Pliny's Letter 6.16

 

rothbard

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Today I went to an exhibition on Pliny the Elder at the University Library in Naples, on the occasion of his 2000th birthday. I discovered that the famous eruption of AD 79 is now thought to have taken place in October or November, not in August, as previously thought. The library's deputy director, who was the curator of the exhibition, told me that the more reliable manuscripts of Pliny the Younger's famous letter have a date in November rather than August. Below is a copy of the Younger Pliny's letter 6.16, published in a 1470 edition of the Elder's Naturalis Historia, the year before the Editio Princeps of the Younger Pliny's letters was published. Notice that the month is left out, and it just says "VIIII kal. hora fere septima". I don't know which manuscript was used for this edition.

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rothbard

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Does anyone here have access to Sir Roger Mynors' 1963 critical edition of Pliny's letters? I wonder what it says about the month in this letter.
 
 

rothbard

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The Loeb edition, which has Mynors' text without the critical apparatus, says "kal. septembres". So does the Aldus Manutius edition of 1508, which is based on a famous 5th century manuscript ("Parisinus"), since lost:

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According to the attached article, however, this manuscript was considered very corrupt, with the letters being described as "mancas et depravatas" (p. 80). The editio princeps of 1471 has "nonum kal." without the month, as does the 1470 edition of the 6.16 letter alone, included in my earlier post. The Teubner edition (1992) has "nonum Kal. septembres" (24 August), but it mentions the version without the month:

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where p is the editio princeps and gamma is the consensus librorum of the following MS:

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No mention of a date including "kal. novembres", which according to the curator is the correct version, also considering that the eruption is now thought to have taken place in October, as discussed earlier. However, this 1802 edition by G.E. Gierig notes that, before the Manutius edition, the correct month was taken to be November rather than September:

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This 1669 edition by Johann Veenhusen also mentions these earlier manuscripts, in the following note by Jan Gruter:

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where "Aldo" refers to Manutius. The Palatinus MS could be this one: "Palatinus 1561, chart. saec. XV, lib. I-VII, IX" (mentioned here).
 

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rothbard

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And here is the Harduinus version of the 6.16 letter, mentioned in the Gierig edition, included in the introduction of the Elder's Historia Naturalis:

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Now I understand why the curator said she thought the most probable date was in November. The mystery remains however: which manuscripts have such a date?
 
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