HISTORY OF
THURSTON PECK
n
A HISTORY OF
CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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A HISTORY
OF
CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
FROM THE SEVENTH CENTURY B.C.
TO
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY A.D.
BY
HARRY THURSTON PECK, Ph.D., LL.D.
MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LEITERS
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911
All rights reitrv*d
Copyright, 1911,
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1911.
Notfajooti ilresa
J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co.
Korwood, Mass., U.S.A.
51
I
VXORI CARISSIMAE
1927016
PREFACE
Long experience has convinced the author that, as a
rule, classical students, even those who are pursuing the
most advanced courses, are very imperfectly informed as
to the history of the subjects upon which they are en-
gaged. They may be thoroughly trained in various
ramifications of Classical Philology, while knowing little
or nothing of Classical Philology as a whole. It seems
an anomalous thing that any university student should
proceed to his doctorate in Greek and Latin without ever
having had a conspectus of the entire field of which he
is familiar with a part; that, for example, he should be
able to give no intelligent account of the i\lexandrian
School; that the significance of the Renaissance to a clas-
sicist should not be clear to him; that Scaliger, Lipsius,
Casaubon, Bentley, Corssen, and Lachmann should be
little more than names; and that he should have learned
nothing genetically about literary criticism, text criticism,
and scientific linguistics.
Yet such is very often the case; and though it is to be
regretted, it is not a reasonable cause for censure. There
vii
Vlll PREFACE
exist no manuals at the present time to give this general
information in a lucid, coherent manner, and without
losing sight of the strand which unites all classical studies
and makes them parts of a splendid whole. Grafenhan's
book in four volumes, the publication of which was begun
in 1843, is, of course, quite obsolete to-day. Reinach's
Manuel de Philologie Classique is admirable as a work
of reference, but, with all its closely packed information,
it does not form a continuous narrative. The treatise by
Dr. Sandys, published only a few years ago, is a monu-
ment to his scholarship and wide reading; yet the multi-
plicity of details contained in its three volumes will not
unnaturally deter a student, unless he be a very heroic
seeker after knowledge.
The present work has, therefore, been written with
the desire to give a comprehensive and comprehensible
knowledge of how classical studies were first developed,
and of that gradual evolution which has made Classical
Philology a science, possessing at the same time some
very distinctly marked aesthetic phases. It has seemed
best to mention the names of only such scholars as have
helped on this evolution by adding something to the
sum of human knowledge. The adoption of such a plan
has made it possible to compress into a volume of con-
venient size all that is essential ; while the bibliographical
references will enable the reader to pursue more exhaus-
tively any particular subject that has here been touched
PREFACE IX
upon. It is hoped that the book may be of some prac-
tical service to students of the classics, in helping them to
see and understand the unity which in their studies is too
often obscured by matters of secondary importance.
Harry Thurston Peck.
New York,
March 29, 191 1.
n-.-
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
CHAPTER
I. The Genesis of Philological Studies in
Greece
II. The Pr^-Alexandrian Period
III. The Alexandrian Period
IV. The Gr^eco-Roman Period
V. The Middle Ages .
VI. The Renaissance
VII. Division into Periods
VIII. The Age of Erasmus
IX. The Period of Nationalism .
X. The German Influence .
XI. The Cosmopolitan Period
Selected Bibliographical Index
General Index
PAGES
vii-ix
S-27
28-87
88-129
130-191
192-259
260-288
289
290-300
301-384
385-455
456-458
461-476
477-491
»
INTRODUCTION 3
the past; so that the day of his matriculation (April 8,
1777) has been styled "the birthday of modern philology."
Classical Philology is opposed in every way to the
spirit of pedantry. Otfried Miiller well said of it that it
"does not strive to establish particular facts nor to get
an acquaintance with abstract forms, but to grasp the
ancient spirit in its broadest meaning, in its works of
reason, of feeling, and of imagination." ^
There are four recognized methods of treating the
history of Classical Philology.
(i) The Synchronistic or Annalistic Method, which deals
with the history by periods.
(2) The Biographical Method, which treats of the his-
tory in the persons of great representative scholars.
• Since the study of Sanskrit led to the scientific investigation of the
Indo-European languages as related to one another, the new science of
Comparative Philology has arisen to complicate still more the meaning
of the word "philology" when simply used. The Germans, therefore,
have made certain distinctions which it will be convenient for us, also,
to adopt. Philology {Philologie) when not modified by an adjective is
the general study of language; Comparative Philology is better styled
Linguistics (Linguistik) ; while Classical Philology {Klassische Philo-
logie or Klassische Allerthumswissenschaft) is that comprehensive study
of antiquity which has just now been defined. For the various mean-
ings of the word "philology" at different times, see Grafenhan, Ge-
schichte der Klassischen Philologie im Allerthum, vol. i (Bonn, 1843);
Lehrs, Appendix to Herodiani Scripta Tria (Berlin, 1857); and the
interesting references given by Gudeman in pp. 1-4 of his Outlines of
the History of Classical Philology {Boston, 1902). In a remarkable
passage contained in Seneca's Letters (xviii. v. 30-34, Haase) there is
an acute comparison between the different ways in which a philologist,
a grammarian, and a philosopher would respectively examine Cicero's
treatise De Republica.
4 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
(3) The Eiodographic Method, which describes the his-
tory of philology by subjects.
(4) The Ethnographic or Geographic Method, which dis-
cusses the philological history of a single school or nation
separately.
In this book it is proposed to follow no single one of
these methods to the exclusion of the others; but to give
a general survey of the whole subject, keeping constantly
in mind the need of chronological symmetry; emphasising
and making clear the part which each nation or each
school has played; and at the same time bringing into
relief the individuals whose life-work gains an added
meaning from a knowledge of their personality.^
^ See Fitz-Hugh, Outlines of a System of Classical Pcedagogy (1900).
There is a valuable skeleton history of classical philology by Professor
Alfred Gudeman in his Outlines, etc., 3d ed. (Boston, 1903) ; and his
more elaborate Grundrlss (Leipzig and Berlin, 1907). See also KroU's
brief Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie (Leipzig, 1908).
I.
THE GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES
IN GREECE
The origins of the Hellenic people are exceedingly
obscure, and they take us back to a remote antiquity.
The fact that there was no generic name for the race
until after the time when the Homeric poems were com-
posed is a very interesting and instructive fact. One
cannot even say that the Greeks were homogeneous; and
a great deal of the most modern research has served
only to darken counsel and to expose the fallacy of earlier
theories. Certain it is that, during the Stone Age and
afterwards, there streamed over the Grecian peninsula
great waves of migratory peoples from the northeast.
They forced their way to the southern point of the Morea,
just as they also found homes in southern Italy in
the Grecian islands, and a sure foothold in Asia Minor.
It is a picturesque hypothesis which views the latter
country as having once been peopled by an effeminate
race of Semitic origin, tracing their descent through
polyandrous mothers, and worshipping female deities,
among whom the Great Mother, afterwards called Cybele,
was supreme. That these enervated Canaanitish shep-
herds should have been subsequently overcome by a
5
6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
horde of virile conquerors from Thrace is another part
of the same ethnic theory. These conquerors, tracing
their descent through their fathers and worshipping the
great male thundering deity, Bronton or Zeus, were
possibly true Hellenes, and they established a civilisation
of their own in Asia, where they ruled as an aristocracy
in the states and cities which they subsequently founded.^
Yet this is only one of many theories, and it presents
as many difficulties as it explains. The importance of it
lies in the fact that it serves to show how very far back
into the past we must look for anything like a beginning
of that culture which came afterwards to be regarded as
essentially Hellenic. The explorations at Mycenae and
Tiryns and elsewhere, though attesting the antiquity of
certain of the arts, leave us still at a loss regarding the
racial affinities of the early Greeks. One is justified in
asserting nothing more than that the lands which became
subsequently Hellenized were first populated by sections
of the Mediterranean race comprising the so-called Pelas-
gians, the Iberians, the Ligurians, and the Libyans,^ A
later migration from the north, moving slowly southward,
overwhelmed the original inhabitants of what was destined
to be known afterwards as Hellas, or Greece. Professor
G. W. Botsford has described in a very interesting manner
'See Ramsay, in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, ix. 351; and
Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, pp. 28-54 (New York and
London, 1892).
^ See Sergi, The Mediterranean Race. Eng. trans. (London, 1901).
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDLES IN GREECE 7
the nature of this migration/ " They came in bands
which we call tribes, each under its chief. Their warriors
travelled on foot, dressed in skins and armed with pikes,
and with bows and arrows, while their women and chil-
dren rode in two-wheeled ox-carts. They found Greece,
their future home, a rugged, mountainous country, with
narrow . valleys and only a few broad plains. Every-
where were dense forests, haunted by lions, wild boars,
and wolves." These Greeks of the Tribal Age were semi-
nomadic in their habits; since at first they built mere
huts of brush and clay, which they readily abandoned,
and they must for centuries have shifted their uncertain
habitations. At the west of their new country the coast-
line was nearly straight and with no harbours. " But
those who came to the eastern coast found harbours
everywhere and islands near at hand. They began at
once to make small boats and to push off to the islands.
" But they must have been astonished when they saw
for the first time strange black vessels, much larger than
their own, entering their bays. These were Phoenician
ships from Sidon, an ancient commercial city, and in
them came ' greedy merchant men, with countless gauds '
' Botsford, A History of the Orient and Greece (New York and London,
1904). See also E. Meyer, Forschtingen zur alien Geschichte, voL i. (Halle,
1892); Hall, The Oldest Civilisation of Greece (London, 1901); and
Ridgeway, The Early Age of Greece (Cambridge, 1901, foil.)- A recent,
yet not fully accepted view, regards the Pelasgians as having worked
out this ci\-ilisation, the fruits of which were appropriated by the true
Hellenic invaders from the north.
8 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
for trading with the natives. Though in most respects
the Greeks were then as barbarous as the North Ameri-
can Indians, they were eager to learn and to imitate the
ways of the foreigners. The chieftains along the east
coast welcomed Asiatic arts and artisans. From these
strangers they gradually learned to make and use bronze
tools and weapons, and to build in stone. Contented in
these homes, they outgrew their fondness for roving.
Skilled workmen from the East built walled palaces for
the native chiefs; artists decorated these new dwellings,
painted, carved, and frescoed, made vases and polished
gems. Those chieftains who were wise enough to receive
this civilisation gained power as well as wealth by means
of it. With their bronze weapons they conquered their
uncivilised neighbours, and, in course of time, formed
small kingdoms, each centring in a strongly fortified
castle."
The contradictions which meet us in all accounts of
early Greece make any positive hypothesis untenable.
But they do give us an insight into the character of the
Greek sfenius as we have come to know it. There is
much plausibility in the view that these Hellenes were
racially connected with the Celtic peoples, and that they
were not originally of one single stock. Restless, brave,
mercurial, full of curiosity, their nomadic life for many
centuries made them more brilliant than stable. Po-
litically, they also afford a parallel with the Celts, in that
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 9
they lacked the national cohesiveness which was Roman.
Their seafaring gave them a larger outlook than the
Latins had. It made for separation rather than for
unity. On the other hand, it stimulated the intellect,
and enhanced the qualities of imagination and specula-
tion. To the last, the Greeks were adventurous, ingen-
ious, inquisitive, and ever seeking after something new and
interesting.
The antiquity of Greek culture explains why the oldest
monument of Hellenic literature, the Homeric epic, is
not a rude specimen of the poetic art, but rather a bit of
exquisite workmanship, wrought out with wonderful
management of light and colour and melodious sound.
It is the climax, the final masterpiece, of epic poetry.
Although the Homeric epics tell the story of a fairly primi-
tive people, there is nothing primitive in the mode of
their construction or the deftness of touch that is every-
where to be discovered in them. The Iliad and the
Odyssey, though very much older, assume a fairly definite
form somewhere in the seventh century B.C., when writing
was first generally introduced among the Greeks. Recent
scholarship is not indisposed to view these two poems as
representing each an organic whole, however numerous
may have been the changes which both underwent in
parts.^ It does not concern us, indeed, to determine
' See Blass, Die Interpolationen in der Odyssee (Halle, 1904); and
Brea!, Four Mieux Connaitre Homere (Paris, 1906).
lO HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
whether there actually lived an individual Homer. The
student of Classical Philology regards the Homeric epic
as a starting-point from which to trace the gradual devel-
opment of intellectual pursuits among the Greeks within
that period of time when their history can be tested by
undoubted facts. Before the general use of writing, there
could have been little to be classed under the name of
formal scholarship, although for fifteen centuries there
was an evolution of the arts which scholarship endeavours
to study and explain. Before the Homeric period there
must have been thousands of poets who became masters
of the lyric, and after that of the epic. We know that
Greek tradition held Thrace to be the earliest home of
this semi-religious literature, associated with the names of
mythical bards such as Orpheus, Musaeus, Eumolpus,
and Thamyris. Finally, we know that the centre of
cultivation shifted from Thrace to the more genial shores
of Ionia, whence came the completed epic which is as-
cribed to Homer.
The chief importance of the epos for our present pur-
pose is found in its relation to literary study, to criticism,
and even, after a fashion, to scientific speculation, to
religion, and to philosophy. The part which the Iliad
and the Odyssey played in the early period of Greek
education was extraordinary. These poems were, indeed,
the basis of all training that was not purely physical.
In the schools, which we know to have existed as early
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE II
as 700 B.C., Homer was read, not so much as literature,
but as an ultimate authority on history, politics, ethics,
warfare, medicine, and even religion. Questions that
involved titles to lands were settled by an appeal to the
Homeric poems, which were consulted according to the
theory of their plenary inspiration. In the Odyssey this
theory is in fact expressly stated. A poet is one who is
inspired by the Muses; and the bard Phemius says to
Odysseus: "I am self-taught; but it was a god that
breathed into my mind all the various ways of song."
A touch of orientalism is found in the notion of Demo-
critus (in the fifth century, B.C.), to the effect that all
great poets are mad — that is to say, carried away by a
sort of divine frenzy. Such a belief accounts for the
place which Homer, the greatest of all the poets, held in
the intellectual life of Hellas. In the study of his epics,
we find the germs of many other studies. Lists were
made of the unusual words contained in them. The rela-
tions of the gods to each other and to mankind were all
thought to be explained by Homer. An apt quotation
from the Iliad or Odyssey would silence an opponent in
debate, as effectually as a pointed text from the Bible
would end a controversy among the Puritans. Indeed,
what the Hebrew Bible is to the orthodox Jews, what
the New Testament is to the orthodox Protestant Chris-
tians, and what the Koran is to orthodox Muhammadans,
— this the Homeric poems were to the early Greeks. A
12 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
reverence for Homeric learning was entertained among
them at the time when their authentic history begins.
Its strong influence affected the minds of men in later
centuries, as we shall presently have occasion to see.
Even in our own days its existence is discernible in the
minutely critical studies which modern scholars have
made regarding every topic that was even casually touched
upon by Homer.^ It may be added that much of the
same inspiration which was ascribed to the author of the
Iliad and the Odyssey, was also attributed to the minor
poets, commonly called the Cyclic Poets, who largely
imitated Homer and confined themselves within a certain
round or cycle of tradition. There were really two cycles,
one a Mythic Cycle, relating to the genealogies of the
gods and the battles of the Titans and to cosmogony;
and the other a Trojan Cycle, based upon stories con-
nected with the Trojan War. The most celebrated of the
Cyclic poems were the Cypria, at one time ascribed to
Homer, but later to Stasinus or Hegesias, the JEthiopis
of Arctinus, and the Nostoi of Agias, not to mention the
parodies by Pigres.^ There were likewise the so-called
'See, for example, Sej^mour, Life in the Homeric Age, with the bib-
liography, pp. xiii-xvi (New York, 1908) ; and Adam, The Religious
Teachers of Greece, pp. 21-67 (Edinburgh, 1908).
^The chief authority for the CycUc poets is the Chrestomatheia of
Proclus (41 2-485 A.D.) in the extracts preserved by Photius. See Welcker,
Der Epische Cycliis (Bonn, 1865); Lawton, The Successors of Homer
(New York, 1898); and for the meaning of the word cyclicus, a paper
by D. B. Munro in The Journal of Hellenic Studies (1883).
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 13
Homeric Hymns, and the three works that remain to us
under the name of Hesiod (c. 700 B.C.), whose Theogony
is the oldest poem that we possess on Greek Mythology.
When the Greeks came to know much more than they
had known about the geography of the world in which
they lived, and when by experience they grew more
thoroughly enlightened as to other knowledge which came
to them in many ways, then they found that Homer was
not to be accepted literally and as a wholly inspired
source of wisdom. Thus there arose a Higher Criticism
of the Homeric writings as there has arisen a Higher
Criticism of the Bible. When so much depended upon
the understanding of a line or of a passage, it was essen-
tial that every one should be quite sure that the line or
the passage was correctly quoted. Even the variation of
a single word, or the interpolation of a single verse, might
be a matter of extreme importance. Yet the Homeric
poems were not, at first, written down according to an
accepted text. They differed in many places. Parts of
them were recited, detached from the whole, at festivals
and public entertainments, by the rhapsodes or de-
claimers. Therefore, in the sixth century B.C., a recen-
sion of them was necessary so that there should be
standard editions of the Iliad and of the Odyssey.
That such a recension was actually carried out is
scarcely to be doubted, though to whom it is due no one
can surely say. Tradition ascribes it to the Athenian
14 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
" tyrant," the brilliant and sagacious Pisistratus, who is
said to have committed the work (about 530 B.C.) to a
commission of four learned Homeric specialists.^ In this,
Pisistratus is said to have followed out a plan conceived
by his relative and predecessor, Solon. The tradition
referred to is merely a tradition and is based only upon
the authority of later writers such as Cicero, Pausanias,
Josephus, Libanius, and Tzetzes. Therefore the ascrip-
tion of this standard Homeric text to Pisistratus is not
necessarily accurate. It has been the custom to credit
Pisistratus with an extraordinary number of innovations,
— political, social, literary, and artistic. Thus, he is said
to have enforced a series of sumptuary laws; to have sup-
plied the poor with cattle and seed so that they might
leave Athens and betake themselves to agriculture; to
have erected beautiful buildings; to have regulated the
religious rites and to have instituted the superb festival
• See Flach, Peisistratos und seine litterarische Thdtigkeil (Tubingen,
1885). The Greek grammarian Diomedes, quoted by Villoison, says
that a sta£f of seventy (or seventy-two) men of letters took part in the
work. It has been noticed in modem times that neither Herodotus
nor Thucydides nor Plato nor Aristotle, who all frequently mention
both Homer and Pisistratus, makes any allusion whatever to this al-
leged recension of the Homeric text. So significant is this omission,
that modem students of the subject (for example, Wilamowitz) are dis-
posed to deny that the story about Pisistratus has any basis of fact at
all. One may hold a more moderate opinion and regard Pisistratus as
having rearranged the text for purposes of recitation at the Panathenaic
festival, yet with no minute consideration of particular lines. See
infra, p. 20.
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 1 5
of the Greater Panathensea; to have encouraged Thespis
to produce his primitive tragedies at Athens, thus pro-
moting the Drama; and to have been the first person in
Greece to collect and open a library for public use. Hence
it is natural that the establishment of a standard Homeric
text should have been ascribed to Pisistratus. In any case
it does not matter whether he or some one else brought
it into form. There is reason for supposing that he com-
pelled the public declaimers to recite the different portions
of the poems according to a definite arrangement ; and
indeed that a recension was undertaken in his time is
highly probable, since the quotations from Homer made by
writers prior to the Alexandrian period exhibit very slight
variations. The Alexandrians themselves made few im-
portant changes. We may be confident that our text of
Homer is substantially identical with that which was
read five hundred years before the beginning of the
Christian era. Thus, one hundred and fifty-two passages
from Homer are cited by twenty-nine writers after and in-
cluding Herodotus. They amount to about four hundred
and eighty lines, but they contain less than a dozen lines
which are not in the ordinary text.^
If Pisistratus ever made an Homeric text, it was not
the only official text of the two great epics, since we
also hear of " city editions " or " civic editions," which
' See Ludwich, Die Homer-vulgata als voralexandrinisch ermesen
(Leipzig, 1898).
1 6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
were standards each in its own country/ The important
fact is that at so early a period there should be found a
beginning of Text Criticism in which, as now, many
sources of knowledge must have been drawn upon —
chronology, history, geography, and, to a certain extent,
aesthetics, more especially the aesthetics of language.
It is interesting to remember that Solon was accused
of having interpolated a line in the Iliad so as to make
it appear that the Athenians had taken part in the Trojan
War, and that Pisistratus had inserted a line in the Odyssey
so as to bring in the name of Theseus, the national hero
of Athens. We have, therefore, as early as the sixth
century, indications of all the difficulties which beset text
critics in modern times — variant editions, errors due to
carelessness, others due to ignorance, and also conscious al-
terations to suit the purpose of the transcriber. Nor was
Homer the only author whose text suffered in this way;
for there is a story to the effect that Onomacritus was
detected in altering the oracles of Musaeus and that he
was punished for it.
There is some significance in the legend that the first care-
fully prepared edition of Homer was made in Athens, rather
1 Seven of these " city editions " are noted — the Massalotic, the Si-
nopic, the Chian, the Cyprian, the Argive, the Cretan, and the Lesbian.
The first four were Ionic, and the last three were ^olic. All of these
editions were supposed to have been copies made from the archetype
prepared under the direction of Pisistratus. The Greek term for "city
editions" is dKddjeis /card Tr6Xetj.
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 1 7
than among the Asiatic lonians, who had represented
a higher form of culture. Athens was destined to be-
come the intellectual centre of the Greek world, though
it had not yet won supremacy. Ionia has the credit
of having first established regular schools with paid
teachers for the purpose of imparting a general education.
The teaching of which we read in Homer was, of course,
physical training with some instruction in music and
medicine. The public instruction given to youths in the
Doric States such as Sparta and Crete had very much
the same character.^ The Bidiaei and Paedonomi, under
whose care the Spartan boy was placed after the age of
seven, trained the young in gymnastics, in the use of
arms, and in choral singing. For such literary education
as a man was expected to possess (usually only reading,
writing, and a little arithmetic) he depended chiefly upon the
instruction which was given by his parents. It is stated
by Plutarch that the semi-mythical Lycurgus brought
copies of the Homeric poems to Sparta, and made a
knowledge of them a requirement in the Spartan schools;
but if so, this must have been due to the fact that he had
travelled in Asia Minor and had introduced at home a
practice which he had observed abroad. Among the
lonians, however, literary teaching in regular Schools is
found as early as the seventh century B.C., and as these
schools were then in a very prosperous condition and
' See Monroe, Source Book of the History of Education (Greek and
Roman Period) (New York, 1901).
c
1 8 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
very largely attended, they must have been established
long before. Herodotus (vi, 27) mentions a boys' school
in Chios in the year 500 B.C.; and at the time of the in-
vasion of Xerxes, when the Athenians left their own city
and took refuge at Trcezen, one of the first things they
did was to arrange for their school system during the
period of their temporary exile. ^ The Mitylen^eans
punished disloyal allies by depriving them of the right to
maintain schools. Charondas, about 650 B.C., made state
provision for literary instruction in Sicily.^
The teaching of literature appears to have been de-
veloped, first of all, as an adjunct to instruction in morals.
The earliest intellectual exercise of boys at school, and
probably before they had begun to attend school, was the
study of the Homeric poems. This anticipated even the
learning of the alphabet; for the alphabet was first taught
by the jpafx/jbanaTij';, while the Iliad and the Odyssey were
read and recited to growing boys, who were urged to
learn them gradually by heart. But the early apprecia-
tion of the epics was not a literary appreciation at all;
and to understand the prominence given to this study, we
must remember the peculiar view which the Greeks took
with regard to Homer. He was not so much the great
poet, the master of heroic verse. He was. rather a moral
teacher, an ethical guide, who drew his characters with
' Plutarch, Themistocles , 10.
^ Diodorus Siculus, xii. 12.
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 1 9
a conscious purpose of exhibiting in their actions the
quahties that men should emulate or shun. As late as
Horace who, like all Romans, was a great lover of the
concrete, we find this same thought expressed.
" While you are declaiming at Rome," he says to his
friend Lollius, " I have been reading over at Praeneste
the writer of the Trojan War, who tells us better and
more clearly than either Chrysippus or Grantor what is
noble and what is base, what is expedient and what is
not."
And farther on, " Again, as to what virtue and wis-
dom are able to effect, he (Homer) has set before us a
useful model in the person of Ulysses."
The strenuous insistence on a thorough knowledge of
Homer was therefore due, first of all, to his moral teach-<:
ing. We must remember also that the formal education
given in school was much less valued by the Greeks than
it is by us. Plato says in his Laws that a knowledge of
writing is necessary only so far as to enable one barely
to write and read; and that to write fast or with elegance
is outside of the range of ordinary education. There
may even have existed, as Mahaffy suggests, a prejudice
against clear and regular script, because it would recall
the writing in books which was done by copyists who
were slaves. When we say that a person writes " a clerkly
hand " the remark is not altogether complimentary. Hence,
the average Greek probably wrote with more or less diffi-
20 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
culty, and did not have, as a rule, much occasion to use
the accompHshment. But inasmuch as he memorised
most of his learning, he was the more deeply saturated
with it.
So it came about that the universal familiarity with
Homer resulted in a very general criticism of the
Homeric poems. As Mr. Saintsbury well says, " It was
impossible that a people so acute and so philosophically
given as the Greeks, should be soaked in Homer without
being tempted to exercise their critical faculties upon the
poems." ^ Such was indeed the case; and thoughtful
men began to ask themselves whether a great moral
teacher who represented the gods as deceitful, faithless,
and debauched could be really a moralist at all. Like-
wise, contradictions and statements were pointed out which
practical knowledge showed to be untrue. Then began
an attempt to give an allegorical or a rationalistic inter-
pretation of Homer, which should preserve his authority
and yet reconcile it with the facts of human life. We
find traces of the Solar Myth at about this time, and in-
genious interpretations like those which the Rabbinical
writers have given of portions of the Hebrew Bible. Here
is the beginning of Literary Criticism — though not
" literary " in the rightful sense, for it had to do chiefly
with mere words and not the form of Homeric and other
poetry. Nevertheless, it was a beginning; and in succeed-
' Saintsbury, A History of Criticism, i. pp. 10-12 (New York, 1900).
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 21
ing centuries it became aesthetic, treating literature purely
as the product of conscious or unconscious art.
It was in Asia Minor that this early criticism had its
birth. The lonians were the first, perhaps, to study
Homer systematically. They were, therefore, the first to
reject his mythical interpretation of nature in the effort
to discover a rational and physical interpretation of it.
They inquired, " What is the first principle and source of
all things?" and with this inquiry Greek Philosophy
begins. Before Pisistratus had undertaken to make a
standard edition of the Homeric text, Thales, Anaxi-
mander, and Anaximenes, all of Miletus, and Heraclitus
of Ephesus, taught the intimate connection between life
and matter, the one dependent on the other, according
to the doctrine known as Hylozoism. Thus Thales
[c. 640 B.C.) believed the first principle to be water, since
moisture is necessary to life. Anaximander made the
first principle an unknown element to which he gave the
name aTreipov, from which by eternal motion all things
were produced. Anaximenes found the original element
to be air, whence came everything through the processes
of condensation and rarefaction. On the other hand,
Heraclitus (c. 500 b.c), the last of this so-called Ionian
School, taught the immanence in all things of fire, and
the doctrine of an eternal flux.
Pythagoras (c. 500 b.c.) was the most remarkable of
these earlier philosophers, and it was he who developed
22 mSTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
a new form of religion and of philosophy, while he
was the first great mathematician to arise among the
Greeks. In fact, as early as the seventh century, mathe-
matics began to be studied, (mainly geometry) which
the Greeks learned from the Egyptians. Dr. Cajori re-
marks: ^ " Just as Americans in our time go to Germany
to study, so early Greek scholars visited the land of the
pyramids. Thales, CEnopides, Pythagoras ... all sat
at the feet of the Egyptian priests for instruction. While
Greek culture is, therefore, not primitive, it commands
our enthusiastic admiration. The speculative mind of
the Greek at once transcended questions pertaining
merely to the practical wants of everyday life. It pierced
into the ideal relations of things and revelled in the study
of science as science." ^
Thales introduced the study of Geometry into Greece
and with him begins the study of scientific Astronomy.
The attempt to square the circle is as old as Anaxagoras.
All of the Ionic philosophers pursued the study of Mathe-
matics. Pythagoras, however, stands alone. Around the
life and personality of this great genius there hangs, as it
were, a mist of tradition such as envelops all of the most
'See Allmann, Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid (Dublin, 1889);
Tannery, La Geometric Grecque (Paris, 1887); and Cajori, A History of
Elementary Mathematics (New York, 1907).
^ An abstract of a history of geometry in Greece, written by Eudemus,
is preserved in the commentaries by Proclus (412 a.d.) on the first book
of Euclid.
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 23
remarkable characters of history, from Moses to Napoleon.
Pythagoras was born in the island of Samos, but after
visiting Egypt and the East, he finally made his residence
at Crotona, in Southern Italy, where he established a
cult the members of which, drawn mainly from the aris-
tocratic class, formed a brotherhood under the leadership
of Pythagoras. They were bound by a vow to study his
theories of religion and philosophy. Three hundred of
them formed the highest caste; and they were admitted
only by Pythagoras himself, who judged them largely
through his knowledge of physiognomy. There was some-
thing mystic about all this, for they took an oath of secrecy
according to the maxim of their master: " Everything is
not to be told to everybody." Pythagoras taught them
temperance, self-control, and an ethical righteousness
which should make their lives reflect " the music of the
spheres," that is to say, the order and harmony of the
universe. This principle of harmony ran through all the
Pythagorean teaching, which comprised music, arith-
metic, geometry, and astronomy. There is a story which
tells how he discovered the relations of the musical scale
by accidentally observing the various sounds produced
by hammers of different weights striking upon an anvil,
and suspending by strings other weights equal to those
of the respective hammers. He is said to have first dis-
covered the so-called Pons Asinorum in geometry. In
Religion he taught the transmigration of souls — a doc-
24 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
trine which he had probably learned in India. The essence
of all things is Number, according to his teaching; but no
existing works, bearing the name of Pythagoras, are gen-
uine. His influence among the Italian Greeks, and after-
wards among the Athenians, was very great; so that the
Pythagorean cult endured for many centuries.* Finally,
in the sixth century, the Eleatic School of philosophy
arose, numbering among its most distinguished teachers,
Xenophanes, already mentioned as having rejected the
Homeric idea of God, with Parmenides and Zeno, both
of whom asserted that the senses cannot teach us truth,
but that verity is apprehended only by the mind.^
The study of nature, which began with the Ionian
School, led to the origin of another science. Homer had
long been the basis of geographical knowledge. On his
statements, Hesiod and the other early poets had depended.
It may be said without exaggeration that interest in
geography, so far as it had existed before the middle of
the seventh century, was spread among the Greeks en-
tirely through the poems of Homer. The cliildren in the
schools, and the elders who heard the declamations of the
rhapsodes, thus became acquainted with the cities, rivers,
^ Gleditsch, Die Pylhagoreer (Posen, 1841); Chaignet, Pythagore et
la Philosophie Pylhagorienne (Paris, 1873). For his so-called Golden
Verses, see Gottling's edition of Hesiod (Gotha, 1843); and Schnee-
berger, Die goldenen Spriiche des Pythagoras (Miinnerstadt, 1862).
'Windelband, History of Ancient Philosophy, pp. 46-52. English
translation (New York, 1899).
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 25
and mountains of Greece, and (especially from the Cata-
logue of Ships) with the names of the Hellenic tribes.
But after first-hand knowledge had been gained by travel,
learned men began to formulate a more exact view of
physical geography, so that with them the science of
Geography began.^ Anaximander of Miletus is said to
have made upon a large scale a map of the world as he
supposed it to be. His compatriot, Hecataeus (c. 500 B.C.),
constructed a bronze plaque or possibly a globe, ^ on which
the sphere of the earth, the sea, and the courses of the rivers
were given. Maps of countries, however, had not yet be-
come important; though descriptive notes were collected
from persons who travelled on business or from curiosity.
In this manner the data necessary for the preparation
of Descriptive Geography were gradually accumulated.
To this the great contributors were Hanno of Carthage,
who explored the western coast of Africa, his countryman
Himilco, and such of the Greeks as came into direct
contact with the Persians and Egyptians.^ Hecataeus
corrected the chart of Anaximander, adding a commen-
tary of which fragments are preserved in quotations.*
This is the first geographical work written by any Greek.
' See Bunbury, A History of Ancient Geography (London, 1883).
''X'^^Kfos Trd'tt^ (Herod, v. 125).
J See Antichan, Les Grands Voyages de Decouvertes des Anciens (Paris,
1891); and infra, pp. 34-35-
^ Edited by C. and Th. Miiller (Paris, 1841). See the monograph
by Schaffer on Hecataeus (BerUn, 1885).
26 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Writers like Anaximander and Hecataeus committed their
observations to Prose. Until their time, poetry had been
employed even in philosophical discussion — an example
followed by Lucretius in later times among the Romans.
But descriptive geography cast aside the restraints of
metrical form, though still maintaining a highly poetical
character. Only by degrees did it become true prose,
but was filled with phrases and turns of expression bor-
rowed from the epic writers. Those who employed it
were known as Logographi; ^ and presently they began
to mingle, with their descriptions of countries, anecdotes
and remarks not strictly geographical. In their works,
therefore, we find the beginnings of History, which was at
first nothing more than annals very simply written. Its
true development comes later with Herodotus, who skil-
fully combined descriptive geography with the story of
nations, interwoven also with personal observations, so
that he deserves the name which Grafenhan has given
him of "the Humboldt of Antiquity." -
Thus it will be seen that out of the study and criticism
of Homer there came the elements of many kinds of
learning. Homeric study fostered mathematical, geo-
graphical, astronomical, and philosophical research, just as
it led other poets to write in imitation of their great
model. Though Homer gradually ceased to be viewed as
a universal teacher, yet the devotion of the Greeks, so
• \o7O7/3c£0oi.
GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 27
long given to his poetry, exercised an influence which made
it endure far beyond the time when he was held to be
a wholly inspired writer. His great lines had become a
part of every man's intellectual equipment. His phrases,
his epithets, his many gnomic utterances, were as firmly
embedded in the daily speech of the Greeks, as those of
the English Bible and of Shakespeare are embedded in
our own. In the study of him we are to find the sources
of Greek learning. Afterward, while forsaking him as a
guide in morals and in science, men still turned to him as
a great master of language and an unconscious model
of strong yet harmonious expression.
[Bibliography. — In addition to the works cited in the preceding
chapter, see also Grafenhan, Geschichte der Classischen Philologie,
i (Bonn, 1843) ; Reinach, Manuel de Philologie Classique, 2d
ed. 2 vols. (Paris, 1885) ; Egger, Essai sur VHistoire de la Cri-
tique chez les Grecs (Paris, 18S7); Sandys, A History of Classical
Scholarship, i. pp. 1-51, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 1908); Jebb, Homer
(Glasgow, 1887); Schomann, Griechische AlterthUmer , 4th ed.
(Berlin, 1897); Browne, Handbook of Homeric Stiidy (London, 1905);
Cara, Gli Hethei Pelasgi (Rome, 1902); E. CMXthxs, History oj
Greece, Eng. trans., 5 vols. (New York, 1868-1872); Mahaflfy,
What have the Greeks done for Modern Civilisation ? (New York
and London, 1909).]
II
THE PR.^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD
(500-322 B.C.)
Throughout the sixth and seventh centuries, suprem-
acy in Greek culture had been held by the lonians of
Asia Minor. To them were due the intellectual efforts
which have been described in the preceding chapter. In
Hellas proper, however, both Athens and Sparta had
achieved a prominence which was full of latent possibili-
ties. The wise and temperate rule of Solon and Pisis-
tratus in Athens, and the institutions which at Sparta
were ascribed traditionally to Lycurgus, had fitted each of
these States to play the important roles by which they
are best known in history, Athene and Sparta were
different in almost every respect. Athens was democratic,
brilliant, and given first of all to intellectual activity.
Sparta was aristocratic, subjected to a strict discipline,
and caring first of all for warlike power.^ These two
States had been gradually acquiring control over the
territories which touched their own; so that in the sixth
century they became possessed of a civilisation based
' See Jannet, Les Institutions Sociales . . . a Sparte, 2d ed. (Paris,
1880).
28
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 29
upon strength of body and mind, and ripe for the further
cultivation which was to be developed in them.
It was in the year 500, that a darkly threatening cloud
began to loom over the Greeks of Asia Minor. Their
proximity to Persia had always been a danger. Loving
liberty, they gradually resented the burden of a despotism
which the Persians fostered by imposing petty tyrants
upon communities which had been wholly free. In
the year 500, their smouldering discontent broke out
into a flame. There was a general uprising of the Ionian
cities. A republic was proclaimed in Miletus. Soon the
cities on the Hellespont and almost the whole of Caria
and Cyprus joined in a revolt. An appeal for help was
made to the Western Greeks; and though Athens and
Eretria were the only States to give immediate aid by
sending a small fleet, this marked the beginning of the
great Persian Wars which constitute an epoch in the
history of Greece and of the world. For the moment,
the Ionian fleet was shattered by the Persian allies from
Egypt and Phoenicia. Miletus, after a siege of six years
(500-494 B.C.), was taken and destroyed in the madness
of a frightful vengeance. The whole of Ionia was ravaged
with oriental cruelty. It was then that Athens stood
forth as the champion of the race; and against her
Darius, " the great king," launched two vast expeditions
of ships and men. The first was wrecked at Athos.
The second came to a disastrous end on the plain of
30 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Marathon (490 B.C.). One hundred thousand Persians
under Datis and Artaphernes were pitted there against
ten thousand Athenians under Miltiades. The Asiatics
were routed with great loss, and the Athenian victory sent
a thrill of triumph throughout all Hellas.
Modern historians believe that the exploit of the Athe-
nians was greatly exaggerated then, and that it has been
misunderstood ever since. Professor K. F. Geldner says,
" Probably the Greeks, after having avoided battle for a
long time, fell upon the Persians as they were departing,
and especially after their powerful cavalry had already
embarked." ^ If the able and energetic Darius had com-
manded in person, the result would doubtless have been
different. Making all allowances, however, it was in
effect a victory for Athens, since the Persians abandoned
the campaign and returned to Asia. Therefore, Athens
leaped at once to a position of great influence which was
enhanced when, ten years later, the new Persian king,
Xerxes, sought vengeance. An enormous army under
his command marched through Macedonia and Thrace,
and an overwhelming fleet sailed forth to Thessalonica.
The Spartans, who now rushed to arms, suffered the
glorious defeat of Thermopylae. The Athenian fleet
routed the Persians off Salamis; while both Athenians
and Spartans united in shattering the disordered troops
of Persia behind their fortifications at Platasa. Finally,
* See also Schauer, Die Schlacht bei Marathon (Berlin, 1893).
THE PRiE- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 3 1
the lonians, on the same day, being encouraged by the
sight of Grecian ships, shook off once more the shackles
of their servitude and destroyed the sixty thousand men
who remained out of the great host that had been led forth
by Xerxes.^
The two Persian Wars may seem to have had no direct
relation to the history of Classical Philology; yet in fact,
by compelling the Greeks to put forth all their power,
these splendid triumphs stimulated them into extraor-
dinary activity wherever the race was represented.^ Such
a stimulation is the result of every great war, and it may
well serve as a vindication of many historic struggles
which have cost so heavily in human life and in apparently
wasted treasure. The Punic Wars led at Rome to the first
real flowering of Italian genius. The Civil Wars which
ravaged Italy in a later century ended with the golden
triumphs of the Augustan Age. France was never so
glorious, intellectually, as in the battle-years under Louis
XIV, and again amid the Napoleonic Wars. The heroic
struggle of England against Spain made the Elizabethan
Period superbly memorable in the annals of literature and
science; and so did her stubborn, unrelenting contest with
' See Cox, The Greeks and the Persians (New York, 1897).
' Note, for example, the remarkable activity displayed by the
Athenians in rebuilding and enlarging their city's walls. Men of every
station, women, and even children, under the urgent advice of the mighty
Themistocles, engaged in this work, tearing down temples and even
tombs to afford material for the walls.
32 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the Corsican Emperor, when at times she stood entirely
alone, with a haughty confidence in her ultimate success.
Warfare on a great scale brings into play all the energies
of men, both physical and mental. It inspires them alike
by its victories and by its defeats. It leads nations to
cast aside their inglorious love of ease and lets the fierce
joy of conflict stir at once the senses, the intellect, and
the imagination.
Hence it is that we find in the Persian Wars the begin-
ning of a great and splendid career for the Hellenic
States, and most of all for Athens, which had won such
brilliant victories in the field as to rouse Hellenic pride
and to make the city of the violet crown the centre of all
Hellas, in arts as well as arms. We must now look for
the rise of men who were really great, an^ for the develop-
ment of those studies which had been only nebulously
visible in the two preceding centuries. Certain of the
men who became famous early in this period, which ex-
tends from the outbreak of the Persian Wars to the death
of Aristotle, won their chief distinction through the in-
spiration which had come to them because of the Persian
assault on Greece. Conspicuous among these was the
Theban Pindar, greatest of all the lyric poets. The
Thebans were jealous of Athens; yet Pindar was no local
poet, but the laureate of the whole Hellenic race; and his
exultation over the defeat of the Persians led him to pour
forth vivid, joyous lines, ringing with the note of patriotic
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 33
pride. Because of this, his fellow-Thebans imposed on
him a heavy fine, which the Athenians paid back to him
twofold besides erecting a statue in his honour.
The mention of Pindar leads us to note that Lyric
Poetry was first cultivated with conscious art among the
Cohans and the Dorians. The lyric in general is the
most primitive form of poetry, and it must have existed in
the earliest ages, at least in a rude form, for it is the spon-
taneous utterance of emotion — at first absolutely individ-
ual self-expression, a concomitant of the primitive dance, a
vocal expression of the " play instinct," seeking naturally
after rhythmic movement.^ This originally expressed itself
in the trochaic measure, which is the primitive metrical
form among all peoples. Then was developed very grad-
ually the dactylic hexameter which we find in Homer. Side
by side with this hexameter, however, the lighter lyrical
movement was cultivated in song. Elegiac and Iambic
Poetry forms a transition from epic to lyric composition,
and was so known to the lonians. Purely lyrical or
Melic Poetry, which was verse intended to be sung to a
musical accompaniment, was not Ionic, but first received
artistic shape from Terpander of Antissa in Lesbos as
early as 700 B.C. In the ^^olic lyric, Alcaeus of Mitylene
(later imitated by Horace) , and his contemporary, Sappho,
gave it a complete and varied form. So the jovial poems
'See W. Scherer, Poetik (Berlm, 18S8); and Peck, Literature (New
York, 1908).
D
34 mSTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
of Anacreon (550 B.C.) were composed earlier than
Pindar's time. Yet it was Pindar, a Dorian, who raised
choral poetry to its highest form at the time of the Persian
Wars, together with Simonides and his nephew, Bacchyl-
ides.^
The splendid victories of Hellas over its eastern
foes led Herodotus of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor to
write his remarkable narrative in nine books at a date
which is uncertain, but which must have been about the
middle of the fifth century B.C. Herodotus, a great
traveller, a keen observer, a collector of interesting facts,
has been styled " the Father of History." We have seen,
however, that history of a sort had been written by the
Logographi.^ It was Herodotus who cast aside the dry
annalistic form and wrote in a prose style that is at
once simple, attractive, and highly picturesque, for it
retains a deep tinge of poetic colouring. This genial,
learned, and yet pleasing writer took for the subject of
his history the Persian Wars. It is, indeed, a great
prose epic of the conflict between Hellas and the East,
as the first sentence of the first book shows: —
" This is a publication of the researches of Herodotus
of Halicarnassus, to the end that the deeds of men may
not be obliterated by time, and that the great and won-
* See Mattel, Die griechischen Lyriker (Berlin, 1892); and the intro-
duction to Smyth's Greek Melic Poets (New York, 1900).
^ See p. 26.
THE PR.E- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 35
derful achievements wrought both by Greeks and by bar-
barians may not be divested of their glory — and, more-
over, to explain the cause which led them to wage war
upon each other."
Contemporary with Herodotus was Hellanicus of Mity-
lene, of whose works only fragments remain. Though he
lived to a very old age, dying in 406 B.C., he had none of
the literary charm of the new prose. Nevertheless, he
was the first writer to introduce something like a chrono-
logical arrangement into the traditional records of history
and mythology; and his views regarding them were ac-
cepted for more than a century after his death. He
likewise was a profound student of Genealogy. His
records, though having little literary value, were of much
service to the later historians; while the notes of
Herodotus made during his extensive travels were a rich
mine for writers on Descriptive Geography.
Just as the Persian Wars had given Herodotus a theme,
so the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) inspired the
greatest historian who has ever written. This was Thu-
cydides (471- c. 399 B.C.), an Athenian who wrote a history
of this epoch-making struggle waged between the two
leading States of Hellas for the supremacy of the race, —
Athens and her allies on the one side, and Sparta and her
allies on the other. Thucydides was a man of wealth and
character. His fine intellect had been cultivated until it
became an instrument of remarkable power, delicacy, and
36 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
finish. He had on the one hand the scientific spirit,
and on the other hand an almost unrivalled gift of literary
expression. When the war broke out, he was forty years
of age, with all his faculties at their very highest; and
thus, most naturally, the history which he produced in
eight books ^ has become what he desired it to be, a pos-
session for all time {Krrj/xa e? det). Herodotus had
written with great charm of style. His narrative was
illumined by anecdote and the narration of curious facts.
He was a prose poet. Thucydides, on the other hand,
combined judicial impartiality with a manly, moving
eloquence. Lord Macaulay said that his prose was the
finest prose that has ever yet been written by any man ; ^
and this in spite of what to the modern mind seems often
to be extreme obscurity. His impartiality is the more
remarkable in that he was writing contemporaneous his-
tory, and that he was himself an Athenian and took part
in the war. To quote Dr. F. B. Jevons: " There is
hardly a literary production of which posterity has enter-
tained a more uniformly favourable estimate than the
history of Thucydides. This high distinction he owes to
his undeviating fidelity and impartiality as a narrator;
to the masterly concentration of his work, in which he
' The eighth book is incomplete and is by some regarded as not the
worli of Thucydides himself.
^ Macaulay also said of himself that while he might perhaps dare to
believe that he could equal the prose of any other writer, he would never
attempt to rival the seventh book of Thucydides.
THE PR^-ALEXAISTDRIAN PERIOD 37
is content to give in a few simple yet vivid expressions
the facts which it must have often taken him weeks or
even months to collect, sift, and decide upon; to the
sagacity of his political and moral observations in which
he shows the keenest insight into the springs of human
action and the mental nature of man; and to his un-
rivalled descriptive power. . . , Thucydides when he
undertook to record the present, thereby deliberately
elected to confine himself to efficient causes. This pref-
erence for efficient causes and for scientific history, in the
best sense of the term, is intimately connected with the
positive nature of his history — that is to say, with his
perpetual endeavour to record facts and to distinguish
them from inferences drawn from facts."
The utmost efforts of modern criticism have been un-
able to shake the wonderful structure of his history. In
this respect he is to be compared with Gibbon. It is
interesting to note that while Niebuhr is popularly said
to have first established the scientific principles of histori-
cal investigation, Gibbon anticipated Niebuhr in practice
just as he himself had been anticipated by Thucydides
more than two thousand years before.^
A contemporary of Thucydides, Xenophon, who was
* See Miiller-Striibing in the Jahrhuch filr Philologie, cxxxi. 289 foil. ;
and Classen's Introduction to his edition of Thucydides, vol. i. 2d ed.
(Berlin, 1897); Forbes, The Life and Method of Thucydides (London,
1895); and Jevons, A History of Greek Literature, pp. 327-348 (New
York, 1897).
38 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
also an Athenian, is the third great historian to give lustre
to the Prae-AIexandrian Period. Serving as a mercenary
in a Greek force raised by Cyrus the Persian, he recorded
his experiences in the Anabasis, a work which continues
to be read in our secondary schools both for the sim-
plicity and vivacity of its narrative, and for the facts
observed by Xenophon and faithfully recorded in the
seven books which make up the work. Xenophon as an
historian is inferior to Herodotus and Thucydides, but
he is an admirable writer, as his persistent popularity
well shows. Besides the Anabasis, he wrote a history of
Greece (Hellenica) which practically completed the un-
finished work of Thucydides, unlike whom he wrote
with a strong bias, in violent contrast with the stern im-
partiality of his predecessor.^ Xenophon did not confine
himself to historical writing, but composed treatises which
had to do with Political Science (the Lacedcemonian Polity,
the Cyropcedia, and On the Athenian Finances) as well
as quasi-ethical monographs, the most famous of which
is the Memorabilia of Socrates. Xenophon writes in a
dialect which is not purely Attic, owing to the fact of his
long and frequent absences from his native country.^
In the histories of Thucydides and Xenophon there are
introduced set speeches, conventionally supposed to have
been delivered by generals to their troops, by statesmen
* See A. Holm, Griechische Geschichte; Eng. trans. (London, 1894-99).
^ See Alfred Croiset, Xenophon, son Caradcre et son Talent (Paris,
1873)-
THE PR^- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 39
to deliberative assemblies, by ambassadors and by dema-
gogues. These speeches do not pretend to be authentic
records. They are inserted partly to enliven the narrative
by interspersing it with personal touches, and more par-
ticularly to sum up effectively and within a short compass
the opinions or arguments which the speakers might have
been supposed to hold and to utter. They are true in
substance though not authentic in form. Their occur-
rence in historical writing shows that, during the fifth
century. Oratory had become an art. Of course, a certain
kind of oratory, rude and extemporaneous, must have
been known far back in the prehistoric period, since
oratory is one of the accomplishments which make for
statesmanship. The primitive chieftain undoubtedly ha-
rangued his followers when occasion arose. Even in the
poetry of Homer there are speeches set down in hexameter
verse. But this untutored oratory was, as Professor
Sears describes it, merely " protoplasmic eloquence."
The psychological basis of it was not understood. The
graces of external form were not yet taught by precept.
Such power as oratory had, came from strong feeling and
the gift which some possess of swaying the minds and
imaginations of their hearers by communicating to them
something of their own passion. By the end of the sixth
century, however, educated men began to recognise that
the gift of eloquence, the end of which is persuasion,
could be acquired; so that in a philosophical treatise by
40 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Diogenes of Apollonia there is found embodied, " like a
trilobite in limestone," the following rhetorical injunction,
" It appears to me that every one who begins a discourse
ought to state the subject with distinctness, and to make
the style simple and dignified." ^ In fact, the Greeks,
who were essentially a nation of talkers, expected the
account of a man's actions to be accompanied and ex-
plained by his spoken words, so that all might judge of
his intellectual and moral character. Hence it was that at
the time of the Persian Wars, eloquence came to be highly
valued as indispensable to the statesman, the diplomat,
and the commander of armies. Oratory, or, to use the
Greek term, Rhetoric {prjTopLKrj), thus arose, comprising
both the practical and the theoretical art of speaking. So
earnestly was it cultivated that it came to be called at last
"the art of arts." Its development was one of the steps
which accompanied the decline of poetry and the rise of
prose. Just as the lyric supplanted the epic, and pictur-
esque prose narrative was gradually preferred to poetry, so
oratory — a still further remove from purely imaginative
composition — helped to assimilate literature with practical
life. Its rapid growth was due, of course, to the spread
of democracy by which the government of the State be-
came the gift of the assembled people. To dominate the
reason, the impulses, and the prejudices of the people were
at last the chief functions of the art of oratory.
' See Sears, The History of Oratory, ch. i. (Chicago, 1903).
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 4I
Already for the training of legal and judicial pleading,
a definite though imperfect system had been set forth.
Cicero ^ ascribes it to the Sicilian Greeks, who were famous
in antiquity for their ready wit, their love of highly coloured
language, and their passion for subtle argument. The
first manual professing to instruct men in the art of per-
suasive speaking is said to have been written by Corax
of Syracuse in Sicily early in the sixth century B.C. With
this date then begins the formal development of the art of
Rhetoric. Corax opened a school at Syracuse in which
he taught the principles laid down in his Te;\;f7;; and
his pupil, Tisias, of whom little is known, made some
additions to the rules of Corax." Gorgias of Leontini
(485-380 B.C.), probably a pupil of Tisias, carried the study
of rhetoric to Hellas proper, whither he went as an am-
bassador to ask for protection against the encroachments
of Syracuse. From that time he had a residence in Athens
and another in the city of Larissa in Thessaly, winning
widespread fame both as a public speaker and as a practi-
cal teacher of rhetoric. So far as any evidences remain of
the teaching of Gorgias, it seems plain that his rules looked
to a highly artificial and meretricious style of oratory.^
' Brutus, 46.
'These rules divided an oration into five parts: (i) proem, (2) narra-
tive, (3) arguments, (4) subsidiary remarks, and (5) peroration. Both
Corax and Tisias made much of the value of what they called etV-6s,
that is to say, the semblance to truth which in an oration makes the
whole of an argument appear plausible and therefore possesses an appeal
to man's sense of what is just and right.
*Two orations ascribed to him are extant. See Blass, pp. 44-72.
42 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Studied antitheses, a profusion of simile and metaphor,
apostrophe, and other figures, together with a carefully
balanced rhythm, must have made his most finished elo-
quence resemble the so-called Euphuism of John Lyly and
his fellow-Elizabethans. It was, in fact, a foreshadowing
in Greece of the so-called Asiatic style of eloquence
adopted in later times by some of the Roman orators. At
Athens, however, a less affected mode of eloquence pre-
vailed. There were great orators who were conspicuous
during the middle of the fifth century B.C., and whose
manly, noble eloquence (the Attic style) gained little from
teachings such as those of Gorgias.
The Age of Pericles — the noblest statesman whom
Greece produced — was a period of great splendour. Peri-
cles adorned and enriched the city with the wealth con-
tributed by the allied States. Athens to him meant
Greece just as Paris to the French people has long meant
France. Under his patronage, Greek architecture and
sculpture reached perfection. He planned the Parthenon,
the Erechtheum, the Odeon, and many like magnificent
public edifices. He encouraged literature as well as the
other arts. He was the centre of a splendid group, in
which were Thucydides, ^schylus, Sophocles, Euripi-
des, Anaxagoras, Zeno, Protagoras, Pindar, and the great
sculptors Phidias and Myron. Athens was brilliant with
gorgeous festivals and crowned with the laurels of military
glory. The noblest figure of all was Pericles himself.
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 43
Though Thucydides opposed him, he generously records
the fact that Pericles never did anything unworthy of his
high position, that he neither flattered the people nor
oppressed his private enemies, and that with all his un-
limited command of public money, he was personally in-
corruptible/ Gorgias is said to have instructed both
Pericles and Thucydides, but the first Athenian to apply
the rules of rhetoric practically in speaking before the public
assemblies and the courts was Antiphon (480-41 1 B.C.) . He
was also the first to publish speeches as models for rhetori-
cal study. If we examine these and the orations inter-
woven in the history of Thucydides, we find that they
exhibit a certain self-consciousness which is fatal to effective
oratory. Lysias (458-c. 378 B.C.) shows purity of style and
grace, though he is lacking in energy. Isocrates (436-338
B.C.) is rightly regarded as the father of artistic oratory,
properly so called, and by his mastery of style he has in-
fluenced oratorical diction throughout all succeeding ages.^
'Lloyd, The Age of Pericles, 2 vols. (London, 1875); and Abbott,
Pericles (London, 1891).
2 Isocrates (Milton's "Old Man Eloquent" and Cicero's "Father of
Eloquence") was perhaps as well known for his rhetorical teaching as
for his practical application of it. He wrote speeches to be delivered
by others, and he gave instruction at the rate of 1000 drachmas, or about
$250, for a course of lessons, and he often had a hundred pupils at a
time, yielding a revenue equivalent to $25,000. The king of Cyprus
paid him 20 talents (about $22,000) for a single oration. These set
speeches were not merely delivered once, but were copied and read
wherever Greek was understood. On the other hand, he would some-
times spend from five to ten years in perfectmg one of these show pieces.
44 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
He spoke with ease, adapting the language of the people
to his own usage; his periods were flowing and rhythmical;
and he had an instinctive knowledge of everything which
tends to the possibilities of harmonious language. It is
said that Cicero was a deep student of Isocrates.^
It was not until near the close of the Prae-Alexandrian
Period that the most magnil^cent representative of Greek
oratory arose in the person of Demosthenes. He com-
bined the persuasiveness of Lysias, the animation and
boldness of Thucydides, and he understood well the art
of speaking in short, terse sentences which would go
home like arrows to the minds of an assembled multitude.
His superb oration On tJie Crown shows not only an
absolute mastery of all the resources of rhetoric employed
with great intellectual power, but also patriotic fervour
and that sincerity which belongs essentially to the et/co?
upon which Corax had insisted.^
So much of the teaching in Greece was given orally
that we may perhaps find in this circumstance an explana-
tion as to why the oldest rhetorical text-book now in
existence belongs to the middle of the fourth century
B.C. Corax, already mentioned, had merely discussed the
divisions of an oration and the manner of presenting its
arguments. In the manual written by Anaximenes (who,
by the way, wrote nine books of criticism on Homer), the
' See Blass, Ailische Beredsamkeil, 2d ed., 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1898); and
Jebb, Attic Orators, ii. pp. 1-34, 2d ed. (London, 1893).
' See Butcher, Demosthenes, preface to last ed. (London, 1903).
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 45
subject is treated practically rather than philosophically.
Anaximenes taught rhetoric to Alexander the Great, who
for his sake spared the city of Lampsacus, though it had
sided with the Persians. This manual, which is dedicated
to Alexander, was, until the last century, included among
the works of Aristotle and generally ascribed to him,
though with considerable doubt. In 1828, L. Spengel in
his treatise on the rhetorical writers prior to Aristotle '
conclusively proved the work to be that of Anaximenes.
The author divides oratorical discussion into three cate-
gories: (i) Forensic, (2) Deliberative, (3) Declamatory.
This threefold division was accepted by the ancients from
that time. The manual gives excellent advice as to the
proper arrangement of the members of an oration, with
some further technical details. The book, however, is
brief and its treatment of the subject very meagre.
The first scientific treatise with a full analysis and a
comprehensive grasp of both theory and practice is that
of Aristotle in his Rhetorica, divided into three parts or
books. As this is the most important work on rhetoric
produced in ancient times, a short account of its plan and
development may be given here. The great point of
departure in Aristotle's discussion of rhetoric is found in
his view of its functions. Rhetoric to him is not the art
of ornamenting and beautifying discourse. It is not
merely persuasion. It is rather the discovery of the
> Published at Stuttgart, 1828.
46 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
possible means of persuasion. Hence, rhetoric is the
counterpart of Logic, and the principles of logic enter into
its laws as an essential part of them. The uses of rhetoric
are: (i) the means by which truth and justice may rise
superior to falsehood and injustice; (2) the means of
persuasion that are suited to popular assemblies; (3) the
means of seeing both sides of a case and of thus dis-
covering the weakness of an adversary's argument; and
(4) the means of defending one's own case against all
possible attacks that can be made upon it. The means
of persuasion he sets forth as follows: (i) natural, " in-
artificial " proofs, such as the sworn testimony of wit-
nesses, documents, etc.; and (2) artificial proofs, which
are either (a) logical, involving demonstration by argu-
ment; or else (b) ethical, when the weight of a speaker's
own character inspires confidence in his hearers, and
emotional, when he works upon the feelings of his listeners
by appealing to their sympathies or prejudices. Logical
proof, he says, depends upon the principle of giving " a
syllogism from probability." Of the nature of such
syllogisms he distinguishes the common topic or general
head, applicable to all subjects, and the special topic drawn
from special arts, gifts, or circumstances.
Following a division of Anaximenes, rhetoric was
divided into three kinds: (i) Deliberative Rhetoric, which
has to do with exhortation or persuasion and is concerned
with future time as to expediency or inexpediency; (2) Fo-
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 47
rensic Rhetoric, relating to accusation or defence and
concerned with time past as to justice or injustice; and
(3) Epideictic Rhetoric, relating to eulogy or censure,
and usually concerned with the present time and as to
honour or distress. The first two books of Aristotle's
rhetoric deal with invention, i.e. the discovery of the
means of persuasion. The third book relates to expres-
sion and arrangement. Under the latter head he treats
of the art of delivery, considering verbal expression in
which is included the use of metaphor, simile, and terse
gnomic sayings, of the rhythm of sentences, and of Style.
As to style he notes four varieties: (i) the purely literary,
(2) the controversial, (3) the political, and (4) the forensic.
Aristotle's Rhetoric is the most exhaustive, analytical,
and scientific treatise on the subject that has ever been
written. It is, however, as has been truly said, the
philosophy of rhetoric rather than rhetoric that he dis-
cusses. His mind was intensely analytical and was
always seeking for ultimate causes; so that even in this
field he is forever verging upon the sphere of the meta-
physical. The great importance of the treatise is that it
prepared the way for Aristotle's Dialectic or Logic, which
in turn furnished many of the distinctions and classifica-
tions, destined afterward to be used in a different relation
by the originators of Formal Grammar.
Aristotle himself regarded rhetoric as standing side by
side with logic, since each relates to the process of insur-
48 HISTORY or CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
ing conviction. The orator must be a dialectician if he
would reach the highest excellence in his art; and the
dialectician, on the other hand, will make his logic most
effective through a command of the arts of oratory.
Hence Aristotle's rhetoric is really a dialectic science. In
his Organon, after he has set forth his system of logic,
he develops the methods by which man arrives at knowl-
edge. He discloses the laws of thinking and the modes
of cognition from a study of man's faculty of cognition,
striving to gain an insight into the nature and formation
of evidence and conclusion. In the course of this inquiry
he tries to classify all possible objects of human knowl-
edge under definite heads. In so doing, he drew up his
idsaowi, ttn CaXtgox'ms {prcedicamenta). These are: (i) sub-
stance, (2) quantity, (3) quality, (4) relation, (5) place,
(6) time, (7) situation, (8) possession, (9) action, (10) suffer-
ing, that is to say, passivity.^ The mere enumeration of
these categories serves to show how intimately they are
connected with the classification that we find in our
formal grammar. Because, in setting them forth, Aris-
totle provided a terminology and a framework for the
Alexandrian and other grammarians in the following
period, he has been spoken of as the source in which
both criticism and grammar find their origin.^
' These ten categories are really reducible to two: (i) substance, (2) at-
tribute; or (i) being, (2) accident.
' Dio Cassius, liii. p. 353; Reiske (294 R). Aristotle's Rhetoric is
edited separately with notes by Cope and Sandys, 3 vols. (Cambridge,
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 49
Rhetoric, language study, criticism, literary training,
and philosophy were all popularised by a class of teachers
who became famous under the name of Sophists {(To(^i<TTai).
Originally the name Sophist was given to any one who
professed a particular knowledge of some special subject;
but about 450 B.C. it was primarily applied to well-
educated men who had the gift of ready speech and who
travelled from place to place lecturing and teaching in
return for a tuition fee. They were the middlemen
of learning and made intelligible to untrained minds a
good deal of what was set forth more profoundly by original
writers and thinkers. They have their counterpart in the
peripatetic lecturers who traversed the United States from
1830 to i860, making addresses before " lyceums," and in
the university extension teachers of the last two decades.
Some of them were men of great ability, such as Gorgias
of Leontini, already mentioned; and Protagoras, a brilliant
teacher of rhetoric in Athens, who was the first scientific
individualist, taking as his motto '' Man is the measure of
all things," that is to say, every man must be his own
standard of truth, since truth is only relative and not
absolute. There was also Prodicus of Ceos, who lectured
on literary style {opOoeTreia), laying great stress on the right
1877); and Zeller, Aristotle (London, 1897). On the rhetoric of the
•Greeks, see Gros, Etude sur la Rhelorique chez les Grecques (Paris, 1835);
Perrot, Les Preciirseurs de Dcmosthene (Paris, 1S73); Girard, Etudes
sur V Eloquence (Paris, 1847); and Bascom, The Philosophy of Rhetoric
(New York, 1888).
E
50 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
use of words {le mot juste). Hippias of Elis was
another famous Sophist. He was a man of prodigious
memory and profoundly versed in all the learning of the
day, so that he attempted literature in every form that had
so far been developed. He piqued and rather shocked
his audiences by attempting to prove that law is an evil
and should not be obeyed, since it forces man to do many
things which are contrary to his nature. In this he was
one of the first representatives of what the higher slang of
our day describes as " the artistic temperament."
Such Sophists as these — brilliant, versatile, eloquent,
and ingenious — had an immense influence on popular
thought. Their society was courted by the leading men
of Athens. Even Pericles took pleasure in their conver-
sation. Greatest of them all was Socrates, though he
professed to despise the Sophists as a class and believed
himself to be other than a Sophist because he took no
money for his teachings, which were given in a desultory,
conversational fashion. From Protagoras and Gorgias
and Hippias, the Skeptics derived their doctrines; but
Socrates stands forth as the most inspiring philosophical
teacher of any time. From his immensely suggestive talk,
Plato drew his inspiration, as did Aristotle from Plato.
Socrates gave an entirely new turn to philosophic teaching.
Before his time philosophy had been physical; after Socrates
it became metaphysical and ethical. Just as the early
lonians had sought for a material origin of the universe,
THE PILE- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 5 1
SO Socrates thrust aside all speculations of the kind and
asked the epoch-making question, " How shall man live? "
The answer to this question was sought not merely by
Plato and by Aristotle, but afterwards by the Epicureans
and the Stoics, the Cynics and the Eclectics.
It should be remembered, however, that, on the whole,
the Sophists as a class were rightly held in disesteem.
The majority of them were mere smatterers, glib and
shallow, perverting the truth, and willing for a price to
make the worse appear the better reason. In the end,
the later Sophists were nothing but smooth talkers, some-
times delighting in mere technicalities, which took with
them the place of reason, so that they fell wholly into ill
repute.* But it was the Sophists of the fifth century who
gave a special impulse to the theoretical study of language.
Remembering the importance of rhetoric and the quasi-
philosophical principles of men such as Protagoras and
Hippias, it is not strange that there should have arisen
an immense amount of discussion regarding language,
from the desire to discover the laws of thought through a
discovery of the laws which govern the expression of that
thought in human speech.
The fact that Language Study began as an adjunct to
the study of philosophy is immensely important as ex-
plaining two interesting facts, — the fact that the pur-
* On the Sophists, see Benn, Greek Philosophers, ch. ii. (London, 1883);
Schanz, Die Sophisten (Gottingen, 1867); and Ueberweg, Geschichte der
Philosophic, i. 9th ed. (Leipzig, 1907).
52 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
suit was conducted in a way so unlike that of the scien-
tific linguist; and the other fact that a long time elapsed
before the development of scientific grammar. The phi-
losophers were at first concerned only with the meanings
of words, and very little with their forms, their external
relations to each other, or their arrangement and govern-
ment in a sentence. They strove rather to dig down
into the very heart of language, to find out what lay
behind the sounds, and to penetrate into the working of
the minds that gave them currency. Why was a certain
combination of letters the representation of one idea, while
a certain combination of other letters stood for the repre-
sentation of a different idea? In general, what was the
relation of sound to thought? These questions and
others like them first attracted the philosopher to the
study of language, while they are the very last and most
remote problems to interest the modern scientific linguist.
Hence, if the ancients had begun to investigate language
for its own sake, they would have created Grammar; but
as they took up the subject merely as a means to another
end and from the standpoint of psychology, they invented
Etymology.
It is, of course, to be understood also that even the
most enlightened of the Greeks in their most earnest
researches never went beyond the study of their own
language. They scarcely even recognised the speech of
other peoples as entitled to be called language at all.
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 53
The Hellenic contempt for the non-Hellenic is nowhere
more strikingly displayed than here. To the Greeks all
foreigners, and even their own kindred who spoke un-
familiar dialects, were styled " dumb " {ajXcoa-a-oc). The
contemptuous term /3dp/3apo<; is merely another expression
of the same feeling. It was only the Greeks who talked.
