Background
Gnaeus Julius Agricola was born in the colonia of Forum Julii, Gallia Narbonensis (now Fréjus, France).
Gnaeus Julius Agricola was born in the colonia of Forum Julii, Gallia Narbonensis (now Fréjus, France).
After education in the Greek schools of Marseilles, Agricola entered the imperial service and served on the army staff in Britain in a. d. 61 during the great rebellion of Boudicca (Boadicea).
In a. d. 71-74 he was again in Britain, commanding the Twentieth Legion in the northward drive of Petillius Cerealis; and in a. d. 78, after governing the civilian province of Aquitaine, he was appointed governor of Britain by Vespasian. Becoming well acquainted with the British natives, he did much to foster Romanization in the long-pacified south, as well as to stop administrative abuses. In the north, by a. d. 80 he had subdued the country up to the Forth-Clyde isthmus. Two years later Agricola obtained permission from the new emperor, Domitian, to advance beyond this point and he proceeded to the Moray Firth, where the Battle of Mons Graupius took place in a. d. 84. The brave and resourceful resistance of the Caledonians, coupled with Domitian's need for troops as a result of a crisis on the Danubian frontier, prevented Agricola from consolidating his gains. He was recalled to Rome in a. d. 84 and was given no further assignments. Tacitus ascribes this to the Emperor's jealousy, although he admits that when Agricola died in a. d. 93 there was no justification for the belief that he had been poisoned by royal order.