De Vita Iulii Agricolae
by Cornelius Tacitus

Introduction to "The Agricola"

"Early in 98 Tacitus published his first work, the Agricola (De vita Iulii Agricolae), a biography of his father-in-law Cn. Iulius Agricola, governor of Britain for seven years from 77 (or 78). That governorship, culminating in the decisive victory of mons Graupius, forms the work's central core (chs. 18-38). But the work is more than a panegyric of a dead man. The opening chapters, without naming Domitian, declare that recent times were hostile both to the performance and to the chronicling of great deeds. The final chapters develop that theme: a fierce invective against Domitian is followed by a moving consolatio for the dead Agricola; and the final words, again linking subject and biographer, affirm that Agricola will live on through Tacitus' biography."
-- From "Tacitus", The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford UP, NY, 1996.