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of the whole letter with a facsimile of the Varronian catalogue. This transcript and facsimile were published as a university Program in the autumn of 1849, and may now be found in the volume of the Opuscula referred to above. The most essential correction yielded by Schleicher's revision was the number of books for the Imagines, viz. 15, which Sir Thomas Phillipps' compositor had inverted so as to read 51. The matter rested here for some years, until in 1856 a French scholar, Chappuis, discovered the same preface to Origen in two Paris MSS. These new sources of the text (apart from other corrections which need not detain us here) revealed a new work entirely omitted in the MS of Arras, an epitome of the Imagines in four books. The corrections thus afforded were pointed out by Ritschl and discussed in Rheinisches Museum for 1857. Had Ritschl, as he did so carefully in the first instance, now footed up the total number of books in the list as thus revised, he would undoubtedly have made the surprising observation which it has remained for Prof. Alfred Klotz of Strassburg to make that the sum given by Jerome is four hundred and ninety books.1

The significance of this number is revealed by a well-known chapter of Gellius (iii. 10) in which, apropos of Varro's Imagines or Hebdomades, he discusses the virtutes potestatesque septenarii numeri. At the end of the chapter Gellius complains that some of Varro's instances of the significance of the number are farfetched, such as the seven wonders, the seven wise men, and the seven against Thebes:

Tum ibi addit se quoque iam duodecimam annorum hebdomadam ingressum esse, et ad eum diem septuaginta hebdomadas librorum conscripsisse.

Seventy times seven is four hundred and ninety-the total of Jerome's list!

That this coincidence can scarcely be a matter of chance, everyone, I think, will agree with Klotz. But the meaning of the coincidence remains a matter for interpretation, and it is my belief that the conclusion which Klotz draws will scarcely bear the test of criticism.

1 Klotz's paper is the first in the current volume of Hermes (XLVI). Apart from the striking discovery which is his starting-point, and from his main contention concerning the source of the catalogue which I shall here criticize, his discussion is full of suggestiveness and advances our knowledge in many important details.

His view is stated briefly and positively: the catalogue which Jerome reproduces is derived immediately from the prefatory book of the Imagines, where it stood in connection with the passage from which Gellius quotes. That the catalogue is ultimately from Varro's own hand Ritschl had already inferred, but Ritschl thought rather of some such work as the libri de sua vita as its source. Klotz's reason, however, for considering the Imagines as the necessary source lies in the fact that, in Varro's continuous and prolific literary activity, the point of time obviously did not exist before and could not recur again when the sum of his writings was exactly (ad eum diem) seventy hebdomads. But cogent as this reasoning may seem, a moment's reflection will show that it betrays a hint, at least, of the logical circle. In effect he says: Varro is the author of the catalogue. It contains four hundred and ninety numbers. Therefore it must have been compiled at the point of time and in the place when and where Varro reports that he had composed four hundred and ninety books. The defect of this argument lies in the assumption that Varro is the immediate compiler of the list. But how if he be not? How if the words of Varro in the preface to the Imagines have merely set a problem for some later scholar to solve?

But before taking up the question of the possible source of the catalogue, let us examine more carefully the assumptions upon which Klotz's hypothesis rests. They are these: (1) That Jerome has given us the total number of books in the catalogue which was before him. (2) That since his interest was directed upon the number rather than upon the names of works, his curtailment of the list consists in adding together under one title two or more works which stood adjacent to each other and were related either in content or form. (So, for example, the item Antiquitatum 45 consists, as Klotz thinks, of 41, the true number, +4 de gente Romana [not named in the catalogue], while in the case of libri singulares 10, the compression of a series of μovóßißλo into a single item is manifest.) (3) That all of the books in the catalogue were written before the prefatory book of the Imagines. (4) That all other works not expressly mentioned in the catalogue or accounted for by the method of curtailment above described were written afterward.

Taking up these assumptions in order, let us note first the language

of Jerome with reference to his curtailment of the catalogue. He concludes his enumeration with these words:

Et alia plurima quae enumerare longum est. Vix medium descripsi indicem et legentibus fastidium est.

Now, it surely is a very difficult feat of interpretation to make this language coincide with Klotz's theory of curtailment only by suppression of titles. The only natural meaning which the words can bear is, "I have copied off scarce one-half of the list," and so Ritschl understood it (Op. iii, 485, 487), allowing, of course, for a large margin of pardonable exaggeration on Jerome's part. Vix medium surely can only mean half through, from beginning to end, as when (for instance) Geta says in the Phormio vix dum dimidium dixeram, intellexerat. We should have to be under some extraordinary compulsion of circumstance (such as Klotz doubtless feels) to grant for a moment that vix medium indicem could at one and the same time cover the half, i.e., of the titles, and the whole number of books (which the hypothesis demands). But the point need not be pressed to a decision on the basis of this phrase alone; the words of Jerome which immediately precede settle the matter beyond possibility of cavil. As has been said, and as Klotz recognizes, the interest of Jerome is in bulk or numbers (to contrast the zeal of a former age with the sloth of his own'), and after the long list of the works which he does mention he continues, et alia plurima quae enumerare longum est. Surely the significance of this can only be that merely as a matter of bulk or numbers many more volumes (alia plurima sc. volumina2) remain to make the count (enumerare) complete. We must conclude, therefore, that Jerome's list contained not only titles but also volumes which he does not record.

