In 1979, A. J. Woodman published a groundbreaking study in which he suggested that the scene of Germanicus visiting the battlefield of Teutoburg was a rewriting of a scene from the Histories, in which Vitellius visited the site of the first battle of Bedriacum, thus shifting the focus from imitation to self-imitation, or, to put it another way, from intertextuality to intratextuality. Bram L. H. ten Berge’s monograph, a revised dissertation defended in 2016 at the University of Michigan, can be described as a more general application of Woodman’s approach (whose study is cited on p. 235), operating on a much larger scale (the whole of the Tacitean corpus), whose unity and coherence, according to the author, it would reveal.
In his introduction, ten Berge clearly highlights the two main threads of his analysis. On the one hand, acknowledging a certain lack of interest in what are often described as Tacitus’s opera minora (Agricola, Germania and Dialogus de Oratoribus)—a lack of interest that has been reduced in recent years thanks to several publications, as the author concedes—his goal is to offer a “holistic reading” and an “integrative analysis of the Tacitean corpus” (p. 7–8), which grasps Tacitus’ oeuvre as a whole, without considering the monographs as early works or juvenilia and without overestimating the role of generic boundaries (biography, ethnography, philosophical dialogue, annalistic history). On the other hand, greater attention should be paid to intratextual echoes, not so much because of the question of Tacitus’ style and its development, which receives ultimately little attention here, but because they would reveal thematic links and unifying motives throughout the historian’s work. While the concepts are not strictly defined (the reader would sometimes like to understand better the boundaries and differences between “integrative”, “interactive”, “intratextual” or “intracorpus engagement” approaches, all of which are used in the book), the general method is clear and consistent throughout the study.
The work is divided into five chapters, each devoted to a Tacitean text, considered in chronological order; in addition to the introduction, there is also a preliminary chapter on Tacitus’ background and a conclusion, which precedes the bibliography and the index locorum. The preliminary remarks focus on the year 97, when Tacitus, then consul suffect, delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Lucius Verginius Rufus. According to the author, the figure of Domitian, still central in 97–98, would have played a pre-eminent role in the young Tacitus’ political career and intellectual training, an idea which is further considered in the first chapter, devoted to the Agricola. The biography of Tacitus’ father-in-law is studied for its own merits and as a reservoir for the cross-cutting reflections that would inform the historian’s other writings. After a close analysis of the preface, ten Berge identifies two series of political discourses, one on the Principate (focusing on relations between emperors and senators), the other on the Empire (dealing with Roman imperialism and its shortcomings). Tacitus’ judgement of the imperial regime and his conception of the role of senators within it emerge as a question that runs through the work. By comparing the funeral oration for 97 with the written eulogy of Nerva and Trajan in the preface (Agr., 3.1), and by studying Tacitus’ position in relation to that of Martial, Frontinus and Pliny the Younger, ten Berge comes up with interesting results, indicating Tacitus’ interest in finding a “middle path” between open, pointless and dangerous resistance, as practised, for example, by the “Stoic martyrs” (i.e. Thrasea Paetus and others), and blind obedience to principes, which he vilifies in all his works. At the end of this chapter, however, the question remains open as to whether Tacitus is fundamentally hostile to the Principate or only to bad emperors. The author defends the first hypothesis, while acknowledging that Tacitus remains deliberately equivocal, at least on the surface, on this point. It is true that certain passages prevent us from being fully convinced by this hypothesis.[1]
Chapter 2 examines the Germania through the prism of its intratextuality with the Agricola. The analysis of the Germania provides an opportunity for a more focused reflection on generic issues. Just as the Agricola cannot be fully understood if the text is reduced to its genre (a biography), so the Germania must not be approached solely as an ethnographic monograph. It is therefore crucial to avoid what is aptly framed as “generic shoehorning” (p. 113) or “generic determinism” (p. 301). From this second monograph, generally omitted from studies in Tacitus’ political thought, ten Berge’s approach draws two convincing analyses: (1) Tacitus considers Germania unsuitable for a conquest similar to that carried out in Gaul or Britannia (because of the costs of provincialization and the lack of an existing “proto-urban fabric,” p. 81) and must be subjected to indirect control; (2) portraying the Germans in terms of uirtus and libertas allows Tacitus to suggest their restriction in imperial Rome. These two discourses (the one practical or pragmatic, the other moral) would imply a criticism of Trajan’s ambitions in Germania and of his government in Rome.
