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INTER-COLLEGIATE

LATIN SERIES

UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF

HAROLD W. JOHNSTON, PH. D.

PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY OF INDIANA

LATIN MANUSCRIPTS

HAROLD W. JOHNSTON

CHICAGO

SCOTT, FORESMAN & COMPANY
1897

LATIN MANUSCRIPTS

AN ELEMENTARY INTRODUCTION TO THE
USE OF CRITICAL EDITIONS FOR

HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE CLASSES

HAROLD W. JOHNSTON, PH. D.

PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITY OF INDIANA

CHICAGO

SCOTT, FORESMAN & COMPANY
1897

SCOTT, FORESMAN & Co.,

CHICAGO, ILL.

PRESS OF ROGERS .M SMITH CO., CHICAGO.

EDWARD B. CLAPP,

PROFESSOR OF GREEK

IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

PREFACE.

"pXURING the last session of the Summer School of Indiana University
"^"^ I gave a course of lectures to the Teachers' Class on Paleography,
Hermeneutics and Criticism. My attention was then called to the fact
that even in secondary schools many questions relating to Paleography
and Criticism are asked by pupils who find different texts of the same
author used in the same class. Some of their text books, too, go so far
as to give and discuss various readings of difficult passages, as does Green-
ough's Caesar, for example. A wish was therefore expressed by several
teachers of Latin that a manual might be published for the use of High
Schools, answering the more common questions of this sort. In response
to their wish I have prepared this volume. It gives a mere outline of
the subjects of which it treats in broad strokes, but contains, I hope, all
that students in High Schools and in the lower classes of Colleges will
need in order to understand the critical notes found in the text books
commonly used by these classes. For University use it should be supple-
mented by lectures upon the several authors of the sort admirably illus-
trated by Mr. W. M. Lindsay's Introduction to Latin Textual Emendation,
Based on the Text of Plant us (New York, 1896).

The elementary nature of this manual excludes references to authorities,
but I must mention some of the most important which were used in the
preparation of the lectures from which these chapters are condensed. On
ancient books the standard work is Birt's Das antike Buchwcsen (Berlin,
1882). On the book trade in antiquity there are Haenny's Schriftstellcr
und Buchhandler im altcn Rom (Leipzig, 1885), and (to be used cautiously)
Putnam's Authors and their Public in Ancient Times (New York, 1894). On
Paleography Thompson's Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography (New

PREFACE.

York, 1893) is the best modern work; to supplement it the best collection
of fac-similes of Latin manuscripts is, perhaps, Chatelain's Paragraphic des
Classiqucs Latins (Paris, 1884, fol.). On Criticism there is a valuable article
by Friedrich Blass in I wan Mullers Handbuch (Vol. I, Munich, 1892).. For
the use of young students teachers will find good material for parallel
reading in Gow's Companion to School Classics (New York, 1888), from which
I have drawn several -paragraphs, and in the Dictionaries of Antiquities,
under the words c/iarta, codex, liber, papyrus, volumen, etc.

The illustrations are from the works mentioned above, and from
Schreiber's Atlas and Baumeister's Denkmaler.

The plates are from Chatelain, except that of the Codex Romanus of
Catullus, which was furnished by its discoverer, Professor William Gardner
Hale, of the University of Chicago.

Besides owing to Professor Hale the privilege of first publishing a
fac-simile of a page of the most important Latin manuscript discovered
in many years, I am under obligations to Professor Edouard Baillot and
Mr. Charles H. Beeson, of this University, and to Dr. Edward Capps, of
the University of Chicago, for assistance generously given me.

H. W. JOHNSTON.
INDIANA UNIVERSITY,
Feb. 5, 1897.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I. THE HISTORY OF THE MANUSCRIPTS, 1-89.

THE MAKING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS, 1-24 .

Writing Materials, 2. Paper and Vellum, 3. Papyrus, 4-13. Pens
and Ink, g 5. Rolls, 6-8. Reading the Rolls, 9. Size of the Rolls,
lo-n. Preservation of the Rolls, 12. Parchment, 13-24. Instru-
ments for Writing, 15. Books (Codices), 16, 17. Odd Forms, 18.
Size of the Books, 19. Parchment vs. Papyrus, 20, 21. Tardy Use of
Parchment, 22. Age of Parchment Books, 24.

THE PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS, 25-41 . 27

The Authors, g 25. Copyright, 26, 27. Plays, 28. Uncommercial
Publications, 29, 30. Commercial Publications, 31. Process of Publi-
cation, 32. Dictation, 33- Rapidity of Publication, 34. Cost of the
Books, 35. Stichometry, 36. Correctors, 37-39. Titles, 40, 41.

THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS, 42-67 35

Period Covered, S 42. Period of the Decline, 43. Public Libraries, 44.
Schools and Universities, 45. The Classics, 46. Scholia, 47, 48.
Glosses, 49. The Grammarians, 50. Opposition to Christianity, 51.
Subscriptions, 52. Their Value, 53. Summary, 54. Lost Works,
55. The Dark Ages, 56. Indifference to Learning, 57. The Church,
58, 59. The Revival of Learning, 60, 61. Invention of Printing, 62.
Summary, 63. Editiones Principes, 64. Ancient Manuscripts, 65-67.

THE KEEPING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS, 68-89 48

Care of the Manuscripts, 68. Naming of the Manuscripts, 69, 70.
Descriptions, 71. Important Libraries, 72-80. Index to Collections,
SS 78-80. Symbols for the Manuscripts, 81-83. First and Second
Hands, 84, 85. Collation of the Manuscripts, 86-87. Uncollated
Manuscripts, 88. Critical Editions, 89.

II. THE SCIENCE OF PALEOGRAPHY, 90-149.

STYLES OF WRITING, 91-115 61

Scope of the Science, 91, 92. Uses of Paleography, 93, 94. Ancient
Forms of Letters, 95, 96. National Hands, 97. The Majuscules,

10 TABLE OF CONTENTS.

SS 98-107. Capitals, 100. Specimens : Square, 102. Rustic, 103.
Uncials and Half-uncials, 104, 105. Specimens : Uncials, 106. Half-
uncials, 107. The Minuscules, 108-114. Specimens, 113. Abbre-
viations, 114. Summary, 115.

THE ERRORS OF THE SCRIBES, 116-149 79

The Codex, 116-118. Faulty Copies, 119. The Classification of
Errors, 120. Unavoidable Errors, 121-124. Intentional Errors,
125-127. Accidental Errors, g 128-146. Errors of the Eye, 129-
136. Dittography, 133. Lipography (Haplography), 134. Skipping,
135-136. Errors of the Memory, 137-141. Transposition, 138,
139. Substitution, 140. Omissions and Additions, 141. Errors of
the Judgment, 142-146. Wrong Division of Words, 143, 144. Wrong
Punctuation, 145. Interpolation, 146. Uncertain Sources of Errors,
I47-I49-

III. THE SCIENCE OF CRITICISM, 150-208.

METHODS AND TERMINOLOGY OF CRITICISM, 150-160 95

Subdivisions of the Science, 151. The Critical Doubt, 152, 153.
Causes of Doubt, 154-158. Kinds of Criticism, 159. Criterion, 160.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM, 161-193 . . . 100

Apparatus Criticus, 162. The Manuscripts, 163. Examination of the
Manuscripts, 164, 165. Possible Results, 166-169. Stemmata,
170-172. Uses of the Stemmata, 172 Ancient Translations, 173-
174. Ancient Commentaries, 175, 176. Citations, 177. Imitations,
178. Use of the Apparatus, 179-187. Relative Worth of Manuscripts,
183-185. Test of Worth, 186, 187. Conjectural Emendation, 188-
193. Criticism and Conjecture, 190, 191. Limits of Emendation, 192.
Opposing Views, 194.

INDIVIDUAL CRITICISM, 194-208 .... "4

Purpose of Individual Criticism, 195. External Evidence : Manuscripts,
196. Ancient Writers, 197, 198. Internal Evidence: Historical,
199. Individuality, 200. Language and Style, 201, 202. For-
geries, 203. Tests of Proposed Authors, 204. Illustration of Proof,
205, 206. Summary, 207, 208.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES, 209-224 125

INDEX . ! 3 2

THE HISTORY OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.

THE MAKING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.

THE PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS.

THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS.

THE KEEPING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.

THE HISTORY OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.

THE MAKING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.

1V/TANUSCRIPTS and books were formerly studied as a part of
Paleography, and were so treated by scholars until very
recent times. At the present time separate treatment is given to
this subject, although even now it may scarcely be regarded as a
distinct branch, or discipline, of Philology. Under this head we
have to consider the materials for writing, so far as these have to
do with works of formal literature, the manufacture, distribution
and sale of books, their destruction and preservation in the dark
ages, and their present condition and keeping.

