Tacitus · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| Handing down to posterity the deeds and character of famous men is an old practice, and even our own age, careless as it is about its own people, hasn't abandoned it whenever some great and noble virtue has beaten down the vice common to small states and large alike: ignorance of what is right, and envy. In earlier times, doing something worth recording was easier and more in the open, and every man of note was drawn to publish the memory of virtue by nothing but the reward of a good conscience, free of favor-seeking or ambition. Many even thought it no arrogance but simple confidence in their own character to narrate their own lives, and no one held it against Rutilius or Scaurus, or doubted them for it: virtues are best judged in the very times that produce them most easily. But now, about to narrate the life of a dead man, I have needed to ask permission — permission I would not have sought had I meant to attack him. So savage and so hostile to virtue are these times.
2| We have read that when Arulenus Rusticus praised Paetus Thrasea, and Herennius Senecio praised Helvidius Priscus, it cost them their lives, and the cruelty fell not only on the authors themselves but on their books too: a commission of three men was assigned the task of burning, in the Comitium and Forum, the monuments of the most brilliant minds. As though flames could silence the voice of the Roman people, snuff out the senate's freedom, and erase the conscience of mankind along with it — and on top of it they drove the teachers of philosophy into exile, banished every honest pursuit, so that nothing decent might turn up anywhere. We gave, indeed, a great demonstration of submission; and just as the old generation saw the furthest limit of liberty, we have seen the furthest limit of servitude, robbed even of the exchange of speech and hearing by the spy system. We would have lost our very memory along with our voice, if forgetting were as much in our power as staying silent.
3| Only now does our spirit return. Nerva Caesar, at the very dawn of this most blessed age, fused together things once incompatible — the principate and liberty — and Nerva Trajan increases the happiness of the times daily; public security has taken on not merely the hope and prayer but the confidence and strength of that prayer fulfilled. Yet by the nature of human weakness, remedies move slower than diseases: as our bodies grow slowly and die quickly, so it is easier to crush minds and their pursuits than to call them back — the very sweetness of idleness creeps in, and the sloth once hated comes at last to be loved. And what of this: for fifteen years — a huge stretch of a human life — many perished by chance accidents, and the boldest by the emperor's cruelty; the few of us who survive have outlived not only others but, in a sense, ourselves, with so many years torn out of the middle of life, years in which we passed from youth to old age, and the old almost to the very edge of their lives, in silence. Still, I won't be sorry to have put together, even in a rough and unpolished voice, a record of our former slavery and a testimony to our present blessings. This book meanwhile, meant to honor my father-in-law Agricola, will either be praised or excused as a declaration of devotion.
4| Gnaeus Julius Agricola was born in the old and distinguished colony of Forum Julii. Both his grandfathers were imperial procurators, which counts as equestrian rank. His father, Julius Graecinus, was of senatorial rank, known for his devotion to eloquence and philosophy — and it was precisely these virtues that earned him the anger of Gaius Caesar: ordered to prosecute Marcus Silanus, he refused, and was killed for it. His mother was Julia Procilla, a woman of rare purity. Raised in her care and affection, he spent his boyhood and youth wholly given over to honorable pursuits. What kept him from the temptations that ruin young men, besides his own sound and upright nature, was that from earliest childhood he had Massilia as the seat and teacher of his studies — a place that blends Greek courtesy with provincial frugality, and mixes them well. I remember him telling how in his early youth he drank rather too deeply of the study of philosophy, further than was proper for a Roman and a senator, until his mother's good sense checked his kindled and burning spirit. A lofty, upright mind, evidently, chases the beauty and splendor of great and towering glory more eagerly than cautiously. Reason and age soon tempered it, and he kept — the hardest thing of all — a sense of proportion out of his wisdom.
5| He got his first taste of army life in Britain under Suetonius Paulinus, a careful and disciplined commander, who chose him to share his own quarters so as to judge him. Agricola didn't treat his military tribunate, as young men often do, as a license for indulgence, an excuse to turn soldiering into partying, nor did he lazily use his rank as cover for pleasure and leave. Instead he set out to know the province, to be known by the army, to learn from experienced men, to follow the best examples, to seek nothing for show, to refuse nothing out of fear, and to act at once carefully and energetically. Britain was never more actively contested or more in doubt: veterans slaughtered, colonies burned, armies cut off — first they fought for survival, then for victory. All this was carried out under another man's plans and command, and the glory of the whole affair and of recovering the province went to that commander, but it gave the young Agricola skill, experience, and a spur; the desire for military glory entered his heart — an unwelcome passion in times when standing out invited a hostile interpretation, and great fame was every bit as dangerous as bad fame.
6| From there he came down to Rome to seek office, and married Domitia Decidiana, a woman of brilliant birth; the marriage brought him both honor and strength as he pushed toward greater things. They lived together in remarkable harmony, through mutual affection and by each putting the other first — though in a good wife the credit for this is all the greater, just as in a bad one the blame is. The lot of the quaestorship gave him the province of Asia, with Salvius Titianus as proconsul; neither the province, rich and ready-made for wrongdoing, nor the proconsul, inclined to every kind of greed and willing on easy terms to trade mutual cover-ups, corrupted him. There a daughter was born to him, a support and a comfort at once; for he had earlier lost a son not long after birth. The time between his quaestorship and his tribunate of the plebs, and even the year of the tribunate itself, passed in quiet and inactivity, since he knew well that under Nero doing nothing counted as wisdom. His praetorship went the same way, quiet and uneventful, since no judicial duties had fallen to him. The games and empty trappings of the office he handled with a balance between economy and generosity, keeping well clear of extravagance while staying close to popular favor. Then, chosen by Galba to inspect temple offerings, he carried out the inquiry so scrupulously that the state suffered no sacrilege beyond what Nero had already inflicted.
7| The following year struck a grievous blow to his heart and his household. Otho's fleet, roaming without restraint, plundered Intimilium — part of Liguria — like an enemy, and in the course of it killed Agricola's mother on her own estate, and looted the estate itself along with a large part of the family fortune, which had been the motive for the murder. Agricola was on his way to perform the funeral rites when news reached him that Vespasian was making a bid for the throne, and he went over to his side at once. Mucianus governed the beginnings of the new reign and the state of the city, since Domitian was still quite young and exploiting only the license his father's fortune gave him. Mucianus sent Agricola to conduct levies, and finding him honest and vigorous, put him in charge of the Twentieth Legion, which had been slow to swear allegiance, where his predecessor was said to be stirring up mutiny — a legion too strong and alarming even for commanders of consular rank, and its praetorian commander unable to restrain it, whether through his own weakness or the soldiers' temper is unclear. So Agricola, chosen as successor and avenger both, with a rare restraint chose to seem to have found the men already loyal rather than to have made them so.
8| Britain was then governed by Vettius Bolanus, more mildly than so unruly a province deserved. Agricola reined in his own energy and checked his eagerness, so it wouldn't grow too strong, skilled as he was at obedience and trained to blend the useful with the honorable. Soon after, Britain got a consular governor, Petilius Cerialis. Now there was scope for his virtues to show themselves in examples, but at first Cerialis shared with him only the labor and the danger, and only later the glory too: he often put him in charge of part of the army as a trial, and sometimes, based on results, of larger forces. Agricola never boasted of his own achievements for his own fame; as a subordinate he always credited his success to his commander and leader. So in his obedience he showed virtue, in his silence about it, modesty, and he kept clear of envy without falling short of glory.
9| When he returned from commanding his legion, the deified Vespasian enrolled him among the patricians, then put him in charge of the province of Aquitania—an especially brilliant post, both in the standing it carried and in the promise of a consulship, which Vespasian had already marked out for him. Most people assume that military minds lack subtlety, on the theory that camp jurisdiction, being blunt and straightforward and dealing mostly in force, doesn't train a man in the cunning of the courtroom. But Agricola, with his natural good sense, handled civilian business easily and fairly even among the toga-wearing crowd. He kept his hours of work and rest cleanly separated: when the assizes and the courts demanded him, he was serious, focused, strict, and often merciful; once his duty was done, he dropped every trace of the official. He carried none of the usual arrogance, sourness, or greed. And—rarest of things—neither his approachability weakened his authority nor his strictness cost him affection. To praise integrity and freedom from corruption in a man of his stature would almost insult his greater virtues. He didn't even chase reputation—something good men often indulge in—by advertising his merits or working the angles. He kept clear of rivalry with his colleagues and clear of quarrels with the procurators, thinking it inglorious to win such contests and shabby to be worn down by them. He was kept in that post less than three years before being recalled with the promise of a consulship close behind, and rumor already had it that Britain would be his province—not because he'd said anything to that effect, but because he simply looked right for it. Rumor isn't always wrong; sometimes it even chooses well. As consul, he betrothed his daughter, then a young woman of outstanding promise, to me, and after his consulship gave her to me in marriage; almost immediately he was put in charge of Britain, with the priesthood of the pontificate added to it.
10| I won't set down the geography and peoples of Britain, so often described by other writers, to compete with them in care or talent, but because Britain was only then, for the first time, fully subdued. So what earlier writers dressed up with eloquence, not yet having the facts straight, I will report with plain accuracy. Britain, the largest of the islands known to Rome, stretches in extent and climate opposite Germany on one side and Spain on the other, with Gaul across from its southern coast, close enough to be seen. Its northern parts, with no land opposite them, are battered by a vast, open sea. The shape of the whole island has been compared—by Livy, the most eloquent of the older writers, and Fabius Rusticus among the more recent—to an elongated dish, or a double axe-head. And that is indeed its shape as far as Caledonia, which is why that description has become the general one; but beyond that, an immense, irregular mass of land runs out and narrows, wedge-like, toward its furthest shore. A Roman fleet, sailing round this outermost coast for the first time, confirmed that Britain was in fact an island, and in the same voyage discovered and subdued the previously unknown islands called the Orkneys. Thule too was sighted, but no further, since that was the extent of the orders, and winter was coming on. They report the sea there is sluggish and heavy to row through, and doesn't even rise much under wind—probably because there is less land and fewer mountains, which are the source and material of storms, and because the sheer mass of open ocean is slower to be stirred. Investigating the nature of Ocean and its tides isn't the business of this work, and many have already done so; I'll only add this: nowhere does the sea hold wider sway, carrying its currents this way and that in many channels, and it doesn't merely rise and fall at the shoreline but pushes deep inland, wrapping around and even working its way into hills and mountains as if they were its own.
11| Who the original inhabitants of Britain were—natives or immigrants—is, as usual among barbarians, not well established. Physical types vary, and from that people draw their theories. The reddish hair and large limbs of the people of Caledonia point to a German origin; the swarthy faces and generally curly hair of the Silures, along with Spain's position opposite them, make it plausible that Iberians crossed over in the old days and took those lands for themselves; the tribes nearest to Gaul resemble the Gauls, whether because the force of shared ancestry still holds, or because lands jutting toward each other under similar skies shape bodies alike. On the whole, though, it's reasonable to guess that Gauls occupied the neighboring island. You can catch their religious rites and superstitious beliefs; their language isn't very different; they show the same boldness in courting danger and, once danger arrives, the same fear in dodging it. Still, the Britons show more ferocity, not yet having been softened by a long peace. We're told the Gauls too were once formidable in war; then came sluggishness along with ease, and they lost their courage together with their freedom. The Britons conquered long ago have gone the same way; the tribes still free are what the Gauls used to be.
12| Their strength lies in infantry; some tribes also fight from chariots. The nobleman drives, his dependents fight around him. They used to obey kings; now they're pulled apart by factions and rivalries among their chiefs. Nothing works more in our favor against such powerful peoples than their failure to act in concert. Rarely do two or three states come together to fend off a common danger; so they fight one by one, and are conquered as a whole. The sky is foul with frequent rain and cloud, but the cold isn't harsh. The days are longer than in our part of the world; the nights are bright, and in the far north of Britain so short that you can barely tell where daylight ends and begins. They claim that if clouds don't get in the way, the sun's glow can be seen through the night, and that it doesn't set and rise but simply passes along the horizon. The reason, apparently, is that the flat, outlying edges of the earth cast only a low shadow that doesn't lift the darkness very high, so night falls below the level of the sky and the stars. The soil can bear every crop except the olive and the vine and the other produce native to warmer lands, and it's fertile enough for livestock. Crops ripen slowly but grow quickly, both for the same reason—an abundance of moisture in the ground and the air. Britain yields gold, silver, and other metals—worth the conquest. The Ocean also produces pearls, though dull and grayish. Some think the gatherers simply lack the skill for it: in the Red Sea, they say, pearls are pried living and breathing off the rocks, while in Britain they're only collected once washed ashore. I would sooner believe that nature is stingy with the pearls there than that we are lacking in greed.
