PREFACE

For we possess thirteen books of Palladius written in prose, along with a poem on grafting. Yet one may argue that there were once fourteen, based on the beginning of the poem on grafting, where it says:

I wrote fourteen little books, a work of agriculture, which this hand wrote, with the meter silenced in part. original: "Bis septem parvos, opus agricolare, libellos, quos manus haec scripsit, parte silente pedum."

He seems to have written the fourteenth book on grafting in prose and at greater length than was permitted for a poet in this subtlety of art, imitating primarily Columella, whose poem on gardening is much drier than his own eleventh book written on the same subject in prose.

To Gesner, as previously to P. Burmann, the opinion of Barthius seemed probable—who suspected that the Palladius mentioned in Rutilius's Itinerary original: "Rutilii Itiner. I. 208" was our own—as they considered his diction, the almost lost Roman spirit, the division of the titles, and the very naming of the books. The words of Rutilius are as follows:

Then, about to depart, I entrust Palladius to my studies and to the city (Rome), the hope and glory of my kin. A fluent youth lately sent from the fields of the Gauls to learn the laws of the Roman forum. He holds the sweetest bonds of my care with him, a son in affection, a kinsman by blood: whose father Exsuperantius teaches the Armorican shores now to love the return of peace. original: "Tum discessurus, studiis urbique (Romae) remitto Palladium, generis spemque decusque mei. Facundus iuvenis Gallorum nuper ab arvis missus, Romani discere iura fori. Ille meae secum dulcissima vincula curae, filius adfectu, stirpe propinquus habet: Cuius Armoricas pater Exsuperantius oras nunc postliminium pacis amare docet."

A law given to this Julius Exsuperantius by Arcadius, Honorius, and Theodosius in the year of Christ 404 exists in the Theodosian Code.