Agricola (book)

The Agricola (Latin: De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, literally 'On the life and character of Julius Agricola') is a book by the Roman writer, Tacitus, written c. AD 98. The work recounts the life of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola, an eminent Roman general and Governor of Britain from AD 77/78 – 83/84. It also covers the geography and ethnography of ancient Britain.

Quotes

Speech of Calgacus

• Pre-eminent by character and birth among the many chieftains was one named Calgacus. To the gathered host demanding battle he is reported to have spoken in the following strain:
  “As often as I survey the causes of this war and our present straits, my heart beats high that this very day and this unity of ours will be the beginning of liberty for ali Britain. We are ali of us untouched yet by slavery: there is no other land behind us, and the very sea even is no longer free from alarms, now that the fleet of Rome threatens us. Battle therefore and arms, the strong mans pride, are also the coward's best safety. Former battles in which Rome was resisted left behind them hopes of help in us, because we, the noblest souls in all Britain, the dwellers in its inner shrine, had never seen the shores of slavery and had preserved our very eyes from the desecration and the contamination of tyranny: here at the world's end, on its last inch of liberty, we have lived unmolested to this day, in this sequestered nook of story; for the unknown is ever magnified.
  “But to-day the uttermost parts of Britain are laid bare; there are no other tribes to come; nothing but sea and cliffs and these more deadly Romans, whose arrogance you shun in vain by obedience and self-restraint. Harriers of the world, now that earth fails their all-devastating hands, they probe even the sea: if their enemy have wealth, they have greed; if he be poor, they are ambitious; East nor West has glutted them; alone of mankind they behold with the same passion of concupiscence waste alike and want. To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace. [ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant]
  “Children and kin are by the law of nature each man's dearest possessions; they are swept away from us by conscription to be slaves in other lands: our wives and sisters, even when they escape a soldier’s lust, are debauched by self-styled friends and guests: our goods and chattels go for tribute; our lands and harvests in requisitions of grain; life and limb themselves are used up in levelling marsh and forest to the accompaniment of gibes and blows. Slaves born to slavery are sold once for all and are fed by their masters free of cost; but Britain pays a daily price for her own enslavement, and feeds the slavers; and as in the slave-gang the new-comer is a mockery even to his fellow-slaves, so in this world-wide, age-old slave-gang, we, the new hands, worth least, are marked out to be made away with: we have no lands or mines or harbours for the working of which we might be set aside.
  “Further, courage and high spirit in their subjects displease our masters: our very distance and seclusion, in proportion as they save us, make us more suspected: therefore abandon all hope of pardon, and even at this late hour take courage, whether safety or glory be most prized. A woman could lead the Brigantes to burn a colony, to storm a camp; and had not their success lapsed into listlessness they might have thrown o6f the yoke; but we shall fight as men untamed, men who have never fallen from freedom, not as returning penitents: let us show them at the very first encounter what manner of men Caledonia holds in reserve for her cause in her far places.
  “Or do you imagine that the Romans have as much courage in war as wantonness in peace? It is our dissensions and feuds that bring them fame: their enemy’s mistake becomes their army’s glory. That army, gathered from races widely separate, is held together only by success, and will melt away with defeat: unless you suppose that Gauls and Germans, and even—to their shame be it spoken—many of the tribes of Britain, who lend their blood to an alien tyranny, of which they have been enemies for more years than slaves, are attached to Rome by loyalty and liking. Fear and panic are sorry bonds of love: put these away, and they who have ceased to fear will begin to hate. Every spur to victory makes for our victory: there are no wives to inspire the Romans, no parents to reproach the runaway: most of them have no country or another land than this. Few in numbers, uneasy in their novel quarters, all that they see around them, the very sky and sea, strange to their eyes—the gods have delivered them into our hands as though they were caged prisoners. The empty terrors of the eye, the gleam of gold and silver, have neither help in them nor hurt. In the enemy’s own battle-line we shall find hands to help us: the Britons will recognise that our cause is theirs: the Gauls will remember their former freedom: the rest of the Germans will desert them, as the Usipi deserted recently; and beyond these there is nothing to fear: empty forts, plantations of veterans, and settlements of low vitality and divided will, made up of ill-affected subjects and unjust rulers. Here you have a general and an army; on the other side lies tribute, labour in the mines, and all the other pangs of slavery. You have it in your power to perpetuate your sufferings for ever or to avenge them to-day upon this field: therefore, before you go into action, think upon your ancestors and upon your children.”
  They received his speech excitedly, after the manner of barbarians, with singing and shouting and uproar of various kinds: then followed the marshalling of hosts and the glitter of arms, as the bravest came to the front.
  • 29–32 (Tr. William Peterson, L035)