PREFACE.

and worthy of being equated with the most brilliant works of this kind." I shall bring to light the latter part of this commentary, which follows the Appendix of the first book and the entire second book, seventy-five years later, recovered from Reiske’s papers in the second volume of this part. I rejoice vehemently that this has fallen primarily to me, because of the paternal friendship and the devotion with which, from boyhood, I have been accustomed to honor the memory of a unique man. I confess, indeed, that in many places it is only begun, awaiting the file that the writer would have applied had the bookseller not abandoned him; but this hinders the polish of the work rather than its value.

I owe the fact that the manuscript itself was sent from Leipzig, so that it could be inspected where necessary, to the kindness and love of letters of the distinguished Blumner, and, if my conjecture does not deceive me, to the friendship and patronage of Hermannus Hermann.

I would have liked the indices to be prepared in the manner of those appended to Agathias a 6th-century historian; however, I have found no one thus far who possessed the strength to carry out the task well, combined with the necessary leisure. I know of one who would do it excellently, but I do not wish to distract him from more noble studies. But if the hope for the task that I hold dear must be entirely abandoned, I shall certainly provide those indices that Reiske had designated for his own edition; however, I have decided to omit as useless the things he intended to append from Georgius Hamartolus George the Sinner, a Byzantine chronicler, and elsewhere, primarily to increase the bulk of the third volume.

I know that the Constantinian books on ceremonies, the very title of which reveals that they deal with trivialities, are clearly despised and mocked by many; nor will I deny that the greater part of the first book is of such a nature that it might move an honest man to nausea. But even in these trifles, there are nonetheless matters that are not at all useless for the knowledge of history. Furthermore, those parts especially in the following sections, which are drawn from Petrus Patricius Peter the Patrician, partly with his name omitted, have not only exceptional utility but also elegance; nor do they yield in excellence to almost any other book of this body of work. Hidden in them, to demonstrate the point with an example, is an edict of Leo Augustus Leo the Wise, which for a little less than eighty years those who worked to increase the collection of remains of pre-Justinian law have neglected to bring forward.

A simple horizontal line serves as a decorative section divider.