It is proposed to issue the present translation of the _Bibliotheca_
of Photius in five volumes; a sixth will contain an account of his
life and works, a Bibliography, and a General Index to the whole.
A translator of the _Bibliotheca_ has apparently an open field. So
far as can be ascertained, no complete version exists in English or
any other modern language, although there are English translations or
editions of some of the longer extracts (_e.g._ Ctesias’ _Indica_),
of some of the literary criticisms,[1] of selected codices (chiefly
on profane authors) in Italian by G. Compagnoni,[2] a well-known
Milanese literary man and statesman (1754-1834), and of the whole in
Latin by the learned Jesuit Andreas Schott[3] in Migne’s _Patrologia
Graeca_ (vol. ciii.).
The text[4] is unfortunately in many places unsatisfactory, and no
critical edition has been attempted for nearly a hundred years--since
1824, the date of Immanuel Bekker’s edition. The nature of the work,
a sort of enlarged table of contents, often leaves the meaning and
connexion obscure, when there exist no complete texts[5] or other
means of supplementing it. The present translator, in the endeavour
to obtain as satisfactory a rendering as possible, has constantly
consulted the most important literary, theological, and historical
works and encyclopaedias bearing on the wide field covered by the
extensive reading of Photius. Naturally, there is little scope for
elegance of translation, and in the literary criticisms it is by no
means easy to find a correct and adequate English equivalent for the
terms used.
In the matter of notes, the number of personal and geographical
names, of historical allusions, is so large that any attempt to deal
with them at length would have swamped the text and reduced it to
a kind of peg on which to hang a miniature encyclopaedia. In the
case of persons familiar to all only a brief note has been given,
sufficient for the purposes of identification (often necessary where
there are several persons of the same name), so that those desirous
of further information should know for whom to look in the usual
biographical and other dictionaries. In the case of names less
familiar and points arising directly from the text, the details given
are somewhat fuller. In the Bibliography a list of the most useful
general works of reference and of special editions or accounts of the
authors criticised in the _Bibliotheca_ will be given. The present
work makes no claim to contain a complete exegetical or critical
commentary, but is a somewhat free translation intended to give
the ordinary reader an idea of the literary activity of the chief
representative of the so-called Byzantine Renaissance.