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| Table of Contents | |
| Section | Page |
| Start of eBook | 1 |
| Part I. THE PALAEOGRAPHY OF THE MORGAN FRAGMENT. By E. A. Lowe. | 1 |
| PART I. | 1 |
| PART II. | 31 |
| PART I: | 64 |
| PART II: | 64 |
Description of the Fragment
Contents, size, vellum, binding
Ruling
Relation of the six leaves to the rest
of the manuscript
Original size of the manuscript
Disposition
Ornamentation
Corrections
Syllabification
Orthography
Abbreviations
Authenticity of the six leaves
Archetype
The Date and Later History of the Manuscript
On the dating of uncial manuscripts
Dated uncial manuscripts
Oldest group of uncial manuscripts
Characteristics of the oldest uncial manuscripts
Date of the Morgan manuscript
Later history of the Morgan manuscript
Conclusion
Transcription
Part ii. The text of the Morgan fragment. By E. K. Rand.
The Morgan Fragment and Aldus’s Ancient Codex
Parisinus
The Codex Parisinus
The Bodleian volume
The Morgan fragment possibly a part of
the lost Parisinus
The script
Provenience and contents
The text closely related to that of Aldus
Editorial methods of Aldus
Relation of the Morgan Fragment to the Other Manuscripts
of the Letters
Classes of the manuscripts
The early editions
_{Pi}_ a member of Class I
_{Pi}_ the direct ancestor of BF
with probably a copy intervening
The probable stemma
Further consideration of the external
history of P, _{Pi}_, and B
Evidence from the portions of BF
outside the text of _{Pi}_
Editorial Methods of Aldus
Aldus’s methods; his basic text
The variants of Budaeus in the Bodleian
volume
Aldus and Budaeus compared
The latest criticism of Aldus
Aldus’s methods in the newly discovered
parts of Books viii, IX, and X
The Morgan fragment the best criterion
of Aldus
Conclusion
Description of Plates
The palaeography
of the Morgan
fragment
by
E. A. Lowe
The palaeography of the Morgan fragment.
Description of the fragment.
[Sidenote: Contents size vellum binding]
The Morgan fragment of Pliny the Younger contains the end of Book ii and the beginning of Book iii of the Letters (ii, xx. 13-III, v. 4). The fragment consists of six vellum leaves, or twelve pages, which apparently formed part of a gathering or quire of the original volume.
The leaves measure 11-3/8 by 7 inches (286 x 180 millimeters); the written space measures 7-1/4 by 4-3/8 inches (175 x 114 millimeters); outer margin, 1-7/8 inches (50 millimeters); inner, 3/4 inch (18 millimeters); upper margin, 1-3/4 inches (45 millimeters); lower, 2-1/4 inches (60 millimeters).
The vellum is well prepared and of medium thickness. The leaves are bound in a modern pliable vellum binding with three blank vellum fly-leaves in front and seven in back, all modern. On the inside of the front cover is the book-plate of John Pierpont Morgan, showing the Morgan arms with the device: Onward and Upward. Under the book-plate is the press-mark M.462.
[Sidenote: Ruling]
There are twenty-seven horizontal lines to a page and two vertical bounding lines. The lines were ruled with a hard point on the flesh side, each opened sheet being ruled separately: 48v and 53r, 49r and 52v, 50v and 51r. The horizontal lines were guided by knife-slits made in the outside margins quite close to the text space; the two vertical lines were guided by two slits in the upper margin and two in the lower. The horizontal lines were drawn across the open sheets and extended occasionally beyond the slits, more often just beyond the perpendicular bounding lines. The written space was kept inside the vertical bounding lines except for the initial letter of each epistle; the first letter of the address and the first letter of the epistle proper projected into the left margin. Here and there the scribe transgressed beyond the bounding line. On the whole, however, he observed the limits and seemed to prefer to leave a blank before the bounding line rather than to crowd the syllable into the space or go beyond the vertical line.
[Sidenote: Relation of the six leaves to the rest of the manuscript]
One might suppose that the six leaves once formed a complete gathering of the original book, especially as the first and last pages, folios 48r and 53v have a darker appearance, as though they had been the outside leaves of a gathering that had been affected by exposure. But this darker appearance is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that both pages are on the hair side of the parchment, and the hair side is always darker than the flesh side. Quires of six leaves or trinions are not unknown. Examples of them may be found in our oldest manuscripts. But they are the exception.[1] The customary quire is a gathering of eight leaves, forming a quaternion proper. It would be natural, therefore, to suppose that our fragment did not constitute a complete gathering in itself but formed part of a quaternion. The supposition is confirmed by the following considerations:
[Footnote 1: For example, in the
fifth-century manuscript of Livy
in Paris (MS. lat. 5730) the forty-third
and forty-fifth quires are
composed of six leaves, while the rest
are all quires of eight.]
In the first place, if our six leaves were once a part of a quaternion, the two leaves needed to complete them must have formed the outside sheet, since our fragment furnishes a continuous text without any lacuna whatever. Now, in the formation of quires, sheets were so arranged that hair side faced hair side, and flesh side flesh side. This arrangement is dictated by a sense of uniformity. As the hair side is usually much darker than the flesh side the juxtaposition of hair and flesh sides would offend the eye. So, in the case of our six leaves, folios 48v and 53r, presenting the flesh side, face folios 49r and 52v likewise on the flesh side; and folios 49v and 52r presenting the hair side, face folios 50r and 51v likewise on the hair side. The inside pages 50v and 51r which face each other, are both flesh side, and the outside pages 48r and 53v are both hair side, as may be seen from the accompanying diagram.
(47) 48 49 50 51 52 53 (54)
: | | | :
| | | :
: | | | Flesh : Flesh
| | | :
: | | +-------:-------+
| | :
: | | Hair : Hair
| | :
: | | :
| | :
: | | Hair : Hair
| | :
: | +------------:------------+
| :
: | Flesh : Flesh
| :
: | :
| :
: | Flesh : Flesh
| :
: +-----------------:-----------------+
:
: Hair : Hair
:
: :
:
: Hair : Hair
:
: — — — —
— — — — — — -:-
— — — — — — —
— — — :
Flesh
Flesh
From this arrangement it is evident that if our fragment once formed part of a quaternion the missing sheet was so folded that its hair side faced the present outside sheet and its flesh side was on the outside of the whole gathering. Now, it was by far the more usual practice in our oldest uncial manuscripts to have the flesh side on the outside of the quire.[2] And as our fragment belongs to the oldest class of uncial manuscripts, the manner of arranging the sheets of quires seems to favor the supposition that two outside leaves are missing. The hypothesis is, moreover, strengthened by another consideration. According to the foliation supplied by the fifteenth-century Arabic numerals, the leaf which must have followed our fragment bore the number 54, the leaf preceding it having the number 47. If we assume that our fragment was a complete gathering, we are obliged to explain why the next gathering began on a leaf bearing an even number (54), which is abnormal. We do not have to contend with this difficulty if we assume that folios 47 and 54 formed the outside sheet of our fragment, for six quires of eight leaves and one of six would give precisely 54 leaves. It seems, therefore, reasonable to assume that our fragment is not a complete unit, but formed part of a quaternion, the outside sheet of which is missing.
[Footnote 2: In an examination of all the uncial manuscripts in the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, it was found that out of twenty manuscripts that may be ascribed to the fifth and sixth centuries only two had the hair side on the outside of the quires. Out of thirty written approximately between A.D. 600 and 800, about half showed the same practice, the other half having the hair side outside. Thus the practice of our oldest Latin scribes agrees with that of the Greek: see C.R. Gregory, “Les cahiers des manuscrits grecs” in Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1885), p. 261. I am informed by Professor Hyvernat, of the Catholic University of Washington, that the same custom is observed by Coptic scribes.]
[Sidenote: Original size of the manuscript]
In the fifteenth century, as the previous demonstration has made clear, our fragment was preceded by 47 leaves that are missing to-day. With this clue in our possession it can be demonstrated that the manuscript began with the first book of the Letters. We start with the fact that not all the 47 folios (or 94 pages) which preceded our six leaves were devoted to the text of the Letters. For, from the contents of our six leaves we know that each book must have been preceded by an index of addresses and first lines. The indices for Books I and II, if arranged in general like that of Book III, must have occupied four pages.[3] We also learn from our fragment that space must be allowed for a colophon at the end of each book. One page for the colophons of Books I and II is a reasonable allowance. Accordingly it follows that out of the 94 pages preceding our fragment 5 were not devoted to text, or in other words that only 89 pages were thus devoted.
[Footnote 3: The confused arrangement of the indices for Books I and II in the Codex Bellovacensis may well have been found in the manuscript of which the Morgan fragment is a part. The space required for the indices, however, would not have greatly differed from that taken by the index of Book III in both the Morgan fragment and the Codex Bellovacensis.]
Now, if we compare pages in our manuscript with pages of a printed text we find that the average page in our manuscript corresponds to about 19 lines of the Teubner edition of 1912. If we multiply 89 by 19 we get 1691. This number of lines of the size of the Teubner edition should, if our calculation be correct, contain the text of the Letters preceding our fragment. The average page of the Teubner edition of 1912 of the part which interests us contains a little over 29 lines. If we divide 1691 by 29 we get 58.3. Just 58 pages of Teubner text are occupied by the 47 leaves which preceded our fragment. So close a conformity is sufficient to prove our point. We have possibly allowed too much space for indices and colophons, especially if the former covered less ground for Books I and II than for Book III. Further, owing to the abbreviation of que and bus, and particularly of official titles, we can not expect a closer agreement.
It is not worth while to attempt a more elaborate calculation. With the edges matching so nearly, it is obvious that the original manuscript as known and used in the fifteenth century could not have contained some other work, however brief, before Book I of Pliny’s Letters. If the manuscript contained the entire ten books it consisted of about 260 leaves. This sum is obtained by counting the number of lines in the Teubner edition of 1912, dividing this sum by 19, and adding thereto pages for colophons and indices. It would be too bold to suppose that this calculation necessarily gives us the original size of the manuscript, since the manuscript may have had less than ten books, or it may, on the other hand, have had other works. But if it contained only the ten books of the Letters, then 260 folios is an approximately correct estimate of its size.
It is hard to believe that only six leaves of the original manuscript have escaped destruction. The fact that the outside sheet (foll. 48r and 53v) is not much worn nor badly soiled suggests that the gathering of six leaves must have been torn from the manuscript not so very long ago and that the remaining portions may some day be found.
[Sidenote: Disposition]
The pages in our manuscript are written in long lines,[4] in scriptura continua, with hardly any punctuation.
[Footnote 4: Many of our oldest Latin manuscripts have two and even three columns on a page, a practice evidently taken over from the roll. But very ancient manuscripts are not wanting which are written in long lines, e.g., the Codex Vindobonensis of Livy, the Codex Bobiensis of the Gospels, or the manuscript of Pliny’s Natural History preserved at St. Paul in Carinthia.]
Each page begins with a large letter, even though that letter occur in the body of a word (cf. foll. 48r, 51v, 52r).[5]
[Footnote 5: This is an ear-mark of great antiquity. It is found, for example, in the Berlin and Vatican Schedae Vergilianae in square capitals (Berlin lat. 2º 416 and Rome Vatic. lat. 3256 reproduced in Zangemeister and Wattenbach’s Exempla Codicum Latinorum, etc., pl. 14, and in Steffens, Lateinische Palaeographie{2}, pl. 12b), in the Vienna, Paris, and Lateran manuscripts of Livy, in the Codex Corbeiensis of the Gospels, and here and there in the palimpsest manuscript of Cicero’s De Re Publica and in other manuscripts.]
Each epistle begins with a large letter. The line containing the address which precedes each epistle also begins with a large letter. In both cases the large letter projects into the left margin.
The running title at the top of each page is in small rustic capitals.[6] On the verso of each folio stands the word EPISTVLARVM; on the recto of the following folio stands the number of the book, e.g., LIB. II, LIB. III.
[Footnote 6: In many of our oldest manuscripts uncials are employed. The Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia agrees with our manuscript in using rustic capitals. For facsimiles see J. Sillig, C. Plini Secundi Naturalis Historiae, Libri XXXVI, Vol. VI, Gotha 1855, and Chatelain, Paleographie des Classiques Latins, pl. CXXXVI.]
To judge by our fragment, each book was preceded by an index of addresses and initial lines written in alternating lines of black and red uncials. Alternating lines of black and red rustic capitals of a large size were used in the colophon.[7]
[Footnote 7: In this respect, too, the Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia agrees with our fragment. Most of the oldest manuscripts, however, have the colophon in the same type of writing as the text.]
[Sidenote: Ornamentation]
As in all our oldest Latin manuscripts, the ornamentation is of the simplest kind. Such as it is, it is mostly found at the end and beginning of books. In our case, the colophon is enclosed between two scrolls of vine-tendrils terminating in an ivy-leaf at both ends. The lettering in the colophon and in the running title is set off by means of ticking above and below the line.
Red is used for decorative purposes in the middle line of the colophon, in the scroll of vine-tendrils, in the ticking, and in the border at the end of the Index on fol. 49. Red was also used, to judge by our fragment, in the first three lines of a new book,[8] in the addresses in the Index, and in the addresses preceding each letter.
[Footnote 8: This is also the case in the Paris manuscript of Livy of the fifth century, in the Codex Bezae of the Gospels (published in facsimile by the University of Cambridge in 1899), in the Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia, and in many other manuscripts of the oldest type.]
[Sidenote: Corrections]
The original scribe made a number of corrections. The omitted line of the Index on fol. 49 was added between the lines, probably by the scribe himself, using a finer pen; likewise the omitted line on fol. 52v, lines 7-8. A number of slight corrections come either from the scribe or from a contemporary reader; the others are by a somewhat later hand, which is probably not more recent than the seventh century.[9] The method of correcting varies. As a rule, the correct letter is added above the line over the wrong letter; occasionally it is written over an erasure. An omitted letter is also added above the line over the space where it should be inserted. Deletion of single letters is indicated by a dot placed over the letter and a horizontal or an oblique line drawn through it. This double use of expunction and cancellation is not uncommon in our oldest manuscripts. For details on the subject of corrections, see the notes on pp. 23-34.
[Footnote 9: The strokes over the
two consecutive i’s on fol.
53v, l. 23, were made by a hand that can
hardly be older than the
thirteenth century.]
There is a ninth-century addition on fol. 53 and one of the fifteenth century on fol. 51. On fol. 49, in the upper margin, a fifteenth-century hand using a stilus or hard point scribbled a few words, now difficult to decipher.[10] Presumably the same hand drew a bearded head with a halo. Another relatively recent hand, using lead, wrote in the left margin of fol. 53v the monogram QR[11] and the roman numerals i, ii, iii under one another. These numerals, as Professor Rand correctly saw, refer to the works of Pliny the Elder enumerated in the text. Further activity by this hand, the date of which it is impossible to determine, may be seen, for example, on fol. 49v, ll. 8, 10, 15; fol. 52, ll. 4, 10, 13, 21, 22; fol. 53, ll. 12, 15, 16, 17, 20, 27; fol. 53v, ll. 5, 10, 15.
[Footnote 10: I venture to read dominus meus ... in te deus.
[Footnote 11: This doubtless stands for Quaere (= “investigate"), a frequent marginal note in manuscripts of all ages. A number of instances of Q for quaere are given by A.C. Clark, The Descent of Manuscripts, Oxford 1918, p. 35.]
[Sidenote: Syllabification]
Syllables are divided after a vowel or diphthong except where such a division involves beginning the next syllable with a group of consonants.[12] In that case the consonants are distributed between the two syllables, one consonant going with one syllable and the other with the following, except when the group contains more than two successive consonants, in which case the first consonant goes with the first syllable, the rest with the following syllable. That the scribe is controlled by this mechanical rule and not by considerations of pronunciation is obvious from the division SAN|CTISSIMUM and other examples found below. The method followed by him is made amply clear by the examples which occur in our twelve pages:[13]
fo. 48r, line 1, con-suleret
2,
sescen-ties
3,
ex-ta
7,
fal-si
fo. 49v, line 3, spu-rinnam
5,
senesce-re
7,
distin-ctius
12,
se-nibus
13,
con-ueniunt
15,
spurin-na
18,
circum-agit
20,
mi-lia
24,
prae-sentibus
25,
grauan-tur
fo. 50r, line 1, singu-laris
4,
an-tiquitatis
5,
au-dias
9,
ite-rum
11,
scri-bit
12,
ly-rica
15,
scri-bentis
17,
octa-ua
19,
uehe-menter
20,
exer-citationis
21,
se-nectute
22,
paulis-per
23,
le-gentem
fo. 50v, line 2, de-lectatur
3,
co-moedis
4,
uolupta-tes
5,
ali-quid
6,
lon-gum
11,
senec-tut
12,
uo-to
13,
ingres-surus
14,
ae-tatis
15,
in-terim
16,
ho-rum
20,
re-xit
21,
me-ruit
22,
eun-dem
25,
epis-tulam
fo. 51r, line 2, mi-hi
4,
afria-nus
6,
facultati-bus
7,
super-sunt
8,
gra-uitate
9,
consi-lio
10,
ut-or
13,
ar-dentius
23,
con-feras
24,
habe-bis
27,
concu-piscat
fo. 51v, line 3, san-ctissimum
5,
memo-riam
10,
pater-nus
11,
contige-rit
12,
lau-de
14,
hones-tis
15,
refe-rat
17,
contuber-nium
21,
circumspi-ciendus
22,
scho-lae
24,
nos-tro
27,
praecep-tor
fo. 52r, line 2, demon-strare
5,
iudi-cio
6,
gra-uis
8,
quan-tum
9,
cre-dere
12,
mag-nasque
13,
ge-nitore
16,
nes[cis]-se
19,
nomi-na
20,
fauen-tibus
23,
dis-citur
fo. 52v, line 1, uidean-tur
3,
con-silium
5,
concu-pisco
6,
pecu-nia
7,
excucuris-sem
10,
se-natu
12,
ne-cessitatibus
19,
postulaue-runt
21,
bae-bium
23,
clari-sima
25,
in-quam
26,
excusa-tionis
fo. 53r, line 1, com (or con)-pulit
5,
ueni-ebat
7,
iniu-rias
8,
ex-secutos
10,
prae-terea
12,
aduoca-tione
13,
con-seruandum
15,
com-paratum
16,
sub-uertas
17,
cumu-les
18,
obliga-ti
23,
tris-tissimum
fo. 53v, line 2, facili-orem
3,
si-quis
5,
offi-ciorum
7,
praepara-tur
8,
super-est
10,
sim-plicitas
11,
compro-bantis
14,
diligen-ter
20,
cog-nitio
22,
milita-ret
26,
exsol-uit
[Footnote 12: Such a division
as ut|_or_ on fol. 7, l. 10, is due
entirely to thoughtless copying. The scribe
probably took ut for a
word.]
[Footnote 13: For further details on syllabification in our oldest Latin manuscripts, see Th. Mommsen, “Livii Codex Veronensis,” in Abhandlungen der k. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin, phil. hist. Cl. (1868), p. 163, n. 2, and pp. 165-6; Mommsen-Studemund, Analecta Liviana (Leipsic 1873), p. 3; Brandt, “Der St. Galler Palimpsest,” in Sitzungsberichte der phil. hist. Cl. der k. Akad. der Wiss. in Wien, CVIII (1885), pp. 245-6; L. Traube, “Palaeographische Forschungen IV,” in Abhandlungen d. h. t. Cl. d. k. Bayer. Akad. d. Wiss. XXIV. 1 (1906), p. 27; A.W. Van Buren, “The Palimpsest of Cicero’s De Re Publica,” in Archaeological Institute of America, Supplementary Papers of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, ii (1908), pp. 89 sqq.; C. Wessely, in his preface to the facsimile edition of the Vienna Livy (MS. lat. 15), published in the Leyden series, Codices graeci et latini, etc., T. XI. See also W.G. Hale, “Syllabification in Roman speech,” in Harvard Studies of Classical Philology, VII (1896), pp. 249-71, and W. Dennison, “Syllabification in Latin Inscriptions,” in Classical Philology, I (1906), pp. 47-68.]
