Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand - A Sixth Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger
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Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand >> A Sixth Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger
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8 {Transcriber's Note:
Except for footnote references, all brackets are in the original text.
Material added by the transcriber is in {braces}. Manuscripts identified
by Greek letter are shown in the form {Pi}.
Typographical errors are listed at the end of the text.}
A SIXTH-CENTURY FRAGMENT
of the
LETTERS OF
PLINY THE YOUNGER
A Study of Six Leaves of an Uncial
Manuscript Preserved in
the Pierpont Morgan Library
New York
by
E. A. LOWE
Associate of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
Sandars Reader at Cambridge University (1914)
Lecturer in Palaeography at Oxford University
and
E. K. RAND
Professor of Latin in Harvard University
[Illustration:
CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON
1902]
Published by the
CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON
Washington, 1922
CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON
Publication No. 304
The University Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
U. S. A.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The Pierpont Morgan Library, itself a work of art, contains masterpieces
of painting and sculpture, rare books, and illuminated manuscripts.
Scholars generally are perhaps not aware that it also possesses the
oldest Latin manuscripts in America, including several that even the
greatest European libraries would be proud to own. The collection is
also admirably representative of the development of script throughout
the Middle Ages. It comprises specimens of the uncial hand, the
half-uncial, the Merovingian minuscule of the Luxeuil type, the script
of the famous school of Tours, the St. Gall type, the Irish and
Visigothic hands, and the Beneventan and Anglo-Saxon scripts.
Among the oldest manuscripts of the library, in fact the oldest,
is a hitherto unnoticed fragment of great significance not only to
palaeographers, but to all students of the classics. It consists of six
leaves of an early sixth-century manuscript of the _Letters_ of the
younger Pliny. This new witness to the text, older by three centuries
than the oldest codex heretofore used by any modern editor, has
reappeared in this unexpected quarter, after centuries of wandering and
hiding. The fragment was bought by the late J. Pierpont Morgan in Rome,
in December 1910, from the art dealer Imbert; he had obtained it from De
Marinis, of Florence, who had it from the heirs of the Marquis Taccone,
of Naples. Nothing is known of the rest of the manuscript.
The present writers had the good fortune to visit the Pierpont Morgan
Library in 1915. One of the first manuscripts put into their hands was
this early sixth-century fragment of Pliny's _Letters_, which forms the
subject of the following pages. Having received permission to study
the manuscript and publish results, they lost no time in acquainting
classical scholars with this important find. In December of the
same year, at the joint meeting of the American Archaeological and
Philological Associations, held at Princeton University, two papers
were read, one concerning the palaeographical, the other the textual,
importance of the fragment. The two studies which follow, Part I by
Doctor Lowe, Part II by Professor Rand, are an elaboration of the views
presented at the meeting. Some months after the present volume was in
the form of page-proof, Professor E.T. Merrill's long-expected edition
of Pliny's _Letters_ appeared (Teubner, Leipsic, 1922). We regret that
we could not avail ourselves of it in time to introduce certain changes.
The reader will still find Pliny cited by the pages of Keil, and in
general he should regard the date of our production as 1921 rather
than 1922.
The writers wish to express their gratitude for the privilege of
visiting the Pierpont Morgan Library and making full use of its
facilities. For permission to publish the manuscript they are indebted
to the generous interest of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. They also desire to
make cordial acknowledgment of the unfailing courtesy and helpfulness of
the Librarian, Miss Belle da Costa Greene, and her assistant, Miss Ada
Thurston. Lastly, the writers wish to thank the Carnegie Institution of
Washington for accepting their joint study for publication and for their
liberality in permitting them to give all the facsimiles necessary to
illustrate the discussion.
E. K. RAND.
E. A. LOWE.
CONTENTS.
Part I. THE PALAEOGRAPHY OF THE MORGAN FRAGMENT. By E. A. Lowe.
Description of the Fragment
Contents, size, vellum, binding
Ruling
Relation of the six leaves to the rest of the manuscript
Original size of the manuscript
Disposition
Ornamentation
Corrections
Syllabification
Orthography
Abbreviations
Authenticity of the six leaves
Archetype
The Date and Later History of the Manuscript
On the dating of uncial manuscripts
Dated uncial manuscripts
Oldest group of uncial manuscripts
Characteristics of the oldest uncial manuscripts
Date of the Morgan manuscript
Later history of the Morgan manuscript
Conclusion
Transcription
Part II. THE TEXT OF THE MORGAN FRAGMENT. By E. K. Rand.
