Tacitus,
Agricola 2.3 (tr. Maurice Hutton, with his note):
Assuredly we have furnished a signal proof of our
submissiveness; and even as former generations witnessed the utmost excesses of liberty, so have we the
extremes of slavery; wherein our "Inquisitors"2
have deprived us even of the give and take of conversation. We should have lost memory itself as well
as voice, had forgetfulness been as easy as silence.
2 The delatores, informers, who reported to Domitian all
slighting references real or imagined.
dedimus profecto grande patientiae documentum; et
sicut vetus aetas vidit quid ultimum in libertate esset,
ita nos quid in servitute, adempto per inquisitiones
etiam loquendi audiendique commercio,
memoriam
quoque ipsam cum voce perdidissemus, si tam in
nostra potestate esset oblivisci quam tacere.
The same, tr. Harold Mattingly (rev. J.B. Rives):
We have indeed left an
impressive example of subservience. Just as Rome of old explored the
limits of freedom, so have we plumbed the depths of slavery, robbed by
informers even of the interchange of speech. We would have lost our
memories as well as our tongues had it been as easy to forget as to be
silent.
A.D. Leeman, "Structure and meaning in the
prologues of Tacitus," in Thomas Cole and David Ross, edd.,
Studies in Latin Language and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973 =
Yale Classical Studies, 23), pp. 169-208 (at 202-203):
Dedimus profecto grande patientiae documentum has a very effective
double meaning, patientia having a negative sense of slavish
meekness, but also, especially in a Stoic philosophical context as
here, the more heroic sense of endurance, καρτερία. The latter
would be more in the spirit of the forty-second chapter (obsequium
ac modestiam, but with industria ac vigor). Ultimum in libertate during
the Republic (licentia quam stulti libertatem vocant says Maternus
in a boutade, Dial. XL.2) and ultimum in servitute, extreme dominatio
under the Empire, are again contrasted; and in the attached
ablative absolute, loquendi audiendique take up the vox theme
again, continued in the paroxysm of the last sententia. Under
Domitian, people were stunned into lethargy; not only was their
vox silenced, but they even wished to lose the faculty of memory.