Other people chattered like the birds of the air, or jab-
bered like the beasts of the forest. Thus the Carians,
the Thracians, the Illyrians, the Phrygians, and even the
Macedonians were said to speak " barbarian " tongues.*
Demosthenes called Alexander the Great a "barbarian."
This feeling also operated in keeping back the development
of grammar in its modern sense. As a rule, no Greek
studied foreign languages. His own tongue he learned in
childhood and he felt no need of instruction in that. As
for the jargon of alien races, he despised both them and
those who spoke them. Themistocles, who is said to have
spoken Persian very fluently, stands out as a conspicuous
exception. For a long time there were no language teach-
ers and no study of language from the standpoint of formal
grammar. Persons who in ancient times acted as inter-
preters between Greeks and non-Greeks were either children
of mixed parentage, speaking both their fathers' and their
mothers' tongue; or else they were foreigners who studied
Greek for the express purpose of serving as interpreters.
There was, indeed, a steady demand for the services of
' Strabo, vii. 321; xiv. 662.
54 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
such men. Herodotus nowhere implies even in the remot-
est way that he knew any of the languages spoken in the
many countries that he visited. In one passage ^ he
speaks of caravans of merchants in the region of the
Volga as needing seven interpreters {ep/jbr]vet<i) speaking
seven languages. At a very much later period, when
Alexander the Great penetrated India and questioned the
Brahmins on the subject of their religion, the conversa-
tion had to be carried on through a series of interpreters.
The Greeks, in fact, displayed an amusing naivete in their
astonishment at finding so many people who knew no
Greek, but who spoke barbarian tongues with so much
ease. They were, in fact, apparently not gifted as prac-
tical linguists; for even after Latin was the language
of their own rulers, they seldom learned to speak it well.
Thus Plutarch says ^ that he found it impossible to master
Latin, and that one needs to begin its study when very
young. Strabo notes that historical treatises composed
in foreign languages were inaccessible to the Greeks and
never read by them.^
On the other hand, at an early period there is mention
of foreign scholars and writers who acquired an excellent
command of Greek, men like Berosusthe Babylonian (in the
fourth century e.g.) and Manetho the Egyptian, who wrote
in Greek the records of their respective countries — annals
' Herodotus, iv. 24.
^ Plutarch, Demosth. 2.
3 Strabo, ii. 4, 19.
I
THE PR^- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 55
which the Greeks regarded with a supercilious indifference.
There is absolutely no hint in any ancient writer that any
of these foreign languages might be related to the Hellenic
dialects. The idea would have seemed preposterous
even to the most enlightened Greek. The nearest ap-
proach to the suggestion of such an idea is found in
Plato's dialogue, the Cratylus, where Socrates notes the
similarity between the Greek and Phrygian names for
certain common objects. But though Plato is evidently
here upon the verge of a discovery that was made only
in the last century, he failed to see the importance of the
fact which he had set down, and chose rather to account
for it on the theory that the Greeks had borrowed a few
words from the Phrygians, That his own language and
that of a " barbarian " people had a common source
seems never to have occurred to him; nor did so keen
an observer as Aristotle perceive in languages " the law
and order which he tried to discover in every realm of
nature." Hence, it came about that, as the Greeks were
naturally slow in acquiring foreign tongues, as they had a
supreme contempt for other languages than their own, and
as they entered on the investigation of the subject from a
purely philosophical and psychological point of view, the
first stage of language study reached by them was the
theoretical rather than the empirical.
The Greek word Xo'709 means at once the spoken word,
and the reason which prompts the utterance of that word.
56 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
This duality of meaning both symbolises and illustrates
the spirit in which the Greek philosophers approached the
study of language. They wished to determine (i) whether
the word and the thought had a necessary relation; and
if so, (2) what that relation was. Naturally enough, two
opposing views were soon formulated by two philosophical
schools. The Heracliteans ^ believed that because all
truth is derived from language, language rests upon an
immutable basis. Words are either perfect expressions
of things or else they are only inarticulate sounds. That
is to say, a name must be either a true name or it is no
name at all. Between every name, therefore, and the
thing which it signifies, there is a natural harmony by
virtue of which each word in itself inevitably expresses
the innermost nature of the thing named. The Heracli-
teans thus held that language arose by nature {(f>vaei or
vofxcp). The Eleatics,^ on the other hand, regarded words
as given to things arbitrarily; that the names of things,
like the names of slaves, might be altered at pleasure;
and that, in consequence, no light is to be thrown on
mental processes or on the nature of thought, by study-
ing the forms in which it is expressed. One of the Eleatics,
a Megarian, Diodorus, named his slaves after the con-
junctions, thinking to show thereby the absurdity of the
Heraclitean doctrine, — which recalls Dr. Johnson's
* I.e. the followers of Heraclitus of Ephesus, about 500 B.C.
^ I.e. the followers of Xenophanes and Parmenides of Elea.
THE PR^- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 57
famous refutation of Berkeley's idealism. Language,
therefore, according to the Eleatics, arose by convention
{diaei or avv6r]Kri).
This controversy has an interest far greater than any
merely linguistic discussion could possess. It really
strikes down into the most profound recesses of the hu-
man mind. It grazes the borderland of a philosophical
question that has puzzled metaphysicians ever since men
began to reflect upon the mystery of their being, — a
question that has never been solved and that, humanly
speaking, admits of no solution. It is the question which
in the scholastic period of the Middle Ages was known
as the question of Realism and Nominalism. It is the
question which, in after times, appeared as the question
of the Freedom of the Human Will. Its discussion by
the ancient philosophers led to the investigation of lan-
guage. As it was claimed that language corresponds
naturally and inevitably to the thought, just as sensation
corresponds to the object which excites it, the first in-
quiry which philosophers set before themselves was this:
What is language?
Heraclitus asserted that language is the immediate
product of a natural power which assigns to each thing
its proper designation as a necessary element of the thing's
existence. Names, he said, are like the natural, not the
artificial images of visible things, i.e. they resemble the
shadows cast by solid objects, the images seen in mirrors,
58 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the reflected sun in still water. " Those who use the
true word do really and truly name the object, while those
who do not, merely make an unmeaning noise." That
is, words are the immediate copies of things, produced by
nature herself, not due to any subjective influence or
human caprice, but corresponding to realities by objec-
tive necessity; they have an abstract propriety and fit-
ness (opdoTTj'i) and an intrinsic force and meaning. This
is the extreme statement of the Heraclitean doctrine which
was afterward modified by Epicurus so as to make the
objective necessity, referred to above, a physical, organic
necessity.
Against the Heracliteans, the Eleatics defended their
thesis that names are given and were always given arbi-
trarily by men who might with perfect propriety change
them about. Democritus propounded four arguments
against the Heraclitean view, (i) The argument of
Homonymy. For instance, /cXeiV means both a key and
a collar-bone. Now a key and a collar-bone have abso-
lutely no relation to each other; hence, if /cXet? be the
inevitable and natural name for one of them, it certainly
cannot be equally the inevitable and natural name of
the other. (2) The argument of Polyonymy. A man is
called avdp(iiTro<i, or fi€po\fr, or ^poro^;. These terms are
in no way alike; how then can they all three be the nec-
essary names of the one object? (3) The argument of
Change, as when Aristocles comes to be called Plato.
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 59
(4) The argument of Missing Analogy, as when we have
the verb (fjpovelv formed from (jiRovrjaf? ^while from hiKaLoavvrj
we find no such verb as SiKaioawelv.
In general it may be said that the Heracliteans num-
bered among their followers the majority of the ancient
philosophers, though Aristotle stands out as a great ex-
ception. He, with his dislike of anything mystical, and
with his practical hold on the real, was an uncompromis-
ing opponent of the natural theory, and held that language
depends on the common argument and conviction of
men, — words having no meaning at all in themselves,
but having all their meaning put into them by those who
use them. They are mere counters, whose value depends
wholly upon the assent of mankind.
It was evident, of course, to the Heracliteans them-
selves, after a little study, that their claims could not be
made good in language as it actually existed; for they
could not show in the case of many words any essential
connection with the objects described by them; and it
was also evident that words had greatly changed since
the time when they were first coined. Hence, the dis-
cussion was put back from words as they were then, to
words as they had once been; and this led to speculation
as to the origin of language. Setting aside the original
notion that it was directly created by the Deity, men
sought to show in what manner it first came into existence.
If word and object be related, what is the nature of the
6o HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
relation? If the original name was appropriate to the
thing named, in what way was it appropriate? The
general drift of opinion answered this question in favour
of the " onomatopoetic " theory, not in its crudest form,
but in the form in which it has been defended in modern
times by men like Heyse and his pupil Steinthal, and
cautiously by Whitney and by Paul.' A passage of
Epicurus cited by Diogenes Laertius (x. 75) gives the
fairest and most temperate expression of what this view
meant :
" Words in the beginning did not originate by express
agreement; but by the very nature of men, in the case of
each people, experiencing peculiar feelings and hearing
peculiar ideas, they expelled the air accordingly, thus ex-
pressing different feelings and ideas differently, just as
people differed in location and surroundings."
This is in reality the theory of Heyse. So Lucretius^
argues that speech arose from the impulse of things, just
as children who cannot speak, begin to gesture. And
what wonder is it, he says, that men mark different feel-
ings by different sounds of the voice? Even dogs and
horses and gulls and crows in the same way express vary-
ing moods and passions.
' Hej'se, System der Sprachwissenschaft, edited by Steinthal (Berlin,
1856); Steinthal, Gesckichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei den Greichen und
RSntern, 2 vols. 2d ed. (Berlin, 1891); and Whitney, The Life and Growth
of Language (New York, 1880); id. Language a)td the Study of Lan-
guage, 4th ed. (New York, 1884).
' Lucretius, v. 1028 foU.
THE PILE- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 6 1
The whole of the ancient teaching on language, its
nature and its origin, is summed up and digested in
that wonderful dialogue of Plato's which bears the name
of Cratylus. This work is by far the most profoundly
philosophical linguistic discussion that antiquity pro-
duced, — full of deep truths and searching insight. It
is not too much to say that no treatise on language before
the last century is worthy of comparison with it. Yet its
importance has been only half appreciated by many, ow-
ing to the vein of humour that runs through it, and the
playful tone that characterises its most remarkable pas-
sages. Some scholars have even regarded it as purely a
piece of philosophical fun, a Platonic extravaganza meant
only to make a mock of the whole subject of language
study. This view is wholly untenable, and whoever holds
it misses one of the most striking proofs of the greatness
of Plato. It is precisely in the mode of treatment that
he has chosen to adopt, and because he has half hidden
his deepest truths beneath a veil of humour, that the
argument of the Cratylus is so remarkable. Plato had re-
flected long and seriously upon the nature and phenom-
ena of human speech ; he had satisfied himself of many
things of which his contemporaries had no conception; yet
when he came to gather together the results of his reflec-
tions and to mass his facts, it was evident to him that
he was still far from having attained a complete philoso-
phy of language. There were still too many things left
62 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
unexplained, too many lacunae in his fabric. Hence, he
prefers to refrain from dogmatic statement. He will not
claim to have a well-rounded and complete system; and,
therefore, he elects to treat the subject with a light touch,
to speak modestly and with caution, and to let his own
observations fall casually into the mind of his reader as
suggestions and incentiv^es toward further speculation.
His really serious spirit is, therefore, subordinated to a
humorous treatment, so that in the Cratylus we have,
as it were, a giant at play. It gives us, in a way, the
chips and shavings of his mental workshop, yet the chips
and shavings are those of one whose dust-heap contains
more pure gold than the treasuries of other men.
The Cratylus is a dialogue between Socrates, Hermog-
enes, and Cratylus. Hermogenes is a disciple of the
later Eleatics, and Cratylus a sincere believer in the phi-
losophy of Heraclitus. They have been arguing about
names, and as each represents a point of view diametrically
opposed to that of the other, they call upon Socrates to
share in the discussion. He, as usual, professes ignorance
of the subject, and then by questions draws out from each
of his friends their respective theories. Having listened
to them, Socrates criticises each, and in his turn enters
upon some speculations of his own in a half-playful yet
most suggestive discourse. Just as between Realism and
Nominalism, Conceptualism stands as a compromise, and
just as between the doctrine of Predestination and that
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 63
of the Freedom of the Will stands out Determinism, so the
views advanced by Socrates represent a mean between the
" natural " theory of Heraclitus and the " conventional "
theory of the Eleatics.
Language, he says, is natural, and it is also conventional,
for it has in it elements that are natural and those that are
conventional. It is originally a work of art, for names are,
first of all, imitations of sounds, vocal imitations. Yet vocal
imitations, like any other copying, may be most imperfectly
executed, and this imperfection may involve the element of
chance. For there is much that is accidental or exceptional
in language. Some words have had their early meaning so
obscured that they have to be helped out by convention.
Yet, still, the true name is that which has a natural meaning.
Thus, nature, art, and chance, all enter into the formation
of language, and they are so closely intertwined as to make
it often impossible to separate them. So far as we may
hope, however, to discover the natural element and judge
of it as derived from art and accident, we can do so only
by applying to words a strict analysis. In the first place,
many words, perhaps most words, are in their present
form, not primary words, nor even simple words, but com-
pound. These we must first resolve until we reach the
simple forms. But the simple forms themselves are not the
primary ones, for these have been altered by time. Hence,
we must in the end resolve words into the letters which
compose them, because these, or rather the sounds which
64 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
they denote, must have a meaning. This was well known
to the first makers of language. They observed that the
sound of a denoted vastness and length; that p expressed
motion as in pew, porj, Tpop.o'^, pu/x^eoi (" whirl,") because
in uttering that sound the tongue was most agitated and
least at rest; that -v/^, </>, cr, and ^required a great expend-
iture of breath and were therefore used in imitative words
such as ^eco (" seethe ")j o-eta/xo'i, and in general when the
thought of air is involved; that the limpid movement of
X, in whose pronunciation the tongue slips along, enables
that letter to express smoothness as in \et09, \nrap6v,
fcoX\.(oBe<; ("gluey"); that the sound of 7 detained the
slipping tongue so that when united with X., there is given
an impression of what is glutinous and clammy, as in \t
(Txpo'i-, 7Xy«u?, yXoicoSj]^; that v, being "sounded within,"
gives the notion of inwardness; while o suggests roundness.
Thus the first language makers impressed thought on names
by a principle of imitation. Gesture is the method which
a deaf and dumb person would use to make his meaning
clear, and language is only vocal gesture, the gesture of
the tongue. Yet though thought was stamped on words in
their genesis, the lesson that we may learn from words
is not philosophical or moral; for the use of words varies
indefinitely. It may be metaphysical, accidental, conven-
tional, or in some other way secondary, and so may have
no real relation to the thought or feeling of the speaker at
the time.
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 65
Such is an outline of the Platonic views on language as
set forth in the Cratylus. They embody all that was best
and most rational in ancient linguistic speculation, and
contain principles that philologists have not yet rejected.
Plato, in fact, is the first to draw attention to the distinc-
tion between simple and compound words. In his men-
tion of the Lautgeberden, he makes an immense advance
in the physiology of language; and in speaking of the
similarity of certain foreign words to the corresponding
terms in Greek, he approaches the very verge of a great
discovery. His classification of the letters of the alphabet
is very much that which the most modern phoneticians
agree to follow. He it is who separated them into voiceful
letters, or vowels ((jxovqevTa) , and voiceless letters, or conso-
nants {a^wva). The letters he subdivides into semi-
vowels {rjui(j)(jova, X, /J., v, p, a) and true mutes (a(f)6ojya).
The really humorous part of the Cratylus is that in which
Socrates burlesques the extraordinary etymologies of the
Sophists, pouring forth a flood of conjectures on the com-
position of the words which his listeners suggest to him,
and playing havoc with all phonetic order and system.
" You know," he says, " that the original form of the
word is always being overlaid and bedizened by people
sticking on and stripping off letters for the sake of euphony,
and twisting and turning them in all sorts of ways; and
this may be done for ornament or it may be the result of
time." And so in restoring the original form, he gives
66 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
himself a free hand and alters and syncopates and apoco-
pates and extends and stretches until Hermogenes in a
sort of half-skeptical admiration cries out, " Well, Socrates,
you have knocked them to pieces manfully." AlOrjp
is aeiOerjp because it is " always running " about the earth;
rexvrj he derives from ixovdrj (" possession of mind ")
and says " you have only to take away the t, insert o be-
tween the X ^^cl the v, and another o between the v and
the v," upon which Hermogenes very naturally says, " That
is a pretty tough etymology."
Every one should read the Cratylus because in its serious
parts it abounds in singularly acute speculations; and in
its lighter passages it affords us an excellent notion of the
absurdities of the word-mongers of the fifth century.^
Many, in fact, were the vagaries of the Sophists in their
guesses at etymology and at the principles of language-
making; and it was not only among the philosophers and
quasi-philosophers that this sort of thing prevailed, but it
is seen equally in the writers of pure literature, who in this
followed the prevailing fashion. As a matter of general
interest, one should note that this etymologising craze
was something more than a mere fad. It was simply one
manifestation of a very Greek trait, — a quickness of
imagination which from the earliest times reveals itself
linguistically in an almost childish fondness for playing
upon words, for paronomasia, for punning. This is, in
' See Jowett's translation of the Cratylus in his Plato, and especially
the Introduction to the Dialogue in question (2d ed., Oxford, 1893).
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 67
reality, an oriental trait, as the Hebrew Scriptures attest,
and was never regarded as undignified or trifling. Hence,
just as in the book of Genesis alone we find some fifty of
these pseudo-etymologies, chiefly in plays upon proper
names, so we find the Greek poets, from Homer down, seek-
ing analogies and hidden meanings in words and names.
Observe Homer's explanation of Odysseus from oSva-aofjiat
{Od. xix. 406) ; of Ate, 1] irdvra^ adrai {II. xix. 91) ; of
eXe^v? and iXe^aipofiai (Od. xix. 562 foil.). The great
pun of ^schylus on the name of Helen, 'EXevrj eXeva<i
€XavSpa<i eXeTTToXt?, {Ag. 689) has become classic in Eng-
lish through Peele's imitation (in Edward I.)
" Sweet Helen,
Hell in her name, but heaven in her looks;"
and in the most tragic scene of the same play (1040, 1049)
two puns are found together.^ It is probable that this
playing upon proper names and also its dignity depended
upon the general belief in the so-called Onomantia, or de-
duction of omens from names, which both Greeks and
Romans believed in so devoutly that Leotychides pledged
the Samian people to a great expedition merely because
a perfect stranger who urged it happened to be called
Hegesistratus.^
' Euripides was called rpayLKbs irvixoXSyos. Cf. ^sch. Prom. 86,
875, 742, 718; Ajax, 574 and in German, Lersch, Sprachphilosophie,
iii. 11-17 (Bonn, 1841) ; Sturz, De Nominibus Graecis, in his Opusc.
p. 78 (Leipzig, 1825). Myths seem to have been built upon the basis
of false etymologies, as Xa6s and Xaas.
^ Herod, ix. 91.
68 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Much as the Greeks of this period etymologised, how-
ever, there is Httle evidence that they went so far as to
deal with the general subject by itself and for its own sake.
Such treatises as those of Gorgias On Names, of Protag-
oras On Elocution, of Prodicus On the Propriety of Names,
and of Licymnius On Phrases are more properly referred
to the rhetorical and oratorical teachings of these men
regarding which something has already been said. Licym-
nius,^ however, did note and partly discuss and classify
synonyms, root-words, compounds, and cognates. This
may be taken roughly as standing on the border-land of
the first two periods in the history of Classical Philology,
and as having shown some appreciation of formal gram-
mar.
So far as the Prae-Alexandrians came to any etymolog-
ical agreement, it was in generally admitting that three
principles are involved in the development of words: (i)
the principle of Imitation (MZ/iT^o-t?), already discussed; (2)
the principle of Metaphor (Merac^opa), by which words
lose their primitive meaning and are gradually extended
in their application, as when the word " head " or " foot "
is applied to a mountain, or when we speak of a man's
thought as ''bitter," of his voice as " sweet "; (3) the prin-
ciple of Antiphrasis (AvTicfypaaa) of which the ancients
made much, and which they also called the making of
* A Sicilian teacher of Polus who also wrote a treatise on rhetoric.
See Schneidewin in the CoUinger Gel. Anzeiger for 1845.
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 69
words KaTCL Ivavriaicnv^ or the naming of things by their
opposites. The philosophical principle on which this last
is based is a sound one — i.e. that of two antithetical
ideas, one is apt to suggest the other, as light suggests
darkness, truth suggests falsehood, and so on; but the
etymological application of it was grotesque. It appears
to have occurred to them because of certain well-known
euphemisms, as when, for example, they found the Furies
styled Eumenides, " the well-disposed." They also ob-
served in Irony (Elpcoveia) a similar principle; and there-
fore, putting the two together, they inferred that there is
something in the human mind which instinctively describes
objects by recalling their opposites. Hence, they ex-
plained many words on this hypothesis,' just as the later
Latin etymologists derived aridus from apSevetv, helium
from hellus, ccdum from celare, and, above all, the famous
Ulcus a non lucendo, which last is, however, a perfectly
correct etymology, though the ancients misunderstood the
manner of its derivation.
It will be seen from the preceding pages that language
study among the Greeks at this time consisted mainly in
ingenious guesswork and in large and loose speculations.
As yet there was no such thing as Grammar in the later
sense. The word ypd/jL/jLara meant " the letters of the
alphabet"; jpa/x/xaTia-T-q^ was an elementary teacher of
reading and writing, beginning with the alphabet. A
^ See Lobeck, De Antiphrasi et Etiphemismo. (s. n. 1. n.)
yo HISTORY OP CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
tile found in Attica^ has syllables scratched upon it (ap,
/3a/9, 7a/3, Sep and the like, which show that spelling was
taught and, later, reading. But the word grammaticus
(jpafM/jLaTiKo^), at the time of which we are speaking, did
not mean a grammarian, but simply a person of ordinary
education, — that is, one who was able to read and write.
Nevertheless, as already suggested, a nucleus had been
formed around which grammatical teaching in our sense
of the word was soon to be developed. Etymology was a
favourite subject of discussion. Protagoras of Abdera
(c. 411 B.C.) was the first to distinguish grammatical moods
and also genders.^ Prodicus of Ceos had written a trea-
tise on synonyms; while Plato is regarded as having recog-
nised two distinct parts of speech, the noun {ovofia) and
the verb {priixa) ; but the distinction which it draws be-
tween them is not strictly a grammatical, but a logical, dis-
tinction, corresponding to the difference between subject
and predicate. The true distinction is made by Aristotle,
who also goes much further and mentions conjunctions
{a-vvhea-ixoi), a term loosely used by him, since it includes
every kind of connecting particle. The term apdpa he
1 Roberts, Greek Epigraphy, p. 170 (Cambridge, 1887-1905).
- Protagoras classified modes of expression as question, answer, prayer,
and command. In the matter of gender, he divided nouns as either
masculine, feminine, and neuter, this classification being, like our own,
natural and not artificial. All male creatures were regarded as masculine,
all female creatures as feminine, and all inanimate things as neuter.
He uses the term t^ws which was afterward adopted by the grammari-
ans in the sense of "gender" (Lat. genus).
THE PR^- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 7 1
used in an indefinite way of both pronouns and articles.
He distinguished between tenses, and classifies verbs as
not only "active" and "passive," but those which are
known to us as "neuter" and "deponent." He has
something to say of punctuation, though he mentions only
one punctuation mark — a short mark placed beneath the
first word of the line which ends a sentence. This he
called Trapaypacp^, and it is the origin of our word "para-
graph," applied to a long sentence or to a number of
connected sentences. It is further to be noted that Aris-
totle gives names to subject and predicate. All these dis-
tinctions form no part of grammatical doctrine, since this
did not as yet exist; but they were at the time logical or
metaphysical in their essence. Later, the Stoics and the
Alexandrian scholars narrowed the definition of grammar
(97 Te;!^^?; rypafifxarcKi]), and our modern meaning of the
word became familiar even while its wider significance still
survived.
Literary Study was now undertaken from the stand-
point of aesthetics, and Literary Criticism became more
scientific. The period which immediately followed the
Persian Wars was the richest and most fruitful in the
intellectual history of Greece. The poems of Homer had
been regarded as containing in their lines something super-
natural and almost divine; and this feeling is set forth in
the Ion of Plato. , But popular belief also held that Homer's
inspiration was passed on from him to the great poets who
72 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
were his successors, just as certain branches of the Chris-
tian Church assert the doctrine of an ApostoHc Succession.
Thus the lyric poets shared in this general reverence, and
the great dramatic poets were ennobled by popular tradi-
tion. We have seen that some rude form of tragedy was
said to have originated with Thespis, who was encouraged
by Pisistratus to present his plays at Athens. The great
tragedians, ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, produced
their masterpieces almost contemporaneously. Comedy
(invented by Susarion) began to thrive and found its most
brilliant exponent in Aristophanes (444-388 B.C.). A
newer form of comedy, less harsh in its criticism and less
personal in its allusions, was presently developed first by
Aristophanes himself (Middle Comedy) and was per-
fected by Menander (b. 342 B.C.) in the New Comedy.
All these plays, both tragedies and comedies, were pro-
duced at the great festivals of the Athenians, and prizes
were given according to the decision of the people.^ The
study of rhetoric and oratory, the popularity of the Drama,
and the exceedingly great intelligence of the Greek mind
led at once to a careful study of the most famous works
in prose as well as poetry. Such study inevitably took
the form of exegesis, as when Plato discusses a poem of
Simonides in the Protagoras, taking up the questions as to
the meaning of certain words in the poem; then as to the
' So at first. Afterwards, the prizes were awarded by a committee of
five judges chosen by lot.
THE PR.« -ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 73
consistency of Simonides; and finally, a long disquisition
on the poem as a whole. Thus says Socrates : " A great
deal might be said in praise of the details of the poem,
which is a charming piece of workmanship, and very
finished, but that would be tedious. I should like, how-
ever, to point out the general intention of the poem."
And then he proceeds to do so at considerable length.
This is essentially exegetical treatment and belongs to the
science of Hermeneutics, or exposition. In the Republic
we have ^Esthetic Criticism. But it was Aristotle in his
Poetica who produced a work of true aesthetic criticism,
which, though brief and unfinished, is so full of suggestion
and profound thought as to make it to-day perhaps the most
widely studied of all his numerous writings.^ Professor
Butcher calls attention to one feature of the treatise which
emphasises an important fact in the study of Greek art.
He says : —
" The distinction between fine and useful art was first
brought out fully by Aristotle. In the history of Greek
art we are struck rather by the union between the two
forms of art than by their independence. It was a loss
for art when the spheres of use and beauty came in practice
to be dissevered, when the useful object ceased to be deco-
rative, and the things of common life no longer gave de-
light to the maker and to the user. But the theoretic
* See Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art (London, 1902).
This volume contains a critical text and a translation of the Poetics, with
a most admirable discussion of its teachings and their meaning.
74 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
distinction between fine and useful art needed to be laid
down, and to Aristotle we owe the first clear conception of
fine art as a free and independent activity of the mind,
outside the domain both of religion and of politics, having
an end distinct from that of education or moral improve-
ment."
A famous passage in the Poetics is that which refers to the
doctrine of "purgation" {Kadapcrfi). Plato had said of
tragedy that it satisfies "the natural hunger for sorrow
and vv^eeping," ^ and that- " poetry feeds and waters the
passions instead of starving them." Thus he would ban-
ish the poets from his ideal State. Aristotle, on the other
hand, "held that it is not desirable to kill or to starve the
emotional part of the soul; and that the regulated indul-
gence of the feelings serves to maintain the balance of our
nature." Professor Butcher, summarising an explanation
put forth in 1857 by J. Bernays, says that katharsis is a
medical metaphor and "denotes a pathological effect on
the soul, analogous to the effect of medicine on the body."
The thought, as he interprets it, may be expressed thus:
Tragedy excites the emotions of pity and fear — kindred
emotions that are in the breasts of all men — and by the
act of excitation affords a pleasurable relief. The feelings
called forth by the tragic spectacle are not, indeed, per-
manently removed, but are quieted for the time. . . . The
stage, in fact, provides a harmless and pleasurable outlet
' Republic, x. 606.
THE PR^- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 75
for instincts which demand satisfaction, and which can
be indulged here more fearlessly than in real life/
It is popularly supposed that the doctrine of the Three
Dramatic Unities is set forth in the Poetica of Aristotle.
This is not strictly true, however, since Aristotle definitely
demands only the unity of action, — namely, that "within
the single and complete action which constitutes the unity
of a play," the successive incidents should be connected
together by the law of necessary and probable sequence.
One may read into the treatise a suggestion of the unity of
time and the unity of place; yet these were not actually
formulated until the sixteenth century by Castelvetro, an
Italian editor of Aristotle.^
The Greeks of Aristotle's time regarded tragedy as the
highest form of literature. Certainly to them it was
more moving and more profound in its interpretation of
life than even the epic. We must remember, however,
that the drama is more than literature, since it is literature
blended with all the other arts. The dance, the song, the
painter's colouring, and instrumental music, too, are
there, and the effect of animated sculpture is found in the
living men and women who impersonate the characters.
Hence the acted drama is not literature pure and simple,
but it is a melange of all the arts.'
* Butcher, op. cit. pp. 227-228.
^ See Spingarn, Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, pp. 90-101
(New York, igo8).
■5 Peck, Literature, pp. 22, 2<S (Xew York, 1908).
76 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
One dwells upon Aristotle's Poetica, because it is the
most remarkable specimen of aesthetic criticism which we
now possess. But criticism of various kinds was to be
found in other writers, and especially in Heraclides Ponti-
cus (fl. 340 B.C.), who came to Athens, where he studied
under Plato. He is said to have written upon many sub-
jects — philosophy, mathematics, music, history, politics,
language, and poetry. Only fragments of these treatises
remain, though we have a synopsis of one of his books
on the subject of political science. There was also Theo-
phrastus of Lesbos (b. 372 B.C.) who has left fragments of
two works, one On Comedy and the other On Style. In
the second he is said to have treated of metres and of
solecisms.^
Much criticism must have been given orally by the
Sophists in their lectures; and in the dramas themselves
by the playwrights in their hits at one another. This was
especially the case with comic poets, above all, Aris-
tophanes, who was fond of gibing at Euripides and of
praising ^schylus. It is said that a whole passage of the
Telephus, by Euripides, was subsequently omitted because
Aristophanes had made such game of it.^ Another form of
criticism is to be found in the parodies of serious works.
'See Voss, De Heradidis Pontici Vita et Scriplis (Rostock, 1897);
and the dissertation by Rabe on Theophrastus (Bonn, 1890).
* See Egger, Histoire de la Critique, pp. 45-70. Later Antiochus of
Alexandria wrote a book on the poets who were criticised in the Middle
Comedy. See Athenaeus, xi. p. 232.
THE PRiE- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 77
Even the heroic poetry of Homer and of the Cyclic writers
became a subject of burlesque. There is, in fact, scarcely
anything more characteristic of the later Greeks than the
extent to which parody prevailed. It indicates how far the
critical spirit was supplanting the creative; for while few
can create, any one can ridicule that which has been
created.
In the fifth century, the mock-heroic was represented
in the Batrachomyomachia, or Battle of the Frogs mid Mice,
ascribed to one Pigres. It is not in itself, however, a
direct parody any more than is Pope's Rape of the Lock;
but like that, it may be called pure literature. With Hege-
mon of Thasos, however, true Parody begins. Hegemon
directly burlesqued the epic Gigantomachia in a play to
which the Athenians were listening when the news came to
them that their Sicilian expedition in the Peloponnesian
War had been utterly destroyed.^ A more audacious
parodist was INIatron of Pitana (c. 380 B.C.), who was
the first to burlesque Homer. From him we have a
fragment which mocks the opening lines of the Odyssey.'^
The first line shows that this parody was of a gastronomical
nature, for it reads : —
AeiTTva fxOL ecnrere, Movcra, ■7ro\vTpo(f>a koI fxdXa iroXXd !
Sing to me, Muse, of the feasts that are falling and many in number!
The philosophers were parodied by Timon of Phlius,
^ Athenceus, i. p. 5; Hi. p. 108.
' Athenffius, iv. pp. 134-137, and Moser, Ueber Matron den Parodiker
in Daub and Kreuzer's Stiidien, vi. pp. 293 foil.
78 HISTORY or CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
known as the Sillographer, whose silU (aiWoi) * guyed
the teaching of the dogmatic philosophers in epic verse.
The classic tragedy was burlesqued, though at a later
period, by Rhinthon of Tarentum (or Syracuse) in plays which
gave rise to the so-called mock tragedy (iXaporpa'ymSLa)^
or la tragedie pour rire. It must be said also that a certain
ironical spirit appears in a collection by Aristotle of ques-
tions intended to point out some of the inconsistencies or
absurdities in Homer {Upo^XrjixaTo).
There are evidences that during the latter part of this
period a good deal of confusion existed in the texts of stand-
ard authors. It is known that Aristotle himself edited a
special edition of Homer for the use of his pupil, Alexander
the Great, — an edition known as " the casket edition."
It is also a tradition that Lycurgus {c. 350 B.C.), the
Athenian (not to be confounded with Lycurgus the mythi-
cal Spartan legislator), erected bronze statues to the three
great tragic poets, ^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides,
and caused authentic copies of their plays to be made and
preserved in the public archives. These copies were made
after a careful collation of the actors' copies. Concerning
this recension, however, very little is known, though the fact
itself is significant.^ Even if the State codex prepared by
'Literally "Squints." Cf. our theatrical slang, "It's a scream!"
See Paul, Dc Sillis (Berlin, 1821); Delapicrre, La Parodie chez les Grecs,
etc. (London, 1871), and Carroll, Aristotle's Poetics, etc. (Baltimore, 1895).
^ Wilamowitz, in Hermes, xiv. 151; and id., Introduction to the Hera-
kiss of Euripides (Berlin, 1889).
