If the preceding conclusion accords with fact, then we may accept the traditional date (circa A.D. 371) of the Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels. The famous Vatican palimpsest of Cicero's _De Re Publica_ seems more properly placed in the fourth than in the fifth century; and the older portion of the Bodleian manuscript of Jerome's translation of the _Chronicle_ of Eusebius, dated after the year A.D. 442, becomes another guide-post in the history of uncial writing, since a comparison with the Berlin fragment of about A.D. 447 convinces one that the Bodleian manuscript can not have been written much after the date of its archetype, which is A.D. 442.

Asked to enumerate the landmarks which may serve as helpful guides in uncial writing prior to the year 800, we should hardly go far wrong if we tabulate them in the following order:[29]

A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger — Part 18

[Footnote 29: For the pertinent literature on the manuscripts in the following list the student is referred to Traube's _Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen_, Vol. I, pp. 171-261, Munich 1909, and the index in Vol. III, Munich 1920. The chief works of facsimiles referred to below are: Zangemeister and Wattenbach, _Exempla codicum latinorum litteris maiusculis scriptorum_, Heidelberg 1876 & 1879; E. Chatelain, _Paléographie des classiques latins_, Paris 1884-1900, and _Uncialis scriptura codicum latinorum novis exemplis illustrata_, Paris 1901-2; and Steffens, _Lateinische Paläographie{ 2}_, Treves 1907. (Second edition in French appeared in 1910.)]

A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger — Part 18

1. Codex Vercellensis of the Gospels (a). ca. a. 371

A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger — Part 18

Traube, l.c., No. 327; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XX.

2. Bodleian Manuscript (Auct. T. 2. 26) of Jerome's translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius (older portion). post a. 442

Traube, l.c., No. 164; J.K. Fotheringham, _The Bodleian manuscript of Jerome's version of the Chronicle of Eusebius reproduced in collotype_, Oxford 1905, pp. 25-6; Steffens{ 2}, pl. 17; also Schwartz in _Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift_, XXVI (1906), c. 746.

3. Berlin Computus Paschalis (MS. lat. 4º. 298). ca. a. 447

Traube, l.c., No. 13; Th. Mommsen, "Zeitzer Ostertafel vom Jahre 447" in _Abhandl. der Berliner Akad. aus dem Jahre 1862_, Berlin 1863, pp. 539 sqq.; "Liber Paschalis Codicis Cicensis A. CCCCXLVII" in _Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi_, IX, 1, pp. 502 sqq.; Zangemeister-Wattenbach, pl. XXIII.