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Salvatore Monda (Molise)

The question of the authenticity of Plautus’ non-Varronian plays was already in antiquity a critical debate discussed so much that today most of our knowledge of the early Latin grammarians and of the scholarship of Republican Rome is derived from witnesses to the ancient textual criticism of Plautus. In the Middle Ages and at the beginning of Humanism interest in works transmitted in fragments suffered a considerable and general fall, from the sixteenth century it returned to the top of scholars’ interests.

In the Middle Ages Plautus’ plays were not known.1 However, knowledge of his name continued to be widespread, along with that of many other poets who were little known at that time and of whom today there remain only scanty fragments (NaeviusNaevius, EnniusEnnius, PacuviusPacuvius, and many others). This is the case, for instance, of some late-medieval lexica and other scholarly compilations, such as De poetis, De viris illustribus, and similar works.

An interest in the fragments of non-Varronian plays in the modern era would develop only once the corpus of twenty comedies was well known. But the study of fragments is necessarily connected to the cataloguing of the titles of the comedies ascribed to Plautus. When, in the first phase of Humanism, the main activity of scholars consisted in obtaining texts previously unknown, the first step was to compile indices of titles and to realize plans to rediscover and recover a great number of classical Latin manuscripts.2 For an author like Plautus at first there was no difference between titles of Varronian comedies and titles of lost comedies, even though GelliusGellius, who discussed this question, was well known. Let us look at the main stages of this story.

In the late Middle Ages many scholars compiled works in which they attempt to outline the biography of the Latin authors.3 Plautus is mentioned in the Speculum historiale by the Dominican Friar Vincent de BeauvaisBeauvais, Vincent de, which contains a chapter entitled De Plauto poeta comico et dictis eius,4 with scanty biographical information derived from GelliusGellius and a collection of sayings from the AululariaAulularia. The lemma Plaucius (later corrected to Plautus in the printed editions) that we find in the Liber de vita et moribus philosophorumBurley, WalterLiber de vita et moribus philosophorum by the scholastic philosopher Walter BurleyBurley, Walter5 certainly depends on Vincent de BeauvaisBeauvais, Vincent de. BurleyBurley, Walter’s work, which had an enormous fortuna, as witnessed by a very high number of manuscripts, is full of wrong attributions and gross chronological errors.6 On Plaucius BurleyBurley, Walter begins as follows: poeta comicus, Tulli discipulus, Rome claruit. From Gellius he draws the report that slavery for debts forced the poet to write and sell comedies. These data, however, will then be taken up, corrected, and supplemented by some Italian scholars of the Veronese and Paduan prehumanism,7 starting with Giovanni ColonnaColonna, Giovanni and his De viris illustribusColonna, GiovanniDe viris illustribus and Mare historiarumColonna, GiovanniMare historiarum.8 The chapter De Plauto comico poeta of the Liber de viris illustribus repeats almost word for word the passage of BurleyBurley, Walter, while in the Mare historiarum (De Ennio, Pacubio, Plauto et Nevio atque Possidonio qui per ea tempora in Italia claruerunt) ColonnaColonna, Giovanni also quotes Plautus’ epitaph. However, none of these works mentions Plautine titles or recalls the question of the uncertain attribution of some plays, at least not in terms of the problem raised by GelliusGellius. The first scholar to focus widely on the works of the authors he quotes is Guglielmo da PastrengoPastrengo, Guglielmo da,9 jurist and literatus from Verona, also known for his friendship and correspondence with Francesco PetrarcaPetrarca, Francesco. His De viris illustribus10 is structured according to the alphabetical order used already by BurleyBurley, Walter. He mentions some titles of Plautus’ comedies (p. 180–181 Bottari):

Plautus, poeta comicus, post secundum bellum Punicum non multum ultra annos XV, ut refert Agelius, in scena florens, scripsit comedias: Captivos, Cassinam, Deiphebum, Cistellariam, Pseudodoneam, Rudentem, Gurgilionem, Menechos, Bachides, Mustelariam, Asinariam, Truculentum, Militem gloriosum, Aululariam, Penulum, De natura deorum, Epidicum, Menegnos, Vidulariam, Amphidrionem, Persas, Merchatorem, Lenones, Calceolum, Astrabam, Bacariam.

