Natural History

to give novelty to things, authority to new things, brightness to obsolete things, light to obscure things, grace to things regarded with disgust, faith to doubtful things, but to all things nature, and all things to their own nature. Therefore, even to have wished for those who have not attained it is abundantly beautiful and magnificent. I indeed feel this way, especially in the studies of those who, overcome by difficulties, preferred the utility of helping to the grace of pleasing. And I have done this myself in other works, and I confess that I admire Livy, a most celebrated author of his histories, which he repeats from the origin of the city, in a certain volume that began this way. Now, enough glory had been sought for him, and he could have ceased, had not his spirit nourished kings with work. For surely he taught that he did not compose those things for the glory of the conquering peoples and the Roman name for himself. It would have been more deserving to have persevered out of love for the work, and to have performed this for the Roman people, not for himself. Twenty thousand matters worthy of care. Since, as Domitius Piso says: "Treasures should be books." Through the reading of about two thousand volumes, of which very few scholars have touched upon due to the secrecy of the material, we have included in thirty-six volumes, adding very many things which either the learned had ignored or time had discovered afterwards. Nor do we doubt that there are many things which have also escaped us. For we are human and occupied with duties, we care for these things in our spare time, that is, at night. So that you may not think that any of our hours were idle. We spend the days for you. We count health by sleep, content with this reward alone: that while we mutter these things (as M. Varro says), we live for more hours. For surely, life is a vigil. For which reasons and difficulties I dared not promise anything. You yourself perform this, because we write to you. Nor is this based on the trust of the work, but on the dedication. Many very precious things are seen to be dedicated to temples for that reason. We indeed have called you father and brother, having begun the history of our times from the end of Affidius Bassus. Where there is that which you seek, already done through deeds. And otherwise it will be decided to entrust them to the heir, lest I be judged to have given anything to ambition during my life. But I concede the place to those who are busy, and to posterity, whom I know will contend with us just as we ourselves have done with our predecessors. You will have a proof of this spirit of mine: that I have prefixed the names of the authors in these volumes. It is indeed kind (as I think) and full of intellectual modesty to confess through whom you have progressed: not as most of those I have touched upon have done. For I know that when I was comparing authors, I discovered that the oldest ones were transcribed word for word by the most renowned and recent ones, and not even named. Not with that Virgilian virtue, that they might contend. Not with Ciceronian simplicity, which in the books about the Republic confesses that it is a companion of Plato. In the consolation of his daughter, he says "I follow Crantor." Likewise, Panaetius on duties. You know that these volumes of his must not only be learned but held in the hands daily. It is surely the mark of a debased mind and unhappy genius to be caught in theft rather than to return what was borrowed. Especially since interest is made from the usury. The felicity of titles among the Greeks is wonderful. They inscribed them Cerion honeycomb, which they wanted to be understood as a honeycomb. Others Amaltheas cornucopias: that is, a horn of plenty: you could hope for anything, like hen's milk, drawn from the volume. Now, now, they scatter Pandect all-receiving, Enchiridion handbook, Pinachidon tablets/lists inscriptions, because of which one could be taken to court. But when you have entered, you will find nothing of gods and goddesses in the middle. Ours are coarser. Antiquated examples and arts, which they most wittily call a night-watch. As he who says, "I was Bibaculus, and he called me Pantomime," he asserts. Varro in his satires lifted and flexible. Let Diodorus cease to trifle among the Greeks: and he inscribed his history in libraries. A certain grammarian, Appion, this man whom Tiberius Caesar called the cymbal of the world, because he could seem more like a drum of public fame: wrote that he was granted immortality by himself, to whom he was composing some things. But it does not repent me to have devised no more festive title. And lest I seem to attack the Greeks entirely, I would have us understood as being like the founders of painting, whom you will find in these little books, that they inscribed their completed works, and those also which we do not tire of admiring, with a suspended title. As Apelles was doing, or Polycletus, as if art were always ongoing and imperfect, so that against the variety of judgments there would remain a path for the artist to return, as if about to correct whatever might be desired if he had not been intercepted. Therefore, it is full of modesty that they inscribed all works as if they were the newest, and as if something were taken away from each one by fate. He made no more than three (as I think) works absolutely inscribed, which I will return to their own places, where it appeared that the highest security of art pleased the author. And because of that, all those things were a cause of great envy. Therefore, I clearly confess that many things can be added to mine. Nor to these alone: but to all things that I have published. So that I may avoid these "Homer-bashers" in passing. For I would say that more truly than that I hear "Stoics" and "dialecticians" and "Epicureans" also. For I have always expected that books would be born against the grammarians, which I published about grammar. And they have made abortions repeatedly for ten years now, when elephants give birth faster. We see that even against Theophrastus, a man so great in eloquence that he found a divine name from it, a woman wrote, and a proverb was born from it, that the tree must be chosen for hanging. I cannot restrain myself from putting the words of Cato himself, persistent in his censorship. So that it may appear from that, even to Cato, who was commenting on military discipline, he who had learned to wage war in Africa, or rather, under Hannibal. And he could not even bear Africanus, who