Tacitus was very much a traditional Roman and he objected to the warping of Roman values seen during his own lifetime. He had experienced tyranny first-hand under Domitian and wished his histories to be a judgement on the tyrants of the past. The Annals are therefore not as impartial as Tacitus claims in his prologue, and we see this clearly in his depiction of Nero. Through subtly suggestive language and the deployment of pithy, often acerbic, observations, Tacitus focuses on everything negative about Nero, whilst carefully retaining the appearance of impartiality. …
