I forget where I left off in H.J. Rose's Handbook of Latin Literature. This excerpt will contain some repeat content, but hopefully also a new chunk.
There were likewise the indigitamenta, concerning whose much-disputed contents this much may be affirmed, that they included the correct formulae in which to address the numerous gods, small and great, of Roman worship. Here again, though certainly an occasional brief fragment shows us the language in a somewhat more archaic condition than that of our earlier surviving authors, we have no proof that anything as ancient as, for instance, the first century of the republic was left in the hands of magistrates or priests of the days of Cicero and Varro. Indeed, Livy complains of the paucity of early records, which he attributes to the damage done by the Gauls when they burned the city in 390 B.C., while Cicero, and not he alone, has something to say of the interpolated and unreliable nature of such documents as were to be had.
I've definitely already sent the (long) footnote on the indigitamenta. The end of this paragraph has another footnote:
Livy, vi, 1, 2. Whether this is a uera causa or not is another matter. Apart from the intrinsic improbability, long ago pointed out by various critics, that the Gauls would burn a city which they were occupying and thus leave themselves without quarters, the archaeological data point to their having respected the few public buildings, at least the temples. which were then standing, see Tenney Frank, Roman Buildings of the Republic, American Academy in Rome, 1924, pp. 83-4. That isolated fires broke out and did considerable damage is likely enough, of course, considering the undisciplined state of the Gaulish horde and the heat and dryness of an Italian summer. For Cicero’s strictures, see Brutus, 62, on the false claims made by individual families to noteworthy exploits in the past, which Livy, viii, 40, 4-5 implies had vitiated the official records also.
There were likewise the indigitamenta, concerning whose much-disputed contents this much may be affirmed, that they included the correct formulae in which to address the numerous gods, small and great, of Roman worship. Here again, though certainly an occasional brief fragment shows us the language in a somewhat more archaic condition than that of our earlier surviving authors, we have no proof that anything as ancient as, for instance, the first century of the republic was left in the hands of magistrates or priests of the days of Cicero and Varro. Indeed, Livy complains of the paucity of early records, which he attributes to the damage done by the Gauls when they burned the city in 390 B.C., while Cicero, and not he alone, has something to say of the interpolated and unreliable nature of such documents as were to be had.
I've definitely already sent the (long) footnote on the indigitamenta. The end of this paragraph has another footnote:
Livy, vi, 1, 2. Whether this is a uera causa or not is another matter. Apart from the intrinsic improbability, long ago pointed out by various critics, that the Gauls would burn a city which they were occupying and thus leave themselves without quarters, the archaeological data point to their having respected the few public buildings, at least the temples. which were then standing, see Tenney Frank, Roman Buildings of the Republic, American Academy in Rome, 1924, pp. 83-4. That isolated fires broke out and did considerable damage is likely enough, of course, considering the undisciplined state of the Gaulish horde and the heat and dryness of an Italian summer. For Cicero’s strictures, see Brutus, 62, on the false claims made by individual families to noteworthy exploits in the past, which Livy, viii, 40, 4-5 implies had vitiated the official records also.