Agricola

Cornelius TacitusProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.3

Word count: 77K words
Chapters: 8

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Agricola by Cornelius TacitusAuthor: Tacitus, Cornelius, 56-117,Language: Finnish, Class: PA: Language and Literatures: Classical Languages and Literature, Release Date: Oct 12, 2016

Editor's review

The Agricola is Tacitus's biography of his father-in-law, the governor of Britain Gnaeus Julius Agricola, combining personal life, military narrative, and reflection on the nature of Roman imperial rule. It gives a detailed account of the geography and tribes of Britain and of the campaigns by which Rome pushed northward, and is especially famous for Agricola's speech before the battle of Mons Graupius and the counter-speech of Calgacus, which set the conqueror's and the conquered's positions against each other. This edition is a Finnish translation released by Project Gutenberg as a free public-domain e-book. Its value lies in the fact that it is not merely a laudatory family biography but also contains Tacitus's subtle discussion of how personal virtue can be maintained under autocratic rule. It suits readers interested in Roman Britain, imperial frontiers, and classical biographical literature.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Enthusiasts of Roman imperial history and the ancient history of Britain, especially the process of frontier conquest
Researchers of classical biography and oratory who want to analyze Tacitus's rhetorical techniques
Readers of history and literature interested in the confrontation between the discourses of conquerors and conquered
Readers who know Finnish and want free public-domain classical texts

Not a good fit for

Readers with no Finnish at all and no parallel translation available
Beginners expecting a complete general history of Rome or a detailed full account of the wars
Casual readers uninterested in the laudatory biography genre

Reading tips

First get an outline of Agricola's life and the background of Roman Britain, then enter the main text.
Read closely the two opposing speeches before the battle and compare their arguments and Tacitus's narrative position.
Trace the military advances and geographical descriptions in the biography against a map.
After finishing, return to the opening and ending to appreciate Tacitus's sense of proportion between praise and criticism.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What is the relationship between this book and the Germania?

Both are works by Tacitus and both are public-domain e-books from Project Gutenberg, but their subjects differ: the Agricola is the biography of a governor of Britain combined with military narrative, while the Germania is an ethnographic record of Germanic tribes. Reading them together helps one understand different sides of Tacitus's writing.

Are the speeches in the book authentic records?

Ancient historians often composed speeches within their narratives to present positions and arguments, and they were not necessarily verbatim records. They should be read as Tacitus's literary and rhetorical constructions rather than as on-the-spot transcripts.

Is this edition a Chinese translation?

No. According to the Project Gutenberg page, this e-book is a Finnish translation. Chinese readers need Finnish, or must read it alongside a translation in another language.

Why is it said to be more than a laudatory biography?

While praising his father-in-law's achievements, Tacitus also uses frontier narrative and contrasting speeches to touch on the cost of Roman rule and the question of how an individual can preserve dignity under autocracy, giving the text an intellectual dimension beyond a family panegyric.

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About the author

Cornelius Tacitus Author · Roman

Tacitus (Tacitus, Cornelius, 56-117) was a Roman historian, statesman and orator who served as consul and as governor of the province of Asia. His surviving works include the Histories, the Annals, the Agricola and the Germania, and this library holds thirteen of his works. His writing centres on imperial politics and the judgment of character, in a concise and incisive style that reveals the tensions between power and morality. The Histories cover the Roman political struggles of the late first century, the Annals trace the inner workings of early imperial rule, and the Agricola and the Germania present frontier life and foreign peoples in the forms of biography and ethnography, exerting a lasting influence on later European historiography and political thought.