Select Works of Porphyry

INTRODUCTION.

suggestion, to reveal original: unfold, in the Appendix that concludes this work, the secret meaning of the allegory; and I trust it will be done in a way that the intelligent reader will not find either imaginary original: visionary or pointless.

Regarding the translation of these treatises, I have endeavored to faithfully preserve both the content original: matter and style of the author. I have used the best editions of these works, along with all the information that seemed most important and appropriate from the remarks of critics and philologists A scholar who studies the history of language and literature., but especially from the explanations of philosophers. This, I trust, will be clear from reading the notes that accompany the translation.

Of all the other writings of Porphyry, besides those translated in this volume, unfortunately few have been preserved in their entirety original: entire¹, the greater part of what remains of them being fragments. Among these fragments, however, there is one very important piece recently found by Angelo Mai original: Angelus Maius and published by him in Milan original: Mediol. in 1816, as an octavo original: 8vo, a book size where each sheet is folded into eight leaves volume. It consists of nearly the whole of the Epistle of Porphyry to his wife Marcella, in which I have discovered the—

¹ For even regarding the treatise On Abstinence from Animal Food, there is every reason to believe that something is missing original: wanting at the end of it.