* Charles Anthon, The Germania and Agricola, and also Selections from the Annals, of Tacitus, with English Notes, Critical and Explanatory, ( 1847 ).

This view is based partly on Old English and Danish traditions regarding persons and events of the 4th century, and partly on the fact that striking affinities to the cult of Nerthus as described by Tacitus are to be found in pre-Christian Scandinavian, especially Swedish and Danish, religion.

After his death, Domitian's memory was condemned to oblivion by the Roman Senate, while senatorial authors such as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius published histories propagating the view of Domitian as a cruel and paranoid tyrant.

The ancient historical writers, chiefly Suetonius and Tacitus, write from the point of view of the Roman senatorial aristocracy, and portray the Emperors in generally negative terms, whether from preference for the Roman Republic or love of a good scandalous story.

This view is based on the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio, the main surviving sources for Nero's reign.

* Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus ( 56 – 117 AD ), imperial officer, historian and in Teuffel's view " the last classic of Roman literature.

This view is not held by the majority of historians however who believe an engagement of some description did occur, noting it would be dangerous for an aspiring rhetorician and historian such as Tacitus to have completely fabricated such events.

In his view the History is primarily a literary product – an exercise in historical fiction ( or ' fictional history ') produced by a ' rogue scholiast ' catering to ( and making fun of ) the antiquarian tendencies of the Theodosian age, in which Suetonius and Marius Maximus were fashionable reading and Ammianus Marcellinus was producing sober history in the manner of Tacitus.

From an ethnic point of view, Roman authors associated blond and reddish hair with the Gauls and the Germans: e. g., Virgil describes the hair of the Gauls as " golden " ( aurea caesaries ), Tacitus wrote that " the Germans have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames "; in accordance with Ammianus, almost all the Gauls were " of tall stature, fair and ruddy ".

The grouping of tribes in Tacitus ' Germania into Ingaevones, Istaevones and Herminones seems to support this view.

The orange area shows one view of the extent of the Suebi an tribes in the first century AD. The Semnones were a Germanic tribe which was settled between the Elbe and the Oder in the 1st century when they were described by Tacitus in Germania:

This view of the distinction seems to be borne out by the division of the work of Cornelius Tacitus into the Historeia, relating the events of his own time, and the Annales, containing the history of earlier periods.

Tacitus writes from the point of view of an aristocrat.

Tacitus claims that Nero considered poisoning or stabbing her, but felt these methods were too difficult and suspicious, so he settled on building a self-sinking boat.

According to Tacitus, Mucianus was not keen on this prospect but since he considered Domitian a liability in any capacity that was entrusted to him, he preferred to keep him close at hand rather than in Rome.

Although Tacitus is usually considered to be the most reliable author of this era, his views on Domitian are complicated by the fact that his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, may have been a personal enemy of the Emperor.

The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition today referred to as " civic humanism " is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust and Tacitus.

However, other copies call the same tribe Axones, and it is considered likely that it is a misspelling of the tribe that Tacitus in his Germania called Aviones.

In the late Icelandic Eddas, Tyr is portrayed, alternately, as the son of Odin ( Prose Edda ) or of Hymir ( Poetic Edda ), while the origins of his name and his possible relationship to Tuisto ( see Tacitus ' Germania ) suggest he was once considered the father of the gods and head of the pantheon, since his name is ultimately cognate to that of * Dyeus ( cf.

One is Pomponia Graecina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain, who as Tacitus relates, was accused of following a " foreign superstition ", generally considered to be Christianity.

Although there is little clear contemporary account of him, virtually all Roman historians agree that Postumus was considered a rude and brutish sort ; Tacitus defended him, but his praise was slight: was the young, physically tough, indeed brutish, Agrippa Postumus.

Tacitus knew it as Insula Batavorum (" Island of the Batavians ," the Germanic tribe from which the modern name is derived ) and indeed it could be considered a large river island, but nowadays it hardly ever is viewed as such ( with the exception of the last months of World War II ( October 1944-June 1945 ) when it became known as " Men's Island " or " Manneneiland " due to the evacuation of all civilian population during Operation Market Garden, leaving only soldiers behind ).

