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 Thalheim's Isaeus Itaei orationes cum deperditarum fragmentis post Carolum Scheibe iterum edidit Th. Thalheim. Leipzig: Teubner. Mk. 2. 40. W. Wyse The Classical Review / Volume 18 / Issue 02 / March 1904, pp 115 - 120 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X0020944X, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X0020944X How to cite this article: W. Wyse (1904). The Classical Review, 18, pp 115-120 doi:10.1017/S0009840X0020944X Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 130.132.123.28 on 13 Jul 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 115 O.P.5 with the variant diuitum (-is O), and word ' emendare' which is used invariably is given as a variant in P.2'7: militum is the in the subscriptiones, is to be construed in reading of Rat.2 and a variant in P.10. 313 its most literal sense; and that view is, I furens: with Or. Boul. W. M. Rh. D.1 P.5 think, fully borne out by this MS. The (uel fremens) P,7: it is also given as a changes of the original text amount to variant in P.10 Lo.2 Z. 314 et: I noted this nothing more than insertions of omitted also from 0. Or. H. Trin. P.8 328 lines or words, and corrections of slips of retudit; so too O. and Or. (uel retundit). the pen. Perhaps in the case of spelling 348 semustulati. 359 amictum. 439 man- a little more has been done; but after all suescit with 0. Or. M. 472 pactum : cor- spelling is not a matter of vital importance, rected. 565 supplet. 567 iocantur: with and Sam Weller's jokes are none the worse many MSS. 579 martyras. because he spelled his name ' with a we.' Per. iii. Hymnus in honorem passionis Mavortius makes no display of that hyper- eulaliae beatissimae martyris. 21 flere : with sensitive critical faculty, which has nowa-. most MSS. 40 ruit. 96 furiis. 102 es. 105 days been so over-cultivated and practised on forte : corrected. the text of the classical authors, that, if Per. iv. Hymnus in honorem sanctorum some candid man from among them could decem, etc. 134 negarit. 145 aera: cor- but read his own works in a modern edition, rected to sacra. 151 iuliam. 153 pangat. he would probably admit with shame and 167 uitiosa. humility that there were many neat phrases Per. v. 59 et: so too O. Or. Duss. K. 79 and graceful touches of which he was per- aucipes. fectly innocent. Indeed, so far was Mavor- If we look for new and startling variants tius from practising this kind of criticism that among these readings we shall be disap- he allowed many metrical impossibilities pointed, for they add little or nothing of any and obviously false repetitions to escape his value to those already known, and most of notice; and not a single one of the impor- the new variants are demonstrably wrong. tant variants—and there are variants fully There remains to be considered what as important as those of the Mavortian re- light the MS. throws upon the vexed ques- cension of Horace—can be attributed t6 tion of Mavortius' editorship. v To dispose his pen. So that it can hardly be doubted first of a minor point: here as in the Hora- that the variants of that group of Horatian tian MSS., the name does not occur at the MSS., must, like the variants of the other end of the complete book, but at the end of MSS., where we have no subscriptio to one section—oddly enough in both cases it conjure with, be laid on the head of is a lyric section— ; yet the metrical notes in the universal scapegoat, the copyist. Mavortius' hand, and the corrections of mis- Mavortius was no Bentley ; and, though it spellings and slips, if they too are to be may be no compliment to him to say so, for attributed to him, are continued throughout us, at any rate, it is a comforting assurance. the whole MS. So there would seem no For, even if Bentley's assertion that Horace support for the essentially improbable view is preserved only in Mavortius' recension that Mavortius' work, whatever it was, ex- were true, which recent research tends to tended only over a part of the poems of prove it is not, still we may rest assured Horace. The more important point is, that that would not be so great a calamity what was his work ? Was Mavortius a as it would be if Milton were preserved textual critic in the modern sense of the only in Bentley's recension. word, or merely a kind of proof-corrector t Years ago it has been ably argued that the E. O. WINSTEDT. REVIEWS. THALHEIM'S ISAEVS. Itaei orationes cum deperditarum fragmentis in 1872 by Hug has been to prove that post Carohim Scheibe iterum edidit TH. BLMPZ are all derived from A, the codex THALHEIM. Leipzig: Teubner. Mk. 2. 