Meta Description: Dive into historia Romana on Ad Navseam Ep. 178! Scholar Bram Ten Berge joins the podcast to explore the works of Tacitus and lingua Latina.
Introduction
Welcome back to the Ad Navseam Podcast, the premier destination where classical gourmands everywhere can finally get their fill! Join us for another delectable discussion of Greco-Roman civilization, covering everything from the Minoans and Mycenaeans straight through the Renaissance to the present day.
In episode 178, your devoted hosts, Dr. David C. Noe (where the “C” stands for Charitable) and Dr. Jeffrey T. Winkle (where the “T” stands for Tenacious, or perhaps Trivial) return to the mics. Broadcasting live from the bunker—the omphalos and true belly button of the world, affectionately known as the vomitorium—Dave and Jeff are thrilled to bring you a deeply insightful interview. For those looking to dive headfirst into historia Romana (Roman history) and scriptores Latini (Latin writers), this is an episode you will not want to miss.
We are joined today by a very special guest: Dr. Bram Ten Berge, a scholar of Tacitus who teaches at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He recently published an exceptional and meticulously researched book, Writing Imperial History: Tacitus from Agricola to Annales, which seeks to find a common, unifying thread across all of the surviving works of the famed Roman historian. Though Bram teaches at the great institutional rival of the hosts’ former stomping grounds, all of that old water is entirely under the bridge for this collegial, deeply fascinating conversation.
Listener Shout-Out and Latin Perks
Before we get to our interview, we have a fantastic listener shout-out from Daniel Burdine. A long-time listener from scenic Northeast Ohio, Daniel started his Ad Navseam journey with our series on Homer’s Iliad during a road trip. Since then, he has passed the podcast on to friends and has been immensely enjoying our recent episodes on Karl Richard and Marrou.
Daniel is a recent seminary graduate who primarily learned Greek and Hebrew to translate and exegete texts for sermons and academic papers. However, largely thanks to the podcast, our LatinPerDiem episodes, and one of his own professors, Daniel has come to deeply enjoy the Greek language on its own distinct terms. We are thrilled to hear this, and Dave remains hopeful that Daniel will eventually turn his sights toward the lingua Latina (Latin language) as well. We love Daniel’s appreciation for our classic banter and cheesy opening jokes.
By submitting his shout-out, Daniel automatically entered his name into our monthly drawing for the spectacular Ratio 4 coffee maker. He even successfully included the secret password: quattuor, which is the Latin word for the number four.
From the Tennis Courts to the Classics Classroom
We start by tracing the autobiographical journeys of our guests. Bram’s path to becoming a professional classicist is incredibly unique. Growing up in the Netherlands, he is, rather bizarrely, a third-generation classicist, though he arrived there without any explicit familial pressure. His grandfather earned a Ph.D. in classics in Groningen right after World War II with a dissertation on Antiphon, and his uncle earned an M.A. before teaching high school Latin and marrying a fellow classicist.
Bram was hooked on the ancient world at the age of nine or ten during a high school open house visit. In the Dutch gymnasium system, classical languages were mandatory, meaning Bram underwent five rigorous years of Latin instruction and five years of Greek, along with comprehensive classical civilization classes.
However, his journey to the United States was actually paved by athletics. Bram moved to America on a tennis scholarship to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in Oxford, Mississippi. A highly accomplished player, Bram grew up playing in the same international junior tournaments as legends like Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, and Novak Djokovic. He even once practiced with Richard Krajicek, the famous Dutch tennis player who won Wimbledon in 1996. Though Bram faced a severe shoulder injury in his final season that curtailed any professional tennis aspirations, his passion for classics remained strong.
When his professors at Ole Miss nudged him to declare a major his sophomore year, Bram realized his true love was classics. This realization eventually led him to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he studied from 2009 until defending his dissertation in late 2015. He later completed a postdoc at Kalamazoo College before landing at Hope College. He also met his wife, Maggie, a Roman archaeologist, while on a six-week archaeological program in Rome in 2011.
Understanding Tacitus: A Master of Imperial History
To truly appreciate Bram’s scholarship, we must first understand the monumental importance of Tacitus. In the grand tradition of ancient historiography—stretching from Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Polybius to the Latin giants Sallust and Livy—Tacitus stands as the paramount authority on early imperial Rome. He is widely acknowledged as our absolute best, most comprehensive source for this tumultuous period.
Bram beautifully outlines the five works of the Tacitean corpus that have survived. The first three are shorter monographs:
- The Agricola (98 AD): A biography of his highly successful father-in-law, who served as the governor of Britain for seven years.
- The Germania: Published virtually simultaneously with the Agricola, this is a detailed ethnography of the tribes living north of the Rhine and Danube rivers.
- The Dialogus de Oratoribus: A Ciceronian-style dialogue exploring how the art of oratory was fundamentally altered and stunted by the rise of the emperors.
These were followed by his two massive historical masterpieces: the Histories, which covered the Flavian period from the assassination of Nero (68 AD) to the assassination of Domitian (96 AD), and finally, the Annals, which ventured further back in time, chronicling the era from the death of Augustus (14 AD) to the death of Nero (68 AD).
Tacitus’s literary persona is famously cynical, pessimistic, and direct. He possessed a brilliant capacity to pass scathing judgment on the Principate (the imperial system of government) while maintaining just enough plausible deniability to successfully rise through the political ranks of that exact same government. As a senatorial historian, he observed that while some emperors (like Trajan or Vespasian) were objectively better men than others (like Domitian or Nero), the imperial system was systemically flawed, robbing the senatorial class of its traditional Republican prerogatives.
