PREFACE OF THE EDITOR

...it appears that it could easily have come to mind. Conversely, in I 1, 2, 2 after priesthoods, where a certain word has openly fallen out, it is probable that one may take he created from Livy I 20, 1 (cf. Lactantius Divine Institutes I 22, 4). But the opinion that the dispute over the greater authority of books B or C can be settled by these places and those in which more recent writers compiled Florus must be looked into more accurately. C. Zangemeister, a most famous man, very truly says in his excellent edition of Orosius, p. XXVI: 'Orosius agrees with these' (i.e., the Heidelberg manuscripts) 'rather than with the Bambergensis, and thus the antiquity of his recension, too neglected until now, I think, is certainly asserted.' But, in truth, it does not follow from this, as others think, that it is older than the other recension (C) and that wherever the latter disagrees with the former, the interpolations of book B must be posited. For if Orosius sometimes agrees with C, other witnesses no less wealthy amplify the authority of book B. For example, in I 1, 1, 6, this reading it pleased to use the gods is confirmed by the booklet On the Origin of the Roman People 23; C wrongly presents they used sacrifices.1) And ibid. § 13, where Orosius's master Augustine in The City of God III 13 has the same as B: inside the walls instead of at the walls, which is in L, Voss, Harl, Paris 5802, Bern.2) Then in I 27, 5, by the breviary of Rufus Festus (cap. 11, 2), which itself is older than Orosius, the Bambergensis reading magabant (magaba Festus, Orosius) is confirmed, while N (atiam) and L (agiam) have preserved hardly any trace of the truth; and in II 32, 44 the same...

1) From the primary reading of codex B, not yet changed by the same hand, piacuit it pleased, the reason for which is that the letter 'i' is longer in form and very similar to the letter 'l', whereby one can see how a grave corruption of the other class, joined with interpolation, could arise.
2) Since only N has intra moenia inside the walls from all the books of this recension, I do not know if this reading might have been brought into it from a book of the other recension.