The Histories

In the surviving books of his Histories the barrister-historian Tacticus writing some thirty years after the events he describes, gives us a detailed account based on excellent authorities. In the ' long but single year ' of revolution four emperors emerge in succession: Galba, the martinet; Otho, conspirator, dandy and symbol of self-sacrifice; Vitellius, the unambitious hedonist upon whom greatness was thrust to his own undoing; and the ultimate victor, the no-nonsense Vespasian, who esta...