44. Agricola was born in the ides of June, during the third consulate of Caius Caesar; [145] he died in his fifty-sixth year, on the tenth of the calends of September, when Collega and Priscus were consuls. [146] Posterity may wish to form an idea of his person. His figure was comely rather than majestic. In his countenance there was nothing to inspire awe; its character was gracious and engaging. You would readily have believed him a good man, and willingly a great one. And indeed, although he was snatched away in the midst of a vigorous age, yet if his life be measured by his glory, it was a period of the greatest extent. For after the full enjoyment of all that is truly good, which is found in virtuous pursuits alone, decorated with consular and triumphal ornaments, what more could fortune contribute to his elevation? Immoderate wealth did not fall to his share, yet he possessed a decent affluence. [147] His wife and daughter surviving, his dignity unimpaired, his reputation flourishing, and his kindred and friends yet in safety, it may even be thought an additional felicity that he was thus withdrawn from impending evils. For, as we have heard him express his wishes of continuing to the dawn of the present auspicious day, and beholding Trajan in the imperial seat,--wishes in which he formed a certain presage of the event; so it is a great consolation, that by his untimely end he escaped that latter period, in which Domitian, not by intervals and remissions, but by a continued, and, as it were, a single act, aimed at the destruction of the commonwealth. [148] 45. Agricola did not behold the senate-house besieged, and the senators enclosed by a circle of arms; [149] and in one havoc the massacre of so many consular men, the flight and banishment of so many honorable women. As yet Carus Metius [150] was distinguished only by a single victory; the counsels of Messalinus [151] resounded only through the Albanian citadel; [152] and Massa Baebius [153] was himself among the accused. Soon after, our own hands [154] dragged Helvidius [155] to prison; ourselves were tortured with the spectacle of Mauricus and Rusticus, [156] and sprinkled with the innocent blood of Senecio. [157]