Justus Lipsius and the Text of Tacitus

Author(s): C. O. Brink
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 41, Parts 1 and 2 (1951), pp. 32-51
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/298098 .
Accessed: 25/03/2012 18:08
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to The Journal of Roman Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

JUSTUS LIPSIUS AND THE TEXT OF TACITUS

Bv C. 0.

BRINK

Editors, and other students, of the text of Tacitus have of late been taken up with
the problems of the two codices unici and perhaps have tended to neglect the contributions
made by their predecessors. If this be true, Dr. J. Ruysschaert has rendered a service
to scholarship in publishing a book on Juste Lipse et les Annals de Tacite: utne me'thode
de critique textuelle aut XVIe siecle.1 It is safe to say that up to the nineteenth century
a commentary on the text of Tacitus in the main consisted of comments by, and on,
Lipsius.
Much of this lore was gathered together in I. Bekker's Variornumedition of
I83I and, augmented by G. H. Walther's more unorthodox notes and a critique of them,
in Ruperti's four volumes of I832-39.
At that time, however, a breach in the tradition
occurred and the Corpus Lipsianum (if this name may be applied to the lore in the Var-ior-um
editions) became less known than it deserves.2
To many readers of Tacitus the work of Lipsius is probably known only from those
emendations of his that survive in our texts and critical notes. But if the reader is also
a student of the text he needs more than that, and Ruysschaert provides him with more.
He offers a full, if not alvays complete or correct, list of Lipsius's emendations from his
numerous editions of the Annals. Armed with this list and one of the Var-ior-um
editions, say
Ruperti, the student will find not only more but also wider and more varied comments
than the modern notes to which Lipsius's name is appended would lead him to expect.
Ruysschaert has laboured hard to relate Lipsius's text to other early humanists' work
upon the same text. He has investigated the provenance of many emendations, whether
Lipsius labelled them as imported or not, and has paid particular attention to what he
calls the concealed emendation-that is, a conjecture not distinguished by the editor from
the transmitted text. Ruysschaert offers some i,o6o items. Though the contents of the
list are a great deal more arbitrary than may appear at first sight,3 there is here a goodly
quarry from which anv textual critic may draw ad libitum.
The present writer proposes to discuss tvo points arising from Ruysschaert's book.
In the first section of this paper attention is given to what precisely is meant by that
me'thode de critique textuelle ' of which, according to Ruysschaert, Lipsius is possessed.
The second section is concerned with a scrutiny of textual difficulties in the first book
of the Annals, and vith Lipsius's solutions of them. There are no cut-and-dried ansvers
to these questions, and Ruysschaert's analysis of his own material fails mainly because,
instead of arguing controversial points, he takes his clues from a modern ' definitive
edition. He is, in fact, more interested in Lipsius than in Tacitus, but it is to Tacitus that
Ruvsschaert's book was published by the
Prof.
'Bibliotheque de I'Universite, Louvain, I949.
A. MvIomigliano reviewed it in YRS xxxix (I949),
I90,
In the
I20.
the present writer in CR LXIV (I950),
following pages reference is made to the chapters and
lines of C. D. Fisher's Oxford text, for the Ainnals
and the Histories, and, for the Opera Minora, to the
chapters and sections of Furneaux's Oxford text.
The sections intioduced in the recent editions of the
Ainnals do not always square. It would be convenient
if Fisher's meritorious editions could be brought up
to date, and, at the same time, be divided into sections.
2 Information on this score in Wilamowitz's and
Sandvs's histories of classical scholarship is not very
enlightening and occasionally incorrect. According
to Wilamowitz (Geschlichteder Philologie 26), Lipsius
was the first editor of Tacitus to use the Medicean
he was not. Sandys is more
manuscripts-which
correct about the JlIedicei, but in the one specimen
of Lipsius's textual criticism that he offers, in his
Historv of Classical Scholarship II, 303, he confuses
conjecture and transmitted text: for both points, see
below, pp. 33 ff. and 5i. Lipsius's interest in the
criticism of the text of Tacitus continued while his
other interests changed. His Tacitus went through

eight or more editions, and manv changes, from I 574

to the posthumous folio of I607. (The actual number
is not easily available as the two fullest lists do not
quite agree: see Ruysschaert xi f., and H. Goelzer
in his large edition of the Histories I920, I, p. xviii,
n. 3, to which Prof. G. B. A. Fletcher draws my
attention.) Yet, according to Sandvs, l.c., only two
editions appeared in his lifetime.
3 The list, in fact, contains either too much or too
little. If Ruysschaert had restricted his collections to
Lipsius's own emendations the list would have
shrunk considerably, and a clearer pictuLre of the
would have emerged. If,
humanist's ars emtienidanidi
on the other hand, it was his purpose to show the
progress made by Lipsius as against earlier editions
or, indirectly, as against the Medicei, he should have
recorded the emendations due to Puteolanus,
Beroaldus, and Rhenanus which appeared by the
hundred in Lipsius's text as ' concealed emendations '. The same applies to the items taken over
from Pichena for Lipsius's posthumous edition of
As it is, Ruvsschaert's figure of I,o64
I 607.
corrections lipsiennes is likely to cause confusion.
There are after all in the Ainnals not anything like
that number of ' corrections lipsiennes

JUSTUS

LIPSIUS

AND

THE TEXT OF TACITUS

33

wvemust go if ve care to assess the valu-e of Lipsius's criticism. Since the principles of
editing Tacitus have recently been called in question, there seems to be an additional
reason for studying the criticism of the sospitator, Taciti.
I.

LIPSIUS'S

EDITORIAL

PRACTICE

Dr. Ruysschaert applies nineteenth-century terms to sixteenth-century editorial

practice. He makes much of e,nendatio, collatio, eliminatio codicunm,and the rest. All this
is supposed to add up to ' une methode de critique textuelle ', the ' methode lipsienne '
for which he claims ' valeur et originalite '. The work of Lipsius presents a very different
aspect to the present vriter.
Oving to Ruysschaert's labours it is not nov difficult to define the use to which
Lipsius put his manuscripts, to state precisely the manuscripts he used and those which
he did not use. The negative point is an important one. As is well known, the major
historical vorks of Tacitus are preserved in tvo codices unici-Annals I-VI in a iVlediceus
of the ninth century, the rest of the Annals and the Histories in a 1lIediceus of the eleventh
century. There are no apographa of the first 1lIediceus, but Annals XI-XVI and the Histor-ies
are also preserved in numerous codices of the fifteenth century, all, directly or indirectly,4
copied from the second 1lIediceus. The 1lIediceus no. I had been collated in i5I5 by
Beroaldus Jr. for his editio pr-incepsof Annals i-vi, and by Victorius for his private use in
I542. It may or may not have been seen by Ferrettus,5 but its readings vere not again used
to any large extent until Pichena published his NTotaein i6oo (2nd ed. I604), and his edition
in I607. The Mediceus no. ii had not been used before Pichena for any printed edition.
Various accounts have been given of Lipsius's use of the Mledicei.6 The facts are,
however, easily stated. There are some fev references to the M\Iediceanmanuscripts in
his editions published before Pichena. They are all secondhand and due either (indirectly)
to Beroaldus or (directly) to Ferrettus. When Pichena published his NTotae,Lipsius's
own text and commentary had gone through several editions and vas rightly considered
a major vork of scholarship. Lipsius himself considered that his work vas done. The
new publication caused him, however, to revise his text and notes. It may be gathered
both from his letters and from the preface to his editio ultimnathat what Lipsius looked
for vas not improvement, but confirination, of his text. A nev edition appeared, posthumously,7 in I607-the
same year which also sav Pichena's own edition. There wTere
numerous changes, some marking his independence, and not alvays well considered,
others based on Pichena though not frequently enough, and often unacknowledged.,8
It will be seen from this account that whatever Lipsius's merits as an editor the use he
made of the twNTO
codices is unsatisfactory. Twice he failed to utilize what he (after Pichena)
considered manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries-as a young man, during his
stay in Italy,9 and aga.in after Pichena's publications.10 For the restoration of a sound
4 This has been recognized since Orelli, Baiter,
and Andresen.
F. Grat, JlIklaniges d'Archleol. et
d'Hist. de lEcole Fran_. de RomtieXLII (1925),
considered one of the V7aticani (I958) an independent
witness. I do not feel convinced bh his arguments
nor bh the review of his article by H. Goelzer,
Buill. de l'Assoc. Guiill. Buids I925,
no. 8, p. 24.
C. WV.Mendell, Yale Class. Stuid. vi (I939), has gone
to the trouble of classifying the apographla.
Ferrettus mav have turned the pages of the
Mediceuis, but the two readings which he reports in
his Ainnotatiuncuiae of I54I (cited bv Ruysschaert
n. 2) are both incorrect: I, I3, I4 aplud te, not
I25,
capUt, and 20, II bituis, not zziZictuis.
6 See, for example, above p. 32, n. 2.
7 Lipsius died in i6o6.
8 There are, for instance, no more than nine
textual changes in the first book; in only five of
these cases readings of Pichena and the Mlediceutsare
restored, in one case a manuscript's reading is
ascribed to Mercerus, who had restored it by conjecture, and there are three new emendations.
9 In his Notae of I575 (Introd. to Book xi, cited
by Ruysschaert p. 32, n. 2) Lipsius expressed himself

Unicum exemplar
very clearly on 11Ied. no. I
manuscriptum Europa habet, reconditum in Bibliotheca MX1edicaea,quod accurate et cum fide, ut
opinio mea fert, Philippus Beroaldus exprimi
curavit. Ait et Ferretus vidisse. Quorum fide nitar.
Nam mihi inspiciundi eius occasio non fuit, et, ut
vere dicam, post alios ne cupiditas quidem.'
10 For the evidence, see Ruysschaert l.c. I38-I43.
Lipsius's attitude is shown b; two revealing quotafirst from a letter written in
tions (ib. I39)-the
' Vidi Curtiana (i.e. Curtius Pichena's Notae
i6oo:
of i6oo) ad Tacitum, et bona insunt: sed plura,
hercules, a tam v-etusto exemplari exspectabam. Illud
mihi delectationi, et paene dicam gloriae, vel centenis
locis comprobari ab eo coniecturas nostras, quas
solo ingenio duce, et timide saepe, ponebamus'and again in the introduction to the edition of I607
w%herehe remarks, ' hoc in paucis sed bonis notis
e Gallis Josias M\'ercerusfecit, hoc Curtius Pichena ab
Italia, sed et e Britannia contulit Savillus'. He then
goes on: ' Pichena tamen super omnes, adiutus
a Florentino bonae notae codice, qui in Medicaea
bibliotheca asservatur, et qui centenis circiter locis
coniecturas nostras, quod gaudeam, confirmavit.'

34

C. 0. BRINK

text, it vas fortunate that Tacitus's vorks vere handed on by Pichena as well as by
Lipsius.
The merit which Lipsius could rightly claim vas that he vas not content to improve
the text of Tacitus by conjecture but provided fresh material both to stimulate and check
emendation. The actual codices which he used are tvo Vaticani (Vat. Lat. I863 and I864)
Ruysschaert has not
and one Far-nesianus (then in Rome, now Neapolitanus iv, C zi).
only identified these,11 but has also shown great (and perhaps misplaced) industry in
collating them all over again in order to establish the competence and method of the
humanist.12 Though he has found some mistakes both in the variants and in references
to the manuscripts, Lipsius's collation was on the whole trustworthy and served the
immediate purpose of textual criticism. Beyond that it certainly did not go, since he
shared the weakness of his time in making his symbols as loose and unrecognizable as
possible,13 and in citing his codices when it suited his purpose to do so, not when they
contained important variant readings.
The fashion of the time did not require a documentary text of one or several codices
in a new edition ; rather it required a reprint of an earlier edition to which, in text, margin,
or note, there vere added variants from manuscripts, and emendations from diverse
sources. The earlier text was known as liber vulgatus, its readings as lectiones vulgatae.
While it is true that this procedure kept fancy free for successful emendation, it is easily
seen that it also encouraged such vices as carelessness, conceit, and even dissimulationcarelessness because it vas open to the editor to notice, or ignore, variant readings in
manuscripts ; conceit because an editor would tend to let his ideas shine out against the
dark background of the vulgate text; and dissimulation because of the undefined character
of the text and its resources. If, furthermore, an editor took no care to specify, or took
care not to specify, the provenance of his vulgate, an element of anonymity vas added
which made a check even harder.
In all these matters Lipsius conformed to the standards of his time He never
disclosed the provenance of his vulgate. Not quite a century after his first edition, Ernesti
complained (in the preface to his own text of Tacitus, second edition, I772), ' planum est
eum (i.e. Lipsium) in manibus atque prae oculis habuisse editionem aliquam ignobiliorem,
in qua peccata secundae Rhenani aucta novis essent, quae ille pro vulgatis lectionibus haberet,
de more scilicet vulgari, quo eam quisque vulgatam putat quam in suo exemplo invenit.
ea quae sit, nondum potui reperire.' 14 It was left to Ruysschaert to discover, by a painstaking comparison of the early editions, that for his text Lipsius used Rhenanus's second
edition of I544, while his Notae were based on Ferrettus's Variortrn edition of I542, called,
after its publisher,15 Gryphiana. It is obvious that many editorial hares were set running
if the same word, vtulgata, could in Lipsius's own use refer to two different things-and
neither of them specified.
With an editorial procedure such as this a distinction between transmitted text,
variants from manuscripts, and conjectures is hardly possible. Ruysschaert 16 has tried
to assess the mistakes in the second part of the Annals made by Lipsius either in the
attribution of variant readings to his manuscripts or in distinguishing the transmitted text
from conjectures. He finds not a few mistakes of both kinds. But an assessment is of
little profit when a text is not firmly based on codices, and the evidence is further com"
In addition, Lipsius occasionally
I.c. 26 ff.
referred to other evidence known to him from printed
editions or through the good services of his friends
see Ruysschaert 23 if., 30 ff., 123 if.
12
I.C. 113 ff.
13 Libri, Lib. vet., niss., vet., sincerius,optimutits,
ille,
appear without a hint at the identity of the codices.
At times he specifies Vat. or Farn.
14 Ernesti's criticism is not without interest in this
matter. Before the remark quoted in the text he
says: ' vulgatus tum textus erat Rhenani. itaque
cum dudum deprehendissem lectionem, quam ipse
(i.e. Lipsius) vulgatam vocat, non semper consentire
cum lectione editionis primae Rhenani, cuius

