1When he returned from commanding the legion, the deified Vespasian enrolled him among the patricians; 1and then put him in charge of the province of Aquitania, a post of especially splendid distinction both for its administration and for the hope of the consulship, for which he had marked him out. 2Many believe that military men lack subtlety, because the jurisdiction of the camp, being free from care and rather blunt and doing most things by force, does not exercise the shrewdness of the courts. 3Agricola, through his natural good sense, although among civilians, acted with ease and justice. 3Moreover, his times of business and of relaxation were kept apart: when assizes and trials demanded it, he was grave, attentive, stern and yet more often merciful; when his duty had been done, there was no longer any mask of power; 3he had shed gloominess, arrogance and greed.
4Nor in his case, which is very rare, did his affability diminish his authority or his strictness the affection felt for him. 4To mention integrity and self-restraint in so great a man would be an insult to his virtues. 5He did not even seek fame, to which even good men often yield, by parading his virtue or by artifice: far from rivalry with his colleagues, far from strife with the procurators, he thought it inglorious to win and degrading to be worn down. 6He was kept in that command for less than three years and then at once recalled to the prospect of the consulship, while general opinion attended him that Britain was being given to him as his province, not from any talk of his own on the matter, but because he seemed equal to it.
7Rumour does not always err; 7sometimes it even chooses. 7As consul he betrothed his daughter, a girl of excellent promise even then, to me as a young man, and after his consulship gave her to me in marriage, and was at once put in charge of Britain, with the priesthood of the pontificate added.