Preface and Acknowledgments

This is a variorum commentary on Tacitus' Agricola. (The term "variorum" refers to a compilation made "with the notes of various editors," cum notis variorum.) The notes were selected and assembled by undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania during the academic year 2015/16, then vetted, edited, and occasionally supplemented by me (see further below). It was designed to complement an excellent recent commentary on the Agricola (A. J. Woodman, Tacitus: Agricola [with C. S. Kraus]. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/classical-studies/classical-literature/tacitus-agricola-1?format=PB), which was the textbook for the class. The notes presented here offer help on syntax, advice about translation, basic background on the historical actors and events, and brief comments about style and textual problems. Much more on all of these topics and on the Agricola as a work of literature is found in the Woodman/Kraus commentary. The process of producing this commentary and its features are described in the present Preface. Information on the historical Agricola and Tacitus and on biography as a literary genre is given in the other sections of the Introduction, the contents of which are outlined below.

Process:

The Agricola, Tacitus' biography of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, has long been a popular classroom text (for a recent discussion see Kraus 2015). More than a dozen "school" editions were produced in English in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The commentaries in these editions generally provide helpful guidance on points of syntax and translation, but the classrooms they were designed for are long gone. The present commentary contains a selection of notes from three of these school editions, those by Alfred Gudeman (1899), J. W. E. Pearce (1901), and D. R. Stuart (1909). (The originals are available as .pdfs on the respective Introduction pages.)

The DCC commentary was produced collaboratively by the students in an upper-level Latin class at the University of Pennsylvania (Latin 309, fall 2015, taught by Cynthia Damon). The students chose the commentaries to be excerpted by comparing sixteen of them and identifying the cluster of three that, collectively, provided the most useful and efficient notes. Not the fullest—for full coverage we turned to the 2014 commentary mentioned above—but the most useful and efficient for the purpose of understanding the Latin text. (The criteria of utility and efficiency determined the selection of Gudeman's 1899 commentary in preference to the 1928 version, in which he added a large number of parallel passages.) The notes of all three commentaries were assembled sentence by sentence for the forty-six chapters of the Agricola, with each student taking responsibility for two or three chapters. This mass of material was then streamlined. Repetitions were removed, of course, as was material deemed unhelpful by the majority of the class: passages in untranslated Greek and Latin, parallels from English literature, outdated translations and attitudes, and so on. Where necessary, new notes were written. By the end of the semester we had a rough draft of the entire commentary. Two students from the class, Patricia Fox and Ray Lahiri, worked further on the project during the summer of 2016 with the support of undergraduate research grants from Penn's Price Lab for Digital Humanities (https://pricelab.sas.upenn.edu/fellowships/penn-undergraduate). Their tasks included editing the notes, supplying macrons for the lemmata, adding links to external resources such as grammars and gazetteers, moving material to the DCC platform, and generating the vocabulary lists, among other things. I supplied the text and links to the manuscript images, finalized the commentary, and wrote this preface. In this phase of the project the DCC team, especially Chris Francese and Bret Mulligan, provided invaluable guidance and support.

Features:

Notes are credited to their author by surname. Most of the notes were taken from the abovementioned commentaries by Gudeman, Pearce, and Stuart, but some were added by members of the Latin 309 class: Louis Capozzi, Patricia Fox, Cole Jacobson, Ray Lahiri, Connor McKeon, Allison Resnick, Janelle Sadarananda, and Cynthia Damon. Other commentators are very occasionally cited; references are given in the Bibliography below. For many words or phrases two or more notes are provided, separated by semicolons. In most cases the notes are complementary, and they are arranged so that syntax analysis comes first, followed by notes that offer help on translation, and notes that supply historical or literary background. References and links to a standard Latin grammar ("Allen and Greenough", abbreviated A&G) have been supplied. Where our commentators disagree on the syntactic analysis, as they occasionally do, the links to A&G facilitate consideration of the alternatives. For many passages the notes offer a range of translations from literal to elegant.

Dates and citation formats have been modernized. Thus dates are BCE or CE, and references to the text of the Agricola are by chapter and sentence number (e.g., 30.4 for the famous phrase ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant); the original commentators cited the text by the line numbers in their own editions. The chronology of Agricola's career—particularly the dates of his seven campaigning seasons in Britain and return to Rome—is based on evidence external to the text and remains a matter of dispute. We supply below the dates now preferred by historians; these are a year earlier than those given by our commentators. For readers of the Agricola the chronology that matters most is the place of the seven campaigning seasons of his proconsulship of Britain within Agricola's overall career (see chapters 6-9), and especially the premature conclusion of that career (see chapter 42). On both of these points Tacitus is exceptionally clear.

