Rhiannon Ash
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195389579
- eISBN:
- 9780199866496
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389579.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines three conspicuous instances of historiographical synkrisis in Tacitus' Histories (Histories 1.50.2–3; 2.38; 3.51) in which the republican civil wars are the lens through which ...
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This chapter examines three conspicuous instances of historiographical synkrisis in Tacitus' Histories (Histories 1.50.2–3; 2.38; 3.51) in which the republican civil wars are the lens through which Tacitus invites his readers to respond to the wars of ad 69: the republican past, these digressions suggest, is trumped by the morally bankrupt narrative present. By foregrounding the act of analysis Tacitus also demonstrates the value of the historian's work for his contemporaries and for posterity.Less
This chapter examines three conspicuous instances of historiographical synkrisis in Tacitus' Histories (Histories 1.50.2–3; 2.38; 3.51) in which the republican civil wars are the lens through which Tacitus invites his readers to respond to the wars of ad 69: the republican past, these digressions suggest, is trumped by the morally bankrupt narrative present. By foregrounding the act of analysis Tacitus also demonstrates the value of the historian's work for his contemporaries and for posterity.