The Morgan Fragment and Aldus's Ancient Codex Parisinus
The Codex Parisinus
The Bodleian volume
The Morgan fragment possibly a part of the lost Parisinus
The script
Provenience and contents
The text closely related to that of Aldus
Editorial methods of Aldus
Relation of the Morgan Fragment to the Other Manuscripts of the Letters
Classes of the manuscripts
The early editions
_{Pi}_ a member of Class I
_{Pi}_ the direct ancestor of _BF_ with probably a copy intervening
The probable stemma
Further consideration of the external history of _P_, _{Pi}_, and _B_
Evidence from the portions of _BF_ outside the text of _{Pi}_
Editorial Methods of Aldus
Aldus's methods; his basic text
The variants of Budaeus in the Bodleian volume
Aldus and Budaeus compared
The latest criticism of Aldus
Aldus's methods in the newly discovered parts of Books VIII, IX, and X
The Morgan fragment the best criterion of Aldus
Conclusion
Description of Plates
PART I.
THE PALAEOGRAPHY OF THE MORGAN
FRAGMENT
by
E. A. LOWE
THE PALAEOGRAPHY OF THE MORGAN FRAGMENT.
DESCRIPTION OF THE FRAGMENT.
[Sidenote: _Contents size vellum binding_]
The Morgan fragment of Pliny the Younger contains the end of Book II
and the beginning of Book III of the _Letters_ (II, xx. 13-III, v. 4).
The fragment consists of six vellum leaves, or twelve pages, which
apparently formed part of a gathering or quire of the original volume.
The leaves measure 11-3/8 by 7 inches (286 x 180 millimeters); the
written space measures 7-1/4 by 4-3/8 inches (175 x 114 millimeters);
outer margin, 1-7/8 inches (50 millimeters); inner, 3/4 inch (18
millimeters); upper margin, 1-3/4 inches (45 millimeters); lower,
2-1/4 inches (60 millimeters).
The vellum is well prepared and of medium thickness. The leaves are
bound in a modern pliable vellum binding with three blank vellum
fly-leaves in front and seven in back, all modern. On the inside of the
front cover is the book-plate of John Pierpont Morgan, showing the
Morgan arms with the device: _Onward and Upward_. Under the book-plate
is the press-mark M.462.
[Sidenote: _Ruling_]
There are twenty-seven horizontal lines to a page and two vertical
bounding lines. The lines were ruled with a hard point on the flesh
side, each opened sheet being ruled separately: 48v and 53r, 49r and
52v, 50v and 51r. The horizontal lines were guided by knife-slits made
in the outside margins quite close to the text space; the two vertical
lines were guided by two slits in the upper margin and two in the lower.
The horizontal lines were drawn across the open sheets and extended
occasionally beyond the slits, more often just beyond the perpendicular
bounding lines. The written space was kept inside the vertical bounding
lines except for the initial letter of each epistle; the first letter of
the address and the first letter of the epistle proper projected into
the left margin. Here and there the scribe transgressed beyond the
bounding line. On the whole, however, he observed the limits and seemed
to prefer to leave a blank before the bounding line rather than to crowd
the syllable into the space or go beyond the vertical line.
[Sidenote: _Relation of the six leaves to the rest of the manuscript_]
One might suppose that the six leaves once formed a complete gathering
of the original book, especially as the first and last pages, folios 48r
and 53v have a darker appearance, as though they had been the outside
leaves of a gathering that had been affected by exposure. But this
darker appearance is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that both
pages are on the hair side of the parchment, and the hair side is always
darker than the flesh side. Quires of six leaves or trinions are not
unknown. Examples of them may be found in our oldest manuscripts. But
they are the exception.[1] The customary quire is a gathering of eight
leaves, forming a quaternion proper. It would be natural, therefore, to
suppose that our fragment did not constitute a complete gathering in
itself but formed part of a quaternion. The supposition is confirmed by
the following considerations:
[Footnote 1: For example, in the fifth-century manuscript of Livy
in Paris (MS. lat. 5730) the forty-third and forty-fifth quires are
composed of six leaves, while the rest are all quires of eight.]
