Agricola and Roman Britain

No one has ever maintained that Agricola, the subject of this book, was a man who dominated his epoch or altered the course of history. The interest of his career lies, on the contrary, in its very normality. Agricola was a typical member of that Roman governing class in the best days of the empire, who bore rule from the Clyde to the Euphrates under good or bad Caesars. The inscriptions on their monuments tell us the successive official appointments of scores of such men, revealing incidentally how typical Agricola’s career was; but of him almost alone we can add personal details, and see something of the disappointments as well as the splendours of an official career. Of him alone we possess a formal biography.
Why, then, it may well be asked, write a new one?
The answer is that one can usefully add, for the modern reader, some account of the Roman background: of the Roman Army, and of the social and political history, and of many routine matters which Tacitus omits as well known to all. Partly from inscriptions, partly from literature, one can give some account of many of his colleagues and contemporaries. Lastly, but not least for an English-reading public, one can add, by the help of archaeology, of inscriptions and of Roman geographical writers, something about the topography of Roman Britain and of Agricola’s campaigns, which were matters of no interest to Tacitus' original readers. Very varied sources have been laid under contribution; and where in details we are thrown back on imagination (under strict control from the evidence), I have, I believe, made it quite clear just how far the evidence goes.