National Network for Equitable Library Service

AD 69, the year following Nero's suicide and marking the end of the first dynasty of imperial Rome, was one of the most dramatic and dangerous in the city's history. In the surviving books of his Histories, the great barrister-historian Tacitus gives a gripping account of the 'long but single year' that saw the reigns of four emperors; disciplinarian Galba; conspirator and dandy Otho; unambitious hedonist Vitellius; and pragmatic victor Vespasian, who went on to establish the Flavian dynasty. In a narrative that extends from Britain to Egypt and from the Caucasus to Morocco, taking in revolt, conspiracy, battles and murder, Tacitus portrays history in terms of human sagacity and folly, pathos and heroism - and, ultimately, chance and fate. Only the first four books and 26 chapters of the fifth book have survived, covering the year 69 and the first part of 70. The work is believed to have continued up to the death of Domitian on September 18, 96. As a prelude to the account of Titus’s suppression of the Great Jewish Revolt, Book 5 features a short ethnographic survey of the ancient Jews as seen from the Roman point of view.