PREFACE.

THE present work of Q. Curtius Rufus has come down to us incomplete the first two books, and some portions in the middle and near the end, being wanting in all the manuscripts. It would seem that the ancient copyist, who considered the first two books, containing the life and exploits of Alexander mainly after his entering Asia, to be less necessary or interesting, commenced transcribing at the third book, when Alexander having gained the victory on the Granicus, had already obtained a firm footing in Asia, and was entering upon his successful career, conquering countries which had never before been the scene of Greek military enterprise. The other gaps in the work have been filled up in modern editions, as in the present, by the supplements of the learned Freinsheim; so that the history of Alexander is continued uninterruptedly down to the point to which Curtius intended to carry it—namely, to the establishment of a regency after the death of the conqueror. The fact that the same gaps occur in all manuscripts, justifies the inference, that the manuscripts known to exist, and the number of which is eighteen, are derived from one and the same, which has thus become the mother-codex for all the others. The copies, however, present great differences in detail; for towards the end of the middle ages, the text of Curtius was subjected to a thorough revision by a scholar who was very clever, but at the same time often too bold, and from this revised copy others again were made, partly with new emendations, and partly with unintentional mistakes. In this manner we may distinguish three classes of manuscripts -namely, 1. Ancient and faithful copies, without intentional corrections, but sometimes unintelligible, because the original manuscript itself was in some parts faulty or illegible; 2. Manuscripts which betray the correcting hand of the above-mentioned scholar, but are otherwise written with tolerable accuracy; 3. Manuscripts which are based upon the revised copy, but are disfigured by numerous mistakes, arising partly from arbitrary emendations, and partly from carelessness.

The first printed editions of Curtius, which appeared towards