P R E F A C E.

Regarding the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the books declaring the order of the Byzantine court which are attributed to that author, and their Leipzig codex, much has been fully and clearly set forth by Leichius Leich and Reiskius Reiske. We shall briefly explain what qualities this edition possesses that make it superior to the first and, until now, only edition. It is a well-known fact that this work, begun by Leich and interrupted by his untimely death, was brought to the end of the second volume by Reiske, while the third was omitted at the desire of the bookseller, who did not wish to risk the loss of his capital. Leich, acting on poor judgment, relied so heavily on a transcript made by Draudius Draud that he scarcely consulted the manuscript he had at hand, and certainly printed the edition solely from that transcript. But Reiske, having taken on the care of the work, deemed nothing more important than the collation of the manuscript; from this, he corrected the most foul errors in very many places, and restored entire passages that had been omitted, especially due to ὁμοιοτέλευτα similar endings in words or clauses causing accidental skipping by scribes. He indicated all of these points accurately in the commentary, as it was not possible to amend them in the first part which had already left the press. I have persuaded my colleague Classenus Classen to amend the flawed sections, supply what was missing, and correct what had been poorly translated from deficient Greek, all in accordance with Reiske’s intent; the labor for this was significant, and the fruit truly ample. In the following sections, which Reiske himself edited, I chose to change nothing, although he himself acted contrary to his own practice when he left behind monstrosities of spelling and manifest errors as they existed in the manuscript. But I did not wish to act with haste, as I would have had to do, being deprived of leisure; therefore, I chose the inconvenience, which seemed to me the lesser evil. Yet, while we concede that Reiske’s review is not perfect in every number, nothing is truly detracted from the praise of his commentaries, in which he explained the most obscure matters, situated outside common knowledge, in such a way that Lessingius Lessing, a most wise judge even in these literary matters, pronounced it "an admirable work,