Agricola is of course: modest, conscientious, leads from the front, hard fighting and above all thoroughly appropriate in his behaviour as exemplified in his grief over the death of his son: he accepted this blow without either parading the fortitude of a stoic or giving way to passionate grief like a woman p79. Rome is continually going to the dogs, but arrival is postponed only because of the occasional appearances of figures like Agricola.
Tacitus view of Rome is pessimistic in that very few people ever seem to measure up to his conception of the true Roman (and as in The Histories sometimes these people are known only by their penchant to commit suicide in the appropriate manner to prove a point), I have no doubt that Tacitus would have condemned Romulus for drinking milk out of a cup instead of suckling directly from a she-wolf as he did as a youth. If he had ever, like Saint Augustine, stolen fruit from an orchard, the fact would have had no place in this life which is dedicated to the ideal of moderation, and also perfection as a soldier, an official, and a Roman. The way in which the person, Agricola in this case, is an ideal type, distinct and apart already in childhood from "the temptations of evil companions" p54. To robbery, butchery, and rapine, they give the lying name of "government" they create a desolation and call it peace.įrom Calgacus' address to the Caledonians p80-81Ĭoming to Tacitus' eulogy of his father-in-law Agricola after reading Visions of Glory the elements that will be recycled into Christian Hagiography stand out. They are the only people on earth to whose covetousness both riches and poverty are equally tempting. East and West alike have failed to satisfy them. A rich enemy excites their cupidity a poor one, their lust for power.
Pillagers of the world, they have exhausted the land by their indiscriminate plunder, and now they ransack the sea. there are no more nations beyond us nothing is there but waves and rocks, and the Romans, more deadly still than these - for in them is an arrogance which no submission or good behaviour can escape.
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