The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus

About this book

In the Germania, Tacitus describes the tribes living beyond the Rhine and the Danube: their land, their warriors and assemblies, their gods, marriages and hospitality, often holding up their simple, hardy virtues as a reproach to the luxury of Rome. The Agricola is a short life of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the general who completed the Roman conquest of much of Britain, and it contains the famous speech of the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus against Rome: 'They make a desert and call it peace.'

Context and significance

Cornelius Tacitus (about 56–120), the greatest Roman historian, wrote both works around AD 98. The Germania later became enormously important, sometimes dangerously so, to Germans looking for a portrait of their ancestors, and the Agricola is one of the earliest accounts of Britain. This is the revised Oxford translation, with an introduction by Edward Brooks Jr. Compare Caesar's Gallic War.

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