Table Of Contenti
Critics, Compilers, and Commentators
ii
iii
Critics, Compilers, and
Commentators
An Introduction to Roman Philology,
200 BCE– 800 CE
James E. G. Zetzel
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1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Names: Zetzel, James E. G., author.
Title: Critics, compilers, and commentators : an introduction to Roman
philology, 200 BCE– 800 CE / James E. G. Zetzel.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017049788 (print) | LCCN 2017056725 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780199701513 (updf) | ISBN 9780190878887 (epub) | ISBN 9780195380514
(cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780195380521 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Latin language—Study and teaching—Rome—History. | Latin
language—Study and teaching—Rome—Bibliography. | Classical
philology—Study and teaching—Rome—History. | Rome—Intellectual life.
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v
For Katharina
quod spiro et placeo, si placeo, tuum est
vi
A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators darkened the face
of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the
corruption of taste.
Edward Gibbon
vii
Preface
W
hen it was first suggested to me ten years ago that
I write a book on Roman scholarship to complement Eleanor Dickey’s Ancient
Greek Scholarship, I naively thought that (since I have been studying these texts
off and on since 1970 and since I had an excellent model) it would not be that
difficult to renew my acquaintance with familiar material and set it out in a com-
parable manner. I was wrong. I rapidly discovered not only that the shape of
Roman scholarship and the difficulties needing explanation required a different
presentation from Dickey’s, but also that the field has changed so radically since
about 1980 that my previous familiarity was of very little use. The length of time
it has taken to produce this volume is at least in part because I had a great deal
to (re)learn, and after ten years I certainly do not think that I have produced the
last word or anything resembling a complete account of Roman philology. That
is partly because of my own limitations, but partly (I hope, in large part) because
scholarship about ancient scholarship is now so vigorous and so prolific. I have
read and learned much more than I thought possible, but every day there is more,
and I hope the reader will remember that what I offer here is a report on others’
work in progress. To be precise: I hope to have included all appropriate references
up to 2016, and the last additions to the bibliography were made in November
2017. I also do not aim at anything like a complete bibliography: I cite editions
and translations of texts as completely as I can, but I have limited secondary lit-
erature to major treatments and works that may be useful to those wanting to un-
derstand what these texts are. I have tried to be relatively expansive in discussing
areas and texts that I believe important, unfamiliar, or difficult to grasp, and fairly
succinct with material that is uncomplicated. I will repeat these reminders of the
limitations of this book from time to time: they are very real.
When I published my dissertation on Roman textual criticism in 1981, using
many of the texts discussed in this volume, scholarship about Roman scholar-
ship was largely quiescent: study of the grammarians flourished in the second
half of the nineteenth century and the first years of the twentieth, but study
of grammars themselves subsided after Karl Barwick’s great book on Remmius
Palaemon in 1922; editions of glossaries ended in the 1930s; serious editions
of ancient commentaries largely stopped with Paul Wessner’s edition of the
Juvenal scholia in 1931 and any desire to work on them was put to rest by Eduard
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viii PREFACE
Fraenkel’s review of the Harvard Servius in 1947. The debt of all students of
Roman scholarship to Wessner and Barwick—a nd indeed to the whole school of
Friedrich Ritschl and his academic descendants— is immense. Beginning in the
early 1980s, however, the subject came to life in new and different ways and has
continued to flourish. And while it would be redundant to recite here the names
of the many scholars whose recent work will be cited often below, I cannot offer a
list of acknowledgments without expressing my huge debt to the published work
of six scholars in particular, without which this book, and the field, would be im-
measurably poorer: Marc Baratin’s work on syntax in the grammarians and on
grammarians’ ideas about language in general; Mario De Nonno’s many articles on
the manuscripts and the organization of Roman scholarship; Carlotta Dionisotti’s
studies of the creation and history of glossaries; Louis Holtz’s explorations of
Donatus and his commentators; Robert Kaster’s investigations of the social and
intellectual world of ancient scholarship; and Vivien Law’s revelations of the com-
plicated history of early medieval grammar. I have gone back repeatedly to their
work, for which my admiration only increases with prolonged acquaintance. I am
lucky to have been able to learn from them.
I have, over the past few years, incurred other, more personal and immediate
debts. I am grateful to those generous scholars who have sent me copies of their
work; I can not name them all, but I am particularly grateful to Michael Herren
and Rolando Ferri for instruction in areas unfamiliar to me, and to Tommaso
Mari and Anna Reinikka for giving me copies of their dissertations, excellent
editions of grammatical texts which I hope will see print very soon. I am grateful
also for having had the chance to present parts of this work to audiences at the
Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, and Pisa, as well as to the Seminar in Classical
Civilizations at Columbia.
Four institutions have also made it possible to complete this book. First is
Oxford University Press in the person of Stefan Vranka, who has put up with
delays and uncertainties, and who was willing to ransom this project from the
former American Philological Association which had originally commissioned
it; I greatly appreciate his confidence. Second is the Columbia University
Library, in particular the Interlibrary Loan Office, which has supplied
countless books and articles that were otherwise not readily available. Third
is the Stanwood Cockey Lodge Foundation of Columbia University, which
awarded me a generous subvention towards the cost of publication. And fi-
nally, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, where I have spent wonderful months
as the spouse of a Fellow while revising and completing this book, and whose
librarians have been as generous and helpful as anyone who knows that re-
markable institution would expect.
I have had more than a little help from my friends. Bob Kaster and Gareth
Williams firmly but gently pointed out confusions and errors in an earlier draft of
Part I, as they have done for much of what I have written for a great many years.
Alessandro Garcea and Bob Kaster (again!) read the completed manuscript for
Oxford University Press and offered detailed and helpful suggestions. Readers of
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PREFACE ix
this book may not recognize how much they owe to such generous learning; I do.
Many errors, I am sure, remain, but they are all mine.
Finally, the dedication of this book expresses my debt and devotion to Katharina
Volk: she has read it, lived with it, and improved it almost as much as she has
improved my life.
November 20, 2017
