Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/34



The codices of the Strategemata are of two classes. Of the better class, three manuscripts survive; of the second, inferior class, there are many representatives.

The three manuscripts of the first class are the codex Harleianus 2666 (H), which contains the entire work, but is very carelessly written; the codex Gothanus I. 101 (G), and the codex Cusanus C. 14 (C), each of which contains excerpts only. These three have been taken from a copy which, though not free from errors and lacunae, was still most carefully written, and must be thought to have preserved with the greatest fidelity even mutilated words.

The second class is derived from a codex which the copyist had corrected in many places according to his pleasure, and the manuscripts of this class never bring any help to readings where the first class is in error. The best representative of the second class is codex Parisinus 7240 (P), which far surpasses all the rest in authority. Both classes come from the same archetype in which a leaf had been transposed. A copyist of P about the xxviii