What was going on: Tacitus sums up how Augustus gained power. Brutus and Cassius had been destroyed and Antony was dead; Augustus dropped the title of triumvir and called himself consul. No one opposed him, Tacitus says, because the boldest men had fallen.
He won soldiers with gifts, the people with cheap grain and everyone with peace, and bit by bit took the powers of Senate, officials and laws.
Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws.
His own words. Tacitus, Annals 1.2, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)T
What was going on: Tacitus describes Rome in Augustus' last years. Augustus was old, the only war was in Germany after Varus lost his army, and at his death in 14 CE his stepson Tiberius took over.
Why it matters: By then Augustus had established the principate, a government in which the emperor showed nominal deference to the Senate. It lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century.
All was calm and the old titles remained, but a generation had grown up since the victory at Actium. So few had ever seen the republic!
At home all was tranquil, and there were magistrates with the same titles; there was a younger generation, sprung up since the victory of Actium, and even many of the older men had been born during the civil wars. How few were left who had seen the republic!
His own words. Tacitus, Annals 1.3, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)T
What was going on: Tacitus is laying out the case against Augustus, who died in 14 CE after 41 years in power: citizens proscribed, lands divided, Antony lured on by treaties and a marriage. Next he turns to Augustus' family life.
Yes, peace came after all that, but it was a peace soaked in blood, with disasters, and murders in Rome itself.
No doubt, there was peace after all this, but it was a peace stained with blood; there were the disasters of Lollius and Varus, the murders at Rome of the Varros, Egnatii, and Juli.
His own words. Tacitus, Annals 1.10, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)T
What was going on:Rome, 62 CE. Nero's old tutor Seneca has asked to give back the wealth Nero gave him. As Tacitus tells it, Nero refuses in a speech and asks Seneca to keep guiding him. Afterwards Seneca keeps away from crowds and is seldom seen in Rome.
Why it matters:Seneca's calm Stoic suicide later became the subject of numerous paintings.
The emperor hugged and kissed him, being born and trained to hide hatred behind flattery. Seneca thanked him, which is how talks with a tyrant end.
To these words the emperor added embraces and kisses; for he was formed by nature and trained by habit to veil his hatred under delusive flattery. Seneca thanked him, the usual end of an interview with a despot.
His own words. Tacitus, Annals 14.56, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)T
What was going on:Rome, 64 CE. Tacitus has just described Nero's lavish and scandalous public feasts. Then comes the fire: it starts among shops full of flammable goods by the Circus, the wind drives it, and it burns for days.
Why it matters: The fire destroyed nearly three quarters of Rome, and by Tacitus' account Nero's blaming of the Christians began the empire's first persecution of them.
Then came a disaster, the worst fire the city had ever had. Whether it was an accident or the emperor's doing is uncertain; writers say both.
A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts, worse, however, and more dreadful than any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of fire.
His own words. Tacitus, Annals 15.38, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)T
What was going on:Rome, 64 CE, during the great fire. As Tacitus tells it, Nero was at Antium and came back only when the flames neared his house. He opened public buildings and his own gardens to the homeless, brought in food and cut the price of grain.
Why it matters: The fire destroyed nearly three quarters of Rome, and by Tacitus' account Nero's blaming of the Christians began the empire's first persecution of them.
What he did, popular as it was, won him nothing, because a rumour was everywhere that while the city burned he sang on a private stage about the fall of Troy.
These acts, though popular, produced no effect, since a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.
His own words. Tacitus, Annals 15.39, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)T
What was going on:Rome, 64 CE, after the Great Fire. Tacitus has just described the city rebuilt with more open streets, and prayers and night vigils held to calm the gods.
Why it matters: By Tacitus's account, Nero's blaming of the Christians began the empire's first persecution of them, and his Annals are of interest as an early account of that persecution.
Nothing stopped the belief that the fire was ordered. So Nero blamed and tortured a hated group the people called Christians.
But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.
His own words. Tacitus, Annals 15.44, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)T
What was going on: After the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE, Tacitus says, Nero blamed the Christians. Huge numbers were convicted and killed in cruel ways, some torn by dogs, some burned as lights at night, while Nero put on a show in his gardens.
Why it matters: The persecution after the fire is recorded only by Tacitus and a later writer who relied on him; even so, the record shows common Roman attitudes toward the Christian minority at the time.
Though they deserved harsh punishment, people pitied them: they seemed to die not for the public good but for one man's cruelty.
Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.
His own words. Tacitus, Annals 15.44, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)T
What was going on: Around 98 CE Tacitus sets out to record the life of a man who has died. He recalls the years just past: men killed for praising others, their books burned in the forum, philosophers banished. Now, he says, under Nerva and Trajan, spirit is returning.
Why it matters: The Agricola was Tacitus' first work, published after Domitian was assassinated in AD 96. The scholar Liebeschuetz observes that in it Tacitus addresses the loss of freedom of speech that comes with living under a tyrant.
An earlier age saw total freedom; we saw total slavery, with informers stopping all talk. We would have lost memory too, if forgetting were as easy as silence.
Certainly we showed a magnificent example of patience; as a former age had witnessed the extreme of liberty, so we witnessed the extreme of servitude, when the informer robbed us of the interchange of speech and hearing. We should have lost memory as well as voice, had it been as easy to forget as to keep silence.
His own words. Tacitus, Agricola 2, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1877)T
What was going on: Tacitus wrote this about 98 CE, remembering Agricola. He says Agricola died before the worst years under Domitian, when the Senate was hemmed in by armed men and noble women were exiled.
Even Nero looked away from the horrors he ordered. Under Domitian the worst part was being watched, knowing even our sighs were written down.
Even Nero turned his eyes away, and did not gaze upon the atrocities which he ordered; with Domitian it was the chief part of our miseries to see and to be seen, to know that our sighs were being recorded
His own words. Tacitus, Agricola 45, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1877)T
What was going on: Tacitus begins his history, written around 115–120 CE, with a quick run through Rome's past, from its first kings to Augustus, who took power when the world was worn out by civil strife. Next he says what he means to write and how.
Why it matters: Tacitus' statement of how he means to write history is well known. It comes at the start of the Annals, which modern historians generally consider his magnum opus.
The histories of the emperors from Tiberius to Nero were faked out of fear while they lived, and written in fresh hatred after. I will tell it without anger or favour.
The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and after their death were written under the irritation of a recent hatred. Hence my purpose is to relate a few facts about Augustus—more particularly his last acts, then the reign of Tiberius, and all which follows, without either bitterness or partiality, from any motives to which I am far removed.
His own words. Tacitus, Annals 1.1, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876)
No portrait here: we have not found one whose identification and licence we can confirm.
