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Notes on the Text of the Commentariolum Petitionis1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

W. S. Watt
Affiliation:
University of Aberdeen

Extract

It is not my purpose to discuss the authorship of this work; I shall only say that I do not believe it was written by Quintus Cicero. The question of authorship cannot be brought into a discussion of the problems raised by the text, because, even if it were the product of Quintus' pen, it would obviously be unjustified to apply to Quintus the same canons of Latinity as can be applied to his brother.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1958

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References

2 The latest discussion of the problem is by MrsHenderson, M. I., J.R.S. xl (1950), 8 ff. Although not all of the points which she makes are equally convincing, I agree with her general position.Google Scholar

3 Quinti Ciceronis Reliquiae, Leipzig.

4 A few errors were corrected by Buecheler himself in an additional note on the last page of his edition; two more (9. 5 sororum, notris; 38. 7 ubi, not ut) were corrected by Hendrickson, (Decenn. Public, of Univ. of Chicago, First Series, vol. vi (1904), No. vi, pp. 2324)Google Scholar. I have noticed the following additional errors or omissions: 16. 7 qui (not quis) ost-; 20. 5 tuum, not suum; 20. 6 illorum, not ull-; 57. 6 aliqua, not -am.

5 e.g. 3. 1 facilitates, not -tis; 24. 12 aliquo, not alioquo; 33. 10 habes, not -eas; 34. 6 salutatorum, not -rium; 42. 8 committas, not comitas; 44. 3 grā, i.e. gratia, not grata; 50. 11 adsit, not adsis; 52. 2 the information given about the ut before splendida applies not to it but to the ut before illustris. At 48. 6 Baehrens bases a conjecture (innumeros) on what I believe to be a misreading of the manuscript (I think the scribe intended omnis, not umeris). The two most important errors, however, which have misled some later editors (including Sjögren), are at 10. 23, where H does omit fuerunt, and at 23. 1, where it does not omit appareat.

6 Cicéion, , Correspondance, i. 80 ff. (see also 18, 276). I have noticed the following errors in Constans's collation of D: 1. 10 = 42. 7 naturarum, not naturam; 12. 3 erit is omitted.Google Scholar

7 See below, p. 40 note 5.

8 R.E.L. viii (1930), 345 ff.Google Scholar; Correspondance, i. 19 ff.Google Scholar

1 These are at 58. 6, where DVB agree with F in reading tu and esse (H omits both words).

1 The corruption will have begun with the omission of the final s before the first letter of stupris.

2 This evidence disposes of Sjögren's suggestion (Eranos, xiii. 123) that the vel of HF may be the remnant of a variant velvel for autaut.Google Scholar

3 Vainly defended by Sjögren (I.c. 124). No virtue is more often mentioned by the author of this work than diligentia (5. 1, 22. 2, 22. 5, 24. 3, 25. 8, 33. 2, 35. 11, 43. 7, 50. 9, 50. 13).

4 Conjectanea Tulliana (1868), 34.Google Scholar

5 Vainly defended by Sjögren (I.c. 134).

6 I assume that the author of this reading had Cappadoces in mind (so Buecheler read). Or is it possible that it originated from a variant parochos written above caupones?

1 This reading, conjectured by Palermus in 1583, was in fact the vulgate from then until 1869, when Buecheler invented reasons for preferring (qui) volunt, which he thought was closer to the reading of F.

2 Buecheler wilfully misunderstands these words, and then proceeds (a) to call them ‘absurd’ and ‘futile’, (b) to make in the next clause an emendation which is unnecessary if these words are accepted.

3 Though it is attributed by Orelli-Baiter (1845), Purser, and Constans to Ernesti, and is claimed by Mueller as his own conjecture. The attributions of conjectures by the editors of Cicero's Letters (not excluding Sjögren) are frequently quite unreliable; no one has done for them what Clark did for the Speeches (cf. Oxford text, vol. i, Praef. p. xi:Google Scholar ‘operam equidem dedi ut suum cuique pro mea parte redderem’).

4 For the omission non, cf. what has been said above (line 1) about 6. 4, and what is said below (p. 36, n. 1) about 15. 1.

5 Unless, with Hoffa (1837), one admits a third example of a type of anacoluthon which this author allows himself twice elsewhere (18. 12 hos homines, 38. 4 haec).

1 The negative is essential (a) because of the parallelism with the preceding invidi, alienati, and iratos, (b) because it would be ridiculous to suggest that Cicero had won no friends through his connexion with Pompey (Section 51 shows what the writer thought about this); the point is that he may have made some enemies thereby.

2 So Koch, , Philologischer Anzeiger, v (1863), 162.Google Scholar

3 B actually reads eius, but after fuisse; presumably a conjecture.

4 Is the word studiorum which has caused difficulty at 23. 1 a remnant of this?

5 Pluygers, (Mnem., N.s. ix (1881), 121)Google Scholar suggested a lacuna (facile possunt) at this point; for this he is unjustly ridiculed by Mueller, , ad loc.Google Scholar

6 V reads et hanc consuetudinem, B et ad hone cons-, but I do not suggest that they lend any manuscript authority to the ad which I pro pose to insert.

7 For what it is worth, the manuscripts read pluris, not -res.

8 No doubt they did, but the suggestion that this is a recent development is just in credible.

9 If this be the thought, the expression of it is feeble, even for this feeble author.

1 p. 6 of work cited in footnote 4 on p. 32 above.

