C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Agricola
Alexander Thomson, Ed.

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He returned from Britain to enter on the gradations of the civil magistracy, and married Domitia Decidiana, a lady of high rank and splendid descent. By that alliance he gained an accession of strength and credit, that served to forward him in the road to public honours. The conjugal state proved a source of domestic happiness. They lived in perfect harmony, endeared by the tenderest affection, and each ascribing to the other the felicity which they enjoyed. Agricola obtained the office of quaestor, and the province of Asia, of which Salvius Titianus was proconsul, fell to his lot. Neither the place nor the governor could warp his integrity. The wealth of the inhabitants invited ihe hand of rapacity; and Titianus, by the bias of his nature prone to acts of avarice, was ready, on terms of mutual connivance, to cooperate in any scheme of guilt and plunder; but Agricola maintained his honour and his principles. During his stay in As a, his family was increased by the birth of a daughter, who proved soon after, when he lost his infant son, a source of consolation. The intermediate space between the expiration of his quaestorship and his advancement to the post of tribune of the people, he had the prudence to pass in calm tranquillity. Even during the year of his tribuneship he acted with the same reserve, aware of those disastrous times when, under the tyranny of Nero's reign, the want of exertion was the truest wisdom. He discharged the office of praetor with the same moderation and silent dignity, having no occasion, as his good fortune would have it, to sit in judicature. The pageantry of public spectacles, which belonged to his department, he conducted with economy and magnificence, short of profusion, yet with due regard to popularity.