Tacitus biography

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Tacitus Biography

TACITUS, PUBLIUS CORNELIUS (c.55-c.117). A Roman historical writer. His training and career indicate that he belonged to a Roman family of good standing. He was prætor in the reign of Domitian and consul suffectus under Nerva. In 78 he married the daughter of Gnæus Julius Agricola (q.v.), a man prominent as a soldier and statesman. This event had great influence on his subsequent career. After his prætorship he was absent from Rome for at least four years until after 93, the year after the death of his father-in-law. The intimacy of Tacitus and Pliny the Younger is proved by references in the letters of the latter, and the two were associated in the successful prosecution of Marius Priscus, proconsul of Africa, charged with extortion. Tacitus' Annals were published in 116 or 117, so that we may believe that he lived to the reign of Hadrian. Apparently he looked forward to writing a history of the reign of Domitian and of that of Trajan, but he must have changed his plan, for he began his Histories with Galba and continued the work through the reign of Domitian. In the Annals he declares his purpose of writing the history of Augustus and in the Histories his design of narrating the reigns of Nerva and Trajan. but we have no indication that he ever carried out these contemplated tasks. He wrote, however, the history of the empire from the death of Augustus down to the beginning of his earlier work, i.e., through the reign of Nero.

The earliest extant work of Tacitus is the Dialogus de Oratoribus, published about 75, or somewhat later, but not later than the reign of Titus. The Agricola followed in the year 93. Even when engaged upon these books the historian was preparing for some greater work. It is possible that his Germania, or more fully De Origine, Situ, Moribus, ac Populis Gcrmaniæ, represents some of the material accumulated in preparation for a more extensive history. The Histories belong to the reign of Trajan. The Annals are the last work of the historian. As we have references to the Annals in the Histories, the date must be later than 108, and, as there is apparently a reference in the second book to Trajan's conquest in the East (115-116), the publication may have been just prior to the reign of Hadrian. The Dialogue on Oratory belongs to the writer's early manhood, and gives evidence of the influence of Cicero and Quintilian, in so marked a degree that some scholars have attempted to assign it to Quintilian or to some other author not identified. The best opinion of the present day, however, is in favor of the genuineness of the work. Different as the work is on the surface from the Annals, it is yet possible to see in it the beginnings of the style so characteristic of Tacitus' latest work. The subject is an investigation into the causes of the decline of eloquence, and the discussion is carried on by two celebrated orators of the Flavian period who are respectively supporters of the old and of the new oratory. The Agricola is a gem, a most carefully prepared piece of biographical composition. The rhetorical power of the writer is plainly felt in the closing chapters, which are unexcelled in Latin literature. His Germania is a most important work because of its descriptions of political institutions and of the customs of various tribes. As the writer brings into vivid contrast the life of the Germans and that of the Romans, it has been thought by some that he was endeavoring to instruct his countrymen, either by pointing out their evil ways, or by startling them and warning them against the dangers threatening on their northern frontier. Tacitus shows an exact knowledge of those Germans near the Rhine, but is uncertain as to the interior and more remote tribes. The greatest work of Tacitus has not come down to us entire, for of the Histories there are extant only the first four books and a part of the fifth, so that we have merely the year 69 and a part of 70. Of the Annals there is extant only about one-half., and this does not give a continuous narrative. After the fifth chapter of the fifth book there is a lacuna which marks the loss of the events of 29-31. Tacitus probably ended this book with the death of Sejanus, so that the beginning of the sixth book is also lacking. The seventh to the tenth, the beginning of the eleventh, and the close of the sixteenth are also missing, and we thus lose all of the reign of Caligula, the first five years of Claudius, and the last two years of Nero.

In the Annals Rome and the Princeps form the centre about which are grouped the events of a history which is not that alone of Rome, but of the associated provinces. The Medicean manuscript designates the work Ab Excessu Divi Augusti, and this is no doubt the original title. In the Histories Tacitus writes as a contemporary, and therefore with a surer touch, and he gives full play to his dramatic powers in his description of what is quite familiar to him. The Annals represent the culminating task of his lifetime and are the work of the period of his full development as a writer.

The great power of Tacitus as an historian is due to his skill in discerning the motives which lead men to act, his deep psychological insight. He studies men, not things, and hence he is skilled in character painting. A marked feature of the Tacitean spirit is the tendency to impute a base or unworthy motive to all the actions of those men whom he describes. This is particularly true of his treatment of Tiberius. Certain it is that Tacitus writes of Roman society as a pessimist, and we may obtain a juster view by turning to the more attractive picture presented by his friend and contemporary Pliny the Younger.

There are three distinguishing features of Tacitus' style—conciseness, variety, and poetical coloring. There is not a superfluous word, and his condensation sometimes causes obscurity. We may say that his conciseness corresponds to his thought, for there is nothing artificial in it, and the style is characteristic of the writer. Here he was influenced by study of Sallust (q.v.) and Thucydides (q.v.). Tacitus' fondness for variety is found in his word positions, and in his variation in forms and constructions. The poetical coloring came from his study of the Augustan poets, particularly Vergil. Many words and expressions may be traced to Vergil particularly in the minor writings and the Histories.

Important manuscripts of Tacitus are the Codex Mediceus (I), dating from the ninth century and containing a part of the Annals; and the Codex Mediceus (II) of the eleventh or twelfth centuries, containing what remains of the other books of the Annals and the Histories. The Germania and Dialogus are obtained from a manuscript in the Vatican based on an earlier one of the ninth century and again from a manuscript at Leyden, dating from the fifteenth century. The Agricola is found in two transcriptions of the fifteenth century, now in the Vatican. The editio princeps is by Puteolanus of Milan, about 1476. The best text is that of C. Halm in the "Teubner Series" (Leipzig, 1886). Important editions are the Annals, with English notes by H. Furneaux (Oxford, 1891-92; vol. i, 2d ed., 1896); Allen, The Annals of Tacitus, i-vi (Boston, 1890); Codley, The Histories (New York, 1891); Spooner (London, 1891); Frost, Agricola and Germania (ib., 1861); Hopkins, Agricola and Germania (Boston, 1893); Furneaux, The Agricola (Oxford, 1896).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 786-787.