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.

Another curious bit of testimony appears at the beginning of the third book. The scribe of _B_[36] wrote the words NESCIO--APUD in rustic capitals, occupying therewith the first line and about a third of the second. This is not effective calligraphy. It would appear that he is reproducing, as is his habit, exactly what he found in his original. That original might have had one full line, or two lines, of majuscules, perhaps, following pretty closely the lines in _{ Pi}_, which has the same amount of text, plus the first three letters of SPURINNAM, in the first two lines. If _B_ had _{ Pi}_ before him, there is nothing to explain his most unusual procedure. His original, therefore, is not _{ Pi}_ but an intervening copy, which he is transcribing with an utter indifference to aesthetic effect and with a laudable, if painful, desire for accuracy. This trait, obvious in _B_'s work throughout, is perhaps nowhere more strikingly exhibited than here.

A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger — Part 48