Valerius Maximus: Memorable Deeds and Sayings

Several reasons moved me to publish again, after thirty-four years, the books of Valerius Maximus on memorable deeds and sayings. And first, I observed that not even the care of Karl Halm—although that most learned man, who deserved very well of literature, corrected many things whose restoration I myself had despaired of with more fortunate conjecture, or amended with more subtle judgment things that I had constituted less correctly—had rendered to this work the form that it should have had, and could have had, if the witnesses of the ancient script had been examined more accurately and diligently.

I confess that I myself, when as a young man I compared the excellent Bern manuscript Codex Bernensis—not yet experienced in reading the manuscripts of ancient writers, and furthermore pressed by the limits of time—omitted some things worthy of note, and others, either deceived by my eyes or because the hand of the older scribe had not been distinguished, I noted down somewhat incorrectly from a slightly more recent corrector. When he had chided and sharply castigated this negligence of mine in the preface of his edition, and I was warned by friends in Bern that not everything he had objected to me was rightly objected to, and that indeed Halm himself had not correctly reported everything concerning the Bern manuscript, I was seized by the greatest desire to compare and examine that whole book again with the greatest accuracy. That this might fall to my lot was brought about by the will and compliance of most kind men who then presided over the Bern library: for they, at my request, sent the manuscript to Berlin with the most prompt spirit, so that I might use it as long as I wished. Nor did I unwillingly perform this task, so that for each individual, then-