In the latter case I could have said: 'Why does your Highness read that? It was written for the common herd, the mob of farmers and of artisans, and after them for students who have nothing else to occupy their time: why do you put yourself on the jury? You were not on this panel when I took the contract for this undertaking: I knew you to be too great for me to think you likely to descend to this! Moreover even in the court of learning there is an official procedure for challenging the jury: it is employed even by Marcus Cicero, who where genius is in question stands outside all hazard. § 1.2.1 But who could judge the value of these compositions with confidence when about to submit to the verdict of your talent, especially when that verdict has been invited? for formal dedication of the work to you puts one in a different position from mere publication. I have tried to put on a bold face, and yet have not succeeded, as your grandeur meets me by another route and the rods of office that your genius bears make me move on yet further: in no other person ever radiate more genuinely the dictatorial power of oratory and the tribunician authority of wit! How eloquently you thunder forth your father's praises and your brother's fame! How great you are in the poet's art! O mighty fertility of genius - you have contrived a way to imitate your brother also. For that presumption therefore you will debit the responsibility to yourself, and will grant yourself pardon on the score of my offence.

Consequently as all those methods of paying you reverence are open to everybody else, to me is left only the presumption of treating you with more intimate respect. § 1.1.1 PREFACE IN THE FORM OF A LETTER: PLINIUS SECUNDUS TO HIS DEAR VESPASIAN, GREETING MOST Gracious Highness (let this title, a supremely true one, be yours, while that of 'Most Eminent' grows to old age with your sire) - I have resolved to recount to you, in a somewhat presumptuous letter, The offspring of my latest travail, my volumes of Natural History (a novel task for the native Muses of your Roman citizens) - For 'twas e'er your way, To deem my trifles something worth - to give a passing touch of polish to my 'opposite number' - you recognize even this service slang - Catullus (for he, as you know, by interchanging the first syllables made himself a trifle harsher than he wished to be considered by his 'darling Veraniuses and Fabulluses') and at the same time that my present sauciness may effect what in the case of another impudent letter of mine lately you complained of as not coming off - that it may result in something getting done, and everyone may know on what equal terms the empire lives with you - you with a triumph to your name and censorial rank, six times consul, colleague in tribune's authority, and (a service that you have made more illustrious than these in rendering it equally to your father and to the equestrian order) commander of his bodyguard and all this in your public life - and then what a good comrade to us in the companionship of the camp! Nor has fortune's grandeur made any change in you save in enabling you to bestow all the benefit you desire.

Pictures of the roman god arausio