The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II
by Caius Cornelius Tacitus
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II
Author: Caius Cornelius Tacitus
Translator: W. Hamilton Fyfe
Release Date: October 23, 2005 [EBook #16927]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TACITUS: THE HISTORIES ***
Produced by Justin Kerk, Louise Pryor and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Transcriber's note: Footnotes have been renumbered; all references
to them use the new numbers. Spellings in the original are sometimes
inconsistent. They have not been changed.]
TACITUS
THE HISTORIES
TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
W. HAMILTON FYFE
FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME I
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1912
HENRY FROWDE
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
TO D.H.F.
'The cause of undertaking a work of this kind was a good will in
this scribling age not to do nothing, and a disproportion in the
powers of my mind, nothing of mine owne invention being able to
passe the censure of mine owne judgement, much less, I presumed, the
judgement of others....
'If thy stomacke be so tender as thou canst not disgest Tacitus in
his owne stile, thou art beholding to one who gives thee the same
food, but with a pleasant and easie taste.'
SIR HENRY SAVILE (A.D. 1591).
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
INTRODUCTION 5
TEXT: BOOKS I, II 17
VOLUME II
TEXT: BOOKS III-V 9
INDEX OF NAMES 231
MAPS
INTRODUCTION
Tacitus held the consulship under Nerva in the year 97. At this point
he closed his public career. He had reached the goal of a politician's
ambition and had become known as one of the best speakers of his time,
but he seems to have realized that under the Principate politics was a
dull farce, and that oratory
|