Varro: On the Latin Language (De Lingua Latina)

For we felt that the fragments are nonetheless very well joined to the preserved books on the Latin language. How our own minor work compares to the recognition by Funaioli and to the foundations most brilliantly laid by Wilmannsius August Wilmanns, we have briefly illustrated in the annotations, and it is not our intention to treat this part more fully in the prolegomena. Because we have used Wilmanns's numbers quite often—which we have written under our own in these brackets ( ) so that the Funaiolian ones are under these [ ]—we have provided a table of numbers on page 242.

We had conceived a great hope because Georg Wissowa and Franciscus Skutsch, men most learned and most benevolent to us, had induced themselves to take on the task of reading the proofs. Thus, on the first pages, certain excellent commentaries of both appear (under the sigla Wi and Sk.). But because, besides their usual duties, one accepted the dignity of rector and the other that of dean at the very time when the proofs were coming from the presses, they were forced to desist from this help: a fact which we both regret and over which the readers with us, and above all our Varro, will complain. Nor could Paulus Wessner (We), who wished to return in a certain way the effort we expended on his Donatus, fully provide the help he had hoped for due to a change of place and duty that happened at the same time. Finally, when Adolfus Groth learned from the Teubner bulletins that we were to edit these books, he shared with us what he had once annotated for himself regarding many passages: the fact that we have mentioned only a few of these is due to our obedience to his own instruction. Nevertheless, we offer our heartfelt thanks to these men and to all who were of use to us otherwise—among whom we point out in this place also our colleague Ernestus Diehl, and below we praise our friend Hieronymus Vitelli—and at the same time we ask for pardon, because although we have imparted much time both to this whole edition and to the correction itself, we have still not been able to guard against errors, which we have noted in the Addenda and Corrigenda as far as it was possible.

Given at Jena and Heidelberg, November 1909.