"Doubtless, when many modern readers hear the word "commentaries," they are likely to think in the first instance of exegetical texts composed about writings like Aristotle's or Homer's or the Bible. But in fact the genre of commentaries was not limited to philosophy or literature or theology. On the contrary, even in the mathematical and medical sciences, for example, writing a commentary on someone else's text was an activity that was also fre.uently performed by practitioners. This was not only because these scientific ...
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"Doubtless, when many modern readers hear the word "commentaries," they are likely to think in the first instance of exegetical texts composed about writings like Aristotle's or Homer's or the Bible. But in fact the genre of commentaries was not limited to philosophy or literature or theology. On the contrary, even in the mathematical and medical sciences, for example, writing a commentary on someone else's text was an activity that was also fre.uently performed by practitioners. This was not only because these scientific disciplines were tightly connected with other fields of scholarship, but also because writing in the genres of commentarie was a practice shared in common by most forms of institutionalized intellectual pursuits. The geographic distribution of this genre of writing is another striking phenomenon, since commentaries have actually represented a worldwide phenomenon, or almost so. They are found among cuneiform writings, at least from the first millennium BCE. They are also encountered among Chinese sources, at least after the establishment of the Empire in the third century CE. They likewise exist in ancient Greek, Arabic, Latin, and Sanskrit, until at least early modern times"--
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