SOURCE: Woodman, A. J. “Introduction: The Literature of War.” In Tacitus Reviewed, pp. 1-20. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1998.

In the following excerpt, Woodman suggests that Tacitus is better read as a poet than a traditional historian.

It was on the last Monday in January exactly fifty years ago that Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. The event has been described by Alan Bullock in his celebrated book:¹

During the morning a silent crowd filled the street between the Kaiserhof and the Chancellery. … At a window of the Kaiserhof, Röhm was keeping an anxious watch on the door from which Hitler must emerge. Shortly after noon a roar went up from the crowd: the Leader was coming. He ran down the steps to his car and in a couple of minutes was back in the Kaiserhof. As he entered the room his lieutenants crowded to greet him...