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Notes on Velleius
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Velleius text rests on a single manuscript, found at Murbach in 1515, which long ago disappeared. We know of it from three reports: (a) the editio princeps (P) by its discoverer Rhenanus, published in 1520, apparently from an inaccurate copy taken by an anonymous friend;1 (b) notes on the manuscript taken by Rhenanus' secretary Burer (B), who compared it with proofs of the edition; and (c) a copy (A), probably from the same source as P, taken in 1516 by B. Amerbach and discovered by Orelli in 1834. Of this text one editor has written: 'While modern scholarship has made progress in solving its enigmas, the text of Velleius, unless some long-hidden manuscript shall unexpectedly come to light, will always continue to be one of the most corrupt among the surviving texts of classical authors.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1984
References
1 See Woodman, A. J., Velleius Paterculus, the Tiberian Narrative (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 5 ffGoogle Scholar.
2 F. W. Shipley, ed. 1924 (Loeb), p. xix. This, by the way, does less than justice to some earlier scholars, especially Lipsius, whose critical intelligence far surpassed that of any modern editor.
3 The most recent editor, Hellegouarc'h, J. (Budè, 1982), reads nitamur and translates ‘où nous soyons capables de briller’Google Scholar. I shall take no further notice of this edition.
4 ‘Certissima emendatio’, as Barndt, A. called it (Quaestiones criticae Velleianae, Diss. Freiberg, 1873, p. 13)Google Scholar. Modern editions ignore it.
5 What familia illustris meant to Cicero is well illustrated by Mur. 17 ex familia vetere et illustri. The Licinii Murenae were an old family because they had a history of curule offices below the Consulate and an illustrious one because of the father of Cicero's client, the Triumphator.
6 There is a similar choice to make in Suet, . Claud. 10. 2Google Scholar: see CJ 78 (1983), 317n.
7 As often in the past, I have to thank my colleague Professor Badian for his acute and helpful criticisms.