30 THE ROMAN EMPIRE
speech, and most boorish in conversation’ (75.2.4–5). Nursing a bad leg and
his dignity in Bithynia, Dio produced this considered opinion of the Pannonians
as a race: ‘The Pannonians dwell near Dalmatia along the bank of the Danube
from Noricum to Moesia, and live of all men the most wretchedly. Both their
soil and climate are poor; they cultivate no olives and produce no wine except
to a very slight extent and of a very poor quality, since the climate is mostly
extremely harsh. They not only eat barley and millet but drink liquids made
from them. For having nothing to make a civilized life worthwhile, they are
extremely fi erce and bloodthirsty’ (49.36.4).^23
Of writers from the western Mediterranean, Tacitus (perhaps a native of
the old Gallic province of Narbonensis) is the most important source on
Germany, Gaul and Britain.^24 Within his sphere of interest, however, he was
very selective. Rome’s opponents held considerable fascination for him,
especially the Germans, whose customs and institutions are given extended
treatment in a monograph. He had an eye for heroic leadership, and derived
wry pleasure from ascribing to Rome’s most dangerous opponents, whether
Arminius the German, Civilis the Gaul or Boudicca the Briton, virtues that
he believed the Romans as a people had abandoned – in particular, love of
liberty. Once enemies became subjects, however, Tacitus lost interest in them.
The unconquered and perhaps unconquerable Germans receive monographic
treatment, not the conquered Gauls.
In a well- known but unique passage ( Agr. 19–21), Tacitus outlines the
Romanizing policy of his father- in-law Agricola in the province of Britain,
of which he was governor in AD 78–84. Agricola saw his brief as to lead
British tribal chieftains and their sons to live an urban life, receive a Roman
education and adopt Roman customs. The motive is clear, to turn a nation
of warriors into peaceful subjects. The passage is damning of the British
tribal aristocracy, characterized as people ‘without settled communities or
culture’, easily roused to war. Once introduced to urban life, they fell for its
baser attractions, and imagined in their innocence or ignorance that they
had found civilization. On the contrary, they had given up liberty for slavery,
under the artful supervision of the Roman authorities.
The same passage obliquely acknowledges that the identical process had
been going on in Gaul. Agricola is alleged to have thought that British native
intelligence more than made up for Gallic training. A casual detail in the
Annals of Tacitus under the year AD 21 comes to mind: sons of Gallic
chieftains in pursuit of a Roman education at Autun (Augustodunum) were
taken as hostages by the rebels C. Iulius Florus and C. Iulius Sacrovir
(3.41.3). The item conveys a message about the limits of Romanization.
Here the cause of Gallic liberty won a symbolic victory over the slavery of
Romanization. The rebels were tribal chieftains, benefi ciaries of Rome (they
bore the names of Caesar), who had presumably themselves been exposed to
a version of the Roman provincial educational system. Of some more
dangerous enemies of Rome it was written that they ‘possessed not only a
knowledge of Roman discipline but also of the Roman tongue, many also