A German classical scholar, philologist and pioneer of Byzantine studies, Gottlieb Lukas Friedrich Tafel (1787–1860) had already published two volumes of his own commentaries on the Greek poet Pindar when, in 1832, he prepared this edition of the minor works of the twelfth-century Greek scholar Eustathius (c.1115–c.1194), metropolitan of Thessalonica, whose valuable commentaries on Homer, as edited by Johann Stallbaum, are also reissued in this series. Tafel's edition gives various works from a Basel codex, principally orations, as well as a preface to Eustathius' lost commentary on Pindar and some of his observations on religious and monastic practices. The Paris codex contains numerous letters from Eustathius to a variety of recipients, including the Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople. Furthermore, this collection contains fourteenth- and fifteenth-century pieces relating to Trebizond by Michael Panaretos and John Eugenikos respectively. Following a Latin introduction, all texts are in Greek.
