Coordinates | 41°52′55″N87°37′40″N |
---|---|
Name | Tacitus |
Birthdate | ca. AD 56 |
Deathdate | ca. 117 |
Occupation | Senator, consul, governor, historian |
Genre | History |
Subject | History, biography, oratory |
Movement | Silver Age of Latin |
Signature | }} |
Other works by Tacitus discuss oratory (in dialogue format, see ''Dialogus de oratoribus''), Germania (in ''De origine et situ Germanorum''), and biographical notes about his father-in-law Agricola, primarily during his campaign in Britannia (see ''De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae'').
Tacitus was an author writing in the latter part of the Silver Age of Latin literature. His work is distinguished by a boldness and sharpness of wit, and a compact and sometimes unconventional use of Latin.
Tacitus was born in 56 or 57 to an equestrian family; like many Latin authors of the Golden and Silver Ages, he was from the provinces, probably either northern Italy, Gallia Narbonensis, or Hispania. The exact place and date of his birth are not known, while his praenomen (first name) is similarly a mystery; in the letters of Sidonius Apollinaris his name is ''Gaius'', but in the major surviving manuscript of his work his name is given as ''Publius''. (One scholar's suggestion of ''Sextus'' has gained no traction.)
His father may have been the Cornelius Tacitus who was procurator of Belgica and Germania; Pliny the Elder mentions that Cornelius had a son who grew and aged rapidly (N.H. 7.76), and implies an early death. If Cornelius was Tacitus' father and since there is no mention of Tacitus suffering such a condition in the surviving record, it would likely refer to a brother instead. This connection, and the friendship between the younger Pliny and Tacitus, led many scholars to the conclusion that the two families were of similar class, means, and background: equestrians, of significant wealth, and from provincial families.
The province of his birth is unknown and has been variously conjectured as Gallia Belgica, Gallia Narbonensis, or even northern Italy. His marriage to the daughter of the Narbonensian senator Gnaeus Julius Agricola may indicate that he, too, came from Gallia Narbonensis. Tacitus' dedication to Fabius Iustus in the ''Dialogus'' may indicate a connection with Spain, while his friendship with Pliny indicates northern Italy. None of this evidence is conclusive. No evidence exists that Pliny's friends from northern Italy knew Tacitus, nor do Pliny's letters ever hint that the two men had a common background. Indeed, the strongest piece of evidence is in Pliny Book 9, Letter 23, which reports that when Tacitus was asked if he were Italian or provincial, upon giving an unclear answer, was further asked if he were Tacitus or Pliny. Since Pliny was from Italy, some historians infer that Tacitus was from the provinces, possibly Gallia Narbonensis.
His ancestry, his skill in oratory, and his sympathetic depiction of barbarians who resisted Roman rule (e.g., ''Ann.'' 2.9), have led some to suggest that he was a Celt; the Celts had occupied Gaul before the Romans, were famous for their skill in oratory, and had been subjugated by Rome.
He served in the provinces from ca. 89 to ca. 93 either in command of a legion or in a civilian post. His person and property survived Domitian's reign of terror (81–96), but the experience left him jaded and grim (perhaps ashamed at his own complicity), and gave him the hatred of tyranny evident in his works. The ''Agricola'', chs. 44–45, is illustrative:
Agricola 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...
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 veteran soldier Lucius Verginius Rufus.
In the following year he wrote and published the ''Agricola'' and ''Germania'', announcing the beginnings of the literary endeavors that would occupy him until his death. Afterwards he absented himself from public life, but returned 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".
A lengthy absence from politics and law followed while he wrote his two major works: the ''Histories'' and the ''Annals''. In 112 or 113 he held the highest civilian governorship, that of the Roman province of ''Asia'' in Western Anatolia, recorded in 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 or even 130. At all events it seems certain that he survived both Pliny and Trajan. It is unknown whether he had any children, though the ''Augustan History'' reports that the emperor Marcus Claudius Tacitus claimed him for an ancestor and provided for the preservation of his works—but like so much of the ''Augustan History'', this story may be fraudulent.
