Publius [?] Cornelius Tacitus (Tacitus)

56/57-After 117 c.e.

Historian

Sources

Germanic Tribes. Tacitus was born in southern France or northern Italy. While he was studying in Rome, his talent was noticed and admired by many, including Pliny; the two men became friends. In 78 Tacitus married Julia, daughter of Gnaeus lulius Agricola; he wrote an encomiastic biography of his father-in-law, which was published probably in 98 C.E. The same year his Germania was published, an ethnographical and geographical survey of the Germanic tribes and their territory. This work is unique in Roman literature and defies classification in a particular genre. It reads like a long digression in an historical account. It is generally thought that Tacitus partly, but not totally, idealized the Germanic tribes as a mirror-image for contemporary Rome. In the years following the two publications, Tacitus entered the senatorial career (cursus honorum) on which, in 88, he reached as high as the praetorship. The following four years were spent away from Rome in unknown locations. He resurfaced under Nerva as consul in 97. In 100 C.E. he and Pliny sued a former provincial governor for maladministration. Around 112-113 Tacitus himself acted as governor in Asia Minor. The year of his death is unknown.

Sources

Ronald H. Martin, Tacitus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).

B. Walker, The Annals of Tacitus: A Study in the Writing of History.(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1952).

A. J. Woodman, Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford & New York: Clarendon Press, 1998).