8 
pliny's natiteal histoet. 
[Book I, 
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 Krjpiov, which means that it was as sweet 
as a honeycomb ; another Kepas 'AfuaXdeias, or Cornu copise, 
so that you might expect to get even a draught 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 JNTocturnal Studies^, a term employed byBibaculus; a name 
which he richly deserved^. Varrb, 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 
1 " Cum prgesertim sors fiat ex usura." The commentators and trans- 
lators have differed respecting the interpretation of this passage 5 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 modem authors. " Lucubratio." 
^ The pun in the original cannot be preserved in the translation ; the 
Enghsh reader may conceive the name Bibaculus to correspond to our 
surname Jolly. 
6 " Sesculysses" and "Plextabula; " literally, Flysses and a Half, and 
Bend-table. BipXioOrjKt]. 
8 " Cymbalum mundi" and "publicse famse tympanum." 
