1My work will begin with the year when Servius Galba, for the second time, and Titus Vinius were consuls. 1For the eight hundred and twenty years of the earlier age since the founding of the city many writers have recorded, and while it was the history of the Roman people they related, they did so with equal eloquence and freedom: after the war was fought at Actium and it served the interests of peace that all power be conferred on one man, those great talents passed away; 1at the same time truth was impaired in several ways, first by ignorance of public affairs, as though they belonged to others, then by a passion for flattery or, on the other hand, by hatred towards those in power: so neither side cared for posterity, the one hostile, the other beholden.
1But while you may easily turn away from a writer's self-seeking, detraction and spite are received with ready ears; 1for flattery carries the foul charge of servility, malice the false appearance of independence. 1To me Galba, Otho and Vitellius were known neither by any favour nor by any injury. 1That my own standing was begun by Vespasian, increased by Titus and advanced still further by Domitian I would not deny: but those who profess unimpaired honesty must speak of no one with affection or with hatred. 1But if life suffices, I have set aside for my old age the principate of the deified Nerva and the rule of Trajan, a richer and safer subject, by the rare good fortune of times when one may think what one wishes and say what one thinks.