‘IN PONDERE NON MAGNO SATIS PONDEROSAE...’ 9
ad hunc diem in commentariis sepulta jaceant, neque in ullius editionis
textu repraesententur. (Dübner in Paris 1835–6, xiv)
But Daum acted like a madman in that he chose to join to this commen-
tary the text of Gronovius rather than to emend Lindenbrog’s with the
help of Barth’s resources and judgment. To pass in silence over the ex-
treme inconvenience caused by his rash decision, it must certainly be
said that Daum is responsible for the fact that up until our own day
some thousands of absolutely indisputable emendations remain buried
in the commentary and do not appear in the text of any edition.If Dübner was clear-sighted about the negative consequences for the
re ception of Barth’s critical work, he was wrong in attributing the
responsibility for this strategy to the posthumous editor of Barth’s
commentary. Actually, as Daum’s preface makes clear—and I can see
no positive reason to doubt his affirmation—, the decision was not his
own, but that of Barth himself, who had first chosen to reprint Lin-
denbrog’s text, but then changed his mind and decided to reprint
Gronovius’. The deliberate publication of this commentary with an
unrelated text—be it Gronovius’ or Lindenbrog’s—may seem absurd
today, just as it no doubt seemed absurd to Dübner; however, the ideal
of strict correspondence between text and exegetical material that
appears so natural to us is a modern one, and early editors usually did
not care very much, or did not care at all, about such correspondence.
On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the relationship of
the Zwickau edition of 1664–5 to that of Gronovius was particularly
ambiguous, since it both reprinted its text and made no use of its
notes. After all, if Veenhusen’s edition proved decisive in conferring
canonical status on Gronovius’ work on the Thebaid, the process of
canonizing Gronovius’ text actually began with the Zwickau edition.
- Gronovius’ achievement
The last stage of this journey through the history of early editions
leads us to ask in what measure the exceptional success of Gronovius’
edition is justified by its intrinsic quality.
The notes printed in this edition give us the opportunity to see
Gronovius’ method at work. He makes good use of the numerous
manuscripts he collated himself or had collated by others, by carefully