The Complete Extant Works of Theophrastus, Vol. I

It was not unpleasant for me that, having been ordered to include the books of Theophrastus on plants in the Teubner Library, this opportunity was offered to me to share with learned men a new recension of these books, as I have brought it about through whatever studies of mine. Since a reading that is as true and polished as possible was to be provided in this recension, a twofold duty was mine: the one, to express it as much as possible from the Urbinate codex, its best witness; the other, to remove, if possible, the corruptions and errors with which even that best codex is not free. I used no more freedom in correcting corrupted passages by conjecture than did Schneider, although I often had to run this risk as well. I often had to restrain my will, and I did not hesitate to leave corrupt words in one place, so as not to seem to depart too much from the transmitted letters and the authority of the codices.

However, since care had to be taken that those who use this edition of ours should not take as Theophrastean what seemed to us to be Theophrastean, I have added to this preface a survey of the various readings. In this survey, I have proposed all the readings by which our recension especially differs from the recension of Schneider and from the reading of the Aldine, so that from it both most of the readings of the Urbinate and all my own corrections can be known; I have, however, omitted all those whose causes can be repeated without effort from the edition of Schneider and from the context which the Aldine provides.

Furthermore, I have added a very rich index, by which both the words which Theophrastus used and his Greek style can be compared, and the things treated by him and the names can be easily found. I retained the division of chapters and paragraphs that Schneider made, although it is not everywhere convenient, and I noted the chapter numbers from the old editions in the margin. I have enclosed in round brackets those words that seemed to be spurious: in square ones, those which have been added by conjecture either by Schneider or by me for the sake of completing the meaning.

I have used these signs in the Survey of Readings: U: Urbinate codex; M: Medicean codices; V: Viennese codex; P: Parisian codex 2069; P2: Parisian codex 1823; A: first Aldine edition; Codd.: all manuscript codices; Libri: manuscript codices and the first edition; Edd.: editions of Heinsius, Bodaeus, Stackhouse, and Schneider. Schn. syll. signifies the Syllabus of emendations, partly drawn from the Urbinate and partly made by ingenuity, which Schneider proposed in the fifth volume of his edition.

Written at Breslau, the 4th of March, 1854.       Frid. Wimmer.

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