clear as to whether he is describing legionary troops or auxiliaries, which were always ethnic units. See I. Haynes 2013, 12–13, 80–81, on the clear distinctions between legionary and auxiliary forces until at least the Severan era, contra Alston (1994) and Maxfield (1986, 68). Maxfield uses archaeological evidence for auxiliary dress to argue for similarities between legionary and auxiliary forces. Haynes interprets this as evidence of auxiliaries’ incorporation into the Roman army and the Roman Empire, but he argues for a clear distinction between the two groups through the first two centuries AD. Although legionaries and auxiliaries were often recruited from the same place, by the Antonine period (see Dobson and Mann 1973, 195) there would have been clear status differences between the two groups, including, most important, the requirement of citizenship at the time of enlistment for the former but not for the latter. 198. Vitellius had seven legions under his control: I Germanica, I Italica, IV Macedonica, V Alaudae, XVI, XXI Rapax, and XXII Primigenia. See Morgan 2006, 291–300, for a brief history of each legion active in AD 69. Tacitus notes that Fabius Valens, Caecina, and Vitellius all took German auxiliary cohorts with them on the march from Germany: “addita utrique Germanorum auxilia” (1.61.2). These may be the soldiers shaking their spears according to German custom at 2.22.1 and swimming in the Tiber at 2.93.1. But the Germanic auxiliaries cannot be the sole explanation for the Germanness of the Vitellian forces, since auxiliaries alone would not be a reason why the Vitellian and Othonian sides could not speak the same language before Bedriacum (2.37.2). 199. See, e.g., Hist. 2.35; Germ. 4. See also Rives 1999, 129. This is another topos of northern barbarians. See Ash 2007a, 360, on this passage and allusion to the Allia Gauls at Livy 5.48.3. Ash (1999, 48) notes that many of the Vitellians are Gallic, so evocation of the Allia Gauls is “not just an elegant literary device.” But what work are the topos and reference doing here? Ash (1999, 49) turns back to collective characterization of the Vitellians after noting that Tacitus continues to be interested in the barbarian identity of Vitellius’ troops in books 4 and 5. 200. Ash 2007b, 227. 201. See Pollard 2000, 114–15, for a discussion of implications of the evidence gathered by Forni (1953) and Mann (1983) for the composition of Syrian legions. 202. Pollard (2000, 117) discusses the fact that there is little epigraphic evidence to back up Tacitus’ claim. All of the evidence that exists for increased Syrian recruitment into the Legio III Gallica comes from the second and third centuries. Those soldiers who were recruited locally into the legions in Tacitus’ lifetime would most likely have come from coloniae such as Berytus, which were culturally more Italian /Roman than Syrian, or from the Greek-speaking urban centers, where it is possible that noncitizens were recruited, especially in times of crisis. Tacitus has already laid the groundwork for presence of sunworshiping legionaries earlier in the text. At 2.80.3, he tells readers that the soldiers of the Syrian legions had married local women and formed families with them, which made Syria home for the soldiers and made the soldiers something more than a garrisoning force for the local peoples. Pollard (2000, 2–4) uses this

passage for his opening discussion of the relationship between Roman soldiers and local populations in Syria. His argument is that though existing urban centers helped the Roman garrisons achieve a high degree of interaction with the local population, from which they were often recruited, the institutional identity of the army was still a stronger force than any local connections individual soldiers may have had. 203. At Agricola 27.1, Tacitus notes that simply blaming the commander for defeat is an inaccurate and unjust way of judging warfare: “iniquissima haec bellorum condicio est: prospera omnes sibi vindicant, adversa uni imputantur.” 204. Even this praise is special pleading, since the Flavian legions were also battle-hardened against a foreign foe, the Jews, but had no problem supporting Vespasian’s bid. 205. For discussions on Histories 1.1, see Fabia 1901; Herkommer 1968, 69–70, 142–44, and passim; Leeman 1973, especially 173–86; Woodman 1988, 160–67; Woodman 1998, 104–11; Marincola 1997, passim; Sailor 2008, 119–63, with further bibliography. 206. Only here do I prefer Heubner’s text to Wellesley’s. 207. See Woodman 1988, 164–67, on how the preview of the disaster narrative meets Ciceronian standards for pleasurable historiography. 208. For discussions of the excursus, see Koestermann 1956; Syme 1958, 146–47; Heubner 1963, 26–41; Martin 1981, 68–70; Damon 2003, 98–125. 209. See Fuhrmann 1960, 257. 210. At 1.49.4, the Histories famously describes Galba as “by the agreement of everyone capable of holding rule over the empire, if only he had not held it” (omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset). 211. This was an obvious threat in the previous hundred years of the principate, which Augustus carefully designed against (Raflaub 1980) and which went unrealized until Galba. 212. Even in Vitellius’ obituary, the narrator says that Vitellius “achieved everything because of the fame of his father” (cuncta patris claritudine adeptus) (3.86.1). 213. Hist. 1.10.2: “cui expeditius fuerit tradere imperium quam obtinere.” 214. Garnsey (1988) 231 on Egypt’s vital role in providing Rome with grain. 215. Syme 1958, 147. 216. Ibid. 217. See Herkommer 1968. 218. Sallust also employs the formula “supra repetere” to start a historical digression at Jug. 5.3. 219. See Heubner 1963, 28; Damon 2003, 99–100. Besides the substitution of the gerundive, the constructions are still not exactly parallel. The “repetere” of the Bellum Catilinae is not dependent on the “videtur” but is in indirect discourse following “hortari.” Regardless, the mimicking of the words, if not the exact construction, demonstrates Tacitus’ debt to Sallust. 220. See Earl 1972. Thucydides picks up on the practice of Herodotus, who digresses on the mythological conflicts between Greece and the East in the first chapter of his Histories. 221. The Pentecontaetia is the second digression in the History of the Peloponnesian War. The first, 1.2–19, supports Thucydides’ opening claim that the war between Athens and Sparta was the greatest ever in Greek and perhaps world history. 222. Thuc., Hist. 1.88–89 (trans. Martin Hammond (2009) 43): бјђП€О·П†ОЇПѓО±ОЅП„Ої ОґбЅІ Оїбј± О›О±ОєОµОґО±О№ОјПЊОЅО№ОїО№ П„бЅ°П‚ ПѓПЂОїОЅОґбЅ°П‚ О»ОµО»ПЌПѓОёО±О№ ОєО±бЅ¶ ПЂОїО»ОµОјО·П„О-О± Оµбј¶ОЅО±О№ ОїбЅђ П„ОїПѓОїбї¦П„ОїОЅ П„бї¶ОЅ ОѕП…ОјОјО¬П‡П‰ОЅ ПЂОµО№ПѓОёО-ОЅП„ОµП‚ П„Оїбї–П‚ О»ПЊОіОїО№П‚ бЅ…ПѓОїОЅ П†ОїОІОїПЌОјОµОЅОїО№ П„ОїбЅєП‚ бј€ОёО·ОЅО±ОЇОїП…П‚ ОјбЅґ бјђПЂбЅ¶ ОјОµбї–О¶ОїОЅ ОґП…ОЅО·Оёбї¶ПѓО№ОЅ, бЅЃПЃбї¶ОЅП„ОµП‚ О±бЅђП„Оїбї–П‚ П„бЅ° ПЂОїО»О»бЅ° П„бї†П‚ бј™О»О»О¬ОґОїП‚ бЅ‘ПЂОїП‡ОµОЇПЃО№О± бј¤ОґО· бЅ„ОЅП„О±. Оџбј± ОібЅ°ПЃ бј€ОёО·ОЅО±бї–ОїО№ П„ПЃПЊПЂбїі П„ОїО№бї·ОґОµ бј¦О»ОёОїОЅ бјђПЂбЅ¶ П„бЅ° ПЂПЃО¬ОіОјО±П„О± бјђОЅ Оїбј·П‚ О·бЅђОѕО®ОёО·ПѓО±ОЅ. 223. Thuc., Hist. 1.23.6 (trans. Hammond (2009) 13): П„бЅґОЅ ОјбЅІОЅ ОібЅ°ПЃ бјЂО»О·ОёОµПѓП„О¬П„О·ОЅ ПЂПЃПЊП†О±ПѓО№ОЅ, бјЂП†О±ОЅОµПѓП„О¬П„О·ОЅ ОґбЅІ

