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Further Notes on the Text of Seneca's De Beneficiis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. H. Alexander
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Extract

These suggestions for the betterment and elucidation of the text of the De Beneficiis are additional to those already published in the Classical Quarterly in January, 1934. They are based on a conviction much deepened since that time that Buck1 is right when he says: N (i.e. codex Nazarianus) allein, und zwar ohne seine Ueberarbeitungen von späteren Händen, darf die Grundlage des Textes von de beneficiis bilden. Préchac3, the latest critical editor in this field, substantially confirms Buck's sweeping conclusion by an independent survey of the evidence. The readings designated in the Teubner text3 as N2 and N3 are themselves conjectures, not readings drawn from independent sources of testimony, and as conjectures they must be judged. Gertz4 had long before discerned the truth even if he seemed somewhat cavalier in his attitude toward other manuscripts than N.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1937

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References

1 Buck, J.: Seneca de Beneficiis und de Clementia in der Ueberlieferung (Tübingen: 1908), p. 34Google Scholar.

2 Préchac, F.: Sénèque des Bienfaits (Paris: 1927Google Scholar, two vols.), intr. pp. li–lii; also hisSénèque de la Clémence (Paris: 1921), intr. p. xxxviiGoogle Scholar.

3 Hosius, C.: Seneca de Beneficiis, de Clementia, 2nd edition (Berlin: 1914)Google Scholar.

4 Gertz, M. Cl.: Seneca de Beneficiis etde Clementia (Berlin: 1876), intr. p. viGoogle Scholar.

5 Hosius inapp. crit. ad Dial. 1, 4, 12, remarks feelingly, after reporting several proposals to juggle the text, ‘ego vereor ne ita ipsum Senecam corrigamus.’