In his diatribe against the Roman general Lucius Catilinus, Cicero slips in a little self-advertisement. Supplicatio dis immortalibus pro singulari eorum merito meo no- mine decreta est, quod urbem incendiis, caede civis, Italiam bello liberassem ("A supplication was decreed in my name to the immortal gods for their singular kindness, because I had delivered the city from conflagrations, the citizens from massacre, and Italy from war.")
I suspect that it is to this source that we can trace the inscription on the obverse of the gold medal for the IMO Prize: Pro singulari erga scientiam meteorologicam merito ("For being of singular benefit to the science of meteorology").
The IMO Prize is meteorology's highest honour. It was established by the World Meteorological Organization in 1955 to commemorate the organisation that preceded WMO, the International Meteorological Organisation. And the 44th IMO Prize, that for 1999, has been awarded to James Clement Ignatius Dooge, for the reasons thereon stated.
Jim Dooge is a hydrologist. Contrary to what you might think, hydrology has nothing to do with fork-lift trucks or fluid-operated braking systems. That is the province of the hydraulic engineer, the science of hydraulics.
Hydrology is the science of water, and in particular its movement in relation to the Earth's surface, below the surface, and in the atmosphere above it. Essentially it is the study of water in its natural state - where it comes from, where it goes to, and how it gets there.
Many, of course, may know James Dooge merely as a politician, since he was a long-time member of Seanad Eireann, and for a short period in the 1980s a very successful minister for foreign affairs in a government led by Dr Garret FitzGerald.
But this was almost incidental. Prof Dooge's long and distinguished career in hydrology has spanned well over half a century, during which time he used professorships of civil engineering at both UCD and UCC as the launching pad for his activities.
In some ways, Jim Dooge's expertise in his chosen field has been recognised more abroad than here at home. He has been president of both the International Council of Scientific Unions and of the International Association for Hydrological Sciences. In 1983 he was awarded the International Prize in Hydrology, and he holds honorary doctorates from at least three foreign universities.
Now the supreme accolade has come his way. Needless to say, he is the first Irishman to whom this honour has been accorded. Pro singulari erga scientiam meteorologicam merito, indeed! What else can one say - except "Hear! Hear!", "Congratulations!", "Well deserved!"