362 VARRO ON FARMING 



posita." (Lindsay, Latin Textual Emendation, 84.) In 

 some Merovingian and Lombard scripts these letters are 

 almost indistinguishable. Again the first words of the first 

 book are given by Politian as ' ' P. otius, " for ' ' si otium " — 

 and ' ' si " in some pre-Carolingian minusculae looks exactly 

 like P. There are of course also the mistakes common 

 to scribes of all ages — dittography, haplography, wrong 

 division of letters to form words as well as those arising 

 from the misreading of certain abbreviations, which 

 varied in different scripts: cf. the confusion between the 

 forms ofthe relative," qui," "quae," "quod" "quam"; 

 " aliqui " and " ahquod " (" aliquot "), etc. 



On the other hand, had the Archetype been written in 

 Merovingian, Lombardic, or Visigothic script, Vittorio 

 would surely have mentioned the fact. 



For these and other reasons it seems probable that 

 the Archetype was a ninth- or tenth-century minuscule, 

 copied from a pre-Carolingian minuscule. 



For the emendation of the faulty text of the Rerum 

 Rusticarum use has been made of: (i) internal evidence 

 from the books themselves; (2) Varro's other writings; 

 (3) quotations made from the Rerum Rusticarum by the 

 ancient grammarians, especially by Monius Marcellus, 

 who quotes frequently from the first book ; (4) the sources 

 which Varro used, especially Cato, Theophrastus, and 

 Aristotle; (5) the Geoponica, in which Varro is often 

 literally translated ; (6) the authors who without quoting 

 his actual words, paraphrase or expand passages, or cite 

 facts to be found in the Rerum Rusticarum — Columella, 

 Pliny, Palladius, Servius, Macrobius, St. Augustine, 

 Isidore of Seville, etc. For the right spelling of proper 

 names much assistance is given by Cicero, Caesar, and 

 Horace, and by inscriptions. 



