The speeches in the historical works of Tacitus, though rather concise and abstract for popular orations, are full of force and fire. Some of them are truly Demosthenic in their impassioned and fiery logic. The speech of Galgacus before the Briton army, when driven into the extremity of Caledonia by the Romans under Agricola, can hardly be surpassed for patriotic sentiments, vigorous reasoning, and burning invective. The address of Germanicus to his mutinous soldiers (in the Annals) is not less remarkable for tender pathos. The sage and yet soldierlike address of the aged Galba to his adopted son Piso, the calm and manly speech of Piso to the body guard, the artful harangue of the demagogue Otho to his troops, the no less crafty address of Mucianus to Vespasian, the headlong rapidity of Antonius' argument for immediate action, the plausible plea of Marcellus Eprius against the honest attack of Helvidius Priscus, and the burning rebukes of the intrepid Vocula to his cowardly and treacherous followers--all these, in the Histories, show no ordinary degree of rhetorical skill and versatility. Indeed, the entire body of his works is animated with the spirit of the orator, as it is tinged also with the coloring of the poet. For this reason, they are doubtless deficient in the noble simplicity of the earlier classical histories; but for the same reason they may be a richer treasure for the professional men at least of modern times. Of his marriage with the daughter of Agricola, and its influence on his character and prospects, as also of his passing in regular gradation through the series of public honors at Rome, beginning with the quaestorship under Vespasian, and ending with the consulship under Nerva, Tacitus informs us himself (A. 9, His. i. 1), barely alluding to them, however, in the general, and leaving all the details to mere conjecture. We learn to our surprise, that he not only escaped the jealousy of the tyrant Domitian, but was even promoted by him to the office of Quindecimvir and Praetor (Ann. ii. 11). Beyond these vague notices, we know little or nothing of his course of life, except that Pliny says (Epist. iv. 13), he was much esteemed by the learned and the great at Rome, who went in crowds to his levees. Of the time of his death, we can only conjecture, that he died before the Emperor Trajan, but after his friend Pliny--the former, because, had he outlived the Emperor, he would probably have executed his purpose of writing the history of his reign (His. i. 1); the latter, because, if he had not survived his friend, Pliny, who lamented the death of so many others, would not have failed to pay the last tribute to the memory of Tacitus.