We find it recorded, that for celebrating the praises of Paetus Thrasea, Arulenus Rusticus suffered a deadly doom; as did Herennius Senesce, for those of Helvidius Priscus. Nor upon the persons of the authors only was this cruelty inflicted, but also upon the books themselves; since to the Triumvirate of Justice orders were sent, that in the Forum and place of popular elections, the works of men so illustrious for parts and genius should be burned. Yes, in this very fire they imagined, that they should abolish the voice and utterance of the Roman People, with the liberty of the Senate, and all the ideas and remembrances of humankind. For, they had besides expelled all the professors of philosophy, {Footnote: When Vespasian's worthless son "cleared Rome of what most sham'd him:" Domitian banished Epictetus, and the other philosophers.} and driven every laudable science into exile, that nought which was worthy and honest might anywhere be seen. Mighty surely was the testimony which we gave of our patience; and as our forefathers had beheld the ultimate consummation of liberty, so did we of bondage, since through dread of informers and inquisitions of State, we were bereft of the common intercourse of speech and attention. Nay, with our utterance we had likewise lost our memory; had it been equally in our power to forget, as to be silent.
Now indeed at length our spirit returns. Yet, though from the first dawn of this very happy age begun by the reign of Nerva, he blended together two things once found irreconcilable, public liberty and sovereign power; and though Trajan his adopted successor be daily augmenting the felicity of the State; insomuch that for the general security not only hopes and vows are conceived, but even firm assurance follows these vows, and their full accomplishment is seen; such however is the frailty of man and its effects, that much more slow is the progress of the remedies than of the evils; and as human bodies attain their growth by tedious degrees, and are subject to be destroyed in an instant, so it is much easier to suppress than to revive the efforts of genius and study. For, upon the mind there steals a pleasure even in sloth and remissness, and that very inactivity which was at first hated, is at last loved. Will it not be found that during a course of fifteen years (a mighty space in the age of mortal man) numbers perished through fortuitous disasters, and all men noted for promptness and spirit were cut off by the cruelty of the Emperor? Few we are, who have escaped; and if I may so speak, we have survived not only others but even ourselves, when from the middle of our life so many years were rent; whence from being young we are arrived at old age, from being old we are nigh come to the utmost verge of mortality, all in a long course of awful silence. I shall however find no cause of regret from having framed an historical deduction of our former bondage, as also a testimony of the public blessings which at present we enjoy; though, in doing it, my style be negligent and unpolished. To the honour of Agricola my wife's father, this present book is in the meantime dedicated; and, as 'tis a declaration of filial duty and affection, will thence be commended, at least excused.
A.D. 40. Cnaeus Julius Agricola was born in the ancient and illustrious Colony of Forojulium, {Footnote: Fréjus.} and both his grandfathers were Procurators to the Emperors; a dignity peculiar to the Equestrian Order. His father Julius Graecinus was a Senator, and noted for eloquence and philosophy. By these his virtues, he earned the wrath of Caligula. For, he was by him ordered to accuse Marcus Silanus, and put to death for refusing. His mother was Julia Procilla, a lady of singular chastity. Under her eye and tender care he was reared, and spent his childhood and youth in the continual pursuit and cultivation of worthy accomplishments. What guarded him from the allurements of the vicious (besides his own virtuous disposition and natural innocence) was, that for the seat and nursery of his studies, whilst yet very little, he had the city of Marseilles; a place well tempered and framed, as in it all the politeness of the Greeks and all the provincial parsimony are blended together. I remember he was wont to declare, that in his early youth he studied Philosophy and the Law with more avidity than was allowable to a Roman and a Senator; till the discretion of his mother checked his spirit, engaged with passion and ardour in the pursuit. In truth, his superior and elevated genius thirsted, with more vehemence than caution, after the loveliness and lustre of a name and renown so mighty and sublime. Reason and age afterwards qualified his heat; and, what is a task extremely hard, he satisfied himself with a limited measure of philosophy.