The main source is PriscianPriscian (NoniusNonius Marcellus was not yet known to the scholars of Verona and for Festus we must wait for the recovery of the codex Farnesianus). Eighteen of the twenty-one extant plays of Plautus are cited (PseudolusPseudolus, StichusStichus, and TrinummusTrinummus are missing). The presence of the Deiphebus (sic) should be explained by the confusion of Plautus’ nomen, which was then thought to be AcciusAccius; the title is in fact also present among Accius’ tragedies (p. 14, 8 Bottari), who, again because of the same mistake, is called poeta comicus by GuglielmoPastrengo, Guglielmo da.11 VarroVarro’s Menippean satire Pseudodonea (for Pseudaeneas) and CiceroCicero’s De natura deorumCiceronat. deor. are errors due to the praenomen Marcus assigned to Plautus too.12 Menechos and Menegnos are of course the MenaechmiMenaechmi. The last four are non-Varronian plays: Lenones quoted by Priscian, Calceolus by MacrobiusMacrobius, Astraba by GelliusGellius, and Bacaria again by Macrobius. Other non-Varronian plays, together with StichusStichus and TrinummusTrinummus, appear under the entry dedicated to PacuviusPacuvius (p. 179 Bottari).

Compared to these first attempts at a bio-bibliographic arrangement of the material, the next generation of Renaissance humanists takes a major step forward, thanks, above all, to their very careful and intelligent use of ancient sources. As regards Plautus an example is the erudite work of Sicco PolentonPolenton, Sicco.13 In the second of his Scriptorum illustrium Latinae linguae libri XVIIIPolenton, SiccoScriptores illustrium Latinae linguae the section on comic poets is inspired by the canon of Volcacius SedigitusSedigitus, Volcacius (considered, as often happens among the humanists, to be Nigidius Figulus). The second poet is Plautus (pp. 53–55 Ullman). Sicco PolentonPolenton, Sicco provides essential information on Plautus’ life and art, also recalling the poet’s self-epitaph. He is the first scholar to deal with the number of the comedies (he uses Gell. 3, 3 and Serv. praef. in Aen. p. 4, 15 Thilo-Hagen):

Comoedias vero edidit Plautus multas […] quales autem et quot essent, quod multae dubii atque incerti nominis vagarentur, magnum inter peritos certamen fecit. Eas quidem numero esse nonnulli quinque et viginti, multi XL, aliqui centum, quidam XXX etiam super centum putant (p. 54 Ullman).

And, in this regard, Sicco PolentonPolenton, Sicco also forms his own judgment: quid autem verius, credi potius quam certo discerni potest. He recalls VarroVarro’s thesis on the possible confusion between two poets, Plautus and Plautius (auctorem hac in re Varronem sequor, p. 55 Ullman); he also claims that neque vero defuerant qui vere scriptas a Plauto sua vel temeritate vel arbitrio usurpassent, and then mentions GelliusGellius’ account, according to which Plautus would amend the comedies of previous poets too. His sources are almost all that we possess today to reconstruct the Plautine question. Sicco PolentonPolenton, Sicco never mentions any comedy titles, but his exposition is extremely clear and can be appreciated for the lucidity of his judgment. Much of his information was then taken by a pupil of PolitianPoliziano, Angelo, Pietro Ricci or del Riccio, better known as Petrus CrinitusCrinitus, Petrus, in his De poetis LatinisCrinitus, PetrusDe poetis Latinis.14 This work enjoyed a great success, so much so that the extract of Plautus’ life was printed in almost all editions of Plautine plays until the eighteenth century.