It has been considered the maritime version of the Germanic system of hundreds which was described as early as 98 A. D. by Tacitus as the centeni.

This map is lost and its contents are unknown However, later Roman geographers, including Ptolemy ( AD 90 – c. AD 168 ) ( II. 10, III. 7 ) and Tacitus ( AD 56 – AD 117 ) ( ref: Germania XLVI ) considered the Vistula as the boundary between Germania and Sarmatia Europaea, or Germania and Scythia ..

Tacitus considered them similar to Suiones ( ancestors of modern Swedes ):

Torquatus ' son, Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus, whom Tacitus calls a young man of moderation ( modesta iuventa 16. 7 ), was considered a threat on similar grounds as his father had been, and informers soon cooked up a conspiracy implicating him and his aunt Junia Calvina on charges of magic rites and incest ( Ann.

Tacitus in his Agricola, chapter XI ( c. 98 AD ) described the Caledonians as red haired and large limbed, which he considered features of Germanic origin: “ The reddish ( rutilae ) hair and large limbs of the Caledonians proclaim a German origin ”.

Tacitus considered the trial to be an indirect political attack against Agrippina.

Likewise, the Roman historian Tacitus idealized the Germanic tribes ( which he considered autochthonous to their land ) for qualities such as superior warlike ardor and chastity, in contrast to the Romans of his day-though his portrait is not unmixed-as he also portrays them as incurably lazy and addicted to gambling.

Tacitus, without any illusions, considered the rule of the adoptive Emperors the only possible solution to the problems of Empire.

However, other copies call the same tribe Axones, and it is considered likely that it is a misspelling of the tribe that Tacitus in his Germania called Aviones.

Tacitus however leaves open the possibility that she was deprived of nourishment while in prison and her death was not voluntary.

Tacitus described her as “ determined and rather excitable ”-" Agrippina knew no feminine weaknesses.

Throughout her life, Agrippina always prized her descent from Augustus, upbraiding Tiberius for persecuting the blood of his predecessor ; Tacitus, in writing of the occasion, believed this behaviour to be part of the beginning of " the chain of events leading to Agrippina's end.

According to Tacitus, Boudica was flogged and her daughters were raped.

Tacitus gives her a short speech in which she presents herself not as an aristocrat avenging her lost wealth, but as an ordinary person, avenging her lost freedom, her battered body, and the abused chastity of her daughters.

According to Tacitus in his Annals, Boudica poisoned herself, though in the Agricola which was written almost twenty years prior he mentions nothing of suicide and attributes the end of the revolt to socordia (" indolence "); Dio says she fell sick and died and then was given a lavish burial ; though this may be a convenient way to remove her from the story.

But the rediscovery of the works of Tacitus during the Renaissance allowed Polydore Vergil to reintroduce her into British history as " Voadicea " in 1534.

Raphael Holinshed also included her story in his Chronicles ( 1577 ), based on Tacitus and Dio, and inspired Shakespeare's younger contemporaries Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher to write a play, Bonduca, in 1610.

It is known that there was an interregnum between Aurelian and Tacitus, and there is substantial evidence that Aurelian's wife Ulpia Severina ruled in her own right before Tacitus ' election.

According to Tacitus ( Annals 14. 35 ), Boudica, queen of the Iceni and a number of other tribes in a formidable uprising against the occupying Roman forces, addressed her troops from a chariot in AD 61:

Tacitus describes her as the " wife of the Plautius who returned from Britain with an ovation ", which led John Lingard ( 1771 – 1851 ) to conclude, in his History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, that she was British ; however, this conclusion is a misinterpretation of what Tacitus wrote.

The ancient Roman sources, particularly Tacitus and Suetonius, portray Messalina as extremely lustful, but also insulting, disgraceful, cruel, and avaricious ; they claimed her negative qualities were a result of her inbreeding.

The historians Tacitus and Cassius Dio depict an overweening, even domineering dowager, ready to interfere in Tiberius ’ decisions, the most notable instances being the case of Urgulania ( grandmother of Claudius's first wife Plautia Urgulanilla ), a woman who correctly assumed that her friendship with the empress placed her above the law, and Munatia Plancina, suspected of murdering Germanicus and saved at Livia's entreaty.