exemplum in manibus erat, putabam secundae

Rhenani lectiones intelligi. sed ea comparanda didici
in nonnullis quidem locis ita esse ut suspicatus eram,
sed plures, quas ille vulgatas lectiones vocet, nec ibi
nec in ulla alia superiorum, quas haberem, reperiri.'
15 P. Cornelii Taciti eqluitis ro. ab excessluAluglusti
Annalilumit libri sedecimn, ex castigatione Aeinylii
Fewretti, Beati Rhenani, Alciati, ac Beroaldi

Lugduni apud Seb. Gryphium, 1542.

16 See Ruysschaert, I.c. I15
ff., on variants

erroneously attributed to one of the manuscripts

117, on the distinction between transmitted text and
conjecture.

JUSTUS

LIPSIUS

AND

THE TEXT OF TACITUS

35

plicated by continuous references from two kinds of lectiones vtulgatae in the text, to other
readings, insufficiently labelled, in the margin, to further material, equally undefined, in
the notes, and back again to the text. In the first six books of the Annals there is a still
lesser degree of certainty since neither the vulgate nor Lipsius's contributions were directly
based on a manuscript.
What the textuts vulgoatutsamounts to is incomplete evidence insufficiently presentedpartly in the body of the text, partly in the margin or the note. This makes fairness in
the attribution of emendations well-nigh impossible. The example of the first book may
suffice to illustrate this point. Occasionally Lipsius refers to fellow-humanists when
accepting or rejecting parallel passages in an inscription or in such writers as Suetonius
or the two Senecas. These references are not concerned with the criticism of the text
and can here be disregarded. The same applies to the few references concerned with
stylistic interpretation. As for changes of the text, Lipsius, very occasionally, mentions
names of scholars-four times, or so, when accepting an emendation, no more frequently
when accepting one in preference to his own text in an earlier edition,17 and somewhat
oftener when rejecting a suggestion. These figures are greatly out of keeping with the
number of emendations actually taken over from older texts or dissertations.
It is instructive to remember that the names of the two editors who most successfully
emended the text of the first six books are hardly ever mentioned-I
mean Beroaldus,
the first editor, and Pichena, the last editor before Lipsius's posthumous edition.18
Vertranius Mlaurus does not fare much better, though his Notae of 1569 were extensively
used by Lipsius. Rhenanus's name appears more frequently because he was the editor
of one of Lipsius's vulgates, but he is mentioned chiefly to be reproved, and his best
emendations disappear in the anonymous mass of the vulgate. As was pointed out above,19
Lipsius never even troubled to state the identity of the textutsvilgoatuts. A comparison of
Lipsius's text with-Rhenanus's second edition made by Ruysschaert in the course of his
collations revealed a number of emendations still falsely ascribed to Lipsius in all modern
editions. 20
It appears then that a correct or probable emendation in an earlier edition as a rule
helped to disqualify, rather than qualify, its author for mention, and the more of them
he had to offer the less was he likely to have his name recorded by his successors. Lipsius
felt as little bound as any editor of his time to mention his predecessors unless he disputed
their suggestions ; and even then a mention was far from obligatory. Agreement is
expressed rarely, and if it is it serves as an excuse for a graceful compliment 21 or
occasionally to mark a departure from a reading of one of the earlier editions of his own
text.22 At times it would seem as if the anonymity of the textutsvulgatuts could be extended
so as to shroud the authorship of any work which an editor was loath to attribute to a
predecessor. This estimate applies by no means to the work of predecessors only. Lipsius,
almost consistently, eschews a mention of his contemporary, Pichena, while he uses, or
ignores, his work.
It will be well to remember the laxity inherent in the principle of the textuts villgatuts
when Lipsius's use of unpublished material is considered. Unacknowledged borrowing
from printed sources imperceptibly merges into unacknowledged use of borrowed copies,
1 The position as regards the last (posthumous)
edition of I607 is slightly different. From the last
edition but one I note the following references in the
first book: i, 8, Vertranius; 4, 15, Muretus (though
his emendation is not in the text);
32,
17,
Rhenanus; 74, i, Mercerus (not in the text). The
reference to Ferrettus at 13, 14, concerns a reading
of the VlIediceuis. Conjectures of his own are
abandoned at 4, I9 and 7, 4 with reference to
M'Iuretus,at 8, 21, to Cujacius, and at 70, 21, to an
anonymous still unidentified. The well-known
reference to Muretus at 5, 8, may also be mentioned
here.
18 For
the e-vidence, see Ruysschaert's list,
pp. 172 ff.

19

See above, p. 34.

Ruysschaert 2I, n. 3, cites these emendations
from Rhenanus's text: I, 8, 28, iniprospererepetitae;
35, 3, universi; 56, 9, nietuiebantlur; 79, I7, concederetlur: II, 36, 13, honorenm; 56, 17, Servaeins;
6o, i6, Lyciiin: iv, 8, 22, confirniaret; 66, 9, conexuis
(correct in OCT): vI, 10, 3, Flii: XII, 43, 2, prorlutae.
21 Compare, for example, his remarks on Muretus
at I, 4, 15, ' M. Antonio . . . Mureto, cuius scripta
Xrenus inhabitat pariter cum Musis' (he did not,
ho'wevrer,put the conjecture in the text); or ib. 74, 1,
sidus exoriens suae Galliae Jos. Mercerus.'
22 See, for example, above, n. 17.
20

36

C. 0.

BRINK

or of suggestions made in talk or letters. The humanists of the sixteenth century must
have been aware of the difference between these two kinds of borrowing ; for the former
can be established, while the latter usually cannot ; but the lack of documentary evidence
is the same in either case.23 No reproach was, in fact, more usual between humanists
than that of literary theft. This is set in its proper perspective by the books De plagio
litterario which first put in an appearance about 1550 and petered out a hundred years
or so later. The new standard of literary copyright and scholarly honesty enjoined in
these tracts was as high in theory as it was low in practice and, in the Catalogi plagiorurn
appended to most of the tracts, the charge of plagiarism is mercilessly traced from one
great humanist to the next: Bosius is seen to be defrauded by Lambinus, Lambinus by
I\Iuretus, AMuretusby Lipsius, and so ad infinitum.
Lipsius made use of the unpublished books of his older friend, Iluretus, or his
contemporary, Chifflet, in the same way as he treated Pichena's books which were in print.
In the medley of unacknowledged borrowings which then passed for a critical edition
there are found also some unlabelled suggestions of I'luretus and Chifflet. Ruysschaert
has laboured hard to substantiate or refute those claims. He has collated the personal
copies that are preserved of Lipsius, AMuretus,and Chifflet, and has found that there
are no more than a dozen unacknowledged borrowings from Chifflet 24 while Lipsius's
undeclared debt to 1luretus is likely both to be more considerable and harder to substantiate.25 Useful though these researches are here as well as in his assessment of
Lipsius's collations described above (at p. 34), Ruysschaert's details tend to obscure
the general character of Lipsius's work. To single out a dozen futrta from Chifflet would
suggest an otherwise unbroken standard of documentary evidence and a scientific rigour
which, in editorial technique, is not found until the nineteenth century. These dozen or
so passages have to be considered in conjunction with the many dozens of emendations
or readings appropriated from printed sources, many of which can now be traced in
Ruysschaert's lists. In both cases Lipsius's purpose was the same, namely to play down
the contribution made by his predecessors and his colleagues.26 If modern, and extraneous,
standards are applied he must be accused of dishonesty, or his faults must be excused by
special pleading. Ruysschaert has come to the conclusion that Lipsius occasionally
succumbed to the temptation of cribbing, and often showed a certain lack of courtesy
and a vituperative temper, but that these drawbacks do not affect the originality of his
method. Over against this it has been argued in the foregoing pages that Lipsius's editorial
method, if there is such a thing, differs in no essential from that of his contemporaries.
His work, like theirs, shows that lack of documentary evidence which gives rise so
easily to dissimulation. His use of manuscripts in the second part of the Annals was
erratic but extensive enough to provide a new basis for emendation ; in the first six books
he had no recourse to the manuscript. If one wishes to find Lipsius the critic at his best,
not at his most ordinary, his emendations and his historical comments must be considered.
Of the latter I am no judge; on the former some remarks will be found in the followilng
section of this paper. For a note on emendations, see below, p. 50.
II.

CODEX AND

EMENDATION

IN

THE FIRST

BOOK

OF TIIE ANNALS

The most conspicuous omission in Dr. Ruysschaert's study of textual criticism is, in
fact, textual criticism. Lipsius may or may not have had a; methode de critique textuelle ',
but even his art as an emender cannot but remain dull if we rest content with counting
23 The ordinary reader would certainly be misled
by such borrowings from printed sources. Even
erudite scholars, like Ernesti, tried in vain to establish
the nature of Lipsius's vulgate: see above, p. 34.
M\
luch painstaking effort was needed in order to
identify Beroaldus's and Rhenanus's contributionsand from Lipsius's text and notes it would certainly
be impossible to give his due to either of his
If several
predecessors or, indeed, to Pichena.
centuries had to pass until some of Rhenanus's
property was discovered in Lipsius's keeping (cf.

abovre, n. 2o), it is hard to understand the meaning

of these words of Ruysschaert's: ' mais les emprunts
de cette sorte etaient trop aisement identifiables pour
des lecteurs tant soit peu avertis pour quIon puisse
taxerILipse de plagiat awce propos ' (p. I52).
24
See Ruysschaert I44 if., and below, p. 50.
2

26

See

below,

p. 51.

Ruysschaert has discovered (i.c. 149 f.) that

Lipsius went to the length of erasing the name of
Chifflet in the margins of his working copy so as to
cover his traces.

