I termini latini collo, -are e collatorius e gli esiti romanzi. Ovvero del difficile rapporto fra il testo dei manoscritti e i metodi del filologo classico

The study starts from the author’s arguments in “Vichiana” 4 s., 3, 2001, 64-93 (on pp. 88-91) concerning Veg. mil. 4,46,5, a passage which includes the name of a particular type of ship’s rope. There he defended the reading collatorios, transmitted by most of the tradition, against the conjecture chalatorios of Pellisserius, accepted by all recent editors. Here he advances new arguments which confirm beyond any reasonable doubt that collatorios is correct: a) the presence of the term collatorius (in various graphic forms) in Latin medieval texts listing the parts of a ship; b) the fact that the verb collare (‘raise or lower [by means of ropes]’, ‘sail’, ‘torture [through suspension]’) – from which collatorius seems to derive – is not only attested in medieval Latin, but has at least three significant earlier occurrences in late Latin. Next he reconsiders the etymology of the verb collare (rectifying what was stated in 2001) and discusses the continuations of the two terms in Romance. Finally, the author proposes a new constitutio textus of the passage in Vegetius based above all on the interpretation of the testimony of the hyparchtetype epsilon.