PREFACE

TO THE MORAL EPISTLES

OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA

BY JOANNES SCHWEIGHÆUSER

The suspicion that had arisen in me some time ago—while I was occupied with establishing the texts of Greek authors according to the authority of ancient books—namely, that perhaps there are among the Roman writers, too, some whose books, as they are currently in the hands of men, although recognized and illustrated by the efforts of most eminent men, are yet far from being considered sufficiently purged of those impurities which either the injury of time or the industry of ill-diligent men had scattered upon them, and from being restored to their genuine brightness; that same suspicion I recently discovered to be confirmed in a wonderful way in this very author, in whom one would have least expected it. The editors of Seneca the Philosopher's works had obtained men most eminent both in the abundance of their learning and in the sharpness of their intellect and the gravity of their judgment: Erasmus, Muretus, Lipsius, and Jo. Frid. Gronovius. Each of these had not only an abundance of handwritten books, other than those used by the editors who preceded them; but furthermore, Muretus had at hand readings excerpted from fifteen Spanish codices by Pincianus; and Lipsius and Gronovius had at their disposal not only those same readings of Pincianus, but also those which had been noted by Fr. Modius from three manuscripts at Würzburg, by Opsopoeus from three Parisian and one Amiens manuscript, and by Gruterus from four Palatine and one Cologne manuscript; to say nothing of others brought forth from an ancient codex by Franc. Jurelus, or from the papers of Dalecampius by...