Five-minute digest
The Histories
Summary
The Histories is Tacitus's narrative of the Roman Empire from 1 January AD 69 onward. It originally ran to Domitian's death in 96, but only Books I-IV and the first part of Book V survive, covering about eighteen months. The surviving portion is the fullest ancient account of the Year of the Four Emperors. Book I opens with a preface on how truth suffered once power passed to one man, and with the famous survey of a period rich in disaster. Galba, the elderly governor of Nearer Spain who had risen against Nero, reigns in Rome with parsimony and severity, advised by Titus Vinius, Cornelius Laco and the freedman Icelus. His adoption of the young aristocrat Piso Licinianus is answered by Otho, who bribes the Praetorian Guard; Galba and Piso are cut down in the Forum on 15 January. Meanwhile the Rhine legions have already proclaimed Vitellius, governor of Lower Germany. Book II follows the war between Otho and Vitellius. Vitellius's generals Fabius Valens and Caecina Alienus cross the Alps; Otho's army is beaten near Bedriacum, and Otho, refusing to prolong civil war, takes his own life at Brixellum. Vitellius advances to Rome in a mood of feasting and display, while in the East Vespasian, commanding the war in Judaea, is proclaimed emperor at Alexandria and in Judaea in July, backed by Mucianus, governor of Syria. Book III narrates the Flavian counterstroke. Antonius Primus leads the Danubian legions into Italy, defeats the Vitellians at the second battle near Cremona, and lets his troops sack the city. In Rome, Vespasian's brother Flavius Sabinus is besieged on the Capitol, the temple of Jupiter burns, and Sabinus is killed; Flavian troops then storm the city, and Vitellius is dragged through the streets and killed in December. Book IV turns to the settlement under Mucianus and the young Domitian, the senate's debates (including Helvidius Priscus's stand), and the great revolt on the Rhine. Julius Civilis, a Batavian noble and former Roman auxiliary officer, raises his people and is joined by the Gallic leaders Classicus and Tutor and by the prophetess Veleda; legions are besieged at Vetera and some swear allegiance to an Empire of the Gauls. Petillius Cerialis restores order and, at Trier, defends Roman government to the Treviri and Lingones. The book closes in Egypt with the healings attributed to Vespasian at Alexandria. Book V begins Titus's siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 and pauses for Tacitus's account of the origins, customs and history of the Jews, a passage notable for its hostility and its reliance on Greek and Egyptian writers, before returning to the last campaign against Civilis. The text breaks off as Civilis negotiates with Cerialis. Fyfe's 1912 translation, used here, includes his introduction and notes.
Top Lessons
An emperor could be made elsewhere than at Rome
Tacitus locates the crisis of 69 in a discovery: armies in the provinces could choose a ruler. Each new emperor in the Histories owes his throne to soldiers, and each finds that the same soldiers expect pay and indulgence. The book traces how authority grounded in force must keep purchasing loyalty.
Character is tested by power
The obituary sketches of Galba, Otho and Vitellius ask how the same man appears before and after rule. Galba seemed fit to reign until he reigned; Otho, a figure of Nero's court, earns praise by his death; Vespasian improves on the throne. Tacitus treats office as a revealer of character rather than a maker of it.
The historian's own position
The preface admits that Tacitus owed his career to the Flavians and promises to write without love or hatred. Readers can watch how a senator writing under Trajan judges soldiers, crowds, freedmen, provincials and foreign peoples. Knowing the historian's standpoint helps students weigh his vivid judgments as evidence.
Rome argues for its own rule
In Book IV Civilis speaks for Batavian liberty and Cerialis answers that peace among the tribes requires troops, troops require pay, and pay requires taxes. Tacitus gives both sides strong speeches, letting readers hear how Romans and their subjects each understood the empire.
Verified Quotes
Frequently cited
“it is the rare fortune of these days that a man may think what he likes and say what he thinks.”
“Slaves were bribed against their masters, freedmen against their patrons, and, if a man had no enemies, he was ruined by his friends.”
“never has it been proved by such terrible disasters to Rome or by such clear evidence that Providence is concerned not with our peace of mind but rather with vengeance for our sin.”
Frequently cited
“It had divulged a secret of state: an emperor could be made elsewhere than at Rome.”
Frequently cited
“When he was a commoner he seemed too big for his station, and had he never been emperor, no one would have doubted his ability to reign.”
“He was the first emperor who ever changed for the better.”
“You must put up with luxury and greed in your masters, just as you put up with bad crops or excessive rain, or any other natural disaster. Vice will last as long as mankind.”
“he eventually told the doctors to form an opinion whether such cases of blindness and deformity could be remedied by human aid.”
Medical Lens
The Histories is a political narrative, but several episodes interest the historian of medicine. Vespasian's healings at Alexandria (IV.81) are one of the few ancient accounts in which a ruler consults physicians about whether blindness and a maimed limb are curable before attempting a sacral cure; the doctors' answer mixes prognosis with political calculation. The Vitellian troops camped in the low-lying Vatican district (II.93) fall sick in the heat, and Tacitus blames the site and their drinking of Tiber water, reflecting the ancient association of marshy places with fever that later medicine called malaria. Otho's death (II.46-49) is narrated as a deliberate, composed suicide in the Roman manner, with farewell speech, settling of affairs, a night's sleep and a single dagger thrust, followed by soldiers who kill themselves at his pyre. Book V reports, as one of several origin legends, a story that a disfiguring disease drove a people out of Egypt; this is an inherited polemical tale, not medical evidence. The battles at Bedriacum and Cremona and the sack of Cremona give general material on wounds and the fate of the wounded.
- Book II, ch. 46-49
Otho refuses to prolong the war, consoles his nephew, sleeps, and kills himself at dawn; some soldiers die by their own hand at his pyre.
- Book II, ch. 93
Vitellian soldiers settle in the unhealthy Vatican quarter by the Tiber; disease and mortality rise among the Germans and Gauls.
- Book III, ch. 25 and 33
After the second battle at Cremona a son is found to have killed his father; Cremona is then sacked and burned.
- Book IV, ch. 81
Vespasian consults doctors about a blind man and a man with a maimed hand before attempting their cure at Alexandria.
- Book V, ch. 3
Tacitus reports a hostile origin legend in which a disfiguring plague in Egypt leads to an expulsion.