Some titles of non-Varronian comedies are collected, together with the testimonia on the life of the poet, in humanistic manuscripts containing the twenty comedies of Plautus. On more than one occasion these lives indicate the number of plays and mention the problem of authorship of some of them: always cited is GelliusGellius (often named Agellius) and what he wrote on this subject in 3, 3, 10–11.15 The composite ms. Escorialensis T. II. 8, which contains the corpus of twenty comedies in two parts, the first written about 1420 and the second about 1435, is the oldest known exemplar of the so-called Itala recensio. The manuscript presents a great number of marginal notes, ascribed by Alba Tontini to Antonio BeccadelliBeccadelli, Antonio, also known as Panormita.16 Before the text of the comedies there is a series of titles of non-Varronian plays from NoniusNonius Marcellus: Apud Nonium Marcellum has quoque allegatas inveni in:17 Cornicularia, Chryses (the final -s is added), Medicus (Medico then corrected), Astraba, Frivolaria, Plocinus (Plocino then corrected), VidulariaVidularia, Carbonaria. The author of the marginal notes must therefore have drawn this list of comedies from NoniusNonius Marcellus alone (the only author who calls the Cornicula by the name Cornicularia and who, this time like PriscianPriscian, abbreviates the Parasitus medicus as Medicus). The presence of PacuviusPacuvius’ Chryses is explained by the fact that NoniusNonius Marcellus (p. 105 Lindsay), after two quotations from Plautus, mistakenly quotes a line of the Chryses, assigning it to Plautus instead of Pacuvius (trag. 93 Ribbeck³). On the left margin is written: De astraba tamen dubitare se NoniusNonius Marcellus (p. 97 Lindsay) dicit utrum ea Plauti sit in vocabulo: apludas.

All this demonstrates a secondary interest in Plautus’ fragmentary plays: the scribe reported only titles found by chance, for, had he wished, he could have composed a more complete list of titles, since at that time VarroVarro, GelliusGellius, NoniusNonius Marcellus, and PriscianPriscian were available. The discovery, by Nicholas of CusaKues, Nicolaus von, of a manuscript with twelve new comedies is recent: Plautus is now a well-known playwright. But the lists of titles are still written in the hope of new discoveries: in the fifteenth century there is still no awareness of selecting and collecting fragments as such.

Niccolò PerottiPerotti, Niccolò, in his CornucopiaePerotti, NiccolòCornucopiae, a commentary on MartialMartial’s Liber spectaculorum and First Book of Epigrams, quotes a lot of passages unknown to us from various authors, including Plautus.18 These fragments are mentioned without giving them any particular weight. If they were authentic and not composed by PerottiPerotti, Niccolò himself or found in humanistic glossaries, we would think that he had not understood their importance, or perhaps even that he was not particularly aware of it. But most likely they are false fragments, which the scholar quoted in good faith. In 1947 Revilo Pendleton Oliver19 was the first to notice the presence of new fragments, especially of Latin authors of the Republican era. Oliver claimed that these fragments came from an edition of NoniusNonius Marcellus that was augmented, in comparison to the edition we now possess (NoniusNonius Marcellus auctus).20 However, Oliver’s proof of the existence of an exemplar of NoniusNonius Marcellus in the margin of which some learned monks added passages of lost glossaries that were still extant at that time is far from convincing. Ferruccio Bertini, on the other hand, presented in numerous articles his theory of the existence of a NoniusNonius Marcellus plenior.21 In my opinion this possibility is to be rejected too: many fragments cited by Perotti concern authors such as Apuleius who never (or almost never) appear in NoniusNonius Marcellus. In the fifteenth century there were in fact interpolated copies of the De compendiosa doctrina22 and the interpolations seem generally humanistic. Sebastiano Timpanaro, who examined the EnniusEnnius quotations, considered them a humanistic fake, arguing mainly on metrical and linguistic grounds.23 Among the authors most frequently quoted by Perotti the name of Plautus stands out, also for the presence of numerous ‘new’ fragments of the playwright.24

After the 16th March 1477 PerottiPerotti, Niccolò returned to Sassoferrato where he died on the 15th December 1480; it was in these years that he worked on the CornucopiaePerotti, NiccolòCornucopiae. The nephew, Pirro, to whom we owe the preface, says that the work served his uncle as personal study notes. Perhaps his library in Sassoferrato was not well-stocked with books. I suspect that often Perotti did not check the sources, quoting them from memory, and sometimes inventing some quotations. When a line seems perfect but contains a serious metrical error, the possibility that it could be a humanistic quasi versus is very high. I am thinking, for example, of a line attributed to Plautus by Perotti (ed. 1526, 10 = I 53 Charlet):

Coniice, conde, cela ne quis vĭdeat.

