life must rot the world. His eyes are not really open to the Empire.
He never seems to think that in the spacious provinces to which the
old Roman virtues had taken flight, men were leading happy, useful
lives, because the strong hand of the imperial government had come to
save them from the inefficiency of aristocratic governors. This
narrowness of view accounts for much of Tacitus' pessimism.

Recognition of the atmosphere in which Tacitus wrote and the objects
at which his history aimed helps one to understand why it sometimes
disappoints modern expectations. Particular scenes are seared on our
memories: persons stand before us lit to the soul by a fierce light of
psychological analysis: we learn to loath the characteristic vices of
the time, and to understand the moral causes of Roman decadence. But
somehow the dominance of the moral interest and the frequent
interruption of the narrative by scenes of senatorial inefficiency
serve to obscure the plain sequence of events. It is difficult after a
first reading of the _Histories_ to state clearly what happened in
these two years. And this difficulty is vastly annoying to experts who
wish to trace the course of the three campaigns. Those whose interest
is not in Tacitus but in the military history of the period are
recommended to study Mr. B.W. Henderson's _Civil War and Rebellion in
the Roman Empire_, a delightful book which makes the dark places
plain. But they are not recommended to share his contempt for Tacitus
because his accounts of warfare are as bad as, for instance,
Shakespeare's. Tacitus does not describe in detail the tactics and
geography of a campaign, perhaps because he could not do so, certainly
because he did not wish to. He regarded such details as dry bones,
which no amount of literary skill could animate. His interest is in
human character. Plans of campaign throw little light on that: so they
did not interest him, or, if they did, he suppressed his interest