О»ПЊОібїі, П„ОїбЅєП‚ бј€ОёО·ОЅО±ОЇОїП…П‚ бјЎОіОїбї¦ОјО±О№ ОјОµОіО¬О»ОїП…П‚ ОіО№ОіОЅОїОјО-ОЅОїП…П‚ ОєО±бЅ¶ П†ПЊОІОїОЅ ПЂО±ПЃО-П‡ОїОЅП„О±П‚ П„Оїбї–П‚ О›О±ОєОµОґО±О№ОјОїОЅОЇОїО№П‚ бјЂОЅО±ОіОєО¬ПѓО±О№ бјђП‚ П„бЅё ПЂОїО»ОµОјОµбї–ОЅВ· 224. See Thuc., Hist. 1.10; Sal., Cat. 8; Kraus and Woodman 1997, 16–17. 225. See Woodman 1988, 126–28, on Sallust’s Thucydidean style and attitude. See also Scanlon 1980. 226. Quintilian found Sallust’s emulation of Thucydides to be so successful that he considered the two comparable: “Nec opponere Thucydidi Sallustium verear” (Inst. 10.1.101). Grethlein (2006, 299 n. 2) collects ancient and modern comparisons of Thucydides to Sallust. Grethlein argues, however, that a fuller picture of Greek historiographical influence on Sallust would show that the voice of Sallust’s narrator is much more Herodotean than Thucydidean. 227. Sal., Cat. 5.8 228. Ibid., 9.1. 229. Ibid., 10.1 230. Ibid., 10.4 231. Ibid., 14.1. 232. See Akerman 2009. See also Lewis and Wigen 1997. On Roman cartography and its connection to imperialism, see Dilke 1987a, 1987b; Nicolet 1991; Talbert 2008. 233. See Clarke 1999, 1–76, for a wide-ranging discussion of the relationship between geographical and historical writing. 234. See Rood 2006, 293–96. Rood notes that the description of customs that Herodotus includes is a textual delay of the Persian advance, since Herodotus is writing from the Greek, not the imperialist Persian, perspective. 235. The effect was metaphorical, however: maps, for instance, existed long before any governmental or military officials ever thought to use them in any serious way to help do their jobs. See Akerman 2009, 1–2. 236. Rives 1999, 55–56. 237. O’Gorman 1993, 136–37: “the representation of Germany is, from the outset, that of raw material, to be shaped as a Roman artefact.” 238. Ibid., 139. 239. Germ. 37.2–3. 240. Riggsby 2006, 70. 241. For recent contributions on this theme in Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum, see Schadee 2008; Krebs 2006. 242. Riggsby 2006, 32–45. 243. Ibid., 43. 244. Caesar’s literary achievements and influence are experiencing a comeback. See Grillo 2012; Garcea 2012; Krebs 2013a, 2013b. While divorcing the author from his work is a well-established critical principle, Caesar is a special case. It would be unhistorical not to acknowledge that his literary achievements, however seemingly unrelated, furthered the career and prestige of a man who eventually made himself dictator for life. 245. Sailor (2004) argues that Tacitus structures the prologue in the Agricola in such a way as to allow for the text to succeed as the beginning of a literary career or fail without having an effect on the political career of its author. Sailor (2008) expands on this interest in the intersection of Tacitus’ “political biography, his literary career, and his social self” (2). 246. Mommsen (1906, 247) called it the “queen of all inscriptions.” He produced an edition in 1865 and a second edition in 1883. There has been a profusion of editions of the Res gestae in the last twenty years. Cooley 2009, Scheid 2007, and Ridley 2003 are critical editions published since the turn of the millennium alone. For students, there have also been Wallace 2000 and Damon 1995. I use Cooley’s 2009 translation. 247. Nicolet 1991, 23–24. 248. Suet., Aug. 101.

249. See Brunt and Moore 1967, 2–3, for a discussion of the literary genre of the Res gestae and its relation to Republican elogia. 250. Suet., Aug. 101.4. 251. Damon 2003, 99. 252. Trans. Cooley 2009, 58. 253. Nicolet 1991, 23. 254. Zanker (1988, 39–42) demonstrates that long before he came to be known as “Augustus” and memorialized his deeds, Octavian had appropriated the Neptunian imagery from Sextus Pompey himself. 255. Trans. Cooley 2009, 90 (lightly adapted). 256. This technique is also in evidence throughout Roman poetry, though rarely as concisely as in Augustus’ and Guthrie’s formulations. Catullus 11 features an extended list of peoples and places: “Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli, / sive in extremos penetrabit Indos, / . . . sive in Hyrcanos, Arabasque molles, / seu Sagas sagittiferosve Parthos . . .” See Fordyce 1961, 124–28, with further references. 257. Res gestae 27.2 258. Trans. Cooley 2009, 96. 259. See Yarrow 2006, 310–16. 260. See Nicolet 1991, 19. 261. Trans. Cooley 2009, 72. 262. Res gestae 34.1 (trans. Cooley 2009, 98). “Potens” is a recent emendation. Following Mommsen 1883, at 34.1, the text read “potitus.” See Cooley 2009, 257–58, for discussion of the new reconstruction. 263. Res gestae 34.3. 264. On the reconstruction of the text of the Res gestae, see Brunt and Moore 1967, 1–2; Ridley 2003, 3–24. Cooley 2009 provides the Latin and Greek, with translations of each on facing pages; see 26–30 for a discussion of the Greek text. Scheid (2007) catalogs the differences between the Greek and Latin versions (xxx–xxxiv) and compares them (lxviii–lxxi). 265. The Greek translation does take some care not to offend or disparage provincials. For instance, it softens or even omits some of the imperialist and triumphalist language of the Latin, by leaving out any reference to subjecting the world to Roman rule. See Cooley 2009, 28–29, for discussion. 266. See Brunt and Moore 1967, 3–4. 267. Res gestae 15.1. Yavetz (1984, 13) argues that even though Augustus conspicuously devotes attention to the urban plebs, he nevertheless writes for an elite audience. 268. Res gestae 32.2. 269. See Hinds 1998, 25ff., on the irrelevance of the supposed conflict between a real allusion and an “accidental confluence.” 270. Pomeroy 2003, 364. 271. See the discussion in Millar 1964, 37–38. See Sailor 2008, 138–40, for a comparison with the preface of the Histories. 272. Dio 53.19.3: ἐκ δὲ δὴ τοῦ χρόνου ἐκείνου τὰ μὲν πλείω κρύφα καὶ δι’ ἀπορρήτων γίγνεσθαι ἤρξατο. 273. Ann. 1.6.3. 274. See Syme 1980; Burridge 1992, 77–79; Pelling 1997; Kraus 2005, 182–83. 275. Hägg 2011 surveys the “art” of biography—Greek and Roman, Christian and pagan—throughout classical antiquity. 276. See Woodman 1977, 28–56. 277. The Historia Augusta comprises biographies of emperors from Hadrian (117–38) to Numerianus and Carinus (283–84). The information this work provides is of low quality and is often fabricated, especially for the emperors after Caracalla (died 217). It is also notorious for its fraudulent claim of being written by six authors sometime around the year AD 300. It is now agreed that there was one author, who wrote in the 390s. On the single authorship, see Dessau 1889; Syme 1983, 209–23. On the work’s veracity, see Syme 1968; Syme 1971; Syme 1983, 12–29; Barnes 1978.

278. See Pelling 1997. 279. See Cicero’s prescriptions at De oratore 2.62, discussed below. 280. I do not wish to champion the use of biography for the history of the principate, only to suggest reasons why it was a logical form for imperial history. In his discussion of Seager’s biography of Tiberius, Syme (1974, 481) suggests that biography is an appropriate genre for understanding the Roman Empire under Tiberius but not under later emperors: “In this instance the life and personality of the ruler is not separable from the processes of government. In truth, the happy consummation was as yet far distant when, with the development of system, habit and bureaucracy, the character and quality of the ruler comes to matter less and less.” 281. The title of the work, Historiae, suggests that it is a contemporary history and not a work of annalistic historiography. Tacitus, however, did not give the work that title: the original is lost. Until Flemish scholar Justus Lipsius gave the work that name nearly fifteen centuries after Tacitus had written it, all of Tacitus’ historical works were called Annales (a single manuscript contained Annals 11–16 and the Histories together). See Goodyear 1972, 85; Reynolds 1983, 407–9. 282. See Ginsburg 1981, 10–23, on the diminished importance of consuls to the Roman government and the annalistic mode. 283. See Crake 1940; Badian 1966; Frier 1979, 83–106 (now slightly revised and reissued); Cornell 1986; Bucher 1995. 284. Serv., Aen. 1.373. 285. Cic., De or. 2.52. 286. Peter 1967, Cato 77. 287. Dillery 2002, 7. 288. Cic., Div. 1.43. 289. See Badian 1966, 3. 290. See Dillery 2002, 7. 291. See Feeney 2007a, 7–42, on Roman synchronization with Greek chronology. 292. For a collection of the fragments, see Peter 1967. See also Chassignet 1996–2004 (with French translation); Beck and Walter 2001–4 (with German translation); Cornell 2013. On the early annalists in general, see Badian 1966; Rawson 1976; Frier 1979, especially 201–26; Wiseman 1979, 9–26; Forsythe 1994; Bucher 1995; Oakley 1997–2005, 1:21–108, 4:475–92; Briscoe 2005; Rich 2008, 133–40; Cornell 2013. 293. See Badian 1966, 13–27. 294. Cato did find a place for his own speeches, anticipating the rise of the autobiographical history. On the Origines, see Astin 1978, 211–39; Dench 2005, 64–65. 295. Peter 1967, Sempronius Asellio 1. Sempronius Asellio, who was present at Numantia in 133, wrote a lengthy history focused largely on the Third Punic War. The work is known today only in fragments. 296. Cicero echoes this sentiment in his letter to Lucceius (Fam. 5.12), when he characterizes annales as the opposite type of historical narrative to the one he wants Lucceius to write about his consulship: “The monotonous regularity of the Annales has as much effect on us as if we were reading through official calendars.” 297. Peter 1967, Sempronius Asellio 2. 298. See Badian 1966, 22; Wiseman 1979, 22–23. 299. See Badian 1966, 11–12; Rawson 1976, 713–17. 300. Badian (1966, 20–21) applies tendentious phrases such as “mere entertainers” and “plausibly detailed mendacity” to Quadrigarius and Valerius. In fact, his entire section entitled “The Later Annalists” shows, at best, a loss of scholarly detachment or, at worst, a tendency to reproduce the elite judgments of the senatorial writers who disparaged the lower-status annalists. About Claudius, he writes, “His station ensured that he was always a secondary source, using his betters” (19). Badian notes, “Where earlier annalists, for serious moral and political reasons, had prepared the way, the entertainers followed without scruple, converting history into romance” (19). 301. This line of criticism reflects the fact that the study of historiography was the domain of historians, not literary scholars, until the 1980s. 302. See Oakley 1997–2005, 1:89–93.

