Modernising of archaic forms
The text of Plautus, with its numerous archaic forms and constructions, has unfortunately suffered greatly at the hands of mediaeval scribes. For example, in the Latin of Plautus' day illīc, as well as illi, was dative singular of ille; illi, as well as illīc, was the adverb (originally locative singular of ille) “there.” But when a Carolingian copyist found the O. Lat. illic dative singular in his original, he naturally took it for a barbarous misspelling; and relying on the rule of his text-book of orthography that illi was the dative singular, illīc the adverb, he would usually substitute illi without hesitation. For the O. Lat. adverb illi he would similarly write illic in his copy. In a few cases the metre shows us that a change of this kind has been made. Thus in Amph. 249: “namque égo fui illi in ré praesenti et méus quom pugnatúmst pater,” “for I was there at the action itself, and so was my father, when the fight took place.” Here the minuscule MSS. offer illic; but since the metre (iambic tetrameter acatalectic) requires the form illi, we can be sure that illic is a scribe's substitution for the illi of his original (cf. Capt. 277-9). This is in fact the leading principle of Ritschl's treatment of the text of Plautus—the restoration to the text of the archaic forms of Plautine Latin, which had been silently changed to the classical forms by mediaeval scribes. Thus in Merc. 46, where the minuscule MSS. agree in reading objurgare, Ritschl made the line (an iambic trimeter) metrical by reading objurigare: “objúrigare páter haec noctes ét dies”, “--u-u w - -u - u-
” “my father used to censure this night and day,” the old form objūr[icaron]go being attested by MSS. in other passages, e.g. by A in Trin. 70: “nemóst. Quid tu igitur rógitas, tene objúrigem?” “No one. Why ask then if it is you I censure?” When we look at the passages of Plautus which the Latin grammarians quote in illustration of archaic forms, we see to what an extent these archaic forms have been modernised in the course of transmission. Festus cites termentum, a derivative of tero, from the Bacchides; but in Bacch. 929, clearly the line referred to, non pedibus termento fuit, “was not rough enough to hurt the feet,” we find tormento substituted in all the minuscule MSS., though A, the Ambrosian Palimpsest, retains termento. The Palimpsest, however, is as guilty as the other MSS. in other passages—such as Epid. 10, quoted both by Festus and by Donatus for the archaic adjective habitus, “in good condition, stout”: “córpulentiór videre atque hábitior. Huic grátia”, “you seem stouter and in better liking. Thanks to this (thieving hand of mine),” where A has abilior. To a fourth-century scribe, like the scribe of A, these old forms, habitus, illi adverbial, illic dative, etc., would be almost as unknown as to a Carolingian scribe. As a matter of fact we have in the minuscule MSS. quite as many archaic forms as in A. Sometimes they are preserved by all the minuscule MSS., e.g. Men. 405 semul (class. simul); sometimes by B alone, e.g. Stich. 383 poste (post haec CD, postea A), Pseud. 386 ecfecta (haec facta CD, effecta A). And in a large number of instances a trace, sometimes a very faint one, is preserved of a lost archaism: e.g. in Cas. 380, quoted by Priscian for the old nominative singular sortis, “a lot,” the words alia sortis, “another lot,” are represented in BVE by alias oris; and we can see that the old form aiio (class. aio) stood in the archetype in Cas. 71: “at ego aiio id fieri in Graécia et Carthágini”; for B has alio, which in VE is changed to alia (to agree with Graecia), and in J (as in A) is aio. The Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius (second century a.d.) are full of complaints about scribes of the time, who altered, e.g., majores vestrum (Sallust Cat. xxxiii. 3) into majores vestri, vadimonium stitisses (Cato) into vadimonium stetisses, quadrupes eques (Ennius) into quadrupes equus; so that we can see that this form of error in MSS. was of an early date, and that mediaeval scribes are not the only offenders in this respect. The modernising of archaic forms is carried out to a great extent in the MSS. of Plautus, and the student of Plautine textual criticism must bestow great attention on this point. But since most of the examples that might be quoted in illustration (for a fuller list of them see Appendix A) are peculiar to archaic Latin authors, it will be sufficient to mention those which are commonly found in MSS. of Cicero, Virgil, and the like.
