Thomas’s Introduction moves from basic principles of textual criticism and the stemmatic method to the particular problem of the transmission of the Brutus, the dialogue on the development of Roman oratory penned by Cicero in 46 BC as his first literary project since the civil war. Like De oratore and Orator, the Brutus was transmitted in a manuscript discovered at Lodi in 1421, which, however, after several transcriptions in Italy, disappeared in or soon after 1428. The problem for all three major rhetorica is therefore the reconstruction of the lost codex (L) from extant sources. The Introduction also articulates Thomas’s essential critique of previous editions: their lack of a comprehensive evidentiary base. By contrast, Thomas founds his text on an investigation of all 107 extant manuscripts.
Thomas devotes Chapter 1 to two leaves of a ninth-century fragment of the Brutus discovered in 1954 in Cremona (C). He argues convincingly, against the previous consensus, that C is in fact a part of L: its readings match those of the reconstructed archetype, and it was found in the hometown of Cosimo Raimondi, who made the first transcription of L.
In Chapter 2, Thomas produces a complex stemma, with three or, from Brut. 130 on, four separate lines to the archetype (and a fifth one, involving contamination, as indicated by the dotted line on p.28). In this he diverges significantly from Malcovati’s second Teubner edition (1970): Malcovati offered no stemma, believing that contamination was so pervasive as to render a stemma meaningless. Thomas, while acknowledging some contamination, shows that the data are nonetheless susceptible of stemmatic analysis. Besides citing indicative errors to establish the relations he claims, Thomas reinforces his argument by showing that a group of manuscripts shares a set of chapter divisions introduced since the archetype (pp.31-32, 35-36, 63).
Chapter 3 offers a detailed history of the text. Thomas has little to say about the text in antiquity, although he lists the testimonies (p.48n3) and cites them as relevant in his critical apparatus. The rediscovery of the complete trio of major rhetorica was, of course, a sensation and sparked a flurry of activity among North Italian scholars, reconstructed in detail by Thomas. In some cases, it is tricky to connect manuscripts or reconstructed hyparchetypes with particular scholars known to have made or ordered transcriptions, but Thomas’s identifications are well argued and generally convincing. Florence emerges (again) as an influential center from which texts emanated. The fruits of Thomas’s labors are set out in a set of four appendices, beginning with a detailed census and description of the extant manuscripts.
Thomas bases his edition on a fresh collation of all independent witnesses. He reasonably imposes uniform spelling and avoids archaisms (p.10). His greater comprehensiveness enables him to correct previous attributions; thus, at §6 autem aut first appeared in Florence BML Plut. 50.31 (Thomas’s Ff), whereas Malcovati attributed it to Piderit. Between text and critical apparatus Thomas provides a list of codices cited, but he does not identify passages cited, e.g., at §§58-59 (Ennius’s Annales), as one has come to expect. His punctuation and paragraph divisions generally improve on Malcovati (he might, however, have added liveliness by concluding the sentence beginning O magnam . . . artem at §204 with an exclamation rather than a full stop). In this and other recent Latin texts published by OUP, I notice some examples of sloppy syllabification (e.g., p.102: qua-mquam); editors should be on guard.
The commentary is expressly “textual,” i.e., a textual problem is the starting point, but for the matters discussed, Thomas considers the full range of evidence, including Ciceronian usage and historical facts (e.g., on the problem of Brutus’s date of birth at §324). Readers will learn a great deal about Ciceronian style and usage but also a number of other subjects.
Thomas argues with clarity and circumspection rare in a dissertation, and his text usually carries conviction. When he differs from Malcovati’s text, it is almost always for the better; e.g., at §64 he adopts Manutius’s fine ut eo fieri nihil possit valentius in preference to Lambin’s ut [et] fieri . . . He resorts to cruces five times (§§83, 129, 213, 234, 273). In evaluating the text, Thomas is not content with easy answers—what he calls “sticking-plaster solutions” (p.159)—but probes more deeply. This pays dividends, e.g., at §88, which concludes the narrative of a trial in which Servius Galba replaced Gaius Laelius as advocate for the publicani and won an acquittal:
Itaque multis querelis multaque miseratione adhibita socios omnibus approbantibus †illa dis quaestione† liberatos esse.
Here, instead of falling in with Lambin’s facile illo die quaestione, Thomas proposes illa disquisitione, a better solution and possibly right.
Thomas offers his own conjectures sparingly, mostly in the apparatus, but when he does, they are generally of high quality, as at §23 where he suggests dicendi et intellegendi intuenti, which neatly fills a generally acknowledged lacuna, offers a plausible path of corruption (saltation from dicendi to dicere), and effects a transition to the next sentence with its verb intellegit. Thomas’s <At> (after devinxerat) at §224 is also worth considering, as is quod ei for quod et at §317. There are a few cases, however, where his judgment can be challenged:
§16, where Cicero discusses possibilities for reciprocating Atticus’s dedication of the Liber Annalis:
Nec enim ex novis, ut agricolae solent, fructibus est unde tibi reddam quod accepi—sic omnis fetus repressus exustusque flos siti veteris ubertatis exaruit—nec ex conditis . . .
