Key ideas: If you want to learn about the nature of the Roman Empire in the 1st century (after Augustus’ death), especially about the military and political systems, this book is for you.
The city of Rome1 was originally in the hands of kings; liberty and the consulship were instituted by Lucius Brutus. Dictatorships were assumed temporarily. The Board of Ten did not exercise control beyond a two-year period, nor was the military tribunes’ consular authority long prevalent. Neither Cinna’s regime nor Sulla’s was lengthy. The power of Pompey and Crassus quickly gave way to Caesar, likewise the armies of Lepidus and Antony to Augustus, who as ‘first citizen’ received everything, weary as it was from civil strife, into his command...
The affairs of Tiberius and Gaius, Claudius and Nero, in their prosperity, were falsified through fear and after their fall were written with hatreds still fresh.
Thus my plan is to report a few final things about Augustus, then Tiberius’ principate and the rest, without anger or favour,3 from whose causes I consider myself distant.
This was the finale that for many years Agrippina saw and scorned. Consulting astrologers about Nero, she was told that he would rule – and kill his mother. ‘Let him kill me,’ she said, ‘provided that he rule.’
With the city aflame Nero mounted his domestic stage and performed a ‘Sack of Troy’, likening present ills to ancient calamities.