literature such palimpsests as the Codex Am-
broisanus of Plautus have unique value. JMost
important of course are the rare cases where a
lost work may be recovered from a palimpsest,
as iu the ease of the Republic of Cicero, or the
Instilutis of Gaius.
It will easily be understood, therefore, that the chief, if not the sole, interest of palimpsest manuscripts lies in the ancient writing which they had contained, and that their value to lit- erature mainly depends on the degree of legibil- ity which the ancient writing still retains. Very conuuunly the original writing is much larger than the modern; the modern lines and letters do not cover those of the old manuscript, but follow the same order. In other specimens the new writing is transverse, and in some the old l)age is turned upside down. Sometimes, where the old page is divided into columns, the new writing is carried over them all iu a single line; sometimes the old page is doubled, so as to form two pages in the new manuscript. Sometimes it is cut into two or even three pages. The most perplexing case of all for the decipherer is that in which the new letters are of the same size, and are written upon the same lines with those of the original manuscript. In the case of Latin palimpsests, it is generally true that lower minuscule writing, when legible at all. is scarce- ly worth the trouble of reading. The valuable manuscripts are in capitals or uncials. Some variety, also, is found in the language of the palimpsests. In those which were originally found in the Western libraries the new writing is almost invariably Latin, while the original is sometimes Greek, and sometimes Latin. In the palimpsests discovered in the East the original is commonly Greek, the new writing being some- times Greek, sometimes Syriac, sometimes Arme- nian.
The ])Ossibility of making use of palimpsest manuscri|)ts in order to increase our store of ancient literature was suggested as far back as the days of ilontfaucon: but the idea was not turned to practical account till the latter part of the eighteenth century. The first pa- limpsest editor was a German scholar, iJr. Paul Bruns, who discovered that one of the Vatican manuscripts was a palimpsest, the eflfaced matter of which was a fragment of the ninety-tirst book of Livy's Roman Hislor)/. and printed this frag- ment at Hamburg in 177.'?. In the field of discovery thus opened by Bruns, but little prog- ress was made until the following century, when Barrett of Trinity College, Dublin, published his palimpsest fragments of Saint ilatthew, and when palimpsest literature rose to importance in the hands of the celebrated -ingelo Mai (q.v. ). The great historian Xiebuhr about the same time applied himself to the subject, and was followed by Blume, Pertz, Gaupp, ilomnisen, Studemund, and other German scholars, whose labors, how- ever, were for the most part confined to the de- partment of ancient Roman law, Tiscliendorf's (q.v.) labors drew attention to the biblical texts thus preserved, and Cureton's examinations of Syriac and other Eastern manuscripts showed the importance of this field, where the most valuable result has been the discovery in the monastery at Alount Sinai of an early Syriac version of the Gospels under some lives of female saints.
Greek Palimpsests. Among these, the first place in importance belongs to the biblical pa- limpsests, the earliest of which was Fragments of the (iuspcl uf Saint Mtitthcw, in fac-siniile as well as in ordinary type, printed from a palimp- sest manuscript of Trinity College, Dublin, by Barrett (Dublin, 1801). The original writing appears to be of the sixth century. Barrett's transcript of the text was not in all respects cor- rect, and a revised edition was published by Ab- bott in 1880. It is chielly, however, to a collec- tion of Syriac manuscripts brought from the East that we are indebted for the more recent palimp- sest restorations of the ancient biblical read- ings. In this line the chief discoverer has been Tischendorf. Of these the best known is the celebrated Codex Ephremi, in the Xa- tional Library, Paris. This manuscript had been early observed to be palimpsest, and the original Greek text was collated by Wetstein in 1710. It was completely published by Tischen- dorf, the Xew Testament in 1843, and the Old in 1845. The modern writing of this palimpsest consists of a Greek translation of works by Saint Ephrem the Syrian. Another palimpsest of interest is the Codex Xitriensis, in the British Museum, containing part of the Gospel of Saint Luke from the sixth century, part of the Iliad of about the same date, and a somewhat later Euclid, all used by a monk of the Xitrian monas- tery for a copy of a Syriac treatise. The number of these fragments constantly grows, and now probably about 30 Greek, Old Latin, and Gothic biblical palimpsests are known, of which the ma- jority are Greek, As most of them belong to the fifth or sixth century, their testimony is often of great value.
In Greek classical literature the results from the palimpsests are not great. The Homer frag- ments are older than other parchment codices, but are outranked by the numerous papyri. A small part of the PJiai'thon of Euripides is pre- served in the Codex Claromontaniis at Paris, and a collection of extracts from the later historians, containing some passages from lost works, has been published by Mai in his Seriptorum Veterum 'Nova Collect io (Rome, 1825-38). In Greek, how- ever, no such discoveries have been made as in Latin, though it should be said that the Eastern libraries contain many palimpsests not yet care- fully examined.
Latin Palimpsests. The first fragment of Latin literature printed from a palimpsest origi- nal is the portion of the ninety-first book of Liry already referred to, published at Hamburg and also at Rome in 1773. It was reedited in a more complete form by Xiebuhr in 1820, Of the Latin palimpsests edited by ilai, the earliest were some fragments of lost orations of Cicero from two ditTerent palimpsests in the Ambrosian library at Milan, in the later of which the sec- ond writing consisted of the acts of the Council of Chalcedon. These orations were published in two successive volumes in 1814. He also pub- lished eight orations of Symmachus (1815) and the comedies of Plautus, including a frag- ment of the lost play entitled Yidularia (1815). This is the celebrated Codex Ambrosiaiiiis in Milan, which has since been studied by Ritschl and other Plautine scholars, notably Studemund (Berlin. 1880), Mai likewise edited the works of M, Cornelius Fronto, together with the epistles of Antoninus Pius, Lucius Verus, JI. Aurelius, and others (1815), as well as the celebrated dia- logue of Cicero, De Republica, from a palimpsest