Five works ascribed to Tacitus have survived (albeit with some lacunae), the largest of which are the ''Annals'' and the ''Histories''. The dates are approximate:
The ''Germania'' (Latin title: ''De Origine et situ Germanorum'') is an ethnographic work on the diverse set of people Tacitus believed to be Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire. Ethnography already had a long and distinguished heritage in classical literature, and the ''Germania'' fits squarely within the tradition established by authors from Herodotus to Julius Caesar. The book begins (chapters 1–27) with a description of the lands, laws, and customs of the tribes. Later chapters focus on descriptions of individual tribes, beginning with those dwelling closest to Roman lands and ending on the uttermost shores of the Baltic Sea, with a description of the Fenni and the unknown tribes beyond them. Tacitus had written a similar, albeit shorter, piece in his ''Agricola'' (chapters 10–13).
There is uncertainty about when Tacitus wrote ''Dialogus de oratoribus'' , but it was probably after the ''Agricola'' and the ''Germania''. Many characteristics set it apart from the other works of Tacitus, so that its authenticity has been questioned, although it is still grouped with the ''Agricola'' and the ''Germania'' in the manuscript tradition. The way of speaking in the ''Dialogus'' seems closer to Cicero's proceedings, refined but not prolix, which inspired the teaching of Quintilian; it lacks the incongruities that are typical of Tacitus' major historical works. It may have been written when Tacitus was young; its dedication to Fabius Iustus would thus give the date of publication, but not the date of writing. More probably, the unusually classical style may be explained by the fact that the ''Dialogus'' is a work dealing with rhetoric. For works in the ''rhetoric'' genre, the structure, the language, and the style of Cicero were the usual models.
Tacitus cites some of his sources directly, among them Cluvius Rufus, Fabius Rusticus and Pliny the Elder, who had written ''Bella Germaniae'' and a historical work which was the continuation of that of Aufidius Bassus. Tacitus used some collections of letters (''epistolarium'') and various notes. He also took information from ''exitus illustrium virorum''. These were a collection of books by those who were antithetical to the emperors. They tell of the sacrifice of the martyr to freedom, especially the men who committed suicide, following the theory of the Stoics. While he placed no value on the Stoic theory of suicide, Tacitus used accounts of famous suicides to give a dramatic tone to his stories. These suicides seemed, to him, ostentatious and politically useless; however, he gives prominence to the speeches of some of those about to commit suicide, for example Cremutius Cordus' speech in ''Ann.'' IV, 34-35.
In most of his writings, he keeps to a chronological narrative order, only seldom outlining the bigger picture, and leaves the reader to construct that picture for himself. Nonetheless, where he does paint in broad strokes—for example, in the opening paragraphs of the ''Annals'', summarizing the situation at the end of the reign of Augustus—he uses a few condensed phrases to take the reader to the heart of the story.
Tacitus' own declaration regarding his approach to history is famous (''Ann.'' I,1): :{|- |inde consilium mihi ... tradere ... sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo. | |Hence my purpose is to relate ... without either anger or zeal, from any motives to which I am far removed. |} There has been much scholarly discussion about Tacitus' "neutrality" (or "partiality" to others, which would make the quote above no more than a figure of speech).
Throughout his writing, Tacitus is concerned with the balance of power between the Senate and the Emperors, corruption and the growing tyranny among the governing classes of Rome as they adjust to the new imperial régime. In Tacitus' view, they squandered their cultural traditions of free speech and independence to placate the often bemused (and rarely benign) emperor.
Tacitus explored the emperors' increasing dependence on the goodwill of the armies to secure the ''principes''. The internecine murders of the Julio-Claudians eventually gave way to opportunist generals. These generals, backed by the legions they commanded, followed Julius Caesar's example (and that of Sulla and Pompey) in realising that military might could secure them the political power in Rome. Tacitus believed this realisation came with the death of Nero, (''Hist.1.4)
Welcome as the death of Nero had been in the first burst of joy, yet it had not only roused various emotions in Rome, among the Senators, the people, or the soldiery of the capital, it had also excited all the legions and their generals; for now had been divulged that secret of the empire, that emperors could be made elsewhere than at Rome.
