Agricola (book)
The Agricola (Latin: De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, lit. 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. The text survived in a single codex ascertained by Poggio Bracciolini to be in a German monastery (Hersfeld Abbey). It was eventually secured by the humanist Niccolò de' Niccoli. In modern times, two manuscripts of the Agricola are preserved in the Library of the Vatican. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, two more manuscripts are said by Duane Reed Stuart to have been brought to light, with one being held by the Chapter Library of the Cathedral at Toledo in Spain and the other being found in 1902 in the private library of Count Balleani of Jesi, in Italy. After the assassination of Domitian in AD 96, Tacitus published the Agricola, his first work. In the first three sections of the Agricola, Tacitus discusses the nature of biographies and includes anecdotes on how previous examples have been treated (Tac. Agricola 1–3). Tacitus also comments on the state of the Roman Empire at the time of his writing of the Agricola, stating that circumstances are not conducive to living a moral life (Tac. Ag. 1). The fourth section is a summary of Agricola's heritage, which was strong according to Tacitus, his personality, and education, which Tacitus says was well rounded and extensive (Tac. Ag. 4). Tacitus then describes Agricola's military apprenticeship in Britannia, describing how Agricola was helping to deal with tumultuous times in that province, with an uprising having taken place there (Tac. Ag. 5). The subsequent sections discuss Agricola's personal life and professional career prior to his governorship in Britannia (Tac. Ag. 6–9). In what follows, Tacitus describes the geography and ethnography of Britannia, including a description of the arability of the soil (Tac.