interest, to record examples of virtue. And many considered it rather as
the honest confidence of integrity, than a culpable arrogance, to become
their own biographers. Of this, Rutilius and Scaurus [1] were instances;
who were never yet censured on this account, nor was the fidelity of their
narrative called in question; so much more candidly are virtues always
estimated; in those periods which are the most favorable to their
production. For myself, however, who have undertaken to be the historian
of a person deceased, an apology seemed necessary; which I should not have
made, had my course lain through times less cruel and hostile to virtue.
[2]

2. We read that when Arulenus Rusticus published the praises of Paetus
Thrasea, and Herennius Senecio those of Priscus Helvidius, it was
construed into a capital crime; [3] and the rage of tyranny was let loose
not only against the authors, but against their writings; so that those
monuments of exalted genius were burnt at the place of election in the
forum by triumvirs appointed for the purpose. In that fire they thought to
consume the voice of the Roman people, the freedom of the senate, and the
conscious emotions of all mankind; crowning the deed by the expulsion of
the professors of wisdom, [4] and the banishment of every liberal art,
that nothing generous or honorable might remain. We gave, indeed, a
consummate proof of our patience; and as remote ages saw the very utmost
degree of liberty, so we, deprived by inquisitions of all the intercourse
of conversation, experienced the utmost of slavery. With language we
should have lost memory itself, had it been as much in our power to
forget, as to be silent.

3. Now our spirits begin to revive. But although at the first dawning of
this happy period, [5] the emperor Nerva united two things before
incompatible, monarchy and liberty; and Trajan is now daily augmenting the