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Priscian's Quotations from Terence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Priscian tells us in his dedicatory introduction that he took his material from many Latin sources—collectis etiam omnibus fere quaecunque necessaria nostrorum quoque inueniuntur artium commentariis grammaticorum. This can hardly mean that he owed everything to his predecessors. At any rate it is unlikely that he copied all his illustrative quotations from earlier grammarians. The problem is one which, for our purpose, does not need to be solved. We can make Priscian responsible for every quotation (unless, of course, we suspect that copyists have had a hand in introducing variations), because he had the opportunity of correcting or commenting on such borrowings as he incorporated in his work. If he could acquiesce in a garbled version of a line, we must take the fact into account in appraising his value as a witness to the text of Terence. And we must assume that the Terence text of his day did not differ from the versions which he quotes. Nowhere does he hint at a discrepancy. This assumption, it will be understood, has reference only to the points of diction for which we are tolerably sure that we have Priscian's attestation, and not to minor details which did not interest him at the moment, and in which we can prove that he was far from conscientious.
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References
page 67 note 1 Andr. 306 II 255 possis N shows how easy it was for Augustine, St. (Civ. II 52 H, etc.)Google Scholar to make the same mistake.
page 67 note 2 Cf. Lucan IV 131 (Prise. I 336) where the Lucan MS. V took robore from Priscian.
page 68 note 1 But see Housman on Lucan II 587. Cf. Plaut, . Asin. 631Google Scholar.
page 69 note 1 Hertz disregards haec of V, and follows the modernized hac of all the other MSS.
page 70 note 1 He composed a poem in praise of the Emperor Anastasius in 512 A.D. Cassiodore (at the age of ninety), making excerpts from priscian, says: ‘ex Prisciano grammatico qui nostro tempore Constantinopoli Romae doctor fuit.’ Cassiodore wrote this about the year 560 A.D.
page 71 note 1 The note is, et annotatur (which appears to indicate that illico was taken from a text and the rest from the margin) ‘ex abundanti additum ut apud ueteres multa sunt.’ See Wessner II, Appendix 534.
page 72 note 1 I do not, of course, include errors of transcription, to which all copyists are liable.
page 72 note 2 page x of Introduction.
page 72 note 3 The classic instance of such interference with the form of a quotation in a Roman writer, and the substitution of a version current in later MSS. of the author quoted, is Quintilian IX 3, 8 (Virgil, , Ecl. IV 62Google Scholar). Fortunately Quintilian's own words imply that he did not give the version which has been thus foisted on his text. See Rose, H. J. (who suggested to me this example) in Classical Review XL, p. 62Google Scholar. The same point had already been discussed with characteristic logic by Havet, in his Manuel de Critique Virbale, p. 13Google Scholar.