On the Latin Language

The defects that have arisen from haplographia accidental omission of repeating letters or words1) are simpler and often more similar to the previous ones; as to individual letters written once, not to mention them, these passages illustrate them: 4, 9; 11, 1; 19, 17; 25, 6; 30, 7; 79, 8; 85, 17 (? see annotations); 105, 8; 112, 1; 115, 17. 20; 118, 14 and 121, 12 (?); 122, 9; 124, 6; 132, 15; 137, 21; 149, 7 (see annotations); 158, 21; 159, 14; 160, 5; 182, 16; 183, 17; 186, 11; 187, 1. To these places we now add 131, 25, where, since we have propagated the vulgate reading from the Aldine edition longus long instead of longi of the long along with earlier ones, one might also consider longi longer; for the comparative, when inserted, is defended by Quintilian Inst. II 13, 5 and similar passages.

But far more frequent in F the primary manuscript than haplographia is the error of dittographia accidental repetition of letters or words, which—again, keeping aside examples of single letters written twice and places corrected by the scribe himself (such as 10, 22 sq.; 29, 2 sq.; 30, 15; 104, 3; 115, 6 sq.; 117, 6; 118, 5; 128, 2; 134, 1; 136, 17; 144, 17; 146, 1; 150, 5 and 17; 168, 22)—we detect in these passages: 10, 12 sq. 25; 12, 16. 17; 13, 16 sq. (see annotations); 16, 18; 17, 12; 22, 2 sq. 5; 24, 3; 28, 12; 31, 8; 33, 20; 37, 4 (? see annotations); 46, 6; 50, 7; 52, 17 and 53, 3 (where Priscianus Priscian is free of error); 62, 5; 68, 6; 74, 6 sq. (?); 77, 22; 81, 6; 88, 23; 90, 8; 95, 9 (?); 96, 14 (see annotations); 97, 21; 101, 16; 105, 17 sq.; 107, 14 (?); 110, 2; 114, 16; 119, 9; 123, 14; 126, 20; 127, 12; 131, 17. 20; 134, 4. 13; 135, 5. 22; 136, 20; 137, 15; 143, 19 (see annotations); 150, 30; 151, 28; 152, 1. 12; 153, 1. 17; 156, 20. 21; 159, 3. 6 (see annotations); 160, 1; 162, 20; 163, 24 sq.; 167, 14. 19; 168, 14; 169, 11; 175, 19; 176, 2. 5; 177, 27; 178, 4; 181, 24; 183, 12 sq.; 185, 29 sq. (see annotations to 185, 28); 187, 11.

Now, while these additions may have arisen by chance or rather from the negligence of the scribe, there are not lacking those which seem to be attributable to the certain intent of those who augmented the context with interpolations. Although we concede that this area is more slippery and that learned men have not rarely strayed from the truth or likelihood in establishing interpretations. And very recently, even Roehrscheidt in his review2) of the book by Reitzenstein sometimes fell into that traditional error of imputing what causes difficulty to a 'corrector', even if why that person wrote it that way is by no means explained more easily. Thus nothing is truly explained, but rather the difficulty is increased. Indeed, 52, 9 sq., since an interpolation is manifest from the testimony of Priscianus Priscian, the suspicion of removing words is also easy in other places.

1) That one should not think of this, as L. Spengel did at 67, 3 and 76, 12, among others, we have stated in the annotations.
2) This review became known to us when the context and annotations had already been printed.