Cornelius Tacitus

Germania and Agricola Cornelius Tacitus

Tacitus' early work Agricola, written c. AD98, is a biography of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, covering the noted general's early life and his Governorship of Britain. Essentially a eulogy of a strikingly honest and capable Roman official, the work allows Tacitus to indulge in a quiet critique of Imperial Rome's control of the Empire under Domitian, with digressions regarding the geography and ethnography of Northern Britain. The emphasis is on the life of a virtuous soldier and official navigating through the difficult ocean of power politics, rather than on pure history and the details of provincial rule, but the Agricola is nevertheless a valuable contribution to our understanding of the period.