This leads us to chapter 3, the heart of the demonstration and the most convincing and original part of the study. This very long chapter offers to take seriously the Dialogus de Oratoribus, which is often seen as an anomaly in Tacitus’ literary career. After a very clear summary of the work and a useful contextualization, in which the echoes with Cicero, Quintilian and Pliny the Younger are clearly highlighted, ten Berge brings out a network of thematic links that the Dialogus has with the other monographs. Challenging the image of Tacitus as deliberately ambiguous, the author shows how the historian criticizes the position of Aper, whom he portrays as a delator, while at the same time praising Maternus, whose character traits bring him closer to Agricola. In doing so, it is once again a controversial discourse on libertas and uirtus, as much as on fama and eloquentia, that emerges from the Dialogus, whose coherence is thus reinforced.
After chapter 3, it is perhaps inevitable that the argumentative scope of chapter 4, on the Histories (the longest of the book) and chapter 5, on the Annals (which is much shorter), should seem less significant. This is a consequence of the (otherwise limpid) construction of the book: since each chapter studies the intratextual networks linking the works together, it is inevitable that redundancies will accumulate in the process. Moreover, on texts already as well commented on as the Histories and the Annals, the conclusions are less innovative, as ten Berge concedes on the subject of the Batavian revolt[2]. The chapter on the Histories focuses on the place of three intratextual figures in the work: Domitian, Agricola and the Germans. Some ideas are particularly convincing, for example on the political dimension of the ethnographic analysis, which certain actors of the 68–70 crisis prove to master (the Flavians) or to ignore (Vitellius, Otho). The last chapter, on the Annals, is surprisingly brief; a more detailed integrative/intratextual analysis is left for a later study (p. 303 n. 1). There are fewer new ideas here, with the exception of the analyses developed at the end of the chapter, on the role of the client kings or the comparison of Germania, Britannia and Parthia’s integration in the Empire. Ten Berge highlights the closing effect of Tacitus’ last work in relation to the Agricola, convincingly demonstrating that the historian is asserting his political persona and his independence from the imperial regime; this is reflected in the absence of any panegyric in the preface. This comment on the unity of Tacitus’ work is cleverly reflected in the construction of chapter 5, which mirrors chapter 1 on the Agricola.
At this stage of the review, I must draw attention to the quality of the study, which uses a clear methodology, supporting a coherent demonstration that is often convincing. In a field that one might have thought had been well explored since D. Sailor’s monograph Writing and Empire, ten Berge succeeds in bringing something new to the table through its excellent knowledge of the Tacitean text, and it will henceforth be difficult to ignore from now on the place of the Germania or the Dialogus in the study of Tacitus’ political thought. The bibliography is extensive, although very much in English (the works of O. Devillers on the “procédés d’unité” in the Annals or the Histories could have been more fully used) and rather oriented towards literary studies (E. Flaig’s analysis of imperial acceptance, recent discussion of the “populism” of Nero, Otho and Vitellius, new research on the recruitment of the Roman army under the Principate could inter alia have been of use). The critical observations that follow therefore in no way call into question the interest of this work, which will be useful to a wide readership, and which is also notable for its high formal quality, with very few misprints.[3] I have mentioned above some reservations about the plan, which has the advantage of clarity, but leads to redundancy, since each chapter opens with the same question (does Tacitus use intratextuality, particularly in relation to his early monographs?) and inevitably concludes with a positive answer; the idea that “Tacitus remains consistent throughout his works” acts as a true refrain, repeated regularly in the book (p. 237, 305, 337, 343, 359, 362…).
