The Agricola and the Germania

Summary

This volume contains Tacitus' two earliest works, both written in 98 CE, soon after the assassination of the emperor Domitian. The Agricola is a biography and eulogy of the author's father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who died in 93. Tacitus opens by lamenting the years of Domitian's tyranny, when free speech was suppressed and books were burned, and celebrates the new freedom under Nerva and Trajan. He then traces Agricola's life: his birth at Forum Julii in Gaul, his education at Massilia, his mother's restraint of his youthful enthusiasm for philosophy, his early service in Britain during Boudicca's revolt, and his career through the magistracies. Much of the work is devoted to Agricola's governorship of Britain from about 77 to 84. Tacitus gives an account of the geography and peoples of Britain and of earlier Roman campaigns, and describes how Agricola combined military campaigns with a policy of Romanization, encouraging the Britons to adopt baths, porticoes, togas and banquets, which Tacitus calls part of their enslavement. Agricola's fleet circumnavigates Britain, and his armies push into Caledonia, culminating in the victory at Mons Graupius, before which Tacitus gives the Caledonian leader Calgacus a speech denouncing Roman imperialism. Recalled by a jealous Domitian, Agricola lives quietly in Rome, avoiding the fate of more outspoken men, and dies in circumstances that prompt rumours of poisoning. Tacitus closes with a moving address to Agricola's spirit. The Germania is an ethnographic treatise on the lands and peoples beyond the Rhine and Danube. Its first part describes the Germans in general: their supposed indigenous origin and purity of race, their land and climate, their weapons and warfare, their chiefs and assemblies, their religion, the strictness of their marriages and the chastity of their women, their hospitality, their love of drinking and gambling, their funeral customs. The second part surveys individual tribes, from the Chatti and the Suebi to the Fenni at the edge of the known world. The Germania praises the simplicity and vigour of the 'barbarians' in implicit contrast with Roman luxury and moral decline, while also recording their indolence and drunkenness. The two works together establish Tacitus' themes of liberty and tyranny, virtue and corruption, and the moral costs of empire.

Top Lessons

• Virtue under tyranny

  Tacitus defends Agricola's quiet service against those who sought glorious martyrdom, arguing that great men can exist even under bad emperors. The work asks how to act ethically within a corrupt system.

• Empire seen from the other side

  Calgacus' speech gives voice to the conquered, condemning Roman rule in some of the most quoted words in Latin. Tacitus lets a Roman reader see empire as robbery.

• The uses and dangers of ethnography

  The Germania uses 'noble barbarians' to criticize Roman decadence. Its notion of German racial purity was later exploited by nationalists and Nazis, showing how ancient texts can be misused.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Medical content is limited but notable. Agricola's final illness is described with the frequent visits of the emperor's freedmen and physicians, and Tacitus reports a rumour of poisoning that he declines to affirm, a classic case of the politics of a ruler's doctors. The closing address to Agricola's spirit is a model of Roman consolation and mourning. The Germania describes Germanic drinking customs, feasts lasting day and night, and councils held over drink, along with funeral customs. These passages are useful to historians of alcohol and of Roman ideas about 'barbarian' bodies and health.

• Agricola 43

  Agricola's last illness, the emperor's physicians and freedmen visiting, and rumours of poison.

• Agricola 45–46

  Tacitus' lament and address to the dead Agricola, a classical consolation.

• Germania 22–23

  German drinking habits, quarrels at feasts, and deliberation over drink; their beer-like beverage.

• Germania 27

  Germanic funeral customs and mourning.