Germania and Agricola

by Cornelius Tacitus

The history of Agricola during this period is of course the history of Britain. Accordingly the author prefaces it with an outline of the geographical features, the situation, soil, climate, productions and, so far as known to the Romans, the past history of the island. Tacitus possessed peculiar advantages for being the historian of the early Britons. His father-in-law was the first to subject the whole island to the sway of Rome. He traversed the country from south to north at the head of his armies, explored it with his own eyes, and reported what he saw to our author with his own lips. He saw the Britons too, in their native nobleness, in their primitive love of liberty and virtue; before they had become the slaves of Roman arms, the dupes of Roman arts, or the victims of Roman vices. A few paragraphs in the concise and nervous style of Tacitus, have made us quite acquainted with the Britons, as Agricola found them; and on the whole, we have no reason to be ashamed of the primaeval inhabitants of the land of our ancestry. They knew their rights, they prized them, they fought for them bravely and died for them nobly. More harmony among themselves might have delayed, but could not have prevented the final catastrophe. Rome in the age of Trajan was irresistible; and Britain became a Roman province. This portion of the Agricola of Tacitus, and the Germania of the same author, entitle him to the peculiar affection and lasting gratitude of those, whose veins flow with Briton and Anglo-Saxon blood, as the historian, and the contemporary historian too, of their early fathers. It is a notable providence for us, nay it is a kind providence for mankind, that has thus preserved from the pen of the most sagacious and reflecting of all historians an account, too brief though it be, of the origin and antiquities of the people that of all others now exert the widest dominion whether in the political or the moral world, and that have made those countries which were in his day shrouded in darkness, the radiant points for the moral and spiritual illumination of our race. "The child is father to the man," and if we would at this day investigate the elements of English law, we have it on the authority of Sir William Blackstone, that we must trace them back to their founders in the customs of the Britons and Germans, as recorded by Caesar and Tacitus.

With the retirement of Agricola from the command in Britain, the author falls back more into the province of biography. The few occasional strokes, however, in which the pencil of Tacitus has sketched the character of Domitian in the background of the picture of Agricola are the more to be prized, because his history of that reign is lost.

In narrating the closing scenes of Agricola's life, Tacitus breathes the very spirit of an affectionate son, without sacrificing the impartiality and gravity of the historian, and combines all a mourner's simplicity and sincerity with all the orator's dignity and eloquence.

How tenderly he dwells on the wisdom and goodness of his departed father; how artlessly he intersperses his own sympathies and regrets, even as if he were breathing out his sorrows amid a circle of sympathizing friends! At the same time, how instructive are his reflections, how noble his sentiments, and how weighty his words, as if he were pronouncing an eulogium in the hearing of the world and of posterity! The sad experience of the writer in the very troubles through which he follows Agricola, conspires with the affectionate remembrance of his own loss in the death of such a father, to give a tinge of melancholy to the whole biography; and we should not know where to look for the composition, in which so perfect a work of art is animated by so warm a heart. In both these respects, it is decidedly superior to the Germania. It is marked by the same depth of thought and conciseness in diction, but it is a higher effort of the writer, while, at the same time, it gives us more insight into the character of the man. It has less of satire and more of sentiment. Or if it is not richer in refined sentiments and beautiful reflections, they are interwoven with the narrative in a manner more easy and natural. The sentiments seem to be only the language of Agricola's virtuous heart, and the reflections, we feel, could not fail to occur to such a mind in the contemplation of such a character. There is also more ease and flow in the language; for concise as it still is and studied as it may appear, it seems to be the very style which is best suited to the subject and most natural to the author. In another writer we might call it labored and ambitious. But we cannot feel that it cost Tacitus very much effort. Still less can we charge him with an attempt at display. In short, an air of confidence in the dignity of the subject, and in the powers of the author, pervades the entire structure of this fine specimen of biography. And the reader will not deem that confidence ill-grounded. He cannot fail to regard this, as among the noblest, if not the very noblest monument ever reared to the memory of any individual.

"We find in it the flower of all the beauties, which T. has scattered through his other works. It is a chef-d'oeuvre, which satisfies at once the judgment and the fancy, the imagination and the heart. It is justly proposed as a model of historical eulogy. The praises bestowed have in them nothing vague or far-fetched, they rise from the simple facts of the narrative. Every thing produces attachment, every thing conveys instruction. The reader loves Agricola, admires him, conceives a passion for him, accompanies him in his campaigns, shares in his disgrace and profits by his example. The interest goes on growing to the last. And when it seems incapable of further increase, passages pathetic and sublime transport the soul out of itself, and leave it the power of feeling only to detest the tyrant, and to melt into tenderness without weakness over the destiny of the hero." (La Bletterie.)

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I. Usitatum. A participle in the acc. agreeing with the preceding clause, and forming with that clause the object of the verb omisit.— Nequidem. Cf. G. 6, note.

Incuriosa suorum. So Ann. 2, 88: dum vetera extollimus, recentium incuriosi. Incuriosus is post-Augustan.

Virtus vicit—vitium. Alliteration, which is not unfrequent in T. as also homoeoteleuta, words ending with like sounds. Dr.

Ignorantiam—invidiam. The gen. recti limits both subs., which properly denote different faults, but since they are usually associated, they are here spoken of as one (vitium).