Tacitus

Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 56–ca. 117), Roman orator, lawyer, and senator, is considered one of antiquity's greatest historians. His major works—the Annals and the Histories—took for their subject the history of the Roman Empire's first century, from the ascension of the emperor Tiberius to the death of Domitian.

Notes

• {{note|mylasa}} OGIS 437, first brought to light in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, 1890, pp. 621–623.
• {{note|birth}} Since he was appointed to the quaestorship during Titus's short rule (see note below), and twenty-five was the minimum age for the position, the date of his birth can be fixed with some accuracy.
• {{note|praenomen}} See Oliver, 1951, for an analysis of the manuscript from which we take the name Publius; see also Oliver, 1977, which examines the evidence for each suggested praenomen (the well-known Gaius and Publius, the lesser-known suggestions of Sextus and Quintus) before settling on Publius as the most likely.
• {{note|sextus}} Oliver, 1977, cites an article by Harold Mattingly in Rivista storica dell'Antichità, 2 (1972) 169–185.
• {{note|freedman}} Syme, 1958, pp. 612–613; Gordon, 1936, pp. 145–146
• {{note|father}} Syme, 1958, p. 60, 613; Gordon, 1936, p. 149; Martin, 1981, p. 26
• {{note|family}} Syme, 1958, p. 63
• {{note|province}} Syme, 1958, pp. 614–616
• {{note|province2}} Syme, 1958, pp. 616–619
• {{note|narbonensis}} Syme, 1958, p. 619; Gordon, 1936, p. 145
• {{note|celts}} Gordon, 1936, pp. 150–151; Syme, 1958, pp. 621–624
• {{note|study}} That he studied rhetoric and law we know from the Dialogus, ch. 2; see also Martin, 1981, p. 26; Syme, 1958, pp. 114–115
• {{note|marriage}} Agricola, 9
• {{note|hunting}} Pliny, Letters 1.6, 9.10; Benario, 1975, pp. 15, 17; Syme, 1958, pp. 541–542
• {{note|latus}} Syme, 1958, p. 63; Martin, 1981, pp. 26–27
• {{note|quaestor}} From the Histories (1.1) we learn of his debt to Titus; since Titus's rule was short, these are the only years possible.
• {{note|praetor}} In the Annals (11.11) he mentions that he, as praetor, assisted in the Secular Games held by Domitian, which are dated precisely to 88. See Syme, 1958, p. 65; Martin, 1981, p. 27
• {{note|89-93}} The Agricola (45.5) indicates that Tacitus and his wife were absent at the time of Julius Agricola's death in 93. For his occupation during this time see Syme, 1958, p. 68; Benario, 1975, p. 13; Dudley, 1968, pp. 15–16; Martin, 1981, p. 28; Mellor, 1993, p. 8
• {{note|domitian_terror}} Agricola, 44–45: " 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 was not 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 did not 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 ." For the effects on Tacitus's ideology see Dudley, 1968, p. 14; Mellor, 1993, pp. 8–9
• {{note|consul}} Pliny, Letters, 2.1 (English)
• {{note|98}} In the Agricola (3) he announces what must be the beginning of his first great project: the Histories. See Dudley, 1968, p. 16
• {{note|priscus}} Pliny, Letters 2.11
• {{note|death}} Annals, 2.61, says that the Roman Empire "now extends to the Red Sea". If by "mare rubrum" he means the Persian Gulf, as is possible, then the passage must have been written after Trajan's eastern conquests in 116, but before Hadrian abandoned the new territories in 117. This may indicate only the date of publication for the first books of the Annals; Tacitus himself could have lived well into Hadrian's reign, and there is no reason to suppose that he did not. See Dudley, 1968, p. 17; Mellor, 1993, p. 9; Mendell, 1957, p. 7; Syme, 1958, p. 473
• {{note|m._c._t.}} Augustan History, Tacitus X. Scholarly opinion on this story is divided as to whether it is "a confused and worthless rumor" (Mendell, 1957, p. 4) or "pure fiction" (Syme, 1958, p. 796). Sidonius Apollinaris reports (Letters, 4.14; cited in Syme, 1958, p. 796) that Polemius, a 5th-century Gallo-Roman aristocrat, descended from Tacitus—but this too, says Syme (ibid.) is of little use.
• {{note|numbooks}} Jerome's commentary on the Book of Zechariah (14.1, 2; quoted in Mendell, 1957, p. 228) says that Tacitus's history was extant triginta voluminibus, 'in thirty volumes'.
• {{note|remembrance}} Mellor, 1995, p. xvii
• {{note|redandblack}} Burke, 1969, pp. 162–163