THE PRiE- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 79
Lycurgus was only a careful exemplar and not very criti-
cally made, it still remains a work of great importance in
the history of Text Criticism, because down to the time of
the Alexandrians, it remained a standard edition and was
held in great esteem. It seems probable, however, that it
really did rest upon a critical basis, since there was no
lack of editions, nor could an arbitrarily chosen text have
attained to so much authority. Granting also that the
critical comparison of manuscripts had not long existed,
there were certainly autographa preserved in the families
of the tragic poets. Furthermore, there was an orig-
inal codex in each instance, an assertion that cannot be
made regarding the Homeric text. The original codex,
however carefully copied, must still have contained errors,
and may have been supplied with marginal notes after
being compared with the version used by the actors in the
theatre. More than this, however, it is impossible to say;
for, regarding the methods of recension, no actual evidence
survives.
Attention was much earlier given to Music than to the
other arts, and the study of it had a scientific character.
Many treatises are spoken of with the title liepX MovaiKri<;,
though none of them have descended to our times. The
earliest known writer on music was Lasus of Hermione,
a contemporary of Xenophanes and Simonides, and said
to have been the teacher of Pindar. He is a figure of
importance in the history of Greek music, introducing in
8o HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the dithyramb a much greater freedom of rhythm in music,
giving to it an accompaniment of flutes, and adding to the
number of voices. By some he was numbered among the
Seven Sages of Greece.^ The Pythagoreans were espe-
cially devoted to music, among them, the famous Archytas
of Tarentum, who wrote a treatise with the title 'ApfMovtKov.
In the case of many of the writings that have descended to
us by report only, it is impossible to be certain of their
exact subject, inasmuch as poetry and music were so closely
allied that the name Movo-lk'^ was used indifferently of either.
The only important treatise, written perhaps in the Alex-
andrian Age, of which now we have any portion, is that
by Aristoxenus styled 'Ap/xoviKo, Irotxeta, of which there
still remain some fragments, edited by Saran.^
The foundation of classical music among the Greeks was
ascribed by them to Terpander, an iEolian Greek of Lesbos
(c. 675 B.C.), who is said to have given the lyre seven
strings instead of four; but this statement is certainly inac-
curate. Pausanius^ says that Terpander merely added
four strings to the seven that already existed on the lyre.
Flute-playing was still older, but was not scientifically
studied until the time of Sacadas of Argos (c. 580 B.C.),
The vocal music of the ancients differed from modern
music in that part-singing was unknown, there being only
' See Athenaeus, viii. p. 338, and Diog. Laert. i. 42.
* Edited by Saran (Leipzig, 1893).
* iii. 12. 10. Terpander first set poetry to music.
THE PR^- ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 8 1
a difference of octaves, as when men and boys sang in the
same chorus. Another difference was in the modes, which
were distinguished from each other by the place of the
semitones in the octave. Greek music had seven modes,
therefore, as against the two modes (major and minor)
with which we are acquainted. These seven modes got
their names from the three great divisions of the Greeks
(Dorian, ^ohan, and Ionian) and from the Asiatic peoples
(Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, and Hypolydian).^
The musical notation used by the Greeks had two dis-
tinct systems of signs, one for the voice and the other
for the instrument. Those for the voice were taken from
the Ionic alphabet ; while the instrumental notation was
derived from the first fourteen letters of an older alphabet
which retained the digamma, besides an ancient form
of iota, and two forms of lambda. Only a few specimens
of Greek musical notation have come down to us, the
last being a hymn to Apollo found at Delphi in 1893
carved upon the fragments of a stone. It has been
reconstructed by Oscar Fleischer, whose theory is that
" Greek melody emanated from the words, while rhythm
* See Engel, The Music of the Most Ancient Nations (London, 1866);
Gevaert, Histoire et Theorie de la Musigue dans VAntiquite (Ghent, i88i);
Westphal, Die Musik des griechischen Alterlhums (Leipzig, 1887); Monro,
Modes oj Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1894); Henderson, How Music
Developed (New York, 1898); and Gleditsch in Iwan Muller's Hand-
buch der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft, ii. 3, 3d ed. (Munich, 1901).
For a simple account of early music, see Untersteiner, A Short History of
Music, pp. 13-45 (New York, 1902).
G
82 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
and metre were given by the musical accents of the
words." ^ Greek music was introduced at Rome and was
greatly admired. Nero gave public entertainments
resembling modern concerts, and Domitian (86 a.d.) built
a large structure, which he called the Odeum, for the
musical exercises that were held there under his direction.^
Greek painting reached its highest development at the
same time with sculpture. Even earlier fresco-painting
had been borrowed from the Egyptians, and vase-paint-
ing which we can trace through existing remains, shows us
how continuous was the development. One may believe
that the graphic art in Greece began as early as the eighth
century B.C.; and Eumares of Athens began to distinguish
the sexes in his paintings, probably by the use of various
colours, since heretofore artists had worked in mono-
chrome on walls or whitened tablets of clay.
But the greatest painters were those who appeared
soon after the Persian w^ars. Polygnotus of Thasos was
called the discoverer of the art, taking subjects from
mythology (460 B.C.). His contemporaries treated events of
recent history, decorating the public buildings and temples.
Polygnotus used only four colours — black, white, yellow,
and red — yet gave variety to his painting by the differ-
ence in shading. Soon afterward the scene-painter,
^See Fleischer, Die Resie der allgriechischen Tonkunst (Leipzig, 1900).
2 Little can be learned about music from Roman writers, such as
Martianus Capella and Boethius, since they merely copy what they
learned from the Greeks.
THE PRiE-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 83
Agatharchus of Samos, discovered new principles of per-
spective and shading, on which subjects he wrote a book.
His methods were followed on panels by Apollodorus of
Athens and others. The school which he founded was
usually called the Ionic School, and it comprised the two
great rivals, Zeuxis, who copied nature with wonderful
truth, and Parrhasius of Ephesus. Encaustic painting
was perfected by Pausias, in the fourth century, and his
"Black Ox" was as famous in antiquity as Paul Potter's
bull in modern times. Great skill was attained by
Apelles of Ephesus, whose work was very graceful. We
have scarcely any remains of Grecian paintings of the
classical age except those which are found upon the tombs,
usually Etruscan, and often copied from Greek models.^
Gem-cutting was learned from the Greeks by the Egyp-
tians, but it cannot be said that the Greeks greatly im-
proved upon their models. For cutting gems they used a
sharp stone (obsidian) or a minute metal disk vsorked by a
drill which cut the deeper parts of the pattern. The tools
were charged with a sort of emery powder.^ The Greeks
cared little for the Egyptian scarabs, and preferred
cameos made of onyx, the figures standing out vividly on
a dark background. The oldest Greek jeweller whose
* See Woltmann and Woermann, A History of Painting. Eng. trans.
(New York, 1901) ; Girard, La Peinture Antique (Paris, 1895) ; Cros and
Henri, L'Encaustique (Paris, 18S4); and Bockler, Die Polychromie in
der antiken Sculptiir (Aschersleben, 1882).
2 Piiny, //. N. xxvii. 76.
84 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
name has come down to us is Mnesarchus, the father of
the philosopher Pythagoras {c. 600 B.C.). The most
famous master of gem-cutting in Greek times was Pyrgo-
teles in the fourth century B.C. He was the only artist
whom Alexander the Great would allow to cut his like-
ness. It may be added that not until later times did the
love of precious stones such as pearls and emeralds
become a passion.^
The Prae-Alexandrian Period may be viewed as end-
ing with the death of Aristotle (322 B.C.) and the complete
domination of Greece by the Macedonian kings. The
supremacy of Macedon, in fact, marks the decadence of
what had been most original and striking in the genius of
the Greeks, whether political, literary, or philosophical.
The history of this period reveals in Greece the gradual
development and decline that have been repeated in the
history of every other nation since the world began, when-
ever that history has extended over a sufficient time to
give play to the same creative and the same destructive
forces. So in Greece we find at first a vigorous and
quick-witted people, in its formative period, cherishing a
comparatively simple and intelligible faith, and with a
literature that springs up less as the result of conscious
art than as the spontaneous outpouring of native genius,
^ See Middleton, The Engraved Gems of Classical Times (Cambridge,
1891); Murray, A Handbook of Greek Archceology, pp. 40-50, 146-173
(London, 1S92) ; and Fowler and Wheeler, A Handbook of Greek Arch-
aology, ch. vii (New York, 1909).
THE PR^-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 85
seeking to give fit expression to the national aspirations.
Gradually the notion of formal art and formulaic teaching
is implanted in men's minds. Schools arise, and what
the few have done before from natural prompting, the
many learn to do according to rule and precept.
" Most can raise the flowers now
For all have got the seed."
The first result is to develop to the full the powers of
men of genius. There is a happy blending of the old
creative gifts, and of the old freshness and spontaneity,
with the power that comes from training and from the
condensation of accumulated experience into definite rules.
The Greek mind, thus stimulated and developed, attacks
all of the great problems that confront and challenge the
human intellect. The philosophy of language, the sources
of style, the arts of expression, the theory of government,
the laws of thought, the constitution of the universe, and
the nature of the gods themselves, are all explained fear-
lessly and often with an acuteness that has never found its
parallel. But the limitations of the mind are at last
reached, and its most earnest efforts appear to lead to
nescience; so that Greece in the sphere of government
ended with despotism, in philosophy with negation, in
religion with scepticism. The Greek genius in its later
struggles can best be described in Matthew Arnold's
exquisite words as " a beautiful and ineffectual angel beat-
ing in the void its luminous wings in vain."
86 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
There is some truth in the belief that a general and highly
developed culture is fatal to originality, because it inevi-
tably leads to established standards and thus makes every-
thing conventional. A dead level of excellence takes the
place of a few striking manifestations of creative power.
The average man is more intelligent, but the exceptional
man is less original, until at last exceptional men no more
exist. Society becomes intellectually hlase and reduces
everything to formulas. Creators give place to critics who
are slaves to what they call " good form." But it is not
consistent with good form to be imaginative and enthusi-
astic and original. This is held to be eccentric. Thus in
a highly civilised community the whole drift of thought is
toward the commonplace; and thus in the later philosophy,
the speculative and idealistic systems give way to a sort of
mild eclecticism that does not go very far beyond the prac-
tical questions which relate to the life of every day. The
epic is supplanted by the drama with its many meretri-
cious allurements. In the drama itself the intense and
powerful tragedies of ^schylus and Sophocles are first
thrust aside by the rationalistic and rather cynical plays of
Euripides,^ until tragedy gives way to the elegant and amus-
ing comedy of Menander, with its urbane dialogue and its
realism, which takes it out of the realm of pure poetry.^
^ Stt&W e^rraW, Euripides the Rationalist, mirodncti on and pp. 257-60
(Cambridge, 1895) ! ^'^d Decharme, Euripides and ilie Spirit of his
Dramas, pp. 74-92. Eng. trans. (New York, 1906).
^ Horace, Sat. i. 4, 46-47.
THE PRiE-ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 87
The Prae- Alexandrian Age ends, then, when the creative
impulse had largely yielded to the critical. What remained
for serious men, therefore, was not to attempt an}'thing
new, but rather to study what had already been produced
— to analyse, to criticise, and to classify. Thus there
came into especial prominence the sciences that are col-
lateral and subsidiary to literature and linguistic study
— hermeneutics, lexicography, text criticism, and formal
grammar.
[Bibliography. — In addition to the books already cited in this
chapter, see the anecdotal works of Diogenes Laertius, English
translation (London, 1853), and Athen^us, English translation
(London, 1854); together with Saintsbury, A History of Criticism,
i-> PP- 3-59 (New York, 1900); Jebb, The Growth and Influence oj
Classical Greek Poetry (London, 1S93) ; Haigh, The Tragic Drama
of the Greeks (Oxford, 1S96); Denis, La Comedie Grecque, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1886); Croiset, An Abridged History of Greek Literature,
English translation (New York, 1904); and Courthope, Life in
Poetry: Law in Taste, pp. 37-221 (London, 1901).]
Ill
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD
A. The Alexandrian School
In the year 306 e.g., Demetrius Phalereus, statesman,
poet, philosopher, and orator, having been sentenced to
death at Athens, left Greece and passed over the sea to
the infant city of Alexandria in Egypt. It was exactly
twenty-five years from the time when Alexander the
Great, had, with his own hand, traced the general plan
of the city to which he gave his name and as to which
he issued the most peremptory orders that it should be
made the metropolis of the entire world. The commands
of a king cannot give enduring greatness to a city; but
the natural advantages of Alexandria were such that a
great commercial community, when planted there, was
sure to live and flourish throughout succeeding ages.
Alexandria lay upon a projecting tongue of land, so
situated that the whole trade of the Mediterranean centred
in it. Down the Nile there floated to its wharves the
wealth of barbaric Africa. To it also came the treasures
of the East, carried over vast spaces by caravans — silks
from China, spices and jewels from India, and enormous
masses of gold and silver from lands of which the names
were scarcely known even to contemporary geographers.
88
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 89
In its harbour were the vessels of every country, from
Asia in the East, to Spain and Gaul and even Britain in
the West.
To the outward eye, Alexandria was extremely beautiful.
Through its entire length ran two great boulevards,
shaded by mighty trees, and diversified by parterres of
multicoloured flowers amid which fountains splashed and
costly marbles gleamed. One-fifth of the whole city was
reserved for the Greek kings who succeeded Alexander,
and was known as the Royal Residence. In it, before
long, were the palaces of the reigning family; and there
were, besides, parks and gardens, brilliant with tropical
foliage and adorned with masterpieces of Grecian sculp-
ture, while sphinxes and obelisks gave a suggestion of
oriental strangeness. As one looked seaward, his eye
beheld, over the blue water, the rocks of the sheltering
island, Pharos, on which Ptolemy II. reared a pjTamidal
lighthouse of marble four hundred feet in height at a
cost of eight hundred silver talents ($940,000), and justly
numbered among the seven wonders of the world. At
the time when Demetrius took refuge there, the city con-
tained more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, and
was humming with life. Its people were alert, energetic,
proud of Alexandria's distinction, and ambitious for its
future. Dinocrates, its designer, had planned it with a
sublime belief in its destiny, giving it a circumference of
more than fifteen miles, and foreseeing already its coming
go HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
splendour. Ptolemy Soter, who was just about to assume
the style and title of a king, was a man of large concep-
tions and liberal ideas. His mother had been a con-
cubine of Philip of Macedon, so that Ptolemy was believed
to be half-brother to the great Alexander, under whom
he had served with conspicuous success in Asia. A great
soldier and a consummate statesman, he was also a true
Greek in his love of art and science and literature. In
fact, he had himself written a narrative of the wars of
Alexander.^ He was still carrying on a campaign against
Antigonus; but the contest was nearing its end, and al-
ready Ptolemy was turning his thoughts to magnificent
designs for enhancing the glory and splendour of his
capital.
It was the psychological moment for some remarkable
achievement. All the conditions were absolutely favour-
able. Here was a rich, populous, and youthful city,
possessing the Hellenic traditions of intellectual greatness,
yet growing up in a world that was broader than little
Hellas. Its people were receptive to new ideas, liberal-
ised by contact with a civilisation far older than that of
Greece itself, and filled with an intense desire to gain at
once, not only the commercial, but the intellectual su-
premacy of the world. The first Greek king of Egypt
' This narrative was largely used by Arrian in preparing his chief
work, the Anabasis of Alexander. The fragments of Ptolemy's work
can be found in the Didot edition of Arrian (Paris, 184S).
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 9 1
possessed practically unlimited resources. He was gifted
with a trained intelligence and taste, and inspired with a
splendid enthusiasm for all that was noble and refining.
The suggestion alone was needed to employ these unusual
opportunities in a way that should be worthy of their
inherent possibilities. Such a suggestion came from the
exiled Athenian, Demetrius Phalereus.
Demetrius himself was a man well fitted to influence
even so independent a ruler as King Ptolemy. He was
among the last of the Attic orators of distinction. He
had governed his native city so ably that three hundred
and ninety statues had been erected by the Athenians in
his honour. He was also a highly cultivated scholar, the
schoolmate of Menander, and a pupil of Theophrastus,
who succeeded Aristotle at the head of the Peripatetic
School. To him was due the revival of Homeric recita-
tion by the Rhapsodes, after these had fallen into disuse.
He was himself the author of two books relating to the
Iliad and four relating to the Odyssey, supposed to have
dealt with text criticism. No one could have been better
fitted than he to advise the king in whatever related to
any project for the advancement of learning. There-
fore, one is not surprised that to him is ascribed the sug-
gestion which soon rendered Alexandria the intellectual
capital of the world and profoundly influenced the sub-
sequent history of Greek and Roman learning. The im-
mediate fruits of his wise counsel were two — the estab-
92 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
lishment of a great Museum (to Mvaelov), and also the
foundation of the famous Alexandrian Library/
An account of the Museum is given by Strabo.^ It
was attached to the royal palace in the most beautiful
quarter of the city, overlooking the harbour, and sur-
rounded by lawns, porticos, and marvels of decorative
art. It contained an observatory for its astronomers,
laboratories, a selected library, and a great hall which was
practically a theatre of magnificent proportions arranged
as a public lecture room. In a second hall, the scholars
who were drawn to the Museum from all countries
dined together, like the master and fellows of an English
college. Attached to the Museum were botanical and
zoological gardens. The object of the whole institution
was to encourasfe oriojinal research. At first there
was no teaching, so that the Museum bore a strik-
ing resemblance to the Carnegie Institution in Washing-
ton. Later it became in essence a great university in
which the professors lectured, each on his own specialty,
to students who numbered at one time as many as four-
teen thousand. The professors were primarily under the
supervision of principals whom we may call deans, chosen
by the whole body; while the administration of the
' Athenasus, v. p. 203.
' Strabo, xviii. p. 794. See also Parthey, Das Alexandrtnische Museum
(Berlin, 1838); Ritschl, Opuscula, i. pp. 1-70, 123-172, 197-237; Weniger,
Das Alexandrinische Museum (1895); Walden, The Universities of Ancient
Greece, pp. 48-50 (New York, 1909); Graves, A History of Education
before the Middle Ages (New York, 1909).
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 93
Museum was in the hands of a priest appointed by the
king and in later times by the Roman emperor. The
expense of the whole was borne by the pubHc treasury.
The second Ptolemy grouped the lecturers under four
faculties representing, respectively, Literature, Mathe-
matics, Astronomy, and Medicine, corresponding to the
modern divisions of Philosophy, Applied Science, Pure
Science, and Medicine.
The administrative head of the Museum was not, how-
ever, charged with all the functions of an American uni-
versity president or chancellor. We find in Alexandria
a practical division of duties such as has been proposed
in very recent times, became it seems impossible for a
single man to be at once the administrative and the edu-
cational head of a great university. The educational
head of the University at Alexandria was the person in
charge of the great Library, which sprang up side by
side with the Museum, and was necessitated by it.
The second Ptolemy collected from all parts of Greece
and Asia an immense number of manuscripts, some of
which, as already said, were stored in the Museum,
while the rest were housed separately in another building
known as the Serapeum. Foreign books were also pur-
chased and translations of them were added to the Library.*
The Septuagint version of the Old Testament is said to
' Callimachus, the second librarian, was the first to introduce a num-
ber of Egyptian and Hebrew manuscripts.
94 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
have been thus made. Galen mentions the fact that the
autographa or original copies of yEschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides were purchased for the Library, which is
believed at the time of its greatest fame to have contained
between five hundred thousand and six hundred thousand
volumes/ Even before the death of Demetrius there
were some fifty thousand volumes on its shelves. Private
collections such as that of Aristotle were purchased, as
well as rare editions and especially authoritative copies.
It can readily be seen how the existence of an endowed
school side by side with a library of such magnificent pro-
portions would quickly foster the systematic and orderly
study of many subjects that had previously been taken
up at random by individuals, working independently and
often with very unsatisfactory and inadequate materials.
At last, in every sphere of learning, a large body of highly
trained men, provided with every facility for research
and freed from any pecuniary anxiety, could labour with-
out haste and without rest, apportioning their work so
as to bring into play the peculiar talents of each, and
accumulating a great mass of data — of facts, results,
and principles, which each succeeding generation found
classified for its use and to which in turn it added. Hence,
at once a great development of the scientific spirit in
' See Ritschl, Die Alexandrmischen Bibliotheken (Breslau, 1838); Birt,
Das Antike Buckwesen (Berlin, 1882); Geraud, Les Livres dans VAntiquite,
ch. X (Paris, 1840); Castellani, Delle Biblioleche neW Antichita (Bologna,
1884).
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 95
every direction followed almost immediately upon the
establishment of the Museum and Library and what is
roughly and somewhat inaccurately styled the Alexan-
drian School. There were, in fact, several distinct cut-
growths from the Alexandrian researches and training,
but there was no " school " at all in the sense given to
that word when we speak of the Ionic School, or the
Pythagorean School, or the Stoic School. In each of
these a number of able men were all dominated by cer-
tain common philosophical principles and ideas and
holding fast to a common theory. But at Alexandria
such was not the case. The learned men who lived
together in the Museum had no single philosophy and
held no theory in common. Their activities took the
most diverse direction. The only thing that all of them
possessed together was a love of science and of scientific
methods. It would be far more proper to speak of the
" schools " at Alexandria, since there were really many,
— a school of mathematics, a school of astronomy, a
school of medicine, a school of philosophy, a school of
literature, a school of grammar and linguistics, and finally,
a school of textual criticism.^
Yet these different schools had one characteristic so
'See St. Hilaire, De VEcole d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1845); Simon,
Histoire de VEcole d'Alexaiidrle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1844-45); and Vacherot,
Histoire Critique de VEcole d'Alexandrie, 3 vols. (Paris, 1846-51). Kings-
ley's Alexandrian Schools (Cambridge, 1854) is disappointing and re-
lates only to the philosophical side.
g6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
far in common as to give a sort of family likeness to all
the productions of the Alexandrian scholars, and thus in
some measure to justify us in speaking of the Alexandrian
" school." Just as the writings of the earlier Greeks
exhibit a certain instinctive originality and freshness of
thought, so the writings of the Alexandrians are steeped
in erudition. They smell of the lamp. Before all else,
they are learned productions; and this is the trait that
belongs to every single work that came from their hands.
It is seen no less in their literature than in their science.
A German writer has very aptly said: " It is as though
the great library strove to reproduce itself in each indi-
vidual work." Therefore we find the Alexandrian Poetry,
such as that of Callimachus, Aratus, and Apollonius,
suggesting to the reader at every turn a learned treatise.
So Philetas of Cos (c. 300 B.C.), though a writer of elegies,
died from overwork in scientific study. It was he, in-
deed, who made the first attempt at an Homeric lexicon
("Ara/cTa, TXcoaaai).^ The astronomers and the mathe-
maticians were morbidly anxious about the rhetorical and
grammatical merits of the language in which they wrote
of the equinoxes and the ecliptic, or the solution of the
quadratic equation. So, again, the geographers and his-
torians supplied their treatises with archaeological notes.
And thus, at first, even the most abstract lectures were
given in verse. It was an age of encyclopaedic scholar-
• See Couat, La Focsie Alexandrine, pp. 68 foil. (Paris, 1882).
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 97
ship; and it tinges the Alexandrian epics and dramas
no less than the treatises on grammar and lexicography.
This is what is meant by the Alexandrian Influence, —
an influence that was afterward so powerfully felt at
Rome, where it reproduced itself in the writings of Varro,
the polymath, no less than in the lines of Vergil, the most
learned of all the Latin poets.
It is precisely because the whole tendency of the Alex-
andrians was toward reflection and research that their
work in pure literature was of slight aesthetic value, being
formal, pedantic, and void of imagination, and that their
philosophy was marked by a learned eclecticism. The
highest philosophy, like the noblest literature, demands,
in addition to mere learning, an intellectual subtlety and
genuine inspiration. But the study of mathematics, of
mechanics, and of physics was now fruitful, and in many
respects so sure in its results as to be the admiration of
scientific men to-day; while no one can overestimate the
enduring value of that systematic labour in the study of
language (lexicography and grammar) and in the criticism
of texts.
So far as literature is concerned, the Alexandrians were
at their best in collecting and preserving what had come
down to them from the preceding centuries. What they
added of their own was vast in amount and devoid of
any great aesthetic merit. Little more than the names of
the Alexandrian writers of epics and lyrics and dramas
H
98 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
are known to-day. Here and there a few fragments tell
of vast volumes which were read and even admired at
Alexandria, but which were either so obscure in their
treatment or so technical in their themes as to deserve
the oblivion that has come upon them.
On the other hand, the Alexandrians reduced criticism
and the study of style to an exact science. The first libra-
rian, Zenodotus of Ephesus (c. 300 e.g.), collected the epic
and lyric poets ; Lycophron of Colchis, the comic poets ;
and Alexander of ^Etolus, the tragic poets. The second
librarian, Callimachus of Cyrene (c. 275 e.g.), made a
catalogue of the Library in one hundred and twenty books
which may be said to have laid the foundation for a
scientific study of Greek literature. The third librarian,
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 200 e.g.), wrote an admirable
treatise on geography and another on the Old Comedy,
in at least twelve books, bringing to bear upon the sub-
ject a wealth of knowledge and excellent taste. The
fourth librarian, Aristophanes of Byzantium (c. 200 e.g.),
has been styled "the greatest philologist of antiquity."
It is he who is said to have invented the accents which
are now employed in writing Greek, and also a system
of punctuation. Likewise he suggested critical signs
{arj/xela) and used them in his editions of Hohier, Hesiod,
of the three great tragic poets, and other famous writers.
It is claimed also that he wrote the Hypotheses or con-
densed plots to the greater dramatists, with notes and
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 99
aesthetic criticisms.^ JMost important of all is his estab-
lishment of what have become known as "the canons"
or lists of the very best authors of Greek antiquity. The
Alexandrian Canon ^ was prepared with the greatest care,
and it represents the matured and final judgment of the
Alexandrian students of literature as to those names of
Greek writers whose works embodied the very highest
excellence in their especial spheres, and who were thought
to be models for all future authors.
The details of the Canon are as follows: (i) Epic
Poets, Homer, Hesiod, Pisander, Panyasis, Antimachus.
(2) Iambic Poets, Archilochus, Simonides, Hipponax.
(3) Lyric Poets, Alcman, Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus,
Pindar, Bacchylides, Ibycus, Anacreon, Simonides. (4) Ele-
giac Poets, Callinus, Minnermus, Philetas, Callimachus.
(5) Tragic Poets (First Class), ^schylus, Sophocles,
Euripides, Ion, Achagus, Agathon. (Second Class, or
Tragic Pleiades), Alexander the ^tolian, Philiscus of
Corcyra, Sositheus, Plomer the Younger, iEantides, Sosi-
phanes or Sosicles, Lycophron. (6) Comic Poets (Old
Comedy), Epicharmus, Cratinus, Eupolis, Aristophanes,
Pherecrates, Plato. (Middle Comedy), Antiphanes,
' See Gudeman, Outlines of the History of Classical Philology, 3d ed.,
pp. 11-13 (Boston, 1902), and infra, pp. 100-102.
^ The word canon (Kavdv) meant originally a reed, and then a car-
penter's rule; so that, in a figurative sense, the word came to denote
whatever served as a model or norm. The Canon Ale.xandrinus is
really made up of several canons as may be seen in the text above.
lOO HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Alexis. (New Comedy), Menander, Philippides, Diphi-
lus, Philemon, Apollodorus. (7) Historians, Herodotus,
Thucydides, Xenophon, Theopompus, Ephorus, Philistus,
Anaximenes, Callisthenes. (8) Orators (the ten Attic
Orators), Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Isocrates, Isaeus,
iEschines, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Hyperides, Dinarchus.
(9) Philosophers, Plato, Xenophon, ^schines, Aristotle,
Theophrastus. (10) Poetic Pleiades (seven poets of
the same epoch with one another), Apollonius Rhodius,
Aratus, Philiscus, Homer the Younger, Lycophron, Ni-
cander, Theocritus.
This Canon was felt to be necessary owing to the great
multitude of books that began to appear in the Alexandrian
Age. There was a certain apprehension lest the weight
of numbers should prevail against the claims of real
merit, and lest the great classics should be lost in a flood
of innovation. The Canon was intended to serve and it
did serve as a standard of comparison by which all liter-
ary productions must be judged; and thus it preserved
purity of style and some defmite laws of literary expres-
sion. From the standpoint of our own times the estab-
lishment of the Alexandrian Canon wrought both good
and harm. It undoubtedly led to the preservation of
some of the greatest works of antiquity; but it also led
to the loss of other works that would be of inestimable
value to the modern classical philologist. These latter
works were allowed to perish just because they were not
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD lOI
included by the Alexandrian critics in their authoritative
Hst. The mere fact that such a clearly defined standard
existed, was also, doubtless, an injury to the most gifted
writers of the following centuries. It fostered a spirit of
imitation and discouraged the free play of their talents
by compelling them to a sort of conformity with predeces-
sors whose genius and temperament were of a very different
type/
Of original composition under the head of pure litera-
ture, the most interesting genre is found in the Idylls of
Theocritus, whose time is so well within the early days
of this period as to make it doubtful whether it is wholly
fair to class him as an Alexandrian. The lyric poets
come next in order of merit, the best of them being Cal-
limachus, of whose work, however, only a few hymns and
fragmentary passages and epigrams remain. It may be
said that in the writing of epigrams the Alexandrians were
very felicitous, as might have been expected from those
who so carefully studied the art of expression and who
were always striving after neatness and precision of style.
The dramatic works composed at Alexandria are now
wholly lost. Of the epics, two famous specimens remain,
— the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, and the Alex-
andra of Lycophron. The first is inordinately dull,
* See Usener, Dionysii Halic. Lihrorum de Imitationc Rdiqtiice (Leipzig,
1899); SteCfen, De Canone qui Dicihir Aristophanis et Aristarchi (Leip-
zig, 1876); Hartmann, De Canone Decern Oratorum (Gottingen, 1891);
and Susemihl, op. oil. i. pp. 445, 484; ii. 674 foil. 694-697.
102 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
heavily charged with ponderous learning, and reading in
parts like a dictionary of antiquities. As to the second,
its obscurity passed into a proverb even in ancient times/
More truly typical of the age are the so-called "didactic
epics" of Aratus on astronomy and meteorology (after-
wards translated into Latin by Cicero), and that of Ni-
cander of Colophon on cures for poison and the bites of
venomous creatures. As time went on, the literary work
of the Alexandrians became more and more pedantic
and far less imbued with the spirit of pure literature,
until it came to an end not far from the beginning of the
Christian era,^
The Alexandrian Philosophy was always characterised
by eclecticism. It originated nothing. The most
interesting school that arose in Egypt after the Library
became established was Jewish or was, at any rate,
due largely to the influence of Jewish rabbis who began
to widen their religious teaching, so as to admit into
it some of the philosophical conceptions of the earlier
Greeks. The result was a body of semi-religious doctrine
in which philosophy and theology were superficially har-
monised. The most elaborate expounder of this har-
mony was Aristobulus, an Alexandrian Jew (c. i8o B.C.)
whose commentaries on the Mosaic Books, dedicated to
Ptolemy Philometor, sought to show that the main teach-
' Suidas called it a "poem of shadows." The scholia by Tzetzes are
however, very valuable.
' See Couat, La Foesie Alexatuirine (Paris, 1882).
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD I03
ings of Greek philosophers, especially those of Plato and
Aristotle, were derived from the Pentateuch. Three cen-
turies later, when the influence of Christianity began to
be felt, Neo-Platonism was thereby modified; but the
later Neo-Platonists were hostile to Christianity; and
their system, in the hands of lamblichus and Julian the
Apostate, was set forth as a substitute both for Chris-
tianity and the older pagan faith/
In the Pure and Applied Sciences, the achievements of
the Alexandrians lie somewhat beyond the strict limits of
classical philology. It may, however, be well to enu-
merate some striking results which were attained. These
comprise the measurement of the sun and moon by Aris-
tarchus of Samos (310-250 b.c); the first systematic
treatise on geometry by Euclid (c. 300 B.C.) ; the develop-
ment of the geometry of three dimensions by Archimedes
(287-212 B.C.), as well as the first application of mathe-
matics to hydrostatics by the same scholar; the first
scientific treatise on conic sections by ApoUonius of Perga
(260-200 B.C.); the working out by Eratosthenes (275-194
B.C.) of what was later called the Julian Calendar; the
determination of the true length of the solar year (within
six minutes) by Hipparchus (c. 160 B.C.), after whom no
real advance in astronomy was made until the time of
Copernicus, some sixteen hundred years later; the
" See Kingsley, op. cil.; and Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists (Cambridge,
1901).
I04 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
invention of trigonometry, also by Hipparchus; and finaly,
the construction of the fire-engine, the steam-engine, the
nickel-in-the-slot machine, and many curious mechanical
toys by Hero (c. 125 b.c), to whom have also been ascribed
writings on the solution of the quadratic equation and
the introduction of algebra/
As Aristophanes was essentially the great (f>L\6\o'yo<;
among the Alexandrians, so Aristarchus was essentially
the great KptriKO'i of all antiquity. Born in Samothrace,
he was a pupil of Aristophanes at Alexandria, where his
stupendous labours as a critic of literature made his name
afterwards, and even to this day, proverbial. It is with
him that text criticism reached its highest development
until recent times.
It is evident that the literary study of an author, pur-
sued in a thorough and systematic way, will soon result
in questions relating to the integrity of the text, especially
when the author has been long dead and when there exist
variant versions from which one has to choose. It has
already been shown that something had been done pre-
viously toward the criticism of the Homeric texts and also
the texts of the great dramatists. This work was now
taken up at Alexandria in a spirit of scientific inquiry and
with ample means for its prosecution. As time went on,
* See Berry, A Short History of Astronomy (London, 1899); Ball,
Great Astronomers (New York, 1899); Ball, A History of Mathematics
(London, 1901); Cajori, A History of Mathematics (New York, 1906);
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD IO5
a definite School of Criticism was established. The first
librarian, Zenodotus of Ephesus, may be regarded as the
founder of this school. The fact that his duties were
partly those of a cataloguer, purchaser, and classifier led
him to look with especial interest upon the work of mak-
ing collections, so that one finds him preparing a sort of
corpus of the epic and lyric poets and elaborating the
Homeric glossary of Philetas into a more ambitious work.
