[Footnote 13:  For further details on syllabification in our oldest Latin manuscripts, see Th.  Mommsen, “Livii Codex Veronensis,” in Abhandlungen der k.  Akad. d.  Wiss. zu Berlin, phil. hist.  Cl. (1868), p. 163, n. 2, and pp. 165-6; Mommsen-Studemund, Analecta Liviana (Leipsic 1873), p. 3; Brandt, “Der St. Galler Palimpsest,” in Sitzungsberichte der phil. hist.  Cl. der k.  Akad. der Wiss. in Wien, CVIII (1885), pp. 245-6; L. Traube, “Palaeographische Forschungen IV,” in Abhandlungen d. h. t.  Cl. d. k.  Bayer.  Akad. d.  Wiss. XXIV. 1 (1906), p. 27; A.W.  Van Buren, “The Palimpsest of Cicero’s De Re Publica,” in Archaeological Institute of America, Supplementary Papers of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, ii (1908), pp. 89 sqq.; C. Wessely, in his preface to the facsimile edition of the Vienna Livy (MS. lat. 15), published in the Leyden series, Codices graeci et latini, etc., T. XI.  See also W.G.  Hale, “Syllabification in Roman speech,” in Harvard Studies of Classical Philology, VII (1896), pp. 249-71, and W. Dennison, “Syllabification in Latin Inscriptions,” in Classical Philology, I (1906), pp. 47-68.]

[Sidenote:  Orthography]

The spelling found in our six leaves is remarkably correct.  It compares favorably with the best spelling encountered in our oldest Latin manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries.  The diphthong ae is regularly distinguished from e.  The interchange of b and u, d and t, o and u, so common in later manuscripts, is rare here:  the confusion between b and u occurs once (comprouasse, fo. 52v, l. 1); the omission of h occurs once (pulcritudo, fo. 51v, l. 26); the use of k for c occurs twice (karet, fo. 51r, l. 14, and karitas, fo. 52r, l. 5).  The scribe uses the correct forms in adolescet (fo. 51v, l. 14) and adulescenti (fo. 51v, l. 24); he writes auonculi (fo. 53v, l. 15), exsistat (fo. 51v, l. 9), and exsecutos (fo. 53r, l. 8).  In the case of composite words he has the assimilated form in some, and in others the unassimilated form, as the following examples go to show: 

fo. 48r, line 3, inpleturus fo. 48r, line 7, improbissimum
    49r, 13a, adnotasse 48v, 23, composuisse
              19, adsumo 50r, 1, ascendit
    50r, 1, adsumit 6, imbuare
              27, adponitur 22, accubat
    50v, 3, adficitur 51r, 2, optulissem
    51r, 19, adstruere 3, suppeteret
              21, adstruere 16, ascendere
              26, adpetat 51v, 16, accipiat
    51v, 9, exsistat 52v, 1, comprouasse
              12,