On the Magistrates of the Roman Republic

...being more than sixty years old, with a memory already weakened and wavering. Such a decline is inconvenient in any writer, but especially so in one who, alone, treats of recondite matters unknown to the common people. Add to this the fact that the ancients, whenever they cited the words of others in their writing, were accustomed to transfer those passages into their own works mostly from memory, without unrolling any volume, having much more regard for the sense than for the specific words. Although this custom has often brought anxiety and confusion to learned men, it can be excused generally by the total scarcity and high cost of codices Hand-written manuscript books, which were rare and expensive before the invention of the printing press., and by the entire system of study and life in that age; thus, it can be endured without great fear, especially in those authors who published their books with a sharp and vigorous mind. But as for Lydus—a forgetful and hopeless old man—I confess that he admitted things throughout his work which, had he re-read Virgil, Lucan, or Persius These were major Roman poets whom Lydus cited as historical and linguistic sources, though sometimes inaccurately., could have been set down more accurately and appropriately.

VI. Yet even his own century recognized his better qualities: a great zeal for ancient things, much industry, and a style full of scholarly old age. Furthermore, Theophylactus Simocatta, who wrote about the affairs of the Emperor Maurice after the year 628 AD, seems already to attach a certain authority to the book On Portents. His words are as follows, in the edition of the History: