Euclid, Elements
Thomas L. Heath, Sir Thomas Little Heath, Ed.

(= 888 A.D.), while the second records Arethas' own acquisition of it. Arethas lived from, say, 865 to 939 A.D. He was Archbishop of Caesarea and wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse. The portions of his library which survive are of the greatest interest to palaeography on account of his exact notes of dates, names of copyists, prices of parchment etc. It is to him also that we owe the famous Plato MS. from Patmos (Cod. Clarkianus) which was written for him in November 895¹.

(4) V = Viennese MS. Philos. Gr. No. 103; probably 12th c.

This MS. contains 292 leaves, Eucl. Elements I.—XV. occupying leaves 1 to 254, after which come the Optics (to leaf 271), the Phaenomena (mutilated at the end) from leaf 272 to leaf 282, and lastly scholia, on leaves 283 to 292, also imperfect at the end. The different material used for different parts and the varieties of handwriting make it necessary for Heiberg to discuss this MS. at some length². The handwriting on leaves 1 to 183 (Book I. to the middle of X. 105) and on leaves 203 to 234 (from XI. 31, towards the end of the proposition, to XIII. 7, a few lines down) is the same; between leaves 184 and 202 there are two varieties of handwriting, that of leaves 184 to 189 and that of leaves 200 (verso) to 202 being the same. Leaf 235 begins in the same handwriting, changes first gradually into that of leaves 184 to 189 and then (verso) into a third more rapid cursive writing which is the same as that of the greater part of the scholia, and also as that of leaves 243 and 282, although, as these leaves are of different material, the look of the writing and of the ink seems altered. There are corrections both by the first and a second hand, and scholia by many hands. On the whole, in spite of the apparent diversity of handwriting in the MS., it is probable that the whole of it was written at about the same time, and it may (allowing for changes of material, ink etc.) even have been written by the same man. It is at least certain that, when the Laurentian MS. XXVIII, 6 was copied from it, the whole MS. was in the condition in which it is now, except as regards the later scholia and leaves 283 to 292 which are not in the Laurentian MS., that MS. coming to an end where the Phaenomena breaks off abruptly in V. Hence Heiberg attributes the whole MS. to the 12th c.

But it was apparently in two volumes originally, the first consisting of leaves 1 to 183; and it is certain that it was not all copied at the same time or from one and the same original. For leaves 184 to 202 were evidently copied from two MSS. different both from one another and from that from which the rest was copied. Leaves 184 to the middle of leaf 189 (recto) must have been copied from a MS. similar to P, as is proved by similarity of readings, though not from P itself. The rest, up to leaf 202, were copied from the Bologna MS. (b) to be mentioned below. It seems clear that the content of leaves 184 to 202 was supplied from other MSS. because there was a lacuna in the original from which the rest of V was copied.