VI

PREFACE.

I have therefore described the condition I found as diligently as I could, since it is easy to confuse what is distinct, but no one can distinguish what is confused unless they inspect the codex itself.

I wish it had fallen to me to examine more manuscripts; since that could not be done, I endeavored to compare whatever others had drawn from other codices. For this purpose, I judged that not only Grynæus’s edition and the fragments of August and Hultsch should be used, but also the interpretations of Zamberti and Barocius; for it is possible, even from Latin words, to divine the Greek ones. I was greatly grieved that Wachsmuth, a very learned man, did not bring forward more regarding Proclus’s commentaries on the first book of Euclid in the 18th volume of the Rheinisches Museum Rhine Museum. All the more joyful to me was the supreme generosity and kindness of Prince Boncompagni, who, asked by me, took care at no small expense to have gathered for me variants of doubtful or lacunose passages—seven from codex 101 and more than two hundred and forty from codex 145, both preserved in the Barberini Library in Rome—and gifted them to me, for which I offer him my greatest thanks.

Many passages could be corrected in this way; others were corrected by Nesselmann, Knoche, and Hultsch—Taylor depends entirely on Barocius—and some I seem to have corrected myself; however, I have enclosed in brackets what I added from my own mind into the context when they seemed necessary to me.

I rendered the forms of individual words and terms according to the Munich codex; hence it happened that ττ occurs more often, where Grynæus used σσ. That the form γίνεσθαι is to be preferred to γίγνεσθαι Hultsch already noted on page 454 of the 19th volume of the Rheinisches Museum; nevertheless, I would deny that γιν- should be written for γιγν- in all places. The accents of words and the punctuation of sentences, for the most part neglected in those times, had to be placed according to our usage; on the other hand, the movable ν or ephelkystikon added nu is not placed everywhere according to the rules of common grammar; for the carefully prepared codex of Proclus seems to me to have retained the manner of writing with fidelity, and I think that those times understood the elegance of the Greek language better than any man in our own times can; nor was the usage of schools to be considered in a book that those learning the elements of the Greek language will hardly touch. I therefore pass on what has been passed down, fearing to be more Greek than Proclus.