In his review of the Oxford World’s Classics Tacitus Annals, John Aveline makes a number of criticisms, especially of the notes compiled by Anthony A. Barrett. It is not my contention that the criticisms are unfair or biased. Readers should, however, always be made aware of any relationship of reviewers to the authors under scrutiny, and generally reviewers do very properly make a declaration of this relationship at the beginning of their report.
Readers of this journal were not informed of the relationship between John Aveline and Anthony Barrett, specifically of Aveline’s failure to obtain his PhD (on Tacitus) at the University of British Columbia where Anthony Barrett was his supervisor. This information should have been provided.