Prolegomena: Concerning the Collector of the Geoponica, and the Authors Whose Excerpts are Preserved.

Learned men are sharply contending, and various conjectures have already been put forward, concerning him—whoever he might finally be—who examined so many commentaries of the Ancient Writers on Agriculture and reduced them into this single volume of the Geoponica. The name "Geoponica" (Γεωπονικά) literally translates to "Agricultural Matters" or "Labor in the Earth." Generally, they are circulated, and more frequently praised by many writers of more refined literature, under the name of the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus Constantine IV (reigned 668–685 AD), nicknamed "The Bearded."; everyone with one voice accuses Janus Cornarius 1500–1558, a German humanist who produced a famous Latin translation of the Geoponica. of this error. Others truly, among whom the distinguished Gerardus Joannes Vossius A prominent 17th-century Dutch scholar. must be numbered, deny the Geoponica to Constantine Pogonatus, and sharply contend that Constantine Porphyrogenitus Constantine VII (reigned 913–959 AD). His title "Porphyrogenitus" means "Born in the Purple," referring to the imperial birthing chamber., the grandson of Basil the Macedonian, collected them; relying perhaps on this single reason: that a certain anonymous Greeky original: "Græculus." A diminutive, sometimes dismissive term used by Latin scholars to describe later Byzantine writers., in the Preface to the Geoponica, prays for good fortune for the Emperor Constantine in these words: --- "But may you be fortunate, O most righteous Lord Constantine, the delightful flower of the purple," etc. original Greek: "Ἀλλ’ εὐτυχοίης, ὦ δικαιότατε Δέσποτα Κωνσταντῖνε, τὸ τερπνὸν τῆς πορφύρας ἀπάνθισμα." As if the phrase "the delightful flower of the purple" original Greek: "τὸ τερπνὸν τῆς πορφύρας ἀπάνθισμα" designated that Porphyrogenitus preeminently. original Greek: "κατ’ ἐξοχὴν" (kat' exochen), meaning uniquely or by way of excellence. Henri Valois 1603–1676, a French historian also known as Henricus Valesius. chimes in with Vossius in his Preface to the Excerpts of Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Nicolaus of Damascus, etc., with these words: First, therefore, [Constantine] sought out from everywhere copies of the best writers in every kind of learning, which were already rarer due to the frequent incursions of Barbarians and the constant devastations of cities; with these, he furnished the Palatine library, dedicated no more to the Prince himself than to the public use of all. Then, since such a great and immense mass of books deterred most people from reading, he himself—as befitted a Prince—consulting the utility and brevity for each person, compressed all the authors who had treated the same subject into one body, having rejected the superfluous and selected those passages from each writer which each had treated most elegantly. Such are the books of the Geoponica