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INTRODUCTION
the palace, where he found the king playing with the
lion-cubs that he kept as pets. Both were young
men, and the younger of the two had a young man's
generous hero-worship for his Roman visitor, and expresses
it in the conversation that follows.
(iv.) ix. 401 foil. This is a scene from the battle of
Cannae. It describes the friendship between Marius
and Caper, two natives of Praeneste who fell side by
side in the battle. There is no doubt that there were
really no such persons, and that the entire incident,
like many others, was invented by Silius. But the
man who wrote these lines was certainly a poet ; and
I shall venture to say of them
fiiofJirjareTai ns fxaXXov i) /Ai/xrjcreTat.
III. Manuscripts, Editions, Translations
(a) In 1416 or 1417, during the Council of Constance,
Poggio, the learned Florentine who unearthed
so many Latin authors, found, probably at St. Gall,
a manuscript of Silius ; a copy of this was taken
by Poggio or one of his companions ; and from that
copy all the existing mss. are descended. Neither
the original ms. nor the original copy of it is now
extant. Editors use the letter S to denote this ms.,
and C to denote another ms. which was once in the
Cathedral library at Cologne ; this ms. also is lost,
and its readings are known only from notes made by
two scholars towards the end of the sixteenth century.
Of the extant mss. four, all written in the fifteenth
century, are thought to be better than the rest. Their
readings are cited in the critical editions mentioned
below.
xvi