[Sidenote: Orthography]
The spelling found in our six leaves is remarkably correct. It compares favorably with the best spelling encountered in our oldest Latin manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries. The diphthong ae is regularly distinguished from e. The interchange of b and u, d and t, o and u, so common in later manuscripts, is rare here: the confusion between b and u occurs once (comprouasse, fo. 52v, l. 1); the omission of h occurs once (pulcritudo, fo. 51v, l. 26); the use of k for c occurs twice (karet, fo. 51r, l. 14, and karitas, fo. 52r, l. 5). The scribe uses the correct forms in adolescet (fo. 51v, l. 14) and adulescenti (fo. 51v, l. 24); he writes auonculi (fo. 53v, l. 15), exsistat (fo. 51v, l. 9), and exsecutos (fo. 53r, l. 8). In the case of composite words he has the assimilated form in some, and in others the unassimilated form, as the following examples go to show:
fo. 48r, line 3, inpleturus fo. 48r, line 7,
improbissimum
49r, 13a, adnotasse
48v, 23, composuisse
19,
adsumo 50r, 1, ascendit
50r, 1, adsumit
6, imbuare
27,
adponitur 22, accubat
50v, 3, adficitur
51r, 2, optulissem
51r, 19, adstruere
3, suppeteret
21,
adstruere 16, ascendere
26,
adpetat 51v, 16, accipiat
51v, 9, exsistat
52v, 1, comprouasse
12,
[Sidenote: Abbreviations]
Very few abbreviated words occur in our twelve pages. Those that are found are subject to strict rules. What is true of the twelve pages was doubtless true of the entire manuscript, inasmuch as the sparing use of abbreviations in conformity with certain definite rules is a characteristic of all our oldest manuscripts.[14] The abbreviations found in our fragment may conveniently be grouped as follows:
[Footnote 14: That is, manuscripts written before the eighth century. The number of abbreviations increases considerably during the eighth century. Previously the only symbols found in calligraphic majuscule manuscripts are the “Nomina Sacra” (deus, dominus, Iesus, Christus, spiritus, sanctus), which constantly occur in Christian literature, and such suspensions as are met with in our fragment. A familiar exception is the manuscript of Gaius, preserved in the Chapter library of Verona, MS. xv (13). This is full of abbreviations not found in contemporary manuscripts containing purely literary or religious texts. Cf. W. Studemund, Gaii Institutionum Commentarii Quattuor, etc., Leipsic 1874; and F. Steffens, Lateinische Palaeographie{2}, pl. 18 (pl. 8 of the Supplement). The Oxyrhynchus papyrus of Cicero’s speeches is non-calligraphic and therefore not subject to the rule governing calligraphic products. The same is true of marginal notes to calligraphic texts. See W.M. Lindsay, Notae Latinae, Cambridge 1915, pp. 1-2.]
1. Suspensions which might occur in any ancient manuscript or inscription, e.g.:
B. = BUS
Q. = QUE[15]
.{-C}. = GAIUS[16]
P. C. = PATRES CONSCRIPTI
[Footnote 15: Found only at the end
of words in our fragment. Its
use in the body of a word is, however,
very ancient.]
[Footnote 16: The C invariably
has the two dots as well as the
superior horizontal stroke.]
2. Technical or recurrent terms which occur in the colophons at the end of each book and at the end of letters, as:
.EXP. = EXPLICIT
.INC. = INCIPIT
LIB. = LIBER
VAL. = VALE[17]
[Footnote 17: The abbreviation is
indicated by a stroke above the
letters as well as by a dot after them.]
3. Purely arbitrary suspensions which occur only in the index of addresses preceding each book, suspensions which would never occur in the body of the text, as: SUETON TRANQUE,[18] UESTRIC SPURINN.
[Footnote 18: An ancestor of our
manuscript must have had TRANQ.,
which was wrongly expanded to TRANQUE.]
4. Omitted M at the end of a line, omitted N at the end of a line, the omission being indicated by means of a horizontal stroke, thickened at either end, which is placed over the space immediately following the final vowel.[19] This omission may occur in the middle of a word but only at the end of a line.
[Footnote 19: This is a sign of antiquity. After the sixth century the M or Nstroke is usually placed above the vowel. The practice of confining the omission of M or N to the end of a line is a characteristic of our very oldest manuscripts. Later manuscripts omit M or N in the middle of a line and in the middle of a word. No distinction is made in our manuscript between omitted M and omitted N. Some ancient manuscripts make a distinction. Cf. Traube, Nomina Sacra, pp. 179, 181, 183, 185, final column of each page; and W.M. Lindsay, Notae Latinae, pp. 342 and 345.]
[Sidenote: Authenticity of the six leaves]
The sudden appearance in America of a portion of a very ancient classical manuscript unknown to modern editors may easily arouse suspicion in the minds of some scholars. Our experience with the “Anonymus Cortesianus” has taught us to be wary,[20] and it is natural to demand proof establishing the genuineness of the new fragment.[21] As to the six leaves of the Morgan Pliny, it may be said unhesitatingly that no one with experience of ancient Latin manuscripts could entertain any doubt as to their genuineness. The look and feel of the parchment, the ink, the script, the titles, colophons, ornamentation, corrections, and later additions, all bear the indisputable marks of genuine antiquity.
[Footnote 20: The fraudulent character of the alleged discovery was exposed in masterly fashion by Ludwig Traube in his “Palaeographische Forschungen IV,” published in the Abhandlungen der K. Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, III Klasse, XXIV Band, 1 Abteilung, Munich 1904.]
[Footnote 21: Cf. E.T.
Merrill, “On the use by Aldus of his
manuscripts of Pliny’s Letters,”
in Classical Philology, XIV
(1919), p. 34.]
But it may be objected that a clever forger possessing a knowledge of palaeography would be able to reproduce all these features of ancient manuscripts. This objection can hardly be sustained. It is difficult to believe that any modern could reproduce faithfully all the characteristics of sixth-century uncials and fifteenth-century notarial writing without unconsciously falling into some error and betraying his modernity. Besides, there is one consideration which to my mind establishes the genuineness of our fragment beyond a peradventure. We have seen above that the leaves of our manuscript are so arranged that hair side faces
[Footnote 22: That the hair side of the vellum retained the ink better than the flesh side may be seen from an examination of facsimiles in the Leyden series Codices graeci et latini photographice depicti.]
[Footnote 23: That the ink could scale off the flesh side of the vellum in less than three centuries is proved by the condition of the famous Tacitus manuscript in Beneventan script in the Laurentian Library. It was written in the eleventh century and shows retouched characters of the thirteenth. See foll. 102, 103 in the facsimile edition in the Leyden series mentioned in the previous note.]
But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the Morgan fragment is a modern forgery. We are then constrained to credit the forger not only with a knowledge of palaeography which is simply faultless, but, as will be shown in the second part, with a minute acquaintance with the criticism and the history of the text. And this forger did not try to attain fame or academic standing by his nefarious doings, as was the case with the Roman author of the forged “Anonymus Cortesianus,” for nothing was heard of this Morgan fragment till it had reached the library of the American collector. If his motive was monetary gain he chose a long and arduous path to attain it. It is hardly conceivable that he should take the trouble to make all the errors and omissions found in our twelve pages and all the additions and corrections representing different ages, different styles, when less than half the number would have served to give the forged document an air of verisimilitude. The assumption that the Morgan fragment is a forgery thus becomes highly unreasonable. When you add to this the fact that there is nothing in the twelve pages that in any way arouses suspicion, the conclusion is inevitable that the Morgan fragment is a genuine relic of antiquity.
[Sidenote: Archetype]
As to the original from which our manuscript was copied, very little can be said. The six leaves before us furnish scanty material on which to build any theory. The errors which occur are not sufficient to warrant any conclusion as to the script of the archetype. One item of information, however, we do get: an omission on fol. 52v goes to show that the manuscript from which our scribe copied was written in lines of 25 letters or thereabout.[24] The scribe first wrote EXCUCURIS|SEM COMMEATU. Discovering his error of omission, he erased SEM at the beginning of line 8 and added it at the end of line 7 (intruding upon margin-space in order to do so), and then supplied, in somewhat smaller letters, the omitted words ACCEPTO UT PRAEFECTUS AERARI. As there are no homoioteleuta to account for the omission, it is almost certain that it was caused by the inadvertent skipping of a line.[25] The omitted letters number 25.
[Footnote 24: On the subject of omissions
and the clues they often
furnish, see the exhaustive treatise by
A.C. Clark entitled The
Descent of Manuscripts, Oxford 1918.]
[Footnote 25: Our scribe’s method is as patient as it is unreflecting. Apparently he does not commit to memory small intelligible units of text, but is copying word for word, or in some places even letter for letter.]
A glance at the abbreviations used in the index of addresses on foll. 48v-49r teaches that the original from which our manuscript was copied must have had its names abbreviated in exactly the same form. There is no other way of explaining why the scribe first wrote AD IULIUM SERUIANUM (fol. 49, l. 12), and then erased the final UM and put a point after SERUIAN.
THE DATE AND LATER HISTORY OF THE MANUSCRIPT.
Our manuscript was written in Italy at the end of the fifth or more probably at the beginning of the sixth century.
The manuscripts with which we can compare it come, with scarcely an exception, from Italy; for it is only of more recent uncial manuscripts (those of the seventh and eighth centuries) that we can say with certainty that they originate in other than Italian centres. The only exception which occurs to one is the Codex Bobiensis (k) of the Gospels of the fifth century, which may actually have been written in Africa, though this is far from certain. As for our fragment, the details of its script, as well as the ornamentation, disposition of the page, the ink, the parchment, all find their parallels in authenticated Italian products; and this similarity in details is borne out by the general impression of the whole.
The manuscript may be dated at about the year A.D. 500, for the reason that the script is not quite so old as that of our oldest fifth-century uncial manuscripts, and yet decidedly older than that of the Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels (F) written in or before A.D. 546.
[Sidenote: On the dating of uncial manuscripts]
In dating uncial manuscripts we must proceed warily, since the data on which our judgments are based are meagre in the extreme and rather difficult to formulate.
The history of uncial writing still remains to be written. The chief value of excellent works like Chatelain’s Uncialis Scriptura or Zangemeister and Wattenbach’s Exempla Codicum Latinorum Litteris Maiusculis Scriptorum lies in the mass of material they offer to the student. This could not well be otherwise, since clear-cut, objective criteria for dating uncial manuscripts have not yet been formulated; and that is due to the fact that of our four hundred or more uncial manuscripts, ranging from the fourth to the eighth century, very few, indeed, can be dated with precision, and of these virtually none is in the oldest class. Yet a few guide-posts there are. By means of those it ought to be possible not only to throw light on the development of this script, but also to determine the features peculiar to the different periods of its history. This task, of course, can not be attempted here; it may, however, not be out of place to call attention to certain salient facts.
The student of manuscripts knows that a law of evolution is observable in writing as in other aspects of human endeavor. The process of evolution is from the less to the more complex, from the less to the more differentiated, from the simple to the more ornate form. Guided by these general considerations, he would find that his uncial manuscripts naturally fall into two groups. One group is manifestly the older: in orthography, punctuation, and abbreviation it bears close resemblance to inscriptions of the classical or Roman period. The other group is as manifestly composed of the more recent manuscripts: this may be inferred from the corrupt or barbarous spelling, from the use of abbreviations unfamiliar in the classical period but very common in the Middle Ages, or from the presence of punctuation, which the oldest manuscripts invariably lack. The manuscripts of the first group show letters that are simple and unadorned and words unseparated from each other. Those of the second group show a type of ornate writing, the letters having serifs or hair-lines and flourishes, and the words being well separated. There can be no reasonable doubt that this rough classification is correct as far as it goes; but it must remain rough and permit large play for subjective judgement.
A scientific classification, however, can rest only on objective criteria—criteria which, once recognized, are acceptable to all. Such criteria are made possible by the presence of dated manuscripts. Now, if by a dated manuscript we mean a manuscript of which we know, through a subscription or some other entry, that it was written in a certain year, there is not a single dated manuscript in uncial writing which is older than the seventh century—the oldest manuscript with a precise date known
[Footnote 26: See below, p. 16.]
The Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels, mentioned above, is our first landmark of importance.[27] It was read by Bishop Victor of Capua in the years A.D. 546 and 547, as is testified by two entries, probably autograph. From this it follows that the manuscript was written before A.D. 546. We may surmise—and I think correctly—that it was shortly before 546, if not in that very year. In any case the Codex Fuldensis furnishes a precise terminus ante quem.
[Footnote 27: See below, p. 16.]
The other landmark of importance is furnished by a Berlin fragment containing a computation for finding the correct date for Easter Sunday.[28] Internal evidence makes it clear that this Computus Paschalis first saw light shortly after A.D. 447. The presumption is that the Berlin leaves represent a very early copy, if not the original, of this composition. In no case can these leaves be regarded as a much later copy of the original, as the following purely palaeographical considerations, that is, considerations of style and form of letters, will go to show.
[Footnote 28: See below, p. 16.]
Let us assume, as we do in geometry, for the sake of argument, that the Fulda manuscript and the Berlin fragment were both written about the year 500—a date representing, roughly speaking, the middle point in the period of about one hundred years which separates the extreme limits of the dates possible for either of these two manuscripts, as the following diagram illustrates:
Berlin Paschal Computus Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels A D 447 |<-----------------+------------------->| ca A D 546 A.D. 500
If our hypothesis be correct, then the script of these two manuscripts, as well as other palaeographical features, would offer striking similarities if not close resemblance. As a matter of fact, a careful comparison of the two manuscripts discloses differences so marked as to render our assumption absurd. The Berlin fragment is obviously much older than the Fulda manuscript. It would be rash to specify the exact interval of time that separates these two manuscripts, yet if we remember the slow development of types of writing the conclusion seems justified that at least several generations of evolution lie between the two manuscripts. If this be correct, we are forced to push the date of each as far back as the ascertained limit will permit, namely, the Fulda manuscript to the year 546 and the Berlin fragment to the year 447. Thus, apparently, considerations of form and style (purely palaeographical considerations) confirm the dates derived from examination of the internal evidence, and the Berlin and Fulda manuscripts may, in effect, be considered two dated manuscripts, two definite guide-posts.
If the preceding conclusion accords with fact, then we may accept the traditional date (circa A.D. 371) of the Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels. The famous Vatican palimpsest of Cicero’s De Re Publica seems more properly placed in the fourth than in the fifth century; and the older portion of the Bodleian manuscript of Jerome’s translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, dated after the year A.D. 442, becomes another guide-post in the history of uncial writing, since a comparison with the Berlin fragment of about A.D. 447 convinces one that the Bodleian manuscript can not have been written much after the date of its archetype, which is A.D. 442.
[Sidenote: Dated uncial manuscripts]
Asked to enumerate the landmarks which may serve as helpful guides in uncial writing prior to the year 800, we should hardly go far wrong if we tabulate them in the following order:[29]
[Footnote 29: For the pertinent literature on the manuscripts in the following list the student is referred to Traube’s Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen, Vol. I, pp. 171-261, Munich 1909, and the index in Vol. III, Munich 1920. The chief works of facsimiles referred to below are: Zangemeister and Wattenbach, Exempla codicum latinorum litteris maiusculis scriptorum, Heidelberg 1876 & 1879; E. Chatelain, Paleographie des classiques latins, Paris 1884-1900, and Uncialis scriptura codicum latinorum novis exemplis illustrata, Paris 1901-2; and Steffens, Lateinische Palaeographie{2}, Treves 1907. (Second edition in French appeared in 1910.)]
1. Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels (a). ca. a. 371
Traube, l.c., No. 327; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XX.
2. Bodleian Manuscript (Auct. T. 2. 26) of Jerome’s translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius (older portion). post a. 442
Traube, l.c., No. 164; J.K. Fotheringham, The Bodleian manuscript of Jerome’s version of the Chronicle of Eusebius reproduced in collotype, Oxford 1905, pp. 25-6; Steffens{2}, pl. 17; also Schwartz in Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift, XXVI (1906), c. 746.
3. Berlin Computus Paschalis (MS. lat. 4º. 298). ca. a. 447
Traube, l.c., No. 13; Th. Mommsen, “Zeitzer Ostertafel vom Jahre 447” in Abhandl. der Berliner Akad. aus dem Jahre 1862, Berlin 1863, pp. 539 sqq.; “Liber Paschalis Codicis Cicensis A. CCCCXLVII” in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, IX, 1, pp. 502 sqq.; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XXIII.
4. Codex Fuldensis of the Gospels (F), Fulda MS. Bonifat. 1, read by Bishop Victor of Capua. ante a. 546
Traube, l.c., No. 47; E. Ranke,
Codex Fuldensis, Novum
Testamentum Latine interprete
Hieronymo ex manuscripto Victoris
Capuani, Marburg and Leipsic
1868; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl.
XXXIV; Steffens{2}, pl. 21a.
5. Codex Theodosianus (Turin, MS. A. II. 2). a. 438-ca. 550
Manuscripts containing the Theodosian Code can not be earlier than A.D. 438, when this body of law was promulgated, nor much later than the middle of sixth century, when the Justinian Code supplanted the Theodosian and made it useless to copy it.
Traube, l.c., No. 311; idem, “Enarratio tabularum” in Theodosiani libri XVI edited by Th. Mommsen and P.M. Meyer, Berlin 1905; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pls. XXV-XXVIII; C. Cipolla, Codici Bobbiesi, pls. VII, VIII. See also Oxyrh. Papyri XV (1922), No. 1813, pl. 1.
6. The Toulouse Manuscript (No. 364) and Paris MS. lat. 8901, containing Canons, written at Albi. a. 600-666
Traube, l.c., No. 304; F. Schulte, “Iter Gallicum” in Sitzungsberichte der K. Akad. der Wiss. Phil.-hist. Kl. LIX (1868), p. 422, facs. 5; C.H. Turner, “Chapters in the history of Latin manuscripts: II. A group of manuscripts of Canons at Toulouse, Albi and Paris” in Journal of Theological Studies, II (1901), pp. 266 sqq.; and Traube’s descriptions in A.E. Burn, Facsimiles of the Creeds from Early Manuscripts (= vol. XXXVI of the publications of the Henry Bradshaw Society).
7. The Morgan Manuscript of St. Augustine’s Homilies, written in the Abbey of Luxeuil. Later at Beauvais and Chateau de Troussures. a. 669
Traube, l.c., No 307; L. Delisle, “Notice sur un manuscrit de l’abbaye de Luxeuil copie en 625” in Notices et Extraits des manuscrits de la bibliotheque nationale, XXXI. 2 (1886), pp. 149 sqq.; J. Havet, “Questions merovingiennes: III. La date d’un manuscrit de Luxeuil” in Bibliotheque de l’ecole des chartes, XLVI (1885), pp. 429 sqq.
8. The Berne Manuscript (No. 219B) of Jerome’s translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, written in France, possibly at Fleury. a. 699
Traube, l.c., No. 16; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. LIX; J.R. Sinner, Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Bernensis (Berne 1760), pp. 64-7; A. Schone, Eusebii chronicorum libri duo, vol. II (Berlin 1866), p. XXVII; J.K. Fotheringham, The Bodleian manuscript of Jerome’s version of the Chronicle of Eusebius (Oxford 1905), p. 4.
9. Brussels Fragment of a Psalter and Varia Patristica (MS. 1221 = 9850-52) written for St. Medardus in Soissons in the time of Childebert III. a. 695-711
Traube, l.c., No. 27; L. Delisle, “Notice sur un manuscrit merovingien de Saint-Medard de Soissons” in Revue archeologique, Nouv. ser. XLI (1881), pp. 257 sqq. and pl. IX; idem, “Notice sur un manuscrit merovingien de la Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique Nr. 9850-52” in Notices et extraits des manuscrits, etc., XXXI. 1 (1884), pp. 33-47, pls. 1, 2, 4; J. Van den Ghejn, Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique, II (1902), pp. 224-6.
