Valerius Maximus: Memorable Deeds and Sayings

PREFACE.

I have said what I had to say concerning the Halmian variety of script extracted from the Bern book, in large part light matters indeed, if however anything is light in this field, especially in corrupted passages, but certainly not all of them are of no moment in restoring the words of Valerius. In this matter, I pray for one thing: that no one might think that I have collected these things so sedulously for the sake of disparaging the distinguished merits of that most excellent man, especially now that he is deceased. That I am very far from this perverse intent, I both professed long ago in my New Valerian Questions (p. 7), when, having been sharply rebuked by him, I strove to excuse what I had sinned in describing the readings of that codex, and today I profess it, having been taught by Halm himself how difficult that business is, after I understood that such things can happen even to the most diligent searcher of ancient books and to one most versed in reading them. But I set this for myself, and I trust that I have achieved it through this work of mine: first, that I might more easily obtain pardon from fair judges for those things which I had once established less correctly, especially since I have now striven to mend and correct them as much as I could; second, that if my report concerning that codex differs from the Halmian, after my new and most exact cares, greater faith might be held in our testimony than in his.

In my larger edition, p. 78, I had already taught that the hand of more than one scribe appears in the Bern codex: for since he who wrote out this whole book had admitted several errors, some deceived by his eyes he had omitted, others he had either written out twice or had intruded which did not pertain to the matter at all, such as 2, 10. 8 (p. 107, 2), where an almost entire epigram of Martial crept in among the words of Valerius, another scribe of about the same age, a man not unlearned, came upon the scene, who, aided by another codex, as it seems to Halm (pref. IV), the same one from which the Bern manuscript had been copied, whatever he noticed was corrupted or [corrected] by erasing the primary script