it to ocular observation. Nor, indeed, do they deny that the
fruits of the earth in that primitive age afforded a more
nutritious aliment to men than in our modern times, and thus they
had not only a livelier energy of body, but also a more
lengthened period of vigour; to which it contributed not a little
that they lived according to virtue and denied themselves all
luxurious delights. Whoever therefore is by the good gift of God
endowed with gift of science, let him, according to the counsel
of the Holy Spirit, write wisdom in his time of leisure (Eccles.
xxxviii.), that his reward may be with the blessed and his days
may be lengthened in this present world.

And further, if we turn our discourse to the princes of the
world, we find that famous emperors not only attained excellent
skill in the art of writing, but indulged greatly in its
practice. Julius Caesar, the first and greatest of them all, has
left us Commentaries on the Gallic and the Civil Wars written by
himself; he wrote also two books De Analogia, and two books of
Anticatones, and a poem called Iter; and many other works.
Julius and Augustus devised means of writing one letter for
another, and so concealing what they wrote. For Julius put the
fourth letter for the first, and so on through the alphabet;
whilst Augustus used the second for the first, the third for the
second, and so throughout. He is said in the greatest
difficulties of affairs during the Mutinensian War to have read
and written and even declaimed every day. Tiberius wrote a lyric
poem and some Greek verses. Claudius likewise was skilled in
both Greek and Latin, and wrote several books. But Titus was
skilled above all men in the art of writing, and easily imitated
any hand he chose; so that he used to say that if he had wished