303. Livy 26.49.3, quoted in Oakley 1997–2005, 1:90. 304. See Luce 1977, 139–84. 305. See Walsh 1961, 175. Ginsburg (1981, 7) makes the important point that because of the fragmentary state of most annals, the republican annalistic form is largely reconstructed from Livy’s procedure. Rich (1997) shows that Livy’s practice is much more diverse and flexible than previously assumed. 306. Cic., De or. 2.52–53. 307. The narrator of the Histories alludes to this claim, while leaving determination of his own bias or lack of it to the reader. See Master 2011, 87. 308. Cic., De or. 2.63 (trans. Woodman 1988, 80). 309. On Livy’s style, see McDonald 1957, 159–64; Woodman 1988, 139–40; Kraus and Woodman 1997, 62–70; on his use of exempla, Chaplin 2000. 310. Livy 43.13.1–2. 311. Ibid., 2.1.1 312. Kraus 1994, 281. 313. Aufidius Bassus’ lost history may have been annalistic. See Peter 1967, Aufidius Bassus 96–98; Pliny the Elder, A fine Aufidii Bassi. 314. See Ginsburg 1981 on the Annals. On Livy, see Kraus 1994; Oakley 1997–2005, vol. 1; Rich 2008. 315. Ginsburg 1981. 316. Ann. 4.71.1. 317. John Rich demonstrates that Livy’s practice does not follow as pat a formula as Ginsburg assumes. Rich argues that even in the midst of the most straightforwardly annalistic portion of the extant narrative, books 21–45, Livy replaces the traditional dichotomy between res internae and res externae with a contrast between East and West (Rich 2008, 120–26). Rich shows that the work of even an annalist as apparently traditional as Livy exhibits variation from the notional annalistic norm. These insights help prevent us from taking at face value Tacitus’ construct of the expectations of annals. But the image of Livy as producing formulaic and predictable annalistic years is an impression created not by Ginsburg but by the narrator of the Annals, an example of one author’s “act of reductionism on his predecessor in order to highlight his own departures” (Feeney 2007a, 191). 318. Ginsburg 1981, 100. 319. For earlier arguments about the starting point, see Syme 1958, 145 n. 5; Heubner 1963, 9–10. See Hainsworth 1964, 129–30, for a brief exposition of the benefits of starting with the death of Nero. See Chilver 1979 for the difficulties Tacitus creates for himself by choosing to start his Histories with January 1, 69. 320. Most recently, Feeney (2007a, 191) argues that beginning the Histories in mid-68 would have been a better choice. 321. Hainsworth (1964) argues that Tacitus would have been afraid of giving offense to other senators and to Pliny in particular if he had to narrate the inglorious story of Verginius’ suppression of the Vindex revolt. This argument has one glaring weakness, however. Tacitus likely did narrate the story of the Vindex revolt in the lost portion of the Annales, a fact Hainsworth acknowledges but dismisses. Hainsworth’s argument is unconvincing. He seeks a historical explanation for a literary problem and therefore resorts to positing motives for why Tacitus bypassed beginning his work in AD 68. But even the motives he adduces are suspect. By the time of Tacitus’ writing of the Annales, Pliny was dead, Tacitus himself had retired, and his concern for other senators’ feelings was at a low ebb. Further, he could look forward to a liberating sense that the work would be published posthumously. 322. In her introduction to the theory of genre, Heather Dubrow compares the initial assertion of genre in poetry to the creation of a contract that, mutatis mutandis, can be applied to prose literature as well: “The way genre establishes a relationship between author and reader might fruitfully be labeled a generic contract. Through such signals as the title, the meter and the incorporation of familiar topoi into his opening lines, the poet sets up such a contract with us” (Dubrow 1982, 31). 323. Conte 1994, 117. 324. Earl 1972, 844: “If in Classical Antiquity you set yourself to write history, then your first sentence must make it quite clear to the reader.” 325. Sal., Hist. 1.1.

326. Livy 2.9.1. 327. Cf. Syme (1958) 144: “The age when the laws were sovereign and the years took their names from consuls, so does the poet Lucan designate the Republic. A free but disciplined people duly elected each year a pair of magistrates to carry the imperium and conduct its business at home and abroad. вЂRes Populi Romani,’ that is precisely the annalistic register.” 328. See Kraus and Woodman 1997, 88–90. 329. See PagГЎn 2006, 200–202, on Tacitus’ “novel” use of the future tense in his opening sentence. 330. Gowing (2009, 18–21) examines Tacitus’ relationship to the republican annalistic tradition and finds that the imperial historian finds virtually no occasion to refer to any early annalists by name. For a study on Tacitus’ relationship to all his historical predecessors, see Flach 1973. 331. This is not to say that, because the work (“operis” in 1.1) does not officially begin until chapter 11, anything contained in the first ten chapters is not part of the work. It suggests that the proper annalistic narrative starts at chapter 11. 332. Feeney (2007a, 191 with note) makes the same point about the Annals. He argues, drawing on Ginsburg 1981, that “Tacitus systematically reduces the consuls’ role in the narrative from that of actors to ciphers.” 333. Ginsburg (1981, 4) notes, “The pontifical annals, on the other hand, imposed not merely a format, the division by years, but also a content on the annalistic tradition. Certain items and themes were expected (religious notices, deaths of famous men, prodigies, etc.). The extent to which Tacitus may have departed from the principle вЂsuum quaeque in annum referre’ ought not to be the sole criterion for evaluating his commitment to the annalistic mode in various parts of the work.” 334. For a temple dedication, see Hist. 4.53; for descriptions of omens (and prodigies, auguries, etc.), see 1.62.3, 1.86.1–3, 3.56.1, 5.13.1. For discussions of religious matters in Tacitus, see J. Davies 2004, 143–225; Feeney 2007b, 140–42. In my discussion, I focus only on two categories of annalistic content exempli gratia. A full exposition of the historiographical work that each annalistic category represented in the Histories is beyond the scope of this study. 335. Verbrugghe 1989, 204. 336. In contrast, Livy famously included traditional material at the end of chapters, more as a show of observing tradition than as an integrated part of his narrative. 337. Hist. 1.73, 3.8, 3.48, 4.38, 4.52. 338. “quippe Aquileiae sisti bellum exspectarique Mucianum iubebat, adiciebatque imperio consilium, quando Aegyptus, claustra annonae, vectigalia opulentissimarum provinciarum obtinerentur, posse Vitellii exercitum egestate stipendii frumentique ad deditionem subigi.” 339. “eo properantius Alexandriam pergit, ut fracto Vitelli exercitu Urbem quoque externae opis indigam fame urgeret.” 340. “tum celerrimas navium frumento onustas saevo adhuc mari committit: quippe tanto discrimine Urbs nutabat, ut decem haud amplius dierum frumentum in horreis fuerit, cum a Vespasiano commeatus subvenere.” 341. Hist. 1.73: “famem populo Romano haud obscure molita.” 342. Ibid., 4.38.2: “is [L. Piso] praeerat provinciae nequaquam turbidus ingenio; sed quia naves saevitia hiemis prohibebantur, vulgus alimenta in dies mercari solitum, cui una ex re publica annonae cura, clausum litus, retineri commeatus, dum timet, credebat.” Piso is eventually murdered, a complicated conspiracy narrative that Tacitus details a little later in book 4 (4.48–50). 343. See Pomeroy 1991, especially 192–225. 344. See PagГЎn 2004, 14–24 on the role of conspiratorial women in the historiographic tradition. 345. Contra Pomeroy 1991, 193–94. 346. Like Otho, who is able to say only yes to his followers and never no (“sed Othoni nondum auctoritas inerat ad prohibendum scelus: iubere iam poterat” [1.45.2]), Vitellius fails to prevent the execution of Sabinus, an act that the emperor did not intend. 347. The sentence echoes 3.65.1: “namque Flavius Sabinus aetate prior privatis utriusque rebus auctoritate pecuniaque Vespasianum anteibat.” 348. I am reading sperno as “pay no attention to, disregard” (OLD, 2c).

