Princeton (2016) p/b 300pp £24.95 (ISBN 9780691156514)
A source book indeed this is, but ‘Greenidge and Clay’ it emphatically is not! The classical texts are cited only in translation; Latin words appear only, and rarely, in notes, and then only as, say, a libellis to give the translation of an official post. This book is designed for the student who knows no Latin or Greek: no harm in that, nowadays, but much is inevitably lost. Although the three editors were responsible individually for different aspects of the work, they emphasise that the finished product was a ‘truly collaborative effort’.
The book is sensibly arranged by ten subjects (well designed to keep students’ interest alive), rather than chronologically: ‘The Making of the Emperor’, ‘The New Emperor’, ‘Enemies Within’, ‘Parthia’, ‘Britain and Germany’, ‘The Great Fire’, ‘The Emperor’s Wives’, ‘Conspiracies’, ‘The Emperor as Artist and Showman’, ‘Death’. The method used is to provide a linking narrative in each case for the ancient texts (mainly, but far from only, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio) which are quoted in extenso; the editors have already, in their (useful) introduction, told the students something of the qualities of these authors, while emphasising the lack of contemporary accounts (and the comparative lack of papyrological or inscriptional data, except indeed, in the latter case, from the Arval brothers: Introduction, p. xxiii); numismatic material is both called on and generously illustrated, providing, say the editors, ‘a vivid and remarkably honest record of Nero’s transition from gilded handsome youth to coarse and bloated libertine’ (Preface, p. viii).
If this were all, there would have been no justification for a distinguished scholar to call this ‘the most learned sourcebook I have ever read’. The power of the book lies in the detailed notes, appearing under the text, which are of the highest quality; thus once, where more is needed in the matter of Nero’s birthday, an appendix appears at the end of the relevant (first) chapter, which sets out all the evidence from Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio, and the Historia Augusta, and goes on to consider, at some length and in detail, its trustworthiness (or the reverse), concluding that AD 37 on balance has the strongest authority. Again, in a section of the chapter entitled ‘The Great Fire’, the treatment of the (alleged) Christian persecution is judicious and palmary both in the narrative provided and in the notes relating to the famous account given in Tacitus (Ann. 15.44.1), as well as in the versions of Suetonius, Lactantius and Eusebius—where even a mistranslation from Tertullian is duly noted and corrected. Perhaps inevitably, a few of the notes in the chapter on Parthia are somewhat indigestible. However, a high quality is maintained throughout, and converts the book from what could have been little more than a bald narrative of events, albeit often differing in detail as between one author and another, into a work of historical scholarship; the prosopographical detail in the notes to the chapter titled ‘Conspiracies’ might almost, one feels, have been written by Sir Ronald Syme himself.
There is not room for everything, and the notes, however full, do not refer the reader to other scholarly work: thus even a long note on Stoicism (pp.218-9) makes no reference to P.A. Brunt, some of whose work, however, is listed in the relevant chapter’s (short) bibliography. But, to be fair, only a very advanced student is likely to find this anything of a handicap, and the needs and wants of almost all students will be met in full: the book answers with an emphatic ‘Yes’ your reviewer’s standard test (‘Would I have welcomed this book as an undergraduate studying Roman history?’) and, at £24.95, it is remarkably good value.
As hinted earlier, sensibly brief bibliographies accompany each chapter, and there are some maps to accompany and clarify the narrative. The reviewer noted that ILS 9018 on p. 84 had become ILS 9108 on p. 116, but other typos, if any, are rare. A minor curiosity in a book so sparse even in offering Latin is the facsimile appearance on p. 253 of the Acraephia Decree of AD 66 or 67, incised in Greek by a stonemason who was not, one feels, at the top of his profession.
Colin Leach