Exhortation to Philosophy (Protrepticus)

I have proposed to myself, not to correct the Iamblichean patchwork original: "Iamblicheum centonem", but to transcribe the readings of the Florentine codex as accurately as possible. I have therefore collated the codex in such a way that I strongly contend no detail worthy of record has escaped me; and although, with the exception of a few passages, I have not mentioned the discrepant readings of previous editions in the notes, I would like to be granted trust even when I remain silent; this I trust I shall easily obtain from all who know that the individual proofs of my edition were again collated with the Florentine Codex by H. Vitelli. I have sometimes mentioned the abbreviations of letters in the critical notes when, because of their confused forms (upon which Nauck discussed diligently in the work cited, p. XXXVII sqq.), what was read in the Florentine could be called into doubt: in placing the ν ἐφελκυστικόν a movable nu at the end of words before consonants, in writing ὑγεία or ὑγίεια health, τέλεος or τέλειος perfect/complete, τελεοῦσθαι or τελειοῦσθαι to be perfected, γίνεσθαι or γίγνεσθαι to become, οὕτω or οὕτως thus and similar cases, I have followed the best codex. Everywhere, however, I have written ζῷον living being, σῴζειν to save, θνῄσκειν to die, μιμνῄσκειν to remember, and the like, although the codex consistently provides ζῶον, σώζειν, etc., and Cobet, in his Miscellanea Critica p. XV, wrongly thinks the iota was added to the verbs σῴζειν, θνῄσκειν, and μιμνῄσκειν. Furthermore, I have generally changed the punctuation silently and, when they departed from accepted usage, the accents. The notes of the numbers written in the margins of the codex,

The following fragment is placed at the bottom of the page in the original: di antich. class. I p. 10 sqq.), from which the most learned editor of the Aristotelian fragments, Valentinus Rose, was able to propose much more corrected versions (in the Teubner edition). Martin Schanz, too, in the dialogues of Plato, which he ensured were published with the most abundant notes after the year 1874, indeed uses Cobet, but with seemingly desultory effort: see on Gorgias 493 A, Menexenus 248 A, etc.