With regard to the second of Klotz's assumptions, that Jerome has curtailed the Varronian catalogue by conflation of numbers, with consequent suppression of titles, it is obviously sound with reference to the item libri singulares 10. His explanation of the item Antiquitatum 45 may be allowed as plausible. But the fact that

1 Ut intellegamus nos Epimenidis dormire somnium, etc.

Cf. the introductory words: et quia non (?) otiosum est apud Latinos Graecorum voluminum indicem texere, de eo qui Latine scripsit aliqua commemorabo,

etc.

Jerome has not done this in some other cases where it would have been very natural, as, for example, in the two items de scaenicis actionibus 3 and de actis scaenicis 3, would suggest caution. That the logistorici, with the surprisingly large number of 76, should be a pocket from which to exhume works of such character as the de antiquitate litterarum ad Accium and the de utilitate sermonis is certainly improbable. If conflation had taken place at this point they would much more naturally have followed the related works which stand next-the de lingua Latina or the de sermone Latino.

Concerning the third of Klotz's positions, it is obviously necessary for him to show that all of the books in the catalogue were written before the prefatory book of the Imagines. The main question here touches the relation between the date of the Imagines and the libri rerum rusticarum, which the catalogue includes. Concerning this latter work our information is specific: annus enim octogesimus admonet me ut sarcinas conligam (i. 1.1.), that is, the year 37 B.C., the eightieth of Varro's age. Only a little less specific is Varro's own testimony concerning the completion of the Imagines. It has already been cited above (p. 335): se quoque iam duodecimam annorum hebdomadam ingressum esse. The natural meaning of this phrase is obviously the beginning of the twelfth hebdomad, that is, the seventy-eighth year of Varro's age, which yields the year 39, as Ritschl assumed without question. But Klotz urges with apparent plausibility that the words are indefinite, and he sees no reason why the range of their meaning may not be extended to a point of time which shall include the eightieth year. That this in fact is the case, Klotz says (p. 9), is shown by the inclusion of the rerum rusticarum in the catalogue. The logical flaw in this argument (for it assumes the point to be demonstrated) need not be urged, since it is true that, if it were impossible to fix more definitely the limits of fluctuation in Varro's phrase, we should have to admit the possibility, at least, of Klotz's contention. But consider for a moment: Varro is dealing with the mysterious significance and coincidences of the number seven, that is, the hebdomad. Applying it to his own life at the moment of writing, he observes that he has just finished a hebdomad and has entered upon another. Now as a matter of fact we have no assurance that Varro was not fibbing to make his case good, but his case

has no point unless he either then was or pretended to be exactly, as he says, at the beginning of another hebdomad. If we are at liberty to stretch the phrase as we like, it is obvious that the statement is at once removed from all relation to seven, and so loses all value as an illustration of coincidence upon seven. To be sure, Varro has already passed the point of coincidence, but he has just passed itiam duodecimam annorum hebdomadam ingressum esse et ad eum diem septuaginta hebdomadas librorum conscripsisse. It will be seen that in the two co-ordinate sentences iam and ad eum diem aim to indicate a point of time with precision. Iam is not to be rendered with "already"; its meaning is represented rather by the English "just"-the German "eben"-a usage which is abundantly attested.1 I have dwelt upon this point because it enables us to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the passage of the Imagines, which in Klotz's view gave occasion for the catalogue, must have been written some two years earlier than the libri rerum rusticarum. But the latter work is enumerated in the catalogue. We must conclude, therefore, that the catalogue did not stand in the Imagines. Furthermore, Jerome's list includes an epitome in four books from the Imagines; but it need scarcely be said that the existence of such an epitome before the completion and publication of the work epitomized is highly improbable. With regard to the libri disciplinarum (also in the catalogue), which Ritschl placed in the year 33 B.C. on the strength of an allusion in the elder Pliny, the evidence is not sufficiently decisive for the purposes of an argument of this kind. Ritschl's conclusion has been challenged, though as Schanz thinks wrongly.

Finally, as the fourth of Klotz's positions, it is necessary for him to assume that all other works of Varro not expressly mentioned in the catalogue were written after the Imagines, unless their absence can be satisfactorily accounted for by the theory of curtailment of the original list by conflation of numbers and suppression of titles.

1 Ingredior is inceptive in meaning and iam is used with it frequently to mark precisely the point of inception: iam ingredientem in navem . . . . . . retractum esse (in Verr. 5.96). Neronem iam ingressum iuventam commendavit patribus (Ann. 3.29), "who had just arrived at man's estate" (Ramsay). Similarly with inceptive verbs: iamque rubescebat Aurora (Aen. 3. 521), marking the precise moment at which Italy was first seen by the Trojans.

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