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Translator's Preface GREEK NAMES in this work are not rendered in their commonly used Latinized form but by transliteration, using the system employed by the library of Congress (which is identical with the one used in the German original). Only a few names have been retained in their Latinized form, e.g. Alexandria, Aristotle, Byzantium, Plato, Socrates. My authority for this is George Sarton who in the introduction to his A History of Science said: There is really no reason for giving a Latin ending to a Greek name, when one is writing not in Latin but in English. Hence, we write Epicuros, not Epicurus (the two u's of that Latin word represent different Greek vowels!). . . . There remain inconsistencies in our transliteration because we prefer to be inconsistent rather than pedantic and do not wish to disturb our readers more than we can help. . . . They should realize that English usage is full of inconsistencies, e.g., one writes habitually Aristarchus of Samos and Eudoxus of Cnidos: Titles of Greek works have also been rendered in transliteration, with the exception of niod and Odyssey, and titles of works by Plato and Aristotle which are best known in their Latin form as given in the Loeb OassicalUbrary and in other editions. Direct quotations from Greek works available in Loeb Classical library editions have been given in that translation; those editions also allow the interested reader to compare the Greek text to which the author occasionally refers. The German text generally distinguishes between "Gelehrte" and "Forscher" or "Fachleute", the former referring to ancient scholars, the latter to those of our own times. I consistently used the term "scholar" for the ancients and "researcher" for modem classical philologists, who indeed in the most literal sense of the word research for clues on authors in the fragments of their lost works, as ably demonstrated by the author himself. The use of the term "philologists" instead of "grammarians" (a term generally employed in writings about the Alexandrians) is explained by the author on p. 7. The term "autopsy" which is used several times in relation to the compilation of the Pinakes, is quite common in German as a bibliographical terminus technicus, but it is less well known in English in this sense. The Oxford English Dictionary gives as its first definition "personal observation or inspection" and this is indeed what is meant: the bibliographic description of a work, based on personal inspection by the bibliographer (and not on somebody else's description). •George Sarton, A History of Science (New York: Norton, 1952) vol. 1, p. xvii. vii The German text distinguishes between "Abschrift", "Exemplar" and ·Vorlage", all of which are generally expressed in English by the single word "copy". While it was possible to use the word "exemplar" for "Vorlage" and thus to distinguish it from "Abschrift" (a copy made from it), there are no good synonyms for "coPY" in its two other senses, i.e. something that has been copied, as distinct from a book that is another specimen of the same work. The context will make clear what is meant when the terms "Abschrift" and "Exemplar" occurred in the same original sentence and had to be rendered into English. The original bibliography has been augmented by English or French works cited by the author in German translations, and by English editions of German works; in addition, all English translations of Greek authors, passages of which are quoted in the text, have also been included. Most of the Greek passages quoted in the original footnotes have been omitted (with the consent of the author) and references to the sources have been given instead. In a few instances, where this is necessary for the understanding of a note, the Greek text has been reproduced from the original. Footnotes in the original which merely refer to passages in the text itself have been omitted; instead, the index is more comprehensive than the original one, so that the reader will find there references to persons or topics. All explanatory footnotes and those referring to cited sources have been retained. The following abbreviations have been used in the notes: sc. = scilicet, "namely" s.v. = sub verbo, "under the word" T. = Testimonium I wish to express my appreciation for the painstaking and tireless work of Mrs. Golda M. Haines without whose expert typing and word processing this book could not have been produced. I am also grateful to the Harvard University Press for permission to use the English...

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