349. Cf. 4.52, where Titus discusses the importance of father-son cohesion and the potential for even brothers to become enemies: “ne fratribus quidem mansuram concordiam, ni parens exemplum praebuisset.” Also, at 3.65, the Histories includes an anecdote about an earlier occasion when Sabinus meanly took Vespasian’s home and land as surety for a loan. 350. The opening phrase also could be understood to mean that this obituary will not be a character assassination piece like those of Vinius, Tigellinus, Caecina, or even Vitellius—reading sperno as “to reject with scorn, spurn, disdain” (OLD, 2b), to arrive at “This was the end of a man who ought not be scorned.” 351. Otho’s obituary at 2.50 comes closest to whitewashing, by refraining from relating any scandalous anecdotes and by stating that, with posterity, he earned as much “bona fama” (presumably because of his suicide) as “mala fama.” 352. Tac. Ann. 4.32.1: “sed nemo annales nostros cum scriptura eorum contenderit qui veteres populi Romani res composuere. ingentia illi bella, expugnationes urbium fusos captosque reges aut, si quando ad interna praeverterent, discordias consulum adversum tribunos, agrarias frumentariasque leges, plebes et optimatium certamina libero egressu memorabant.” 353. There is also a contrast between the meaningful consular dating from the republican era and its practically meaningless iteration at the outset of the Histories. 354. Cf. Sailor 2008, 209–10. 355. Levene (2010, 1–81) examines the narrative organization of books 21–30 of Livy’s history, particularly how Livy addressed and “made creative use” of the issue of relating simultaneous action across multiple theaters within the annalistic framework. Levene argues that Livy took advantage of this challenge: “By creating juxtapositions between apparently unrelated spheres of action he establishes a narrative sequence; by manipulating the order and by emphasizing particular details he allows significant parallels or contrasts to be drawn and issues to be raised overtly or covertly to affect the reader’s reaction to the narrative” (81). 356. See Ginsburg 1981, 4 with n. 8. 357. Ginsburg (1981, 2 with nn. 4 and 5) lists a number of scholars, including Syme, who praised Annals 13–18 for Tacitus’ emancipation from the strictures of annalistic history. Though wishing to show that Tacitus was not shackled by the conventions of annals, Ginsburg never explains why the narrator so frequently complains about those onerous conventions. 358. Cf. Tacitus’ principle of organization in the Annals, “Quaeque suum annum referre,” explored in great detail by Ginsburg (1981). 359. Cf. H. Haynes 2003, 41–70. 360. We have no way of knowing whether Tacitus completed these stories in the lost books of the Histories. The story of Arminius’ son (Ann. 1.58) is a similar example of failure to finish an advertised incident within the extant work. Regardless, even if Tacitus fails to complete the stories he begins telling here, both the effect of piquing the readers’ interest for the purpose of keeping them reading and the effect of establishing and reinforcing the limits of the annalistic mode would still be operative. 361. I adopt the concepts and definitions of prolepsis and analepsis from Genette 1980, 40: “designating as prolepsis any narrative maneuver that consists of narrating or evoking in advance an event that will take place later, designating as analepsis any evocation after the fact of an event that took place earlier than the point in the story where we are at any given moment.” 362. See Genette 1980, 49–50. 363. Tacitus makes just this point at 1.79. 364. It should be noted again that he did refer to the event in its true chronological context. 365. See Harris 1979, 9–53. 366. Aen. 6.853–54. 367. See Ginsburg 1981, 53–79. 368. On metus hostilis, see my discussion in chapter 1. Lucan’s narrator in the prologue to his Pharsalia plays off the trope of metus hostilis when he commands Rome to wait until it has no enemies before commencing civil war: “If you have so great a love for ineffable [civil] war, Rome, turn your hand against yourself only after you have sent the entire world under Latin laws: not yet are you lacking an enemy” (tum, si tantus amor belli tibi, Roma, nefandi, / totum sub Latias leges cum miseris orbem, / in te

uerte manus: nondum tibi defuit hostis) (1.21–23). 369. Hist. 1.79, 3.5, 3.45–48. 370. The other explicit discussion of res externae occurs at 3.45–48. 371. Hist. 3.5.1: “ac ne inermes provinciae barbaris nationibus exponerentur, principes Sarmatarum Iazugum, penes quos civitatis regimen, in commilitium adsciti.” 372. Otho’s coup was homegrown in Rome. But Galba (whose seizure of the throne precedes AD 69 and, therefore, the narrative of the Histories) rose to the principate from Lusitania. 373. See Ash 1999, 37–55. 374. See, e.g. Clarke 2002, 86: “Pseudo-republican historiography mirrors the sham of the Republic behind which the autocratic power of the princeps is hidden.” 375. See Lavan 2013b, 3 with n. 6, on this and other metaphors of the empire, which include descriptions of it as a body and a fabric. 376. For use of the metaphor to describe a ship, see Verg., Aen. 1.122; Livy 35.26.8. For its use to describe a wall, see Curtius 4.4.12. 377. For use of the metaphor to describe a human body, see Cic., Sen. 77.7; Vell. P. 2.127.3. For its use to describe an elephantine body, see Livy 27.49.1. 378. Hist. 1.4.1: “qualis status Urbis, quae mens exercituum, quis habitus provinciarum.” 379. See O’Gorman 1995, especially 124–25; H. Haynes 2003, 148–77; Shumate 2006, 105–14; Ash 2006, 99–106; Ash 2009, 95–97; Sailor 2008, 232. 380. Agricola 21. 381. H. Haynes 2003, 161. 382. Dio 65.3.1–3 also reports this story. 383. Hist. 4.67.1: “Caesarem se salutari iubet.” 384. Apart from the Julian connection suggested by his nomen, an alternative, less glamorous history of Julius Sabinus would establish the meaning of his cognomen. To claim Sabine heritage in the late Republic distinguished political candidates as serious men of antique Italian values (see Farney 2007, 97–101). It is ironic, then, that this man of vanitas is called Sabinus. 385. See Chilver and Townend 1985, 34. 386. H. Haynes (2003, 148) writes that “Julius Civilis’ name is almost too good to be true.” 387. See Sinclair 1995, 30, 141–44. See Martin and Woodman 1996, 491–93, for the outstanding but nevertheless outstripped Antistius Capito. 388. Sinclair 1995, 66–67, 143–44. 389. H. Haynes 2003, 148. 390. See Ash 2006, 104, with reference to Germ. 31. 391. Suet., Cal. 47. Though in less detail than Suetonius, Tacitus (Agricola 39) describes a similar stratagem of Domitian’s for his fake triumph over Germany (“falsum e Germania triumphum”), in which he buys slaves and treats their hair in preparation for their inclusion in his triumphal procession of captives. 392. Civilis appears in passing in book 1 (1.59). 393. A brief list of one-eyed generals includes Philip II, Antigonus the One-Eyed, Hannibal, Sertorius, Civilis, Admiral Nelson, the Napoleonic-era Russian general Mikhail Kutuzov, and, most recently, the Israeli general Moshe Dayan. 394. Plut., Sert. 1.4–5. On the shamanistic quality of ancient one-eyed generals, see Africa 1970; Moeller 1975. 395. See Velleius 2.118 on Arminius’ citizenship and equestrian standing. See also Timpe 1970. 396. Cf. Ash 2006, 100–101. 397. Sal., Hist. 1.88. 398. Syme (1958, 199) only mentions the noun to exemplify Tacitus’ “Sallustian tone.” 399. The chief source for Sertorius is Plutarch’s life (with Konrad 1994). He also appears in the fragments of Sallust’s Histories. See Spann 1987 for modern biography. 400. See Plut., Sert. 14.2, 22.3. 401. Ibid., 11.2. 402. Africa (1970) and Moeller (1975) note that one-eyed generals manipulate the beliefs of their native followers. To invest themselves with an aura of magic, these leaders employ disguises as symbolic of shape-

shifting. 403. On the Livian influences on the speech, see Syme 1958, 685–86; Keitel 1992. 404. Hist. 1.62.1. Histories 3.6.1 also applies “invadendam Italiam” to Primus and his army. 405. See H. Haynes 2003, 161. 406. I am following H. Haynes 2003, 161–63. 407. The history of the Ubii turned Agrippinenses after a Roman-initiated move across the Rhine precisely mirrors the experience of the Batavi, who formerly were part of the Chatti. 408. For the Ubian relationship with Caesar, see Caesar, BG 4.8, 16, 19; La Baume (1966) 9–10. 409. See Tac., Ann. 12.23. 410. Tac., Germ. 28.4: “ut arcerent, non ut custodirentur.” 411. As well as simply meaning “return,” redeo can also mean “revert, be restored (to a former state or condition)” (OLD, 5a). 412. The “ferocissimus” of the legates is chosen to speak (4.64.1). 413. This appears to be a pun: consanguineus and germanus fundamentally mean the same thing, blood relatives. 414. It is notable that the speech of the Agrippinensian speaker is so persuasive that even the Tencteri are satisfied: “sic lenitis Tencteris” (4.65.4). The Agrippinenses’ allegiance to Rome, while it is hidden for the moment, is undiminished. After Cerialis arrives, defeats the Gauls, and wins a battle against Civilis, the Agrippinenses display their own ferocity (4.79). They call to Rome for help, offering them Civilis’ wife and Classicus’ daughter—both of whom had been left as pledges of the alliance with the rebels. Most ferociously of all, they slaughter the Germans who had been billeted in private houses throughout the city. 415. Woodman (1988, 180–86) argues that since this passage is a digression, a type of device that, according to a number of passages in Cicero’s work (cited in Woodman 1988, 106 n. 51), is itself meant to be a pleasurable interlude in historical narratives, Tacitus is contradicting the explicit statement that his work is less interesting than earlier history writing. Woodman identifies the tension between the words and the structure as a strategy for “claiming to pervert generic convention in order to reflect and do justice to abnormal events” (186). See also Martin and Woodman 1989, 169–76. On the passage more generally, see Syme 1958, 337, 374; Lana 1988; Moles 1998, especially 95–133; O’Gorman 2000, 97–105; Clarke 2002; Marchetta 2004, 35–94; Sailor 2008, especially 259–68; Joseph 2012, 13–16, 24–28. 416. Tac., Ann. 4.32.2. 417. There is no scholarly consensus regarding what the demonstrative “haec” refers to here. The clause in which it sits is the last of a series of reflections on how to understand various forms of government. The narrator’s advice is as follows: for a democracy, the historian investigates the nature of the crowd (“vulgi natura”); for an oligarchy, men are considered insightful who have thorough knowledge of the characters of elite citizens (“senatusque optimatium ingenia”). The haec-clause then follows, within the context of what to investigate when there is monarchy, since it goes unspoken that the “ingenium” or “natura” of the princeps is off limits. I take the haec-clause as resuming the thread— “primo aspectu levia”—left off before the beginning of the digression on subjects to understand based on the form of government. The “nam” at the start of 4.33.1 signals that the entire section is an explanation of why examining “primo aspectu levia” is the best way of understanding the principate: see Martin and Woodman 1989, 174. Most recently, Sailor (2008, 264) argues that the “haec” here does not refer to “primo aspectu levia” but is “self-referential,” referring to “the content of Annals.” 418. Tac., Ann. 4.33.2. 419. Tac., Germ. 29.1. 420. On Germania 21, see Rives 1999, 238–41. On the history of the Batavian migration and the evidence for the inhabitation of the island and nearby area, see Willems 1986; Will 1987, 4–20; Wolters 1990, 246–50. 421. The Chatti inhabited the region between the Rhine and Upper Weser. On the Chatti, see Germ. 30–31; Rives 1999, 246–51, with further references. 422. A notable example is the Agrippinenses, formerly the Ubii. The Jews discussed in book 5 seem to be