JUSTUS LIPSIUS AND THE TEXT OF TACITUS

37

and labelling his conjectures-according to whatever happens to be the latest edition of

the text. It is only through a study of the text which the critic had sought to emend that
an impression of success or failure can be gained. The present writer has chosen the
first book of the Annals for such an experiment. This is by no means the best illustration
that is available for Lipsius's ars ernendandi-the Histories or Annals xi-xvi where he
exercised a choice between various manuscripts woould provide a better test. But in the
first part of the Annals Lipsius worked on a printed edition ultimately based on the
so that his way of dealing with the readings of our manuscript can be seen in
M11ediceuts
most cases. And there is yet another reason for this choice.
In a recent paper in this Journal 27 Professor R. Syme has recommended certain
principles to future editors of Tacitus, and has used the first book of the Annals to argue his
case. His article is remarkable at once for its erudition in rebutsTaciteis and its controversial
character. The problems involved are not without some bearing upon editorial practice
in general, and have appeared, at least to the present writer, to call for a re-examination.
Svme calls attention to the doctrine of the Swedish School, by which he means Professor
E. L6fstedt of Lund and his followers. He contends that, in editing Tacitus, scholars ought
to be aware of this new learning, and show a more conservative attitude in dealing with the
manuscripts. This he finds in Lenchantin's recent text of Annals I-VI which he calls
impeccable, and a model of scholarly conservatism. Fidelity to the Mledicelus(the codex
utnicutsof I-VI) ' is now not only to be commended but firmly to be enjoined'. Hence
' loyalty to the codex, when duly and soberly corrected, emerges as the criterion of good
editorship '.
L6fstedt's contributions to Latin textual criticism are perhaps too well known to
call for a renewed mention, nor are they as new as would appear from these words.
The attempt to rescue manuscript readings from the dark recesses of an apparatuts criticuls,
and to explain them with a wide and thorough knowledge of Latin prose style of all
periods, and not least of Late and Vulgar Latin-this, if it be a neNTmethod, goes after
all back to the first two decenniums of our century.28 What is in question here is its more
recent application to the criticismi of the text of Tacitus.29
The virtues and vices of this procedure have long since been noted. There was in
it healthy reaction against hypercriticism and the gratuitous use of conjectural emendation,
but there was also a danger of vulgarizing an unvulgar style, and of elevating scribes'
whims to the lev7el of literature. A prejudice in favour of a manuscript is no better than
a prejudice against it, and is at times worse since it may lead to a belief in the letter of
the codex. The question is then whether the editing of Tacitus has profited by the
Swedish doctrine. How do Lipsius's numerous conjectures fare if, with Professor Syme,
fidelity to the codex is now not only to be commended but firmly to be enjoined ?
It is convenient to start with the passages where Lipsius divined correct readings of
the manuscript as against the vulgate text of his time. There are five such cases which
I list in a note, appending the faulty readings.30 In one of the passages (3I) a historical
xxxviii G(948), I22-a
review of H. Fuchs's
1946 (Edit. Helvet., Ser. Lat. iv, I),
28 Witness Lofstedt's Spiitlateinische Stuidien I 908,
Ter-tuilliansApologeticini texthritisch utntersutchtI9I5,
Arnobiana 1917, and the nmagnunmopuls of the
Swedish School, Philologischer, Komniientari, zuitr
Peregrinatio Aetheriae, 9I Ii.
29 P.
Persson, Krit.-exeg. Bemerkuingen Ziz, den
Kleinen Schriften des Tacitius, Uppsala, i 927; N.
Eriksson, Stutdien zu den Ann. des Tac., Lund I934;
Tacitei, Uppsala
and G. S6rbom, Tariatio serm-i-onis
A similarly conservative attitude to the
I935.
manuscript was shown by Len chantin de Gubernatis
E.
in his edition of Annals i-vi (Rome I940).
retractatio of Andresen's text
Koestermann's
(Teubner 1936) may also be compared.
30 26, 2, mnandataClemitenti
centutrioniqutaepemferret
(praeferret) ; 3I, IO, imnaet zicesimanis, nisspelt as
277RS

edition of

three rords by Lipsius (undevicesirnanis); 32, 5,

prostratos verbeributs mu/-llcant(miiltant); 37, 10,
legiones nihil culnctatas, misspelt contatas by Lipsius
(contatuts); 49, 6, et quiidarnbonorurnicaesi. postqiarn,
intellecto in quios saezviretur, pessinaii quioqutearnia
rapluerant (. . . caesi. postqiani intellection, etc.).
Lipsius retained, however, the wrong punctuation
after caesi; Ruysschaert's entry, p. I74, is incorrect.
In addition, two cases may be mentioned when, after
Pichena's publication, Lipsius accepted correct
readings of the Alediceus. 39, i, legati ab senati
regressi (regressinn) . . . Germanicumn
adeutnt; at 37, 3,
largitlo ditferebatur in hiber7nacuiuzsqute.n0onabcessere
qui7ntani, etc., the full stop after cuuilzsqute,and
and
were restored by MViercer,
for cuiuhsqutam,
cuiuizsqute
accepted by Lipsius in his last edition without a
had been found in
mention of the fact that cuuilzsqute
the manuscript, and published by Pichena.

38

C. 0.

BRINK

point, the wrong number of a legion, is corrected, one other shows a Tacitean idiom
restored in addition to the sense (49), in the rest the sense is restored with a minimum
of change. In a sixth passage Lipsius though retaining the vulgate reading removed
a historical discrepancy by altering the punctuation.3'
Next may be considered four passages in this book where Lipsius rightly defended
the vulgate, and along with it, though unknown to him, the readings of the manuscript.
There are, to begin with, three historical points in which he did not allow himself to be
persuaded to correct Tacitus, instead of the scribe.32 One more passage merits consideration: (Tiberius) Rhodi specie secessus exulem egerit (chap. 4, I, I3). If the withdrawal
was a pretence the exile cannot have been one ; hence, Muretus altered exulemn to exul.
Lipsius, while politely mentioning Muretus's conjecture in the note, left the text unaltered.
Ago, with a personal accusative, need, in fact, involve no suggestion of pretence but may
merely mean ' to take on a part '. And this is the meaning demanded here-' Tiberius
took on the part of an exile though he pretended to voluntary withdrawal '. He was, in
fact, called 'the exile' (Suet. Tib. I3, I). Yet Muretus's conjecture found favour, though
the genuine reading exulem has never lacked defenders.33 What seems to have escaped
notice, however, is the fact that Tacitus himself appears to use ago in no other sense with
personal nouns indicating the ' part taken ' by the agent, like amicum, filium principis, or
exulem.34
Lipsius did not remember the Tacitean usage, but his sense of style nevertheless
saved him from needless conjecture.
What follows is concerned with conjectures that depart from M and the vulgate alike,
and first those which are now generally accepted. There are fourteen such cases in the
first book.35 Two of the emendations concern the historical matter (see chapters iO and
58 in note 35). In the other passages the sense is restored with remarkable ease, and by
the slightest of alterations. The exchange in chap. 5 of the adjective gnarum for a nonexistent proper name G. Navumn is especially impressive-though
this may be due to
Muretus. Tacitean idiom is noticed in several places, particularly at chap. 57 where
recollection of mnotisrebus (at I4, 6i) enabled Lipsius to restore that expression here, and
31
49, i6, ' tramittit duodecimn milia e legionibus,
sex et viginti socios cohortis (e legionibus sex, et).'
32 At I, 3, ' neque decenviralis
potestas ultra
biennium ,' Lipsius eschewed Vertranius's trienniu7n,m
at 8, 8, l\Muretus's insertion of the antiquarian's
account of Augustus's legacy (Suet., Aiug. IOI, 2)
into the more general statement of the historian, and
at 14, 7, Vertranius's ' aeraque adoptionis ' for the
correct text ' aramque adoptionis '.
33 l\Muretus's conjecture became respectable in the
nineteenth century. It was accepted by most editors,
and is still found in Andresen, Furneaux, Fisher, and
Goelzer. Exudlemwas kept in most of the earlier
editions, and is back in the texts of Koestermann,
Lenchantin, and Fuchs.
The accusative was
defended by P. Thomas, Mnemos. 49 (I92I), 43, who
in support quoted Suet., Tib. I2, 2, ' tunc non
privatum modo, sed obnoxiumn et trepidum egit'
(Tiberius), Pliny, Ep. i, I7, i, ' qui defunctorum
quoque amnicosagant,' and a passage from Sidonius
Apollinaris. See also N. Eriksson's wordv defence,
Stu:d. zut deni Ann. 1934, 109 ff.
34 Ago, with the accusative of a personal noun
indicating the part taken by the agent, according to
Gerber and Greef, Lexicon Taciteum p. 6o, B, is
found five times in Tacitus: Hist. 1, 30, 4; ii, 83, 2;
I I.
IV, 2, 3; Ann. 1, 4, 15, and XvI, 28,
I cannot find
the idea of pretence in any of these passages-for
instance, what sense would there be in Domitian
pretending to be the son of the Emperor (Hist. iv,
2, 3) when he was precisely that, but ' nondum ad
curas intentus' ' fulfilled his part' only ' stupris et
adulteriis' ? The Thes. L.L. offers interesting

material s.r. ago, col. I399.

Compare also Vell.
Pat. II, I24, 2, ' Ut potius aequalem civem quam
eminentem liceret agere principem.'
35 Chap. 3, 24, ' sed quo pluribus munimentis
(monumnentis)insisteret' sc. Tiberi domus: the
emendation is also claimed by l\Muretus, Var. Lec.
XI, I;
5, 8, gnarutm(C. Naitaum,corr. G. nauni?nM)
id Caesari: also claimed by Muretus, see below,
p. 5I;
10, 20,
IulIos (IJlios) * misspelt Ilulos by
Lipsius, cf. Mommsen's article Hermnes24 (i889), I55,
in
as cited
the notes on the passage; 13, 26, ' donec
Haterius Augustam oraret eiusque (et uisqutevulgo
22, I3,
etutsqu:eM) . . precibus protegeretur

hi

(ii);

25,

i,

postquam vallum introiit (introit),'

despite Draeger, Pfitzner, and Gerber and Greef's

Lexicon p. 1149, B; on the present after postquaam
restricted to certain verba sentiendi, see Nipperdev
and Andresen ad 1., Hofmann Sy'vntax734; 26, Io,
Cnumquanmne ad se nisi (nisi ad se) filios familiarum
venturos
31, 4, ' daretque se legionibus vi sua
cuncta tracturis (tractu:ru:s) ; thus Lipsius, I 585
57, 5,
(Ruysschaert p. 173), before Freinsheim;
Cquanto quis audacia promptus, tanto magis fidus
rebusque motis (reblus contmotis) potior habetur;
58, 22, ' sedem vetere (utetera)in provincia pollicetur'
vetere M2 and Lipsius; 76, Io ' in vulgus formidoin added by N12 and Lipsius; 76, i6,
losum'
77, 2,
quamquam id quoque (qu:od)dictum est'
occisis non modo e plebe sed (et) militibus et
sed M2 and Lipsius. Here I also
centurione':
mention 28, 14, hi where Lipsius indicated at least
the right way by suggesting ii for in.

JUSTUS LIPSIUS AND THE TEXT OF TACITUS

39

at the same time to introduce the necessary connecting particle by altering ' rebus
commotis ' to ' rebusque motis '.36
The following section concerns Lipsius's erroneous conjectures. A perusal of
Ruysschaert's list suggests some observations. The list is a long one, but numbers may
be deceptive. Let it be noted first that out of thirty-three such alterations in the first
book only sixteen can be held against the editor of the text, since the rest were either
withdrawn by him 37 or else put forward for the sake of discussion only. There is apparent
in all of these conjectures a neglect of Tacitean idiom in vocabulary or style and Lipsius
showed much good sense in withdrawing them, often as early as the second issue of his
edition. It is due to these judicious changes of mind that the number of his agreed failures
is so small-only sixteen or so in the first book, of which thirteen are his own conjectures.
These remaining thirteen alterations though probably justly rejected 38 are almost always
deliberately slight, concerned with the elucidation of the sense or of a historical fact
tinkering with Silver idiom or Tacitean epigram occurs very rarely.
The rest of this chapter contains passages that still evoke disagreement either because
a solution that is acceptable to all judges has not been found, or because Lipsius's text
has to be defended against recent doubt. The cruces, or apparent cruces, are presented first.
There are, in the first book, two conundrums in proper names: the first t que tedii
et t (IO, 22) because the nature of the corrupt text allows of no convincing solution, and
the second, M. or M'. Lepidus (13, 7) because the case for Marcus or Manius needs still
to be made.39
There are, next, two passages where Lipsius's text is probably wrong. At 20, II
one of Lipsius's most admired emendations vetus (for intus) operis ac laboris has recently
been impugned by Eriksson.40 I would agree with his doubts though not with his
arguments. Tacitus describes the camp-prefect Rufus who had risen from the ranks:
antiquarn duramque mnilitiarnrevocabat-that is, he was a disciplinarian in the old styleintus operis ac laboris et eo inmitior quia toleraverat. Intus has to be emended. The turn
of speech in eo inmitior, etc., seems to imply that an idea which had been expressed earlier
in the sentence is elaborated here. Something like either inmitior or toleraverat was
expressed earlier in the sentence-either ' a stickler for ' hard work or ' himself inured to '
hard work.41 There seem to be two arguments in favour of the former solution. Aldus
Manutius appears to have seen that eo inmitior is thrown into relief if Rufus's rigid
discipline is mentioned immediately before, along with operis ac laboris. Since, moreover,
this point is already expressed in ' antiquam duramque militiam revocabat ' the same
idea was probably applied to labor ac opUs, to be expressed the more strongly by et eo
inmitior. The word itself remains uncertain. Manutius's inmnitisconvinced Muretus
but no one since. Rhenanus's attentus, though easy paleographically after the ending of
revocabat, lacks the notion of enforcing (discipline). Vertranius's in<ten>tuis (' strict')
is perhaps the best choice. It is an easy alteration 42 and is good Tacitean speech: the
word is used by him several times for strictness in enforcing military discipline,43 though
36 Lindsay, Conttrac. in early Lat. Minuisclde 48,
and Notae Lat. ? 412, mentions three usual symbols
for con, namely c, a, or 7, all of them well known to
Any one of these,
the reader of manuscripts.
especially the third, would easily be mistaken for q,
the symbol for qlue.
conxreniently lists the changes
37 Ruysschaert
found in the vrariouseditions: he also shows at p. 86
that ' sa connaissance de style a donc progresse
d'une r6edition Il'autre '.
38 Wblfflin's
argument in faxrour of inotut, for
imietli,40, i, has carriedno conxriction; 54, 6, ' ludos
Augustalis tunc primum coepta (for coeptos) turbavit
discordia ' perhaps still deserxres some attention in
theatri licentia, proximo priore anno
vriew of 77, I,
coepta ' : see below, p. 4I.
31 See Walther's note on the passage, and R. Syme,

Romzan Rezol.