Furthermore, the assumption that conicere means abscondere, as PerottiPerotti, Niccolò argues, is simply untrue. In another passage Perotti assigns to Plautus a verb, fortificare, that is attested for the first time in Caelius Aurelianus. The fragment is (ed. 1526, 34 = I 168 Charlet):

fortifica animum

Robert EstienneEstienne, Robert in his Latin dictionary25 specifically mentions PerottiPerotti, Niccolò’s CornucopiaePerotti, NiccolòCornucopiae among his sources. Estienne usually gives very accurate quotations of the passages chosen as examples, while for the lemma fortifico (I 324) he simply writes Plaut. fortifica animum. It is clear that this example originated with Perotti. The erroneous attribution to Plautus of the verb will be questioned only by Forcellini: «quod ex Plauto afferunt quidam Lexicographi fortifica animum, suspectum, ne dicam falsum, valde est».26

Perotti is not an isolated case. In Domizio CalderiniCalderini, Domizio’s writings too we find incorrect and false lines, almost always from second-hand quotations.27 This is not surprising for someone who even invented the ancient historian Marius Rusticus, nor is it surprising that he, like PerottiPerotti, Niccolò, gives no emphasis to the ‘new’ fragments of Plautus. That someone in the fifteenth century would be interested in fragments is not self-evident.

Angelo Ambrogini, known as PolitianPoliziano, Angelo, was one of the few at that time to take an interest in the texts transmitted in fragments. He worked on CallimachusKallimachos’ Lock of Berenice, Hecale, and Aetia when other scholars were dealing only with the hymns, and he studied EupolisEupolis’ DemoiEupolisDemoi.28 PolitianPoliziano, Angelo dedicates chapter 91 of his Miscellaneorum centuria primaPoliziano, AngeloMiscellaneorum centuria prima to this comedy and, with regard to collections of fragments, writes:29

agedum (si placet) ipsos ex EupolidosEupolis δήμοιςEupolisDemoi (id enim comoediae nomen) versiculos subiiciamus, gratum puto futurum studiosis, si ceu spicilegium racemationemque faciamus, aut si tabulas veluti quaspiam ex hoc literarum naufragio collectas, in corpus aliquod restituamus.30

With this passage PolitianPoliziano, Angelo inaugurates the successful tradition of the shipwreck simile comparing the remains of ancient authors to those of a sunken raft, which was destined to become a topos when referring to the collections of fragments.31

When PolitianPoliziano, Angelo argues about the linguistic variety of a classical author or when he himself makes use of rare Latin words, he often turns to Plautus.32 In a couple of cases, fragments are involved. A few years ago, attention was drawn by Silvia Rizzo to a fragment taken from Plautus’ Frivolaria:33 on the basis of early manuscripts PolitianPoliziano, Angelo restored the term sororientes in Pliny the ElderPlinius d.Ä. (nat. hist. 31, 66). He used this hapax also in his poem Puella.34 Later, however, after finding in Plautus the attestation of sororiare (Frivol. VIII Monda, quoted by Festus p. 380 Lindsay), PolitianPoliziano, Angelo thought that Pliny’s reading should be corrected to sororiantes35 and so he wanted to replace this form also in his poem.36 Another Plautine fragment (inc. XV Monda), also drawn from Festus, is quoted by PolitianPoliziano, Angelo in his commentary on line 35 of TerenceTerenz’sTerenz AndriaTerenzAndr. (p. 42, 14 Lattanzi Roselli): ‘Deiurare’: eiuratio – ut Festus – significat id quod desideretur non posse praestari. Plautus: eiuravit militiam.

