The days exceed in length those of our part of the world; the nights are bright, and in the extreme north so short that between sunlight and dawn you can perceive but a slight distinction. 12. To bequeath to posterity a record of the deeds and characters of distinguished men is an ancient practice which even the present age, careless as it is of its own sons, has not abandoned whenever some great and conspicuous excellence has conquered and risen superior to that failing, common to petty and to great states, blindness and hostility to goodness. Thus encouraged, he made an attempt on the island of Mona, as a place from which the rebels drew reinforcements; but in doing this he left his rear open to attack. Links to resources for finding sight reading passages of moderate difficulty, most with glosses. Livet til Agricola. Our soldiers made it a pretext for carlessness, as if all fighting was over, and the enemy were biding their time. The Ordovices, shortly before Agricola's arrival, had destroyed nearly the whole of a squadron of allied cavalry quartered in their territory. Trifling errors he treated with leniency, serious offences with severity. Such similes are a feature of ancient geography. Quaedam civitates Cogidumno regi donatae (is ad nostram usque memoriam fidissimus mansit), vetere ac iam pridem recepta populi Romani consuetudine, ut haberet instrumenta servitutis et reges. And so matters, which as being still not accurately known my predecessors embellished with their eloquence, shall now be related on the evidence of facts. SHOW ALL. BCE), and regarded by the ancients generally as the most northerly point of the earth, hence ultima Thule (Verg. Even the barbarians now learnt to excuse many attractive vices, and the occurrence of the civil war gave a good pretext for inaction. See Introduction, p. xviii. Such a beginning raised the hopes of the country, and all who wished for war approved the precedent, and anxiously watched the temper of the new governor. Dickinson College CommentariesDepartment of Classical StudiesDickinson CollegeCarlisle, PA  17013 USAdickinsoncommentaries@gmail.com(717) 245-1493, historical accuracy and painstaking. This Agricola then began to defend with a line of forts, and, as all the country to the south was now occupied, the enemy were pushed into what might be called another island. libens fatum excepisti, tamquam pro virili portione 4 innocentiam principi donares. Hitherto the people had been compelled to endure the farce of waiting by the closed granary and of purchasing corn unnecessarily and raising it to a fictitious price. diligence in amassing material and ability in making use of it. (Pearce); as Tacitus's predecessors are said to have covered up their ignorance by rhetorical embellishment, cannot designate, as it frequently does elsewhere, laborious research, but is here synonymous with, http://dcc.dickinson.edu/tacitus-agricola/10. Sa carrière ultérieure l'a vu occuper divers postes. Their quarrels and their harmony are alike ruinous to their subjects. And indeed, in all such designs, to dare is less perilous than to be detected.". Chapters 10-17 Summary: "Agricola" “Agricola” is an essay by Roman senator and historian Tacitus in praise of his father-in-law, Roman general Gnaeus Julius Agricola. (Gudeman), causa ac māteria tempestātum: the origin of the winds was a stock topic in the works of ancient physicists and philosophers, some of whom, notably Aristotle, closely approximated the true explanation. Georg. They fell upon our troops, which were scattered on garrison duty, stormed the forts, and burst into the colony itself, the head-quarters, as they thought, of tyranny. Caelo is added to spatio by way of nearer definition, the land and sky being co-extensive. Agricola (Ancient Roman General) a biography by Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 98) by Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 98). (Stuart), literary ability shown in attractive presentation of data. They were at once panic-stricken by the attack of Petilius Cerialis on the state of the Brigantes, said to be the most prosperous in the entire province. Thus the Peloponnesus was compared to the leaf of a plane tree, oases in a desert to spots on a leopard's skin. Chr.) Une expérience de lecture optimale pour le même confort qu'un livre papier. Those waters, they say, are sluggish, and yield with