EXCURSUS II 363 



There is besides help to be gained from a method 

 which, I think, has not been applied before to Varro. It 

 consists in digesting and tabulating obvious corruptions 

 in the text which can at once be corrected, and using 

 the results for further emendation. As a case in point : 

 there are in these books several examples of such a 

 phrase as ** duodena milia sestertia," III, 17, 3, which 

 does not seem to be any Latin for 12,000 sesterces. 

 Several scholars suggested " sestertium," but both 

 Schneider and Keil retained "sestertia" in the text, 

 probably because the emendation lacked paleographical 

 confirmation. But " sestertium " would in an early 

 minuscule MS. most probably be written '* sestertiu "; 

 in early Lombard and Franco-Lombard script the let- 

 ters **a" and "u" are barely distinguishable, and on 

 turning to our table of usual corruptions we find that the 

 confusion between the two letters is of constant occur- 

 rence in the text, while in many cases the line above a 

 vowel, which stands for ** m " or " n " is frequently neg- 

 lected. It is then hardly possible to doubt that the scribe 

 found "sestertio," in his text, neglected the stroke above 

 the " u," and for the latter wrote ** a." 



This method, as will be seen, I have used freely in the 

 emendations which have been attempted in the com- 

 mentary and in Excursus III. 



