Showing results by author "Cornelius Tacitus" in All Categories

The exemplary life of a noble soldier/statesman, a description of ancient Germany, and a discussion of oratory are the subjects of three short masterpieces by the brilliant Roman historian, Tacitus.

In the pantheon of ancient men of letters, none hold a more venerated position than the Roman historian, Tacitus, venerated alike for the accuracy of his chronicles as well as for the superiority of his style. He was a writer of unexcelled genius and consummate skill. But his work fell into oblivion not long after his death, and has come down to us based on the text of a single tattered manuscript from the Middle Ages.

In all of Roman history there was never a more turbulent year than A.D. 69, the ill-omened "Year of the Three Emperors". By some miracle, the greatest historian of the age, Tacitus, was able to chronicle those momentous events in a work he called The History. In its pages are some of the most memorable events of Roman history described in some of the most intensely passionate prose ever devised.

The Annals, the last and greatest achievement of Tacitus, records the history of the Julio-Claudian emperors from the death of Augustus (A.D. 14) to the reign of Nero (54–68). These are stories of mutiny and murder, of whole armies disappearing beyond the Rhine, of an unstable and gloomy frontier. Tacitus brings us Nero himself, whose reign saw the burning of Rome and the mass slaughter of Christians, and whose vices still captivate and startle us with their imagination and cruelty.

The Annals, Part 2 picks up in the year A.D. 32 with the increasingly menacing and tyrannical behavior of Tiberius. With hundreds murdered or driven to suicide and many more in exile, Tiberius descends steadily into growing lust and debauchery on his private estate on the isle of Capri. Overseas, Rome is victorious in her struggle with Parthia, and as Tiberius is being smothered to death in A.D. 37 by Macro, peace at last comes to the eastern frontier.

In Die Germania liefert Publius Cornelius Tacitus ein einzigartiges ethnografisches Porträt der germanischen Stämme. Der römische Historiker beschreibt Bräuche, Gesellschaftsstrukturen und Charaktereigenschaften – teils bewundernd, teils kritisch. Tacitus' Darstellung ist geprägt von Staunen, Klischees und politischem Kalkül – aber auch von echtem Interesse an einer Kultur, die dem römischen Imperium fremd, rau und faszinierend erschien.

"Dem römischen Historiker Tacitus ist es zu "verdanken“, dass die barbarischen Ethnien jenseits des nördlichen römischen Imperiums erstmals in dem Sammelbegriff "Germanen“ zusammengefasst worden sind. Historisch nachgewiesen ist inzwischen, dass die Germanen zwar als Ethnie kurzzeitig existiert haben (wahrscheinlich, weil sie aufgrund der fehlenden Schriftsprache keine bessere oder andere Idee hatten wie sie ihre kleine Dörfer-Ansammlung nennen sollten), aber lediglich eine kleine unbedeutende Ethnie darstellten."

Wie war es damals im rauen Germanien - gesehen aus dem Blickwinkel eines Römers? Publius Cornelius Tacitus beschreibt dies in seinem Klassiker - und wir erfahren von so mancher überraschenden Charaktereigenschaft unserer Vorfahren!

The Agricola (Latin: De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, lit. On the life and character of Julius Agricola) is a book by the Roman historian Tacitus, written c 98, which recounts the life of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola, an eminent Roman general. It also covers, briefly, the geography and ethnography of ancient Britain. As in the Germania, Tacitus favorably contrasts the liberty of the native Britons to the corruption and tyranny of the Empire; the book also contains eloquent and vicious polemics against the rapacity and greed of Rome. This translation by Alfred John Church and ...