3 Now at last our spirit is
returning. And yet, though at the dawn of a most happy age Nerva Caesar blended
things once irreconcilable, sovereignty and freedom; though Nerva Trajan is now
daily augmenting the prosperity of the time, and though the public safety has
not only our hopes and good wishes, but has also the certain pledge of their
fulfillment: still, from the necessary condition of human frailty, the remedy
works less quickly than the disease. As our bodies grow but slowly, perish in a
moment, so it is easier to crush than to revive genius and its pursuits.
Besides, the charm of indolence steals over us, and the idleness which at first
we loathed we afterwards love. What if during those fifteen years, a large
portion of human life, many were cut off by ordinary casualties, and the ablest
fell victim to the Emperor’s rage, if a few of us survive, though there have
been taken from the midst of life those many years which brought the young in
dumb silence to old age, and the old almost to the very verge and end of
existence! Yet we shall not regret that we have told, though in language
unskilful and unadorned, the story of past servitude, and borne our testimony
to present happiness. Meanwhile this book, intended to do honour to Agricola,
my father-in-law, will, as an expression of filial regard, be commended, or at
least excused.
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