The present volume, which collects some of the papers from a conference held at Victoria University of Wellington (2018), offers a wide range of perspectives on the use of paradoxography in Tacitus’ works. Since Tacitus is an unexpected venue for the use of wonders, the contributors’ main goal is not only to describe the unusual event that Tacitus records, but also explain its meaning, both within the Tacitean context and in relation to the historiographical tradition (and related genres). The volume, which is divided into three parts, for a total of ten papers, offers some valuable discussions and thought-provoking interpretations, even though there is considerable overlap among the papers, some of which could have benefitted from a more condensed analysis.

Kelly Shannon-Henderson's contribution examines some instances of Tacitean miracula, which, she argues, have implications as regards questions of truth and falsehood relating to Tacitus’ historiographical methodology. Whereas some of the marvellous material that Tacitus includes is ‘purely’ paradoxographical, that is, similar to what one would find in, say, Phlegon of Tralles, Tacitus, unlike traditional paradoxographers, often provides a causal explanation of the phenomenon to underline its truthfulness or to correct false reports by adducing further proofs (e.g. eyewitnesses’ accounts). In a few cases, Tacitus refuses to explain the marvel without denying its truthfulness, thus leaving his readers to draw their own conclusions. Rik Peters focuses on the danger that seeking wonder can cause to a historian since the wondrous was felt to be in opposition to the truth. Hellenistic historians dealt with this tension in different ways: Tacitus, who is an heir to the same tradition, goes a step further by applying a didactic element to his use of wonders. Arthur Pomeroy considers the Dialogus, particularly Aper's second speech and its relationship to Cicero's Brutus. Focusing on terms of admiration and wonder (admiror, miror), Pomeroy sees Aper's use of them in reference to the orators of the past as a warning ‘that one can marvel at the past, but hardly take it as a model for present behaviour’. Brandon Jones focuses on the Dialogus and the Agricola, whose main characters are read as examples of what Jones calls the ‘paradox of the socially marvellous’. In the case of the Dialogus, the paradox is produced by the figure of the orator, whose marvellous social standing (defined by his fama, gloria, laus) contrasts with the assumption that eloquence has disappeared. As for the Agricola, its main character's remarkability, which causes wonder among contemporaries and future generations, is the indirect result of his not pursuing fama. In both cases, be it the socially marvellous orator or general, Tacitus implies that, in the imperial system, being socially marvellous was dangerous.

George Baroud underlines the political and metahistorical valences of significant wonders in Annals 5–6. One such episode is the appearance of the false Drusus (5.10), whose claims, Baroud stresses, are uncritically believed by the Greek commoners, while the Roman general Sabinus, who is in charge of inquiring about the impostor, carefully scrutinises the veracity of this man's assertions. Tacitus tells us that, despite the notoriety of this event, he was unable to discover how it ended. If, on the one hand, the possibility of a living member of the imperial family had political consequences for the current emperor, Tacitus, who is unable to verify the story, points to the limits of historiography, which, despite its critical engagement with the episode, cannot resolve its truthfulness. With the famous episode of the phoenix (6.28), readers are faced with a similar problem, since Tacitus devolves a lengthy discussion to an event which we are not even sure he believed to have occurred. Callum Aldiss takes under consideration signs and omens in the Histories. He challenges Syme's assumption that Tacitus did not believe in them, and argues instead that what matters is the religious authority of the interpreter: those who interpret prodigies in accordance with Roman religious principles are religiosi; the others are superstitiosi. Such a dichotomy is especially important when the interpreter is the emperor himself. Aldiss analyses first the prodigies that appeared before Otho set out from Rome (1.86), and which he failed to investigate with appropriate religious scruple; second, the bad omens that emphasise Vitellius’ incompetence as general (3.56.1-2); last, Titus’ visit to Paphian Venus (2.2–4), where the omens are interpreted, in line with the other omens that predicted Vespasian's rise, with the hindsight of the Flavians’ future success. In this case, the reality of power supersedes traditional religious interpretation. James McNamara turns to the Agricola and the Germania, two works where wonders abound, but with the crucial difference that, whereas in the Agricola the main character imposes his rational knowledge on the sources of disbelief, in the Germania such wonders have, so to speak, free rein. It is also interesting to note how Tacitus seems to downplay some of the natural wonders of Germany, perhaps as a response to Domitian's triumph over the Chatti, which coincided with news of Agricola's victory at Mons Graupius.

Panayiotis Christoforou returns to the Annals, and particularly to Tiberius’ ‘retirement’ to Capri, when the emperor, physically secluded from the active politics of the city, became a monstrum himself. Tiberius was, from the start, a very ambiguous character. Once he withdrew to Capri, the distance that kept him away from Rome only contributed to increasing rumour and suspicion, giving rise to many of the stories that have survived in the ancient sources, even though it is often impossible to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Once Tiberius retired to Capri, an ambiguous and wondrous place in itself, it became impossible to distinguish between the true and deceptive princeps. Holly Haynes analyses Tacitus’ account of Vespasian's miracles at Histories 4.81–83, which she reads as ‘tragedy in a new idiom’. For Haynes, tragedy provides Tacitus with a theory of politics: the tragic elements of Tacitus’ narrative lose their poetic character and become real in Roman history. From the moment of Vespasian's miracles, Tacitus suggests that the imperial system has become a tyranny (intriguing is Haynes’ reading that Tacitus omits recalling that Serapis would become Jupiter Dis as a response to the ideology of post-Domitianic Rome, which repudiated Domitian's aegyptiaca). Victoria Pagán's final chapter functions as a proper conclusion to the volume, reflecting on the nature of the wondrous in Tacitus, its relationship to the ordinary, and the implications that may be drawn from Tacitus’ choice of inserting this type of information in his ‘serious’ histories. Focusing on well-known passages (the phoenix in the Annals, Vespasian's miracles in the Histories, the last sentence of the Germania and the cannibalism of the Usipi in the Agricola), Pagán argues that, whereas these stories became ‘garden-variety wonders’, in Tacitus’ narrative routine politics became the true, more frightful wonder. Through a detailed analysis of the occurrences of solere/solitus in Tacitus’ oeuvre, Pagán argues that expressions of the ordinary, often in the comparative (‘more than usual’), illuminate the extraordinary, as for example when Thrasea Paetus’ defiance, in reaction to his fellow senators’ sycophancy, is characterised as exceptional in comparison to his previous acceptance of ordinary flattery (14.12.1).

As is often the case with conference proceedings, there is some qualitative variety among its contributions, but its overall value is high. Although there is some repetitiveness, there is also cohesiveness of argument. In the end, the main question, whether Tacitus believed in the wonders he recorded, remains unanswered. What becomes clear, however, is that the portents Tacitus records are rarely there for their own sake, i.e. for pure ‘entertainment’, but respond to a certain historiographic methodology, which requires careful inquiry.