40. Crippsianus in the British Museum, so that our authorities for Isaeus are now reduced THB upshot of the critical studies in the to two, viz. A and the codex Ambrosianus text of the minor Attic orators inaugurated (Q), which contains only the first two i 2 116 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. speeches. But the disappearance of BLMPZ first two speeches of Isaeus A may be com- did not end controversy. The place of dis- pared with Q. In Antiphon, Dinarchus, puted stemmata has been amply filled by and part of Lycurgus A may be compared discussions about the state of the archetype, with the Oxoniensis (N). The comparison and the number and significance of the shows (1) that AQN come from the same different hands in A. Bekker, who was in source, (2) that A1 agrees regularly with London in 1820, made no attempt to sub- Q and N, nearly all the exceptions, which divide the numerous corrections found in the are relatively rare, being explicable by the codex Crippsianus. In general he was con- hypothesis that the writers of Q and N, like tent with the terms lpr. A,' and ' correctus the writer of A, sometimes made mistakes. A,' but occasionally gave something more Buermann's canon was that, wherever definite such as 'a reeentiore trumu,' 'a internal grounds are not decisive, Apr. must recenti manu,' 'rec. A.' Dobson, whose be preferred to A1. The true principle, Oratores Attiei began to appear in 1828, was which Thalheim follows, is to prefer A1 to uot more precise than Bekker. Sigg, who Apr., unless there are,strong reasons for the •opens the new era, and whose collation was contrary course. But what reason has he used by Hug, discovered the hands of three for printing oirg in iv. 27. 5, v. 35. 11, vi. •correctors. Jernstedt, Blass, Thalheim, and 41.7, ix. 28.3, when in each place A1 took •other scholars find only two correctors, (1) the trouble to change omj to cnroi 1 In his the scribe himself (A1), who introduced edition of Dinarchus (i. 43. 10) he reads many changes, some while writing, others, oirot with N, although Sin} is in A. Again, it would seem, on revising his work, (2) a in vii. 33. 5 is not ei vrj Ata (Apr.) distinctly later critic (A2), whose alterations can be superior to rj vi] Aio (A1) 1 The corrections easily distinguished by the yellowish colour of A2 stand on a different footing. As of the ink. This view appears to me right, long ~ago as 1886 Thalheim maintained but, not being a trained observer of palaeo- (Be Dinwrchi codidbus commentatio p. 2) graphical minutiae, I recognise that my that these alterations are from the pen of opinion on such points is of little value. an ancient scholar, who emended the text The corrections commonly lumped together proprio Marie. The attempts to prove that under the designation A1 have been subjected A2 must have used a MS. are a complete to an elaborate analysis by H. Schenkl, who failure. Emendations of the thirteenth or attributes very few to the copyist, the fourteenth century have not more title to majority to a second hand (the first cor- respect than emendations of the nineteenth rector), others to a third hand, some even century. Neither have they necessarily to a fourth ; he also considers that the scribe less, if the emender is a Greek handling his was not the rubricator. Buermann, who native language and familiar from child- edited Isaeus in 1883, so far agreed with hood with the ways of MSS. To make a Schenkl as to think it probable that the dead set against A? is unreasonable, and MS., when completed, was revised by a second smacks of self-conceit. Vixere fortes ante person, but he did not allow this qualified Agamemnona. There are places where he assent to complicate the critical problem, is at least as happy as his modern censors. since he supposed that the reviser had before There are also places in which the advan- him, if not the same original as the scribe, tage rests with professors of our own age. at any rate a MS. which was its twin-brother I am surprised that Thalheim does not {exemplar archetypi simiUimum), and more- notice the proposal of Blass (Antiph.2 praef. over rejected as impracticable any systematic p.