One orthographic peculiarity is perhaps worth noting: we saw that B did not agree with Π in the spellings karet and karitas.[49] We do, however, find karitate elsewhere in B (109, 8), and the curious reading Kl∴facere, mg. calfacere, for calfacere (56, 12). This is an additional bit of evidence for supposing that a copy (P1) intervened between P and B; P had the spelling Karitas consistently, P1 altered it to the usual form, and B reproduced the corrections in P1, failing to take them all, unless, as may well be, P1 had failed to correct all the cases.
Thus the evidence contained in the portion of BF outside the text of Π corroborates our working hypothesis deduced from the fragment itself. We have found nothing yet to overthrow our surmise that a bit of the ancient Parisinus is veritably in the city of New York.
[EDITORIAL METHODS OF ALDUS.]
[Aldus’s methods; his basic text] W E may now return to Aldus and imagine, if we can, his method of critical procedure. Finding his agreement with Π so close, even in what editors before and after him have regarded as errors, I am disposed to think that he studied his Parisinus with care and followed its authority respectfully. Finding that his seemingly extravagant statements about the antiquity of his book are essentially true, I am disposed to put more confidence in Aldus than editors have granted him thus far. I should suppose that, working in the most convenient way, he turned over to his compositor, not a fresh copy of P, but the pages of some edition corrected from P—which Aldus surely tells us that he used—and from whatever other sources he consulted. It may be beyond our powers to discover the precise edition that he thus employed. It does not at first thought seem likely that he would select the Princeps, which does not include the eighth book at all, and contains errors that later were weeded out. In the portion of text included in Π, P has thirty-two readings which Aldus avoids. In most of these cases p commits an error, sometimes a ridiculous error, like offam for officia (62, 25); the manuscript on which p was based apparently made free use of abbreviations. Keil’s damning estimate of r[50] is amply borne out in this section of the text; Aldus differs from r in sixty-five cases, most of these being errors in r. He agrees with ς in all but twenty-six readings.[51] Aldus would have had fewest changes to make, then, if his basic text was ς. This is apparently the view of Keil,[52] who would agree at any rate that Aldus made special use of the ς editions and who also declares that p is the fundamentum of r as r is of the edition of Pomponius Laetus.[53]
It would certainly be natural for Aldus to start with his immediate predecessors, as they had started with theirs. The matter ought to be cleared up, if possible, for in order to determine what Aldus found in P we must know whether he took some text as a point of departure and, if so, what that text was. But the task should be undertaken by some one to whom the early editions are accessible. Keil’s report of them, intentionally incomplete,[54] is sufficient, he declares,[55] “ad fidem Aldinae editionis constituendam,” but, as I have found by comparing our photographs of the edition of Beroaldus in the present section, Keil has not collated minutely or accurately enough to encourage us to undertake, on the basis of his apparatus, an elaborate study of Aldus’s relation to the editions preceding his own.
[The variants of Budaeus in the Bodleian volume] We may now test Aldus by the evidence of the Bodleian volume with its variants in the hand of Budaeus. For the section included in Π, their number is disappointingly small. The only additions by Budaeus (= i) to the text of Beroaldus are: 61, 14 sera] MVDoa, (m. 1) Π serua BFuxi, (m. 2) Π; 62, 4 ambulat] i cum plerisque ambulabat r Ber. (ab del.) M; 62, 25 quoque] i cum ceteris p̷ouq (ue) Ber.; 64, 23 Quamvis] q Vmuis Ber. corr. i.
This is all. Budaeus, who, according to Merrill, had the Parisinus at his disposal, has corrected two obvious misprints, made an inevitable change in the tense of a verb—with or without the help of the ancient book—and introduced from that book one unfortunate reading which we find in the second hand of Π.
There is one feature of Budaeus’s marginal jottings that at once arouses the curiosity of the textual critic, namely, the frequent appearance of the obelus and the obelus cum puncto. These signs as used by Probus[56] would denote respectively a surely spurious and a possibly spurious line or portion of text. But such was not the usage of Budaeus; he employed the obelus merely to call attention to something that interested him. Thus at the end of the first letter of Book III we find a doubly pointed obelus opposite an interesting passage, the text of which shows no variants or editorial questionings. Budaeus appears to have expressed his grades of interest rather elaborately—at least I can discover no other purpose for the different signs employed. The simple obelus apparently denotes interest, the pointed obelus great interest, the doubly pointed obelus intense interest, and the pointing finger of a carefully drawn hand burning interest. He also adds catchwords. Thus on the first letter he calls attention successively[57] to Ambulatio, Gestatio, Hora balnei, pilae ludus, Coena, and Comoedi. The purpose of the doubly pointed obelus is plainly indicated here, as it accompanies two of these catchwords. Just so in the margin opposite 65, 17, a pointing finger is accompanied by the remark, “Beneficia beneficiis aliis cumulanda,” while 227, 5 is decorated with the moral ejaculation, “o hominem in diuitiis miserum.” Incidentally, it is obvious that the Morgan fragment was once perused by some thoughtful reader, who marked with lines or brackets passages of special interest to him. For example, the account of how Spurinna spent his day[58] is so marked. This passage likewise called forth various marginal notes from Budaeus,[59] and other coincidences exist between the markings in Π and the marginalia in the Bodleian volume. But there is not enough evidence of this sort to warrant the suggestion that Budaeus himself added the marks in Π.