%
% Holmes' commentary on Caesar's De Bello Gallico.
% The Text of the Commentaries (preface 2).
%
% Contributor: Konrad Schroder <
[email protected]>
%
% Original publication data:
% Holmes, T. Rice. _C._Iuli_Caesaris_Comantarii_Rerum_in_
% _Gallia_Gestarum_VII_A._Hirti_Commentarius_VIII._
% Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1914.
%
% Version: 0.01 (Alpha), 7 April 1993
%
% This file is in the Public Domain.
%
\input ks_macros.tex
\centerline{THE TEXT OF THE COMMENTARIES}
\bigskip
E{\sc VERY} one who can read the Commentaries with interest will want to
know how far the manuscripts in which they have been handed down to us
correspond with what Caesar wrote; for if he will think, he will see that
none of them correspond with it exactly, and that although scholars have
been trying ever since 1469, when the first printed edition was published,
to remove the errors, many must still and always will remain. The oldest of
the extant manuscripts was written fully 900 years after the book was first
put into circulation. Now, however careful a scribe may be, he can hardly
avoid making some mistakes in copying out a written book; the scribe who
copies his copy will make more; and so on. Even contemporary copies of
Caesar's original manuscript doubtless contained mistakes.
Cicero\footnote{$^1$}
{Q., fr., iii, 5--6, \S~6.}
complains that books sold by the booksellers of Rome had been carelessly
copied; and, notwithstanding all the care of proofreaders, few modern books
are entirely free from printers' errors. Besides, a manuscript might pass
into the hands of a reader who would make notes on the margin; and if
another copy were to be made from the one which contained these notes, the
copyist might be misled into incorporating them in the text. Thus two kinds
of mistakes would gradually find their way in. An example of the latter
kind---{\it nocte intermissa}---will be found in i. 27, \S~4. An example of
the other shows how even a very careful copyist might go astray. In viii,
32, \S~2 the famous stronghold, Uxellodunum, is mentioned for the first
time. {\it Uxellodunum} was only written by the copyist in two of the good
manuscripts: the rest have {\it auxilio dunum,} which, as every one will
see, is nonsense. Can you imagine how this curious blunder was made? In
this way. In some manuscript a reader wrote either in the margin or above
{\it uxellodunum} (not {\it Uxellodunum,} for even proper names were
written with small initial letters) the words {\it a.~uxellodunum,} and by
{\it a.,} which was an abbreviation, he meant {\it aliter,} `otherwise'. He
wished to show that besides {\it uxellodunum} there was another spelling
{\it uxillodunum.} This manuscript passed into the hands of a copyist who
misunderstood the abbreviation {\it a.} and wrote {\it auxillo dunum,} and
as {\it l} might easily be mistaken for {\it i}, somebody else wrote {\it
auxilio dunum}.
A great many manuscripts of Caesar exist; but only nine or ten of them are
now considered good. They are divided into two groups, known as $\alpha$
and $\beta$, and generally believed to be derived from a common original,
or archetype, which is called {\it X.} Each manuscript is called by a
letter, which is here prefixed to the full name:---
{\it A} = codex Bongarsianus (or Amstelodamensis 81) of the ninth or tenth
century.
{\it B} = Parisinus I (Paris, Biblioth\`eque nationale, 5763, ninth or
tenth century).
{\it M} = Vaticanus (Vatican, 3864, tenth century).
{\it Q} = Moysiacensis (Paris, Bibl. nat., 5056, twelfth century)
{\it S} = Ashburnhamianus (Bibl. Laurent. R. 33, tenth century).
{\it a} = Parisinus II or Thuaneus (Paris, Bibl. nat., 5764, eleventh
century).
{\it f} = Vindobonensis I (Bibl. Vindob. [Vienna], 95, twelfth century).
{\it h} = Ursinianus (Vatican, 3324, eleventh century).
{\it l} = Riccardianus (Bibl. Riccard. [Florence], 541, eleventh or twelfth
century).
H. Meusel traces the pedigree of these MSS. as follows:
\centerline{[figure: page xii]}
To $\phi$ may be added the best manuscript in the British Museum (Add. {\sc
MSS.} 10,084), which is known as Lovaniensis and referred to as {\it L.} I
have published a collation of this manuscript in the Classical Quarterly of
July, 1911, and Meusel has estimated its value in {\it Jahresberichte des
philologischen Vereins zu Berlin,} 1912, pp. 15-18.
Professor A. Klotz ({\it Rhenisches Museum,} 1910, pp. 224-34) thinks that
the foregoing pedigree, which has been generally accepted, is incorrect. He
believes, with Professor B. K\"ubler, that the archetype of all the extant
{\sc MSS}. was a copy belonging to $\beta$, and that $\alpha$ is descended
from a copy belonging to the same group, in which readings from a
manuscript of the sixth century, published by two editors---Julius Celsus
Constantinus and Flavius Licerius Firminus Lupicinus---were inserted.
