The four forms of the Greek word appear in the printed text as:
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As the Bambergensis (Bg), in its present state, only commences at i. 1. 6. (nec de patribus tantum), the readings of the Harleianus (H) are for the Prooemium and part of chapter 1 of first-class importance. In the pr. §1 we have pertinerent H, pertinent T: §2 diversas H, divisas T: §5 fieri oratorem non posse HF, fieri non posse oratorem T (as A): §6 amore H, studio F: iτ ingenii H, iter ingenii T, ingenii F: §13 officio quoque H, quoque officio F: §19 summa H (also Bg), summam T: §25 demonstraturi HF, demonstrari T: §27 adiumenta H (a correction by same hand on adiuvante): so Bg F: adiuvante T. In chap. 1 §3 sed plus HT: sed et plus F: hoc quippe viderit H Bg F: hoc quippe (om. viderit) T.
These instances are taken from the introductory part of the First Book, where Bg almost entirely fails us, only a few words being here and there decipherable. Wherever I have compared, in other places, the readings of Bg (and G), H, T, and F, I have found H, if not always in exact agreement with the Bamberg MS. (often owing to the copyist’s ignorance of Latin) invariably nearer the parent source than either T or F. Here are a few instances from the First Book: I §8 nihil est peius Bg H T, nihil enim est peius F: ib. §11 defuerit Bg H T, defuerint F: ib. §12 perbibet Bg H F, perhibet T: ib. §16 formandam Bg H, formandum F T: 2 §18 in media rei p. vivendum Bg (b) H, in med. rei praevivendum T, reip. videndum F: ib. §24 depellendam Bg H, repellendam T: ib. §31 concipiat quis mente Bg H, quis mente concipiat F: 4 §27 tereuntur Bg H T, intereuntur F: 6 §9 dicet Bg, dicit H F, dicitur T: ib. §14 dici ceris Bg (dici ceris),A diceres H, dici F T: ib. §30 aliaque quae consuetudini serviunt Bg H,—in margin of H aliquando consuetudini servit (b): F and T adopt the latter, and give the alternative reading in the margin: 10 §28 haec ei et cura H F, haec et cura ei T: 11 §4 pinguitudine Bg H, pinguedine F T. Among scattered instances elsewhere are the following: ii. 5, 13 dicentur Bg H, docentur T: 5 §26 hanc Bg H, om. T: 15 §8 testatum est Bg H, testatum T. In ix. 363 G has parem (for marem A): H gives patrem and F T follow suit: cp. ix. 4, 8 hoc est G H, id est F: ib. §16 quoque G H, om. T: ib. §32 nesciat G H, dubitet F: dignatur G H, digne dicatur F: viii. pr. §3 dicendi G H, discendi T: ix. 4, 119 ignorabo G, ignoraba H, ignorabam T: ib. §129 et hac fluit G H, et hac et hac fluit T: xii. 11, 8 scierit G, scieret H, sciret T: ib. 2 §18 autem Bg H, om. T: x. 1, §4 numuro quae G H, num muro quae T, numeroque F: ib. §50 et philogus G, et philochus H T, et epiloghus F: ib. §73 porem G H, priorem F T: ib. §75 vel hoc est G H, hoc est vel T: x. 2, 7 posteriis (for historiis) H, posteris F (posterius ed. Camp.): x. 2, 10 discernamus Bg, discernantur b, disnantur H T, desinantur F. Noteworthy cases of the close adherence of T to H are the following: Empedoclena i. 4, 4: vespueruginem i. 7, 12: tereuntur i. 4, 27: flex his x. 1, 2: gravissimus x. 1, 97: ipsae illae quae extorque eum credas x. 1, 110, where both also give trans usum for transversum, and non repe for non rapi: morare refinxit finxit recipit x. 3, 6: nam quod cum isocratis x. 4, 4. In other instances the writer of T has evidently tried to improve on the reading of H: e.g. in the title of Book x, H gives an abbreviation which T mistakes for quo enim dandum: also extemporal facilitas which appears in T as extempora vel facilitas: x. 1, 79 ven iudicis H (in mistake for se non iud.), which is made by T into venit iudicis. Many similar instances could be cited in regard to both T and F; the reading tantum, for instance, in x. 1, 92, which occurs in both, has evidently arisen from H, which here shows something that looks more like tantum than tacitum (the reading of G). Again, in every place where Halm uses the formula ‘F T soli ex notis,’ H will be found to correspond77.
