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Hello, the story I now commence is rich in vicissitudes, grim with warfare, torn by civil strife, a tale of horror, even during times of peace.

That's on page one of the histories by the Roman historian Tacitus. Tacitus Rome is a scene of crime, sex and violence, of excessive wealth and senatorial corruption.

His work is a pungent study in tyranny and decline that has influenced depictions of Rome from Gibbons decline and fall to Robert Graves' eye-claudious.

But is it a true picture of the age? Does Tacitus work present the tyranny and decadence of Rome at the expense of its virtues?

And what extent, when we look at the Roman Empire today, do we still see it through his eyes?

With me to discuss Tacitus, I Ellen Gorman, Senior Lecturing Classics at the University of Bristol, Maria Wike, Professor of Latin at University College London, and Catherine Edwards,

Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck University of London.

Catherine Edwards, Tacitus two major works are called annals and the history, which cover most of the first century AD.

Can you introduce us to the annals, first of all?

Right. Well, Tacitus annals is actually his last work, but it covers the earliest period that he writes about,

and that's the period from the death of Augustus in 14 AD, down to, we think, the death of Nero, although the last parts of the annals are actually missing.

So also missing are the period that covers the reigns of Caligula and Claudius.

So it's a fragmentary work, but it's nevertheless hugely important and has had the most massive influence on how we see ancient Rome.

Can you tell us more how many books remained? You've said that we don't know better by Caligula or Zahn.

That's right. Well, we have books one to four, part of book five, book six, then books seven to ten and missing,

and then we have books eleven through to the fragmentary book sixteen, book sixteen breaks off at a very dramatic moment,

and then we don't know what happens after that.

So if you don't give an overview of what you can get from what's remaining of the annals, what would you say that the theme was on now?

Well, there are different ways in which one could see the theme. I mean, it's the history of Rome written in some ways in a traditional way,

but preoccupied with the question really, perhaps, of how one can go on being a good Roman senator under the regime of the emperors.

Is it actually possible to function as a Roman senator under that autocratic regime?

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