fortified town of Bohemia, on a steep hill above the Luschnitz, 48 miles S.S.E. of Prague. It is an old-fashioned town, and has many picturesque castellated houses, one of which has a balcony overlooking the market-place, from which Ziski, the Hussite leader, used to address his followers. There are here a ruined castle, a town-hall, and two fine churches. Cloth and paper are manufactured; and argentiferous lead is obtained in the vicinity. The castle was originally built in 774, destroyed in 1268, but restored in 1420, when the Hussites under Ziska took possession of the town. They strongly fortified the place, and gave it the scriptural name of Tabor, from whence they were sometimes called Taborites. There are in the vicinity a hill which they called Horeb, and a pond which they named the Jordan. Pop. 4485.

Tabor, Mount. See Palestine. Tabriz, or Tabreez, a town of Persia, capital of Azerbaijan, in a fertile plain, bounded on the north and south by lofty mountain ranges, and on the west by Lake Urumiyeh, about 4800 feet above the sea. N. Lat., 38° 4′; E. Long., 46° 8′. It is surrounded by a wall of sun-dried bricks, about 3½ miles in circuit, but outside of this there are extensive suburbs, in which a large proportion of the people dwell; and there are here also immense gardens, producing in abundance all the fruits of southern Europe. Owing to the lofty site of the town, the climate is temperate in summer, but in winter the cold is very intense. Tabriz is entered by seven gates; its streets are straight and unpaved, and its houses are generally built of brick, and made low on account of the danger of earthquakes. There are no buildings at all remarkable for their architectural merit; the most conspicuous is a castle, formerly a mosque, a lofty brick building about 600 years old, and much injured by earthquakes. The town has also numerous mosques, barracks, a cannon foundry, and manufactures of coarse cotton cloth and silk fabrics. It is one of the chief commercial towns in Persia, and trades with Tiflis in Russia, with Trebizond, and with Constantinople. To the first of these places it exports silk, cotton, rice, and dried fruits; receiving in return iron, copper, leather, cloth, and manufactured goods. European goods are imported into Tabriz by way of Trebizond, and partly also by caravans from Constantinople. In this way there are exported rice, wool, hides, furs, carpets, shawls, and other articles. The value of the annual imports of English goods alone is estimated at a million sterling. Tabriz also receives merchandise from India and Bokhara, through Herat and Teheran. Thus the town is still of great importance, though it has declined very much from its ancient prosperity, when it contained hundreds of caravanserais, mosques, and cafés, with a population of 550,000. It is said to have been founded by the wife of the caliph Haroun al Rashid in 791 A.D., and it was a favourite residence of that celebrated monarch. The present population is between 50,000 and 60,000.

Tacitus, Gaius Cornelius, one of the most eminent writers of the empire, and "the first historian" who applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts. The meagre materials of his biography are derived mainly from notices in the correspondence of his contemporary, Pliny the younger, and from a few scattered allusions in his own writings. He belonged, in all probability, not to that celebrated branch of the Gens Cornelia which produced the Scipios and the Leutuli, but to a less distinguished equestrian family. This inference rests on the supposition that the Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman knight, and procurator of Gallia Belgica, who is mentioned by Pliny the elder, was the father of our historian. The place of his birth is unknown, although tradition pointed to Interamna (the modern Terri), as his native city, and his statue and tomb were shown there for many centuries. The date of his birth is also uncertain; but we can determine it within a few years. Pliny says that he and Tacitus were "nearly of the same age" (propemodum aequales), but that while he was a mere youth (adolescentulus) Tacitus had already gained a brilliant reputation, which must have been acquired by the display of forensic eloquence and skill. Now, we know that Pliny was born A.D. 61, for in the famous letter which he wrote in order to give Tacitus a correct account of the eruption of Vesuvius by which the elder Pliny lost his life, he mentions that he was eighteen years old at the time of the occurrence. As the expression "propemodum aequales" could certainly not have been used had Tacitus been his friend's senior by more than ten years, we have A.D. 51 as a superior limit for the date of his birth. Now, Tacitus himself informs us that the first political honour which he obtained was conferred upon him by Vespasian, who died A.D. 79. This office was probably the quaestorship, which entitled him to a seat in the Senate, and (as we learn from Dio Cassius) could not be legitimately held under the emperors till the age of twenty-five. This, therefore, gives us A.D. 54 as an inferior limit, after which Tacitus could not have been born. As Tacitus was a man of distinction it is nearly certain that he must have held the quaestorship at the earliest possible period (suo anno), and we may thus conclude with some confidence that A.D. 54 was the date of his birth. This would make him eight years older than Pliny, and it is a supposition that agrees well with the passages which we have quoted, and with the remark in the Dialogus de Oratoribus, that Tacitus (assuming him to have been the author of that treatise) had been, in early life, an eager admirer of the orators Marcus Aper and Julius Secundus, whom, with boyish ardour, he attended not only to the forum but even in their own houses. If, then, A.D. 54 was the date of his birth, we may notice the fact, that "the same year saw the accession of Nero, the horror of the human race, and the birth of Tacitus its avenger."

