TACITUS ON GERMANY

Translated by Thomas Gordon



PREPARER'S NOTE

This text was prepared from a 1910 edition, published
by P. F. Collier & Son Company, New York.




INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The dates of the birth and death of Tacitus are uncertain, but it is
probable that he was born about 54 A. D. and died after 117. He was a
contemporary and friend of the younger Pliny, who addressed to him some
of his most famous epistles. Tacitus was apparently of the equestrian
class, was an advocate by training, and had a reputation as an orator,
though none of his speeches has survived. He held a number of important
public offices, and married the daughter of Agricola, the conqueror of
Britain, whose life he wrote.

The two chief works of Tacitus, the "Annals" and the "Histories,"
covered the history of Rome from the death of Augustus to A. D. 96;
but the greater part of the "Histories" is lost, and the fragment that
remains deals only with the year 69 and part of 70. In the "Annals"
there are several gaps, but what survives describes a large part of the