Translator's Preface
AT the beginning of the Middle Ages there were
extant three copies of the Third Decade, though
two of these
1 contained only the second half, Books
XXVI.-XXX. The incomplete manuscripts subsequently disappeared, but we still have the one that
included the whole Decade, and is known as the
Puteanus (= Codex Parisinus 5730 =
P).
This famous codex was revised (in the sixth
century) at Abellinum (the modern Avellino), near
Naples, as appears from the subscription after several
of the books:
recognobi (for
recognovi)
abellini. Precisely when or where the book was originally
written is not known, but it is now assigned
to the fifth century. Early in the Carolingian
period it came into the possession of the abbey
library at Corbie in Picardy, where many copies of
it were made.
2 In the second half of the sixteenth century it was acquired by Claude Dupuy (Claudius
Puteanus), a jurisconsult and book-collector of Paris,
whose son Jacques bequeathed it, along with the
rest of his ancient manuscripts, to the King; and
since 1657 it has been one of the treasures of the
[p. viii]
Bibliothèque nationale. In 1907 the Department
of Manuscripts of this library issued a facsimile
reproduction of the Puteanus, considerably reduced
in size.
3 The manuscript is a large quarto containing
470 leaves of fine parchment, measuring 235 X 278
millimetres. The writing is in the uncial character.
There are two columns to the page, of 26 lines each.
Originally there were 65 gatherings of 8 leaves each,
except gatherings 43 and 45, which had 6 each. Of
these gatherings 1, 2, 4 and 64 have been lost, as
well as leaves 2-7 of the 3rd, and the following
sections of the text are consequently missing:
- XXI. i. 1. (in parte）—xx. 8 (auro cu-).
- xxi. 13. (Carthagini）—xxix. 6 (adfirmantes in).
- xxx. 11. (posse Poenus）—xli. 13 (vobis et).
- XXX. xxx. 14. (ceteris）—xxxvii. 3 (haberent domitos).
- xxxviii. 2. (-niensibus）—xlv. 7 (ceperunt).
The scribe who wrote the Puteanus made a large
number of corrections (distinguished in the critical
notes by the symbol
P1) of his own text as he
proceeded with the task of transcription. Many
others are due to a second hand (
P2), and a very
few to a third (
P3). From the forms of the letters
employed and the colour of the ink it is almost
always possible to refer these corrections to their
respective scribes. The corrections were not derived
from other manuscripts than
P's exemplar, but
originated with the scribes themselves,
4 and the manuscript is not interpolated.
[p. ix]
Of the other manuscripts now existing which have
the text of Books XXI.-XXV. there is none which
is not (directly or through one or more intermediaries)
derived from
P, and none, therefore, which possesses
any value for establishing the text of these books,
except for those passages at the beginning of Book
XXI. where the evidence of
P has been destroyed
by the mutilation of the manuscript. To supply the
place of the missing leaves editors avail themselves
of two later codices, the Colbertinus and the
Mediceus.
The Colbertinus (= Parisinus 5731=
C) is a minuscule manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century,
and is thought to be a direct copy of the Puteanus.
The Mediceus (=Mediceus Laurentianus LXIII.
20 =
M) is also a minuscule manuscript and was
written in the eleventh century. It was formerly
believed to have been copied from the Vaticanus
Reginensis 762 (=
R),
5 and inasmuch as this MS. was copied from
P—late in the eighth century or
early in the ninth
6 —it would be superfluous to cite the readings of
M, were it not that the first and
last parts of
R are wanting and its existing text
begins at XXII. vi. 5 (
veluti caeci) and ends at XXX.
v. 7 (
continua complexes), and all that comes between
is found in
P itself.
R is therefore of no use in
constituting the text,
7 but
M, if a copy of
R, would
[p. x]
be a valuable witness (at second hand) to the text
of
P at the beginning and the end of the Third
Decade, where both
P and
R are defective. Within
recent years the statement that
R was
M's exemplar
has been called in question,
8 but at the same time
it has been shown that the scribe of
M—whatever
his exemplar may have been—had access to the
Puteanus, whose text he often reproduced, sometimes
rightly, sometimes wrongly, where the scribe of
R had
departed from it.
9 Since, therefore,
M is directly in the tradition of the Puteanus, it must continue to be given consideration—along with
C—by the editor of Livy, whose business it is to reconstruct, as far as possible, the text which was contained on the
missing leaves of
P.
The Puteanus then and, where the Puteanus is
defective, the Colbertinus and the Mediceus are the
MSS. on which editors found the text of Books
XXI.-XXV. The text of this volume (XXI. and
XXII.) is based chiefly on the apparatus in the
critical edition of August Luchs, Berlin, 1888, supplemented by the appendices to Rossbach's revision
(1921.10) of the Weissenborn-Müller edition (with
[p. xi]
German notes) of XXI., and to the Weissenborn-
Müller edition of XXII. (1905.9), and here and there
by notes and suggestions from other sources. I have
aimed to inform the reader in the footnotes at every
point where the reading in the text is not found
either in
P or—where
P is wanting—in
M or
C,
except in a few places where the correction seemed
obvious and certain. The spelling conforms to that
adopted (from the Oxford edition of Books I.-X. by
Conway and Walters) for Volumes I.-IV. For the
punctuation I must myself assume the responsibility,
and hope it may prove more helpful to English and
American readers than the German system, which
has too often made its way into classical texts edited
primarily for use elsewhere than in Germany.
In the brief Bibliography I have listed a few of
the multitude of books and articles useful for the
understanding of Livy. My choice has been guided
by two considerations: I wished first to put the
reader who is beginning the study of Livy into touch
with some of the recent work on his history, and
more especially the Third Decade, and the various
questions as to sources, style, antiquities, etc. arising
in connection with it; and secondly, to list the books
that have been of most assistance to me in preparing
my own text and translation. To this general
acknowledgment I would add a special word of
appreciation of the help I have received from the
various English translations and editions, from one
or another of which I have sometimes borrowed a
phrase or turn of expression.
To Messrs. H. Wagner and E. Debes, of Leipzig,
I am very grateful for their courteous permission to
continue to adapt for the Loeb Livy the series of
[p. xii]
maps and plans in the Kromayer-Veith
Schlachten-
Atlas zur antiken Kriegsgeschichte. Thanks to the
learned labours of Professor Kromayer and the
generosity of his publishers, the present edition of
Books XXI. and XXII. may fairly boast of being
better equipped in this respect than any of its elders.
It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader that
these maps were drawn to represent the facts, so far
as ascertainable by a critical study of all the ancient
sources and their modern interpreters and by examination of the ground itself, and may therefore
sometimes be at variance with Livy's conception of
the facts. A brief summary of the evidence for the
conclusions adopted will be found in the letter-press
accompanying the maps in the
Schlachten-Atlas; it is
presented at greater length in the
Antike Schlachtfelder
of the same authors.
B. O. F.
Stanford University,
May 15, 1929.
Tile third volume of the Oxford Livy (XXI.-
XXV.), edited by the late Professor Walters and
Professor Conway, whose preface is dated August 13,
1928, was published in August, 1929, after this
volume had been passed for the press. Professor
Conway now says (p. vii.) that it can be shown that
M was copied directly from
P.
[p. xiii]