Here A. Eberhard’s deletion of veteris ubertatis (followed by Thomas) may be an incision into living flesh. His explanation that “the genitival phrase could have intruded as an explanatory gloss on siti” (p.159) seems unlikely. Surely this genitive is also to be taken with fetus; and one should be wary of deleting ubertas as a characterization of Cicero’s style. It is not the case, as Watt claimed (cited p.159), with Thomas’s apparent approval, that flos veteris ubertatis is as difficult as sitis veteris ubertatis: flos is used of the “flowering” or “zenith” of a variety of things (OLD s.v. 7), whereas sitis + gen. should be a “thirst for” something (OLD s.v. 1b). The difficulty is the position of siti. Surely siti and flos should be transposed (so Lambin) so as to allow veteris ubertatis to limit flos. Thomas later concedes that “inversions of two or three words are extremely common” (p.197) and later accepts such transpositions at §§174, 187, 327, and 330.
§111 In Scauri oratione, sapientis hominis et **, gravitas summa et naturalis quaedam inerat auctoritas, non ut causam, sed ut testimonium dicere putares.
The alternative readings for the space marked with asterisks are tecti and recti, of which the former is the reading of the reconstructed archetype. However, the two words differ by a single letter; t and r are easily confused in uncial script; and virtually every page shows errors of the reconstructed archetype. So the reading of the archetype should not weigh very heavily here. It is really a question of the sense appropriate to this context. For an orator to be tectus (“cautious”) could indeed be an asset, as is explained at De orat. 2.296 apropos of M. Antonius: He never said anything that could harm a client. Nevertheless, this is a negative quality and seems unlikely to be singled out beside sapientis. I suspect that recti is what Cicero wrote and that he used it in the sense “straightforward, direct,” as at Plin. Ep. 9.26.1: dixi de quodam oratore . . . recto quidem et sano, sed parum grandi et ornato (cf. OLD rectus 4b), which also seems to fit Scaurus. Cicero may have had in mind, e.g., Scaurus’s famous riposte: Q. Varius Hispanus M. Scaurum principem senatus socios in arma ait convocasse; M. Scaurus princeps senatus negat; testis nemo est; utri vos, Quirites, convenit credere? (FRLO 43 F 11). Cicero also uses rectus in this sense of Caesar’s personified commentarii at Brut. 262.
§212 O generosam . . . stirpem et, tamquam in unam arborem plura genera sic in istam domum multorum insitam atque †inluminatam sapientiam!
Scholars have tended to propose a technical term equivalent to insitam (“engrafted”). But perhaps a different line of approach may be more fruitful. Might one contemplate inlatam (“inserted”)? See OLD infero 4a. The amplification was needed to clarify the sense of insitam, which could otherwise have been thought to be “deeply rooted”; cf., e.g., Ver. 2.4.106: in animis eorum insitum atque innatum, where the second term clarifies; cf. also Top. 69, Tim. 45, and (with vel potius) Fin. 4.4 and N.D. 1.44; Cicero clarifies the sense of insitus with penitus 7x elsewhere.
§216 In an account of C. Scribonius Curio’s shortcomings:
in utroque [sc. delivery and memory] cacchinos irridentium commovebat.
Believing the transmitted text to be awkward, Thomas conjectures cacchinos irri<sionemque au>dientium and places this in the text. But this is not quite the same as the parallel haplographies he cites, 316 suprafluentis > supratis and 321 exercitationis tum > exercitatum, since his conjecture involves the addition of i after d. I am not sure that cacchinos irridentium (“the guffaws of those who derided him”) is lectio impossibilis.
§234 Of Cn. Lentulus:
sic intervallis, exclamationibus, voce suavi et canora †admirando inridebat calebat† in agendo, ut ea quae deerant non desiderantur.
A locus conclamatus. Thomas’s suggestions admirando ardore calebat or admirando ardebat calore double down on calere/calor by introducing ardor/ardere. But admirandus is never used with ardor or calor by Cicero; and caleo is used of persons only once in Cicero (not twice: Att. 15.6[386].2 is a letter from Hirtius), at Att. 7.20(144).2 (te ipsum istic iam calere puto), where the sense is “concitari, inquietari” or the like (TLL 3:148.7-8; “I suppose you yourself have got plenty to think about at Rome”: tr. Shackleton Bailey), hardly a solid foundation on which to build. Moreover, after the tricolon intervallis . . . canora one expects a description of the effect of these qualities, not a new idea introduced. I tentatively suggest admirationem faciebat (for the iunctura cf. Ver. 2.4.27, Tusc. 3.39). inridere, though found elsewhere in the Brutus (216, 226, 326), is clearly intrusive here.
§292 in . . . Aeschini libris
In view of <de> Aeschine at §290, Cicero clearly knew the declension of the name. Even if it is not the transmitted text (as Malcovati thought), one should surely read Aeschinis.
Some details: Apropos of §171 Thomas seems confused (p.194): It is not Tinca, but his adversary Granius to whom Cicero ascribes sapor vernaculus. At §200 I agree with Thomas in accepting Weidner’s deletion (intellegit [oratorem] in ea causa non adesse qui possit animis iudicum admovere orationem) not only for the reasons he gives (p.201) but also because it undermines the force of the climactic point: ea si praeteriens . . . aspexerit, si nihil audiverit, tamen oratorem versari in illo iudicio et opus oratorium fieri . . . intelleget. At §259 Thomas declines to follow Kayser in bracketing accusatore as a description of C. Rusio; but Brutus’ following question (quis est iste C. Rusius?) and Cicero’s reply (fuit accusator) surely make accusatore nonsensical.
All in all, an impressive debut, showing an assured grasp of a wide range of materials. Thomas’s text becomes the new standard, displacing Malcovati.
Abbreviation
FRLO = Fragments of Republican Latin: Oratory, ed. G. Manuwald. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA, 2019.