WRITING MATERIALS. We are concerned now with those mate-
rials only, by the aid of which the literature of classical antiquity,
chiefly Roman, was published to the world and afterwards trans-
mitted to us. Almost all the substances for receiving writing
known to the ancients were used at one time or another, for one
purpose or another, by the Romans. Some of these were merely
the makeshifts of rude antiquity and antedated all real literature,
as, e. g., bark and leaves of trees, skins or tanned hides of animals,
and pieces of linen cloth: all these are mentioned in works of lit-
erature, but none were used to receive them. Others, such as stone,
metal tablets, coins, etc., have preserved inscriptions of great im-
portance to the study of antiquity and therefore of great interest
to philologists, but belong rather to Epigraphy and Numismatics
than to our present subject. Of more general use than any of
these were the tablets covered with wax, which are mentioned so
frequently by Cicero, and were used as late as the fourteenth cen-
tury ; even these are excluded, however, by our definition, as they
were at best used for merely the rough drafts of literary composi-
tions. For the publication of works of literature in classical times

14 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

the one recognized material was Papyrus, and for their further
transmission to our times Parchment alone need be considered.

3 PAPER AND VELLUM. While parchment (vellum) was known
to the classical writers, and perhaps used to a limited extent

instead of the bulky tablets, and while papyrus (paper) was occa-
sionally used for works of literature until the seventh century and
for correspondence until the thirteenth century, their general rela-
tion to each other is correctly given above : papyrus was the stand-
ard commercial material at the time when the classics were written,
and the tough parchment, upon which these works were copied
centuries after their authors had passed away, has preserved these
works to us, and is the material of the manuscripts with which
modern scholars work. To Caesar and Cicero, for example, a
parchment book would have been as great a curiosity as are to us
the papyrus rolls that have lived through the centuries. This
distinction is of great importance to the further study of this
subject.

4 PAPYRUS. The manufacture of papyrus from the reed of the
same name, which was known to the Egyptians from very ancient
times, reached its height in that country under the earlier Ptole-
mies (third century B. C.), and was improved and perfected in
Rome. Ennius (239-170 B. C.) is the earliest Roman writer to
mention the material and is supposed to have been the first to use
it for literary purposes. The papyrus reed has a jointed stem of
triangular shape, five or six inches in diameter, and grows to a
height of six or eight feet. The paper (char to) was made of the
pith by a process substantially as follows: Strips of the pith as
long as the joints would permit were cut as thin as possible and
arranged side by side, as closely as possible, upon a board. Across
these at right angles other strips were laid in the same manner,
with perhaps, a coating of paste or gum between the two layers.
The strips were then thoroughly soaked in water, and pressed or

THE MAKING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. 15

hammered into a substance not unlike our paper. After this sub-
stance had been dried, and bleached in the sun to a yellowish
color, the sheets were rid by scraping of any irregular or rough
places that remained, and were trimmed into uniform sizes depend-
ing, of course, upon the length of the strips of pith which com-

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FIG. I. PAPYRUS PLANTS.

posed them. According to Pliny (23-79, A. D.) the quality of the
sheets, which were sold under eight or nine special names, varied
with their width. Sheets of the best quality were about ten inches
wide, while the inferior sorts decreased to a width of six inches
or less. The height of the sheets varied from seven and a half
inches to twelve or thirteen.

PENS AND INK. Only the upper surface of the sheet was com-
monly written upon, the surface, that is, formed by the horizontal
layer of strips, and these, showing even after the process of manu-

LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

PENS, PEN-CASE AND CRAYON HOLDERS

VARIOUS WRITING MATERIALS FROM WALL
FIG. 2. INSTRUMENTS USED IN WRITING

THE MAKING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. 17

facture, served to guide the pen of the writer. The pen (cala-
mus or calamus scriptorius) was made of a reed, and was shaped
to a coarse point and cleft with a knife much as our quill-pens
used to be. Quill-pens are first mentioned by Isidorus (f 636 A.
D.), a bishop of Seville, and cannot have been known to the
classic writers. Metal pens, of one piece with the holders, were
also used in ancient times, but cannot be accurately dated. The
ink (atramentuni) for papyrus was made of soot mixed with glue
and thinned with water or vinegar. It was more like paint than
ink, and was easily removed when fresh with a damp sponge
which the writer kept by him for the correction of mistakes.
Even when the ink had become dry and hard it could be washed
(not scraped) away sufficiently to fit the sheet for use a second
time. A sheet thus used a second time was called a palimpsest
(cf. liber palimpsestus below) , but its use was a mark of poverty or
niggardliness (Cic. Fam. VII, 18). Of course the reverse side of
charttz, which had served their purpose, was often used for scratch
paper, as old letters and envelopes are used to-day, and rare
instances are known of the original writing covering both sides
of the sheet.

BOOKS. A single sheet of papyrus might serve for a very 6
brief document, such as a short letter, but for literary purposes
many such sheets would be necessary. These were not fastened
side by side into a book, as are the separate sheets in our books,
or numbered and placed loosely together, as we arrange them in
our letters or manuscripts. The papyrus book was really a roll as
its Latin name (volumen] implies, made up of the necessary num-
ber of sheets glued together at the sides (not at the tops), with
the lines upon each sheet running parallel with the length of the
roll, and with each sheet forming a column perpendicular to the
length of the roll. It was necessary, therefore, to leave on the
side of the sheet as it was written a broad margin, and these

LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

margins overlapping each other and glued together made a thick
blank space (i. .?ceco}

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THE PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS.

AUTHORS. The men whose names are famous in the 25
history of Roman literature may be divided into two classes.
Some were men of high position in society and in the state, to
whom literature was but one form of a many sided activity : such
men are Caesar and Cicero and Sallust. Others are persons of
distinctly inferior station, freedmen perhaps, or sons of freedmen,
who won their bread by their pens: such persons are Terence
and Vergil and Horace. One fact in regard to the authors of the
second class forces itself at once upon our attention: Each is
attached to some powerful friend, to whom he seems to owe all
his material prosperity. This fact is the more striking, because
the works of many authors of this class, of all of those whom we
have directly mentioned, were widely read during their lifetime,
and must have had a ready sale and considerable market value
even then. We should expect such poets as Horace and Vergil
to have had a generous income independent of the bounty of their
patrons. It seems to have been otherwise.

COPYRIGHT. The natural inference is that the author had, 26
little pecuniary interest in the sale of his works. There is no
direct evidence, i. e., no statement in the works of such authors,
to support this assertion, but there is none to controvert it. As
each copy of a book was made by itself, page by page, with pen
and ink, as no costly plant was necessary to multiply these copies,
and no special skill, it is hard to see how the author could retain
any control over the reproduction of a work when it had once got
into circulation. Even in our day any one may make a manu-
script copy, or any number of them, of any book which he is
unable to buy, whether the author likes it or not. This seems

28 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

to have been the case in Rome, and this state of helplessness
fully accounts for the dependence of the poet upon the patron,
and the absence of any feeling of shame or degradation, on the

27 part of the dependent. The first copy of his book he could sell,
or as many copies as he could make, or have made, before any
left his possession, but these would at best be very few. That
even this chance, poor as it was, was precarious is shown by the
theft of Cicero's De Finibus (Att. XIII, 21, 4 and 5) in advance
of publication. Worse than this, the hapless author had not even
the privilege of deciding whether a book that he had written
should be published or not: at least Ovid declares (Trist. I, 7)
that he had intended to destroy his Metamorphoses, but the work
was published from copies taken by his friends without his con-
sent or knowledge. Cicero let the first draft of his Academica get
out of his possession while he was considering a different form for
the treatise, and the consequence was that two very different ver-
sions were circulated at the same time.

28 PLAYS. The fact that a dramatist received pay when one
of his plays was presented at the public games has nothing to
do with the question of property rights in works of general
literature. As a matter of fact the attacks made upon Terence
by rival dramatists show that they were acquainted with his
plays before they were put upon the stage, and justify the
suggestion that they may have been in more or less general
circulation for the purpose of private reading.

29 UNCOMMERCIAL PUBLICATION. Every Roman of position kept
in his employ several trained scribes (librarii'], usually slaves or
freedmen and often highly educated and accomplished, who served
him as amanuenses, secretaries, etc. Under the Republic the
author must have had his book copied by these librarii, either
his own or his patron's. Many of these copies would be intended
for dedication or presentation purposes, but some would find their
way into the market. These were sold in book shops (taberntz
librarifc. Cic. Phil. II, 9, 21), which were set up in Rome long

THE PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS. 29

before there was any organized publishing business. The first
impulse toward such an enterprise may have been given by the
bringing to Rome by Sulla and Lucullus of whole libraries from
Greece and Asia Minor. It at once became the fashion to make
large collections of books, and in Cicero's time no house was com-
plete without a spacious library fully stocked with books, although
the owner was often wholly ignorant of their contents. Cicero
had great numbers of books not only in his house at Rome, but
also at each of his half dozen country-seats. He was assisted in
collecting them by his friend T. Pomponius Atticus, a man noted as
much for his love of literature and learning as for his vast wealth 30
and far reaching business enterprises. He seems to have had a
commission from Cicero to buy for him every book that could be
bought, and to make copies of those that were valuable or rare.
Atticus had numerous librarii (Nepos XXV, 13, 3), and these he
employed also in making copies of Cicero's works and of such
others as Cicero recommended to him. All these he sold to good
advantage (Att. XIII, 12, 2), but the gain was merely incidental
and by no means the object he had in view. His success, how-
ever, added to the constantly increasing demand for books, seems
to have led to the establishment of the business upon a commer-
cial basis, and in so far as this is true it is permissible, perhaps,
to speak of Atticus as the first of Roman publishers.

COMMERCIAL PUBLICATION. Under the Empire the business 31
seems to have reached large proportions almost at a stride. The
publishers were at the same time wholesale and retail dealers in
books. Their establishments were found in the most popular and
generally frequented parts of Rome, were distinguished by the
lists hanging by the door of books kept for sale, and soon became
the resort of men of culture as well as of those who sought merely
after the novel and the entertaining. Even under Augustus (29
B. C.-I4 A. D.) the works of Roman authors were read not only

30 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

in Italy but also in the provinces, and even crossed the sea.
Public libraries were established in many places, and in the schools
the antiquated works that had been the text books for generations
(e. g., the Twelve Tables and the translation of Homer by
Andronicns) began to give place to those of contemporary authors.

32 PROCESS OF PUBLICATION. It is evident that the publisher had
no more control over works once in circulation than the author
had ( 26), and he must therefore have relied upon the elegance,
correctness and cheapness of his editions of the classics to insure
their sale, and in the case of a new work upon the quickness
with which he could supply the demand. The general process
was something like this: The book to be copied, furnished by
the author if a new work, bought or borrowed or hired (see below)
if an old one, was read to the scribes, some of which were the
slaves of the publisher and others perhaps hired for the occasion,
but all trained copyists. Other slaves arranged the sheets in the
proper order as fast as they were written, pasted them together
(Cic. Att. IV, 4 b.), mounted them and supplied them with their
parchment tituli and cases (see 7). Errors were then corrected
and the book was ready for sale.

33 DICTATION. No ancient authority can be quoted in sup-
port of the statement that the books were copied from dicta-
tion, but this must have been the case in all large establish-
ments. To say nothing of the fact that even private letters
were usually dictated, and of the difficulty of managing the
roll, which served for copy, while writing ( 20), the slowness
of the other method, if but few slaves were employed, and the
impracticability of furnishing copy to a large number without
great loss of time, seem enough to justify the statement. In
later times, especially during the middle ages, the scribes
worked independently.

34 RAPIDITY OF PUBLICATION. Cicero tells us (Pro. Sulla, XIV,
42) that Roman senators could write fast enough to take down
evidence verbatim, and the trained scribes must have far surpassed
them in speed, even if the system of shorthand often mentioned

THE PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS. 31

by ancient authorities was not used for books intended for gen-
eral circulation. Martial tells us (IT, i, 5) that his second book
could be copied in an hour. It contains ninety-three epigrams
amounting to five hundred and forty verses, which would make
the scribe equal to nine verses to the minute. It is evident that
a small edition, one, that is, not many times larger than the num-
ber of scribes employed, could be put upon the market much
more quickly than it could be furnished now. When the demand
was great and the edition large (Pliny, Ep. IV, 7, 2, mentions
one of a thousand copies) the publisher would put none on sale
until all were ready, thus preventing rival houses from using one
of his books as copy. If he overestimated the demand, unsold
copies could still be sent to the provinces (Hor. Ep. I, 20, 13) or
as a last resort be used for wrapping paper (Mart. Ill, 2).

COST OF THE BOOKS. The cost of the books varied, of course, 35
with their size and with the style in which they were issued.
Martial's first book, containing eight hundred and twenty lines
and covering twenty-nine pages in Teubner's text, was sold
(Mart. I, 66; 117, 17) at thirty cents, fifty cents, and one dollar;
his Xenia, containing two hundred and seventy-four verses and
covering fourteen pages in Teubner's text, was sold (XIII, 3) at
twenty cents, but cost the publisher less than ten. Such prices
are hardly more than we pay now. Much would depend of course
upon the demand, and very high prices were put upon particular
copies. Gellius (II, 3, 5) mentions a copy of Vergil, supposed to
be by his own hand, which had cost the owner over one hundred
dollars, and copies whose correctness (see below) was attested by
some good authority were also highly valued. The same circum-
stances would increase the price of modern books materially.

STICHOMETRY. The ancients did not measure their books, as 36
we do, by the pages, but by the verse in poetry and the line in
prose, and the number contained in the work was written at the

32 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

end of the book. The Alexandrian librarians seem to have entered
the number along with the title of the work in their catalogues,
and to have marked the number of lines, at every fiftieth or hun-
dredth line, in their copy of the book. This system of measure-
ment was carefully employed by the publishers, and furnished an
accurate standard by which to fix the price of the book and the
wages of those scribes who were not slaves. For this purpose
they selected the hexameter verse as the unit for poetry, and as
its equivalent in prose a line of sixteen syllables or thirty-five
letters. This standard line, were it actually written, would require
one of the broader sheets mentioned above ( 4), but such a sheet
was not necessary and perhaps not usual. It was merely neces-
sary to find the ratio of the line actually written to the stand-
ard line, for the scribes were careful to keep their lines of the
same length, and the number of lines on the page constant,
throughout the work upon which they were engaged. Frequently
we find the number of lines written very much greater than the
number registered at the end of the roll, because the page was
too narrow to contain the standard line from which the registered
number was calculated. We do not know the price paid for
ordinary works of literature.

37 CORRECTORS. The very rapidity with which the scribes worked
would lead us to look for many mistakes in their copies, and from
the earliest times authors and scholars have complained of their
blunders. Cicero says (Q. Fr. Ill, 5, 6) that he knows not where
to turn for books: they are written so badly and put upon the
market with so many imperfections. He took every precaution to
have his own books as free from errors as possible. His famous
freedman, Tiro, read the copy carefully before it was sent to Atti-
cus, and Atticus had each book examined and corrected before it
passed out of his keeping. Even after the earlier copies were sent
out he introduced improvements in the later editions at Cicero's
suggestion.

THE PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS. 33

Similar precautions were taken by at least the best commercial 38
houses. They had competent correctors in their employ, but as
each copy had to be examined independently, the labor was far
greater than that of the modern proof-reader, and the results
much less satisfactory. Martial (II, 8) warns his readers that the
errors which they may detect in his books are to be ascribed to
the publisher, not to him, and elsewhere (VII, u) he gives us to
understand that authors corrected with their own hands the copies
which they presented to their friends (cf. Cell. II, 3, 5). Quin-
tilian prefaces his Institutions with a letter to his publisher, beg-
ging him to issue the work as free from blunders as he can, and
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, 177 A. D., urges that each copy of his
work be compared with the original.

Persons buying books sometimes had them examined first by 39
a competent critic (Gell. V, 4, 2), or corrected by comparison with
a copy known to be accurate. Such standard copies were not
always to be had, but were consulted if possible to decide disputed
readings (Gell. I, 7), and were sometimes hired for this purpose
(Gell. XVIII, 5, n) at large expense. It is beyond question that
errors in the codices of later times, which have descended to us,
are in some cases derived from blunders made at the time when
the books were first published.

TITLES. As in the papyrus roll the title was no part of the 40
work itself, but rather of the mounting ( 8), so in the later
parchment codex it was the ancient custom to write the title,
together with the number of the lines ( 36), at the end, instead
of at the beginning where we should look for it. This must be
explained, of course, from the standpoint of the scribe, who was
concerned only with what he had written and how much, and left
the purchaser to mark the volume or leave it unmarked at his
pleasure. The manuscripts of the middle ages usually have the
title both at the beginning and at the end of the book, frequently

34 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

adding a word of good omen (fe/ia'ter), or an expression of grati-
fication at the conclusion of the task (see Plate VIII). These
titles vary greatly in different manuscripts of the same work,
sometimes even in the same manuscript, and suggest that the
classic writers were far less anxious about getting good titles for
their works than modern authors are, and may perhaps have pub-
41 lished them without any formal titles at all. Cicero refers to his
essay on Old Age indifferently as the Cato Maior (Off. I, 42, 151)
and De Senectute (Div. 2, 3). If Macrobius (Sat. I, 24, n) is to
be trusted, Vergil seems to have spoken of the Aeneid by its
hero's name Aeneas (cf. Hamlet, Ivanhoe, etc.). Sallust's mono-
graph on the Conspiracy of Catiline is called in the best manu-
script Bellum Catulinarium at the beginning and Bellum Catilinae
at the end. Quintilian (35-100 A. D.) calls it Bellum Catilinae,
and so does Nonius (beginning of fourth cent.); Servius (end of
fourth cent.) has the shorter title Catilina (cf. Aeneas and Cato
Maior above), Priscian (sixth cent.) has Bellum Catilinarium, and
in other ancient authorities we find Historia Catilinae. The best
form nowadays is Bellum Catilinae, which is rapidly driving out
the De Coniuratione Catilinae Liber of our school books, just as
Belli Gallici Liber I. (//., ///., etc.) is displacing the Commentarius
De Bella Gallico Primus (Sccundus, Tertius, etc.) familiar to us
all. No title is absolutely certain.

rf^^

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THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS.