He also put forth an edition which may be called the
very first scientific edition of both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
It was published shortly before the year 274 B.C. Hence
Zenodotus is called hLopOcoTrj^, and his work the StopdcoaLf;,
or Recension.
In preparing the text of Homer, Zenodotus introduced
four kinds of corrections: (i) Elimination, the complete
omission of certain lines that he regarded as absolutely
spurious; (2) Query, the marking of certain lines as very
doubtful, though still not so doubtful as to justify their
omission altogether; (3) Transposition, the rearrangement
of the order of certain lines; (4) Emendation, the sub-
Fink, A History of Mathematics (Chicago, 1900); Hankel, Ziir Geschichte
der Mathematik im Altcrthum und Miltelalter (Leipzig, 1874); and the
treatise on Hiero's ingenious mechanical toys with drawings to illustrate
them in Greenwood, Pneumatics (London, 185 1). As to algebra, this
was in reality an invention of the Egyptians. The first treatise on
algebra dates back to the year 1700 B.C., when Ahmes, an Egyptian
scribe, copied part of an algebraic work written eight hundred 3'ears
before his time. The book of Ahmes has been edited by Eisenlohr
(Leipzig, 1877).
Io6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
stitution of new readings for the old.* As was natural in
a lexicographer, he paid great attention to the vocabulary
of Homer, and his corrections appear to have been made
chiefly upon the verbal side. His proof of what could be
done by a minute study of word and phrase began a new
era of philological study, and one in which language, as
distinct from style, received a very close attention. The
processes of text criticism now began to be extended to
other texts than those of Homer, We have already
mentioned the great edition of the tragic poets by Alex-
ander ^tolus, and the edition of the comic poets by
Lycophron. The HtVa/ce? of Callimachus, previously
spoken of, were really more than a catalogue of the books
in the Alexandrian Library, since they contained critical
observations on the genuineness of each volume, an indi-
cation of the first and last word of each, and a note regard-
ing its size.2 This was essentially Bibliography employed
in the service of criticism.
The third librarian, Eratosthenes, of whose scientific
studies something has been already said, compiled a
treatise on the Old Comedy in not less than twelve books.
In it he seems to have given for the first time, not only a f
complete and critical treatment of the language and sub-
ject of the comedies, but also an exhaustive series of
excursus on such themes as were of collateral interest and
' Examples of his corrections may be found in H. F. Clinton's Fasti
Eellenici, iii. pp. 491 foil. (Oxford, 1824-1834).
*See Egger, Callimaque el I'Origitie de la Bibliographie (Paris, no date).
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 107
importance, — e.g. the structure of theatres, the scenic
apparatus, the actors, the costumes, the different kinds
of elocution, and, in fact, everything pertaining to the
general subject/
His successor, Aristophanes of Byzantium, availed him-
self fully of the material which was now at hand. The
Alexandrian Library had already existed for an entire cen-
tury, and it had been thoroughly sifted, arranged, and
classified, so that there was needed only a great mind to
put it to the best possible use. Much had already been
done toward the establishment of some principles of
criticism; but the results of previous successes and failures
were now to be utilised to the full, and in a broad and
liberal spirit. The whole sphere of Greek literature be-
came a field for the labours of Aristophanes; and in
taking upon himself so heavy a task, he set to work in a
spirit of catholicity. His criticism was not wholly verbal,
nor was it even wholly diplomatic, — that is, criticism
based upon the comparison of manuscripts. It was both
of these, and it was inspired and tempered by the senti-
ment critique. His a-rj/xela were of various sorts. Ten of
them were known as the BeKa TrpocrwBiai,, or ten markings
of Aristophanes. These were the two breathings, the three
accents,^ the two quantity marks (the long and the short),
' The fragments of his writings will be found in Berhardy, Eratos-
thenica (Berlin, 1822).
^ Breathings and accents, however, were not regularly written in
Greek manuscripts earlier than the seventh century a.d.
I08 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the mark of separation inserted between words where the
point of separation might not be obvious, the hyphen (a
curved Hne drawn under the letters to show the connection,
as in compound words), and finally, the apostrophe used
either to mark elision or the end of a foreign name. It
was regularly written after a word ending in «, x* I. '*/^. or
p. When a double consonant was found in the middle
of a word, an apostrophe was placed above the first or
between the two letters.
Besides these, Aristophanes also made use of the full
point or period, whose value depended upon its position.
The high point was a full stop. The point on the line
was a semicolon. The point in a middle position was a
comma. The last disappeared from use in the ninth
century a.d., when it was replaced by the mark which we
now call a comma.
Aristophanes also edited critically a great number of
texts. He prepared a supplement to the catalogue of
Callimachus; he helped compose the Canon already
given; he wrote a treatise on metres, and also the first
scientific work on lexicography, of which about one hun-
dred fragments are still preserved.^
We need not dwell in detail upon the critical methods
of Aristophanes, since they can be much better seen in
the work of his remarkable pupil and associate, Aristar-
' The fragments of Aristophanes are edited by Nauck, Aristophanis
Byzanlii Fragmenta (Halle, 1848).
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD IO9
chus of Samothrace (c. 217-145 b.c). He is the best
type of the Alexandrian critic, since he confined himself
to the single field of criticism and did not seek to be known
as a polymath. He first completed the general terminol-
ogy of formal grammar, setting forth the eight parts of
speech — noun, verb, pronoun, adverb, participle, article,
conjunction, and preposition/
Aristarchus finally determined the fixed critical prin-
ciples that were to be applied in establishing the correct
text of an author. These principles he employed in
editions of Archilochus, Alceeus, iEschylus, Sophocles,
Aristophanes, Hesiod, Pindar, and especially the Homeric
poems, of which he published two great editions, writing
notes on special points together with commentaries. It
is in the editions (e/cSoVei?) that one can best judge of
his ability as a critic, since in them the difficulties v/ere
far the greatest because of the long lapse of time, because
of the large number of manuscripts, and because of the
variations due to the preceding recensions. There were
political interests involved in many of the changes made
in the Homeric text, precisely as some earnest theologian
must have made the famous interpolation in the New
Testament to establish the doctrine of the Trinity (i John,
' The Interjection was not recognised by the Greeks as a part of
speech. It came into formal grammar with the Roman teachers (Quint.
i. parts 4. 20). The Alexandrians claimed that Homer recognised the
eight parts of speech, and they cited two passages of the Iliad (i. 185 and
xxii. 59) each of which contains them all.
no HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
V, 7).^ It was probably because of his knowledge of these
interpolations and of the reasons for them, that Aristar-
chus approached the work of recension in a sceptical
spirit like that of F. A. Wolf in later times. His main
purpose was to rid the text of the additions and corrup-
tions of the three preceding centuries. It is interesting
to note the details of his system, which can best be seen
by taking up some of the concrete examples preserved for
us in the Venetian scholia.
The examination of an author by Aristarchus involved
five processes: (i) the arrangement of the text; (2) the
determination of the accents; (3) the determination of
forms; (4) an explanation of the words, allusions, etc.;
and (5) Kpiai<i, or criticism proper, including all questions
of authenticity and the final judgment that is to be passed
upon the author and his work as a whole.
In carrying out his work as a text critic, Aristarchus
employs all the sources of information used by his pred-
ecessors, but always in a spirit far more scientific than
theirs had been. Thus, like Zenodotus, he studies the
Homeric use of words, holding with him that a knowledge
of the substance must be based upon a knowledge of the
language. Yet he does not confine himself to the archaic,
rare, or foreign words. He, as an "analogist," ^ considers
• See Lehrs, Z)c Aristarchi Shidiis Homericis (Konigsberg, 1833; 3d
ed. 1882); Ludwich, Arislarchs Homerische Textkrilik (Leipzig, 1884-
1885); Jebb, Homer, pp. 91-98 (Glasgow, 1887).
* Infra, pp. 1 19-120.
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD III
these as being less important, from the very fact of their
rarity, than the words and phrases that lend colour and
individuality to the work as a whole and which, since they
are familiar, give a clue to the Homeric sense. So, for ex-
ample, Aristarchus remarks that in Homer, S)8e always
has the meaning " thus " and never " here " or " thither ";
that fidWeiv refers always to the hurling of missiles,
while ovrd^eiv is used of striking or wounding at close
quarters ; that 0o/3o9 has the sense of " flight"; that ttoVo?
is employed especially in reference to combat; that
'OXu/iTTo? in the Iliad means the actual mountain, and
so on. This careful study gave him a standard of usage
when called upon to decide between two conflicting read-
ings in two manuscripts of equal value; for in such a
case he gave the preference to the reading that was the
more consistent with the general usage of the poet (to
eOtfjiov Tov irot-qrov).
Again, in establishing his text, he ascribed great weight
to manuscript authority, just as Zcnodotus and Aris-
tophanes had done before him; but Aristarchus exhibits
an acuteness and system in his classification of the manu-
scripts not to be found in the work of his predeces-
sors. He seems to have grouped them generally in
" families," and to have determined both by compari-
son and by the internal evidence of a codex its value in
the establishment of a canon. Thus we find " private
editions," the work of individual editors; "city editions,"
112 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
made under State supervision; ^ and " popular editions,"
among which he distinguishes those that are more inaccu-
rate and those which are fairly accurate.
That Aristarchus made no such minute divisions and
subdivisions of manuscripts in their " families " and
" groups " as are found in the work of modern critics in
texts like that of Horace, for example, is due to the impor-
tant fact that in his time the variants in Homer were
variants of words and particular verses; while the limits
of divergence being very narrow, the omissions and addi-
tions were of a comparatively unimportant kind. This
implies a common basis of tradition, embodied in a vulgate
text, possibly that of the Pisistratidean recension. The
better judgment of Aristarchus, as contrasted with Zenod-
otus, is seen in his treatment of the so-called formulaic
lines. This repetition, line for line, was too much for
Zenodotus, who rejected the frequent appearance of it,
for instance, in the Iliad, where the " baneful dream " of
Zeus to x'\gamemnon occurs three times in the second
book. Aristarchus, however, rightly saw in this the
naif redundacy of the primitive story-teller, and so he let
it stand. On the whole, though Aristarchus was sceptical,
he was very much averse to altering his text; and for this
conservatism he has been censured in modern times, for
instance, by Wolf and Lehrs. Aristarchus questioned and
doubted, but he did not often introduce an emendation.
' See p. 15.
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD II3
In his critical work he employed various signs (a-rjfiela).
' The most important of these were
(i) The 6,8e\6<; or spit, -, to indicate that a line was
spurious. Such lines were said to be " athetised " (aderelv).
This obelus is still used in critical texts by German scholars.
(2) The SlttXj], ^, or > <1 , or S, used either for
exposition, to call attention to some especial point, or to
mark a word which is used only once, or to indicate that
the construction is the same as in Attic Greek.
(3) The dotted diple, ^, to denote that the reading
adopted by Aristarchus differed from that of Zenodotus.
(4) The asterisk, *, to mark a genuine formulaic verse
as distinct from one regarded by him as spurious. If the
repeated verse was spurious, it was marked in one of the
two places where it occurred, with the asterisk or the
obelus prefixed to the line.
(5) The antisigma, D, and the stigma, r, were used
together to denote repetitions of the same idea.^ The
stigma, alone, denoted only suspected spuriousness. It is
interesting to know that out of the 15,600 lines of the
Iliad and the Odyssey, 11 60 were athetised.
The criticisms of Aristarchus were not, apparently,
embodied in any one great standard work, but w^re spread
' For instance, Iliad, viii. 535-537, was marked, and so was passage
538-541, because the last-named verses seemed to repeat the sense
of the former. For the best account of these critical signs see Gardt-
hausen, Pdaographie, p. 2S8 foil. (Leipzig, 1899) and Susemihl, op. cit.
ip. 432 foil.
I
114 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
over a great quantity of monographs, marking each the
development of a new hne of research or the statement
of a new principle. Hence it is that his critical work
never was canonised in one single standard text. Hence,
also, it is so difficult to distinguish what is the work of
Aristarchus himself from that which belonged to the
Aristarchean School, — to the great number of students
and scholars who carried out his ideas. This difficulty,
in fact, was felt even in ancient times, as in the Augustan
Age; and we find Didymus Chalcenteros trying to ascer-
tain what readings of Homer were approved by Aristarchus
— and this only about a century after his death.
The imperfect knowledge that we have of the critical
work of Aristarchus as a whole is due to the roundabout
way in which notices of it have come down to us. Didy-
mus, just mentioned, collected the Homeric writings of
Aristarchus. Aristonicus of Alexandria, a contemporary
of Didymus, wrote a treatise on the critical signs employed
by Aristarchus in his text work; and in connection with
this matter, incidentally quoted the arguments relating
to the verses marked with these signs. About the year
B.C. 1 60, Herodianus wrote a treatise on the accentuation
and prosody of the Homeric poems. Nicanor about the
same time improved a work on Homeric punctuation.
Now between the years 200 and 250 a.d. some unknown
scholar made an epitome of these four writers — Didymus,
Aristonicus, Herodianus, and Nicanor — in such a way
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD II5
as to form a continuous critical commentary on the Homeric
text. The Epitome of the Four Treatises (usually spoken
of simply as " the Epitome," and in Germany as the
Viermanner Schoiien)/ was in the tenth century a.d.
copied into the margin of a codex of the Iliad. This
Codex is the very famous Codex Venetus A of the Iliad,
No. 454, in the Library of St. Mark in Venice. It con-
tains (i) the Epitome, undoubtedly somewhat altered
from its original form, as the language, etc., shows; and
(2) other scholia. This MS. is almost the only source
from which we can get any definite knowledge in detail
of the views of Aristarchus. It is also the only MS. pre-
served in which the critical signs of Aristarchus are em-
ployed. The scholia of this Codex were first edited by
Villoison in 1788.^
Text criticism in antiquity reached its highest point with
Aristarchus. His followers were often men of great
ability and indefatigable industry, but their attention seems
to have been directed more minutely to verbal, i.e. gram-
matical criticism, and to have become narrower and more
pedantic as time went on. The Alexandian School was,
in fact, essentially a school of grammatical scholarship,
accurate, careful, and deeply learned, but with perhaps
too great a fondness for regularity, for strict rules, and a
sort of Procrustean willingness to secure absolute uniform-
ity in language and in its laws by crushing out that idio-
' See Hiibner's Encyclopddie, pp. 37-40 in the second ed. (Berlin, 1892).
Il6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
matic freedom of both form and expression which is the
essential attribute of a living language.
After Aristarchus, who died about 143 B.C., critical
studies were continued at Alexandria by his successors,
among whom may be noted Hermippus of Smyrna, a
writer of biographies, much drawn upon by Plutarch;
Apollodorus of Athens, who wrote in trimeters, a work on
chronology from the fall of Troy to 1444 B.C., and a com-
mentary on the Homeric catalogue of the ships. He like-
wise composed a treatise On the Gods in twenty-four books
which was a treasury of minute and curious information
'' freely and extensively pirated by later writers." The
successor of Aristarchus was Ammonius, who had been
his pupil; and after him came Didymus Chalcenteros
of Alexandria (c. 65 B.C. - c. 10 a.d.), who is said
to have written nearly four thousand books, lexicograph-
ical, critical, grammatical, exegetical, and archaeological.^
About the year 75 B.C. there appeared anonymously a
great manual of mythology — the first of its kind — from
which many of the later writers drew extensively. One
should also speak of the grammarian Tryphon, and the com-
mentator Theon who lived in the first century a.d. The
Alexandrian School grew less and less important after the
middle of the first century B.C. A good part of the Library
was destroyed during the siege of Alexandria by Julius
' See Blau, De Aristarchi Discipulis (Jena, 1883); and the edition of
the fragments of Didymus by Moritz Schmidt (Leipzig, 1854).
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD II7
Caesar (47 B.C.). Later, when Theodosius the Great gave
his consent to the destruction of all the pagan temples in
the Roman Empire (389 a.d.), a mob of fanatical Chris-
tians demolished the temple of Jupiter Serapis, and with it
a large portion of the Library. From this time, Alexandria,
as a centre of learning, ceased to exist; and when the
Arabs in 641 took the city, they merely completed a work
of devastation that had been going on for centuries.
[Bibliography. — See, in addition to the works already cited,
Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexan-
drinerzeit, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1S91-1892); Bernhardy, Geschichte
der griechischen Litteratur, 5th ed. (Halle, 1877-1892); Renan,
Melange d'Histoire et de Voyages dans FAntiquite, pp. 389-410,
427-440 (Paris, 1898); and the special biographical articles in
Pauly's Real-Encyclopddie (Stuttgart, 1893 foil.); also Mahaffy,
History of Classical Greek Literature, vol. i. pp. 35 foil, and vol. ii.
pp. 427-438 (New York, 1880). ]
B. The Pergamene School and Other Centres
OF Learning
The School at Alexandria had for a long time attracted
those who were at once men of genius and of profound
learning. After the death of Aristarchus, -however, it
tended to become more and more a gathering-place for
near-sighted critics to whom formulas were more important
than facts. To them a rule of grammar or a paradigm
was sacred, and their reverence for symmetry in language
was carried so far as to provoke an inevitable opposition,
Il8 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
which was organised at last in the famous School at Per-
gamiim, which arose to meet and assail the theories of the
Alexandrians. Pergamum was an ancient town, about fif-
teen miles from the coast of Mysia in Asia Minor/ It was
ruled by a dynasty founded in the Alexandrian Age; and
in 263 B.C. Eimienes I became a patron of the arts and
sciences, inviting philosophers and sculptors to his court,
among them being Arcesilaus, who had first presided over
the Middle Academy at Athens, and the Peripatetic phi-
losopher Lycon. The successor of Eumenes was Attalus
I, who assumed the title of king, won victories over the
invading Gauls, and then began to gather the books for the
Pergamene Library that was to rival the collection at Alex-
andria. He laid out grounds for an academy like that in
Athens, and sought the friendship of philosophers, histo-
rians, and mathematicians.^ The king himself conde-
scended to authorship, though his taste was more for
sculpture. His victories over the Gauls were commemo-
rated in a set of magnificent bronzes. A copy of one of
these in marble is the famous figure known as "the Dying
Gladiator," but more properly " the Dying Gaul," and
now preserved in the Capitoline Museum at Rome. Of
the artists whom he patronised, one recalls especially
Antigonus of Carystos, who wrote on art and likewise
' The name for parchment (pergamena) is derived from Pergamum,
where it was first made.
^ It was to King Attalus that Apollonius of Perga dedicated his work
on Conic Sections.
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD I19
on natural phenomena. Pergamum was adorned with
splendid buildings, above which rose the Acropolis, a
thousand feet above the sea level, and protecting, as it
were, the court of the goddess Athena, a vast quadrangle
bounded by colonnades and adorned by majestic statues
of Homer, Herodotus, Alcaeus, and other great writers of
the past. These and similar works were carried out by
the kings of Pergamum until in 133 B.C. Attalus III
bequeathed his entire realm to the Roman people.
The scholars of Pergamum were, on the whole, more
varied in their interest than those of Alexandria. The
Stoics controlled the teachings, and the real founder
was Crates of Mallos (c. i68 B.C.), who became to the Per-
gamene School what Aristarchus was to the Alexandrian.
Aristarchus reverenced rule in language, while Crates based
his teachings upon exception; and the catchwords which
represented the distinction were avaXo'yia and apcofjuaXia}
Crates and his followers regarded the mere verbalists of
Alexandria with a species of contempt. He held that
text criticism, and especially the text criticism of Homer,
* Crates derived the expression dvufiaXla from the treatise of Chrysip-
pus, On Anomaly. The fragments of Crates with a commentary on
them will be found in Wachsmuth, De Cratete Mallota (Leipzig, i860);
and on the Pergamene School see Wegener, De Aula AUalica (Copen-
hagen, 1836). For some discussion on Analogy and ^Vnomaly, see
Aulus Gellius, ii. 5, where reference is directly made to Aristarchus and
Crates. " ' A f w X o 7 i a est similium similis declinatio; . . .dvw fj.a\ la est
inaqualitas declinalionum consuetudinem sequens." On Analogy and
Anomaly, see also Sandys, op. cit. i. pp. 156-158.
I20 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
ought to embrace the whole mass of problems — historical,
physical, mythological, and philosophical — suggested in
the Homeric poems. He saw in the text, allegories and
allusions to the cosmical and astronomical theories of the
Stoics. In fact, he regarded Homer more as a teacher
than as a poet, placing his hLhaaKoKia before h.xs-^^v^a'yoi'yCa.
The importance of this view of Crates is found in the fact
that because of his desire to read into the text the alle-
gories which he saw there, he was led to propose a large
number of conjectural emendations in which the principle
of anomaly gave full play to his ingenious mind. Thus,
while Aristarchus represents cautious diplomatic examina-
tion of the text and a reluctance to alter what he finds in it,
Crates is the type of the brilliant conjectural emendator,
the Bentley of antiquity. Only fragments have come
down to us of his writings; but they include a commen-
tary on the Homeric epics, on Hesiod, Euripides, and
Aristophanes; a catalogue of the Pergamene Library like
that which Callimachus made of the Library of Alexandria;
and a work on the Attic dialect in at least five books. It
may be noted, en passant, that Crates laid the foundation
of the study of grammar at Rome, to which city he was
sent as an ambassador in 157 b.c.^ His most important
successor was Demetrius Magnes, who flourished in the
first century B.C. and who wrote on synonyms together
with some biographies.
*See infra, p. 157.
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 121
It might well be assumed that Athens should have been
the seat of a great institution of learning; and such was
indeed the case. So far back as the time of Pericles,
it had been called "the school of Greece," and even
in its decadence it long kept the fire of learning bright.
Both before and immediately after the beginning of the
Christian Era, it contained an organised faculty of accom-
plished professors who lectured to students from all parts
of the civilised world. The University at Athens was the
result of two previously existing institutions — the organ-
isation of the €(})i]pot, and the schools of the philcKophers
and Sophists. The Ephebi, or free Athenian youths, were
in early times enrolled into a corps that was primarily
intended for the defense of the State. They were educated
both physically and mentally, and they formed the nucleus
of what became the student body of the university.
Two changes in the constitution of this body prepared the
way for its transformation from a quasi-military organisa-
tion to a university. These changes were: —
(i) The neglect of the principle of compulsion. Not
all were enrolled, but only those who chose.
(2) Membership was no longer confined to Athenians
or even Greeks.
These changes left a body of young men, organised and
regularly enrolled, free to follow such a course of training
as best suited their inclinations and capacities, and ready
to be turned to any line of study that had the advocacy
122 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
of brilliant, energetic, and popular men. The schools of
the philosophers supplied the influence necessary for
completing the change from a militar}' college to a great
university.
Four schools of philosophy had since the time of the
Macedonian wars been flourishing at Athens. These
were the Academic or Platonic School, the Peripatetic
or Aristotelian School, the Stoic School, and the Epicurean,
Each of these schools from the time of its foundation had
received an endo^^inent sufficient to maintain and per-
petuate it. Plato had purchased a small garden near the
Eleusinian Way, in the grove of Academe, for three thou-
sand drachmas. His philosophic successors, Xenocrates
and Polemon. continued to teach in the same spot; their
wealthy pupils and the friends of learning added to the
grounds and bequeathed sufficient funds for the support
of the philosopher, and thus practically endowed an aca-
demic chair. In like manner, Aristotle left to his successor,
Theophrastus, the valuable property near the Ilyssus;
and Theophrastus, in the will whose text has come do\\'n to
us in Diogenes Laertius,^ completed the permanent endow-
ment of the Peripatetic chair. So Epicurus left his prop-
erty in the Ceramicus to be the nucleus of an endowment
for his school," and the Stoics were probably in like manner
made independent. Around these four schools of phi-
* V. 2. 14.
^ Diog. Laert. xx. 10.
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 1 23
losophy, which, being endowed, taught gratuitously, a
multitude of teachers of rhetoric, grammar, literature,
logic, physics, and mathematics clustered. The world
soon learned to think of Athens as a great seat of learning
and culture, brilliant and renowned. Students flocked to
her from every quarter and country. It appears to have
been necessary to become enrolled among the Ephebi,
but the scholars selected for themselves their own instruc-
tors, and attended such lectures as they chose. The
number of these students became enormous. Theophras-
tus alone lectured to as many as two thousand men. The
records show the names of many foreign students, some of
them being of the Semitic race. From later sources we
learn that matriculation took place early in the year; that
the students wore a gown like that of the undergraduates
at the English universities; that they pursued athletic sports
with much ardour; that at the theatre a special gallery
was reserved for them; that certificates of attendance at
the courses of lectures were required ; that they were under
the general direction of a president; that fees were exacted
in the shape of an annual contribution to the university
Library; that breaches of discipline were punished, as
at Oxford, by fines; that the relation between student and
professor was very close, so that for a student to cease to
take a course was very cutting; and that the students
themselves " touted " for the professors. " ISIost of the
young enthusiasts for learning," says Gregory Nazianzen,
124 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
" became mere partisans of their professors. They are
all anxiety to get their audiences larger and their fees
increased. This they carry to portentous lengths. They
post themselves over the city at the beginning of the year;
as each newcomer disembarks he falls into their hands;
they carry him off at once to the house of some countryman
or friend who is best at trumpeting the praises of his own
professor."
Private tutors ((pvXa/ce'?) were often employed. They
looked over the students' notes, "coached" them on the
subjects in which they were most interested, and helped
them at their exercises. At the end of the year there
seems to have been an examination.
Freshmen seem to have been subject to a sort of hazing.
Gregory, in a funeral address over his friend Basil, recalls
some of the memories of their sport with freshmen. We
find one of the professors, Proaeresius, asking his class
not to haze a new student, Eunaphius, because of his
feeble health. Sometimes the inferior officers of the
university were subject to similar annoyances, and Liba-
nius tells of one of the tutors who was tossed in a blanket.
There were likewise other famous schools given over to
the higher education in the East and in the West, -^s-
chines, the great rival of Demosthenes, is said to have
founded a school for oratory in the island of Rhodes, and
there were famous teachers in Lesbos. Tarsus, in Asia
Minor, had faculties representing all the branches of
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 125
humanistic studies. In like manner, Massilia (Marseilles)
rivalled even Athens and drew students away from it.
The further development of endowed education will be
spoken of as belonging more particularly to the Grgeco-
Roman Period.^
After the time of Didymus Chalcenteros, already noted,
there is nothing in the history of text criticism among the
Greeks that needs especial mention. As men of genius
became rarer, formal grammar, lexicography, and the
epitomising of earlier writings occupied the time of those
whose minds were satisfied with the purely mechanical
phases of scholarship. To this later age we owe the great
collections of Scholia that have come down to us from
the codices of classical authors and that are important
(i) because of their value in determining the true reading of
the classical texts; and (2) because in many cases, by
reason of the blunders of subsequent scribes, they have
sometimes slipped into the text itself, there to become a
source of learned controversy. A note on the ancient
glosses may be of some value for reference in speaking of
text criticism hereafter. This will necessarily anticipate
a portion of the narrative; but it is best considered in
this place.
' See Capes, University Life in Ancient Athens (London, 1877); Ma-
haff}'-, Old Greek Education (London, 1882); Eckstein, Lateinischer
und Griechischer Unterricht (Leipzig, 1887) ; Wilkins, National Education
in Greece in the Fourth Century before Christ (London, 1873); and the
first five chapters in Walden, T}ie Universities of Ancient Greece (New
York, 1909).
126 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
A gloss (yXaaaa) was, in the language of the Greek critics
and grammarians, the name given to a word in the text
that required explanation, e.g. Kopea(n(f)opT]Tou<i in II.
viii. 527. In course of time, ordinary words may become
obsolete or may acquire a new shade of meaning, or may
be employed in a technical and peculiar sense. As these
words would require a special explanation for the benefit
of the general reader, the name yXaxra-a was given to all
such. Thus, Plutarch speaks of the words which belong
to the purely poetical language, and those that are purely
local, as jXcoTTai (DeAudiendis Poetis, § 6). Galen applies
the term to the obsolete medical expressions of Hipparchus.
Aristotle uses it of provincialisms {Poet. 21. 4-6).*
Quintilian employs the synonymous term jXcoa-cr^iJiaTa
to voces minus itsitatas (i. 8. 15; cf. i. 1. 35). Originally
the word that needed explanation was simply defined
by wTiting its simpler synonym, the word in common use
(ovofxa Kvpiov, Arist.), in the margin of the text beside it.
Then the term jXcba-a-a meant the pair of words, i.e. the
word in the text and its explanatory word in the margin,
the two being viewed as constituting a whole. Ultimately
the explanation alone was called yXcoaa-a. With these
glosses begins the history of lexicography ; but the glosses
soon ceased to be purely lexical and became encyclopaedic
in character, — geographical, biographical, historical, or
^ Cf. id. Rhet. iii. 3. 2. As early as the fifth century B.C., we find
glosses spoken of, since Democritus of Abdera (c. 410 B.C.) wrote a
treatise on them (He/ji rXoxro-^co^).
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 127
philological, according to the purpose or the tastes of the
glossographer. The chief of these glossographers we
have already mentioned, — Philetas of Cos, Zenodotus,
Aristophanes of Byzantium, Aristarchus, Crates, and
Herodianus.* In later times, the glosses were regularly
collected and arranged as running commentaries on the
language of the text, — the best-known collectors of these
being Hesychius, Photius, Zonaras, Suidas, and the com-
piler of the Etymologicum Magnum. In its developed
meaning, the word " gloss " is to be understood in the
same sense as scholium. Very few scholia have come down
to us with the author's name attached; but such as exist
are usually written upon the margin or between the lines
of a codex and copied from the work of the earlier scholiasts.
The scholia generally bear evidence of having been written
much later than the date when the codex itself was written.
Scholia in the margin are known as gloss(B marginales]
those written between the lines are called glosscB inter-
lineares?
Something must be said here of the study of Art
among the Greeks. So far as any evidence remains, their
early writings on this theme must have been very limited
in extent so far as they concern {esthetics. There is
^Athenaeus, writing about the year 250 a.d., alluded to thirty-five
glossographers.
2 See Matthai, Glossarm Graeca (Moscow, i774-i77S); a list of the
most important (Gk.) scholia is given by Gudeman, o/i. cit. pp. 20-21.
Cf. also Hubner, Encyclop. pp. 37-40, 2d ed. (Berlin, 1892).
128 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
scarcely a mention of any formal discussion on the history
of architecture, sculpture, painting, or music. The
historians, and also the philosophers, merely give, in an
incidental way, detached and inadequate suggestions as to
art, artists, and works of art. As in literature, so in music,
the Greeks of the Prae-Alexandrian Age devoted them-
selves more to creation than to criticism. Philostratus
remarks, however, in the first book of his Lives of the
Sophists, that Hippias (c. 420 B.C.) of Elis was wont to
dispute on the subject of painting and sculpture; and that
Democritus of Abdera wrote a work on painting from the
living model {Jiepi Zcoypacfyia^). Other treatises, of which
we know, were practical in their character and were writ-
ten by artists for artists, regarding the "canon" or mathe-
matical demonstration of those proportions which produce
beauty in the human form.^ There are, however, acute
criticisms of painting scattered throughout the writings of
Aristotle; and by the beginning of the Alexandrian Period,
we come to criticisms which are not technical but aesthetic.
Thus, Duris of Samos was among the first to collect anec-
dotes and aphorisms with regard to painting. Many
representatives of the Peripatetic School busied themselves
1 The first of these canons was that of Polyclitus in the fifth century
B.C. After Polyclitus, came many to write upon the technical side of
sculpture; but not until after Aristotle was there much written on the
aesthetics of the plastic and graphic arts. Vitruvius in the preface to his
seventh book names a number of writers who concerned themselves with
the principles of artistic symmetry.
THE ALEXANDRIAN PERIOD 1 29
in the same way. As a rule, the artists themselves —
men who understood sculpture and bronze casting — were
the authors of these treatises. At Pergamum, in particu-
lar, much attention was paid to sculpture, as we have
already seen, and it was there that the Canon of Ten
Sculptors * was probably drawn up to match the Alexan-
drian Canon of the Ten Orators. Most of our informa-
tion with regard to these early writers comes from Roman
scholars, especially from Pliny the Elder; or else from
late Greek writers such as Strabo and Pausanius and
Lucian.^
' Quintilian, xii. 10. 7.
^ See Jones, Select Passages from Ancient Writers Illustrative of the His-
tory of Greek Sculpture (London, 1895) ; Overbeck, Geschichte der griech-
ischen Plastik (Leipzig, 1894) ; and Fowler and Wheeler, Greek Archaeology
(New York, 1909).
IV
THE GRiECO-ROMAN PERIOD
Tradition ascribes the date of the founding of Rome
to the eighth century B.C. It was long, however, before the
Roman people either acquired or attained anything that
deserves the name of literary culture, polite learning, or
philological study. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans were
a rugged race, an inland race, apart from the magic and
the mystery of the sea. The small settlement along the
Tiber was pastoral and agricultural for many centuries,
having little commerce with external peoples, dwelling
in constant danger from formidable neighbours, against
whom it could prevail only by the strictest discipline and
the intensest concentration of interest. Thus, the Ro-
mans came to possess the civic virtues in a high degree.
Primarily, their ideal was efficiency, intelligent coopera-
tion, and a love of the concrete. Their patriciate was
formed of the fighting men. Their arts were arts relating
to military science and statesmanship and religion. One
distinctive quality which they possessed was a wonderful
tenacity of purpose. Later, when they had vanquished
their enemies throughout Italy and had builded a great
nation, the characteristics which had been wrought out
in them by centuries of toil and effort were to be seen not
130
THE GR/ECO-ROMAN PERIOD I3I
only in what they created, but in what they took from
others and transmuted into something that became almost
purely Roman.*
By the fourth century B.C. they were reaching the point
where a literature of their own was beginning to display
an evolution quite independent of any impulse from with-
out. Their annals were set down in simple prose. Their
laws were expressed precisely and with clearness. It is,
indeed, quite characteristic of the difference between the
Greeks and the Romans that Greek children should
have been set to learn by heart long passages from the
Homeric poems, while Roman children were compelled
to memorise the Laws of the Twelve Tables. Yet there
were at Rome at least the beginnings of poetical com-
position in lyrics sung in artless rhythms. Lyric Poetry
at Rome was first found, not as an exotic, but in the
nenicB, the spells, the charms, the lullabies that were
crooned over little children, and in other songs that were
chanted to the accompaniment of the dance. ^ A native
Drama — a sort of extemporaneous comedy — was not
unknown. We find even the traces of a gradual drift
away from the ancient versus Italicus to the more regular
^ See Pais, Ancient Legends of Roman History, Eng. trans., pp. 1-59
(New York, 1905) ; Michaut, Le Genie Latin (Paris, 1900) ; and Weise,
Charakteristik der lateinischen Sprache (Leipzig, 1905).
^ See the pages on very early Latin — the hymns, the litanies, the folk-
poetry, the priestly Hterature, and the legal writings — in DuflF, A Literary
History of Rome, pp. 63-89 (London and Leipzig, 1909). See also De-
douvres, Les Latins, pp. 39-79 (Paris, 1903).
132 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
form of the Saturnian measure. This last, though it was
often rude, was capable of a really artistic treatment,
and it was to the early Romans what the dactylic hex-
ameter was to the early Greeks. Nor is there any doubt
that Oratory was fairly well developed, since oratory, as
has been rightly said, belongs to "the literature that tends
to statesmanship."^ Eloquence was necessary for the
senator, or the popular leader, and it was necessary also
for the commander of an army in the field. Therefore
we can reasonably assert that even had Rome not come
into contact with Hellenic influences, there would still
have been created, slowly, but quite surely, not only a
literature but a learning, absolutely Roman both in form
and content.^
There had been some desultory relations between the
Romans and the Greeks farther back than is recorded by
authentic history. From the Chalcidian Greeks of Cam-
pania the Romans had borrowed their Alphabet.^ From
the Etruscans also the Romans had acquired certain
' The earliest Roman oration written out for publication almost ante-
dates formal Roman poetry. It was delivered in 280 B.C. by Appius
Claudius against the terms of peace offered by PjTrhus, and was read and
studied at Rome for at least two centuries. See Sears, op. cit., p. 94-
2 See Ihne, Early Rome (New York, 1902); Mommsen, A History of
Rome (Eng. trans.) vol. ii, pp. 23-315 (New York, 1903-05); and the
early chapters of Bernhardy, Grundriss der romischen Litteratur, sth ed.,
(Brunswick, 1875).
sSee Lindsay, The Latin Language, pp. 1-12 (Oxford, 1894); Peters,
"Recent Theories of the Alphabet," in vol. xxi, Journal of the Oriental
Society (1901); and Clodd, Tlie Story of the Alpfiabet (New York, 1903).
THE GRiECO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 33
religious beliefs and practices as well as arts. But when
the Roman arms advanced southward and began to con-
quer the Greek cities of Magna Grascia and Sicily, then
there came a direct contact with Hellenic culture. This
was in the early part of the third century B.C. At that
time, the Romans, in their war with the Greek king
Pyrrhus, overran the luxurious towns of southern Italy
and seized the rich and splendid city of Tarentum. The
knowledge which thus came to them of the magnificence
of Greece was a startling revelation. To the rough sol-
diers, and rustic cultivators of Latium, Greek art, Greek
science and Greek literature and learning became realities
to fascinate and to encourage imitation. Little by little
there sprang up in Rome a sort of Greecomania compar-
able with the Etruscomania of the later imperial age and
with the successive Gallomania and Anglomania of our
own country in the last century. The Romans learned
the sister language, and many of them spoke and wrote it
in preference to their own; while men of genius adapted
the still rude Latin tongue to the varied forms of Hel-
lenic literature. Not long afterward, the First and Second
Punic Wars burst forever the bonds of Roman isolation.
Because of them the Roman people gained an outlook
that was not Roman merely, nor even Latin and Italian,
but in the end broadly cosmopolitan. As by a flash, Rome
saw at once what high civilisation and exquisite culture
really meant. In a single generation, Greece gave to
134 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Rome the treasures which she had been garnering for
centuries. The effect upon the whole subsequent develop-
ment of the Roman people was profound and lasting.
The ablest minds among them grasped the significance of
the revelation. Men like the Scipios and the Metelli wel-
comed the graces of life. By this time there was a so-
called Greek set which grew in influence, despite the gibes
and sneers of Cato and other partisans of the ancient order.
In time, thousands of captive Greeks, including men
of the highest attainments, were scattered over Italy as
hostages, ambassadors, and teachers.
The first evidence of Hellenic Influence is probably to
be found in literature when Livius Andronicus (c. 250 B.C.),
by birth a Greek, was brought as a slave to Rome, and,
after receiving his freedom, made a living by teaching
his native language. It was he who translated the Odyssey
into Saturnian verse. It was a rude and uninspired piece
of work, yet for generations it remained a schoolbook for
Roman boys and girls. In 240 B.C. he set upon the stage
the first of many dramas which he laboriously constructed
after Grecian models. He likewise attempted lyric poetry,
being commissioned by the State to write a hymn in honour
of Juno.^ Gnseus Naevius, who was freeborn and the citi-
* See Ribbeck, Geschichte der romischen Dichliing, 2d ed., i, p. 15 foil.
(Leipzig, 1897-1900); and Momrasen, History of Rome, Eng. trans., ii,
p. 498 (New York, 1903); the chapter in Mackail's Latin Literature (New
York, 1907); and that on "The Earliest Italian Literature" in Nettle-
ship, Essays in Latin Literature (Oxford, 1885).
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD I35
zen of a Latin town in Campania, really marks the begin-
ning of Latin literature. He was no foreign sycophant, but
had the independent spirit of his race. He wrote much,
adapting often from the Greek, but also producing dramas
based upon Roman history. In these and elsewhere he
did not hesitate to attack the most powerful patricians,
especially the Metelli. For this, in the end, he was impris-
oned and banished and died in exile. He was, in truth,
a Roman of the Romans. He clung to the native Satur-
nian verse, and in his Punka, writing of the First Punic
War, he introduced that legend which links the Trojan
/Eneas with Roman history. Thus, he was the precursor
of Vergil, for his Epic was long read, and parts of it are
embedded in the Mneid} To Naevius are also due the
beginnings of Satire, whereof Quintilian long afterward
remarked that " satire, indeed, is wholly ours." Not only
did Nasvius use the native Saturnian verse, but he held
fast to the Roman love of alliteration and repetition which
were distasteful to the Greek poets; ^ so that when he died
he left behind him a mass of literature which was neither
Greek nor imitated from the Greek, but was rather Roman
in spirit and in form. He and those who followed him
prove that if Rome had never felt the deft touch of the
^Quintilian, x, i, 93. Also, on the Roman satire, Nettleship, Lectures
and Essays (second series), pp. 24-43 (Oxford, 1895).
^On alliteration, see Botticher, De Alliterclionis apud Romanos Vi
et Usu (Berlin, 18S4); and on dynamic repetition, Abbott, The Use of
Repetition in Latin (Chicago, 1902).
136 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Hellene, it would still have given birth to prose and verse
worthy of a great nation. Professor Duff has rightly said,
in speaking of this Roman strain, which is never missing: —
This native literature, then, is often cumbersome, and as yet
lacks the highest distinction of style and grace, but is no less often
solemn and dignified — it is always mascuhne. However power-
ful and brilliant the incoming Hellenic influence, these pre-HeUenic
products of Rome must not be disdained as feeble and discon-
nected with the literature that was to follow. Impotence cannot
create; and this early work had issue. It contained the germs
of later success. Genius cannot be borrowed: it can be modified
and developed. Above all, it can borrow, and make the loan its
own. That was the case with Rome.
In truth, no nation possessing the power of growth,
endued with energy, and able to make history, can long
remain in its literature a mere imitator. In a thousand
directions it must strike out for itself, conquering its
own difficulties, fulfilling its own ambitions, and achieving
great things which alter its own character. Since, then,
literature is a mirror to reflect this character and the
achievements that are allied with it, it will soon reflect
the interplay of myriad forces, the presence of innumer-
able cross-currents, the perpetual shifting and changing
of the golden sands of thought. For a while it remains
in leading-strings, but after a time it will evolve its own
masterpieces and will work them out in its own way. Let
us take an example from modern times and compare
the literature of England with that of the United States.
* Duff, op. cit., p. 91.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD I37
The language of the two nations is the same, but Americans
were at first too much cumbered with material affairs
to attempt in any serious way the literary art. They read
English books or they imitated them in a pathetically
humble fashion. But in time, after the Republic had
shaken off its political bonds and had developed new
interests of its own, its literature began to show that it,
too, was attaining independence. It found new themes
and it had new modes of treating them. One sees the
first departure from the English model in Irving and in
Cooper. After that, and when the young nation had grown
conscious of his own power, there arose authors such as
Emerson and Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Bret Harte, Clem-
ens, Howells and a score of others who were American
to the very core in all they wrote.
And so in Rome the imitative period lasted only a very
little time. In the feeble, creeping, childish sense, it
ends with Gnaeus Naevius, and soon afterward there
bursts forth into full flower a literature whose technique
came from Hellas, but whose spirit and character were
Roman. Latin literature, in fact, was revolutionised
by two men, both of Italian birth, who by their genius
gave to Latin the initial impulse which freed it forever
from any slavish subservience to the Greek. The earlier
language in which Livius Andronicus wrote his stumbling
measures, and which even Nasvius used clumsily, though
with force, lacked that lightness and mobility which would
138 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
make it fit for poetry and for the finest prose. It lacked
also an ampler and fuller vocabulary which should give
both to the poet and to the prose writer a more varied
instrument of expression. It was Quintus Ennius (239-
c. 172 B.C.) who made the Latin language fit for noble
poetry; and it was Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184 B.C.)
who gave it a wealth of new words, which, to be sure, in
his time did not all win general acceptance, but which
in a later century received the approval of the still
greater master, Cicero.
Like Livius Andronicus, Ennius was a teacher; and
like Livius, his personal influence helped to make his
literary innovations successful, — a circumstance also due
to the tact and linguistic skill shown in everything he did.
Ennius held precisely the position in the Roman world
to give weight to his teaching and example. He had
personally trained in letters many of the young nobles
who were taking their places at the head of the State.
He was the intimate friend of several of the Scipios, and
he has been said to have taught Greek even to the Elder
Cato, who was famous for his hatred of all that was
Greek. Ennius was himself a man of most engaging
personal qualities, well-read, genial, courteous, and refined;
and with these natural gifts and artificial advantages, he
carried forward the work of Naevius. His sensitive ear
and correct taste rebelled against the heavy and lumbering
verses which were at first his models and which were the
THE GEJECO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 39
best that could be written under the limitations of the
language as it had hitherto been used for literary purposes.
He set himself the task of infusing into it some of the Greek
lightness, the Greek smoothness, and the Greek grace.
The greatest obstacles in the way of this were two : first,
the obstinate adherence by his predecessors to the natural
or word-accent, which kept the verse on the level of prose;
and second (partly because of this accentual limitation),
the extraordinary number of long syllables.^ He now
attempted an experiment that was destined to give to
Roman literature not only stateliness but style. With
much sagacity he refrained from making any innovations
in iambic and trochaic poetry. There, tradition had
already established a usage which he did not care to
combat; but he turned to an entirely new kind of verse
and to a new theme, which might justify and render natural
a new system of Prosody.
It has been a mooted question whether the dactylic
hexameter had been used at all in Latin before the time
of Ennius. There exist no literary remains of such verse
that can be confidently called genuine. According to
Varro, Plautus wrote his own epitaph in hexameters, but
it cannot be shown that he did it earlier than the composi-
tion of the great epic of Ennius — the Annales. The so-
called Marcian Oracles were possibly in hexameters, though
the quotations given by Livy do not justify this view. Yet
' Horace, Ars Poetica, 259-260.
I40 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
even if some few stray attempts had been made at imposing
this metrical form upon Latin, certainly no extended
hterary work had ever been written in it; and Ennius,
in writing the Annales, had the field entirely to himself.
As it was distinctly a new field, such changes as he might
make in the matter of forms and measures and quantities
would arouse less criticism than like changes in a more
familiar sphere. The alterations that he effected by his
own example may be roughly summarised as follows: —
(i) A fairly frequent use of a metrical accent as distin-
guished from the natural, colloquial accent of a word.
(2) A diminution in the number of varying quantities.
Ennius regarded as short nearly all the syllables as to
which there had previously been any doubt, as, for instance,
musd, patre. Thus dactyls were made possible and easy.
(3) By way of compensation he regarded all vowels
that stood before two consonants (not a mute and a liquid)
as being long by position, after the rule of the Greek.
(4) The elision of a final vowel, or of a syllable ending
in w before a vowel. Ennius himself also made little
account of a final s, in this following the pronunciation
prevalent at that period and long after.^
' Birt, Historia Hexametri Latini (Bonn, 1876); Miiller, Greek and
Latin Versification, Eng. trans. (Boston, 1895); Klotz, Griindziige der
altromischen Mclrik (Leipzig, 1890); Plessis, Metrique Grecque et Latine
(Paris, 1889); Westphal, Allgemeine Melrik (Berlin, 1892); and the
treatise by Gleditsch in Ivvan Miiller's Handbuch, ii. Compare also Havet,
De Saturnio Latinorum Versa (Paris, 1880); Thurneysen, Der Salurnizr
(Halle, 18S5); and du Bois, Stress Accent in Latin Poetry, pp. 24-74
(New York, 1906).
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD I4I
These changes seem comparatively simple, yet they were
sufficient to alter radically the whole structure of Latin
verse. The number of doubtful vowels which were now
converted into short ones gave to the language of poetry
that ease and lightness which are to be found in later
dramatic compositions. Whatever was done by succeed-
ing writers in giving mobility to the language, was done
wholly because of the example which Ennius first set
in relieving the heaviness of verbal structure. After he
had made all his changes, there were still left many long
syllables which Lucretius, and Vergil after him, found it
expedient to shorten. But it is because of Ennius that the
language of Latin poetry has definiteness and form, that
it became better fitted for the use of those who were further
to polish and enrich it; while, on the purely literary side,
he set a very high standard below which no writer could
fall and hope to receive an equal share of honour.
Ennius, as already said, was a great innovator in form
and style. He was not a creator of language, in spite of
the praise given him by Horace.* There remain to us
about twelve hundred fragments of the different writings
of Ennius; but in all of them there are to be found only
twenty-two words that are peculiar to him, while in 430
lines of a writer like Pacuvius, who prided himself upon
his conservatism, there are thirty-three aira^ elprjfieva.
From this comparison one can see how little Ennius prob-
' Horace, Ars Poetica, 54-56.
142 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
ably added to the vocabulary of the language. The
verbal enrichment which it needed came from another
source, and one which would at first sight have seemed a
most unlikely one.
It is in Titus Maccius Plautus that one finds, after
surveying all literature, ancient and modern, the closest
parallel to Shakespeare, — modified, of course, by many
essential differences, but on the whole true enough to be
very striking. Like Shakespeare, Plautus was of humble
origin and the native of a country town. Like Shake-
speare's, his education seems to have been chiefly of that
sort which comes from association with men rather than
with books. Like Shakespeare, he was at first a subordi-
nate, attached to a theatre; then a hack writer who modern-
ised old plays; and finally, a dramatist who apparently
wrote with little care for fame, but with the thought of his
audience always before his mind. The age in which
Plautus wrote resembles in many ways the age of Eliza-
beth and James. There was in the air the stirring of an
adventurous spirit. The nation was awakening to a sense
of its own power, and entering upon an era of conquest
and supremacy. Rome was touched by something of the
mercurial temper of Greece, just as the England of
Shakespeare displayed much of the gayety and reckless-
ness of France. Rome, too, was facing the Carthaginians
in battle, just as England was confronting the armies and
fleets of Spain. The victory of Duilius off Mylae, and the
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD I43
defeat of the Armada by Drake, the conquest of Sicily,
and the colonisation of the New World, — these, each in
its own time and in its own way, stirred Rome and Eng-
land to their depths. There was an intellectual and po-
litical quickening which stimulated both the Roman and
the English people to look with favour upon whatever
was new, original, and strong.
If the people for whom Plautus and Shakespeare
wrote were much alike; if the ages in which they lived were
not dissimilar, so the cast of mind and the richness of
intellectual endowment of these two great masters of
language have a kinship of their own.^ The differences,
of course, are all immensely in Shakespeare's favour.
In Plautus there is nothing of the spirit of pure poetry
which breathes through almost everything that Shakespeare
wrote. His tone is many degrees lower. The fact that
he wrote comedy alone, while Shakespeare composed
immortal tragedies as well; the occurrence of the same
types — the foolish old man, the austere old man; the
swindling slave, the faithful slave; the loose young man,
and the precise young man; the lying, foul-mouthed
courtesan, and the inexperienced, affectionate meretrix;
the parasite, and the bullying soldier, — all this repetition,
despite the writer's extraordinary inventiveness and vigour,
becomes monotonous and perhaps makes us feel that we
* See, in general, Ribbeck's comments in the first volume of his Romische
Dichtung,i (Leipzig, 1897-1900).
144 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
have been tarrying too long among the slums of the ancient
world. Very much, however, of this absence of what is
elevating and refined, much of its coarseness and vulgarity,
were imposed on Plautus by the conditions under which
he wrote. Forbidden to touch upon Roman topics, and
warned by the fate of Naevius, with an audience that did
not yet contain the well-bred portion of the community,
and being thus practically forced to model his plays
upon the New Comedy of the Greeks, one must not criti-
cise him too severely. Plautus was working in a harness
which sorely hampered him. Then, too, his own sensibil-
ities were not nice. He had been himself a slave and he
had consorted with other slaves; and never, like Ennius
and Terence and Shakespeare, was he a protege of the
great. He saw only one side of life, and that the side
which verges on the gutter. And it was this side that his
audiences most of all delighted to see reproduced upon
the stage. Hence we must compare Plautus not with
Shakespeare as a whole, but with those portions of Shake-
speare where the themes and the motives of the two
dramatists are similar. Judged in this way, it cannot be
said that Plautus is inferior. His buffoons, his hypocrites
and sharpers and slaves and courtesans are as richly
humorous and doubtless quite as true to life in their way
as those whom Shakespeare drew. Pyrgopolinices is
merely Sir John Falstaff turned into Latin. Megar-
onides in the Trinummiis is the twin brother of Polonius,
THE GRiECO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 45
while the Dromios of Shakespeare are actually taken from
the MencBchmi of Plautus.
But it is not from the literary, but from the linguistic,
standpoint that we have now to look at Plautus; and it
is in his language, if anywhere, that Shakespeare finds his
rival. After studying Plautus carefully, we are conscious
more and more of the enormous debt which the Latin
language owes him. He alone, by his individual and
unaided genius, transformed it from an awkward, cramped,
ungraceful dialect into an instrument of speech fit for
expressing a wide range of human thought with ease and
clearness and precision. Plautus was a great language-
maker, and not merely an improver. His fancy not merely
caught at an idea, but flung it out at once into an appro-
priate verbal form. If he had not the word he wished,
then he made the word; and when he had made it, it
was, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the very word
which the language lacked, so that it fixed itself firmly in
the vocabulary of the people, and remained there because
it was an actual necessity. Plautus as a word-maker
seems inexhaustible. His fertility is as boundless as his
wit. No Latin writer except Apuleius, three centuries
afterward, ever coined so many words. The comparison
of Plautus with Apuleius shows exactly where the great-
ness of the former lies. Apuleius coins words from mere
eccentricity or because he will not take the trouble to find
the fitting ones. Plautus strikes out a new phrase, a
z.
146 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
striking combination, a picturesque epithet, because the
existing vocabulary is too poor to furnish an equivalent.
To sum it up in a sentence, the invention of Plautus proves
the poverty of the language; the invention of Apuleius
proves the poverty of the writer.
Plautus is the one who, in this period of transition,
doubled the capacity of the Latin language. The words
that he invented v/ere made by him instinctively, accord-
ing to the various formulae which Horace afterward de-
scribed^ with so much insight. The additions which he
made to the Latin vocabulary fall under various heads : —
(i) Words borrowed directly from the Greek: e.g. dica
(BiKT)), dapsilis (SayjnXt]'?) ; dulice (SofXi/cco?) ; euscheme
{eua-)(^T)ixoi<i)] logos (X.oyo'i); sycophantio (crvKocpavTeco) ; tar-
pessita (rpaTre^trrj';) ; etc.
(2) Comic words, chiefly patronymics and long com-
pounds: e.g. Virginesvendonides, the son of a pander,
and, comically again, pernonides, " a flitch of bacon " de-
scribed majestically as the son of a ham. So, again, scu-
talosagittipelligcr. There is very little doubt that Plautus
here in a semi-comic way tried to do what the learned
Pacuvius seriously attempted, — that is, the formation in
Latin of compound words, — but Plautus failed as did
Pacuvius.
(3) New words formed after the analogy of other words
near which they stand in the text, or which suggest them:
' Horace, Ars Poetica, 46-72.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 47
e.g. perenticida suggested by parcnticidi; sicelicisso sug-
gested by atticisso; and recharmido and decharmido sug-
gested by charmido (from Charmides).
(4) Compound words freely made and generally there-
after adopted into the language: e.g. opiparus, parci-
promus, pauciloquia, salipotens, stultiloquentia ; and even
better, opimitas, mendicitas, minatio, moderatrix, oratrix,
perdisco, perlibet, etc. Words of this class are either
based upon existing words and modified to give a different
shade of meaning, or they are invented of necessity: e.g.
osor, perplexibalis, pollentia, trahax, etc., or else they are
verbs boldly formed out of existing nouns and adjectives:
e.g. paro, parasitor, .pergrcBcor, scortor, sororio, etc.
It will be seen that Plautus enriched the language with
words for common use. His word-formations were
brought about with that unerring judgment which makes
the new word, from the very moment when it is uttered,
seem Latin and utterly indigenous. If it be a Greek
word, it is so modified as to take on a Latin form. If it
be a new word, it is formed upon the analogy of words
already existing. If it be an old word used in a new
sense, this new sense is given it where the context makes
the new sense absolutely plain. Plautus is the first of
language-makers. Those who followed him employed
his methods though they wrote for the learned. Thus
T. Lucretius Carus, in the first century B.C., gives to
Roman literature a philosophical terminology so far as he
148 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
needed it in setting forth the teachings of materialism.^
Cicero still later enlarged the philosophical vocabulary by
coining words to express thoughts for which the Latin
language then had no equivalent.^ When Christianity
began to spread over the Empire, African writers such as
Tertullian and Augustine and St. Jerome introduced a
theological vocabulary ; but they all fashioned their words
on the principles which Plautus in the early days of Ro-
man culture had grasped by instinct.^ Apuleius, with his
fantastic combinations, is the Carlyle of Latin litera-
ture, while Plautus, as was said before, is the Roman
Shakespeare.
Thus the Latin language and the Latin literature de-
veloped side by side, in a growth that was steady and
continuous. The drama was enriched by Marcus Pacu-
vius, who represents a succession of the work of Ennius.
His doctrlna, for which he was so famous in antiquity, is
seen in his attempt to make long compounds, in his syntac-
tical carefulness, and in his introduction of philosophical
' See such words as corpus in the sense of "matter"; costus, and glomera-
men, "a mass"; corpusculum, or principium, or primordiiim, each mean-
ing "an atom"; sensus = a-t(Tdr)(Ti.^\ reriim summa, " the universe." See
FoWe, De Artis V ocahulis Qidbiisdam Lucrdianis (Dresden, 1866); Merrill's
Introduction to his Lucretius, pp. 42-47 (New York, 1907); and Reiley,
The Philosophical Terminology of Liicretius and Cicero (New York, 1909).
^Note such words as ratio (\6yoi), qiialitas {■jroi.dTrii), species (erSoj).
See Reiley, op. cit.
^See Schmidt, De Latinitate Tertidliani (Erlangen, 1870); Condamin,
De Tertulliano . . . Chrisliance Lingiice Artifice (Lyons, 1877); and
Cooper, Word Formation in the Roman Sermo Flebeius (New York, 1895).
THE GRiECO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 49
speculation after the manner of Euripides. Then there
follow Lucius Attius, with a much more original mind, and
probably the greatest of all Roman writers of tragedy;
and the young African, Publius Terentius (185-159 B.C.),
who composed comedies which in their own manner are
most admirable. He gives us, in fact, the urbane and
polished comedy of the drawing-room, all with singular
refinement and a remarkable appreciation of character.
Later, the legitimate drama declined, and mimes took the
place of tragedy and comedy. Yet even in these mimes
— as, for instance, those of Publilius Syrus and Decimus
Laberius, there is the true Roman sententiousness, shrewd
practical wisdom, and abundant humour.* Attempts were
made in the Augustan Age to revive the drama in its ear-
lier form, but of these attempts we have no remains, as we
have of the tragedies of the younger Seneca written in the
time of Nero and influencing the dramatists of France and
England in recent centuries. Ennius had invented a form
of satire as a sort of literary miscellany. It was taken up
with much force and fire by Gaius Lucilius, from whom
Q, Horatius Flaccus developed a genial form of poetical
composition in hexameter verse, in which he pointed out
good-humouredly the follies of his contemporaries. After
him, Aulus Persius Flaccus, a rather prim and bookish
youth, imitated Horace without his first-hand knowledge
'Otto, Sprichworter der Romer (Leipzig, 1890); and Sutphen, Latin
Proverbs (Baltimore, 1902).
150 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
of life; while later still, Decimus lunius luvenalis converted
satire into a whip of scorpions, and lashed the hideous
vices that he saw about him, infusing into his lines a cer-
tain grim irreverence which has led him to be styled the
first exponent of American humour.
The Greek influence was responsible for what we have
of philosophical writing among the Romans. In 155 B.C.,
Carneades, a vehement and rapid speaker, representing
the New Academy, with its essential scepticism, came upon
a diplomatic mission to Rome from Athens. While there,
he publicly discoursed with eloquence and subtlety on the
advantages of justice. The next day, with equal elo-
quence, he refuted all his arguments of the day before.
This was, in fact, a practical demonstration of his belief
that human knowledge is uncertain and that we have
no absolute standard of truth. His orations won him
much applause, but he was sent back to Athens without
loss of time, as being one whose tenets were essentially
immoral. Nevertheless, from this time, philosophy —
especially that of the ethical schools — found disciples and
expounders among the Romans.^ Roman philosophers
gave to the world nothing that is new; yet we owe to such
writers as Lucretius the Epicurean, to Cicero the Aca-
' See IJsener, Epicurea (Leipzig, 1887); Martha, Le Pocme de Lucrece,
4th ed. (Paris, 1885); Thiaucourt, Lcs Traites Philosophiqiies de Ciceron
et Leiirs Sources Grecqiies (Paris, 1885) ; Zeller, History of Eclecticism, Eng.
trans. (London, 1893); Lecky, History of European Morals, i (New
York, 1884); and Binde, Seneca (Glogau, 1883).
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD I51
demic, and to Seneca the pseudo-Stoic, a body of literature
which is both interesting in itself, and valuable as supply-
ing a knowledge of those Greek treatises which have been
lost. Lucretius, in particular (96-55 B.C.), is perhaps
the greatest of all the Roman poets in originality, in
power, and in the peculiar appeal which he makes to the
inherent materialism of millions, even at the present day.
His technique in his use of the hexameter is still imper-
fect; but the genius of the writer and his passionate spiri-
tual melancholy overcome defects of style and make him
in some respects a model even for Vergil and the cloyingly
exquisite Ovid.
Epic poetry was continued from the rough Saturnian
in which Naevius wrote his Punica until it culminates in
the splendid national poem of the Mneid — a marvellous
mosaic of all that was finest in both Greek and Roman
literature, woven together by P. Vergilius Marc with con-
summate skill. Later, the Spaniard, Lucanus, composed in
the Pharsalia an epic of almost contemporary events,
following the model of Naevius and Ennius, but suc-
ceeded only in writing brilliant lines which have added
largely to the world's collection of epigrams. The epic
on a Grecian theme, and known as the Thcbais, by
Statius, marks the end of serious epic poetry among the
Romans.^
Lyric poetry in native rhythms, as already said, ante-
' See Gubematis, Storia della Poesia Epica (Milan, 1883).
152 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
dates Hellenic influence, though of course this early
poetry was informal. But we have already noted that
Livius Andronicus composed a set lyric in honour of Juno
at the request of the State. However, this attempt was
unfruitful, since the Latin language was not yet adapted
for lyric composition that could vie with that of the Greeks.
It was not until the time of Quintus Valerius Catullus that
we find lyric poetry in Latin; for Catullus, an Italian to
the core, poured forth in sapphics and easy metres the wild
longing of a heart surcharged with intense emotion.
In many respects Catullus was an Alexandrian by train-
ing; but in the lyrics addressed to Lesbia, his tortured
mingling of love and hate are so free from the pedantry
of Alexandrianism as to make him seem the predecessor
of Gabriele d'Annunzio. With no such passion, yet with
infinite grace, dignity, humour, wit, or melancholy, accord-
ing to his subject, Horace followed Catullus, and to-day
must be styled the greatest master of lyric verse among
the Latins; for he managed with perfect ease the more
difficult measures of the Grecian lyrists, and remained
less Alexandrian and more truly Roman than any of his
contemporaries. Elegiac verse in Rome was especially
represented by Ovid, and Propertius, and Tibullus, — con-
temporaries, or nearly so, of Horace.^
' See Ribbeck, op. cit. i; Werner, Lyrik mid Lyriker (Leipzig, 1890) ;
and Sellar, The Roman Pods of the Augustan Age (Oxford, 1892). Cf.
also du Meril, Poesies Popidaires Latines (Paris, 1843); and Weissenfels,
Iloraz (Berlin, 1899).
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 53
Roman prose begins practically with Cato the Censor
(234-149 B.C.) — soldier, statesman, orator, farmer, and
also writer; for he produced works on military science,
on agriculture, and what would to-day be of vast interest
to us, a treatise entitled Origines,^ in which he discussed
the history, antiquities, and language of the Roman people.
Some slighter treatises of his relate respectively to medicine,
to epistolary composition, and to anecdotes. Practically
all that we have left is the little monograph, De Re Rustica,
a practical handbook on the management of a farm.
Other Romans at a comparatively early period wrote the
annals of their own country, but they employed the Greek
language until the time of Cato. This form of narrative,
with its patriotic background, was very attractive to the
Romans; so that, after Cato and his contemporaries, we
find History written by Varro, Atticus, Hortensius, and
Cicero himself, whose two famous contemporaries, Julius
Caesar and G. Sallustius, reached a very high degree of
eminence. Sallust, indeed, may be thought to challenge
Thucydides, whom he imitated, just as Titius Livius, in
the Augustan Age, wrote almost as delightfully as had
Herodotus. After him Tacitus, in his two remarkable
works, the Annales and the HistoricB, brought his-
torical writing to a climax of excellence; for after him
we find only biographies like that of Suetonius on
^ The fragments are collected in a commentary by Bormann (Bran-
denburg, 1858).
154 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the Twelve Caesars or else epitomes and fragmentary
sketches.*
In their prose-writing the Romans developed, first
among western peoples, prose fiction in the form of the
novel and romance, in which they were imitated by the
later Greeks. But while the Greeks in fiction were almost
always prolix and unreal, the Romans, as might have
been expected from their love of the concrete, struck out
at a single blow, as it were, the realistic novel in the so-
called Satira of Gaius Petronius {d. 66 a.d.), which is won-
derfully modern in its treatment of character as well as
in its sound criticism of life and learning. Only a portion
of it remains, yet it is one of the choicest fragments of
ancient literature as well as a clew to much that would
otherwise be obscure in the life and language of the com-
mon people. Lucius Apuleius (second century a.d.), of
Medaura in Africa, represents better the earlier form of
fiction in which short stories (generically known as Mi-
lesians), are strung together by a thread of plot, but are
* The fragments of the Roman historians are collected by Peter, His-
toricorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1883). See Ubrici, treatise on
the general characteristics of ancient history (BerHn, 1833); Gerlach,
Die Geschichtschreiber der Roiner (Stuttgart, 1855); ^^^ the introduction
to Mommscn's history of Rome. On biography, see West, Roman Auto-
biography (New York, 1901); Wiese, De Vilis Scriptornm Romanorum
(Berlin, 1840); and Suringar, De Romanorum Autobiographis (Leyden,
1846). Much biographical material is found in the form of letters —
especially those of Cicero, Pliny, Seneca, Symmachus, St. Jerome, St.
Augustine, and Cassiodorus. See Roberts, History of Letter-Writing
(London, 1843).
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 55
not as yet woven into anything like a definite unity of
form. It is odd that these two writers are practically
the only ones who in Roman literature have left behind
them anything like completed works. The Greeks of
the same period as Apuleius, and later, poured forth a
vast number of romances/ a number of which have been
preserved. The best of them is the jEthiopica by Helio-
dorus, composed in the fourth century, and the curiously
symbolistic novel, Daphnis and CJiloe. The author of
the latter is unknown, but the book has exercised a strong
influence upon modern prose fiction from St. Pierre
to Emile Zola. A collection of imag'nary letters written
by Alciphron, a Greek sophist of the second century a.d.,
give us very piquant pictures of Bohemian life in Athens.
In addition to these various forms of pure literature,
there were written Epigrams of which the master in Latin
is Martial, though the Romans seem to have relished no
less the pointed lines of Plautus and Horace and Lucan
in poetry, and the sententious aphorisms of Seneca and
Tacitus in prosc.^ These accorded well with .he spirit of
' See Chassang, Hisloire du Roman (Paris, 1862); Dunlop, A History
of Fiction, last ed. (London, 1896); Salverte, Lc Roman dans la Grece
Ancietme (Paris, 1894); Warren, A History of the Novel (New York, 1895);
Collignon, Etiide sur Pctrone (Paris, 1892); the Introduction by Hilde-
brand to his edition of Apuleius (Leipzig, 1842); and the Introduction to
Peck's translation of the Cena Trinialchionis, 2d ed. (New York, 1908).
^See Booth, Epigrams Ancient and Modern, 3d ed. (London, 1874);
and for the rough and rather coarse epigrams directed against the emperors,
see Bernstein, Versus Ludicri in Casarcs Priores (Halle, 1810).