10. Codex Amiatinus of the Bible (Florence Laur. Am. 1) written in England. ante a. 716
Traube, l.c., No. 44: Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XXXV; Steffens{2}, pl. 21b; E.H. Zimmermann, Vorkarolingische Miniaturen (Berlin 1916), pl. 222; but particularly G.B. de Rossi, La biblia offerta da Ceolfrido abbate al sepolcro di S. Pietro, codice antichissimo tra i superstiti delle biblioteche della sede apostolica—Al Sommo Pontefice Leone XIII, omaggio giubilare della biblioteca Vaticana, Rome 1888, No. v.
11. The Treves Prosper (MS. 36, olim S. Matthaei). a. 719
Traube, l.c., No. 306; Zangemeister-Wattenbach,
pl. XLIX;
M. Keuffer, Beschreibendes
Verzeichnis der Handschriften der
Stadtbibliothek zu Trier,
I (1888), pp. 38 sqq.
12. The Milan Manuscript (Ambros. B. 159 sup.) of Gregory’s Moralia, written at Bobbio in the abbacy of Anastasius. ca. a. 750
Traube, l.c., No. 102; Palaeographical Society, pl. 121; E.H. Zimmermann, Vorkarolingische Miniaturen (Berlin 1916), pl. 14-16, Text, pp. 10, 41, 152; A. Reifferscheid, Bibliotheca patrum latinorum italica, II, 38 sq.
13. The Bodleian Acts of the Apostles (MS. Selden supra 30) written in the Isle of Thanet. ante a. 752
Traube, l.c., No. 165; Smith’s
Dictionary of the Bible, IV
(New York 1876) 3458 b; S.
Berger, Histoire de la Vulgate
(Paris 1893), p. 44; Wordsworth
and White, Novum Testamentum,
II (1905), p. vii.
14. The Autun Manuscript (No. 3) of the Gospels, written at Vosevium. a. 754
Traube, l.c., No. 3; Zangemeister-Wattenbach,
pl. LXI;
Steffens{2}, pl. 37.
15. Codex Beneventanus of the Gospels (London Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 5463) written at Benevento. a. 739-760
Traube, l.c., No. 88; Palaeographical
Society, pl. 236;
Catalogue of the Ancient
Manuscripts in the British Museum, II,
pl. 7.
16. The Lucca Manuscript (No. 490) of the Liber Pontificalis. post a. 787
Traube, l.c., No. 92; J.D. Mansi, “De insigni codice Caroli Magni aetate scripto” in Raccolta di opuscoli scientifici e filologici, T. XLV (Venice 1751), ed. A. Calogiera, pp. 78-80; Th. Mommsen, Gesta pontificum romanorum, I (1899) in Monumenta Germaniae Historica; Steffens{2}, pl. 48.
Guided by the above manuscripts, we may proceed to determine the place which the Morgan Pliny occupies in the series of uncial manuscripts. The student of manuscripts recognizes at a glance that the Morgan fragment is, as has been said, distinctly older than the Codex Fuldensis of about the year 546. But how much older? Is it to be compared in antiquity with such venerable monuments as the palimpsest of Cicero’s De Re Publica, with products like the Berlin Computus Paschalis or the Bodleian Chronicle of Eusebius? If we examine carefully the characteristics of our oldest group of fourth- and fifth-century manuscripts and compare them with those of the Morgan manuscript we shall see that the latter, though sharing some of the features found in manuscripts of the oldest group, lacks others and in turn shows features peculiar to manuscripts of a later group.
[Sidenote: Oldest group of uncial manuscripts]
Our oldest group would naturally be composed of those uncial manuscripts which bear the closest resemblance to the above-mentioned manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries, and I should include in that group such manuscripts as these:
A. Of Classical Authors.
1. Rome, Vatic. lat. 5757.—Cicero, De Re Publica, palimpsest.
Traube, l.c., No. 269-70; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XVII; E. Chatelain, Paleographie des classiques latins, pl. XXXIX, 2; Palaeographical Society, pl. 160; Steffens{2}, pl. 15. For a complete facsimile edition of the manuscript see Codices e Vaticanis selecti phototypice expressi, Vol. II, Milan 1907; Ehrle-Liebaert, Specimina codicum latinorum Vaticanorum (Bonn 1912), pl. 4.
2. Rome, Vatic. lat. 5750 + Milan, Ambros. E. 147 sup.—Scholia Bobiensia in Ciceronem, palimpsest.
Traube, l.c., No. 265-68; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XXXI; Palaeographical Society, pl. 112; complete facsimile edition in Codices e Vaticanis selecti, etc., Vol. VII, Milan 1906; Ehrle-Liebaert, Specimina codicum latinorum Vaticanorum, pl. 5a.
3. Vienna, 15.—Livy, fifth decade (five books).
Traube, l.c., No. 359; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XVIII; E. Chatelain, Paleographie des classiques latins, pl. CXX; complete facsimile edition in Codices graeci et latini photographice depicti, Tom. IX, Leyden 1907.
4. Paris, lat. 5730.—Livy, third decade.
Traube, l.c., No. 183; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XIX; Paleographical Society, pls. 31 and 32; E. Chatelain, Paleographie des classiques latins, pl. CXVI; Reproductions des manuscrits et miniatures de la Bibliotheque Nationale, ed. H. Omont, Vol. I, Paris 1907.
5. Verona, XL (38).—Livy, first decade, 6 palimpsest leaves.
Traube, l.c., No. 349-50.
Th. Mommsen, Analecta Liviana, Leipsic
1873; E. Chatelain, Paleographie
des classiques latins, pl. CVI.
6. Rome, Vatic. lat. 10696.—Livy, fourth decade, Lateran fragments.
Traube, l.c., No. 277; M. Vattasso, “Frammenti d’un Livio del V. secolo recentemente scoperti, Codice Vaticano Latino 10696” in Studi e Testi, Vol. XVIII, Rome 1906; Ehrle-Liebaert, Specimina codicum latinorum Vaticanorum, pl. 5b.
7. Bamberg, Class. 35_a_.—Livy, fourth decade, fragments.
Traube, l.c., No. 7; idem, “Palaeographische Forschungen IV, Bamberger Fragmente der vierten Dekade des Livius” in Abhandlungen der Koeniglich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, III Klasse, XXIV Band, I Abteilung, Munich 1904.
8. Vienna, lat. 1_a_.—Pliny, Historia Naturalis, fragments.
Traube, l.c., No. 357; E.
Chatelain, Paleographie des classiques
latins, pl. CXXXVII,
1.
9. St. Paul in Carinthia, XXV a 3.—Pliny, Historia Naturalis, palimpsest.
Traube, l.c., No. 231; E.
Chatelain, ibid. pl. CXXXVI. Chatelain
cites the manuscript under
the press-mark XXV 2/67.
10. Turin, A. II. 2.—Theodosian Codex, fragments, palimpsest.
Traube, l.c., No. 311; Zangemeister-Wattenbach,
pl. XXV; Cipolla,
Codici Bobbiesi, pl.
VII.
B. Of Christian Authors.
1. Vercelli, Cathedral Library.—Gospels (a) ascribed to Bishop Eusebius ({+}371).
Traube, l.c., No. 327; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XX.
2. Paris, lat. 17225.—Corbie Gospels (ff{2}).
Traube, l.c., No. 214; Palaeographical
Society, pl. 87;
E. Chatelain, Uncialis
scriptura, pl. II; Reusens, Elements
de paleographie, pl.
III, Louvain 1899.
3. Constance-Weingarten Biblical fragments.—Prophets, fragments scattered in the libraries of Stuttgart, Darmstadt, Fulda, and St. Paul in Carinthia.
Traube, l.c., No. 302; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XXI; complete facsimile reproduction of the fragments in Codices graeci et latini photographice depicti, Supplementum IX, Leyden 1912, with introduction by P. Lehmann.
4. Berlin, lat. 4º. 298.—Computus Paschalis of ca. a. 447.
Traube, l.c., No. 13; see above, p. 16, no. 3.
5. Turin, G. VII. 15.—Bobbio Gospels (k).
Traube, l.c., No. 324; Old Latin Biblical Texts, vol. II, Oxford 1886; F. Carta, C. Cipolla, C. Frati, Monumenta Palaeographica sacra, pl. V, 2; R. Beer, “Ueber den Aeltesten Handschriftenbestand des Klosters Bobbio” in Anzeiger der Kais. Akad. der Wiss. in Wien, 1911, No. XI, pp. 91 sqq.; C. Cipolla, Codici Bobbiesi, pls. XIV-XV; complete facsimile reproduction of the manuscript, with preface by C. Cipolla: Il codice Evangelico k_ della Biblioteca Universitaria Nazionale di Torino_, Turin 1913.
6. Turin, F. IV. 27 + Milan, D. 519. inf. + Rome, Vatic. lat. 10959.— Cyprian, Epistolae, fragments.
Traube, l.c., No. 320; E.
Chatelain, Uncialis scriptura, pl. IV,
2; C. Cipolla, Codici Bobbiesi,
pl. XIII; Ehrle-Liebaert,
Specimina codicum latinorum
Vaticanorum, pl. 5d.
7. Turin, G. V. 37.—Cyprian, de opere et eleemosynis.
Traube, l.c., No. 323; Carta,
Cipolla e Frati, Monumenta
palaeographica sacra,
pl. V, 1; Cipolla, Codici Bobbiesi,
pl. XII.
8. Oxford, Bodleian Auct. T. 2. 26.—Eusebius-Hieronymus, Chronicle, post a. 442.
Traube, l.c., No. 164; see above, p. 16, no. 2.
9. Petrograd Q. v. I. 3 (Corbie).—Varia of St. Augustine.
Traube, l.c., No. 140; E. Chatelain, Uncialis scriptura, pl. III; A. Staerk, Les manuscrits latins du Ve au XIIIe siecle conserves a la bibliotheque imperiale de Saint Petersburg (St. Petersburg 1910), Vol. II. pl. 2.
10. St. Gall, 1394.—Gospels (n).
Traube, l.c., No. 60; Old Latin Biblical Texts, Vol. II, Oxford 1886; Palaeographical Society, II. pl. 50; Steffens{1}, pl. 15; E. Chatelain, Uncialis scriptura, pl. I, 1; A. Chroust, Monumenta Palaeographica, XVII, pl. 3.
[Sidenote: Characteristics of the oldest uncial manuscripts]
The main characteristics of the manuscripts included in the above list, which is by no means complete, may briefly be described thus:
1. General effect of
compactness. This is the result of scriptura
continua, which knows
no separation of words and no punctuation.
See the facsimiles cited above.
2. Precision in the mode of shading. The alternation of stressed and unstressed strokes is very regular. The two arcs of {O} are shaded not in the middle, as in Greek uncials, but in the lower left and upper right parts of the letter, so that the space enclosed by the two arcs resembles an ellipse leaning to the left at an angle of about 45 deg., thus {O}. What is true of the {O} is true of other curved strokes. The strokes are often very short, mere touches of pen to parchment, like brush work. Often they are unconnected, thus giving a mere suggestion of the form. The attack or fore-stroke as well as the finishing stroke is a very fine, oblique hair-line.[30]
[Footnote 30: In later uncials the
fore-stroke is often a horizontal
hair-line.]
3. Absence of long ascending or descending strokes. The letters lie virtually between two lines (instead of between four as in later uncials), the upper and lower shafts of letters like {H L P Q} projecting but slightly beyond the head and base lines.
4. The broadness of the letters {M N U}
5. The relative narrowness of the letters {F L P S T}
6. The manner of forming {B E L M N P S T}
B with
the lower bow considerably larger than the upper, which
often has the
form of a mere comma.
E with
the tongue or horizontal stroke placed not in the
middle, as in
later uncial manuscripts, but high above it, and
extending beyond
the upper curve. The loop is often left open.
L with very small base.
M with
the initial stroke tending to be a straight line
instead of the
well-rounded bow of later uncials.
N with the oblique connecting stroke shaded.
P with the loop very small and often open.
S with
a rather longish form and shallow curves, as compared
with the broad
form and ample curves of later uncials.
T with
a very small, sinuous horizontal top stroke (except
at
the beginning
of a line when it often has an exaggerated
extension to the
left).
7. Extreme fineness of
parchment, at least in parts of the
manuscript.
8. Perforation of parchment along furrows made by the pen.
9. Quires signed by means
of roman numerals often preceded by the
letter Q. (= Quaternio)
in the lower right corner of the last
page of each gathering.
10. Running titles, in
abbreviated form, usually in smaller
uncials than the text.
11. Colophons, in which
red and black ink alternate, usually in
large-sized uncials.
12. Use of a capital,
i.e., a larger-sized letter at the
beginning of each page or
of each column in the page, even if the
beginning falls in the middle
of a word.
13. Lack of all but the
simplest ornamentation, e.g., scroll or
ivy-leaf.
14. The restricted use
of abbreviations. Besides B. and Q. and
such suspensions as occur
in classical inscriptions only the
contracted forms of the Nomina
Sacra are found.
15. Omission of M and N allowed only at the end of a line, the omission being marked by means of a simple horizontal line (somewhat hooked at each end) placed above the line after the final vowel and not directly over it as in later uncial manuscripts.
16. Absence of nearly all punctuation.
17. The use of {Symbol: infra?} in the text where an omission has occurred, and {Symbol: supra?} after the supplied omission in the lower margin, or the same symbols reversed if the supplement is entered in the upper margin.
If we now turn to the Morgan Pliny we observe that it lacks a number of the characteristics enumerated above as belonging to the oldest type of uncial manuscripts. The parchment is not of the very thin sort. There has been no corrosion along the furrows made by the pen. The running title and colophons are in rustic capitals, not in uncials. The manner of forming such letters as {B E M R S T} differs from that employed in the oldest group.
B with the lower bow not so markedly larger than the upper.
E with the horizontal stroke placed nearer the middle.
M with the left bow tending to become a distinct curve.
R S T have gained in breadth and proportionately lost in height.
[Sidenote: Date of the Morgan manuscript]
Inasmuch as these palaeographical differences mark a tendency which reaches fuller development in later uncial manuscripts, it is clear that their presence in our manuscript is a sign of its more recent character as compared with manuscripts of the oldest type. Just as our manuscript is clearly older than the Codex Fuldensis of about the year 546, so it is clearly more recent than the Berlin Computus Paschalis of about the year 447. Its proper place is at the end of the oldest series of uncial manuscripts, which begins with the Cicero palimpsest. Its closest neighbors are, I believe, the Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia and the Codex Theodosianus of Turin. If we conclude by saying that the Morgan manuscript was written about the year 500 we shall probably not be far from the truth.
[Sidenote: Later history of the Morgan manuscript]
The vicissitudes of a manuscript often throw light upon the history of the text contained in the manuscript. And the palaeographer knows that any scratch or scribbling, any probatio pennae or casual entry, may become important in tracing the wanderings of a manuscript.
In the six leaves that have been saved of our Morgan manuscript we have two entries. One is of a neutral character and does not take us further, but the other is very clear and tells an unequivocal story.
The unimportant entry occurs in the lower margin of folio 53r. The words “uir erat in terra,” which are apparently the beginning of the book of Job, are written in Carolingian characters of the ninth century. As these characters were used during the ninth century in northern Italy as well as in France, it is impossible to say where this entry was made. If in France, then the manuscript of Pliny must have left its Italian home before the ninth century.[31]
[Footnote 31: This supposition will
be strengthened by Professor
Rand; see p. 53. {Further consideration
of...}]
That it had crossed the Alps by the beginning of the fifteenth century we know from the second entry. Nay, we learn more precise details. We learn that our manuscript had found a home in France, in the town of Meaux or its vicinity. The entry is found in the upper margin of fol. 51r and doubtless represents a probatio pennae on the part of a notary. It runs thus:
“A tous ceulz qui ces p_rese_ntes l_ett_res verront et orront Jeh_an_ de Sannemeres garde du scel de la provoste de Meaulx & Francois Beloy clerc Jure de p_ar_ le Roy nostre sire a ce faire Salut sachient tuit que p_ar_.”
The above note is made in the regular French notarial hand of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[32] The formula of greeting with which the document opens is in the precise form in which it occurs in numberless charters of the period. All efforts to identify Jehan de Sannemeres, keeper of the seal of the provoste of Meaux, and Francois Beloy, sworn clerk in behalf of the King, have so far proved fruitless.[33]
[Footnote 32: Compare, for example, the facsimile of a French deed of sale at Roye, November 24, 1433, reproduced in Recueil de Fac-similes a l’usage de l’ecole des chartes. Premier fascicule (Paris 1880), No. 1.]
[Footnote 33: No mention of either of these is to be found in Dom Toussaints du Plessis’ Histoire de l’eglise de Meaux. For documents with similar opening formulas, see ibid. vol. ii (Paris 1731), pp. 191, 258, 269, 273.]
[Sidenote: Conclusion]
Our manuscript, then, was written in Italy about the year 500. It is quite possible that it had crossed the Alps by the ninth century or even before. It is certain that by the fifteenth century it had found asylum in France. When and under what circumstances it got back to Italy will be shown by Professor Rand in the pages that follow.
So it is France that has saved this, the oldest extant witness of Pliny’s Letters, for modern times. To mediaeval France we are, in fact, indebted for the preservation of more than one ancient classical manuscript. The oldest manuscript of the third decade of Livy was at Corbie in Charlemagne’s time, when it was loaned to Tours and a copy of it made there. Both copy and original have come down to us. Sallust’s Histories were saved (though not in complete form) for our generation by the Abbey of Fleury. The famous Schedae Vergilianae, in square capitals, as well as the Codex Romanus of Virgil, in rustic capitals, belonged to the monastery of St. Denis. Lyons preserved the Codex Theodosianus. It was again some French centre that rescued Pomponius Mela from destruction. The oldest fragments of Ovid’s Pontica, the oldest fragments of the first decade of Livy, the oldest manuscript of Pliny’s Natural History—all palimpsests—were in some French centre in the Middle Ages, as may be seen from the indisputably eighth-century French writing which covers the ancient texts. The student of Latin literature knows that the manuscript tradition of Lucretius, Suetonius, Caesar, Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius—to mention only the greatest names—shows that we are indebted primarily to Gallia Christiana for the preservation of these authors.
{Transcriber’s Note: Characters that could not be fully displayed are “unpacked” and shown within braces: {.T}. Superscript letters are shown as in mathematical notation: ^{L} The twelve-page transcription retains the page and line breaks of the original text, representing the manuscript itself. In a few places the authors used V in place of U. This appears to be an error, but has not been changed.}
[TRANSCRIPTION] [A]
{fol. 48r}
LIBER.II.
CESSIT UT IPSE MIHI DIXERIT CUM CO_N_
SULERET QUAM CITO SESTERTIUM SESCE_N_
TIES INPLETURUS ESSET INUENISSE SE EX
TA DUPLICATA QUIB_US_ PORTENDI MI^{L}LIES[1] ET
DUCENTIES HABITURUM ET HABEBIT SI
MODO UT COEPIT ALIENA TESTAMENTA
QUOD EST IMPROBISSIMUM GENUS FAL
SI IPSIS QUORUM SUNT ILLA DICTAUERIT
UALE
[2].C.PLINI.SECUNDI
EPISTULARUM.EXP_LICIT_.LIBER.II.
.INC_IPIT_.LIB_ER_.III.FELICITER[2]
[Footnote A: The original manuscript
is in scriptura continua. For
the reader’s convenience, words
have been separated and punctuation
added in the transcription.]
[Footnote 1: L added by a
hand which seems contemporary, if not
the scribe’s own. If the scribe’s,
he used a finer pen for
corrections.]
[Footnote 2-2: The colophon is written
in rustic capitals, the
middle line being in red.]
