Oxford Critical Guide to Tacitus

The Oxford Critical Guide to Tacitus presents eighteen chapters surveying individual works and books by Tacitus. Each chapter approaches a work or book as a unit, addressing important interpretive issues relevant to specific texts, giving readers a deeper appreciation of their nuances and features.

List of contents

• Introduction


• 1: Sergio Audano: Agricola


• 2: Katherine Clarke: Germania


• 3: Christopher S. van den Berg: Dialogus De oratoribus


• 4: Cynthia Damon: Histories 1


• 5: Lydia Spielberg: Histories 2


• 6: S. P. Oakley: Histories 3


• 7: Timothy A. Joseph: Histories 4


• 8: René Bloch: Histories 5


• 9: Victoria Emma Pagán: Annals 1


• 10: Aske Damtoft Poulsen: Annals 2


• 11: Olivier Devillers: Annals 3


• 12: Bram ten Berge: Annals 4


• 13: Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson: Annals 5 and 6: The End of the Beginning


• 14: Caitlin Gillespie: Annals 11 and 12


• 15: Alain M. Gowing: Annals 13: Mentors, Murder, Mother, and Mayhem


• 16: Christopher Whitton: Annals 14


• 17: Rhiannon Ash: Annals 15


• 18: Salvador Bartera: Annals 16

About the author

Salvador Bartera is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He holds a PhD from the University of Virginia. His main research interests focus on Roman historiography, particularly Tacitus. He is also interested in classical reception in the Renaissance. His main publications include articles on the Annals, the concept of fides in the Histories, the history of the commentary tradition of Tacitus, his first Italian translations and Tacitist commentators, and the neo-Latin Jesuit poet Stefonio. He is currently completing a commentary on Annals 16 and preparing an edition of Stefonio's Flavia Tragoedia.

Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Cincinnati. She holds a bachelor's degree in Classics from the University of Virginia, and an MSt and DPhil in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature from the University of Oxford. She is the author of Religion and Memory in Tacitus' Annals (OUP, 2019), a commentary on Phlegon of Tralles' On Marvels (Brill, 2022), and various articles on aspects of Greek and Roman historiography, religion, and paradoxography.

Product details

• Authors: Salvador Bartera, Salvador (University of Tennessee) Shanno Bartera, Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson
• Assisted by: Salvador Bartera (Editor), Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson (Editor)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 10.07.2025
• EAN: 9780192894038
• ISBN: 978-0-19-289403-8
• No. of pages: 288
• Series: Oxford Critical Guides
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Classical linguistics / literary studies; LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, LITERARY CRITICISM / Reference, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, Literary Companions, Literary companions, book reviews and guides, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form