THE EDITOR’S PREFACE.

The more the excellence of this book has become known, the fewer words will be needed to explain the reasoning behind the whole plan that specifically drove us to this new edition. For the shortage and rarity of copies demanded this; the more this scarcity increased day by day, the more strongly it testified to how much the labor of our author pleased those who love to explore the knowledge of antiquity. So that their needs might also be assisted in this way, the bookseller term: "librarius" | In the 18th century, the librarius acted as both a book dealer and a publisher who financed the printing. decided to submit the book to the presses once more. For this reason, he began to urge me that if I had anything to contribute toward preparing this renewed work, I should grant it to him.

After I took this task upon myself, I initially began to collect and arrange what I knew had been observed by others since this author’s time, or what had been wrongly understood. By this addition, I thought I would earn sufficient favor, since while the industry of his original work remained intact, the illumination of the subject matter itself would gain a significant increase. Nevertheless, while I was comparing the collected opinions in this way and found myself overwhelmed by such a diverse crowd of conflicting views, I looked for a more convenient way to extricate myself from these tangles. I could not bring myself to indulge in common laziness or to satisfy the requirement with a sterile hodgepodge original: "farragine" | A "farrago" refers to a confused mixture or a medley of miscellaneous things, often used disparagingly in scholarly contexts. of excerpts. Rather, I decided to test the powers of my intellect here and to try to what extent I could elucidate the understanding of the subject matter which this book encompasses. And so