Hey,
I have been looking at the teubner edition of the Anabasis http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k25361m/f10.image
and wonder if anyone could help with the critical apparatus. It doesn’t seem to provide much clarity as to where anything should go or what it replaces!
The numbers refer to the line number on the page. Not to be confused with the standard line number common to all texts that is listed opposite. On the page that you link, the sequential numbers that the apparatus uses are on the left. It will reverse on the next page.
One you know the line number, it’s often (but not always) easy to figure out what is going on.
I would love it if this thread could turn into a crib for all things apparata. Maybe we can add explanations of the standard Latin terms like det., cor., etc. Also explanations of <> versus , dots under letters, etc. Manuscript references. And probably some other stuff that I’m forgetting.
The list of mss. used in preparing the edition is on the page before the first page of text:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k25361m/f9.image
The mss. are indicated by capital letters; miniscule letters are used for groups of mss. f = F and others; c = CBAE.
And before that, the list of scholars who have edited or otherwise contributed to the text:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k25361m/f8.image
The preface provides a brief description of the mss. in Latin:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k25361m/f4.image
The symbols often differ from edition to edition, but < > usually indicates a word or other material that does not appear in any ms. but which the editor thinks somehow dropped out of the text (the Teubner Anabasis uses round brackets ( ) for this purpose), while usually indicates material the editor considers to have been interpolated. A consistent set of symbols of this sort is used in contemporary editions, particularly by papyrologists, but I’m not sure where you can find a complete list. A dot under a letter usually indicates that the editor is not certain that the letter is correct–this is usually found in texts based on papyri. Maybe mwh can provide a little more detail. Good editions usually provide a complete list of the symbols used to avoid ambiguity.
om. means “omitted”, where a ms. has omitted a word.
del. means “deleted”, where a scholar has argued that a word is interpolated and doesn’t belong in the text.
corr. means “corrected”.
What is mel.? I often see that for minor changes like accent fixes or σσ → ττ. Are they “sweetening” the sound? (I have zero Latin.)
mel. probably = melius, “better”.
For papyrology:
http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/content.php?pid=176341&sid=1652971
You might find this helpful: http://udallasclassics.org/maurer_files/APPARATUSABBREVIATIONS.pdf.
Thanks, Paul. Karl Maurer’s document is very useful. He is the author of an important contribution to the textual criticism of Thucydides (his published doctoral thesis).
It’s worth reading the notes at the end of his text on “why Latin?” and “why look at the apparatus at all?”.
Little need for me to add anything, but I will mention the book “Textual criticism and editorial technique” by (guess who?) M.L. West. It teaches you how to construct a critical apparatus and incidentally how to to use one.
To use an app.crit. properly you need to know about the interrelations of the various manuscripts (MSS), and that’s always discussed in the preface—usually in Latin (but some recent OCT’s use English). But there’s a lot to be gleaned just from the list of manuscript “sigla” that the editor puts just ahead of the text itself (“conspectus siglorum”). Sometimes there’s a “stemma codicum,” which indicates the lines of affiliation among the various MSS (actual or hypothesized!), but this editor doesn’t do that (probably because it can’t be done).
Looking at the “conspectus siglorum” page linked by Qimmik
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k25361m/f9.image
we see that it’s more than a simple list of MSS and their sigla (F etc.).
The editor organizes the medieval MSS into two “families”—the F family, which the editor designates f, and the C family, designated c. So when we see these lower-case letters in the apparatus it means they’re referring not to a single MS but to a whole group.
And then there’s the even more important L, representing the “consensus codicum”, i.e. all the MSS (or perhaps all the MSS with the exception of whatever individual MSS are cited). It invites misunderstanding to use an apparently random upper-case letter to represent not a single manuscript but the whole lot of them, but there it is, editor’s choice.
And in addition to the medieval MSS there are a couple of fragmentary manuscripts on papyrus too (therefore older than the med.MSS), jointly designated O (for Oxyrhynchus, where they were both found). In his preface (sorry, praefatio!, it‘s all in Latin), the editor notes that since these older manuscripts don’t agree consistently with either one or the other “family” (f and c), the split between the two families will have come at a later point in the transmission. And occasionally papyri will offer readings that do not survive in the medieval tradition at all. But there’s papyrus evidence for only small portions of the text. (How different would the text look if there were more, one may wonder.)
So: looking now at the first page of the text, linked by kingbenlucas,
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k25361m/f10.image
we see quite a number of entries for line 1, that is the title.
One manuscript (M) adds ῥήτορος to Xenophon’s name. The rest, we are to infer, do not.
