intro
6. The Facie, which is No. 73 in the so-called Catalogue of Lamprias and No. 71 in the Planudean order, is apparently preserved in only two MSS. of the Bibliothéque Nationale, Grec 1672 (saec. XIV) and 1675 (saec. XV), conventionally called Parisinus E and Parisinus B respectively.On the MSS. of Plutarch generally cf. the references cited by M. Pohlenz, Plutarchi Moralia, i (Teubner, 1925), Praefatio, p. vi, n. 1, and pp. xxvi and xxviii f. on B and E respectively. These have hitherto been supposed to be independent copies of a single archetypeWyttenbach (Plutarchi Moralia [Oxford, 1795], p. xliv) says of B ut videtur, ex E, aut ejusdem exempli codice, ita descriptus ut antiquiores melioresque simul adhiberentur; unde quaedam lacunae uberius etiam expletae, et plura menda sanata. M. Treu, Zur Geschichte der Uberlieferung von Plutarchs Moralia, ii (Ohlau, 1881), pp. 5-7, argued that B derives from the same source as E, which B must have used later; and his conclusion was generally accepted by later editors. Raingeard’s more complicated stemma (p. xiv of his edition of the Facie) is, in any case, entirely unjustified.; but recently G. R. Manton has put forward strong arguments for thinking that B is a descendant of E through an intermediate manuscript, a copy of E, which was worked over by a scholar who filled in lacunae and inserted conjectures of his own. The Manuscript Tradition of Plutarch Moralia 70-7, Class. Quart. xliii (1949), pp. 97-104. Among the passages discussed by Manton where B has readings other than those of E are none from the Facie, for the text of which Manton (Op. cit. p. 99, n. 1) depended upon Treu’s collation supplemented by Bernardakis’ list in vol. i of his edition, pp. 1 ff.; but I have found no variant reading of B in this essay that would surely gainsay Manton’s hypothesis. Those which might suggest that B is not descended from E are the following: 927 F: τὸν -B for E’s correct τὰ before ἐμβριθῆ; 929 B: ἔχων δὲ -B, ἔχων δὲ τοῦτο -B for the correct ἑκὼν δὲ; 932 D: πεποιημένων -B for E’s correct πεπεισμένων: 937 F: ἐπιφερομένη -B, φερομένη -E for the probable original ἀντιφερομένη; 938 D: ἀναγινώσκων -B for E’s correct ἀναγινώσκοντος; 943 D: καταγινομένας -B for E’s correct καταδυομένας, Manton’s conclusion has been rejected by K. Hubert (Rhein. Mus. xciii [1950], pp. 330-336), but Hubert’s defence of the independence of B and E has been counterattacked by Einarson and De Lacy (Class. Phil. xlvi [1951], pp. 103 and 106, with notes 36 and 56).
