Later Years
Agricola was recalled from Britain in 85, after an unusually long tenure as governor. Tacitus claims Domitian ordered his recall because Agricola's successes outshone the Emperor's own modest victories in Germany. The relationship between Agricola and the Emperor is unclear; on the one hand, Agricola was awarded triumphal decorations and a statue (the highest military honours apart from an actual triumph); on the other, Agricola never again held a civil or military post, in spite of his experience and renown. He was offered the governorship of the province of Africa, but declined it, whether due to ill health or (as Tacitus claims) the machinations of Domitian. In 93, Agricola died on his family estates in Gallia Narbonensis aged fifty-three. Rumors circulated attributing the death to a poison administered by the Emperor Domitian, but no positive evidence for this was ever produced.
Read more about this topic: Gnaeus Julius Agricola
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“We never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead—and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead and then they would be honest so much earlier.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“My dear Kafka,
When you’ve had five years of it, not five months,
Five years of an irresistible force meeting an immoveable object right in your belly,
Then you’ll know about depression.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)