would therefore be peculiarly easy if this manuscript derived directly from _{Pi}_.  If one ask whether the page were as faded in the ninth century as now, Dr. Lowe has already answered this question; the flesh side of the parchment might well have lost a portion of its ink considerably before the Carolingian period.[34] In any case, the error of praestatam ad me seems natural enough to one who reads the line for the first time in _{Pi}_. B did not, as we shall see, copy directly from _{Pi}_; a copy intervened, in which the error was made and then, I should infer, corrected above the line, whence F drew the right reading, B taking the original but incorrect text.

  [Footnote 32:  I have not always followed Dr. Lowe in distinguishing
  first and second hands in the various alterations discussed here
  (pp. 48-50).]

  [Footnote 33:  See above, p. 42.]

  [Footnote 34:  See above, pp. 11 f.]

There are cases in plenty elsewhere in the Letters to show that B is not many removes from the scriptura continua of some majuscule hand.  In the section included in _{Pi}_, apart from the general tightness of the writing, which led to the later insertion of strokes between many of the words,[35] we note these special indications of a parent manuscript in majuscules.  In 61, 10 me autem], B started to write mea and then corrected it. 64, 19 praeceptori a quo] praeceptoria quo B, (m. 1) F.  If B or its parent manuscript copied _{Pi}_ directly, the mistake would be especially easy, for PRAECEPTORIA ends the line in _{Pi}_. 64, 25 integra re].  After integra, a letter is erased in B; the copyist, it would seem, first mistook integra re for one word.

  [Footnote 35:  See plates XIII-XIV.]

Other instances showing a close connection between B and _{Pi}_ are as follows:  62, 23 unice] _{Pi}_ has by the first hand INUICE, the second hand writing U above I, and a vertical stroke above U. In BF, uince, the reading of the first hand, is changed by the second to unice; this second hand, Professor Merrill informs me, seems to be that of a writer in the same scriptorium as the first.  The error in BF might, of course, be due to copying an original in minuscules, but it might also be due to the curious state of affairs in _{Pi}_. 65, 24 fungerer].  In _{Pi}_ the final R is written, somewhat indistinctly, above the line. B has fungerer corrected by the second hand from fungeret (?), which may be due to a misunderstanding of _{Pi}_. 66, 2 avunculi] AUONCULI _{Pi}_ (O in ras.) B.  This form might perhaps be read; F has emended it out, and no other manuscript has it. 65, 7 desino, inquam, patres conscripti, putare] Here the relation of BF to _{Pi}_ seems particularly close. _{Pi}_, like MVDoxa, has the abbreviation P.C.  On a clearly written page, the error of reputare (BF) for P.C.  PUTARE is not a specially likely one to make.  But in the blur at the bottom of fol. 52v, a page on the flesh side of the parchment, the combination might readily be mistaken for REPUTARE.