156 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
homely wisdom that was to the Romans what speculative
philosophy was to the Greeks. So comedy of the farcical
type and the cynical shrewdness of the mimes were pre-
fered to tragedy at almost every period of Roman culture.
The truth is that only on the surface were the Romans
ever Hellenised either in language or in literature. In
language, highly educated men wrote in the so-called
Bermo urbanus, corresponding to the estilo culto of the
Castilians. In the easy converse of daily life, among their
friends and intimates, they used a much looser and less
formal sort of Latin — the sermo cotidianus of Cicero's
letters, for example. The man in the street spoke the
sermo plebeius, which was nothing more than the older
Latin which had at one time been current everywhere,
but which now was held by the literati to be the shib-
boleth of ignorance.^ As to literature, ornate orations,
exquisitely wrought lyrics, learned epics, and carefully
penned histories have come down to us bearing the impress
of Grecian models; but we know that for the people at
large there existed an immense mass of popular composi-
tions, sometimes transmitted orally and sometimes not —
nursery songs, lines sung by children at play, the tri-
umphal chants of the common soldiery, as well as fables,
familiar letters, riddles, and acrostics. Against Terence
we must set Plautus; against the epic of Vergil we must
' See Cooper, op. cit., Introduction; Olcott, Studies in the Word Forma-
tion of the Latin Inscriptions (Rome, 1898); Grandgent, Vulgar Latin
(Boston, 1908) ; and du Meril, op. cit.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 57
set the satires of Horace and Persius; against the stately
prose of Cicero we must set the slangy and ungrammatical
and yet vivid jargon which flew back and forth between
Trimalchio's guests/
Again, Roman taste is seen in the choice of those literary
forms which were regarded as most admirable. The
Greeks might hold tragedy to be the noblest form of
composition, but the Romans gave the first place to oratory
and history, while they enjoyed the epic only because (as
in the case of the Mneid) it ministered to their pride of
nationality. If we look at their philological studies, we shall
see that they gave the preference to such as were of a practi-
cal character. As early as 159 B.C. there came to Rome
Crates, the grammarian from Pergamum,- and, as said,
during his stay he excited much interest in theoretical
grammar and linguistic studies generally. Even earlier
than this time essays had been written on the ancient
literature, partly to explain its meaning and partly its
allusions.' After Crates there was much attention paid
to etymology, and in fact, two schools arose, one deriving
Latin words from Greek, which was the practice of Hypsi-
1 See Petronius, chs. 27-78, translated as Trimalchio's Dinner by Peck,
2d ed. (New York, 1908).
' Supra, p. 1 20.
' Lucius Attius wrote a history of Greek and Roman poetry
(Didascalica), and made some reforms in Roman orthography, abandon-
ing the use of the letters z and y, and denoting the quantity of a, e, and u
by doubhng them when they were long, thereby imitating the usage in
other Itahc dialects. See Boissier, Le Poete Attius (Paris, 1857).
158 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
crates (c. 100 B.C.), and the other explaining everything
on the basis of Latin itself. The great name in the latter
school is that of M. Terentius Varro (116-28 B.C.), a man
of prodigious erudition, which caused him to be styled
"the most learned of the Romans." Varro was one of
the great scholars of all time, to be compared with Era-
tosthenes and Aristarchus among the Greeks, with Scaliger
and Lipsius just after the Renaissance, and with Momm-
sen in very recent years. Before giving any account,
however, of his philological labours, an incident should
be mentioned, the influence of which has continued to
the present day. In the year 80 b.c. there came to Rome
a roving scholar, a native probably of Alexandria. He
had been trained both in his native city and at Pergamum.
He had listened to the disputes of the linguists of each
school, and was well versed in all their doctrines. This
person, Dionysius Thrax, is an admirable type of the
middleman who stands between the creative mind and
the mind that is entirely receptive. Until his day, grammar,
as we have already seen, was not so much an art in itself
as an adjunct to logic and philosophy. Dionysius Thrax
made digests of the lectures which he had attended,
putting down the results in a didactic manner. This
was precisely what most appealed to the Roman mind —
something definite, concrete, and dogmatic. One treatise
of Dionysius, his TeT^?; Tpafx/xaTiK'^, set forth certain prin-
ciples which made it the first treatise on Formal Grammar.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 59
Translated into Latin, it became a standard text-book,
and from it there have come to us the technical terms of
formal grammar employed in modern languages.^
A Roman contemporary of this Greek grammarian was
L. ^lius Prseconinus Stilo, of whom we have notices in
many of the later writers, although even fragments of his
writings do not remain. He was the first Roman to
deserve the name of philologist. He was of knightly
rank, an aristocrat by birth and training, and had a gift
of natural oratory; though he sought no political office,
and merely wrote orations for his friends, after the fashion
of the Greek orators. He was a type of the patrician
scholar, and had the true patrician's taste for antiquarian
knowledge. Therefore he came to be a profoundly learned
authority upon everything relating to ancient Latin, both
in the matter of antiquities and in the usages of the earlier
language. Cicero styles him " most learned in Grecian
^ In the fourth century the book was translated into Armenian, while
the original was somewhat curtailed. The Armenian version has given
us back five more chapters than any of the later Greek manuscripts con-
tain. See the edition by Uhlig (Leipzig, 1883); and the French trans-
lation by Cierbied, Memoires et Dissertations (Paris, 1824). Cf. also
Grafenhan, op. cit. i. p. 402 foil., and the account in Steinthal, op. cit.
A list of these grammatical terms in Greek, with their Latin equivalents,
may be found in Gudeman, Outlines of the History of Classical Philology,
3d ed. pp. 30-32. Thus, wehave Svofj-a = jiomen," noun"; -TTQa-is^ casust
"case"; XP"""^ = tempiis, "tense"; ffv{vyia = conjugatio, "conjugation";
genus, "gender"; i-yKKiaii = modus, "mood"; irpoaQiroi' = persona, "per-
son"; &pi.0fj-os= nu7nerus, "number." As the ablative case does not ap-
pear in Greek, it was first called "the Latin case" {casus Latinus), and by
Quintilian, ablativus.
l6o HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
literature as well as in Latin," while his pupil, Varro,
speaks of him as litteris ornatissimus memoria nostra.
He was undoubtedly the first of the Romans who had any
claim to be regarded as a classical philologist. It was very
likely he who took up the teachings of Dionysius Thrax
and applied them to Latin, thus becoming the First of
the Roman Grammarians. Likewise, he wrote commen-
taries on such ancient works as the Carmina Saliorum and
on the Twelve Tables. Gudeman believes that he even
prepared an edition of Plautus with critical signs; yet of
this last there is no direct evidence.
His greatest fame comes from the fact that he was a
teacher of Marcus Terentius Varro, the most learned, the
most indefatigable, and the most prolific of any Roman
scholar who ever lived. In a later century St. Augustine
says of him: " Varro had read so much that we ought to
feel surprised that he found time to write anything; and
he wrote so much that we can hardly believe that any one
could find time to read all that he composed." In fact,
he wrote at least six hundred.^
Varro was, however, no mere recluse. He commanded
a squadron in the war against Mithradates; he served as
a general of Pompey in Spain, and though he was com-
pelled to surrender his troops to Caesar, he escaped him-
self and remained steadfast to the aristocratic cause until
• So Auson. Prof. Burd, xx. 20. Cf. Boissier, Etudes sur M. T. Varron
(Paris, 1 861).
THE GRiECO-ROMAN PERIOD l6l
the final battle at Pharsalus. Since resistance to the dic-
tator was then useless, Varro returned to Rome, expecting
perhaps to be put to death. But the high-minded Caesar,
who was himself a scholar, and wished to promote scholar-
ship, received Varro most graciously, and gave him the
agreeable task of founding a great public library in Rome/
This was the more pleasing, since Varro's own splendid
private library had been destroyed in the Civil Wars, just
as his beautiful villa at Casinum had been plundered and
defiled by Antony, — a scene which Cicero has depicted
with almost hideous realism in his second Philippic oration.
Out of Varro's encyclopedic works, not many remain,
partly because they were too numerous, and partly be-
cause it was the habit of Roman scholars to condense and
abridge long works, taking from them whatever seemed
most interesting. It is for this reason that we have the
most valuable part of Li\7' only in the form of an epitome;
that the greater portion of Petronius has been lost, and
that of Varro's six hundred or more works there re-
main to us only his treatise on husbandry ( De Re Riistica) ,
' Suetonius, Julius, 44. Varro never completed the task which had
been assigned him. The first pubhc hbrary was opened by the private
munificence of Asinius Pollio (34 B.C.). At last, five imperial libraries,
of which two are the most celebrated, — first that founded by Tiberius
and famous for its complete collection of State papers and pubhc docu-
ments, and the Bibliotheca Traiana, the most magnificent of all, since
most of the books in it were written or inscribed upon thin leaves of ivory.
See Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Excavations, pp. 178-205
(Boston, 1889).
M
1 62 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
a number of quotations and references scattered through-
out the pages of Latin literature, and finally, a very much
corrupted collection of six books taken from his great
treatise on the Latin language {De Lingua Latino) —
about one-quarter of the whole/ The book which gave
him his highest reputation among the ancients, who con-
sidered it his masterpiece, has practically perished and, in
truth, it probably did not survive the end of the sixth cen-
tury A.D. This was his Antiquitatum Libri, divided into
forty-one books, and crowded with the vast knowledge
which its author had acquired by years and years of
patient reading and research. To be noted also are his
Sententice, a collection of pithy sayings, much quoted in
the Middle Ages, and his SaturcB written in a mixture of
prose and verse {Menippece).
It is the treatise on the Latin language (one part of
which was dedicated to Cicero) that is most interesting,
both because of the subject itself and because we still
possess a portion of the book. The treatise seems to
have been arranged in three great divisions. The first
seven books dealt with the origin of words and phrases,
and was, in fact, a history of the Latin language largely
from the point of view of etymologists.^ The next six
books were grarmnatical,^ relating chiefly to the forms and
'Edited by A. Spengel (Berlin, 1885).
^ Supra, p. 146 foU.
^ In these books Varro examines the natural and arbitrary divisions
in nouns and verbs. Words are " naturally " divided according to anal-
ogy, and " arbitrarily " divided according to anomaly.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 63
inflection of nouns and verbs, since Varro regarded these
as the only two real parts of speech — in this respect
resembling the Semitic grammarians. The last eleven
books have to do with the laws of syntax {ut verba inter
se coniungantur) . The six books which we still possess
are, as is seen above, partly etymological and partly re-
lating to inflections. They give us incidentally a great
deal of information about curious points of ancient usage
at Rome, and Varro shows wisdom in not attempting to
derive the vocabulary of his language from the Greek.
On the other hand, he etymologises entirely by ear, so
that many of his derivations are as absurd as those which
were prevalent in the Middle Ages.^
This monumental work, even in the scanty fragments
which remain to us, has always been studied with great
profit, especially the purely lexical portion (v-vii). Its
arrangement is not alphabetical, but the words that
Varro treats in it are taken up by groups based upon their
association with one another. Thus the author begins
the fifth book (after a short introduction) with names re-
lating to places, discussing first the word locus and its
derivatives locare, locarium, and so forth, following this
by a division of places in heaven and places on earth.
Turning to the former, he regards caelum as the antith-
1 Thus Varro says that canis is derived from cano because dogs give
signals (cancre) at night ; that stags are called cervi from gero (quasi
cero), because they carry huge antlers ; and that dives is from divus,
because a rich man is like a god in wanting nothing.
164 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
esis to terra and its partial synonym humus, which sug-
gests humor, humidus, udus, sudor, and other words relat-
ing to moisture, as puteus (a well), lacus, palus, stagnum,
fluvius, Jlumen, stillicidium, amnis. The sound of amnis
suggests to him the place-names, Interamna, Antemnae,
and Anio. Because the Anio empties into the Tiber, he
discusses the etymology of Tiberis. And so one word
suggests another, and he takes each of them and defines
it, giving the etymology and citing from both poets and
prose-writers in illustration of the various uses of the
word or name in question. In this way we receive the
impression of a familiar, off-hand lecture, and such seems
to have been his intention ; though K. O. Miiller
has set forth an hypothesis that in the De Lingua
Latina we have only the rough unfinished notes of a book
rather than the book itself in its completed form.^
Whatever one may say of Varro's rather childish ety-
mologies, he does give the explanation which the Romans
themselves were wont to hold as to the origin of certain
words. But his citations from authors now lost, and the
occasionally full explanations which he gives of matters
of usage and law, are a source of information to which
scholars will always resort. On such matters, Varro's
position as the most learned of the Romans gives his
utterances the weight of unimpeachable authority.
1 It may be that Varro published an epitome of the work in nine
books. See Roth, Leben Varros (Basle, 1857).
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 65
Especially important was his labour as a critic of texts,
since it resulted in the establishment of a Plautine Canon.
It is the one instance of such a canon created among the
Romans and lasting to the present time. In his treatise
on the comedies of Plautus, he appears to have discussed
with much acumen the question as to which comedies
bearing the name of Plautus were genuine and which
were spurious. As is well known, the number of such
plays had become very great, owing to the fact that the
name Plautina was used as a generic term for a certain
type oi fahula palliala; ^ and because the plays of Plautus
had become confused with those of another writer, Plau-
tius. Hence Gellius says that, in all, 130 comedies were
generally styled "Plautine." To the separation of the
true from the false among these, Varro set himself to work,
using both the traditional information that had descended
to his time, and also the texts which he compared, col-
lated, and criticised with great acuteness. The number
of genuine plays he set at twenty-one. The general
acceptance of his dictum is seen in the fact that of the
whole list of 130, only the tw enty -one fab ulae Varronianae
have survived to modem times, one of them, the Vidularia,
having been practically lost during the Middle Ages.^
Glossography flourished in Rome, though it was
1 Gellius, iii. 3.
2 See Ritschl, 0/'!«c;</a, ii. (1868); Neiie Plaiitinische E.rcMr^e (Leipzig,
1869) ; and on the lost Vidularia, Leo, De Vidularia PlaiUi (Gottingen,
1895)-
l66 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
almost wholly of a lexical and grammatical character.
During the Ciceronian, x\ugustan, and Silver Ages it
served to explain and illustrate the meaning of archaic
Latin and also the plebeian form of speech. The dis-
tinguished glossographers Praeconinus Stilo and Aure-
lius Opilius created a scientific basis for the study of
the Latin language by going back to the oldest records
and studying them. The results of their work and that
of their contemporaries have in many cases come down
to us in special glossaria (e.g. to Plautus, Terence,
Vergil, Sidonius, and others), from seven of which Cardi-
nal Mai, in the nineteenth century, compiled his great
Glossarium Vetus.^ Roman grammarians and critics early
began to edit Latin texts. M. Antonius Gnipho (c. 114
B.C.) published commentaries on the Annales of Ennius.
Cicero (or his brother Quintus) published an edition
of Lucretius.^
It is unfortunate that no exact details concerning the
Roman criticism of texts have come down to us. Most
Roman scholars appear to have confined themselves to
the writing of marginal glosses. They distinguish the
various processes: emendalio, disiinctio, and adnotatio,
which last word means the adding of notes, these notes
being sometimes brief signa, and sometimes brief com-
1 See Lowe, Prodromus Corporus Glossariorutn Latinorum (Leipzig,
1876).
^ See Munro, Lucretius, Intr. ii. pp. 2 foil.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 67
mentaries in the modern sense of the word. Suetonius
wrote a treatise on these notes, part of which has come
down to us written in Greek. He mentions twenty-one
critical signs, chiefly variations and combinations of the
obelus, asterisk, diple, antisigma, and point (punctum) ;
yet they appear to have been used less for textual than
for aesthetic and literary criticism (/c/jto-i? or distinctio),
for which there were also other symbols that Suetonius
merely mentions without describing.^ To the Latin
critics is due the so-called subscriptio, of which one
hears a good deal in the study of manuscripts. A
subscriptio is a note added to a manuscript. It usually
begins with the word legi (also recognovi, contuli), fol-
lowed by the name of the reviser, with the date, place,
time, circumstances, or other details regarding the re-
vision. This revision indicated by the subscriptio is
usually not a critical recension of the text, but only a
sort of proof-reading, i.e. a guarantee of the correctness
of the copy from an original.^
It is to be noted that the Romans paid considerable
attention to Epigraphy. Inscribed stones on which the
^ E.g. notae simplices. One of these is of some importance as being
a distinct addition. It is the sign h, called alogus, and marks an
anacoluthon, or a difficult expression, such as the aequore iiisso A en,
X. 444, so marked by Probus.
^Subscriptiones are found in manuscripts of all the best Latin
writers, including Caesar, Cicero, Vergil, Horace, Livy, Persius, Martial,
Quintilian, Juvenal, and Mela. See Haase, De Lat. Cod. MSS. Sub-
scriptionibus (Breslau, i860).
1 68 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Greeks preserved their public documents were stored in
the temples of every Hellenic city, and records were
hewn upon the walls and pediments and altars, so that,
as Hubner says, " the history of a Greek city was liter-
ally written upon her stones." These inscriptions were
frequently cited as documents by the Greek orators and
afterward by the historians, but it was not until the
Alexandrian Age that regular collections of them were
made by such scholars as Philochorus (300 B.C.) and
Polemo (200 B.C.), who was nicknamed arr]\oK67ra<; be-
cause the study of inscriptions was a passion with him.
At Rome from about 50 B.C. until 200 a.d. they are
quoted by the orators and historians, and studied by
some of the grammarians, such as Varro, Verrius Flac-
cus,^ and Probus ^ of Berytus ; while they are collected for
legal purposes by the writers on Roman jurisprudence.
Passing over Ateius Praetextatus (c. 29 B.C.), who was
called philologus,^ and Asconius Pedianus (3 a.d.), the
well-known commentator on Cicero, and the annalist
Fenestella (19 a.d.), we come to the next great name,
which is that of Marcus Verrius Flaccus (c. 10 B.C.), tutor
to the children of Augustus, and a scholar who deserves
especial mention for his rank in both philological study
and the general history of education. Verrius Flaccus
may fairly be described as the compiler of the first Latin
^ Infra, p. 169. ^Ibid.
^ Suetonius, Gram. 10.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 69
lexicon ever written, though perhaps it might be more
truly called an encyclopaedia. Its title was De Verborum
SignificatUj written in more than twenty-four books. It
was a lexicon because it defined and illustrated by citations
the words of the Latin language in their alphabetical
order. It was an encyclopaedia because it gave information
on innumerable topics concerning history, antiquities, and
grammar, and with exhaustive and elaborate quotations
from every class of writers — poets, jurists, and historians,
as well as from ancient legal documents, rituals, and
sacred formulae. This great work in its original form is
now lost. In the second century a.d. it was abridged by
a grammarian, Pompeius Festus, in an arbitrary fashion
which allowed only one book to each of the letters of the
alphabet, and this abridgment by Festus was itself com-
pressed into a still briefer epitome by the monk Paulus
or Paul Wamefrid, usually spoken of as Paulus Diaconus.
The epitome by Paulus, dedicated to Charlemagne (c. 800
A.D.), is now the principal source of our knowledge of
the original treatise; but many fragments of the notes by
Festus remain, while Gellius here and there cites exten-
sive passages at first hand from Verrius. These show
how the original treatise was mutilated both by Festus
and by Paulus.^ Yet badly as the remains of Verrius
WTre treated, they are perhaps the most valuable source
of information remaining for the study at second hand of
^ All the remains have been edited by The\vrewk de Ponor (Prague, 1891).
lyo HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
archaic Latin and for curious information on the subject
of Roman antiquities.^
Verrius is to be remembered for another thing — his
system of education, which for the first time among the
Romans appealed to a spirit of emulation and ambition
rather than to the dread of punishment. In teaching,
Verrius offered prizes for proficiency in study, and laid
stress upon the reward of merit rather than upon the
chastisement of neglect and ignorance.^
It was at this time, after the beginning of the first cen-
tury of our era, that the Greek and Roman learning be-
came so blended as to be thereafter, in the sphere of the
higher studies, substantially a single field. Henceforth all
Romans of cultivation were not only familiar with Greek
and with its literature, but the Greek world had become
largely Romanised in its institutions and in many of its
customs, Greeks flocked to Rome in such great numbers
that we find Juvenal, a little later, complaining that the
Roman capital had become a Greek city. Both languages
were spoken side by side; Romans wrote in Greek or in
Latin as they chose; the pages of their most familiar and
intimate compositions (the letters of Cicero, for example)
were studded with Greek phrases and allusions; while
the Greeks, though they never took so kindly to the Roman
speech, busied themselves in reading and writing Roman
^ See the chapter on Verrius Flaccus by Nettleship in his Essays in
Latin Literature, pp. 201-247 (Oxford, 1885).
2 Suetonius, Gram. 17.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 171
history and in the scientific study of Roman institutions.
Dionysius of Halicarnassu wrote of the archaeology of
Rome. Plutarch, that remarkable master of literary
portraiture, found parallels in the lives of Greeks
and Romans, and in his Ama 'Pw/xat/c?;' investigated the
meaning of Roman customs. One of the best-known
Roman historians and scholars, Gaius Suetonius Tran-
quillus, composed partly in Greek and partly in Latin his
learned summaries of the usages of both peoples.^ The
intellectual unity of Hellas and Rome became clearly
visible in the system of education now finally accepted
by the Romans, uniting as it did the early theory of
the Latin people with that of the more highly intellectual
Greeks. As Roman thought and literature in this period
grew more and more academic, it is proper here to
summarise the principal features of the Graeco-Roman
Educational System, as giving a general conspectus of the
progress of learning in the ancient world.
The Roman training, as a whole, may be described as
a Greek structure on a Latin foundation. The elementary
part of it is native ; the more purely scientific part of it is
' Suetonius is best known for his biographies of the Twelve Caesars ;
yet he wrote many treatises, chiefly on antiquarian subjects, such as the
names of articles of clothing, the origin and early import of imprecations
and words of abuse, an account of celebrated courtesans, a manual of
court etiquette, and a collection of miscellanies in ten books. The frag-
ments of these lost treatises are edited by Reifferscheid (Leipzig, i860).
It is not known which of them were written in Latin and which in Greek.
See the preface to the edition by Roth (Leipzig, 1886).
172 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
foreign. This represents, of course, the history of Roman
education, i-n which simpler forms were developed before
the Greek influence had been felt at Rome; while the
scientific features were introduced after the time of Livius
Andronicus and Ennius. In other words (to use modern
terms), the common-school system at Rome was Roman;
the secondary and higher education were Greek. The
very names given at Rome to the three classes of teachers
were most significant. The elementary teacher is called
by a Latin name {lilterator or magister litter arius) ; while
both classes of advanced teachers had titles borrowed
from the Greek (grammaticus, rhetor).
In early Rome, education was regarded as important,
though it was not obligatory by law, as it was at Athens
and in other Greek States. Schools were few. Most
fathers taught their own sons at home. This in itself
implies that the teaching was very simple and of a utili-
tarian character. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and the
memorising of the Twelve Tables comprised nearly every-
thing that was taught in the elementary schools after
these had been established in the fourth or fifth century
B.c.^ Plutarch's statement ^ that Spurius Carvilius was
the first person to open a school at Rome (231 B.C.) must
be understood as referring to the secondary schools alone.
In the elementary schools the course, as stated above,
1 Livy, iii. 44 ; v. 44 ; vi. 25.
* Quaesiiones Romanae, 59.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 73
was one of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Reading
was made attractive at first by using ivory letters and other
devices. Writing lessons were given on ^^ ax tablets ruled
with lines. Arithmetic was regarded as extremely im-
portant, though it was not pursued much further than
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Great
stress was laid on mental arithmetic, which consisted of a
rigid drill in calculation on the fingers up to sums of
four and five places of figures; while complicated prob-
lems were solved by means of the abacus or calculating
board. Fractions were viewed as very difiicult. The
Roman system of reckoning was originally duodecimal
(by twelves), but later decimal (by tens). Boys of wealthy
families, after finishing their elementary studies, were sent
to the grammar school, where they received instruction in
the first principles of a liberal training {eniditio liberalis)}
The chief object which the grammaiicus had in mind was
to impart a thorough knowledge of the Greek and Latin
poets, this knowledge covering not only purely literary
discussions of style and metre, but also the subject-matter,
such as historical topics, geography, mythology, and
ethics.2 Long passages of favourite authors were learned
by heart, and writing verse was also practised. Late in
the first century B.C. there were added the subjects of
music and geometry.^
^ Cicero, Tusc. ii. 11, 27.
' Cicero, In Verrem, i. 18, 47 ; Quintilian, i. 4.
» Seneca, Epist. 88, 9 ; Suetonius, Tih. 3.
174 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
History and geography were, as time went on, more
and more valued as a part of a liberal education. We
have seen that even about the beginning of the Alex-
andrian Period, Descriptive Geography took definite shape
and form. It was then that Scylax, a Carian Greek,
sailed down the Indus and around through the Indian
Ocean and the Red Sea, occupying thirty months for the
voyage. His name is attached to a so-called Periplus,
which, however, could not possibly have been written by
him.^ A little later, Eudoxus of Canidus proved mathe-
matically the spherical shape of the earth, and first
divided the globe into five zones. The campaigns of
Alexander the Great laid the western and southern parts
of Asia open to Greek research. Physical geography
was developed by the Ptolemies in their commercial
expeditions; and all geographical knowledge, so far as it
then existed, was used with scientific skill by the Alex-
andrians, such as Eratosthenes, Hipparchus of Nicaea,
and Posidoniusof Apamea (90 B.C.). We have only frag-
ments, however, of most of these geographers. A very
great and enduring work is that of Strabo of Amasia
(c. 20 A.D.), which combines descriptive geography with
ethnology. To what the Greeks had learned he added
a knowledge of the Roman conquests. And though his
historical work is lost, his treatise on geography
(Tr}(oypa(^i,KOb) in seventeen books is the most complete
^ See the edition by Fabricius (Leipzig, 1883); and Antichan, op. cit.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 75
geographical treatise of antiquity. It is, indeed, very far
from a dry and monotonous screed. It was meant to be
read, and it is very readable, so that it has been called
a sort of political or historical geography. Napoleon
caused it to be rendered into French, with notes.^ During
the wars in Gaul and the East, maps (tabulae) were
prepared at Rome and displayed in the porticos, where
all could see them and understand the despatches which
came from the Roman armies. M. Vipsanius Agrippa,
by order of Augustus Caesar, made a great map, on
which were indicated the distances between important
places throughout the Roman Empire. This map was
the origin of modern maps, and contributed greatly to
our knowledge of Topography. It was often copied in
whole or in part, and from it were made the so-called
Itineraria, or maps intended for particular expeditions.
The most interesting of such now in existence is the so-
called tabula Peutingeriana, preserved in Vienna. Its
date is about 250 a.d., and it consisted of twelve slips of
parchment which originally marked out all the world as
known to the Romans. At present the pieces which should
contain Spain and Britain are lost with the exception
of a part of Kent.^
Rivalling Strabo in science but not equalling him
^ 5 vols. (Paris, 1805-19). See the Introduction by Tozer to his
English edition of selections (Oxford, 1893).
"^ For a representation of this geographical curiosity, see the Atlas
Anliqims of Justus Perthes (Gotha, 1893).
176 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
in interest or breadth of knowledge, the Alexandrian
astronomer, Claudius Ptolemseus, made lists (c. 150 a.d.)
of places, with their latitude and longitude, and an atlas
— the first known — which shows the Indian Ocean as a
closed sea. After this time there is nothing novel in
geography and topography except the great work of
Pausanias (c. 175 a.d.), who wrote an itinerary
(ne/3i?77?7cri«?) of Greece in ten books,^ which is an
invaluable study of Hellenic topography. Pomponius
Mela, a native of Spain, composed a clear and concise
account of the world as known to the Romans of his
time.' At the end of the Graeco-Roman Period,
Stephanus of Byzantium compiled a geographical
dictionary, of which the substance is taken from older
and better writers; and in the sixth century, one Cosmus
described India in a book where occurs for the first time
the name of China (Sinarum Regnum).
After completing his studies under the grammaticus, a
Roman was held to have received a fairly complete edu-
cation. But such as were desirous of more special and
scientific teaching had their choice between the schools of
the rhetors and the universities — at Athens, Rhodes,
'Translated with a commentary by Frazer, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1898).
^ See Frick, Pomponius Mela und seine Chorographie (Leipzig, 1880).
The remains of the minor Greek geographers are edited by Miiller, 2
vols. (Paris, 1882); those of the Latin geographers by Reise (Frankfort,
1878). For a study of early cartography, see Nordenskjold, Periplus
(Stockholm, 1897).
THE GRiECO-ROMAN PERIOD 177
Alexandria, or Pergamiim, or Massilia.^ The schools of
the rhetors were more immediately directed to rhetorical
teaching so as to fit the student for public life as an orator
and statesman. Here was taken up the study of prose,
beginning with the simple narratio, passing on to the
declamatio or suasoria, and ending with the controversia,
which had to do with legal points and complicated ques-
tions of practical life. In all this there was nothing to
appeal to that numerous class of students who, setting
aside any political or legal ambition, desired to cultivate
as specialists the field of the natural sciences, of pure
mathematics, of medicine, of philosophy, or of linguistics.
If these persons remained in Rome, they could carry on
their work only by employing at great expense the services
of a private instructor in the person of some learned
Greek.^ Thus Cicero, when a boy, had in his father's
house various Greek tutors, among them the celebrated
Archias of Antioch, while only one of his masters (Quintus
/Elius) was a Roman bom. Later, he studied under
* See supra, pp. 88-125.
2 See Saalfeld, Der HeUenismus hi Lathtm (Wolfenbiittel, 1883) ; Eck-
stein, Lateinischer uiid Griechischer Unterricht (Leipzig, 1887) ; Compayre,
History of Paedagogy, English translation (Boston, 18S6) ; Clarke, The
Education of Children at Rome (New York, 1896) ; and Munroe, op. cit.
Petronius satirises the ineffectiveness of private instruction (1-4) when
the teacher was dependent on the good-will of the student, and there-
fore let him choose advanced studies prematurely. " Now as boys they
fool away their time in the schools, as young men they are jeered at in
the forum, and what is still more disgraceful, the thing which they have
learned wrong they are ashamed to admit when they grow up."
N
178 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Philo the Academic, while he learned rhetoric from Apol-
lonius Molo of Rhodes and trained himself in close think-
ing under Diodotus the Stoic. Then he went to Athens,
where he attended the lectures of Antiochus and subse-
quently heard the chief philosophers and rhetoricians of
Asia. It was his practice every day to declaim in both
Greek and Latin with other young men, so as to acquire
fluency and style. At this time he seems to have given
serious attention to only one of his own countrymen, the
great lawyer, Scaevola.
The Roman theory of education was fully set forth in
the first century a.d. by M. Fabius Quintilianus (35-
c. 97 A.D.), a very cultivated Spaniard who lived and
taught at Rome. This was, indeed, the so-called Period
of Spanish Latinity, represented not only by Quintilian
but by the two Senecas,^ the epic poet Lucan and the
epigrammatist Martial. In this same century, indeed,
Rome had its first foreign emperor in the person of Trajan,
who was a Spaniard, bom near Seville. Quintilian's work
in twelve books is entitled Institutio Oratoria. It gives
his view of the complete training of an orator, beginning
with early childhood. He makes it evident that to him,
as to the Romans generally, oratory is the supreme art.
The orator must be trained in grammatical studies, he
must be a master of language and skilled in all the arts
1 The Elder Seneca was a professional rhetorician, and we have from
his pen a number of suasoriae and controversiae, which are edited by
Kiessling (Leipzig, 1872), and H. J. Miiller (Prague, 1887).
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 79
of persuasion; but he must also be much more than this.
He must be deeply versed in the learning of his time, in
the history of his own country, in philology, in law, and
in science, in order that as an orator he may draw upon
an inexhaustible store of illustration, allusion, ornament,
and anecdote. Finally, he must be a man of exalted
character, for no oratory is truly effective unless it is
imbued with moral earnestness and absolute sincerity.
"The perfect orator is the perfect man." The first book
of Quintilian's treatise is peculiarly interesting because in
it, speaking of the early grammatical training of a child,
he discusses minutely the alphabet, the parts of speech,
word-changes, spelling, punctuation, barbarisms, sole-
cisms, analogy, the influence of custom, and at last ety-
mology. All these things he illustrates by a number of
examples and anecdotes, which have been to later genera-
tions a treasure-house of curious facts regarding the Latin
language. Throughout the book the tone is very modem,
and some of his precepts lie at the very foundation of
modem teaching. Thus, in speaking of corporal punish-
ment in school, he says very sensibly : —
" That boys should suffer corporal punishment, even though this
custom be common, I can scarcely allow ; in the first place, because
it is disgraceful and a punishment fit only for slaves ; and in the
second place because, if the disposition of a boy is so base as not
to be affected by reproof, he will become hardened, hke the worst
of slaves, even to lashings ; and finally, if a person who regularly
has charge of his tasks be with him, there will be no need of any
l8o HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
such punishment. . . . Moreover, after you have cowed a boy
with blows, how are you to treat him when he grows to early
manhood when no such threat can be employed, and when
even more difficult studies must be pursued? Add to these con-
siderations that many things often occur to boys while being
whipped which are unpleasant to mention and hkely afterward
to cause shame under the sway of pain or terror. Such shame
enervates and depresses the mind and youths then avoid others,
because they have lost their self-respect." ^
Note also the following brief dictum : —
"Give me a boy who is stimulated by praise and who is down-
cast when he fails. His powers must be cultivated under the in-
fluence of ambition. Reproach will sting him to the quick. Re-
ward will incite him. In such a boy I shall never fear any
indifference; nor will a love of play in boys displease me. It is a
sign of vivacity, and I cannot expect that one who is always dull
and spiritless wiU be eager in his studies, when he is indifferent
even to that excitement which is natural to his time of Ufe.^ . . .
Therefore, as early as possible, a child must he taught that he should
do nothing in a harum-scarum way, nothing dishonestly, and noth-
ing without self-control. We must always keep in mind the maxim
of Vergil : 'So important is habit in the case of the very young.'"'
