Browse our books below. You can also search for books.
DUDLEY, D.R., The World of Tacitus. Secker & Warburg, London, 1968. 271p. Cloth wrps. 'The style and content of a literary historian are not in the end separable, and Professor Dudley wisely (see pp.35 ff.) considers language, structure, and subject-matter together. But the emphasis of the first part of his book is on Tacitus' presentation of history, while the remaining chapters concentrate on Emperors, Senate, Army, City, Provinces, and Foreign Powers, topics which form at once the content of the history and very necessary supplementary information for the general reader. Both parts are sensible and informative. It is also refreshing to find a measured defence of the positive qualities of ancient historiography and of Tacitus' contribution to it (...). The presentation of Tacitus' world and Tacitus' history, often by summary or translation (Professor'Dudley's own) of Tacitus' text, is both sound and kaleidoscopic. The general reader will certainly be the wiser, after reading this book, about the early Empire and Tacitus' attitude to it, about the range and limitations of Tacitus as a historian, about the complexity and coherence of the ancient world, and about the importance and influence of one of its great writers.' (N.P. MILLER in The Classical Review (New Series), 1970, p.45). € 18.50 (Antiquarian)