Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings

It has been four years since I handed over to the printer the materials which I believed I could contribute toward the emendation of the books of Valerius Maximus. I had hoped at that time that this work would be completed within the span of a year, such that it could be published and brought into the public domain. That hope deceived me greatly. For barely had three sheets been transcribed by him when I myself was called to arms, and for several months I was so distracted from the duty I had taken upon myself—that of reviewing and correcting the printers' proofs—that soon the entire business of printing, having only just begun, was necessarily interrupted. And not even then, when the state of the republic had become peaceful and I had been returned to myself and my studies, did the fates allow our work to be continued without intermission. For the printer, having been deserted by me, had in the meantime undertaken the duties of printing the works of other men; because of the necessity of completing these quickly, he could not help but pursue our business more slowly. I, meanwhile, being endowed with the public office of teacher in the gymnasium secondary school of this city, soon saw myself surrounded by so many and such great tasks that I could only devote to this book those spare hours that I often had to steal from the night. I felt this occupation—otherwise most pleasant to me—all the more burdensome whenever I returned to my Valerius as if to a place of refuge, the more numerous the things that offered themselves which I believed needed to be changed and more correctly established, either because I had learned them from the books of other grammarians published in the meantime, or because my own opinion had changed of its own accord. When, to these cares, there was added the thankless labor of correcting those things which had already been printed, so that I had to labor now in this part of the duty and now in that more quickly than was pleasing to me, not a few