Astronomicon

Prucknerus 3, anonymus Ellisii (noct. Man. Manilian nights pp. 212–4) 6, Turnebus 4, Susius 2, Scaliger 220, F. Iunius 7, Lannoius 3, Columna 1, Grotius 1, Barthius 11, Salmasius 4, I. Vossius 5, G. Vossius 1, Gronouius 16, N. Heinsius 2, Vlitius 1, Bullialdus 1, Reinesius 4, Huetius 10, Fayus * 24, P. Francius 2, Burman the elder 1, Markland 3, Jortin 1, Bentley 238, Heringa 2, Dorville 1, Oudendorp 1, Ruhnken 1, van Jever 2, Schrader 3, Burton 1, Pingré 4, J. L. Hug 1, Jacob † 40, Unger 2, Buecheler 2, L. Mueller 4, Munro 1, Woltjer 3, P. Thomas 5, Breiter 12, Rossberg 3, Ellis 16, Cartault 1, Tappertz 1, Postgate 8, Bechert 5, Immisch 1, Garrod 4, van Wageningen 1.

The archetype need not have been older than the 10th century. Words were sometimes separated (iv 692 stupe facta stunned made LM), sometimes continuous (v 366 nitidis olore uolantis with shining flying scent L, uttibi solore uola talis that to you [with] scent flying such M). Indications of its script, as usual, are uncertain. Such a confusion as v 544 teneros tender L, tenepos M might seem to signify that it was Irish or at any rate insular; but similarly such confusions as Lucr. i 830 homoeomerian like-partedness Q, homofomerian O and v 1337 eorum of them O, forum market Q were taken by Lachmann for evidence that the Lucretian archetype was in capitals, whereas there is much more reason to think that it was not. That the text of Manilius has passed through an insular stage is likely enough, and such errors as v 655 porulum for populum the people and 687 aepa for area area/threshing floor may be traces of it, though pompa rependit the procession pays back for roma pependit Rome hung in i 917 is probably a case of transposition.

Some scholars think that they know much more than this about the archetype, especially about its pagination, and fancy that light is thrown upon this subject by certain transpositions in the first book, detected and corrected by Scaliger and recognised by Jacob in progr. Lubec. 1832 pp. 18–21 as transpositions of entire leaves. My observation saved me from this mistake, and my kind heart made me wish to save others; so in my note at i 529 I issued the warning that the leaves transposed were not leaves of the

* Fayus’ emendations, to which in 1903 I did less than justice, for they excel Huetius’ both in number and in quality, present something of a puzzle. He lays explicit claim only to nine of them; one, iv 781, he ascribes wrongly to others; one, ii 268, he ignores in his paraphrase; and the rest he treats as if they were MS readings.

† My praise of Jacob’s emendations, which annoyed Ellis, was thoroughly deserved, and I have a good reason of my own for respecting them. When I first sat down to read Manilius through, I provided myself with the Delphin edition, Thomas’s collation of G, and Ellis’s so-called collation of M; and thus equipped I found out for myself more than half of those emendations of Scaliger which Fayus did not record, about one third of Bentley’s, and almost all of Breiter’s and Ellis’s and their fellows’; but of Jacob’s hardly one or two.