Cornelius Tacitus

“ Are Cassius and Brutus now in arms? do they at present fill with armed troops the fields of Philippi? or do I fire the Roman People, by inflammatory harangues, with the spirit of civil rage? Brutus and Cassius, now above seventy years slain, are still known in their statues, which even the conqueror did not abolish: and as these exhibit their persons, why not the historian their characters? Impartial posterity to every man repays his proper praise: nor will there be wanting such as, if my death is determined, will not only revive the story of Cassius and Brutus, but even my story. ”

“ We know not the situation of the country so well as they know it; we have not provisions so abundant as they have: but we have limbs and arms; and in these, all things. For myself; it is a rule long since settled by me, that safety there is none either to the army or to the general, in turning their backs upon the foe. Hence it is not only more eligible to lose life honourably than to save it basely, but security and renown both arise from the same source. Neither would it be a fate void of glory to fall in this the utmost verge of earth and of nature. ”

“ We have both passed the limits which we found, I those known to the ancient governors, you those of former armies; and we possess the very extremity of Britain, not only in the bruitings of fame and vulgar rumour, but possess it with our camps and arms. Britain is entirely discovered, and entirely subdued. In truth, as the army has been marching, whilst in passing morasses and mountains and rivers you have been fatigued and distressed, I was wont to hear every man remarkably brave ask, When shall we see the enemy, when be led to battle? ”

“ To other nations who know not the Roman domination, executions and tributes are also unknown; evils which we too have cast off, in spite of that Augustus now dead and enrolled with the Deities; in spite too of Tiberius, his chosen successor: let us not after this dread a mutinous army, and a boy without experience, their commander; but if you love your country, your kindred, your ancient liberty and laws, better than tyrants and new colonies, let Arminius rather lead you to liberty and glory, than the wicked Segestes to the infamy of bondage. ”

“ Naturally violent was the spirit of Arminius, and now, by the captivity of his wife, by the fate of his child doomed to bondage though yet unborn, enraged even to distraction: he flew about amongst the Cheruscans, calling them to arms; to arm against Segestes, to arm against Germanicus. Invectives followed his fury; "A blessed father this Segestes," he cried! "a mighty general this Germanicus! invincible warriors these Romans! so many troops have made prisoner of a woman. It is not thus that I conquer; before me three legions fell, and three lieutenant-generals. ”

“ Unless you suppose that the Germans there, that the Gauls, and many of the Britons (whom with shame I mention) , men who however have been all much longer their enemies than their slaves, are yet attached to them by any real fidelity and affection, whilst presenting their blood to establish a domination altogether foreign and unnatural to them all. What restrains them is no more than awe and terror, frail bonds of endearment; and when these are removed, such who cease to fear, will immediately begin to manifest their hate. Amongst us is found whatever can stimulate men to victory. ”

“ Roman citizens can I call you? you who have trampled upon the supreme authority of the Roman Senate? Laws religiously observed by common enemies, you have profaned; violated the sacred privileges, and persons of Ambassadors; broken the laws of nations. The deified Julius Caesar quelled a sedition in his army by a single word: he called all who refused to follow him, townsmen. The deified Augustus, when, after the battle of Actium, the legions who won it lapsed into mutiny, terrified them into submission by the dignity of his presence and an awful look. ”

“ For, of all the people of Britain we are the noblest, and thence placed in its innermost regions, and, as we behold not so much as the coasts of such as are slaves, we thus preserve even our eyes free and unprofaned by the sight of lawless and usurped rule. To us who are the utmost inhabitants of the earth, to us the last who enjoy liberty, this extremity of the globe, this remote tract unknown even to common fame, has to this day proved the only protection and defence. ”

