The series "Philosophers of Byzantium" is published by the Academy of Athens under the auspices of the International Union of Academies and the supervision of an international committee (L. Benakis, R. Browning, H. Hunger, C. A. Trypanis, G. Verbeke, D. Zakynthinos). The director of the series is Dr. Linos Benakis.

This edition is the result of a seminar on the publication of Greek texts, which took place in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of New York in Buffalo in the fall of 1983. The participants were: Thomas A. Gadra (1960), B.A.; Sion M. Honea (1952), B.M., M.A.; Patricia M. Stinger (1945), B.A., M.A.; Gretchen Umholtz (1959), A.B., M.A.; Leendert G. Westerink (1913), Professor of Classical Studies Buffalo 1965-1984.

"The text being edited and translated in this edition was previously anonymous. Based on new information, which will be presented in the following pages, it can now be confidently attributed to the well-known Byzantine ecclesiastical historian and scholar Georgios Pachymeres (13th century). Thus, it becomes the only surviving commentary on Plato from the post-Byzantine period, after the closure of the Athenian and Alexandrian schools. The immediate reason for revisiting the subject of authorship was a proposal from Professor Carlos Steel (Leuven), whose research on Proclus' text 'In Parmenidem' led him to conclude that certain important variations in Proclus' text, as well as the entire anonymous continuation, were the work of a Byzantine scholar who was contemporary or nearly contemporary with the manuscript that preserved them, the Parisian gr. 1810 (13th century). The handwriting of this manuscript could be recognized as Pachymeres' due to the discoveries of Professor Dieter Harmfinger (Berlin), who had previously identified three autographs of Pachymeres' works, the Berolinensis Ham. 512, Parisian gr. 1930 (both 'Philosophy') and Angelicus C.3.7. (of 'Tetradios').

Georgios Pachymeres (b. 1242, d. after 1308), deacon and protopresbyter of Hagia Sophia, who simultaneously held the secular position of logothete, deserves attention as the main historian and scholar of his time, rather than for his active role in the affairs of the church and the state. From his extensive production (which is recorded in the bibliography below), his major works are in the fields of contemporary history, rhetoric, mathematics, theology, and philosophy." (Introduction by Leendert G. Westerink)