PERIOD COVERED. The creative genius of the Ro- 42
mans ends, so far as literature is concerned, with the reign
of Trajan (97-117 A. D.). From this time until the invention of
printing the preparing and publication of books did not vary from
the methods described above, except so far as the parchment codex
differed in form from the papyrus roll. During this period of
about thirteen centuries we have now to consider the fates of the
published works, or in other words of the manuscripts that con-
tained them: the means that were taken to preserve them, how
they were lost, and then after nearly a thousand years partially
recovered. This period may be naturally divided into three very
unequal portions: i. The Period of the Decline, extending roughly
to the Germanic invasions of about the fifth century; 2. The
Dark Ages, extending to about the thirteenth century; 3. The
Revival of Learning. It must be remembered that we are con-
cerned with the social, political and literary history of these times
so far only as it relates to the Transmission of the Manuscripts.

THE PERIOD OF THE DECLINE. It is a fact well known to all 43
students of literature that at the time when genius is least pro-
ductive and originality most torpid the masterpieces of an earlier
day will be most carefully studied and appreciated. This is emi-
nently true of Roman literature: its darkest period saw the estab-
lishment of public libraries, the growth of schools and universities
on humanistic lines, the rise of the grammarians, and the classics
made the last defense of paganism against Christianity. All these
agencies made for the preservation of literature, so far as it was
preserved at all, and must be examined therefore in some detail.

36 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

44 PUBLIC LIBRARIES. The growth of private libraries ( 29)
steadily increased during the empire, for we read that the gram-
marian Serenus Sammonicus (f 212 A. D.) left 62,000 volumes to
his son, but the largest of these collections are of little impor-
tance compared with the public libraries that were founded during
the same period. The first of these to be opened in Rome was
established by Asinius Pollio (f 4 A - D -) during the reign of
Augustus in the atrium of Libertas. Augustus himself opened
two, and by his successors the number was gradually increased to
twenty-eight. Of these the most magnificent was the Bibliotheca
Ulpia, founded by Trajan. Smaller cities had their libraries too.
Pliny, Trajan's governor of Bithynia, tells us (Ep. I, 8) of having
given one himself to his native town, Comum, supported by an
endowment yielding annually thirty thousand sesterces. The im-
portance, from our standpoint, of these public libraries lies in the
fact that such collections were universal in their character, while
private libraries are usually gathered in a less catholic spirit. The
former would tend to preserve, therefore, the less popular and
attractive works that might otherwise have disappeared.

45 SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES. A still more important part in
the preservation of the literature of the past was taken by the
schools and universities. These had been established on Greek
lines in the city of Rome at least as early as the time of Cicero
and Varro, and had spread throughout the empire until in the
centuries just preceding the Germanic invasions all the intel-
lectual life of the Roman was connected with education. The
branches taught were grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geome-
try, astronomy, and music, but the central thing was the study
of the older and greater writers of Greece and Rome. Original
creation had virtually come to an end, and it seemed to all educated
persons that the study of the works of the past was the most
profitable of intellectual pursuits. Two facts in relation to the
schools affect the transmission of the manuscripts.

THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS. 37

THE "CLASSICS. "--The choosing of materials for pupils to 46
study and imitate would lead gradually to the fixing with more
or less precision of the canon of the classics, those writers, that
is, whose works were regarded as the best of their kind in the
various lines of literature. Of some of these authors the complete
works were used in the schools; of others certain parts complete
in themselves (e. g., the first and third decades of Livy) were
carefully studied, while of other parts epitomes were made for
reference purposes ; of others still selections were made for specific
objects, as when, for example, the letters and speeches scattered
through the various works of Sallust were brought together in
one volume for rhetorical purposes. The result, so far as it affects
the transmission of the manuscripts is apparent: of some authors
the whole works would be in constant demand and copies would
be multiplied almost beyond numbering; of others parts only
would be so treated; still others would be wholly neglected. It is
evident, also, that these school editions would be especially liable
to errors, and even to arbitrary changes for the purposes of
instruction.

SCHOLIA. The needs of the pupils would lead, in the second 47
place, to the preparation of notes and commentaries upon those
authors whose language or matter was found to require such helps.
Such notes are added to the works of English authors in our own
schools now, and must have been even more needed by Roman
school boys because no books were then written especially for the
young. These school commentaries, to distinguish them from the
works of modern scholars, are called scholia, and their authors, or
(more usually) their compilers, are called scholiasts. Some of
these notes were published separately, and have come down to us
with the name of the author attached, as, e. g., the commentaries
of Asconius (first century) on some of Cicero's Orations, of Por-
phyrio (second century) on Horace, of Tiberius Claudius Donatus

38 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

(fourth century) on Vergil, and of Aelius Donatus (fourth century)

48 and Eugraphius (sixth century) on Terence. Other Scholiasts,
and by far the larger number, wrote their notes on the margins
and between the lines of their manuscripts of the authors they
explained, and of these as a rule inferior scholars we seldom know
the names. When it is necessary to distinguish them, they are
called by the name of the author ("Scholiast on Juvenal," etc.) or
even of the manuscript ( 69) on which their scholia are found.
These scholia are chiefly valuable for the subject matter of the
author, but they give some help also in the text. In the first
place, those scholiasts whose commentaries were published sepa-
rately, frequently quote the passage of the text which they
explain, and thus give us the reading of the manuscripts they
used, in .most cases older and therefore better than our own. In
the second place, they sometimes help us to fix the date of a
manuscript or its relations to others even when the scholia are of
little value and the name of their author is not known.

49 GLOSSES. One sort of scholia is often mentioned in editions
of the classics. An unusual word was called glossa, and in the
course of time the definition or explanation of such a word was
called by the same name. Collections of these words and ex-
planations were made, called glossac, whence our words "gloss"
and ''glossary." Now when the scholiast found in his text such
a word, for example a foreign or obsolete Latin word, he often
wrote the word of the same meaning which was current in his
time (Latin also, of course) directly above it in the text or
close to it in the margin. A later copyist was very apt to
take such a gloss for either a correction or an omitted word,
and accordingly to omit the original word from his copy, or to
write both words together.

50 THE GRAMMARIANS. Close upon the writing of commentaries
to explain the subject matter of the classics followed the composi-
tion of scholarly works, dealing directly with the language itself,
the sounds, inflections, syntax, prosody, lexicography and so on.
The writers upon these subjects, differing widely in their learn-

THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS. 39

ing and ability, are grouped together under the name of Gramma-
rians, as opposed to the Scholiasts, although many belong to the
one class as much as to the other. For the preservation of the
classics they are valuable, entirely apart from their scholarship,
in proportion to the number of quotations which they make in
illustration of the matters of which they treat. Among those help-
ful in this way may be mentioned Charisius (fourth century),
Diomedes (sixth century), Macrobius (fifth century), Nonius
(fourth century), Priscianus (sixth century), Scaurus (second cen-
tury), and Victorinus (fourth century).

OPPOSITION TO CHRISTIANITY. It is well known that the 51
higher classes in Rome were the last to embrace Christianity.
For resisting the spread of the new faith they found the most
effective weapon to be the literature in which were embodied all
the beauty and power of pagan morality, culture and refinement.
Men of the highest social standing, senators, statesmen, consuls,
devoted their energy and talent to fostering the ancient classics.
They succeeded in maintaining the old system of education, pre-
vented the establishment of separate schools for the benefit of
their opponents, and even endeavored to put the texts of the great
Roman writers upon a sounder basis. For this purpose they had
made or made with their own bands copies of manuscripts of
known excellence (see 39), or in default of these used their own
knowledge of the language to remove the more obvious errors due
to the carelessness or ignorance of successive copyists. Some of
these editions they attested by their own names, and these names
have occasionally come down to us in later copies.

