Tacitus, tas'e tus, PUBLIUS CORNELIUS (about 55-about 117), a Roman historian. Of his education and early life, little is known. He seems to have been first appointed to public office in the reign of Vespasian. Under Titus, by whom he was treated with distinguished favor, he became quaestor or aedile; he was praetor under Domitian, and he was consul under Nerva. In 78 he married the daughter of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the celebrated statesman and general whose life he afterward wrote. He was several years absent from Rome on provincial business, and he probably then made the acquaintance of the German peoples. After his return to Rome he lived in the closest intimacy with the younger Pliny, and he had a very extensive law practice, acquiring a high reputation as an orator. Four works from his pen are still extant: his Annals, in sixteen books (of which books, seven to ten, inclusive, are lost), which contain an account of the principal events in Roman history, from the time of the death of Augustus to that of Nero; his Histories, of which there are extant only four books and a part of the fifth, which treat of the year 69 and a part of 70; his Germania, an account of the geography, manners and institutions of the various German tribes, and his Agricola, a masterpiece of biography. His style is exceedingly concise, so much so as to make it often difficult to gather his full meaning without great care. He had a wonderful knowledge of men, and he excelled as a character painter.