Note 26 — Book II

Certain difficulties here in the text, with the principal emendations proposed, are discussed by Cope in his Introduction, and more largely in the Cope and Sandys edition. Vahlen was so convinced of an error in transmission that he proposed to restore what he considered the original order by transposing bodily Chapters xviii-end and Chapters i-xvii. But in spite of difficulties of detail, the present order shows sufficiently clear progress if we remember that these latter chapters (xviii-end) are written, as all the rest of the book is written, from the point of view of the audience. So viewed, what has seemed repetition and expansion of Book I is seen to be distinct, and not merely additional, but progressive.