Cornelius Tacitus (Rome? 55 A.D.? - 120 A.D.?)

Cornelius Tacitus comes from the Greco-Roman tradition of historical writers whose purpose is as much to promote a moral agenda using rhetorical flourishes as it is to elucidate facts. In Rome, Tacitus studied oratory, including Cicero, and may have written oratorical treatises before his four best known historic/ethnographic pieces, "Agricola", "Germania", "Historiae" ("Histories"), and "Annales" ("Annals").
Little is known for certain about his origins, although he is believed to have been born in France or Transalpine Gaul (about A.D. 56) into a provincial aristocratic family. We don't even know if his name was Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus. He became a senator, a consul, and eventually governor of Asia. He probably lived and wrote into Hadrian's reign (117-38) and may have died in A.D. 120.