13| The Britons themselves handle the levy, the taxes, and the other duties the empire imposes on them without complaint, so long as there's no injustice mixed in; that they endure badly, being tamed enough to obey but not yet to be slaves. So it was the deified Julius who first of all Romans entered Britain with an army; though a successful battle frightened the inhabitants and he took the shore, he can be said to have shown the island to his successors, not handed it over to them. Then came the civil wars, and the arms of the leading men turned against the state, and a long neglect of Britain even in peacetime—the deified Augustus called it policy, Tiberius called it a legacy to be followed. That Gaius Caesar considered invading Britain is well established, but his quick, changeable temper and his failed efforts against Germany came to nothing. The deified Claudius was behind the renewal of the effort, shipping over legions and auxiliaries and bringing Vespasian in to share the command—which turned out to be the start of Vespasian's later rise to fortune. Peoples were subdued, kings taken captive, and fate marked out Vespasian.
14| Aulus Plautius was the first man of consular rank put in charge, followed soon after by Ostorius Scapula, both outstanding soldiers; and bit by bit the nearest part of Britain was reshaped into a proper province, with a colony of veterans added on top. Certain states were handed over to King Cogidumnus, who remained loyal right down to my own time—following the old, long-established Roman practice of using even kings as instruments of subjugation. Then Didius Gallus held on to what earlier governors had won, pushing forward only a few outposts, just enough to earn a reputation for having expanded the province's reach. Veranius succeeded Didius, and died within the year. After him Suetonius Paulinus had two successful years, subduing peoples and strengthening garrisons; and trusting in that success, he attacked the island of Mona, which was supplying the rebels with manpower, and in doing so left his rear exposed to opportunity.
15| For with the governor away and their fear removed, the Britons began talking among themselves about the miseries of servitude, comparing their grievances and inflaming each other by interpreting them: patience gained nothing except heavier burdens laid on people who bore things all too easily. They used to have one king each; now two were imposed on them, the governor to rage against their lives, the procurator against their property. Discord between these two officials was just as ruinous for their subjects as agreement between them. The governor's men, the centurions, and the procurator's men, the slaves, mixed violence with insult on both sides. Nothing now escaped greed, nothing escaped lust. In battle, at least, it's the braver man who plunders; but now it was mostly cowards and men unfit for war who tore homes apart, dragged off children, and imposed the levy—as if these were people who didn't even know how to die for their own country. How few soldiers had actually crossed over, after all, if the Britons only counted themselves! That was how the Germanies had thrown off the yoke, and they were only defended by a river, not by Ocean. For themselves, they had country, wives, and parents as reasons to fight; the Romans had nothing but greed and self-indulgence. The Romans would withdraw, just as the deified Julius had withdrawn, if only the Britons would match the courage of their ancestors. They shouldn't be frightened by the outcome of one battle or two: the fortunate have more dash, but greater steadfastness lies with the wretched. Even the gods, they said, now pitied the Britons, keeping the Roman general away and his army shut up on another island; and now they themselves were doing the hardest part—deliberating. And in plots of this kind, it's more dangerous to be caught planning than to act.
16| Stirred up by these grievances and others like them, the Britons all rose together under Boudicca, a woman of royal blood as their leader — for they draw no distinction of sex when it comes to command. They hunted down the soldiers scattered through the forts, stormed the garrisons, and overran the colony itself as the seat of their slavery. Anger and victory left no form of savagery untried. Had Paulinus not moved quickly on hearing of the province's uprising, Britain would have been lost. As it was, the luck of a single battle restored the old submission — though many still kept their weapons, driven by guilt over the revolt and personal fear of the governor, that he, admirable in everything else, might deal too harshly with those who surrendered, avenging in them wrongs done to himself. So Petronius Turpilianus was sent instead, a man thought more approachable, new to the enemy's crimes and therefore gentler toward their repentance. He settled the old troubles, risked nothing further, and handed the province to Trebellius Maximus. Trebellius, more sluggish and with no experience of the camp, held the province through a kind of easy good nature. Even the natives had by now learned to forgive the seductive vices of Roman rule, and the outbreak of civil war at home gave a ready excuse for slackness. But discord tore at the army, for soldiers used to campaigns grew unruly in idleness. Trebellius escaped the army's fury by hiding and fleeing, and afterward held command in disgrace and humiliation, on sufferance only, as if by an unspoken bargain: the soldiers got their licence, the general kept his life, and the mutiny passed without bloodshed. Nor did Vettius Bolanus, with the civil wars still ongoing, trouble Britain with discipline — the same indulgence toward the enemy, the same lawlessness in camp, except that Bolanus was blameless and, hated for no wrongdoing of his own, had won affection in place of authority.
17| But when Vespasian recovered Britain along with the rest of the world, great generals came, fine armies followed, and the enemy's hopes shrank. Petilius Cerialis struck terror at once by attacking the Brigantes — reputedly the province's most populous tribe. He fought battle after battle, some of them bloody, and through victory or through the sheer wearing effect of war he brought a large part of the Brigantes to heel. Cerialis would have overshadowed the effort and reputation of any successor, but Julius Frontinus took up and bore the weight of the task — a great man, so far as was then possible — and subdued by arms the strong and warlike Silures, fighting through the difficulty of the terrain as well as the enemy's courage.