SUBSCRIPTIONS. These signatures, technically called subscrip- 52
tiones, date mostly from the fourth to the sixth century, although
a few are earlier, and are known to us in copies hundreds of
years later, accompanied perhaps by the subscription of some later
reviser. For example, many manuscripts of Terence, dating from

4O LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

the ninth to the twelfth century, have preserved an ancient sub-
scription in two forms :

CALLIOPIUS RECENSUI CALLIOPIUS RECENSUIT.
This shows that much as these manuscripts may differ from each
other, all are derived ultimately from a revision of the text of
Terence made by Calliopius, who is otherwise unknown, but is
believed for certain reasons to have lived in the third or fourth
century. Again, several manuscripts of Caesar, dating from the
ninth and eleventh centuries, have the subscription :
JULIUS CELSUS CONSTANTINUS vc LEGI.

We do not know anything more about this man of high position
(vc= vir darissimns, see Harper's Dictionary, s. v. clams), but the
name seems to show that he lived no earlier than the fourth

century.

53 VALUE. We are able to test the value of these revisions,
because we have other manuscripts of Terence and Caesar that
are independently derived. Of Terence we have but one manu-
script (Codex Bembinns, see Plate III) that has escaped the
corrections of Calliopius, but this shows us that he used_ either
inferior manuscripts as his guide, or else relied upon his own
insufficient knowledge in correcting the text current in his
time. With Csesar the case is different. The manuscripts
derived from the revision of Celsus have been, until very re-
cently, regarded almost the only reliable authorities, and even
now Celsus is credited (see Kiibler, Teubuer's text, p. ix) with
having used good copies in making his text, even if he did
rely sometimes too much upon his own guesses.

54 SUMMARY. From the preceding paragraphs it ought to be
evident that in the period of the decline all conditions were favor-
able for the preservation in some form of the manuscripts. The
influence of the schools, however, and the well meant, but not
always successful, efforts of the revisers would lead us to expect
variations in the texts of the more popular authors, and the disap-
pearance of those thought less useful for instruction and less
admirable in style.

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THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS. 41

LOST WORKS. It is well known that the works of certain 55
Roman authors have been entirely lost, that of others we possess
parts only, that there are few whose writings are wholly preserved.
We should not regret this, if the works of inferior authors only
had been lost but among the missing are some of the most
famous in the lines of history, oratory, philosophy, and poetry.
We should expect it, if the works of early writers only had per-
ished but whole volumes of Cicero, two-thirds of Tacitus, three-
fourths of Livy are gone, to mention those names only that are
as familiar to us as our own. No imperial library could have
lacked complete editions of their works, they must have been
included in hundreds of private collections, school boys must have
studied them, and teachers commented upon them, but they are
no more to be found. We have therefore to explain how so much
has disappeared, and how so much has been preserved.

THE DARK AGES. It was at the very time when Roman lit- 56
erature was the center of all intellectual activity ( 43) that the
catastrophe came that was to overwhelm learning, literature and
even Rome itself. In the fourth century the Roman empire was
divided ; Valentinian took the eastern half with Constantinople for
his capital, leaving Rome and the west to his brother Valens.
The fifth century had only just begun when the hordes of the
north fell upon the western half and made havoc of it. First the
Vandals, turned from Italy, established themselves in Gaul. Then
the Visigoths sacked Rome, passed into Gaul, and drove the Van-
dals into Spain. The Vandals, again, crossed over into Africa,
ravaged that province, and returned to Italy by the south. The
Tartar Huns came next and disappeared leaving desolation behind
them. The Franks attacked Gaul, the Saxons Britain. The Os-
trogoths disputed Italy with the Vandals, and both were dispos-
sessed by the eastern Emperor, Justinian (527-565). He died and
the Lombards appeared. Then the Saracens came from the south

42 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

and the Danes from the north. It was not until the time of
Charles the Great (Charlemagne), in the last part of the eighth
century, that order was restored in Western Europe. Cities had
been pillaged, provinces laid waste, empires overturned, a great
civilization overwhelmed, and a literature that antedated the cities,
provinces and empires, and had inspired the civilization, had prac-
tically disappeared.

57 INDIFFERENCE TO LEARNING. The worst, perhaps, was yet to
come. These three centuries of destruction were followed by five
centuries of indifference to learning. It is impossible to give
within our limits an adequate idea of the ignorance of the period :
the ninth chapter of Hallam's Middle Ages cannot be condensed
into a paragraph. During this time Latin ceased to be a spoken
language; inflections were neglected, syntax ignored, sounds modi-
fied, and Spanish, French and Italian began to be. There was not
even an educated class. The nobles could not sign their names:
until seals were brought into use they subscribed to their charters
with the sign of the cross. The ignorance of the church was the
subject of reproach in every council; in one held in 992 it was
asserted that not a single person in Rome knew the first elements
of letters. In the time of Charlemagne not one priest of the thou-
sand in Spain could address a common letter to another. In Eng-
land King Alfred said that he could not remember a single priest
south of the Thames, the most civilized part of his realm, that
knew the meaning of the common prayers. Alfred himself had
difficulty in translating a pastoral letter of Saint Gregory on
account of his ignorance of Latin, the one written language of the
time. Charlemagne could not write at all. If the ignorance of
nobles, priests and kings was so appalling, that of the commons
must have been sublime, and we are ready to find the loss of
Roman literature less surprising than its partial recovery.

THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS. 43

THE CHURCH. The one preservative agency was the church. 58
In spite of the gross ignorance, the narrow-mindedness, the world-
liness of the priesthood, there were three influences in connection
with the church that made for the preservation of classical litera-
ture. These were the papal supremacy, the liturgy and the mo-
nastic establishments. For our present purpose we may pass over
the first two with the short statement that the liturgy was in
Latin, and that the need of the church of some one language as a
means of communication with its branches everywhere served to
keep alive some faint knowledge of the Latin tongue, corrupted as
it became. The third must be more fully considered. Of the re- 59
ligious orders of Western Europe one of the most ancient was that
founded in 529 on Monte Cassino, near Naples, by Saint Benedict.
Its rule was less severe than that of the others, but it enjoined
upon its members frugality, soberness and above all industry.
From various kinds of manual labor the copying of manuscripts
was finally selected as the most likely to keep the mind from car-
nal thoughts, and so all over Italy, Switzerland, France, England
and Ireland the pious monks laboriously copied and recopied the
manuscripts of Latin authors amid all the destruction of barbaric
invasions, and the poverty of learning that followed. It must be
clearly understood that these manuscripts were not copied for pub-
lication. The work was purely mechanical, a treadmill process.
The completed codices were stored away in the vaults of the abbeys
to molder and decay, until, in later times, when the very knowl-
edge of their meaning was lost, they were brought out to be
washed and scraped and made fit to receive other copies by other
generations of monks. It was from no love of learning, therefore,
that the Benedictines and the allied brethren saved the literature
of Rome, so much of it, that is, as did not rot in cellars and dun-
geons, or was not remorselessly rubbed away to make room for
hymns and homilies and lives of the saints and martyrs. For

44 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

such precious compositions as these were the parchments used that
a king's ransom would not now purchase.

60 THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING. It is impossible to give here an
intelligible account of the gradual revival of learning during the
period which we have described above as the Dark Ages. The
history of the five hundred years from 800 to 1300 comprises the
growth of schools, the planting of universities, the cultivation espe-
cially of the more useful sciences of medicine, law and theology.
It was not until the fourteenth century that literature felt the new
movement, and that in Italy. Petrarch (1304-1374) and Boccaccio
(1313-1375) were the first to turn for better models to the almost
forgotten classics of their countrymen of an earlier day, and the
finest minds of the next generations followed their guidance. The
last quarter of the fourteenth century saw all Italy permeated with
the new enthusiasm, and a positive fever was inspired for recov-
ering the lost literature of Rome. Then it was that the stores of
manuscripts buried in the monasteries were eagerly brought to
light. Vast quantities were found at Monte Cassino (see 59),
and at Bobbio in Italy, at St. Gallen and Einsiedeln in Switzer-
land, at Fulda and Mainz in Germany, and in far distant England
even, wherever the copying of manuscripts had been the employ-

61 ment of the monks. Petrarch was especially active in searching
for new treasures and protecting those that were discovered -for
the danger of losing them again was not over in the fourteenth
century. A treatise of Cicero De Gloria had been in his posses-
sion, but was afterwards irretrievably lost. He declares that in his
youth he had seen the works of Varro, but all his efforts to
recover these and the second decade of Livy were fruitless. He
did find in 1350 a copy of Quintilian, the only one known until
sixty-four years later another copy was found in a dungeon under
the monastery of St. Gallen. By this time the awakening had
touched all classes. Princes and popes gathered scholars at their

THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS. 45

courts as the surest means of obtaining fame for themselves. The
representatives of the popes in other countries sent to Italy all
the classical manuscripts of which they could possess themselves
by fair means or foul. Almost all the Latin manuscripts which
we now have were thus discovered between 1350 and 1450. Many
very ancient manuscripts known at that time have since been lost,
but so many copies were made that, so far as we know, but one
entire work has disappeared, the Vidularia of Plautus.

INVENTION OF PRINTING. The fortunate invention of printing 62
about 1450 made secure what had been recovered. The first Latin
author to be sent abroad in the new form was Cicero, whose De
Omciis was printed in 1465. In less than twenty years from this
time the Venetian printer, Aldus Manutius, had begun his great
work of giving to the world almost the whole body of ancient lit-
erature in the form that has made his name a synonym for taste-
ful and convenient volumes.

SUMMARY. This sketch, short and colorless as it is, helps to 63
explain several important facts, often referred to in critical editions.

1. The largest collections of valuable manuscripts are in Italy.

2. The very oldest manuscripts are likely to be palimpsests.

3. The large majority of our manuscripts were written in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

4. Many extant manuscripts are copies of an older manuscript,
also extant.

5. Some manuscripts were written by persons with little or no
knowledge of Latin.

6. The printed cditio princcps of certain authors is valuable,
because it may have been derived from good manuscripts since
lost to us.

EDITIONES PRINCIPES. The following list includes the prin- 64
cipal Latin authors: Apuleius, Rome, 1469; Caesar, Rome,
1469; Catullus, Venice, 1472; Cicero, De Omciis, Rome, 1465,
Opera Omnia, 1498; Gellius, Rome, 1469; Horace, Venice, 1470;

46 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

Juvenal, Rome and Venice, 1470; Lactantius, Rome, 1465; Livy,
Rome, 1469 ; Lucan, Rome, 1469 ; Lucretius, Brescia, 1473 ;
Martial, Rome, 1470; Nepos, Venice, 1471; Ovid, Rome and
Bonn, 1471; Persius, Rome, 1470; Plautus, Venice, 1472; Pliny
the Younger, Venice, 1485; Propertius, Venice, 1472; Quintilian,
Rome, 1470; Sallust, Venice, 1470; Seneca's Prose Works,
1475, Tragedies, Ferrara, 1484; Statius, Venice, 1472; Sueto-
nius, Rome, 1470; Tacitus, Venice, 1470; Terence, Strassburg,
1470; Tibullus, Venice, 1472; Valerius Flaccus, Bonn, 1474;
Velleius Paterculus, Basle, 1520; Vergil, Rome. 1469.

Arranged chronologically: 1465 Cicero's De Officiis, Lac-
tantius ; 1469 Apuleius, Caesar, Gellius, Livy, Lucan, Vergil ;
1470 Horace, Juvenal, Martial, Persius, Quintilian, Sallust,
Suetonius, Tacitus, Terence; 1471 Nepos, Ovid; 1472 Catul-
lus, Plautus, Propertius, Statius, Tibullus ; 1473 Lucretius ;
1474 Valerius Flaccus ; 1475 Seneca's Prose Works ; 1484
Seneca's Tragedies; 1485 Pliny the Younger; 1498 Cicero's
Opera Omnia; 1520 Velleius Paterculus.

65 ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. The following list gives the dates of
all extant Latin manuscripts which are thought to be no later
than the sixth century. As will be explained hereafter (115),
the dates are merely approximate, and any of the older parch-
ments may be later by a century than the date here assigned to
it. It is also possible that some may have been written at an
earlier time. FIRST CENTURY : Two papyrus fragments from Her-
culaneum containing selections from prose writers. A papyrus roll
from Herculaneum containing the Carmen De Bello Actiaco, a
specimen is given in 103. THIRD or FOURTH CENTURY: The
seven oldest manuscripts of Vergil, specimens of three, Plates I,
V and X. Three fragments of Sallust's Histories, at Berlin, Rome
and Naples, a specimen is given in 103. Palimpsest fragment
of Juvenal and Persius at Rome. Palimpsest of Livy at Verona.

66 Fragment of Livy, Book XCI, at Rome. FOURTH or FIFTH CEN-
TURY : Fragments of a palimpsest of Lucan at Vienna, Naples and
Rome. The Codex Bembinus ( 53) of Terence at Rome, for speci-
men see Plate III. The palimpsest of Cicero De Re Publica at

THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BOOKS- 47

Rome, for specimen see 106 and Plate II. Palimpsest of Cicero's
Orations at Turin. Milan and Rome (from Bobbio. see 60 above).
Palimpsest of Cicero's Orations against Verres at Rome. A few
leaves of a palimpsest of Livy at Turin. Palimpsest of Gaius at
Verona. Palimpsest of Merobaudes (first half of the fifth century)
at St. Gallen. Fasti at Verona. FIFTH or SIXTH CENTURY:
Palimpsest of Ulpiaii at Vienna. Palimpsest of Lactantius at St.
Gallen. Vatican fragments of the Jurists, Rome. Palimpsest of
Plautus at Milan (from Bobbio). Fragment, De Jure fisa\ at Ve-
rona. A few leaves of a palimpsest of Hyginus at Rome. Palimp-
sest of Gellius and fragments of Seneca at Rome. Manuscript of
the Grammarian Cledonius (fifth century) at Berne.

It will be noticed that of these twenty-four manuscripts, many 67
of which are badly mutilated, no less than fourteen are palimpsests,
but it must also be noticed that, valuable as these palimpsests are.
none has furnished us with the complete text of any work of any
author. Their testimony is usually decisive for such portions of a
given text as they contain, and, more than this, they often enable
us to select from later, more legible, and complete codices, the one
which is truest to the original.

THE KEEPING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS.

68 QARE OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. The manuscripts recov-

ered as described above remained sometimes the property of
the abbeys in which they were found, but more often passed by
purchase, gift or theft into the possession of individual owners, and
were at all times liable, as articles of ordinary commerce, to be
mutilated, lost, or destroyed. Those that have come down to mod-
ern times receive better treatment. All of any value are kept in
the great libraries of Europe, the property of the universities or
* even of the various states. The rules governing their use vary
with their value and the spirit of the libraries where they are
kept. Some may be taken from the libraries for the purpose of
study, others may be examined freely within the library itself, but
may not be removed from it, others still must be handled only by
an officer of the library, who finds the passage which the student
desires to examine, and reads or shows it to him. In general it
may be said that, when scholars are properly introduced to the
authorities, all reasonable facilities are given them for examining
and comparing even the most valuable manuscripts. The greatest
obstacle is the lack of complete descriptive catalogues to some of
the most interesting and important collections.

69 NAMING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. Every library has its own sys-
tem of identifying its books and manuscripts by letters or num-
bers, and by these letters or numbers added to the Latin name of
the library or city where they are kept the manuscripts are now
known and described. A manuscript that has passed from library
to library, as almost all have done, has borne of course the special
name and mark of each, and so has been known and described
differently at different times. Besides, many manuscripts were

THE KEEPING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. 49

used by scholars when they were the property of individuals, and
were then called merely by the names of their owners. It follows,
therefore, that in using editions of an author separated by many
years we may find the name of a given manuscript varying with
the dates of the several editions. Owing to these changes in the 70
name it has sometimes happened that a manuscript has been sup-
posed to be lost which really existed but was disguised by a differ-
ent name, and also that readings from the same manuscript have
been quoted under its several names so as to lead to the belief
that the one manuscript was two or more. Such errors are sure
to be detected in the course of time by the identity of the quoted
readings, but they show how necessary it is to have a full history
and an accurate description of every valuable manuscript.

DESCRIPTIONS. As an example of the brief descriptions given 71
in modern critical editions the following is taken from Kiibler's
edition of Caesar's Gallic War (1893) in Teubner's series: "Codex
Amstelodamensis Si saec. VIIII-X, olini Floriacensis, postea inter
libros Petri Danielis Aurelianensis, deinde Jacobi Bongarsii, inde
Bongarsianus primus dictus." The manuscript is number 81 in
the library of Amsterdam, was written in the ninth or tenth cen-
tury, was previously in the abbey of Fleury-sur-Loire (in France),
afterwards in the private library of Pierre Daniel of Orleans
(born 1530, died 1603), then in that of Jacques Bongars (born
1554, died 1612), and was consequently called Bongarsianus primus.
Critical editions usually add particulars as to the condition of the
manuscript, the size and number of pages, its style of writing, the
errors that occur most frequently, etc., etc. Examples are given
in connection with the plates. These descriptions are often hard
reading, because names of modern places and even persons are
Latinized, and these names are not given in our dictionaries. Some
help in interpreting these names is given in the following para-
graphs, but completeness is not attempted.

5 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

72 IMPORTANT LIBRARIES. The libraries with collections of clas-
sical manuscripts are too numerous to be described here, but the
most important are named in the following list in alphabetical
order by countries. For further information see the article Li-
braries in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, from which ' this is con-
densed. There are no Latin manuscripts of any value in the
United States.