{fol. 48v}
AD CALUISIUM RUFUM[1]
NESCIO AN ULLUM
5
AD UIBIUM.MAXIMUM
QUOD.IPSE AMICIS TUIS
AD CAERELLIAE HISPULLAE[2]
CUM PATREM TUUM
AD CAE^{CI}LIUM[3] MACRINUM 10
QUAMUIS ET AMICI
AD BAEBIUM MACRUM
PERGRATUM EST MIHI
[4]AD ANNIUM[4] SEUERUM
[4]EX HEREDITATE[4] QUAE
15
AD CANINIUM RUFUM
MODO NUNTIATUS EST
AD SUETON[5] TRANQUE
FACIS AD PRO CETERA
AD CORNELIUM[6] MINICIANUM 20
POSSUM IAM PERSCRIB
AD UESTRIC SPURINN.
COMPOSUISSE ME QUAED
[Footnote 1: On this and the following
page lines in red alternate
with lines in black. The first line
is in red.]
[Footnote 2: The h seems written over an erasure.]
[Footnote 3: ci above the line by first hand.]
[Footnote 4-4: Over an erasure apparently.]
[Footnote 5: t over an erasure.]
[Footnote 6: c over an erasure.]
{fol. 49r}
AD IULIUM GENITOR.
EST OMNINO ARTEMIDORI
5
AD CATILINUM SEUER.
UENIAM AD CENAM
AD UOCONIUM ROMANUM
LIBRUM QUO NUPER
AD PATILIUM 10
REM ATROCEM
AD SILIUM PROCUL.
PETIS UT LIBELLOS TUOS
ad nepotem adnotasse uideor fata dictaque.[1]
AD IULIUM SERUIAN.[2]
RECTE OMNIA
15
AD UIRIUM SEUERUM
OFFICIU CONSULATUS
AD CALUISIUM RUFUM.
ADSUMO TE IN CONSILIUM
AD MAESIUM MAXIMUM 20
MEMINISTINE TE
AD CORNELIUM PRISCUM
AUDIO UALERIUM MARTIAL.
[Footnote 1: Added interlineally,
in black, by first hand using a
finer pen.]
[Footnote 2: This is followed by
an erasure of the letters um in
red.]
{fol. 49v}
.EPISTULARUM.
.C.PLINIUS.CALUISIO SUO SALUTEM
NESCIO AN ULLUM IUCUNDIUS TEMPUS
EXEGERIM QUAM QUO NUPER APUD SPU
RINNAM FUI ADEO QUIDEM UT NEMINEM
MAGIS IN SENECTUTE SI MODO SENESCE 5
RE DATUM EST AEMULARI UELIM NIHIL
EST ENIM ILLO UITAE GENERE DISTIN
CTIUS ME AUTEM UT CERTUS SIDERUM
CURSUS ITA UITA HOMINUM DISPOSITA
DELECTAT SENUM PRAESERTIM NAM 10
IUUENES ADHUC CONFUSA QUAEDAM
ET QUASI TURBATA NON INDECENT SE
NIB_US_ PLACIDA OMNIA ET OR^{DI}NATA[1] CON
UENIUNT QUIB_US_ INDUSTRIA SER^{U}A[1] TURPIS
AMBITIO EST HANC REGULAM SPURIN 15
NA CONSTANTISSIME SERUAT.QUIN ETIA_M_
PARUA HAEC PARUA.SI NON COTIDIE FIANT
ORDINE QUODAM ET UELUT ORBE CIRCU_M_
AGIT MANE LECTULO[2] CONTINETUR HORA
SECUNDA CALCEOS POSCIT AMBULAT MI 20
LIA PASSUUM TRIA NEC MINUS ANIMUM
QUAM CORPUS EXERCET SI ADSUNT AMICI
HONESTISSIMI SERMONES EXPLICANTUR
SI NON LIBER LEGITUR INTERDUM ETIAM PRAE
SENTIB_US_ AMICIS SI TAMEN ILLI NON GRAUA_N_ 25
TUR DEINDE CONSIDIT[3] ET LIBER RURSUS
AUT SERMO LIBRO POTIOR.MOX UEHICULU_M_
[Footnote 1: Letters above the line
were added by first or
contemporary hand.]
[Footnote 2: u corrected to e.]
[Footnote 3: Second i corrected
to e (not the regular uncial
form) apparently by the first or contemporary
hand.]
{fol. 50r}
.LIBER.III.
ASCENDIT ADSUMIT UXOREM SINGU
LARIS EXEMPLI UEL ALIQUEM AMICORUM
UT ME PROXIME QUAM PULCHRUM ILLUD
QUAM DULCE SECRETUM QUANTUM IBI A_N_
TIQUITATIS QUAE FACTA QUOS UIROS AU 5
DIAS QUIB_US_ PRAECEPTIS IMBUARE QUAMUIS
ILLE HOC TEMPERAMENTUM MODESTIAE
SUAE INDIXERIT NE PRAECIPE REUIDEATUR
PERACTIS SEPTEM MILIB_US_ PASSUUM ITE
RUM AMBULAT MILLE ITERUM RESIDIT 10
UEL SE CUBICULO AC STILO REDDIT SCRI
BIT ENIM ET QUIDEM UTRAQ_UE_ LINGUA LY
RICA DOCTISSIMA MIRA ILLIS DULCEDO
MIRA SUAUITAS MIRA HILARITA[.T][.I]S[1] CUIUS
GRATIAM CUMULAT SANCTITA[.T][.I]S[2] SCRI 15
BENTIS UBI HORA BALNEI NUNTIATA EST
EST AUTEM HIEME NONA.AESTATE OCTA
UA IN SOLE SI CARET UENTO AMBULAT
NUDUS DEINDE MOUETUR PILA UEHE
MENTER ET DIU NAM HOC QUOQ_UE_ EXER 20
CITATIONIS GENERE PUGNAT CUM SE
NECTUTE LOTUS ACCUBAT ET PAULIS
PER CIBUM DIFFERT INTERIM AUDIT LE
GENTEM REMISSIUS ALIQUID ET DULCIUS
PER HOC OMNE TEMPUS LIBERUM EST 25
AMICIS UEL EADEM FACERE UEL ALIA
SI MALINT ADPON^{I}TUR[3] CENA NON MINUS
[Footnote 1: The scribe first wrote hilaritatis. To correct the error he or a contemporary hand placed dots above the t and i and drew a horizontal line through them to indicate that they should be omitted. This is the usual method in very old manuscripts.]
[Footnote 2: sanctitatis is
corrected to sanctitas in the manner
described in the preceding note.]
[Footnote 3: i added above the line, apparently by first hand.]
{fol. 50v}
.EPISTULARUM.
NITIDA QUAM FRUGI IN ARGENTO PURO ET
ANTIQUO SUNT IN USU ET C^{H}ORINTHIA[1] QUIB_US_ DE
LECTATUR ET ADFICITUR FREQUENTER CO
MOEDIS CENA DISTINGUITUR UT UOLUPTA
TES QUOQ_UE_ STUDIIS CONDIANTUR SUMIT ALI
5
QUID DE NOCTE ET AESTATE NEMI^{NI}[1] HOC LO_N_
GUM EST TANTA COMITATE CONUIUIUM
TRAHITUR INDE ILLI POST SEPTIMUM ET
SEPTUAGENSIMUM ANNUM AURIUM
OCULORUM UIGOR INTEGER INDE AGILE
10
ET UIUIDUM CORPUS SOLAQ_UE_ EX SENEC
TUTE PRUDENTIA HANC EGO UITAM UO
TO ET COGITATIONE PRAESUMO INGRES
SURUS AUIDISSIME UT PRIMUM RATIO AE
TATIS RECEPTUI CANERE PERMISERIT[2] IN
15
TERIM MILLE LABORIB_US_ CONTEROR QUI HO
RUM MIHI ET SOLACIUM ET EXEMPLUM
EST IDEM SPURINNA NAM ILLE QUOQ_UE_
QUOAD HONESTUM FUIT OB^{I}IT[1] OFFICIA
GESSIT MAGISTRATUS PROVINCIAS RE
20
XIT MULTOQ^{_UE_} LABORE HOC OTIUM ME
RUIT IGITUR EUNDEM MIHI CURSUM EU_N_
DEM TERMINUM STATUO IDQ_UE_ IAM NUNC
APUD TE SUBSIGNO UT SI ME LONGIUS SE
EUEHI[3] UIDERIS IN IUS UOCES AD HANC EPIS
25
TULAM MEAM ET QUIESCERE IUBEAS CUM
INERTIAE CRIMEN EFFUGERO UAL_E_.[4]
[Footnote 1: The letters above the
line are additions by the first,
or by another contemporary, hand.]
[Footnote 2: permiserit:
t stands over an erasure, and original
it seems to be corrected to et,
with e having the rustic
form.]
[Footnote 3: The scribe first wrote
longius se uehi. The e which
precedes uehi was added by him
when he later corrected the page
and deleted se.]
[Footnote 4: uale: The
abbreviation is marked by a stroke above as
well as by a dot after the word.]
{fol. 51r}
.LIBER.III.
A tout ceulz qui ces presentes lettres verront et orront Jehan de sannemeres garde du scel de la provoste de Meaulx & francois Beloy clerc Jure de par le Roy nostre sire a ce faire Salut sachient tuit que par.[1]
.{-C}.PLINIUS.MAXIMO SUO SALUT_EM_
QUOD IPSE AMICIS TUIS OPTULISSEM.SI MI
HI EADEM MATERIA SUPPETERET ID NUNC
IURE UIDEOR A TE MEIS PETITURUS ARRIA
NUS MATURUS ALTINATIUM EST PRINCEPS 5
CUM DICO PRINCEPS NON DE FACULTATI
BUS LOQUOR QUAE ILLI LARGE SUPER
SUNT SED DE CASTITATE IUSTITIA GRA
UITATE PRUDENTIA HUIOS EGO CONSI
LIO IN NEGOTIIS IUDICIO IN STUDIIS UT 10
OR NAM PLURIMUM FIDE PLURIMUM
VERITATE PLURIMUM INTELLEGENTIA
PRAESTAT AMAT ME NIHIL POSSUM AR
DENTIUS DICERE UT TU KARET AMBITUI[2]
IDEO SE IN EQUESTRI GRADU TENUIT CUM 15
FACILE POSSIT[3] ASCENDERE ALTISSIMU_M_
MIHI TAMEN ORNANDUS EXCOLENDUS
QUE EST ITAQ_UE_ MAGNI AESTIMO DIGNITATI
EIUS ALIQUID ADSTRUERE INOPINANTIS
NESCIENTIS IMMO ETIAM FORTASSE 20
NOLENTIS ADSTRUERE AUTEM QUOD SIT
SPLENDIDUM NEC MOLESTUM CUIUS
GENERIS QUAE PRIMA OCCASIO TIBI CO_N_
FERAS IN EUM ROGO HABEBIS ME HABE
BIS IPSUM GRATISSIMUM DEBITOREM 25
QUAMUIS ENIM ISTA NON ADPETAT TAM
GRATE TAMEN EXCIPIT QUAM SI CONCU
[Footnote 1: A fifteenth-century addition, see above, p. 21.]
[Footnote 2: The scribe originally divided i-deo between two lines. On correcting the page he (or a contemporary corrector) cancelled the i at the end of the line and added it before the next.]
[Footnote 3: i changed to
e (not the uncial form) possibly by
the original hand in correcting.]
{fol. 51v}
.EPISTULARUM.
PISCAT.UALE
.{-C}.PLINIUS.CORELLIAE.SALUTEM.
CUM PATREM TUUM GRAUISSIMUM ET SAN
CTISSIMUM UIRUM SUSPEXERIM MAGIS
AN AMAUERIM DUBITEM TEQ_UE_ IN MEMO
5
RIAM EIUS ET IN HONOREM TUUM I^{U}NU^{I}ICE[1]
DILIGAM CUPIAM NECESSE EST ATQ_UE_ ETIA_M_
QUANTUM IN ME FUERIT ENITAR UT FILIUS
TUUS AUO SIMILIS EXSISTAT EQUIDEM
MALO MATERNO QUAMQ^{U}AM[2] ILLI PATER
[Footnote 1: inuice:
corrected to unice by cancelling i and
ui (the cancellation stroke is
barely visible) and writing u and
i above the line. The correction
is by a somewhat later hand.]
[Footnote 2: u above the line is by the first hand.]
[Footnote 3: q. above the line is added by a somewhat later hand.]
[Footnote 4: Final r is added by a somewhat later hand.]
[Footnote 5: The dots above ra
indicate deletion. The cancellation
stroke is oblique.]
[Footnote 6: A somewhat later corrector,
possibly contemporary,
changed est to uel by adding
u before e and l above s
and cancelling both s and t.]
[Footnote 7: h added above
the line by a hand which may be
contemporary.]
{fol. 52r}
.LIBER.III.
TOR MODO SED CUSTOS ETIAM RECTORQ_UE_
QUAERENDUS EST UIDEOR ERGO DEMON
STRARE TIBI POSSE IULIUM GEN^{I}TIOREM[1]
AM^{N}ATUR[2] A ME I^{U}DICIO[3] TAMEN MEO NON
OBSTAT KARITAS HOMINIS QUAE ^{EX}[4]IUDI 5
CIO NATA EST UIR EST EMENDATUS ET GRA
UIS PAULO ETIAM HORRIDIOR ET DURIOR
UT IN HAC LICENTIA TEMPORUM QUAN
TUM ELOQUENTIA UALEAT PLURIB_US_ CRE
DERE POTES NAM DICENDI FACULTAS 10
APERTA ET EXPOSITA.STATIM CERNITUR
UITA HOMINUM ALTOS RECESSUS MAG
NASQ_UE_ LATEBRAS HABET CUIUS PRO GE
NITORE ME SPONSOREM ACCIPE NIHIL
EX HOC UIRO FILIUS TUUS AUDIET NISI 15
PROFUTURUM NIHIL DISCET QUOD NESCIS[5]
SE RECTIUS FUERIT NE^{C}[6] MINUS SAEPE AB
ILLO QUAM A TE MEQUE ADMONEBITUR
QUIB_US_ IMAGINIB_US_ ONERETUR QUAE NOMI
NA ET QUANTA SUSTINEAT PROINDE FAUE_N_ 20
TIBUS DIIS TRADE eUM[7] PRAECEPTORI A
QUO MORES PRIMUM MOX ELOQUENTIA_M_
DISCAT QUAE MALE SINE MORIBUS DIS
CITUR UALE
.C. PLINIUS MACRINO SALUTEM 25
QUAMUIS ET AMICI QUOS PRAESENTES
HABEBAM ET SERMONES HOMINUM
[Footnote 1: The scribe wrote gentiorem:
a somewhat later
corrector changed it to genitorem
by adding an i above the line
between n and t and cancelled
the i after t.]
[Footnote 2: Above the m a
somewhat later hand wrote n. It was
cancelled by a crude modern hand using
lead.]
[Footnote 3: u added above the line by the later hand.]
[Footnote 4: ex added above the line by the later corrector.]
[Footnote 5: cis is added
in the margin by the later hand. The
original scribe wrote nes | se.]
[Footnote 6: c is added above the line by the later hand.]
[Footnote 7: e added above the line.]
{fol. 52v}
.EPISTULARUM.
FACTUM MEUM COMPROUASSE UIDEAN
TUR MAGNI TAMEN AESTIMO SCIRE QUID
SENTIAS TU NAM CUIUS INTEGRA RE CON
SILIUM EXQUIRERE O^{P}TASSEM[1] HUIUS ETIA_M_
PERACTA IUDICI{.A}UM[2] NOSSE MIRE CONCU 5
PISCO CUM PUBLICUM OPUS MEA PECU
NIA INCHOATURUS IN TUSCOS EXCUCURIS_{SE_M_ AC}
_{CEPTO UT PR} COMMEATU[3] LEGATI PROVINCIAE
{above COMMEATU: AEFECTUS AERARI}
BAETICAE QUESTURI DE PROCONSULATU{.S}[4]
CAECILII CLASSICI ADVOCATUM ME A SE 10
NATU PETIERUNT COLLEGAE OPTIMI MEIQ_UE_
AMANTISSIMI DE COMMUNIS OFFICII NE
CESSITATIB_US_ PRAELOCUTI EXCUSARE
ME ET EXIMERE TEMPTARUNT FACTUM
{.T}{.U}{.M}[5] EST SENATUS CONSULTUM PERQUAM 15
HONORIFICUM UT DARE^{R}[6] PROVINCIALIB_US_
PATRONUS SI AB IPSO ME IMPETRASSENT
LEGATI RURSUS INDUCTI ITERUM ME IA_M_
PRAESENTEM ADUOCATUM POST^{U}LAUE[7]
RUNT INPLORANTES FIDEM MEAM 20
QUAM ESSENT CONTRA MASSAM BAE
BIUM EXPERTI ADLEGANTES PATRO^{C}INII[8]
FOEDUS SECUTA EST SENATUS CLARIS
SIMA ADSENSIO QUAE SOLET DECRETA
PRAECURRERE TUM EGO DESINO IN 25
QUAM P. C. PUTARE ME IUSTAS EXCUSA
TIONIS CAUSAS ADTULISSE PLACUIT ET
[Footnote 1: p added above the line by the scribe.]
[Footnote 2: The superfluous a
is cancelled by means of a dot
above the letter.]
[Footnote 3: The scribe originally wrote excucuris | sem commeatu, omitting accepto ut praefectus aerari. Noticing his error, he erased sem and wrote it at the end of the preceding line, and added the omitted words over the erasure and the word commeatu.]
[Footnote 4: The dot over s indicates deletion.]
[Footnote 5: tum: error
due to diplography. The correction is made
by means of dots and crossing out.]
[Footnote 6: r added by the scribe.]
[Footnote 7: u added apparently by a contemporary hand.]
[Footnote 8: c added above
the line, apparently by a contemporary
hand.]
{fol. 53r}
.LIBER.III.
MODESTIA SERMONIS ET RATIO CO_M_
PULIT AUTEM ME AD HOC CONSILIUM NO_N_
SOLUM CONSENSUS SENATUS QUAMQUA_M_
HIC MAXIME UERUM ET ALII QUIDEM
MINORIS SED TAMEN NUMERI UENI 5
EBAT IN MENTEM PRIORES NOSTROS
ETIAM SINGULORUM HOSP{.I}TIUM[1] INIU
RIAS ACCUSATIONIB_US_ UOLUNTARIIS EX
SECUTOS QUO DEFORMIUS ARBITRABAR
PUBLICI ^{H}OSPITII ^{I}URA[2] NEGLEGERE PRAE 10
TEREA CUM RECORDARER QUANTA
PRO IISDEM BAETICIS PRIORE ADUOCA
TIONE ETIAM PERICULA SUBISSEM CO_N_
SERVANDUM UETERIS OFFICII MERITU_M_
NOVO VIDEBATUR EST ENIM ITA COM 15
PARATUM UT ANTIQUIORA BENEFICIA SUB
UERTAS NISI ILLA POSTERIORIB_US_ CUMU
LES NAM QUAMLIBET SAEPE OBLIGA(N)[3]
TI SIQUID[4] UNUM NEGES HOC SOLUM
MEMINERUNT QUOD NEGATUM EST 20
DUCEBAR ETIAM QUOD DECESSERAT
CLASSICUS AMOTUMQ_UE_ ERAT QUOD
I[5]N EIUSMODI CAUSIS SOLET ESSE TRIS
{.T}{.I}TISSIMUM[6] PERICULUM SENATORIS
UIDEBAM ERGO ADUOCATIONI MEAE 25
NON MINOREM GRATIAM QUAM SI
UIUERET ILLE PROPOSITAM INUIDIAM
Uir erat in terra[7]
[Footnote 1: Deletion of i
before u is marked by a dot above the
letter and a slanting stroke through it.]
[Footnote 2: h and i
above the line are apparently by the first
hand.]
[Footnote 3: n (in brackets) is a later addition.]
[Footnote 4: The letters uid
are plainly retraced by a later hand.
The same hand retouched neges h
in the same line.]
[Footnote 5: i before n
added by a later corrector who erased
the i which the scribe wrote after
quod, in the line above.]
[Footnote 6: Superfluous ti
cancelled by means of dots and oblique
stroke.]
[Footnote 7: Added by a Caroline hand of the ninth century.]
{fol. 53v}
.EPISTULARUM.
NULLAM IN SUMMA COMPUTABAM
SI MUNERE HOC TERTIO FUNGERE^{R}[1] FACILI
OREM MIHI EXCUSATIONEM FORE SI
QUIS INCIDISSET QUEM NON DEBEREM
ACCUSARE NAM CUM EST OMNIUM OFFI 5
CIORUM FINIS ALIQUIS TUM OPTIME
LIBERTATI UENIA OBSEQUIO PRAEPARA
TUR AUDISTI CONSILII MEI MOTUS SUPER
EST ALTERUTRA EX PARTE IUDICIUM TUUM
IN QUO MIHI AEQ_UE_ IUCU^{I}NDA[2] ERIT SIM 10
PLICITAS DISSI^{N}TIENTIS[3] QUAM COMPRO
BANTIS AUCTORITAS UALE
.{-C}.PLINIUS MACRO.SUO.SALUTEM
PERGRATUM EST MIHI QUOD TAM DILIGE_N_
TER LIBROS AUONCULI MEI LECTITAS UT 15
HABERE OMNES UELIS QUAERASQ_UE_ QUI
SINT OMNES {.D}{.E}FUNGAR[4] INDICIS PARTIBUS
ATQUE ETIAM QUO SINT ORDINE SCRIPTI
NOTUM TIBI FACIAM EST ENIM HAEC
QUOQ_UE_ STUDIOSIS NON INIUCUNDA COG 20
NITIO DE IACULATIONE EQUESTRI UNUS.
HUNC CUM PRAEFECTUS ALAE MILITA
RET. PARI[5] INGENIO CURAQ_UE_ COMPOSUIT.
DE UITA POMPONI SECUNDI DUO A QUO
SINGULARITER AMATUS HOC MEMORIAE 25
AMICI QUASI DEBITUM MUNUS EXSOL
UIT.BELLORUM GERMANIAE UIGINTI QUIB_US_
[Footnote 1: r added above
the line by the scribe or by a
contemporary hand.]
[Footnote 2: i added above
the second u by the scribe or by a
contemporary hand.]
[Footnote 3: The scribe wrote dissitientis.
A contemporary hand
changed the second i to e
and wrote an n above the t.]
[Footnote 4: de is cancelled
by means of dots above the d and
e and oblique strokes drawn through
them.]
[Footnote 5: The strokes over the
i at the end of this word and at
the beginning of the next were added by
a corrector who can not be
much older than the thirteenth century.]
THE TEXT OF THE MORGAN FRAGMENT
by
E. K. RAND
THE MORGAN FRAGMENT AND ALDUS’S
ANCIENT CODEX PARISINUS.[1]
[Sidenote: The Codex Parisinus]
Aldus Manutius, in the preface to his edition of Pliny’s Letters, printed at Venice in 1508, expresses his gratitude to Aloisio Mocenigo, Venetian ambassador in Paris, for bringing to Italy an exceptionally fine manuscript of the Letters; the book had been found not long before at or near Paris by the architect Fra Giocondo of Verona. The editio princeps, 1471, was based on a family of manuscripts that omitted Book VIII, called Book IX Book VIII, and did not contain Book X, the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan. Subsequent editions had only in part made good these deficiencies. More than a half of Book X, containing the letters numbered 41-121 in editions of our day, was published by Avantius in 1502 from a copy of the Paris manuscript made by Petrus Leander.[2] Aldus himself, two years before printing his edition, had received from Fra Giocondo a copy of the entire manuscript, with six other volumes, some of them printed editions which Giocondo had collated with manuscripts. Aldus, addressing Mocenigo, thus describes his acquisition:
“Deinde Iucundo Veronensi Viro singulari ingenio, ac bonarum literarum studiosissimo, quod et easdem Secundi epistolas ab eo ipso exemplari a se descriptas in Gallia diligenter ut facit omnia, et sex alia uolumina epistolarum partim manu scripta, partim impressa quidem, sed cum antiquis collata exemplaribus, ad me ipse sua sponte, quae ipsius est ergo studiosos omneis beneuolentia, adportauerit, idque biennio ante, quam tu ipsum mihi exemplar publicandum tradidisses.”
[Footnote 1: I would acknowledge most gratefully the help given me in the preparation of this part of our discussion by Professor E.T. Merrill, of the University of Chicago. Professor Merrill, whose edition of the Letters of Pliny has long been in the hands of Teubner, placed at my disposal his proof-sheets for the part covered in the Morgan fragment, his preliminary apparatusPage 32
criticus for the entire text of the Letters, and a card-catalogue of the readings of B and F. He patiently answered numerous questions and subjected the first draft of my argument to a searching criticism which saved me from errors in fact and in expression. But Professor Merrill should not be held responsible for errors that remain or for my estimate of the Morgan fragment.]
[Footnote 2: On Petrus Leander, see
Merrill in Classical Philology
V (1910), pp. 451 f.]
So now the ancient manuscript itself had come. Aldus emphasizes its value in supplying the defects of previous editions. The Letters will now include, he declares:
“multae non ante impressae. Tum Graeca correcta, et suis locis restituta, atque retectis adulterinis, uera reposita. Item fragmentatae epistolae, integrae factae. In medio etiam epistolae libri octaui de Clitumno fonte non solum uertici calx additus, et calci uertex, sed decem quoque epistolae interpositae, ac ex Nono libro Octauus factus, et ex Octauo Nonus, Idque beneficio exemplaris correctissimi, & mirae, ac uenerandae Vetustatis.”
The presence of such a manuscript, “most correct, and of a marvellous and venerable antiquity,” stimulates the imagination: Aldus thinks that now even the lost Decades of Livy may appear again:
“Solebam superioribus Annis Aloisi Vir Clariss. cum aut T. Liuii Decades, quae non extare creduntur, aut Sallustii, aut Trogi historiae, aut quemuis alium ex antiquis autoribus inuentum esse audiebam, nugas dicere, ac fabulas. Sed ex quo tu ex Gallia has Plinii epistolas in Italia reportasti, in membrana scriptas, atque adeo diuersis a nostris characteribus, ut nisi quis diu assuerit, non queat legere, coepi sperare mirum in modum, fore aetate nostra, ut plurimi ex bonis autoribus, quos non extare credimus, inueniantur.”
There was something unusual in the character of the script that made it hard to read; its ancient appearance even suggested to Aldus a date as early as that of Pliny himself.
“Est enim uolumen ipsum
non solum correctissimum, sed etiam ita
antiquum, ut putem scriptum
Plinii temporibus.”
This is enthusiastic language. In the days of Italian humanism, a scholar might call almost any book a codex pervetustus if it supplied new readings for his edition and its script seemed unusual. As Professor Merrill remarks:[3]
“The extreme age that Aldus was disposed to attribute to the manuscript will, of course, occasion no wonder in the minds of those who are familiar with the vague notions on such matters that prevailed among scholars before the study of palaeography had been developed into somewhat of a science. The manuscript may have been written in one of the so-called ‘national’ hands, Lombardic, Visigothic, or Merovingian. But if it were in a ‘Gothic’ hand of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, it might have appeared sufficiently grotesque and illegible to a reader accustomed for the most part to the exceedingly clear Italian book hands of the fifteenth century.”
[Footnote 3: C.P. II (1907), pp. 134 f.]
In a later article Professor Merrill well adds that even the uncial script would have seemed difficult and alien to one accustomed to the current fifteenth-century style.[4] A contemporary and rival editor, Catanaeus, disputed Aldus’s claims. In his second edition of the Letters (1518), he professed to have used a very ancient book that came down from Germany and declared that the Paris manuscript had no right to the antiquity which Aldus had imputed to it. But Catanaeus has been proved a liar.[5] He had no ancient manuscript from Germany, and abused Aldus mainly to conceal his cribbings from that scholar’s edition; we may discount his opinion of the age of the Parisinus. Until Aldus, an eminent scholar and honest publisher,[6] is proved guilty, we should assume him innocent of mendacity or naive ignorance. He speaks in earnest; his words ring true. We must be prepared for the possibility that his ancient manuscript was really ancient.
[Footnote 4: C.P. X (1915), pp. 18 f.]
[Footnote 5: By Merrill, C.P. V (1910), pp. 455 ff.]
[Footnote 6: Sandys, A History
of Classical Studies II (1908),
pp. 99 ff.]
Since Aldus’s time the Parisinus has disappeared. To quote Merrill again:[7]
“This wonderful manuscript, like so many others, appears to have vanished from earth. Early editors saw no especial reason for preserving what was to them but copy for their own better printed texts. Possibly some leaves of it may be lying hid in old bindings; possibly they went to cover preserve-jars, or tennis-racquets; possibly into some final dust-heap. At any rate the manuscript is gone; the copy by Iucundus is gone; the copy of the correspondence with Trajan that Avantius owed to Petrus Leander is gone; if others had any other copies of Book X, in whole or in part, they are gone too.”
[Footnote 7: C.P. II, p. 135.]
[Sidenote: The Bodleian volume]
In 1708 Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, bought at auction a peculiar volume of Pliny’s Letters. It consisted of Beroaldus’s edition of the nine books (1498), the portions of Book X published by Avantius in 1502, and, on inserted leaves, the missing letters of Books VIII and X.[8] The printed portions, moreover, were provided with over five hundred variant readings and lemmata in a different hand from that which appeared on the inserted leaves; the hand that added the variants also wrote in the margin the sixteenth letter of Book IX, which is not in the edition of Beroaldus. Hearne recognized the importance of this supplementary matter, for he copied the variants into his own edition of the Letters (1703), intending, apparently, to use them in a larger edition which he is said to have published in 1709; he also lent the book to Jean Masson, who refers to it in his Plinii Vita. Upon Hearne’s death, this valuable volume was acquired by the Bodleian Library in Oxford, but lay unnoticed until Mr. E.G. Hardy, in 1888,[9] examined it and, after a comparison of the readings, pronounced it the very copy from which Aldus had printed his edition in 1508. External proof of this highly exciting surmise seemed to appear in a manuscript note on the last page of the edition of Avantius, written in the hand that had inserted the variants and supplements throughout the volume:[10]
“hae plinii iunioris epistolae ex uetustissimo exemplari parisiensi et restitutae et emendatae sunt opera et industria ioannis iucundi prestantissimi architecti hominis imprimis antiquarii.”
[Footnote 8: See plate XVII, which
shows the insertion in Book
VIII.]
[Footnote 9: Journal of Philology
XVII (1888), pp. 95 ff., and in
the introduction to his edition of the
Tenth Book (1889), pp. 75
ff.]
[Footnote 10: See Merrill C.P. II, p. 136.]
What more natural to conclude than that here is the very copy that Aldus prepared from the ancient manuscript and the collations and transcripts sent him by Fra Giocondo? One fact blocks this attractive conjecture: though there are many agreements between the readings of the emended Bodleian book and those of Aldus, there are also many disagreements. Mr. Hardy removed the obstacle by assuming that Aldus made changes in the proof; but the changes are numerous; they are not too numerous for a scholar who can mark up his galleys free of cost, but they are decidedly too numerous if the scholar is also his own printer.
Merrill, in a brilliant and searching article,[11] entirely demolishes Hardy’s argument. Unlike most destructive critics, he replaces the exploded theory by still more interesting fact. For the rediscovery of the Bodleian book and a proper appreciation of its value, students of Pliny’s text must always be grateful to Hardy; we now know, however, that the volume was never owned by Aldus. The scholar who put its parts together and added the variants with his own hand was the famous Hellenist Guillaume Bude (Budaeus). The parts on the supplementary leaves were done by some copyist who imitated the general effect of the type used in the book itself; Budaeus added his notes on these inserted leaves in the same way as elsewhere. It had been shown before by Keil[12] that Budaeus must have used the readings of the Parisinus; indeed, it is from his own statement in Annotationes in Pandectas that we learn of the discovery of the ancient manuscript by Giocondo:[13]
“Verum haec epistola et aliae non paucae in codicibus impressis non leguntur: nos integrum ferme Plinium habemus: primum apud parrhisios repertum opera Iucundi sacerdotis: hominis antiquarii Architectique famigerati.”
[Footnote 11: C.P. II, pp. 129 ff.]
[Footnote 12: In his edition, pp. xxiii f.]
[Footnote 13: C.P. II, p. 152.]
The wording here is much like that in the note at the end of the Bodleian book. After establishing his case convincingly from the readings followed by Budaeus in his quotations from the Letters, Merrill eventually was able to compare the handwriting with the acknowledged script of Budaeus and to find that the two are identical.[14] The Bodleian book, then, is not Aldus’s copy for the printer. It is Budaeus’s own collation from the Parisinus. Whether he examined the manuscript directly or used a copy made by Giocondo is doubtful; the note at the end of the Bodleian volume seems to favor the latter possibility. Budaeus does not by any means give a complete collation, but what he does give constitutes, in Merrill’s opinion, our best authority for any part of the lost Parisinus.[15]
[Footnote 14: C.P. V, p. 466.]
[Footnote 15: C.P. II, p. 156.]
[Sidenote: The Morgan fragment possibly a part of the lost Parisinus]
Perhaps we may now say the Bodleian volume has been hitherto our best authority. For a fragment of the ancient book, if my conjecture is right, is now, after various journeys, reposing in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City.
[Sidenote: The script]
First of all, we are impressed with the script. It is an uncial of about the year 500 A.D.—certainly venerandae vetustatis. If Aldus had this same uncial codex at his disposal, we can understand his delight and pardon his slight exaggeration, for it is only slight. The essential truth of his statement remains: he had found a book of a different class from that of the ordinary manuscript—indeed diversis a nostris characteribus. Instead of thinking him arrant knave or fool enough to bring down “antiquity” to the thirteenth century, we might charitably push back his definition of “nostri characteres” to include anything in minuscules; script “not our own” would be the majuscule hands in vogue before the Middle Ages. That is a position palaeographically defensible, seeing that the humanistic script is a lineal descendant of the Caroline variety. Furthermore, an uncial hand, though clear and regular as in our fragment, is harder to read than a glance at a page of it promises. This is due to the writing of words continuously. It takes practice, as Aldus says, to decipher such a script quickly and accurately. Moreover, the flesh sides of the leaves are faded.
[Sidenote: Provenience and contents]
We next note that the fragment came to the Pierpont Morgan Library from Aldus’s country, where, as Dr. Lowe has amply shown, it was written; how it came into the possession of the Marquis Taccone would be interesting to know. But, like the Parisinus, the book to which our fragment belonged had not stayed in Italy always. It had made a trip to France—and was resting there in the fifteenth century, as is proved by the French note of that period on fol. 51r. We may say “the book” and not merely “the present six leaves,” for the fragment begins with fol. 48, and the foliation is of the fifteenth century. The last page of our fragment is bright and clear, showing no signs of wear, as it would if no more had followed it;[16] I will postpone the question of what probably did follow. Moreover, if the probatio pennae on fol. 53r is Carolingian,[17] it would appear that the book had been in France at the beginning as well as at the end of the Middle Ages. Thus our manuscript may well have been one of those brought up from Italy by the emissaries of Charlemagne or their successors during the revival of learning in the eighth and ninth centuries. The outer history of our book, then, and the character of its script, comport with what we know of Aldus’s Parisinus.
[Footnote 16: See Dr. Lowe’s remarks, pp. 3-6 above.]
[Footnote 17: See above, p. 21, and below, p. 53.]
[Sidenote: The text closely related to that of Aldus]
But we must now subject our fragment to internal tests. If Aldus used the entire manuscript of which this is a part, his text must show a general conformity to that of the fragment. An examination of the appended collation will establish this fact beyond a doubt. The references are to Keil’s critical edition of 1870, but the readings are verified from Merrill’s apparatus. I will designate the fragment as _{Pi}_, using P for Aldus’s Parisinus and a for his edition.
{Transcriber’s Note:
In the following paragraph, letters originally
printed in roman
(non-italic) type are capitalized for
clarity.}
We may begin by excluding two probable misprints in Aldus, 64, 1 contuRbernium and 65, 17 subEuertas. Then there are various spellings in which Aldus adheres to the fashion of his day, as seXcenties, miLLies, miLLia, teNtarunt, cauSSas, auToritas, quaNquam, sYderum, hYeme, cOEna, oCium, hospiCii, negoCiis, solaTium, adUlescet, eXoluit, THuscos; there are other spellings which modern editors might not disdain, i.e., aerarII and iLLustri, and some that they have accepted, namely aPPonitur, eXistat, iMpleturus, iMplorantes, oBtulissem, balInei, Caret (not Karet), Caritas (not Karitas).[18]
[Footnote 18: The spellings Karet and Karitas, whether Pliny’s or not, are a sign of antiquity. In the first century A.D., as we see from Velius Longus (p. 53, 12 K) and Quintilian (I, 7, 10), certain old-timers clung to the use of k for c when the vowel a followed. By the fourth century, theorists of the opposite tendency proposed the abandonment of k and q as superfluous letters, since their functions were performed by c. Donatus (p. 368, 7 K) and Diomedes, too, according to Keil (p. 423, 11), still believed in the rule of ka for ca, but these rigid critics had passed away in the time of Servius, who, in his commentary on Donatus (p. 422, 35 K), remarks k vero et q aliter nos utimur, aliter usi sunt maiores nostri. Namque illi, quotienscumque a sequebatur, k praeponebant in omni parte orationis, ut Kaput et similia; nos vero non usurpamus k litteram nisi in Kalendarum nomine scribendo. See also Cledonius (p. 28, 5K); W. Brambach, Latein. Orthog. 1868, pp. 210 ff.; W.M. Lindsay, The Latin Language, 1894, pp. 6 f. There would thus be no temptation for a scribe at the end of the fifth century or the beginning of the sixth to adopt ka for ca as a habit. The writer of our fragment was copying faithfullyPage 37
from his original a spelling that he apparently would not have used himself. There are various other cases of ca in our text (e.g., calceos, III, i, 4; canere, 11), but there we find the usual spelling. On traces of ka in the Bellovacensis, see below, p. 57. I should not be surprised if Pliny himself employed the spelling ka, which was gradually modified in the successive copies of his work; it may be, however, that our manuscript represents a text which had passed through the hand of some archaeologizing scholar of a later age, like Donatus. At any rate, this feature of our fragment is an indication of genuineness and of antiquity.]
A study of our collation will also show some forty cases of correction in _{Pi}_ by either the scribe himself or a second and possibly a third ancient hand. Here Aldus, if he read the pages of our fragment and read them with care, might have seen warrant for following either the original text or the emended form, as he preferred. The most important cases are: 61, 14 sera] _{Pi}a_ SERUA _{Pi}{2}_ 61, 21 considit] _{Pi}_ CONSIDET _{Pi}{2}a_ The original reading of _{Pi}_ is clearly CONSIDIT. The second I has been altered to a capital E, which of course is not the proper form for uncial. 62, 5 residit] _{Pi}_ residet a Here _{Pi}_ is not corrected, but Aldus may have thought that the preceding case of CONSIDET (m. 2) supported what he supposed the better form residet. 63, 11 posset] a POSSIT (in posset m. 1?) _{Pi}_ Again the corrected E is capital, not uncial, but Aldus would have had no hesitation in adopting the reading of the second hand. 64, 2 modica vel etiam] a MODICA EST ETIAM (corr. m. 2) _{Pi}_ 64, 28 excurrissem accepto, ut praefectus aerari, commeatu] a Here _{Pi}_ omitted accepto ut praefectus aerari,—evidently a line of the manuscript that he was copying, for there are no similar endings to account otherwise for the omission. 66, 2 dissentientis] a ex DISSITIENTIS m. 1 (?) _{Pi}_.
