C. Plini Secundi Naturalis Historiae. Vol. II., Libri Vii.–Xv. Ed. Carolus Mayhoff. 8Vo. Pp. Xiv + 592. Leipzig: B
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The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here C. Plini Secundi Naturalis Historiae. Vol. II., Libri vii.–xv. Ed. Carolus Mayhoff. 8vo. Pp. xiv + 592. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. 1909. K. Jex-Blake The Classical Review / Volume 26 / Issue 04 / June 1912, pp 132 - 133 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00199962, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00199962 How to cite this article: K. Jex-Blake (1912). The Classical Review, 26, pp 132-133 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00199962 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 128.122.253.228 on 13 Apr 2015 132 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW throughout the whole volume. The Mommsen's conjecture (on p. 330,1. 23) remark (on p. 90), that it is only in scrib I <Cit> is impossible, but not Latin MSS. written by Irish scribes Miiller's scrib | <[tae>. Festus spelt that an irregular division of syllables strittavum (p. 314, 1. 24), not stritavum, between lines, such asp \ undo, is found, since the fragmentary MS. shows strit should be remembered by editors of at the end of the line. Marx suggests fragmentary MSS. Tested by this <Cferro~^>r as the ending of the Lucilius rule a large number of the conjectural verse in Festus (p. 257, 1. 33); but the supplements of fragmentary lines ac- scribe can hardly have written terror, cepted in Miiller's edition of Festus for the r (according to Marx the final r will be seen to be impossible. The of the word) stands at the beginning of fragmentary Codex Farnesianus of a line. Indeed, this whole book of Festus was written in Italy (probably Traube's emphasises the warning that at or near Rome, according to Dr. E. A. the Latin classics cannot be edited Loew, the leading authority on Italian rightly without a considerable acquaint- script); and no Italian scribe would ance with Latin Palaeography. be guilty of a monstrosity like (p. 318, W. M. LINDSAY. 1. 5) so I 1 or (p. 310, 1. 31) parti | m. SHORT NOTICES C. Plini Secundi Naturalis Historiae. R or any other codex of the same Vol. II., Libri vii.-xv. Ed. CAROLUS family. MAYHOFF. 8VO. Pp. xiv + 592. Leip- The text is in many respects more zig: B. G. Teubner. 1909. M. 8. conservative than that of 1875 ; in particular the more precise know- WHEN Dr. Mayhoff, in 1902, brought ledge of Pliny's style, which is due out the third volume of the Teubner to the work of J. Miiller and others, Pliny, it was practically the first volume has led to the omission in the present of a new edition, so great was the volume of a multitude of small addi- change in the method of arrangement tions previously inserted against the from that which he had followed in consensus of the MSS. Dr. Mayhoff, 1875, when his first recension of Vol. II. however, admits to the text, or prints was published. The present recension in the critical notes, many conjectural of Vol. II., containing books vii.-xv., emendations. Among these a consider- marks the completion of that new able number are his own, many of them edition. The codices on the collation convincing, and many probable. In of which the text is mainly based are ix. 36, for example, tacite is much the named at the head of the page; a best conjecture made for supplying the useful collection of Testimonia is missing word between adnatare . printed below the text, and the critical leniterque; and in xi. 154 fuco for vero notes are full. The editor shows the seems certain. But all the emenda- same diligent care as before emenda- tions accepted are not equally attrac- tionum suo quamque auctori reddere. For tive ; and some appear to be quite this and the preceding volume he has arbitrary. To take a few examples : himself collated two codices, a (Vindob. In viii. 81 for id quoque fabius of the ccxxxiv.) and F (Leid. Lips, vii.), and MSS., Dr. Mayhoff reads id quoque has been led to attach an independent adicit, which seems far-fetched in com- value to F, which he believes to be parison with Pellicerius's fabulosius. In a parallel copy from the same arche- ix. 5 tanta, ut alias thynnorum, multi- type as D, and not a copy of D itself, tudine can hardly be right for et alias, as Detlefsen supposed. The connection tanta, etc., which needs no correction. between D and F appears in any case The point of Pliny's account lies in to be closer than that between F and the vast shoals of tunny seen by THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 133 Alexander's soldiers. Again, in xi. 276, is beating the air. Surely no scholar where oculi quibuscumque sunt longi is who is not making a crib for Passmen the reading of all the MSS., it is thinks of translating Latin quite literally. difficult to see how Dr. MayhofFs We all aim at good English. However, quibus utrimque is nearer to ot av fiev it is ungracious to criticise; for Pro- 5sai fiaKpoi, the words of Aristotle fessor Naylor has provided an excellent on which no doubt the passage Pliny object-lesson by translating Livy's pre- quotes from Trogus is based. In face into very good English indeed. viii. 32 it is unsatisfactory to fall back Some day he ought to go on to Cicero, on the traditional text commoritur ea whose style is essentially even more dimicatio, victusque. The dimicatio ue of un-English than Livy's, and therefore d? (Par. Lot. 6799) certainly suggests should provide a greater number of Detlefsen's dimicatione. Possibly Pliny instructive problems. wrote . cum, moriturus ea dimicatione victusque, but no emendation proposed as yet seems really final. However, though much may remain doubtful in Gesammelte philologische Schriften von the reconstruction of the words of JOHANNES VAHLEN. I Theil: Schrif- Pliny, Dr. Mayhoff has certainly given ten der Wiener Zeit, 1858-1874. us a greatly improved text, and deserves Leipzig: Teubner, 1911. M. 14; our gratitude. Cloth M. 16.50. K. JEX-BLAKE. WE have already noticed in the Classical Review the collections of Vahlen's Latin opuscula. This volume includes all the papers of moderate length, but excludes Latin and English Idiom. By H. DARN LEY four long papers on Aristotle's Poetics NAYLOR, Professor of Classics in and on Laurentius Valla, which are Adelaide University. Cambridge Uni- long enough to go by themselves. The versity Press. papers are not brought up-to-date, but printed as they are; except that a few PROFESSOR DARNLEY NAYLOR is of references are given to later work on course quite right to advocate trans- the same subjects. Aristotle is the lation of Latin into good English, even favourite subject here: his Poetics, at the expense of absolute literalness. Ethics, Politics, and Rhetoric, with Free renderings into idiomatic English miscellaneous notes, fill about a third are (he says) ' condemned for a piece of of the volume. Other authors treated impertinent paraphrase.' One may are Lycophron, Plato, Ennius, Plautus, ask, by whom ? The Professor, I hope, Horace, Varro, Cicero and Livy. NOTES AND NEWS SCOTLAND is very useful in educa- perience is against this. Unseens are tional matters : it makes experiments— of course excellent, he says, for Bursary sometimes with less than the national examinations. But when the Com- caution—and tabulates the results for mission of 1889 made a 'Preliminary' the benefit of the Southron. Thus, examination at Universities in which the Oxford Magazine has been advo- all the translation papers were un- cating the reform of Responsions by prepared, this was not found to work the substitution of ' Unseens' for pas- nearly so well, as a test of the sages from prepared books; and then ' ordinary men coming from less comes Professor G. G. Ramsay, and favoured schools' than those which tells the Magazine that Scotch ex- produced the best scholars. The.