“ In arraying their army, they divide the whole into distinct battalions formed sharp in front. To recoil in battle, provided you return again to the attack, passes with them rather for policy than fear. Even when the combat is no more than doubtful, they bear away the bodies of their slain. The most glaring disgrace that can befall them, is to have quitted their shield; nor to one branded with such ignominy is it lawful to join in their sacrifices, or to enter into their assemblies; and many who had escaped in the day of battle, have hanged themselves to put an end to this their infamy. ”

“ Mighty too is the emulation amongst these followers, of each to be first in favour with his Prince; mighty also the emulation of the Princes, to excel in the number and valour of followers. This is their principal state, this their chief force, to be at all times surrounded with a huge band of chosen young men, for ornament and glory in peace, for security and defence in war. Nor is it amongst his own people only, but even from the neighbouring communities, that any of their Princes reaps so much renown and a name so great, when he surpasses in the number and magnanimity of his followers. ”

“ Even our bodies and limbs are extenuated and wasted, while we are doomed to the drudgery of making cuts through woods, and drains in bogs, under continual blows and outrages. Such as are born to be slaves are but once sold, and thenceforward nourished by their lords. Britain is daily paying for its servitude, is daily feeding it. Moreover, as in a tribe of household slaves, he who comes last serves for sport to all his fellows; so in this ancient state of slavery to which the world is reduced, we, as the freshest slaves and thence held the most contemptible, are now designed to destruction. ”

“ It is impossible to read the great ancients, without losing something of our caprice and eccentricity. I know not how it is, but their commerce with the ancients appears to me to produce, in those who constantly practise it, a steadying and composing effect upon the judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general. They are like persons who have had a very weighty and impressive experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, and more independent of the language current among those with whom they live. ”

“ The glory too of Augustus will vanish, if by the promiscuous courtship of flattery it comes to be vulgarly prostituted.
"For myself, Conscript Fathers, I am a mortal man; I am confined to the functions of human nature; and if I well supply the principal place amongst you, it suffices me. This I acknowledge to you; and this acknowledgment, I would have posterity to remember. They will do abundant right to my memory, if they believe me to have been worthy of my ancestors; watchful of the Roman state; unmoved in perils, and in maintaining the public interest, fearless of private enmities. ”

“ Open and honourable is my method of war, nor waged with big-bellied women, but against men and arms; and treason is none of my weapons. Still to be seen are the Roman standards in the German groves, there by me hung up and devoted to our country Gods. Let Segestes live a slave in a conquered province; let him to his son recover a foreign priesthood: with the German nations he can never obliterate his reproach, that through him they have seen between the Elbe and Rhine rods and axes, and the Roman toga. ”

“ Where will our broils and wild contentions end? Shall we swear allegiance to Percennius and Vibulenus? Will Vibulenus and Percennius support us with pay during our service, and reward us with lands when dismissed? In short, shall two common men dispossess the Neros and the Drusi, and to themselves assume the Empire of the Roman People? Let us be wiser; and as we were the last to revolt, be the first to relent. Such demands, as comprise terms for all, are ever slowly accorded; but particulars may, when they please, merit instant favour, and instantly receive it. ”

“ Germanicus led back his army to the relief of Segestes, and was rewarded with success. He fought the besiegers, and rescued him with a great train of his relations and followers; amongst them too were ladies of illustrious rank, particularly the wife of Arminius, the same who was the daughter of Segestes: a lady more of the spirit of her husband than that of her father; a spirit so unsubdued, that from her eyes captivity forced not a tear, nor from her lips a breath in the style of a supplicant: not a motion of her hands, nor a look escaped her ”

“ Indeed, had not the woods and marshes served for shelter to the fugitives, by this victory the war had been determined.
By this success, with such valour gained, and followed with such renown, the army was become elated and resolute. With fierce din they cried, "That to their bravery nothing could prove insurmountable. They must penetrate into the heart of Caledonia, and advance in a continual succession of battles, till they had at last found the utmost limits of Britain." ”

