The Annals

Name: The Annals
Author: Tacitus

Tacitus

Traces the reigns from Tiberius to Nero to argue that the forms of the Republic were kept while its substance was hollowed out, and that autocracy corrupted the senate as much as the emperors.

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Before you start

This edition: The Annals reaches us with holes. Books 7 to 10 are lost entirely, along with most of 5 and the end of 16, so Caligula is missing and the narrative simply stops in the middle of AD 66.
This translation: Church and Brodribb's, 1884. Still the standard free English Tacitus, and unusually close to the compression of the Latin.

If this is the wrong level

Too hard? Start hereThe Lives of the Twelve CaesarsSuetonius, 121Biography as character study: each emperor is judged by private vice and public act together, which set the pattern for how Rome's rulers have been remembered ever since.

Filed under Ancient Rome in History.