I.
Initium mihi operis Servius Galba iterum (iterum [consul]: ‘consul for the second time’, beginning Jan. 1, 69 A.D.) Titus Vinius consules erunt. (initium mihi operis …erunt: lit. ‘for me the beginning of the work will be …’; mihi is ethical dative (dativus ethicus), usually translated by a possessive adj. (‘my work’): it indicates a special interest on the part of the person in the dative; its use is confined to personal pronouns; cf. G. 351; erunt: the verb agrees in number with the nearest subject, consules, rather than with initium.) Nam (nam: here affirmative rather than causal,‘indeed’, ‘to be sure’, ‘no doubt’) post conditam urbem octingentos et viginti prioris aevi (prioris aevi: ‘of time past’; according to legend, Rome was founded in 753 B.C.) annos multi auctores rettulerunt, dum res populi Romani (res populi romani: ‘the republican government’) memorabantur (dum …memorabantur: dum with the sense of ‘as long as’ is followed by any tense of the indicative, like donec or quoad.) pari eloquentia ac libertate: postquam bellatum apud Actium (apud Actium: promontory in NW Greece, near today’s Prevesa, where Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, defeated Marc Antony in 31 B.C.) atque omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, (pacis interfuit: ‘it was in the interest of peace to …’) magna illa ingenia cessere; simul veritas pluribus modis infracta, primum inscitia rei publicae ut alienae, (ut alienae: ‘as belonging to others’, ‘as being no longer one’s affair’) mox libidine adsentandi (libidine adsentandi: example of use of gen. gerund after certain nouns and adjectives; lit. ‘through love of flattering’) aut rursus (mox …rursus: ‘now …then again’, ‘on one hand …on the other’) odio adversus dominantis: ita neutris cura posteritatis inter infensos vel obnoxios. (ita neutris cura posteritatis inter infensos vel obnoxios [erat]: neutris is dat. plur. of possessor with an implied form of esse; lit. ‘so among the hostile or the flattering [authors], to neither the ones nor the others was regard for posterity’, or, freely, ‘neither side had any regard for posterity’; vel is often found in place of aut in post-classical literature. Cf. G. 494.) sed ambitionem scriptoris facile averseris, (averseris: potential subjunctive, ‘you may find repulsive’; the second person sing. has indefinite sense, as it often does in English.) obtrectatio et livor pronis auribus accipiuntur; quippe (quippe: ‘the fact is’) adulationi foedum crimen servitutis, malignitati falsa species libertatis inest. (adulationi … malignitati: datives with inest) mihi Galba Otho Vitellius nec beneficio nec iniuria cogniti. dignitatem nostram a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domitiano longius provectam non abnuerim: (non abnuerim: potential subjunctive for modest, low-key assertions in the first person singular, ‘I would not hide the fact that …’; the perf. subjunctive is often used in place of the present; for an example of use of the latter cf. note for averseris above.) sed incorruptam fidem professis neque amore quisquam et sine odio dicendus est. (fidem professis neque amore quisquam et sine odio dicendus est: ‘anyone must be spoken of without love or hate by those professing truthfulness’; professis is dat. of agent with the periphrastic dicendus est; cf. A.G. 374; profiteor being deponent and transitive, its past participle is active in meaning and admits fidem as direct object.) quod si vita suppeditet, (quod si vita suppeditet : when followed by si or by its negative nisi or ni, quod is either ignored in translation or variously rendered as ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘and as for that’, ‘whereas’; cf. G. 610, R. 2. suppeditet is pres. subjunctive for potential or ideal condition; cf. G. 596.) principatum divi Nervae (divi Nervae: meritorious emperors were given the posthumous title of divus.) et imperium Traiani, uberiorem securioremque materiam, senectuti seposui, rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet. (quae velis …quae sentias: subjunctive in relative clauses containing a potential idea: cf. habeo quae velim, ‘I have what may please me’: G. 627.)