Kitap 11
16
Well then, said I, undertaking many things and busying oneself with them all is called in Greek polupragmosu/nh, and the title shows that this is the subject of our book. Then that illiterate fellow, misled by my unfinished, rough-and-ready language and believing that polupragmosu/nh was a virtue, said: Doubtless this Plutarch, whoever he is, urges us to engage in business and to undertake very many enterprises with energy and dispatch, and properly enough he has written as the title of the book itself the name of this virtue about which, as you say, he is intending to speak. Not at all, said I; for that is by no means a virtue which, expressed by a Greek term, serves to indicate the subject of this book; and neither does Plutarch do what you suppose, nor do I intend to say that he did. For, as a matter of fact, it is in this book that he tries to dissuade us, so far as he can, from the haphazard, promiscuous and unnecessary planning and pursuit of such a multitude of things. But, said I, I realize that this mistake of yours is due to my imperfect command of language, since even in so many words I could not express otherwise than very obscurely what in Greek is expressed with perfect elegance and clearness by a single term.
17
The meaning of the expression found in the old praetorian edicts: those who have undertaken public contracts for clearing the rivers of nets.
