Tacitus: Encyclopedia II - Tacitus - Biography

Tacitus - Biography

Tacitus's works contain a wealth of information about his world, but details on his own life are lacking. Even his praenomen (first name) is uncertain. What little we know comes from scattered hints throughout the corpus of his work, the letters of his friend and admirer Pliny the Younger, an inscription found at Mylasa in Caria^[1], and educated guesswork.

Tacitus was born in 56 or 57^[2] to an equestrian family; like many other Latin authors of the Golden and Silver Ages, he was from the provinces, probably northern Italy, Gallia Narbonensis, or Hispania. The exact place and date of his birth are nowhere made explicit. Nor is his praenomen: in some letters of Sidonius Apollinaris and in some old and unimportant writings his name is Gaius, but in the major surviving manuscript of his work his name is given as Publius^[3]. (One scholar's suggestion of Sextus has gained no traction^[4]).

Tacitus - Descent and place of birth

His scorn for the social climber has led to the supposition that his family was from an unknown branch of the patrician gens Cornelia, but no Cornelii had ever borne the cognomen Tacitus, the older aristocratic families had largely been destroyed in the chaos surrounding the end of the Republic, and Tacitus himself is clear that he owes his rank to the Flavian emperors (Hist. 1.1). The supposition 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 easily dismissed^[5].

His father was probably the Cornelius Tacitus who was procurator of Belgica and Germania. A son of this Cornelius Tacitus is cited by Pliny the Elder as an example of abnormally rapid growth and aging (N.H. 7.76), implying an early death. This means that this son was not the historian, but his brother or cousin—the senior Cornelius Tacitus may have been an uncle^[6]. From this connection, and from the well-attested friendship between the younger Pliny and the younger Tacitus, scholars draw the conclusion that the two families were of similar class, means, and background: equestrians, of significant wealth, from provincial families^[7].

The exact province of his origin is unknown. His marriage to the daughter of the Narbonensian senator Gnaeus Julius Agricola may indicate that he, too, came from Gallia Narbonensis. The possibly-Spanish origin of the Fabius Iustus to whom Tacitus dedicates the Dialogus suggests a (family?) connection to Hispania. His friendship with Pliny points to northern Italy as his home^[8]. None of this evidence is conclusive. Gnaeus Julius Agricola could have known Tacitus from elsewhere. Martial dedicates a poem to Pliny (10.20), but not to the more distinguished Tacitus—which, had Tacitus been Spanish, might be unusual, were Martial's light and often scurrilous style not antithetical to Tacitus's grave and serious manner. No evidence exists that Pliny's friends from northern Italy knew Tacitus, nor do Pliny's letters ever hint that the two men shared a common home province^[9]. The opposite, in fact: the strongest piece of evidence is in Book 9, Letter 23, which reports how Tacitus was asked if he were Italian or provincial, and upon giving an unclear answer, was further asked if he were Tacitus or Pliny. Since Pliny was from Italy, Tacitus must have been from the further provinces, and Gallia Narbonensis is the most likely candidate.^[10]

His ancestry, his skill in oratory, and his occasional sympathy for barbarians who resisted Roman rule (e.g., Ann. 2.9), have led some to suggest that he was of Celtic stock: the Celts had occupied Gaul before the Romans, the Celts were famous for their skill in oratory, and the Celts had been subjugated by Rome.^[11]

Tacitus - Public life marriage and literary career

As a young man he studied rhetoric in Rome as preparation for a career in law and politics; like Pliny, he may have studied under Quintilian.^[12] In 77 or 78 he married Julia Agricola, daughter of the famous general Agricola^[13]; we know nothing of their marriage or their home life, save that Tacitus loved hunting and the outdoors.^[14] He owed the start of his career (probably meaning the latus clavus, mark of the senator^[15]) to Vespasian, as he tells us in the Histories (1.1), but it was under Titus that he entered political life as quaestor, in 81 or 82^[16]. He advanced steadily through the cursus honorum, becoming praetor in 88 and holding a position among the quindecemviri sacris faciundis, members of a priestly college in charge of the Sibylline Books and the Secular Games.^[17] He gained acclaim as a lawyer and 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, perhaps in command of a legion, perhaps in a civilian post.^[18] 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 so evident throughout his works.^[19] 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 old soldier Verginius Rufus.^[20]

In the following year he wrote and published his Agricola and Germania, announcing the beginnings of the literary endeavors that would occupy him until his death.^[21] Afterwards he disappears from the public scene, to which he returns 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".^[22]

A lengthy absence from politics and law followed, during which time he wrote his two major works: first the Histories, then the Annals. He held the highest civilian governorship, that of the Roman province of Asia in Western Anatolia, in 112 or 113, as evidenced by the 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^[23]. It is unknown whether he was survived by any children, though the Augustan History reports that the emperor Marcus Claudius Tacitus claimed him as an ancestor and provided for the preservation of his works—but like so much of the Augustan History, this story is probably fraudulent.^[24]

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki