manuscripts, nearly all of which I have at least examined, and I have also
followed, not always but usually, the opinions of Engelbrecht in his
admirable article, _Die Consolatio Philosophiae des Boethius_ in the
_Sitzungsberichte_ of the Vienna Academy, cxliv. (1902) 1-60. The
present text, then, has been constructed from only part of the material
with which an editor should reckon, though the reader may at least assume
that every reading in the text has, unless otherwise stated, the authority
of some manuscript of the ninth or tenth century; in certain orthographical
details, evidence from the text of the _Opuscula Sacra_ has been used
without special mention of this fact. We look to August Engelbrecht for the
first critical edition of the _Consolatio_ at, we hope, no distant
date.

The text of the _Opuscula Sacra_ is based on my own collations of all
the important manuscripts of these works. An edition with complete
_apparatus criticus_ will be ready before long for the Vienna
_Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum_. The history of the
text of the _Opuscula Sacra_, as I shall attempt to show elsewhere, is
intimately connected with that of the _Consolatio_.

E.K.R.




INTRODUCTION

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, of the famous Praenestine family of the
Anicii, was born about 480 A.D. in Rome. His father was an ex-consul; he
himself was consul under Theodoric the Ostrogoth in 510, and his two sons,