the historian. The time and place of the birth of Tacitus are unknorwn. He was nearly of the same age as the younger Plinius (Plin. Ep. 7.20) who was born about A. D. 61 [C. PLINIUS CAECILIUS SECUNDUS], but a little older. His gentile name is not sufficient evidence that lie belonged to the Cornelia Gens ; nor is there proof of his having been born at Interamna (Terni), as it is sometimes affirmed. Some facts relative to his biography may be collected from his own writings and from the letters of his friend, the younger Pliniuis.
Cornelius Tacituts, a Roman eques, is mentioned by Plinitus (H. N. 7.16, note, ed. Hardouin) as a procurator in Gallia Belgica. Plinius died A. D. 79 , and the procurator cannot have been the historian; but he may have been his father. In an inscription of doubtful authority he is named Cornelius Verus Tacitns. Tacitus was first promoted by, the emperor Vespasian (Hist. i. l). and he received other favours from his sons Titus and Domitian. C. Julius Agricola, who was consul A. D. 77, betrothed his daughter to Tacitus in that year. but the marriage did not take place until the following year. In the reign of Domitian, and in A. D. 88 Tacitus was praetor, and he assisted as one of the quindecemviri at the solemnity of the Luidi Secuiares which ware celebrated in that year,
Agricola died at Rome A. D. 93, but neither Tacitus nor the daughter of Agricola was then with him. It is not known where Tacitus was during the last illness of Agricola, for the assumption that he ever visited either Britain or Germany cannot be proved. He appears to say that he was himself a witness of some of the atrocities of Domitian (Agricola, 100.45). In the reign of Nerva. A.D. 97. Tacitus was appointed consul suffectus, in the place of T. Virginius Rufus, who had died in that year. Tacitus pronounced the funeral oration of Rufus, " and it was," says Plinius, " the completion of the felicity of Rufus to have his panegyric pronounced by so eloquent a man." (Plin. Ep. 2.1.) Tacitus had attained oratorical distinction when Plinius was commencing his career. He and Tacitus were appointed in the reign of Nerva (A. D. 99) to conduct the prosecution of Marius, proconsul of Africa, who had grossly misconducted himself in his province. Salvius Liberalis, a man of great acuteness and eloquence, was one of the advocates of Marius. Tacitus made a most eloquent and dignified reply to Liberalis.
Tacitus and Plinius were most intimate friends. In the collection of the letters of Plinius, there are eleven letters addressed to Tacitus. In a letter to his friend Maximus (9.23), Plinius shows that he considered his friendship with Tacitus a great distinction, and he tells the following anecdote : -- On one occasion, when Tacitus was a spectator at the Ludi Circenses, he fell into conversation with a Roman eques, who, after they had discoursed on various literary subjects for some time, asked Tacitus if he was an Italian or a provincial; to which Tacitus replied, " You are acquainted with me, and by my pursuits." " Are you," rejoined the stranger, " Tacitus or Plinius?" The sixteenth letter of the sixth book, in which Plinius describes the great eruption of Vesuvius and the death of his uncle, is addressed to Tacitus; and for the purpose of enabling him to state the facts in his historical writings. Among other contemporaries of Tacitus were Quintilian, Julius Florus, Maternus, M. Aper, and Vipsanius Messala.
The time of the death of Tacitus is unknown, but we may perhaps infer that he survived Trajan, who died A. D. 117. (Hist. i. l.) Nothing is recrded of any children of his, though the emperor Tacitus claimed a descent from the historian, and ordered his works to be placed in all (public) libraries; and ten copies to be made every year at the public expense, and deposited in the Archeia. (Vopiscus, Tacitus Imp. 100.10.) Sidonius Apollinaris mentions the historian as an ancestor of Polemius, who was a prefect of Gaul in the fifth century.
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