1Frequently in those days he was accused before Domitian in his absence, and in his absence acquitted. 1The cause of his danger was not any charge or the complaint of anyone he had wronged, but an emperor hostile to virtues, and the man's glory, and the worst kind of enemies, those who praise. 2And there followed such times for the state as would not allow Agricola to be passed over in silence: so many armies lost in Moesia and Dacia and Germany and Pannonia through the rashness or cowardice of their generals, so many military men stormed and captured together with so many cohorts; 2and now it was no longer the frontier of the empire and the river-bank that were in doubt, but the winter quarters of the legions and the possession of our territory.
3So when losses followed upon losses and every year was marked by deaths and disasters, Agricola was demanded as general by the voice of the people, as all compared his vigour, his steadfastness and his spirit proved in war with the inertia and timidity of the rest. 4It is well established that Domitian's ears too were lashed by such talk, while the best of his freedmen out of love and loyalty, and the worst out of malice and jealousy, goaded an emperor already inclined to the worse course. 4Thus Agricola, by his own virtues and by the vices of others alike, was being driven headlong towards glory itself.