433,
7.

n. 4, JRS

xxxviii

(1948),

I29,

Syme (3RS XXXvIII, 130) also

doujbts the relevranceof Dio 55, 33, 2, to Tac., Ann. I,

XXXIX

(I949),

38, 4, 11.E'Eniuits(Nipperdey) for me?iennis (M), i.e.

M. Enniius; and (JRS xxxix, I2 and 14) considers
the evridence for the names Hispo I, 74, and Falanilus
I, 73.
40

following in the main

N. Eriksson I.c. II5,
Walther's note in his edition of I83I, which was also
approxred by Ruperti (I834), Pfitzner (I869), and
recently by Syme, JRS XXxvIII, I29.
the hard worker and
41 Since both traits-Rufus
Rufus the disciplinarian-are anyhow expressed in
the sentence I can make but little of Walther's
contention that the latter alteration is an inepta
talutologia.
42 For the skipping of letters and syllables in the
AlIedicelis, see Rostagno's preface to the Leyden
Facsimile p. XIII, also Ruperti's edition I, 227.
43 Lex. Tat. 663, B.
There are sevren passages
all told, and they all are about military matters. In
Gerber and Greef's first quotation attentlis is a
misprint for intentlis.

C. 0.

40

BRINK

there is no example of the genitive going with

Lipsius changed his mind three tinmes

he took inz<vic>tu1s from the ediitio
prfinceps, in I58I he proposed niiniuzts,and in I588 vetuts. Tacitus elsewhere uses vetuts
with the genitive ; vetutslaboris would mean ' inured to hard work '. This is the alternative,
above denoted as inferior, which, despite Walther's and his followers' opposition, has
become the vulgate reading, and is retained in all recent editions.
At 7, 4 Tacitus describes the change of regime, and the bearing of the upper classes' ne laeti excessu principis neu tristiores primordio ' Hence, according to the codex,
' lacrimas gaudium questus adulatione miscebant.' Variation 45 and antithesis are aimed
appearing between lacrimias
at, but what is set over against what ? The notion of gazudiuzrin
and qzuestuts
suggests a continued antithesis of laeti and tristes, that is, this punctuation
' lacrimas gaudium, questus adulatione miscebant.'
No one, to my knowledge, has
defended this reading and punctuation-not even Sorbom, Variatio sermoni,sTacitei, chap. v.
If a third plural noun is inserted, namely adzl1atione<s>,the singular gauldiulmis isolated
this was suggested by Divaeus,46 and adopted in Lipsius's first edition. If an ablative
an unnecessary alteration is
is introduced into the first clause, that is gazudiofor gazudiuzmin,
made this was done by Muretus, and adopted by Lipsius in all editions from the second
onwardst In fact, agreement had been reached by all recent editors that it is possible to
preserve the scathing antithesis along with the stylistic change of singular and plural by
' lacrimas gaudium, questus
introducing the easiest alteration, namely Heinsius's text
adulatione<m> miscebant.' Lenchantin, however, defended the 11 reading adllationle,
printing ' lacrimas gaudium questus adulatione miscebant ' The tricolon ' tears, joy,
plaints ' seems clumsy, and the Tacitean antithesis is sacrificed to the text of the codex.
The following group of six passages contains difficulties not easily solved, though
I am going to argue that Lipsius's text throughout has the greatest probability. There
are, in the first place, four passages in which Lipsius had a good case for retaining readings
In two further passages his
of his vulgate-at I3, I4;
I2;
I5,
65, 27, and 28, 4.
emendations have to be considered-at 70, I4 and 28, 2.
At I3, I4, Q. Haterius asks Tiberius the awkward direct question ' quo usque patieris,
Caesar, non adesse caput rei publicae ? ' Thus Rhenanus's and Ferretti's convincing
conjecture. Ferretti was mistaken, however, when he asserted that this was the codex
reading. The Mediceutshas aputt te, which appeared in the earlier vulgate reading as aputtte.
Lipsius printed in the text of his first edition Rlienanus's reading capult rei p. In the
note he considered the conjecture capita which he replaced in the commentary of the
second edition by the tentative proposal caputt te-both conjectures of course to take
account of aputt te, the incorrectly reported reading of the manuscript. Both proposals
are obviously wrong, and worth a mention only in that they show that te can hardly be
understood as a personal pronoun. Subsequent editors have rested content with Rhenanus's
emendation. Recently, however, Lenchantin has tried to explain te as t<and>eni which
he modestly, and I believe wisely, confined to his apparatuts criticuts. Professor Syme
explains ' quo usque patieris, Caesar, non adesse caput t<and>em rei publicae ? ' as a
burlesque reference to the beginning of the First Catilinarian ' quo usque tandem abutere,
Catilina, patientia nostra ? ' ' by throwing tanzdein into an unusual collocation he echoes
but modifies a Ciceronian phrase.' 47 If this collocation should appear too unusual to
constitute even a parody-and the present writer would be of that opinion-the syllable
te may perhaps be explained as a dittography before the following rei, but the suprascript
stroke remains unexplained. Nor is this the only case of the kind.
A suprascript stroke indicating -in also defies explanation in our second passage. The

(Ruysschaert p.

I73).

In his first edition

44 Eriksson I.c. II6 cites Sen., De Clemii.II, 5, 3

(and Ausonius), for the genitivre with attentius, and
rightly says that words like ferox provide parallels in
Tacitus. Cf. Draeger, Synt. d. Tac., 3rd ed., ?71,
Furneaux Tac., Anin., Introcl. chap. v, ? 33.
45 According to the Lexic-otnTacbiteumi,ndisceo is
used by Tacitus with the accusative (one or sevreral),
or accusativre and ablativre. Also, adiliatio is used in
singular or plural.

it 44

(I574)

4G The conjecture has been discussed here because

it goes under Lipsius's name, but Ruysschaert
has pointed out that Lipsius himself
(p. 172)
attributes it to Divaeus: ' sans doute une allusion
a une convrersation de l'auteur avrecPierre vranDievre
(1535-1585), l'historien louvraniste. Cf. Biogr. Alat.
BeIg.'
47

JRS

xxxviii

(1948),

I28.

JUSTUS

LIPSIUS

AND

THE TEXT OF TACITUS

4I

two cases may perhaps be used for mutual support. At I5, IX the Mediceuls has this
' mox celebratio annfu ad praetorem translata.'
remark about the Ludi Augustales
Beroaldus scribbled two obvious emendations in the margin of the manuscript, namely
annuiiiaand annuuiiiint,
the former of which was adopted by Lipsius. This solution has a
great deal to commend it. The endings of first and second declension nouns are liable
to corruption because of the similarity of it and a in early minuscule, and particularly
in early Caroline, script. Several times the Medicean scribe had thus to grapple with
difficulties that he could not solve, and several times he blundered doubly by putting
a wrong suprascript stroke as well. 48 Two it's, or i followed by a, were felt to be awkward
at

iII,

62,

I4

passuzim has become passz7, and at

I,

25, 9 we find praecipznm for praecz~luam.

In the present passage annutaprobably lost its final a before ad, and the remaining annlit
was made into a Latin word by a suprascript stroke, anni?i. The reading thus obtained
seems to me more satisfactory than any of the other conjectures, including Lenchantin's.
Since reference to the ' annual ' character of annual games has sometimes been felt
to be redundant it may be well to remember that Tacitus is here reporting at least two
decrees, and completely ignores the earlier history of the Augustalia.49 Of the earlier
events we get some glimpses in Dio-the festival decreed when Augustus returned from
the East in I9 B.C. (Dio 54, IO) ; the Games held before, but in II B.C. for the first time
held by decree, ?K 86y aTo; (whatever that mav mean ; Dio 54, 34).50 In A.D. 14 the
tribunes asked to be given financial and administrative responsibility as well as certain
privileges at the Games (Dio 56, 46, and Tac. l.c.). The Games were then officially put in
the calendar as hidciAzugutstales,the costs not, however, to be defrayed by the tribunes
but by the exchequer (Tac.). The next stage is known from Tacitus only it is covered
by the sentence which contains the word annuiiia;the date referred to by niox (1. I I) is
unknown. I suggest that Tacitus is referring to a new decree by which the annual and
but responsibility
perpetual character of the Games was again stated (hence celebratio annuiiia),
was transferred to the praetor peregrinus. It may be asked whether the new dispensation
was enough to enable Tacitus to sav (54, 5) that the Games 'had only just been started',
tzunzc
primuzm coeptos. If it is, one may dispense with Lipsius's conjecture in that passage 51
Nvhich otherwise has much to commend it. It is perhaps not always advisable to press
prhimusand like wrordsin a writer who had to deal with an excess of material, and yet wished
to be brief and incisive. Historians have still to explain how Tacitus (I5, I) could use
turmprimutm in the matter of the transference to the senate of the praetorian elections
and yet take notice of the law of Messalla and Cinna of A.D. 5 which recently has become
in the 1MlaglianoInscription,
known through the equally puzzling rogation of A.D. I9-20,
reprinted by Ehrenberg and Jones in the Docutmentsillutstrating the reigns of Azugutstutsanzd
But
Tiberizus(1949)
I54-a
half-way house between senatorial and popular voting.
whatever the explanation, it is historical comment not textual emendation that is needed in
this matter. Some readers may have been misled by Gruter's starting chap. I5 at turm
printuni, instead of at I4, I2 canzdidatospraetutrae. There (I4, I2) Tacitus says that he is
going to talk about praetorian elections-and about praetors he talks, down to I 5, 7.
Nipperdey's insertion of praetutrae (Pture) before plures I5, 6 is clever if unconvincing,
and should not have been revived by Eriksson l.c. II4.
48 Omitting the common instances for the suprascript stroke wrongly put or missed, I mention i, 8, 4,
aluglustlior aliglista instead of Auglistum, wrongly
altered to aligliste (= Aluglustae) by the first hand of
AiV: see Rostagno, in the preface to the Leiden
Facsimile, p. xv ; Fisher, however, ascribes the
alteration to 1\/I12. Equallv, exacta is put for exactliunt at
ii, 85, 7. At ii, I5, 5, pars onlista vidneriblustergii the
opposite mistake is found; the stroke is wrongly put
on what ought to be the letter a, but was taken to
be iu. Because of the structure of the following
clause, I still believe l\1uretus's conjecture terga to be
right, and deplore Lenchantin's printing of the
manuscript's reading. At v'i, I6, i, redactii may be
either redactium or redacta, probably the former.

49 For the Augustalia, see Wissowa, Religion (2nd

ed.) 453, 457, and the other works cited there, and
P-W II, 236i. Wissowa refers to the very instructive
parallel of the Ludi Apollinares, as reported by Livy
25,

12,

9-12;

26, 23, 3;

27, I I, 6;

27, 23, 5-7.

