F. Haverfield reported approximately twenty manuscripts for the second half of the Annals and Histories in 1916, and in 1941 critic C. W. Mendell reported “thirty known manuscripts” of Annals 11–21.31 Nevertheless, Jones can cite a book from 1999 stating, “Tacitus’s historical works descend in two manuscripts, one for books 1–6, another for 11–16 and the surviving portions of the history.”32 This is not because we lost a couple of dozen manuscripts but because of the difference in counting.33 This
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