Textus Originalis
DE CODICIBUS QUIBUS QUINQUE LIBRI PRIMI CONTINENTUR. Ex quadraginta libris, quos Diodorus natus Agyrii in oppido Siciliae paulo post Caesaris necem composuit, quindecim non amplius sunt servati, qui sunt libri I—V et XI—XX; ceteri praeter excerpta satis copiosa, quae inveniuntur apud posteriores scriptores, perditi sunt aut certe pro perditis hodie habentur. Atque etiam illi quindecim libri, qui interitum effugerunt, multis tempestatibus tantopere disturbati ac dissipati sunt, ut ne unus quidem exstet codex, quo cuncti contineantur. Itaque omissis ad tempus ceteris, primorum quinque librorum codices seorsus tractemus: qua de re nuper multo cum studio et consilio disseruit Georgius Schneider (in programmate gymn. Berol. 1884). Horum codicum duas esse partes, quarum altera pendet ex codice Vindobonensi (D), altera optime repraesentatur codice Vaticano (C), comprobabimus singulos libros signatos eisdem litteris, quas Ludovicus Dindorf in editione anni 1828 induxit, perlustrantes. CODICES PRIORIS CLASSIS. D Vindobonensis codex 79 scriptus est maxima ex parte manu saeculi XI, folia quinquaginta unum (fol. 6—22, 118—149, 224 et 227) suppleta sunt manu saec. XIII. — Continetur 291 foliis, quorum plurima
Traduzione
English — scholarly
ARETHE Knowledge Engineering DivisionON THE MANUSCRIPTS IN WHICH THE FIRST FIVE BOOKS ARE CONTAINED. Of the forty books which Diodorus, born at Agyrium, a town in Sicily, composed shortly after Caesar's assassination, no more than fifteen have survived — namely Books I–V and XI–XX. The rest, apart from fairly abundant excerpts found in later writers, have perished or are at any rate considered lost today. And even those fifteen books that escaped destruction have been so thoroughly scattered and disrupted by the many storms of time that not a single manuscript exists which contains them all. Setting aside the others for the moment, therefore, let us treat separately the manuscripts of the first five books — a subject on which Georg Schneider has recently written with great care and discernment (in the program of the Berlin Gymnasium, 1884). We shall demonstrate that the manuscripts of these books fall into two families, one of which descends from the Vienna codex (D), while the other is best represented by the Vatican codex (C), by examining the individual manuscripts designated by the same letters that Ludovicus Dindorf introduced in his edition of 1828. MANUSCRIPTS OF THE FIRST CLASS. D — The Vienna codex 79 was written for the most part by a hand of the eleventh century; fifty-one leaves (fol. 6–22, 118–149, 224 and 227) were supplied by a hand of the thirteenth century. It comprises 291 leaves, of which the majority
Commentario Arethe
Diodorus natus Agyrii in oppido Siciliae
Diodorus Siculus (c. 90–30 BCE), born in Agyrium (modern Agira, in the province of Enna, central-eastern Sicily). His Bibliotheca Historica was a universal history in 40 books, spanning from mythological times to 60 BCE. It is the most extensive surviving work of Hellenistic historiography. The phrase 'paulo post Caesaris necem' ('shortly after Caesar's murder') places the composition after 44 BCE, establishing one of the few firm chronological anchors for Diodorus' life.
quindecim non amplius sunt servati
The survival of only 15 out of 40 books — a loss rate of 62.5% — is tragically typical of ancient literature. The lost books (VI–X, XXI–XL) covered crucial periods: the archaic Greek world, the age of Alexander's successors, and Roman history up to 60 BCE. Fragments survive as excerpts in later compilations (Photius, Constantine Porphyrogenitus' Excerpta), reminding us that our knowledge of antiquity is always a knowledge of ruins.
D Vindobonensis codex 79
The Vienna codex (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. hist. gr. 79), the single most important manuscript for the first five books of Diodorus. Written primarily in the 11th century, with 51 leaves restored in the 13th century, it represents the apex of one of the two main manuscript families. Its journey from Naples — where it was found by Montfaucon in the library of the Augustinians of San Giovanni a Carbonara — to Vienna under Charles VI illustrates the great migrations of manuscripts across European libraries.
duas esse partes, quarum altera pendet ex codice Vindobonensi (D), altera optime repraesentatur codice Vaticano (C)
Here Vogel articulates the stemmatic analysis — the genealogical tree of manuscripts — that is the foundation of his edition. The two 'families' (recentiores from D; an independent tradition represented by C) reflect the Lachmannian method of textual criticism: by identifying the relationships between manuscripts, the editor can reconstruct an archetype closer to the author's original text. This bipartite stemma is the interpretive key to the entire critical apparatus.