an example of a people who have avoided the transformation of their identity though they were subjects of various empires. 423. The introduction of the Batavi is compact compared to ethnographic digressions of other Roman historians, such as Sallust on Africa in the Jugurtha (chapters 17–19) and Caesar on the Suebi and Britain in BG (4.1–4, 5.13–14). 424. This is an admittedly long translation of “altius,” which must have temporal significance: there are many parallels in Cicero, including Fam. 1.9.4, Caec. 10.1, and Clu. 66.1. 425. In this clause, I follow Heubner (1978), who reproduces the emendation of H. Tiedke. 426. Polybius 3.36.1 (trans. Paton 1922): бјЅОЅО± ОґбЅІ ОјбЅґ П„бї¶ОЅ П„ПЊПЂП‰ОЅ бјЂОіОЅОїОїП…ОјО-ОЅП‰ОЅ ПЂО±ОЅП„О¬ПЂО±ПѓО№ОЅ бјЂПѓО±П†бї† ОіОЇОЅОµПѓОёО±О№ ПѓП…ОјОІО±ОЇОЅбїѓ П„бЅґОЅ ОґО№О®ОіО·ПѓО№ОЅ, ῥητО-ОїОЅ бј‚ОЅ ОµбјґО· ПЂПЊОёОµОЅ бЅЃПЃОјО®ПѓО±П‚ бј€ОЅОЅОЇОІО±П‚. Cf. Polybius 5.21.3. 427. Cicero expresses the same point at Orator 66. The passage cited in the text is part of a section of De oratore 2.62–63 that includes the reflections of one of the interlocutors in the dialogue, Marcus Antonius, on the need for history to be composed like oratory (“videstisne, quantum munus sit oratoris historia? ”). 428. Sal., BJ 17.1. For other examples of employing a phrase including videtur to signal the start of a digression, see BC 5.9.1 (introducing the Archaeology and directly parallel to BJ 17); BJ 95.2 (explaining Sulla’s background and character). 429. Commentators explain the Romans’ lack of alarm by the fact that they considered the revolt a movement against Vitellius and not a rebellion against them (Heubner 1976 36–37; Chilver and Townend 1985, 32). As support for this interpretation, Heubner (1976, 37) notes that Civilis himself suggests, two chapters later, that the war is not unwelcome to the Roman people (“ne Romanis quidem ingratum bellum”). 430. I use the term digression here even though it may falsely suggest an episode of lesser importance than the main narrative. In historiography, digressions have many structural and thematic uses that do not diminish their centrality to the text. See Wiedemann 1979; Wiedemann 1993; Emmett 1983, 15–33. 431. See Agricola 36.1–2. 432. It bears repeating, too, that the Romans did not suppress this rebellion militarily but negotiated a cessation of hostilities. The location of the Batavi and the inability of the Roman military to pin them down and crush them in battle recalls the Numidians in Sallust’s Jugurtha. 433. At Agricola 30.1, the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus says, “There are no lands beyond us, and not even the sea is free from the threat of the Roman fleet” (et nullae ultra terrae ac ne mare quidem securum inminente nobis classe Romana). Clarke (2001) interprets the geography of Britain and its status as an island as being under threat in the Agricola not only from the Roman military but also from Roman knowledge. Roman imperialism and familiarity are closely bound together: “knowing about a place is a half-way stage to conquering it with arms” (102). This geographic description of the Batavi serves a similar function. In order for the Batavi to be taken seriously as a threat, they must first be understood. But once again, as in the excursus, geographic knowledge within the empire shows Roman readers only threats, not a confident assertion of Roman control on the upswing. 434. The voices in opposition to Claudius in the debate about extending the citizenship to Gallia Comata (Ann. 11.23) are a clear example of this strand of hostility. 435. The sentence immediately following this passage suggests a similarly petty response to the perceived haughtiness of Caecina’s wife: “As though they were harmed, people were irritated at his wife Salonina too. Although she did not intend to insult, she was carried conspicuously on a horse and wearing purple.It is the nature inborn in people to look upon the new good fortune of others with censorious eyes and to demand a limit to good luck from none more than from those whom they saw as on their same level.” (Uxorem quoque eius Saloninam, quamquam in nullius iniuriam insignis equo ostroque veheretur, tamquam laesi gravabantur, insita mortalibus natura recentem aliorum felicitatem acribus oculis introspicere modumque fortunae a nullis magis exigere quam quos in aequo viderunt.) 436. See Ash 2007a, 348, which cites Marshall 1984, 122, on “paludatus.” Crossing the pomerium wearing this cloak would mark him as conqueror rather than emperor. 437. Life of Otho 6.3 (trans. B. Perrin 1926). бјђОєОµОЇОЅП‰ОЅ ОґбЅІ ОљОµОєОЇОЅО±П‚ ОјбЅІОЅ

ОїбЅ”П„Оµ П†П‰ОЅбЅґОЅ ОїбЅ”П„Оµ ПѓП‡бї†ОјО± ОґО·ОјОїП„О№ОєПЊП‚, ἀλλ’ бјђПЂО±П‡ОёбЅґП‚ ОєО±бЅ¶ бјЂО»О»ПЊОєОїП„ОїП‚, ПѓПЋОјО±П„ОїП‚ ОјОµОіО¬О»ОїП…, О“О±О»О±П„О№Оєбї¶П‚ бјЂОЅО±ОѕП…ПЃОЇПѓО№ ОєО±бЅ¶ П‡ОµО№ПЃбї–ПѓО№ОЅ бјђОЅОµПѓОєОµП…О±ПѓОјО-ОЅОїП‚, ПѓО·ОјОµОЇОїО№П‚ ОєО±бЅ¶ бј„ПЃП‡ОїП…ПѓО№ бї¬П‰ОјО±ПЉОєОїбї–П‚ ОґО№О±О»ОµОіПЊОјОµОЅОїП‚. 438. See Dench 2005, 49–50, 274–75. Ovid, Tristia 4.6.47 features trouser-wearing Getae; Martial 11.21 features a Briton in pants. The sources’ emphasis on Gauls in trousers may come from the tension that arose from their being the first former barbarians who ascended to the highest levels of privilege and power within the Roman state. A passage in Suetonius’ Life of Julius Caesar captures this tension: “The Gauls took off their trousers and put on the broad stripe” (Galli bracas deposuerunt, latum clavum sumpserunt) (Caes. 80.2). 439. Germ. 17.1: “tegumen omnibus sagum fibula aut, si desit, spina consertum.” 440. Vout (1996, 215) notes, “The toga defined the wearer as peaceful, civilized, male, and Roman.” 441. Vout (ibid., 206) defines the toga as “ceremonial rather than everyday.” Crawford (1996, 418) shows that the toga was not a uniquely Roman form of dress within Italy. On its appropriation as symbol of Roman identity, see Goette 1990; Stone 2001; G. Davies 2005; Dench 2005, 274–79; Wallace-Hadrill 2008, 41–57. 442. Aen. 1.279–82. 443. Vout (1996, 218) explains, “The toga was part of the rhetoric which defined the Roman people and presented them to the rest of the world.” 444. See Ash 2007a, 130. See also Ash 1999, 40, on the “small-town bigotry” of the townsmen. 445. In addition to in the passage under discussion, the combination appears four other times in the Histories, at 2.56.1, 2.62.2, 2.87.2, and 3.57.1. 446. See Sherwin-White 1973, 169. 447. See Dench 2005, 175. 448. See Sherwin-White 1973, 169–70. 449. See ibid., 76–95. 450. See Heskel 2001, 133. 451. Nisbet 1961, v–xvii, offers an introduction to the dating and context of the speech. 452. Cicero, In Pisonem, fragment 9 (Nisbet) also features Cicero attacking Piso’s maternal grandfather as a Gaul: “There was a certain Insubrian [Gaul], and the same one was a trader and auctioneer” (Insuber quidam fuit, idem mercator et praeco). That these charges are unfair or biased need not be stated. See Nisbet 1961, 53–55, on fragments 9–10 (which also apologizes to Placentia for insulting it); 115–16, on fragment 53; and 194, on the stock themes present in the invective in these passages. See also Hughes 1998, on stock comic characterization in fragment 9. 453. Cic., Pis. 53. 454. Narbonensis, the province in Gaul proper on the other side of the Alps from Placentia, was called “Gallia Bracata” by, e.g., Pliny the Elder (HN 3.31). 455. On Vitellius’ passivity in the Histories, see Ash 1999, 105–11; Manolaraki 2005. 456. Hist. 3.86.1: “He gained everything – the consulship, priesthoods, reputation, and a place among the leading men – by no industry of his own but by the renown of his father” (Consulatum sacerdotia, nomen locumque inter primores nulla sua industria, sed cuncta patris claritudine adeptus.) 457. Germanicus is the only honorific cognomen devictarum gentium assumed by emperors until Trajan takes Dacicus in the early second century AD (see McCormick 1986, 21–22). 458. I originally published this argument as Master (2009).What is reproduced here is a lightly revised version of that article. 459. On this sentence, see Ash 2003, 96–97; 2007, 254. The actual etymology of Vitellius is not clear. Suetonius suggests that it derives from the nymph Vitellia, from whose union with Faunus the Vitellii sprang (Suet., Vit. 1). John the Lydian (Mag. 1, 23) claims that the name derives from the color of egg yolks (Latin vitellus); see Maltby 1991, 649. 460. Ahl (1985, 19), notes, “For the ancientsВ .В .В . if two words (or syllables) are phonetically similar, they either are conceptually related or become conceptually related.” 461. These allies were designated as the “socii.” A more accurate translation of the descriptor bellum

