Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics [Hardcover]

A companion volume to the marvellous "Scribes and Scholars", this book lists every piece of Latin literature that exists from antiquity, by author, and details on what exactly our knowledge of that text is based. I.e. what manuscripts exist, when did it become known after the fall of the Western empire, to what extent was the work known in the middle ages, and when was it rediscovered in the renaissance.

L.D.Reynolds as editor has assembled a team of scholars second to none, each a recognised authority in the world of manuscripts, such as M.D. Reeve, Michael Winterbottom, R.J. Tarrant, etc.

Inevitably the treatment varies. 15th century Italian copies are mentioned in passing, unless they are the main witness. The footnotes are very limited, but usually enough to take the reader further, and will repay careful reading.

The great value of the book is that it makes it possible to gain an overview, in detail, of *all* the transmission. Many will be shocked at how thin the thread is by which most of these works have survived. It also allows the reader, who perhaps is familiar with only a few texts, to learn about others. My own interest is the transmission of the text of the Latin Father Tertullian, rediscovered by Rhenanus and Gelenius in the 16th century; but I learned interesting things about other work by these humanists on the Notitia Digitatum, and a study of Gelenius' methods on the De Rebus Bellicis. In the normal course of events, I would never have come across these links.

The book is a substantial reference work, and covers only the Latin classics. The Greek classics are not included - a companion volume would seem highly desirable, so how about it OUP? - nor the works of the Christian Fathers in either language.

Anyone mad about manuscripts will find this book of interest. The only problem is the price ...

This book is really packed with all sorts of information for those who wish to study paleography and are curious about how we get all of our writings from the ancient and medieval world. All of the manuscripts mentioned in this book were used to reconstruct the "original" writing's of these Latin authors and are what the critical editions from "Loeb Classical Library" uses as their standard texts in their original languages. From these "standard" reconstructed texts we get our translations that we use in our classes and readings in English from "Oxford World Classics" and "Penguin Classics" and all the rest of the "official" texts we read in English.

This book is a handbook on the history of the manuscripts that are available or were available to use to reconstruct the original writings of the Latin authors. Each section is based on following the manuscript trail as best as possible for the all of the works of the respective Latin author.

Each section usually includes the following data:

* General history of the manuscript tradition for a Latin writing
* Names of the writings of the Latin authors
* Names and locations of manuscripts that are available for the Latin writings
* # of manuscripts available and from what century
* General history of important manuscripts
* Some information on previous owners (whenever available)
* Some talk on some of the textual variants, insertions, or omissions in manuscripts available (usually very little on this, but the footnotes sometimes contain more details on some example variants in the Latin or respective language)
* General Genealogical tree of manuscripts and how they diversified through time
* Uncertainties are sometimes mentioned
* Some discourse on previous editions that others have come up with using different families of manuscripts

and more...

This book is very interesting since it gives us perspective on how well preserved, or not, some of these writings really are. The introduction gives an excellent history of the Latin writings. Most of the Latin Writers do not have complete and early manuscripts, usually they are very late (800 AD to the Middle Ages) and fragmentary or decently compiled. And of course, there are many textual variants that resulted because of translations to other languages and scribal errors (additions, insertions, deletions, repetition of words or phrases, etc)which were generally not intentional. This is expected when people copied EVERYTHING by hand and issues such as fatigue or not paying attention to what was being copied caused much of the variants in the Latin writings. Copying manuscripts by hand from many different languages and cultures was a very time consuming and tedious task that affected the availability of texts for generations since very few copies could be made at any given time, plus books were expensive too.

