Reference edition:

Rhetores Latini Minores, ex codicibus maximam partem primum adhibitis emendabat Carolus Halm, Lipsiae 1863, 48- 58 (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana).

David Ruhnken, active in the middle of the 18^th c., first expressed the conviction that the De schematis lexeos and De schematis dianoeas attributed to Julius Rufinianus were not authentic. Judging its style exilis and ieiunus, he maintained that the rhetorician’s name was attached to the work by a librarius at some unknown point in their transmission (Halm, 48 app.). The work describes 48 figures of speech: 26 of these are introduced by a Greek term, present a definition, and include an example of usage; the remaining 22 lack any clear identification and consist of a single word. Among the latter, one can observe a division into cases (genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative), numbers, prepositions (ad, in), genders, and persons; the final examples, however, address certain effects that are more properly linguistic or grammatical than rhetorical, e.g. the use of indefinite pronouns in place of adjectives or adverbial usages of the same adjectives. This fact may explain why excerpts of the De schematis lexeos were included in ms. Roma, Bibl. Casanatense 1806 (9^th c.), which Ulrich Schindel used to correct certain sections of Halm’s edition. That manuscript’s card is available online via the Manus project (http://manus.iccu.sbn.it//opac_SchedaScheda.php?ID=15974).  Citations found within the text suggest that its author relied primarily on Vergil, with occasional use of Persius, Terence, Plautus, and perhaps Sallust (Adkin 2002).  [A. Balbo; tr. C. L. Caterine].