13, the year before

I skip Dio 56, 29, I (A.D.
Augustus's death): the incident reported there
happened either at the Augustalia in October or at
the Games in honour of his birthday in September.
51 See above, p. 39, n. 38.
The conjecture is
based on the parallel between 54, 6, ' ludos Augustalis
tunc primum coeptos turbavit discordia ex certamine
histrionum,' and 77, i, ' theatri licentia, proximo
priore anno coepta.'
50

42

C. 0.

BRINK

At 65, 27, as is well known, Tacitus calls a spade not a spade but ' per quae
exciditur caespes ', ' things wherewith turf is cut '. After per qzuaethere follows egeritzur
or at least that is what Rhenanus, followed by Lipsius and most editors, made of
huminuts,
perq; gerittur htumuts,as found in M. Lenchantin, however, has adopted Beroaldus's
and the following explanation ' non est, ut Walther docuit,
reading per qutaegeritturhutmuts,
sermo de aggere e fossa egerendo, verum de aggere ad vallum extruendum longius petito
quem milites sportis et corbulis humeris gestabant '. It is true Tacitus did once or twice
use the rare meaning of gero ' to carry ' and who will gainsay the possibility of this reading ?
But is it at all likely ? As so often, Tacitus with slight variations states a situation recurring
in Roman warfare. The historians describe the plight of soldiers who have to build a
rampart without the tools needed for the job. The difficulty lies in digging without
pickaxes for breaking, shovels and baskets for scooping and lifting, the soil, and in cutting the
turf without using spades or special turf-cutters. Compare, for instance, Caesar describing
the attempt of the Nervii to build a rampart without tools, BG v, 42, 3: ' sed nulla
ferramentorum copia quae esse<n>t ad hunc usum idonea, gladiis caespites circumcidere,
manibus sagulisque terram exhaurire cogebantur.' So in Tacitus, ' struendum vallumn,
petendus agger, amissa magna ex parte per quae <e>geritur humus aut exciditur caespes.'
Caesar and Tacitus comment on the same operation, the circutmcidereof the turf-excidere
in Tacitus-and the exhautrire52 of the earth-<e>gerere in Tacitus, as I believe.53 Similar
work is represented on the monuments and, in a paper upon the army on Trajan's Column,
Professor I. A. Richmond has put our passage alongside the parallels from Caesar and
Vegetius (BSR Papers XIII, I935, i8 ff.). He makes no reference to the textual difficulty.
But this fact renders the parallels no less valuable. Rather does it serve to show the true
context of our passage, which had been obscured by the codex reading. A stylistic parallel
may be added. The word egero is applied by other writers to the scooping of soil 54 and
Tacitus himself says in the Histories (v 7, I2) ' modicum id litus et egerentibus (harenas)
inexhaustum '.
At the beginning of chap. 28 three or four blemishes occur in a small compass and
at an almost regular distance from each other so as to render uncertain the wording of
the sentence though the sense is tolerably clear. Conjectures, of which there is no dearth,
certainly avail little at line 4 ' prospereque cessura quae pergerent ', whether they concern
cessura, quae, or pergerent. Hence, the possibilities of justifying the manuscript's reading
ought to be reconsidered. Lipsius's own tentamninamoved from emendation to acceptance
of the codex reading-from peragerent to urgerent (for pergerent in the first edition) to
Rhenanus's gererent (in the second edition), back to pergerent later on. Two arguments
are known by which quae pergerent may be justified. Lenchantin, impressed by lexicographical lore,55 takes it to mean quae aggrederentur, with an infinitive understood. Such
ellipses occur in the colloquial language of Cicero's letters and dialogues,56 but seem out
of place here. Also it is verbs like dicere, explicare, or narrare which are supplied in the
alleged parallels, but are not here applicable. The other possibility lies in the extension
of transitive usage to verbs mainly or wholly intransitive.57 The use of pergo is mainly
52 Compare Orosius's paraphrase vi, 10, 3, ' cum
. . .instrumenta ruralia non haberent, gladiis concidendo terram et sagulis exportando . . . vallum ...
et fossam . . . perfecerunt.' Horace (Epode V, 31)
describes a similar action for a different purpose,
'ligonibus duris humum exhauriebat'.
5
Both Caesar's and Tacitus's descriptions are
graphic enough to enable a reader to recognize the
same operation when it is described in Vegetius's
Epitonia rei militaris iii, 8, ' primum in unius noctis
transitum et itineris occupationem leniorem (castra
muniuntur) cum sublati caespites ordinantur et
aggerem faciunt, supra quem valli, hoc est sudes vel
tribuli lignei, per ordinem digeruntur.
Caespes
autem circumciditur ferramentis qui herbarum
radicibus continet terram,' etc.
5'
Examples for egero in this sense are cited in the
Thesauriusp. 242, COI. 2, 41 if.

55 See Forcellini and De Vit; also Georges, Lexicon

(8th ed.), s.v.
56

Cic.,

Ad Att.

III,

15,

5, pergopraeteritaIV,

II,

I,

perge reliqua, and (probably) De Leg. ii, 69, perge

cetera, are cited in corroboration. The ellipse of a
verb like dico is, of course, very frequent in Cicero.
5 7E.
Lofstedt has discussed many cases of this
kind, mainly, but not exclusively, found in later
Latin: Svntactica I (2nd ed. 1942),
chaps. XIV and
xv. Students of grammar differ as regards the early
history of transitive and intransitive verbs. Rego and
its compounds (pergo among them) happen to figure
in this controversy in which the present writer has
felt more convinced by the arguments set out by
J. Wackernagel, Vorles. iiber Synizt.II (2nd ed.), 179,
than by J. B. Hofmann's discussion of the same
problems, Sy,ntax, 27 and 378.

JUSTUS

LIPSIUS

AND

THE TEXT OF TACITUS

43

intransitive, but iter pergo exists, and was used by Tacitus himself. This may have
facilitated the use of quae pergerent which contains a neuter pronoun and may therefore
be compared with simple cognate accusatives of the type id laetor.58 Id persevero would
be a tolerably close parallel to id per o.59 The neuter plural is, however, an extension
of this usage for which no convincing parallels have as yet been adduced.
At 70, I4 Lipsius thus emended the Mledicean text: ' nihil strenuus ab ignavo,
sapiens a<b im>prudenti, consilia casu differe.' Though other proposals have been
made this remains the most satisfactory. In support may be cited IV, 70, 12, where non
przudenteinis found for non imprudentem.60 Here the alteration is an easy one. In the
following passage a more determined effort is needed.
At 28, 2 the eclipse of the moon is described as follows ' nam luna claro repente
caelo visa languescere.' Here the alteration seems considerable since claro repente is
Lipsius's conjecture for clamnorepena of the manuscript. The vulgate of Lipsius's time,
due to Beroaldus, was clarior paene, which sticks to the letters of the manuscript but
signifies nothing. It is interesting to gather from Lenchantin's full note that the only
(M) is N. Eriksson.
student of Tacitus's text who has been able to make do with clamesore
He writes clamnore(sc. mnilituni)plena. Clamnoreis irrelevant, to say nothing of the grammar,
and leaves caelo without its badly needed attribute. All the other editors rightly find in
clanmoresome form of clarus. There remains the question of pena. A general rush for
plena (the full moon, and the easy conjecture) was indicated, and clariore plena, clarore
plena, claro plena duly appeared. But Lipsius's conjecture is better because it accounts at
once for the syllable -re at the end of clamore, and introduces an adverb describing the eclipse,
to wit repente.61 The adverb goes with visa in our passage as does the ablative sinu with
gerens at 40, iI ' parvulum sinu filium gerens '.62 Lipsius's note is still worth reading.63
His reference to prisca scriptura also is worth pondering over because it must apply not only
to the wrong separation of words but also to the end of repente where the -a in pena must
be supposed to replace the t or -te of repente. In any case, repente makes for clearer sense and
better palaeography than Lenchantin's repens.
Our last group contains some passages in which, by slight alterations, Lipsius restored
what the present writer considers both grammar and Tacitean style, while the Tacitean
character of the M\4ediceanreadings was maintained a century ago by G. H. Walther,
more recently by Eriksson or Lenchantin, and now by Professor Syme.64
There are five cases which I suggest belong to this category-not counting IO, z4
where Lipsius was content to repeat first Beroaldus's, later Pichena's, conjectures. It is,
however, convenient to give some consideration to this passage also since here as in some
other cases Lipsius's first thoughts have to be defended against his second thoughts.
' Livia grauis in rem publicam mater, grauis domui Caesarum noverca.' ill has grauliius,
Beroaldus, followed by Lipsius (in all editions but the last), wrote grautis. There is an
anaphora in either case and the question is whether it is of the type grave conscientiae,
paucioributstribiinis.66 No gradation
grave famnaesucae65 or of the type paucis centutrionibuts,
is indicated in the rest of the sentence which can be explained with, as well as wvithout,
the comparative. The problem turns therefore on the use of the adverb graviuts which,
58 This idea was applied to the present passage by
Boetticher, Lex. Tac. (1830)
Compare also
I9.
Ruperti and Furneaux ad 1.
59 So Cic., Pr-o Quin2ct.76 and Livy XXII, 38, I3.
The parallels are adduced in Draeger and Heraeus's
note on the passage.
60 There, however, the end of a line intervenes
between nzonz
and pruden2tenm,
and the reason for the
mistake may be different from that in the first book.
61 Jean Chifflet's objection ' defectus enim non fit
repente sed paulatim ' (Lips., Epist. ed. Burmann i,
727) is refuted by such passages as Cic., Rep. i, 23,
'quod serena nocte subito candens et plena luna
defecisset' (cited by Furneaux), and ib. 25, ' cum
obscurato sole tenebrae factae essent repente.'
62 The alternating order of words, thus brought
about, resembles the arrangement of adjectives and

nouns at IO, 5, ' simulatam Pompeianarum gratiam

partium,' which is not quite so praeposterus as
H. Fuchs maintains in his note on the passage; cf.
67.
G. B. A. Fletcher, CR LIX (I945),
luna
63 Lipsius on the vulgate at I, 28, 2:
clariore paene coelo uisa." Quid hoc clariore paene
caelo ? Cassa palearum, si examinas. A Beroaldo ea
lectio est, quam sperne: et substitue " luna claro
repente caelo ". Facit sententia, et prisca scriptura
" clamore pena caelo ". Claro autem caelo is Lunae
languLor: et ideo sequitur, " postquam ortae nubes
offecere visui.
64
See above, p. 37.
65
VI, 26, 5, cited by Gronovius.
66 r, 17, 2, cited by Andresen, who also compared
Agr. 25, ? 3, magnzo paratui, maiore fama.

44

C. 0. BRINK

in addition to the anaphora, would introduce into the sentence a ' Tacitean variation' of
adjective and adverb. Despite much two-way traffic between adjective and adverb the
various classical usages are tolerably distinct. On the one hand, a predicative adjective
can replace an adverb or, conversely, an adverb can replace a predicative adjective, so
long as there is a verb or participle to which, however indirectly, adverb or adjective are
referred. Thus compare Ann. iv, I2, 4, occulti laetabantuir,with I, 48, 7, occitlte recitat.i7
On the other hand, some adverbs can be used as attributes as in nunc hominum mores
(Plaut. Persa 385) TCov vEJv aOvepcbrcov. The adverbs occurring in this group appear
to be restricted to a few usages which have been stated and classified by Kuihner and
Stegmann (Lat. Gram. ii, vol. I, ? 59). The two classes comprise adverbs of time and place
with which coram and palam, comminuisand eminuis, may be included, or else adverbs
denoting degree like admoduim,with which qutasiand velht may be included. Virgil makes
greater use of these possibilities than are found in earlier Latin, and Livy and Tacitus follow
suit, without apparently extending the range of the adverbs.68 Since gravius in our passage
of the Annals is outside the ambit of any of these usages it may be advisable to consider it
a copyist's error. Some support for this view can be obtained from a passage which has
not yet been claimed as an example of Tacitean harshness. It occurs at Ann. xiii, I3, i8,
Cmulieris semper atrocis (atrocius Ml), tum et falsae.' Here the comparative precedes the
positive and gradation cannot therefore be assumed. I suggest that the same error is
found in both places, due to the similarity, in minuscule script,69 of the strokes in -uis
and -uius, for gravi(u)s, or in -cis and -cius, for atroci(u)s.
Now for the five isolated usages removed by Lipsius, and recently reclaimed for
Tacitus. I, Iz, IO, ' non idcirco interrogatum ait ut divideret quae separari nequirent,
sed ut (Lipsius, et M\) sua confessione argueretur unum esse rei publicae corpus,' etc.
The speaker is Asinius Gallus who shortly before had asked Tiberius the disconcerting
direct question ' interrogo, Caesar, quam partem rei publicae mandari tibi velis '.
Tiberius is taken aback by the unexpected direct address, and Asinius hastens to create
a better impression with the remark cited above. The reading et was accepted by editors
up to, and occasionally after, Lipsius. Rhenanus thought it meant ' even ' (- etiam)-the
implication being that the senate had already shown by its behaviour that the body politic
was indivisible so that it was now for Tiberius himself to make the same admission.
I cannot, however, find this idea expressed anywhere in the chapter, and suggest that it
rests on the et of the manuscript. If this be so, two manipulations appear equally possible,
namely, either to remove et as a dittography of set, or (with Lipsius) to replace et by lit.
Since, perhaps not without reference to our passage, the same construction with a double
ut (this time, consecutive tit) appears on the next page,70 Lipsius's emendation seems
67 The adverb qualifies the vrerb only indirectly,
like a predicativre adjectivre, at Annl. IV, 47, 6, quiidamii