Many of the Latin writings are not preserved well or preserved completely for numerous reasons which are implied throughout the book. Only 35 out of 142 of Livy's books on history lasted through time, for example. Also some of Cicero's speeches were lost, for example. The earliest manuscript for any Latin author is Virgil in the late 400s AD. It is amazing how some of these works disappeared and reappeared during the "Dark Ages" and after and how economic conditions may have forced some to "recycle" writings of ancient authors who were obsolete, or not seen as important, to write what they needed on top of the obsolete author's writing. Each manuscript has a story to tell. People through time did not necessarily care for preserving the poems or writings of authors that did not offer much for their cultures or advances in studies. Most of the time, people did not destroy the manuscripts, the manuscripts were simply not recopied because they did not have much value for Europeans as Europeans were expanding their knowledge of the natural and social sciences. Just like today, we have millions of books in libraries that are not going to get republished ever again and are just rotting away in libraries. Time did most of the damage, not people. Most practical texts like Pliny the Elder's "Natural History" were recopied through time because they offered valuable information. Some of Cicero's speeches and works were useful in developing speech so they were kept for the most part. For information on the issues of publishing and copying by hand in the world before the printing press please look at : Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography (Oxford Reprints), and even Encountering the Manuscripts: An Introduction to New Testament Paleography & Textual Criticism, which has detailed information on the earliest New Testament manuscripts too (just to get a deep look at how paleographers deal with "diversity" in manuscripts in order to reconstruct texts). The New Testament offers a great place to compare with the transmission of the writings of Latin authors, by the way, since you can get a glimpse of how things were copied by different cultures and how scribes dealt with other manuscripts and texts and variants in style, content, and language.

It seems clear that much of the authorship for many of the manuscripts are simply ascribed by traditions found in later writings. Its is not like the manuscripts, we have from the medieval period or even some fragments from the ancient world that have survived, had titles and authors written on them most of the time. Often times these writings and authorship are identified by quotes cited from others at later periods, or if you are lucky contemporaries. Their understanding and recording of traditions are useful in establishing authorship of documents which are usually, paleographically, without the author's name or even the title of the work. This is how history is works. A simple example of such as phenomenon of identification of an author and work from what later authors recorded, is in the Greek writings of Archimedes. His works have been identified as his via traditions from other later authors attributing writings to his name at a later date. The paper trail can be converged with other sources to at least affirm authorship of a document such as two or more later authors converging on key identifications and facts. Generally ancient authors had more sources available than we have today. Many works simply did not survive over time, but from the ones that do survive, some do preserve information about who wrote what.

Here is the list of the Latin Authors or Extra Texts (in " " marks) found in this book:

"Agrimensores"
Ammianus Mercellinus
L. Ampelius
"Anthologia Latina"
Apicius
Apuleius
"Aratea"
Asconius
Ausonius
Avianus
Caelius Aurelianus
Caesar (Julius)
Calpurnius and Nemesianus
"Carmina Einsidlensia"
Cato
Catullus
Celsus
Censorinus
Charisius
Cicero
Claudian
Columella
"Consolatio Ad Liviam"
Curtius Rufus
"De Viris Illustribus"
Aelius Donatus
Ti. Claudius Donatus
Eutropius
Sex. Pompeius Festus
Florus
Frontinus
Fronto
Gaius
Gallus
Aulus Gellius
Granius Licinianus
Grattius
Horace
Hyginus
"Ilias Latina"
Isidore of Seville
Julius Obsequens
Justinus
Juvenal
"Laus Pisonis"
Livy
Lucan
Lucretius
Macrobius
Manilius
Martial
Martianus Capella
Nemesianus
Cornelius Nepos
Nonius Marcellus
"Notitia Dignitatum"
Ovid
Pseudo-Ovid
Palladius
"Panegyrici Latini"
Pomponius Mela
Vibius Sequester
Persius
Petronius
Phaedrus
Plautus
The Elder Pliny
The Younger Pliny
"Priapea"
Propertius
Publilius
"Querolis"
Quintilian
"Rhetores Latini Minores"
Rutilius Namatianus
Sallust
"Appendix Sallustiana"
Scribonius Largus
"Scriptores Historiae Augustae"
The Elder Seneca
The Younger Seneca
Q. Serenus
Servius
Silius Italicus
Solinus
Statius
Suetonius
Sulpicia
Tacitus
Terence
Tibullus
Valerius Flaccus
Valerius Maximus
Varro
Velleius Paterculus
Virgil
"Appendix Vergiliana"
Vitruvius

Sorry to those who are thinking that this book has information on Christian Latin authors. The only Christian in this edition is Isidore of Seville. For information on Tertullian or Augustine or other Latin Christians you will have to look elsewhere for information of the transmission of their texts.

Overall, this book deserves a wide audience for its excellent treatment of so much information! The price is the only setback for this book. Just go to a university library and check it out for free to see how well or not these writings have or have not been preserved. You might be surprised to see that some of the most popular Latin writers have survived only by a thin thread. This is the reality of manuscripts and time.

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