KENNETH WELLESLEY was, until 1981, Reader in Humanity (Latin) at the University of Edinburgh. As a scholar of Peterhouse he read classics at Cambridge, then enjoyed some years' school-mastering before and after the Second World War. He has contributed a number of papers to learned journals on various aspects of Roman history and literature, and has recently been engaged in a textual, literary and historical study of the Histories of Tacitus. In 1972 he published a new text of the Third Book with commentary, and in 1975 an up-to-date narrative, The Long Year: A.D. 69. Most of the sites mentioned in the Histories are familiar to the translator from personal knowledge. He is co-editor of the current new edition of the standard Teubner text of Tacitus (Leipzig). — 1993 K.W.