Tacĭtus [♦]Publius Cornelius, a celebrated Latin historian, born in the reign of Nero. His father was a Roman knight, who had been appointed governor of Belgic Gaul. The native genius and the rising talents of Tacitus were beheld with rapture by the emperor Vespasian, and as he wished to protect and patronize merit, he raised the young historian to places of trust and honour. The succeeding emperors were not less partial to Tacitus, and Domitian seemed to forget his cruelties, when virtue and innocence claimed his patronage. Tacitus was honoured with the consulship, and he gave proofs of his eloquence at the bar by supporting the cause of the injured Africans against the proconsul Marius Priscus, and in causing him to be condemned for his avarice and extortion. The friendly intercourse of Pliny and Tacitus has often been admired, and many have observed, that the familiarity of these two great men arose from similar principles, and a perfect conformity of manners and opinions. Yet Tacitus was as much the friend of a republican government, as Pliny was an admirer of the imperial power, and of the short-lived virtues of his patron Trajan. Pliny gained the heart of his adherents by affability, and all the elegant graces which became the courtier and the favourite, while Tacitus conciliated the esteem of the world by his virtuous conduct, which prudence and love of honour ever guided. The friendship of Tacitus and of Pliny almost became proverbial, and one was scarce mentioned without the other, as the following instance may indicate. At the exhibition of the spectacles in the circus, Tacitus held a long conversation on different subjects with a Roman knight, with whom he was unacquainted; and when the knight asked him whether he was a native of Italy, the historian told him that he was not unknown to him, and that for their distant acquaintance he was indebted to literature. “Then you are,” replied the knight, “either Tacitus or Pliny.” The time of Tacitus was not employed in trivial pursuits; the orator might have been forgotten if the historian had not flourished. Tacitus wrote a treatise on the manners of the Germans, a composition admired for the fidelity and exactness with which it is executed, though some have declared that the historian delineated manners and customs with which he was not acquainted, and which never existed. His life of Cnaeus Julius Agricola, whose daughter he had married, is celebrated for its purity, elegance, and the many excellent instructions and important truths which it relates. His history of the Roman emperors is imperfect; of the 28 years of which it treated, that is from the 69th to the 96th year of the christian era, nothing remains but the year 69, and part of the 70th. His annals were the most extensive and complete of his works. The history of the reign of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and Nero, was treated with accuracy and attention, yet we are to lament the loss of the history of the reign of Caius, and the beginning of that of Claudius. Tacitus had reserved for his old age the history of the reign of Nerva and Trajan, and he also proposed to give to the world an account of the interesting administration of Augustus; but these important subjects never employed the pen of the historian, and as some of the ancients observe, the only compositions of Tacitus were contained in 30 books, of which we have now left only 16 of his annals, and five of his history. The style of Tacitus has always been admired for peculiar beauties: the thoughts are great; there is a sublimity, force, weight, and energy; everything is treated with precision and dignity. Yet many have called him obscure, because he was fond of expressing his ideas in few words. This was the fruit of experience and judgment; the history appears copious and diffuse, while the annals, which were written in his old age, are less flowing as to style, more concise, and more heavily laboured. His Latin is remarkable for being pure and classical; and though a writer in the decline of the Roman empire, he has not used obsolete words, antiquated phrases, or barbarous expressions, but with him everything is sanctioned by the authority of the writers of the Augustan age. In his biographical sketches he displays an uncommon knowledge of human nature; he paints every scene with a masterly hand, and gives each object its proper size and becoming colours. Affairs of importance are treated with dignity, the secret causes of events and revolutions are investigated from their primeval source, and the historian everywhere shows his reader that he was a friend of public liberty and national independence, a lover of truth, and of the general good and welfare of mankind, and an inveterate enemy to oppression and to a tyrannical government. The history of the reign of Tiberius is his masterpiece: the deep policy, the dissimulation and various intrigues of this celebrated prince, are painted with all the fidelity of the historian; and Tacitus boasted in saying, that he neither would flatter the follies, or maliciously or partially represent the extravagance, of the several characters he delineated. Candour and impartiality were his