His father was a financial official in northern Gaul, one of the equestrian administrators so important to the running of the Roman Empire, but still a large social step below the senatorial order. Though Tacitus remained proud of his provincial ancestors as more virtuous than the corrupt senatorial nobility, his rise in social status was accompanied by a snobbish contempt for his perceived ethnic and social inferiors: easterners, freedmen, and the Roman masses.
After the terrible Civil War of A.D. 69, the emperor Vespasian (A.D. 69-79) enrolled increasing numbers of Spaniards and Gauls in the Senate. The adolescent Tacitus was among the ambitious provincials streaming to Rome to study rhetoric—the traditional education for the Roman elite. Tacitus soon achieved success in the law courts, and he advanced quickly after his marriage to the daughter of the Gallo-Roman senator Julius Agricola. Tacitus received minor honors from Vespasian and became quaestor under Vespasian's son and successor, Titus (A.D. 79-81). Through this office, Tacitus attained membership in the Senate by the age of twenty-five.
Titus's successor, Domitian (A.D. 81-96), made Tacitus praetor, and he held a high provincial office during the years A.D.
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