Although modern texts of Propertius have generally inclined to conservatism, there remains a number of cases where editors have chosen, in Housman's phrase, timidly to alter what they might without rashness have defended; or where the arguments so far advanced in favour of the best attested reading leave room for supplement. Thus: I. 6. 25 f. me sine, quem semper uoluit fortuna iacere, hanc animam extremae reddere nequitiae. extrema … nequitia Fonteine.

Although modern texts of Propertius have generally inclined to conservatism, there remains a number of cases where editors have chosen, in Housman's phrase, timidly to alter what they might without rashness have defended; or where the arguments so far advanced in favour of the best attested reading leave room for supplement. Thus: I. 6. 25 f. me sine, quem semper uoluit fortuna iacere, hanc animam extremae reddere nequitiae. extrema … nequitia Fonteine.

I would refer to the introductory paragraphs of J. Diggle's ‘Notes on Ovid's Tristia, Books I-II’ , 401–19). His list of modern editions does not include F. Della Corte, I Tristia , which I too have not seen. For Book IV we have an edition by T. J. de Jonge.

‘In spite of the efforts of scholars to improve matters, the condition of Seneca's text remains in many places most uncertain or quite irrecoverable. Again and again one has to be content with conjectures which, while often giving the general sense of a passage, must not be taken as certainly Seneca's words’ . 1. praef. 5 o quam contempta res est homo, nisi supra humana surrexerit! quam diu cum affectibus colluctamur, quid magnifici facimus, etiam si superiores sumus? portenta vincimus: quid (...) est cur suspiciamus nosmet ipsos, quia dissimiles deterrimis sumus? Traditional punctuation: ‘… quid magnifici facimus? etiam si superiores sumus, portenta vincimus’. (shrink)

People who trust modern indexes will suppose that the name of Sex. Clodius, the disreputable henchman of Publius, comes twice in the Ad Atticum letters, 14. 13. 6 and 14. 13 A. 2. The manuscripts give it as follows.

‘He was of Rutulian blood, born of a Saguntine mother; but he had Greek blood too, and by his two parents he combined the seed of Italy with that of Dulichium’. So Duff, and Ruperti's ‘Murrus matre Graia et patre Romano progenitus’ is not the whole story. To Silius Saguntine = Greek because, as Duff says, ‘men of Zacynthos had taken part in founding Saguntum’. prole = ‘with his children’—van Veen's Itala may well be right.

A Significant distinction can be noticed in Cicero&s contemporary references to the anti-revolutionary parties in the first two Civil Wars. For both he claims superior dignitas: Rosc. Am. 136 quis enim erat qui non videret humilitatem cum dignitate de amplitudine contendere? , Lig. 19 principum dignitas erat paene par, non par fortasse eorum qui sequebantur. But in the Pro Roscio dignitas and nobilitas go together. Sulla's cause is causa nobilitatis , his party is the nobility , his triumph victoria nobilium (...) . Such expressions, frequent and casual, evidently belonged to current usage and may be assumed to have fitted the facts. Marian nobiles are indeed not lacking; but the records are meagre, and presumably they were a small minority in their class. An ironical hit at Verres tells the same tale ten years later: ut possit aliquis suspicari C. Verrem, quod ferre novos homines non potuerit, ad nobilitatem, hoc est adsuos transisse —for a nobilis, as such, Sulla was the only leader. Verres' true motive for changing sides, discreditable of course, is explained later on ; eo Sullanus repente foetus est, non ut honos et dignitas nobilitati restitueretur. (shrink)

Few authors, I should suppose, get less expert treatment in this lexicon than Cicero, so far at least as his letters are concerned. That is largely because the editors chose to trust Tyrrell and Purser, to whom Cicero's Greek was no less full of pitfalls than his Latin. The following notes may be of help in the preparation of a tenth edition.

Cicero's use of the term is hardly a joke, and has to do with medicine, not logic. He says that his predecessor as governor of Cilicia, App. Claudius Pulcher, is like a doctor whose patient has been transferred to another practitioner, and who takes offence when the new man alters the treatment.

Few authors, I should suppose, get less expert treatment in this lexicon than Cicero, so far at least as his letters are concerned. That is largely because the editors chose to trust Tyrrell and Purser, to whom Cicero's Greek was no less full of pitfalls than his Latin. The following notes may be of help in the preparation of a tenth edition.

R. Renehan's ingenious solutions to the problems of Symphosius 42. 1 and Anth. Lat. 207 in this journal, 471 f.) are much to be welcomed. On the other hand, I do not think that his defence of the manuscript reading in Anth. Lat. 24. 3 marcent post rorem violae, rosa perdit odorem holds water. Taking rorem as = rorem marinum he explains that ‘the poet is not presenting us with a piece of botanical information about the relative seasons of the (...) violet and rosemary; he means rather that all flowers wither and fade’. Actually, however, the poet on this showing does present information; and whether the information is botanically correct or not, that is an odd way to make his point. Stranger still is his choice of rosemary out of all the fading flowers of field and garden. It was bound to be I misunderstood. As Renehan indicates, ros = ros marinus is supported only by Virg. Georg. 2. 212–13, where the identity has been doubted, and Plin. HN 24. 100, where ex rore supra dicto refers back to ros marinum in 99. Renehan may well be the first reader not to take rorem as dew. And an evergeen shrub makes a singularly unfortunate illustration of floral decay, even though the shrub does produce a flower. Pliny classes it with herbs. (shrink)

Velleius text rests on a single manuscript, found at Murbach in 1515, which long ago disappeared. We know of it from three reports: the editio princeps by its discoverer Rhenanus, published in 1520, apparently from an inaccurate copy taken by an anonymous friend;1 notes on the manuscript taken by Rhenanus' secretary Burer, who compared it with proofs of the edition; and a copy, probably from the same source as P, taken in 1516 by B. Amerbach and discovered by Orelli in (...) 1834. Of this text one editor has written: 'While modern scholarship has made progress in solving its enigmas, the text of Velleius, unless some long-hidden manuscript shall unexpectedly come to light, will always continue to be one of the most corrupt among the surviving texts of classical authors. (shrink)

Few authors, I should suppose, get less expert treatment in this lexicon than Cicero, so far at least as his letters are concerned. That is largely because the editors chose to trust Tyrrell and Purser, to whom Cicero's Greek was no less full of pitfalls than his Latin. The following notes may be of help in the preparation of a tenth edition.

‘He was of Rutulian blood, born of a Saguntine mother; but he had Greek blood too, and by his two parents he combined the seed of Italy with that of Dulichium’. So Duff, and Ruperti's ‘Murrus matre Graia et patre Romano progenitus’ is not the whole story. To Silius Saguntine = Greek because, as Duff says, ‘men of Zacynthos had taken part in founding Saguntum’. prole = ‘with his children’—van Veen's Itala may well be right.

Critics, once so busy with Manilius, have left him alone since Housman's edition was completed a quarter of a century ago. Perhaps I shall seem rash to break the silence by challenging a few of his verdicts. I do so in no spirit of iconoclasm, but rather believing that Housman wrote for readers who will occasionally call him wrong—at their peril, and on their knees.

oscula suspensis instabant carpere palmis oscula et alterna ferre supina fuga. It has been held that ferre is here to be taken for Φέρεσθαι oscula ferre is a fairly common phrase; I have met with it in twenty-two other passages down to Apuleius, in eighteen of which the meaning dare oscula is certain and in two more it is appropriate. The two exceptions are Ov. Her. 15. 101 non tecutn lacrimas, non oscula nostra tulisti and ibid 16. 253 f. oscula (...) si natae dederas, ego protinus ilia / Hermiones tenero laetus ab ore tuli. Neither offers a true parallel to the use attributed to Propertius , and in both the sense ‘bear away’ is made unmistakable by other words . As a matter of usage, then, it is justifiable to assume the meaning ‘give a kiss’ for this phrase, unless something else is plainly indicated. Further, the Propertian lines gain in point by the contrast between carpere ‘snatch’ and ferre ‘bring’. (shrink)

R. Renehan's ingenious solutions to the problems of Symphosius 42. 1 and Anth. Lat. 207 in this journal , 471 f.) are much to be welcomed. On the other hand, I do not think that his defence of the manuscript reading in Anth. Lat. 24. 3 marcent post rorem violae, rosa perdit odorem holds water. Taking rorem as = rorem marinum he explains that ‘the poet is not presenting us with a piece of botanical information about the relative seasons of (...) the violet and rosemary; he means rather that all flowers wither and fade’. Actually, however, the poet on this showing does present information; and whether the information is botanically correct or not , that is an odd way to make his point. Stranger still is his choice of rosemary out of all the fading flowers of field and garden. It was bound to be I misunderstood. As Renehan indicates, ros = ros marinus is supported only by Virg. Georg. 2. 212–13, where the identity has been doubted, and Plin. HN 24. 100, where ex rore supra dicto refers back to ros marinum in 99. Renehan may well be the first reader not to take rorem as dew. And an evergeen shrub makes a singularly unfortunate illustration of floral decay, even though the shrub does produce a flower. Pliny classes it with herbs. (shrink)

Cicero's use of the term is hardly a joke, and has to do with medicine, not logic. He says that his predecessor as governor of Cilicia, App. Claudius Pulcher, is like a doctor whose patient has been transferred to another practitioner, and who takes offence when the new man alters the treatment.

Velleius text rests on a single manuscript, found at Murbach in 1515, which long ago disappeared. We know of it from three reports: the editio princeps by its discoverer Rhenanus, published in 1520, apparently from an inaccurate copy taken by an anonymous friend;1 notes on the manuscript taken by Rhenanus' secretary Burer , who compared it with proofs of the edition; and a copy , probably from the same source as P, taken in 1516 by B. Amerbach and discovered by (...) Orelli in 1834. Of this text one editor has written: 'While modern scholarship has made progress in solving its enigmas, the text of Velleius, unless some long-hidden manuscript shall unexpectedly come to light, will always continue to be one of the most corrupt among the surviving texts of classical authors. (shrink)

Seneca ‘Rhetor’ was last critically edited by H. J. Müller in 1887; the editions of H. Bornecque and W. A. Edward lack an apparatus criticus, though the latter's notes give some attention to textual points. Whoever next addresses himself to the task can take heart from Eduard Norden : ‘der Text ist schwer korrupt, für Konjekturalkritik noch viel zu tun.’ It may be added that he will do a service by jettisoning a large proportion of what Konjekturalkritik has already produced-too (...) much of this nature in Müller's text and apparatus, to say nothing of later contributions, is merely depressing. (shrink)

A Significant distinction can be noticed in Cicero&s contemporary references to the anti-revolutionary parties in the first two Civil Wars. For both he claims superior dignitas: Rosc. Am. 136 quis enim erat qui non videret humilitatem cum dignitate de amplitudine contendere?, Lig. 19 principum dignitas erat paene par, non par fortasse eorum qui sequebantur. But in the Pro Roscio dignitas and nobilitas go together. Sulla's cause is causa nobilitatis, his party is the nobility, his triumph victoria nobilium. Such expressions, frequent (...) and casual, evidently belonged to current usage and may be assumed to have fitted the facts. Marian nobiles are indeed not lacking; but the records are meagre, and presumably they were a small minority in their class. An ironical hit at Verres tells the same tale ten years later: ut possit aliquis suspicari C. Verrem, quod ferre novos homines non potuerit, ad nobilitatem, hoc est adsuos transisse —for a nobilis, as such, Sulla was the only leader. Verres' true motive for changing sides, discreditable of course, is explained later on ; eo Sullanus repente foetus est, non ut honos et dignitas nobilitati restitueretur. (shrink)