Book 19
5
IN the hottest season of the year with some companions and friends of mine who were students of eloquence or of philosophy, I had withdrawn to the country-place of a rich friend at Tibur. There was with us a good man of the Peripatetic school, well trained and especially devoted to Aristotle. When we drank a good deal of water made of melted snow, he tried to restrain us and rather severely scolded us. He cited us the authority of famous physicians and in particular of the philosopher Aristotle, a man skilled in all human knowledge, who declared that snow-water was indeed helpful to grain and trees, but was a very unwholesome drink for human beings, and that it gradually produced wasting diseases in the body, which made their appearance only after a long time.
5
This counsel he gave us repeatedly in a spirit of prudence and goodwill. But when the drinking of snow-water went on without interruption, from the library of Tibur, which at that time was in the temple of Hercules and was well supplied with books, he drew out a volume of Aristotle and brought it to us, saying: At least believe the words of this wisest of men and cease to ruin your health.