autdentius . . .7visebantmr which means ' they were

seen to be daring '. So also xv, 45, 5, prospere aiit inl
mtietulsacraverat. These are two out of three parallels

cited by Walther in support of the MS. reading

grazvius, in our passage of the Annlals. But graviius, if it

were correct, would here be an attribute, not a predicative. In Walther's third passage, Germii. 5, ? 4,
'simplicius et antiquius . .. utuntur,' I can find
nothing but the usual employment of the adverb.
This use of the adverb has proved a trap for eminent
textual critics; cf. Madvrig on Cic., De Fini. iv, 63,
and Kuhner and Gerth on the corresponding Greek
idiom, Griech. Gramii.? 497, 4.
68 Tacitus sometimes combines advrerbial expressions of the predicativre and attributivre classes, as at
Hist. II, 98, 2, ' palam epistulis ... Vitellium, occultis
nuntiis Vespasianum fovens'-where palamiican go
with epistiilis as much as with fozems. Despite such
passages it is expedient to distinguish the two usages.
For unless this is observed the restricted character of
This
the attributivre group is easily forgotten.
Lenchantin perhaps failed to remember when he

sought to justify the reading graviuis in our passage

of the Ainnals by referring to S6rbom, Variatio serin.
Tac. 96 f. S6rbom indeed gives many examples of
the zvariatio of adjectivre and advrerb, but more than
that is needed to justify the manuscript's reading.
Cf. Hoftnann, Syntax 46I and 467, with bibliography.
69 This point is made pace Dr. E. A. Lowe who
has advanced the vriew that the Mediceius no. ii was
directly copied from a codex in capital writing; see
The nziquteM'Ianiscript of Tac. Hist. 27I (Montecassino i929). It is hard on this hypothesis to account
for the mistakes in that codex, due to the misreading of minuscule lettering, such as s,'f.
' flexit paulatim, non ut
70 Chap.
I3,
20,
fateretur suscipi a se imperium, sed ut negare et
rogari desineret.' Gerber and Greef's references,
Lex. Tac. 96i, B, 4, and 962, A, 8, suggest that the
two passages from the Annals, and Dial. 3I, ? i, non
iUt . .. necit . . . sed itt, are the only examples with iut
of this kind in Tacitus. There would havre been
nothing inherently unlikely in the construction non
itt, sed + subjunctivre, but Tacitus seems not to havre
employed it.

45

JUSTUS LIPSIUS AND THE TEXT OF TACITUS

preferable.71 It may also be mentioned, for what it is worth, that in the Greek version
of the story ' non idcirco ut . . . sed ut ' is echoed by o'X 'Ws. .. a
cs.72
Editors differ as regards 28, I3, ' accitur centurio Clemens et si alii bonis artibus
grati in vulgus'. Some admit et si alii as offered by the Mllediceus,others adopt Lipsius's
conjecture et si <qui> alii (for the vulgate et sic alii). The problem is easily stated.
It appears from the evidence offered in the Lexicon Taciteum (67, A) that, apart from our
passage, no example of et si alius is found in Tacitus, but that si quis alius is established
as the correct usage by eleven examples from Tacitus,73 and numerous others, from all
ranges of Latin style. Tacitus also uses et quis alius 74 which if not impossible is less likely
palaeographically. On the other hand, examples of et si aliuis seem to be wanting: if
they are brought forward their relevance will have to be considered. Mluch has been
made of isolated features of syntax by some adherents of the Swedish school, and it will
easily be understood that Tacitean style invites such treatment. But Tacitus, for all his
freedom, or artificiality, is a more traditional writer than is often recognized, and uses
established turns of language. Such an established usage is seen in et si qui alii which
I suggest should, with Lipsius, be introduced here in correction of a scribe's solecism.
The ungrammatical reading of M/Iat 32, I7, may be mentioned in passing, since it
has recently been brought back into the text by Lenchantin: ' indicium magni . . . motus,
quod neque disiecti, nil paucorum instinctu, sed pariter silerent.' Lenchantin remarks:
' nil paucorum instinctu (scl. acti), verbo ex consuetudine tacitea omisso intellegit
Lenchantin.' Even if, which I doubt, the meaning of nil were explained by the participle
(acti) understood, a weightier objection surely remains, namely the ungrammatical
character of the sequence qutodneque-nil, the firsL part of which, meaning ' because
neither ', can hardly be followed by a word like nil-instead of the connective particle
' nor '. The converse order zil-ne que would, of course, be unexceptionable. Apart from
its normal connective and correlative uses, and from expressions like neque eniin and neque
quisquarn(ullus), Tacitus employs neque or nec in the sense of ne-quidern (Lex. Tac. 92I, A
and 933, A). For this usage, see L6fstedt Pereg. Aeth. 88 and Hofmann, Syntax 64I : it
' not ' on which Lofstedt
has been convincingly derived from the original meaning of nec
has recently published a learned disquisition, Syntactica I (2nd ed.) 338 if. Since neque
- ne quidem is a simple negative without connective or correlative notions, it is easily
understood that, in Tacitus, only in this use a single neque follows sed, a relative pronoun,
or conjunctions like quod or quamquain. This sense cannot be found in our passage;
hence, a correlative word is needed. Beroaldus, in a note in the margin of the Mllediceus,
suggested vel or neque, and vel and nec (not neque) are equally apt palaeographically to
replace nil; Rhenanus, and Lipsius, adopted vel, but nec is better stylistically since the
passages with neque-vel or neque-aut are different in character: see Lex. Tac. 93S, B.
Similar problems are raised by isolated instances of unusual accidence, such as the
reading (30, I5) 'quia praesentia satis considerant ', for the normal consederant.75
71 Tacitus's own practice is stated in note no. 70.
Another case of what is usually, and I believe rightly,
regarded as an it missed out in the Mlediceiusis
declared by Syme to be due to Tacitus's pen-an
act of vriolence which, he says, now finds approvral:
I.c. 123. The passage is I, 9, I6, ' non aliud discordantis patriae remedium fuisse quam (ut> ab
uno regeretur '-the ilt added by Ferrettus, and
approved by Lipsius. Eriksson I.c. 92 defended the
manuscript's reading; so did, unnoticed by him,
W. A. Baehrens, Beitrage zur lat. Syntax 375 (Philol.,
Supp. XII, i9i2). Both authoritiesseem to overlook
that non alijusqiiaiii Zltis not identical with non potiis
(or similar comparativres)qiiaiii Zlt -1 subjunctivre. In
the latter expression zut was nevrer more than
gratuitous, evren in indirect statements, and more
often than not spurned. This has been well brought
out by Stegmann in Kiihner's Lat. Gram. vrol. ii

(2nd

ed.),

300-2,

and by Hofmann,

Syntax

73I f.

After comparativres colloquial, or late Latin, usage

sometimes has qiiaiii to mean qutaiiiculmi, qiiaiii si, or

the like. On the other hand, nionzaliis quiaiii followed

by a subjunctivre without itt has not been noticed
anywhere before Florus (i, 13, io)-a passage which
itself may or may not be sound; cf. Thes. L.L. i,
I634, 2 ff.
The negative point is borne out by
Tacitus's own usage. Ut is freely omitted after
potiiusquianti(Lex. Tac. I 155, A) though not after other
comparativres (l.c. I247, A). After n7onzalijus quiaiii or
the like no case of a missing itt is recorded apart
from our passage, but there are eight instances of it
(66, B and 1246, B) and some others of quiantinze,quianii
si, qutaniiquia, and quianii quiod.
Kai TO TpiTov
72 Dio 57, 2, 6, oCXCOS
pi
&50VaTOV
7

OV TfV

p#Xv

5lilpEOflva,

OVTOvS roU, aAA' CbS

TOUTO cOt TrpOETEtVa.

This number comprises both et si quiis aliius and

size

(seit) qulis alijus.

74

For et quiis alilus and the like, see Lex. Tac. 67, A.
similar problem is found also in the isolated
ablati-ve veteri (for zetere) at 60, 3; cf. Sbrbom,
75 A

Vari-atio seriii. Tac. 27, note.

46

C. 0.

BRINK

Consederant, after much doubting, was Lipsius's final decision. He started from considerat,
the reading of the Gryphiana, which in his first edition he emended to constiterat, at that
time turning down Ferretti's and Rhenanus's consederant. In 158I he preferred
considerant-which he gave up some years later (I588) for consederant. All this amounts
to a series of guesses, since the evidence of manuscripts was unknown to Lipsius. Some
evidence is assembled by Neue and Wagener 76 from which it may be gathered that
Priscian in discussing the perfect-stem of the compounds of sido denied the existence of
forms in -sidi, etc., and recognized only forms in -sedi, etc. This seems to be borne out
by the evidence of manuscripts so far as Cicero and Caesar are concerned. In Virgil,
however, and even more in Silver and later Latin Prose, both -sidi and -sedi occur. If thus
a case be made for admitting the non-classical forms into the texts of certain authors,
greater scepticism is suggested by any study of the evidence that goes beyond Neue and
Wagener. The two authorities quote with approval the opinion 77 that at Livy ix, 37, 7,
and in two other passages of Latin historians 78 where the manuscripts uniformly offer
considerant, this form should be printed instead of the normal consederant. But when the
Oxford editors came to examine the evidence of the codices of Livy they found that the
forms with i only occurred twice among the numerous passages where the verb ronsido
is used.79 If this assertion may be trusted, the editors of Livy were probably right in
presenting in these two passages the usual forms consederunt and consederant. Altogether
six examples of such forms of the perfect-stem 80 are known to occur in Tacitus. Three
of these are definitely faulty since they are derived from praesideFre,and no recent editor
has sought to credit the second conjugation with these forms.81 This makes one hesitate
in giving credence to the three remaining examples, and the more so if one takes the
trouble to find out the incidence of the regular forms in -sedi.82 Considerant in our
passage is a single isolated case as against thirteen occurrences of the regular form. Insidere
and insiderant are two isolated instances against nineteen normal cases.83
At 6o, 9, pedes, eques, classis Lipsius introduced the singular classis instead of the
plural classes found in 111and the earlier editions. There was only one fleet operating
on this expedition and Tacitus consistently refers to it in the singular as one would
expect.84
It is likely, therefore, that Tacitus did the same in our passage and that the
ending -es in classes (M) is due to the neighbouring pedes and eques. Lenchantin, however,
has reclaimed the manuscript's reading classes, 'fleets,' which, he says, means the same as
naves ' ships '. But does it ? It is quite true that Tacitus varies the plural naves ' ships
with the singular classis ' fleet ',85 and if at various times several groups of people are
said to be using various groups of ships he also varies the plural naves with the plural
classes-thus in one out of the two passages adduced by Lenchantin.86 But this does not,
of course, mean that Tacitus uses the pltiral classes in the sense of the singular classis,
76

413

Neue and Wagener, Formienlehre III (3rd ed.),

f.

7Landgraf, Festgruissan die 41. Versamninlung, etc.

(Wilhelmsgymnasium, Munich). I havrenot seen this
article.
78 Bell. Alex. 28, 3, and the present passage in
Tacitus.
7
Livry IX, 37, 7, considerant in all MSS.; xxviii,
12, I5, consideruintas a vrariant. Conway and Johnson
havrethis note on the latter passage: ' cf. 9, 37, 7 adn.
(iubi contra codd. -sed- leginiuiis)et Nene-Wfagener III,
p. 414 sqq. (in his dutobutstantunn locis -sid- in codd.
nostris inuenitutr).'
80 The evidence is presented by Gerber and Greef,
Lex. Tac., consido, insido, and praesideo. Cf. also
H. Fuchs, Tac. Ann. I (ed. Helv., I946), i99, note
on chap. 30 considerant.
81 Tac., Anzn.I, 76, io, praesidit: AlV,
for praesedit;
VI, 47, I2, praesidiis se: M, for praesedisse; XII, 56, I 7,
praesidere for praesedere in Med. no. II. It mav also

be remembered, as Fuchs notes, that sutpersedeoin

the second Mlediceitsis misspelt sutpersideo,at xv, 63,
20.
82 Lenchantin's statement on p. XXXVin the introd.
of his edition of Books i-vi, perhaps errs on the side
of brevrity.
83 Insidere: Ann. iII, 6i, 8 * insiderant xvi,
27, 2.
84 45
, ' arma classem socios demittere Rheno
'
legiones classe, ut advrexerat,
63, II,
parat';
reportat'; 70, 2I, ' quo Caesar classe contenderat.'
85 Thus immediately before our passage, 6o, 7,
ipse inpositas navibus quattuor legiones per lacus
vexit: simulque pedes eques classis . . . convenere.'
86 Lenchantin quotes Germ. 2, ? i, 'classibus advehebantur qui mutare sedes quaerebant' picked up at
the end of the sentence by ' raris ab orbe nostro
navibus aditur '. So also Germ. 44, ? 2, ' Suionum ...

civitates

. . . praeter viros armaque

forma navium eo differt quod, etc.'

classibus

valent.