There are also a few careless errors of the first hand, uncorrected, in _{Pi}_, which Aldus himself might easily have corrected or have found the right reading already in the early editions. 62, 23 conteror quorum] a CONTEROR QUI HORUM _{Pi} B F_ 63, 28 si] a SIBI _{Pi}_ 64, 24 conprobasse] COMPROUASSE _{Pi}_.
In view of these certain errors of the first hand of _{Pi}_, most of them corrected but a few not, Aldus may have felt justified in abiding by one of the early editions in the following three cases, where _{Pi}_ might well have seemed to him wrong; in one of them (64,3) modern editors agree with him: 62, 20 aurium oculorum vigor] {Pi} aurium oculorumque uigor a 64, 3 proferenda] a CONFERANDA {Pi} 65, 11 et alii] {Pi} etiam alii a.
There is only one case of possible emendation to note: 64, 29 questuri] {Pi} quaesturi MVa Aldus’s reading, as I learn from Professor Merrill, is in the anonymous edition ascribed to Roscius (Venice, 1492?), but not in any of the editions cited by Keil. This may be a conscious emendation, but it is just as possibly an error of hearing made by either Aldus or his compositor in repeating the word to himself as he wrote or set up the passage. Once in the text, quaesturi gives no offense, and is not corrected by Aldus in his edition of 1518. An apparently more certain effort at emendation is reported by Keil on 62, 13, where Aldus is said to differ from all the manuscripts and the editions in reading agere for facere. So he does in his second edition; but here he has facere with everybody else. The changes in the second edition are few and are largely confined to the correction of obvious misprints. There is no point in substituting agere for facere. I should attribute this innovation to a careless compositor, who tried to memorize too large a bit of text, rather than to an emending editor. At all events, it has no bearing on our immediate concern.
The striking similarity, therefore, between Aldus’s text and that of our fragment confirms our surmise that the latter may be a part of that ancient manuscript which he professes to have used in his edition. Whatever his procedure may have been, he has produced a text that differs from {Pi} only in certain spellings, in the correction, with the help of existing editions, of three obvious errors of {Pi} and of three of its readings that to Aldus might well have seemed erroneous, in two misprints, and in one reading which is possibly an emendation but which may just as well be another misprint. Thus the internal evidence of the text offers no contradiction of what the script and the history of the manuscript have suggested. I can not claim to have established an irrefutable conclusion, but the signs all point in one direction. I see enough evidence to warrant a working hypothesis, which we may use circumspectly as a clue, submit to further tests, and abandon in case these tests yield evidence with which it can not be reconciled.
[Sidenote: Editorial methods of Aldus]
Further, if we are justified in our assumption that Aldus used the manuscript of which {Pi} is a part, the fragment is instructive as to his editorial methods. If he proceeded elsewhere as carefully as here, he certainly did not perform his task with the high-handedness of the traditional humanistic editor; rather, he treated his ancient witness with respect, and abandoned it only when confronted with what seemed its obvious mistakes. I will revert to this matter at a later stage of the argument.
RELATION
OF THE MORGAN FRAGMENT
TO THE OTHER MANUSCRIPTS OF
THE LETTERS.
But, it will be asked, how do we know that Aldus used {Pi} rather than some other manuscript that had a very similar text and that happened to have gone through the same travels? To answer this question we must examine the relation of {Pi} to the other extant manuscripts in the light of what is known of the transmission of Pliny’s Letters in the Middle Ages. A convenient summary is given by Merrill on the basis of his abundant researches.[19]
[Footnote 19: C.P. X (1915),
pp. 8 ff. A classified list of the
manuscripts of the Letters is given
by Miss Dora Johnson in C.P.
VII (1912), pp. 66 ff.]
[Sidenote: Classes of the manuscripts]
Manuscripts of the Letters may be divided into three classes, distinguished by the number of books that each contains.
Class I, the ten-book family, consists of B (Bellovacensis or Riccardianus), now Ashburnhamensis, R 98 in the Laurentian Library in Florence, its former home, whence it had been diverted on an interesting pilgrimage by the noted book-thief Libri. This manuscript is attributed to the tenth century by Merrill, and by Chatelain in his description of the book. But Chatelain labels his facsimile page “Saec. IX."[20] The latter seems the more probable date. The free use of a flat-topped a, along with the general appearance of the script, reminds me of the style in vogue at Fleury and its environs about the middle of the ninth century. A good specimen is accessible in a codex of St. Hilary on the Psalms (Vaticanus Reginensis 95), written at Micy between 846 and 859, of which a page is reproduced by Ehrle and Liebaert.[21] F (Florentinus), the other important representative of this class, is also in the Laurentian Library (S. Marco 284). The date assigned to it seems also too late. It is apparently as early as the tenth century, and also has some of the characteristics of the script of Fleury; it is French work, at any rate. Keil’s suggestion[22] that it may be the book mentioned as liber epistolarum Gaii Plinii in a tenth-century catalogue of the manuscripts at Lorsch may be perfectly correct; though not written at Lorsch, it might have been presented to the monastery by that time.[23] These two manuscripts agree in containing, by the first hand, only Books I-V, vi (F having all and B only a part of the sixth letter). However, as the initial title in B is PLINI . SECUNDI . EPISTULARUM . LIBRI . DECEM, we may infer that some ancestor, if not the immediate ancestor, of B and F had all ten books.
[Footnote 20: Pal. des Class. Lat. pl. CXLIII. See our plates XIII and XIV. At least as early as the thirteenth century, the manuscript was at Beauvais. The ancient press-mark S. Petri Beluacensis, in writing perhaps of the twelfth century, may still be discerned on the recto of the first folio. See Merrill, C.P. X, p. 16. If the book was written at Beauvais, as Chatelain thinks (Journal des Savants, 1900, p. 48), then something like what I call the mid-century style of Fleury was also cultivated, possibly a bit later, in the north. The Beauvais Horace, Leidensis lat. 28 saec. IX (Chatelain, pl. LXXVIII), shows a certain similarity in the script to that of B. If both were done at Beauvais, the Horace would seem to be the later book. It belongs, we mayPage 40
observe, to a group of manuscripts of which a Floriacensis (Paris lat. 7971) is a conspicuous member. To settle the case of B, we need a study of all the books of Beauvais. For this, a valuable preliminary survey is given by Omont in Mem. de l’Acad. des Ins. et Belles Lettres XL (1914), pp. 1 ff.]
[Footnote 21: Specimina Cod.
Lat. Vatic. 1912, pl. 30. See also
H.M. Bannister, Paleografia Musicale
Vaticana 1913, p. 30, No.
109.]
[Footnote 22: See the preface to his edition, p. xi.]
[Footnote 23: For the script of F,
see plates XV and XVI. Bern.
136, s. XIII (Merrill, C.P.
X, p. 18) is a copy of F.]
In Class II the leading manuscript is another Laurentian codex (Mediceus XLVII 36), which contains Books I-IX, xxvi, 8. It was written in the ninth century, at Corvey, whence it was brought to Rome at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is part of a volume that also once contained our only manuscript of the first part of the Annals of Tacitus.[24] The other chief manuscript of this class is V (Vaticanus Latinus 3864), which has Books I-IV. The script has been variously estimated. I am inclined to the opinion that the book was written somewhere near Tours, perhaps Fleury, in the earlier part of the ninth century.[25] If Ullman is right in seeing a reference to Pliny’s Letters in a notice in a mediaeval catalogue of Corbie,[26] it may be that the codex is a Corbeiensis. But it is also possible that a volume of the Letters at Corbie was twice copied, once at Corvey (M) and once in the neighborhood of Tours (V). At any rate, with the help of V, we may reach farther back than Corvey and Germany for the origin of this class. There are likewise two fragmentary texts, both of brief extent, Monacensis 14641 (olim Emmeramensis) saec. IX, and Leidensis Vossianus 98 saec. IX, the latter partly in Tironian notes. Merrill regards these as bearing “testimony to the existence of the nine-book text in the same geographical region,” namely Germany.[27] There they are to-day, in Germany and Holland, but where they were written is another affair. The Munich fragment is part of a composite volume of which it occupies only a page or two. The script is continental, and may well be that of Regensburg, but it shows marked traces of insular influence, English rather than Irish in character. The work immediately preceding the fragment is in an insular hand, of the kind practised at various continental monasteries, such as Fulda; there are certain notes in the usual continental hand. Evidently the manuscript deserves consideration in the history of the struggle between the insular and the continental hands in Germany.[28] The script of the Leyden fragment, on the other hand, so far as I can judge from a photograph, looks very much like the mid-century Fleury variety
[Footnote 24: Cod. Med. LXVIII, 1. See Rostagno in the preface to his edition of this manuscript in the Leyden series, and for the Pliny, Chatelain, Pal. des Class. Lat., pl. CXLV. Keil (edition, p. vi), followed by Kukula (edition, p. iv), incorrectly assigns the manuscript to the tenth century. The latest treatment is by Paul Lehmann in his “Corveyer Studien,” in Abhandl. der Bayer. Akad. der Wiss. Philos.-philol. u. hist. Klasse, XXX, 5 (1919), p. 38. He assigns it to the middle or the last half of the ninth century.]
[Footnote 25: Chatelain calls the page of Pliny that he reproduces (pl. CXLIV) tenth century, but attributes the Sallust portion of the manuscript, although this seems of a piece with the style of the Pliny, to the ninth; see pl. LIV. Hauler, who has given the most complete account of the manuscript, thinks it “saec. IX/X” (Wiener Studien XVII (1895), p. 124). He shows, as others had done before him, the close association of the book with Bernensis 357, and of that codex with Fleury.]
[Footnote 26: See Merrill C.P. X, p. 23. The catalogue (G. Becker, Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui, p. 282) was prepared about 1200, and is of Corbie, not as Merrill has it, Corvey. Chatelain (on plate LIV) regards the book as “provenant du monastere de Corbie.” At my request, Mr. H.J. Leon, Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University, recently examined the manuscript, and neither he nor Monsignore Mercati, the Prefect of the Vatican Library, could discover any note or library-mark to indicate that the book is a Corbeiensis. In a recent article, Philol. Quart. I (1922), pp. 17 ff.), Professor Ullman is inclined, after a careful analysis of the evidence, to assign the manuscript to Corbie, but allows for the possibility that it was written in Tours or the neighborhood and thence sent to Corbie.]
[Footnote 27: C.P. X, p. 23.]
[Footnote 28: See Paul Lehmann, “Aufgaben und Anregungen der lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters,” in Sitzungsberichte der Bayer. Akad. der Wiss. Philos.-philol. u. hist. Klasse, 1918, 8, pp. 14 ff. I am indebted to Professor Lehmann for the facts on the basis of which I have made the statement above. To quote his exact words, the contents of the manuscript are as follows: “Fol. 1-31v Briefe des Hierononymus u. Gregorius Magnus + fol. 46v-47v, Briefe des Plinius an Tacitus u. Albinus, in kontinentaler, wohl Regensburger Minuskel etwa der Mitte des 9ten Jahrhunderts, unter starken insularen (angelsaechsischen) Einfluss in Buchstabenformen, Abkuerzungen, etc. Fol. 32r saec. IX ex vel X in. fol. 32v-46r in der Hauptsache direkt insular mit historischen Notizen in festlaendischer Style. Fol. 48v-128 Ambrosius saec. X in.”]
[Footnote 29: Commentatiuncula de C. Plinii Caecilii Secundi epistularum fragmento Vossiano notis tironianis descripto (in Exercitationes Palaeog. in Bibl. Univ. Lugduno-Bat., 1890). De Vries ascribes the fragment to the ninth century and is sure that the writing is French (p. 12). His reproduction, though not photographic, gives an essentially correct idea of the script. The text of the fragment is inferior to that of MV, with which manuscripts it is undoubtedly associated. In one error it agrees with V against M. Chatelain (Introduction a la Lecture des Notes Tironiennes, 1900), though citing De Vries’s publication in his bibliography (p. xv), does not discuss the character of the notes in this fragment. I must leave it for experts in tachygraphy to decide whether the style of the Tironian notes is that of the school of Orleans.]
The third class comprises manuscripts containing eight books, the eighth being omitted and the ninth called the eighth. Representatives of this class are all codices of the fifteenth century, though the class has a more ancient basis than that, namely a lost manuscript of Verona. This is best attested by D, a Dresden codex, while almost all other manuscripts of this class descend from a free recension made by Guarino and conflated with F; o, u, and x are the representatives of this recension (G) that are reported by Merrill. The relation of this third class to the second is exceedingly close; indeed, it may be merely a branch of it.[30]
[Footnote 30: See Merrill’s
discussion of the different
possibilities, C.P. X, p. 14.]
[Sidenote: The early editions]
As is often the case, the leading manuscript authorities are only inadequately represented in the early editions. The Editio Princeps (p) of 1471 was based on a manuscript of the Guarino recension. A Roman editor in 1474 added part of Book VIII, putting it at the end and calling it Book IX; he acquired this new material, along with various readings in the other books, from some manuscript of Class II that may have come down from the north. Three editors, called {sigma} by Keil—Pomponius Laetus 1490, Beroaldus 1498, and Catanaeus 1506—took r as a basis; but Laetus had another and a better representative of the same type of text as that from which r had drawn, and he likewise made use of V. With the help of these new sources the {sigma} editors polished away a large number of the gross blunders of p and r, and added a sometimes unnecessary brilliance of emendation. Avantius’s edition of part of Book X in 1502 was appropriated by Beroaldus in the same year and by Catanaeus in 1506; these latter editors had no new sources at their disposal. No wonder that the Parisinus seemed a godsend to Aldus. The only known ancient manuscripts whose readings had been utilized in the editions preceding his own were F and V, both incomplete representatives of Classes I and II. The manuscripts discovered by the Roman editor and Laetus were of great help at the time, but we have no certain evidence of their age. B and M were not accessible.[31] Now, besides the transcript of Giocondo and his other six volumes, whatever these may have been, Aldus had the ancient codex itself with all ten books complete. Everybody admits that the Parisinus, as shown by the readings of Aldus, is clearly associated with the manuscripts of Class I. Its contents corroborate the evidence of the title in B, which indicates descent from some codex containing ten books.
[Footnote 31: C.P. X, p. 20.]
[Sidenote: _{Pi} a member of Class I_]
Now nothing is plainer than that _{Pi}_ is a member of Class I, as it agrees with BF in the following errors, or what are regarded by Keil as errors. I consider the text of the Letters and not their superscriptions. 60, 15 duplicia] MVD duplicata _{Pi}BFGa_; 61, 12 confusa adhuc] MV adhuc confusa _{Pi}BFGa_; 62, 6 doctissime] MV doctissima _{Pi}BFDa_ et doctissima G; 62, 16 nec adficitur] MVD et adficitur _{Pi}BFGa_; 62, 23 quorum] MVDGa qui horum _{Pi}BF_; 63, 22 teque et] MVDG teque _{Pi}BFa_; 64, 3 proferenda] Doxa conferenda BFu CONFERANDA _{Pi}_ (MV lack an extensive passage here); 65, 11 alii quidam minores sed tamen numeri] DG alii quidam minores sed tam innumeri MV alii quidem minoris sed tamen numeri _{Pi}BFa_; 65, 12 voluntariis accusationibus] M (uoluntaris) D voluntariis om. V accusationibus uoluntariis _{Pi}BFGa_; 65, 15 superiore] MVD priore _{Pi}BFGa_; 65, 24 iam] MVDG om. _{Pi}BFa._
Tastes differ, and not all these eleven readings of Class I may be errors. Kukula, in the most recent Teubner edition (1912), accepts three of them (60, 15; 62, 6; 65, 15), and Merrill, in his forthcoming edition, five (60, 15; 61, 12; 62, 6; 65, 12; 65, 15). Personally I could be reconciled to them all with the exception of the very two which Aldus could not admit—62, 23 and 64, 3; in both places he had the early editions to fall back on. However, I should concur with Merrill and Kukula in preferring the reading of the other classes in 62, 16 and 65, 24. In 65, 11 I would emend to alii quidam minoris sed tamen numeri; if this is the right reading, _{Pi}BF_ agree in the easy error of quidem for quidam, and MVD in another easy error, minores for minoris—the parent manuscript of MV further changed tamen numeri to tam innumeri. Whatever the final judgment, here are five cases in which all recent editors would attribute error to Class I; in the remaining six cases the manuscripts of Class I either agree in error or avoid the error of Class II—surely, then, _{Pi}_ is not of the latter class. There are six other significant errors of MV in the whole passage, no one of which appears in _{Pi}_: 61, 15 si non] sint MV; 62, 6 mira illis] mirabilis MV; 62, 11 lotus] illic MV; cibum] cibos MV; 62, 25 fuit—64, 12 potes] om. MV; 66, 12 amatus] est amatus MV. Once the first hand in _{Pi}_ agrees with V in an error easily committed independently: 61, 12 ordinata] ORDINATA, DI ss. m. 2 _{Pi}_ ornata V.
_{Pi}_, then, and MV have descended from the archetype by different routes. With Class III, the Verona branch of Class II, _{Pi}_ clearly has no close association.
But the evidence for allying _{Pi}_ with B and F, the manuscripts of Class I, is by no means exhausted. In 61, 14, BFux have the erroneous emendation, which Budaeus includes among his variants, of serua for sera. A glance at _{Pi}_ shows its apparent origin. The first hand has SERA correctly; the second hand writes U above the line.[32] If the second hand is solely responsible for the attempt at improvement here, and is not reproducing a variant in the parent manuscript of _{Pi}_, then BF must descend directly from _{Pi}_. The following instances point in the same direction: 61, 21 considit] considet BF. _{Pi}_ has CONSIDIT by the first hand, the second hand changing the second I to a capital E.[33] In 65, 5, however, RESIDIT is not thus changed in _{Pi}_, and perhaps for this very reason is retained by the careful scribe of B; F, which has a slight tendency to emend, has, with G, residet. 63, 9 praestat amat me] praestatam ad me B. Here the letters of the scriptura continua in _{Pi}_ are faded and blurred; the error of B
[Footnote 32: I have not always followed
Dr. Lowe in distinguishing
first and second hands in the various
alterations discussed here
(pp. 48-50).]
[Footnote 33: See above, p. 42.]
[Footnote 34: See above, pp. 11 f.]
There are cases in plenty elsewhere in the Letters to show that B is not many removes from the scriptura continua of some majuscule hand. In the section included in _{Pi}_, apart from the general tightness of the writing, which led to the later insertion of strokes between many of the words,[35] we note these special indications of a parent manuscript in majuscules. In 61, 10 me autem], B started to write mea and then corrected it. 64, 19 praeceptori a quo] praeceptoria quo B, (m. 1) F. If B or its parent manuscript copied _{Pi}_ directly, the mistake would be especially easy, for PRAECEPTORIA ends the line in _{Pi}_. 64, 25 integra re]. After integra, a letter is erased in B; the copyist, it would seem, first mistook integra re for one word.
[Footnote 35: See plates XIII-XIV.]
Other instances showing a close connection between B and _{Pi}_ are as follows: 62, 23 unice] _{Pi}_ has by the first hand INUICE, the second hand writing U above I, and a vertical stroke above U. In BF, uince, the reading of the first hand, is changed by the second to unice; this second hand, Professor Merrill informs me, seems to be that of a writer in the same scriptorium as the first. The error in BF might, of course, be due to copying an original in minuscules, but it might also be due to the curious state of affairs in _{Pi}_. 65, 24 fungerer]. In _{Pi}_ the final R is written, somewhat indistinctly, above the line. B has fungerer corrected by the second hand from fungeret (?), which may be due to a misunderstanding of _{Pi}_. 66, 2 avunculi] AUONCULI _{Pi}_ (O in ras.) B. This form might perhaps be read; F has emended it out, and no other manuscript has it. 65, 7 desino, inquam, patres conscripti, putare] Here the relation of BF to _{Pi}_ seems particularly close. _{Pi}_, like MVDoxa, has the abbreviation P.C. On a clearly written page, the error of reputare (BF) for P.C. PUTARE is not a specially likely one to make. But in the blur at the bottom of fol. 52v, a page on the flesh side of the parchment, the combination might readily be mistaken for REPUTARE.
