‘Law and Literature’ is beginning to grow as an area of interest in the world of classical scholarship, having long been a staple in other epochs. The relationship between literary and legal discourses, particularly in the time of the transition from Republic to principate, is thus gaining ground as part of a more general growth in social-historical approaches to Roman law. P.’s volume makes no allusion to the modern interdisciplinary field but could nonetheless be thought to fit within this general movement on the Roman side. The clue as to its subject is in the title, but any reader hoping for an analysis that mines Tacitus for information on substantive law, procedure and so on will be disappointed: P.’s aim is not to pick out strictly historical information about law in Tacitus but rather to delineate Tacitus’ own attitude to law, justice and legality in his works. His fundamental premise is that the study of Recht is embedded in the understanding of Tacitus’ works in their entirety and cannot be studied separately from other thematic elements. The volume thus goes beyond the law to encompass many of the staple topics of Tacitean scholarship.

The book begins with a lengthy introduction (98 pages) that amounts to a comprehensive overview of every aspect of law in all of Tacitus’ works, tackling themes such as law and religion, the relationship of the law to individual power, to the depiction of both individual emperors and to ‘other’ populations, as well as connections to Tacitus’ conceptions of libertas. Precisely because, as P. points out, the study of law is so embedded in understanding the Tacitean corpus as a whole, and such large thematic concerns as have occupied Tacitean scholars (and Roman historians more broadly) for centuries, there is a feeling that sometimes this introduction runs away from P. and we lose track of the law in the discussion of other issues. This also means that P. has to go over a lot of well-worn ground. One begins, perhaps, to see why this treatment expands to a monumental 566 pages of text, not including indexes, bibliography etc.: the problem with the ‘embedded’ approach (which is to this reviewer's mind quite correct) is that it can make drawing the boundaries rather difficult.

The rest of the book is divided into three substantial chapters: ‘Anfänge und Verfall des Rechts’, ‘Rechtlosigkeit, Macht und Willkür’ and ‘Recht und Rhetorik’. The first of these is subdivided into four main parts and amounts to a detailed study of Tacitus’ excursus on the origins and decline of law at Ann. 3.25ff., with references from the rest of his works integrated to illuminate the passage further. The close echoes of the opening chapters of the Annals are repeatedly brought out, as they are again in later chapters, and thus the connection between Tacitus’ views on law and on the nature of the principate. A repeated refrain is the importance of Augustus in much of this, and P. examines the moral legislation and Tacitus’ views of it. Tacitus’ historical approach to the development of law is brought out (pp. 167ff.), and the relation between morals, morality, ius and leges remains a recurrent theme. A particularly fruitful comparison is made with Tacitus’ descriptions of other governments, which throws into relief his comments on Rome's government (pp. 172ff.).

The second chapter tackles the various trials, mostly maiestas cases, under Tiberius, Claudius and Nero. Like Chapter 1, the Annals is the essential focus, and the topos of lawlessness in a tyrannical regime is demonstrated throughout, echoing Tacitus’ narrative in showing a progressive deterioration – even under Claudius, through the manoeuvring of his wives – until it reaches a peak under Nero. The chapter ends with the trial of Thrasea Paetus, looking forward to the renewed struggle of Helvidius Priscus against his persecutors. Perhaps the most interesting discussions here are not the many cases of lawlessness and injustice that are tied to despotism, but the incidents where despotism uses the veil of legality and legal language. Thus, Agrippina's speech, embodying a bid for a return to the old legality whereby words went unpunished (pp. 374ff.) – hearkening back to before Augustus’ expansion of maiestas – exemplifies the subtle undertones with which Tacitus imbues his text where the theme of law is concerned, and P. brings out the nuances and implications well.

The final chapter turns initially to the Dialogue on Oratory before moving back to two speeches in the Annals (Cassius Longinus, Ann 14.43ff.; Cremutius Cordus, Ann. 4.34ff.). Though the first part of this chapter is ostensibly on the Dialogue, a large amount of material is included on the Histories and the battle between Helvidius Priscus and Eprius Marcellus (Book 4): indeed, P. perhaps knowingly comments that his lengthy digression on the two characters in the Histories could be considered somewhat overdone as context for Aper's passing remark in the Dialogus (p. 446), but sees this contest of speeches as fundamental to bringing out Tacitus’ own conception of law. A shorter concluding section tackles scepticism regarding iustitia, a word used only thrice in the Annals, throwing light again on how this is employed as a critique of Augustus, and coming back to the dependence of law and justice on the balance of power in Tacitus’ view (p. 550). The conclusion does a good job of bringing the analysis together and advancing an overall conception of Tacitus’ ideas on Recht: Tacitus has a morally grounded understanding of law and views it as contextual, not a fixed constant (p. 560) and not as a ‘system’ (p. 555). Contingent on individuals, it is a tool for characterisation and exploration of the nature of rulership.

One has to admire the comprehensive nature of P.’s study. Its use as a reference work for individual passages on law in Tacitus, and bibliography thereon, cannot be doubted. The somewhat dizzying array of subheadings and subchapters, on occasion down to five levels, may help with the reference use, though at times this becomes rather excessive in breaking up the text. Indeed one cannot help but feel that the key points will get lost amidst a large amount of summarising of Tacitus’ work. If P.’s main argument is to be accepted, i.e. that Tacitus has a contingent, contextual view of law, then this could and should have quite far-reaching implications for our understanding of the elite's conceptualisation of law in a period when we know much was beginning to change elsewhere: the second century appears to be a crucial point at which provincials were interacting with and asserting their own understandings of Roman law, and if an educated, integrated member of the Roman elite could also exhibit an understanding of the nature of law that was flexible and contingent, we might begin to see a debate across a wide range of the population of the empire.

Engagement beyond the realm of Tacitus, either within an ancient context or more broadly with ideas of law and justice across epochs, would therefore have been welcome and helped to spell out the possible wider implications in more explicit terms. Thus, despite the thorough treatment, one doubts that this book will receive a large audience, and its potential impact may not be realised. As it stands, lawyers may find this a more useful study than either ancient historians in general or Tacitean scholars specifically, especially in view of the amount of space dedicated to well-worn tropes (e.g. the nature of the principate and Tacitus’ views on it; liberty; these must be dealt with in order to illuminate P.’s arguments on the nature of law, but do not necessarily add much new material on these themes). But this volume is still a study that supports greater attention being paid to ‘Law and Literature’ in the ancient world.