caius plinius secundus to his friend titus vespasian.
this treatise on natural history, a novel work in roman literature, which i have just completed, i have taken the liberty to dedicate to you, most gracious emperor, an appellation peculiarly suitable to you, while, on account of his age, that of great is more appropriate to your father;—
“for still thou ne’er wouldst quite despise
the trifles that i write;”
if i may be allowed to shelter myself under the example of catullus, my fellow-countryman. for he, as you know, when his napkins[4] had been changed, expressed himself a little harshly, from his anxiety to show his friendship for his dear little veranius and fabius. at the same time this importunity of mine may effect, what you complained of my not having done in another too forward epistle of mine; it will put upon record, and let all the world know, with what kindness you exercise the imperial dignity. you have had the honor of a triumph, and of the censorship, have been six times consul, and have shared in the tribunate; and, what is still more 2 honorable, whilst you have held them in conjunction with your father, you have presided over the equestrian order, and been the prefect of the pr?torians: all this you have done for the service of the republic, and, at the same time, have regarded me as a fellow-soldier and a messmate. nor has the extent of your prosperity produced any change in you, except that it has given you the power of doing good to the utmost of your wishes. and whilst all these circumstances increase the veneration which other persons feel for you, with respect to myself, they have made me so bold, as to wish to become more familiar. you must, therefore, blame yourself for any fault of this kind that i may commit.
but, although i have laid aside my blushes, i have not gained my object; for you still awe me, and keep me at a distance, by the majesty of your understanding. in no one does the force of eloquence and of tribunitian oratory blaze out more powerfully! with what glowing language you thunder forth the praises of your father! how dearly you love your brother! how admirable is your talent for poetry! what a fertility of genius you possess, so as to enable you to imitate your brother! but who is there that is bold enough to form an estimate on these points, if he is to be judged by you, and, more especially, if you are challenged to do so? for the case of those who merely publish their works is very different from that of those who expressly dedicate them to you. in the former case i might say, emperor! why do you read these things? they are written only for the common people, for farmers or mechanics, or for those who have nothing else to do; why do you trouble yourself with them? indeed, when i undertook this work, i did not expect that you would sit in judgment upon me; i considered your situation much too elevated for you to descend to such an office. besides, we possess the right of openly rejecting the opinion of men of learning. marcus tullius cicero himself, whose genius is beyond all competition, uses this privilege; and, 3 remarkable as it may appear, employs an advocate in his own defence:—“i do not write for very learned people; i do not wish my works to be read by manius persius, but by junius congus.” and if lucilius, who first introduced the satirical style, applied such a remark to himself, and if cicero thought proper to borrow it, and that more especially in his treatise “de republica,” how much reason have i to do so, who have such a judge to defend myself against! and by this dedication i have deprived myself of the benefit of challenge; for it is a very different thing whether a person has a judge given him by lot, or whether he voluntarily selects one; and we always make more preparation for an invited guest, than for one that comes in unexpectedly.
i am well aware, that, placed as you are in the highest station, and gifted with the most splendid eloquence and the most accomplished mind, even those who come to pay their respects to you, do it with a kind of veneration: on this account i ought to be careful that what is dedicated to you should be worthy of you. but the country people, and, indeed, some whole nations offer milk to the gods, and those who cannot procure frankincense substitute in its place salted cakes; for the gods are not dissatisfied when they are worshipped by every one to the best of his ability. but my temerity will appear the greater by the consideration, that these volumes, which i dedicate to you, are of such inferior importance. for they do not admit of the display of genius, nor, indeed, is mine one of the highest order; they admit of no excursions, nor orations, nor discussions, nor of any wonderful adventures to tickle the fancy of the reader. the nature of things, and life as it actually exists, are described in them; and often the lowest department of it; so that, in very many cases, i am obliged to use rude and foreign, or even barbarous terms, and these often require to be introduced by a kind of preface. and, besides this, my road is not a beaten track, nor one which the mind is much disposed to travel over. 4 there is no one among us who has ever attempted it, nor is there any one individual among the greeks who has treated of all the topics. most of us seek for nothing but amusement in our studies, while others are fond of subjects that are of excessive subtilty, and completely involved in obscurity. my object is to treat of all those things which the greeks include in the encyclop?dia, which, however, are either not generally known or are rendered dubious from our ingenious conceits. and there are other matters which many writers have given so much in detail that we quite loathe them. it is, indeed, no easy task to give novelty to what is old, and authority to what is new; brightness to what is become tarnished, and light to what is obscure; to render what is slighted acceptable, and what is doubtful worthy of our confidence; to give to all a natural manner, and to each its peculiar nature. it is sufficiently honorable and glorious to have been willing even to make the attempt, although it should prove unsuccessful.
i have included in thirty-six books twenty thousand topics, all worthy of attention, gained by the careful perusal of one hundred select authors, and of about two thousand volumes, of which a few only are in the hands of the studious, on account of the obscurity of the subjects. to these i have made considerable additions of things, which were either not known to my predecessors, or which have been lately discovered. nor can i doubt but that there still remain many things which i have omitted; for i am a mere mortal, and one that has many occupations. i have, therefore, been obliged to compose this work at interrupted intervals, by night as well as by day, so that you will find that i have not been idle even during this period. the day i devote to you, exactly portioning out my sleep to the necessity of my health, and contenting myself with this reward, that while we are musing on these subjects, as varro says, we are adding to the length of our lives; for life properly consists in being awake.
