Confusion regarding a sentence from AUC 1.8.

Latin Learning Latin
1

I was struggling with a sentence from Ab Urbe Condita 1.8, so I’m making this post for posterity in order to help anyone who searches for the same sentence and who happens to have the same issue as I did. This particular sentence discusses Romulus’ institution of the twelve lictors.
Here is the quote and the most difficult part bolded:

alii ab numero auium quae augurio regnum portenderant eum secutum numerum putant: me haud paenitet eorum sententiae > esse quibus et apparitores hoc genus ab Etruscis finitimis, unde sella curulis, unde toga praetexta sumpta est, et numerum quoque ipsum ductum placet> , et ita habuisse Etruscos quod ex duodecim populis communiter creato rege singulos singuli populi lictores dederint.

Note 1:
The stray esse after sententiae governs ductum, i.e. it could be read …ipsum ductum esse placet

Note 2:
I was really confused about the apparitores hoc genus because the meaning was unclear to me. I believe hoc genus is essentially in apposition to apparitores, and found this very helpful commentary by D. Spillan showing that the whole thing seemed a little off even to classicists.

Apparitores hoc genus> . There is something incorrect in the language of the original here. In my version I have followed Drakenborch. Walker, in his edition, proposes to read > ut > for > et> ; thus, > quibus ut apparitores et hoc genus ab Etruscis —numerum quoque ipsum ductum placet> , "who will have it, that as public servants of this kind, so was their number also, derived from the Etrurians.

If any of this is wrong please correct me.

2

Yes the tricky bit is apparitores hoc genus, which can hardly be right and is reportedly only a conjecture anyway. Perseus reports Weissenborn’s app.crit., as follows: “apparitores hoc genus Jak. Gronov, apparitores et hoc genus codd., apparitorum hoc genus Heumann.) | (sumpta est, Heumann.).”
He presumably won’t have known of the proposal of ut for et. I don’t know if that solves the difficulty; I suspect not.

3

It certainly does solve the difficulty of interpretation. My personal favorite is apparitorum hoc genus. Forgive my ignorance and the late reply, but why does this kind of issue come up in the first place? Lacunae?