A.D. 59-62. The first rudiments of war he learnt in Britain, under that prudent and vigilant commander Suetonius Paulinus; by whom he was chosen and distinguished, as his domestic companion. Neither did Agricola behave licentiously, after the manner of young men, who turn warfare into riot; nor assumed the title and office of a Tribune without the sufficiency, in order to use it slothfully in feats of pleasure and absence from duty, but to know the Province, to be known to the army, to learn of such as had experience, to follow such as were worthy and brave, to seek for no exploits for ostentation, to refuse none through fear, and in all his pursuits was equally zealous and active. Indeed at no time had Britain been under greater combustions, nor our affairs there more precarious. Our veterans were slaughtered, our colonies burned down, our armies surprised and taken. At that juncture the struggle was for life; afterwards, for victory. Now though all these affairs were transacted by the counsels and conduct of another than Agricola, and though the stress of the whole, with the glory of recovering the Province, accrued to the General; they all however proved to the young man matters of skill, of experience and stimulation; and there seized his soul a passion for military glory, a spirit disgustful to the times, when of men signally eminent a malignant opinion was entertained, and when as much peril arose from a great character as from a bad.
A.D. 62-68. Departing from hence to Rome for the exercise of public dignities, he there married Domitia Decidiana, a lady splendid in her descent; and to him, who was aspiring to higher honours, this marriage proved a great ornament and support. In marvellous unanimity they also lived, in a course of mutual tenderness and mutual preference; a temper commendable in both, only that the praise of a good wife rises in proportion to the contumely of a bad. His lot as Quaestor fell upon Asia, where he had Salvius Titianus for Proconsul. But neither the Province nor the Proconsul corrupted his probity, though the country was very rich, nay, prepared as a prey for men corruptly disposed; and Titianus, a man bent upon all acts of rapine, was ready, upon the smallest encouragement, to have purchased a mutual connivance in iniquity. In Asia he was enriched by the birth of a daughter, tending at once to his consolation and the support of his family; for the son born to him before, he very soon lost. The interval between his bearing the office of Quaestor and that of Tribune of the People, and even the year of his Tribuneship, he passed in repose and inactivity; as well aware of the spirit of the times under Nero, when sloth and heaviness served for wisdom. With the like indolence he held the Praetorship, and in the same quiet and silence. For upon him the jurisdiction of that dignity fell not. The public pastimes and the empty gaieties of the office, he exhibited according to the rules of good sense and to the measure of his wealth, in a manner though remote from prodigality, yet deserving popular applause. As he was next appointed by Galba to make research into the gifts and oblations appertaining to the temples, he proceeded with such diligence and an examination so strict, that the State suffered from no sacrilege save that of Nero.
A.D. 69 and 70. In the year following he suffered a grievous blow in his spirit and family. For, Otho's fleet, which continued roving upon the coast and pursuing rapine, whilst they were ravaging Intemelium {Footnote: Vinitimiglia.} (a part of Liguria) slew the mother of Agricola upon her estate there, and plundered the estate itself with a great part of her treasure, which had indeed proved the cause of the murder. As he therefore went from Rome to solemnise her funeral, he had tidings upon the road that Vespasian was pursuing the sovereignty, and instantly espoused his party. In the beginning of this reign all the exercise of power and the government of the city, were entirely in the hands of Mucianus; for, Domitian was yet extremely young, and, of the Imperial fortune of his father, assumed nothing further than a latitude for debauchery. Mucianus, who had despatched Agricola to levy forces, and found him to have acted in that trust with uprightness and magnanimity, preferred him to the command of the twentieth legion; as soon as he was informed, that he who commanded it before was engaged in seditious practices. Indeed that legion had with great slowness and reluctance been brought to swear allegiance to Vespasian, nay, was grown over mighty and even formidable to the commanders-in-chief: so that their own commander was found void of authority to control them; though it is uncertain whether from the temper of the man or from that of the soldiers. Thus Agricola was chosen, at once to succeed him, and to punish delinquency in them; and exercising moderation altogether rare, would rather have it thought, that he had found them unblamable than made them so.
A.D. 72. Over Britain at that juncture Vettius Bolanus bore rule, but with more complacency than suited a province so fierce and untamed. Hence Agricola restrained his own heat, and held within bounds the ardour of his spirit, as he was well skilled how to show his obedience, and had thoroughly learned to blend what was honourable with what was profitable: soon after this, Britain received for its Governor Petilius Cerialis, one of Consular quality. The virtue and abilities of Agricola had now ample space for producing suitable effects. But to him at first Cerialis communicated only the dangers and fatigues: with him anon he likewise shared the glory; frequently, for trial of his prowess, committed to his conduct a part of the army; sometimes, according to the measure of his success, set him at the head of forces still larger. Nor did Agricola ever vaunt his exploits to blazon his own fame. To his general, as to the Author of all, he, as his instrument and inferior, still ascribed his good fortune. Thus from his bravery in the execution of his orders, from his modesty in recounting his deeds of bravery, he escaped envy, yet failed not to gain glory.