2 Another corruption due to a contraction is spem at 41. 4. Lambinus emended to speciem, and quite convincingly justified this emendation in his note. The arguments for it were restated and amplified by Hendrickson, (pp. 2425) in 1904, and it was briefly noted by Tyrrell-Purser (i3. 132*) in that year; but no subsequent editor even mentions it.Google Scholar

3 At 28. 8 he follows Baehrens in suggesting a double reading cum infamia and infamis. The only basis for this suggestion is the reading of H1, cum infamis, where infamis is (I think) due merely to erroneous anticipation of the ending of the two following words nullis amicis.

1 So the text of Petreius (1564). Although vol. iii of the Adversaria was not published till 1573, the problem of priority between Petreius and Turnebus is not so simple as it seems, since the work of Turnebus dates from before June 1565 (see note 3 below).

2 ‘Negationem addidit Adrianus Turnebus, sine dubio a scriptoribus librariis omissam.’

3 In addition to the misprint in the number of the chapter, there are several other quite misleading mistakes in punctuation and typography in the chapter. Turnebus did not live to gather together all the material for this book, or to see it through the press; these tasks fell to his family and friends, after his death in June 1565.

1 ‘Pro ut id iucundae neges in veteri libro scriptum extat aut iucunde.’ From this ambiguous statement one could not tell whether or not Turnebus found the two words ut id in his ‘vetus’, were it not that the obscure (because wrongly punctuated) sentence which follows explaining his conception of the meaning makes it clear that he did. So too does Lambinus's report of a conjecture of Turnebus on this passage (ut id aut promittas aut iucunde neges).

2 So far as V is concerned, this conclusion is in substantial agreement with that of Constans (Correspondance, i. 19); he does not, however, give the detailed evidence, and does not mention the relationship between the ‘vetus’ and D.Google Scholar

3 This is stated by the editors to be a conjecture of Turnebus, but it is explicitly attributed by him to his ‘exemplar vetus’.

4 Neglecting Turnebus's reading gratissimorum (for gratios-) in 19. 4. Here Turnebus's note is as follows: scribendum bonis hbris auctoribus … pro, civium ad ambitionem gratis-simorum hominum; ad ambitionem gratissimorum.‘ This mispunctuated sentence means primarily that Turnebus wished to read hominum instead of civium, but I think it possible that he also intended to correct (so Petreius) the faulty gratiss- to the correct gratiosiss- (so HFD) but was defeated by his printer.

5 Buecheler attributes this not only to a ‘codex Turnebi’ but also to a ‘codex Palatums’. This ‘codex Palatinus’ is D (Palatinus 598), which was used by Gruter for his edition of 1618; see Mendelssohn's, edition of the Ad Fam., Praef. p. xxviii.Google Scholar Gruter is censured by Mendelssohn for carelessness, but his collation of D for the Comm. Pet., while not perfect, is reasonably good; it is also much more extensive than one would gather from the small selection of it which Buecheler gives.

1 Constans has no authority for referring to a ‘cod. Turnebi’ the reading, and still less the spelling, copones in 8. 13. Both in Adv. xxv. 3Google Scholar (where he spells it caupones) and in Adv. xii. 3 (where he spells it copones) Turne-bus quotes the word merely to explain its meaning, and is not interested either in its manuscript authority or in its spelling.Google Scholar

1 Laurand, , Cicéron, Volume complémentaire, 1934 (2nd ed. 1938), 230–42Google Scholar (a reprint of his earlier articles in R.E.L. v (1927), 257–61Google Scholar and Rev. de Phil, lix (1933), 370–4).Google Scholar

2 Who, in 1838, published at Leyden a doctoral dissertation on the Comm. Pet. Tydeman's later work on this text was never published but was used, in manuscript form, by Buecheler.

3 Cf. Laurand, , Cicéron, 241: ‘Certains numeros de Lagomarsini renvoient non à des mss. mais à des Editions.’Google Scholar

4 Footnotes on pp. 6 and 49.

5 Ciceronis Opera, iv. 453–9.Google Scholar

6 Which my colleague Mr. R. G. G. Coleman has very kindly consulted lor me.

7 Lagomarsini, following the editions of Cicero which had been printed up to his time, included the Comm. Pet. among Cicero's Philosophica (Section IV of his key).

8 As is shown by Lagomarsini's description of his No. 117 in this section (Angelius's 1515 edition of Cicero's Speeches, which in cludes the Comm. Pet. on foll. 423–30): ‘codex in 8 editus Lugduni sumptu Bartholomei Trot anno DXV a Christiana salute supra mille’ etc. I suspect that ‘Lag. 122’ also was a printed edition (Manutius's 1541 text of Cicero's Philosophica).

1 And except in five more, where Buecheler implies that he himself distrusts his ‘Lagomarsiniana collatio’.

2 In his Notes on pp. 505–6.

3 Of this bold rewriting of the manuscripts Lambinus says in his Notes: ‘Hunc locum coniectura non inani, meo quidem iudicio, ductus sane feliciter restitui.’ This passage by itself would suffice to prove the identity of ‘Lag. 50’ and Lambinus's text.

4 This is one of Lambinus's emendations which is ascribed to ‘Lag. 50’ not only by Purser, Tyrrell-Purser, and Constans but also by Sjögren. Yet Lambinus says explicitly ‘sic hunc locum emendandum arbitror’.

5 ‘mercenarius’ ‘nimis superstitiosus atque criticae artis prorsus ignarus’ he is called by Orelli in the Preface to vol. i of his first (1826 ff.) edition of Cicero, , pp. ix ff.Google Scholar