Tacitus' political career was largely spent under the emperor Domitian; his experience of the tyranny, corruption, and decadence prevalent in the era (81–96) may explain his bitter and ironic political analysis. He warned against the dangers of unaccountable power, against the love of power untempered by principle, and against the popular apathy and corruption, engendered by the wealth of the empire, which allowed such evils to flourish. The experience of Domitian's tyrannical reign is generally also seen as the cause of the sometimes unfairly bitter and ironic cast to his portrayal of the Julio-Claudian emperors.
Nonetheless the image he builds of Tiberius throughout the first six books of the ''Annals'' is neither exclusively bleak nor approving: most scholars analyse the image of Tiberius as predominantly ''positive'' in the first books, becoming predominantly ''negative'' in the following books relating the intrigues of Sejanus. Even then, the entrance of Tiberius in the first chapters of the first book is a crimson tale dominated by hypocrisy by and around the new emperor coming to power; and in the later books some kind of respect for the wisdom and cleverness of the old emperor, keeping out of Rome to secure his position, is often transparent.
In general Tacitus does not fear to give words of praise and words of rejection to the same person, often explaining openly which he thinks the commendable and which the despicable properties. Not ''conclusively'' taking sides for or against the persons he describes is his hallmark, and led thinkers in later times to interpret his works to be, as well as a ''defense'' of an imperial system, also a ''rejection'' of the same (see Tacitean studies, ''Black'' vs. ''Red'' Tacitists). A better illustration of Tacitus' "sine ira et studio" is scarcely imaginable.
His historical works focus on the psyches and inner motivations of the characters, often with penetrating insight—though it is questionable how much of his insight is correct, and how much is convincing only because of his rhetorical skill. He is at his best when exposing hypocrisy and dissimulation; for example, he follows a narrative recounting Tiberius' refusal of the title ''pater patriae'' by recalling the institution of a law forbidding any "treasonous" speech or writings—and the frivolous prosecutions which resulted (''Annals'', 1.72). Elsewhere (''Annals'' 4.64–66) he compares Tiberius's public distribution of fire relief to his failure to stop the perversions and abuses of justice which he had begun. Although this kind of insight has earned him praise, he has also been criticised for ignoring the larger context of events. Of course, Tacitus wrote about comparatively recent events, whereas we have the benefit of twenty centuries' hindsight.
Tacitus owes most, both in language and in method, to Sallust, while Ammianus Marcellinus is the later historian whose work most closely approaches him in style.
The historian was not much read in late antiquity, and even less in the Middle Ages. The very survival of any part of his major works into the post-Roman world was a tenuous affair. Only a third of his known work has survived and then through a very slim textual tradition; we depend on a single manuscript for books I-VI of the ''Annales'' and on another one for the other surviving half (books XI-XVI) and for the five books extant of the ''Historiae''. His handling of the language, as well as his antipathy towards the Jews and Christians of his time — he records with unemotional contempt the sufferings of the Christians at Rome during Nero's persecution — made him unpopular in the Middle Ages. He was rediscovered, however, by the Renaissance, whose writers were impressed with his dramatic presentation of the Imperial age.
Tacitus is remembered first and foremost as the greatest Roman historian. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' opines that he "ranks beyond dispute in the highest place among men of letters of all ages." His work has been read for its moral instruction, for its dramatic narrative and for its prose style, but it is as a political theorist that he has been and remains most influential outside the field of history. The political lessons taken from his work fall roughly into two camps, as identified by Giuseppe Toffanin: the "red Tacitists," who used him to support republican ideals, and the "black Tacitists," who read him as a lesson in Machiavellian ''realpolitik''.
Although his work is the most reliable source for the history of his era, its factual accuracy is occasionally questioned. The ''Annals'' are based in part on secondary sources of unknown reliability, and there are some obvious mistakes, for instance the confusion of the two daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, both named Antonia. The ''Histories'', written from primary documents and intimate knowledge of the Flavian period, is thought to be more accurate, though Tacitus's hatred of Domitian seemingly colored its tone and interpretations.
Category:50s births Category:2nd-century deaths Category:1st-century Romans Category:2nd-century Romans Category:1st-century writers Category:2nd-century writers Category:2nd-century historians Category:Ancient Roman rhetoricians Category:Latin historians Category:Roman era biographers Category:Ancient Roman jurists Category:Silver Age Latin writers
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