Then we have “ἀναβάσεως L”. In his title the editor prints not the genitive—the reading of all the MSS, as the “L” informs us—but the nominative Ἀνάβασις. Apparently he’s done that on his own initiative, since he cites no manuscript for it. In ancient Greek practice the title would run Ξενοφωντος (or Ξενοφωντος ρητορος) Αναβασεως α’, “bk. 1 of the Anabasis of Xenophon.” The editor has chosen to change that. (Why?, you may well ask,)
For “Α” itself (“bk. 1”), various MSS give various expansions (λογος πρωτος etc.), and only F has the simple α’ (α with a bar-line above to show it’s a numeral).
And so it goes on. I pick out a couple of later entries on this page.
In line 3 (the 2nd line of the text proper) only M has the spelling Ἀρτοξέρξης, preferred by the editor. The rest—“rell.” for reliqui (sc. codices)—all have Ἀρταξέρξης. Here the editor adds “(it. infra)", i.e. “item infra”, “likewise below.” This indicates that the editor won’t mention this spelling variant in future: whenever we find Ἀρτοξ- in the text, we are to assume that all the MSS except M have the spelling Ἀρταξ-. The editor will print Ἀρτοξ- everywhere, but only one manuscript spells it in this form.
In line 5 we have οἱ τὼ reported for Aristides. Aristides quotes this passage (we’re not told how much he quotes, but we can look it up if we want to know), and instead of εβουλετο τω παιδε etc. he has εβουλετο οἱ τω παιδε etc. The editor includes the τὼ so that we can tell just where the οἱ comes. (Alternatively he could have recorded ἐβούλετό οἱ, but that would have taken up more space.) The οἱ will be the dative of the reflexive pronoun, and it could well be right. The “indirect tradition” of Xenophon and of many other authors often gives readings that don’t survive in the direct tradition (i.e. in the MSS of the text), and quite often papyri will have the same reading (our Anab. editor notes this In his preface as being true for the Anab.). So here’s a real textual question: does the οἱ belong in Xenophon’s text or not? This editor judges not. Others might judge otherwise.
In judging between variants such as these a good critical principle to apply is encapsulated in the question “utrum in alterum?”, in full “utrum in alterum abiturum est?” “Which of the two readings would have been changed to the other?” On the assumption (not always correct) that one of the readings is original and the other Is a corruption of it, which is more likely to be the corrupted one? ((In this last instance, for example, is οἱ more likely to have been added to the original text, or is it more likely to have dropped out?)
So to use the app.crit. is to engage with textual issues: did the author in fact write this, or something else? There’s often a temptation to take issue with the editor’s decisions, but we have to bear in mind that the editor will have studied the text and its manuscripts much more thoroughly than we have, so we should always be hesitant of disagreeing, especially when the editor is as experienced and well-respected as this one is. But that needn’t stop us exercising our own critical powers. That’s what the app.crit. is for.
I didn’t mean to write so much!
Hey,
Wow, quite a response! All the answers I could want. Coming from an NT background I’m used to the apparatus in Nestle-Aland’s GNT which is absolutely clear as to which word is being discussed etc. I suppose that having a smaller manuscript base for most Classical texts means that there is less likely to be confusion as to the particular word under discussion.
Thank you everyone.
Nestle-Aland identifies words for which variants appear in the apparatus, but they are distracting to readers of the text. Most classical texts eschew such symbols, identifying a word in the apparatus by the line of text in which the editor’s choice appears. When there’s an ambiguity, the editor ordinarily clarifies which instance of the word in question the variant relates to in the apparatus. The absence of the NT-type symbols saves space, which is always at a premium in constructing an apparatus.
Many classical texts, particularly Homer, are represented by a large number of manuscripts. In those cases, however, not all of the manuscripts have been collated–it just isn’t worth throwing the resources at a task that will likely produce marginal returns. Editors restrict themselves to a limited sample of medieval manuscripts to use in editing their text–generally, the older ones–along with ancient manuscripts (generally papyri), and this works just fine. I suspect that editors of the NT feel compelled to use a broader selection of manuscripts out of theological concerns, and the resources for this editorial activity are unlimited.
Most apparatuses of classical texts don’t report minor spelling differences or obvious errors (obvious in the judgment of the editor). In some ways, excessively detailed apparatuses can be more of a distraction than informative. But the appropriate level of detail varies from text to text, depending on the character of the individual tradition and other factors.
Based on the recommendation by mwh I picked up West, “Textual criticism and editorial technique” and I can highly recommend it. I’m working through a Teubner right now with extensive critical apparatus and now (together with the PDF already linked) I feel I can understand the text and it’s history better.
In a similar vein I’m skimming Dickey’s “Ancient Greek Scholarship” which I think is a good complement: my volume quotes a lot of scholia.