PREFACE.

For more than two centuries, Macrobius has experienced unfavorable fortune. Many have drawn from his fountain, but no one has stepped forward to clear the silt from this source or to ensure that the water flows more clearly. Many have indeed approached the task, but one was hindered by poor health from completing it as he wished; another arrived late and only superficially at a work that was nearly perfect; others felt it was enough to labor and prepare tools, without even embarking upon the work itself, as it promised much toil and tedium, and almost no reward or pleasure, while they were distracted by business—whether more significant or more agreeable 1). . Yet no one denied that a new effort was needed. What wonder, then, that in the year 1840, having been diverted from my plan to edit Seneca, I complied with the persuasion of Julius Sillig—with whom I share all the bonds of friendship from our joint studies of Pliny—that I should turn my attention to this long-neglected author? Indeed, I had already held in my hands a decade earlier, in the Royal Library at Munich, several of his manuscripts provided to me by I. G. Krabinger, which at that time concerned Cicero’s Dream of Scipio original: "Somnium Scipionis" rather than the Commentaries of Macrobius: I had seen two other sufficiently ancient codices in the Bamberg library, one containing those Commentaries and the other the three books of the Saturnalia. I first approached the prefect of this library, H. I. Iaeck—whose death surely causes anyone who has felt the extent of his courtesy and generosity while using those treasures, which had remained almost untouched for forty years, to mourn with me—with requests that he might provide me with copies of those codices, and I did not do so in vain. Afterward, F. Thiersch made the use of the Munich codices available to me; he believed that nothing should be detracted from the kindness with which he had governed and moderated the studies of a young man, in whom he rightly trusted, even with his body absent from his sight, that his spirit remained loyal to him. Of these, some were sent to me; others were examined at my request in Munich by C. Machtius, once my beloved student, now a master at the Spirensian school. Other editions were supplied to me by nearby libraries, and others I purchased myself.

1) Cf. prolegomena, p. LV. et seq.