8 plint's natural histoet. [Book I. 



a tliefb 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 Kripiov, which means that it was as sweet 

 as a honeycomb ; another Kepas 'AfxaXdeias, or Cornu copise, 

 so that you might expect to get even a di'aught 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 jN'octurnal Studies'*, a term employed by Bibaculus ; a name 

 which he richly deserved^. Yarrb, indeed, is not much be- 

 hind him, when he calls one of his satires A Trick and a Half, 

 and another Turning the Tables^. Diodorus was the first 

 among the Greeks who laid aside this trifling manner and 

 named his history The Library'^. Apion, the grammarian, 

 indeed — he whom Tiberius Caesar 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 



* " Cum prsesertim sors fiat ex usura." The commentators and trans- 

 lators have differed respecting the interpretation of this passage ; I have 

 given what appears to me the obvious meaning of the words. 



2 "Lac gallinaceum ; " "Proverbium de re singulari et admodum 

 rara," according to Hardouin, who quotes a parallel passage from Petro- 

 nius ; Lemaire, i. 21. 



3 The titles in the original are given in Greek ; I have inserted in the 

 text the words which most nearly resemble them, and which have 

 been employed by modern authors. 4 « Lucubratio." 



5 The pun in the original cannot be preserved in the translation ; the 

 Enghsh reader may conceive the name Bibaculus to correspond to our 

 surname JoUy. 



^ " Sesciilysses " and " Flextabula ; " hteraUy, Ulysses and a Half, and 

 Bend-table. 7 Bi(3\io6t]Kr]. 



^ " Cymbalum mundi " and " pubhcse famse tympanum." 



