The Vatican palimpsest (A) omits the word enthymemate and leaves a lacuna, thus showing that the scribe found it written as Greek in his exemplar. Now A has been shown to belong to the fourth century, and therefore its authority must be greater than that of the other manuscripts (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) available for this part of Gellius. The same problem occurs in 12.2.14, non pro enthymemate aliquo, where Hertz (followed by Hosius) goes against the Greek of the manuscripts and adopts the reading of Carrio. Yet an examination of the use of the Greek dative in Cicero's Letters will show that it can be used fully as the equivalent of a Latin ablative, can be governed by prepositions taking the ablative in Latin, and can be qualified by a Latin adjective in the ablative.