Exempla and Empire at Mons Graupius: Tacitus, Agricola 29-38, Professor Dylan Sailor, University of California, Berkeley

Tacitus’ Agricola presents Rome’s empire as a dynamic system that both effects and is perpetuated by a shaping of the mentalities of the people it involves: foes of Rome, Roman subjects, and Roman soldiers and administrators. Tacitus gives a fundamental role in this system to the provision, testing, and interpretation of examples. We can see this role on display in his account of the battle of Mons Graupius and in the way in which it fits into his broader narrative of Agricola’s governorship of Britain.