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59 Eulogy and censure will be careful and considered, free from slander, supported by evidence, cursory, and not inopportune, for those involved are not in court, and you will receive the same censure as Theopompus, who impeached nearly everybody in a quarrelsome spirit and made a business of it, to the extent that he was a prosecutor rather than a recorder of events.

60 Again, if a myth comes along you must tell it but not believe it entirely; no, make it known for your audience to make of it what they will—you run no risk and lean to neither side.

61 In general please remember this—I shall repeat it time and again—: do not write with your eye just on the present, to win praise and honour from your contemporaries; aim at eternity and prefer to write for posterity: present your bill for your book to them, so that it may be said of you: “He was a free man, full of frankness, with no adulation or servility anywhere, but everywhere truthfulness.” That, if a man were sensible, he would value above all present hopes, ephemeral as they are.