\[~ann.campbell.2] Actually, any method can be Transactional if you're using AspectJ compiler, it's stated in the docs https://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/4.2.x/spring-framework-reference/html/transaction.html[here]. The excerpt:
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Method visibility and @Transactional
When using proxies, you should apply the @Transactional annotation only to methods with public visibility. If you do annotate protected, private or package-visible methods with the @Transactional annotation, no error is raised, but the annotated method does not exhibit the configured transactional settings. Consider the use of AspectJ (see below) if you need to annotate non-public methods.