AUSTRIA: The Imperial Library at Vienna (Vindobona),
founded in the fifteenth century, contains 500,000 volumes and
20,000 manuscripts (codices Vindobonemes) . There are besides good
manuscripts in some of the monastic establishments, e. g., at
Saltzburg (Salisburgum, codices Salisburgenses). The University
Library of Prague contains 200,000 volumes with 3,800 manu-
scripts (c. Pragenses}.

BELGIUM: The libraries of the universities at Ghent (Ganda-
vjini) and at Liege (Leodicuni) have together over 3,000 manu-
scripts (c. Gandavenses and Leodicenses). The Royal Library at
Brussels (Bruxellae] contains 30,000 manuscripts (c. Bruxellenses).
73 DENMARK: The Royal Library at Copenhagen (Haimia),
founded in the sixteenth century, has 500,000 volumes and nu-
merous manuscripts (c. Haunienses).

ENGLAND: At Cambridge (Cantabrigid) the University Library
has 6,000 manuscripts (c. Cantabrigienscs], with many others of
great value in the library of Trinity College. At Oxford (Oxonia]
the Bodleian Library, founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley,
contains 30,000 manuscripts (c. Bodleiani, or Oxonienses) and a
valuable collection of first editions (see 64) of Greek and Latin
authors. At London (Londinium] is the library of the British
Museum, one of the largest and most important in the world,
which was founded in 1753 and contains 1,600,000 volumes,
including more than 50,000 manuscripts (c. Britannia' or Londi-
nenses). These manuscripts are often further described by the

m petfmrr-tfr offta^i^uL faekmn^ SsfreuaiC- uliiucb*

a*ferf ^r-ftAr^man LufttfefluLmd*

f tfiquecumpAiictrr-eLiStm tucLtf
tncpnf^rarfimof ^AtTincui^ntr 1 l?

'T' ' p*J /^^ "t* wL*frt^'* H-X/r* ^*.LA is \^\j * 1^147

dceffe- - S ertd-u^oircj', im pA-zttprri ttr^mfn-rv^UtT Ammufe^t'* auiu-Jit^to^iM -

i -^

v >3 (
iiKa

THE KEEPING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. 5!

names of previous owners, e. g., codices Townlciani, from the col-
lection of Charles Townley (1737-1805) and codices Harlciani, col-
lected by Robert Harley (1661-1724), Earl of Oxford, and his son. 74

FRANCE: At Paris (Lutetia Parisioruni] the National Library
is the largest library in the world, founded in the fourteenth cen-
tury, containing 100,000 manuscripts (c. Parisini, or Parisiaci}.
Many of these were formerly in the ancient Royal Library (c.
Regii} or less important collections e. g., at St. Germain (c. San-
germanenses), and at Fontainebleau (c. Bliaudifontani}. Some few
good manuscripts still remain in provincial towns, e. g., at Mont-
pellier (c. Montepessulani}.

GERMANY : Almost all the universities have large libraries
containing manuscripts of value. The University of Heidelberg
(Heidelberga), situated in the Palatinate, has over 400,000 vol-
umes and many manuscripts (c. Palatini], and the University of
Strassburg (Argentoratum] has 500,000 volumes and some good
manuscripts (c. Argentoratenses}. At Berlin (Berolinum} the Royal
Library contains 15,000 manuscripts (c. Berolinenses]. At Dresden
(Dresdena] the Royal Library has about 500,000 volumes with
4,000 manuscripts (c. Dresdenses}. At Gotha the Ducal Library has
more than 6,000 manuscripts (c. Gotham}. At Munich (Mona-
chiuni) the Royal Library, founded in the sixteenth century, is the
largest in the empire and contains 30,000 manuscripts (c. Mona-
censes], while the University Library has 1,800 more. The Royal
Public Library at Stuttgart (Stuttgardia) has 3,800 manuscripts.

HOLLAND: At The Hague the Royal Library has 4,000 manu- 75
scripts. At Leyden (Lugduniim Batavorum] are 5,000 manuscripts
(c. Leidcnses or Lugduncnses Batavi}. At Amsterdam (Amsteloda-
mnm] are some very valuable manuscripts (c. Amstelodamenses) in
the library of the university.

ITALY: Of the numerous collections of manuscripts in Italy
(63) only the most noteworthy can be mentioned here. At

52 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

Florence is the Laurentian library attached to the church of St.
L/orenzo; it contains some 10,000 manuscripts, chiefly from the
library of San Marco, the collections of the Medici and Leopoldo
families, and the library of John Ashburuham, of England, pur-
chased by the Italian government in 1884 (c. Florentini, Lauren-
tiani, Medicei, S. Mara, Lcopoldini, Ashburnhamii, etc.). The

FIG. 7. VATICAN LIBRARY.

Biblioteca Riccardiana, founded by the Riccardi family and pur-
chased by the government in 1812, contains 3,800 manuscripts (c.
76 Rtccardiani}. At Milan (Mediolanum} the Ambrosian library has
8,000 manuscripts (c. Mediolanenses or Ambrosiani), including some
famous palimpsests. At Naples there are 4,000 manuscripts in the
National library and museum (c. Neapolitani), some from the old

THE KEEPING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. 53

Bourbon library (c. Borbonici). At Rome is the Vatican Library,
the most famous and magnificent but not the largest in the world,
containing some 23,000 manuscripts (c. Vaticani or Romam).
Among these are most of the manuscripts brought from Bobbio
( 60), 3,500 taken from Heidelberg in 1623 (c. Palatini, see
above), many bequeathed to the library in 1600 by Fulvius Orsini
(Ursinus, c. Ursiniani}, others purchased from Duke Federigo of
Urbino in 1655 (c. Urbinates], from Queen Christina of Sweden by
Pope Alexander VIII (c. Reginenses or Alexandrini}, and from
Cardinal Mai, and many other only less famous collections. The
library is not fully catalogued and its management is far from lib-
eral. Two other libraries, the Biblioteca Cosanatense and the Bib-
liotcca Vittorio Emanuelo, have recently been united and contain 77
more than 6,000 manuscripts, most of them from the important
collections of the Jesuits of the old Collegia Romano. At Turin
(Augusta Taurnwrum] are some good manuscripts (c. Taurinenses)
in the University Library. At Venice (Venetiae) the Marcian
Library, founded in the fifteenth century, contains many valuable
manuscripts (c. Veneti, Marciani, or Veneti Marciani], and there
are others at Verona in the Cathedral Library (c. Veronenses].

SWITZERLAND: There are good libraries with valuable manu-
scripts at Basle (c. Basilienses], at Berne (c. Bernenses}, at Ein-
siedeln (c. Einsidlenses}, at St. Gallen (c. Scmgallenses), and at
Zurich (c. Turicenses).

INDEX TO COLLECTIONS. In the following list are arranged 78
alphabetically the names of manuscripts mentioned above, with
a few others occurring in critical editions of school classics :
Alexandrini (Rome), Ambrosiani (Milan), Amstelodamenses
(Amsterdam), Argentoratenses (Strassburg), Ashbumhamiani
(Florence), Basilienses (Basle), Bembinus (of Cardinal Pietro
Bembo, 1470-1547), Bernenses (Berne), Berolinenses (Berlin),
Blandiniani (Blankenberg, Belgium), B liaudifontani (Fontaine-
bleau), Bodleiani (Oxford), Bongarsianus (\ 71), Borbonici (Na-
ples), Britannia (London), Bruxellenses (Brussels), Budenses

54 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

79 (Buda, Hungary), Cantabrigienses (Cambridge), Caroliruhenses
(Carlsruhe), Colbertini (of Jean Baptist Colbert, 1619-1683,
statesman, France), Colonienses (Cologne), Corbciensis (of Cor-
vey, town with monastery, in Germany), Cuiacianus (of Jacques
Cujas, 1522-1590, France), Einsidlenses (Einsiedeln), Florentini
(Florence), Floriacensis ( 71), Fuldenses (Fulda, Germany),
Gudiani (of Marquard Glide, 1619-1700, Germany), Graevianns
(of J. G. Greffe, 1632-1703, Netherlands), Gnelferbytani (Wol-
feiibu'ttel, Germany), Haunienses (Copenhagen), Laurentiani
(Florence), Leidenses (Leyden), Lcopoldini (Florence), Lipsienses
(Leipzig), Londinenses (London), Marciani (Venice), Matritenscs
(Madrid), Medicei (Florence), Mcdiolanenses (Milan), Minorau-

gienses (of Augia Minor, an ancient abbey in Austria), Mona-
censes (Munich), Montepessulani (Montpellier), Moysiacenses (of
the abbey of Moissac, France), Neapolitani (Naples), Ottoboniani
(of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, 1668-1740, nephew of Pope Alex-
ander VIII, Vatican, Rome), Oxonienses (Oxford), Palatini
(Heidelberg, Rome), Parisiaci, or better Parisini (Paris), Petro-
politani (St. Petersburg), Pragenses (Prague), Reginenses (Rome),

80 Regii (Paris), Regionwntani (Konigsberg), Riccardiani (Flor-
ence), S. Marti (Florence; to be carefully distinguished from
Marciani above), Sangallenses (St. Gallen), Sangermanenses (St.
Germain), Scaligcranus (of J. C. Scaliger, 1484-1558, or J. J.
Scaliger, 1540-1609), Sorboniani (of the Sorbonne, a depart-
ment of the University of France), Taur incuses (Turin), Thua-
neus (of Jacobus Augustus Thuaneus (De Thou), a statesman
and historian of France, 1553-1617), Toletani (at, Toledo, Spain),
Turicensis (Zurich), Urbinatcs. Ursiniani, Vaticani (Rome),
Veneti and Veneti Marciani (Venice), Veronenses (Verona), Vin-
dobonenses (Vienna), Vossianus (of Isaac Voss, 1618-1689),
Vralislavienses ( Breslau ) .

