Tacitus, Annals, 15.20­-23, 33­-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocabulary, and Commentary, 2013a

Period Regime/
emperor
in charge
Characteristics
historiography and
historiographers
Tacitus (54/56 – c. 120)
historiographical
writings
751–31 BC
[founding
of Rome
– Actium]
30 BC –
68 AD
[Augustus
– Nero]
69 AD
[The year
of the four
1
emperors]
res populi
Romani *
Julio-
Claudian
dynasty
Galba,
Otho,
Vitellius;
Vespasian
libertas, eloquentia,
veritas
- veritas infracta
- libido adsentandi
- odium adversus
dominantes
?
Very high: cf. magna ingenia Before his birth
Rather low, falling into
two flawed types: one
motivated by hatred; the
other by subservience:
neither cares for posterity
ambitio scriptoris
(a turn-off)
obtrectatio et livor (lurid
fascination)
Before his birth;
childhood
? mihi Galba Otho
Vitellius nec beneficio
nec iniuria cogniti;
(to be covered later, in
the Annals)
Histories 1–3
* Unlike the opening of the Annals (for which see below), Tacitus here glosses over the fact that initially Rome was ruled by kings, in the process playing
down the traditional assumption that primeval monarchy was simply ‘natural’.