The Histories [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONTacitus the HistorianThe historian Cornelius Tacitus is the writer who, more than any other, has defined for later generations our picture of the Roman Empire. He was born around ad 56, shortly after the Emperor Nero came to the throne. Under Nero's successors he engaged in a political career, at which he achieved considerable success, gaining the quaestorship in 81 or 82, the praetorship in 88, and the consulship in 97, and later becoming governor of Asia (a province of the empire consisting of part of modern Turkey). In addition, a fragmentary funeraryI 'inscription from Rome has recently been conjectured to bek,),that of Tacitus.^ If correct, this allows us to fill in furtherrajgaps in his career, including the information that he wasf i' itribune (presumably around 85), and that his quaestorship3 !had been the most prestigious of all: he was 'quaestor1Augusti', who attended the Emperor himself. This post was normally reserved for those of the highest background: even as a young man Tacitus was marked out for outstanding political success.>But Tacitus' significance lies less in his own political experiences than in his application of them to his historical works. Other Roman historians had been politically involvedmany ancient theorists, indeed, saw such experience as an essential prerequisite for the writing of political history. Yet none ever focused such subtlety and complexity of analysis onto the inner workings of Roman political and military power.His earlier works were short: the Agrícola, a biography of his father-in-law Julius Agricola, a notable governor of Brit-ain, and the Germania, an ethnographic study of the tribes of Germany. Both appeared at the end of the century, shortly' The inscription is Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum vi. 1574: the identification with Tacitus is made by Geza Alföldy, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts: Römischen Abteilung, loz (1995), 2.51-68.IilU iLiI i'