In the first place, if our six leaves were once a part of a quaternion,
the two leaves needed to complete them must have formed the outside
sheet, since our fragment furnishes a continuous text without any lacuna
whatever. Now, in the formation of quires, sheets were so arranged that
hair side faced hair side, and flesh side flesh side. This arrangement
is dictated by a sense of uniformity. As the hair side is usually much
darker than the flesh side the juxtaposition of hair and flesh sides
would offend the eye. So, in the case of our six leaves, folios 48v and
53r, presenting the flesh side, face folios 49r and 52v likewise on the
flesh side; and folios 49v and 52r presenting the hair side, face folios
50r and 51v likewise on the hair side. The inside pages 50v and 51r
which face each other, are both flesh side, and the outside pages 48r
and 53v are both hair side, as may be seen from the accompanying
diagram.
(47) 48 49 50 51 52 53 (54)
: | | | : | | | :
: | | | Flesh : Flesh | | | :
: | | +-------:-------+ | | :
: | | Hair : Hair | | :
: | | : | | :
: | | Hair : Hair | | :
: | +------------:------------+ | :
: | Flesh : Flesh | :
: | : | :
: | Flesh : Flesh | :
: +-----------------:-----------------+ :
: Hair : Hair :
: : :
: Hair : Hair :
: - - - - - - - - - - -:- - - - - - - - - - - :
Flesh Flesh
From this arrangement it is evident that if our fragment once formed
part of a quaternion the missing sheet was so folded that its hair side
faced the present outside sheet and its flesh side was on the outside of
the whole gathering. Now, it was by far the more usual practice in our
oldest uncial manuscripts to have the flesh side on the outside of the
quire.[2] And as our fragment belongs to the oldest class of uncial
manuscripts, the manner of arranging the sheets of quires seems to favor
the supposition that two outside leaves are missing. The hypothesis is,
moreover, strengthened by another consideration. According to the
foliation supplied by the fifteenth-century Arabic numerals, the leaf
which must have followed our fragment bore the number 54, the leaf
preceding it having the number 47. If we assume that our fragment was
a complete gathering, we are obliged to explain why the next gathering
began on a leaf bearing an even number (54), which is abnormal. We do
not have to contend with this difficulty if we assume that folios 47 and
54 formed the outside sheet of our fragment, for six quires of eight
leaves and one of six would give precisely 54 leaves. It seems,
therefore, reasonable to assume that our fragment is not a complete
unit, but formed part of a quaternion, the outside sheet of which is
missing.
[Footnote 2: In an examination of all the uncial manuscripts in the
Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, it was found that out of twenty
manuscripts that may be ascribed to the fifth and sixth centuries
only two had the hair side on the outside of the quires. Out of
thirty written approximately between A.D. 600 and 800, about half
showed the same practice, the other half having the hair side
outside. Thus the practice of our oldest Latin scribes agrees with
that of the Greek: see C.R. Gregory, "Les cahiers des manuscrits
grecs" in _Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres_ (1885), p. 261. I am informed by Professor Hyvernat,
of the Catholic University of Washington, that the same custom is
observed by Coptic scribes.]
[Sidenote: _Original size of the manuscript_]
In the fifteenth century, as the previous demonstration has made clear,
our fragment was preceded by 47 leaves that are missing to-day. With
this clue in our possession it can be demonstrated that the manuscript
began with the first book of the _Letters_. We start with the fact that
not all the 47 folios (or 94 pages) which preceded our six leaves were
devoted to the text of the _Letters_. For, from the contents of our six
leaves we know that each book must have been preceded by an index of
addresses and first lines. The indices for Books I and II, if arranged
in general like that of Book III, must have occupied four pages.[3] We
also learn from our fragment that space must be allowed for a colophon
at the end of each book. One page for the colophons of Books I and II is
a reasonable allowance. Accordingly it follows that out of the 94 pages
preceding our fragment 5 were not devoted to text, or in other words
that only 89 pages were thus devoted.
[Footnote 3: The confused arrangement of the indices for Books I and
II in the Codex Bellovacensis may well have been found in the
manuscript of which the Morgan fragment is a part. The space
required for the indices, however, would not have greatly differed
from that taken by the index of Book III in both the Morgan fragment
and the Codex Bellovacensis.]
