Chapter IV: Part II: The Text of the Morgan Fragment (1)

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 _apparatus 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 naïve 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 Budé (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 _Π_, 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
faithfully 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 _Π_ 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] _Πa_ SERUA _Π²_ 61, 21 considit] _Π_ CONSIDET _Π²a_ The original reading of _Π_ 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] _Π_ residet _a_ Here _Π_ 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_?) _Π_ 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_) _Π_ 64, 28 excurrissem accepto, ut praefectus aerari, commeatu] _a_ Here _Π_ 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_ (?) _Π_.

There are also a few careless errors of the first hand, uncorrected, in _Π_, 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 _Π B F_ 63, 28 si] _a_ SIBI _Π_ 64, 24 conprobasse] COMPROUASSE _Π_.

In view of these certain errors of the first hand of _Π_, 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 _Π_ might well have seemed to him wrong; in one of them (64,3) modern editors agree with him: 62, 20 aurium oculorum vigor] Π aurium oculorumque uigor _a_ 64, 3 proferenda] _a_ CONFERANDA Π 65, 11 et alii] Π etiam alii _a_.

There is only one case of possible emendation to note: 64, 29 questuri] Π 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 Π only in certain spellings, in the correction, with the help of existing editions, of three obvious errors of Π 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 Π 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 Π 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 Π 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 may 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 _Mém. 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 with which I have associated the Bellovacensis; there can hardly be doubt, at any rate, that De Vries is correct in assigning it to France, where Voss obtained so many of his manuscripts.[29] Except, therefore, for _M_ and the Munich fragment, there is no evidence furnished by the chief manuscripts which connects the tradition of the _Letters_ with Germany. The insular clue afforded by the latter book deserves further attention, but I can not follow it here. The question of the Parisinus aside, _B_ and _F_ of Class I and _V_ of Class II are sure signs that the propagation of the text started from one or more centres--Fleury and Corbie seem the most probable--in France.

[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 monastère 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 (angelsächsischen) Einfluss_ in Buchstabenformen,
Abkürzungen, etc. Fol. 32r _saec._ IX _ex_ _vel_ X _in._ fol.
32v-46r in der Hauptsache _direkt insular_ mit historischen Notizen
in festländischer 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 à 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 Orléans.]

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 ς 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 ς 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: _Π a member of Class I_]

Now nothing is plainer than that _Π_ 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 _ΠBFGa_; 61, 12 confusa adhuc] _MV_ adhuc confusa _ΠBFGa_; 62, 6 doctissime] _MV_ doctissima _ΠBFDa_ et doctissima _G_; 62, 16 nec adficitur] _MVD_ et adficitur _ΠBFGa_; 62, 23 quorum] _MVDGa_ qui horum _ΠBF_; 63, 22 teque et] _MVDG_ teque _ΠBFa_; 64, 3 proferenda] _Doxa_ conferenda _BFu_ CONFERANDA _Π_ (_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 _ΠBFa_; 65, 12 voluntariis accusationibus] _M_ (uoluntaris) _D_ voluntariis _om. V_ accusationibus uoluntariis _ΠBFGa_; 65, 15 superiore] _MVD_ priore _ΠBFGa_; 65, 24 iam] _MVDG_ _om._ _ΠBFa._

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, _ΠBF_ 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, _Π_ is not of the latter class. There are six other significant errors of _MV_ in the whole passage, no one of which appears in _Π_: 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 _Π_ agrees with _V_ in an error easily committed independently: 61, 12 ordinata] ORDINATA, DI ss. _m. 2_ _Π_ ornata _V_.

_Π_, then, and _MV_ have descended from the archetype by different routes. With Class III, the Verona branch of Class II, _Π_ clearly has no close association.

But the evidence for allying _Π_ 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 _Π_ 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 _Π_, then _BF_ must descend directly from _Π_. The following instances point in the same direction: 61, 21 considit] considet _BF_. _Π_ 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 _Π_, 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 _Π_ are faded and blurred; the error of _B_ would therefore be peculiarly easy if this manuscript derived directly from _Π_. If one ask whether the page were as faded in the ninth century as now, Dr. Lowe has already answered this question; the flesh side of the parchment might well have lost a portion of its ink considerably before the Carolingian period.[34] In any case, the error of _praestatam ad me_ seems natural enough to one who reads the line for the first time in _Π_. _B_ did not, as we shall see, copy directly from _Π_; a copy intervened, in which the error was made and then, I should infer, corrected above the line, whence _F_ drew the right reading, _B_ taking the original but incorrect text.

