1Agricola did not see the senate-house besieged and the senate hemmed in by arms, and in the same massacre the slaughter of so many consulars, the exile and flight of so many most noble women. 1Carus Metius was still credited with only one victory, and the voice of Messalinus was heard only within the Alban citadel, and Massa Baebius was then on trial: soon our own hands led Helvidius to prison; 1we parted Mauricus and Rusticus; 1on us Senecio poured his innocent blood. 2Nero at least withdrew his eyes, and ordered crimes without watching them: under Domitian the chief part of our miseries was to see and be seen, when our sighs were recorded, when that savage face and its flush, with which he armed himself against shame, sufficed to mark the pallor of so many men.
3But you, Agricola, were fortunate not only in the brilliance of your life but also in the timeliness of your death. 3As those who were present at your last words report, you met your fate steadfastly and willingly, as if, for your own part, you were granting the emperor his innocence. 4But for me and for his daughter, besides the bitterness of losing a father, our sorrow is increased because it was not granted to us to sit by his sickbed, to comfort him as he failed, to have our fill of his face and his embrace. 5We would certainly have received instructions and words which we could have fixed deep in our hearts.
5This is our grief, our wound: by the circumstance of so long an absence he was lost to us four years before his death. 6No doubt, best of fathers, with your most loving wife at your side, everything was more than fully done to honour you: yet you were mourned with fewer tears, and in that last light your eyes longed for something.