Columella's poem on horticulture, which forms Book 10 of his prose treatise De re rustica, has predominantly been edited by experts in agricultural writings rather than in Latin poetry, leaving many textual problems unsolved or even unrecognized. This article discusses a number of passages and proposes some thirty emendations.

This paper suggests a new emendation to the text of the final passage of Pliny's Panegyric, where a small lacuna has long been suspected after substiti.

Gow and Page are of the opinion that Planudes’ àένναος in the fifth line of this epigram may be not his conjecture but the true reading, and reject Jacobs' commonly received emendation àєί λáνος, with κηρο in the following line. But I have no doubt that for the two words μέν àλανóς we should read μєμαλαγαγμένος for ó μєμαλαγαγμένος κηρóς is the regular gloss1 on the waxy substance called μàλθα or μàλθα which was used in Athens—at the time of (...) Sophocles himself2—particularly for spreading on wooden writing-tablets. It was surmised by Schwabe that μàλθη had been the word glossed in Ael. Dion.Two entries in Pollux are especially important for establishing the use ofmaltha. In 10. 58–9, describing it as ό ένών т πινακίδί κηρϳς, he quotes passages from Herodotus, Cratinus, and Aristophanes referring to the soft wax which could easily be scraped from writing-tablets to erase writing. In 8. 16 he says it is the wax spread on the dicasts’ πινáκιον тιμηтικóν, from scratching on which the ‘long line’ of condemnation it will be remembered that Athenian philheliasts got wax under their finger-nails. (shrink)

The text of Aristotle'sEthica Eudemia is often in need of emendation, especially because of the particular fault in the manuscripts of misreading one letter for another or misdividing letters to form words. Scholars have already done fine work in correcting many of these errors, but more needs to be done. A second problem with the text does not have to do with matters of spelling or grammar, but rather with those of philosophical sense. For, as scholars have noted, theEEis (...) marked by considerable compression of thought, and this compression leads scholars to propose changes where, on further consideration, it can be shown that not change of words but change of comprehension is needed. (shrink)

This article argues that the text of the Dirae and the Lydia is even more corrupt than current editions give reason to believe, and attempts to emend about a dozen passages.

The entry π 196 of Hesychius is textually corrupt. This note challenges the traditional way of explaining the corruption and emending the text, which goes back to Marcus Musurus, and replaces it with a simpler and more economical approach.

For the senseless inira some manuscripts have inire or in arva, and the latter stands in the text of Baehrens . The attempts at emendation may be divided into two groups, those altering only inira and those tampering with ibat as well. I pass over the latter group, as Robinson Ellis, in his commentary, p. 125, has defended ibat sufficiently by reference to the frequent ñει in Babrius, Avianus’ model. The former group is represented by Withof and Robinson Ellis (...) himself ; and the editors of the Loeb text of the Minor Latin Poets, in 1934, had the verse printed with this in ora. Nobody seems to have seen that the verse-maker had to express the idea of the panther's pride. Therefore I propose ibat in (astra, a metaphorical phrase for the animal's conceit. For this metaphor cf. Horace's famous feriam sidera, for ibat Virg. Aen. 9. 641 sic itur ad astra, for in astra at the same place of the pentameter after a verb of motion Prop. 3. 18, 34 cessit in astra; Ov. Fast. 2. 478 and 3. 186 venit in astra. Avianus himself has this in astra before the last word of the pentameter in two more passages, 15. 8,19. 6. (shrink)

These notes continue the sequence begun in ‘Some Emendations in the Text of Maximus of Tyre, Dialexeis 1–21 ’, published in CQ 41 , 566–71. References to the text are by number, page and line in Hobein's Teubner edition; R is the principal MS., Parisinus graecus 1962, U is Vaticanus graecus 1390, I is Laurentianus Conventi Soppressi 4; U and I, being descendants of R , offer conjectures not alternative readings. My thanks go again to Donald Russell and David Sedley (...) for salutary comments on earlier and rasher drafts. (shrink)

MODERN ARISTOTELIAN SCHOLARSHIP is heavily indebted to the German scholars of the nineteenth century who produced the Berlin Academy editions of Aristotle's corpus and of his Greek commentators. The foundations for this massive project were laid around the middle of the century by people like Schwegler, who edited and commented on Aristotle's Metaphysics. Yet, while acknowledging our debt to such exemplary scholarship, I want to cast doubt on one of his proposed emendations to Metaphysics 6.1, which influenced later editors like (...) W. D. Ross and Werner Jaeger. (shrink)

Varro wrote three books De bibliothecis, according to a list by Jerome. The work may have had something to do with his commission to build a massive public library for Julius Caesar, though Caesar was assassinated before the library could be built. It may also have some connection to Rome's first public library, which Asinius Pollio added to the Atrium of Liberty in the 30s b.c. Pollio, after all, gave a portrait to Varro alone among living authors. The known fragments (...) are few. (shrink)

The following emendations are a selection from adversaria made during repeated readings of Athenaeus. The material to hand during the several perusals has consisted chiefly of Kaibel's recension , the variorum edition of Schweighhauser, and Meineke's Comic Fragments. The editor of the Classical Quarterly has been kind enough to check my suggestions by reference to other material, and I have to thank him for the excision of sundry emendations for which I cannot claim priority. As the full discussion of the (...) several passages here touched upon would require considerable space, I have contented myself with a brevity which is not intended to be in any way dogmatic; but which aims simply at economy of paper and type. I hope at an early date to enter more fully and systematically into the emendation and interpretation of this interesting and instructive writer. (shrink)

