Tacitus
Ancient Roman historian
Tacitus was a Roman historian of the late first and early second centuries, known for penetrating accounts of the Roman Empire under the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties.
His major works—the *Annals* and *Histories*—are prized for their terse, epigrammatic Latin and unflinching portrayal of imperial tyranny and moral decay.
The adjective Tacitean describes prose that emulates his compressed, sardonic style.
Accounts of past events
- RomanOf ancient Italy's capital
- senatorUpper chamber member
- oratorSkilled public speaker
- historiographyStudy of history-writing
Trajan · Tiberius · Nero · imperial · chronicle · prose · Latin · antiquity
Oppressive, absolute governance
- corruptionDishonest abuse of power
- declineDecrease or refuse
- servilityExcessive willingness to please
- despotismAbsolute one-person rule
imperial power · senate · liberty · moral decay · autocracy · surveillance · informers · flattery
Shortness of expression
- concisionVerbal economy, pared down
- innuendoOblique disparaging remark
- ironyMeaning opposite to words
- sarcasmIrony used to mock
elliptical · epigrammatic · archaism · gravitas · pessimism · rhetoric · mordant · terse
Uncivilized foreigners, historically
- tribesAncestral social groups
- customsTraditional practices or import taxes
- GermansCitizens of Deutschland
- BritonsUK inhabitants
comparative · noble savage · morality · simplicity · peoples · frontier · foreign · observation
European cultural reawakening
- MachiavelliPolitical realism's founding theorist
- Founding FathersRevolutionary-era American statesmen
- republicanismGovernment by elected officials
- political philosophyTheory of governance and justice
Montesquieu · reception · manuscript · rediscovery · Enlightenment · classical education · humanism · transmission
Histories
Accounts of past events
historiography · Trajan · Tiberius · Nero · imperial · chronicle · prose · Latin · antiquity · primary source
tyranny
Oppressive, absolute governance
- corruptionDishonest abuse of power
- declineDecrease or refuse
- servilityExcessive willingness to please
despotism · imperial power · senate · liberty · moral decay · autocracy · surveillance · informers · flattery · dissimulation
brevity
Shortness of expression
sarcasm · elliptical · epigrammatic · archaism · gravitas · pessimism · rhetoric · mordant · terse · pointed
barbarians
Uncivilized foreigners, historically
- tribesAncestral social groups
- customsTraditional practices or import taxes
- GermansCitizens of Deutschland
Britons · comparative · noble savage · morality · simplicity · peoples · frontier · foreign · observation · cultural
Renaissance
European cultural reawakening
- MachiavelliPolitical realism's founding theorist
- Founding FathersRevolutionary-era American statesmen
- republicanismGovernment by elected officials
Montesquieu · political philosophy · reception · manuscript · rediscovery · Enlightenment · classical education · humanism · transmission · scholarship
- Ancient RomansJulius Caesar, patricians, consuls, Marcus Aurelius, Nero
- classicsHomer, Iliad, the Iliad, Odyssey, the Odyssey
- LatinLatin, Latin vocabulary, Latin roots, Latin alphabet, Latin phrases
- Latin LiteratureCicero, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Caesar
- rhetoricrhetoric, persuasion, oratory, argumentation, debate
- Roman EmpireAugustus, emperors, Roman Empire, Roman emperors, imperial
TacitusVirgil
Classical epic poet
Ovid · Horace · Lucretius · epic poets · lyric poets
TacitusCicero
Ancient Rome's greatest speaker
Livy · florid prose · court historians · Pliny the Elder · Pliny the Younger
- tacit approvalWordless permission or acceptance
- tacit understandingAgreement conveyed without words
- tacit agreementConsent without words
- tacit consentAgreement without explicit statement
- tacit knowledgeUnderstanding that resists verbalization