The manuscript authorities for the text of Clitarchus are four, one of which stands in a separate class from the other three:

Φ=Parisinus gr. 1630, fol. 186, which contains ninety-three maxims beginning ἕπου θɛῷ, first printed by Boissonade, Anecdota Graeca I, pp. 127–34. They stand in the Paris manuscript without title. Of these ninety-three maxims fifty-nine are found in Sextus and for the most part the order is identical. For the remaining thirty-four Sextus offers no parallel.

∧ = Vaticanus gr. 1144, saec. xv, fol. 232ν which contains fifty-nine maxims likewise beginning ἕπου θɛῷ, under the title ἐκ τῶν Κλɛιτάρχου πραγματικῶν χρɛιῶν συναγωγή. Of these fifty-nine maxims twenty-two are contained in Φ. Probably, therefore, both compilers drew independently upon an original collection of Clitarchus, and each made his own individual choice.

∑=Bodleianus Auct. F. 6. 26, saec. xv, foil. 183–7, which has drawn on the same collection with thirty-eight maxims, also beginning ἕπου θɛῷ, under the heading παραινɛτικά. There are no maxims in ∑ which do not also occur in Φ. The compiler of the collection transcribed in ∑ was making his own epitome and selection from the already epitomised form of Clitarchus attested in Φ. That ∑ depends upon Φ is evident from the fact that in Clit. 123 the final word πρττɛιν, attested in the parallel in Sextus (399), stood originally in Φ but has been lost by the bad state of the manuscript; in ∑ the word is simply omitted.