18| This was the state of Britain, these the shifting fortunes of its wars, that Agricola found when he crossed over already in midsummer — at a time when the soldiers, thinking the campaigning season lost, were turning their minds to safety, and the enemy to opportunity. The Ordovices had, not long before his arrival, wiped out almost an entire cavalry squadron stationed on their borders, and this beginning had roused the province. Those who wanted war approved the example and waited to test the temper of the new governor. Though the summer was far gone, the troops scattered through the province, and the men had already resigned themselves to a quiet year — all factors that discouraged and worked against someone about to open a campaign, and made most advisers favor simply holding the defenses — Agricola decided to meet the danger head-on. He gathered detachments from the legions and a modest force of auxiliaries, and since the Ordovices did not dare come down onto level ground, he led the advance himself, so the rest would share his courage by sharing his risk. He cut down nearly the whole tribe, and knowing he must press his advantage — that early success would decide how the rest reacted — he resolved to bring the island of Mona back under Roman control, from whose possession, as I noted earlier, Paulinus had been called away by the revolt of all Britain. But as always with a sudden decision, ships were lacking. The general's judgment and resolve got his men across anyway. He had the baggage set aside and picked the best of his auxiliaries, men who knew the fords and had, by native custom, learned to swim while keeping hold of their weapons and horses at once, and sent them across so suddenly that the enemy, who were watching for a fleet, for ships, for the sea itself, believed that nothing could stand against men who came to war like this. So the islanders sued for peace and surrendered, and Agricola's fame grew great, since on entering the province — a time others spend on display and courting favor — he had chosen labor and danger instead. Nor did success turn him vain: he called it merely holding down men already beaten, not a campaign or a victory. He did not even dress up his report with laurels — but by playing down his own fame he only increased it, since people judged from his silence how much greater his hopes for the future must be.
19| He understood the province's temper, and had learned from others' failures that arms accomplish little if injustice follows behind them. So he set himself to root out the causes of war. Starting with himself and his own household, he first brought his own establishment under control — a task no less hard for most men than governing a province. He let no public business run through freedmen or slaves; he took on no centurion or soldier by private favor, recommendation, or entreaty, but judged the best men the most trustworthy. He knew everything, but did not act on everything. He forgave small faults and dealt firmly with large ones — content, more often, with repentance rather than punishment. He preferred to give office and responsibility to men unlikely to offend, rather than condemn them after they had. He eased the burden of grain and tax collection by spreading it fairly, and cut out the extra profiteering that had made the taxes themselves harder to bear than the taxes were. For as a mockery, people had been made to sit outside locked granaries and buy grain they did not need, then pay a price set for them. Detours and long, roundabout routes were ordered, so that communities had to communities with winter quarters close at hand had to deliver their grain to remote and inaccessible places instead — until what should have been available to everyone became a source of profit for a few.
20| Stamping out these abuses within his first year, he wrapped peace in a fine reputation, though before this peace had been feared almost as much as war, thanks to the negligence or the greed of earlier governors. But when summer came, he gathered his army and was everywhere on the march — praising discipline, keeping stragglers in line, choosing camp sites himself, personally scouting estuaries and forests ahead. He gave the enemy no rest, harrying them constantly with sudden raids, and once he had frightened them enough, he would hold back and show the appeal of peace instead. Because of this, many tribes who until then had dealt with Rome as equals laid down their anger, gave hostages, and let themselves be ringed with garrisons and forts — managed with such method and such care that no new part of Britain had ever before come over with so little provocation.
21| The following winter was spent on the most beneficial policies. To accustom a people scattered and primitive, and thus prone to war, to peace and quiet through the pleasures of civilized life, he urged them privately and helped them publicly to build temples, public squares, and proper houses, praising the eager and reprimanding the slow — so that competition for honor took the place of compulsion. He had the sons of the chiefs educated in the liberal arts, and openly rated British natural ability above the trained skill of the Gauls, so that people who had lately refused to learn the Roman language now became eager for eloquence in it. From this came honor for Roman dress too, and the toga became common. Little by little they slid toward the seductions of vice — colonnades, baths, elegant dinner parties. The ignorant called this civilization, when it was in fact a piece of their enslavement.
22| The third year of campaigning opened up new tribes, as he laid waste the lands as far as the Tanaus — that is the name of the estuary. The enemy, terrified by this, did not dare attack his army even though it had been battered by violent storms, and there was time besides to build additional forts. Those with experience noted that no other commander had shown better judgment in choosing strategic ground. Not one fort built by Agricola was ever taken by enemy assault or abandoned by surrender or flight, for they were stocked with a year's supplies against any prolonged siege. So the winters there passed without fear, with frequent sallies and each fort able to defend itself, and the enemy grew desperate, finding their efforts wasted — for whereas they had usually offset summer losses with winter successes, now they were pressed equally hard in both seasons. Agricola was never greedy to claim credit for deeds done by others: whether it was a centurion or a prefect, he had in Agricola an honest witness to the act. Some said he was rather too sharp-tongued in his reproofs, and it's true that, pleasant as he was to good men, he was unwelcome company for bad ones. But nothing of his anger lingered on in secret; you never had to fear his silence — he thought it more honorable to give offense openly than to hide his hatred.
23| The fourth summer was spent securing what he had already overrun, and had the courage of the armies and the glory of Rome's name allowed it, a natural boundary might have been found within Britain itself. For the Clyde and the Forth, carried far inland by the tides of two different seas, are separated only by a narrow neck of land. This was now made secure with garrisons, and the whole nearer coastline held, with the enemy pushed back as if onto another island entirely.
24| In the fifth year of the campaigns, Agricola crossed by ship, first of the Romans to do so, and in a series of successful engagements subdued tribes until then unknown. He stationed forces in the part of Britain that faces Ireland, more in hope than out of fear, since Ireland, lying between Britain and Spain and within reach of the Gallic sea as well, might well link the strongest parts of the empire together to great mutual advantage. In size it is smaller than Britain but larger than the islands of our own sea. Its soil, climate, and the character and habits of its people differ little from Britain's; its approaches and harbors are well known through traders and merchants. Agricola had given shelter to one of the local chieftains, driven out by a revolt at home, and kept him on hand under the guise of friendship, waiting for his chance. I have often heard him say that Ireland could be conquered and held with a single legion and a modest force of auxiliaries — and that this would also serve well against Britain, if Roman arms were seen on every side and liberty, so to speak, removed from view.
