Читать книгу Yale Classics - Roman Classical Literature - Луций Анней Сенека - Страница 429

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To act well for the state is glorious, and to write well for it is not without its merit. A man may become illustrious in peace or in war: many have been applauded for performing heroic actions, many for relating them. And though the character of the historian is not reckoned so glorious as that of the hero, yet to me it appears a very arduous task to write history well, since the style must be suited to the subject. Besides, many look on the censure of faults as the effect of malice and envy; and when the glorious achievements of brave and worthy men are related, every reader will be easily inclined to believe what he thinks he could have performed himself, but will treat what exceeds that measure as false and fabulous.

As for me, like most others, I had in my younger days a strong desire for a share in the administration; but found many obstructions in my way: for instead of modesty, justice, and virtue, licentiousness, corruption, and avarice flourished; which, though my soul, as yet untainted with evil habits, utterly abhorred, yet amid such general depravity my tender years were caught by ambition; and although I avoided, in the general tenor of my conduct, the corrupt practices of the age, yet being fired with the same ardour for preferment that others were, I was thence exposed to envy and reproach as well as they.