W.'s commentary completes the project conceived some 50 years ago to produce new editions and commentaries on the first six books of the Annals for the ‘Cambridge Orange’ series (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries). Begun by F.R.D. Goodyear with editions of Annals 1–2 (1972–81), carried forward by W. and R. Martin with Annals 3 (1996) and 4 (1989, in the Cambridge ‘Green and Yellow’ series), the Tiberian books now culminate in a text and commentary by W. alone. W. is currently preparing a new ‘Orange’ text and commentary for Annals 4. With S. Malloch's 2013 commentary on 11 and forthcoming commentaries on 14 by C. Whitton/M. Lavan, 15 by R. Ash and 16 by S. Bartera, a multicoloured ‘Cambridge Annals' is very nearly complete.
The first question about a new edition of Annals 5–6 must be: ‘what exactly constitutes its Book 5 and its Book 6?’ After more than a century of starting Annals 6 with six chapters that are still known as 5.6–11, W. returns to Lipsius' division. His text puts lacunas after 5.5.1 (impediri testarentur) and 5.6.1 (plures adsuetudine), as well as between Books 5 and 6 where the subscriptio has fallen out, but begins Annals 6 at 6.1.1. This arrangement gives us the beginning and end of Annals 5 (the beginning of ad 29 and the very end of 31), but Annals 6 in its entirety (ad 32–37). The introduction (pp. 3–9) concisely defends this editorial decision with W.’s hallmark combination of philological precision and interpretative insight. Here he cites Tacitean book structure and statistics about year-length, but also looks to the Annals' thematic arc: in the Lipsian division, the opening movements of the last three books of the hexad correspond to the final three ‘stages’ of Tiberius' reign as outlined in the obituary (6.50.5–51.2).
The books of the Annals in this series have not so far achieved the status of ‘standard’ texts, but reading 5–6 in W.’s text has its advantages. W.’s paragraphs often disregard traditional chapter and even, on occasion, sentence divisions in order to make the coherence of episodes clearer and bring out the turns of the narrative. The apparatus is relatively full and scrupulously credits old and new emendations of manuscript M. Paragraphing and punctuation aside, there are 47 differences between W.’s text and Heubner's (Teubner 1994). A few individuals have new names: Sextius Paconianus (6.3.4, 6.39.1) has become Sextilius, and Pontius Fregellanus (6.48.4) Pontilius. But the Vibullius Agrippa championed by Syme has reverted to Vibulenus (6.40.1). Some of W.’s choices are minor, for example, restoring M's set where previous editors silently normalised it to sed. Others are more significant, as W.’s bold (but ably defended) conjecture of ta < cito > negotio at 6.21.1, most editors having preferred a more generic ta < li > or ta < nto > . Equally striking is W.’s insertion of an appositive to ease the grammar of 5.5.1: <femina > nobilitatis … clarissimae. (There is a certain irony in this emendation, as women are a regular presence in Annals 5–6, yet conspicuously absent from the commentary's interest. Book 5 opens with the death and obituary of Livia [5.1–2], and Agrippina's death marks the mid-point of Book 6 [6.25]. Livi(ll)a's downfall surely loomed large in the missing portions of Annals 5 [cf. 6.2.1], and women feature regularly as dynastic pawns [6.15.1, 6.27.1], objects of scandal [6.40.3, 6.47.2, 6.49], partners in intrigue [6.26.3, 6.45.3] or suicide [6.29.1–2, 6.29.4] and tragic victims of Tiberian cruelty [5.9.1–2, 6.10.1]. So one could wish for more insight into their thematic and narrative relevance than ‘T.’s statements about women are conventional and typical of the ancient world’ [p. 196].)
The commentary is rich and often provocative. It is best consulted with the other volumes of the series to hand, which W. often cross-references for discussions of particular words, constructions or points of history. W. argues with characteristic forcefulness for his sometimes iconoclastic interpretations of disputed passages, most notably in the obituary of Tiberius (pp. 287–301). A concluding appendix (pp. 302–15) synthesises and summarises W.’s reading of the Tacitean Tiberius, carefully distinguished from the historical princeps. This essay stands on its own and would be a suitable introduction to Tacitus' narrative for advanced undergraduates. W.’s conclusions will not find universal acceptance, but they are always illuminating, grounded in a keen understanding of Latin's semantic and syntactic possibilities and limits. W. is attentive to peculiarities of Tacitean diction, but usefully notes where a seemingly choice word or phrase turns out to be less so (e.g. 6.43.2, obsitus). Especially good are the comments on Tacitus' figurative language. W. points out metaphorical cliffs (5.3.1), siege-engines (6.29.3), shipwrecks (6.48.2) and more, as well as such recurring motifs as disease and eating. Many notes pack an impressive range of topics – not only literary and linguistic but also historical and prosopographical – into a small space. Discussing the oppidanum genus of Julia Livilla's Cales-born fiancé M. Vinicius, for example (6.15.1), W. observes that this mésalliance has a symmetrical parallel at the end of the year, discusses the rarity of the phrase oppidanum genus, locates Cales (‘famous for its wine’), and directs the reader to T.P. Wiseman's treatment of the Vinicii in the region. All this in seven lines.
Several innovations are especially welcome. W. highlights Tacitus' pervasive puns and sonic effects by italicising and underlining lemmata where they display assonance, alliteration, polyptopon and similar wordplays. Sometimes explicit discussion follows and sometimes not, but the practice induces the reader to pay attention to an often-overlooked dimension of a text that was probably, in its first instance, consumed aurally. There is also considerably more, and more varied, Greek than one is accustomed to seeing quoted in a commentary on a Roman historian. Tacitus compares Tiberius to the Platonic tyrant at 6.6.2, but W. also adduces Herodotean language for Tacitus' digression on the phoenix (6.28.1–6), a Thucydidean model for Tacitus' analysis of the internal politics of Seleucia (6.41.2), and regularly cites Greek writers both Classical and post-Classical to parallel Tacitean sententiae or historiographical methodology. This does not mean that W. stints the Latin literary tradition, where the influences of less-canonical authors like Curtius, Statius and Silius are given their due, alongside standbys such as Sallust, Livy, Virgil and Seneca. As a result, W. both locates Tacitus more precisely in his post-Flavian literary milieu and sets him into broader intellectual and historiographical traditions.
One final example can illustrate the subtlety and even sly wit of W.’s approach to Tacitean wordplay and unusual comparanda. W. draws attention to the ‘vividness’ of Tacitus' description of the financial crisis of ad 33 in a brief note whose principal work is done by italicisation in the lemma: primo concursatio et preces, dein strepere praetoris tribunal (6.17.2, ‘first people mobbed and begged [the moneylenders]; then the praetor's tribunal began to ring [with suits]’). The reader must supply the causes of this vividness, chief among them the alliteration that mimics the repetitive clamour that it describes. W. compares Plato, Rep. 564d, περὶ τὰ βήματα προσίζον βομβεῖ on the democratic mob as bees ‘buzzing around the speaker's stand’ for a similar use of alliteration to recreate the sounds of a crowd. But the juxtaposition inevitably provokes further questions (is W. hinting at bees in Tacitus' strepere as well?) and prods the reader to further investigation (how common is sonic wordplay where words for sound are in play?). In such places, W. seems himself to be approaching the suggestive allusiveness that he identifies so well in Tacitus. This makes his commentary at times difficult going, but, like its target text, it more than repays the effort.
