The treatise περὶ στρατιωτικῶν ἐπιτιμίων has been edited at least half a dozen times, and my only justification for bringing out a new text of a book which is not so widely read as it deserves is that all existing editions are based on inadequate manuscript authority and therefore misleading.

There are two editions by Karl Eduard Zachariä von Lingenthal (hereinafter called Z.). The earlier appeared as the thirty-fourth chapter of the Ecloga ad Prochiron mutata (Jus Grœco-Romanum, Pars IV, Lipsiae, 1865, pp. 138—141). It seems from the preface to be based on Paris gr. 1720 of the end of the fifteenth century. The later edition is in Z.'s article ‘Wissenschaft und Recht für das Heer vom 6. bis zum Anfang des 10. Jahrhunderts’ in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Dritter Band, Leipzig, 1894, pp. 450–453. He takes it—so he says at p. 449—‘nach einer Abschrift aus der Epitome ad Prochiron mutata, die ich aus der vorzüglichen alten Handschrift Marcianus 579 genommen habe.’ In an affecting letter to the editor of the Byzantinische Zeitschrift (p. 437, n. 1) he says that, although his eyesight and his pen have failed him, he has been able to complete the undertaking with the support of his children and the local pastor. Greek manuscripts are best collated without the help of women or priests. Certain it is that the manuscript of which Z. gives a copy is not Marcianus gr. 579. The illustrious man died, full of years and wrong references, before his article was published.