The Annals of Tacitus: Book 3

Books 1 and 2 of Tacitus’ Annals were edited and annotated in two earlier volumes of this series (1972 and 1981) by the late F. R. D. Goodyear. Now A. J. Woodman and R. H. Martin have added a third volume: Book 3 of the Annals. This book covers the years AD 20–22, including the aftermath of Germanicus’ death and the trial of his alleged murderer Calpurnius Piso and contains some of Tacitus’ most well known and important programmatic and reflective passages. In their commentary the editors are the first to attempt a systematic comparison of the documentary record provided by a recently discovered senatus consultum relating to Piso’s trial with Tacitus’ narrative of the same episode. More attention is given to literary matters than by Goodyear but textual, linguistic and historical issues are treated fully and new interpretations frequently offered.

• Commentary on a major text • Continues Goodyear’s commentary on Annals Books 1 and 2 • Woodman and Martin produced the commentary on Annals Book 4 in the CAMBRIDGE GREEK AND LATIN CLASSICS series (1989)

Introduction; Text; Commentary; Indexes.

‘One of the strengths of this excellent commentary, is the ease with which it shifts from observations about particular linguistic features of Tactitus’ Latin to broader historical analysis …’.

– Journal of Roman Studies