The Agricola (full Latin title: De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae) is a book by the Roman historian Tacitus, written c. 98 AD, which recounts the life of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola, an eminent Roman general. It also covers, briefly, the geography and ethnography of ancient Britain. As in the Germania, Tacitus favorably contrasts the liberty of the native Britons to the corruption and tyranny of the Empire; the book also contains eloquent and vicious polemics against the rapacity and greed of Rome. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... The Roman Forum was the central area around which ancient Rome developed. ... Gaius Cornelius Tacitus Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (ca. ... Events Roman emperor Nerva succeeded by Trajan Tacitus finished his Germania (approximate date) Births Deaths January 27: Nerva, Roman emperor Apollonius of Tyana, Greek/Roman philosopher and mathematician (b. ... Gnaeus Julius Agricola (July 13, 40 - August 23, 93) was a Roman general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Britain. ... Ancient Britain was a period in the human occupation of Great Britain that extended throughout prehistory, ending with the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43. ...

After the assassination of Domitian in 96, and amid the predictable turmoil of the regime change, Tacitus used his new-found freedom to publish this, his first historical work. During the reign of Domitian, Agricola, a faithful imperial general, had been the most important general involved in the conquest of a great part of Britain. The proud tone of the Agricola recalls the style of the laudationes funebres (funeral speeches). A quick resume of the career of Agricola prior to his mission in Britain is followed by a narration of the conquest of the island. There is a geographical and ethnological digression, taken not only from notes and memories of Agricola but also from the De Bello Gallico of Julius Caesar. The content is so varied as to go beyond the limits of a simple biography, but the narration, whatever its form, serves to exalt the subject of the biography. Domitian bust in the Louvre Titus Flavius Domitianus (24 October 51 – 18 September 96), commonly known as Domitian, was a Roman emperor of the gens Flavia. ... De Bello Gallico (literally On the Gallic Wars in Latin) is an account written by Julius Caesar about his nine years of war in Gaul. ... A bust of Julius Caesar. ...

Tacitus exalts the character of his father-in-law, by showing how — as governor of Roman Britain and commander of the army — he attend to matters of state with fidelity, honesty, and competence, even under the government of the hated Emperor Domitian. Critiques of Domitian and of his regime of spying and repression come to the fore at the work's conclusion. Agricola remained uncorrupted; in disgrace under Domitian, he died without seeking the glory of an ostentatious martyrdom. Tacitus condemns the suicide of the Stoics as of no benefit to the state. Tacitus makes no clear statement as to whether the death of Agricola was from natural causes or ordered by Domitian, although he does say that rumors were voiced in Rome that Agricola was poisoned on the Emperor's orders. Principal sites in Roman Britain Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between 43 and 410 CE. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia. ... Stoicism is a school of philosophy commonly associated with such Greek philosophers as Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus and with such later Romans as Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus. ...

For Tacitus, Agricola served as an example of how, even under a despotism, it was possible to behave correctly, avoiding the opposite extremes of servility and useless opposition. The work can be viewed as an apologia for a large part of the governing class: people who, not desiring martyrdom, had collaborated with the Flavian family and had made a valid contribution to lawmaking, to provincial government, to the enlargement of the limits of the empire and to the defence of its borders. On the other hand, the work may well have been a plea to the recently re-instated Stoics not to harass and oppose the new regime in a time of great instability.

The work has a strong anti-despotic tone. Tacitus sets the despotism of Domitian against the merits of Agricola: an incorruptible officer and a great commander, he fit the model of the mos maiorum ("the custom of the forefathers", the presumed superior morality of an earlier time). The writer implicitly says that, as the Empire should be accepted as a necessary evil, one has to keep one's dignity without mixing up one's own responsibility with the responsibility of an arbitrary despot like Domitian. One can be an honest and scrupulous officer, doing his job with serenity and in collaboration with the regime, keeping his job and keeping the interest of the state, waiting for a better age, when a writer would be able to write in freedom. The Mos maiorum are traditions of ancestors, an unwritten constitution of laws and conduct in Rome. ...

The climax of the treatise is the battle of Mons Graupius, where Agricola leads the Roman legions to victory over the Caledonian natives and their leader Calgacus. In the set-piece speeches before the battle, Calgacus is presented as the model of a Republican Roman, using highly polished Latin oratory, appealing to the values of the old Republic - mentioning 'libertas' four times, referring to the Britons' "maiores" and claiming that they fought for the defence of their families. He ends with a classics denunciation of imperialism: 'atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant' (And where they make a desolation, they call it peace). Oratory is the art of eloquent speech. ... Imperialism is a policy of extending control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition and/or maintenance of empires, either through direct territorial conquest or through indirect methods of exerting control on the politics and/or economy of other countries. ...

Ultimately, however, Calgacus' attempt to 'be Roman' fails: he has not taken into account the realities of living under the power of the emperors. In his speech, he explicitly rejects 'obsequium et modestiam', which Tacitus later says are the necessary qualities for 'good men to prosper under bad emperors.' It is Agricola who fulfils this model.

To read the Agricola as a 'straight' biography, as many archaeologists have done in the past when mining it for information about Roman Britain, is to misread it. Quite apart from questions of bias or inaccuracy (both of which occur in this account), this so-called 'biography' functions principally as a self-reflexive work that problematises Roman power and imperialism, raises issues of what being a 'good Roman' is under the emperors and makes new and original contributions to the role of 'Britannia' in Roman thought.

The Agricola mixes various literary genres. It is an elegy evolved into a biography, a laudatio funebris mixed with historical and ethnographical material. For this reason, the book contains portions written in different styles. The exordium, the speeches, and the final peroration show strong influence from Cicero, probably derived from Tacitus's own training in rhetoric. In the narrative and ethnographical portions, two models of the historical style can be seen: that of Sallust (with incongruities, archaism, parataxis and sobriety) and that of Livy (with oratorical style: wide, fluid, hypotaxic and dramatic). Marcus Tullius Cicero (standard English pronunciation ; Classical Latin pronunciation ) (January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was an orator and statesman of Ancient Rome, and is generally considered the greatest Latin orator and prose stylist. ... Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus) (86-34 BC), Roman historian, belonging to a well-known plebeian family, was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines. ... Bust of Livy Titus Livius (around 59 BC - 17 AD), known as Livy in English, wrote a monumental history of Rome, Ab urbe condita, from its founding (traditionally dated to 753 BC). ...

External links

• Agricola, translated by Church and Brodribb

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