Tacitus and Bracciolini | Page 6

quum jam tu fama gloriaque floreres" (Ep. vii. 20); nor of their being, "all but contemporaries in age": "duos homines, aetate propemodum aequales" (Ep. vii. 20). From these remarks chiefly and a few other circumstances, the modern biographers of Tacitus suppose there was a difference of ten or eleven years between that ancient historian and Pliny, and fix the date of his birth about A.D. 52.
This is reconcilable with the belief of Tacitus being the author of the Annals; for when the boundaries of Rome are spoken of in that work as being extended to the Red Sea in terms as if it were a recent extension--"claustra ... Romani imperii, quod nunc Rubrum ad mare patescit" (ii. 61),--he would be 63, the extension having been effected as we learn from Xiphilinus, by Trajan A.D. 115. It is also reconcilable with Agricola when Consul offering to him his daughter in marriage, he being then "a young man": "Consul egregiae tum spei filiam juveni mihi despondit" (Agr. 9); for, according as Agricola was Consul A.D. 76 or 77, he would be 24 or 25. But it is by no means reconcilable with the time when he administered the several offices in the State. He tells us himself that he "began holding office under Vespasian, was promoted by Titus, and still further advanced by Domitian": "dignitatem nostram a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domitiano longius provectam" (Hist. i. 1). To have "held office" under Vespasian he must have been quaestor; to have been "promoted" by Titus he must have been aedile; and as for his further advancement we know that he was praetor under Domitian. By the Lex Villia Annalis, passed by the Tribune Lucius Villius during the time of the Republic in 573 after the Building of the City, the years were fixed wherein the different offices were to be entered on--in the language of Livy; "eo anno rogatio primum lata est ab Lucio Villio tribuno plebis, quot annos nati quemque magistratum peterent caperentque" (xl. 44); and the custom was never departed from, in conformity with Ovid's statement in his Fasti with respect to the mature years of those who legislated for his countrymen, and the special enactment which strictly prescribed the age when Romans could be candidates for public offices:
"Jura dabat populo senior, finitaque certis Legibus est aetas, unde petatur honos." Fast. v. 65-6.
After the promulgation of his famous plebiscitum by the old Tribune of the People in the year 179 A.C., a Roman could not fill the office of quaestor till he was 31, nor aedile till he was 37,--as, guided by the antiquaries, Sigonius and Pighius, Doujat, the Delphin editor of Livy, states: "quaestores ante annum aetatis trigesimum primum non crearentur, nec aediles curules ante septimum ac trigesimum";--and the ages for the two offices were usually 32 and 38.
From Vespasian's rule extending to ten years we cannot arrive at the date when Tacitus was quaestor; but we can guess when he was aedile, as Titus was emperor only from the spring of 79 to the autumn of 81.
Had his appointment to the aedileship taken place on the last day of the reign of Titus, he would then be but 29 years old; and though in the time of the Emperors, after the year 9 of our aera, there might be a remission of one or more years by the Lex Julia or the Lex Pappia Poppaea, those laws enacted rewards and privileges to encourage marriage and the begetting of children; the remission could, therefore, be in favour only of married men, especially those who had children; so that any such indulgence in the competition for the place of honours could not have been granted to Tacitus, he not being, as will be immediately seen, yet married. In order, then, that he should have been aedile under Titus,--even admitting that he could boast, like Cicero, of having obtained all his honours in the prescribed years--"omnes honores anno suo"--and been aedile the moment he was qualified by age for the office,--he must have been born, at least, as far back as the year 44.
This will be reconcilable with all that Pliny says, as well as with his being married when "young"; for he would then be 32 or 33, and his bride 22 or 23; for the daughter of Agricola was born when her father was quaestor in Asia--"sors quaesturae provinciam Asiam dedit ... auctus est ibi filia." (Agr. 9). Nor let it be supposed that a Roman would not have used the epithet "young" to a man of 32 or 33, seeing that the Romans applied the term to men in their best years, from 20 to 40, or a little under or over. Hence Livy terms Alexander the Great at the time of his death, when he was