Tacitus, a Roman senator of the next generation, wrote the Annals, his history of the emperors from Tiberius through Nero. Book 3 follows Book 2, where Germanicus died at Antioch amid rumors of poison and a feud with governor Piso, and Agrippina brought the ashes home.

Piso's trial is the center of Rome, and he dies by his own hand as condemnation closes in. Maiestas, the charge of injured majesty, begins to punish words, omens, and the wrong kind of silence. Tiberius defers to the Senate — the old council of nobles — while he watches. Governors are tried for extortion. Africa, the grain lands around modern Tunisia, has its own war. Germanicus's children remain a focus of popular hope. Professional accusers, the delatores, learn that accusation pays. These quiet years show a city under one man's eye: not a famous battle, but the slow training of fear.