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Tacitus, Publius Cornelius. Les Annales de Tacite, 1693, documents the system of Roman imperial governance and its mechanisms of political control, repression, and public narrative formation. The work provides a sustained account of how authority functioned under emperors from Tiberius through Nero, demonstrating the processes by which power was consolidated, dissent managed, and populations governed. Of particular significance, the text records the treatment of early Christians under Nero, offering one of the earliest extant non-Christian accounts of their identification and punishment within imperial society, and providing primary-source evidence for the study of early Christianity within Roman state structures. Tacitus, Publius Cornelius. Les Annales de Tacite. [France], 1693. Octodecimo (18mo), 568 pages, text in Latin and French. This edition presents Tacitus's historical system of imperial analysis through a bilingual format, preserving the original Latin alongside French translation for scholarly use. Book XV, Chapter 44 describes the imperial response to the Great Fire of Rome, showing the mechanism by which Nero redirected blame onto Christians, identified as a distinct group within the population. Tacitus notes that "Christus," executed under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius, served as the origin of the group's name, and details their subsequent persecution. This passage demonstrates how the Roman state identified, categorized, and punished minority groups within a broader system of maintaining public order and political legitimacy. Across the work, Tacitus traces administrative practices, court dynamics, and the exercise of imperial authority, illustrating how governance operated in practice through political maneuvering, legal action, and public spectacle. Composed in the early second century and transmitted through early modern scholarly editions such as this, the Annales remained central to European intellectual engagement with questions of monarchy, authority, and historical precedent. This edition reflects continued use of Roman historiography to interpret contemporary systems of power and governance. Bound in contemporary full brown calf with gilt spine compartments; chipping and wear to spine, staining to boards, and occasional pencil annotations; text block complete and sound; overall very good condition for a seventeenth-century edition. This volume offers a foundational primary source for the study of Roman political systems and early Christian history.
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