Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman senator and historian whose surviving works include accounts of the emperors and the Roman war in Judaea.
Roman Empire: The ancient state centered on Rome that governed territories around the Mediterranean and beyond. Tacitus chronicled the empire’s rulers, institutions, and provincial conflicts.
Annals (Tacitus): Tacitus’s history of the Roman emperors from Tiberius to Nero, surviving in incomplete form. Its reign-by-reign narrative shows his method at its most sustained.
Pliny the Younger: A Roman senator, lawyer, and author whose letters describe public life in the first century CE. His letters are a major source for Tacitus’s career and their friendship.
Josephus: A first-century Jewish historian whose works recount the revolt against Rome and Jewish history. His account of the war provides a parallel to Tacitus’s treatment of Judaea.
Suetonius: A Roman biographer whose Lives of the Caesars recount the lives and private habits of early emperors. His biographical structure differs from Tacitus’s sustained political narratives.
Roman historiography: The writing of history in ancient Rome, shaped by political argument, moral judgment, and literary convention. Tacitus worked within Roman traditions of history while developing a distinctive, compressed style.
Histories (Tacitus): Tacitus’s history of Rome from 69 CE through the Flavian dynasty, surviving in fragments. This work covers the civil wars and emperors named in the gloss.
Domitian: Roman emperor from 81 to 96 CE, remembered by ancient sources for autocratic rule and senatorial conflict. Tacitus portrayed the dangers of political life under Domitian after his death.
Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE): The Roman siege that captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE. Tacitus’s surviving description is one ancient Roman account of the siege’s aftermath.
Cassius Dio: A Greek-speaking Roman senator and historian who wrote a history of Rome from its origins to the third century CE. His later account offers a major comparison for Tacitus’s imperial history.