standard, and his claim to these essential qualifications of an historian have never been disputed. It is said that the emperor Tacitus, who boasted in being one of the descendants of the historian, ordered the works of his ancestor to be placed in all public libraries, and directed that 10 copies, well ascertained for accuracy and exactness, should be yearly written, that so great and so valuable a work might not be lost. Some ecclesiastical writers have exclaimed against Tacitus for the partial manner in which he speaks of the Jews and christians; but it should be remembered that he spoke the language of the Romans, and that the [♠]peculiarities of the christians could not but draw upon them the odium and the ridicule of the pagans, and the imputation of superstition. Among the many excellent editions of Tacitus, these may pass for the best: that of Rome, folio, 1515; that in 8vo, 2 vols., Leiden, 1673; that in usum Delphim, 4 vols., 4to, Paris, 1682; that of Lipscomb, 2 vols., 8vo, 1714; of Gronovius, 2 vols., 4to, 1721; that of Brotier, 7 vols., 12mo, Paris, 1776; that of Ernesti, 2 vols., 8vo, Lipscomb, 1777; and Barbou’s, 3 vols., 12mo, Paris, 1760.——Marcus Claudius, a Roman chosen emperor by the senate, after the death of Aurelian. He would have refused this important and dangerous office, but the pressing solicitations of the senate prevailed, and in the 70th year of his age he complied with the wishes of his countrymen, and accepted the purple. The time of his administration was very popular, the good of the people was his care, and as a pattern of moderation, economy, temperance, regularity, and impartiality, Tacitus found no equal. He abolished the several brothels which under the preceding reigns had filled Rome with licentiousness and obscenity; and by ordering all the public baths to be shut at sunset, he prevented the commission of many irregularities, which the darkness of the night had hitherto sanctioned. The senators under Tacitus seemed to have recovered their ancient dignity and long-lost privileges. They were not only the counsellers of the emperor, but they even seemed to be his masters; and when Florianus, the brother-in-law of Tacitus, was refused the consulship, the emperor said, that the senate, no doubt, could fix upon a more deserving object. As a warrior, Tacitus is inferior to few of the Romans; and during a short reign of about six months, he not only repelled the barbarians who had invaded the territories of Rome in Asia, but he prepared to make war against the Persians and Scythians. He died in Cilicia as he was on his expedition, of a violent distemper, or, according to some, he was destroyed by the secret dagger of an assassin, on the 13th of April, in the 276th year of the christian era. Tacitus has been commended for his love of learning; and it has been observed, that he never passed a day without consecrating some part of his time to reading or writing. He has been accused of superstition, and authors have recorded that he never studied on the second day of each month, a day which he deemed inauspicious and unlucky. Tacitus, Agricola.—Zosimus.
[♦] ‘C.’ replaced with ‘Publius’
[♠] ‘peculiarites’ replaced with ‘peculiarities’
Tader, a river of Spain, near New Carthage.
Tædai, a prostitute at Rome, &c., Juvenal, Satire 2, li. 49.
Tænărus, now Matapan, a promontory of Laconia, the most southern point of Europe, where Neptune had a temple. There was there a large and deep cavern, whence issued a black and unwholesome vapour, from which circumstance the poets have imagined that it was one of the entrances of hell, through which Hercules dragged Cerberus from the infernal regions. This fabulous tradition arises, according to Pausanias, from the continual resort of a large serpent near the cavern of Tænarus, whose bite was mortal. The serpent, as the geographer observes, was at last killed by Hercules, and carried to Eurystheus. The town of Tænarus was at the distance of about 40 stadia from the promontory, and was famous for marble of a beautiful green colour. The town, as well as the promontory, received its name from Tænarus, a son of Neptune. There were some festivals celebrated there, called Tænaria, in honour of Neptune, surnamed Tænarius. Homer, Hymn to Apollo, li. 413.—Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 14.—Lucan, bk. 6, li. 648.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 2, li. 247; bk. 10, lis. 13 & 83.—Pausanias, bk. 3, ch. 25.—Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 5.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Strabo, bk. 8.
Tænias, a part of the lake Mœotis. Strabo.
Tagaste, a town of Numidia. Pliny, bk. 5, ch. 4.
Tages, a son of Genius, grandson of Jupiter, was the first who taught the 12 nations of the Etrurians the science of augury and divination. It is said that he was found by a Tuscan ploughman in the form of a clod, and that he assumed a human shape to instruct this nation, which became so celebrated for their knowledge of omens and incantations. Cicero, de Divinatione bk. 2, ch. 23.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 15, li. 558.—Lucan, bk. 1, li. 673.
Tagonius, a river of Hispania Tarraconensis.