With regard to the methodology adopted, two observations can be made. Firstly, the author relies heavily on the study of textual echoes, but some comparisons may be mere coincidence, especially when the term in question is very common: can we really detect an opposition between Agricola and Aper/Marcellus/Crispus, on the grounds that the former is regularly described as a bonus (which would evoke Cato’s ideal of the orator as uir bonus dicendi peritus) and the latter are not (p. 141)? Other links made by the author are the result of a method applied a little too rigidly: admittedly (p. 211), the collocation falsa nomina appears in only two passages in Tacitus, which could thus be compared, in Otho’s (Hist., 1.37.4) and Calgacus’ speeches (Agr., 30.5); but this is to forget rather hastily that the deceptive nature of the imperial formulas is a theme applied by Tacitus himself, in very similar terms, to Augustan government (eadem magistratuum vocabula, Tac, Ann., 1.3.7) and to the Julio-Claudian dynasty as a whole (uacua nomina, Tac., Hist., 1.30.2 and oblitterata nomina, Tac., Hist., 1.55.4, see H. Haynes’ History of Make-Believe).
Secondly, the study is sometimes characterized by the (quite natural) tendency to give a central place to its object, even if this means overestimating its role in Tacitus’ system of representation. For example, the models of Agricola and Domitian are presented as archetypes after which all subsequent characters are modelled, from the Germans to the generals, senators and emperors of the Histories and the Annals, not forgetting the protagonists of the Dialogus. The author speaks of “Agricolan qualities” (p. 216), “Agricolan benchmark” (p. 281, p. 323) and “Domitian/Agricola-mold” (p. 313). But while some of the comparisons are obvious and well supported (for example between Agricola and Paulinus, who both had responsibilities in Britannia, p. 349-351), and others are more original and convincing (the two-term parallel between Domitian/Agricola and Vitellius/Blaesus, p. 235-237), the reader sometimes wonders whether the author does not overestimate as specifically “Agricolan” traits that in reality belong to the stereotype of the good general (or, for Domitian, of the tyrant). One would therefore expect a better grasp of the rhetorical construction of the figure of the imperator, by adding on this point an intertextual component to the intratextual investigation[4]. This would undoubtedly lead to putting the role of Agricola’s model into perspective, for example on such common traits as the concordia between husband and wife (p. 35), the sharing of soldiers’ labours (p. 218–220) or the ability to address soldiers persuasively (p. 324, n. 51). Once again, a broader engagement with other literary forms (in particular biography) would better assess the weight of Tacitean innovation, and, within the Tacitean corpus, of the models forged in the early monographs.
I am aware, however, that these remarks would have been difficult to implement in a study which already presupposes considerable and comprehensive engagement with Tacitus’ oeuvre taken as a whole, from which emerge the profound coherence. By moving with ease from the micro (analysis of textual networks) to the macro level (study of Tacitus’ ideological thought), ten Berge succeeds in demonstrating the subtlety and unity of a pessimistic but pragmatic view of the imperial regime, whose development in the first century CE had definitively swept away the illusions born after Actium.
Notes
[1] E.g. the distinction between the Empire and its representatives made by the Britons—and not Boudicca—in Tac., Agr. 15 9cf. p. 51) could also match Tacitus’ own opinion.
[2] “Certainly, unpacking these intertextual links does not change our broad understanding of the revolt” (p. 280).
[3] I only note for the sake of form prudenti instead of prudentes, p. 214, falsum triumphum for falsus triumphus p. 311, and, out of pure local chauvinism, “Lyons” instead of “Lyon”, p. 297.
[4] As is only sketched out on p. 39, n. 46 or p. 341, n. 79, “[Agricola] who himself may first have been modelled on the figure of Germanicus and others as handed down in the imperial tradition”.