In our manuscripts and editions the order of Claudian's Carmina mino varies considerably, and the arrangement adopted by Th. Birt (Monu menta Germaniae historica: Auctores antiquissimi, vol. 10, 1892) and M. Pl nauer (Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols., 1922, reprinted 1963) has no mo authority, I think, than that of JM Gesner (1759). But since Birt, in hi long Praefatio, claims to have discovered the arrangement closest to th of the archetype, we shall examine its merits first. It is based on th Mediceus, a fifteenth century codex which derives from an" antiqu codex" and is found, with minor variations, in the Ambrosianus, als fifteenth century, and about twenty other witnesses. Before reaching an conclusions we must survey the poems from the point of view of the content and their literary form. This paper will be partly a catalogue the extant poems, but since they are hardly read nowadays except perhap by a few specialists, such a survey is necessary. I realize how sketchy my contribution is, but a great deal of work is needed. For one thing, the tex is corrupt in many places. Birt's text is far too conservative, his own con jectures are often rash and implausible. The first group of poems in Birt's edition includes eight pieces, mainly of the descriptive genre. The very first piece repeats verbatim one of th four Fescennina which form a sort of varied prelude to the Epithalamium of Honorius and Maria. Was it lifted out of that context and placed he because it is the shortest of the four? But any of the others might ha qualified as a" short poem." It is certainly an ingenious compliment t Stilicho, and his name is only mentioned here. Whoever put this piece the head of the Carmina minora must have understood it as a tribute to Stilicho, perhaps the shortest in Claudian's oeuvre. Number 2 is the description of a harbor. Why it should be the harbor