DCL MS. C.III.18Suetonius, De vita Caesarum, etc.
Held by: Durham Cathedral Library: Durham Cathedral Manuscripts

Suetonius, De vita Caesarum.

Digitised: https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t2m3f462543c.html

Physical description of manuscript
Support

Parchment

Extent: ii+80+i f.
Size: 295 mm x 189 mm

Foliation

Modern ink pagination, 1-160.


Secundo folio: arbitrium re publici
Collation

I-X8

Signatures: Contemporary signatures (Roman numeral flanked by dots), final verso, lower margin, centre
Script

Flyleaf written in Continental Caroline minuscule

Corrections and annotation

Extensive marginalia added to (a) 11th/12th century and 14th/15th century

Binding

Standard Tuckett binding, mid 19th century full brown calf over thick wooden boards (Charles Tuckett, binder to the British Museum, rebound many Durham manuscripts in the 19th century). The last three leaves bear a hole and/or rust stains from a piece of metal furniture on an earlier binding.

Manuscript history
Creation

Written in Northern Europe, 11th/12th century.

Provenance

Inscription: Iste liber Assignatur Nono [or: Nouo] Armariolo In Claustro Ecclesie Dunelm Per Venerabilem Patrem Magistrum Iohannem Auklande Priorem Eiusdem Ecclesie, written 1484x1494 onto the strip from the continental book that formerly formed the flyleaf.

Manuscript contents
(flyleaf)     f.ii
Modern title: Medical text (fragment)
Date: 10th century
Language: Latin

Badly damaged piece of parchment

(a)     p.1-158
Original title: De vita Caesarum
Author: Suetonius, approximately 69-approximately 122
Incipit: Annum agens sextum decimum patrem amisit. Sequentibusque consulibus flamen dialis destinatus
Explicit: sicut sane breui euenit abstinentia et moderatione insequentium principum
Rubric: Suetonii Tranquili De Vita Cesarum Liber Primus Incipit Divus Iulius.
Language: Latin

The oldest surviving copy of the “Z” text (Reynolds 1983, p.401).

(b)     p.158
Original title: Caesares (extract)
Author: Ausonius, Decimus Magnus
Language: Latin

Page 159 is blank.

Edited: Ausonius, no.XXIII, lines 1-43
(c)     p.160
Modern title: Poem on Roman military domination of other peoples and regions
Incipit: Ille ego pannoniis quondam notissimus oris
Explicit: Exemplo mihi sum primus qui talia gessi
Language: Latin
Edited: Carmina Latina Epigraphica, no. 427

Microfilm
Microfilmed in 1985/86 by the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, St John's Abbey and University, Collegeville, Minnesota. Copies held by them and Durham Cathedral Library.

Digitised material for Durham Cathedral Library MS. C.III.18 - Suetonius, De vita Caesarum
Digitised June 2016 as part of the Durham Priory Library Recreated project
https://n2t.durham.ac.uk/ark:/32150/t2m3f462543c.html
Bibliography

Green, R.P.H., The works of Ausonius (Oxford: OUP, 1991)

Catalogi veteres librorum Ecclesiae cathedralis dunelm. Catalogues of the library of Durham cathedral, at various periods, from the conquest to the dissolution, including catalogues of the library of the abbey of Hulne, and of the mss.   OCLC citation, Surtees Society 7, (London: J.B. Nichols and Son, [1838]).

Buechler, F., (ed.), Carmina Latina Epigraphica I, Anthologia Latina siue poesis latinae supplementum, Pars posterior, fasc. 1 (Leipzig: 1895)

Reynolds, L.D., Texts and transmissions: a survey of the Latin classics (Oxford: OUP, 1983)

Mynors, R.A.B., Durham Cathedral manuscripts to the end of the twelfth century. Ten plates in colour and forty-seven in monochrome. With an introduction [including a list of all known Durham manuscripts before 1200]   OCLC citation, (Durham: 1939)

Index terms