Everything about Tacitus totally explained
Publius (or
Gaius)
Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 56 – ca. 117) 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 that reigned in the
Year of the Four Emperors. These two works span the history of the
Roman Empire from the death of
Augustus in 14 AD to (presumably) the death of emperor
Domitian in 96 AD. There are significant
lacunae in the surviving texts.
Other works by Tacitus discuss
oratory (in
dialogue format, see
Dialogus de oratoribus),
Germania (in
De origine et situ Germanorum), and biographical notes about his father-in-law
Agricola, primarily during his campaign in
Britannia (see
De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae).
Tacitus'
historiographical style in his major works is
annalistic. An
author writing in the latter part of the
Silver Age of Latin literature, his work is distinguished by a boldness and sharpness of wit, and a compact and sometimes unconventional use of
Latin.
Biography
While Tacitus' works contain much information about his world, details regarding 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, an inscription found at
Mylasa in
Caria, and educated guesswork.
Tacitus was born in 56 or 57 to an
equestrian family; like many Latin authors of the
Golden and
Silver Ages, he was from the provinces, probably either northern
Italy,
Gallia Narbonensis, or
Hispania. The exact place and date of his birth are not known, while his
praenomen (first name) is similarly a mystery; in the letters of
Sidonius Apollinaris his name is
Gaius, but in the major surviving manuscript of his work his name is given as
Publius. (One scholar's suggestion of
Sextus has gained no traction.)
Family and early life
The older
aristocratic families were largely destroyed during the
proscriptions at the end of the
Republic, and Tacitus is clear that he owes his rank to the
Flavian emperors (
Hist. 1.1
). The theory that he descended from a
freedman finds no support apart from his statement, in an invented speech, that many senators and knights were descended from freedmen (
Ann. 13.27), and is dismissed by prominent historians.
His father may have been the Cornelius Tacitus who was
procurator of
Belgica and
Germania; Pliny the Elder mentions that Cornelius had a son who grew and aged rapidly (
N.H. 7.76), and implies an early death. If Cornelius was Tacitus' father and since there's no mention of Tacitus suffering such a condition in the surviving record, it would likely refer to a brother instead. This connection, and the friendship between the
younger Pliny and Tacitus, led many scholars to the conclusion that the two families were of similar class, means, and background: equestrians, of significant wealth, and from provincial families.
The province of his birth is unknown. His marriage to the daughter of the Narbonensian senator
Gnaeus Julius Agricola may indicate that he, too, came from Gallia Narbonensis. Tacitus' dedication to
Fabius Iustus in the
Dialogus may indicate a connection with Spain, while his friendship with Pliny indicates northern Italy. None of this evidence is conclusive. No evidence exists that Pliny's friends from northern Italy knew Tacitus, nor do Pliny's letters ever hint that the two men had a common background. Indeed, the strongest piece of evidence is in Pliny Book 9, Letter 23, which reports that when Tacitus was asked if he were Italian or provincial, upon giving an unclear answer, was further asked if he were Tacitus or Pliny. Since Pliny was from Italy, some historians infer that Tacitus was from the provinces, possibly Gallia Narbonensis.
His ancestry, his skill in oratory, and his sympathetic depiction of barbarians who resisted Roman rule (for example,
Ann. 2.9), have led some to suggest that he was a
Celt; the Celts had occupied Gaul before the Romans, were famous for their skill in oratory, and had been subjugated by Rome.
Public life, marriage, and literary career
As a young man, Tacitus studied
rhetoric in Rome to prepare for a career in
law and
politics; like Pliny, he may have studied under
Quintilian. In 77 or 78 he married
Julia Agricola, daughter of the famous general Agricola; little is known of their home life, save that Tacitus loved
hunting and the outdoors. 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
quindecemvir, a member of the priest 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 gave a marked irony to his
cognomen:
Tacitus ("silent").
He served in the provinces from ca. 89 to ca. 93 either in command of a
legion or in a civilian post. His person and property survived Domitian's reign of terror (93–96), but the experience left him jaded and grim (perhaps ashamed at his own complicity), and gave him the hatred of
tyranny evident in his works. The
Agricola, chs.
44–
45, is illustrative:
Agricola was spared those later years during which Domitian, leaving now no interval or breathing space of time, but, as it were, with one continuous blow, drained the life-blood of the Commonwealth... It wasn't long before our hands dragged Helvidius to prison, before we gazed on the dying looks of Manricus and Rusticus, before we were steeped in Senecio's innocent blood. Even Nero turned his eyes away, and didn't gaze upon the atrocities which he ordered; with Domitian it was the chief part of our miseries to see and to be seen, to know that our sighs were being recorded...
