Planudeum

This paper examines the epigram AP V 302 of Agathias Scholasticus as it appears in the epigrammatic collection contained in the Planudean manuscript Laur. 32.16 (1280–1283). A recent examination of the manuscripts has shown that Planudes, when transcribing this epigram, employed a specific system of bowdlerization which is characterized by transliterat- ing a Greek word in Latin alphabet in order to conceal the obscene meaning of the text. Many instances of transliterated texts survive from the Greco-Roman world but it is clear that this practice was very rarely employed as a form of bowdlerization, as it is in Planudes. However, it can not be a coincidence that in the two manuscripts which stem from the Laurentianus (Vat. Barb. Gr. 4 and Urb. Gr. 125) the word of Agathias’ epigram transliterated in Latin alphabet was not written at all. On the contrary, in the most important epigrammatic collection assembled by Planudes himself in Marc. Gr. 481 (1299) the epigram is written without any intervention.