Tacitus on empires and wastelands

Tacitus (born c. 56 AD) was one of the greatest Roman historians, whose Annals and Histories narrated the volatile condition of Rome’s political order of his day. His readers, then and ever since, could see that these works communicated a subtext. Tacitus was by profession a diplomat, whose career took him to senior positions in Rome’s imperial administration. He would have sensed that Rome’s empire must have looked impregnable to anyone looking out, from inside the capital. But, on the other hand, to anyone looking in from the outside, from the provinces, cracks were apparent.

Tacitus wrote two works that held up a mirror to his Roman peers, De Germania and Agricola. Today we might describe these works as political counterfactuals.

One of these, De Germania, described in idealised terms the homespun ways of rustic Germanic folks, a relief for readers to set against smug, sophisticated Romans. Agricola was a biography of Tacitus’ father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who had overseen Roman peacekeeping missions in Britain. The Germans of De Germania are based on hearsay, the Britons in Agricola came to Tacitus by way of first-hand accounts heard from his father-in-law. Wrapped into this biography were long passages quoting the voices of native Britons.

Tacitus commended Agricola for bringing law and order to Britain:

“Certainly at no time was Britain more troubled, nor its fate more critical: veterans were butchered, Roman colonies burned, armies cut off from their base; one day men fought for their lives and on the next day for triumph.”

Agricola, for all his unequivocal loyalty to the interests of Rome, was also mindful that the aims of imperial overlords were at odds with the interests of their subjects. To anyone who cared to read closely, Agricola in many places issued warnings:

 “Little by little the Britons went astray into alluring vices: to the promenade, the bath, the well-appointed dinner table. The simple natives gave the name of ‘culture’ to this factor of their slavery.”

Tacitus thus put his compatriots on notice: Roman armies brought in tow stable social conditions and personal security. Still, Roman rule was brittle, for material comforts alone would not engender acquiescence. In fact, once pacified,

“Britons began to discuss the evils of slavery, to compare their wrongs and inflame their grievances. Nothing is gained by submission, they argued, except that heavier commands are laid on those who appear to be willing sufferers: in the old days they had had a king apiece; now two kings apiece are foisted on them — a governor to riot in bloodshed, an Imperial Agent to work havoc on property.”

Tacitus further described how Agricola quelled uprisings and planned to expand Rome’s reach to Ireland. But Agricola was mindful, Tacitus affirmed, that once Rome’s legions were established in Ireland, “Roman troops would be everywhere and liberty would sink, so to speak, below the horizon.”

Agricola stopped short of invading Ireland, but he did lead his troops into Scotland. There, on the eve of the decisive battle of Mons Graupius, Calgacus, the commander of the Scots, impressed on his warriors who and what they were fighting against:

“To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a wasteland and they call it peace.”

In the event, Agricola vanquished his foes, and

“the Britons, scattering amid the mingled lamentations of men and women, began to drag away their wounded, to summon the unhurt, to abandon their homes, and even, in their resentment, to set fire to them with their own hands. They selected hiding-places and as quickly renounced them: they took some counsel together, and then acted separately: sometimes they broke down at the spectacle of their loved ones, more often it excited them; it was credibly reported that some of them laid violent hands upon wives and children, as it were in pity. The morrow revealed more widely the features of the victory: everywhere was dismal silence, lonely hills, houses smoking to heaven.”

Casual readers of Tacitus must have considered this record of a military triumph a vindication of Roman statecraft, and the description of self-inflicted mayhem evidence of the need for Roman rule in the best interest of the barbarians who were vanquished.

To readers who looked ahead into the long term, on the other hand, Agricola must have been disquieting. Tacitus’ foreboding over the fate of Rome was premature: when he died in c.120 AD, the empire was still expanding. But not for much longer. And his intuition, if premature, was vindicated. Once Roman rule lost the hearts and minds of their subjects, the mightiest of empires of the ancient world disintegrated. Its subjects were no longer grateful for the Pax Romana, having come instead to subscribe to the words of Calgacus: solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant (“they make a wasteland and they call it peace”).

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.