sociale is “War with the Allies.” 462. See Adams 2003, 114–16. The name vГ-tel(l)iГєis attested on coins: see Sydenham 1952, 89–95; Burnett, Wartenburg, and Witschonke 1998, 165–72. See Dench 2005, 210, on the Oscan epigraphic habit in Italy. 463. In much the same way, the phrase Erin Go Bragh still has currency even in the United States, where Gaelic has never been widely spoken. 464. See Adams 2003, 145–48. See also Wallace-Hadrill 2008, 88–94. 465. See O’Hara 1996, 91–92. 466. Aen. 7.740. 467. See Ahl 1985, 63; O’Hara 1996, 197; Horsfall 2000, 482. See also Ferris 2011. 468. See Wojtylak 2003, 93–95. 469. While this is, at any rate, the model in the Histories, modern historians take a different position. Dench (2005) and Wallace-Hadrill (2008) both reject the concept of the erasure of other identities within Italy after the Social War. Dench explores the persistence of local cultures alongside the domination of Rome. Wallace-Hadrill posits the existence of individuals moving between multiple identities via “codeswitching.” 470. See Gabba 1994 for an account of the Social War. Flower (2010a, 80–116) provides an analysis of the internal and external pressures on the Roman government in the period from 140 to 81 BC, in which she seeks to push the origins of the fall of the republic back into the second and even third centuries and Rome’s struggle to find a model of government for its newly acquired, extensive provincial holdings. 471. The narrator doubts the story for four reasons, all focalized through the general Suetonius Paulinus. First, there was no way that an experienced and knowledgeable general like Suetonius Paulinus would have thought it possible that such corrupt soldiers would ever put aside their drive for personal gain in favor of peace. Second, the age is corrupt. Third, the armies were linguistically (and thus culturally) different and would therefore not have been able to come together amicably. Fourth, the leaders on both sides were wicked and would never have been able to accept an emperor who was not similarly debauched. 472. The style of the digression is Sallustian: see Ash 2007a, 177, 180–83; 2010, 123–26. See Master 2014 for a fuller exposition of the Sallustian style of the digression. 473. See Ash 2010, 123–26. See Joseph 2012, 62–78, on 2.37–38 as a “proem in the middle” and on the engagement of the language, especially the key phrases “eademВ .В .В . deum ira” and “eadem hominum rabies,” with Vergil and Lucan. 474. Its didactic value may provide some hope for the Histories’ audience, however. See Master 2014. 475. Florus’ identity is mysterious. See Lavan 2013a, 126, for a review of the issues of identification. Florus is certainly a figure of the second or very early third centuries AD. See Hose 1994, 53–61, 127–28; Bessone 1993; Baldwin 1988; Jal 1967, 1:cxiii–cxiv. 476. Flor. 2.6.1. 477. Ibid., 2.6.3–4. 478. Vell. Pat. 2.15.2. 479. Dench (2005, 119) characterizes Velleius’ passage on the expansion of the citizenship as part of “the most sustained surviving example of such a view of Roman вЂgenerosity.’” 480. See Mouritsen 1998, especially 5–22, on the competing explanations of the war’s causes in the ancient evidence. Dench (2005, 125–30) builds on Mouritsen’s argument. Flower (2010b, 79) does not feel the need to render a judgment on the aims of the allies. 481. Bispham (2007, 114), citing Mouritsen’s argument, accepts that there was no “teleology of Italian national unification,” but he goes on to place the Social War into the context of “a longer process of change” within Italy that goes back at least to the third century BC and that created the conditions in which the unification of Italy could occur. Bispham (113–59) traces many of the political, social, economic, and legal developments of the second century BC that drew the allies further into Roman rule. See also Bispham 2007, 7, with reference to Terrenato 2001. 482. We may even see the historiography of the Social War as a model for that of AD 69. Some lessons have to be drawn from it, whether they are based on how it happened or on how later ages wish to think it happened. 483. This view—though, to my knowledge, not reference to this passage—is common in the history of

the analysis of the fall of the republic. Machiavelli (2009) and Montesquieu (1965) expounded on this theme. In modern scholarship, Brunt (1988, 68–81) also develops that fundamental thesis (though again without reference to this passage). See Morstein-Marx and Rosenstein (2007, 629–30) for a discussion with further bibliography of the historiography of the fall of the republic. See Millar 2002, 67–79 (on Machiavelli), 108–13 (on Montesquieu), with further bibliography. 484. See Flower 2010a, 97–114, for a refinement of and elaboration on Montesquieu’s argument that Rome’s republican government was unable to “scale up” its governing model from citystate to Mediterranean empire. With her final “republic of the nobiles,” Flower dates the fall of the republic to 88 BC, Sulla’s first coup. This is earlier than is traditional—usually some point in the forties is seen as the end—but it accepts the fundamental premise that the Republican form of government fell because it was unable to handle the demands of the empire it had acquired. 485. See Syme 1939, 284–85; Dench 2005, 178. Augustus (Res gestae 25) used the phrase, as did Caesar and Cicero. 486. See Dench 2005, 184, 189–93. 487. See Dench 2005, 119. 488. Livy 7.24.4–5. The battle took place in 350 BC and resulted in the victory for which Popilius celebrated a triumph in 349. See Oakley 1998, vol 2. 153 (on Popilius), 218–27 (on the battle). 489. Saller (2000, 839) points to “progressive unification of the empire” and “provincialization of imperial aristocracy in Rome and the romanization of local elites in the provinces.” 490. See Burns 2003, 140–93. 491. The codification of different treatment based not on citizenship but on being a member of the higher order of society (honestiores) or the lower one (humiliores) first definitely comes into existence under Hadrian. See Garnsey 1970; Saller 2000, 851–54. 492. Pliny the Younger’s description of the death of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, during the eruption of Vesuvius (Letters 6.16, 6.20) came in response to a request from Tacitus, who evidently wished to include it in the Histories. 493. Ash 2009, 97. Cf. Sailor 2008, 247. 494. See Sailor 2008, 232–49. 495. Hist. 5.9.3: “Antonius Felix per omnem saevitiam ac libidinem ius regium servili ingenio exercuit.” 496. Goodman (1987) acknowledges a number of causes for the revolt (e.g., Roman misrule, Jewish tensions with local gentiles, and Jewish religious susceptibilities), but he pinpoints a power struggle within the Jewish ruling class as a prime cause of the revolt. 497. See Thuc. 3.81–84, where Corcyra descends into civil war, for the original illustration of stasis. Josephus first mentions stasis in the prologue (1.9); he uses it as the first word of the narrative proper (1.31); at 4.364–65, he alludes to the effects of stasis in Corcyra according to Thucydides. On Josephus’ use of the concept of stasis, see Rajak 1982, 91–96; Mader 2000, 55–103; Mason 2003, 78–81; Price 2011. 498. See Bloch 2002, 142–59. The excursus certainly offers a great deal of negative information: see Lewy 1989. 499. The language does, however, echo that used to designate the “official” start of the text at 1.11.3: “cum Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules inchoavere annum sibi ultimum, rei publicae prope supremum.” See Sailor 2008, 246. 500. See Feldman 1991, 331 n. 2, for extensive bibliography up to the date of that book’s publication. Feldman tries to unearth some “pro-Jewish intimations” in the ethnography. 501. See Schafer 1997, 31–33. Rokeah (1995) sees the Histories as falling short of the most vitriolic antiSemitism of classical and Greek writers. 502. For bibliography and discussion, see Bruce 1984; Feldman 1991, 339 n. 30. 503. Chilver and Townend 1985, 90. 504. Barclay (2007, 344) argues that these discussions operate under an incorrect premise. The point of these non-Jewish accounts of Jewish history, he maintains, is not to scorn or to praise but to place the Jews within a broader Mediterranean “cultural matrix” that could explain Jewish history and culture. 505. Herodotus 2.35: “Just as the climate that the Egyptians have is entirely their own and different from

