the
first place, procure the cleanest and sharpest sand, break up lava into
bits of not more than a pound in weight, and mix the sand in a mortar
trough with the strongest lime in the proportion of five parts of sand
to two of lime. The trench for the signinum work, down to the level of
the proposed depth of the cistern, should be beaten with wooden beetles
covered with iron.

15. Then after having beaten the walls, let all the earth between them
be cleared out to a level with the very bottom of the walls. Having
evened this off, let the ground be beaten to the proper density. If such
constructions are in two compartments or in three so as to insure
clearing by changing from one to another, they will make the water much
more wholesome and sweeter to use. For it will become more limpid, and
keep its taste without any smell, if the mud has somewhere to settle;
otherwise it will be necessary to clear it by adding salt.

In this book I have put what I could about the merits and varieties of
water, its usefulness, and the ways in which it should be conducted and
tested; in the next I shall write about the subject of dialling and the
principles of timepieces.

BOOK IX

INTRODUCTION

1. The ancestors of the Greeks have appointed such great honours for the
famous athletes who are victorious at the Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian,
and Nemean games, that they are not only greeted with applause as they
stand with palm and crown at the meeting itself, but even on returning
to their several states in the triumph of victory, they ride into their
cities and to their fathers' houses in four-horse chariots, and enjoy
fixed revenues for life at the public expense. When I think of this, I
am amazed that the same honours and even greater are not bestowed upon
those authors whose boundless services are performed for all time and
for all nations. This would have been a practice all the more worth
establishing, because in the case of athletes it is merely their own
bodily frame that is strengthened by their training, whereas in the case
of authors it is the mind, and not only their own but also man's in
general, by the doctrines laid down in their books for the acquiring of
knowledge and the sharpening of the intellect.

2. What does it signify to mankind that Milo of Croton and other victors
of his class were invincible? Nothing, save that in their lifetime they
were famous among their countrymen. But the doctrines of Pytha