TO AUGUSTUS, DUKE OF SAXONY

they are called by this name. But since justice thrives in time of peace, pure virgins marry young men, or they keep their minds and bodies chaste and pure. Chaste wives love their husbands; holy widows live without men by their own choice. Meanwhile, men of ample means manage the public interest and the ornaments of peace with considered and faithful counsel, themselves adorned with honors. Those of moderate means increase their wealth through right methods. Those of little means honestly seek more by cultivating fields, grazing livestock, mining metals, conducting trade, and practicing the arts. By these ways, not a few rise from poverty to wealth. For this reason, the tragedian Euripides and the writer of Old Comedy, Aristophanes, called peace babylazu original: "βαβύλαζυ" — likely a corruption or variant referencing wealth/abundance because it is derived from deeply hidden riches. Parents raise children in their own laps with the greatest diligence, setting over boys and adolescents masters of the liberal arts and teachers of living. They guard their grown daughters chastely until they can give them to suitors with dignity. Why say more? Everything flourishes in rich and pleasant peace. No one, stripped of their fortune, is driven from their possessions. Each person joyfully uses what is produced for our enjoyment. Friends, crowned with garlands, hold feasts that resound with various songs and harmonies of voices, strings, and flutes. The towns of craftsmen, the forests of shepherds, and the fields of farmers resound with sweet songs. The temples respond with the voice and sound of divine praise, so that the rustic peasant in the comedy of Philemon, who sweetly laughs at philosophers debating the highest good, might say that this is peace; for God gave mortals nothing more desirable, pleasant, or better. Because you, as soon as you were placed in that higher rank of dignity which has the right of choosing a Caesar, restored this peace—which had been cast out and exiled—to us, you seem to me, without doubt, the first of your relatives and kin to be called by the name of Octavian Caesar as a fortunate omen of peace. For just as he, having overcome all enemies on land and sea, brought peace and closed the temple of Janus Quirinus, so you, having excluded pestilential war from your regions, have confirmed peace with neighboring princes in such a way that everything could be placated and tranquil for your people. Affected by such a great benefit, we must not only observe you like a second parent, but we may also most deservedly call you Father of the Fatherland. That you may always have this spirit, desirous of preserving peace, and that you may perpetually retain this benevolence and charity toward your people, we must all ask and pray to God, the author and creator of eternal peace; and beyond that, I must offer my congratulations to Him, the savior of the world, and to you, the savior of the Fatherland. I could not do this more opportunely than at this time, when I am about to publish books in which I have expounded the origins, causes, and natures of subterranean things; books which I hope will be pleasing and agreeable to you, because you possess a passion for the science of metals.