Ixxx
Manusceipts ok dion cassius.
LECTURE X.
The Abbé Morelli, an excellent philologer, and one of the
most amiable and most learned men of the eighteenth century,
while seeking to console himself for the fall of Venice in the
year 1797, discovered in its library a manuscript of Dion
Cassius, which had originally been complete, but through
various circumstances, had suffered the greatest mutilations.
This manuscript was the mother-manuscript for the books from
fifty-five to sixty. There are many gaps in it which are not
indicated by any marks; but all is written continuously as if
nothing were wanting. This kind of deception on the part of
Greek copyists who lived by their art, was not uncommon in the
fifteenth century. AIorelli collected these defective passages;
from which we see that entire pages, or even quaternions are
sometimes wanting. Through his discovery, we first become
acquainted with the memorable expedition of Ahenobarbus to
Germany, which had, until then, been unknown. It has not
yet been noticed that in two books of Diodorus, one half is
wanting in the manuscripts; in one instance a great part of
the middle of a book is left out, as has been pointed out by
Perizonius and others; but it is not always possible to point
out the exact places in which these gaps exist; for such omis-
sions are sometimes made so cleverly and cunningly, as to
render it a matter of the greatest difficulty to hit upon the spot
where they occur. Sometimes, however, copyists were more
careless; they broke off in one passage and connected another
with it in such a manner, that there was absolutely no sense in
the passage thus made up; but then they knew that books
were not always bought with a serious intention to read them.1
About the editions of Dion Cassius I shall say but little : the
Italian writer, NicoIaus Carminius Falco, to make the foolish assertion, that
Dion had copied his history from Plutarch, and that the rest was founded on
Zonaras! With this view of the matter, he made an announcement that he was
going to publish a restoration of Dion Cassius. His ignorance was so great that
in hi⅛ announcement he wrote BιflλD oκτo7(>>τα, instead of βιβlΛα oγSo-l∣κovτa.—N.
(The first volume was actually published at Naples, 1747. fol.)
’ The new fragments which Morelli discovered were published by him at
Bassano, 1798, 8vo., and a reprint of them appeared at Leipzig, in 1818, 8vo.
EDITIONS OE DION CASSIUS.
Ixxxi
best are, that of R. Stephens, the Basle edition (1558), and
that of Fabricius and Reimarus. The text still requires a good
deal of correction; and a comparison of the Venetian manu-
script, of which Sturz in his edition (1824) has made, I believe,
no use, would be extremely important. The remarks of Fa-
bricius and Reimarus are of extraordinary historical value ; but
show little grammatical knowledge of the language. Wemust
own that Fabricius was not a great philologcr ; and Reimarus,
Iiis son-in-law, though in other respects a man who deserves
great admiration, was even inferior to him. The accentuation
is horrible; but, although deficient in philological learning,
Reimarus devoted himself with so much attention to the form-
ation of the Greek index, that it is one of the most excellent
we possess. He wτho wishes to study Dion Cassius, should
read this index first. It was made, I believe, after the whole
work was completed. Had Reimarus made the index before
the completion of the work, his grammatical notes would have
been of a different kind.2
After the time of Dion Cassius, the Greeks as well as the
Romans confined themselves to making excerpta and compila-
tions. The great works were neglected and lost in the middle
ages ; and although the first and third decads of Livy were read
in schools for the proυectiores, still as far as the study of the
history of Rome is concerned, people were satisfied with Florus,
Eutropius, Rufus, Victor and Orosius, whose sketches were,
generally speaking, considered as the sources of Roman history,
and were multiplied in innumerable copies down to the time
of the revival of letters. Eutropius was even continued
by Paul Warnefricd and Sagar. Valerius Maximus also was
much read as a collection of accounts of noble actions,
though otherwise he is one of the most wretched authors. But
although, after the fall of the western empire, there were yet
some men at Rome and Ravenna who collected and read the
old manuscripts which had escaped the destruction of the bar-
barians, still there were throughout the middle ages no general
views, no idea of symmetry, and no striving after anything
which did not present itself at once; people were satisfied with
2 Philological indices are extremely useful to a scholar, and they enhance the
value of an edition considerably. He who makes a philological index, is led to
the consideration of an infinite number of questions and points, of which he
would otherwise never have thought,—N.
’ol.t. a