tacitus

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius Tacitus, was a Roman historian and senator who lived from roughly 56 to 120 CE. He is regarded as one of Rome’s greatest historians, known for concise Latin prose and a critical, analytical approach to power, governance, and public life in the Roman Empire.

Little is known of his early life. He belonged to the equestrian order and pursued a political career in the Roman state, eventually attaining high office in the late first century; he is commonly dated to have held the consulship around 97–100 CE. He married the daughter of Julius Agricola, a distinguished general who had served in Britannia. After years in public service, Tacitus devoted himself to writing, relying on official records, senatorial memory, and his experience in the provinces.

His major works include the Annals, which cover the Roman Empire from Tiberius to Nero, and the Histories, which pick up after Nero and extend into the Flavian era; both are incomplete. He also wrote Agricola, a short biography of his father-in-law, and Germania, an ethnographic account of Germanic tribes. The Dialogus de Oratoribus is attributed to him as well. Tacitus’s style is marked by economy, careful structure, rhetorical precision, and a tendency to place political and moral judgment within historical narrative.

Tacitus has had a lasting influence on Western historiography. His skeptical attitude toward autocratic power, his portrayal of the Roman Senate, and his explorations of memory, truth, and the costs of leadership shaped later historical writing and the way empire is interpreted in both scholarly and literary contexts.