Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Commentators on the Annals naturally observe that the famous first sentence of Tacitus' preface (‘Urbem Romam a principio reges habuere’) alludes to the preface of Sallust's Bellum Catilinae (6.1 ‘Urbem Romam, sicuti ego accepi, condidere atque habuere initio Troiani’). But it seems that none of them has observed a further allusion to Sallust's preface in the last sentence of Tacitus', which is almost equally famous (1.1.3)
1 I am grateful to Alyson Wright for a Pandora search and to Ronald Martin for improving an earlier draft.