Reference Edition: 

Q. Terentii Scauri De orthographia, a cura di Federico Biddau, Hildesheim, Weidmann, 2008

The De orthographia of Terentius Scaurus is the most ancient orthographical text that survives from the classical world. It is an important testimony to previous and contemporary linguistic considerations, as well as of the forms that hearken to languages like Sabine and Oscan, and it was regularly cited and used until the end of Late Antiquity. The beginning of the treatise is missing, but probably we lost only the preface and an initial definition of orthography. The rest presents an orderly structure. Through a series of exempla, Scaurus first delineates the four categories of orthographical errors (adiectio, detractio, immutatio, annexio) and the three rules to correct them (historia,originatio, proportio). Then comes a section on the relationship between letters (mutual affinities; combinations within syllables). This introduces the longest and most detailed part of the work, which examines individual orthographic questions, divided into the same categories of errors that were outlined at the beginning of the treatise. The final apostropheto the dedicatee is a clear pendantto the initial dedication, now lost. There are noteworthy points of contact between this treatise and a work of the same name by Velius Longus, who was a near contemporary to Scaurus: these similarities provide evidence for the secure dating of the text. Moreover, the citation of Scaurian passages in later grammarians (Charisius, Diomedes, Priscian) allows us to unreservedly accept Scaurusas the author of De Orthographia, as is attested by the manuscript witnesses (Tempesti is of a different opinion, considering it a later product).

The treatise quotes Vergil and Lucretius as well as fr. 2 (Morel) of Carmen Saliare and Lex XII tab. 1, 7, and makes textual references to Lucilius (351; 352-355; 358-61 Marx). Scaurus draws from several sources: besides the regular and predictable presence of Varro, it is possible to consider or hypothesise Verrius Flaccus and Remmius Palaemon as models and antecedents for the different questions addressed in De orthographia; Remmius Palaemon is also clearly transmitted through Quintilian. Occasionally, a critical debate with Annaeus Cornutus emerges from the work, and it is plausible that Scaurus used Greek authors. The treatise, according to Charisius, reveals the author as a grammatical purist, interested in archaisms, and therefore aligned with the linguistic tendencies of the Hadrianic age (Baschera).

The text of De orthographiais transmitted in nine manuscripts and two printed editions. Six of the codices contain only the first lines of the text: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 13025, lat. 7521 and Nouv. acq. lat. 763); München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14252; St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, 249; Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, Voss. lat. Q. 33; these six preserve a nearly identical portion of the text, and so they are thought to have a common archetype. The three other codices preserve the text nearly in its entirety, and therefore they are considered fundamental for its constitutio: Berna, Burgerbibliothek, 330; Città del Vaticano, Bibl. Apostol. Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1741 and Vat. lat. 1491. The editio princepsof the printed editions was prepared by Alessandro Gaboardo, professor of humanae litterae at Pesaro, and published in 1511 by Girolamo Soncino; the editio secunda, edited by Johannes Sichardt, a professor of rhetoric, was published in Basel in 1527. The Bern and Palatine codices, as well as the two editions, include a long untitled fragment at the end of Scaurus’ text (Keil, GL, VII, 29, 3-33, 13). This concerns a grammatical topic, but it is independent of the Orthographia; Biddau calls it the Appendix Scaurina, although Scaurus is probably not its author (Keil still published the Appendixat the end of Scaurus’ text: discussion in Biddau, LXVIII-LXXI).

 A few years after the publication of the princeps, the humanist Giano Parrasio noted on one copy some important emendatory interventions and conjectures; this was then used by Giovanni Pietro dalle Fosse (the pseudonym of Pierio Valeriano, from Belluno), whose Castigationes Vergilianae (1521) often refers to Scaurus’ theories, and broadcasts Parrasio’s conjectures. Below, the Basel edition will be preferred to Soncino’s, and the philological and grammatical expertise of several scholars will be used on Scaurus’ text (from Fabricius to Ludovico Carrione). The subsequent edition of the work, in van Putschen’s Grammatici Latini (1605), was to become a reference text for more than two centuries. Then Heinrich Keil inserted the text into the corpus of grammarians. He combined the Basel edition with the Bern codex, the Vatican Palatine codex, and some of the extracts: this marked the final important milestone for the treatise’s arrangement until the more aggressive studies and textual reconstructions of our contemporary era. [Anita Di Stefano; tr. C. Belanger]