1 B.C. 183
2 It seems strange that Livy should have separated the praetorian election from the consular in this fashion, and the use of conjunctions in this sentence is unusual. Yet the MSS. show no signs of dislocation, and the tense of creati erant shows that the sentence was meant to be here, unless it was emended by some very early scribe after the dislocation had occurred.
3 He was not permitted, by virtue of his priesthood, to be away from Rome overnight (V. lii. 13). Livy says nothing about the arrangement about his oath, which he had to take by proxy when he held the office of aedile (XXXI. i. 7 and the note).
4 B.C. 183
5 Cf. xxii. 6-7 above and the note.
6 I have chosen the simplest course, by retaining the reading of M as the nearest possible approach to the true text now available. The various readings of ς differ as to the proper nouns but agree on creatus erat, so that Mς all preserve the apparent error of fact that Postumius is said to have been elected, whereas co-optation was the rule until 104 B.C. There is, then, nothing to be gained by piecemeal emendation. The question of dislocation again arises (cf. the note to sect. 2 above), and it can be argued here that the displacement was deliberate, for the sake of continuity with the following sentence, but this emphasis seems disproportionate to the historical or rhetorical importance of the sentence. Again the MSS. show no signs of dislocation and the tense of the verbs must have been changed very early, if at all.
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