Medical Compositions

or force it into my own will without the opinion of Scribonius. Moreover, that I attempted nothing regarding the irrecoverable for those who were not consulted, whose fame for erudition was conspicuous, is testified by their memory everywhere.

Now many learned men thought the task satisfied, and I would have willingly rested, had not certain men of no small name warned me and proven by many reasons that a clarification of these matters—which could occupy beginners and those busy with other duties of life—would be welcome. Therefore, like the Phrygians famous for their woven tapestries, I have compactly woven the curtain from thread of various colors, thinking those things common which I hold in agreement with the ancients—indeed, faithful, unless experience resists: although it is an honest error to follow great leaders. For this reason, I did not consider it a religious duty to depart from the author at times, if ever he was at odds with the decrees of medicine which later practice introduced. Indeed, I thought it more equitable to interpret a lighter aberration, if there was any, kindly rather than to condemn it. Nor should it be hidden, which happens to even the highest writers of our age, that many errors of authors noted by me were not known beforehand to the greatest men, to whose sagacity the similarity of invention is to be ascribed: which I discovered as soon as I had committed my thoughts to writing. That was everywhere my greatest concern: to restore light to the obscure, faith to the doubtful, and to claim authority and use for the accustomed from monuments and older writings, with no confidence in my own judgment, but as an index of labor; since here, grace for the work is sought more than fame. I did not search for everything anxiously, however, since even the wisest of mortals are said to have known many things, not everything. Furthermore, I have candidly brought forth for public utility certain safeguards of health, which I kept private with a few. I have also selected precepts contracted into maxims as if they were established truths and oracles,