Now, if we compare pages in our manuscript with pages of a printed text
we find that the average page in our manuscript corresponds to about 19
lines of the Teubner edition of 1912. If we multiply 89 by 19 we get
1691. This number of lines of the size of the Teubner edition should, if
our calculation be correct, contain the text of the _Letters_ preceding
our fragment. The average page of the Teubner edition of 1912 of the
part which interests us contains a little over 29 lines. If we divide
1691 by 29 we get 58.3. Just 58 pages of Teubner text are occupied by
the 47 leaves which preceded our fragment. So close a conformity is
sufficient to prove our point. We have possibly allowed too much space
for indices and colophons, especially if the former covered less ground
for Books I and II than for Book III. Further, owing to the abbreviation
of _que_ and _bus_, and particularly of official titles, we can not
expect a closer agreement.
It is not worth while to attempt a more elaborate calculation. With the
edges matching so nearly, it is obvious that the original manuscript as
known and used in the fifteenth century could not have contained some
other work, however brief, before Book I of Pliny's _Letters_. If the
manuscript contained the entire ten books it consisted of about 260
leaves. This sum is obtained by counting the number of lines in the
Teubner edition of 1912, dividing this sum by 19, and adding thereto
pages for colophons and indices. It would be too bold to suppose
that this calculation necessarily gives us the original size of the
manuscript, since the manuscript may have had less than ten books, or it
may, on the other hand, have had other works. But if it contained only
the ten books of the _Letters_, then 260 folios is an approximately
correct estimate of its size.
It is hard to believe that only six leaves of the original manuscript
have escaped destruction. The fact that the outside sheet (foll. 48r and
53v) is not much worn nor badly soiled suggests that the gathering of
six leaves must have been torn from the manuscript not so very long ago
and that the remaining portions may some day be found.
[Sidenote: _Disposition_]
The pages in our manuscript are written in long lines,[4] in _scriptura
continua_, with hardly any punctuation.
[Footnote 4: Many of our oldest Latin manuscripts have two and even
three columns on a page, a practice evidently taken over from the
roll. But very ancient manuscripts are not wanting which are written
in long lines, _e.g._, the Codex Vindobonensis of Livy, the Codex
Bobiensis of the Gospels, or the manuscript of Pliny's _Natural
History_ preserved at St. Paul in Carinthia.]
Each page begins with a large letter, even though that letter occur in
the body of a word (cf. foll. 48r, 51v, 52r).[5]
[Footnote 5: This is an ear-mark of great antiquity. It is found,
for example, in the Berlin and Vatican Schedae Vergilianae in square
capitals (Berlin lat. 2º 416 and Rome Vatic. lat. 3256 reproduced in
Zangemeister and Wattenbach's _Exempla Codicum Latinorum_, etc., pl.
14, and in Steffens, _Lateinische Palaeographie_{2}, pl. 12b), in the
Vienna, Paris, and Lateran manuscripts of Livy, in the Codex
Corbeiensis of the Gospels, and here and there in the palimpsest
manuscript of Cicero's _De Re Publica_ and in other manuscripts.]
Each epistle begins with a large letter. The line containing the address
which precedes each epistle also begins with a large letter. In both
cases the large letter projects into the left margin.
The running title at the top of each page is in small rustic
capitals.[6] On the verso of each folio stands the word EPISTVLARVM;
on the recto of the following folio stands the number of the book,
_e.g._, LIB. II, LIB. III.
[Footnote 6: In many of our oldest manuscripts uncials are employed.
The Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia agrees with our
manuscript in using rustic capitals. For facsimiles see J. Sillig,
_C. Plini Secundi Naturalis Historiae_, Libri XXXVI, Vol. VI, Gotha
1855, and Chatelain, _Paleographie des Classiques Latins_, pl.
CXXXVI.]
To judge by our fragment, each book was preceded by an index of
addresses and initial lines written in alternating lines of black and
red uncials. Alternating lines of black and red rustic capitals of a
large size were used in the colophon.[7]
[Footnote 7: In this respect, too, the Pliny palimpsest of St.
Paul in Carinthia agrees with our fragment. Most of the oldest
manuscripts, however, have the colophon in the same type of writing
as the text.]
[Sidenote: _Ornamentation_]
As in all our oldest Latin manuscripts, the ornamentation is of
the simplest kind. Such as it is, it is mostly found at the end and
beginning of books. In our case, the colophon is enclosed between two
scrolls of vine-tendrils terminating in an ivy-leaf at both ends. The
lettering in the colophon and in the running title is set off by means
of ticking above and below the line.
