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I wrote under emperors. All Roman historians wrote under emperors, which is one reason so much Roman history is either flattery or careful allegory. I tried to write neither. I wrote the Annals and the Histories, covering the reigns from Tiberius to Domitian — the worst emperors Rome produced. I survived Domitian, who executed senators for writing histories he disliked. I did not survive by being silent. I survived by being careful.

The most famous line attributed to me is: they make a desert and call it peace — solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. It appears in a speech I gave to a Caledonian chief before the Battle of Mons Graupius. He said it; I wrote it. That is the historian's relationship to truth: you are the vessel, not the source. But you choose which vessels you preserve.