Publius Cornelius Tacitus, whose name means silent in Latin, was born around 56 or 57 AD into a wealthy equestrian family, possibly from northern Italy or Gaul. He studied rhetoric in Rome, possibly under Quintilian, and around 77 or 78 AD married Julia Agricola, daughter of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the general who conquered much of Britain. He entered politics as a quaestor under Titus, became a senior magistrate by 88 AD, and joined the fifteen men who kept the Sibylline books. Under Domitian, whose reign from 81 to 96 AD turned into a terror aimed at the elite, Tacitus kept his head down, held provincial commands, and voted with the Senate to condemn colleagues while spies watched even senators’ sighs.
After Domitian’s assassination in 96 AD, Tacitus became consul in 97 and began writing in 98. His biography of Agricola used the Britons as a mirror for Roman greed, and his study of the Germanic tribes contrasted their virtue with Roman decadence. The Histories covered the Year of the Four Emperors and the Flavians, showing how provincial armies, not the Senate, now made emperors. The Annals covered Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero in dense, thorny Latin built from Senate minutes and state records. He served as proconsul of Asia around 112 to 113 AD and died around 120 AD. Edward Gibbon later called him the model of a philosophic historian.
- Some scholars suspect Celtic ancestry, citing the Celts’ fame for oratory and his sympathy for peoples resisting Rome.
- A British chieftain in the Agricola accuses Rome of making a wasteland and calling it peace.
- The Annals mention Christus, executed under Pontius Pilate, while describing Nero’s search for scapegoats after the fire of 64 AD.
- He claimed to write without anger or zeal, yet his hatred of unaccountable power shows on every page.
- He portrayed the Senate’s groveling as pushing a reluctant Tiberius toward tyranny, blaming his own class for surrendering liberty.
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