Tacitus Cornelius - Tacitus: Agricola and Germany

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Anthony R. Birley 1999

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Tacitus, Cornelius.
[Agricola. English]
Agricola; and Germany / Tacitus; translated with an
introduction and notes by Anthony R. Birley.
(Oxford worlds classics)
1. Agricola, Gnaeus Julius, 4093. 2. StatesmenRomeBiography.
3. Germanic peoples. I. Birley, Anthony Richard. II. Tacitus,
Cornelius, Germania, English. III. Title. IV Series: Oxford
worlds classics (Oxford University Press)
DG291.7.A2T313 1999 936.103dc21 9834569

ISBN 0192833006

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

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OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

TACITUS

Translated with an Introduction and Notes by

ANTHONY R. BIRLEY

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

AGRICOLA
AND
GERMANY

PUBLIUS CORNELIUS TACITUS is generally reckoned to have been the greatest of all Latin historians. It seems probable that his family came from southern Gaul (modern Provence) and that his father was the Cornelius Tacitus known to have been an imperial procurator at the time of Tacitus birth, about AD 57. Tacitus studied at Rome and married the daughter of Julius Agricola, the famous governor of Britain, whose biography he was to write, in about 76. He became a senator, and held the standard magistracies at Rome, being successively quaestor, tribune of the plebs, and praetor, the latter in 88, in which year he also belonged to the prestigious senatorial priestly college, the quindecimviri sacris faciundis. Soon afterwards he was away from Rome for over three years, presumably holding appointments in the provinces. He was consul in 97, when he was already known as an outstanding orator. He and his friend the Younger Pliny successfully prosecuted a corrupt proconsul of Africa (modern Tunisia) in 99100. His only other known public office was the proconsulship of Asia (western Turkey), in 11213. He was almost certainly still alive and active in the reign of Hadrian (11738), but it is not known when he died.

Tacitus first works were Agricola and Germany, both composed in 98. His third short monograph, the Dialogue on Orators, probably followed soon afterwards. The first two survive complete, and the Dialogue with a short gap. Of his two major works, the Histories, covering the years AD 6996, and the Annals, dealing with the period from Tiberius to Nero (1468), only about a third and just over a half, respectively, survive.

ANTHONY R. BIRLEY was born in Northumberland in 1937 and educated at Clifton College and Magdalen College, Oxford. After posts at Birmingham and Leeds Universities he was Professor of Ancient History at Manchester from 1974 to 1990, and at present has a similar post at Dsseldorf. His publications include three books on Roman Britain, and biographies of Hadrian (1997), Marcus Aurelius (2nd edn., 1987), and Septimius Severus (2nd edn., 1988). He has also edited seven volumes of the writings of Sir Ronald Syme, whose pupil he was.

For Heide: Britannica et Germanica

Tacitus wonderful Latin style, striking not least for brevity, compression, and sometimes for ambiguity, is hard to imitate, and the present translation is not intended to do this. It is hoped that at least his meaning comes across clearly. (In places this depends on what he actually wrote, not always certain.) For the translation itself and for the interpretation I have relied most of all, in many passages, on the Oxford editions, the first thirty years old, the second twice that age: of Agricola by Ogilvie and Richmond, of Germany by Anderson, both models of their kind. In addition, a variety of literature which has been of helpon Tacitus, especially by Ronald Syme, whose pupil I was fortunate to be, on Britain, and on Germanyis indicated in the Select Bibliography and the Explanatory Notes. I must make special mention of the commentary on Germany by Allan A. Lund, whose improvements to the text I have in many cases gratefully adopted and acknowledged, and of the collected RomanGerman studies by Dieter Timpe, which have shed new light on some of the most debated passages. It would have been improper not to refer to these two books. But, conscious that English-speakers would not derive much benefit from further references to works in German, I have not cited e.g. those monuments of Wissenschaft, PaulyWissowas Realencyclopdie