Surviving Works, Vol. II

[198]

wait so that you may advance only through those things you yourself diligently study. Rather, I act so that I may also read for you, and whatever has been elaborated in the diverse volumes of both the Greek and Roman languages, whether produced while you were already brought into the light or before you were born, that all of it may be a storehouse of knowledge for you. It is as if from a certain penus store/pantry of literature, if ever the need arises to recall history that lies hidden from the common crowd in the pile of books, or a memorable saying or deed, 3 it may be easy for you to find and produce. I have not gathered things worthy of memory in an indigestible heap. Instead, the disparity of various matters, coming from different authors and times, has been digested into a certain body in such a way that the things I had noted down indiscriminately and promiscuously for the aid of memory might come together into a logical order, like connected limbs. 4 Do not blame me if I explain things I borrow from various readings often in the very words in which they were recounted by the authors themselves, because the present work promises not an ostentation of eloquence but a collection of things to be known. You ought to take it in good part if you recognize the knowledge of antiquity sometimes not obscurely, and sometimes faithfully in the very words of the ancients, just as 5 each thing suggests itself to be either narrated or translated. We ought, in a way, to imitate bees, which wander and pluck flowers, then arrange whatever they have brought and divide it through the honeycombs, and...