He had talents equal to business, and aspired no higher.

Tacitus’s line is a compact, faintly cutting character sketch: the subject is competent—possessing “talents equal to business”—but his ambition is strictly bounded by practical affairs. In Tacitean moral psychology, this can imply a limitation of spirit as much as a virtue of moderation. The praise of capability is undercut by the suggestion that he neither sought higher public ideals nor aimed at the more dangerous heights of power, glory, or principled opposition. The remark thus fits Tacitus’s broader interest in how imperial politics shapes character: some men adapt by becoming efficient administrators, but at the cost of larger aspirations, whether ethical, intellectual, or civic.