AtLeg.666b7, Burnet's emendation of the transmitted λήθην to λήθῃ has been widely accepted. Newly discovered support for this emendation comes from an Arabic version or adaptation of Plato'sLaws, most likely Galen'sSynopsis, quoted by the polymath Abū-Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (a.d.973–1048) asKitāb al-Nawāmīs li-Aflāṭunin his ethnographic work on India. I transliterate and translate the passage below, proposing two incidental emendations to the Arabic:wa-qāla l-aṯīniyyu fī l-maqālati l-tāniyati mina l-kitābi: lammā raḥima [sic proraḥimati] l-ālihatu ǧinsa l-bašari min aǧli annahū maṭbūʿun ʿalā l-taʿabi (...) hayyaʾū lahum aʿyādan li-l-ālihati wa-li-l-sakīnāti wa-li-ʾf-w-l-l-n mudabbiri l-sakīnāti wa-li-d-y-w-n-w-s-y-s māniḥi l-bašari l-ḫamrata dawāʾan lahum min ʿufūṣati l-šayḫūḫati li-yaʿūdū fityānan bi-l-duhūli ʿani l-kābati wa-ntiqāli ḫulqi l-nafsi [wa-yantaqila ḫulqu l-nafsiperhaps to be read] mina l-šiddati ilā l-salāmati [al-salāsatiprobably to be read].The Athenian said in the second book of the work [sc. theLaws]: The gods, taking pity on the human race since it was born for toil, established for them feast-days (dedicated) to the gods and to the Muses and to Apollo, overseer of the Muses, and to Dionysus, who gave human beings wine as a remedy for them against the bitterness of old age, so that they might be rejuvenated by forgetting sorrow and (by) the character of the soul changing [and (so that) the character of the soul might changeperhaps to be read] from severity into soundness [into tractabilityprobably to be read].The source of the latter part of the passage, that is, the description of Dionysus’ gift and its effect (māniḥi l-bašari…l-salāmati), has until now remained unidentified. In the notes to his translation, Sachau, followed by Gabrieli, correctly identified part ofLeg. 653c–d (θεοὶ … ἔδοσαν) as the origin of much of the passage (see n. 4). No previous scholarship, however, has noted that the latter part translates a passage inLeg.666b–c (τοῖς ἀνθρώποις … τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς ἦθος), here joined to the earlier passage (presumably by Bīrūnī’s source, that is, most likely Galen) on the hinge of their shared mention of Dionysus. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to deeply rethink the traditional notion of “ideological emendation”. By taking Taurus T27 as a test-case, I shall emphasise that Taurus’ intervention on Timaeus 27c5 is the result of a conjecture, and that such an emendation meets the requirements for a philological conjecture on Plato’s text. Indeed, Taurus’ fragment, which is usually taken as a typical example of “ideological emendation”, only reflects an effort to recover what Plato actually wrote, and is (...) nothing but a textual emendation. Accordingly, the ideological core of such an emendation is what must lie at the basis of any conjecture, that is an attempt to re-establish (what is assumed to be) Plato’s text in accordance with his consistent doctrine. (shrink)

In this paper I propose an emendation for a long-standing textual problem in the Satyricon. In the Cena Trimalchionis one of the freedmen, Niceros, recounts a bizarre story, culminating in a frightening encounter between him and a werewolf. In a desperate attempt to escape peril, Niceros draws his sword to repel horrific shadows and utters a sequence of eleven letters which has puzzled scholars for more than a century: matavitatau. I propose a correction which hypothesizes the presence of a (...) verb and an interjection, namely gladium strinxi etmatavi – tatae! –umbras cecidi. I support my proposal by analyzing the intersections between literary genres and poetic texts in the Satyricon. After analyzing the meanings and nuances of tatae, I argue that the presence of such an exclamation is perfectly suitable for the situation of fear and danger that Niceros is experiencing. I suggest that Homer’s Odyssey and Vergil’s Aeneid offer decisive indications to make the presence of an interjection plausible. Niceros’ dreadful encounter with the werewolf recalls epic models, namely the descent of Odysseus and Aeneas into the Underworld. Finally, I suggest that Petronius portrays Niceros as a mythomaniac narrator who fails to appropriate the conventions of Latin and Greek epic poetry. (shrink)

10. 2. lugentem timentemque custodire solemus, ne solitudine male utatur. Reynolds does not mention Haupt's conjecture amentemque, which is certainly on the right lines. Bereaved persons may need watching because in the violence of their grief they may do themselves an injury , and the same applies to madmen or to anyone suspected of suicidal inclinations custodio). It does not apply to persons afraid; they may sometimes be glad of company, but do not require surveillance. My only doubt is whether (...) amentem, seldom used of actual insanity, is the right word. Perhaps dementem or furentem, which makes a better match with the participle lugentem. (shrink)

The most authoritative testimony for the text of Apuleius’ defence-speech known asApologiaorPro Se De Magiais a Cassinese MS indicated with thesiglumF (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 68.2), written under the abbotship of Desiderius (1058–1087) in a mature Beneventan script, which also preserves the text of theMetamorphosesand theFlorida. The text that F preserves is unsurprisingly not flawless, and in this note I argue for the presence of a corruption affectingautinApol. 47.1. For the sake of clarity, I provide the passage fromApol. 46.6 (...) to 47.2 below. (shrink)

The beginning of the second entry of Apollonius Sophista's Lexicon Homericum reads as follows in the codex Coislinianus gr. 345, the only direct witness to this section : ἀάατος· ὁ ἀβλαβὴς καὶ εὐχερὴς καὶ δι’ οὗ ἄνευ ἄτης. ἐνίοτε δὲ τὸν ἐπιβλαβῆ καὶ δυσχερῆ …ἀάατος: ‘harmless’ and ‘easy’, and δι’ οὗ ‘without ἄτη’. But sometimes ‘hurtful’ and ‘difficult’ ….