Note on the Standpoint for the Study of Religion in Homer TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 1905. I. The Oxyrhynchus Epitome of Livy and Reinhold's Lost Chronicon. BY PROF. HENRY A. SANDERS, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. THE Oxyrhynchus Epitome of Livy, covering Books 37-40 and 48-55, was discovered on some papyrus fragments, found in the summer of 1903, though the fact of the discovery was not published until November of that year, when I was already reading the page proof of my article on the Lost Epitome of Livy, in Vol. I of the Univ. of Mich. Studies. I was able to add in a footnote only the most general reference to the find. As I have been criticised in the Amer. Hist. Review, Vol. X, p. 621, by one who evidently knew nothing about the circumstances or the subject, because I had not delayed my article until I could compare it with the newly discovered work, I have felt compelled to take the subject up again. The Oxyrhynchus Epitome is only a late descendant of the Lost Epitome of Livy. It is far briefer than even the extant Periochae. It throws new light practically on but one question, which I discussed in the Studies, viz. Reinhold's Lost Chronicon. In the publication of the Papyrus, Grenfell and Hunt, Oxyr. Pap. IV, p. 90 ff., refer to Mommsen's (Abh. d. k. sächs. Ges. VIII, p. 552) and Zangemeister's (Festsch. d. XXXVI Philologenversam. 1882, p. 86) proofs of a Lost Epitome of Livy. They appear to have had no knowledge of the 5 later literature on the subject, of which the more extensive articles are by Ay, De Livii Epitoma deperdita, Leip. 1894; Sanders, Die Quellen-contamination im xxi, xxii Buche des Livius, Pt. I, Berlin, 1897; Reinhold, Das Geschichtswerk des Livius als Quelle späterer Historiker, Berlin, 1898; and Drescher, Liviusepitome, Erlangen, 1900. Reinhold, in particular, had tried to establish an intermediate source for Eutropius, Festus, Cassiodorus, and Obsequens. This source was a Chronicon derived from the Epitome of Livy, but unlike it, arranged chronologically, with the consuls' names in the ablative before the events of each year. The need of comparing this view with the newly found Oxyrhynchus Epitome was at once apparent. It was undertaken by C. H. Moore, Amer. Jour. Phil. XXV (1904), p. 241, and by Kornemann, Beiträge zur alten Geschichte, zweites Beiheft, 1904, Die neue Livius-Epitome. In the following discussion I shall refer to these articles by the authors' names alone, taking them up in the order of their appearance. Reinhold, p. 8, called attention to four chronological statements in which either Festus or Cassiodorus agrees with Eutropius, against the united testimony of Livy and the Periochae. Neither my own criticism of these proofs in U. of M. Studies, I, p. 180 ff. nor Reinhold's reply, Woch. f. klass. Phil. XXII (1905), p. 566, is satisfactory. First of all there are other chronological statements in these authors, which need explanation. Let us consider them all, at least for the period of the republic, and not pick out some one or two, which seem to prove or disprove a pet theory. I will give them for convenience in a table. The identity of the numbers in Eutropius and Festus is apparent. The only real difference is that Eutropius does not give the length of Servius Tullius's reign. Festus could, however, obtain it by the easiest combination, or from the Epitome of Livy, which also had the same, and was known to him. The years of Rome up to the death of Jovian (1117, Festus, 1, 1) agree with Eutropius, 10, 18, 2-3: Decessit . . . tertio decimo Kal. Mart. . anno u. c. 1 Cf. Pirogoff, De Eutrop. brev. fontibus, Berlin, 1873, p. 26. |