- ii for i.—An early grammarian (Velius Longus) tells us that Cicero was in the habit of writing with double i words like Maia, Ajax, where an i (j) stood between two vowels. In MSS. of Cicero we find that this archaic spelling has proved a stumbling-block to scribes. Thus eiius for ejus has become in Milo. 7. 16 ei jus, in Fam. vi. 2. 1 et jus, in Att. viii. 4. 1 ei vis. (Leo ad Plaut. Mil. 1274 cites melius as a corruption of eiius.）
- st for est.—Early grammarians (e.g. Marius Victorinus) recommend the curtailed spelling of the substantive verb in audiendust for audiendus est, audiendast for audienda est, audiendumst for audiendum est, etc. Spellings of the kind have usually been altered by mediaeval scribes, who sometimes rightly understand the contraction and expand the -st to the full form est, but often pervert st to sit or si, or even sim (written in MSS. sī), or sunt (written in MSS. st with a line above). Thus in Pseud. 448 insipientiast, “it is folly,” is rightly written in the Palimpsest INSIPIENTIAST, but in the minuscule MSS. is insipientia (-cia) si (cf. Most. 701).
- -is Accusative Plural—The usual form of the accusative plural of I-stems in good authors has -is, e.g. civis, navis. This is very often altered by mediaeval copyists to -es; though the remark of Aulus Gellius (Noct. Att. xiii. 21. 3-5) that Virgil wrote urbis in Georg. i. 25: “urbisne invisere, Caesar” etc., but urbes in Aen. iii. 106: “centum urbes habitant magnas”, shows us the danger of correcting each and every form in -es to the form in -is.
- -os, -om for -us, -um.—In Late Latin, as we have seen, u and o were in certain cases interchanged in pronunciation and writing; e.g. vinum was pronounced and written vino (cf. Italian vino). A Carolingian scribe might easily mistake a genuine form like equom or servos, nominative singular, for a Merovingian misspelling, and substitute equum, servus. In classical Latin o, the older vowel, was used after another u or after the consonant v, but in the Latin of Plautus' time the old spelling was retained in many other situations beside. It is not always easy to feel certain that an o which takes the place of u in the MSS. of Plautus is a genuine survival of the Old Latin form (e.g. opos sit for opus sit, which has become corrupted to possit in Stich. 573; see above, p. 3), or a mere instance of the Late Latin use of o for ŭ. Similarly e for i in Plautus MSS. is a survival of the early form in semul, “simul,” Men. 405, and the like, but may sometimes date only from the Late Latin period when ĭ had become e (cf. ch. v. § 9).
- quoi, the spelling in vogue in the youth of Quintilian (i. 7. 27), is, if understood by the scribe, corrected to cui; if not understood, it often becomes quo or qui (cf. Bacch. 126, 225, 617).
- Unassimilated Prepositions in Compounds.—A scribe was always prone to correct forms like subpeto, adpeto etc. to suppeto, appeto etc., and in this respect has often effaced the traces of the spelling of his original. On the other hand, he may often by this change have unconsciously reverted to the older spelling; for the assimilated forms are often those used by the ancient writer himself (e.g. Plautus used the form assum for adsum, and makes a pun with it on assum, “roasted,” in Poen. 279), while the unassimilated forms have been foisted into the text by grammarians and editors of the Empire. The same is true of spellings like quot for quod, set for sed—spellings which are generally corrected by Carolingian scribes, and which may in many cases not be really ancient. (For examples in A see Studemund's Index.) The assimilation of prepositions in compound verbs often led to corruptions. Thus conjecti in Livy xxxvi. 12. 4, misread as conlecti (ch. vi. § 1), has become collecti; conjecere in Livy xxx. 5. 4, misread conlecere, has become collegere (see Heraeus, l.c.)
- ec- for ex- in Compounds before f.—The spellings ecfero, ecfugio etc. were a puzzle to mediaeval scribes, who generally replace them with haec fero, et fero, or the like. Thus in Pseud. 386, as we have seen, ecfecta is retained by B alone, while C and D have haec facta. (On the similarity of ec to et in minuscule see ch. vi. § 1.)
- iis for eis.—The dative and ablative plural of the demonstrative is, when in the form iis or is, are often changed to his. The correction in MSS. written in Caroline minuscules is commonly made by writing above the initial i the sign of the Greek rough breathing (see ch. ii. § 7).1
- -umus for -imus.—The change was made at the close of the Republic, e.g. maxumus (-imus), vicensumus (-cesimus).
- -undus for -endus in gerundive.
- -rier for -ri in inf. pass., e.g. Most. 117.
