This encyclopedia is intended as ‘a point of entry for further research for every person or place named in Tacitus or topics related to the study of Tacitus’ and was composed based on two principles: ‘that it should contain every person or place occurring in the works of Tacitus’ and that ‘the entries are treated in the context of the works of Tacitus’. This does not mean that every person or place mentioned in the works of Tacitus receives full treatment as an individual entry. Some persons or places are grouped together under a collective heading, although they continue to receive separate headings that redirect the interested reader to the collective heading. Consequently, of the 1,892 headings in the work, 846 redirect the reader to the headings for one of the other 1,046 entries. Most importantly, the headings are not limited to the names of people or places that occur in the works of Tacitus. They also include 165 key concepts from fields such as ancient historiography, social history, literary criticism, and material culture, and 11 topics from the reception of Tacitus. It is not surprizing, therefore, that the composition of this work required 179 contributors from across the globe. However, the effort was worthwhile because the result is an indispensable tool of immense assistance to the reader of the works of Tacitus, no matter what his or her level.
Individual headings and entries are followed by up to four possible sub-headings, where the first directs the reader to other entries within the work that complement this topic. The second provides references to the major reference works relevant to this topic, whether to the Prosopographia Imperii Romani in the case of individuals or to the Barrington Atlas in the case of places. The third sub-heading lists those items of modern bibliography that are explicitly cited in the entry, while the fourth lists other items of potential interest for further reading not cited in the entry. Finally, it is important to note that each entry contains references to the relevant passages in the primary sources, not just to passages in the work of Tacitus, but to those also in the full range of classical authors.
A quick survey of entries reveals some variation in effort and standards. For example, the entry for the historian Ammianus Marcellinus is poor. It does not cite a single passage from a primary source, nor a single item of modern bibliography, while a sub-heading lists only one item of bibliography for further reading. The failure to note the existence of a printed bibliography for Ammianus or the fact that a team of Dutch commentators have provided a detailed commentary upon his work is disappointing.[1] More disappointing still is the failure to include any bibliography at all on the relationship between the works of Ammianus and Tacitus.[2] In contrast, the entry on the Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone is excellent, providing a good analysis of points of difference and similarity between the SCP and the Annals, with appropriate citations of modern bibliography and a helpful list for further reading. Other entries fall between these extremes. For example, the entry on Sicily cites some primary sources but does not list any item of modern bibliography, despite the availability of several books on the history of the island. In contrast, the entry for Thrace is much fuller and more detailed than that for Sicily, perhaps too much so in that it cites fourteen items of modern bibliography and lists another eleven for further reading. Somewhere in the middle, the entry for numismatics is firmly grounded in the work of Tacitus, and most welcome for this, but seems to assume a readership that already knows what the currency system during the early empire was. Consequently, it fails to describe this system and omits the standard catalogues of the coins of this period from its bibliography.[3] Fortunately, most entries seem to follow the higher standards of analysis and completeness displayed by these last entries.
Finally, the decision as to which individuals or places deserved entries of their own and which were better treated in a collective fashion cannot always have been easy. The decision, for example, to treat the freedmen of the emperors Claudius and Nero as groups seems to me to work well, but others may disagree. However, this then raises the question as to why the office of praetorian prefect was not treated in the same manner, since the scattered entries for individual praetorian prefects makes it harder than it ought to be to gain a firm understanding of the importance of this post. Similarly, the decision to include Hibernia within the discussion of Britannia is less than satisfactory, although this may just be my wounded national pride speaking here.
In conclusion, this encyclopedia should prove of great value to all students of the work of Tacitus, although new readers of Tacitus will undoubtedly derive the most value from it. Furthermore, since any encyclopedia of the works of Tacitus, our best source for the military and political history of the first century AD, is de facto an encyclopedia of this period, this work deserves consultation by a far wider readership than its title might initially seem to suggest. It deserves a place in every library catering for students of the early imperial period, even if their interests are not strictly literary in nature and range far beyond the writings of Tacitus.
Notes
[1] For the bibliography, see F.W. Jenkins, Ammianus Marcellinus: An Annotated Bibliography, 1474 to the Present (Leiden, 2017). For the commentary, see J. den Boeft, J.W. Drijvers, D. den Hengst, and H.C. Teitler, Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus (Leiden, 1995-2018).
[2] See e.g. A. Bargagna, ‘Ammiano lettore di Tacito. Percorsi di confronto intertestuale, tematico e compositivo’, Studi Classici e Orientali 61 (2015), 335-350, and the bibliography therein.
[3] C.H.V. Sutherland, The Roman Imperial Coinage I: 31 BC – AD 69, 2nd ed. (London, 1984); I.A. Carradice and T.V. Buttrey, The Roman Imperial Coinage II.1: From AD 69 to AD 96, 2nd ed. (London, 2007).