A. (dici ceris) text image showing inserted letters:
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With such evidence as has been given above, it is impossible to doubt that the Harleianus must now take rank above both the manuscripts which, before the appearance of Halm’s edition, held so prominent a place in the criticism of Quintilian, the Codex Florentinus and the Codex Turicenis. The former is an eleventh century MS., now in the Laurentian library at Florence. On the first page is this inscription: Werinharius episcopus dedit Sanctae Mariae: on the last Liber Petri de Medicis, Cos. fil.: and below Liber sanctae Mariae ecclesiae Argñ. (= Argentoratensis) in dormitorio. There were two bishops of Strasburg bearing the name of Werner: the first 1001-1029, and the second 1065-1079. M. Fierville (Introd. p. xciv) tells us that the first Werner (of Altemburg or Hapsburg) laid the foundations of the cathedral at Strasburg in 1015, and presented to the Chapter a number of valuable books; and we also know that in 1006 he had attended the Council at Frankfort to promote the erection of a cathedral church at Bamberg. Here then we have the elements of a solution of the problem. Bishop Werner was a patron of letters; and learning that by the addition of what is now known as Bambergensis G a complete text of Quintilian had been secured, he had it copied. The Codex Harleianus was in all probability the first copy, and from it the Codex Florentinus was reproduced. The latter was still at Strasburg in 1372, a fact which (though hitherto it seems to have been unnoticed) is enough to dispose of its claim to be considered the manuscript of Poggio, which he describes as ‘plenum situ’ and ‘pulvere squalentem’ lying ‘in teterrimo quodam et obscuro carcere, fundo scilicet unius turris, quo ne capitales quidem rei damnati retruderentur.’ If so important a MS. had passed from Strasburg to St. Gall within forty years of Poggio’s visit, it is hard to believe that it would have been allowed to lie neglected and unknown. After 1372 we know nothing certain of its history till it reappears in the library of the Medicis at Florence in the latter part of the fifteenth century. It is generally supposed that some time between 1372 and 1417 it must have been transported from Strasburg to the monastery of St. Gall, and that it passed from there to Florence after Poggio’s departure. A similar theory may quite as legitimately be maintained in reference to the Harleianus, which, as I have already indicated, may be the very manuscript which Poggio discovered at St. Gall in 141678.
The Codex Turicensis was long considered to be of older date than the Florentinus, but recent investigations seem to have proved the contrary. Halm attributes it to the second part of the eleventh century, and E. Wölfflin takes a similar view. In the beginning of the eighteenth century it passed into the library at Zürich. Spalding believed it to be the manuscript discovered by Poggio, and M. Fierville is of the same opinion: Halm rejects this theory. The great point in favour of the claim of the Turicensis is that it is known to have come from St. Gall, while we can only conjecture the history of the Harleianus. But the Turicensis cannot have been the MS. which Poggio carried with him into Italy, according to a statement made by Bandini, Regius, and others. It is true that this statement is hard to reconcile with what Poggio himself says in his letter to Guarini, whom he informs that he has made hasty transcripts of his various ‘finds’ (presumably including the Quintilian) for his friends Leonardo of Arezzo and Nicolai of Florence. But Poggio may have had his own reasons for a certain degree of mystery about his good fortune. In the preface to his edition, Burmann speaks of the manuscript of St. Gall, on the authority of the librarian Kesler, as having been ‘honesto furto sublatum’: if it was the Harleianus there is perhaps little need to wonder that nothing has been known till now of its later fortunes79.
The affiliation of other MSS. of this class (which includes also the Almeloveenianus) to the codices which have just been described, may be determined by the application of certain tests. Prominent among such MSS. is the Codex Bodleianus, which has received more attention from editors of Quintilian than its merits seem to me to warrant. It repeats word for word the remarkable error attributable to the Harleianus at x. 7, 20 (see above, p. lxviii): in other places it embodies attempted emendations, e.g. x. 1, 90 nec ipsum senectus maturavit: 2 §7 de metris for dimiteris (see above, p. lxvii, note). It belonged to Archbishop Laud, and must have been written in the fifteenth century.
Of the same age and family are two manuscripts often cited by Halm, the Lassbergensis and the Monacensis. The former was formerly at Landsberg in Bavaria: it is now at Freiburg. The reading atque interrogationibus atque interrogantibus, which Halm gives from it alone at x. 1, 35, I have found also in G and H; this seems quite enough to identify its parentage. The Monacensis was collated by Halm for his critical edition in the parts where he had to rely on A G or on G alone: with no conspicuous results,—‘nihil fere aliud effectum est quam ut docere possemus, ubi aliquot locorum, qui in libris melioribus leviter corrupti sunt, emendatio primum tentata sit’ (praef. viii, ix).
Alongside of these I would place a rather interesting MS. in the British Museum, which has been collated specially for the purpose of this edition, with no result worth speaking of, except to establish its class. It repeats the mistake of H at x. 7, 20: and the fact that the copyist began his work in a hand that was meant to imitate writing of the eleventh century seems, along with the internal evidence, to prove that it is one of the copies of Poggio’s MS. In x. 2, 7 it has posterius for historiis (a mistake in H—see p. lxix): and in the same place it shows (like the Bodleian codex) de metris for dimiteris. This is also the reading of the second hand in the Turicensis. Such differences as exist between it and H F T may be ascribed to attempted emendation: e.g. vertere latus x. 3, 21. Poggio’s letter to Guarini is copied at the end of the volume.
The other MSS. of the fifteenth century, so far as they are known to him, M. Fierville divides carefully into two classes (his third and fourth). The principal features of difference which distinguish them among themselves, and from those already mentioned, are that they incorporate, in varying degrees, the results of the progress of scholarship, and that they are seldom copied from any single manuscript. A detailed examination would no doubt establish what is really the point of greatest moment in regard to them: how far are they derived, through Poggio’s manuscript, from the Bambergensis, and how far from such complete manuscripts as the Ambrosianus and the original of Bambergensis G? Some of them (as well as other fifteenth century MSS., with a description of which I desire to supplement M. Fierville’s Introduction, pp. cii sq.), are of at least as great importance as those referred to above as having been collated in part by Halm.
The Argentoratensis (S), also used by Halm, may be mentioned first: it was collated by Obrecht for his edition of 169880. This manuscript was destroyed in the bombardment of Strasburg, August 24, 1870. Then there are the MS. of Wolfenbuttel (Codex Guelferbytanus), collated for the first time by Spalding: the Codex Gothanus, used by Gesner for his edition of 1738: the Codex Vallensis (Parisinus 7723), which purports to bear the signature of Laurentius Valla (9 December, 1444), whose corrections and marginal notes it contains81. The list of these and several others, all carefully described by M. Fierville, may now be extended by a short reference to various MSS. in this country, hitherto uncollated. The results of my examination of them (as well as of the Bodleianus, and Burneianus 243, referred to above) appear in the Critical Appendix: if few of them are of first-class importance, it may at least be claimed that right readings, with which Spalding, Halm, and Meister have successively credited the early printed editions,—e.g. the Cologne edition of 1527,—have now been attributed to earlier sources. And when M. Fierville had so carefully examined the MSS. of France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, it seemed of some importance that his laborious work should be supplemented by a description of the MSS. belonging to the libraries of this country.
In the British Museum there are eight manuscripts in all of Quintilian’s Institutio: of the most important of these, the Harleianus (H), I have already given an account, and one of two MSS. in Burney’s collection (Burn. 243) has also been mentioned. Of the remaining MSS. two may be taken together, as they are in complete agreement with each other, and show conclusive proofs (as will appear in the notes) of relationship to such codices as the Argentoratensis and the Guelferbytanus. The first of these two MSS. (Codex Harleianus 2662) has an inscription bearing that it was written by Gaspar Cyrrus ‘nationis Lutatiae,’ and was finished on the 25th of January, 1434,—only eighteen years after Poggio made his great discovery. So great an advance is evident in the text, as compared with the readings of H F T, that it seems probable that this MS. owes little to that family. The same may be said of the Codex Harleianus 11,671, a beautiful little quarto, dated 1467: it has the Epitome of Fr. Patrizi attached (see Classical Review, 1891, p. 34). The following cases of remarkable errors will suffice to connect both these MSS. with the Guelferbytanus: x. 3, 12 a patrono suo for a patruo suo: 1 §97 verum for veterum: 1 §55 equalem credidit parem (as also Prat., Guelf., S, and Voss. i. and iii.): 1 §72 quamvis sui temporis Menandro for ut pravis sui temporis iudiciis Menandro: 7 §6 adducet ducetur. Another very interesting MS. in the British Museum is Harleianus 4995, dated July 5, 1470: it contains the notes of Laurentius Valla, which were frequently reproduced at the time, and might be classed along with the Vallensis were it not that a marginal note at x. 6, 2 (where a false lacuna appears in most codices, as Bn. and Bg.), ‘hic deficit antiquus codex,’ makes it probable that the copyist had more than one MS. at his side82. This MS. agrees with the Vallensis and Gothanus in reading cognitioni for cogitationi x. 1, 1: ubertate for ubertas 1 §109: et vis summa §117: eruendas for erudiendas 2 §6: nobis efficiendum ib. §14: decretoriis 5 §20. The other two Harleian MSS. (4950 and 4829) present no features of special interest: I have, however, included them in the critical notes for the sake of completeness. The former was written by ‘Franciscus de Mediolano’: it is often in agreement with the Lassbergensis. The latter finishes with the words ἡ βίβλος τοῦ σωζομένου and the motto ἀγαθῇ τύχῃ. The readings of the Burneianus 244 are also occasionally recorded in the notes. All three are in general agreement with L, and also with the Codex Carcassonensis, a fifteenth century MS. of which M. Fierville published a collation in 1874.