Ellipses indicate the omission of material within the excerpted portion of a note. Omissions from the beginning or end of a note are not signaled.

Macrons were added to the text and lemmata with the help of Winge’s Macronizer (http://stp.lingfil.uu.se/~winge/macronizer/). For the endings, these were verified against the syntax.

Highlighted lemmata signal spots where the reading in the text is problematic or disputed. (See further below.)

Vocabulary lists for each chapter give principal parts and short definitions for words not in the DCC Core List. Chapter-by-chapter lists of Core Vocabulary words are provided (WHERE?). The DCC site also provides a tool for the creation of customized vocabulary lists. At the foot of this page you will find a document containing the complete vocabulary list for the Agricola from the commentary by W. C. Flamstead Walters (1899), as well as a .pdf of that commentary.

An articulated text is provided in addition to the text in traditional paragraph form, as an aid to reading. This version can be found in slide format in the "media" tab. It is also available in .pdf and .docx format at the bottom of this page. Words elided by Tacitus, who aimed for brevity of expression—for details see the section on Brachyology in Gudeman's Introduction—are supplied in parentheses in the articulated text; most of them are forms of esse.

Audio files of the text were prepared by Christopher Francese and are accessible in the "media" tab.

Place names mentioned in the Notes are linked to their page in the Pleaides gazetteer. 

The text of the Agricola given here is not identical with the text presented by any of our commentators or any other edition. Brief notes on textual problems are provided where discrepancies arise; the relevant lemmata are highlighted. Most of the discrepancies arise from the fact that the most important manuscript of the Agricola, the so-called "Jesi" manuscript, or codex Aesinas, was discovered in 1902, after the publication of two of our commentaries. Prior to 1902 the text was based on copies of this manuscript, which inevitably had more errors than their model. (See the section entitled "Manuscripts of the Agricola" in Stuart's Introduction.) The manuscript is now owned by the Biblioteca Nazionale in Rome, where it is identified as Cod. Vitt. Em. 1631 (http://manus.iccu.sbn.it/opac_SchedaScheda.php?ID=67870). High quality photographs of the codex Aesinas are available from the Harvard Library (for the Agricola see seq. 106-34). The discovery of this manuscript improved our text of the Agricola considerably. However, there remain a few dozen passages where its text, which was copied in the ninth century CE, some seven centuries after Tacitus, is obviously garbled. Such passages call for editorial emendation, but editors sometimes disagree on how to fix the problem. The following table indicates differences between this text and that of two modern scholarly commentaries. The first column contains the DCC text, the second that of Woodman, the third that of Ogilvie and Richmond.

3.1	adsumpserit	aetas suaserit	adsumpserit
3.2	ita	ita	sic
5.2	intercepti	intercepti	intersaepti
8.1	obsequi (inf.)	obsequii	obsequi (inf.)
9.3	<iam> exuerat	(excision)	exuerat
10.3	oblongo scutulo	oblongo scutulo	oblongae scapulae
10.5	perinde	proinde	perinde
12.5	<segetum> fecundum	fecundum<que>	<pecudumque> fecundum
13.3	iterati	tanti	tanti
14.1	Togidumno	Togidumno	Cogidumno
15.5	in alia insula exercitum	e- in a- ins-	in a- ins- e-
16.4	et ducis salute	et ducis salute	ducis salute [et]
20.2	irritamenta	invitamenta	invitamenta
20.3	et tanta	tanta	tanta
20.3	curaque ut <haec ut> nulla	(crux)	curaque ut nulla
21.1	honor et	honor et	honoris
23	Britannia	Britanniae	Britannia
24.1	nave primum	nave primum	nave prima
24.2	in melius	(crux)	[in melius]
25.1	impelleretur ac	impellitur ut	impelleretur ac
25.2	Britannos quoque	Britannosque	Britannos quoque
28.1	uno rem negante	uno remigi imperante	uno remigante
28.2	ad aquam	ad aquam	<ubi> [ad] aquam
28.2	utensilia	utensilia	utilia
28.2	raptum ubi devertissent	raptum ubi devertissent	raptum exissent
30.3	famae	a fama	famae
31.4	bellaturi	<arma in>laturi	(crux)
32.2	est	est	sunt
33.2	imperii	populi	imperii
33.4	manus	animus <venire>	(crux)
34.2	pellebantur	pelli <pro>bantur	pellebantur
34.3	quinquaginta	quadraginta	quinquaginta
35.4	simul in frontem simul	simul in frontem simul	in frontem simul et
36.1	parva ... gerentibus	parva ... gerentibus	[parva ... gerentibus]
36.3	<ut> fugere	(crux)	fugere <enim>
36.3	minimeque	minime <enim>	minimeque
36.3	in gradu stantes	clivo instantes	in gradu stantes
37.3-4	postquam ... nam primos	po- ... nam pr-	nam postquam ... primos
37.4	silvas	silvas	silvas equitem
38.2	Borestorum	boreos totum	Borestorum
40.1	additque	additque	addique
40.5	hausit	duxit	hausit
41.3	ceterorum	ceterorum	eorum
41.4	ipsam gloriam	ipsa gloria	ipsam gloriam
42.2	simulatione	simulationi	simulatione
43.1	oblitus est	oblitus est	oblitus
43.3	animi vultu	animi vultu	animo vultuque
44.5	sicuti <non licuit ei>	sicuti <non licuit ei>	sicut ei <non licuit>
45.1	<notavit>	(lacuna)	<adflixit>
45.5	comploratus	comploratus	compositus
46.4	fama	<ut> fama	fama
46.4	obruit	obruit	obruet

