53.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.
64.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’sNatural Historypreserved at St. Paul in Carinthia.
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. 2o416 and Rome Vatic. lat. 3256 reproduced in Zangemeister and Wattenbach’sExempla Codicum Latinorum, etc., pl. 14, and in Steffens,Lateinische Paläographie2, 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’sDe Re Publicaand in other manuscripts.
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,Paléographie des Classiques Latins, pl. CXXXVI.
77.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.
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.
9.The strokes over the two consecutivei’s on fol. 53v, l. 23, were made by a hand that can hardly be older than the thirteenth century.
10.I venture to readdominus meus ... in te deus.
11.This doubtless stands forQuaere(= “investigate”), a frequent marginal note in manuscripts of all ages. A number of instances ofQforquaereare given by A. C. Clark,The Descent of Manuscripts, Oxford 1918, p. 35.
812.Such a division asut|oron fol. 7, l. 10, is due entirely to thoughtless copying. The scribe probably tookutfor a word.
13.For further details on syllabification in our oldest Latin manuscripts, see Th. Mommsen, “Livii Codex Veronensis,” inAbhandlungen 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,” inSitzungsberichte der phil. hist. Cl. der k. Akad. der Wiss. in Wien, CVIII (1885), pp. 245-6; L. Traube, “Palaeographische Forschungen IV,” inAbhandlungen d. h. t. Cl. d. k. Bayer. Akad. d. Wiss.XXIV. 1 (1906), p. 27; A. W. Van Buren, “The Palimpsest of Cicero’sDe Re Publica,” inArchaeological 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,” inHarvard Studies of Classical Philology, VII (1896), pp. 249-71, and W. Dennison, “Syllabification in Latin Inscriptions,” inClassical Philology, I (1906), pp. 47-68.
1014.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 Paläographie2, 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.
15.Found only at the end of words in our fragment. Its use in the body of a word is, however, very ancient.
16.TheCinvariably has the two dots as well as the superior horizontal stroke.
17.The abbreviation is indicated by a stroke above the letters as well as by a dot after them.
1118.An ancestor of our manuscript must have hadtranq·, which was wrongly expanded totranque.
19.This is a sign of antiquity. After the sixth century theMorNstroke is usually placed above the vowel. The practice of confining the omission ofMorNto the end of a line is a characteristic of our very oldest manuscripts. Later manuscripts omitMorNin the middle of a line and in the middle of a word. No distinction is made in our manuscript between omittedMand omittedN. 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.
20.The fraudulent character of the alleged discovery was exposed in masterly fashion by Ludwig Traube in his “Palaeographische Forschungen IV,” published in theAbhandlungen der K. Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, III Klasse, XXIV Band, 1 Abteilung, Munich 1904.
21.Cf. E. T. Merrill, “On the use by Aldus of his manuscripts of Pliny’sLetters,” inClassical Philology, XIV (1919), p. 34.
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 seriesCodices graeci et latini photographice depicti.
1223.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.
24.On the subject of omissions and the clues they often furnish, see the exhaustive treatise by A. C. Clark entitledThe Descent of Manuscripts, Oxford 1918.
1325.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.
1426.See below,p. 16.
27.See below,p. 16.
1528.See below,p. 16.
1629.For the pertinent literature on the manuscripts in the following list the student is referred to Traube’sVorlesungen 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,Paléographie des classiques latins, Paris 1884-1900, andUncialis scriptura codicum latinorum novis exemplis illustrata, Paris 1901-2; and Steffens,LateinischePaläographie2, Treves 1907. (Second edition in French appeared in 1910.)
1930.In later uncials the fore-stroke is often a horizontal hair-line.
2131.This supposition will be strengthened by Professor Rand; seep. 53.
32.Compare, for example, the facsimile of a French deed of sale at Roye, November 24, 1433, reproduced inRecueilde Fac-similés à l’usage de l’école des chartes. Premier fascicule (Paris 1880), No. 1.
33.No mention of either of these is to be found in Dom Toussaints du Plessis’Histoire de l’église de Meaux. For documents with similar opening formulas, see ibid. vol. ii (Paris 1731), pp. 191, 258, 269, 273.
* The original manuscript is inscriptura continua. For the reader’s convenience, words have been separated and punctuation added in the transcription.
In a few places the transcribers used V in place of U. This appears to be an error, but has not been changed.
AD CALUISIUM RUFUM1
5NESCIO AN ULLUM
AD UIBIUM · MAXIMUM
QUOD · IPSE AMICIS TUIS
AD CAERELLIAE HISPULLAE2
CUM PATREM TUUM
10AD CAECILIUM3MACRINUM
QUAMUIS ET AMICI
AD BAEBIUM MACRUM
PERGRATUM EST MIHI
4AD ANNIUM4SEUERUM
154EX HEREDITATE4QUAE
AD CANINIUM RUFUM
MODO NUNTIATUS EST
AD SUETON5TRANQUE
FACIS AD PRO CETERA
20AD CORNELIUM6MINICIANUM
POSSUM IAM PERSCRIB
AD UESTRIC SPURINN ·
COMPOSUISSE ME QUAED
AD IULIUM GENITOR ·
5EST OMNINO ARTEMIDORI
AD CATILINUM SEUER ·
UENIAM AD CENAM
AD UOCONIUM ROMANUM
LIBRUM QUO NUPER
10AD PATILIUM
REM ATROCEM
AD SILIUM PROCUL ·
PETIS UT LIBELLOS TUOS
AD IULIUM SERUIAN ·2
15RECTE OMNIA
AD UIRIUM SEUERUM
OFFICIU CONSULATUS
AD CALUISIUM RUFUM ·
ADSUMO TE IN CONSILIUM
20AD MAESIUM MAXIMUM
MEMINISTINE TE
AD CORNELIUM PRISCUM
AUDIO UALERIUM MARTIAL ·
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