writings, the number of which we, perhaps, glean from casual
remarks dropped by Pliny the Younger in his Epistles. He says
(vii. 20), "I have read your book, and with the utmost care have
made remarks upon such passages, as I think ought to be altered or
expunged." "Librum tuum legi, et quam diligentissime potui,
adnotavi, quae commutanda, quae eximenda arbitrarer." In a second
letter (viii. 7) he alludes to another (or it might be the same)
"book," which his friend had sent him "not as a master to a
master, nor as a disciple to a disciple, but as a master to a
disciple:" "neque ut magistro magister, neque ut discipulo
discipulus ... sed ut discipulo magister ... librum misisti." That
Tacitus was not the author of one work only is clear from Pliny in
another of his letters (vi. 16) speaking in the plural of what his
friend had written: "the immortality of your writings:"--
"scriptorum tuorum aeternitas;" also of "my uncle both by his own,
and your works:"--"avunculus meus et suis libris et tuis." In the
letter already referred to (vii. 20), Tacitus is further spoken of
as having written, at least, two historical works, the immortality
of which Pliny predicted without fear of proving a false prophet:
"auguror, nec me fallit augurium, historias tuas immortales
futuras." From these passages it would seem that the works of
Tacitus were, at the most, three.

If his works were only three in number, everything points in
preference to the Books of History, of which we possess but five;
the Treatise on the different manners of the various tribes that
peopled Germany in his day; and the Life of his father-in-law,
Agricola. Nobody but Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, Bishop of
Carthage, supposes that he wrote a book of Facetiae or pleasant
tales and anecdotes, as may be seen by reference to the episcopal