anyone else’s and as their river has a nature quite different from other rivers, so, in fact, most of what they have made their habits and their customs are the exact opposite of other folks.’” (Grene 1987, 145, trans.) (О‘бј°ОіПЌПЂП„О№ОїО№ бј…ОјО± П„бї· ОїбЅђПЃО±ОЅбї· П„бї· ОєО±П„бЅ° ПѓП†О-О±П‚ бјђПЊОЅП„О№ бј‘П„ОµПЃОїОЇбїі ОєО±бЅ¶ П„бї· ПЂОїП„О±Ојбї· П†ПЌПѓО№ОЅ бјЂО»О»ОїОЇО·ОЅ ПЂО±ПЃОµП‡ОїОјО-ОЅбїі бјў Оїбј± бј„О»О»ОїО№ ПЂОїП„О±ОјОїОЇ, П„бЅ° ПЂОїО»О»бЅ° ПЂО¬ОЅП„О± бј”ОјПЂО±О»О№ОЅ П„Оїбї–ПѓО№ бј„О»О»ОїО№ПѓО№ бјЂОЅОёПЃПЋПЂОїО№ПѓО№ бјђПѓП„О®ПѓО±ОЅП„Ої бј¤ОёОµО¬ П„Оµ ОєО±бЅ¶ ОЅПЊОјОїП…П‚). See Bloch 2002, 170–76. 506. Hist. 5.3.1. 507. Ibid., 5.5.1. 508. At roughly the same time as Tacitus was writing the Histories, Josephus composed Against Apion, a two-book defense (бјЂПЂОїО»ОїОіОЇО±) of Jewish history and religion against the slander of non-Jewish authors, written for, among others, a Roman audience (see Barclay 2007, XLIX). Josephus challenges many of the traditions that Tacitus’ most scornful statements reflect. On the date of Against Apion, which was certainly written after AD 93, see Barclay 2007, XXVI–XXVIII. 509. See Hist. 1.79. 510. Feldherr 2009, 312. 511. Ibid. 512. See H. Haynes 2003, 112–47; Morgan 1996. 513. At 4.82, when Vespasian visits another site of Eastern superstition—the Serapaeum, the temple of Serapis, in Alexandria—he sees another man named Basilides, this one an Egyptian nobleman. The narrator points to a supernatural element, because that same Basilides was known to be ill at his home eighty miles away. 514. SeeBraund 1984. 515. In the council in which Vespasian is persuaded to claim the principate for himself, he is swayed not only by the speech of Mucianus but also by men who were citing “responsa vatum et siderum motus” (2.78.1). As proof that Vespasian was not unaffected by such superstition, the Histories mentions that the emperor openly kept an astrologer with him. 516. See Hist. 3.24, 2.80. 517. H. Haynes 2003, 112–47. 518. See Henderson 1989 for the ultimate example of the dangers of focusing exclusively on the relationship of Tacitus’ authorial persona to the Julio-Claudian emperors. 519. On Tacitean pessimism, see Ryberg 1942; Paratore 1951, 256–57; Syme 1958, 136, 206, 541; Walker 1960, 182, 205–6, 244; PГ¶schl 1969, 161–76; Sullivan 1976; Mellor 1993, 4. 520. See Whittaker 2004, 43–44. 521. Appian, Roman History, pr. 7 (trans. White 1912): бЅ…О»П‰П‚ П„Оµ δι’ ОµбЅђОІОїП…О»ОЇО±ОЅ П„бЅ° ОєПЃО¬П„О№ПѓП„О± Оібї†П‚ ОєО±бЅ¶ ОёО±О»О¬ПѓПѓО·П‚ бј”П‡ОїОЅП„ОµП‚ ПѓПЋО¶ОµО№ОЅ бјђОёО-О»ОїП…ПѓО№ Ојбѕ¶О»О»ОїОЅ бјў П„бЅґОЅ бјЂПЃП‡бЅґОЅ бјђП‚ бј„ПЂОµО№ПЃОїОЅ бјђОєП†О-ПЃОµО№ОЅ бјђПЂбЅ¶ ОІО¬ПЃОІО±ПЃО± бј”ОёОЅО· ПЂОµОЅО№П‡ПЃбЅ° ОєО±бЅ¶ бјЂОєОµПЃОґбї†, бЅ§ОЅ бјђОіПЋ П„О№ОЅО±П‚ Оµбј¶ОґОїОЅ бјђОЅ бї¬ПЋОјбїѓ ПЂПЃОµПѓОІОµП…ОїОјО-ОЅОїП…П‚ П„Оµ ОєО±бЅ¶ ОґО№ОґПЊОЅП„О±П‚ бј‘О±П…П„ОїбЅєП‚ бЅ‘ПЂО·ОєПЊОїП…П‚ Оµбј¶ОЅО±О№ ОєО±бЅ¶ ОїбЅђ ОґОµОѕО¬ОјОµОЅОїОЅ ОІО±ПѓО№О»О-О± бј„ОЅОґПЃО±П‚ ОїбЅђОґбЅІОЅ О±бЅђП„бї· П‡ПЃО·ПѓОЇОјОїП…П‚ бјђПѓОїОјО-ОЅОїП…П‚. 522. See Whittaker 2004, 43–44. 523. See Luttwak 1976. Followers of Luttwak’s approach include (with numerous refinements or caveats) Wheeler (1991, 1993), Ferrill (1991), and Potter (1996). For the counterargument that Roman policy was haphazard, reactive, created by no permanent body of policy makers, based on inaccurate or fanciful information, and/or based on honor or attack at all costs, see Isaac 1989; Whittaker 1994; Whittaker 2004; Mattern 1999. 524. Shaw (1983), Hartog (1988), E. Hall (1989, especially 69–96), and Krebs (2010) all show how the presentation of foreign peoples relies very little on accurate information and almost entirely on literary tradition.

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Index Locorum Appian B Civ. pr. 7: 206 Aulus Gellius NA 17.17 : 27 Caesar BGall. 1.1.1 : 86 Cassius Dio 53.19: 100–102 55.24: 22 66.3: 33 n. 8 Cato fr. 77 (Peter): 105 Catullus 11: 92 n. 53 Cicero Balb. 22–24: 47 Balb. 26: 45–46, 48 De or. 2.52: 104 De or. 2.52–53 : 109 De or. 2.62 : 17 De or. 2.63 : 110, 169 Div. 1.43: 105 Leg. 2.5: 26 Mil. 101: 41 Pis. 53: 180 CIL 1.709: 48 n. 51

3.14214: 9 n.29 Florus 2.6.1: 188 2.6.3–4: 188 Herodotus 1.155: 5 n. 14 2.35: 201 n. 18 9.122: 14 Homer Il. 4.437–38: 69 Horace Ep. 9: 66 n. 86 Josephus BJ 7.75–88: 33 n. 8 Livy 2.1.1: 112 2.9.1: 116 7.24.4–5: 195 21.57.15: 62 26.49.3: 108 43.13.1–2: 111 Lucan 1.21–23: 134 n. 98 Pliny HN 7.149: 49 Plutarch Otho 6.3: 177 Polybius 1.1: 12

3.36.1: 169 9.1: 12 Quintilian Inst. 11.1.88: 41–42 Inst. 10.1.101: 82 n. 23 Page 234 →Res gestae Preamble: 89, 95 3.1: 90 13: 94 15.1: 96 25.1: 90 26.2–5: 91 27.2: 92 31.1–2: 93 32.2: 96 34.1: 95 34.3: 95 Sallust Cat. 5.8: 82 Cat. 5.9: 80 Cat. 10.1: 83 Cat. 14.1: 83 Cat. 43.3: 61 n. 72 Hist. 1.1: 116 Hist. 1.88: 151 Hist. 2.98.2: 41 Hist. 4.69.19: 40 Jug. 5.3: 80 n. 15 Jug. 17.1: 169

Jug. 41.2: 68 n. 90 Sempronius Asellio fr. 1 (Peter): 106 fr. 2 (Peter): 107 Servius Aen. 1.373: 104 Suetonius Aug. 101.4: 88 Cal. 47: 149 Tacitus Agr. 21.2: 5 Agr. 27.1: 72 n. 101 Agr. 35: 50 Agr. 39: 149 n. 17 Ann. 1.6.3: 100 Ann. 1.16.3: 43 Ann. 1.17.5: 42 Ann. 4.32.1: 125 Ann. 4.32–33: 164 Ann. 4.33.2: 165 Ann. 4.33.3: 164 Ann. 4.71.1: 113 Ann. 4.72.1: 35 Ann. 11.24.2: 6 Ann. 11.24.6: 7 Ann. 12.54.1: 198 Ann. 14.31.2: 35 Germ. 17.1: 177 Germ. 28.4: 158

Germ. 29.1: 167 Germ. 29.2: 23 n. 85 Germ. 37.2–3: 85 Hist. 1.1.1: 116 Hist. 1.1.4: 207 Hist. 1.2.1: 63, 75, 142 Hist. 1.2.3: 118 Hist. 1.3.1: 11 Hist. 1.4.1: 76, 80, 165 Hist. 1.4.3: 76 Hist. 1.5–1.7.3: 77 Hist. 1.9.1: 181 Hist. 1.10.1: 74 Hist. 1.10.2: 78 n. 10 Hist. 1.10.3: 78 Hist. 1.11.1: 60 Hist. 1.11.3: 76, 117, 140, 200 n. 12 Hist. 1.48.2–4: 122 Hist. 1.51.1: 130, 137 Hist. 1.52: 57 Hist. 1.59.1: 58 Hist. 1.61.2: 70 n. 96 Hist. 1.62.1: 61 Hist. 1.62.2: 182 Hist. 1.63: 64 Hist. 1.67.1: 175 Hist. 1.73: 121 n. 71 Hist. 1.79.1: 134 Hist. 1.79.5: 135

