When everything is thus prepared, he may begin if he pleases without preface or exordium, unless the subject particularly demands it; he may supply the place of one, by informing us what he intends to write upon, in the beginning of the work itself:  if, however, he makes use of any preface, he need not divide it as our orators do, into three parts, but confine it to two, leaving out his address to the benevolence of his readers, and only soliciting their attention and complacency:  their attention he may be assured of, if he can convince them that he is about to speak of things great, or necessary, or interesting, or useful; nor need he fear their want of complacency, if he clearly explains to them the causes of things, and gives them the heads of what he intends to treat of.

Such are the exordiums which our best historians have made use of.  Herodotus tells us, “he wrote his history, lest in process of time the memory should be lost of those things which in themselves were great and wonderful, which showed forth the victories of Greece, and the slaughter of the barbarians;” and Thucydides sets out with saying, “he thought that war most worthy to be recorded, as greater than any which had before happened; and that, moreover, some of the greatest misfortunes had accompanied it.”  The exordium, in short, may be lengthened or contracted according to the subject matter, and the transition from thence to the narration easy and natural.  The body of the history is only a long narrative, and as such it must go on with a soft and even motion, alike in every part, so that nothing should stand too forward, or retreat too far behind.  Above all, the style should be clear and perspicuous, which can only arise, as I before observed, from a harmony in the composition:  one thing perfected, the next which succeeds should be coherent with it; knit together, as it were, by one common chain, which must never be broken:  they must not be so many separate and distinct narratives, but each so closely united to what follows, as to appear one continued series.

Brevity is always necessary, especially when you have a great deal to say, and this must be proportioned to the facts and circumstances which you have to relate.  In general, you must slightly run through little things, and dwell longer on great ones.  When you treat your friends, you give them boars, hares, and other dainties; you would not offer them beans, saperda, {66a} or any other common food.

When you describe mountains, rivers, and bulwarks, avoid all pomp and ostentation, as if you meant to show your own eloquence; pass over these things as slightly as you can, and rather aim at being useful and intelligible.  Observe how the great and sublime Homer acts on these occasions! as great a poet as he is, he says nothing about Tantalus, Ixion, Tityus, and the rest of them.  But if Parthenius, Euphorion, or Callimachus, had treated this subject, what a number of verses they would have spent in rolling Ixion’s