Some of the Roman generals and emperors shown in the frieze of the Great Hall of the National Galleries Scotland, erected in 1897 by English artist William Brassey Hole (1846-1917), a long-time resident of Scotland. Cornelius Tacitus and his father-in-law Agricola can be seen, as well as the tribal leader Galgacus (or Calgacus) whom Agricola defeated at the Battle of Mons Graupius in 84 without, however, gaining meaningful control of Caledonia in modern-day Scotland. During Agricola’s years in Britannia, there were three Roman Emperors: Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. Nerva and Trajan were followed in 117 by Hadrian, depicted here, who commissioned the famous wall across northern England.
Part 1 of 2
HIS first year saw a speedy end put to these abuses, and brought peace into high honour with the natives whom the alternate carelessness and cruelty of his predecessors caused to dread it no less than war.* With the advent of summer, however, he took the field again at the head of his army: on the march he was everywhere in person, praising steadiness and checking stragglers. He himself chose the camps, he himself sounded the estuaries and scoured the woods; and in the meantime he never allowed the enemy a moment’s rest, but laid waste their territories with unexpected forays.
Then when he had brought them to their knees his ready clemency unfolded to them the attractions of peace. By these methods many tribes, independent until then, were brought to give hostages and abandon their hostile attitude, and a line of forts was drawn round them, nor was any new annexation in Britain ever so wisely and carefully carried out before.
Tranquillity reigned during the following winter, and Agricola took advantage of it to give wholesome advice.
* The military raids ended by Agricola were Roman raids, the taxes he cut were Roman taxes, the corrupt officials he fired were Roman officials: they were abuses for which the Romans were themselves responsible. See also David Henry Montgomery on Rome, Ruin and Revenue. On the other hand, the tax money he spent on Roman temples and Roman baths, on Roman villas, courthouses and civic buildings, was British: they paid for their own chains. Yet as Tacitus goes on to say with unconcealed wonder, the British were abased with gratitude, and the sure sign of an intellectual was a complete inability to understand what was happening.
Précis
After his appointment as Governor of Britannia, Roman general Agricola set about subduing the tribes. First he cleaned up abuses in Roman government that poisoned peacetime. Then he reminded the Britons what war felt like. The choice between peace and war was now clear, and the tribal leaders saw it was to their advantage to comply with Rome’s colonial authorities. (60 / 60 words)
Part Two
The Eildon Hills near Melrose in the Scottish Borders, near ‘Scott’s View.’ Tacitus tells us that his father-in-law Agricola personally chose the sites for his military camps, and this is one of them: from around 80, Agricola maintained a military camp in sight of these three hills, hence its name ‘Trimontium.’ Agricola’s tenure ended in 84, but a camp was maintained at Newstead for another hundred years; the site has been identified, in the fields beyond the trees in the foreground, beside the River Tweed at the southern end of the (currently) disused Leaderfoot viaduct. See Google Maps.
THE people lived isolated and ignorant, and were therefore prone to war: his object was that the amenities of life should give them a taste for peace and quietness. By private influence and by grants of public money he urged on the erection of good houses, of courts of justice, and of temples, praising those who were apt pupils and reprimanding the backward. Emulation was his stimulus in lieu of coercion. He moreover offered the sons of the chiefs a liberal education, and lauded the native genius of the Britons at the expense of the industry of the Gauls, in order that they who so lately loathed the sound of Latin might be fired with ambition to make eloquent speeches in it.
Roman costume thus came into fashion, and the toga began to be commonly seen, and bit by bit the way was opened to those agreeable means of demoralisation, the lounge, the bath, and the banquet; and this change the unsuspecting Britons called by the name of refinement, when it was but one step deeper into slavery.
Précis
Now that peace was established, Agricola resolved to cement it. He poured public money into housing and civic buildings of various kinds, and he flattered the British into thinking of themselves as intellectuals. They obligingly adopted Roman dress, Roman habits and the Latin language, and instead of rejecting Roman authority as colonisation they welcomed it as progress. (57 / 60 words)
