SOURCE: Goodyear, F. R. D. “Tacitus and the Writing of History.” In Tacitus, pp. 22-34. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.

In the following essay, Goodyear explores Tacitus's complex narrative layout and arrangement of historical events, investigating the argument that many of his reports are unreliable.

Various analogies have been used to describe Tacitus' way of writing in his historical works. Racine called him ‘le plus grand peintre de l'Antiquité’. The analogy of painting is often pertinent, for Tacitus has supreme skill in presenting scenes visually, in catching and highlighting details of gesture and movement, not least so with crowd scenes, as in the mutinies narrated in Ann. [Annals] 1, and with night scenes, as at Ann. 1. 65 and 14. 8. This kind of approach has been used and developed by E. Courbaud in his sensitive and imaginative book Les Procédés d'art de Tacite dans les Histoires,¹ and aspects of visual presentation...