aking
himself known to the army, learning from the experienced, and
imitating the best; neither pressing to be employed through vainglory,
nor declining it through timidity; and performing his duty with equal
solicitude and spirit. At no other time in truth was Britain more
agitated or in a state of greater uncertainty. Our veterans
slaughtered, our colonies burned, our armies cut off--we were then
contending for safety, afterward for victory. During this period,
altho all things were transacted under the conduct and direction of
another, and the stress of the whole, as well as the glory of
recovering the province, fell to the general's share, yet they
imparted to the young Agricola skill, experience, and incentives; and
the passion for military glory entered his soul; a passion ungrateful
to the times, in which eminence was unfavorably construed, and a great
reputation was no less dangerous than a bad one.

Departing thence to undertake the offices of magistracy in Rome, he
married Domitia Decidiana, a lady of illustrious descent, from which
connection he derived credit and support in his pursuit of greater
things. They lived together in admirable harmony and mutual affection;
each giving the preference to the other; a conduct equally laudable in
both, except that a greater degree of praise is due to a good wife, in
proportion as a bad one deserves the greater censure. The lot of
questorship gave him Asia for his province, and the proconsul Salvius
Titianus[135] for his superior; by neither of which circumstances was
he corrupted, altho the province was wealthy and open to plunder, and
the proconsul, from his rapacious disposition, would readily have
agreed to a mutual concealment of guilt. His family was there
increased by the birth of a daughter, who was both the support of his
house, and his consolation; for he lost an elder-born son in
infancy....

On his return from commanding the legion he was raised by Vespasian to
the patrician order, and then invested with the government of
Aquitania, a distinguished promotion, both in respect to the office
itself, and the hopes of the consulate to which it destined him. It is
a common supposition that military men, habituated to the unscrupulous
and summary processes of camps, where things are carried with a strong
hand, are deficient in the address and subtlety of genius requisite in
civil jurisdiction. Agricola, however, by his natural prudence, was
enabled to act with f