Abstract

Written in northern Europe, the oldest mss. of Firmicus’s ‘Mathesis’ do not reach the end of Book 4, and the later witnesses to all eight books, which descend from the hyparchetypes Γ and Δ, may or may not be indebted in part to the ms. that Poggio borrowed in 1429 from Montecassino, which at the time contained Books 2-8. The present state of the northern-European ms. V yields proof of contamination both in the family of Δ from V itself and in Γ from a family of northern-European mss. that includes some of those dubbed ‘interpolated’ in the Teubner edition; this contamination in Γ is shown to have restored a passage of Book 4 omitted in Δ and equal in length to passages of Books 6 and 7 notoriously preserved only in N. Many eliminations are proposed, two passages of uncertain placing discussed, use made throughout of a ms. that the Teubner editors did not collate (B. L. Harl. 2766, a descendant of Δ), a new ms. of s. XI described, and a case made for regarding the common source of ΓΔ as independent of the northern-European tradition in Book 1. Conclusion: ΓΔ probably owe nothing anywhere to the Casinensis, which left few traces outside N.