Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/20

xvi reduced my treatment of Philosophy to the narrowest dimensions, and, with much reluctance, have determined to omit altogether Hippocrates and the men of science. Finally, I have stopped the history proper at the death of Demosthenes, and appended only a rapid and perhaps arbitrary sketch of the later literature down to the fall of Paganism, omitting entirely, for instance, even such interesting books as Theophrastus's Characters, and the Treatise on the Sublime.

In the spelling of proper names I have made no great effort to attain perfect consistency. I have in general adopted the ordinary English or Latin modifications, except that I have tried to guide pronunciation by leaving k unchanged where c would be soft, and by marking long syllables with a circumflex. Thus Kimon is not changed to Cimon, and Leptînes is distinguished from Æschines. I have not, however, thought it necessary to call him Leptînês, or to alter the aspect of a common word by writing Dêmêtêr, Thûkŷdidês. In references to ancient authors, my figures always apply to the most easily accessible edition; my reading, of course, is that which I think most likely to be right in each case. All the authors quoted are published in cheap texts by Teubner or Tauchnitz or the English Universities, except in a few cases, which are noted as they occur. Aristotle, Plato, and the Orators are quoted by the pages of the standard editions; in the Constitution of Athens, which, of course, was not contained in the great Berlin Aristotle, I follow Kenyon's editio princeps.

Philologists may be surprised at the occasional acceptance in my translations of ancient and erroneous