The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus

Two short works by Rome's sharpest historian sit together here, both written around the year 98. The Germania surveys the tribes living beyond the Rhine and Danube, describing their customs, warfare, marriage rites, and fierce independence, and sometimes holding up their plain virtues as a quiet rebuke to a softening Rome. The Agricola is a warmer piece, a memorial biography of Tacitus's father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the general who governed Britain and pushed Roman arms into Scotland. Through his career Tacitus also mourns the fear and silence of life under the emperor Domitian. Between them the two texts shaped much of what later readers thought they knew about early Germany and Roman Britain. This free PDF and EPUB edition collects both in a readable English translation.