- On Lucretius. 37
emended by noticing what letters most frequently interchange in our MSS. ; for instance, e, i, f, I and t, which are very similar in the thin capital writing ; c and g ; b and v ; b and p ; d and t ; I and r ; I and b ; c and e ; p, t and c ; p and q ; q and c ; &, d, r and p; fandp; a, e-, o and w; a and w; w and n; s and c; r and c; s and/*; w and m; r and v; s and t, especially at the end of words; s and m at the end of words, owing to the way in which the final m is often written ; not unfrequently we find n and d interchanged ; re, ft and ft ; al, in and m ; c and d; cl, ct and d; x, s and sc, &c. Any one may satisfy himself on these points by glancing at the various readings in Lachmann's edition. I will first attempt to emend the two very corrupt verses n. 42, 43, as I am not satisfied with the alterations of either of the two last editors. The reading of MSS. is, Subsidiis magnis epicuri constabilitas Ornatas armis itast[atuas tariterque animatas, the words in Italics being manifestly corrupt. In the 2nd verse tariter should of course be pariter ; Lachmann reads validas for the other corrupt word in this verse, which departs widely from the " ductus literarum ;" in the 1st verse he reads magnisque elepliantis, much to his own content ; but not to mention other objections, elephants must in the days of Lucretius have been a rare accompaniment of Roman legions in the Campus Martius. For we are told that Caesar when in Africa some years later, fetched some elephants from Italy in order to accustom his sol- diers to the sight of them. Bernays has hastatis in the first verse, but surely hastati did not form the reserve of an army. One kind of force was however indispensable to a legion, viz. cavalry; compare a similar passage ii. 329, &c. For epicuri therefore I read confidently equituvi. It is not so easy to see what to supply in the second verse : a legion, however, required not only to be armata and animata, but also instructa ; we find in the Bell. Gall. vin. 36, legionem armatam instructamque adducit; for instruere Livy, Virgil, and perhaps Caesar use struere ; I would propose therefore to read in the second verse, Ornatas armis structas pariterque animatas, "your legions, waging the mimicry of war, supported flank and rear with powerful reserves, great force of cavalry, armed and in array of battle, animated all with a like spirit." Caesar, after his consulship, at the beginning of b.c. 58, nearly four years before the death of Lucretius, stayed with his army three months before Rome and