A greater degree of interest attaches to two Oxford manuscripts, one of which (the Codex Balliolensis) is unclassed by Fierville, while the other (the D’Orville MS.) has never been examined at all. The former was used by Gibson for his edition of 1693. It begins at bis vitiosa sunt i. 5, 14, but there are various lacunae, which do not correspond with those of the incomplete family. The MS. is in fact in a mutilated condition. In the Tenth Book we miss its help after the end of the first chapter till we reach iii. §26, where it begins again with the words quam quod somno supererit: it stops abruptly at nostrorumque Hort(ensium) x. 6, 4. It is in general agreement with Harleianus 2662. I may note that in i. 5, 36 it has interrogatione, a reading which Halm says appears for the first time in the edition of Sichardus, 1529: ib. §69 it has e rep with A and 7727, with the latter of which it is in close correspondence (e.g. forte at i. 5, 15, all other codices forsan or forsitan).
There remains the D’Orville MS. in the Bodleian at Oxford (Codex Dorvilianus),—a manuscript which has been entirely overlooked, except for a single reference in Ingram’s abridged edition of the Institutio (1809). Yet it seems well deserving of attention. In some places it shows a remarkable resemblance to the Ambrosianus (e.g. Getae 1 pr. §6: et quantum ib. §8): at 1 pr. §4 it has summam inde eloquentiae (Spalding’s reading, found in no other MS.): destinabamus al. festinabimus ib. §6 (the alternative being a reading peculiar to A). Its most important contribution to the Tenth Book is 7 §20, where it gives the reading which Herzog conjectured and which I have received into the text: neque vero tanta esse unquam debet fiducia facilitatis: in 2 §14 (see Critical Notes) it has quos eligamus ad imitandum, a reading peculiar to itself. For the rest it is in general agreement with the Balliol codex. It is Italian work, of the early part of the fifteenth century,—earlier, Mr. Madan thinks, than the Codex Bodleianus. A marginal note at ix. 3, 2 shows that the copyist must have had more than one MS. before him. In some cases it would appear as if he carefully balanced rival readings: at 1 pr. §12. all codices have quaestio ex his incidat except A, which gives ex his incidat quaestio: the reading in the Dorvilianus is quaestio incidat ex his: again at i. 2, 6 ante palatum eorum quam os instituimus, many codices give mores for os: Dorv. shows quam vel mores vel os.
List of editions, tractates, and books of reference.
Besides the complete editions of Spalding, Zumpt, Bonnell, Halm (1868-9) Meister (1886-87), use has been made of the following editions of Book x.:—
Among the Translations, reference has been made to Lindner’s (Philologische Klassiker, Wien, 1881), Alberti’s (Leipzig, 1858), and Herzog’s (Leipzig, 1829); also to Guthrie’s (London, 1805), and Watson’s (in Bohn’s series).
The following have been used as books of reference:—
Wilkins: Cicero, De Oratore, Books i. and ii. (2nd ed.) |
Oxford, 1888 and 1890. |
Sandys: Cicero, Orator. |
Cambridge, 1889. |
Kellogg: Cicero, Brutus. |
Boston, 1889. |
Wolff: Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus. |
Gotha, 1890. |
Andresen: „ „ |
Leipzig, 1879. |
Reiske: Dionysius Halicarnassensis. |
Vols. v-vi. Leipzig, 1775-7. |
Usener: Dionysius Halicarnassensis Librorum de Imitatione Reliquiae, Epistulaeque Criticae Duae. |
Bonn, 1889. |
Ammon: De Dionysii Halicarnassensis Librorum Rhetoricorum Fontibus: Dissertatio Inauguralis. |
Munich, 1889. |
Volkmann: Die Rhetorik der Griechen und Römer. |
2nd ed. Leipzig, 1885. |
Causeret: Étude sur la langue de la Rhétorique et de la Critique Littéraire dans Cicéron. |
Paris, 1886. |
and Fierville: Quintilian, Book i. |
Paris, 1890. |
The references to Nägelsbach’s Lateinische Stylistik are to the eighth edition (Nägelsbach-Müller).
The periodical literature bearing specially on the Tenth Book of Quintilian has grown to very considerable dimensions within recent years. The following articles and tractates have been consulted:—
Table of places where the text of this edition differs from those of Halm (1869) and Meister (1887).