So, in the fifteenth century, excepting perhaps PolitianPoliziano, Angelo, there was no great interest in fragmentary works, nor for collecting them. In the case of Plautus (though the point can be extended to all the playwrights) there are no traces of editions of fragmentary plays in humanistic manuscripts. The advent of the printing press, however, favoured larger and more complex publishing operations.37 The VidulariaVidularia, of course, at this point remained one of the lost plays.

The editio princeps by Giorgio MerulaMerula, Giorgio (1472) and the two editions by Eusebius ScutariusScutarius, Eugenius (1490 and 1495) did not contain the fragments, but at the end of the fifteenth century the times were ripe for a collection of Plautus’ lost plays.38 Thus, in the Plautus cum correctione et interpretatione Hermolai, Merulae, Politiani et Beroaldi et cum multis additionibus, probably published in Milan in 1497,39 we find in the appendix a small sylloge of fragmentary texts: Ex multis Plauti comoediis hae reperiuntur citatae a gravissimis authoribus: M. Tulio C., Au. Gellio, Nonio Marcello, Festo Pompeio et Prisciano, quas ordine litterarum dissposuimus (sic). The collection contains only fragments of plays of which the titles are preserved: Astrabacum, Carbonaria, Commorientes, Cornicularia, Epodus, Frivolaria, Lenones, Lipargus, Medicus, Moechus, Nervus, Plotium, Polegus, Saturio, Stematicus, Synephoebi (sic), VidulariaVidularia. Many of them are clearly wrong; for instance the Synephebi is assigned to Plautus instead of Caecilius StatiusStatius; Epodus is the EpidicusEpidicus (35–36); from the Polegus is quoted the line ut rem video te inventum a vanitudine, which is actually Capt.Captivi 569 (with variant readings), which begins with the words pol ego, which have been mistaken for a title; the Moechus is explicitly taken from GelliusGellius 1, 7, 3, who writes ut in Plauti comoedia moechus eqs.; but, if moechus were a comedy title, it would be in the ablative case in Gellius’ passage: in the nominative case it must be the subject of the sentence and therefore this adulterer has to be recognized as a character (the situation recalls Bacch.Bacchides 918 or Poen.Poenulus 862).

Many other editions follow, including one, with a commentary, by Giovan Battista PioPio, Giovan Battista (Mediolani 1500) which does not contain fragments, but which often compares or restores Plautine passages with the help of fragments, or the edition by Symon CharpentariusCharpentarius, Symon (1513) which reproduces exactly the same fragments as those of the Milanese incunable.40

The first real edition of Plauti deperditarum fabularum fragmenta is that of Georg FabriciusFabricius, Georg,41 printed in the second edition of Plautus’ plays by Ioachim CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim in 1558.42 The first edition of this work,43 as is well known, marks a milestone in the history of modern Plautine criticism: CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim, who had at his disposal the manuscript B (Vat. Pal. Lat. 1615, 10th–11th century, the so-called Vetus Camerarii), was able to read, at the end of the TruculentusTruculentus, the note (f. 211v) Plauti | TruculentusTruculentus explicit incipit VidulariaVidularia | VidulariaVidularia.44 And so he was the first scholar to understand that VidulariaVidularia was one of the twenty-one Varronian comedies. His first edition did not contain the fragments, but in the introductory letter some titles of non-Varronian comedies are mentioned. The text is as follows (pp. 900–901):

