128 APOLLONIUS OF PERGA 
Latin. Gregory, however, died while the work was proceeding, 
and Halley then undertook responsibility for the whole. The 
Greek manuscripts used were two, one belonging to Savile 
and the other lent by D. Baynard; their whereabouts cannot 
apparently now be traced, but they were both copies of Paris, 
gr. 2356, which was copied in the sixteenth century from Paris, 
gr. 2357 of the sixteenth century, itself a copy of V. For the 
three Books in Arabic Halley used the Bodleian MS. 885, but 
also consulted (a) a compendium of the three Books by 'Abdel- 
melik al-Shirázi (twelfth century), also in the Bodleian (913), 
(h) Borelli’s edition, and (c) Bodl. 943 above mentioned, by means 
of which he revised and corrected his translation when com 
pleted. Halley’s edition is still, so far as I know, the only 
available source for Books Y-YII, except for the beginning of 
Book V (up to Prop. 7) which was edited by L. Nix (Leipzig, 
1889). 
The Greek text of Books I-IV is now available, with the 
commentaries of Eutocius, the fragments of Apollonius, &c., 
in the definitive edition of Heiberg (Teubner, 1891-3). 
Apollonius’s own account of the Conics. 
A general account of the contents of the great work which, 
according to Geminus, earned for him the title of the ‘ great 
geometer’ cannot be better given than in the words of the 
writer himself. The prefaces to the several Books contain 
interesting historical details, and, like the prefaces of Archi 
medes, state quite plainly and simply in what way the 
treatise differs from those of his predecessors, and how much 
in it is claimed as original. The strictures of Pappus (or 
more probably his interpolator), who accuses him of being a 
braggart and unfair towards his predecessors, are evidently 
unfounded. The prefaces are quoted by v. Wilamowitz- 
Moellendorff as specimens of admirable Greek, showing how 
perfect the style of the great mathematicians could be 
when they were free from the trammels of mathematical 
terminology. 
Book I. General Preface. 
Apollonius to Eudemus, greeting. 
If you are in good health and things are in other respects 
as you wish, it is well; with me too things are moderately 
well. 
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