“ Whatever we loved in Agricola, whatever we admired, remains, and will for ever remain implanted in the hearts of men, through an eternity of ages, and conveyed down in the voice of fame, in the record of things. For, many of the great ancients, by being buried in oblivion, have thence reaped the fate of men altogether mean and inglorious: but Agricola shall ever survive in his history here composed and transmitted to posterity. ”

“ A region so vast, the Chaucians do not only possess but fill; a people of all the Germans the most noble, such as would rather maintain their grandeur by justice than violence. They live in repose, retired from broils abroad, void of avidity to possess more, free from a spirit of domineering over others. They provoke no wars, they ravage no countries, they pursue no plunder. Of their bravery and power, the chief evidence arises from hence, that, without wronging or oppressing others, they are come to be superior to all. ”

“ It is now the eighth year, my fellow-soldiers, since through the virtue and auspicious fortune of the Roman Empire, and by your own services and fidelity you have been pursuing the conquest of Britain. In so many expeditions that you have undertaken, in so many battles as you have fought, you have still had constant occasion either to be exerting your bravery against the foe, or your patience and pains even against the obstacles of nature. ”

“ Then it is that days of rejoicing always ensue, and in all places whatsoever which she descends to honour with a visit and her company, feasts and recreation abound. They go not to war; they touch no arms; fast laid up is every hostile weapon; peace and repose are then only known, then only beloved, till to the temple the same priest reconducts the Goddess when well tired with the conversation of mortal beings. ”

“ It is the nature of men, that whomsoever they injure they hate. Now Domitian was in his temper apt to be suddenly transported into rage, and, in proportion as he smothered his vengeance, the more irreconcilable he always certainly proved. Yet by the prudence and moderation of Agricola, he was softened. For, by no contumacy of his, nor by any vain ostentation of a spirit of liberty ill-timed, did he court fame or urge his fate. ”

“ Tiberius was partial to Drusus, as his own son by generation; others loved Germanicus; the more for the aversion of his uncle, and for being by his mother of more illustrious descent; as Marc Anthony was his grandfather, and Augustus his great-uncle. On the other side, Pomponius Atticus, a Roman knight, by being the great-grandfather of Drusus, seemed thence to have derived a stain upon the images of the Claudian house; besides, Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, did in the fruitfulness of her body and the reputation of her virtue far excel Livia, the wife of Drusus. ”

“ Indeed at no time had Britain been under greater combustions, nor our affairs there more precarious. Our veterans were slaughtered, our colonies burned down, our armies surprised and taken. At that juncture the struggle was for life; afterwards, for victory. Now though all these affairs were transacted by the counsels and conduct of another than Agricola, and though the stress of the whole, with the glory of recovering the Province, accrued to the General; they all however proved to the young man matters of skill, of experience and stimulation ”

“ To me remains a straitened task, and void of glory; steady peace, or short intervals of war; the proceedings at Rome sad and affecting; and a Prince careless of extending the Empire: nor yet will it be without its profit to look minutely into such transactions, as however small at first view, give rise and motion to great events.
For, all nations and cities are governed either by the populace, by the nobility, or by single rulers. ”

“ Why would he not rather have tortured the minister of the poison? Why not inquired into the author of the poison? Why not observed towards his only son, a son hitherto convicted of no iniquity, that slowness and hesitation, which, even in his proceedings against strangers, was inherent in him? But as Sejanus was reckoned the framer of every wickedness, therefore, from the excessive fondness of Tiberius towards him, and from the hatred of all others towards both, things the most fabulous and direful were believed of them ”

“ Neither was the question and contest now about maintaining the limits of the Empire and guarding the rivers which served for its boundaries, but about defending the standing encampments of the legions and preserving our own territories. Thus, when public misfortunes were following one another in a continual train, when every year was become signal for calamities and slaughters, Agricola was by the common voice of the populace required for the command of our armies. For, all men were comparing his vigour, his firmness, and his mind trained in war, with the sloth and timidity of the others. ”