Scholarly Contributions and the Manuscript Tradition
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O is the basis for the text of the Curiosum| Dating the Catalogue
When we consider a possible date for the Catalogue, Mommsen’s dating scheme, mentioned earlier, provides a starting point. Based on discrepancies in the documents themselves, Mommsen’s proposed dates were unconvincing to Nordh, who argued that the methodology of his predecessor was flawed since it was based on the assumption that the surviving MSS text faithfully represented in each case the original transcription, an assumption that is highly questionable given the interpolated state of the sources and the fact that the Curiosum depended on only one manuscript (no. 3321). (XX) Instead, Nordh argued that the Curiosum and Notitia represented, in that order, two successive phases of the elaboration of the original catalogue, itself of unknown date and purpose, with both versions containing additional secondary interpolations; that the original document was pre-Constantinian; that the Curiosum belonged to the time of Constantine; and that the Notitia was a product of the post-Constantinian era. (XX) A final difficulty, equally problematic, involves the catalogue’s two appendices, both of which are nearly identical in substance in the Curiosum and the Notitia (see below). Nordh was able to show that they were not contemporary works, but that the first, which primarily contains data not found in the catalogue, was a later interpolation and that only the second of this pair belonged as a true appendix to the original catalog. (65-67) This is where matters stand today. As this brief survey reveals, the issues of dating and the relationship of the two recensions to each other and to the lost original are difficult to establish with any further certainty, unless new evidence should appear. In the meantime, Nord’s interpretation continues to carry conviction, as no critical edition or translation in English or otherwise has since appeared. Download 19.46 Kb. Share with your friends:
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