Complete Works of Diophantus of Alexandria, Vol. 1

PROLEGOMENA.

It has been my chief desire to show that hardly anything was known of this author beyond his name after the fifth century and before the times of George Pachymeres and Maximus Planudes. The Byzantines embraced the work of Nicomachus, but they seem to have been almost ignorant of Diophantus for a long time. After the commentary written by Planudes, the situation changed. For example, in both letters of Nicholas Artavasdos, surnamed Rhabdas ¹), the beginning is silently compiled from the preface of the Arithmetica. In these, Diophantus himself is called "the greatest in arithmetic" original: "ὁ μέγιστος ἐν ἀριθμητικοῖς" (ho megistos en arithmētikois). However, I have deliberately omitted such later examples.

1, 2, 3. The passages from Theon of Alexandria and John of Jerusalem (pages 35 and 36) have been known for a long time and do not need new observations. However, the testimony of Suidas The Suda is a massive 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia. It was formerly attributed to an author named Suidas. (page 36) must be discussed to some extent. Nesselmann ²) became involved in serious errors regarding this passage. He was a man who otherwise deserved great credit regarding mathematical history, but perhaps he was more skilled in the Arabic language than in Greek ³). He rejected the authority of the manuscripts and accepted the reading of Kuster Ludolf Kuster was an 18th-century editor of the Suda. (a commentary on the astronomical canon of Diophantus: see below page 36, line 24). Consequently, Nesselmann asserted that the commentary by Hypatia was written not on the Arithmetica of Diophantus, but on some other astronomical work. He vainly denied that "commentary on Diophantus" original: "ὑπόμνημα εἰς Διοφάντου" (hypomnēma eis Diophantou) were valid Greek words. He did not notice that such phrasing is much more to be expected in Suidas than the version Kuster proposed, since

1. See my edition: The two arithmetic letters of Nicholas Rhabdas, Paris, Klincksieck, 1886 (Extracted from the Notices etc. XXXII) pages 23, 26, 58.
2. The Algebra of the Greeks, pages 248 and following.
3. This is apparent when he diligently inquires whether the name should be written as Diophantes or Diophantus.