Archimedes’ writings: through Heiberg’s veil 179
Several factors emerge. Heiberg’s tendency was to introduce brackets
much more into those texts for which we have an extant commentary
by Eutocius (PE, DC, SC). Second, he introduced brackets into Koine
treatises (DC, SC i – ii , Meth.) more than to Doric treatises (thus, of the
treatises for which we have a commentary by Eutocius, PE in Doric has far
fewer brackets than DC, let alone SC). On the other hand, he was reluctant
to introduce brackets into texts for which he had textual authority from the
Palimpsest (thus, he introduced few brackets into the text of the Method ,
even though it is extant in Koine). Finally, he practically did not intervene
in the more discursive text of the Arenarius. I move on to comment on
those factors.
Eutocius
A common source of square brackets (especially at the level of words) is
the comparison of the manuscripts’ text to that of Eutocius’ quotation.
Heiberg’s judgement here may be faulted on philological grounds: it is now
widely understood that many ancient quotations did not aim at precision, 11
and the transformations introduced by Eutocius (e.g. a diff erent particle)
can be explained by the new grammatical context into which the quotation
is inset by Eutocius. Furthermore, the texts for which there is a commentary
by Eutocius are the more elementary, and it appears that Heiberg suspected
that such texts were more heavily retouched by their readers: a reasonable
assumption, seeing that the more advanced works by necessity had much
fewer readers. Th e net result is to make the advanced works the benchmark
against which all the treatises are judged.
Dialect
Archimedes the Syracusan may have written at least some of his works in
Doric – even when addressing Koine readers in Alexandria. Th e manu-
scripts present a variety of positions, between stretches of text written
in what appears like pure Doric, through more mixed passages and all
the way to texts in normal Hellenistic Koine. Heiberg’s edition turns this
variety into just two options: treatises that Heiberg considered to have been
transmitted in the Doric throughout antiquity (which we may call ‘Doric
treatises’), and those he considered to have been turned into Koine at some
point in antiquity (which we may call ‘Koine treatises’). Th us, the presence
11 A case studied in great detail is the quotations of Plato by his epitomizer Alcinous: Whittaker
1990 : xvii–xxx.