SOURCE: Mellor, Ronald. “The Impact of Tacitus.” In Tacitus, pp. 137-62. New York: Routledge, 1993.

In the following excerpt, Mellor presents a survey of readers’ responses to Tacitus over the last five centuries.

Your histories will be immortal

Pliny Letter (7, 33) to Tacitus

Though Tacitus was the greatest Roman historian, it was not among Romans, nor even among historians, that he had his greatest impact. In early modern Europe Tacitus's political vision, dramatic images, and incisive moral aphorisms left their mark on poets and philosophers, princes and popes, painters and political theorists. He was regarded not as a mere chronicler of events but as a moralist worthy to be ranked with Plato and Aristotle, as a political thinker whose influence vied with Machiavelli. His vivid portrayal of the tyranny, brutality, and political paranoia of the Roman Empire seemed disturbingly familiar in the absolutist monarchies and the papal states. His histories...