Another curious bit of testimony appears at the beginning of the third book. The scribe of B[36] wrote the words NESCIO—APUD in rustic capitals, occupying therewith the first line and about a third of the second. This is not effective calligraphy. It would appear that he is reproducing, as is his habit, exactly what he found in his original. That original might have had one full line, or two lines, of majuscules, perhaps, following pretty closely the lines in _{Pi}_, which has the same amount of text, plus the first three letters of SPURINNAM, in the first two lines. If B had _{Pi}_ before him, there is nothing to explain his most unusual procedure. His original, therefore, is not _{Pi}_ but an intervening copy, which he is transcribing with an utter indifference to aesthetic effect and with a laudable, if painful, desire for accuracy. This trait, obvious in B’s work throughout, is perhaps nowhere more strikingly exhibited than here.
[Footnote 36: See plate XIV.]
[Sidenote: _{Pi} the direct ancestor of BF with probably a copy intervening_]
If _{Pi}_ is the direct ancestor of BF, these manuscripts should contain no good readings not found in _{Pi}_, unless their writers could arrive at such readings by easy emendation or unless there is contamination with some other source. From what we know of the text of BF in general, the latter supposition may at once be ruled out. There are but three cases to consider, two of which may be readily disposed of: 64, 3 proferenda] conferenda BF CONFERANDA _{Pi}_; 64, 4 conprobasse] (comp.) BF COMPROUASSE _{Pi}_. These are simple slips, which a scribe might almost unconsciously correct as he wrote. The remaining error (63, 28 SIBI to si) is not difficult to emend when one considers the entire sentence: quibus omnibus ita demum similis adolescet, si imbutus honestis artibus fuerit, quas, etc. It is less probable, however, that B with _{Pi}_ before him should correct it as he wrote than, as we have already surmised, that a minuscule copy intervened between _{Pi}_ and B, in which the letters bi were deleted by some careful reviser. Two other passages tend to confirm this assumption of an intermediate copy. In 65, 6 (tum optime libertati venia obsequio praeparatur), B has optimae, a false alteration induced perhaps by the following libertati. In _{Pi}_, OPTIME stands at the end of the line. The scribe of B, had he not found libertati immediately adjacent, would not so readily be tempted to emend; still, we should not make too much of this instance, as B has a rather pronounced tendency to write ae for e. A more certain case is 66, 7 fungar indicis] fungarindicis ex fungari dicis B; here the error is easier to derive from an original in minuscules in which in was abbreviated with a stroke above the i.
[Footnote 37: There are one or two divergencies in spelling hardly worth mention. The most important are 63, 10 caret B KARET _{Pi}_; caritas B KARITAS _{Pi}_. Yet see below, p. 57, where it is shown that the ancient spelling is found in B elsewhere than in the portion of text included in _{Pi}_.]
We may now examine a most important bit of testimony to the close connection existing between BF and _{Pi}_. B alone of all manuscripts hitherto known is provided with indices of the Letters, one for each book, which give the names of the correspondents and the opening words of each letter. Now _{Pi}_, by good luck, preserves the end of Book II, the beginning of Book III, and between them the index for Book III. Dr. F.E. Robbins, in a careful article on B and F, and one on the tables of contents in B,[38] concluded that P did not contain the indices which are preserved in B, and that these were compiled in some ancestor of B, perhaps in the eighth century. Here they are, in the Morgan fragment, which takes us back two centuries farther into the past. A comparison of the index in _{Pi}_ shows indubitably a close kinship with B. A glance at plates XIII and XIV indicates, first of all, that the copy B, here as in the text of the Letters, is not many removes from scriptura continua. Moreover, the lists are drawn up on the same principle; the nomen and cognomen but not the praenomen of the correspondent being given, and exactly the same amount of text quoted at the beginning of each letter. The incipit of III, xvi (AD NEPOTEM—ADNOTASSE UIDEOR FATADICTAQ.) is an addition in _{Pi}_, and the lemma is longer than usual, as though the original title had been omitted in the manuscript which _{Pi}_ was copying and the corrector of _{Pi}_ had substituted a title of his own making.[39] It reappears in B, with the easy emendation of facta from fata. The only other case in the indices of a right reading in B that is not in _{Pi}_ is in the title of III, viii: AD SUETON TRANQUE _{Pi}_ Adsu&on tranqui. B. In both these instances the scribe of B needed no external help in correcting the simple error. Far more significant is the coincidence of B and _{Pi}_ in very curious mistakes, as the address of III, iii (AD CAERELLIAE HISPULLAE for AD CORELLIAM HISPULLAM) and the lemma of III, viii (FACIS ADPROCETERA for FACIS PRO CETERA).
[Footnote 38: C.P. V, pp.
467 ff. and 476 ff., and for the
supposed lack of indices in P,
p. 485.]
[Footnote 39: I venture to disagree
with Dr. Lowe’s view (above,
p. 25) that the addition is by the first
hand.]
[Footnote 40: See above, p. 11.]
[Footnote 41: See plate XIV.]
These details prove an intimate relation between _{Pi}_ and BF, and fit the supposition that B and F are direct descendants of _{Pi}_. This may be strengthened by another consideration. If _{Pi}_ and B independently copy the same source, they inevitably make independent errors, however careful their work. _{Pi}_ should contain, then, a certain number of errors not in B. As we have found only three such cases in 12 pages, or 324 lines, and as in all these three the right reading in B could readily have been due to emendation on the part of the scribe of B or of a copy between _{Pi}_ and B, we have acquired negative evidence of an impressive kind. It is distinctly harder to believe that the two texts derive independently from a common source. Show us the significant errors of _{Pi}_ not in B, and we will accept the existence of that common source; otherwise the appropriate supposition is that B descends directly from its elder relative _{Pi}_. It is not necessary to prove by an examination of readings that _{Pi}_ is not copied from B; the dates of the two scripts settle that matter at the start. Supposing, however, for the moment, that _{Pi}_ and B were of the same age, we could readily prove that the former is not copied from the latter.
[Footnote 42: See above, pp. 48 f.]
[Sidenote: The probable stemma]
Our tentative stemma thus far, then, is No. 1 below,
not No. 2 and not
No. 3.
No. 1 No. 2 No. 3
_{Pi}_ _{Pi}_ X
| | / \
| | / \
_{Pi}{1}_ _{Pi}{1}_ / \
/ \ | X{1} _{Pi}_
/ \ | / \
B \ B / \
F | B \
| F
F
Robbins put P in the position of _{Pi}_ in this last stemma, but on the assumption that it did not contain the indices. That is not true of _{Pi}_.
[Sidenote: Further consideration of the external history of P, {Pi}, and B]
Still further evidence is supplied by the external history of our manuscripts. B was at Beauvais at the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century, as we have seen.[43] Whatever the uncertainties as to its origin, any palaeographer would agree that it could hardly have been written before the middle of the ninth century or after the middle of the tenth. It was undoubtedly produced in France, as was F, its sister manuscript. The presumption is that _{Pi}_{1}, the copy intervening between _{Pi}_ and B, was also French, and that _{Pi}_ was in France when the copy was made from it. Merrill, for what reason I fail to see, suggested that the original of BF might be “Lombardic,” written in North Italy.[44] An extraneous origin of this sort must be proved from the character of the errors, such as spellings and the false resolution of abbreviations, made by BF. If no such signs can be adduced, it is natural to suppose that _{Pi}_{1} was of the same nationality and general tendencies as its copies B and F. This consideration helps out the possible evidence furnished by the scribbling in a hand of the Carolingian variety on fol. 53v;[45] we may now be more confident that it is French rather than Italian. But whatever the history of our book in the early Middle Ages, in the fifteenth century it was surely near Meaux, which is not far from Paris—about as far to the east as Beauvais is to the north. Now, granted for a moment that the last of our stemmata is correct, X, from which _{Pi}_ and B descend, being earlier than _{Pi}_, must have been a manuscript in majuscules, written in Italy, since that is unquestionably the provenience of _{Pi}_. There were, then, by this supposition, two ancient majuscule manuscripts of the Letters, most closely related in text—veritable twins, indeed—that travelled from Italy to France. One (X{1}) had arrived in the early Middle Ages and is the parent of B and F; the other (_{Pi}_) was probably there in the early Middle Ages, and surely was there in the fifteenth century. We can not deny this possibility, but, on the principle melius est per unum fieri quam per plura, we must not adopt it unless driven to it. The history of the transmission of Classical texts in the Carolingian period is against such a supposition.[46] Not many books of the age and quality of _{Pi}_ were floating about in France in the ninth century. There is nothing in the evidence presented by _{Pi}_ and B that drives us to assume the presence of two such codices. There is nothing in this evidence that does not fit the simpler supposition that BF descend directly from _{Pi}_. The burden of proof would appear to rest on those who assert the contrary. _{Pi}_, therefore, if the ancestor of B, contained at least as much as we find today in B. Some ancestor of B had all ten books. Aldus, whose text is closely
[Footnote 43: See above, p. 44, n. 2.]
[Footnote 44: “Zur fruehen
Ueberlieferungsgeschichte des
Briefwechsels zwischen Plinius und Trajan,”
in Wiener Studien XXXI
(1909), p. 258.]
[Footnote 45: See above, pp. 21, 41.]
[Footnote 46: See above, p. 22.]
Our stemma, then, becomes,
P (the whole manuscript), of which _{Pi}_ is a part.
|
|
P{1}
/ \
/ \
B \
F
[Sidenote: Evidence from the portions of BF outside the text of {Pi}]
We may corroborate this reasoning by evidence drawn from the portions of BF outside the text of _{Pi}_. We note, above all, a number of omissions in BF that indicate the length of line in some manuscript from which they descend. This length of line is precisely what we find in _{Pi}_. Our fragment has lines containing from 23 to 33 letters, very rarely 23, 24, or 33, and most frequently from 27 to 30, the average being 28.4. These figures tally closely with those given by Professor A.C. Clark[47] for the Vindobonensis of Livy, a codex not far removed in date from _{Pi}_. Supposing that _{Pi}_ is a typical section of P—and after Professor Clark’s studies[48] we may more confidently assume that it is—P had the same length of line. The important cases of omission are as follows:
[Footnote 47: The Descent of Manuscripts, 1918, p. 16. Professor Clark counts on two pages chosen at random, 23-31 letters in the line. My count for _{Pi}_ includes the nine and a third pages on which full lines occur. If I had taken only foll. 52r, 52v, 53r and 53v, I should have found no lines of 32 or 33 letters. On the other hand, the first page to which I turned in the Vindobonensis of Livy (133v) has a line of 32 letters, and so has 135v, while 136v has one of 33. The lines of _{Pi}_ are a shade longer than those of the Vindobonensis, but only a shade.]
[Footnote 48: Ibidem, pp. vi, 9-18. There is some danger of pushing Professor Clark’s method too far, particularly when it is applied to New Testament problems. For a well-considered criticism of the book, see Merrill’s review in the Classical Journal XIV (1919), pp. 395 ff.]
32, 19 atque etiam invisus virtutibus fuerat evasit, reliquit incolumen optimum atque] etiam—atque om. BF. P would have the abbreviation for bus in virtutibus and for que in atque. There would thus be in all 61 letters and dots, or two lines, arranged about as follows:
ATQ. ETIAMINUISUSUIRTUTIB.FUERATEUA (30) SITRELIQUITINCOLUMEMOPTIMUMATQ. (31)
The scribe could easily catch at the second ATQ. after writing the first. It will be at once objected that the repeated ATQ. might have occasioned the mistake, whatever the length of the line. Thus in 82, 2 (aegrotabat Caecina Paetus, maritus eius, aegrotabat] Caecina— aegrotabat om. BF), the omitted portion comprises 34 letters—a bit too long, perhaps, for a line of P. The following instances, however, can not be thus disposed of.
94, 10 alia quamquam dignitate propemodum paria] quamquam—paria (32 letters) om. BF. Cetera and paria, to be sure, offer a mild case of homoioteleuta, but not powerful enough to occasion an omission unless the words happened to stand at the ends of lines, as they might well have done in P. As the line occurs near the beginning of a letter, we may verify our conjecture by plotting the opening lines. The address, as in _{Pi}_, would occupy a line. Then, allowing for contractions in rebus (18) and quoque (19) and reading cum (Class I) for quod (18), cetera (Class I) for alia (20), we can arrange the 236 letters in 8 lines, with an average of 29.5 letters in a line.
123, 10 sentiebant. interrogati a Nepote praetore quem docuissent, responderunt quem prius: interrogati an tunc gratis adfuisset, responderunt sex milibus] interrogati a Nepote—docuissent responderunt om. BF. Here are two good chances for omissions due to similar endings, as interrogati and responderunt are both repeated, but neither chance is taken by BF. Instead, a far less striking case (sentiebant—responderunt) leads to the omission. The arrangement in P might be
SENTIEBANT INTERROGATIANEPOTEPRAETORE (26) QUEMDOCUISSENTRESPONDERUNT (26) QUEMPRIUSINTERROGATIANTUNCGRA (29) TISADFUISSETRESPONDERUNTSEXMI (29)
Here the dangerous words INTERROGATI and RESPONDERUNT are in safe places. SENTIEBANT and RESPONDERUNT, ordinarily a safe enough pair, become dangerous by their position at the end of lines; indeed, in the scriptura continua the danger of confusing homoioteleuta, unless these stand at the end of lines, is distinctly less than in a script in which the words are divided. Here again, as in 94, 10, we may reckon the lengths of the opening lines of the letter. After the line occupied with the addresses, we have 296 letters, or ten lines with an average of 29.6 letters apiece.
We may add two omissions of F in passages now missing altogether in B. 69, 28 quod minorem ex liberis duobus amisit sed maiorem] minorem—sed om. F. Here again an omission is imminent from the similar endings minorem—maiorem; that made by F (29 letters and one dot) seems to be that of a line of P where the arrangement would be:
QUOD
MINOREMEXLIBERISDUOB.AMISITSED
MAIOREM
There may have been a copy (P{2}) intervening between P{1} and F, but doubtless neither that nor P{1} itself had lines so short as those in P; the error of F, therefore, may be most naturally ascribed to P{1}, who omitted a line of P.
130, 16 percolui. in summa (cur enim non aperiam tibi vel iudicium meum vel errorem?) primum ego] in summa—primum (59 letters) om. F. As there are no homoioteleuta here at all, we surely are concerned with the omission of a line or lines. Perhaps 59 letters would make up a line in P{1} or P{2}. Perhaps two lines of P were dropped.
Similarly we may note two omissions in B, though not in F, which may be due originally to the error of P{1} in copying P.
68, 5 electorumque commentarios centum sexaginta mihi reliquit, opisthographos] -torumque—opisthographos om. B. Allowing the abbreviation of QUE, we have 59 letters and one dot here. The omitted words are written by the first hand of B at the foot of the page. Of course the omission may correspond to a line of P{1} dropped by B in copying, but it is equally possible that P{1} committed the error and corrected it by the marginal supplement, F noting the correction in time to include the omitted words in his text, B copying them in the margin as he found them in P{1}.
87, 12 tacitus suffragiis impudentia inrepat. nam quoto cuique eadem honestatis] suffragiis—honestatis om. m. 1, add. in mg. m. 2 B (54 letters, with QUE abbreviated). This may be like the preceding, except that the correction was done not by the original scribe of B, but by a scribe in the same monastery. The presence of homoioteleuta, we must admit, adds an element of uncertainty.
So, of the passages here brought forward, 94, 20; 123, 10 and 69, 28 are best explained by supposing that B and F descend from a manuscript that like _{Pi}_ had from 24 to 32 letters in a line, while 32, 19 and 130, 16 fit this supposition as well as they do any other.
One orthographic peculiarity is perhaps worth noting: we saw that B did not agree with _{Pi}_ in the spellings karet and karitas.[49] We do, however, find karitate elsewhere in B (109, 8), and the curious reading Kl [.’.] facere, mg. calfacere, for calfacere (56, 12). This is an additional bit of evidence for supposing that a copy (P{1}) intervened between P and B; P had the spelling Karitas consistently, P{1} altered it to the usual form, and B reproduced the corrections in P{1}, failing to take them all, unless, as may well be, P{1} had failed to correct all the cases.
[Footnote 49: See above, pp. 42, n. 1, and 50, n. 1.]
Thus the evidence contained in the portion of BF outside the text of _{Pi}_ corroborates our working hypothesis deduced from the fragment itself. We have found nothing yet to overthrow our surmise that a bit of the ancient Parisinus is veritably in the city of New York.
EDITORIAL METHODS OF ALDUS.
[Sidenote: Aldus’s methods; his basic text]
We may now return to Aldus and imagine, if we can, his method of critical procedure. Finding his agreement with _{Pi}_ so close, even in what editors before and after him have regarded as errors, I am disposed to think that he studied his Parisinus with care and followed its authority respectfully. Finding that his seemingly extravagant statements about the antiquity of his book are essentially true, I am disposed to put more confidence in Aldus than editors have granted him thus far. I should suppose that, working in the most convenient way, he turned over to his compositor, not a fresh copy of P, but the pages of some edition corrected from P—which Aldus surely tells us that he used—and from whatever other sources he consulted. It may be beyond our powers to discover the precise edition that he thus employed. It does not at first thought seem likely that he would select the Princeps, which does not include the eighth book at all, and contains errors that later were weeded out. In the portion of text included in _{Pi}_, P has thirty-two readings which Aldus avoids. In most of these cases p commits an error, sometimes a ridiculous error, like offam for officia (62, 25); the manuscript on which p was based apparently made free use of abbreviations. Keil’s damning estimate of r[50] is amply borne out in this section of the text; Aldus differs from r in sixty-five cases, most of these being errors in r. He agrees with _{sigma}_ in all but twenty-six readings.[51] Aldus would have had fewest changes to make, then, if his basic text was {sigma}. This is apparently the view of Keil,[52] who would agree at any rate that Aldus made special use of the {sigma} editions and who also declares that p is the fundamentum of r as r is of the edition of Pomponius Laetus.[53]
[Footnote 50: See the introduction to his edition, p. xviii.]
[Footnote 51: See below, pp. 60 ff.]
[Footnote 52: Op. cit., p.
xxv: illis potissimum Aldum usum esse
vidi.]
[Footnote 53: Op. cit., pp. xviii, xx.]
It would certainly be natural for Aldus to start with his immediate predecessors, as they had started with theirs. The matter ought to be cleared up, if possible, for in order to determine what Aldus found in P we must know whether he took some text as a point of departure and, if so, what that text was. But the task should be undertaken by some one to whom the early editions are accessible. Keil’s report of them, intentionally incomplete,[54] is sufficient, he declares,[55] “ad fidem Aldinae editionis constituendam,” but, as I have found by comparing our photographs of the edition of Beroaldus in the present section, Keil has not collated minutely or accurately enough to encourage us to undertake, on the basis of his apparatus, an elaborate study of Aldus’s relation to the editions preceding his own.
[Footnote 54: Op. cit., p. 2: Ex {sigma} pauca adscripta sunt.]
[Footnote 55: Op. cit., p. xxxii.]
[Sidenote: The variants of Budaeus in the Bodleian volume]
We may now test Aldus by the evidence of the Bodleian volume with its variants in the hand of Budaeus. For the section included in _{Pi}_, their number is disappointingly small. The only additions by Budaeus (=_i_) to the text of Beroaldus are: 61, 14 sera] MVDoa, (m. 1) _{Pi}_ serua BFuxi, (m. 2) _{Pi}_; 62, 4 ambulat] i cum plerisque ambulabat r Ber. (ab del.) M; 62, 25 quoque] i cum ceteris {p_}ouq (ue) Ber.; 64, 23 Quamvis] q Vmuis Ber. corr. i.
