Two Fragments of the Carmen Saliare
and the Manuscript Tradition of Varro’s De Lingua Latina
Giulia Sarullo (ITALIA) and Daniel J. Taylor (USA)
Marcus Terentius Varro (116 - 27 BC) is ancient Rome’s most prolific scholar, but
unfortunately only precious little of his voluminous corpus has survived. The 600
fragments of Menippean Satires, three books of De Re Rustica, and six of the original 25
books of De Lingua Latina all testify to Varro’s antiquarianism and his profound love of
Latin – its vocabulary, etymologies, grammatical structures, history, and literature. He is,
as Quintilian famously proclaimed, the vir Romanorum eruditissimus and peritissimus
linguae Latinae.
De Lingua Latina VII is especially important, because it studies poetic diction and
therefore includes numerous quotations of archaic Latin poetry, many unknown from
other sources. In this presentation we wish to address two fragments of the ancient
Carmen Saliare that Varro quotes in a passage (VII.26 et seqq.) of linguistic and literary
significance. These two fragments of the Carmen Saliare – a longer one in chapter 26 and
a shorter one in chapter 27 – provide a fascinating glimpse into the details of digitally
reading and editing a text of truly archaic Latin.
Scholarly consensus affirms that Laurentianus Pluteus 51.10, known as F, is, the extant
archetype of Varro’s LL. F contains six major lacunae, several noteworthy transpositions,
and seemingly innumerable errors. Its 11th century Beneventan script is often hard to
read. Moreover, in the case of our two fragments, the unfamiliarity of the archaic Latin
has resulted in errors that are not attributable to the usual palaeographical difficulties.
Such features recur in all the codices descripti, which number around 75.
The earliest apographon of F is Vallicellianus D. 49.3, which was misdated to the late
15th century and therefore never figured in any account of the manuscripts until Taylor’s
1996 edition of book X; it was copied by none other than Coluccio Salutati in the 1390s.
The next earliest apographon is Laurentianus 51.5, known as f and executed by Antonio
di Mario in 1427. Thanks to modern technology, especially its ‘zoom’ feature, we
digitally and painstakingly autopsied F, Vall, and f and have determined slightly new
readings for both quotations from the Carmen Saliare in F and several diagnostic errors
or corrections in both Vall and f that reoccur in other codices descripti and in the editio
princeps that we also autopsied electronically.
The distinctive Beneventan i-longa and small case /l/ are virtually indistinguishable, and
it is therefore no surprise that F's /l/ in lancusianes is retained by f but read as an /i/ by
Coluccio. F's word divisions are often idiosyncratic, and so Antonio breaks up F's
Cozeulodorieso into Cozeu lodori eso, thereby providing the starting point for Pomponio
Leto's list of putative archaic Latin words in the editio princeps. Perhaps due to his
failing eyesight, Coluccio omits a /p/ in supplicante but more importantly splits the word
into suplice cante, a procedure followed by at least ten other manuscripts surely copied
from Vall. Likewise, Antonio reconfigures F's Ianusve vet as Ianus vevet, which is
reproduced in a half dozen manuscripts copied from f. F and f both read duonus ceruses,
but Vall has duo nusceruses, a reading which recurs elsewhere and, more importantly, is
read by Leto as duo nuseruses, which then appears in most subsequent editions. These are
but a few of the interesting and valuable textual issues that we will address.
Easily the most curious and most diagnostic reading occurs in Vall. F reads dun; = dunus,
but Coluccio doesn't understand the Beneventan semi-colon that indicates a final -us; he
only understands the semi-colon used after a q to indicate -ue, that is, the enclitic -que. So
he reads dun; as dunue and inserts the q in order to make dunque, which he emends to
dumque, a perfectly good Latin word but a far cry from F's dunus. Vall's newly created
locution appears in other manuscripts and enjoys a lengthy existence after it is printed by
Leto and then by almost all subsequent pre-scientific editions.
We conclude that F, f, and Vall are the triple fount of the Renaissance manuscript
tradition of Varro's De Lingua Latina. Moreover, it is perfectly obvious that Pomponio
Leto incorporated many of Vall’s readings in his editio princeps. We are therefore
provisionally prepared to conclude that Vall is the mysterious but so far undiscovered
primary manuscript that Leto used for his edition. That manuscript has been described as
"a manuscript similar to M," a statement that makes perfect sense once it is realized that
M was copied from Vall. The innovations and errors in the two fragments of the Carmen
Saliare that we have been able, thanks to digital philology, to examine in such detail
provide a microcosmic picture of the overall textual and editorial tradition of Varro's LL
and its attempt to produce that ever elusive definitive text.