difficulty to the oar, and are not even raised by the wind as other seas. (Pearce)  lītore ... tenuātur: a dactylic hexameter. Frumenti et tributorum exactionem aequalitate munerum mollire, circumcisis quae in quaestum reperta ipso tributo gravius tolerabantur. Greece has many gulfs and firths, but no tide. The scribe marked the words after transgressis as problematic by underlining them, and editors emend variously. Nec aliud adversus validissimas gentis pro nobis utilius quam quod in commune non consulunt. LIFE OF CNÆUS JULIUS AGRICOLA. XX. Simultaneously, while it has often been remarked that Tacitus’ language is inherently metaphorical, there have been curiously few studies devoted to Tacitean metaphor. (Stuart), dispecta: "was descried in the distance"; but, unlike the Orkneys, Thule was not subdued, because they had no orders to do so, and even if they had, the approaching winter would have made it inexpedient to attempt its subjugation, the tacit assumption being that the Romans would have had no difficulty in accomplishing the task. p. xxxiii, #10. Germany did thus actually shake off the yoke, and yet its defence was a river, not the ocean. ... A Fabius Rusticus, together with Pliny and Tacitus, is mentioned as one of the heirs in the will of Dasumius (written 108 CE). Ita quae priores nondum comperta eloquentia percoluere, rerum fide tradentur. When however Vespasian had restored to unity Britain as well as the rest of the world, in the presence of great generals and renowned armies the enemy's hopes were crushed. (Pearce)  unde: sc. Aderat iam annus, quo proconsulatum Africae et Asiae sortiretur, et occiso Civica nuper nec Agricolae consilium deerat nec Domitiano exemplum. IN COLLECTIONS. Tacitus. The verb at the beginning, and at the same time in juxtaposition with domuit, skillfully emphasizes the antithesis. ISBN 13: Iam Britannorum etiam deos misereri, qui Romanum ducem absentem, qui relegatum in alia insula exercitum detinerent; iam ipsos, quod difficillimum fuerit, deliberare. (Stuart), Līvius: we learn from the extant epitome that Livy treated Caesar's invasion of Britain in the lost 105th book. Der Agricola ist eine von Cornelius Publius Tacitus geschriebene Biographie über seinen Schwiegervater, den Politiker und Feldherrn, Gnaeus Iulius Agricola. As Caesar and Mela speak of Britain as triangular, we may suppose Rusticus had a single axe-head in mind, the southern coast corresponding to the spreading blade, and the narrow isthmus between Forth and Clyde to the part to which the handle is fixed. Tacitus: Agricola Book 1 [1] 1. Agricola commence sa carrière militaire en Bretagne, sous les ordres du gouverneur Suetonius Paulinus. He married Julia Agricola, the daughter of the famous general Agricola. De vita Iulii Agricolae (kurz: [der] Agricola [des Tacitus]) ist den Zügen nach eine biographische Schrift des römischen Historiographen Tacitus aus dem Jahr 98 n. Chr. oriebatur. 19. 15. Je ne voyais pas … (Stuart). Solum praeter oleam vitemque et cetera calidioribus terris oriri sueta patiens frugum pecudumque fecundum: tarde mitescunt, cito proveniunt; eademque utriusque rei causa, multus umor terrarum caelique. The Agricola (Latin: De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae) by Tacitus is a short biography of his father-in-law, the general Gnaeus Julius Agricola.This provides the occasion for an account of Britain and events there during Agricola's governorship. (Stuart)  inmēnsum ... spatium: the phrase occurs in five other places in Tacitus. I.30). 11. Didicere iam barbari quoque ignoscere vitiis blandientibus, et interventus civilium armorum praebuit iustam segnitiae excusationem: sed discordia laboratum, cum adsuetus expeditionibus miles otio lasciviret. So was maintained the ancient and long-recognised practice of the Roman people, which seeks to secure among the instruments of dominion even kings themselves. Beginning first with himself and his dependants, he kept his household under restraint, a thing as hard to many as ruling a province. Fact 1 Gnaeus Julius Agricola was born on 13 July 40 AD in southern France, then part of the Roman Empire, into a high-ranking family. “Even under bad emperors, men can be great” Agricola, page 95 Plot: Two short works, the first a biography and eulogy of Agricola, Governor of Britain from 78-84 AD, and Tacitus’ father-in-law ; and the second a description of