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18 his infancy, and a daughter, who was married to Tacitus.

His prætorship, also, was nearly a sinecure. He exhibited, as his office bound him to do, some Games; and in all matters of ceremony he kept up the dignity of a first-class public magistrate, erring neither on the side of profusion nor on that of parsimony. By such comparative insignificance he may have escaped unpleasant collision with the Cæsar or his favourites. For in Nero's reign, more especially in the later years of it, to keep out of that tyrant's sight as much as possible was the wisest course that high officials, civil or military, could follow. Nero's immediate successor, Servius Galba, must have had a good opinion of Agricola's probity, since he appointed him one of the commissioners for inspecting the accounts of the offerings and deposits at various temples in Rome or the provinces. All that Nero had appropriated had been dissipated beyond recovery; and it was one of the deepest offences given by the unfortunate Galba that he tried to compel the ministers and freedmen of Nero to refund his bounties. In other respects the commissioners reported favourably on the condition of ecclesiastical property, and so were able to exonerate the conscience of the State from the burden of sacrilege. Tacitus commends the "searching scrutiny" of Agricola; yet since, in so delicate an investigation, it might not have been difficult to "cook the accounts," his colleagues must surely have been as honest as himself.

He was hurrying from Rome to pay the last honours to his mother, when a messenger overtook him with the tidings that Vespasian was a candidate for the throne.