I've been ignoring this for too long. It's time to get Tacitus up to featured quality: Rome's greatest historian deserves no less.

feel free to edit as needed.

To do

in the order I think they should be done

1. Flesh out the biography some more. Most of the facts seem to be there; more on the speculations and guesswork surrounding his life might be warranted. Scratchpad: User:Mirv/Tacitus/Biography Done!
2. Spin out each book to a separate article, in proper summary style, and make sure each has adequate backlinks. Get each subarticle up to standards; right now much of the content is translated from the Italian article and may need tweaking: addition of other PsOV, fact-checking and correction, copyediting, etc.
   1. Annals: Annals (Tacitus) (be sure to disambiguate links to Annals.)
   2. Histories: Histories (Tacitus) (not much disambiguation needed here, since I doubt much can be done with Special:Whatlinkshere/History.)
   3. Agricola: Agricola (book) (be sure to minimize overlap with Gnaeus Julius Agricola—one article for the man, another for the book. Also be sure to disambiguate links to Agricola.)
   4. Germania: Germania (book) (the backlinks are mostly done, but be sure to check links to Germania.)
   5. Dialogus: Dialogus
3. Add a section (probably as a subsection of Works) on the manuscripts. (see Mendell, 1957, pp. 225–349)
4. The section on his sources doesn't look like it needs much work. I might be wrong. Make sure.
5. Rework section on influence and reception into a full history of Tacitean studies. Should this use a periodic structure—ancient, Renaissance, Enlightenment, 19th century, modern—or a thematic structure—as historian, as political theorist, as philosopher and moralist, as prose stylist—or both? This will definitely require a subarticle on Tacitean studies. Scratchpad: User:Mirv/Tacitus/Studies
6. Flesh out section on literary style. Include more views on his literary quality and historical methods. This will probably require a subarticle on Tacitean style .
7. Rework content in the main article, especially book summary sections, in line with the rewritten content of the subarticles.
8. Expand lead section.
9. Track down the provenance of the image (not hopeful) or find a better one—perhaps a free image of a sculpture, manuscript, or out-of-copyright painting (not much more hopeful). Add some more related images; imperial portraits and maps are good possibilities. Ronald Syme's portrait would be useful in the section on modern studies.
10. Organize the inevitable subarticles; already it has five (one for each book), and I see that two more—Tacitean studies and Tacitean style —are inevitable. Even more might be possible. Use categories, or use a series box like Template:Jesus, Template:NewImperialism, or Template:Roman myth? Or just rely on Main article: Blah links within sections?

Research notes

books and articles that might be useful, plus notes thereon.

General

• Ronald Martin, Tacitus (Los Angeles, UC Press, 1981)
• Clarence Mendell, Tacitus: The Man and His Work (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1957) ISBN 0208008187
• Ronald Syme, Tacitus, Volumes 1 and 2 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985) ISBN 0198143273

Comments: The definitive modern work on Tacitus, this shows why Syme's preeminence in 20th-century Tacitean studies is uncontested. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 23:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Ronald Syme, Ten Studies in Tacitus (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1970) ISBN 0198143583
• Various authors, Tacitus (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) ISBN 0710064322

Annals

Histories

Agricola

Dialogus

Germania

• J.G.C. Anderson (ed.), Germania; (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1938)

Comments: Anderson's introduction is a solid general overview of the book and contains useful pointers to further sources. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 23:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• T.A. Dorey, 'Agricola' and 'Germania', in Tacitus (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) (Studies in Latin Literature series)
• Alfred Gudeman, The Sources of the Germania of Tacitus, in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 31. (1900), pp. 93-111

Comments: As the title suggests, this covers the sources that Tacitus used to compose the work. Due to its age it should not be the only reference for that topic, of course. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 23:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Ronald Syme, Tacitus, vol. 1 (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1958)

Comments: Scattered but useful information on the Germania. Check the index. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 23:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Rodney Potter Robinson, The Germania of Tacitus (Middletown, Connecticut; American Philological Association, 1935)

Comments: This is abstruse, but has useful information on the mss of the book. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 23:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

• "The First Medicean MS of Tacitus and the Titulature of Ancient Books", by Revilo P. Oliver, in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 82. (1951), pp. 232-261.

Comment: This is a paleographic analysis of the earliest known manuscripts. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 23:59, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• "The Praenomen of Tacitus", by Revilo P. Oliver, in The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 98, No. 1. (Spring, 1977), pp. 64-70.

Comments: This examines the evidence for each suggested praenomen (the well-known Gaius and Publius, the lesser-known suggestions of Sextus and Quintus) before settling on Publius as the most likely. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 23:59, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Links

• Bibliography which "focuses heavily on works in English and on the Agricola, Dialogus, and Annales. Avers that "Much excellent work, especially of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is in German." (which I can't read. —Charles P. ^(Mirv))
• Bibliography on the minor works
• Bibliography, seems to be mostly on the Dialogus
• On the manuscripts (includes decent bibliography)