This is all. Budaeus, who, according to Merrill, had the Parisinus at his disposal, has corrected two obvious misprints, made an inevitable change in the tense of a verb—with or without the help of the ancient book—and introduced from that book one unfortunate reading which we find in the second hand of _{Pi}_.
There is one feature of Budaeus’s marginal jottings that at once arouses the curiosity of the textual critic, namely, the frequent appearance of the obelus and the obelus cum puncto. These signs as used by Probus[56] would denote respectively a surely spurious and a possibly spurious line or portion of text. But such was not the usage of Budaeus; he employed the obelus merely to call attention to something that interested him. Thus at the end of the first letter of Book III we find a doubly pointed obelus opposite an interesting passage, the text of which shows no variants or editorial questionings. Budaeus appears to have expressed his grades of interest rather elaborately—at least I can discover no other purpose for the different signs employed. The simple obelus apparently denotes interest, the pointed obelus great interest, the doubly pointed obelus intense interest, and the pointing finger of a carefully drawn hand burning interest. He also adds catchwords. Thus on the first letter he calls attention successively[57] to Ambulatio,
[Footnote 56: See Ribbeck’s Virgil, Prolegomena, p. 152.]
[Footnote 57: See plate XVIII.]
[Footnote 58: Epist. III, i (plate IV).]
[Footnote 59: See plate XVIII.]
[Sidenote: Aldus and Budaeus compared]
It is of some importance to consider what Budaeus might have done to the text of Beroaldus had he treated it to a systematic collation with the Parisinus. Our fragment allows us to test Budaeus; for even if it be not the Parisinus itself, its readings with the help of B, F, and Aldus show what was in that ancient book. I have enumerated above[60] eleven readings of _{Pi}BF_ which are called errors by Keil, but of which nine were accepted by Aldus and five by the latest editor, Professor Merrill. In two of these (62, 33 and 64, 3), Budaeus, like Aldus, wisely does not harbor an obvious error of P. In two more (62, 16 and 65, 12), Beroaldus already has the reading of P. Of the remaining seven, however, all of which Aldus adopted, there is no trace in Budaeus. There are also nineteen cases of obvious error in the {sigma} editions, which Aldus corrected but Budaeus did not touch. I give the complete apparatus[61] for these twenty-six places, as they will illustrate the radical difference between Aldus and Budaeus in their use of the Parisinus.
[Footnote 60: See above, p. 47.]
[Footnote 61: The readings of
manuscripts are taken from Merrill,
those of the editions from Keil; in the latter case,
I use
parentheses if the reading is only implied, not
stated.]
60, 15 duplicia] MVDr{sigma}
duplicata _{Pi}BFGpa_
61, 12 confusa adhuc] MV{sigma}
adhuc confusa _{Pi}BFGpra_
18 milia passuum tria nec]
_{Pi}BFMV_(p?)_a_
milia passum tria et nec D
mille pastria nec r
mille pas. nec _{sigma}_
62, 6 doctissime] MV{sigma}
et doctissime r
doctissima _{Pi}BFDa_
et doctissima p
26 igitur eundem mihi cursum,
eundem] _{Pi}BFD_(p?)_a_
igitur et eundem mihi cursum et eundem
r{sigma}
fuit (25)—potes (64, 12) om. MV
63, 2 MAXIMO] _{Pi}BFDG_(pr?)_a_
Valerio Max. _{sigma}_
Gauio Maximo Catanaeus
4 Arrianus Maturus] _{Pi}BFDra_
arianus maturus Gp
Arrianus Maturius _{sigma}_
5 est] _{Pi}BFDG_(p?)_a_ om. r Ber.
9 ardentibus dicere] _{Pi}BFDG_(r?)_a_
dicere ardentius p{sigma}
12 excolendusque] _{Pi}BFD_(p?)_a_
extollendusque Gr{sigma}
15 conferas in eum] _{Pi}BFD_(p?)_a_
in eum conferas Gr{sigma}
17 excipit] _{Pi}BFD_(p?)_a_
accipit r{sigma}
quam si] _{Pi}BFDG_(p?)_a_
quasi si r
quasi Laet., Ber.
20 CORELLIAE HISPULLAE SUAE]
CORELLIAE _{Pi}B_
AD CAERELLIAE HISPULLAE ind. {Pi}B
CORELLIE ISPULLAE F CORELLIAE HISPULLAE
a
corneliae (Coreliae Catanaeus) hispullae
(suae add. Do)
DGpr{sigma}
22 teque et] DG(p?)_[sigma]_
teque _{Pi}BFra_
23 et in] _{Pi}BFDG_(p?)_a_
et r{sigma}
diligam, cupiam necesse
est atque etiam] _{Pi}BFDG_(p?)_a_
diligam et cupiam necesse est etiam r
diligam atque etiam cupiam nececesse (sic)
est etiam Ber.
64, 2 erroribus modica vel etiam
nulla] BFDG(p?)_a_
(ex ERRORIB.MODICAESTETIAMNULLA
m. 2)_{Pi}_
erroribus uel modica uel nulla r
erroribus modica uel nulla Ber.
uel erroribus modica uel etiam nulla vulgo
5 fortunaeque] _{Pi}BFDG_(p?)_a_
form(a)eque r Ber.
65, 11 alii quidem minores sed
tamen numeri] (ali D) DGp
alii quidem minoris sed tamen numeri _{Pi}BFa_
alii quidam (quidem Catanaeus) minores
sed tam
(tamen r{sigma}) innumeri MVr{sigma}
15 superiore] MVD{sigma}
priore _{Pi}BFGra_ prior p
24 iam] MVDG(pr?)_{sigma}_ om. _{Pi}BFa_
66, 7 sint omnes] _{Pi}BFMVDG_(pr?)_a_
sint _{sigma}_
9 haec quoque] _{Pi}BFDVGra_
hoc quoque M
hic quoque p
haec _{sigma}_
11 Pomponi] _{Pi}BMVo_
Pomponii FDpra
Q. Pomponii _{sigma}_
12 amatus] _{Pi}FDG_(pr?)_a_
est amatus MV{sigma}
amatus est corr. m. 1 B
Here is sufficient material for a test. Aldus, it will be observed, whether or not he started with some special edition, refuses to follow the latest and best texts of his day (i.e., _{sigma}_) in these twenty-six readings. In one sure case (60, 15) and eleven possible[62] cases (61, 18; 62, 26; 63, 5, 12, 15, 17 bis, 23 bis; 64, 2, 5), his reading agrees with the Princeps. In four sure cases (63, 4, 22; 65, 15; 66, 9) and one possible one (63, 9), he agrees with the Roman edition; in two sure (61, 12; 66, 11) and three possible (63, 2; 66, 7, 12) cases, with both p and r. Once he breaks away from all editions reported by Keil and agrees with D (62, 6). At the same time, all these readings are attested by _{Pi}FB_ and hence were presumably in the Parisinus. In two cases (65, 11, 24), we know of no source other than P that could have furnished him his reading. Further, in the superscription of the third letter of Book III (63, 20), he might have taken a hint from Catanaeus, who was the first to depart from the reading CORNELIAE, universally accepted before him, but again it is only P that could give him the correct spelling CORELLIAE.[63]
[Footnote 62: I say “possible”
because the reading is implied, not
stated, in Keil’s edition.
The reading of Beroaldus on 63, 23 I get
from our photograph, not from Keil, who
does not give it.]
[Footnote 63: I have purposely omitted
to treat Aldus’s use of the
superscriptions in P, as that matter
is best reserved for a
consideration of the superscriptions in
general.]
If all the above readings, then, were in the Parisinus, how did Aldus arrive at them? Did he fish round, now in the Princeps, now in the Roman edition, despite the repellent errors that those texts contained,[64] and extract with felicitous accuracy excellent readings that coincided with those of the Parisinus, or did he draw them straight from that source itself? The crucial cases are 65, 11 and 24. As he must have gone to the Parisinus for these readings, he presumably found the others there, too. Moreover, he did not get his new variants by a merely sporadic consultation of the ancient book when he was dissatisfied with the accepted text of his day, for in the two crucial cases and many of the others, too, that text makes sense; some of the readings, indeed, are accepted by modern editors as correct.[65] Aldus was collating. He carefully noted minutiae, such as the omission of et and iam, and accepted what he found, unless the ancient text seemed to him indisputably wrong. He gave it the benefit of the doubt even when it may be wrong. This is the method of a scrupulous editor who cherishes a proper veneration for his oldest and best authority.
[Footnote 64: See above, p. 58.]
[Footnote 65: See above, pp. 47 f.]
Budaeus, on the other hand, is not an editor. He is a vastly interested reader of Pliny, frequently commenting on the subject-matter or calling attention to it by marginal signs. As for the text, he generally finds Beroaldus good enough. He corrects misprints, makes a conjecture now and then, or adopts one of Catanaeus, and, besides supplementing the missing portions with transcripts made for him from the Parisinus, inserts numerous variants, some of which indubitably come from that manuscript.[66] In the present section, occupying 251 lines in _{Pi}_, there is only one reading of the Parisinus—a false reading, it happens—that seems to Budaeus worth recording. Compared with what Aldus gleaned from _{Pi}_, Budaeus’s extracts are insignificant. It is remarkable, for instance, that on a passage (65, 11) which, as the appended obelus shows, he must have read with attention, he has not added the very different reading of the Parisinus. Either, then, Budaeus did not consult the Parisinus with care, or he did not think the great majority of its readings preferable to the text of Beroaldus, or, as I think may well have been the case, he had neither the manuscript itself nor an entire copy of it accessible at the time when he added his variants in his combined edition of Beroaldus and Avantius.[67]
[Footnote 66: See Merrill, “Zur fruehen Ueberlieferungsgeschichte des Briefwechsels zwischen Plinius und Trajan,” in Wiener Studien XXXI (1909), p. 257; C.P. II, p. 154; XIV, p. 30 f. Two examples (216, 23 and 227, 18) will be noted in plate XVII a.]
[Footnote 67: Certain errors of the scribe who wrote the additional pages in the Bodleian book warrant the surmise that he was copying not the Parisinus itself, but some copy of it. Thus in 227, 14 (see plate XVII b) we find him writing Tamen for tum, Budaeus correcting this error in the margin. A scribe is of course capable of anything, but with an uncial tum to start from, tamen is not a natural mistake to commit; it would rather appear that the scribe falsely resolved a minuscule abbreviation.]
But I do not mean to present here a final estimate of Budaeus; for that, I hope, we may look to Professor Merrill. Nor do I particularly blame Budaeus for not constructing a new text from the wealth of material disclosed in the Parisinus. His interests lay elsewhere; suos quoique mos. What I mean to say, and to say with some conviction, is that for the portion of text included in our fragment, the evidence of that fragment, coupled with that of B and F, shows that as a witness to the ancient manuscript Aldus is overwhelmingly superior to either Budaeus or any of the ancient editors.
Our examination of the Morgan fragment, therefore, leads to what I deem a highly probable conclusion. We could perhaps hope for absolute proof in a matter of this kind only if another page of the same manuscript should appear, bearing a note in the hand of Aldus Manutius to the effect that he had used the codex for his edition of 1508. Failing that, we can at least point out that all the data accessible comport with the hypothesis that the Morgan fragment was a part of this very codex. We have set our hypothesis running a lengthy gauntlet of facts, and none has tripped it yet. We have also seen that _{Pi}_ is most intimately connected with manuscripts BF of Class I, and indeed seems to be a part of the very manuscript whence they are descended. Finally, a careful comparison of Aldus’s text with _{Pi}_ shows him, for this much of the Letters at least, to be a scrupulous and conscientious editor. His method is to follow _{Pi}_ throughout, save when, confronted by its obvious blunders, he has recourse to the editions of his day.
[Sidenote: The latest criticism of Aldus]
Since the publication of Otto’s article in 1886,[68] in which the author defended the F branch against that of MV, to which, as the elder representative of the tradition, Keil had not unnaturally deferred, critical procedure has gradually shifted its centre. The reappearance of B greatly helped, as it corroborates the testimony of F. B and F head the list of the manuscripts used by Kukula in his edition of 1912,[69] and B and F with Aldus’s Parisinus make up Class I, not Class II, in Merrill’s grouping of the manuscripts. Obviously, the value of Class I mounts higher still now that we have evidence in the Morgan fragment of its existence in the early sixth century. This fact helps us to decide the question of glosses in our text. We are more than ever disposed to attribute not to BF but to what has now become the younger branch of the tradition, Class II, the tendency to interpolate explanatory glosses. The changed attitude towards the BF branch has naturally resulted in a gradual transformation of the text. We have seen in the portion included in _{Pi}_ that of the eleven readings which Keil regarded as errors of the F branch, three are accepted by Kukula and five by Merrill.[70]
[Footnote 68: “Die Ueberlieferung
der Briefe des juengeren Plinius,”
in Hermes XXI (1886), pp. 287 ff.]
[Footnote 69: See p. iv.]
[Footnote 70: See above, pp. 47 f.]
Since Class I has thus appreciated in value, we should expect that Aldus’s stock would also take an upward turn. In Aldus’s lifetime, curiously, he was criticized for excessive conservatism. His rival Catanaeus finds his chief quality supina ignorantia and adds:[71]
“Verum enim uero non satis est recuperare venerandae vetustatis exemplaria, nisi etiam simul adsit acre emendatoris iudicium: quoniam et veteres librarii in voluminibus describendis saepissime falsi sunt, et Plinius ipse scripta sua se viuo deprauari in quadam epistola demonstrauerit.”
[Footnote 71: See the prefatory letter in his edition of 1518.]
Nowadays, however, editors hesitate to accept an unsupported reading of Aldus as that of the Parisinus, since they believe that he abounds in those very conjectures of which Catanaeus felt the lack. The attitude of the expert best qualified to judge is still one of suspicion towards Aldus. In his most recent article,[72] Professor Merrill declares that Keil’s remarks[73] on the procedure of Aldus in the part of Book X already edited by Avantius, Beroaldus, and Catanaeus might safely have been extended to cover the work of Aldus on the entire body of the Letters. He proceeds to subject Aldus to a new test, the material for which we owe to Merrill’s own researches. He compares with Aldus’s text the manuscript parts of the Bodleian volume, which are apparently transcripts from the Parisinus (= I);[74] in them Budaeus with his own hand (= i) has corrected on the authority of the Parisinus itself, according to Merrill, the errors of his transcriber. In a few instances, Merrill allows, Budaeus has substituted conjectures of his own. This material, obviously, offers a valuable criterion of Aldus’s methods as an editor. There is a further criterion in the shape of Codex M, not utilized till after Aldus’s edition. As this manuscript represents Class II, concurrences between M and Ii against a make it tolerably certain that Aldus himself and no higher authority is responsible for such readings. On this basis, Merrill cites twenty-five readings in the added part of Book VIII (viii, 3 quas obvias—xviii, II amplissimos hortos) and nineteen readings in the added part of Book X (letters iv-xli), which represent examples “wherein Aldus abandons indubitably satisfactory readings of his only and much belauded manuscript in favor of conjectures of his own."[75] Letter IX xvi, a very short affair, added by Budaeus in the margin, contains no indictment against Aldus.
[Footnote 72: C.P. XIV (1919), pp. 29 ff.]
[Footnote 73: Op. cit., p. xxxvii: nam ea quae aliter in Aldina editione atque in illis (i.e., Avantius, Beroaldus, and Catanaeus) exhibentur ita comparata sunt omnia, ut coniectura potius inventa quam e codice profecta esse existimanda sint et plura quidem in pravis et temerariis interpolationibus versantur.]
[Footnote 74: But see above, p. 62, n. 2.]
[Footnote 75: Pp. 31 ff.]
[Sidenote: Aldus’s methods in the newly discovered parts of Books VIII, IX, and X]
The result of this exposure, Professor Merrill declares, should convince “any unprejudiced student” of the question that “Aldus stands clearly convicted of being an extremely unsafe textual critic of Pliny’s Letters."[76] “This conclusion does not depend, as that of Keil necessarily did, on any native or acquired acuteness of critical perception. The wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein."[77] I speak as a wayfarer, but nevertheless I must own
[Footnote 76: P. 33.]
[Footnote 77: P. 30.]
[Sidenote: The Morgan fragment the best criterion of Aldus]
With the discovery of the Morgan fragment, a new criterion of Aldus is offered. I believe that it is the surest starting-point from which to investigate Aldus’s relation to his ancient manuscript. I admit that for Book X, Avantius and the Bodleian volume in its added parts are better authorities for the Parisinus than is Aldus. I admit that Aldus resorted throughout the text of the Letters—in some cases unhappily—to the customary editorial privilege of emendation. But I nevertheless maintain that for the entire text he is a much better authority than the Bodleian volume as a whole, and that he should be given, not absolute confidence, but far more confidence than editors have thus far allowed him. Nor is the section of text preserved in the fragment of small significance for our purpose. Indeed, both for Aldus and in general, I think it even more valuable than a corresponding amount of Book X would be. We could wish that it were longer, but at least it includes a number of crucial readings and above all
[Sidenote: Conclusion]
I conclude, then, that the Morgan fragment is a piece of the Parisinus, and that we may compare with Aldus’s text the very words which he studied out, carefully collated, and treated with a decent respect. On the basis of the new information furnished us by the fragment, I shall endeavor, at some future time, to confirm my present judgement of Aldus by testing him in the entire text of Pliny’s Letters. Further, despite Merrill’s researches and his brilliant analysis, I am not convinced that the last word has been spoken on the nature of the transcript made for Budaeus and incorporated in the Bodleian volume. I will not, however, venture on this broad field until Professor Merrill, who has the first right to speak, is enabled to give to the world his long-expected edition. Meanwhile, if my view is right, we owe to the acquisition of the ancient fragment by the Pierpont Morgan Library a new confidence in the integrity of Aldus, a clearer understanding of the history of the Letters in the early Middle Ages, and a surer method of editing their text.
DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.
Nos. I-XII. New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 462. A fragment of 12 pages of an uncial manuscript of the early sixth century. The fragment contains Pliny’s Letters, Book II, xx. 13—Book III, v. 4. For a detailed description, see above, pp. 3 ff. The entire fragment is here given, very slightly reduced. The exact size of the script is shown in Plate XX.
XIII-XIV. Florence, Laurentian Library MS. Ashburnham R 98, known as Codex Bellovacensis (B) or Riccardianus (R), written in Caroline minuscule of the ninth century. See above, p. 44. Our plates reproduce fols. 9 and 9v (slightly reduced), containing the end of Book II and the beginning of Book III.
XV-XVI. Florence, Laurentian Library MS. San Marco 284, written in Caroline minuscule of the tenth century. See above, pp. 44 f. Our plates reproduce fols. 56v and 57r, containing the end of Book II and the beginning of Book III.
XVII-XVIII. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. L 4. 3. See above, pp. 39 f. The lacuna in Book VIII (216, 27-227, 10 Keil) is indicated by a cross (+) on fol. 136v (plate XVIIa). The missing text is supplied on added leaves by the hand shown on plate XVIIb (= fol. 144). The variants are in the hand of Budaeus. Plate XVIII contains fols. 32v and 33, showing the end of Book II and the beginning of Book III.
XIX. Aldine edition of Pliny’s Letters, Venice 1508. Our plate reproduces the end of Book II and the beginning of Book III.
XX. Specimens of three uncial manuscripts:
(a) Berlin, Koenigl. Bibl. Lat. 4º 298, circa a. 447.
(b) New York, The Pierpont
Morgan Library, MS. M. 462, circa
a. 500 (exact size).
(c) Fulda, Codex Bonifatianus 1, ante a. 547.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
{Transcriber’s Corrections:
Footnote 29:
Steffens, Lateinische Palaeographie{2}
text reads Palaographie
Oldest group of uncial manuscripts B.5
...Ueber den Aeltesten...
text reads uber den
altesten
Oldest group of uncial manuscripts B.9
Les manuscrits latins du Ve au XIIIe siecle
conserves...
text reads conserves
Footnote 32:
Recueil de Fac-similes
text reads Receuil
Footnote 28:
Briefe des Plinius
text reads Plinus }