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| Histories. Last great Latin historian who continued the work and tradition of Tacitus. A Greek from Antioch in Syria, he had a military career under the emperor Julian. |
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Histories.
Last great Latin historian who continued the work and tradition of Tacitus. A Greek from Antioch in Syria, he had a military career under the emperor Julian. |
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Ecclesiastical History, Life of Constantine.
Christian scholar, writer, and apologist at the time of the emperor Constantine who established the Christian genre of Church history. His Ecclesiastical History is an important, if sometimes questioned, source for the rise of Christianity and imperial persecution of the new church. |
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| Greek author of History of the Empire after Marcus, which covered the period from M. Aurelius to Gordian III (A.D. 180–238). |
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| Jewish Wars. Jewish priest and aristocrat who went over to the Romans during the Jewish revolt of A.D. 66-70. |
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| Lactantius (L. Caelius Firmianus) |
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On the Deaths of the PErsecutors
Teacher of rhetoric under Diocletian; his conversion to Christianity cost him his position. After the great persecution of AD 303 he began a lengthy work showing that the fate of those who persecute the saints were always grim. Because of his fine Latin, he was later known as the "Christian Cicero" |
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| M. Aurelius (emperor, AD 161-180) |
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Meditations
The stoic emperor composed his memoirs and feelings about duty and life in Greek while campaigning against the Dacians |
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Pliny the Younger
(C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus) |
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| The younger Pliny had a prominent senatorial career. On intimate terms with the emperor Trajan, Pliny's correspondence while he was the governor of Bithynia is an important source of information about imperial administration. He also published a laudatory speech and Trajan's accession called the "Panegyricus" but he is best known for his nine books of literary letters or Epistulae. Surviving letters preserve the famous interchange between Trajan and Pliny establishing the emperor's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding the Christians. |
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Plutarch
(L. Mestrius Plutarchus) |
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| Greek biographer who wrote the "Parallel Lives" comparing famous Greek and Roman figures as well as the Morelia, which included antiquarian works such as "Roman Questions' and "Greek Questions." |
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| Scriptures Historiae Augustae |
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| The Augustan History is a series of biographies treating the lives of the emperors from Trajan down to Carinus and Numerianus (hence AD 117-284). Ostensibly written by six authors living at the time of Diocletian and Constantine, this work is in all probability pseudepigraphic, the author or authors being other than those stated and who actually lived as much as a hundred years later |
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Suetonius
(Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus) |
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"The Twelve Caesars"
Equestrian official under Hadrian, Suetonius was both a scholar and an imperial administrator. Most famous for his biographies of the Twelve Ceasars (Julius Caesar to Domitian), and also wrote works on rhetoric and literature. |
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Cornelius Tacitus
"Annals, Histories, Agricola"
Roman politician who reached the consulship under the emperor Nerva, he is primarily known for his histories of the Julio-Claudians (Annales) and of the Flavia period (Historiae), neither of which survive completely. Also wrote a biography of his father-in-law, Agricola, a discussion of imperial oratory, and an ethnographic treatise on the Germans. |
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Roman equestrian with a military career particularly under the emperor Tiberius; wrote a work beginning with Greek mythology and Roman legends and ending in AD 29.
Strong partisan of first two Julio-Claudian emperors, his work is usually deemed to be unobjective. |
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Historia Nova
Wrote a history of Rome that stretched from the time of Augustus to the sack of Rome by Alaric in AD 410. One of the last pagan historians, he saw Rome's late travails as punishment for the rejection of traditional religion. |
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