8 VALÉRY BERLINCOURT
success of Barth’s work is largely a consequence of the triumph of
Gronovius’ edition. With regard to the commentary tradition, its im-
pact was decisively impeded by Veenhusen’s edition cum notis vari-
orum, which reprinted Gronovius’ notes in their entirety, but offered,
on the other hand, only an extremely short selection of Barth’s exe-
getical material.^24 Now, almost all later commentators before the mid-
dle of the nineteenth century cited Barth only through this selection.^25
As a result, most of his commentary sank into oblivion for two centu-
ries. With regard to the history of the printed text, on the other hand,
his main handicap was that the text published together with his com-
mentary in the edition of Zwickau 1664–5 did not at all reflect his
own work, but was only a slightly modified reprint of Gronovius’.
Since his commentary was itself given little attention in the later exe-
getical tradition, this meant that for later readers, and for later editors
in particular, the only way to have access to by far the greater part of
the original variants discussed, and even of those defended by Barth,
was reading their way through the huge volumes published in 1664–5.
As a matter of fact, almost no editor directly inserted some of Barth’s
critical material into his own text of the Thebaid 26. Friedrich Dübner
was right, therefore, when he lamented that most of it had been forgot-
ten because it had been originally published with a reprint of Grono-
vius’ text:^27
Insane vero egit Daumius, quod Gronovianum textum adjicere, quam
Lindenbrogianum Barthianis copiis et crisi emendare maluit. Ut summa
ejus temeritatis incommoda premam silentio, id certe dicendum,
Daumii meritum esse, quod aliquot millia emendationum certissimarum24 Veenhusen’s notae variorum preserved only about six per cent of Barth’s notes,
usually in a much abreviated form. By contrast, they included about one quarter of
those of Bernartius, and more than three quarters of those of ‘Lactantius Placidus’.
25 A particularly clear example is that of Beraldus’ commentary (Paris 1685),
which used all other previous commentaries directly, but seems only to have known
Barth’s commentary through Veenhusen’s notae variorum. The only exceptions are
Valpy (London 1824), who drew directly from Barth a few variant readings and con-
jectures that he inserted into his apparatus of variae lectiones, as well as Weber
(Frankfurt 1833) and Dübner (Paris 1835–6), who brought to light but a very small
part of his material.
26 Carey (London 1822) along with Weber and Dübner (cf. n. 25) are seemingly
the only exceptions.
27 Ironically, Dübner’s own commentary suffered the same fate that he so vigor-
ously deplored about Barth: the text printed in the edition of Paris 1835–6, where this
commentary was first published, did not reflect Dübner’s own critical work, but was
merely reprinted instead from an earlier edition (Paris 1829–32).