BOOK I.] Pliny s Epistle to T. Vespasian. 23 



shewed great Modesty, that the Inscriptions on their Works 

 were as if they had been their last Pieces, and their Perfec- 

 tion was hindered by their Death : for there were not known 

 ( I believe ) above three which had their absolute Titles 

 written upon them in this Form : Ille fecit, or, This Apelles 

 finished : and those Pictures I will specify in the proper 

 Place. By which it appeared evidently, that the said three 

 Pictures were so fully finished, that the Workman was 

 highly satisfied with their Perfection, and feared the Censure 

 of no Man: no Marvel, then, if all three were so much 

 admired throughout the World, and every Man desired to 

 be Master of them. 



For myself, I confess that many more Things may be 

 added, not to this Story alone, but to all the Books that I 

 have published before : which I say, because I would antici- 

 pate those Fault-finders and Scourgers 1 of Homer (for surely 

 that is their very Name) ; because I hear say there be certain 

 Stoic Philosophers, professed Logicians, and Epicureans also 

 (for at the Hands of Critics I never looked for any other), 

 who are in Labour to be delivered of somewhat against my 

 Books which I have published on Grammar : and the Space 

 of Ten Years has produced nothing but Abortion, when the 

 Elephant is not so long in producing her young one. But 

 this does not trouble me ; for I am not ignorant that a 

 Woman wrote against Theophrastus*, though he was a Man 

 of such Eloquence that from thence he obtained his divine 

 Name, Theophrastus : from whence arose this Proverb, "Then 

 go choose a Tree to hang thyself." 3 I cannot refrain, but I 



1 Homeromastiges. 



* Her name was Leontium, and she studied philosophy under Epi- 

 curus, where she became more celebrated for her talents than her virtue. 

 The elegancy of her style is praised by Cicero. Wern. Club. 



3 There is a passage in Plutarch's " Life of Antony," which shews how 

 lamentably the antients were addicted to the crime of suicide, and at the 

 same time illustrates this proverb. It is thus translated by Langhorne : 

 " Once, in an assembly of the people, he (Timon of Athens) mounted the 

 rostrum, and the novelty of the thing occasioned an universal silence and 

 expectation : at length he said, ' People of Athens, there is a fig-tree in 

 my yard, on which many worthy citizens have hanged themselves ; and 