[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 _Π_, 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 _Π_ directly, the mistake would be especially easy, for PRAECEPTORIA ends the line in _Π_. 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 _Π_ are as follows: 62, 23 unice] _Π_ 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 _Π_. 65, 24 fungerer]. In _Π_ 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 _Π_. 66, 2 avunculi] AUONCULI _Π_ (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 _Π_ seems particularly close. _Π_, 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 _Π_, which has the same amount of text, plus the first three letters of SPURINNAM, in the first two lines. If _B_ had _Π_ before him, there is nothing to explain his most unusual procedure. His original, therefore, is not _Π_ 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: _Π the direct ancestor of BF with probably a copy intervening_]

If _Π_ is the direct ancestor of _BF_, these manuscripts should contain no good readings not found in _Π_, 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 _Π_; 64, 4 conprobasse] (comp.) _BF_ COMPROUASSE _Π_. 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 _Π_ before him should correct it as he wrote than, as we have already surmised, that a minuscule copy intervened between _Π_ 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 _Π_, 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_. There is abundant evidence elsewhere in the _Letters_ that the immediate ancestor of _BF_ was written in minuscules; I need not elaborate this point. Our present consideration is that apart from the three instances of simple emendation just discussed, there is no good reading of _B_ or _F_ in the portion of text contained in _Π_ that may not be found, by either the first or the second hand, in _Π_.[37]

[Footnote 37: There are one or two divergencies in spelling hardly
worth mention. The most important are 63, 10 caret _B_ KARET _Π_;
caritas _B_ KARITAS _Π_. 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 _Π_.]

We may now examine a most important bit of testimony to the close connection existing between _BF_ and _Π_. _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 _Π_, 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 _Π_ 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 _Π_, and the lemma is longer than usual, as though the original title had been omitted in the manuscript which _Π_ was copying and the corrector of _Π_ 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 _Π_ is in the title of III, viii: AD SUETON TRANQUE _Π_ 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 _Π_ 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). _ΠBF_ agree in omitting SUAE (III, iii) and SUO (III, iv), but in retaining the pronominal adjectives in the other addresses preserved in _Π_. The same unusual suspensions occur in _Π_ and _B_, as AD SUETON TRANQUE (tranqui _B_); AD UESTRIC SPURINN·; AD SILIUM PROCUL.[40] In the first of these cases, the parent of _Π_ evidently had TRANQ·, which _Π_ falsely enlarges to TRANQUE; this form and not TRANQ· is the basis of _B_’s correction--a semi-successful correction--TRANQUI. This, then, is another sign that _B_ depends directly on _Π_. Further, _B_ omits one symbol of abbreviation which _Π_ has (POSSUM IAM PERSCRIB̅), the lemma of the ninth letter), and in the lemma of the tenth neither manuscript preserves the symbol (COMPOSUISSE ME QUAED). In the first of these cases, it will be observed, _B_ has a very long _i_ in _perscrib_.[41] This long _i_ is not a feature of the script of _B_, nor is there any provocation for it in the way in which the word is written in _Π_. This detail, therefore, may be added to the indications that a copy in minuscules intervened between _B_ and _Π_; the curious _i_, faithfully reproduced, as usual, by _B_, may have occurred in such a copy.

[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 _Π_ and _BF_, and fit the supposition that _B_ and _F_ are direct descendants of _Π_. This may be strengthened by another consideration. If _Π_ and _B_ independently copy the same source, they inevitably make independent errors, however careful their work. _Π_ 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 _Π_ 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 _Π_ 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 _Π_. It is not necessary to prove by an examination of readings that _Π_ is not copied from _B_; the dates of the two scripts settle that matter at the start. Supposing, however, for the moment, that _Π_ and _B_ were of the same age, we could readily prove that the former is not copied from the latter. For _B_ contains a significant collection of errors which are not present in _Π_. Six slight mistakes were made by the first hand and corrected by it, three more were corrected by the second hand, and twelve were left uncorrected. Some of these are trivial slips that a scribe copying _B_ might emend on his own initiative, or perhaps by a lucky mistake. Such are 64, 26 iudicium] indicium _B_; 64, 29 Caecili] caecilii _B_; 65, 13 neglegere] neglere _B_. But intelligent pondering must precede the emendation of _praeceptoria quo_ into _praeceptori a quo_ (64, 19), of _beaticis_ into _Baeticis_ (65, 15), and of _optimae_ into _optime_ (65, 26), while it would take a Madvig to remedy the corruptions in 63, 9 (_praestatam ad me_) and 65,7 (_reputare_ into _patres conscripti putare_). These are the sort of errors which if found in _Π_ would furnish incontrovertible proof that a manuscript not containing them was independent of _Π_; but there is no such evidence of independence in the case of _B_. Our case is strengthened by the consideration that various of the errors in _B_ may well be traced to idiosyncrasies of _Π_, not merely to its _scriptura continua_, a source of misunderstanding that any majuscule would present, but to the fading of the writing on the flesh side of the pages in _Π_, and to the possibility that some of the corrections of the second hand may be the private inventions of that hand.[42] We are hampered, of course, by the comparatively small amount of matter in _Π_, nor are we absolutely certain that this is characteristic of the entire manuscript of which it was once a part. But my reasoning is correct, I believe, for the material at our disposal.

[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

_Π_ _Π_ _X_
| | / \
| | / \
_Π¹_ _Π¹_ / \
/ \ | _X¹_ _Π_
/ \ | / \
_B_ \ _B_ / \
_F_ | _B_ \
| _F_
_F_

Robbins put _P_ in the position of _Π_ in this last stemma, but on the assumption that it did not contain the indices. That is not true of _Π_.