On the Months

[Creu]zer The text completes the name of Friedrich Creuzer (1771–1858), a German philologist and archaeologist who was a mentor to the editor, Wilhelm Roether., whom I recently had as a teacher and now enjoy as a friend, was the authority who encouraged me to undertake the preparation of a new critical edition of this short work. In this task, I believe I have reached a point where I need not fear that learned men will accuse me of excessive haste in publishing my edition; I now hand over this study original: lucubrationem — literally "work produced by lamplight," a common scholarly term for a work of intense study. of mine to those who care for this branch of literature. It remains for me to provide some introductory remarks concerning the plan of the whole work and how I have striven to achieve my goals. I need not do what editors of ancient writers usually do—namely, discuss the life of the writer at the start of their editions, the history of his books, the manuscripts they used, the testimonies of the ancients regarding any given writer, and so forth—since Hase, in that commentary prefixed to John Lydus's work On the Magistracies, has already pursued all those matters so thoroughly that I would seem to be "doing work already done" original: actum agere — a Latin idiom for performing a task that is already finished or redundant. if I set out to explain those things. Therefore, I refer those readers who desire to learn such things to paragraphs V, XVI, XVII, XVIII, and XXIII of the commentary I have praised.

Now, regarding this edition of mine, my first priority was to use, in part, the Paris manuscript number 3084, which alone had not yet been previously collated, *) and in part from the readings of the Roman manuscript...

*) Hase took care to have this manuscript collated with the Schow edition through A. Cherbuliez, a minister of the Divine Word original: verbi divini [minister] — a common title for a clergyman or pastor....