25| In the summer that opened his sixth year in command, Agricola took in the tribes beyond the Forth. Fearing a general uprising among the peoples further out and threatening moves by the enemy, he sent his fleet ahead to scout the harbors. This was the first time Agricola had used the fleet as part of his fighting force, and it made a fine sight, pressing the war by land and sea at once. Often infantry, cavalry, and marines shared the same camp, mixing rations and high spirits, each swapping stories of their own adventures — one moment the deep gloom of forest and mountain, the next the perils of storm and wave, this side boasting of beating the enemy on land, that side of conquering the Ocean. The Britons too, as the prisoners reported, were stunned at the sight of the fleet: it seemed to strip away the last secret refuge of the sea and shut the door on defeated men's final hiding place. The peoples of Caledonia turned to arms in force, with even greater rumor than force, as tends to happen with the unknown, and boldly attacked one of our forts, which only deepened the fear, since they had struck first. Timid men, dressed up as prudent ones, urged retreat south of the Forth and withdrawal rather than being driven back. Just then Agricola learned that the enemy meant to attack in several columns at once. To keep from being surrounded by their superior numbers and knowledge of the ground, he split his own army into three parts and advanced.
26| When the enemy learned of this, they suddenly changed plan and threw their whole force, by night, against the Ninth Legion, judged the weakest. They cut down the sentries in their sleep and burst in amid confusion and panic, and the fighting was already inside the camp itself when Agricola, informed of the enemy's route by his scouts and following their tracks, sent his fastest cavalry and infantry to fall on the attackers' rear, then had the whole army raise a shout together; and as dawn neared, the standards flashed into view. Caught between two dangers, the Britons panicked; the men of the Ninth took heart again, and now safe, fought on for glory instead of survival. They even sallied out, and there was fierce fighting in the very gateways, until the enemy was driven off, both our forces competing — one side to claim they had brought the rescue, the other to deny they had needed it. Had the marshes and woods not sheltered the fleeing enemy, that victory would have ended the war outright.
27| Word of this success made the army bold, roaring that nothing could stop their courage, that they must press into Caledonia and, at last, in one unbroken run of battles, find the very edge of Britain. Even the men who had just been cautious and full of caveats grew rash and boastful once the danger had passed — the most unfair thing about war: everyone claims credit for success, but failure is pinned on one man alone. The Britons, for their part, believed they had been beaten not by Roman courage but by luck and their general's cunning. They lost none of their pride: they kept arming their young men, moved wives and children to safe places, and sealed the alliance of their tribes with assemblies and sacrifices. So both sides parted with tempers raised on either side.
28| That same summer a cohort of Usipi, raised in Germany and shipped over to Britain, pulled off a bold and remarkable stunt. After killing the centurion and the soldiers posted among their ranks to train and command them, they forced three light warships' crews to take them aboard. With only one man able to steer, they killed the other two pilots on suspicion, and before word got out, they sailed along the coast as a kind of spectacle. Eventually, going ashore for water, they clashed in battle with Britons defending their own land, sometimes winning, sometimes beaten back, until at last they were reduced to such hunger that they ate the weakest among them, then men chosen by lot. So they sailed clear around Britain, but lost their ships through not knowing how to handle them, and were taken for pirates — first by the Suebi, then captured by the Frisii. Some of them were sold as slaves and, passing from buyer to buyer, ended up on our own side of the Rhine, and it was the tale of their extraordinary ordeal that made them known.
29| At the start of that summer Agricola suffered a private grief: he lost the son born to him the year before. He bore the loss neither with showy stoicism, as many brave men do, nor with womanish weeping and mourning; and war was part of how he coped with grief. He sent the fleet ahead to raid at several points and spread wide, uncertain terror, then marched with a lightly equipped army, reinforced by the bravest Britons whose loyalty long peace had proven, and reached Mount Graupius, which the enemy already held. The Britons, undaunted by the outcome of the earlier battle and expecting either vengeance or slavery, had finally learned that only unity could fend off a shared danger, and had rallied the strength of all their tribes through embassies and treaties. More than thirty thousand armed men could now be seen, and still more of the fighting-age young and the vigorous old kept streaming in, men famous in war, each wearing his own honors. Among their many leaders, one stood out for courage and birth, a man named Calgacus. Before the assembled mass, eager for battle, he is said to have spoken as follows:
30| 'Whenever I consider the causes of this war and the necessity that drives us, I feel a surge of confidence that this day, and your unity, will mark the beginning of freedom for all of Britain. You have all gathered here as men who have never known slavery, and there are no lands left beyond us — not even the sea is safe, with the Roman fleet threatening us. So battle and arms, honorable to brave men, are also the safest choice even for cowards. Earlier battles against the Romans, fought with mixed fortune, still left hope and help in our own hands, because we, the noblest people in all Britain, living in its very heart and seeing no shores of slaves, kept our eyes unspoiled by the sight of tyranny. We who live at the world's remotest edge, the last free people, have been protected until this day by the very obscurity of our fame. Now the far edge of Britain lies exposed, and whatever is unknown people imagine as glorious. But beyond us there is no other nation, nothing but waves and rocks, and the Romans, more dangerous than either, whose arrogance you cannot escape by submission and restraint, try as you might. Robbers of the world, now that no land is left for them to strip bare, they scour the sea as well. If the enemy is rich, they are greedy; if poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West has ever satisfied them; alone among all men they covet wealth and poverty with equal hunger. To plunder, butcher, steal — these things they falsely call empire. They make a desert and call it peace.
