William Jackson Brodribb and Alfred Denis Godley

“ On the whole he appears to have inclined to the philosophical theory of “necessitarianism,” that every man’s future is fixed from his birth; but we must not fasten on him any particular theory of the world or of the universe. Sometimes he speaks as a believer in a divine overruling Providence, and we may say confidently that with the Epicurean doctrine he had no sort of sympathy.
Tacitus’s style is discussed in the article Latin Language. Whatever judgment may be passed on it, it is certainly that of a man of genius, and cannot fail to make a deep impression on the studious reader. ”

“ The geography is its weak point; much of this was no doubt gathered from vague hearsay. Tacitus dwells on the contrast between barbarian freedom and simplicity on the one hand, and the servility and degeneracy of Roman life on the other.
The Histories, as originally composed in twelve books, brought the history of the empire from Galba in 69 down to the close of Domitian’s reign in 97. The first four books, and a small fragment of the fifth, giving us a very minute account of the eventful year of revolution, 69, and the brief reigns of Galba, Otho and Vitellius, are all that remain to us. ”

“ But it is all matter of pure conjecture, as it also is whether his “praenomen” was Publius or Gaius. The most interesting facts about him to us are that he was an eminent pleader at the Roman bar, that he was an eye-witness of the “reign of terror” during the last three years of Domitian, and that he was the son-in-law of Julius Agricola. ”

“ The Dialogue on Orators discusses, in the form of a conversation which Tacitus professes to have heard (as a young man) between some eminent men at the Roman bar, the causes of the decay of eloquence under the empire. There are some interesting remarks in it on the change for the worse that had taken place in the education of Roman lads. The style of the Dialogue is far more Ciceronian than that of Tacitus's later work, and critics have attributed it to Quintilian ”

“ The best known foreign translation is Davanzati’s (Italian) , printed about 1600 and frequently re-published. The French versions by Louandre and Burnouf (about the middle of the last century) are also good. ”