On the Months

xiv

I can certainly state that I did not shy away from the hard work required to complete this section of the project.

And so that this new edition of a long-known little work might be further enriched by some new additions, Creuzer Friedrich Creuzer (1771–1858), a highly influential German philologist. most kindly shared two unpublished short works with me to be added at the end. I trust these will not be unwelcome to those who read writings of this kind: the short work of Hermes Trismegistus On the Juices of Herbs original Greek: "Περὶ βοτανῶν χυλώσεως", and a fragment of the first book of the Anthologies by Vettius Valens of Antioch Vettius Valens was a 2nd-century Greek astrologer; his "Anthologies" is a major source for ancient astrological practice.. Of these, Creuzer himself transcribed part of the former from a Leiden manuscript Vossiano Refers to the collection of Isaac Vossius held at Leiden University., and arranged for the rest to be transcribed. Later, at Creuzer's request, Franz Xaver Werfer of Munich—who was recently snatched away from both his friends and the world of letters by a premature death—transcribed it with his usual extreme diligence from an Augsburg manuscript (now in Munich, made of paper, from the 15th century, numbered 542). Finally, the distinguished Baehr Johann Christian Felix Bähr, a contemporary classical scholar. compared both of these transcriptions original: "Apographa," meaning handwritten copies of a manuscript. and, having added both various readings and other notes, brought the entire short work into the form in which I have seen to its printing. I myself [prepared] the fragment of Vettius (concerning which, see Fabricius's Greek Library, vol. II page 510, vol. IV pages 144, 162, 219, Harles edition) from the transcription of Jacob Gronovius, *) which Creuzer [received] from Wyt[tenbach]...

*) That transcription contains, besides this fragment of ours, an excerpt from the Babylonian History of the historian Iamblichus, and By the same Iamblichus, On the Letter of Porphyry (a book commonly titled On the Mysteries of the Egyptians). I shall speak of this entire transcription elsewhere. At this point, for the benefit of those who devote effort to the astrology of the ancients—that is, those who, as our countryman Kepler Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), the astronomer who famously practiced astrology while laying the foundations for modern planetary science. used to say, [seeking] wis-