_At nunc_, etc. _But now_ (in our age so different from those better days) _in undertaking to write_ (i.e. if I had undertaken to write) _the life of a man at the time of his death, I should have needed permission; which I would not have asked_, since in that case _I should have fallen on times so cruel and hostile to virtue_. The reference is particularly to the time of Domitian, whose jealousy perhaps occasioned the death of Agricola, and would have been offended by the very asking of permission to write his biography. Accordingly the historian proceeds in the next chapter to illustrate the treatment, which the biographers of eminent men met with from that cruel tyrant. _Opus fuit_ stands instead of _opus fuisset_. Cf. His. 1, 16: _dignus eram_; 3, 22: _ratio fuit_; and Z. 518, 519. The concise mode of using the future participles _narraturo_ and _incursaturus_ (in place of the verb in the proper mood and with the proper conjunctions, if, when, since) belongs to the silver age, and is foreign to the language of Cicero. Such is the interpretation, which after a thorough reinvestigation, I am now inclined to apply to this much disputed passage. It is that of Ritter. It will be seen that the text also differs slightly from that of the first edition (_in-cursaturus_ instead of _ni cursaturus_). Besides the authority of Rit., Död., Freund and others, I have been influenced by a regard to the usage of Tacitus, which lends no sanction to a transitive sense of _cursare_. Cf. Ann. 15, 50; His. 5, 20. In many editions, _mihi_ stands before _nunc narraturo_. But _nunc_ is the emphatic word, and should stand first, as it does in the best MSS. II. _Legimus_. Quis? Tacitus ejusdemque aetatis homines alii. Ubi? In actis diurnis. Wr. These _journals_ (Fiske's Man. p. 626., 4. ed.) published such events (cf. Dio. 67, 11), and were read through the empire (Ann. 16, 22). T. was absent from Rome when the events here referred to took place (cf. 45: longae absentiae). Hence the propriety of his saying _legimus_, rather than _vidimus_ or _meminimus_, which have been proposed as corrections. _Aruleno Rustico_. Put to death by Domitian for writing a memoir or penegyric on Paetus Thrasea, cf. Suet. Dom. 10. _Paetus Thrasea_. Cf. Ann. 16, 21: Trucidatis tot insignibus viris, ad postremum Nero _virtutem ipsam_ exscindere concupivit, interfecto Thrasea Paeto. _Herennio Senecioni_. Cf. Plin. (Epist. 7, 19), where Senecio is said to have written the life of Helvidius at the request of Fannia, wife of Helvidius, who was also banished, as accessory to the crime, but who bore into exile the very books which had been the cause of her exile. For the dat. cf. note, G. 3: _Ulixi_. _Priscus Helvidius_, son-in-law of Thrasea and friend of the younger Pliny, was put to death by Vespasian. Suet. Vesp. 15; His. 4, 5; Juv. Sat. 5, 36.