An Island Nation: Re-Reading Tacitus’ “Agricola”
by Katherine Clarke, The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 91 (2001), pp. 94-112 JSTOR, restricted access.
The above paper discusses the location of Agricola’s res gestae and how Tacitus’ portrayal of Britain itself may ultimately “offer us insights into Agricola, Domitian, and Roman political life.”
This is a pleasantly complex treatment of the subject, too extensive to be summarized here. I'd rather concentrate on one aspect and argument, the “intellectual conquest of the island of Britain after the literal conquest.”
The Romans, writes Clarke, cannot start to re-assess the island in their world-view until they have become informed about the island itself. From the Briton’s perspective, the less the Romans know about them, the better; whereas for the Romans, intellectual conquest is going to be an important part of the take-over.
It is Agricola’s mission to acquire and extend this knowledge, season by campaign season. According to Tacitus, Agricola reaches that aim and semi-attaches Britain to the continent, so to speak, as opposed to the previous remote Oceanic nature of the island. The circumnavigation, which Agricola initiates, leads to the embrace (complectitur) of it.
In the sixth year of the campaign, the battle moves to land and ocean, which latter the Britons considered their sea (sui maris), and which now becomes the Roman sea (mare nostrum). Thus, the conquest has become complete.
Tacitus re-enforces all this through the speeches in his treatise.
