SUMMA. Repositorio Institucional

Nine Lucretian Emendations1 David Butterfield Christ’s College, Cambridge 1, 238-243: denique res omnis eadem uis causaque uolgo conficeret, nisi materies aeterna teneret, inter se nexus minus aut magis indupedita; tactus enim leti satis esset causa profecto; quippe ubi nulla forent aeterno corpore, quorum contextum uis deberet dissoluere quaeque. 240 240 nexus OQG: nexu Q1: nexas Lambinus (et Havet suo Marte) In this passage Lucretius develops his argument that nothing can be reduced to nothing, for otherwise all things could be destroyed by the same minimal force. The difficulty in this passage lies not with 240 (where the transmitted text is defensible as an internal accusative) but with uis... quaeque in 243. I follow Giussani, Ernout, Bailey and others in regarding 242-243 as an assertion explaining 241: just a 1  I wish to make clear at the outset that I am of the firm resolve that the Italic manuscripts of Lucretius are dependent upon our ninth-century witnesses (OQGVU) and therefore can only serve as repertories of Renaissance conjectures.

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