5
i consider it to be courteous and to indicate an ingenuous modesty, to acknowledge the sources whence we have derived assistance, and not to act as most of those have done whom i have examined. for i must inform you, that in comparing various authors with each other, i have discovered, that some of the latest and most dignified writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making any acknowledgment; not avowedly rivalling them, in the manner of virgil, or with the candor of cicero, who, in his treatise “de republica,” professes to coincide in opinion with plato, and in his essay on consolation for his daughter, says that he follows crantor, and, in his offices, pan?cius; volumes, which, as you well know, ought not merely to be always in our hands, but to be learned by heart. for it is surely the mark of a perverted mind and a bad disposition, to prefer being caught in a theft to returning what we have borrowed, especially when we have acquired capital, by usurious interest.
the greeks were wonderfully happy in their titles. one work they called κηριον, which means that it was as sweet as a honeycomb; another κερα? αμαλθεια?, or cornu copi?, so that you might expect to get even a draft of pigeon’s milk from it. then they have their flowers, their muses, magazines, manuals, gardens, pictures, and sketches, all of them titles for which a man might be tempted even to forfeit his bail. but when you enter upon the works, o ye gods and goddesses! how full of emptiness! our duller countrymen have merely their antiquities, or their examples, or their arts. i think one of the most humorous of them has his nocturnal studies. varro, indeed, is not much behind him, when he calls one of his satires a trick and a half,[5] and another, turning the tables. diodorus was the first among the greeks who laid aside this trifling manner and named his history the library. 6 apion, the grammarian,—he whom tiberius c?sar called the trumpeter of the world, but would rather seem to be the bell of the town-crier,—supposed that every one to whom he inscribed any work would thence acquire immortality. i do not regret not having given my work a more fanciful title.
that i may not, however, appear to inveigh so completely against the greeks, i should wish to be considered under the same point of view with those inventors of the arts of painting and sculpture, of whom you will find an account in these volumes, whose works, although they are so perfect that we are never satisfied with admiring them, are inscribed with a temporary title, such as “apelles, or polycletus, was doing this;” implying that the work was only commenced and still imperfect, and that the artist might benefit by the criticisms that were made on it and alter any part that required it, if he had not been prevented by death. it is also a great mark of their modesty, that they inscribed their works as if they were the last which they had executed, and as still in hand at the time of their death. i think there are but three works of art which are inscribed positively with the words “such a one executed this;” of these i shall give an account in the proper place. in these cases it appears, that the artist felt the most perfect satisfaction with his work, and certainly these pieces have excited the envy of every one.
i freely admit, that much may be added to my works; not only to this, but to all which i have published. by this admission i hope to escape from the carping critics, and i have the more reason to say this, because i hear that there are certain stoics and logicians, and also epicureans (from the grammarians i expected as much), who are virulent against the little work i published on grammar.[6] but i well know, that even a woman once wrote against theophrastus, a man 7 so eminent for his eloquence that he obtained from it his name, which signifies the divine[7] speaker.
because the public good requires that you should be spared as much as possible from all trouble, i have subjoined to this epistle the contents of each of the following books, and have used my best endeavors to prevent your being obliged to read them all through. and this, which was done for your benefit, will also serve the same purpose for others, so that any one may search for what he wishes, and may know where to find it. this has been already done among us by valerius soranus, in his work which he entitled “on mysteries.”
the 1st book is the preface of the work, dedicated to titus vespasian c?sar.
the 2d is on the world, the elements, and the heavenly bodies.
the 3d, 4th, 5th and 6th books are on geography, in which is contained an account of the situation of the different countries, the inhabitants, the seas, towns, harbors, mountains, rivers, and dimensions, and the various tribes, some of which still exist while others have disappeared.
the 7th is on man, and the inventions of man.
the 8th on the various kinds of land animals.
the 9th on aquatic animals.
the 10th on the various kinds of birds.
the 11th on insects.
the 12th on odoriferous plants.
the 13th on exotic trees.
the 14th on vines.
the 15th on fruit trees.
the 16th on forest trees.
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the 17th on plants raised in nurseries or gardens.
the 18th on the nature of fruits and the cerealia, and the pursuits of the husbandman.
the 19th on flax, broom,[8] and gardening.
the 20th on the cultivated plants that are proper for food and for medicine.
the 21st on flowers and plants that are used for making garlands.
the 22d on garlands, and medicines made from plants.
the 23d on medicines made from wine and from cultivated trees.
the 24th on medicines made from forest trees.
the 25th on medicines made from wild plants.
the 26th on new diseases, and medicines made, for certain diseases, from plants.
the 27th on some other plants and medicines.
the 28th on medicines procured from man and from large animals.
the 29th on medical authors, and on medicines from other animals.
the 30th on magic, and medicines for certain parts of the body.
the 31st on medicines from aquatic animals.
the 32d on the other properties of aquatic animals.
the 33d on gold and silver.
the 34th on copper and lead, and the workers of copper.
the 35th on painting, colors, and painters.
the 36th on marbles and stones.
the 37th on gems.
