Customer Reviews

Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II

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There I was, cruising the "Alternative History" subcategory of Science fiction books when I stumbled upon my old friend Tacitus. How he wound up here I can only guess. I suppose that a computer sort is resonsible. This book is one of the most cited sources for contemporaneous historical comentary on Roman warfare and political history. It was the source of many homework assignments in my youth. If you truly want an alternative to the events of today, this work will take you back to the doings of 2,000 years ago. One can marvel that the more things change, the more they do remain the same. Buy it and stretch your mind.

I read this book for a graduate course in Roman history. I found this Kindle edition to be a very good translation. Tacitus is an indispensable primary source for students of Roman history.

On the first page of his Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus wrote that Octavian "seduced the army with bonuses, and his cheap food policy was successful bait for civilians." Tacitus' description of Augustus' transformation of Rome from a republic into an empire is most illuminating as well. "Upper-class survivors found that slavish obedience was the way to succeed, both politically and financially. They had profited from the revolution, and so now they liked the security of the existing arrangement better than the dangerous uncertainties of the old regime."

Sir Ronald Syme relied heavily on the work of Tacitus for his cogent narrative of Octavian's rise to power as Augustus. Syme's in-depth study of Tacitus' life and work was published in 1958. Tacitus' historical accuracy was doubted for centuries and Syme made a project of re-evaluating the accuracy of his historical writings. Syme believed that Tacitus was in a unique position to write about the birth and early political history of the Imperial period in Rome due to his very active political life. Tacitus had served as a senator, consul, and proconsul of Asia. In addition, he was known to be an excellent orator in his day. In his writings, Syme believed that Tacitus provided excellent accounts of Augustus' rise to power and his career as Rome's first Emperor.

Tacitus delved into the machinery of the new government, including Augustus' use of patronage as well as his many thwarted attempts at planning for his own succession. What Syme found was a man that grew very adept politically and whose political maturity rapidly developed at an early age. At eighteen, he was named as heir to Julius Caesar. He grew into the greatest Roman princeps spanning fifty-six years until his death. Augustus knew that to retain power he had to maintain the general consent of the governed. He astutely maintained order not by following the constitution or past precedent, but by using the tremendous resources at his disposal. Augustus kept the plebeians in check making sure they were fed, kept them amused with games, and constantly reminded them that he was protecting them from the oppression of the nobiles.

Augustus became the "leader of a large and well organized political party as the source and fount of patronage and advancement."

Recommended reading for those interested in Roman history, military history.

Just some information regarding the free Kindle version that Amazon doesn't mention. This is the edition translated and introduced by W. Hamilton Fyfe, the 1912 Oxford at the Clarendon Press text. There is no active/clickable table of contents, and though there is an index at the end, that is also not clickable. This is common with the free Kindle books, but still makes for a tough to navigate eBook. (To clarify, and since Amazon seems to throw all the reviews various editions of a work, I am reviewing the free Kindle version, ASIN: B000SN6IEQ).

and tacitus is a pretty cool read. i just read it casually. I originally heard about Tacitus from the showtime series The Tudors, in which King Henry VIII has his son Edward read Tacitus. and I figured I can download this for free on my PC so why not. turned out to be a great read. I just wish I could afford a Kindle because reading on the PC makes my eyes bleed lol