Tacitus De Vita Et Moribus Iuli Agricolae: With Introduction and Notes (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Tacitus De Vita Et Moribus Iuli Agricolae: With Introduction and Notes

Wex's edition of the Agricola (1852) may be said to constitute a new landmark in the philological labors devoted to the elucida tion of this biography. He incorporated what was still of value in the work of his numerous predecessors, and added not a little of his own to the improvement of the text and to a better under standing oi its contents. Since his time the contributions made to the criticism and exegesis of the Agricola, and to Tacitus gen erally, have been very considerable, both in quality and quantity; but while the historical, ethnological, and syntactical material thus accumulated is satisfactorily exhaustive, the strictly rhetorical features of the Agricola, conspicuous though they are, have hitherto been persistently and inexplicably overlooked or ignored. And yet it must be evident that a student can at best acquire but a very superficial appreciation of the consummate artistic merits of this treatise if he remain in ignorance of the vital elements that make the Agricola the immortal masterpiece that it is.

I have, therefore, been at pains to illustrate and analyze, albeit under the restrictions necessarily imposed upon a college edition, all noteworthy rhetorical features in the style and structure of the Agricola, the synopsis in the Introduction being, for the reason given above, intentionally more full than might otherwise appear warranted in an edition of this nature. The discovery that Taci tus, in writing the Agricola, closely followed time-honored rhetori cal canons for biographical composition was as great a surprise to me, who had once denied this on the basis of an examination of extant classical biographies, as it will doubtless be to others. I hope, however, that the necessarily brief review of the evidence given in the Introduction will suffice to carry conviction.

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