The Agricola, or, to give it the full title, the De uita Iulii Agricolae, is probably the earliest work of Tacitus, written in A.D. 98, as Tacitus’ words at 3. 1 indicate, thus in the same year as the Germania, but before it, if we accept that 3. 2-3 implies that Tacitus had written nothing earlier. It appeared at a time of relief and reviving confidence for the senatorial class, when, according to Tacitus (3. 1), primo statim beatissimi saeculi ortu Nerua Caesar res olim dissociabiles miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem, augeatque cotidie felicitatem temporum Nerua Traianus. But Tacitus’ experience, both as suffect consul in A.D. 97 and earlier, may have made him doubt the permanence of the new dispensation.

Tacitus’ historiography and style, as seen in the Histories and Annals, will be discussed in chapters III and IV. Here, with all brevity, I attempt to deal with questions of structure and date.

The work we call the Histories covered the years A.D. 69 to 96, from the beginning of the calendar year 69 to Domitian’s death. Our surviving text breaks off in its fifth book, before the year 70 has been completed. The work we call the Annals covered the years A.D. 14 to 68, from Augustus’ death and Tiberius’ accession (August-September A.D. 14) to either Nero’s death (June A.D. 68) or the end of that year. We have most of the treatment of Tiberius in the first six books, but, since only a fragment of book 5 survives, the dramatic climax of Tiberius’ principate, the fall of Sejanus, is lost.

Various analogies have been used to describe Tacitus’ way of writing in his historical works. Racine called him ‘le plus grand peintre de l’Antiquité’. The analogy of painting is often pertinent, for Tacitus has supreme skill in presenting scenes visually, in catching and highlighting details of gesture and movement, not least so with crowd scenes, as in the mutinies narrated in Ann. 1, and with night scenes, as at Ann. 1. 65 and 14. 8. This kind of approach has been used and developed by E. Courbaud in his sensitive and imaginative book Les Procédés d’art de Tacite dans les Histoires, and aspects of visual presentation are further explored by H. Hommel. The analogy of drama is more influential still. Moriz Haupt said Tacitus ‘was born to be a tragic poet’, and later critics have taken up the idea variously.

The language and style of Tacitus form a subject of fascinating interest. Tacitus created a very personal and uniquely powerful medium of expression, and yet his creation is in no way outlandish or merely idiosyncratic, but largely formed by further extension of possibilities of brevity, pregnancy, and expressiveness developed by his predecessors. We may trace in Tacitus’ historical writings his continual efforts to refine and improve his medium, in other words his stylistic evolution. And we see that, while his style is changing unceasingly in detail, its general characteristics remain constant, as do the main motives which condition it, such as desire for dignity, colour, and force.

‘It has rightly been felt that in the words of Tacitus the authentic voice of ancient Rome is heard for the last time.’ So E. Fraenkel wrote in 1932, and nothing we have learned since about the literature and thought of later antiquity detracts at all from the truth of his words. The age of Trajan marks not the beginning, but the end of an epoch. Then, as scarcely thereafter, specifically Roman ideas of dignitas, grauitas, and uirtus, and that specifically Roman sense of continuity and tradition, still counted for much and conditioned both actions and attitudes. Tacitus speaks both for his own time and for the past.

The central conflict between Tacitus’ claim to write dispassionately and the manner in which he does in fact write can never be reconciled or removed. It is no less real because it partly arises from our acceptance of standards of historical accuracy quite unfamiliar to Tacitus.