31| 'Nature meant for each of us our children and kin to be the dearest things we have: these are torn away by conscription, to serve as slaves elsewhere. Our wives and sisters, even if they escape the enemy's lust, are defiled in the name of 'friendship' and 'hospitality.' Our goods and fortunes are drained as tribute, our fields and harvests as grain-levy, our very bodies and hands worn down clearing forests and swamps under the lash and abuse. Slaves born to slavery are sold once, and their masters even feed them afterward; but Britain buys her own slavery fresh every day, and feeds it every day. And just as in any household the newest slave is mocked even by his fellow slaves, so in this whole world's old-established system of servitude, we, the newest and least regarded, are marked out for destruction, since we have no fields or mines or harbors worth sparing us to work. And courage and fierce spirit in subjects only breed resentment in their rulers; and the more remote and hidden a place is, the more suspect it becomes precisely for its safety. So, since there is no hope of mercy left, find your courage at last — those who hold safety dearest as much as those who hold glory dearest. The Brigantes, led by a woman, managed to burn a colony and storm a camp, and could have thrown off the yoke entirely had success not turned to carelessness; we, still whole and unconquered, meaning to fight for freedom and not to regret our defeat, let us show from the very first clash what kind of men Caledonia has kept in reserve.
32| 'Do you really believe the Romans bring the same courage to war that they show self-indulgence in peace? It is our own quarrels and divisions that have made them famous — they turn the failings of their enemies into glory for their own army. That army is patched together out of the most different nations on earth: success holds it together, but defeat will tear it apart — unless you imagine that Gauls and Germans, and — shame to say — many Britons too, who lend their blood to a foreign tyranny, are held by loyalty and affection, when they have been enemies far longer than they have been slaves. Fear and terror are weak chains of loyalty: remove them, and men who have stopped fearing will start hating. Every incentive to victory is on our side: no wives spur the Romans on, no parents will be there to reproach them if they run; most of them have no homeland at all, or one that is not this one. Few in number, nervous in their ignorance, staring around at an unknown sky, sea, and forest — the gods have handed them to us, shut in and bound, so to speak. Don't be frightened by their hollow show, or by silver and gold gleaming — none of it can shield a man or land a blow. Even within the enemy's own ranks we will find hands eager to turn against them: Britons serving there will know our cause as theirs, Gauls will call to mind the freedom that was once theirs too, and the Germans still left will abandon them, the way the Usipi did not long ago. There is nothing more to fear beyond that: empty forts, colonies of old men, sick and quarreling townships caught between subjects who obey badly and rulers who govern unjustly. Here stands your general, here your army; there lies tribute, the mines, and all the other punishments of slavery — to endure forever, or to avenge on this very field, is the choice before you now. So, as you go into battle, think of your ancestors and of your children yet to come.'
33| They received the speech eagerly, with the shouting, singing, and discordant cries that are the barbarian custom. And now columns began to move and weapons to flash as the boldest men surged forward; the battle line was forming when Agricola, though he judged his men joyful and barely restrained by their fortifications, still felt they needed rousing further, and spoke as follows: 'Comrades, this is the seventh year since, through the courage and the fortune of Rome's empire, and your own loyalty and effort, you conquered Britain. Through so many campaigns, so many battles, whether the work demanded courage against the enemy or endurance and toil against nature herself, I have had no cause to be ashamed of my soldiers, nor you of your commander. So we have gone beyond the limits reached by earlier governors and earlier armies, and we now hold the edge of Britain — not by report or rumor, but with camps and arms. Britain has been found, and it has been subdued. Often on the march, when swamps and mountains and rivers wore you down, I heard the bravest of you asking: "When will we get the enemy? When will they come within reach?" Now they come, driven from their hiding places, and here is the open ground for your courage and your hopes — everything favors the victors, and the same conditions turn against the defeated. To have crossed such distance, to have made it through the forests, to have forded the estuaries — that is fine and honorable while advancing; but for men in flight, those very things become the most dangerous, since we would no longer have the same knowledge of the ground or the same supplies, only our hands, our weapons, and everything riding on them. For my part, I decided long ago that neither an army's nor a commander's back is ever safe. So an honorable death is better than a shameful life, and safety and glory stand in the very same place; nor would it be without glory to fall here, at the very edge of the earth and of nature.'
34| 'If we faced some new people, some unknown battle line, I would urge you on with the example of other armies. As it is, just recall your own honors, ask your own eyes. These are the men who last year attacked a single legion by treacherous night assault, and whom you overcame with a shout; these are the most cowardly of all the Britons, and that is why they have survived so long. Just as when men push into forests and thickets, the boldest animals charge out at them while the timid and weak are driven off merely by the noise of the column — so it is that the fiercest of the Britons fell long ago, and what remains is only a crowd of cowards and frightened men. As for the fact that you have finally caught up with them — they did not make a stand, they were simply overtaken; their extreme situation and utter dread have pinned their line rigid in its tracks on this very spot, where you are about to win a splendid and spectacular victory. Bring your campaigns to a close, crown fifty years with one great day, and prove to Rome that the army can never fairly be blamed for delays in war or for causes of rebellion.'
35| While Agricola was still speaking, the soldiers' eagerness was plain to see, and when he finished, tremendous enthusiasm followed, and the men rushed at once to arms. Eager and surging forward as they were, he arranged them so that the auxiliary infantry, eight thousand strong, formed the center of the line, while three thousand cavalry were spread out on the wings. The legions stood in front of the rampart — a mighty honor to win the victory without spilling Roman blood, and a reserve if the line should be pushed back. The British line had taken up position on higher ground, both for display and to inspire fear, arranged so that the first rank stood on level ground while the rest rose up the slope behind them, seemingly connected rank on rank; the middle of the plain was filled with the noise and dashing about of chariots. Then Agricola, worried by the enemy's superior numbers that his men might be attacked on the front and both flanks at once, spread his ranks out — though this would make the line thinner, and many advised him to bring up the legions — but he, more hopeful and steady in the face of difficulty, sent his horse away and took his stand on foot in front of the standards.
36| At the first clash the fighting was at range; and the Britons, with both discipline and skill, used their huge swords and small shields to dodge or knock aside our missiles, while pouring down a great volume of their own — until Agricola urged four cohorts of Batavians and two of Tungrians to bring the fight to close quarters, sword to sword. This was a maneuver these veteran troops were well practiced in, and one the enemy, carrying small shields and enormous swords, found hard to counter — for the British swords, being pointless, could not manage a close grip or fighting in a tight space. So as the Batavians began raining blows, striking with their shield-bosses, stabbing at faces, and cutting down the enemy standing on level ground, pushing their line up the slope, the other cohorts, matching their drive and eagerness, cut down whoever was nearest — leaving many half-dead or simply passed over in the rush to win. Meanwhile squadrons of cavalry, as the chariots fled, joined the infantry fight. And though they had brought fresh terror at first, they now became bogged down against the dense enemy ranks and the uneven ground; the fighting no longer went well for our men, forced as they were to struggle uphill while also being pressed by the bodies of horses; and often driverless chariots, and horses maddened with fear, without a rider, would crash sideways or head-on into whoever was in their path, wherever panic carried them.
