The Empire strikes back: Roman and Other in the 'Histories' of Tacitus

The confusion of Roman and Other in Tacitus' Histories is the subject of this dissertation. I first approach the issue of identity confusion with an investigation of the annalistic form of the work. I argue that the near disappearance of the traditional category of external affairs, res externae, symbolizes the diminished distinction between Roman and Other. In the following chapter I perform a close reading of the rerum Romanarum status, a brief survey of the Roman Empire from the early chapters of Book 1. Here I show how Tacitus overturns the traditional use of geographic surveys of imperial space. Tacitus' excursus is not a confident assertion of Roman control of the Empire, but rather a snapshot of the many dangers to Roman dominance around the Empire that threaten to cause the entire imperial structure to collapse. The following two chapters are a pair. The third explores the way Tacitus represents the "Otherization" of certain important Roman figures in the text, most notably the general-turned-emperor Vitellius. The fourth chapter looks at the way the Other is represented as so highly Romanized and so influenced by Roman ideology that a separation from Rome is no longer possible or even desirable. My final chapter focuses on whether we can discern signs of a change in the direction of the Histories in Book 5, when the text breaks off. I argue that the Jewish excursus, while it looks like a moment where Roman and Other can finally be distinguished, in fact challenges the reader to recognize the Flavian relationship to Jewish superstition.