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Tacitus
He was born Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 –
after 117) to an equestrian family. He was a senator and a
historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of
his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—
examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius,
Claudius, Nero, and those who reigned in the Year of the
Four Emperors (AD 69).
Details about his personal life are scarce. What little is
known comes from scattered hints throughout his work,
the letters of his friend and admirer Pliny the Younger. The friendship between the
younger Pliny and Tacitus leads some scholars to conclude that they were both the
offspring of wealthy provincial families.
Although the province of his birth remains unknown, his marriage to the daughter of
the Narbonensian senator Gnaeus Julius Agricola implies that he came from Gallia
Narbonensis.
He started his career (probably the latus clavus, mark of the senator) under
Vespasian, but it was in 81 or 82, under Titus, that he entered political life, as
quaestor. He advanced steadily through the cursus honorum, becoming praetor in 88
and a quindecimvir, a member of the priestly college in charge of the Sibylline Books
and the Secular games. He gained acclaim as a lawyer and an orator; his skill in public
speaking is ironic given his cognomen.
“Writing from the security of Trajan’s reign the senators (Pliny and Tacitus), look back
in disgust at their own cowardly complicity in the judicial murder of their friends.
Tacitus in Agricola produced an image of the senate under Domitian as living in a
constant state of fear.”-Martin Goodman, the Roman World.
The Annals
The Annals is Tacitus' final work, covering the period from the death of Augustus
Caesar in 14 AD. He wrote at least sixteen books, but books 7–10 and parts of books
5, 6, 11 and 16 are missing. Book 6 ends with the death of Tiberius and books 7–12
presumably covered the reigns of Caligula and Claudius. The remaining books cover
the reign of Nero, perhaps until his death in June 68 or until the end of that year, to
connect with the Histories.