Chapter 41

But in the distress of public affairs which soon after followed, the name of Agricola could not be suffered to remain in obscurity. By the rashness or inactivity of the commanders-in-chief, the armies of the empire were lost in Moesia, Dacia, Germany, and Pannonia. Every day brought an account of some new misfortune; forts besieged and taken; garrisons stormed, and whole cohorts with their commanding officers made prisoners of war. In times like those, when calamity followed calamity, and every successive year was marked by the defeat and slaughter of armies, the voice of the people called aloud for Agricola to be employed in the public service.