The Histories - Brossura

Tacitus

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0140449647 ISBN 13: 9780140449648

Casa editrice: Penguin Classics, 2009

Riassunto

In AD68 Nero's suicide marked the end of the first dynasty of imperial Rome. The following year was one of drama and danger, though not of chaos.

In the surviving books of his Histories the barrister-historian Tacitus, 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, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian - who established the Flavian dynasty.

Rhiannon Ash stays true to the spirit of Wellesley's prose whilst making the translation more accessible to modern readers.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Tacitus was born c.55 AD and probably survived the emperor Trajan who dies in 117. Known in Rome for his impressive oratory, he maintained a political career as a sentor under Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.

Rhiannon Ash is Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Merton College, Oxford. After taking an MA in Medieval Latin at the University of Toronto, she returned from Canada to Oxford, where she wrote a doctorate on Tacitus' Histories. Her publications include Ordering Anarchy; Leaders and Armies in Tacitus' Histories (1999) and a comentary, Tacitus Histories Book II (2007), in the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series. She has also written articles on Naevius, Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Elder, Suetonius and Plutarch.

Kenneth Wellesley was, until 1981, Reader of Humanity (Latin) at the University of Edinburgh. He contributed a number of papers to learned journals on various aspects of Roman history and literature. Most of the sites mentioned in the Histories were familiar to him from personal knowledge, and he was co-editor of the standard Teubner text of Tacitus (Leipzig). He died in 1995.

Dalla quarta di copertina:

'The period upon which I embark is one full of incident, marked by bitter fighting, rent by treason, and even in peace sinister'

In AD 68 Nero's suicide marked the end of the first dynasty of imperial Rome. The following year was one of drama and danger. In the surviving books of his Histories the barrister-historian Tacitus, writing some thirty years after the events he describes, gives a detailed account of the 'long but single year' when four emperors emerged in succession: Galba, the martinet; Otho, conspirator and dandy; Vitellius, the unambitious hedonist; and the ultimate victor, Vespasian, who established the Flavian dynasty. With great vividness and emotional power, Tacitus' gripping narrative lays bare corruption, injustice and folly, and sheds lasting light on the nature of power.

This revised version of Kenneth Wellesley's translation has sensitively updated it to render it more accessible to the modern reader. This edition contains a new introduction by Rhiannon Ash discussing Tacitus' life and his contemporary audience, a note on the text, further reading, a glossary of place and peoples, expanded notes and a chronology.

Translated by Kenneth Wellesley
Revised with a new introduction by Rhiannon Ash

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Penguin Classics
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0140449647
• ISBN 13: 9780140449648
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 384
• Redattore: Ash Rhiannon