11

Preface
The present commentary began as a dissertation submitted to the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2001.1 had originally planned to publish
it quickly, but other commitments intervened and it remained a low prior-
ity. Several years ago, Douglas Olson urged me to consider publishing the
commentary, but again other commitments ensured that I never gave it my
full attention. Revision has thus been fitful, often hasty and not as thorough
going as I had intended. Many hallmarks of the commentary’s origin remain,
but I have nevertheless often revised my opinion on a particular passage,
sometimes radically. Since the dissertation has found its way into the hands of
various libraries and scholars over the years and is occasionally cited, I would
urge everyone with access to a copy to be aware that I no longer necessarily
agree with all that it contains. I now think some opinions put forward in the
dissertation are demonstrably wrong, and the present commentary always
represents a more considered opinion in the case of discrepancies between
the two documents.
The dissertation was supervised by David Sansone; the other members
of the committee were Douglas Olson, Maryline Parca and the late Michael
Browne. I learned a great deal from all four and remain profoundly grateful
to them all, but I should note that Olson in particular offered far more help,
criticism and support than his position as a committee member might imply.
Portions of the dissertation were written in the library at the University of
Illinois, but the bulk was written in the Blegen Library at the American School
of Classical Studies in Athens, where I was a student for three years. I am
grateful to the staff of both libraries, all of whom work very hard to maintain
first-rate research facilities. I would also like to reiterate my gratitude to a
number of people who helped when I was writing the original version of
the commentary, namely the late Judith Binder, Michael Dixon, Catharine
Keesling, Eran Lupu and Ronald Stroud. Stroud was Mellon Professor at the
American School for my first two years there and used that position to offer
material support; more important in many ways, he consistently led by ex-
ample and offered an example of scholarship and humanity that is difficult
to match.
More recently, Douglas Olson was instrumental in introducing me to
Bernhard Zimmermann, who graciously arranged for several visits to Frei-
burg, invited me to contribute to the series Fragmenta Comica and facilitated
material support via the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. In addition to
Zimmermann, Stylianos Chronopoulos, Christian Orth and Anna Novokhatko