Outlines:

Stuart's Introduction
Life of Tacitus

Writings

Purpose and literary form of the Agricola

Style of Tacitus

Manuscripts of the Agricola

Editions and Works of Reference 

Pearce's Introduction

Life of Tacitus

Tacitus in Pliny's Letters

The Writings of Tacitus

The Purpose of the Agricola

Agricola and Domitian

The Development of Silver Latin

The Style of Tacitus

Plan of the Agricola compared with that of Sallust's Catiline and Jugurtha

Sketch of the Roman Occupation of Britain

Gudeman's Introduction

Life and Writings of Tacitus

The Literary Character of the Agricola

The Purpose of the Agricola

Tacitus' Sources of Information

Style and Rhetoric

            Collocatio verborum

            Brachyology

            Inconcinnity

            Poetical and Figurative Features

Chronology of Agricola's governorship of Britain

The dates given here are based on evidence external to the text and remain a matter of dispute.  For a brief discussion and a helpful chart see Maxwell (1990) 10-11; for more detail, Smith (2015).

77 CE  arrival and first campaigns (ch. 18); administrative reforms (ch. 19)

78 CE  second season of campaigns (ch. 20); social and cultural initiatives (ch. 21)

79 CE  third season of campaigns (ch. 22)

80 CE fourth season (ch. 23)

81 CE  fifth season (ch. 24)

82 CE  sixth season (chh. 25-27)

83 CE  seventh season (chh. 29-38)

84 CE  recall (ch. 40)

Some bibliography:

Commentaries:

Draeger, A. (1884). Das Leben des Agricola von Tacitus. 4th ed. Leipzig: Teubner.

Furneaux. H. (1898). Cornelii Taciti Vita Agricolae. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Furneaux, H. (1922). Cornelii Taciti De vita Agricolae. 2nd ed., largely rewritten by J. G. C. Anderson. With contributions by the late Professor F. Haverfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Gudeman, Alfred. (1899). Tacitus: De vita et moribus Julii Agricolae. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Gudeman, Alfred. (1928). Tacitus de vita Iulii Agricolae and de Germania. Rev. ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Ogilvie, R. M., and Sir I. Richmond. Tacitus: De vita Agricolae. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Pearce, J. W. E. (1901). The Agricola of Tacitus. London: George Bell and Sons.

Stuart, Duane Reed. (1909). Tacitus: The Agricola. New York: Macmillan.

Walters, W. C. Flamstead. (1899). The Agricola of Tacitus. London: Blackie and Son.

Woodman, A. J. (2014). Tacitus: Agricola [with C. S. Kraus]. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

On the Agricola and Roman Britain:

Allason-Jones, Lindsay. (2008). Daily life in Roman Britain. Westport, CT: Greenwood World.

Allason-Jones, Lindsay, ed. (2010). Artefacts in Roman Britain: Their purpose and use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ash, R., ed. (2012). Oxford readings in classical studies: Tacitus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bédoyère, Guy de la. (2013). Roman Britain: A new history. Rev. ed. London: Thames and Hudson.

