To prepare this volume and to celebrate its honorand, Malcolm Schofield, the traditional ancient philosophy ‘Mayweek’ conference of the B Caucus of the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, in 2011 was devoted to the theme of Politeia. The conference was attended by ninety-four registered delegates, including a wide range of graduate students, young scholars and scholars of global repute from some forty academic institutions spanning Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, Japan, Korea, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Poland, many of whom engaged in lively questioning of the speakers. All of the papers in this volume with the exception (owing to timetable constraints) of the editors’ own were first presented at this conference and benefited from discussion there. Their authors are drawn from Malcolm's many graduate students, colleagues, editorial collaborators and friends in the discipline of ancient philosophy. We take great pleasure in presenting this volume to him.

The conference was made possible by generous financial support from the B Caucus and Faculty of Classics; Brill Publishers; the British Academy; and the University Committee for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences of Princeton University. It was organized by the editors together with David Sedley, to whom both editors wish to express warm gratitude for shouldering the burden of local arrangements and for advice throughout the development of the conference and volume. We are grateful also for the contribution made in financial management by Lucyna Prochnicka; research assistance, website management and logistical coordination by Julie Rose; and further logistical support by the Cambridge graduate students in ancient philosophy. Chairs of sessions included Margaret Atkins, René Brouwer, Paul Cartledge, Peter Garnsey, Angie Hobbs, Dominic Scott and Richard Sorabji; the speaker at the opening reception was Mary Beard; and initial encouragement for the conference and volume was given by Margaret Atkins, Cynthia Farrar and M.M. McCabe.

The Principal and Fellows of Newnham College kindly allowed us to hold the conference there and to enjoy the College's gardens. We are grateful to the Master and Fellows of St John's College for their generous hospitality to conference guests and for granting permission for the gala conference dinner to be held in the Combination Room, and to the Vice-Master Dr Mark Nicholls, Catering and Conferences Manager Bill Brogan and the College staff for helping to make the dinner so memorable an occasion. Fellow of the College Peter Linehan read the Grace; toasts were given by Tony Long and M.M. McCabe.

In the preparation of the volume we have been greatly helped by research assistance supported at our respective institutions and provided by Julie Rose and Gina White (Princeton) and Maya Gupta (Yale). We have been well advised by our editor Michael Sharp and cheerfully aided by the staff of Cambridge University Press. The copy-editing was done with exceptional skill by Virginia Catmur, and the indices prepared with great care by Maya Gupta; any errors are our responsibility.

The frontispiece is Humphrey Ocean's drawing of Malcolm Schofield, which is reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge.