Lines 27.14–17 of the text published by Justin Stover as Apuleius, De Platone 3 are printed by him as follows: quorum [sc. animalium] inmortalia esse quae in caelo sint; idcirco illa ordine cieri et eodem semper modo et alioquin esse prudentia.Of them [sc. animals], the immortal animals are those which are in the heavens; thus they move in an ordered pattern in the same way, and in addition, they are rational.

The ‘New Apuleius’ is a set of Latin summaries of Plato's works first published in 2016 by Justin Stover, who attributed it to Apuleius. The present article attempts to assess two key aspects of Stover's argument, viz. his reconstruction of the manuscript transmission of the new text and his use of computer-assisted stylometric techniques. The authors suggest that both strands of his argument are inconclusive. First, it is argued that the transposition of gatherings in the archetype of the Apuleian philosophica (...) as envisaged by Stover is highly unrealistic. Second, replications of Stover's stylometric experiments show that their results are highly dependent on the particular algorithm settings and on the composition of the corpus. It is further shown that Stover's choice of highly specialized stylometric techniques is suboptimal, because popular generalist methods for statistical data analysis are demonstrably more successful in correctly identifying authors of Latin text fragments and do not support the case for Apuleius’ authorship of the new text. The authors conclude that there are no solid grounds to conclude that the ‘New Apuleius’ was indeed written by Apuleius. (shrink)

Lines 3.20–2 of the text published by Justin Stover as Apuleius’ De Platone 3 are printed by him as follows: improbat deinde eos qui negantis homines in seruitute habeant aut qui omnino eiusdem ciuitatis nationem belli iure diruant aut qui hostium spolia deorum aedibus adfigant.He [sc. Plato] then rebukes those who hold people in slavery against their will, or else who destroy utterly the people of that same city by right of war, or who hang the spoils of enemies on (...) the shrines of the gods. (shrink)

The article presents an edition of the previously unpublished letter from A. E. Housman to Grigory E. Saenger, written in Latin and dated 28 May, 1909, as well as a commentary on this text. The letter contains a criticism of Saenger’s 1909 edition of Statius’ Siluae. Housman evaluates the general approach of the edition and pronounces his judgement on two particular decisions made by the editor. The commentary treats both the general context of the letter and particular statements made by (...) Housman. The approach recommended by Housman is compared to those adopted in the major post-Saengerian editions of the Siluae; it is suggested that, while in certain respects some of the modern editions come close to what Housman endorsed, in other ways there is nothing among them to compare with it. (shrink)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.