PLINII NATURALIS HISTORIA

PREFATIO

Plinius Secundus Vespasiano Suo S

I have decided to address to you, most delightful Emperor—let this title be yours, a truly deserved one, while that of "Most Eminent" grows old alongside your father—this account of my volumes of Natural History, a work new to the Muses of your Roman citizens, born of my latest literary labors, in a letter of somewhat informal style.

For you were once accustomed

To think my trifles were worth something

To offer a passing nod to my "fellow countryman" Catullus—you will recognize this military slang—(for he, as you know, by interchanging the first syllables, made himself sound a bit harsher than he intended to be considered by his little Veraniuses and Fabulluses), and at the same time, that my present boldness might achieve what you complained in another impudent letter of mine was not achieved recently.

1. nuncupare (dedicate/assign to your name).
2. Haupt : esse aliquid meas putare nugas codd.
3. v.l. conterraneum (fellow countryman).
4. [se]? Rackham.