% % Holmes' commentary on Caesar's De Bello Gallico. % The Text of the Commentaries (preface 2). % % Contributor: Konrad Schroder % % Original publication data: % Holmes, T. Rice. _C._Iuli_Caesaris_Comantarii_Rerum_in_ % _Gallia_Gestarum_VII_A._Hirti_Commentarius_VIII._ % Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1914. % % Version: 0.01 (Alpha), 7 April 1993 % % This file is in the Public Domain. % \input ks_macros.tex \centerline{THE TEXT OF THE COMMENTARIES} \bigskip E{\sc VERY} one who can read the Commentaries with interest will want to know how far the manuscripts in which they have been handed down to us correspond with what Caesar wrote; for if he will think, he will see that none of them correspond with it exactly, and that although scholars have been trying ever since 1469, when the first printed edition was published, to remove the errors, many must still and always will remain. The oldest of the extant manuscripts was written fully 900 years after the book was first put into circulation. Now, however careful a scribe may be, he can hardly avoid making some mistakes in copying out a written book; the scribe who copies his copy will make more; and so on. Even contemporary copies of Caesar's original manuscript doubtless contained mistakes. Cicero\footnote{$^1$} {Q., fr., iii, 5--6, \S~6.} complains that books sold by the booksellers of Rome had been carelessly copied; and, notwithstanding all the care of proofreaders, few modern books are entirely free from printers' errors. Besides, a manuscript might pass into the hands of a reader who would make notes on the margin; and if another copy were to be made from the one which contained these notes, the copyist might be misled into incorporating them in the text. Thus two kinds of mistakes would gradually find their way in. An example of the latter kind---{\it nocte intermissa}---will be found in i. 27, \S~4. An example of the other shows how even a very careful copyist might go astray. In viii, 32, \S~2 the famous stronghold, Uxellodunum, is mentioned for the first time. {\it Uxellodunum} was only written by the copyist in two of the good manuscripts: the rest have {\it auxilio dunum,} which, as every one will see, is nonsense. Can you imagine how this curious blunder was made? In this way. In some manuscript a reader wrote either in the margin or above {\it uxellodunum} (not {\it Uxellodunum,} for even proper names were written with small initial letters) the words {\it a.~uxellodunum,} and by {\it a.,} which was an abbreviation, he meant {\it aliter,} `otherwise'. He wished to show that besides {\it uxellodunum} there was another spelling {\it uxillodunum.} This manuscript passed into the hands of a copyist who misunderstood the abbreviation {\it a.} and wrote {\it auxillo dunum,} and as {\it l} might easily be mistaken for {\it i}, somebody else wrote {\it auxilio dunum}. A great many manuscripts of Caesar exist; but only nine or ten of them are now considered good. They are divided into two groups, known as $\alpha$ and $\beta$, and generally believed to be derived from a common original, or archetype, which is called {\it X.} Each manuscript is called by a letter, which is here prefixed to the full name:--- {\it A} = codex Bongarsianus (or Amstelodamensis 81) of the ninth or tenth century. {\it B} = Parisinus I (Paris, Biblioth\`eque nationale, 5763, ninth or tenth century). {\it M} = Vaticanus (Vatican, 3864, tenth century). {\it Q} = Moysiacensis (Paris, Bibl. nat., 5056, twelfth century) {\it S} = Ashburnhamianus (Bibl. Laurent. R. 33, tenth century). {\it a} = Parisinus II or Thuaneus (Paris, Bibl. nat., 5764, eleventh century). {\it f} = Vindobonensis I (Bibl. Vindob. [Vienna], 95, twelfth century). {\it h} = Ursinianus (Vatican, 3324, eleventh century). {\it l} = Riccardianus (Bibl. Riccard. [Florence], 541, eleventh or twelfth century). H. Meusel traces the pedigree of these MSS. as follows: \centerline{[figure: page xii]} To $\phi$ may be added the best manuscript in the British Museum (Add. {\sc MSS.} 10,084), which is known as Lovaniensis and referred to as {\it L.} I have published a collation of this manuscript in the Classical Quarterly of July, 1911, and Meusel has estimated its value in {\it Jahresberichte des philologischen Vereins zu Berlin,} 1912, pp. 15-18. Professor A. Klotz ({\it Rhenisches Museum,} 1910, pp. 224-34) thinks that the foregoing pedigree, which has been generally accepted, is incorrect. He believes, with Professor B. K\"ubler, that the archetype of all the extant {\sc MSS}. was a copy belonging to $\beta$, and that $\alpha$ is descended from a copy belonging to the same group, in which readings from a manuscript of the sixth century, published by two editors---Julius Celsus Constantinus and Flavius Licerius Firminus Lupicinus---were inserted. Accordingly Klotz has constructed this pedigree, which, in the Opinion of Meusel ({\it Jahresberichte des Philologischen Vereins zu Berlin,} 1912, pp. 18-21), may possibly be right:--- \centerline{[figure: page xiii]} The two groups, $\alpha$ and $\beta$, differ from each other about 1,500 times; and an editor cannot do without either. But when they differ and neither is obviously wrong, how is he to decide between them? Simply, in most cases, by considering the context or by carefully noting Caesar's use of language in passages in which the two groups agree. This laborious task has been performed by various critics, notably by three German scholars, Rudolf Schneider, Meusel, and Alfred Klotz. Let me give one or two examples. In v, 35, \S~5 $\alpha$ has (cum a prima luce ad horam octavam) {\it pugnaretur;} $\beta$ has {\it pugnassent.