Ixviii
bruns’ discovery.
had not been directed to palimpsests (codices rescripts). lie
found a manuscript which had originally belonged to the
library of Heidelberg, perhaps a Codex Bobbianus, and which
contained some portions of the vulgate of the Old Testament,
but under it he discovered the words : Marci Tullii oratio pro
Roscio incipit féliciter. He saw that the beginning was dif-
ferent from that of any of the extant orations of Cicero, and
at first he thought that the beginning of the oration pro Roscio
comoedo was lost. The original writing was not scratched
out, but merely washed away, and any one who has some
practice in the work can read such manuscripts without using
any tincture He requested the talented Italian, Giovenazzi,
to examine the manuscript with him. The latter saw that it
was the speech for Roscius of Ameria, which was already
known and printed, but paid no attention to the excellent
readings it contained, nor to the fact that the preceding part
of the little volume contained the lost speech pro Rabirio
perduellionis. Afterwards, whilst they were turning over
several pages, they observed some which were written in an
unusually neat manner, and which both were admiring, when
Bruns happened to see the words Titi Livi liber nonagesimus
primus. They now read with incredible difficulty (Tor the
means of bringing out the effaced characters distinctly were
not known) a long fragment of Livy, with the exception of
one part where the writing had been scratched away. The
discovery of this part was reserved for me : I have completely
read the fragment, and supplied what was not legible to my
predecessors.19
LECTURE IX.
Oub text of Livy is very different in the different decads. As
regards the first, you must recollect that all the manuscripts
hitherto discovered depend solely on the copy of Nicomachus
Dexter Flavianus; and at the end of the tenth book we read
in the Florentine, the first Leyden and some other manuscripts,
19 This fragment of the ninety-first book of Livy was edited by Niebuhr at
Berlin in 1820, in his: Cicero pro M.Fonteio et C-Fabirio OrattJragm.
CONDITION OF THE TEXT OF LIVY. ly1'x-
Nicomachus Dexter emendaυi ad exemplum parentis mei Clemen-
tiani. Victorianus emendabam Dominis Symmachis. These
MSS., the text of which is accurately copied in the Codex
Florentinus, are all bad. The English Manuscripts, such as
the Harleian and Lovelian, offer some various readings, but
they are of very recent date, and were made after the revival
of letters, by scholars who treated the text very unceremoni-
ously, whence the various readings are not of great value. It
is unpardonable, that there are still so many manuscripts which
have never been compared. One manuscript, the Codex from
which Klockius made excerρta (Codex Clockianus), shows
some very curious differences in its readings. It is not known
where it now exists. It is altogether so singular that I have
often doubted whether the extracts from it are trustworthy,
and whether Klockius really had a MS. The palimpsests, of
Verona agree on the whole with the Florentine manuscript,
and present scarcely any remarkable difference. According to
our present knowledge of MSS. therefore, we cannot hope to
get beyond the recension of Nicomachus. Not one of the
Paris manuscripts has yet been collated.
The text of the third decad is in a different condition; for
here we have the excellent Codex Puteanus of which Gronovius
made use, and which is much sounder than any manuscript of
the first decad. F or the fourth decad the Bamberg and Mainz
manuscripts, and the editio Ascensiana, are the most valuable.
The various readings in these are most numerous, but they
have not yet been sufficiently collated and examined. The five
books of the fifth decad depend entirely upon the one Vienna
manuscript, the Codex Laurishamensis. Much is yet to be
done for the text of Livy. The libraries of Italy contain
many manuscripts; but we cannot look for much assistance
from them, as the first editions of Livy which were published
may generally be regarded as copies of them. The best MSS.
of Latin authors are in general not those of Italy, but those
of France and Germany. The texts which are commonly used
in Italy are, for the most part, bad.
It is astonishing how little criticism has yet done for Livy;
and yet he was one of the first on whom critical labours were
bestowed. Even Laurentius Valla, a true scholar, before the
invention of the art of printing, wrote brief scholia upon Livy,
and an historical disquisition, whether Tarquinius Superbus