The Comedies of Plautus, Vol. I (T. Macci Plauti Comoediae)

Although not a year, nor even a month, passes at this time without something new being added to these studies, and although the readings of the Turnebus codex recently discovered have taught us a marvelous amount regarding the pro-archetype of the Palatine recension, nevertheless the Teubner and Weidmann editions are not of such a kind as to easily leave room for a third. Therefore, having weighed the matter for a long time, it finally pleased me that in this edition I should summon Paleography as an assistant to Philology, especially since not long ago in a booklet published in London (Introduction to Latin Textual Emendation, based on the Text of Plautus, Macmillan, 1896) I had gathered the corruptions commonly found in Plautine codices and explained their causes; and it seemed that in this way the emendation of the Plautine text might be advanced somewhat. For that saying of Cobet is excellent:

"There is in the codices a certain consistency of error, and they are accustomed to 'commit the same faults regarding the same things' original: "τὰ αὐτὰ περὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ἁμαρτάνειν", and the more of this kind one has either discovered oneself or has at hand that others have discovered, the more prepared one approaches finding the truth."

I wish, by Hercules, that all or most editions of ancient authors had their own companion booklet, in which—more fully than can be done within the small space of a preface—it could be explained what vicissitudes those writings experienced, how many and what kinds of script forms they repeatedly assumed, and how many changes they received from monks, correctors, or scribes, whether by intent or by chance; for if I am not mistaken, corruptions would be emended more easily and more certainly. But let other editors see to other writers. The Plautine text, to be sure, has followed a path so simple and so easy to recognize that we can and must always keep before our eyes the errors to which correctors and scribes were most frequently and repeatedly prone¹. For example, let me here state once, so that there may not be excessive repetition in the annotation, that some scribe

¹ I have arranged these errors in my booklet in such a way that in the first chapter I have treated those that arose from faulty emendation, and in Chapter II those arising from transpositions,