Tacitus On Line
Available
Author/Editor
- Project coordinator: Isabelle Cogitore
Description
Taken from the project website and translated from French to English (Accessed 2025-11-10):
The Tacitus On Line project arose from the need to have access to the most important commentaries on the works of the Latin historian Tacitus (c. 58–120 AD), compiled in such a way as to enable research into their content.
Tacitus was forgotten during the Middle Ages, and it was not until the 15th century that he was truly rediscovered and disseminated by scholars. This rediscovery initially gave rise to commentaries aimed at establishing the text, then to commentaries that gradually became more extensive and included historical, religious, political and other approaches. A major milestone was the work of the humanist Justus Lipsius (1547-1606), who, through several successive editions of Tacitus' works, developed a very rich commentary, which in turn influenced humanist thought, particularly in the political sphere.
The Tacitus On Line project began by offering Juste Lipse's commentaries on Tacitus' Annals for reading and study, providing analyses based on a typology that reveals the nature of their content. It was then extended to include the commentaries made by Lipsius' predecessors, as selected in a 1608 edition (Paris, Pierre Chevallier), widely distributed in Europe and digitised by the Municipal Library of Lyon. This enrichment is still ongoing. An extension will then concern the commentaries on the Histories.
The project will also include bibliographical resources on Tacitus, Justus Lipsius and other commentators.
Designed to facilitate further research on humanist commentaries and their relationship to ancient texts, the site is also a testing ground for tools that could be applied to other subjects of study, editions, or commentaries. It also provides an opportunity for Latin students to learn how to encode and work with non-classical texts.