The Polyhistor

A

JULIUS SOLINUS TO HIS AUTIUS, SENDS GREETINGS.

A Since certain people, more impatiently than studiously, hurried to intercept the little work I was crafting, and brought it into public view even while it was still less polished, before the final hand could be put to the work I had begun, and now circulate corrupt copies, which have been condemned, as if they were approved; I have sent you this little work, digested according to my own judgment, so that you would know it, lest by chance raw and imperfect material, as if it were the book reviewed by me, might be brought into your hands. This I did: Firstly, because the tenor of the arrangement had to be referred to your industry. Secondly, so that the betrayal of the still rough information might be extinguished by a true edition.

B This work shall therefore have the title POLYHISTOR. For it has pleased me to blot out the title I had designated in the beginning, namely, Collectanea rerum memorabilium Collected Notes of Memorable Things, along with those things we have disapproved. Having therefore compared this letter with that which makes the beginning of the writing, you understand that you are held in the same place as he to whom we dedicated the sum of our labor.