Attic Nights

immediately up to XIII 5, but with the omission of XIII 1—4, the order being disturbed today, the fragments of the codex of the Academy Library of Rheno-Traiectina, marked "Aevum vetus. Scriptores graeci. No. 26," provide the rest.

All these codices, except Q, exhibit Greek words, either all or most, written more than once in Latin letters. The relationship of the individual classes is demonstrated by six hundred concordant readings, both correct and perverse, such as IX 3, 4 "to be written," 4, 6 "prosprofium petet antispectancia"; beyond "per aboris tenent," 6, 3 "factito," 9, 15 "gaudebat," X 1, 3 "C. Marium," 6 "word," 7 "as far as the third," 2, 2 "them," 3, 3 "paulus; calenilibi," 8 "circumflectitur," 9 "he says omitted," 13 "Roman omitted; province by," 14, 3 "concasium," 16, 14 "erue alle," 17, 4 "civilibus," 24, 6 "exercitum est qui al." A leaf had fallen out in the parent of the δ line, which contained the words XX 1, 39 "remains"—53 "and," already desired in QZ; the scribe had passed over one page or half of a bipartate page, which resulted in the absence of XX 6, 2 "and has"—7 "he pitied," and for the same reason, they are missing in the derived codices in the same place 10 "unusually"—12 "authority," as in X 3, 3 the words from "Caleni" 12, 5 "from—of the chameleon," and so often. Neither family holds the primacy by itself; but now this one has preserved the genuine reading, now that one. Thus, to cite one chapter, I have embraced the readings of the γ line seven times in XVII 2 and rejected them in just as many places. Therefore, in every single place, the authority of the codices must be examined and supported by fact and reason. Yet, the δ family, and within it codex Q, precedes the others not only by counting but by weighing the readings, such as in X 3, 13; XIII 21, 15; XIV 1, 2; 6, 1; XVI 4, 1; 5, 3; XVII 8, 10; XVIII 5, 12; XX 1, 16; 8, 7, and others—a witness of good and sincere memory, to which I have applied myself more often when the choice was free. But neither B nor Z should be cheated of their own worth, nor the books of the other family. So that I do not seem to be playing with numbers, since anyone can easily gather enough documentation from the critical apparatus according to their own preference, it should be enough to note that none of them can be easily done without.