Ancient and Modern – 18 April 2003

What will be Middle Eastern historians’ judgment of Saddam’s regime and its enforced collapse? Is there a Tacitus among them?

In his Histories, Tacitus describes the traumatic ‘Year of the Four Emperors’ (ad 69) that followed the death of Nero, a year when general after general attempted to seize power by force, and the Roman world seemed to fall apart.