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. 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 immensely 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 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 on contemporary life, even if it does not lead him to conceal the truth.
参考答案：我承认，撰写我们民族自罗马初期以来的历史，使我略怀惴惴之感，即使我对自己著作的价值颇有信心，我也不敢贸然以此自诩。我知道，历史学家夸大其词乃是常事，而且历来是屡见不鲜。每一位撰写历史的史学家都会鄙薄以往学养不如自己的同行，沾沾自喜地认为自己会在史书风格上超过他们，或者会揭示新的史实。有关这个民族的历史著作汗牛充栋，我的著作很可能淹没其中，无人在意，倘若如此，那只能是因为我的对手实在是卓而超群、才华横溢，所以他们的大作才会使得拙著变得默默无闻，我必须借此聊以自慰。
而且，我的写作是极其艰辛的，必须上溯700余年，从最细的源头一直探求到支脉纵横交叉、几乎难以详述的近代。我发现研究古代历史很有裨益，至少沉浸于远古往事，我就能避而不见长期折磨着现代世界的诸多烦恼，并且能够放手写作，而不会像写当代生活的作者那样免不了会顾虑重重——即使此种顾虑尚不至于导致他们去掩盖事实。