FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

In publishing this critical edition A 'critical edition' is a version of a text where scholars compare different surviving copies to try and reconstruct the most accurate original version. and translation of the text of the treatise On the Administration of the Empire original: "De Administrando Imperio"; although written in Greek, the work is traditionally known by this Latin title., compiled exactly one thousand years ago by the emperor Constantine VII Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (ruled 913–959) was a noted scholar and patron of the arts as well as an emperor., we feel that we should explain how our work began.

The editor of the Greek text started to work on it as long ago as 1926; but the carrying out of other academic projects interfered during many years with completing the collection of his material, and bringing it into final shape for publication. Then, the latter years of the world war made completion and publication alike impossible. Fortunately, however, the manuscript original: "ms." survived the siege of Budapest A brutal siege during the winter of 1944–1945 in World War II that caused massive destruction to the city.; and immediately after the war efforts were again made to finish the work, and the question arose of bringing it out.

The first draft of the English translation was made independently. But while its publication was under consideration, chance brought it into relation with the publication of the Greek text. In the pursuit of our common purpose, we established contact with one another, and agreed that text and translation should be published together, believing that an edition of a Greek text is incomplete without a translation, and having in mind that, apart from the old Latin versions and those in the Russian and Croat languages, there is still no complete translation of the treatise in existence.

From the beginning of 1947 we have worked together, through the medium of correspondence, to bring text and translation into line with one another, and have thus been able to subject the work of each to the revision of the other. Doubtless both parts of the work have benefited from this revision. Certain deficiencies came to light in the Greek text, and the editor owes some corrections to the translator, who has also contributed a few conjectural emendations Scholarly corrections proposed for parts of the text that seem to have errors or gaps in the original source. to the apparatus apparatus: short for "apparatus criticus," these are the technical footnotes in a scholarly edition that document variant readings and corrections in the text.. At the same time, the translator wishes to own a special debt to the editor, whose long study and deep knowledge of the text have assisted in solving many difficulties of interpretation; and though the