The Fragmentary Manuscripts of Xenophon's Cynegeticus

E.A. Schmoll: MSS. of Cynegeticus21 The Fragmentary Manuscripts of Xenophon's Cynegeticus Edward A. Schmoll Of the sixteen extant manuscripts of Xenophon's Cynegeticus, three are fragmentary and contain nearly the same portion of the text. These manuscripts are Laurentianus 80.13 (H), British Museum add. ms. 5110 (h), and Vindobonensis hist. gr. 95 (w). Although these manuscripts have attracted previous attention,1 they have yet to be related satisfactorily to the stemma of the Cynegeticus as a whole. My purpose here is to set the three in their proper stemmatic relationship. I will begin with a physical description of each manuscript. Laurentianus 80.13 is a parchment and paper codex of 189 folios in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. It contains theAtheniensium respublica, De vectigalibus, Hipparchicus, Hiero, De re equestri, Lacedaemoniorum respublica, Memorabilia, De administratione domestica, Convivium, and on folios 144v-145v the De venatione (to ?.1 ending with the word pa?de?µata). The codex continues with excerpts from books VI, X, XVIII of Polybius. Folios 174r-189r contain collections ofproverbs interrupted by excerpts from lexicographical works.2 Laurentianus 80.13 keeps a running count for the opuscula beginning on folio 19 with the Hipparchicus. At the top of each page it lists the title of each work as well as the total number of folios each work occupies. For example, Hipparchicus is "????? a'" and occupies 9 folios, Hiero is "????? ß"' and occupies 9 and one half folios, etc. It is clear from this that the first 18 folios, which contain theAth. res. and De vect. and precede ????? a' and ß', were not an original part of the codex but were added later to round out the codex. Save for these first 18 folios, which are in a fifteenth century hand, the codex dates to the fourteenth century. Laurentianus 80.13, which has some water damage, is not listed in the Medicean inventory of 1495. 1 Ginus Pierleoni, "De fonlibus quibus ulimur in Xenophontis Cynegetico recensendo," Studi Ilaliani di Filología Classica 6 (1898) 91. 2 For a full description of these maxims (some 131 of them) see Winfried Bühlcr, "On Some Mss. of the Athous Recension of the Greek Paroemiographers" Serta Turyniana, edited by John L. Heller (London 1974) 410-35. 22SyIIecta Classica 1 (1989) British Museum add. ms. 5 1 10 is a parchment and paper codex of 212 folios in the British Museum, London. It contains the Hellenica, Hipparchicus, Hiero, De re equestri, Lacedaemoniorum respublica. Memorabilia, de administratione domestica, Convivium, and on folio 160, De venatione (to 11.1 ending with the word pa?de?µata). In addition, it contains the same excerpts from Polybius as Laurentianus 80.13, distichs of Maximus Planudes (d. 1305), the same proverbs as Laurentianus 80.13 but in a different order,3 the Astronomicon of Proclus, and essays of Lucian. Ms. 5110 is a composite of at least two manuscripts. Folios 1-84, which contain the Hellenica, are written in an early fifteenth century hand on quaternions.4 The opúsculo of Xenophon are written in a second hand of the late fifteenth century on quaternions. With the Astronomicon of Proclus we return to the first hand. The rest of the codex is in yet another hand also of the late fifteenth century. This manuscript was once owned by Dr. Anthony Askew (1722-74).5 It was acquired by the British Museum in 1785.6 Vindobonensis hist. gr. 95 is a paper codex of 338 folios in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.7 It contains the Anabasis, Hipparchicus, De re equestri, Lacedaemoniorum respublica, Memorabilia, De administratione domestica, Convivium, and De venatione (323v-325r ending with the words t?? a?t?? ?fe?e?a?). After a blank folio (325v) the codex continues with a discourse on the tyrant Demetrios by Georgios Gemistos Plethon (326v-327v). Also on 327r is a calendar for marking the proper times for blood-letting (t?µ?e?? a?a??? ?µ??a?? ta?ta?? f??ßa?). Folios 328?-33Iv are blank. The codex ends with an anonymous ??µ??sµata t?? ??t?????? (332r). Folios 332v-337v are blank. This Vienna manuscript was written in the second half of the fifteenth century8 by an unknown scribe. No quire signatures are visible...