the labor of a transcriber for such a purpose, and expose his most
secret thoughts to any other eye. He may have also intended the book for
his son Commodus, who however had no taste for his father's philosophy.
Some careful hand preserved the precious volume; and a work by Antoninus
is mentioned by other late writers besides Suidas.

Many critics have labored on the text of Antoninus. The most complete
edition is that by Thomas Gataker, 1652, 4to. The second edition of
Gataker was superintended by George Stanhope, 1697, 4to. There is also
an edition of 1704. Gataker made and suggested many good corrections,
and he also made a new Latin version, which is not a very good specimen
of Latin, but it generally expresses the sense of the original, and
often better than some of the more recent translations. He added in the
margin opposite to each paragraph references to the other parallel
passages; and he wrote a commentary, one of the most complete that has
been written on any ancient author. This commentary contains the
editor's exposition of the more difficult passages, and quotations from
all the Greek and Roman writers for the illustration of the text. It is
a wonderful monument of learning and labor, and certainly no Englishman
has yet done anything like it. At the end of his preface the editor says
that he wrote it at Rotherhithe near London, in a severe winter, when he
was in the seventy-eighth year of his age, 1651--a time when Milton,
Selden, and other great men of the Commonwealth time were living; and
the great French scholar Saumaise (Salmasius), with whom Gataker
corresponded and received help from him for his edition of Antoninus.
The Greek test has also been edited by J. M. Schultz, Leipzig, 1802,
8vo; and by the learned Greek Adamantinus Corais, Paris, 1816, 8vo. The
text of Schultz was republished by Tauchnitz, 1821.

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