The task of writing a history of our nation from Rome’s earliest days fills me, I confess, with some misgivings and even were I confident in the value of my work, I should hesitate to say so. I am aware that for historians to make extravagant claims is, and always has been, all too common: Every writer on history tends to look down his nose at his less cultivated predecessors, happily persuaded that he will better them in point of style, or bring new facts to light. But however that may be, I shall find satisfaction in contributing, not, I hope, ignobly, to the labor of putting on record the story of the greatest nation in the world. Countless others have written on this theme and it may be that I shall pass unnoticed amongst them. If so, I must comfort myself with the greatness and splendor of my rivals, whose work will rob my own of recognition.
My task, moreover, is an immensly laborious one. I shall have to go back more than 700 years, and trace my story from its small beginnings up to these recent times when its ramifications are so vast that any adequate treatment is hardly possible. I am aware too that most readers will take less pleasure in my account of how Rome began and in her early history; they will wish to hurry on to more modern times and read of the period, already a long one, in which the might of an imperial people is beginning to work its own ruin. My own feeling is different; I shall find antiquity a rewarding study. If only, because, while I am absorbed in it, I shall be able to turn my eyes from the troubles, which for so long have tormented the modern world, and to write without any of that over anxious consideration, which may well plague a writer in contemporary life, even if it does not lead him to conceal the truth.
参考译文：
我忙着写一段从罗马建立伊始我们国家的历史，我承认，而且还有点担忧，即使我对我工作的价值充满信心，我仍然不敢这么说。我觉得，历史学家言过其实，是司空见惯的现象，而且一直如此：每一个写历史的人往往对他素养稍低的前辈们嗤之以鼻，还喜滋滋地声称要在风格上超越他们，或者要挖掘更多的事实。但是无论如何，只要能有所贡献，把世界上最伟大的国家的故事记入史册，即使默默无闻，我都会感到满足。关于这一主题的作品汗牛充栋 / 数不胜数，我自己的可能会湮没其间。如果是这样，我只能想想对手的伟大和才华，以求自慰，因为他们让我的作品相形失色。
而且，我的任务相当艰辛。我得回顾 700 多年的历史来写我的故事，一直追溯到纷繁芜杂的近代，几乎再难有所作为。我知道，大多数读者对于我关于罗马的建立及其早期历史讲述兴致不高；他们想尽快品读足够漫长的近代，因为那时一个强大的王朝开始了自我覆灭。我个人的感觉恰恰相反：我会发现研究古代是颇有收获的。因为，当我沉浸其中的时候，我就能把目光从折磨了现代社会太长的时间的困扰中移开，就敢于放开手脚，信笔由缰，不再使一个现代社会的作者备受煎熬，即使不能引领他发现真相。
