A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

148 P~ESTTS. FESTUS..Catonis; De Plauti Calculis; De Jure -Sacro et 1. The fragments of Festus contained in the
Auugurali, and others; but altogether omitted those Farnese MS. now deposited in the Royal library
words which had fallen into disuse (intermortua et at Naples.
sepulta), intending to make these the subject of a 2. The fragments of Festus retained by Pornm.
separate volume Pxriscorum Verborum cumr Exem- ponius. Laetus, the archetype of which, although
plis (see s. v. porriciam). Finally, towards the lost before the end of the sixteenth century, had
end of the eighth century, Paul, son of Warnefrid, previously been frequently transcribed.
better known as Paulus Diaconus, from having offi- These two sets of fragments, as far as they go,
ciated as a deacon of the church at Aquileia, are probablya tolerably correctthough meagrerepreabridged the abridgment of Festus, dedicating his sentation of the commentaries of Verrius Flaccus.
production to Charlemagne, after that prince had 3. The epitome of Paulus Diaconus, consisting
dethroned Desiderius, the last king of the Lom- of inaccurate excerpts from Festus, a mere shadow
bards, whom Paul had served as chancellor. of a shade, but even these imperfect outlines are
The original work of Verrius Flaccus has alto- very precious.
gether perished with the exception of one or two 4. The interpolations of Scaliger and Ursinus,
inconsiderable fragments. Of the abstract by Fes- foisted in for the purpose of filling up the blanks in
tus one imperfect MS. only has come down to us. the outside columns of the MS. of Festus. These
It was brought, we are told, from Illyria, and fell are of course almost worthless, since they must be
into the hands of Pomponins Laetus, a celebrated regarded merely as specimens of ingenuity.
scholar of the fifteenth century, who for some rea- Although it is manifest how much the four
son now unknown kept possession of a few leaves parts differ from each other in value, yet all are in
when he transferred the remainder to a certain most editions mixed up into one discordant whole,
Manilius Rallus, in whose hands they were seen in so that it is impossible, without much labour and
14385 by Politian, who copied the whole together research, to analyse the mass and resolve it into its
with the pages retained by Pomponins Laetus. elements. Hence we not unfrequently find in the
This. MS. of Rallus found its way eventually into essays of even distinguished scholars quotations
the Farnese library at Parma, whence it was con- professedly from Festus, which upon examination
veyed, in 1736, to Naples, where it still exists. turn out to be the barbarous blunders of Paulus, or
The portion which remained in the custody of even simply the lucubrations of Ursinus. We
Laetus was repeatedly transcribed, but it is known have now, however, been happily relieved from all
that the archetype was lost before 1581, when such embarrassments by the labours of M'Uller,
Ursinus published his edition. The original codex whose admirable edition is described more partiwritten upon parchment, probably in the eleventh cularly below.
or twelfth century, appears to have consisted, when The principle upon which the words are classientire, of 128 leaves, or 256 pages, each page con- fled is at first sight by no means obvious or inteltaining two columns; but at the period when it ligible. The arrangement is so far alphabetical
was first examined by the learned, fifty-eight leaves that all words commencing with the same letter are
at the beginning were wanting, comprehending all placed together. But the words ranked under each
the letters before M; three gaps, extending in all to letter are, as it were, divided into two parts. In
ten leaves, occurred in different places, and the last the first part the words are grouped, according not
leaf had been torn off, so that only fifty-nine leaves only to the initial, but also to the second and even
were left, of which eighteen were separated from the third and fourth letters; the groups, however,
the rest by Laetus and have disappeared, while succeed each other not as in an ordinary dictionary
forty-one are still found in the Farnese MS. In but irregularly. Thus we find at the beginning of
addition to the deficiencies described above, and to R, not the words in Ra, but those in Ru, next those
the ravages made by dirt, damp, and vermin, the in Ro, next those in Rem, next those in Rh, next
volume had suffered severely from fire, so that those in Re and Ri mixed, next those in Ra, and
while in each page the inside column was in toler- again Re and Ri mixed. In the second part regard
able preservation, only a few words of the outside is paid to the initial letter alone without reference to
column were legible, and in some instances the those which follow it, but the words placed together
whole were destroyed. These blanks have been have in most instances some bond of connection.
ingeniously filled up by Scaliger and Ursinus, partly T.hus in the second part of P we find the series
from conjecture and partly from the correspond- Palatualis, Portenta, Postularia, Pestifera, Peremping paragraphs of Paulus, whose performance ap- talia, Pullas, all of which belong to sacred rites,
pears in a complete form in many MSS. This and especially to auspices. Again, Propius Sobrino.
epitomizer, however, notwithstanding his boast Possessio, Praefecturae, Parret, Postum., Pal-ocinia,
that he had passed over what was superfluous and Posticam lineam, terms relating to civil law; Pompillustrated what was obscure, was evidently ill tina, Papiria, Pupinnia, Pupillia, names of tribes,
qualified for his task; for whenever we have an op- and so on.. The same word is frequently explained
portunity of comparing him with Festus we per- both in the first and in the second part, and someceive that he omitted much that was important, times the two explanations are at variance; thus,
that he slavishly copied clerical blunders, and that Revs, Ritus, Rustica Vinalia, occur in both the first
when any expression appeared perplexing to his and second parts of R, while the remarks on Obsiimperfect scholarship he quietly dropped it alto- dinem, Obsidionemn, in tle first part of 0 are incongether. He added a little, but very little, of his sistent with what is said upon the same words in
own, as, for example, the allusion to his namesake, the second part. The same word is never repeated
the apostle (s. v. barbari), and a few observations twice in the first part, but this sometimes happens
under secus, sacrima, signare,posimeriium,porcas, &c. in the second, when it falls to be interpreted under
It is evident from what has been said that the two heads, as in the case of Praebia. The first part
book, as commonly exhibited, consists of four dis- in some letters is headed by a few words altogether
tinct parts:- out of their order, which seem placed in a conspi