I don't quite know why I have decided to set down the story of my life on tablets. It is very doubtful whether anyone will be interested in it but myself. But that is, perhaps, the reason; it has seemed interesting to me, as I have lived it, and, now that it is near its end, I have the wish to unroll it again and judge whether it really has been what it has seemed. It has been a hard climb over steep, rough rocks; my hands are sore, but not as dirty as they might have been. But the time is short now. Since my master Pallas died, I have lost my chief motive for living. Whether I hold my post here in Rome or fly, in quest of safety, to my native Antioch, there will not be much to add to the tale. I do not grumble. I have known the upward, as well as the downward turn of Fortune's wheel.