NOTE ON THE DIVISION INTO
BOOKS
Lachmann held that Propertius' poems should be divided into five books, not, as the MSS. divide them, into four. His main argument is based on II. xiii.a 25, sat mea sit magno, si tres sint pompa libelli. He argues that the words tres libelli show that the poem in question must have formed part of the third book. He therefore made the third book begin with II. x., and treated the third and fourth books as recorded in the MSS. as fourth and fifth. But it does not seem necessary to give the words tres libelli so literal a meaning, and it is worth noting that the grammarian Nonius, p. 169, quotes III. xxi. 14 as coming from the third book. The division as given in our MSS. would seem, therefore, to be as old as Nonius. Lachmann's division is followed in some texts {e.g., Haupt-Vahlen and L. Müller), and much confusion has been caused as regards references to Propertius. Lachmann's theory has, however, been abandoned by all other editors. If the argument as to tres libelli is to be used again, it will have to be used on different lines, and associated with some theory of the dislocation of the text.
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