56/57-After 117 C.E.
Historian

Germanic Tribes. Tacitus was born in southern France or northern Italy. While he was studying in Rome, his talent was noticed and admired by many, including Pliny; the two men became friends. In 78 Tacitus married Julia, daughter of Gnaeus Iulius Agricola; he wrote an encomiastic biography of his father-in-law, which was published probably in 98 C.E. The same year his Germania was published, an ethnographical and geographical survey of the Germanic tribes and their territory. This work is unique in Roman literature and defies classification in a particular genre. It reads like a long digression in an historical account. It is generally thought that Tacitus partly, but not totally, idealized the Germanic tribes as a mirror-image for contemporary Rome. In the years following the two publications, Tacitus entered the senatorial career (cursus honorum) on which, in 88, he reached as high...