JUSTUS

LIPSIUS

AND

THE TEXT OF TACITUS

47

meaning ' ship '. There is in Tacitus no evidence for the alleged usages,87 and Lenchantin
has mistaken the slip of a copyist's pen for a writer's foible-an error of judgement not
seldom committed by the school of editors which has inspired the recent fashion in
Tacitean studies.
The present writer would claim that the same error of judgement was shown by the
defenders of the Alediceus in the last of our passages: 65, i6, ' en Varus et eodemque
iterum fato vinctae legiones.' Thus, the manuscript's reading, in which the redundant
case
et ... que is defended by Walther and Lenchantin, and approved by Syme. WIValther's
can be discounted since it is based on an indiscriminate collection of passages held together
by the unwarranted assumption that -que in Tacitus means 'also '.88 Lenchantin refers
to Valther and, in addition, mentions one more corrupt passage, without, howvever,
informing the reader that the alleged idiom occurs in other, equally doubtful, cases.89
This is not, indeed, the only time that an interesting observation of Professor Lofstedt's
has been put to a doubtful use. Many years ago Lofstedt noticed in colloquial or late
Latin writings the redundant use of et -que, et atque, etiam et, and the like.90 Attention
having thus been drawn to a neglected usage, it was followed up by several Swedish
scholars,91 one of whom, E. Tidner, has made a good collection of the passages in which
the idiom occurs in the manuscripts of Tacitus.92
No one will be surprised to find -que thus misused by writers who were not squeamish
as to the meaning of words. Tacitus was. If he is to be the first, at least in highly stylized
Roman prose now extant,93 to whom such usage is ascribed, some caution is indicated. Two
points merit consideration. The wveakeningof meaning which accounts for many redundant
expressions in colloquial and later Latin is not found in Tacitus.94 There are, of course,
numerous passages in which -que . . . et, et . . . -que or the like connect three or more
expressions of the type ' pedes equesque et nauticus miles ' (Agr. 25, ? I). Over against
these passages there are some twenty examples of what may be termed a redundant use of
-que, to connect two words or phrases. And if, furthermore, the passages themselves are
considered, usages established in classical prose and poetry are seen. Double -que occurs
twice in Tacitus, both with a personal pronoun in the first member. The combination
Lenchantin's second passage comes from A. xiv,
where he says the plural classes is used de una
classe M11isenensi.But in the same clause the plural
cohortes is used of one cohort, and Furneaux rightlvy
explains both cohortisand classis as rhetorical exaggerations for the one praetorian cohort in attendance, and
for the fleet of Alisenum. No one would say that
therefore the plural of cohors means onte cohort in
T acitus. Lenchantin did not refer to the other
passage sometimes claimed to have the same extended
meaning-thus
Lex. Tac. I78 and Tlzes. L.L. III,
1284, both s.v. classis. The passage occurs at A. ii,
'
75, 3:
Agrippina . . . ascendit classem cumn
But Agrippina
cineribus Germanici et liberis.'
naturally sailed in style: she has got a fleet (cf. III, i,
io and I4), and nevertheless disembarks navi, not
There is no harm in Englishing
classe, III, I, I7.
classis by 'boat' at II, 75, 3, but ciassis does not nzean
'boat'. Compare II, 79, 2, where the several ships of
her fleet are said to carry her, ' obviis navibus quae
Agrippinam vehebant.' It may be added that the
relevant portion in the Thesaurus needs shortening.
88 Cf. Walther's notes ad 1., and on 28,
3, ac
sutis-there, however, the _1'Ied.has as2is for stis.
The a may repeat the first letter of the preceding
word accepit, or else belongs to that class of
unexplained initial letters on which W. Heraeus
entered a timely caveat in Lindsay's Palaeog. Lat. iv,
I925,
I4. The MS. reading is strangely defended by
87

II

I3,

Lenchantin.
89 Hist. IV,
54,

and below, n. 92.

37; Spdtlat. Stutdien,
Pereg. Aetlh., I9II, 6I; also, Synttactica II,
VernzischteSti.,dienz,I936, 56.
i,

90 Beitrcige, etc., I907,

27;
2I9;

I908,
I9 33,

91 The various redundant uses of connective

particles have, in fact, become a favoUrite topic in
recent grammatical lore; the references are too
numerous to be given here. Hofmann has provided
and Tlzes. L.L.,
useful surveys, Syntax ?? 227-237,
s.v. et; especially 906, 32, on redundant et . . . -que.
For the use of connective particles in Tacitus, see
Gerber and Greef, Lex. Tac., N. Eriksson, Stuid. zl d.
Antnaleni, etc., 72, and G. S6rbom, Variatio sernz.
Tac. 50.
92 E. Tidner, De particutlis copulatizis ap. Scrip.
I20,
n. 2. The passages are these
Hist. Auig. (I922)
H. I, 8o, 9, 'fremit miles et tribunos et' (et deleted
by the same hand) ' centurionesque proditionis
arguit'; II, 2, 'inter spem et metumque' (the reading
comes from Latr. 68, 4, only; Giarratano does not
even trouble to mention it in his full apparatus); TV,53,
stipes et metallorum primiI8, ' argenti et aurique
'
tiae'; IV, 54, i, per Gallias et Gelmaniasque'
Aznn. I, 65, i6, as cited in the text.
93 Apart from inscriptions, there are, so far as I can
see, only two examples of redundant et . . . -quie
alleged to occur in prose before Tacitus: Bell. Afr.
33, i, and Bell. Hisp. 42, 4, in both of which the text
But even their being accepted by
is doubtful.
editors would be of little importance for the text of
Tacitus, as this is not the kind of literature he considered a model of style. In verse, the first examples
cited are Ciris 79 (zi.l.) and the CarnziizaEpigraphica.
9 There seems to be only one exception in Tacitus,
namely hodieque meaning 'also nowadays' (Gernm.3,
? 3). But this is normal Silver usage, cf. Hofmann,
Sywtax 657.

c.

48

0. BRINK

recalls double TE but is not a Grecism: it is found in archaic Latin, classical poetry,
especially Virgil, and the great historians.95 The combination of -que and et recalls TE ...
Kcai though it is not a Grecism either: it occurs in archaic Latin ; Taacituswould read it in
Virgil and the historians. In his own works it is preserved sixteen times ; in all cases but
one combined with a pronoun, and this one case turns out to be a variation of the old
usage.96 Two occurrences of the rare combination -que . . . ac merely vary the more
established usages, earlier examples being found in the poets, especially Virgil, also in
Livy, and Silver prose.97 Equally rare is et . . . -que, found twice in Tacitus to connect
clauses, and earlier notably in Cicero.98 Last, there is one case of nzeque. . . -que, wNith
a similar ancestry,99 used by Tacitus to connect clauses. If the consistency and the pedigree
alike of the Tacitean usages are considered it will be obvious that the alleged passages
cannot be made to fit. The scribe of Aled. no. II was then right when he altered his own
faulty text ' tribunos et centurionesque ' to ' tribunos centurionesque ' at Hist. i, 8o, 9.
Unfortunately, this was not done in the other cases. But if an additional argument is
needed this can be found in the words sibique et posteiis (Annaz.iv, 8, 21).100
For this
precisely happens to be the tag which so often occurs in inscriptions, though in the
colloquial order, thus: sibi et posterisque.101 Tacitus used the tag, but eschewed the
colloquialism with which, in return, he is credited in a different place by the copyist and
some recent editors.
In the first place the
Some conclusions may now be drawn from this discussion.
number of hits scored by Lipsius is very impressive. Of the forty-seven or so passages of
the first book where he himself attempted to correct, or defend, the text,102 twenty-four
are read in all editions as he emended, or defended, them ; 103 another ten though
usually accepted by editors have recently been impugned-unjustly, as the present wNriter
has argued.103a The incidence is worth stating: out of a total of forty-seven, there are,
in the first book, thirty-four correct or probable readings, of which twenty-six are
conjectures.104 The position in the rest of the first part of the Annzalsis not dissimilar.
The two qualities displayed in his best work are a feeling for the word that really
required emending, and a flair for the wvayin wvhich the right expression is restored by
a light touch. He did not at once attain to mastery. The material which Ruysschaert has
brought together from the various editions is suggestive. Lipsius tends to excise clumsy
or unnecessary conjectures which are not rarely found in the early editions, particularly
in the first. He was not, however, unable to apply stronger remedies when he thought
they were required. His restoration of clamore penza (28, 2) is a case in point.105 Mvany
editors have tried to improve on his claro repente, though to no avail.106 But, on the whole,
95Lex. Tac. I278, B: Ann. II, 3, 8, seqlueregniumiiquie; at xvi, i6, 2, double -qlue connects two clauses
Imeque ipsum satias cepisset aliorumque taedium
expectarem ' : cf. Hofmann 656.
96 Lex. Tac. 395, B and I278, B: 'seque et arma,
seque et coniugem or libertum, seque et delatores,
seque et domum, seque et cohortis or equestris
copias, seque et proximos,' and ' seque et Gallias
sibique et posteris, sibique et proelio,' and ' sibique et
legibus'; add tw7ovariations, namely ipsiquleet conilugi
et doniiumi
above, and regnitmiq1ue
like seque et conilugemz
(Ann. XIV, 3I, 3), and compare seqite et dosniimiiabove,
and seq1er

egnumnq1ue in note

95.

Cf. Hofmann

663.

To

the passages cited by Gerber and Greef, onemore case

of seqlueet proximzosought to be added if the manuscript's reading is restored at Ann. I, 34, 2, as is done
in all recent editions except in the Oxford Text-one
of the few cases where Fisher's judgement seems to
be at fault.
9 Lex. Tac. I279,
A: seqlue ac liberos, seqlue ac
atqlue
mnaiores. Cf. Hofmann 663. Uterqiueopiblusqlue
(Ann. IV, 34, 2I) is, to say the least, doubtful.
98 Lex. Tac. 395, B: Hist. V, 5, I3,
and Ann. I3,
7, 3; cf. Hofmann l.c. and, for Cicero, Madvig on
De Fin. v, 64, and Excursus I, 792.

99 Lex. Tac. I279, A, citing Ann. iii, I2, 23.

100 It matters little whether -qlueis here taken with

et posteris as is done by most editors, or to connect

the third member of ' foveret attolleret sibique et
posteris conformaret', as is suggested by Eriksson,
Stuid. zu d. Ann. 72. But the fact that the tag
existed would give some point to -quteet.
101 For examples, see Hofmann, Tiles. I.c.
102
Here I neglect the conjectures which were
either withdrawn or made for the sake of discussion
also the two criuces
only
see above, p. 39
mentioned on the same page, and some instances of
corrected spelling. I further leave aside all emendations of his textiusvullgatius,whether concealed or not.
103 See above pp. 37 ff10a

See above, pp. 40 ff., except for

IO,

24 (above,

p. 43) and 30, I5 (above, p. 45) where Lipsius

eventually returned to emendations found in the
vulgate.
104 Six of these were later found in 11i: see above,
p. 37, n. 30, and p. 38.
105

See above, P. 43.

106 G. H. Walther, not himself partial to con-

jectures too different from M's text, said resignedly,

' difficillimum sane erit meliora proferre.'

JUSTUS

LIPSIUS

AND

THE TEXT OF TACITUS

49

he neither aimed at confident rewritilng nor at normalizing the style by wvay of conjecture.107 Emendations, he lays down, should be clear, light of touch, and convincing,108
and unlike others who have held the same he attains to his end more often than not.
He is not slow to perceive inadequacy of sense, but reluctant to commit himself to a definite
emendation. The conjectures which he withdraws, or puts forward for the sake of
discussion only, form a definite and considerable group in every book.109
A strong sense of probability preserved him from some of the excesses of other great
textual critics. But it also must be remembered that he was less of a specialist than a
Bentley or Madvig, and while his knowledge of Silver Latin idiom was great he did not
practise the continuous observation by which their mastery was attained. As a critic his
realm was narrower than theirs, precisely because his other interests were so much wider.
His interests shifted from textual criticism to antiquarian and historical studies, and from
history to political and moral theory. This shift of emphasis is well expressed in the
sentences which close the preface of his last (and posthumous) edition of Tacitus. ' Te
uti frui cupio, lector: sed inprimis Tacito ipso, et altius aliquid firmiusque, quam
Criticorum sive et Grammaticorum has curas, spirare. Non enim ad ista, sed per ista,
imus.'

