Αὖλος Ποστόμιος

[Aulus Postumius]¹ came from a prominent household and family,² but he was personally a chatterbox and prattler as well as a bore par excellence.³ From childhood, he longed to acquire the culture and language of the Greeks and was so given to, and intense for, both that because of him even the study of Greek literature proved offensive to the elder and most distinguished of the Romans.⁴ Finally, he put his hand to writing a poem and a political and military history in Greek.⁵ In the proem of the latter, he implored his readers to pardon him if, being a Roman, he was not able to master⁶ the Greek language and its method of the approaching the subject.⁷ This is a mark of sheer folly and about the same thing as if a man, after entering the lists for the athletic contests, boxing or pankration, came into the stadium and, when he was required to fight, beseeched the spectators to pardon him if he was unable to endure the pain or the blows.⁸ Clearly, such a man would make a laughing-stock of himself and receive his comeuppance in short order. The same should happen to writers of histories lest they presume beyond the proprieties. Aulus liked pleasure and fled toil.⁹