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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Prologue
It is widely known from the moralist that
Near the school of Emilia the solitary craftsman
both shapes fingernails and has imitated in bronze the softness of hair;
his work is most unfortunate because he is unable
to form the whole. If I took the trouble to create anything myself,
I would not wish to be him any more than to live with a deformed nose,
or to be stared at because of black eyes and black hair.
Inasmuch as I follow closely the footsteps of Plutarch in the ‘Instruction of Trajan’, I think that this image addresses my own situation, and I will be ridiculed by everyone unless I diligently complete what is started. For I am acknowledged to be dependent upon him at the present moment. Therefore, I follow him and descend with him from the head of the republic all the way to the feet, yet on the condition that, if in this section I appear too caustic to those who are permitted to be ignorant of legal right, then it will be ascribed not to me but to Plutarch, or preferably to those themselves who refuse to discern the rules which they follow and according to which they are living. For what is said about fellow countrymen has been added with the single intention that they will return to the path of virtue, even unwillingly.
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