Vegetius 4.41.4

Extract

In the previous issue of this journal, pp. 213–14, I proposed niue for neue at Vegetius, Epit. 4.41.4. It has since come to my notice that John of Salisbury, who quotes the passage in Policraticus 2.2 (I 69.26–70.1 Webb), writes niue. I owe the information to F.H. Sherwood, Studies in medieval uses of Vegetius' ‘Epitoma rei militaris’ (diss. Los Angeles 1980), which Dr Frank Fürbeth of Bochum kindly enabled me to see. In a chapter on the Policraticus, Sherwood translates John's text (p. 165) and comments that ‘John seems to have emended or misread “niue” for Vegetius' “neue”’ (p. 192 n. 10). When I went through the passage in Webb's edition two years before writing my article, I was investigating the character of the manuscript that John used and had not thought about the problem of neue.