Book I.] DEDICATION. 3 



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 chal- 

 lenged to do so ? For the case of those who merely publish 

 their works is very different from that of those who ex- 

 pressly 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 mecha- 

 nics, 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 judgement 

 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. 

 M. Tullius himself, whose genius is beyond all competition, 

 uses this privilege ; and, remarkable as it may appear, em- 

 ploys 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 re- 

 mark to himself, and if Cicero thought proper to borrow it, 

 and that more especially in his treatise " De Eepublica," 

 how much reason have I to do so, who have such a judge to 

 defend myself against ! And by this dedication I have de- 

 prived 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. 



* Suetonius speaks of Domitian's taste for poetry, as a part of his ha- 

 bitual dissimulation, viii. 2 ; see also the notes of Poinsinet, i. 26, and of 

 Alexandre, in Lemaire, i. 351. 



2 " Non eras in hoc albo ;" see the note of Alexandre, in Lemaire, i. 8. 

 A passage in Quintihan, xii. 4, may serve to illustrate this use of the term 

 * album' ; "... quonmi alii se ad album ac rubricas transtulerunt " 



3 It appears that the passage in which Cicero makes this quotation 

 from Lucilius, is not in the part of his treatise De Repubhca which was 

 lately discovered by Angelus Mains ; Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 9. Cicero 

 refers to this remark of Lucilius in two of his other works, although with 

 a variation in the expression and in the individuals specified j De Orat. 

 ii. 6, and De Fin. i. 3. 



* " Qui primus condidit styli nasum." 



' " Sed haec ego mihi nunc patrocinia ademi nuncupatione." 



b2 



