by Epictetus
Chapter 9 of 10 • 358 min read • Published 135
manuscript, which contained the twelve books, but it is not known where the manuscript is now. The only other com- plete manuscript which is known to exist is in the Vatican library, but it has no title and no inscriptions of the several books: the eleventh only has the inscription Μάρχου αὐτοχρά- topos marked with an asterisk.
The other Vatican manu- scripts and the three F iorentine contain only excerpts from 8 Dr. Baur in his work entitled “Das Christenthum und die Christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte,’”’ etc., has examined this question with great good sense and fairness, and I believe he has stated the truth as near as our authorities enable us to reach it. 4 9 In the Digest, 48, 19, 30, there is the following excerpt from Modesti- nus: “Si quis aliquid fecerit, quo Jeves hominum animi superstitione numi- nis terrerentur, divus Marcus hujusmodi homines in insulam relegari sescripsit.” 41 Hc 1 322 M.
AURELIUS ANTONINUS the emperor’s book. All the titles of the excerpts nearly agree with that which Xylander prefixed to his edition Mdpxov ᾿Αντωνίνου Αὐτοχράτορος τῶν εἰς ἑαυτὸν βιβλία «8, This title has been used by all subsequent editors.
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We cannot tell whether Antoninus divided his work into books or some- body else did it. If the inscriptions at the end of the first and second books are genuine, he may have made the division himself. It is plain that the emperor wrote down his thoughts or _reflections as the occasions arose; and since they were in- tended for his own use, it is no improbable conjecture that he left a complete copy behind him written with his own hand; for it is not likely that so diligent a man would use the labour of a transcriber for such a purpose, and expose his most secret thoughts to any other eye.
He may have also intended the book for his son Commodus, who however had no taste for his father’s philosophy. Some careful hand preserved the precious volume; and a work by Antoninus is mentioned by other late writers besides Suidas.
Many critics have laboured on the text of Antoninus. The most complete edition is that by Thomas Gataker, 1652, 4to. The second edition of Gataker was superintended by George Stanhope, 1697, 4to. There is also an edition of 1704. Gataker made and suggested many good corrections, and he also made a new Latin version, which is not a very good specimen of Latin, but it generally expresses the senge of the original and often better than some of the more recent translations.
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He added in the margin opposite to each para- graph references to the other parallel passages; and he wrote a commentary, one of the most complete that has been writ- ten on any ancient author. This commentary contains the editor’s exposition of the more difficult passages, and quo- tations from all the Greek and Roman writers for the illus- tration of the text.
It is a wonderful monument of learning and labour, and certainly no Englishman has yet done any- thing like it. At the end of his preface the editor says that he wrote it at Rotherhithe near London in a severe winter, when he was in the seventy-eighth year of his age, 1651, a time when Milton, Selden and other great men of the Com- monwealth time were living; and the great French scholar M.
AURELIUS ANTONINUS 323 Saumaise (Salmasius), with whom Gataker corresponded and received help from him for his edition of Antoninus. The Greek text has also been edited by J. Schultz, Leip- zig, 1802, 8vo.; and by the learned Greek Adamantinus Corais, Paris, 1816, 8vo.
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The text of Schultz was republished by Tauchnitz, 1821. There are English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish translations of M. Antoninus, and there may be others. I have not seen all the English translations. There is one by Jeremy Collier, 1702, 8vo., a most coarse and vulgar copy of the original.
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