was done by Pitholeo the Rhodian? But [still they
cry] the style elegantly composed of both tongues is the more pleasant,
as if Falernian wine is mixed with Chian. When you make verses, I ask
you this question; were you to undertake the difficult cause of the
accused Petillius, would you (for instance), forgetful of your country
and your father, while Pedius, Poplicola, and Corvinus sweat through
their causes in Latin, choose to intermix words borrowed from abroad,
like the double-tongued Canusinian. And as for myself, who was born on
this side the water, when I was about making Greek verses; Romulus
appearing to me after midnight, when dreams are true, forbade me in
words to this effect; "You could not be guilty of more madness by
carrying timber into a wood, than by desiring to throng in among the
great crowds of Grecian writers."

While bombastical Alpinus murders Memnon, and while he deforms the muddy
source of the Rhine, I amuse myself with these satires; which can
neither be recited in the temple [of Apollo], as contesting for the
prize when Tarpa presides as judge, nor can have a run over and over
again represented in the theatres. You, O Fundanius, of all men
breathing are the most capable of prattling tales in a comic vein, how
an artful courtesan and a Davus impose upon an old Chremes. Pollio sings
the actions of kings in iambic measure; the sublime Varias composes the
manly epic, in a manner that no one can equal: to Virgil the Muses,
delighting in rural scenes, have granted the delicate and the elegant.
It was this kind [of satiric writing], the Aticinian Varro and some
others having attempted it without success, in which I may have some
slight merit, inferior to the inventor: nor would I presume to pull off
the [laurel] crown placed upon his brow with great applause.

But I said that he flowed muddily, frequently indeed bearing along more
things which ought to be taken away than left. Be it so; do you, who are
a scholar, find no fault with any thing in mighty Homer, I pray? Does
the facetious Lucilius make no alterations in the tragedies of Accius?
Does not he ridicule many of Ennius' verses, which are too light for
the gravity [of the subject]? When he speaks of himself by no means as
superior to what he blames. What should hinder me likewise, when I am
reading the works of Lucilius, from inquiring whether it be his
[genius], or the difficult nature of his subject, that will not suffer
his verses to be m