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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available 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 world’s classics) 1. Agricola, Gnaeus Julius, 40–93. 2. Statesmen—Rome—Biography. 3. Germanic peoples. I. Birley, Anthony Richard. II. Tacitus, Cornelius, Germania, English. III. Title. IV Series: Oxford world’s classics (Oxford University Press) DG291.7.A2T313 1999 936.1′03—dc21 98–34569 ISBN 0–19–283300–6 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 Typeset by Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd. Reading, Berkshire
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
TACITUS
Agricola and Germany Translated with an Introduction and Notes by
ANTHONY R. BIRLEY
OXFORD WORLD’S 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, t