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Notes on Velleius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. R. Shackleton Bailey
D. R. Shackleton Bailey
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , December 1984 , pp. 445 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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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.