Note 508 — LIFE OF BRUTUS.

Brutus was a great reader and a busy writer. Drumann (Junii, p. 37) gives a sketch of his literary activity. Such a trifle as an epitome of Polybius was probably only intended as a mere occupation to pass the time. The loss of it is not a matter of regret, any further than so far as it might have supplied some deficiencies in the present text of Polybius. Bacon (Advancement of Learning) describes epitomes thus: “As for the corruptions and moths of history, which are epitomes, the use of them deserveth to be banished, as all men of sound judgment have confessed; as those that have fretted and corroded the sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them into base and unprofitable dregs.”