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30 her daughter fared not the worse for this parting compliment; and even Tacitus himself may have been indebted to it for protection from informers, and thus survived to paint the last Flavian Cæsar as a second—and even a worse—Nero. He winds up his account of Agricola's last moments with these words: "So blinded and perverted was Domitian's mind by incessant flattery, that he did not know it was only a bad emperor whom a good father would make his heir."

The concluding sections of the 'Life of Agricola' have in all times been regarded among the noblest samples of historical eloquence. After recounting Agricola's demeanour in his last hours, the tender care of his most loving and faithful Decidiana, and his own and his wife's grief at their absence from his dying bed, the biographer proceeds: "If there is any dwelling-place for the spirits of the just; if, as the wise believe, noble souls do not perish with the body, rest thou in peace; and call us, thy family, from weak regrets and womanish laments to the contemplation of thy virtues, for which we must not weep nor beat the breast. Let us honour thee not so much with transitory praises as with our reverence; and, if our powers permit us, with our emulation. That will be true respect, that the true affection of thy nearest kin. This, too, is what I would enjoin on the daughter and wife,—to honour the memory of such a father, such a husband, by pondering in their hearts all his words and acts, by cherishing the features and lineaments of his character rather than those of his person. It is not that I would forbid the likenesses which are wrought in marble or in bronze; but