Tacitus incidentally mentions, that his political dignity was founded by Vespasian, increased by Titus, and still further advanced by Domitian. Taking as the basis of our chronology, the inference (which we have shown to be so highly probable), that Tacitus was made quaestor in the last year of Vespasian's reign, A.D. 79, it follows from the above remark that he must have gained the tribuneship (or aedileship) in A.D. 81, in which year Titus died. Under the empire the praetorship must be held at the age of thirty, but Tacitus could not have gained it earlier than his thirtieth year, as we know that he was not praetor earlier than A.D. 88, the eighth year of Domitian's reign, at which period he also presided at the Iudi seculares in his capacity of sacerdos quindecimviralis.

In the year 78, at the age of twenty-four, Tacitus married the only daughter of the good and illustrious Cn. Julius Agricola; the betrothal had taken place in the previous year, when Agricola was consul, and immediately after the marriage he was despatched to take the command in Britain. Agricola died A.D. 93, and Tacitus mentions it as a source of keen sorrow that both he and his wife had for the few years previous to this event lost the advantage of their parent's affection and guidance. What was the cause of this absence from Rome is entirely conjectural, but it is not unlikely that Tacitus assumed the government of a praetorian province. There is no proof that he personally visited either Britain or Germany, nor is there the shadow of an authority for the vague rumour that he was driven into exile by Domitian. Had this been the case he would have been obliged to mention it, when vindicating his own claim to impartiality in the first chapter of his History. At the same time Tacitus, who had been an unwilling spectator of the atrocities of Domitian, and had met with opportunities only too frequent of seeing that red, yet unblushing countenance in the midst of the faces which had grown pale with the terror which it inspired, would probably have hailed with satisfaction any duty or position which enabled him to indulge, at a safer distance, the fierce indignation which lacerated his heart.

In the reign of Nero, A.D. 97, Tacitus obtained the rank of consul suffectus, and pronounced the funeral oration of his illustrious predecessor, Virginius Rufus. This we learn from... Tacitus, a passing allusion of Pliny, who says that it was the crowning felicity of Rufus to have had in Tacitus, the consul suffectus, a most eloquent speaker to deliver his funeral harangue.

In A.D. 100, in the reign of Trajan, Tacitus was engaged with Pliny in the prosecution of Marius Priscus, for gross cruelty and maladministration in Africa during his proconsulship. Salvius Liberalis defended the accused, but Tacitus replied in a strain of powerful and dignified eloquence, which caused the condemnation and banishment of the unworthy governor. It is pleasing to find that the little we know of the historian's private life is in perfect accordance with the noble standard of his recorded sentiments.

After this period we have no further mention of Tacitus, who spent the remainder of his life in the peaceful pursuits of a learned retirement. A late and obscure authority says that he died at the age of eighty, but such a testimony has no weight. We do not even know whether he left any children or not; it is certain that the Iusun naturae mentioned by Pliny the elder as the son of a Corn. Tacitus, a Roman knight, was not the son of the historian, though he may have been his brother. It is, however, most likely that Tacitus had some children, for the Emperor Tacitus claimed to be descended from him, and Sidonius Apollinaris attributes the same illustrious origin to Polemius, a prefect of Gaul. Almost the only other fact recorded about Tacitus is his cordial intimacy and friendship with Pliny the younger. Pliny was quite aware of the honour done him by so distinguished a connection, and he always addresses and speaks of his friend with proper respect and appreciation, and indeed with a humility which must, if honest, have caused some uneasiness to his own good-humoured vanity. Tacitus towered like a giant above all his contemporaries, isolated and unapproachable; for this very reason, perhaps, Pliny was quite as popular in his day, and may not have known how immeasurably inferior he was to his friend in real genius and power.

