Attic Nights

The manuscript PV is inferior; for it omits all Greek text, leaving only a space for the letters.

book β

In addition to these surviving codices, there is that of Hieronymus Buslidius (β). Although some of its readings have been preserved from books IX, X, XVI, XVII, and XVIII, it is most appropriate to discuss it here, since by far the greatest portion pertains to Book I. We owe our knowledge of this manuscript largely to L. Carrion; a few points were contributed by Canterus, Raevardus, Fruterius, Lipsius, Giphanius, and others. That book certainly occupies a notable and unique position among the other parchment manuscripts. For since it contains those lost parts of chapters I 2 and 3—which were otherwise unknown except from the rescripted a manuscript written over an older, erased text codex—there is now hope that it is a close relative of that illustrious book, or at the very least a codex of great weight and gravity. This hope is corroborated by our finding that it alone supplies a lacuna gap or missing section of no small scope in XVIII 9, 1 sqq. Yet the hope, which we once thought was confirmed, frustrates us. For a relationship between A and β cannot be established, as they differ in six hundred places, nor do the unique readings exhibited by β seem preferable to the others. Indeed, most of them smell so strongly of an interpolator a person who inserts unauthorized or secondary material into a text that we hesitate to follow such an untrustworthy guide even in the remaining sections. And although I do not believe Carrion himself can be accused of fraud—as some have done, for he even brought to light slips of the pen from that codex and omitted words, nor does he approve of everything he found—nevertheless, he used a codex that had suffered at the hands of an interpolator who was as bold as he was inept. For instance, when he dissolved expanded/unabbreviated "Cl." referring to the historian Claudius Quadrigarius into "one hundred and fiftieth" in I 7, 9, he would provoke laughter even from a beginner; 1) Similarly, in I 13, 7 "cui a rep." is used instead of "cuia res." and when he omits "Quadrigarius" for the third time, he betrays his deliberate interpolation. The same is true when he wrote in I 9, 3: "Furthermore, he was establishing a certain time so that they might be silent, not the same for all, but for others another in place of... But to those who were silent and what, etc." From the comparison of the readings of the others, it is easy to understand what moved him; likewise in I 5, 1: "sincere" (compare R "waxy") and 15, 1: "most suitable to be carried" (compare R "most suitable to be seen").