Analyze the Agricola and write a standard essay that interprets Agricola’s meaning by answering the questions below. The questions are meant to guide and focus your inquiry. You may answer the questions in any order you choose and you may combine questions but make it clear to the reader that you are still covering the topic asked by the question. A brief answer to the more general questions (2 and 9) could serve as your paper’s thesis statement but those answers need to be developed with evidence later in the paper. That is, none of the questions can be adequately answered in only one or two sentences but such sentences can serve as your paper’s thesis statement or the topic sentences of paragraphs that then need further development and exposition.
1. The Agricola is a biography. What do we know about Tacitus, its author?
2. What motivated Tacitus to write a biography of his father-in-law? Is it more than a biography?
3. How does he begin and end the book? What do the beginning and ending tell you about his purpose in writing it?
4. What major issues or problems of 1st-century CE Roman society, culture, and politics does he address in the book?
5. What is the book’s tone? What words or phrases convey it? Does the tone change with the subject matter? Explain.
6. What are Tacitus’ key points (information, assertions, judgments, conclusions) in the book? Does anything surprise you?
7. What assumptions does Tacitus make? Are they reasonable ones? Give some examples.
8. What values animate the book? With whom or what does his sympathies lie? How can you tell?
9. What do you think is the Agricola’s historical significance? What can it tell you about the early Roman Empire and the elites who governed it? What may be its limitations as an historical source?
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