I am not going to
locate it precisely nor to name the villages nearest it nor the
neighboring towns. It will be quite sufficient to set down that it was
near the Flaminian Highway and approximately half way between Nuceria and
Forum Sempronii.
My reasons for vagueness are mandatory, to my mind. Feuds in the Umbrian
mountains differ greatly from feuds in the Sabine hills; but, like
Sabinum, Umbria is afflicted with feuds. Now I anticipate that this book
will not only be widely read among our nobility and gentry and much
discussed by them, but also that it will be talked of by more than half
Rome and that copies of it and talk about it will spread all over Italy
and even into the provinces. Talk of it may trickle into the Umbrian
mountains. Umbrian mountaineers live long. Some of those who loved me and
befriended me or loved and befriended those who loved and befriended me,
may still be alive and hearty and likely to live many years yet. So also
may be some of those who hated me. I do not want anyone holding a grudge,
or nursing the grudge of a dead kinsman or friend, to learn through me of
any secret kindness to me which he might regard as treachery to his kin
and so feel impelled to avenge on those who befriended me or their
children or grandchildren.
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