Note 2250 — Chapter XXIII · THE FUSION OF PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN THOUGHT IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES

In his last chapter he says, “Take then, my dear Mavortius, what I promised you with extreme trepidation of spirit, these seven books composed conformably to the order and number of the seven planets. For the first book deals only with the defense of the art; but in the other books we have transmitted to the Romans the discipline of a new work,” (II, 360, 10-15). And in the introduction to the fifth book he writes, “We have written these books for your Romans lest, when every other art and science had been translated, this task should seem to remain unattempted by Roman genius,” (I, 280, 28-30).