From his seat in the
Senate he became
suffect consul in 97 during the reign of
Nerva, being the
first of his family to do so. During his tenure he reached the height of his fame as an orator when he delivered the funeral oration for the famous veteran soldier
Lucius Verginius Rufus.
In the following year he wrote and published the
Agricola and
Germania, announcing the beginnings of the literary endeavors that would occupy him until his death. Afterwards he absented from public life, but returned during
Trajan's reign. In 100, he, along with his friend
Pliny the Younger, prosecuted
Marius Priscus (
proconsul of Africa) for corruption. Priscus was found guilty and sent into exile; Pliny wrote a few days later that Tacitus had spoken "with all the majesty which characterizes his usual style of oratory".
A lengthy absence from politics and law followed while he wrote his two major works: the
Histories and the
Annals. In 112 or 113 he held the highest civilian governorship, that of the Roman province of
Asia in Western
Anatolia, recorded in an inscription found at Mylasa (mentioned above). A passage in the
Annals fixes 116 as the
terminus post quem of his death, which may have been as late as 125. It is unknown whether he'd any children, though the
Augustan History reports that the emperor
Marcus Claudius Tacitus claimed him for an ancestor and provided for the preservation of his works—but like so much of the
Augustan History, this story is probably fraudulent.
Works
Five works ascribed to Tacitus have survived (albeit with some lacunae), the largest of which are the
Annals and the
Histories. The dates are approximate:
Major works
The
Annals and the
Histories, originally published separately, were meant to form a single edition of thirty books. Although Tacitus wrote the
Histories before the
Annals, the events in the
Annals precede the
Histories; together they form a continuous narrative from the death of
Augustus (14) to the death of
Domitian (96). Though parts have been lost, what remains is an invaluable record of the era.
The Histories
In an early chapter of the
Agricola, Tacitus said he wished to speak about the years of Domitian,
Nerva, and
Trajan. In the
Histories the scope has changed; Tacitus says that he'll deal with the age of Nerva and Trajan at a later time. Instead, he'll cover the period from the civil wars of the
Year of Four Emperors and end with the despotism of the
Flavians. Only the first four books and twenty-six chapters of the fifth book survive, covering the year 69 and the first part of 70. The work is believed to have continued up to the death of Domitian on
September 18,
96. The fifth book contains—as a prelude to the account of Titus's suppression of the
Great Jewish Revolt—a short
ethnographic survey of the ancient
Jews and is an invaluable record of the educated Romans' attitude towards that people.
The Annals
The
Annals was 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. The second half of book 16 is missing (ending with the events of 66). We don't know whether Tacitus completed the work or whether he finished the other works that he'd planned to write; he died before he could complete his planned histories of Nerva and Trajan, and no record survives of the work on
Augustus Caesar and the beginnings of the Empire with which he'd planned to finish his work. The
Annals is also among the first-known secular-historic records to mention
Jesus (see
Tacitus on Christ). In connection with
Nero's persecution of the
Christians, Tacitus states
(Ann. 15.44), "Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."
Minor works
Tacitus wrote three minor works on various subjects: the
Agricola, a biography of his father-in-law
Gnaeus Julius Agricola; the
Germania, a monograph on the lands and tribes of barbarian Germania; and the
Dialogus, a dialogue on the art of
rhetoric.
Germania
The
Germania (
Latin title:
De Origine et situ Germanorum) is an ethnographic work on the diverse set of people Tacitus believed to be
Germanic tribes outside the
Roman Empire.
Ethnography had a long and distinguished heritage in
classical literature, and the
Germania fits squarely within the tradition established by authors from
Herodotus to
Julius Caesar. Tacitus had written a similar, albeit shorter, piece in his
Agricola (chapters 10–13). The book begins with a description of the lands, laws, and customs of the tribes (chapters 1–27); it then segues into descriptions of individual tribes, beginning with those dwelling closest to Roman lands and ending on the uttermost shores of the
Baltic Sea, with a description of the primitive and savage
Fenni and the unknown tribes beyond them.
Agricola (De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae)
The
Agricola (written ca. 98) recounts the life of
Gnaeus Julius Agricola, an eminent Roman general and Tacitus' father-in-law; it also covers, briefly, the geography and
ethnography of ancient
Britain. As in the
Germania, Tacitus favorably contrasts the liberty of the native
Britons with the corruption and tyranny of the Empire; the book also contains eloquent and vicious polemics against the rapacity and greed of Rome, in one of which Tacitus says is by
Calgacus and it ends
Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. (To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. — Oxford Revised Translation).
