On the Reconstruction of the Codex of the late 6th–early 7th Centuries with the Text of Pseudo-Maurice's Strategikon

Abstract

The editors of the Strategikon have proven that in the codex, which was the ancestor of the M and A codices, there was a mechanical displacement of folia in the chapter on hunting XII D. In development of this thesis, the proposed article formulates a hypothesis that this codex was in poor condition and sheets were falling out of it, which means that this codex was not a new minuscule Byzantine one, but an old late antique one, i.e. majuscule. Accordingly, the copyist of the codex A consulted not only its minuscule copy ε, but also its majuscule protograph γ, where he noticed the moving of the folia. Taken into the account other codices of this format (from 19 to 24 letters per line) and the calculations of the number of letters, it can be assumed that this was a codex with approximately 20...22 lines per page and, accordingly, with 430 letters per page on average. Therefore, most likely, two middle bifolia fell out of the penultimate quire, wich was ordinary quaternion. They were then put into the last quire, which, judging by the text that has come down to us, was incomplete, i.e. binion. The fact that the last quire was incomplete indicates that this was the end not only of the treatise, but also of the codex.