Cui percontationi tuae respondere et tam magnae quaestionis pondus excipere ut aut de ingeniis nostris male existimandum <sit>, si idem adsequi non possumus, aut de iudiciis, si nolumus, vix hercule auderem, si mihi mea sententia proferenda ac non disertissimorum, ut nostris temporibus, hominum sermo repetendus esset, quos eandem hanc quaestionem  pertractantes iuvenis admodum audivi.
To attempt an answer to your conundrum is to take up a difficult investigation, involving this grave dilemma: either it is want of ability that keeps us from rising to the same high standard, in which case we must think meanly of our powers, or it is want of will, and in that event we shall have to condemn our taste. Such an attempt I should really scarce presume to make, if it were my own views that I had to put forward, instead of reproducing a conversation between certain persons'very good speakers, according to our present-day standards'whom I listened to when quite a youth as they held high debate over this very issue.
final_alignments\Tacitus_Dialogus.json