TACITUS
November 20th 2008 05:09
TACITUS
A Classic to Reread
A Classic to Reread
I've been rereading the Historiae and the Ab excessu divi Augusti known as the History and Annals in English. These two books of Roman History cover parts of the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Nero,and the year of the Four Emperors. About half the books are missing so there are gaps.
Tacitus whose first name (or names) wasGaius or Publius was a Roman senator, orator, and historian, who may been part Gaulish. As well as the histories he wrote about Oratory , Dialogus de oratoribus and a bio fo his Fatehr in law Agricola, De vitae et moribus Iulii Agricola and a a book on Germany and its tribes, De origine et situ Germanorum.
Okay so I got most of that from Wikipedia's excellent entry which I highly recommend by the way but Tacitus is worth reading in Latin or English. He is defintely one of those authors who get listed as PRIMARY Sources. Yes he's more serious and political than Suetonius and there's far less gossip but he's one of those Classical authors you may have hated at school but find as an adult you want to wait down and reread the whole thing at least once a decade or so !
There was an later Roman emperor called Marcus Claudius Tacitus who claimed to be his descendant and during hte brief period he was in office (275-6 AD) ordered copies to be made and disseminated across the empire of Tacitus' books. Now that's filial piety!
Something else you should know about Tacitus.
Latin and English translations are available from Project Gutenberg Forum Romanum and the Internet Sacred Text Archive. Penguin has a new edition of their translation out! You can probably find more e-text with a Google search and lots of articles and commentaries and blogs!
P.S. Most Fictional Roman Mysteries set in this period use Tacitus as a Source !
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