Aside from Mommsen’s edition of 1883, the only recent edition is a French one of 1886 by C. Peltier. But this is simply a condensation of Mommsen. While the present edition depends very largely on Mommsen’s work, it is more than a condensation. Not only is the English version given, but all the known studies of the text published since 1883, and in criticism of Mommsen, have been collated. The emendations thus suggested have been placed as footnotes to the Latin and Greek texts. Moreover, the notes have been carefully revised. For the most part they are much reduced in compass, but in many cases they are added to; and a large number of typographical errors in Mommsen’s edition have been corrected. Most of these errors were reproduced in the French edition above mentioned. In a work with such a multitude of references it is too much to hope that all errors have been avoided, and the editor will be greatly indebted if users of the book will report them to him. W. FAIRLEY. _University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa._ INTRODUCTION I. HISTORY OF THE INSCRIPTION. Suetonius in his _Life of Augustus_ tells us that that Emperor had placed in charge of the Vestal virgins his will and three other sealed documents; and the four papers were produced and read in the senate immediately after his death. One of these additional documents gave directions as to his funeral; another gave a concise account of the state of the empire; the third contained a list of “his achievements which he desired should be inscribed on brazen tablets and placed before his mausoleum.” These tablets perished in the decline of Rome. Centuries passed; men had ceased to ask about them, and there was no idea that they would ever be brought to light. Nor were the original tablets ever found. But in 1555 Buysbecche, a Dutch scholar, was sent on an embassy from the Emperor Ferdinand II. to the Sultan Soliman at Amasia in Asia Minor; and a letter of his, published among others at Frankfort in 1595, tells the story of the discovery of a copy of this epitaph of Augustus. He writes: “On our nineteenth day from Constantinople we reached Ancyra. Here we found a most beautiful inscription, and a copy of those tablets on which Augustus had placed the story of his achievements.” From this situation of the copy comes the common title, _Monumentum Ancyranum_. Buysbecche made some attempt to copy the Latin inscription, but his work was very hasty and incomplete. What he had discovered was of extreme importance, and his report stimulated such interest that European scholars never rested till as complete a copy as possible was finally made in our own time. The temple on whose walls the inscription was found was one dedicated to Augustus and Rome, as was a common custom during the lifetime of that Emperor. It was a hexastyle of white marble, with joints of such exquisite workmanship that even in this century it was difficult to trace some of them.