Besides the great variety of scholarship and ignorance, each translator had his own theory of translation. While some attempted a literal version, so as even to bracket all words not actually represented in the Greek, others gave a mere paraphrase, which in one case (Mr. Pulleyn’s “Customs of the Lacedaemonians”) became an original essay on the subject, based on the facts supplied by Plutarch. The present editor’s duty, of course, changed with each new style of translation. It would have been impossible to bring the whole work to a uniform standard of verbal correctness, unless essentially a new translation had been made. The original version was often so hopelessly incorrect that no revision was possible; and here the editor cannot flatter himself that he has succeeded in patching the English of the seventeenth century with his own without detriment. Fortunately, the earlier translation of Holland supplied words, and even whole sentences, in many cases in which the other was beyond the help of mere revision. The translation of Holland is generally more accurate than the other, and, on the whole, a more conscientious work; its antiquated style and diffuseness, however, render it less fitted for republication at the present time. Notwithstanding all the defects of the translation which is here revised, it is beyond all question a more readable version than could be made now; and the liveliness of its style will more than make up to most readers for its want of literal correctness. It need not be stated to professional scholars, that translations made in the seventeenth century cannot, even by the most careful revision, be made to answer the demands of modern critical scholarship.