The Polyhistor of Gaius Julius Solinus

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Since certain individuals, driven by impatience rather than by a scholarly desire, hastened to intercept the little work that I was laboring upon, and even published it in an unpolished state before the final hand could be applied to the work I had begun—and they now circulate those corrupted copies, which have been condemned, as if they were approved, omitting what has been added through longer care for the increase of knowledge—I have sent you this little work, arranged according to my own judgment, so that you might know it. First, because the tenor of the arrangement needed to be referred to your diligence; and second, so that the betrayal of an as-yet-rough deformity might be extinguished by a true edition. The title of this work, therefore, shall be POLYHISTOR. For the title I had designated in the beginning, namely, Collectanea rerum memorabilium (Collectanea of Memorable Things), I have decided to strike out, along with those things which I have disapproved. Having compared this letter, therefore, with the one that serves as the preface to the writing, you understand that you are held in the same position as the one to whom we dedicated the sum of our labor.

So that we might bring something to light concerning the author himself, the place clearly seems to demand it, at the very threshold of the work itself. Thus, it is uncertain at what time Solinus lived. Some assume he lived before Pliny, and that Pliny took his own material, especially concerning animals, from Solinus; which, however, Hermolaus Barbarus denies, accusing him, along with Martianus Capella, of ingratitude toward Pliny, because they do not acknowledge the things they learned from him. But it is certain that Pliny lived during the times of Vespasian, to whom he dedicated his work, the Natural History. Therefore, according to the opinion of Hermolaus, it follows that Solinus lived after Vespasian and Pliny. Seek the words of Hermolaus Barbarus in book 5, chapter 7, of Pliny. But it would not be out of place also to append here the opinion of Joachim Vadianus, a most learned man, concerning Solinus. Therefore, in his commentaries on Pomponius Mela, under the entry Taurus, he says: "No one is more copious or more elegant regarding Taurus than Pliny: read him, and his ape Solinus, in the description of Cilicia: for he too is an author most worthy of being read, not so much because he drew a brief compendium of illustrious things from Pliny, as because he is an author of refined phrasing and diction appropriate to this kind of writing. For almost all the things he treats are owed to the labors of Pliny." This is what he says. a ¶ Quoniam (Since). He excuses the premature edition of the booklet, by which he was intercepted and brought into the public sphere by certain people who are wrongly studious of him, without his knowledge and while he was not yet considering an edition (for the final hand had not yet been added to it): whence he says that he had to rewrite it and that it had to be published in a more corrected state, lest the work, still rough and undigested, be sold everywhere as if it were viewed as perfect and absolute. b ¶ Impatientius quàm studiofius (By impatience rather than by a scholarly desire). A formula of speech familiar to Curtius. c ¶ Informitatis (Deformity/Informality). Some ancient copies have Informationis (Information): but this reading seems better. d ¶ Polyhistor. As if you would say, a commentary of many memorable things. e ¶ Quae improbauimus (Which we have disapproved). Elsewhere it is read: "Which we have approved": which pleases more. f ¶ Eodem te loco habitum (That you are held in the same position). That the person to whom Solinus inscribed the book is different from the one to whom he addressed this letter along with the corrected work is clearly gathered from this; which those who think that both letters were written to Autius do not perceive.