The Roman History (Res Gestae)

...and when all these things were immense, exceeding both my number and my speech, I would play with them now by indulging in words, just as I always exult in the memory of them; if it were not that, while I prepare for this, I feel myself pricked by a certain sad sting, remembering and considering not only how much Your Most Serene Highness has enriched me, but also that I have been torn away from them. And yet, with a mind strengthened against confusion, I speak and remember daily, and I refer with such readiness and inclination to what has come to me for use and for ornament from Your Etruria, because even the writings of others repeatedly inculcate this memory, professing this same joy of theirs from Etruria. Among these, this Ammianus Marcellinus will always stand out as the chief; he who, thinking that he too pertained to my understanding after so many others, has lasted for eighty years speaking of helpful Florence on every page and boasting of it with much sense of pleasure, never to cease, not even hereafter. Therefore, while each of us, thus obligated, seeks to do his duty at the altar of Your Clemency and Kindness and of Your Most Serene Ancestors, erected by so many intellects preserved there and so well and usefully known to him, this very Ammianus, poured out in prayers for Cyrus, asks that you receive ΤΑΔΕ ΚΑΙ ΤΕΛΕΣΤΗΡΙΑ ΠΟΛΛΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΚΑΛΩΝ ΠΡΑΞΕΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΧΑΡΙΣΤΗΡΙΑ these things, both as final offerings for many good deeds and as thanksgivings: and I consecrate to Your Highness this image of the life, character, and events performed by him in Asia and Europe, which he left for us, polished now by my own hand as far as was permitted, out of a just, pious, and due duty, from a mind which, by the largesse of your liberality...