Viginti tamen et unam Varronem Plauto sine dubitatione attribuisse accepimus quae et ‘Varronianae’ appellatae fuerunt. Eae, ut opinor, quae adhuc extant, et praeter illas insuper VidulariaVidularia, cuius et in nostro veteri libro nomen exaratum cernitur, sed in hac inscriptione ille finitur, cum magno crimine inertis et pigris scriptoris qui non addiderit ad titulum etiam fabulam. Verum, praeter illas, haec a grammaticis Latinis nomina fabularum Plautinarum commemorata annotavimus: Astraba, quod vehiculi genus est (Straba etiam legitur, haud scio an falso, in Nonio interpretante verbum ‘reciprocare’), Cornix, Cornicula, Cornicularia (nescio una ne a librariis mutato nomine, quod scriberetur in veteribus exemplaribus dimidiatum, an tres diversae), Parasitus, Medicus, Nervolaria, Frivolaria, Plocinona, Sisennaria, Carbonaria, Colax (quo nomine et Naevii fuit fabula), Lepargus, Lenones, Gemini (quod nomen in libro VI Prisciani legitur; in Gellio autem Gemini et Leones, ut videtur, mendose), Dyscolus, Artemona, Phasma, Patina vel Patinaria, Hortulus, Persae, Caecus, Praedones, Trigemini, CaptiviCaptivi (nam alia haec fuit, quam ea quae extat, cuius est nomen CaptiviCaptivi duo), Addictus, Saturio (quas in pistrino scripsisse perhibetur), Anus, Condalium, Bis compressa, Boeotia, Ἄγροικος, Fretum, Calciolus, Baccaria, Cacistus.

In the second edition45 the same text of the Epistola is anastatically reproduced: this implies that CamerariusCamerarius d.Ä., Joachim mentions titles that present differences and omissions compared to FabriciusFabricius, Georg’ edition of fragments printed in the same volume. The edition of the fragments is preceded by a letter (p. 912) from FabriciusFabricius, Georg dated 1550, which testifies that his work was ready in 1550: we do not know why it was published only in 1558. FabriciusFabricius, Georg for the first time collects both fragments of comedies of which we know the title and fragments incertae sedis (pp. 913–935); there follows a list of sources (pp. 925–935). There are still many errors and wrong attributions, both often due to errors of transmission in the texts of the sources used.

The greatest difficulty in collecting fragments at that time lay in the fact that there were no reliable editions of their sources. And there was not yet any scholar who was really interested in collecting fragments. That remained the case until the debut on the philological scene of the figure who was destined to become the greatest scholar of his time, as was PolitianPoliziano, Angelo in the previous century: Joseph Justus ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus. ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus never published an edition of Plautine fragments, and his emendations in our critical apparatuses are flanked by those of other authors of adversaria philologa, such as Schoppius, Canter, Turnebus, and many others.46 Why, then, should we consider him the scholar who contributed most of all to the philological reconstitution of the texts transmitted in fragments?

ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus is not only the author of important writings on the sources of the fragments,47 but was also the promoter of many other works. In the same years in which he was working on VarroVarro, a collection of fragmentary Latin poets by Robert EstienneEstienne, Robert came out posthumously.48 The work was completed, after the death of Robert EstienneEstienne, Robert, in 1559, by his son Henri. The volume includes epic poets and playwrights, such as LiviusLivius Andronicus, NaeviusNaevius, EnniusEnnius, Caecilius, PacuviusPacuvius, and poets such as Lucilius, the neoteroi, and Petronius. There are no fragments of Plautus, which were also absent from the edition of the M. Plauti Comoediae XX edited by Stephanus in 1530.

Robert EstienneEstienne, Robert’s is an important collection of fragments, published by a friend of ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus, but an edition full of gaps and errors that can be easily explained if we recall that at that time there was not yet a reliable edition of the auctores who mention the greatest number of fragments: NoniusNonius Marcellus Marcellus, Festus, VarroVarro, and the grammarians. Probably Estienne’s experiment was considered inadequate by ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus, since he himself decided to engage in the study of some of the most important sources of fragments. In this regard, his Coniectanea in M. Terentium Varronem de lingua Latina published in 1565 are fundamental,49 also because all subsequent editors of Plautus took them into account. Also worth mentioning are ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s Castigationes on Festus: they were first published in 1575 and then again the following year.50 In these works it is remarkable how ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s greatest effort is devoted to emending the fragments quoted by Varro and Festus. In his Coniectanea, p. 168 ad 7, 104, speaking of some verses of EnniusEnnius, he takes up the simile of the shipwreck used by PolitianPoliziano, Angelo:51

Valde enim delectant me hae reliquiae veterum auctorum, tanquam quaedam ex naufragio tabellae.

ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus also planned an edition of NoniusNonius Marcellus Marcellus’ lexicon. However, he had to abandon the project because of the NoniusNonius Marcellus edited by Hadrianus Junius, which was published in 1565 by Plantin with an imperial privilege that prevented anyone else from editing NoniusNonius Marcellus for six years.52 A copy of this edition preserved in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. S V 35, contains ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s handwritten marginalia,53 and his work on NoniusNonius Marcellus is also attested by a personal collation of a manuscript, which has been transcribed into a Venice 1513 and a Basel 1526 edition of PerottiPerotti, Niccolò’s CornucopiaePerotti, NiccolòCornucopiae with VarroVarro, Festus, and NoniusNonius Marcellus, both owned by Isaac Vossius (Leiden, University Library, 761 A 9 and 761 A 10).54

Essential for NoniusNonius Marcellus and Fulgentius, however, is the second edition by Josias MercerusMercerus, Josias,55 in which many of ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s observations are included. As regards the fragments, the uncertainties and contradictions are still many. MercerusMercerus, Josias is the only scholar to assume the existence of Tiberius as a comedy title, since he reads (p. 134) NoniusNonius Marcellus’ sentence introducing the quotation of Cornicula fr. II as follows: Plautus Cornicularia: Latrocinatus annos decem meret. Idem in Tiberio: Qui apud regem in latrocinio fuisti, stipendium acceptitasti. Yet MercerusMercerus, Josias himself in a footnote, recalling the same line of Plautus according to VarroVarro too, concludes with more judgment: «Itaque hic legendum, latrocinatus annos decem Demetrio, qui apud regem i. l. f. s. a. quae sunt Nonii explicantis Plautum, vel potius eius a quo NoniusNonius Marcellus exscribsit».

As far as the grammarians are concerned, the edition by Elias van PutschenPutschen, Elias van of the Grammaticae latinae auctores antiqui published in 1605 was encouraged by ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s philological activity. In 1598 Putschius studied law at the University of Leiden, where from 1593 ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus had succeeded Iustus LipsiusLipsius, Justus as professor. The edition by PutschiusPutschen, Elias van begins with a dedicatory epistle Illustri et incomparabili viro Iosepho Scaligero Iul. Caesaris filio in which he mentions ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s early writings on VarroVarro and Festus.

To return to Plautus’ fragments, ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus believed in the existence of a comedy of Plautus entitled Clitellaria (The comedy of the saddle), for he observed in the sources some quotations from passages of the CistellariaCistellaria that were absent from the manuscripts of the comedy. It was only after the discovery of the Ambrosian palimpsest that it was possible to read these quotations among the frustula of an act attested only in that manuscript. In his commentary on VarroVarro ling. Lat. 7, 64 ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus claims that in these grammatical sources the title CistellariaCistellaria must be corrected to Clitellaria, which is nothing more than a second title of the non-Varronian comedy Astraba (which in Greek means “saddle”, more or less like clitellae).

ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus, moreover, attributes to the Clitellaria an entire passage reconstructed on the basis of various fragments of the CistellariaCistellaria: the current lines 405, 407 (both from VarroVarro), 408 (from Festus and PriscianPriscian), and 383 (from NoniusNonius Marcellus). Elsewhere too he exploits the possibility of joining several fragments in order to compose a single one. In his Coniectanea, p. 168 ad Varr. ling. Lat. 7, 104, about some lines of EnniusEnnius, he writes:

Hi luculentissimi versiculi a nobis non solum emendati sunt, sed et, quod quatuor locis dispersi sunt apud Nonium, in unum corpus collecti et digesti.

