_Quaeque Aventinum tenet Algidumque,
Quindecim Diana preces virorum
Curet; et vobis pueorum amicas
Applicet aures._
From a passage in "The Life of Agricola," we may believe that Tacitus
attended in the Senate; for he accuses himself as one of that frightened
assembly, which was an unwilling participator in the cruelties of
Domitian. In the year 97, when the Consul Virginius Rufus died, Tacitus'
was made _Consul Suffectus_; and he delivered the funeral oration of his
predecessor: Pliny says, that "it completed the good fortune of Rufus, to
have his panegyric spoken by so eloquent a man." From this, and from other
sayings, we learn that Tacitus was a famous advocate; and his "Dialogue
about Illustrious Orators" bears witness to his admirable taste, and to
his practical knowledge of Roman eloquence: of his own orations, however,
not a single fragment has been left. We know not, whether Tacitus had
children; but the Emperor Tacitus, who reigned in 275, traced his
genealogy to the Historian. "If we can prefer personal merit to accidental
greatness," Gibbon here observes, "we shall esteem the birth of Tacitus
more truly noble than that of Kings.
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