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  • Religion and Memory in Tacitus' Annals by Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson
  • Philip Waddell
Kelly E. Shannon-Henderson. Religion and Memory in Tacitus' Annals. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. x, 414. $119.95. ISBN 978-0-19-883276-8.

Tacitus' thoughts concerning Roman religion and philosophy have long been a point of contention when studying the historian. Following the work of scholars [End Page 367] such as Jason Davies1 on the role of religion in the works of the Roman historians, scholars have taken Tacitus' handling of religion more seriously, as an aspect of his historiography worthy of study in itself. Shannon-Henderson's book examines religion in Tacitus' Annales through the dual lenses of cultic memory and performance of ritual.

After an introduction (1-24) that lays out the foundational ideas of cultural/cultic memory and the inseparability of Roman religious practice from the functioning and existence of the state, the book progresses sequentially through the Annales in seven chapters, which allows Shannon-Henderson not only to discuss the decay of cultic memory in individual instances, but also to stress the cumulative effect that incorrect cult practice would have had on Tacitus' readers. According to Shannon-Henderson, Tacitus mobilizes discussions and decisions on religion throughout the Annales to show the principate as an existential threat to cultic memory, correct ritual performance, and the maintenance of the pax deorum.

Shannon-Henderson's first chapter (25-68) discusses episodes such as Tiberius' mishandling of the portent of the Tiber flood (Ann. 1.76), his problematic relationship with divus Augustus, and the rise of religious flattery, as test-cases for Roman religion gone awry as Tiberius seized further control over what had been a communal relationship between the Roman people and the divine. Chapter 2 (69-120) presents Germanicus, long noted as a foil for Tiberius, as another source of religious misreadings and incorrect actions, from his problematic and histrionic uses of superstition and portents to motivate his soldiers on the Rhine to his final misreadings of his loss of divine support in the Roman east. Through the discussions of Germanicus' missteps, it becomes clear that the problems with Roman religious memory are not inherent only in Tiberius, but are endemic throughout the empire.

In chapter 3 (121-166), Shannon-Henderson discusses Tacitus' subtle signs of the senate's increasing inability to negotiate religious questions, as Tiberius deals with Germanicus' memorialization and challenges to traditions concerning the Flamen Dialis and the rights of asylum in temples throughout the empire. A study of Sejanus as the turning point of the pax deorum under Tiberius dominates chapter 4 (167-210), as the connections between the imperial family and the increasingly problematic imperial divi are presented as symptomatic of the growing diseases of maiestas and adulatio. The last chapter to deal with Tiberian material (211-236) highlights the Roman people's blindness to divine anger, while Tiberius becomes more prophetic concerning his successor.

Throughout the Tiberian chapters, Shannon-Henderson helpfully reminds the reader of what has gone before, tracing the often-hidden arc of the decline of cultic memory. Chapter 6 (237-284) paints Claudius as a failed "revivalist," who, Augustus-like, resurrects cultic events such as the Saecular Games and extends the pomerium against a backdrop of ritual abuses by Messalina and religious weaponisation by Agrippina. The final chapter (285-349) catalogues the religious perversions of Nero in the contexts of what has gone before, showing Nero throughout as the natural culmination of the destruction of Roman religion begun by Tiberius, Germanicus, and Claudius. [End Page 368]

Shannon-Henderson's work allows the modern reader to read the Annales with an increased idea of what is at stake with every omission, alteration, and perversion of the state cult by the principate. Thus, the modern reader of Tacitus is made aware of another subtle register with which to understand the corrupting and destructive effects of the Julio-Claudian principate. This volume is a meticulous study of cultic memory, and its subversion, in the Annales, and will be of great importance not only to students and scholars of Tacitus but also to those with interests in the interplay between historiography...

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