CRITICAL NOTES. 509 



tide explanation of this law, whicli Cicero gives in § 30 of tliis book, 

 after commenting on its several provisions, lie adds "neque %it ea ipsa, 

 quce suscepta publice essent, quisquam extra collegium nosset." This, 

 I think, is intended as an explanation of the word incognita used in 

 the law, which would in this case have to be rendered as a predicate 

 equivalent to "ita ut ineognita, sint." Otherwise the sentence "neque 

 ut, etc.," would appear to be otiose. 



Ibid: II. ix, 21. '■^ Fo&derum,, pa.cis belli, indoMiaruTn oratorum 

 (v. 1. oratores), fetiales judices sionto (v. 1. non sunto), hella disceptanto. 

 The difficulty here lies in the word oratorum which is said to be found 

 in all the best MSS., while the v. 1. oratores, only met with in thcs*^ 

 MSS. which are of least authority, is apparently a mere attempt at 

 emendation on the part of the transcriber of the MS. Most editors, 

 though confessing that this reading is far from being satisfactory, 

 have adopted oratores. Madvig's explanation of oratorum, as if it were 

 the genitive of the neuter orata, i. e., "terms asked," has generally 

 been considered inadmissible. The reading which I myself propose, 

 viz., ratoruvi instead of oratorum was suggested to me by the con- 

 sideration of one of the causes of corruptions in MSS., which Madvig, 

 in his "Outlines of the Art of Conjectural Criticism," ("Artis Criticce 

 Conjecturalis Adumhratio," published in the fii'st volume of his ''Ad- 

 versaria Ci'itica,") states that he considers to be the most fruitful of 

 all sources of error, viz., the fact that in MSS. words were in many 

 cases written contmuously, no distinction being made between the 

 initial letter of a word and the final letter of that one which immedi- 

 ately preceded it. Hence, Madvig tells us, nothing is more conn non 

 than for a copyist, when the same or similar letters or even syllables 

 concur, either to omit one or more of them, or, on the other hand, to 

 repeat a letter or syllable, especially if by doing so he can form a 

 more familiar word than the original one; his eye being deceived by 

 the similarity of the characters, and his mind seizing upon the mure 

 common word, in preference to one less familiar. In the present 

 instance the original copy would I imagine, be written thus 

 " induciaroratorii," i. e., "induciarom raoorum;" the letters o and u 

 ai'e constantly interchanged, especially in the genitive plural, and we 

 must bear in mind that in this passage, Cicero avowedly uses archaic 

 forms (See II. vii, 18); in fact, in this very sentence, Vahlen edits 

 indotiarum for induciarum. According to the reading which I pro- 

 pose, Cicero directs that the Fetiales should " be judges of the ratifi- 



