, secedendum est.' The dramatic date is given in
_Dial._ 17 as A.D. 75; the statement there and in _Dial._ 24 that one
hundred and twenty years have passed since Cicero's death (which would
give A.D. 77) is made in round numbers. The date of composition is
uncertain. It was not under Domitian, as Tacitus remained silent
during his reign (_Agr._ 2). We can hardly suppose it to have been
written under Nerva, as its style is so different from that of the
_Agricola_; but it may have been written under Domitian, and published
after his death. Some authorities put it as early as A.D. 81.[112]

2. _De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae liber_, an account of the life
of Cn. Iulius Agricola, Tacitus' father-in-law, and particularly of
his career in Britain. It was written early in the reign of Trajan,
and therefore after 27th Jan., 98 A.D., and probably in that year.

_Agr._ 3, 'quamquam primo statim beatissimi saeculi ortu Nerva Caesar
res olim dissociabiles miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem, augeatque
cottidie felicitatem temporum Nerva Traianus.'

3. _Germania_.--The Vatican MSS. give the title as _de origine et situ_
(another MS. adds _moribus ac populis_) Germanorum. The date of
publication, as seen from _Germ._ 37, was A.D. 98. The book is not
mentioned in _Agr._ 3 among the proposed works of Tacitus; and it has
therefore been supposed that the materials were collected for the
_Histories_, and that the work was published separately on account of
its length, and also the interest felt in Germany at the time. There
is nothing in the theory that the book is a political pamphlet, or
that it contains a moral purpose. Tacitus is by no means blind to the
faults of the Germans (c. 17 _sqq._, etc.), though he compares them
favourably in many respects with the Romans.

4. _Historiae_.--The title is guaranteed by Tertull. _apol._ 16,
'Cornelius Tacitus in quinta historiarum suarum.' The work embraced
the time from Galba to Domitian, _i.e._ 69-96 A.D. The first four
Books and part of the fifth are extant, and give the history of 69 and
most of 70 A.D. In MS. Mediceus II., the only ancient MS. that
contains _Ann._ xi.-xvi. and the _Histories_, there is no title, but
the Books are numbered continuously as belonging to the same work. Cf.
Jerome, _Comm. on Zacharias_, iii. 14, 'Cornelius Tacitus, qui post
Augustum usque ad mortem Domitiani vitas Caesarum triginta voluminibus
exaravit.' If, therefore, the _Annals_ contained sixteen Book