Accordingly Klotz has constructed this pedigree, which, in the Opinion of
Meusel ({\it Jahresberichte des Philologischen Vereins zu Berlin,} 1912,
pp. 18-21), may possibly be right:---
\centerline{[figure: page xiii]}
The two groups, $\alpha$ and $\beta$, differ from each other about 1,500
times; and an editor cannot do without either. But when they differ and
neither is obviously wrong, how is he to decide between them? Simply, in
most cases, by considering the context or by carefully noting Caesar's use
of language in passages in which the two groups agree. This laborious task
has been performed by various critics, notably by three German scholars,
Rudolf Schneider, Meusel, and Alfred Klotz. Let me give one or two
examples. In v, 35, \S~5 $\alpha$ has (cum a prima luce ad horam octavam)
{\it pugnaretur;} $\beta$ has {\it pugnassent.} The former is preferable
because Caesar in describing the duration of a battle almost always uses
the passive. In vii, 64, \S~2 $\alpha$ {\it h} have (peditatu quem ante)
habuerat (se fore contentum dicit); while the rest of the $\beta$ {\sc
MSS}. have {\it habuerit,} which is certainly right, because the relative
clause is part of what Vercingetorix said, and therefore the subjunctive is
necessary. But in some cases the claims of $\alpha$ and $\beta$ appear to
be equally balanced; and here, for reasons which I have given in the {\it
Classical Review} of 1901 (p.~175), I follow with Meusel the reading of
$\alpha$. There is also a considerable number of passages in which, though
all the manuscripts agree, the text is obviously wrong, and has been
corrected with more or less success. Some of these emendations are
certainly right. For instance, in i, 40, \S~9 the {\sc MS}. reading is (cui
rationi contra homines barbaros .~.~. locus fuisset) {\it ac} (ne ipsum
quidem sperare nostros exercitus capi posse); and the obvious correction,
{\it hac,} appeared just four centuries ago in the Aldine edition. Again,
in vii, 3, \S~2 the {\sc MSS}. have (Nam) ubique (maior atque inlustrior
incidit res, clamore .~.~. significant): the emendation {\it ubi quae} is
self-evident. Other emendations are highly probable; and fortunately those
doubtful or corrupt passages which are important for history are very few.
In this book it would be useless to give a list of the various readings of
the manuscripts, or to explain in all cases the reasons that have led me to
adopt one reading\footnote{$^2$}
{Teachers and other readers who may be interested in textual
questions will find a full {\it apparatus criticus} in H.
Meusel's edition of 1894, which is supplemented by an article
contributed by the present editor to the Classical Quarterly of
July, 1911. A list of articles which may be consulted with profit
will be found in {\it Caesar's Conquest of Gaul,} p.~202; and
others will be referred to in my foot-notes. Every one who wishes
to make a special study of the Commentaries from the linguistic
point of view should read Meusel's paper in {\it Jahresberichte
des philologischen Vereins zu Berlin,} 1894, pp, 214-398, and
Professor Postgate's in the {\it Classical Review,} 1903, pp.
441-6.}
in preference to another. I have briefly discussed in foot-notes all the
more important passages in which the text is uncertain; but in regard to
comparatively unimportant variations, where I have either been convinced by
Meusel's arguments or those of other scholars, or have independently come
to the same conclusion, I have not here stated the reasons: they are to be
found in articles to which I refer below.\footnote{$^3$}
{See the preceding note. In the {\it Classical Review} 1901,
p.~176, I have given reasons for preferring in many places the
reading of $\beta$. Nipperdey rated this group very low, partly
perhaps because he was ignorant of {\it h} and {\it l} and in his
time $\alpha$ had not been accurately collated; but even he was
often obliged to have recourse to $\beta$. It must not, however,
be imagined that those scholars who have vindicated the
independent worth of $\beta$ undervalue $\alpha$.}
Readers of the critical notes will see that when I enclose a word or a
passage in the text in square brackets, I do not necessarily mean more than
that I regard it as open to suspicion, though some bracketed words are
certainly spurious. The obvious emendations, of which I have already given
two examples, and which, as a rule, I have adopted silently, will be found
in Meusel's critical edition. The principle to which I have adhered is
never to incorporate an emendation in the text, even when I am inclined to
believe that it represents what Caesar wrote, unless the {\sc MS}. reading
or readings seem indefensible. When, for instance, one finds that in vii,
10, \S~1 {\it expugnatis} is used in a sense which the verb has nowhere
else in Caesar, and never in Cicero or in Sallust, one feels the necessity
of caution.
\medskip
N{\sc OTE}.---When I quote readings adopted by Meusel which are not in his
text of 1894, they are to be found in the reissue of his school edition
(1908) unless I state that he has adopted them since.
\bye