37| And the Britons who had so far taken no part in the fighting, sitting on the hilltops, had begun looking down on our small numbers with contempt, and were slowly descending to circle around the backs of the winning side — until Agricola, fearing exactly this, threw four cavalry squadrons, held in reserve for sudden emergencies, against them as they came on; and the more fiercely they had charged, the more sharply he broke and scattered them in flight. So the Britons' own plan turned back on them, and the squadrons, sent around by the general's order from the front of the fighting, struck the enemy line from behind. Then, on the open ground, came a great and terrible spectacle: pursuing, wounding, capturing men, and then cutting them down the moment new targets appeared. Now, depending on each man's temperament, whole bands of armed men fled before fewer pursuers, while some, though unarmed, rushed forward of their own will to meet death. Everywhere lay weapons and bodies and mangled limbs, and the ground was soaked in blood; and even among the defeated there was, at times, anger and courage still. For once they neared the woods, those gathered there, who knew the ground, surrounded the leading pursuers when they grew careless. And had Agricola not, moving everywhere himself, posted strong and mobile cohorts to ring the woods like a hunting drive, and, where the ground grew too narrow, dismounted part of the cavalry to sweep the thinner stretches of forest on foot, some loss would have resulted from overconfidence. But once the Britons saw our men following again in firm, ordered ranks, they broke and fled — not in the massed bands of before, and no longer glancing back for each other, but scattered and wary, making for distant and trackless places one by one. Night and satiety put an end to the pursuit. About ten thousand of the enemy were killed; on our side three hundred and sixty fell, among them Aulus Atticus, a cohort commander, carried into the enemy ranks by youthful eagerness and the spirit of his horse.
38| That night was one of joy and plunder for the victors; the scattered Britons, amid the mingled wailing of men and women, dragged off their wounded, called out for the unhurt, abandoned their homes and in their rage set fire to them themselves, chose hiding places only to leave them at once, made plans together only to split apart again; sometimes they broke down at the sight of their loved ones, but more often were provoked to fury. It was well established that some, as if out of pity, turned savagely on their own wives and children. The next day laid open more fully the scale of the victory: an empty silence everywhere, deserted hills, houses smoking in the distance, not a soul met by our scouts. Once these had been sent out in every direction and it was learned that the tracks of the fleeing enemy were uncertain and that nowhere were they massing together again — and since summer was already spent and the war could not be spread further — Agricola led the army into the territory of the Boresti. There he took hostages and ordered the fleet's commander to sail around Britain. Sufficient forces were assigned for this, and word of the terror they inspired had already spread ahead. Agricola himself led the infantry and cavalry by a slow march, so that the delay of passing through might itself intimidate the minds of the newly conquered peoples, and settled them into winter quarters. At the same time the fleet, favored by weather and by its own reputation, reached Trucculensian Harbor, from which it had returned after coasting along the entire near side of Britain.
39| Domitian received news of this course of events — though Agricola's dispatches were, as always, free of boastful language — in his usual manner: a cheerful face, an anxious heart. He knew he was privately mocked for his recent sham triumph over Germany, for which slaves had been bought up through trade and dressed and groomed to look like captives; but now here was a real and great victory, with so many thousands of the enemy slain, being celebrated with enormous fame. This frightened him most of all: that a private citizen's name was being raised above the emperor's. In vain, he thought, had he driven the pursuits of the courts and the honors of civilian achievement into silence, if another man was going to seize military glory too; everything else could somehow be more easily disguised, but the virtue of a good general was an imperial quality. Tormented by such anxieties, and glutting himself in private solitude — itself a sign of savage brooding — he decided it was best for the moment to store up his hatred, until the excitement over Agricola's fame and the army's favor for him should fade; for at that time Agricola still held command in Britain.
40| So Domitian ordered the senate to decree Agricola triumphal honors, a public statue, and everything normally given for a triumph, all wrapped in extravagant language, and he added the further hint that Agricola was to be given the province of Syria — vacant just then by the death of the consular Atilius Rufus, and reserved for senior men. Many believed a freedman was sent from the emperor's private staff carrying the document that granted Agricola Syria, with instructions to deliver it only if Agricola was still in Britain; and that this freedman met Agricola right in the strait, and returned to Domitian without even approaching him — whether this is true or a story invented to fit the emperor's character, who can say. Meanwhile Agricola had handed his successor a province at peace and secure. And so his entry into the capital would not draw notice through crowds and welcoming parties, he avoided his friends' formal greeting and came into the city by night, into the palace by night, exactly as instructed; he was received with a brief kiss and no conversation, then absorbed into the crowd of courtiers. But to soften a military reputation, which sits heavy among men at leisure, with other qualities, he immersed himself completely in quiet retirement — modest in dress, easy in conversation, accompanied by one or two friends, so much so that most people, who are used to judging great men by their retinue, looked Agricola over and asked where his fame was; few understood it.
41| During those days he was repeatedly accused before Domitian in his absence, and acquitted in his absence. The danger came from no actual charge or complaint of injury, but from an emperor hostile to merit and to a man's glory, and from that worst kind of enemy — men who praise you. And then followed times for the state that would not let Agricola be forgotten: so many armies lost in Moesia, Dacia, Germany, and Pannonia through commanders' recklessness or cowardice, so many military men with so many cohorts stormed and captured; the fighting was no longer over the empire's frontier and riverbank but over the legions' winter quarters and their very hold on the ground. As losses piled on losses and every year was marked by funerals and disasters, the public voice demanded Agricola as commander, everyone comparing his vigor, steadiness, and battle-tested nerve with the incompetence and fear of the others. It's well established that these conversations reached Domitian's own ears too, while the best of his freedmen urged him on out of affection and loyalty, and the worst out of malice and envy, pushing a mind already inclined to the worse course. So Agricola was driven toward glory itself — partly by his own merits, partly by other men's vices.