The success attained by this means has been shown to be considerable. The results
of Lipsius's criticism combined with those of Beroaldus and Rhenanus provide most of
the material that is needed for correcting the MIediceus. The numbers of emendations
necessary for a sound text of the first book are instructive. Beroaldus, the first editor,
heads the list with some eighty items,110 nearly all repeated by Lipsius who himself is
second with twenty,111 and is followed by Rhenanus who contributes eleven.112 To these
items other scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries add some twenty emendations,113 so that a minimum of some I30 emendations is obtained. Despite much study
of stylistic problems, and numerous conjectures, nineteenth-century scholarship contributes
comparatively little to the first book. Two emendations are now usually recognized and
another three or four may perhaps be vindicated.114 The numbers in the other books of
the first part are equally low. Recently, critical endeavour has, in fact, gone the opposite
wvay,and the question may well be asked whether this minimum of traditional conjectures
can still be reduced, in favour of Medicean readings.
107 He was able to make do with such stumblingblocks as (4I, 4) qluod tarn triste, (ib. 6) et externae
fidei, and other difficult readings mentioned below,
n. I 14, and if he did not explain them he did not
expel them from the text.
108 One may say that he did try to live up to the
rule about emendations laid down in the SC de
M-lenippea
correctoribits in his amusing Satra
Siquis e libris bonis fidisque correxerit, laudi semper
esse. Siquis e coniecturis, noxae. Nisi eae clarae,
liquidae, certae sunt.'
109 I have mnentionedseventeen such cases from the
first book, about half of them in deference to the
opinions of other-s though often unacknowledged
see above, p. 39.
110 This is but a rough estimate of the number of
Beroaldus's emendations. Lenchantin, who does not
profess to giv-e a full apparatuts, lists some fifty of
them. In obtaining the figure giv-en in the text I have
considered Beroaldus's mnarginaliain the llediceuts as
well as his edition; many of the mnarginaliareappear
in the edition. I have excluded, however, the interlinear corrections in the codex, some of which may
well be due to Beroaldus. The v-arious hands are, in
fact, insufficiently known. I feel doubtful ev-en of
some of the mnarginaliaascribed to 1-12: for example,
I cannot find any difference between the hand,
variously described as Al2 or ' in mzarg.',wNhichadded
sed (for et) at 77, 2, fol. 3oR, and that wNhichadded
duiiii (for tlurni)in the line before, and is correctly
ascribed to Beroaldus.

111 This figure is obtained by selecting only the

items not in the codex from the twenty-six mentioned
above at p. 48, and n. I04.
112

Rhenanus's emendations have been accepted

35, 3
30, I5;
at 6, 23, reddatur ; 8, 28; 28, IO;
65, 27; 68, I4, and 79, I7.
and I4; 56, 9 (doubtful);

Four of these went LinderLipsitus's name: see above,

p. 35, n. 20. For 32, I7, where Rhenanus was on
the right track, see above, p. 45.
113 The scholars concerned are Victorius, Paulus
Vertranius,
Ferrettus,
Manutius,
and Aldus
Muretus, Mercerus, Pichena, Acidalius, Grotius,
The
Freinsheimus, Heinsius, and J. Gronovius.
actual number of Muretus's contributions is not
easily assessed, see below, p. 5I. Aldus Manutius's
pontis for the MS. poti (ponti Beroaldus, but pontis in
his marginal note in 111) (69, 8), needs to be reconsidered: see L6fstedt's discussion of genitive
and dative, Synt. I (2nd ed.), 209 ff.
114 Wolf's easy alteration at 3, 7, is generally
accepted, and Bezzenberger's conjecture is probably
the best that can be done at 8, I2. There is a probable
emendation also at 57, i6 (Ruperti and Spengel),
while the following passages need reconsideration
4, i6; 8, I (where Sorbom, Variatio I5I, is more to
the point than Lenchantin's reference to Eriksson);
8, 9; II, I; 38, 4 (see above, p. 39, n. 39); 4I, 4,
and 6 (cf. Lofstedt, Synt. I, 2nd ed., I90, n. 2);
42, 7;

49, 5; 56, 9, and 75, I3.

C. 0.

50

BRINK

The forty-six (Oxford) pages of the first book of the Annals contain then a minimum
of some I30 conjectures. The incidence in the other books of the first part is similar,
but differs from the case of the second ilediceus. Many, though by no means all, mistakes
are slight and, so far as one can tell in the case of a codex itnicus, the text cannot be called
unduly corrtupt. TwO points seem, however, worth making. Since the MAIediceus
contains
many solecisms and barbarisms it is advisable to let no case of unusual grammar go
unchecked. Also, since no check is provided by variant readings of other manuscripts
the testimony of Tacitus's own usage must be employed to the full. Syme says that ' the
obvious and easy improvements were made long ago, most of them by the early editors,
while the inzsanabilesloci tend to be recalcitrant '. He therefore advises editors to adopt
a conservative approach to M,115 and cites a number of passages in which this was done
by Walther, in the last century, or recently by Eriksson or Lenchantin, both followers of
what he calls Lofstedt's doctrine. If one comes to examine his examples one finds that
in a number of them precisely the obvious and easy improvements of the earlier editors
are abolished. The most striking of these cases have been examined above 116 and it has
been argued that in these cases anomalies of style have been adopted from the MAIediceus
which are out of keeping-not only with ' orthodox grammar ' as Syme remarks, l.c. I29,
but with both orthodox grammar and Tacitus's own usage. If it be true that ' Tacitus is
capable of anything if he can avoid the normal, the monotonous, the conventional'
(l.c. I23), many instances in the codex of unconventional and harsh phrasing would deserve
pride of place in our editions. But if there is consistency in Tacitus's wilfulness, and if
'erudite investigation shows that in many points of vocabulary and construction the
historian was not an innovator at all' (l.c.), the position is a different one. The timehonoured search for stylistic parallels is, in fact, as promising in Tacitus as in any Roman
writer not only because his style is remarkably consistent in itself so that parallels can be
cited, but also because he conforms to a convention of style which accounts for the variety
of echoes from such writers as Sallust and Livy, Virgil and Lucan. He strains, but does not
abolish, these conventions. It may therefore be argued that it is incumbent on an editor to
establish not only the Tacitean variation of a usage but also the usage itself, and if a turn of
language cannot readily be identified, to search for similar words or constructions.
Concerned with isolated readings in a codex unicus, a feeling for, or indeed against, an
unusual turn of language may prove but a faltering guide unless Sprachgefiihl is checked by
Sprachgebr-auch. This may be a truism. But the present writer would suggest that it has
not always been sufficiently heeded by editors and students of Tacitus.
NOTE

ON

EMENDATIONS

Though there are more useful things for editors to do than to hunt for authorsof emendations,
it is yet interesting to see that perusal of old editions still produces some changes in the details of
the apparatus
criticus.For Beroaldus,see above, p. 49, n. iio. Ruysschaerthas collated Rhenanus's
second edition, of I544, and returned to their rightful owner, Rhenanus, some ten emendations,
now under Lipsius's name: see above, p. 35, n. 20. It would be an act of justice if the name of
the humanist Claude Chifflet, now all but forgotten, were rememberedfor the emendations which
Lipsius owed to him. The emendationsoccur in Chifflet'sunpublished edition which Ruysschaert
has collated in the libraryof Besancon. Lipsius noted these suggestions along with Chifflet'sname
in his personalcopy of Tacitus, and later, printed the emendationswithout acknowledgment,in some
cases even erasing Chifflet's name in his copy (see above, p. 36, n. 26). In the following passages
Chifflet's conjectures are in the texts under Lipsius's name: III, 48, 9, Lollio; 69, i6, minui iura
115
Syme goes so far as to ascribe to Tacitus
certain features of spelling found in the Mediceuts.
He advances the theory (p. I25) that the Medicean
scribe's wNriting in full, or abbreviating, Roman
praenomzina may represent Tacitus's owNn usagea forgotten source of Tacitean variatio.
116 Cf. above, pp. 40 ff., 43 ff. The other emendations which Syme rejects (l.c. I26 and I29) concern
diverse cases. There are two, now generally and
rightly rejected (if not by H. Fuchs)-3I,
I5,

imipellere, and 74, 23, paenitentiae.

There are, further,

the v-arious nineteenth-century emendations menthe merit of which has

tioned above, n. II4,
still to be argued. There is, lastly, the reading ponti
(69, 8) (above, n. II3) which is of the same kind
as the other grammatical problems. Syme might
have mentioned that Lenchantin, very properly, but
against his doctrine, has queried the order of wvords
in qluisqlue Cljulis (2I, 7)-one of the few points of
accord betwveen Lenchantin and H. Fuchs.

JUSTUS

LIPSIUS

AND

THE TEXT OF TACITUS

5I

(variously ascribed to Victorius or Lipsius); IV, 28, 2, utrzique; xiI, 64, i i, Lepida (ascribed to Lipsius
or Pichena); XIV, I5, i6, accesserat, and 22, 22, loto. In some other passages the two humanists may
have hit on the same correction independently, thus at II, 25, 5, lulco; XIV, 12, 7, exiit tumnsenatu; 29,
2, A. Didius; xv, 71, 28, sine supplicio, and xvi, 30, 3, proconsulatumn.In a number of passages Chifflet
forestalled contemporary, or later, critics, as at I, 73, 9, nuzmen(Freinsheim); III, 47, 6, lacuna indicated
(Nipperdey) ; XI, 35, 5, avitumn(Faernus) ; XIII, 57, I3, Ubiorumin(Heinsius); XIV, I I, 4, habita
seqzebanture
(M'iuretus) ; I8, 6 avitos (Heinsius); xv, 53, I3 openi (Pichena); XVI, I2, 5 menses .
(Nipperdey). The evidence is offered by Ruysschaert, l.c. 48 ff., and I44 ff.
Lipsius's debt to Muretus, though it goes far beyond the realm of textual criticism, is bound
to be considerable in this field also. But it is not now possible to arrive at any certainty since the
matter cannot be checked as it can in the case of Chifflet. M\Juretuswas probably correct (Variae
Lectiones xi, i) both as to the large claims he made on Lipsius's gratitude, and as to his inability
to substantiate actual furta. He singles out two of the emendations printed in the text of his friend
and disciple, and in both cases may well have been justified in doing so. The emendations occur at I,
3, 24 munimentis,and 1, 5, 8 gnarum (cf. above, p. 38, n. 35), and if both, Muretus's as well as Lipsius's,
names were cited in our critical notes justice would be done. On Muretus's claim and Lipsius's defence
of humanist controversy and a test case
as regards the latter passage there hangs one of the cautsescedMbres
for the writers De Plagio. Earlier editors, up to Orelli's first edition, rightly queried the authorship of
the conjecture. Later Muretus's name disappeared from the apparatus criticus, and Lipsius, for no
good reason, remained in sole possession of the field. It is not without piquancy that the only
example of Lipsius's ars emendandi which Sandys gives in his History of Classical Scholarship
(II, 303) should be this much doubted passage, of which he says that in i6oo one of the earliest of
Lipsius's emendations, gnaruzm(for G. Navum) id Caesari, was confirmed by Pichena's publication
of readings from the Mediceuts. Gnarum, however, while undoubtedly correct, could not be confirmed
by the Mediceutswhich has the corrupt reading, and the authorship of the emendation was as doubtful
in i6oo as it is now. For a possible third claimant for the honour, Paulus Manutius, see Ruysschaert,
1.c. I45, n. 5.
Finally, it may be worth remembering that it was Ferrettus (in I54I), not Lipsius, who first
separated the fifth and sixth books of the Annals. This, though overlooked in our handbooks and
editions, was not forgotten by Chifflet (cf. Ruysschaert, l.c. I48). Chifflet also put on record that it
was not Lipsius but the lawyer Vertranius Maurus (in his Notae of I569) who first, if somewhat
tentatively, separated Annals and Histories. This remark of Chifflet's was noticed in the library of
BesanSon by the-Belgian scholar T. Simar, and, probably, led him to ask, and answer, the question
' Qui a le premier separe, dans l'ceuvre historique de Tacite, les Annales
(Musee Belge XI, I907):
des Histoires ? ' (cf. Ruysschaert, l.c. I47, n. 4).