On Emending Livy's Fourth Decade

Extract

The present text of Livy's Fourth Decade rests upon two main lines of tradition: first, the eleventh-century Bambergensis with fourteenth–fifteenth century recentiores and Gelenius' notes (1535) of the lost Spirensis; secondly, Carbachius' recording (1519) of the lost Moguntinus. This paper is concerned with the effect which more recent knowledge of the archetype of the first tradition may have upon emendation of the text. In the light of uncial fragments discovered at Bamberg in 1904 Traube showed that Bambergensis is a direct copy of the fifth-century MS. which they represent. At one step we are back in the world of late Roman scholarship, and one may correct Bambergensis in terms of the copying of continuous uncial script.