42| The year had now come when he would be assigned by lot the proconsulship of Africa or Asia, and since Civica had recently been executed, Agricola had no shortage of warning, nor Domitian of precedent. Certain men skilled in reading the emperor's thoughts came to Agricola and asked, unprompted, whether he meant to take the province. At first they praised, discreetly, a quiet retired life; then they offered to help him find an excuse; finally, no longer hiding their purpose, with a mix of persuasion and threats they dragged him before Domitian. He, ready with his usual pretense, composed into an air of arrogance, heard out Agricola's excuses and, once he had agreed to them, allowed himself to be thanked — not even blushing at the ugliness of doing someone a favor. Still, he withheld from Agricola the proconsular salary that was customarily offered and that he himself had granted to others — whether offended that it hadn't been requested, or from a guilty conscience, not wanting it to look like he'd bought what he had actually forbidden. It's human nature to hate the man you've wronged: Domitian's temperament in particular ran headlong into anger, and the less open it was, the less it could be called back — yet it was softened by Agricola's own restraint and good sense, since he never provoked his fate or reputation with defiance or empty displays of independence. Let those who make a habit of admiring the forbidden know this: even under bad emperors great men can exist, and obedience and moderation, backed by energy and drive, can reach a level of honor that many achieve only by reckless defiance — dying an ambitious death of no use whatsoever to the state.
43| The end of his life brought grief to us, sorrow to his friends, and even to strangers and people who never knew him, no small concern. Ordinary people too, and the public that has other things on its mind, kept coming by his house and talked about it in the forums and social circles; no one who heard of Agricola's death was either glad or quick to forget it. The general sense of loss was deepened by a persistent rumor that he had been poisoned: I have nothing certain, nothing I would dare to affirm. But throughout his entire illness, more often than court custom required, the emperor's chief freedmen and closest physicians came to check on him by messenger — whether from concern or from surveillance. On his final day, the very stages of his decline were reported by a relay of couriers stationed for the purpose, no one believing that anyone would rush to bring news he was sad to hear. Still, Domitian wore on his face the appearance of grief, safely past hating him now, and better at hiding pleasure than fear. It was well established that when Agricola's will was read, naming Domitian co-heir along with his excellent wife and devoted daughter, the emperor was delighted, as if it were an honor and a mark of trust. His mind was so blinded and corrupted by constant flattery that he did not know: a good father names an heir like that only when the emperor is bad.
44| Agricola was born in the third consulship of Gaius Caesar, on the Ides of June; he died in his fifty-fourth year, on the tenth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Collega and Priscinus. If posterity wants to know his appearance too: he was more handsome than imposing; nothing forceful in his face, but a great deal of grace. You would easily believe him a good man, and gladly believe him a great one. And he himself, though torn away in the middle of an unspent life, achieved, as far as glory goes, the longest possible span. He had fulfilled the real goods, the ones rooted in virtue, and having already received the consular and triumphal honors, what more could fortune add? He took no pleasure in excessive wealth, though a handsome sum had come his way. With his daughter and wife surviving him, he can even be counted fortunate — to have escaped, with his standing intact, his reputation flourishing, his family and friendships unharmed, whatever was still to come. For just as he was not allowed to live on into this most blessed age and see Trajan as emperor — which he used to predict to us by omen and prayer — so his early death carried this great consolation: he escaped that final stretch when Domitian drained the state not by fits and starts, with gaps to breathe, but continuously, as if with one single blow.
45| Agricola did not see the senate house under siege, the senate hemmed in by armed men, that same massacre killing so many ex-consuls, so many of the noblest women driven into exile and flight. Carus Mettius was still being credited with only one victory; Messalinus's ranting still echoed within the walls of the Alban citadel; Baebius Massa was already a defendant even then. Soon our own hands led Helvidius off to prison; we were the ones disgraced by the sight of Mauricus and Rusticus; Senecio drenched us in his innocent blood. Yet Nero at least looked away and ordered the crimes without watching them; under Domitian, the worst part of our suffering was to see and be seen, while our very sighs were recorded, while that savage face and its flush, which he used to shield himself from shame, were enough to mark the pallor of so many men. But you, Agricola, are fortunate — not only for the brilliance of your life, but for the timing of your death. As those who were present at your final conversations report, you met your fate steady and willing, as if offering up, for your own part, your innocence as a gift to the emperor. But for me and for his daughter, beyond the bitterness of losing a father, our grief is made sharper because it was not given to us to sit by his sickbed, to comfort him as he failed, to take our fill of his face and his embrace. We would surely have caught his final instructions and words, to fix them deep in our hearts. This is our pain, our wound — that he was lost to us four years before, by the misfortune of so long an absence. No doubt everything was done to honor you, best of fathers, with your most loving wife at your side; but you were mourned with fewer tears than you deserved, and in that last light your eyes looked for something more.
46| If there is any place for the spirits of the dutiful, and if, as thoughtful men hold, a great soul does not die together with its body, rest gently, and call us — your own household — back from a weak yearning and from womanish grief, turning us instead toward contemplation of your virtues, which it is not right to mourn or beat the breast over. Let us pay you tribute with wonder instead, with praise that does not fade, and, so far as our nature permits, by growing to resemble you: that is the real tribute, that is what devotion from those nearest you looks like. This I would press on his daughter and his wife alike — to keep faith with a father's and a husband's memory by turning over in thought everything he did and said, holding fast to the outline of his character rather than his features. It isn't that I would set aside busts carved in marble or cast in bronze, but human faces fade the way their likenesses do, weak and short-lived things both, whereas the shape of a mind lasts always — and it's that shape you can grasp and carry forward, not through some borrowed material or craftsman's art, but through the pattern of your own life. Everything in Agricola that earned our love, everything we admired in him, will go on living in the hearts of men, across every age still to come, carried in the story of his deeds. Many men of former times sink into oblivion, unmarked and unremembered; Agricola, his story set down and passed on to ages still ahead, will not.