‘IN PONDERE NON MAGNO SATIS PONDEROSAE...’ 15
course of the printed tradition. Had they come earlier, they might per-
haps have kept some editors from blindly following Gronovius’ text.^46
- Conclusion
The limitations and the shortcomings of Gronovius’ edition were to
have a lasting negative impact on the printed tradition of the Thebaid.
The very fact that this edition managed to impose itself for two centu-
ries in spite of these weaknesses offers a clear illustration of the au-
thority that renowned scholars may have exerted on the printed tradi-
tion of some Classical texts, and of its potentially counter-productive
effects.
It is uncertain whether or not Gronovius’ influence was felt imme-
diately, and mainly on the grounds of his pre-existing reputation. In
1653, his fame had not yet reached its peak: in addition to that of Livy
(Leiden 1645), considered today his masterpiece, only his editions of
the two Senecas (Leiden 1649)^47 and of Gellius (Amsterdam 1651)
had already been published. However, in the two decades that fol-
lowed the list of his works was completed by many titles that contrib-
uted to the process of establishing him as an uncontested authority in
the field of Classical scholarship.^48 It is in this new context that Veen-
husen’s cum notis variorum, published in the very year of Gronovius’
death in 1671, was to prove decisive in imposing his text and notes
upon the later Statian tradition. Veenhusen’s edition clearly reflected
his new status, and so probably did the first re-editions of his book.
Gronovius’ influence is not responsible alone for the conservatism
of the later printed tradition: the success of his edition was also partly
due to the vacuum that surrounded it. Except for Barth, almost no
commentator capable of competing with him ever dedicated his efforts
to the Thebaid. The few scholars that did wrote other kinds of com-
mentaries, for other kinds of readers:^49 none really attempted to con-
venter, VI Kal. Jan. 1643, of which I consulted a handwritten copy in Basle, contains
a very brief survey of the manuscript material collected during the ‘Grand Tour’.
46 Cf. n. 50 for an earlier, and much less widely known, criticism on a specific
point.
47 On Gronovius’ part in the rediscovery of the codex Etruscus first used in his
edition of Seneca’s tragedies, see Billerbeck 1997.
48 See Bugter 1980, 223–6.
49 The second half of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century are the
period of cum notis variorum editions as that of Veenhusen, but also of annotated