Bédoyère, Guy de la. (2015). The real lives of Roman Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Birley, A. R. (2005). The Roman government of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Braund, David. (1996). Ruling Roman Britain: Kings, queens, governors, and emperors from Julius Caesar to Agricola. London: Routledge.

Breeze, David J. (1986-87). "The logistics of Agricola's final campaign." Talanta 18-19: 7-28.

Breeze, David J. (1996). Roman Scotland: Frontier country. London: Batsford.

Campbell, D. B. (2010). Mons Graupius, AD 83: Rome's battle at the edge of the world. Oxford: Osprey.

Gambash, Gil. (2012). "To rule a ferocious province: Roman policy and the aftermath of the Boudican revolt." Britannia 43: 1-15.

Hägg, T. (2012). The art of biography in antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hanson, W. S. (1987). Agricola and the conquest of the north. London: Batsford.

Harrar, G. A. (1917). "Tacitus, Agricola 44.1." Classical Philology 12: 197-98.

Jones, B. W. (1992). The emperor Domitian. London: Routledge.

Kraus, Christina S. (2015). "Agricolan Paratexts." In Classical commentaries: Explorations in a scholarly genre, edited by Christina S. Kraus and Christopher Stray. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 318-45.

Lavan, Myles. (2013). Slaves to Rome: Paradigms of empire in Roman culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Liebeschutz, W. (1966). "The theme of liberty in the Agricola of Tacitus. " Classical Quarterly 16: 126-39.

Martin, R. (1994). Tacitus. Rev. ed. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.

Maxwell, Gordon S. (1990). A battle lost: Romans and Caledonians at Mons Graupius. London: Thames and Hudson.

Moorhead, Sam, and David Stuttard. (2012). The Romans who shaped Britain. London: Thames and Hudson.

Pagan, Victoria E., ed. (2012). A companion to Tacitus. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Russell, Miles, and Stuart Laycock. (2010). UnRoman Britain: Exposing the great myth of Britannia. Stroud: History Press.

Sailor, Dylan. (2008). Writing and empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Salway, Peter. (1993). The Oxford illustrated history of Roman Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Salway, Peter. (2001). A history of Roman Britain. New ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Salway, Peter. (2015). Roman Britain: A very short introduction. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Smith, Ian Gordon. (2015). "A chronology for Agricola, Mons Graupius, and Domitian's triumph in the Chattan war." Historia 64: 156-204.

Southern, Patricia. (2011). Roman Britain: A new history 55 BC-AD 450. Stroud: Amberley.

Todd, Malcolm, ed. (2004). A companion to Roman Britain. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Tomlin, R. S. O. (1992). "The Twentieth Legion at Wroxeter and Carlisle in the first century: The epigraphic evidence." Britannia 23: 141-58.

Woodman, A. J., ed. (2009). The Cambridge companion to Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Woolliscroft, D. J., and B. Hoffmann. (2006). Rome's first frontier: The Flavian occupation of northern Scotland. Stroud: Tempus.

Acknowledgments:

This commentary is the work of many hands. Most have already been mentioned: three scholars (Gudeman, Pearce, and Stuart), twenty-three students in Latin 309, two research assistants (Patricia Fox and Ray Lahiri), two editors for the Dickinson College Commentaries site (Chris Francese and Bret Mulligan), and one project director (Cynthia Damon). Additional help was provided by Jessica Shaw as her junior-year January term project at Germantown Friends School, during which she produced editable documents of Introductions of Gudeman, Pearce, and Stuart and the wordlist of Walters from the .pdf form available on GoogleBooks. Thanks are also due to a number of people at Harvard University who responded with enthusiasm and alacrity to my request for information about and eventually digitization of the photographs of the codex Aesinas held by Widener Library: in the Department of the Classics, Richard Tarrant, who verified the existence of the photographs, and Jan Ziolkowski, who gave permission for them to be digitized; in Medieval Studies, Sean Gilsdorf, who provided access to photographs; in Imaging Services in Widener Library, Todd Bachmann, who oversaw the cataloging, depositing, and linking of the images, and Thomas Lingner, who made it all happen. The term "variorum" gestures towards but does not express the satisfaction and pleasure I experienced during the collaborations that resulted in the commentary before you.

Cynthia Damon

University of Pennsylvania

August 2016