} The former is preferable because Caesar in describing the duration of a battle almost always uses the passive. In vii, 64, \S~2 $\alpha$ {\it h} have (peditatu quem ante) habuerat (se fore contentum dicit); while the rest of the $\beta$ {\sc MSS}. have {\it habuerit,} which is certainly right, because the relative clause is part of what Vercingetorix said, and therefore the subjunctive is necessary. But in some cases the claims of $\alpha$ and $\beta$ appear to be equally balanced; and here, for reasons which I have given in the {\it Classical Review} of 1901 (p.~175), I follow with Meusel the reading of $\alpha$. There is also a considerable number of passages in which, though all the manuscripts agree, the text is obviously wrong, and has been corrected with more or less success. Some of these emendations are certainly right. For instance, in i, 40, \S~9 the {\sc MS}. reading is (cui rationi contra homines barbaros .~.~. locus fuisset) {\it ac} (ne ipsum quidem sperare nostros exercitus capi posse); and the obvious correction, {\it hac,} appeared just four centuries ago in the Aldine edition. Again, in vii, 3, \S~2 the {\sc MSS}. have (Nam) ubique (maior atque inlustrior incidit res, clamore .~.~. significant): the emendation {\it ubi quae} is self-evident. Other emendations are highly probable; and fortunately those doubtful or corrupt passages which are important for history are very few. In this book it would be useless to give a list of the various readings of the manuscripts, or to explain in all cases the reasons that have led me to adopt one reading\footnote{$^2$} {Teachers and other readers who may be interested in textual questions will find a full {\it apparatus criticus} in H. Meusel's edition of 1894, which is supplemented by an article contributed by the present editor to the Classical Quarterly of July, 1911. A list of articles which may be consulted with profit will be found in {\it Caesar's Conquest of Gaul,} p.~202; and others will be referred to in my foot-notes. Every one who wishes to make a special study of the Commentaries from the linguistic point of view should read Meusel's paper in {\it Jahresberichte des philologischen Vereins zu Berlin,} 1894, pp, 214-398, and Professor Postgate's in the {\it Classical Review,} 1903, pp. 441-6.} in preference to another. I have briefly discussed in foot-notes all the more important passages in which the text is uncertain; but in regard to comparatively unimportant variations, where I have either been convinced by Meusel's arguments or those of other scholars, or have independently come to the same conclusion, I have not here stated the reasons: they are to be found in articles to which I refer below.\footnote{$^3$} {See the preceding note. In the {\it Classical Review} 1901, p.~176, I have given reasons for preferring in many places the reading of $\beta$. Nipperdey rated this group very low, partly perhaps because he was ignorant of {\it h} and {\it l} and in his time $\alpha$ had not been accurately collated; but even he was often obliged to have recourse to $\beta$. It must not, however, be imagined that those scholars who have vindicated the independent worth of $\beta$ undervalue $\alpha$.} Readers of the critical notes will see that when I enclose a word or a passage in the text in square brackets, I do not necessarily mean more than that I regard it as open to suspicion, though some bracketed words are certainly spurious. The obvious emendations, of which I have already given two examples, and which, as a rule, I have adopted silently, will be found in Meusel's critical edition. The principle to which I have adhered is never to incorporate an emendation in the text, even when I am inclined to believe that it represents what Caesar wrote, unless the {\sc MS}. reading or readings seem indefensible. When, for instance, one finds that in vii, 10, \S~1 {\it expugnatis} is used in a sense which the verb has nowhere else in Caesar, and never in Cicero or in Sallust, one feels the necessity of caution. \medskip N{\sc OTE}.---When I quote readings adopted by Meusel which are not in his text of 1894, they are to be found in the reissue of his school edition (1908) unless I state that he has adopted them since. \bye