Dialogus
There is uncertainty about when Tacitus wrote
Dialogus de oratoribus, but it was probably after the
Agricola and the
Germania. Many characteristics set it apart from the other works of Tacitus, so that its authenticity has been questioned, although it's still grouped with the
Agricola and the
Germania in the manuscript tradition. The way of speaking in the
Dialogus seems closer to
Cicero's proceedings, refined but not prolix, which inspired the teaching of
Quintilian; it lacks the incongruities that are typical of Tacitus' major historical works. It may have been written when Tacitus was young; its dedication to Fabius Iustus would thus give the date of publication, but not the date of writing. More probably, the unusually classical style may be explained by the fact that the
Dialogus is a work dealing with
rhetoric. For works in the
rhetoric genre, the structure, the language, and the style of Cicero were the usual models.
The sources of Tacitus
Tacitus used the official sources of the Roman state: the
acta senatus (the minutes of the session of the Senate) and the
acta diurna populi Romani (a collection of the acts of the government and news of the court and capital). He read collections of emperors' speeches, such as
Tiberius and
Claudius. Generally, Tacitus was a scrupulous historian who paid careful attention to his historical works. The minor inaccuracies in the
Annals may be due to Tacitus dying before finishing (and therefore final proofreading) of this work. He used a variety of historical and literary sources; he used them freely and he chose from sources of varied opinions.
Tacitus cites some of his sources directly, among them
Cluvius Rufus,
Fabius Rusticus and
Pliny the Elder, who had written
Bella Germaniae and a historical work which was the continuation of that of
Aufidius Bassus. Tacitus used some collections of letters (
epistolarium) and various notes. He also took information from
exitus illustrium virorum. These were a collection of books by those who were antithetical to the emperors. They tell of the sacrifice of the martyr to freedom, especially the men who committed suicide, following the theory of the
Stoics. While he placed no value on the Stoic theory of suicide, Tacitus used accounts of famous suicides to give a dramatic tone to his stories. These suicides seemed, to him, ostentatious and politically useless; however, he gives prominence to the speeches of some of those about to commit suicide, for example
Cremutius Cordus' speech in
Ann. IV, 34-35.
Literary style
Tacitus' writings are known for their deep-cutting and dense prose, seldom glossy, in contrast to the more placable style of some of his contemporaries, like
Plutarch. Describing a near defeat of the Roman army in
Ann. I, 63 Tacitus does apply gloss, but does so by the
brevity with which he describes the end of the hostilities, than by embellishing phrases.
In most of his writings he keeps to a chronological ordering of his narration, with only seldom an outline of the "bigger picture", and leaves the reader to construct that picture for himself. Nonetheless, when he does sketch the bigger picture, for example, in the opening paragraphs of the
Annals - summarizing the situation at the end of the reign of Augustus - he uses a few condensed phrases to take the reader to the heart of the story.
Approach to history
Tacitus' historical style combines various approaches to history into a method of his own (owing some debt to
Sallust): seamlessly blending straightforward descriptions of events, pointed moral lessons, and tightly-focused dramatic accounts, his historiography contains deep, and often pessimistic, insights into the workings of the human mind and the nature of power.
Tacitus' own declaration regarding his approach to history is famous (
Ann. I,1):
»
Tacitus is remembered first and foremost as Rome's greatest historian, the equal—if not the superior—of
Thucydides, the ancient Greeks' foremost historian; the
Encyclopædia Britannica opined that he "ranks beyond dispute in the highest place among men of letters of all ages". His influence extends far beyond the field of history. His work has been read for its moral instruction, its gripping and dramatic narrative, and its inimitable prose style; it's as a political theorist, though, that he's been, and remains, most influential outside the field of history. The political lessons taken from his work fall roughly into two camps, as identified by
Giuseppe Toffanin: the "red Tacitists", who used him to support
republican ideals, and the "black Tacitists", those who read him as a lesson in
Machiavellian realpolitik.
Though his work is the most reliable source for the history of his era, its factual accuracy is occasionally questioned: the
Annals are based in part on secondary sources of unknown reliability, and there are some obvious minor mistakes, for instance confusing the two daughters of
Mark Antony and
Octavia Minor, both named
Antonia). The
Histories, written from
primary documents and intimate knowledge of the Flavian period, is thought to be more accurate, though Tacitus' hatred of Domitian seemingly colored its tone and interpretations.
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