The first collection of Plautine fragments that follows ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s studies on the sources is that of Pierre DanielDaniel, Pierre, published as an appendix to the 1577 edition of LambinusLambinus, Dionysius.56 It should be remembered that LambinusLambinus, Dionysius himself in two letters dated 1571 and 1572 asked ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus for help with some corrections and conjectures on the text of Plautus.57 The LambinusLambinus, Dionysius edition was published posthumously and was edited by Iacobus Helias, author of an introductory epistle explaining the criteria adopted and mentioning the work of reconstructing LambinusLambinus, Dionysius’ notes («Hi commentarii manu Lambini ita scripti erant ut non codex sed adversaria viderentur esse»). With regard to the fragments Helias writes: «Adiunximus Plautina loca ex antiquis Grammaticis a Georgio Fabricio collecta et a Petro Daniele Aurelio doctissimo viro quibusdam in locis correcta et aucta». In fact, the edition is not very different from that of FabriciusFabricius, Georg, of which it contains all the brief notes of comment, but it contains some additions and corrections, as well as an extra comedy, ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s Clitellaria.

The first edition of Friedrich TaubmannTaubmann, Friedrich, which appeared in 1605, also reproduces for the most part the edition by FabriciusFabricius, Georg with Daniel’s additions.58 The edition begins with a dedicatory epistle to ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus, LipsiusLipsius, Justus, and Casaubon. In the second edition of 1612, however, the fragments are provided with a broader commentary.59 TaubmannTaubmann, Friedrich accepts many of ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s conjectures and proposes the same reconstruction of the Astraba sive Clitellaria. In the preface to the fragments he writes (p. 1233): «Aliis itaque cunctantibus aut prorsus forte nolentibus ego hanc operam sumere coactus fui quod in priori editione a me fieri debuisse per epistolam ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus expostulaverat».60 TaubmannTaubmann, Friedrich also quotes an epistle by ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus (pp. 1314–1315) in which is written:

Quae non sunt Plauti, qualia illa olim Amphitruoni infulta et Prologus Bacchidum et reliqua non quidem recentioris sed tamen sequioris aevi in privatum locum coniici debent. Praeterea Fragmenta omnia sedulo ad calcem ponenda et illustranda. Hoc modo luculentum Plautum promittere potes.

Thus, ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus also gave instructions on how to do the edition. In fact, TaubmannTaubmann, Friedrich’s is organized in a different way from all the others that preceded it, because each title and fragment is immediately followed by the commentary with the specification of the source. The approach corresponds to that of modern editions of fragmentary texts.

The first edition of Johann Philipp PareusPareus, Johann Philipp is in open controversy with TaubmannTaubmann, Friedrich.61 The collection of fragments is based on that of DanielDaniel, Pierre, with the addition of a few notes in the margins. In the second edition PareusPareus, Johann Philipp has at his disposal the Latin grammarians by Helias Putschius and, for VarroVarro and Festus, he refers to ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus’s Coniectanea and Castigationes.62 The third and final edition is in 1641,63 published in disagreement with Janus GruterusGruter, Jan and his revised and corrected reprint of the TaubmannTaubmann, Friedrich edition.64 PareusPareus, Johann Philipp’ commentary is of some cultural interest in revealing seventeenth-century attitudes to the ancient authors and their texts, and even for his vain attempts to attribute some titles to M. AcciusAccius Plautus, others to A. Plautius, and others again to an M. Acutius. From this time on, approximately until Friedrich Bothe, the numerous editions of Plautus’ plays do not, at least in the fragments, present any important novelties.

A study dealing with the early modern tradition of Plautus’ non-Varronian plays shows once again the new kind of inquiry practised by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholarship on the texts transmitted in fragments. Apart from some interpretations that are now only of historical value, the great effort early modern scholars put into Plautus’ fragments is testified by the number and quality of their emendations still recorded in our critical editions. ScaligerScaliger, Joseph Justus and many other scholars of the time, with their ambitious and innovative writings, played a special part in the cultural process of modern Europe also by collecting and studying the fragmentary remains of the past.