Abstract

The chief works of Tacitus and Apuleius have come down to us in a single Beneventan—i.e. South Italian—MS. of the eleventh century. The Annals and Histories of Tacitus, and the Apologia, Metamorphoses, and Florida of Apuleius, depend solely on the authority of the famous Florentine MS. preserved in the Laurentian Library under the press-mark 68.2. Any new light that can be thrown on such a MS. is of interest to classical scholars. With the portion of the MS. containing the works of Tacitus the writer has dealt at some length in a paper read in April, 1913, in London before the International Congress of Historical Studies, which paper will be published shortly. Here it is proposed to deal with the portion containing the works of Apuleius, and with the oldest extant transcript of this portion, which is also in Beneventan writing, and is likewise preserved in the Laurentian Library under the press-mark 29.2. In the critical apparatus of Apuleius Laur. 68.2 is cited as F, and Laur. 29.2 as ø