81 SYMBOLS FOR THE MANUSCRIPTS. In editions of the classics
in which the manuscripts are frequently mentioned, it is custom-
ary for the editors to use in place of the name or names of each
manuscript, often long and unwieldy ( 71), an arbitrary symbol,
usually a letter of the alphabet or a numeral. These symbols
are prefixed to the descriptions of the manuscripts where they are
first given, usually in the introduction or the critical appendix.
For example, to the description quoted above ( 71) Kiibler has

THE KEEPING OF THE MANUSCRIPTS. 55

prefixed the letter A, and by this symbol the given manuscript,
codex Amstelodamensis ' /T> > L.M '> -

ll., B EPITAPH OF L. CORNF.UUS SCIPIO.

to the invention of printing for certain works held in extraordi-
nary esteem (the Scriptures, Vergil) and in other works for the
titles and the headings of chapters. From this last use was de-
rived the name Capital (capnt, chapter) which is still used for one
style of these majuscules, the oldest known to the Romans. It 96
may be studied in the copy (Fig. 8) of the inscription upon the

FIG. 9. POMPEIAN WALL INSCRIPTION.

Surda sit oranti tua |janua laxa ferenti] | audiat oxclusi verba [receptus amans] | janitor
ad dantis vigilet [si pulsat inanis] | surdus in obductam sofmniet usque scram]

64 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

tomb of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, dating from the third century
B. C. The second style is known as the Cursive. It was used for
less formal purposes than the publication of books, c. g., for mem-
oranda, accounts and correspondence. It is known to us from
words scratched or written upon all sorts of objects found in the
ruins of Pompeii, and also from a number of wax tablets, dating
from the second century A. D., which were found between 1786
and 1855 in the mines of Dacia. A specimen from Pompeii is
given here (Fig. 9) and a comparison of these cursives with the
majuscules above will discover differences not unlike those exist-
ing between our small script letters and printed capitals.

97 NATIONAL HANDS. This old Roman cursive had nothing
directly to do with the transmission of the classics, and is
therefore of less interest to the student of Paleography than
of Diplomatics. Employed for almost all purposes except for
the publication of books, but characteristically for legal and
administrative documents, it gradually developed, under local
influences and modified by the prevailing book hands, into
three strongly marked National Hands, the so-called Visigothic,
Merovingian and Lombard, very much as the Latin language
at the same time was' becoming the vernacular languages of
Spain, France and Italy. The most important of these is the
Lombard, which reached its fullest development at Monte Cas-
sino ( 59) during the ninth century. The Irish hand has a
different origin ( 105), and is far above the continental hands
in firmness and beauty. None of the National Hands were
destined to endure long, all being superseded after the time of
Charlemagne by the Minuscule type, which is discussed below
( 108).

98 THE MAJUSCULES. The Latin Majuscules divide into two types,
the Capital and the Uncial. The Capital is the more ancient, is
derived directly from the pattern used for carving upon hard mate-
rials, and therefore prefers the straight line to the curve, because
curves are hard to manage upon stone, wood and metal. So far
as formal literary works are concerned the Capital is the character-
istic type for the papyrus roll. It was so stiff and slow to write

ROLLS FROM

CAPITALS
FROM CODICES.

ANCIENT
CURSIVES.

UNCIALS.

N(A,A)

N X A

\. ( A) aeAA

& " '

U b *

c r

< ^ V -7

rf I? **

1 1 5 =

2 I I

.2 a s o

S .2

^ U O QJ

* * I

JS S "3 "

3 3 P

<-> O .5

4J t/i *J

U U CJ

.' -'3

(/) TO yi Q

V -^ ffi ^

3 C JS

K c c

U 9 fi

aj O C

X3 .2 rt ^2 3

HI i-* ^" -

3 >

a .5" w

<2 C S
D O

COC,K)lt >

r ir

f(*fl

f S

iST'T*' final

X;*. d

CT (ti 9

C (ti as

*- Jlerov.)

? ?* P

vr y

* 1

FIG lf>. HAIJ- CNCIAI. AND MINUSCULE LETTERS.

74 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

ning together of the up and down strokes which we keep sepa-
rated in our script (). The letter r is not perpendicular to the
line of writing, as are the other letters, but inclines to the right
and has the side stroke broad and sweeping. There is almost no
distinction between f and s, as in our own books a century ago,
and the i has no dot. The Minuscule introduces the separation
of words, and a feeble attempt at punctuation. Abbreviations are
not especially numerous at first.

HI In the eleventh century the club-like vertical strokes disappear,
the writing becomes noticeably more slender, and the o and rounded
parts of b and d become egg-shaped. From this time abbrevia-
tions become more and more numerous and arbitrary.

In the thirteenth century the rounded character, which has
increased with every improvement in the book hand, begins to
disappear. The o, for example, is made with two strokes o, and
so the other letters with rounded parts, and finally all the curved
lines become straight. This is the Gothic type, forced and arti-
ficial, requiring two or three times the care and time to write: cf.
the four stroked o (0). For the reader it is especially trying. It
' is almost impossible to distinguish the letters i, n, u and m, espe-
cially when several occur in combination (e. g., minimum}: this led
to the writing of double i with accented letters (11), and finally to
the accent over a single i (i), whence our dotted form. It is from
this Gothic Minuscule that the German lower case letters are
derived.

112 In the fifteenth century came a reaction. The Humanists
( 60, 61) with a finer taste turned back to the Caroline Minuscules
as the characters for their copies of the precious manuscripts they
were searching for so eagerly and copying as fast as found. Here,
too, they made improvements. From the majuscules they borrowed
initial letters for sentences and proper names, and used them, as
has been remarked already, for titles and chapter headings.

' l
6

i 1 f 11 -I

-3 2 v fa !r "2 S s.

X w > -T*

e MIL*

~- V r C r i
fi ? I 1' g

76 LATIN MANUSCRIPTS.

113 SPECIMENS. The vast majority of our classical manuscripts are
written in minuscule letters, and specimens are therefore easy to
obtain, even if hard to select. The fac-similes of manuscripts of
Caesar, Sallust and Cicero (Plates IV, VI, VII, VIII, etc.) are
excellent examples of their several dates. In addition to these is
given an example of a fifteenth century manuscript, a Munich
codex of Livy (Fig. 17), to show the improved forms of the Hu-
manists. It is fortunate for us that the invention of printing
came during this period of simple good taste, for it fixed the
Caroline character forever as the type for modern books.

114 ABBREVIATIONS. In the later styles of the minuscules the
number of contractions, abbreviations and ligatures increases to an
enormous extent. The object was to save not merely time and
labor, but also parchment which was exceedingly costly. The use
of these abbreviations has greatly increased the labor of the pale-
ographer, because there was no general system in accordance with
which they were used, and a scribe's misinterpretation of a prede-
cessor's symbols might introduce, and has introduced, endless con-
fusion into our texts. It is impossible to give any connected
treatment of the subject. A table of the most frequent contrac-
tions is given (Fig. 18), with the warning that practice only will
enable one to read with accuracy, not to say facility, the manu-
scripts of the later centuries.

115 SUMMARY. From what has been said it will be understood
that the age of the ordinary manuscript can be fixed only within
very wide limits. The various styles of writing shade so grad-
ually into each other, that it is hard to tell where the earlier ends
and the later begins. In general it may be said that a codex
wholly in capitals is earlier than the eighth century, and if the
words are not divided earlier than the seventh; that an uncial
manuscript was written between the fourth and the eighth; the
minuscule prevails after the ninth, and if marked by many abbre-

apud

quae.qui,

quod: fj quae, d & a qui, o> &

autem

t-f, }/ (An.Sax.)A~U A u^-

dct & CJ^ quod.

ber

quando

tin , also <]

deus.i etc.

D5 Dl etc., etc.,

quoniam


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