In AD68 Nero's suicide marked the end of the first dynasty of imperial Rome. The following year was one of drama and danger, though not of chaos. In the surviving books of his ''Histories'' the barrister-historian Tacitus, writing some thirty years after the events he describes, gives us a detailed account based on excellent authorities. In the 'long but single year' of revolution four emperors emerge in succession: Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian - who established the Flavian dynasty. Rhiannon Ash stays true to the spirit of Wellesley's prose whilst making the translation more accessible to modern readers.