Agricola

Cornelius Tacitus (about AD 56 to after 117), the greatest Roman historian, published the Agricola in AD 98, his first work. It is a biography of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola (AD 40 to 93), and also a political essay: written once Domitian was dead, it asks how a good man could serve under a tyrant.

The preface laments the fifteen years of silence under Domitian, when books were burned. Tacitus then traces Agricola's birth at Forum Julii, his schooling at Massilia, his first service in Britain during Boudicca's revolt, and his offices up to the consulship. A description of Britain and its peoples, and of the earlier governors, introduces his own governorship from about AD 77. Agricola crushes the Ordovices, takes the island of Mona (Anglesey), reforms the province's administration and encourages the Britons to adopt baths, togas and banquets, which Tacitus calls part of their slavery. He advances to the Clyde and Forth and into Caledonia. Before the battle at the Graupian Mountain the British chieftain Calgacus says of the Romans 'they make a desert and call it peace'; Agricola replies to his own troops and wins. The fleet sails round the north and confirms that Britain is an island. Recalled by a jealous Domitian, Agricola lives quietly, refuses a proconsulship and dies in 93, and the work ends with Tacitus' address to his memory.

Short and varied, it is the earliest substantial account of Roman Britain. The Latin is compressed, pointed and allusive, and Calgacus' speech is one of the best-known passages in Tacitus.