Holstenius, Vossius e la Tattica di Arriano. Nuove riflessioni su un passo programmatico e problematico

A key transitional passage between the two sections of Arrian’s Tactica (chapter 32, 3) is problematic due to textual and interpretative issues, particularly concerning a corrupted segment and the meaning of the phrase ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ τοῦ βασιλέως, which has mostly been translated as «for the emperor». Two emendations have been proposed to restore the corrupted text, also in order to identify the book and the person which Arrian is seemingly referring to. Although in Roos’s reference critical edition (Roos & Wirth 2002) these emendations are attributed to 19th-century scholars, they are actually found in the marginal notes and text of some manuscripts of the Tactica attributable to Isaac Vossius (Parisinus gr. 2539) and Lukas Holstenius (Barb. gr. 200 and Barb. gr. 245). The analysis of the corrupted passage from Tact. 32, 3 as it appears in these manuscripts – which is carried out in this article for the first time – opens up a new interpretative scenario and allows us to trace Vossius’ and Holstenius’ scholarly activity, sheding new light on the complex relationships between them and the codices of Arrian’s Tactica.