The greatest of Roman historians, Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56-117 CE) studied rhetoric in Rome. His rhetorical and oratorical gifts are evident throughout his most substantial works, the incomplete but still remarkable Annals and Histories. In concise and concentrated prose, marked by sometimes bitter and ironic reflections on the human capacity to misuse power, Tacitus charts the violent trajectory of the Roman Empire from Augustus' death in 14 CE to the end of Domitian's rule in 96. Victoria Emma Pagan looks at Tacitus from a range of perspectives: as a literary stylist, perhaps...

Perhaps no classical writer has been so consistently in vogue as Horace.