L’immagine della Scozia nella Vita di Agricola di Tacito

Abstract

Julius Agricola’s most famous enterprise was the first deep advance of a Roman army into Scottish territory, culminating in a confrontation with the inhabitants of Caledonia at mons Graupius, the name from which the Grampian Mountains derive, a term introduced by Renaissance scholars based on Tacitus’s text. This study analyzes the image of Scotland that emerges from the biography Tacitus dedicated to Agricola, beginning with the sections devoted to the geographical and ethnographical description; it then identifies the strategic significance of the Roman army’s lines of advance and the placement of fortifications, and finally examines the relationship between humans and the environment as revealed through the contrasting speeches of Calgacus and Agricola before the final battle.