It would seem that Tacitus lived to the close of Trajan's reign, as he seems (Ann. ii.6i iv.4) to hint at that emperor's extension of the empire by his successful Eastern campaigns from 115 to I17. Whether he outlived Trajan is a matter of conjecture. It is worth noticing that the emperor Tacitus in the 3rd century claimed descent from him and directed that ten copies of his works should be made every year and deposited in the public libraries. He also had a tomb built to his memory, which was destroyed by order of Pope Pius V. in the latter part of the 16th century.
Pliny, as we see clearly from several passages in his letters, had the highest opinion of his friend's ability and worth. He consults him about a school which he thinks of establishing at Comum (Como), his birthplace, and asks him to look out for suitable teachers and professors. And he pays (Epp. vii.33.) him the high compliment, "I know that your Histories will be im mortal, and this makes me the more anxious that my name should appear in them." The following is a list of Tacitus' remaining works, arranged in their probable chronological order, which may be approxi mately inferred from internal evidence :—(1) the Dialogue on Orators, about 76 or 77; (2) the Life of Agricola, 97 or 98; (3) the Germany, 98, published probably in 99 ; (4) the Histories (Historiae), completed probably by 115 or 116, the last years of Trajan's reign (he must have been at work on them for many years) ; (5) the Annals, his latest work probably, written in part perhaps along with the Histories, and completed subsequently to Trajan's reign, which he may very well have outlived.
The Dialogue on Orators discusses, in the form of a conver sation which Tacitus professes to have heard (as a young man) between some eminent men at the Roman bar, the causes of the decay of eloquence under the empire. There are some interesting remarks in it on the change for the worse that had taken place in the education of Roman lads. The style of the Dialogue is far more Ciceronian than that of Tacitus' later work, and critics have attributed it to Quintilian ; but its genuineness is now gen erally accepted. It is noticeable that the mannerisms of Tacitus appear to develop through his lifetime, and are most strongly marked in his latest book, the Annals.
The Life of Agricola, short as it is, has always been considered an admirable specimen of biography. The great man, with all his grace and dignity, is brought vividly before us, and the sketch we have of the history of Britain under the Romans gives a special interest to this little work.
The Germany, the full title of which is "Concerning the geog raphy, the manners and customs, and the tribes of Germany," describes with many suggestive hints the general character of the German peoples and dwells particularly on their fierce and inde pendent spirit, which the author evidently felt to be a standing tnenace to the empire. The geography is its weak point ; much
of this was no doubt gathered from vague hearsay. Tacitus dwells on the contrast between barbarian freedom and simplicity on the one hand, and the servility and degeneracy of Roman life on the other.
The Histories, as originally composed in 12 books, brought the history of the empire from Galba in 69 down to the close of Domitian's reign in 97. The first four books and a small frag ment of the fifth, giving us a very minute account of the event ful year of revolution, 69, and the brief reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, are all that remain to us. In the fragment of the fifth book we have a curious but entirely inaccurate account of the Jewish nation, of their character, customs and religion, from a cultivated Roman's point of view, which we see at once was a strongly prejudiced one.
The Annals—a title for which there is no ancient authority, and which there is no reason for supposing Tacitus gave dis tinctively to the work—record the history of the emperors of the Julian line from Tiberius to Nero, comprising thus a period from A.D. 14 to 68. Of these, nine books have come down to us entire; of books v., xi. and xvi. we have but fragments, and the whole of the reign of Gaius (Caligula), the first six years of Claudius, and the last three years of Nero are wanting. Out of a period of 54 years we thus have the history of 4o years.
The principal mss. of Tacitus are known as the "first" and "second" Medicean—both of the loth or 11th centuries. The first six books of the Annals exist nowhere but in the "first Medi cean" ms., and an attempt was made in 1878 to prove that the Annals are a forgery, by Poggio Bracciolini, an Italian scholar of the 15th century, but their genuineness is confirmed by their agreement (see Introduction to vol. i., of Furneaux's edition of the Annals of Tacitus, Clarendon Press series, 1884) in various minute details with coins and inscriptions discovered since that period. Moreover, Ruodolphus, a monk, writing in the 9th century, shows that he is acquainted with a ms. of Tacitus con taining at least the first two books. Add to this the testimony of Jerome that Tacitus wrote in 3o books the lives of the Caesars and the evidence of style, and there can be no doubt that in the Annals we have a genuine work of Tacitus.