Historiae (Tacitus)

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Book 1.1 from the Editio princeps , Venice 1472
Title page of the Historiae (1, 1) from the Tacitus Complete Edition by Theodorus Rijcke , Leiden 1687. Book 1 is counted as Book 17 of the Annales

The Historiae ("Historien", abbreviated as Tac. Hist. ) Are the first of the two great historical works of Tacitus . They deal with the contemporary history of the later Roman Imperial Era of the 1st century and cover the reigns of the emperors Galba to Domitian from 69–96 AD . Tacitus published the work, of which only the first five books have survived, in 110 AD. In the years from 112 onwards, the Annales were written .

In terms of content, Tacitus deals in detail with events such as the political upheavals of the Four Emperor's Year , the Batavian uprising and the military operations to suppress the Jewish uprising with the capture and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 under Titus .

Lore

The work has survived in fragments in a manuscript from the 11th century. It is a copy of an early medieval , lost original that presumably came from Germany. This beneventanische manuscript was in the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino around 1370 by Giovanni Boccaccio discovered and is located since the 15th century belonged to the Laurentian Library with Sigle Codex Mediceus II = Codex Laurentianus panel. 68, 2 . From this manuscript, humanistic copyists made over 30 copies ( recentiores ) in the second half of the 15th century . Five editions published up to the end of the 16th century come from these. The " Editio princeps " of the Historiae was published around 1472 in Venice by Wendelinus de Spira . In Laurentianus 68, 2 the books 11-16 of the Annales of Tacitus are also passed down, with which both works share the stemma .

The humanistic copies form three groups based on Laurentianus 68.2 (handwriting sigla M II or M 2 ), which are arranged according to the place where the text is broken off in Book 5.

  • I end like M II at 5, 26, 3 Flauianus in Pannonia
  • II end at 5, 23, 2 potiorem
  • III end at 5, 13, 1 euenerant

Group I manuscripts have the greatest philological and textual relevance. Manuscripts from this group with good readings are considered the scriptors' conjectures . Especially since the rediscovery of the Codex Leidensis BPL 16 B ( L ) in the 1950s by Clarence Whittlesey Mendell. Today it is proven that L was written in Ferrara around 1478 by the early humanist Rudolf Agricola and came into the possession of the Leiden philologist Theodorus Rijcke in the 17th century and used it intensively for his edition. After that, the Codex fell out of view. Mendell (and initially following him Erich Koestermann ) presented L as an independent text tradition independent of Laurentianus , with the assumption of an early medieval or even older intermediate manuscript from which M II and L would come. The Laurentianus was confirmed as the original through an extensive, decades-long text-critical discourse in specialist science and ultimately the collation of all manuscripts by Rudolf Hanslik and his colleagues (including Franz Römer ) . The Leidensis is understood today as a strongly interpolated descendant of Group II, for whose creation Agricola used the "Editio princeps" as the main source.

Title, structure

The current title Historiae is indirectly documented by Tertullian and in the private correspondence of Pliny with his friend Tacitus. In Laurentianus the work with the first book is titled as "liber decimus septimus ab excessu divi Augusti", as the 17th book after the 16th of the "Annales" in material sequence after the end of Nero in 68 AD and with the 1st. January 69 AD under Galba.

The first four books and the beginning of the fifth are completely preserved: the text breaks off after the first quarter. In general, based on (late) ancient information, research is based on the original size of 12 to 14 books. Jerome used an issue in which the Annales also before the Histories are: "Cornelius Tacitus ... qui post Augustum usque ad mortem Domitiani vitas Caesarum XXX voluminibus exaravit." , This fact leads to that in parts of the research for the scope of 14 books Is accepted.

Tacitus designed the books formally with a relatively even distribution of the text volume.

  • Book 1, 90 chapters
  • Book 2, 101 chapters
  • Book 3, 84 chapters
  • Book 4, 86 chapters
  • Book 5, 26 chapters

Books 1–3 can be understood as a unit of meaning, with the unrest after Nero's death and the dramatic end in Book 3 at the end of the Four Emperor's Year and the final description of the burning Capitol . Book 4 and 5 can be understood as a meaningful unit of the restoration of the state order, with the changing descriptions of military operations and uprisings. Tacitus makes use of a great stylistic freedom in the scenic design with emphasis on the presentation of the content, to which the formalities of a mandatory annalistic recording are secondary.

See also

literature

Issues, comments, broadcasts
  • Joseph Borst: P. Cornelius Tacitus. Histories / Historiae. Latin - German. (= Tusculum Collection ). 7th edition, Artemis & Winkler Verlag, Mannheim 2010, ISBN 978-3-538-03546-1 .
  • Heinz Heubner : P. Cornelius Tacitus. The histories. Comment. 5 volumes, Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 1963-1982. (Volume 1, 1963; Volume 2, Volume 3, 1972; Volume 4, 1976; Volume 5, 1982 with the collaboration of Wolfgang Fauth )
  • Kenneth Wellesley: P. Cornelii Taciti libri qui supersunt 2: Historiarum libri. BGTeubner Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig 1989, ISBN 3-322-00671-9 .
Research literature
  • Michael von Albrecht : History of Roman Literature. From Andronicus to Boethius. 3rd improved and expanded edition, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-026525-5 .
  • Francis RD Goodyear: Readings of the Leiden manuscript of Tacitus. In: The Classical Quarterly 15, 1965, pp. 299-322.
  • Erich Koestermann : Codex Leidensis BPL 16B, a text witness of Tacitus independent of Mediceus II. In: Philologus 104, 1960, pp. 92-115.
  • Ronald Haithwaite Martin: The Leyden Manuscript of Tacitus. In: The Classical Quarterly 14, 1964, pp. 109-119.
  • Clarence Whittlesey Mendell, Samuel A. Ives: Ryck's Manuscript of Tacitus. In: The American Journal Philology 72, 1951, pp. 337-345.
  • Clarence Whittlesey Mendell: Leidensis BPL. 16. B. Tacitus, XI-XXI. In: The American Journal of Philology 75, 1954, pp. 250-270.
  • Franz Römer : Critical problem and research report on the transmission of the Taciteic writings. In: Wolfgang Haase et al. (Ed.): Rise and decline of the Roman world . Row II: Prinzipat, Volume 33.3. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1991, ISBN 3-11-012541-2 , pp. 2299-2339, here 2302ff.
  • Stephan Schmal: Tacitus. Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 2005, ISBN 3-487-12884-5 .
  • Kenneth Wellesley: Tacitus, "Histories". A Textual Survey 1939-1989. In: Wolfgang Haase et al. (Ed.): Rise and decline of the Roman world. Row II: Prinzipat, Volume 33.3. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1991, ISBN 3-11-012541-2 , pp. 1651–1685.
  • Reinhard Wolters :  Tacitus. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 30, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-018385-4 , pp. 263-266.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Tacitus Complete Edition without Agricola . Likewise the first edition for Annales 11-16, Germania , Dialogus
  2. ↑ Tert. apo. 16, 1; Tert. nat. 1, 11, 3
  3. ↑ Plin. epist. 7, 33, 1
  4. ↑ Zach. 3, 14