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the year 51 or 54 be accepted as the birth-year of Tacitus, he was old enough, in either case, to have been able to watch and to retain a lively recollection of the great convulsion of the empire which followed Nero's death. If born in the later of these years he was nearly sixteen, if in the earlier he was nearly eighteen: and with the sixteenth year commenced the manhood of a Roman; and at eighteen we have already seen that Pliny had put on a lawyer's gown. The 'History' may accordingly be accounted the work of one having good opportunities for observation himself, and for making inquiry from others.

The 'History,' when perfect, extended from the arrival of Galba in Rome, on the 1st of January, 69, to the murder of Domitian in 96. If the books which are unfortunately lost bore any proportion to those extant, then we may fairly put down the number of them as thirty at the least. Unfortunately we possess only four books and the beginning of the fifth, and these comprise, and that not entirely, the events of those troubled years 69 and 70. The second chapter is a