Agricola
Agricola names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Agricola a-grik'o-la (37-93 A
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a-grik'o-la (37-93 A. D.), a famous Roman soldier and statesman. He was for many years the commander of the Roman forces in Britain. He pursued an intelligent policy in the management of British affairs. He established the power of Rome as far northward as the Scottish Highlands. His fleet sailed around Great Britain and proved that it was an island. Military roads, temples, baths, and other public improvements were made on a scale of magnificence calculated to impress the Britons with an idea of the greatness of Rome. Few who have not investigated the subject are aware of the magnitude of Roman works in the island, many remnants of which may still be seen. Among other enterprises under taken by Agricola was the construction of a row of fortresses entirely across the northern end of the island from the Firth of Forth to that of the Clyde. This was intended to exclude the barbarians then inhabiting the north of Scotland. The British chieftains were encouraged to send their sons to Rome for an education, and many did so. The life of this general has been well described in Latin by his son-in-law, Tacitus, in a small volume called Agricola, still much read in college classes. See Tacitus ; Scotland ; York ; Chester
Agricola RUDOLPHUS, an eminent Dutch scholar was born near Groningen
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
RUDOLPHUS, an eminent Dutch scholar was born near Groningen, in Friesland, Aug. 23, 1443. His real name, ROELOF HUYSMANN (husbandman), he Latinized into Agricola; and from his native place he was also called Frisius, or Rudolf of Groningen. From Groningen he passed to Louvain, then to Paris, and then to Italy, where, during the years 1473-1480, he attended the lectures of the most celebrated men of his age, and where he entered into a close friendship with Dalberg, afterward Bishop of Worms. Several cities of Holland vainly strove with each other to obtain his presence, but not even the brilliant overtures made to him by the Emperor M Maximilian, to whose court he had repaired in connection with affairs of the town of Groningen, could induce him to renounce his independence. At length yielding (1483) to the solicitations of Dalberg, he established himself in the Palatinate. He died at Heidelberg, Oct. 28, 1485.
Agricola CNÆUS JULIUS (agrik'ō-la)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
CNÆUS JULIUS (agrik'ō-la), Roman statesman and general, born in 37 A. D. He went to Britain in 77 A. D., strengthened the Roman power, and extended it to the Scotch Highlands. His success made Domitian jealous of him, and he retired from public life in 84. He died in 92.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 claim that Agricola built "a row of fortresses entirely across the northern end of the island from the Firth of Forth to that of the Clyde" has been substantially revised: the stone-and-turf barrier on that isthmus is the Antonine Wall, begun about AD 142, some fifty years after Agricola, though he did garrison a line of forts further north along the Gask Ridge. What has really changed is evidence rather than narrative — aerial photography and excavation since the 1940s have mapped dozens of Roman marching camps in Scotland, and the unfinished legionary fortress at Inchtuthil in Perthshire, dug in the 1950s and 60s, yielded a buried hoard of several hundred thousand unused iron nails, apparently hidden when the army pulled back. Tacitus remains almost the only literary source, as Aiton's noted, and his Agricola is still read, if now more often as artful political writing than as plain biography. Rudolph Agricola of Groningen, Collier's "eminent Dutch scholar," is likewise still where 1921 left him: honoured as a founder of humanism north of the Alps, chiefly for his logic textbook De inventione dialectica.
Written for this edition, 2026.