The Scriptores historiae augustae Author:David Magie Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE MANUSCRIPTS The manuscripts of the Historia Augusta are divided into two main classes, each of which has such definite characteristics that the distinctio... more »n between them is sharp and clear. Both classes are, indeed, derived from a common original, made after the loss of the I'itae of the emperors from Philip to Valerian 1 and of considerable portions of the vitae of the Valeriani and the Gallieni. On the other hand, there is a conspicuous difference between the two classes in the manner in which the text has been treated. In one class, usually designated as Class IT, the treatment has been most conservative. The text has been preserved free from all interpolations or additions, and especially the lacunae in the biographies of the Valeriani and the Gallieni have been carefully indicated by dots marking the missing letters. This class is also characterised by a confusion in the order of the biographies between Verus and Alexander and by the misplacement of two long passages from the Alexander and the Majcimini (Alex., xliii. 7—Iviii. 1, and Max., v. 3—xviii. 2), each of which corresponds to a quire of the original which became loose and and was then inserted in a wrong place. A similar 'See Intro., p. xiv. transposition occurs in the Cants, where c. xiii. 1— xv. 5 has been inserted in c. ii. The manuscripts of the other class, designated as Class 5, differ from those of Class II in that the text has been treated with the utmost freedom. In many places, where the original was corrupt, drastic emendations have been made, and where none seemed possible, the corrupt parts have been omitted altogether. This is especially conspicuous in the lacunae in the vitae of the Valeriani and the Gallieni, where all trace of the loss has been covered up by the insertion of words and t...« less