1.13, 2.2, and 2.63-64 are exceptional in Tacitus’ account of the civil war because in each passage he repeats a woman’s name within a few lines, stressing each woman’s active or symbolic significance in the military events that are unfolding.
Three passages emphasize the presence of women in a striking way: Hist. Indeed, the very scarcity of references to women in Books 1-3 of Tacitus’ Histories invites scrutiny of the narrative, symbolic, or moral significance of the women who do appear (cf. However, Tacitus’ Histories lacks this strong female presence, which some have attributed to the fact that the surviving books treat the civil war that followed the collapse of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and that Tacitus’ attention to battles and legionary politics does not offer the same opportunity to develop female characters as the dynastic court intrigue of the Annals (Christ 1978, Marshall 1984-1985). The imperial history in Tacitus’ Annals is populated with female characters who have received attention from modern scholars for their historical and political significance as well as their symbolic roles and moral exemplarity (e.g.
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