Emerging Women: Exploring Tacitus’ Narrative Composition in the Annals through a Narratological-Linguistic Lens

Abstract

Abstract Introducing a new narratological-linguistic framework grounded in prototypical narrative structure, this article investigates Tacitus’ narrative composition in the Annals . We apply the framework to two extensive episodes, namely the Pisonian conspiracy in book 15 and the Germanicus/Piso episode in books 2 and 3. A distinctive feature to emerge from the analyses is, in both episodes, the ingenious interweaving of a female storyline into the main, male plotline: one centred on Epicharis and one on Plancina. A comparison between the episodes shows that different rhetorical aims give rise to different forms of compositional embedding of the female thread; yet in both cases the parallel storyline enables Tacitus to comment on the course of history through the narrative itself, without the need for overly explicit authorial commentary. More broadly, this article demonstrates that the proposed framework is a fruitful analytical tool for deepening the interpretation of Tacitus’ Annals by paying close attention to the author’s distinctive compositional style.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. The Cambridge Classical Journal, 2026 · DOI ↗