A New Paradigm: Writing Imperial History
This brings us to the core thesis of Bram’s outstanding new book. For generations, traditional scholarship has siloed Tacitus’s works by genre. The Agricola was viewed merely as a biography, the Germania as an ethnography, and the Dialogus as a literary dialogue. Many scholars treated these three minor works as mere stepping stones—inferior, preliminary attempts where Tacitus honed his skills before reaching his ultimate, pessimistic masterpiece in the Annals.
Bram radically challenges this assumption. By sequentially analyzing the corpus from start to finish, he argues that Tacitus did not undergo a sudden psychological shift into darkness. Instead, his political outlook was already fully formed and exceptionally sharp by the time he wrote the Agricola in his forties.
Tacitus deliberately engaged in an integrated, holistic literary project. Bram masterfully traces how Tacitus used his own earlier works as critical background sources. For example, he placed similar anti-imperial sentiments into the mouths of foreign chiefs across different texts—from the British Queen Boudicca and the Scottish chief Calgacus in the Agricola, to the Batavian leaders in the Histories, all the way to Arminius in the Annals.
Bram also highlights how Tacitus deployed incredibly rare adjectives across the Agricola, Germania, and Histories to force his readers to draw intertextual links. Perhaps most fascinating is Bram’s argument connecting the Germania and the Dialogus—suggesting that Tacitus subtly likened battle-tested, vigorous Germanic warriors to the strong orators of the old Republic, while comparing lethargic, pacified Germans to the weakened, imperial Roman orators of his own day.
The Dangerous Legacy of the Germania
Beyond his book, Bram also teaches a profoundly impactful course at Hope College focused on the reception of Tacitus’s Germania. Utilizing Christopher Krebs’s highly accessible book, A Most Dangerous Book, Bram guides undergraduate students through the dark and complex history of this ancient ethnography.
After the sole manuscript of the Germania was rediscovered in the mid-1500s, the text had an outsized, massive influence on the history of European ideas. Bram’s class explores how the text was deliberately manipulated, rewritten, and misused over centuries, ultimately providing the foundational ideological and racial justifications utilized by the National Socialists in the Third Reich.
To show students that the weaponization of ancient history is not merely a relic of the past, Bram connects these themes to modern geopolitical events. The class features case studies on how Vladimir Putin attempts to recoup the history of the Kievan Rus, how Recep Tayyip Erdogan promotes Neo-Ottomanism in Turkey, and how Saddam Hussein modeled his regime on ancient Mesopotamian and Assyrian kingship. It is a stark reminder of why the critical study of classics remains urgently relevant today.
Sponsors, Support, and Studying the Classics
The hosts want to extend deepest gratitude to the incredible sponsors who make Ad Navseam possible.
First, a huge thank you to Hackett Publishing. With offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Indianapolis, Indiana, Hackett has been delivering fine classics and literary works to the public for 54 wonderful years. They produce highly affordable, beautifully designed books packed with top-tier scholarship. Whether you are looking for modern philosophy, Asian studies, or Islamic studies, Hackett has you covered. Head to hackettpublishing.com and use the coupon code AN2025 to receive 20% off your entire order, plus free shipping right to your door.
The show is also proudly sponsored by Ratio Coffee. Rated by Serious Eats as the absolute best automatic drip coffee maker on the market, the Ratio functions like a perfect pour-over setup. With an automatic bloom phase and a brilliantly designed shower head, you get outstanding brew bed saturation with zero dry spots and absolutely no tunneling. Dave relies on his Ratio 8 at the home station, while Jeff uses the Ratio 4 to dominate the office. Upgrade your morning routine at ratiocoffee.com/adnavseam and use the code ANRATIO2025 for $20 off your machine of choice.
If you are eager to learn ancient Greek or Latin, be sure to visit latinperdiem.com. Whether you want to start from scratch (ab initio) with our Familia Romana (LLPSI) programs or dive into MossMethod for Greek, Dave has programs tailored for every age and skill level. You can also explore the YouTube channel, which boasts over 2,100 free instructional videos.
When asked for a final piece of advice, Bram encouraged students to be incredibly patient when reading Tacitus. Tacitus’s anti-Ciceronian style is purposefully difficult, ambiguous, and rhetorically complex. If reading his Latin makes you stumble or feel slightly scared, you are likely reading it exactly right. Bram also urged students to pair classics with other disciplines, noting that a double major in classics remains highly respected by employers worldwide.
Credits and a Gustatory Parting Shot
A massive thank you to brilliant sound engineer, Mishka, who always does the heavy lifting to turn these interviews around in record time. Gratitude goes to talented musicians Scott Van Zen and Ken Tamplin, who continually bring the edge and absolutely kill it on the guitars.
Today departs with a highly appropriate Gustatory Parting Shot courtesy of Tacitus himself. Taken from Chapter 23 of the Germania, translated by Alfred John Church, Tacitus describes the dietary and drinking habits of the northern tribes.
“A liquor for drinking is made out of barley or other grain and fermented into a certain resemblance to wine. The dwellers on the riverbank also buy wine. Their food is of a simple kind consisting of wild fruit, fresh game and curdled milk. They satisfy their hunger without elaborate preparation and without delicacy. In quenching their thirst, they are not equally moderate. If you indulge their love of drinking by supplying them with as much as they desire, they will be overcome by their own vices as easily as by the arms of an enemy.”
Thank you for listening, and see you next week as we journey back into the world of ancient science with Carl Richard and then Marrou!
