The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus - The Oxford Translation
Revised, With Notes - By Tacitus - With An Introduction By Edward
Brooks, Jr. - Very little is known concerning the life of Tacitus, the
historian, except that which he tells us in his own writings and those
incidents which are related of him by his contemporary, Pliny. His full
name was Caius Cornelius Tacitus. The date of his birth can only be
arrived at by conjecture, and then only approximately. The younger Pliny
speaks of him as prope modum aequales, about the same age. Pliny was
born in 61. Tacitus, however, occupied the office of quaestor under
Vespasian in 78 A.D., at which time he must, therefore, have been at
least twenty-five years of age. This would fix the date of his birth not
later than 53 A.D. It is probable, therefore, that Tacitus was Pliny's
senior by several years. His parentage is also a matter of pure
conjecture. The name Cornelius was a common one among the Romans, so
that from it we can draw no inference. The fact that at an early age he
occupied a prominent public office indicates that he was born of good
family, and it is not impossible that his father was a certain Cornelius
Tacitus, a Roman knight, who was procurator in Belgic Gaul, and whom the
elder Pliny speaks of in his "Natural History." Of the early life of
Tacitus and the training which he underwent preparatory to those
literary efforts which afterwards rendered him a conspicuous figure
among Roman literateurs we know absolutely nothing.
