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The Agricola (lit. On the life and character of Julius Agricola) is a book by the Roman
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
 historian Tacitus
Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman Senate and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories —examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those that reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors....
, written c 98, which recounts the life of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola
Gnaeus Julius Agricola

Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a Roman Empire general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Roman Britain. His biography, the Agricola , was the first published work of his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus, and is the source for most of what is known about him....
, an eminent Roman general. It also covers, briefly, the geography and ethnography of ancient Britain. As in the Germania
Germania (book)

The Germania , written by Tacitus around 98, is an ethnography work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.This work survived only in one single manuscript that was found in Hersfeld Abbey, Holy Roman Empire and brought to Italy in 1455 where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, first examined and analyzed it, wher...
, 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.

Summary
After the assassination of Domitian
Domitian

Titus Flavius Domitianus , commonly known as Domitian, was a Roman Emperor who reigned from 14 September 81 until his death. Domitian was the last emperor of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96, encompassing the reigns of Domitian's father Vespasian , his elder brother Titus , and that of Domitian himself...
 in 96, and amid the predictable turmoil of the regime change, Tacitus used his new-found freedom to publish this, his first historical work.






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The Agricola (lit. On the life and character of Julius Agricola) is a book by the Roman
Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
 historian Tacitus
Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman Senate and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories —examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those that reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors....
, written c 98, which recounts the life of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola
Gnaeus Julius Agricola

Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a Roman Empire general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Roman Britain. His biography, the Agricola , was the first published work of his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus, and is the source for most of what is known about him....
, an eminent Roman general. It also covers, briefly, the geography and ethnography of ancient Britain. As in the Germania
Germania (book)

The Germania , written by Tacitus around 98, is an ethnography work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.This work survived only in one single manuscript that was found in Hersfeld Abbey, Holy Roman Empire and brought to Italy in 1455 where Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, first examined and analyzed it, wher...
, 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.

Summary


After the assassination of Domitian
Domitian

Titus Flavius Domitianus , commonly known as Domitian, was a Roman Emperor who reigned from 14 September 81 until his death. Domitian was the last emperor of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96, encompassing the reigns of Domitian's father Vespasian , his elder brother Titus , and that of Domitian himself...
 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
Roman Britain

Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia....
. 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
Julius Caesar

'Gaius Julius Caesar' , July 13, 100 BC ? March 15, 44 BC,) was a Roman Republic military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
. 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.

Tacitus exalts the character of his father-in-law, by showing how — as governor of Roman Britain
Roman Britain

Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia....
 and commander of the army — he attends 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 Stoic
STOIC

STOIC was a variant of Forth .It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in February 1977 by Jonathan Sachs....
s 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.

Themes


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, who fitted the model of the mos maiorum
Mos maiorum

Mos Maiorum, literally translated as the ?custom of the fathers/ancestors,? is the core concept of Roman traditionalism. The mos maiorum , was an unwritten code from which the Romans derived their societal norms....
 ("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.

Style


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
Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Ancient Rome philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Constitution of the Roman Republic. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest rhetoric and prose stylists....
, 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
Sallust

For the philosopher, see Sallustius; for other uses, see Sallust .Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust, , a Roman Republic historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines....
 (with incongruities, archaism, parataxis
Parataxis

Parataxis is a literary technique, in writing or speaking, that favors short, simple Sentence s, without the use of coordinating or subordinating conjunctions....
 and sobriety) and that of Livy
Livy

Titus Livius , known as Livy in English language, was a Ancient Rome historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita, from its founding through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time....
 (with oratorical style: wide, fluid, hypotactic and dramatic).

See also

  • Calgacus
    Calgacus

    According to Tacitus, Calgacus was a chieftain of the Caledonian Confederacy who fought the Ancient Rome army of Gnaeus Julius Agricola at the Battle of Mons Graupius in northern Scotland in AD 83 or 84....


External links


, Latin text.