Red is used for decorative purposes in the middle line of the colophon,
in the scroll of vine-tendrils, in the ticking, and in the border at
the end of the Index on fol. 49. Red was also used, to judge by our
fragment, in the first three lines of a new book,[8] in the addresses
in the Index, and in the addresses preceding each letter.
[Footnote 8: This is also the case in the Paris manuscript of Livy
of the fifth century, in the Codex Bezae of the Gospels (published
in facsimile by the University of Cambridge in 1899), in the Pliny
palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia, and in many other manuscripts
of the oldest type.]
[Sidenote: _Corrections_]
The original scribe made a number of corrections. The omitted line of
the Index on fol. 49 was added between the lines, probably by the scribe
himself, using a finer pen; likewise the omitted line on fol. 52v, lines
7-8. A number of slight corrections come either from the scribe or from
a contemporary reader; the others are by a somewhat later hand, which is
probably not more recent than the seventh century.[9] The method of
correcting varies. As a rule, the correct letter is added above the line
over the wrong letter; occasionally it is written over an erasure. An
omitted letter is also added above the line over the space where it
should be inserted. Deletion of single letters is indicated by a dot
placed over the letter and a horizontal or an oblique line drawn through
it. This double use of expunction and cancellation is not uncommon in
our oldest manuscripts. For details on the subject of corrections, see
the notes on pp. 23-34.
[Footnote 9: The strokes over the two consecutive _i_'s on fol.
53v, l. 23, were made by a hand that can hardly be older than the
thirteenth century.]
There is a ninth-century addition on fol. 53 and one of the fifteenth
century on fol. 51. On fol. 49, in the upper margin, a fifteenth-century
hand using a stilus or hard point scribbled a few words, now difficult
to decipher.[10] Presumably the same hand drew a bearded head with a
halo. Another relatively recent hand, using lead, wrote in the left
margin of fol. 53v the monogram QR[11] and the roman numerals i, ii, iii
under one another. These numerals, as Professor Rand correctly saw,
refer to the works of Pliny the Elder enumerated in the text. Further
activity by this hand, the date of which it is impossible to determine,
may be seen, for example, on fol. 49v, ll. 8, 10, 15; fol. 52, ll. 4,
10, 13, 21, 22; fol. 53, ll. 12, 15, 16, 17, 20, 27; fol. 53v, ll. 5,
10, 15.
[Footnote 10: I venture to read _dominus meus ... in te deus_.
[Footnote 11: This doubtless stands for _Quaere_ (= "investigate"),
a frequent marginal note in manuscripts of all ages. A number of
instances of _Q_ for _quaere_ are given by A.C. Clark, _The Descent
of Manuscripts_, Oxford 1918, p. 35.]
[Sidenote: _Syllabification_]
Syllables are divided after a vowel or diphthong except where such
a division involves beginning the next syllable with a group of
consonants.[12] In that case the consonants are distributed between the
two syllables, one consonant going with one syllable and the other with
the following, except when the group contains more than two successive
consonants, in which case the first consonant goes with the first
syllable, the rest with the following syllable. That the scribe is
controlled by this mechanical rule and not by considerations of
pronunciation is obvious from the division SAN|CTISSIMUM and other
examples found below. The method followed by him is made amply clear
by the examples which occur in our twelve pages:[13]
fo. 48r, line 1, con-suleret
2, sescen-ties
3, ex-ta
7, fal-si
fo. 49v, line 3, spu-rinnam
5, senesce-re
7, distin-ctius
12, se-nibus
13, con-ueniunt
15, spurin-na
18, circum-agit
20, mi-lia
24, prae-sentibus
25, grauan-tur
fo. 50r, line 1, singu-laris
4, an-tiquitatis
5, au-dias
9, ite-rum
11, scri-bit
12, ly-rica
15, scri-bentis
17, octa-ua
19, uehe-menter
20, exer-citationis
21, se-nectute
22, paulis-per
23, le-gentem
fo. 50v, line 2, de-lectatur
3, co-moedis
4, uolupta-tes
5, ali-quid
6, lon-gum
11, senec-tut
12, uo-to
13, ingres-surus
14, ae-tatis
15, in-terim
16, ho-rum
20, re-xit
21, me-ruit
22, eun-dem
25, epis-tulam
fo. 51r, line 2, mi-hi
4, afria-nus
6, facultati-bus
7, super-sunt
8, gra-uitate
9, consi-lio
10, ut-or
13, ar-dentius
23, con-feras
24, habe-bis
27, concu-piscat
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