Hist. 1.83.1: 68 n. 89 Hist. 1.84.3: 67 Hist. 2.4.3: 200 Hist. 2.8.1: 127 Hist. 2.20.1: 174 Hist. 2.21.4: 67 Hist. 2.22.1: 70 Hist. 2.27.2: 132 Hist. 2.28.2: 57 Hist. 2.37.2: 66 Hist. 2.38.1: 186, 191 Hist. 2.38.2: 187 Page 235 →Hist. 2.56.1: 176 Hist. 2.62.2: 182 Hist. 2.69.1: 59, 142 Hist. 2.71.2: 119 Hist. 2.76.4: 4, 73 Hist. 2.78.3: 204 Hist. 2.78.3: 204 Hist. 2.89: 176 Hist. 3.6.1: 61 Hist. 2.93.1: 71 Hist. 3.5.1: 136 Hist. 3.8.2: 120 Hist. 3.15.2: 64 n. 84, 65 n. 85 Hist. 3.24.3: 71 Hist. 3.33.2: 68 Hist. 3.34.1: 125 Hist. 3.37.2: 119

Hist. 3.45.2: 157 Hist. 3.47.1–2: 172 Hist. 3.48.3: 121 Hist. 3.55.2: 119 Hist. 3.71.1: 64 Hist. 3.71.4: 61 n. 73 Hist. 3.72.1: 125, 126 Hist. 3.74.2: 123 Hist. 3.75.1: 123 Hist. 3.75.2: 124 Hist. 3.86.1: 182 n. 42 Hist. 4.1.3: 62 Hist. 4.8.2: 52 Hist. 4.12.1: 131, 143 Hist. 4.12.2: 166 Hist. 4.12.3: 23 n. 85 Hist. 4.13.2: 150 Hist. 4.14.1: 38 Hist. 4.14.1–4: 40 Hist. 4.16.2: 144 Hist. 4.17.2: 10, 49 Hist. 4.17.3: 50 Hist. 4.17.5: 49 Hist. 4.17.6: 33 n. 7, 38 Hist. 4.18.3: 156 Hist. 4.22.2: 143 Hist. 4.28.1: 158 Hist. 4.32.2: 32 Hist. 4.33.4: 156

Hist. 4.38.1: 118 Hist. 4.38.2: 121 Hist. 4.47: 119 Hist. 4.52.1–2: 123 n. 79 Hist. 4.52.2: 121 Hist. 4.55.1: 147 Hist. 4.55.2: 146 Hist. 4.58.3: 154 Hist. 4.58.5: 153 Hist. 4.59: 145 Hist. 4.60: 145 Hist. 4.61.1: 149 Hist. 4.64.1: 159 Hist. 4.64.2: 160 Hist. 4.64.3: 159, 160 Hist. 4.65.1: 161 Hist. 4.65.2: 161 Hist. 4.66.1: 38 Hist. 4.67: 145 Hist. 4.67.1: 146 n. 9 Hist. 4.67.2: 128 Hist. 4.71.2: 56 Hist. 4.73.2: 54 Hist. 4.73.3: 53 Hist. 4.74.1: 55 Hist. 4.74.2: 52, 56 Hist. 4.74.3: 55, 139 Hist. 5.2.1: 200 Hist. 5.4.2: 201

Hist. 5.5.4: 202 Hist. 5.8.3: 198 Hist. 5.10.1: 198 Hist. 5.12.3–4: 199 Hist. 5.19: 145 Hist. 5.24.1: 155 Thucydides 1.22.4: 11 1.23.6: 82 1.88–89: 81 Vegetius Mil. 1.2: 24 n. 88 Velleius Paterculus 2.15.2: 189 Vergil Aen. 1.279–82: 178 Aen. 6.853–54: 133 Aen. 7.740: 183

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Index analepsis, 129–30 annales maximi, 104, 109 annalists, 105–14 annals, origins of/pontifical, 103–5; criticism of, 106–7, 127; consular dating as programmatic signal of, 116; categories of, 120, 133–34 Antonius Primus, 31, 34, 38, 61, 64–65, 125 Aponius Saturninus, 135–36 Appian, 69, 206 Arminius, 150–51 Augustus, 44, 49, 207. See also Res Gestae auxiliary soldiers/auxilia, 1–3, 9–10, 36–37, 49–51, 56–60, 64–65. See also provincial soldiers Batavian Revolt, provincial soldiers in, 1–3, 7; as transition from civil to foreign war, 7–9, 197; as case study of provincial management, 19, 24, 27, 33–34, 166; scholarly arguments over nature of, 34–37; told in flashback, 131–32; inseparability and change as themes of, 140–41; civil and foreign aspects of, 142–46; Roman response to, 152–57; Social War as model for, 189–93 biography, 101–2, 138 Boudicca, 35, 74 Caecina Alienus, Aulus, 64, 119, 148, 174–81, 193 Caligula, 149 Calvia Crispinilla, 121 Capitol, 61, 64, 125–26 Carmel, 203–4 Cassius Dio, 22, 100–101 Cato, 105, 106, 120 Chatti, 149, 166–67, 170, 171–72 Cicero, 17, 26, 41, 44–49, 104–5, 109–11, 169, 180 citizenship, 6, 26–27, 60, 173–74, 176–81, 196; as reward for military service, 44–49; as cause of Social War, 184, 188–93 Civilis, see Julius Civilis

Clodius Macer, 121 clothing, 174–81. See also toga Colonia Agrippinensis/Cologne, 142, 157–62, 196 Consulship, as signal for annals, 114–20, devaluation of, 119 Cornelius Balbus, L., 44–49 Cremona, 125 Dillius Vocula, 140, 153–55 Divodurum, 64 Eprius Marcellus, 52 ethnic identity, Tacitus’ interest in the manipulation of, 4–7; modern concept of, 24–26; in Roman discourse, 26–28; of the armies of AD 69, 65–73; indeterminacy of, 144; Italy’s former diversity of, 182–85 ethnic soldiers, 20–24 Fabius Pictor, Quintus, 105–6 Fabius Valens, 57, 64, 119, 132 Flavians, support for Batavian Revolt, 30–31, 34, 38; as invaders of Italy, 61–62, 64; composed of provincial soldiers, 68–73; cut off grain to Rome, 79, 120–22; connections to Jewish superstition, 202–5 Flavius Sabinus, 123–24 Florus, 188, 190 Frisian Revolt, 35 Galba, 3, 76–78, 98, 115, 116–17, 123 Germania of Tacitus, 84–86 grain shortages, 103, 119, 120–22 “grand strategy,” 206–7 Gurkha, 21–22 Page 238 →Helvidius Priscus, 52 Herodotus, 5 n. 14, 13–16, 19, 80, 84, 201 n. 18 historiography, didacticism of 10–16, 164–66; as separate discipline from history, 18–19, 208; rhetorical nature of, 16–19; conventions of digressions, 169. See also annals and biography Homer, 69 Iazyges, 135–36

implied author, 39, 173, 205 Jews/Jewish Revolt, 144, 197–205 Josephus, 34 n. 11, 199, 202 n. 21 Julius Caesar, 86–87, 89 Julius Civilis, 34, 58–60, 73, 130–31, 144, 166, 188–89, 196, 205; recent scholarship on, 7–9; on the blood of provinces 10 and 56; on the rewards for provincial soldiers, 30–33; on the dishonesty of, 37–42; historical record supports the criticisms of, 48–51; Cerialis’ speech responding to, 52–54; Histories on the identity of, 147–52; Julius Classicus, 146, 147 Julius Sabinus, 128, 146 Julius Vindex, 50, 56, 74 legions/legionaries, as provincial soldiers, 1–2, 9; difficult demands of service in, 42–44; lack of Italian recruits for, 49–50; diminishing value of in battle, 50–51; lack of provincial commanders for, 55–56; reliance on auxiliaries in battle, 56–58 and, 171–72. See also Flavians and Vitellians Libri lintei (linen books), 107–8 Livy, 69, 108–9, 111–12, 113, 116, 133, 195 metus hostilis, 68, 134 Mucianus, Licinius, 4, 33, 73, 78, 79, 97, 124 name-play, see wordplay narrator, as distinct from implied author, 39 n. 20, 44, 155–57, 173, 205 Nero, 37; imposters of, 127–28, 129 obituaries, 119, 122–26 Otho, 66–68, 79, 115, 135, 202. See also Othonians Othonians, 66–68, 185–86 Pannonian Mutiny, 42–44 Percennius, 42–44 Petilius Cerialis, 31, 34, 51–57, 139–40, 155 Polybius, 12–13, 169 pontifex maximus, 103–5 Praetorian Guard, 76–78, 79, 97 prolepsis, 129 provincial soldiers, definition of, 1–4; scholarship on, 7–10; theory of, 20–24, 25; didactic purpose of,

27–28, 56, 191–93 207; participation in civil wars, 59–60, 63–65. See also auxiliaries and legions reader, implied, 19–20. See also historiography, didacticism of res externae, 99, 113, 133–38, 142, 156–57, 172 Res gestae, 87–98 Sallust, 40–41, 80–83, 116, 151–52 Sempronius Asellio, 106–7 Sertorius, 150–52, 185 Sextilia, 182–85 Social War, 184–93, 194–95 Tencteri, 145, 157–62 Thucydides, 11–12, 17, 18, 81–82, 199 Tiberius Alexander, 79, 204 Titus Vinius, 77, 116–17, 122–23 toga, 5, 175–81 Treviri, 31–32, 34, 52–53, 139, 147, Ubii, 158–59 urbs capta motif, 62 Velleius Paterculus, 101, 188–90, 192 Vergil, 133, 178, 183 Vespasian, 33–35, 71–72, 74, 78–79, 120–22, 123–24, 200–205. See also Flavians Vetera, 31 Vitellians, 57–58, 60–61, 64, 66–73, 138, 175–76 Vitellius, 4, 33–34, 37, 57, 59, 78, 119, 130, 131, 137–38, 142, 148, 176, 181–85. See also Vitellians wordplay, 148, 183–85