AT the time of his death in 1908 Dr Walter Headlam had been for some years under engagement to prepare an edition of the Agamemnon for the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Unfortunately he was not able to complete it; but the Syndics were nevertheless desirous that a book the preparation of which had engrossed long periods of enthusiastic labour, should if possible be published.

With this end in view the existing material was entrusted to me to be sifted and arranged for the Press. The various parts of the work proved on investigation to be in different stages of progress; for, whereas the Introduction and Verse Translation were nearly complete, and had undergone considerable revision at the hands of their author, the recension of the text had not been carried through, there were no critical notes, and the commentary only existed in fragments. The deficiencies were however less serious than might appear from this statement. Dr Headlam had devoted himself for twenty years to the study of Aeschylus; he had ransacked the whole of the extant Greek literature in order to equip himself for the task of emending, explaining, and illustrating his favourite author; he had published from time to time in the philological periodicals critical studies on most of the difficulties which the text of the Agamemnon presents; and, when repeatedly working through the play, he had collected in note-books and in the margins of his printed copies abundant stores of evidence, which though not in their final shape were available in support of the conclusions he had reached.