The work was originally published in 1871; but so rapid has been the progress of discovery during the last ten years that, in order to bring the book up to the requirements of the present time, a thorough revision of it was needed, together with the addition of much new matter and many new illustrations. This labor of revision and addition has been jointly performed by the author and the translator, the latter having had the advantage of doing the greater part of his work with the immediate assistance of Dr. Reber himself, and of bringing to it fresh resources of his own, the result of original study and investigation. The translator having been absent from the country, engaged in archæological research, during the printing of the volume, the last revision and the correction of the text have been in the hands of Professor William R. Ware, of the School of Mines of Columbia College.
In view of the great confusion which results from an irregular orthography of Greek proper names, a return to the original spelling of words not fully Anglicized may need an explanation, but no apology: it is only adopting a system already followed by scholars of the highest standing. The Romans, until the advent of that second classical revival in which the present century is still engaged, served as mediums for all acquaintance with Hellenic civilization. They employed Greek names, with certain alterations agreeable to the Latin tongue, blunting and coarsening the delicate sounds of Greek speech, much in the same manner as they debased the artistic forms of Greek architecture by a mechanical system of design. The clear ον became _um_, ος was changed to _us_, ει to _e_ or _i_, etc. This Latinized nomenclature, like the Roman triglyph and Tuscan capital, was exclusively adopted by the early Renaissance, until, with the increasing knowledge of Greek lands and works of art, names were introduced which do not happen to occur in the writings of Roman authors. These were either changed in accordance with the more or less variable standard in use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or were adopted in their Greek form without change, the latter method being more and more generally employed. This has gradually led to a partial revision of Greek names and their spelling. Zeus and Hermes, Artemis and Athene, have resumed, as Greek deities, their original titles;--Suni_um_ and Ass_us_ have been changed to Sunion and Assos; while other names have only been reformed in part, as in the case of the unfortunate Polycleitos, who at times appears as Polycl_e_tos, and at times as Polycleit_u_s. Confusion and misunderstanding cannot but result from this unreasonable triple system of Latinized, Anglicized, and Greek orthography. Peirithoos may be sought in alphabetically classified works of reference under Per and Pir as well as under Peir. Πέργαμον, Pergamon, is written Pergamum, Pergamus, and Pergamos, in the two latter forms being naturally confused with the Cretan Πέργαμος, Pergamos, which, in its turn, is Latinized to Pergamus. In the present book the Greek spelling of Greek names has been adopted in all those cases where the word has not been fully Anglicized; that is to say, changed in _pronunciation_, when it would sound pedantic to employ its original form, as, for instance, to speak of the well-known Pæstum and Lucian as Poseidonia and Loukianos. The English alphabet provides, however, two letters for the Greek κάππα, and the more familiar _c_ has been employed, as in Corinth, acropolis, etc., except in cases where the true sound is not thereby conveyed,--namely, before _e_, _i_, and _y_,--when the _k_ is substituted. Moreover, the final αι is transformed to _æ_, according to the universal usage of our tongue.