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The Text of the Bellvm Gallicvm1 and the Work of H. Meusel
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Every one who has used Dr. Meusel's excellent edition of Caesar's Bellum Ciuile will welcome the first volume, comprising Commentaries I.–IV., of his final edition of the Bellum Gallicum. Nominally, each of the two books is a revision of the work of other men,–in the former case of Kraner and Hofmann, in the latter of Kraner and Dittenberger; really each, especially the latter, contains the fruit of so much independent research that the personalities of the older editors are obscured. That part of the joint work of Kraner and Dittenberger which corresponds with the revision consisted of 199 pages ; the revision extends to 464. As Meusel remarks in the Preface, it is no longer intended for the use of schools, but of teachers and classical scholars. The historical introduction and the section on the Roman army, which retain much of Kraner's work, have been carefully retouched; many of the footnotes have been corrected or rewritten; many, both on linguistic points and on the subject-matter, have been added.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1914
References
page 156 note 2 It is true that in certain passages the writer of the archetype of ß deliberately altered Caesar's text; but even a is not free from gratuitous emendation.
page 157 note 1 Rheinisches Museum, 1910, pp. 224–34.
page 157 note 2 Jahresberichte des philologischen Vereins zu Ber-lin, 1912, pp. 18–21. These Jahresberichte a published as supplements along with the Zeit-schrift für das Gymnasialwesen and in the same cover.
page 157 note 3 These articles were preceded by one in the Neue Jahrbücher für hlassische Philologie of 1885, in which Meusel showed that, as regards the use of a and ab, ß is much more trustworthy than α.
page 157 note 4 Mr. W. E. P. Pantin, in a letter which I have just received from him, says “I found that the ” 94 article interested me much, though I had no special interest in the text of Caesar because it gave me so much information as to the written Latin of the time of Caesar. Anyone who wants to know what is classical Latin (in that sense) should work at that article of Meusel's. If it had been issued as a separate work, it would be as well known in Englandas Lebreton's book on Cicero. I may add that the two earlier articles are equally valuable ; and if I can persuade even a few English scholars to study all three, this little paper will not have been written in vain.
page 158 note 1 Classical Review, 1901, p. 175.
page 158 note 2 iv. io.
page 158 note 3 Cösarstudien, pp. 36–43, 135–38.
page 159 note 1 i. 431.
page 159 note 2 Mnemosyne, 1913, pp. 1–9.
page 159 note 3 ib.
page 159 note 4 He did not attack even the Menapii in 56 B.C.
page 159 note 5 iv. I, I.
page 160 note 1 Caesar's Conquest of Gaul, p. 492; ed. 2, 1911,p. 482, n. 7.
page 160 note 2 Cäsarstudien, p. 239.
page 161 note 1 Neue philologische Rundschau, 1899, pp. 241–6.
page 163 note 1 Jahnsberichte, 1894, pp. 248,9.
page 163 note 2 Another instance in which the arithmetical method has perhaps been strained occurs in iii. 12, 4. Here Meusel originally adopted the reading of α, – oportunitatibus loci. He now follows ß, which reverses the order. The reason which he gives is that elsewhere in B.G. and B.C. taken together oportunitas loci occurs once,loci oportunitas four times. When the relevant passages are so few, might not one almost as well toss up as decide onthis principle? Again in iv. 31, 2, where Meusel follows ß in reading comparari instead of comportari, he remarks that while comportare is used when the required materials are to be found in the neighbourhood,in this case they were to be fetched from the continent. I am not arguing against comparari;but in B.C., iii. 42, 2 we find frumentum ab Asia atque omnibus regionibus quas tenebat comportari imperat.
page 164 note 1 I may say here that in the text of B.G.which I lately edited for the Medici Society I adopted in the following passages readings different from those of my other edition, which was published in February for the Delegates of the Clarendon Press. The corrections, although they were too late for the list of Corrigenda in the complete edition, were made in separate editions (also issued by the Clarendon Press) of i., iii., iv., and v.
iv. 3, 3. For ii read hi.
iv. 5, 2. For enim read autem.
iv. 10, 3. For Nantuatium read Nemetum.
iv. 32, 2, For sese read se.
v. 1, 2. For subductionesque read subductionisque.I also bracketed quam in i. 42, 5, Romanorum in iii. 18, 8, and atque opinione timidiores in iii. 24, 5.In the second and fourth of these cases I assent to the arguments of Klotz, in the rest to those of Meusel. Finally, in viii 6, 3 I made an emendation,– a T. (Labieno) instead of ab L. Nipperdey deleted ab L.; but in mentioning Labienus for the first time Hirtius would certainly have given the praenomen, and T was often confounded with L.
page 165 note 1 I owe these quotations to Mr. F. W. Hall's Companion to Classical Texts. May I take this trusively learned, lucid, well written, and sane,opportunity of recommending an article called “Les auteurs classiques et la critique des textes au XXe siècle,” by M. L. Laurand, which ap-peared in Etudes of August, 1913? It is unob-trusively learned, lucid, well written, and sane.
page 165 note 2 Jahresberichte, 1913, p. 19.
page 165 note 3 Sir George Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Lord. Macaulay, 1881, p. 690.