Tacitus was appointed consul suffectus under Trajan A.D. 98 (see Pliny, Ep. ii. 1, 6, above quoted).
An inscription found at Mylasa in Caria shows that Tacitus was proconsul of Asia about 112-116 A.D.[111]
Tacitus probably died soon after the publication of the Annals (A.D. 115-7), as he did not live to write his contemplated works on the Augustan age and the reigns of Nerva and Trajan.
Hist. i. 1, ‘Quod si vita suppeditet, principatum divi Nervae et imperium Traiani ... senectuti seposui.’
Ann. iii. 24, ‘Cetera illius aetatis [Augusti] memorabo, si effectis in quae tetendi, plures ad curas vitam produxero.’
Tacitus was on intimate terms with Pliny, eleven of whose letters are addressed to him. From vii. 20 and viii. 7 we see that they were in the habit of “exchanging proof-sheets.” To the same circle belonged Fabius Iustus, to whom the Dialogus is dedicated, and Asinius Rufus.
Pliny, Ep. iv. 15, 1, ‘Asinium Rufum singulariter amo. ... Idem Cornelium Tacitum arta familiaritate complexus est.’
(2) WORKS.
1. Dialogus de Oratoribus, an inquiry into the causes of the decay of eloquence—‘cur nostra potissimum aetas deserta et laude eloquentiae orbata vix nomen ipsum oratoris retineat’ (Dial. 1). Some critics have supposed that Tacitus meant this work to be an apologia pro vita sua, a justification of his preference for a literary to a rhetorical career, but this cannot be proved. That Tacitus is the author is clear from Pliny, Ep. ix. 10, 2, ‘Itaque poemata quiescunt, quae tu inter nemora et lucos commodissime perfici putas’—a reference to Dial. 9, ‘poetis ... in nemora et lucos, id est in solitudinem, secedendum est.’ The dramatic date is given in Dial. 17 as A.D. 75; the statement there and in Dial. 24 that one hundred and twenty years have passed since Cicero’s death (which would give A.D. 77) is made in round numbers. The date of composition is uncertain. It was not under Domitian, as Tacitus remained silent during his reign (Agr. 2). We can hardly suppose it to have been written under Nerva, as its style is so different from that of the Agricola; but it may have been written under Domitian, and published after his death. Some authorities put it as early as A.D. 81.[112]
2. De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae liber, an account of the life of Cn. Iulius Agricola, Tacitus’ father-in-law, and particularly of his career in Britain. It was written early in the reign of Trajan, and therefore after 27th Jan., 98 A.D., and probably in that year.