the various Germanic tribes known to the Romans. But a general survey inclines me to believe that the Gauls established themselves in an island so near to them. The Agricola offers an ideal first taste of Roman historical writing - short enough to be read in its entirety, but still possessing much of the complexity and depth of Tacitus's later, longer works.' The emphasis is on the life of a virtuous soldier and official navigating through the d… Alterius manus centuriones, alterius servos vim et contumelias miscere. Britain, the largest of the islands which Roman geography includes, is so situated that it faces Germany on the east, Spain on the west; on the south it is even within sight of Gaul; its northern extremities, which have no shores opposite to them, are beaten by the waves of a vast open sea. Some think that those who collect them have not the requisite skill, as in the Red Sea the living and breathing pearl is torn from the rocks, while in Britain they are gathered just as they are thrown up. American Libraries. The younger Pliny speaks of him as prope modum aequales, about the same age. P. CORNELI TACITI AGRICOLA. This chapter considers an extraordinary passage from Tacitus's Agricola, his excursus on the mutinous adventures of a disaffected auxiliary cohort of Usipi. The Agricola is both a portrait of Julius Agricola - the most famous governor of Roman Britain and Tacitus' well-loved and respected father-in-law - and the first detailed account of Britain that has come down to us. It was said by Pytheas to be six days' sail from Britain, the night and day being six months long. (Gudeman), sed: resumes after the digression. (Pearce)  ēloquentiā percoluēre: with a slightly contemptuous force, "have tricked out with the ornaments of rhetoric." (Gudeman) [A&G §375], etiam: strengthens inspicitur, as opposed to the less demonstrable statement spatio ac caelo ... obtenditur. In universum tamen aestimanti Gallos vicinam insulam occupasse credibile est. (Gudeman), nūllīs contrā terrīs: abl. 10 ans ça se fête, surtout lorsqu’on s’appelle Agricola. The Britons themselves bear cheerfully the conscription, the taxes, and the other burdens imposed on, them by the Empire, if there be no oppression. (Damon)  oblongae scutulae vel bipennī: previous writers, Caesar among them, had described the shape of Britain as triangular. 10. The ancients erroneously conceived Spain as stretching farther west and north, so that Britain was northeast of it and Ireland due north. über seinen Schwiegervater, Feldherrn und Statthalter in Britannien Gnaeus Iulius Agricola (40 93). De vita Agricolae ou De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae (Au sujet de la vie et des mœurs de Julius Agricola), est une œuvre de l'écrivain et historien romain Tacite.. Contenu. (Stuart); the underlying conception being that the entire southern coast of Britain ran parallel to the northern boundary of Gaul. (Stuart)  hiems: on the date see the Introduction. 16. [10.3] Fōrmam tōtīus Britanniae Līvius veterum, Fabius Rūsticus recentium ēloquentissimī auctōrēs oblongō scūtulō vel bipennī adsimulāvēre. Caesaque prope universa gente, non ignarus instandum famae ac, prout prima cessissent, terrorem ceteris fore, Monam insulam, cuius possessione revocatum Paulinum rebellione totius Britanniae supra memoravi, redigere in potestatem animo intendit. (Stuart) [A&G 370], in occidentem Hispāniae: by a curious error the ancient geographers in imagination prolonged the Iberian Peninsula to the north and west and conceived of southern England as partly inclosed in the bay thus formed. It is said that, if there are no clouds in the way, the splendour of the sun can be seen throughout the night, and that he does not rise and set, but only crosses the heavens. ac cetera maria. The red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia point clearly to a German origin. (Stuart), et hiems adpetēbat: the fleet did not start until the decisive battle of the summer campaign of 84 had been fought and won. [10.4] Hanc ōram novissimī maris tunc prīmum Rōmāna classis circumvecta īnsulam esse Britanniam adfirmāvit, ac simul incognitās ad id tempus īnsulās, quās Orcadas vocant, invēnit domuitque. (Pearce), invēnit: used also, 33.3, of acquiring thorough acquaintance with a land already known. As a young man, Tacitus studied rhetoric in Rome to prepare for a career in law and politics.