Introduction

Abstract

The Introduction contextualizes the study in terms of existing scholarship on Tacitus, cultural memory theory, and the study of Roman religion. Roman paganism, with its emphasis on exact repetition of rituals as they have been performed for centuries, is particularly fruitful when analyzed using cultural memory theory as developed by scholars such as Jan Assmann, Maurice Halbwachs, and Pierre Nora: religious ritual is viewed as a key component in any society’s efforts to create a lived version of the past that helps define cultural identity in the present. Tacitus’ own background as a quindecimvir, one of the most important priestly colleges in the Roman state cult, as well as the conventions surrounding the treatment of religion in Roman historiography, are likely to have informed his interest in religious material.