Abstract

Tacitus understands himself as a historiographer who writes against forgetting. This essay examines how Tacitus conceives of forgetting and how he depicts processes of forgetting. (1) First I will introduce forgetting as an important research theme in modern memory studies. Research on forgetting can help us to understand transformations in the collective memory of modern and ancient social groups. (2) In Tacitus’ works about Roman imperial history forgetting stands out as a crucial topic. (3) When analysing processes of forgetting in the Annals, the Histories and the Agricola, we can distinguish different forms of forgetting (such as ‘automatic forgetting’ and ‘directed forgetting’) as well as certain methods that Tacitus depicts as supporting or impeding forgetting. I will focus on ‘removing’ as an ambivalent method of forgetting, and on ‘writing’, which is central to Tacitus’ concept of the historiographer. This analysis of Tacitus’ works reveals that his ideas on forgetting are highly relevant to the twenty-first century. Tacitus’ age, like our own, was one of dramatic societal change, in which social frames are transformed, while the objects of collective memory are questioned and reevaluated.