Eve Cody's Senior Project: Reading and Translating Tacitus' "The Annals"

I'm already at the end of my second week of translating! Even though there are many days when I've missed my goals, I am feeling more comfortable and working more efficiently, and getting back on track to finish the 30 pages I aimed for. But spending less time on translating means I have more time to research some of the background of The Annals.  During my meeting with Bill, we discussed some context that would be helpful to know- who Tacitus may be writing for, what his sources are, and what historical writing influenced him.  While The Annals begins in 14 CE, Tacitus was only born in 56 CE, so he must have relied on other historians to compile his facts. While he does not explicitly state his sources, Seneca the Elder, Aufidius Bassus, and Servilius Nonianus are most likely. However, most of his bibliography would have come from primary sources, as there was little other contemporary historical literature for him to reference. Tacitus also probably consulted more specific w...

        For my Senior Project this year, I'll be working on a translation of Book I of The Annals  by Tacitus, which is a history of the Roman empire under Tiberius.  I often read books of Greek and Roman myths when I was younger, and I recently became more interested in secular writing. Throughout eighth grade and high school, I found translations of authors like Aristophanes, Plato, Tibellus, and Petronius online, and I loved reading them over and over. However, I only became interested in translation when my grandmother, who is a classicist, told me how important it is to understand these texts in their original languages. Translators can choose which subtleties in word order, vocabulary, sentence structure, and tone are important (or coherent) enough to keep in English, and this can often influence a reader's experience. I remember reading The Odyssey  in ninth grade English, and one of the reasons I disliked it so much was the representation ...