Professors XXII. — To Victorius, Assistant-Teacher or Usher

Scholarly Victorius, gifted with memory and a quick brain how patiently you used to pore over books which no one read and study only abstruse lore! You liked better to unroll worm-eaten and outlandish scrolls than to give yourself to more familiar pursuits. What was the code of the pontifices, what the treaties, what the pedigree of the sacrificial priest at Cures long before Numa's days, what Castor had to say on all the shadowy kings, what Rhodope published out of her husband's books, what the code of the priests, what the resolutions of the old Quirites, what the decrees of the Senate, what measures Draco or what Solon passed, and what laws Zaleucus gave the Locrians, what Minos under the reign of Jove, what Themis even before Jove's time — all these were better known to you than our Tully or Maro, and all the stores of Roman history. Maybe continued reading would have brought them also within your ken, had not Lachesis hurried on the date of your last journey. Your post here in our city had brought you only a faint tincture of renown, and given you but a slight foretaste of the title of grammarian, when you died on the coast of far-off Cumae whither you had crossed over from Sicily. But now that I have numbered you in a company of famous men, rejoice — if this my pious tribute reaches your shade.