A.D. 73-78. Upon his return from commanding a legion, the deified Vespasian raised him to the rank of a patrician, and afterwards invested him with the government of the Province of Aquitaine; a government of the foremost dignity, and given as previous to the Consulship, to which that Prince had destined him. There are many who believe, that to military men subtilty of spirit is wanting; for that in camps the direction of process and authority, is rather rough and void of formality; and that where hands and force are chiefly used, there the address and refinements usual to Courts are not exercised. Yet Agricola, assisted by his natural prudence, though he was then engaged only with men of peace and the robe, acquitted himself with great facility and great uprightness. He carefully distinguished the seasons of business and the seasons of recess. Whenever he sat in Council or upon the Tribunals of justice, he was grave, attentive, awful, generally addicted to compassion. The moment he had fulfilled the duties of his office, he personated no longer the man of power: he had then cast off all sternness, all airs of State, and all rigour. Nay, what is very rarely to be seen, his complaisance neither weakened his authority, nor did his severity make him less amiable. It were an injury to the virtues of so great a man, to particularise his just dealings, his temperance, and the cleanness of his hands. {Footnote: "Integritatem atque abstinentiam referre."} In truth glory itself was what he pursued, not by any ostentation of bravery, nor by any strain of artifice or address; though of that pursuit even the best men are often fond. Thus he was far from maintaining any competition with his equals in station, far from any contest with the Procurators of the Prince: since, to conquer in this contention he judged to be no glory; and to be crushed by them were disgrace. His administration here lasted hardly three years, ere he was recalled to the present possession of the Consulship. With this employment there accrued the public opinion, that for his province Britain would be assigned him, from no words which had dropped from him about it, but because he was deemed equal to the office. Common fame does not always err; sometimes it even directs the public choice. To myself yet very young, whilst he was Consul, he contracted his daughter, a young lady even then of excellent hopes, and, at the end of his Consulship, presented her in marriage. He was then forthwith promoted to the government of Britain, as also invested with the honour of the Pontificate.
The account which I shall here present of the situation and people of Britain, a subject about which many authors have written, comes not from any design of setting up my own exactness and genius against theirs, but only because the country was then first thoroughly subdued. So that such matters as former writers have, without knowing them, embellished with eloquence, will by me be recounted according to the truth of evidence and discoveries. Of all the islands which have reached the knowledge of the Romans, Britain is the largest. It extends towards Germany to the east, towards Spain to the west. To the south it looks towards Gaul. Its northern shore, beyond which there is no land, is beaten by a sea vast and boundless. {Footnote: "Belluosus, qui remotis Obstrepit Oceanus Britannis."} Britain is by Livy and Fabius Rusticus, the former the most eloquent of the ancient historians, the latter of the moderns, compared in shape to an oblong shield, or a broad knife with two edges. And such in effect is its figure on this side Caledonia, whence common opinion has thus also fashioned the whole. But a tract of territory huge and unmeasurable stretches forward to the uttermost shore, and straitening by degrees, terminates like a wedge. Round the coast of this sea, which beyond it has no land, the Roman fleet now first sailed, and thence proved Britain to be an island, as also discovered and subdued the Isles of Orkney till then unknown. Thule was likewise descried, hitherto hid by winter under eternal snow. This sea they report to be slow and stagnate, difficult to the rowers, and indeed hardly to be raised by the force of winds. This I conjecture to be because land and mountains, which are the cause and materials of tempests, very rarely occur in proportion to the mighty mass of water, a mass so deep and uninterrupted as not to be easily agitated. An inquiry into the nature of the ocean and of the tide, is not the purpose of this work, and about it many have written. One thing I would add, that nowhere is the power of the sea more extensive than here, forcing back the waters of many rivers, or carrying them away with its own; nor is its flux and ebbings confined to the banks and shore; but it works and winds itself far into the country, nay forms bays in rocks and mountains, as if the same were its native bed.