The most famous prose writer of the Augustan Age was Livy.
His History of Rome, beginning with Romulus and extending to Augustus,
traced the rise and growth of the Roman state during eight centuries of
triumphal progress. It did in prose what Vergil's Aeneid had done in
verse.
TACITUS
The period of the "Good Emperors" saw the rise
of several important authors, of whom one, the historian Tacitus, was a man of
genius. The crowning labor of his life was a history of Rome from Tiberius to
Domitian. Of this work, issued under the two titles of Histories and Annals,
only about one-half is extant.
SURVIVAL OF ROMAN LITERATURE
Less than two hundred years separate Cicero and Tacitus.
During this period Latin authors, writing under the influence of old Greece,
accomplished much valuable work. Some of their productions are scarcely
inferior to the Greek masterpieces. In later centuries, when Greek literature
was either neglected or forgotten in the West, the literature of Rome was still
read and enjoyed. Even to-day a knowledge of it forms an essential part of a
"classical" education.
