Acknowledgments
This volume, which has been long in coming, was initiated in 2012 at the welcome request of Irene van Rossum, then Senior Acquisitions Editor, Classical Studies and Ancient Philosophy at Brill Publishing. It is a great pleasure and no small relief to see it in print and we thank her, Caroline van Erp, Tessel Jonquière, and Giulia Moriconi, all of Brill, for their assistance and guidance in its production.The preparation of the volume benefitted as well from the technical assistance of Eduardo Escobar, Anabela Carneiro, and especially H. Hraban Ramm (hraban@fiee.net), whose advice in matters concerning ConTeXt was invaluable. To each of them, we likewise extend our thanks and gratitude.
We also thank our colleague Zoë Misiewicz and our copyeditor, Kelly Burch (kellycopyedits@gmail.com), for their aid as the chapters contributed by our numerous authors came in. Kelly also provided invaluable assistance by serving as our proofreader when the volume was finally complete and in hand.
The volume itself was sent to various readers either in part (William R. Bowen, Bernard R. Goldstein, Robert Hannah, and John M. Steele) or in whole (Sonja Brentjes) for review and comment. Their response was exemplary: indeed, their criticisms and suggestions were most helpful to us in revising the volume and trying to enhance its coherence. We thank each of them for the expert advice so freely offered.
Last, but hardly least, we thank our contributors. Working with them on this volume proved to be not a merely mechanical effort to assemble disparate work but a truly collaborative attempt to set the study of Hellenistic astronomy on a new footing for future research. We are inspired by each of them and are now most eager to take the next steps.