Tacitus, Annals, 15.20­-23, 33­-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a

We are still in AD 62, but Tacitus now looks back and reviews the omina and
prodigia – strange natural occurrences that indicated the displeasure of the
gods – that had happened over the course of this year. This is a regular feature
of his narrative and serves a variety of purposes. (i) To begin with, it is a key
generic marker of annalistic historiography, in terms of both content and
form. The Romans themselves traced the beginnings of the practice of writing
year-by-year chronicles to the custom of the pontifex maximus recording on a
board (tabula) kept on display outside his place of residence (a) the names of
the high magistrates and (b) key events of public significance, not least those
of a religious nature such as prodigies, on a yearly basis. The recording started
from scratch each year, but the priesthood of the pontiffs also archived the
information thus collected. Some – but by no means all – historiographers
of the Roman republic adopted an approach and style to the writing of
history that mimicked the information displayed on the board of the high
priest, presumably in part to endow their narratives with the official and/ or
religious authority of a national chronicle. 93 (ii) A key element of annalistic
historiography is the repeated reference to consuls – as such, it is an inherently
republican form of thinking about history and recalls a period in which the
consuls were the highest magistrate in the Roman commonwealth (and the citystate
scale of Rome could be governed by yearly flights of officials); annalistic
historiography thus stands in latent tension to the existence of a princeps (as
well as a worldwide empire). (iii) In addition to the names of magistrates,
annals tended to note down anything that concerned the interaction between
Rome’s civic community and the gods. Prodigies are divine signs, and their
recording situates the narrative within a supernatural context.
[Extra Information: Tacitus and religion
‘Tacitus and religion’ is a complex topic that defies exhaustive discussion in the
present context. What follows are some pointers for how Tacitus integrates the
sphere of the divine into his narrative universe. Griffin, for instance, identifies
four supernatural forces to which Tacitus appeals in his narrative to render
events intelligible: (i) divine intervention; (ii) fate, in the Stoic sense of an
unalterable chain of natural causes; (iii) destiny, as determined by the time
93 Gotter and Luraghi (2003) 35.