Tacitus

Ronald Mellor is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has published From Augustusto Nero: The First Emperors of Imperial Rome and TheWorship of the Goddess Roma in the Greek World.

"Professor Mellor offers a lucid introduction to the later influence, no less than to the ideas and methods, of the last great mind of Roman paganism." -- Colin Haycraft, The London Evening Standard"This is a distinguished work of scholarship, written with energy of thought and clarity of style. It is worthy of its subject and will surely make some of its readers turn to the original and admire `the most profound moral and political philosopher that pagan Rome ever produced'." -- Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Sunday Telegraph". . . all will be glad to be obliged by this biography to concern themselves with Tacitus the man." -- Enoch Powell, The Guardian"Going beneath the surface of the dramatic stories told in the Annals and Histories, [Mellor] examines issues of historical reliability, psychological motivation, and above all, Tacitus' repute as a gloomy moralist." -- Gilbert Taylor, ABA Booklist"[Mellor] has set out to write a book about Tacitus for the non-specialist reader `to convey why Tacitus's histories exercised a powerful fascination over centuries of dramatists, philosophers and even politicians'." -- Bryn Mawr Classical Review"Professor Mellor has written a splendid introduction . . . His writing is erudite, humane, measured, and yet enthusiastic. . . . It ought to be prescribed reading in schools and universities." -- Daily Telegraph"Professor Mellor['s] . . . discussion felicitously combines scholarship with lucidity and is accessible to any interested reader. Along the way, he offers many insights, often encapsulated in telling details, into the ways of Tacitus and the world in which he lived. Although by no means averse to criticizing his subject when it is in order, Mellor nonetheless shows full appreciation of Tacitus' singular achievement and writes of it with a dramatic verve not unlike Tacitus' own." -- Vasily Rudich, The New Criterion

• Chronological Note 1. Introduction 2. The Historian and His Histories 3. The Historian's Method 4. The Historian as Moralist 5. The Historian as Psychologist 6. The Historian as Political Analyst 7. The Historian as Literary Artist 8. The Impact of Tacitus Epilogue Bibliography