In order to arrive at a correct estimate of the literary value of the writings of Tacitus, it is necessary to know the date of their composition, and the order in which they were published.

It is now generally agreed that the Dialogue de Oratoribus is the work of Tacitus. If so, it was quite his earliest production, as the Dialogue is supposed to have taken place in the sixth year of Vespasian when, according to our chronology, Tacitus was not much more than twenty years old. This is quite sufficient to account for the difference of style between this treatise and his later works. When we remember that it was a youthful effort, that it was written in great leisure, and that the subject was widely different from those on which he was afterwards employed, we shall cease to wonder at its smooth, diffuse, and easy elegance. The only other authors who were capable of writing it, or to whom with any shadow of probability it has been assigned, are Pliny and Quintilian. It could not, however, have been composed by either of these writers, for the author says he was "admmodum juvenis" at the time when he heard the discussion; and as this is stated to have been in A.D. 75, Pliny would have been at that time too young, and Quintilian too old, to admit of such an expression being applied to either of them. Perhaps the strongest reason for accepting the superscription of the MSS. which name Tacitus as the author, has been adduced by Doederlein. Pliny, in one of his letters, addressing Tacitus, remarks, "Itaque poema quiescunt quarta inter nemora et lucos commodissime perfici putas," which can hardly be otherwise than in allusion to a sentiment expressed in these very words in the eleventh chapter of the Dialogue. Eichstad and other able opponents of the Tacitean origin of the treatise, find it very difficult to diminish the cogency of this direct testimony. The Dialogue was probably published in the reign of Titus;—not in that of his predecessor, for it makes unfavourable mention of two of Vespasian's favourites, Ebrinus Marcellus and Vibius Crispus, which would not have been done by a man entering on the course of political honours;—and not in that of Domitian, because, in the Life of Agricola, Tacitus hints that during the reign of that emperor he had been reduced to an unwilling silence. The discussion turns on the course which had led to the corruption of eloquence in recent times.

The next work of Tacitus was undoubtedly the Life of Agricola. We infer from the introduction that it was written after the reign of Domitian, and it was probably published when Tacitus was consul suffectus, A.D. 97. That it came out during the reign of Nerva, and after the adoption of Trajan seems likely, from the title, "Nerva Caesar" and "Nerva Trajanus," which occur in chapter iii., although the omission of the word "Divus" ("of happy memory") before Nerva's name is no sufficient proof that it was not given to the world after Trajan's accession. Be this as it may, this incomparable biography, with the stern, nervous, compressed passion of its style, "shows all the greatness of the man." It is an immortal monument to the memory of the great and good Agricola, by a son-in-law, who was at the same time the only person in the empire capable of doing justice to the life of this noble victim to imperial jealousy. The style is peculiarly difficult, owing not only to the brevity of the treatise and the corruption of the text, but far more to the intensity of those deep feelings, which, after having been so long stifled, now found, for the first time, an unimperilled utterance. Tacitus was fortunate in finding in his wife's father so grand a subject for his affectionate commendation. They had been united during life by a perfect unanimity. Both were stoics in philosophy, and moderate in politics; both agreed in the duty of dignified obedience even to a man whom they hated and despised; both knew how to maintain their independence without compromising their loyalty; both were regular in their morals, pure in their married life, honest without ostentation, and faithful without subservience.

Next in order was the Germania, which was written during Trajan's second consulship, A.D. 98. It contained all that Tacitus knew or could learn by inquiry from the numerous traders and soldiers who had frequented Germany during their journeys and campaigns. Whether it consists of mere collectanea, which were intended for expansion into a larger work, or was originally an episode of the history which had outgrown its proper dimensions, is quite uncertain.

The Histories were written after the death of Nerva, who is called Divus in chapter i.; and they preceded the Annals, being directly referred to in the latter work. They contained the history of the Flavian dynasty, which, after the extinction of the Julian line, had succeeded to its honours. They commence with the period when Vespasian first appeared on the stage of public opinion, and conclude with the death of Domitian, because Tacitus says that he had reserved the reigns of Nerva and Trajan as the material for his old age. Four books only and a fragment of the fifth are extant, and as they only occupy the space of a single year, we must lament as an irreparable loss the large portion which has not come down to us. St Jerome mentions thirty books of the historical works of Tacitus, and Niebuhr thinks that this is not too much for the hi-