﻿THE AGE OF PETKOMUS ARBITER. 39 



and carefully examined it, remarking on its size and shape, and correcting the mistake 

 of the Paduan edition, which stated that the manuscript contained, besides a portion of 

 Petronius, the poems of Horace, instead of those of Catullus, TibuUus, and Propertius, 

 a mistake already corrected by Statilius himself in his Apologia. He also mentions, 

 that on page 179 of the manuscript the date 20th November, 1423, the time when it 

 was finished, is given. The manuscript was afterwards brought back to Italy by Lau- 

 rentius Statilius, perhaps a son of Marinus. Mabillon, in his account of a joui'ney in 

 Italy, states that, after leaving Modena, he received a letter from Statilius informing 

 him that the manuscript was in his possession. It became, afterwards, the pro^Derty of 

 the Royal Library at Paris ; but I am not able to say whether it is still extant. INIy 

 inquiries on this pomt have been iinavaUing. 



While the danger of losing the lately acquired genuine addition was thus averted by 

 the able defence of Statilius, a danger of an opposite nature several times threatened 

 the integrity of the book. I refer to the various honest or dishonest attempts of sujjply- 

 ing the deficiencies of the work, as it has existed since the discovery of the Tragurian 

 fragment, by foisting into it, in some instances, the baldest fabrications. The most 

 notorious of these attempts, and one that was for a time at least successful, was that of 

 Francis Nodot, a French soldier, who stated that, at the taking of Belgrade (Alba 

 Graeca) in 1688, an entire copy of Petronius was found by one Du Pin, which bore 

 all the marks of antiquity, but was written in characters difficult of deciphering ; it was 

 copied by some one, brought to Frankfort on the Main, to some merchant who is not 

 named, and by him sent to Nodot in France. Notwithstanding the imsatisfactory and 

 suspicious nature of these circumstances, Nodot succeeded in persuading the members 

 of two provincial academies, those of Nismes and Ailes, of the genuineness of the work. 

 It was announced by Charpentier in 1690, and published in 1693 (the second edition 

 in 1731). To the honor of French scholarship it must be said that P. D. Huet and 

 other leading scholars did not allow themselves to be imposed upon by this bold fraud. 

 Nodot endeavored, in 1700, to defend the genuineness of the work, but without suc- 

 cess. The language, as well as the matter, betrayed the imposition. It is evident 

 that Nodot possessed too imperfect a knowledge of the language and of the customs of 

 the Romans to carry through such a deception with any hope of success. I shall men- 

 tion a few instances to illustrate these two pomts. Nodot uses the expressions, " ad 

 scientias explicandas " ; " tam vehementer exclama^i, ut . . . a molesti impetu evasi " ; 

 "imprudenter est, eo nos recipere"; " persuasus insuper, nos esse secures"; "petentem, 

 quod homlnum genus stabulum jam nunc intraverat"; "furoris libidinosae " ; "ca- 

 stella," in the sense of villae, chateaux. One of the most amusing mistakes is that of 



