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

the close of the fifteenth century (the first is that of Venice 1471), are based upon manuscripts of the third class, because they were of more recent origin, and consequently more legible. The faults which were thus introduced throughout the text, though they consisted only in single words and their arrangement, have remained unexpunged until the most recent times, although the defects did not escape the notice of learned editors; and many parts of the text were corrected, sometimes by conjectures, but more frequently from better manuscripts, by the scholars of the sixteenth century, as by Franciscus Asulanus (in the edition of Aldus, 1525), Hadrianus Junius (1546), and Franciscus Modius (1579). Their emendations, however, met with little confidence, because the reasons and sources of their corrections were but rarely and incompletely stated. Hence other editors, and among them especially Freinsheim (1640 and 1670), who has otherwise great merits, preferred retaining the old and faulty text, and altering it only in such passages where it seemed indispensably necessary. Owing to a feeling of reverence for Freinsheim, the text as constituted by him remained unchanged in the large edition of Snakenburg (Delft and Leyden, 1724); and on the whole, in all the subsequent editions also, although the faulty nature of the vulgate became more and more obvious by comparing several ancient and good manuscripts. Schmieder (Göttingen, 1803) was the first who restored a much more correct text, though he did not act consistently throughout; his explanatory notes in Latin also deserve praise on account of his diligence and sound judgment. The present editor first published an edition of Curtius (Berlin, 1826), in which, with the assistance of more manuscripts than any of his predecessors had made use of, he restored the text, as far as possible, of the genuine and unadulterated manuscripts of the first class. In the commentary to his great edition (Brunswick, 1849), he has stated the reasons and sources of all the changes he has made in the text, giving at the same time a complete account of the different readings of both the manuscripts and the early editions. The critical reader is thereby enabled to recognise the condition of the text, and, it is hoped, to convince himself of the correctness of the course which the editor has adopted.

The text here presented is the same as that of the last-mentioned edition, to which, for all critical questions, the reader is referred. The notes accompanying the present edition do not enter into critical discussions, their object being the explanation of the text; and combined with the ample contents prefixed to each book, they furnish everything which appeared necessary to lead a studious youth to a correct understanding

of the words and thoughts of the author. Wherever a Latin grammar is referred to by Gram., the reader will understand that it is the Grammar of Dr. Schmitz, which forms part of this series.

The accompanying map is only an attempt, the place of which, we trust, will soon be supplied by a better one. For the present, we cannot help remarking that British scholars have rather neglected that part of comparative geography which is connected with the expedition of Alexander the Great. Every Englishman must feel an interest in studying the campaigns of Alexander, for they were made in countries where in recent times British valour has won such brilliant victories.

INTRODUCTION.

THE work 'De Gestis Alexandri Magni, regis Macedonum,' is ascribed in the manuscripts to an author of the name of Q. Curtius Rufus. The first two books are lost, and the work, as it has come down to us, begins with the third. This accident has deprived us of the preface, which the author had unquestionably prefixed to his work, and in which he probably also gave some account of himself and his circumstances. In addition to this, it so happens that no other ancient author makes mention of this Latin work on the life of Alexander. a circumstance which occurs also in the case of the 'Astronomica' of the poet Manilius, and the Historia Romana' of Velleius Paterculus. We cannot, therefore, say with any certainty who this Q. Curtius Rufus, mentioned on the title-page, really was, or at what time the book was written. In the work itself, however, we find some allusions to the time at which the author wrote: two passages which may admit of an extended period-namely, iv. 20, where it is stated that Tyre, after its fall under Alexander, was in the enjoyment of peaceful tranquillity, under the protection of Roman clemency, by which everything was refreshing and renovating itself during the blessings of a long peace; and iv. 45, where the author, in speaking of the Parthians, says, that they, having immigrated from Scythia, now occupied the country which at the time of the Persian monarchy was inhabited by the Parthyaei. From this passage, however, we can only infer that the work was written previous to the year A.D. 226; for in that year the Parthian power in Asia was destroyed by the rising of the new Persian Empire. Little, indeed, can be gathered from these allusions concerning the period at which this history of Curtius was written; but there is a third passage (x. 28) which throws more light upon the question; for there the author explains how, after the death of Alexander, when so many were competing for the succession, civil war arose among the Macedonian people, whereby the Empire broke to pieces, which, under the dominion of one, might have continued to flourish. And to this lamentable event the following remark is annexed: In consequence of this, the Roman people acknowledge with justice that they owe their prosperity to their princeps, who in the night which had nearly been the night of death to the state, rose as a

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new star to give light again to the darkened universe, when the discordant members of the whole were in restless commotion without a leader. He extinguished the firebrand of civil war; he sheathed the swords, and dispersed the storm by sudden light.' The author closes this eulogy on the princeps with the hope that if envy can but be kept away, the descendants of the same house will last for ever, or at least for a very long period. We believe that this princeps, to whom the Roman Empire was indebted for a much happier fate than the Macedonian Empire experienced, was no other than Augustus, who put an end to the disturbances and civil wars which arose in consequence of the sudden death of Cæsar; and who, through the unity of his government, gave new strength and prosperity to the Empire. We of course understand the passage figuratively, when the author speaks of the night which enveloped the universe, and the rising of a new star; but we believe he was led to make use of this figurative expression by the extraordinary phenomenon, that during the whole of the year in which Cæsar was murdered, the sun appeared to have lost his splendour, and a dreary mist hung over the country-a phenomenon which is attested by contemporary authors. We are especially induced to entertain the opinion, that Augustus must be understood by the simple expression, 'that the Roman people owed that happiness to their princeps,' because this designation was new in the case of Augustus, and was made use of by him with especial predilection, whereas it became necessary to employ much stronger expres sions of veneration with the subsequent emperors. Moreover, the simple appellation free from all flattery, 'the descendants of the same house,' alludes to a succession consisting of several younger members of the family, as Augustus actually possessed, particularly in his two eldest grandchildren, Gaius and Lucius Cæsar. We therefore come to the conclusion that Curtius wrote his history of Alexander some years before the Christian era, but at the latest in the year of the birth of our Saviour; for the two above-named adopted sons of the princeps died in the years 2 and 4 after Christ, whereupon the stepson of Augustus, Tiberius Claudius Nero, was appointed his successor: the latter was then in the mature age of manhood, and if he had been mentioned, he would have been indicated in a more significant manner.

We meet with two persons in Roman authors who bear the name Curtius Rufus: first, the rhetorician Q. Curtius Rufus, in the index to the work of Suetonius, ' De Claris Rhetoribus.' This work treats, in an introductory chapter, of the lives of the most eminent teachers of Latin eloquence, and afterwards each separate rhetorician is treated of in a separate chapter. Of this work, however, we have only the beginning. The introduction and the lives of