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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Essays, journals, letters & other prose works > Classical, early & medieval
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Religion and Memory in Tacitus' Annals (Hardcover)
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Religion and Memory in Tacitus' Annals (Hardcover)
Series: Oxford Classical Monographs
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Throughout his narrative of Julio-Claudian Rome in the Annals,
Tacitus includes numerous references to the gods, fate, fortune,
astrology, omens, temples, priests, the emperor cult, and other
religious material. Though scholars have long considered Tacitus'
discussion of religion of minor importance, this volume
demonstrates the significance of such references to an
understanding of the work as a whole by analyzing them using
cultural memory theory, which views religious ritual as a key
component in any society's efforts to create a lived version of the
past that helps define cultural identity in the present. Tacitus,
who was not only an historian, but also a member of Rome's
quindecimviral priesthood, shows a marked interest in even the most
detailed rituals of Roman religious life, yet his portrayal of
religious material also suggests that the system is under threat
with the advent of the principate. Some traditional rituals are
forgotten as the shape of the Roman state changes while,
simultaneously, a new form of cultic commemoration develops as
deceased emperors are deified and the living emperor and his family
members are treated in increasingly worshipful ways by his
subjects. This study traces the deployment of religious material
throughout Tacitus' narrative in order to show how he views the
development of this cultic "amnesia" over time, from the reign of
the cryptic, autocratic, and oddly mystical Tiberius, through
Claudius' failed attempts at reviving tradition, to the final
sacrilegious disasters of the impious Nero. As the first
book-length treatment of religion in the Annals, it reveals how
these references are a key vehicle for his assessment of the
principate as a system of government, the activities of individual
emperors, and their impact on Roman society and cultural identity.
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