Tacitus

the Franks. Because there was no written language of the Germanic Tribes, we utilize three Roman sources that encountered the Germans by war, traveling, and religion. Gaius Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and Christian Roman missionaries all had their own ways of describing the Germanic Tribes and their culture. Tacitus admired their sense of family, loyalty, heath, strength, and beauty. Caesar had different views do to the Germans trying to migrate to Roman land which resulted in war. Historians tend…

Publius Tacitus, benefited from the previous establishment of historical methods and some generally accepted stories of ancient era. They were advancing historical lessons into philosophical theory, documenting the influences of clashing cultures and the dominance of a new empire. The Greek historians purpose focused…

Dio informs us that Augustus appointed senators to govern the provinces whilst equestrian prefects governed Egypt. In addition to this, Tacitus in his Histories states that the equestrian order governed Egypt with what was effectively “sovereign power over the country and the forces” whilst stating that this practice had continued up until his day in the late 1st century AD. The reason…

Many accounts from Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius (69-140 CE) state that Christianity was viewed very negatively by Nero and the elites of the day. Richard Holland reminds us of one of Suetonius famous quotes when he says, “Punishment was meted out to the Christians, a class of men…

One of the sources for the history of the Roman Empire came from one of the Emperor’s himself, Octavian Caesar Augustus, in The Deeds of the Divine Augustus, otherwise known as the Res Gestae. This narrative was written in 14 A.C.E. from Augustus’ point of view, depicting the accomplishments and deeds during his rule from 29 B.C. to A.D. 14. According to A History of the Roman People, it is a “valuable, but highly selective account…in a clear and readable style.” The deeds of Augustus were…

Tacitus, a roman senator and historian said this about the Roman senate, the most politically powerful and important group in all of Rome, “because of the rivalries between the leading men and the rapacity (greed) of the officials, while the protection of the laws was unavailing, as they were continually deranged by violence, intrigue, and finally by corruption,” (Doc 2). In this document Tacitus is saying that the rivalries and greed of the senators…

There is a saying that if you do one good thing and one bad, people will always remember you for the bad. A possible cause for this being that humans would rather see the bad in others versus the bad in themselves. This is especially true for many world leaders who often have the possibility of “messing things up” on a much bigger scale. A good example of this is Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors of Rome. Nero’s legend was truly a product of his mother. Telling Nero’s story would be…

History holds the facts and secrets about how civilizations became and ended on the earth. Many civilizations grew to great power while others failed to make a lasting impact. While many civilizations have come to an end, there are few which still greatly influence modern way of life. The legacy of the Roman Empire shaped Europe and the world for centuries. Many aspects of Roman culture, architecture, and influence spread across the nations and continue to be evident in modern times. While the…

The presence of Pseudo-Neros in the years and decades after the actual Nero’s death is a puzzling matter. At least three men (though Tacitus suggests there were much more) claimed to be the late emperor, then proceeded to gain support from plebians, military officials, and foreign empires. All of them were reasonably competent leaders, but the primary reason for their albeit limited success was their supposed name. This paper hopes to discover how and why more than one man threatened Rome by…

In what ways did the Julio-Claudians use traditional and foreign religion as a political tool? In this essay I will investigate the ways in which the Julio-Claudian dynasty used traditional Roman religion alongside foreign cults as political tools to legitimise their imperial role by emphasising divine heritage and by providing religious cohesion by conflating traditional Roman religion with aspects of foreign cults. I will use both ancient authors and modern scholarship to analyse the ways in…