The Life of Cornelius Tacitus

Augustus (31 B.C. to 14 A.D.)

Tiberius (14-37)

Gaius (37-41)

Claudius (41-54)

Nero (54-68)

c. 55 Tacitus born in Transpadane Italy or Gallia Narbonensis (Vasio?)

Galba (68-69)

Otho (69)

Vitellius (69)

Vespasian (69-79)

75/6 Tac. studies oratory at Rome (Dial. 1.1-2, 2.1).
? Tac. granted latus clavus by Vespasian (Hist. 1.1.3)

77 Tac. marries daughter of Cn. Iulius Agricola (Agr. 9.6).

Titus (79-81)

Domitian (81-96)

88 Tac. praetor, XVviri sacris faciundis (Ann. 11.11.1).

90-93 Tac. abroad (Agr. 45.5).

Nerva (96-98)

97 Tac. consul suffectus; delivers funeral oration of Verginius Rufus (Plin. Ep. 2.1.6).

98 Agricola, Germania.

Trajan (98-117)

100 Tac. prosecutes Marius Priscus with Pliny (Plin. Ep. 2.11).

97-107? Dialogus de oratoribus.

100-110 Historiae.

110-??? Annales Ab Excessu Divi Augusti.

112-113 Tac. proconsul Asiae (OGIS 487).

Hadrian (117-138)

after 117 Tac. dies.

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Full name: C. (or P.?) Cornelius Tacitus
Dates: ca. AD 55 to after 117

Life: The date of T.'s birth is deduced from the pattern of his promotions in the senatorial cursus honorum; at Dial. 1.2 (dramatic date: AD 74/75) where T. describes himself as iuvenis admodum, i.e. about 18-20.

Born to an equestrian family in Transpadane Italy or, more likely, Narbonese Gaul, perhaps at Vasio (see R. Syme, Tacitus, (Oxford 1957) 611-624), T. passed the early years of his life in (for us) complete obscurity. Not even his praenomen is known with certainty: the 5th c. poet and epistolographer Sidonius Apollinaris calls him Caius (Ep. 4.14.1, 4.22.2), but the subscription of the codex Mediceus of Annales books 1 and 3 (our sole surviving manuscript witness) records "P. Corneli". His father was perhaps the equestrian procurator of Gallia Beligica mentioned by Pliny the Elder (HN 7.76) who served as an officer of the Rhine from ca. AD 46-58.

Studying oratory at Rome in 75, T. was granted the latus clavus (i.e. the right to wear the broad purple stripe of senatorial rank) by Vespasian (Hist. 1.1.3) and shortly thereafter, in 77, married the daughter of Cn. Iulius Agricola (Agr. 9.6), a native from Forum Iulii (Frejus) in southern Gallia Narbonensis, perhaps while serving his initial military service as tribunus laticlavius. Evidently T. passed quickly through the junior grades of senatorial service, because he is next attested as praetor in 88 (at an early age for a novus homo); in the same year he served on the priestly board of the XVviri sacris faciundis with the Emperor Domitian, who used his position in the college to organize and celebrate Secular Games (Ann. 11.11.1).

Abroad (probably as proconsul of a senatorial province) when his father-in-law Agricola died on Aug. 23, 93 (Agr. 45.5), T. returned to Rome after an absence of three years or more to hold the suffect consulship in the second half of 97; while in office he delivered the funeral oration for Verginius Rufus (Pliny Ep. 2.1.6), an honor befitting his reputation as leading orator of the day (Pliny Ep. 7.20). In 100 he prosecuted Marius Priscus with Pliny (Pliny Ep. 2.11).

Thereafter our information on T.'s activities is meagre. We surmise from Pliny's letters on the eruption of Vesuvius (6.16, 20) that T. was at work on the Historiae in ca. 106, and the chance discovery of an inscription in Asia Minor informs us that T. reached the summit of a senatorial career, the proconsulate of Asia, in 112/113.

A passage in the Annales alluding to the extension of Roman dominion to the Red Sea, territory first conquered on Trajan's Parthian campaigns of 115/16 (Ann. 2.61.2), provides a definite terminus post quem for his death; the succession of Tiberius seems to allude the succession of Hadrian in 117, although this is currently a point of contention (see Glen Bowersock, "Tacitus and the Province of Asia," in Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition ed. T.J. Luce & A.J. Woodman (Princeton 1992) 1-10). Whether he lived to complete his greatest work we do not know.

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