The Tenth Book sums up Quintilian's general literary
criticism of the Roman authors, carefully comparing
them with the writers of like genres in Greek. This com-
parison has made the book much read ; for the criticism,
not being that of a bom Roman, is temperate, impartial,
and written w^ith a certain mellowness of tone. Its con-
1 Quintilian, Inst. Oral. i. 3, 14.
2 Cf. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
* Adeo in teneris consuescere multum est.
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD l8l
elusions are essentially those of modem times. Thus he
places the Roman epic poets not far behind the epic poets
of Greece, the Roman orators such as Cicero practically
on a level with the great orators of Athens, and he regards
satire as an independent creation of Roman genius.^ His
own style is marked by that tempered epigrammatic
spirit which was characteristic of the time. Thus he says,
"Though ambition is in itself a fault, it is still often the
source of achievement." "In almost every undertaking,
experience counts for more than theory." "He is equal
to any task who believes himself to be equal to it." " Noth-
ing is trifling in our studies." "The pen is often most
useful when it erases." "We do not come to write
well by writing quickly, but we come to write quickly by
writing well." "An evil speaker differs from an evil
doer only in opportunity." "It is a full heart and mental
power that make men eloquent."
A more famous piece of literary criticism had already
been written (about 20 B.C.) by Horace, and it became
known to scholars, though not to its author, as the
Ars Poetica. It is written in the discursive fashion
which Horace loved; and is full of brilliant lines which
embody the wisdom of a skilled writer and accomplished
man of the world. Such, for example, are the following
sentences and phrases. Each of them contains a world
1 See Peterson's edition of the Tenth Book, with his introduction
(Oxford, 1891) ; and a separate edition of the First Book by Fierville
(Paris, 1890).
1 82 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
of keen observation, and some of them belong to the
language of universal criticism : —
Purpureus adsuitur pannus.
Difficile est proprie communia dicere.
Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet.
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
Ut pictura poesis.
Nescit vox missa reverti.
Dr. O. W. Holmes once said of Emerson: "His
paragraphs are full of brittle sentences which break apart,
and are independent units like the fragments of a coral
colony." The poems of Horace are also full of these
"brittle sentences" and, taken together, these sentences
crystallise the body of his doctrines. The Ars Poetica
lacks proportion and is ill-knit; but the essence of it is
an injunction to hard labour on the part of the man of
letters, to much reading, to self-criticism, and to a deep
knowledge of human life. Without these the poet is
merely a declaimer who deals with words rather than
with things.^ Very much the same thought is elaborated
'This poem of Horace has been imitated in modem times by the
Italian scholar, Gerolamo Vida, in his De Arte Poetica, written in the
sixteenth century ; by Boileau in his Art Poetique (1674); by Alexander
Pope in his Essay on Criticism (1711); and by Lord Byron in his clever
but less serious Hints from Horace. See Cook, The A rt of Poetry (Boston,
1892), and Weissenfels Aesthet.-kritische Analyse der Ars Poetica
(Gorlitz, 1880). The best commentary in English is by Wilkins in his
edition of the Epistles of Horace (London, 1885). Cf. also supra,
p. 180.
THE GRiECO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 83
by Persius Flaccus, in the first of his satires, which
ridicules the artificial character of the literary language
of the day.
Quintilian was a winning, graceful writer; he was also
a student of language, and a critic of literature. The
period in which he lived and taught saw many other at-
tractive writers, and it saw also the pursuit of linguistics
in the form of grammar, and likewise an abundance of
sound literary criticism. His contemporaries were the
Spaniards already mentioned, and likewise Tacitus, the
historian, both Plinys, Petronius, Persius, Juvenal,
Statius, Silius Italicus, and Suetonius. The teacher of
Quintilian himself, Q. Remmius Palaemon (c. 35-70 a.d.),
was perhaps the first author of a school grammar in the
modern sense. He distinguished four declensions, and
his Ars Grammatica (published c. 70 a.d.) contained
rules which were more rigid and less elastic than those of
the early Roman grammarians. Bom a slave, originally
a weaver by trade, and noted for his most disreputable
character, he was nevertheless extremely popular as a
teacher because of his remarkable memory, his glib
speech, and his truly Roman gift for serving up knowledge
in set formulas.^
* See Marschall, De Q. Remmii Palmonis Lihris GravtmaHcis (Leipzig,
1887) ; also Suetonius, Gram. 23. Cf. Nettleship's study of Latin
grammar among the Romans in Lectures and Essays, 2d series, pp. 145-
171 (Oxford, 1895); and K. Schmidt, Beiirdge zur Geschichle der Gram-
matik (Halle, 1859).
184 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Teachers of grammar became very numerous during
and after the time of Quintihan, and the remains of their
treatises have been collected into seven volumes and a
supplement by Keil.^ It may be said, however, that only
a few of these so-called grammarians have any genuine
knowledge of their subject. They copy from one another,
and this copying displays not only their lack of ethics, but
their lack of knowledge. Some of the later grammarians
do not even understand the teachings which they copy.
Remmius Palaemon is mainly responsible for having
made Vergil the centre of scholastic instruction for the
Roman world, just as Homer was for the Greek. After
the first century a.d., the Roman grammarians show little
independent research. Their manuals (known as artes)
were merely school-books relating to the simplest rules of
orthography, syntax, and prosody. Such are the works
of Marius Victorinus, Servius, Charisius, Diomedes, and
Terentianus Maurus, this last scholar devoting his atten-
tion to metres. Two grammarians stand out with de-
served prominence. One of them is ^Elius Donatus, who
lived in the fourth century of our era and was one of St.
Jerome's teachers. Apart from his commentaries on
Vergil and Terence, Donatus wrote a treatise {Ars Donati
Grammaiicce) in two parts. The first part is called Ars
Minor and in it he treats only of the eight parts of speech.
In the other, called Ars Maior, he discusses grammar
^ Keil, Grammalici Latini (Leipzig, 1855-1880).
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 85
more elaborately. The book was so much thought of as
a practical treatise, that it was continuously used down
through the Middle Ages, and the word Donatus (in
Chaucer "donat") came to be synonymous with the word
"grammar," just as in English "a Webster" means a
dictionary, and as in French un Bottin means generically
a city directory.^
The other Roman grammarian whose work has many
merits was Priscianus of Constantinople, who taught
Latin there in the sixth century a.d. After compiling a
number of small grammatical treatises, he published the
most complete and systematic Latin grammar that has
come down to us from antiquity. It is called Institii-
tiones Grammaticae, and is divided into eighteen books.
Its importance is largely due to its full quotations from
ancient literature.' An epitome of it by the mediaeval
scholar Rabanus Maurus {c. 776 a.d.) vied with the work
of Donatus throughout the Middle Ages.^ For the general
principles of grammar, Priscian drew largely on Apollonius
Dyscolus, of Alexandria,^ who was the founder of scien-
tific syntax {c. 140 a.d.) and of whom Priscian him-
self said that he was the greatest authority in technical
^ See Keil, op. cit. iv, and Griifenhan, op. cit. iv. p. 107.
' He quotes especially from Plautus, Terence, Cicero, Sallust, Vergil,
Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Persius, Statius, and Juvenal ; and less freely
from Cato, Ennius, Lucretius, Catullus, and Cassar.
' See infra, p. 229.
* See Skrzeczka, Die Lehre des Apollonius Dyscolus (1869).
1 86 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
grammar, though in this respect his son ^lius Herodianus
was undoubtedly a formidable rival, dedicating to Marcus
Aurelius a work on prosody in twenty-one books. The
grammar of Priscian was so often copied that more
than a thousand manuscripts of it still exist.
Contemporary with Quintilian was M. Valerius Probus
Ber5rtius, who has been called "the greatest Roman phi-
lologist"; but like many of the later Latin scholars his
work was almost entirely in the field of text-criticism,
with critical signs, as for instance upon Vergil, Horace,
Terence, Lucretius, Persius. He likewise wrote a treatise
on these symbols.^ It will be observed that the later
grammarians were not of Roman or of Italian birth.
Thus, Quintilian was a Spaniard; Probus a Syrian;
Suetonius probably a Spaniard; Priscian a native of
Caesarea in Mauretania, though he lived mainly in Con-
stantinople. This plainly shows us that Rome was no
longer Roman, but cosmopolitan. After the Spanish
Period of its literature came the African Period, repre-
sented by such well-known names as Apuleius, Fronto,
Tertullian, and perhaps Aulus Gellius. The golden Latin
of the Ciceronian and Augustan Ages had changed to
the " silver" and later to the " bronze " Latinity. The small
group of those who had set the fashion in language at
Rome were imitated painfully enough, yet quite inaccu-
rately, by writers of foreign birth. Of this Dr. F. T.
Cooper has well said : —
' Steup, De Prohis Grammaticis (Jena, 1871).
THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 87
"There was a growing proportion of writers on architecture,
surveying, medical and veterinary topics, gastronomy, etc., whose
attainments were too meagre to enable them to write correctly,
however much they wanted to; and their works naturally contained
a strong colouring of plebeian vocabulary. An important influence
was also exerted by the no less numerous class of writers whose
birthplace was outside of Italy, and whose speech, in spite of
education and long residence at the capital, retained, to a varying
degree, traces of their alien origin. Even Livy, born in northern
Italy, incurred censure for his Patavinitas. Under the Empire, the
provinces became even more fertile than Rome itself in the pro-
duction of men of genius ; Spain and Africa especially became
the centres of veritable schools of literature, possessing marked
characteristics, which reacted strongly upon the Uterature of
Rome." 1
It is because the people who had received Roman citizen-
ship, though bom and living outside of Italy, were anx-
ious to acquire a correct use of the Latin language, that
we find so many grammarians. The very last of them is
the Spaniard Isidorus, who died about 636 a.d. He had
been Bishop of Seville, and was a man of very wide read-
ing, an eloquent speaker, and one who had been trained
in the ancient learning as well as in that of his own time.
He never visited Rome until nearly twenty years before
his death, whither he went to confer with Gregory the
Great. His grammatical writings are two in number,
relating to the distinctions and the proper use of words.
He likewise wrote a collection of glosses, beside numerous
1 See Cooper, Word Formation in the Roman Sermo Plebeius, Introduc-
tion, XXXV (New York, 1895).
1 88 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
treatises on historical and theological subjects. With
him ends the production of grammars that show any
original research or that represent original sources. But
just as foreigners desired to know the rules of the language
which their masters spoke, so they also liked to inform
themselves on all sorts of subjects relating to the earlier
Roman history. Hence we have a series of Encyclo-
paedists who supplemented the work of the grammarians.
Varro, already mentioned, was the first of these,^ and
from him many succeeding writers borrowed. The Elder
Pliny (23-79 A.D.) in his Historia Naturalis had got
together an enormous mass of "general information,"
ranging from prescriptions for the sick, to jewels worn by
fashionable women. In the second century, Aulus Gel-
lius wrote his Nodes Atticae in twenty books, on every
possible sort of subject — philosophical, grammatical, his-
torical, and legal, — drawing upon many sources that are
now unknown to us.^ One may get an idea of the variety
of these scraps by a citation of some of the topics ; as, for
instance, "The fact that Women at Rome do not Swear
by Hercules nor Men by Castor"; "That It is More
Disgraceful to be Damned with Faint Praise than to be
Bitterly Rebuked"; "Why the Stomach is Relaxed Be-
cause of Sudden Fear"; "Concerning King Alexander's
Horse which was Called Bucephalus"; "Concerning the
1 Supra, p. 158.
'See Ruske, De Auli Gellii N odium Atticarum Fontibus (Breslau,
1883). Best edition of the Nodes by Hertz (Leipzig, 1886).
THE GRiECO-ROMAN PERIOD 1 89
Ancient Sumptuary Laws"; "Whether Xenophon and
Plato were Jealous or Ill-disposed Toward Each Other";
"Concerning the Race and Names of the Porcian Family" ;
"The Force and Derivation of the Particle Saltern.'"
Mainly grammatical, but partly encyclopaedic, is the
treatise by Nonius Marcellus, an African, in the fourth
century. He copied from earlier writers, and most of all
perhaps from Aulus Gellius. His book, though not in the
least original, has a value of its own for what he has
preserved in it.^ Similar works of easy erudition may be
illustrated by St. Jerome's translation of the Chronicle of
Eusebius (264- c. 340 a.d.)^ with additions which bring it
down to the year 378 a.d., and in the same century the
very interesting medley by the Graeco-Roman senator,
Macrobius, whose Saturnalia in seven books is crammed
with interesting though by no means authentic anecdotes
and conversations, together with jokes and bits of criti-
cism. The form of the whole is copied from the Banquet
of Plato, and the substance is derived from many a source.^
A lively turn is given to the Saturnalia by the fact that
it is cast in the form of table-talk. The last and almost
^ De Compendiosa Dodrina, edited by L. Miiller (Leipzig, 1888), and
Lindsay, (Leipzig, 1903). See Nettleship, Lectures and Essays, pp. 277-
331 (Oxford, 188s).
^ St. Jerome's rendering of the Scriptures into idiomatic Latin gave
following generations a chance to study the plebeian speech.
' See Wissowa, De Macrobii Saturnalium Fontibus (Breslau, 1888).
Text edition by Eyssenhardt (Leipzig, 1893). There is a good translation
of the Saturnalia into French by de Roson (Paris).
190 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the greatest of these encyclopaedic works is that of Isi-
dorus, called Origines, in twenty books, — an immense
survey of all knowledge. Its title is derived from the
fact that it professes to give explanations of the various
subjects of which it treats. It is in reality nothing but a
compilation; yet this and his other similar work, De
Natura Rerum, were widely read throughout the Middle
Ages and furnished many a hint for those who put together
the Gesta Romanorum} It is astonishing how wide was
the reading of Isidorus. As Bishop of Seville he allowed
his monks to read nothing of the pagan compositions
except the grammarians; but he himself raked the litera-
tures of Greece and Rome, picking out with almost a
journalistic sense whatever was diverting. He was a great
lover of books, having in his library fourteen large book-
cases, while his walls displayed the portraits of twenty-
two favourite authors. Isidorus was one of the few
ecclesiastics who in the sixth century still retained a
knowledge of Greek. With him, in fact, the Graeco-
Roman Period had more than reached its end. The
West of Europe was yielding to new masters, Gauls and
Goths, and Visigoths, and Germans; and the Dark Ages
had, in fact, begun.
[In addition to the other works cited in the present chapter,
see Boissier, La Fin du Paganisme (Paris, 1891) ; id. La Religion
^ See Dressel, De Isidori Originum Fontibus (Turin, 1874), and infra,
pp. 224, 225.
THE GRiECO-ROMAN PERIOD 191
Romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins (Paris, 1906) ; Michaut, Le
Genie Latin (Paris, 1904) ; Hardie, Lectures on Classical Subjects
(London, 1903) ; Duff, A Literary History of Rome, pp. 664-670
(London, 1909) ; Teuffel-Schwabe-Warr, A History of Roman
Literature, ii. (London, 1892) ; Kortiim, Geschichtliche Forschungen
(Leipzig, 1863) ; Zingerle, Zu S pater n Latein. Dichtern (Innsbruck,
1873) ; Arbenz, Die Schriftstellerei in Rom ziir Zeit der Kaiser (Basle,
1877) ; Nettleship, Transactions of the Oxford Philological Society
for 18S0-S1; Boissier, Roman Africa, Eng. trans., pp. 238-289 (New
York, 1899) ; Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, 8 vols. (Oxford,
1 880-1 899) ; Curteis, A History of the Roman Empire from 375-
800 A.D. (London, 1875) ; Suringar, Historia Critica Scholiastarum
Latinorum (Leyden, 1834-5); Norden, Die Antike Kunstprosa.
(Leipzig, 1898) ; Church, The Beginning of the Middle Ages (Lon-
don, 1895); and Bemont and Monod's MedicEval Europe, pp.
33-124, Eng. trans. (New York, 1906).]
V
THE MIDDLE AGES
A. The Monastic Learning
The gloom of the Middle Ages is foreshadowed in the
general vitiation of literary taste which began to be notice-
able as early even as the second and third centuries a.d.
The immediate causes of this decline are two: (i) the
cosmopolitanism of the later Roman Empire; and (2) the
spread of Christianity. Rome, as soon as it had fairly
secured the mastery of the whole world, ceased, in the
course of a single century, to be Roman. The capital
became a great gathering-place for men of every rank
and language. "The Syrian Orontes," says Juvenal,
"has turned its course into the Tiber." ^ Rome's mer-
chant-princes, its knights, its senators, its jurists, its pro-
vincial governors, and at last even its emperors, were
Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, Africans, — almost anything
but Roman, or even Italian. Briinner has shown almost
conclusively that the whole history of the Later Empire
is the history of a continuous struggle between the Ger-
manic and the Iberian elements for the control of the
government.
* iii. 62.
192
THE MIDDLE AGES 1 93
In no sphere of activity is this cosmopoHtanism more
apparent than in literature, when, after the second century
A.D., and even earHer, one finds the great names of its
masters to be the names either of Spaniards, or Gauls, or
Syrians, or Sicihans, or Africans. The result of this
denationalising of Roman literature showed itself before
very long in the neglect of all that was best in the native
literary traditions. Not only Ennius, Plautus, Terence,
Lucretius, and Varro ceased to be read; but even Vergil,
Horace, and Ovid were regarded as old-fashioned. It is,
indeed, evident that Gauls and Spaniards and Africans,
learning Latin as a foreign language, would be unable to
appreciate the niceties of diction, the exquisite appro-
priateness of phrase and epithet, and the more delicate
cadences and rhythms that mark the work of the highly
trained writers of the Golden Age of Latin literature.
Prosody was the first to suffer, since in Latin it was
always an artificial thing and largely foreign to the un-
educated, who more readily caught the accented beat of
the Satumians or the alliterative jingle of the carmina
triumphalia. Hence, as early as 250 a.d., we find Com-
modianus writing his Carmen Apologeticum in hexameters
that frankly discarded syllabic quantity and accepted
accent as the basis of his metrical system; and it is un-
likely that very many of his readers knew the difference.
The language itself also suffered in the mouths and on
the pens of foreign writers. Prepositions govern what-
194 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
ever cases appear to be most convenient. Nouns become
heteroclite with surprising facility. Conjugations change
places; and there is a wild dance of genders. Of course
these extreme breaches of morphology and syntax are far
from universal; but the nicer distinctions of the language
were lost to the perceptions of both readers and writers.
Hence it was that, the sense of style having been blunted
and destroyed, the second and third centuries studied
the rhetoricians, and read not so much the great writers of
Rome, as abridgments of them. It was an age of epitomes,
of condensations, of scrap-books and elegant extracts; of
fiorilegia and spicilegia. This explains why so many of
the most valuable productions of the earlier centuries have
not come down to us at all; and why others have been
preserved in meagre abridgments, or in abridgments
of abridgments. Such were the treatises in Greek by
King Juba of Mauretania, whose SearpiKr] 'la-ropia is
now lost, though much used by Julius Pollux, in his
'OvofxaaTiKov, a dictionary in ten books arranged by
subjects; Hephaestion, a writer of a work on metres in
forty-eight books, all lost, though his own epitome of
them survives; Valerius Harpocration, who wrote a
lexicon to the ten orators ; Herennius Philon of Byblos
(sometimes called "Philobyblos"), whose books were
mainly lost except in one ; and Pamphilius, whose ninety-
five books on glosses were epitomised until they were
only five.
THE MIDDLE AGES I95
The spread of Christianity was perhaps even a more
important factor in blotting out a taste for literature and
destroying the literary records of the past. The general
failure to appreciate and admire what was fine in the
productions of the preceding centuries was only a negative
injury. The teaching of the Christians, on the other
hand, was aggressively and offensively directed toward
their destruction. In the early days of the Church, Chris-
tianity spread chiefly among the ignorant, who not only
failed to value what was agsthetically precious, but felt
that suspicion and dislike which the vulgar always exhibit
toward what they cannot understand. Later, when men
of education and culture — men like St. Augustine and St.
Jerome — appeared, they regarded the writings of the
pagans as thoroughly pernicious in their influence, — all
the more because they could themselves appreciate their
attractiveness and power. St. Jerome was, in fact, a scholar
and thoroughly familiar with classic literature; and this
was even made the basis of an accusation brought against
him by his fellow Christians. He was at last openly
charged with defiling his works with quotations from
pagan authors; of having employed monks to copy the
writings of Cicero; and of having even on one occasion
polluted the minds of some children at Bethlehem by
explaining to them various passages of Vergil.^ He tells
us in one of his Epistles how he was rebuked in a
^ Epist. Ixx ; adv. Rufinam, I. ch. xxx.
196 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
dream for his guilty admiration of Cicero, being borne
in the night before the throne of Christ, accused of "being
a Ciceronian rather than a Christian," and scourged by
the angels so that when he awoke in the morning his
shoulders were covered with bruises.^ Pope Gregory I
(the Great) rebuked Desiderius, Bishop of Vienna, for
having taught the classics and thus "mingled the praises
of Jupiter and Christ . . . polluting the mind with blas-
phemous praises of the wicked." ^ It was believed and
taught that the writers of the classics were burning in
hell. In such monasteries as still kept any of the manu-
scripts of the secular literature, and where vows of silence
were imposed, it was customary when any monk wished
a copy of Vergil, Horace, or Livy, to indicate it by scratch-
ing his ear like a dog, this being the animal whom the
pagan writers were supposed to resemble.^
With men of a sterner and fiercer type, — zealots like
TertuUianus and fanatics like Montanus, — the whole
mass of pagan literature was sweepingly and savagely con-
demned. Its philosophy was a snare and a stumbling-
block; its history lies and slanders; its poetry licentious
and obscene; the mythology of its graceful fables, a plain
enticement to the worship of demons. TertuUian in a
^ Episi. xxii.
^Lecky, vol. ii. p. 201.
* Maitland, Dark Ages, p. 403. (London 1853). Because of their hos-
tility toward the classic writers, Julian the Apostate forbade Christians
to teach rhetoric and grammar (classics) in the schools.
THE MIDDLE AGES 1 97
fiery passage of his De Spectaculis denounces the gods 01
the mythologues as devils, the worship of them as devil-
worship, and the prose and verse that celebrates them
as devil-literature. This was the age when asceticism
suddenly burst into life to teach men that salvation in
the next world was incompatible with comfort in this;
that the enjoyment of the beautiful in literature and art
was of the flesh ; and that squalor and filth and intellectual
ignorance paved the way to a heaven beyond the grave.
To the early ascetics, the refined pleasure of pure litera-
ture was as dangerous and little less sinful than the love
of women. Hence, we find St. Anthony, the founder of
monasticism, refusing to learn the alphabet. Hence, an-
other priest, who was famous as a linguist, voluntarily im-
posed upon himself the penance of silence for thirty years;
and another who found in the cell of a brother monk a
few books, reproached him with having defrauded of their
property the widow and the orphan. All learning was
pernicious, and it was the boast of St. Benedict to be
described as nescius el indoclus. "It is the duty of a
monk," said St. Jerome, "to weep and not to teach."
Literature, in fact, was in the minds of the early Chris-
tians as much associated with the cult of paganism as
was art; and both suffered alike as soon as the Christians
gained control of the civil power. The images of the
gods were mutilated and broken; the most famous master-
pieces of ancient art were destroyed because they de-
198 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
picted subjects from the classic myths ; and so, the rolls of
papyrus and vellum which contained the writings of the
myth-makers shared a similar fate. It was an anticipation
of the Puritan frenzy of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, when so many cathedrals were desecrated, so
many paintings of the saints destroyed, and so many
priceless carvings broken into bits, because they gave
beauty and significance to the ritual of the Catholic
Church. The same species of fanatical frenzy marked
the course of the early Christians. Innumerable rolls of
papyrus covered with copies of the great masterpieces of
Roman literature were used for wrapping goods. Parch-
ments were scraped of their original texts and used again
(palimpsests) for religious writings. The libraries that
contained them were pillaged by mobs. In 389 (or 391),
under Theodosius, that part of the Alexandrian Library
which then stood in the Serapeum was sacked, and the
books partly burned and partly scattered. The library at
Nisibis and the greater one of 100,000 volumes at Con-
stantinople were both burned (477) ; and Pope Gregory I
(c. 600) is said to have allowed the noble Palatine Library
at Rome to be destroyed.^
^ This, however, is only traditionally reported. The favourite say-
ing of Gregory was that "the oracles of God are greater than the rules
of grammar" ; and he is discreditably distinguished for his zeal in burn-
ing the manuscripts of Livy because they ascribed so much power to the
heathen gods. — See Draper, Hist, of the Intellectual Development of
Europe (New York, 1899); Lecky, ii. 201; Guingeri6, Hist. Litteraire
de ritalie, i, pp. 29-31.
THE MIDDLE AGES 199
Other causes than the two already mentioned greatly
diminished the world's supply of books and rendered
more difficult the renewal of that supply. The separation
of the Eastern from the Western Empire had had a very
unfavourable effect upon the collection and preservation
of books, dividing, as it did, the learning of the East from
the learning of the West. The Roman librarians ceased
to collect works written in Greek, and the Byzantian
librarians, who had never cared much about Roman
literature, now felt no interest in it whatsoever. Finally,
the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs in a.d. 641, destroyed
at a blow what still remained of the Alexandrian libraries
and shut off from Europe the supply of papyrus upon
which the makers of books depended.
All these facts must be considered in accounting for
the loss of so many works of classical literature whose re-
nown ought to have preserved them, and also for the
comparatively few manuscripts of early date that are
now known to exist; the neglect of good literature, the
growing ignorance of the people, the hostility of the
Christians to classical learning, the destruction of books
and libraries, and the barbarisation of the Empire. In
the sixth century, one might, amid the deepening social
and intellectual darkness of the Western World, have felt
safe in predicting that the literary splendour of Greece
and Rome would soon be only a faint and dying memory,
never again to be quickened into a living fact. That this
200 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
was actually not the case is in a very large degree due to
the energy, the influence, and the example of a single man.
Early in the sixth century occurred an event which in
itself would seem to have no possible connection with the
history of classical philology or the preservation of classical
learning, and yet which was, in fact, one whose importance
to the student of palaeography can scarcely be exaggerated.
About the year 529, one Benedict, a native of Nursia,
founded the order of monks that took from him the name
of Benedictines. Monachism had already arisen and had
an extraordinary vogue in the Eastern Empire, having
begun with St. Anthony and spread so rapidly that his
first disciple, Pachonius, lived to see himself the head of
seven thousand followers. Within a single century we
find it recorded that in the one district of Nitria, in the
Egyptian Delta, there were no less than fifty monasteries.^
Yet in the East, almost from the beginning, the system
was notorious for its gross abuses. There sprang up a
class of monks called Sarabastae, who lived in small com-
munities, and frequently wandered about the country,
leading in many cases a life of idleness and open profligacy.
Even in the monasteries, the want of any well-defined
regulations left the door open to all sorts of licentious
practices which tended to bring the whole institution into
contempt and scandal. In fact, the Christian Church in
^ See Mohler, Geschichte des M onchthums (Regensburg, 1866-68) ;
Harnack, Das Mdnchthum (Giesen, 1895).
THE MIDDLE AGES 20I
its early years really found its greatest danger not in
the persecutions of the pagan emperors and governors,
but in the character of many of its own members. "Men
entered the Church to escape from military service, or to
avoid burdensome municipal offices"; worn-out rakes
who had exhausted every other form of excitement, hare-
brained enthusiasts in search of a new sensation, vicious
and depraved men and women impelled by curiosity, —
all these flocked around the teachers of the new faith in
the expectation of a fresh stimulus to their jaded fancies.
Hence, almost immediately, arose scandals and extrava-
gances of which the details are given by contemporary
writers.^ The festivals of the martyrs were at one time
suppressed by the authorities because of the licentious
manner of their celebration. The pilgrimages to Pales-
tine attracted such motley crowds that the Holy Land is
described by St. Gregory of Nyssa as a hot-bed of de-
bauchery. Even the Agapae, or love-feasts, often became
drunken orgies. All these evils were concentrated
and condensed in many of the oriental monasteries, which
were often filled by men who made the profession of
Christianity only a pretext for the practice of the most
filthy vices.
It was at a time when monachism as then understood
' See Jortin, Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, 5 v. (1751-53) ; Cave,
Primitive Christianity, pt. I. ch. xi (London, 1687) ; Miiller, De Genio
Aevi Theodosiani (Copenhagen, 1797); Lecky, History of European
Morals, ii, pp. 149 foil. (Am. ed., New York, 1884).
202 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
and practised had fallen into such disrepute, that St.
Benedict (529 a.d.), founded his famous Order at Monte
Cassino, about halfway between Rome and Naples. It was
a place destined to be of the utmost importance in the
history of classical texts and learning. Benedict was a
man of little education, but of a very spiritual mind, of an
unblemished character, and gifted with an unusual amount
of common sense as well as of piety. He had been made
the abbot of a monastery of the Eastern type, and had
left it in disgust at the license which he found prevailing
there; but his experience was useful in suggesting to him
the defects of monachism as then understood. He saw
that it was not enough that the monks should be required
to fast and pray and sing at certain times, while their
remaining hours were left to idleness ; but that some rule
should be devised to give them rational and wholesome
occupation and to provide for a stricter discipline. To
this end he composed in the year 515 ^ his famous Regula
Monachorum, which ultimately became the universal rule
of monachism in the Western Church. It is not neces-
sary here to go into its details. It required continual
residence in the monastery; laid out a scheme of manual
labour for the monk's spare hours; and above all, it recog-
nised the desirability of mental as well as bodily occupa-
tion, permitting such monks as were qualified, to engage
in teaching and in copying manuscripts for the library.
^ The date is only traditional. Some give it as 520.
THE MIDDLE AGES 20$
St. Benedict had, of course, no thought of preserving the
secular learning of the age, and intended the literary
labours of the monks to be spent wholly upon ecclesiastical
and theological writings; but he did not so specify, and
the permission given by his Rule soon received an inter-
pretation fraught with momentous results to modem
scholarship.
In the year 540, Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus,
a Roman patrician of senatorial rank, descended from a
rich and noble family of Bruttii, praefectus urhi under four
of the Gothic kings, and secretary to King Theodoric,
entered the Benedictine monastery of Vivarium which he
himself had founded (529), and took the vesture and the
obligations of a monk. Cassiodorus had been during his
public life not only a man of the world and a statesman,
but a scholar and writer, one of the few men remaining
in the Western Empire who had studied with care the
earlier literature of both Greece and Rome ; and after his
retirement to the monastery, his tastes remained un-
changed, while the more ample leisure of his new life
gave him far more opportunity to cultivate them. His
own writings as a monk were purely theological;^ but,
taking advantage of the rule which enjoined copying and
teaching, he began systematically to train the younger
^ During his public life he wrote on the liberal studies, and put forth
a treatise, DeArte Grainmatica, which was used as a text-book throughout
the Middle Ages. See Hodgkin, The Letters of Cassiodorus (London,
1886) ; Church, Miscellaneous Essays, pp. 191-198 (London, 1888).
204 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
monks to an appreciation of the value of the secular
literature and to encourage by every possible means both
the collection and preservation of classical manuscripts
and the multiplication of them in careful copies. Pos-
sessed of a very large fortune, and being a man of great
influence and energy, he laboured incessantly to the end
of his long life for this important object, with such success
that he actually succeeded in making every great monastery
of his Order " a sort of Christian Academy," a storehouse of
classical literature, with its scriptorium or writing-room
especially set apart for the copying of parchments. More
than this, he made the Benedictine Order essentially a
learned Order, with traditions of scholarship which have
been honourably maintained to the present day.^ How
great a debt is owed to Cassiodorus in modern times, and
how general had been the destruction of manuscripts that
were written near the time of their original composition, is
seen by recalling the dates of the early codices in existence.
Thus y^ischylus, and a part of Sophocles, are found in the
so-called Laurentianus (or Mediceus) at Florence, belong-
ing to the eleventh century. The oldest manuscript of
Herodotus goes back to the eleventh century, that of
Thucydides to the tenth century, and that of Plato to the
ninth century, — though this is incomplete. The oldest
manuscript of Plautus is a palimpsest preserved at Milan,
* See OUeris, Cassiodore, Conservatur des Livres de V Antiquite Latine
(Paris, 1884) ; Montalambert, The Monks of the West, Eng. trans., pp. 71-
78 (London, 1861).
THE MIDDLE AGES 205
and was written as early as the fifth century; but it con-
tains only a few odd sheets, the other codices being as late
as the eleventh or twelfth century. The oldest codex of
Horace belongs to the ninth century; the oldest of Lucre-
tius to the tenth century. The oldest codices of Vergil are
as ancient as the fourth century, — two of them being in the
Vatican and one at Florence,^ — this latter having correc-
tions made by Asterius, Roman consul in the year 494 a.d.
^ Fragmentary papyri as old as the first century B.C. exist, and a codex
in fragments of the sixth century.
^ It may be interesting to mention some of the other important manu-
scripts. Thus, of Homer, the oldest codex is the Codex Venetus A of the
tenth century {Iliad), and of the twelfth century {Odyssey); of Herodotus,
the Codex Florentinus or IMediceus in the Laurentian Library of the tenth
century ; of ^schylus, a Codex Laurentianus (or Mediceus) of the eleventh
century ; of Sophocles, the same codex with iEschylus ; of Euripides, a
Codex Vaticanus of the twelfth century; of Aristophanes, a Codex Raven-
nas of the eleventh century ; of Thucydides a Laurentianus of the tenth cen-
tury ; of Plato, a Codex Clarkianus (Bodleian) of the ninth century ; and
of Demosthenes, a Codex Parisinus of the eleventh century. Of Latin
authors, among others we have of Plautus a Codex Ambrosianus (Milan)
of the fifth century (paUmpsest) ; of Terence, a Codex Bembrosias (Vatican)
of the fifth century (mutilated), the rest of the ninth century; of Lucre-
tius, a Leidensis of the ninth century ; of Catullus, a Codex Parisinus of the
ninth century (only a part), the rest of the fourteenth century ; of Cicero,
six Codices Parisini of the ninth century ; of Caesar, a Codex Amstelo-
damensis A of the ninth or tenth century ; of Sallust, two Codices Pari-
sini of the tenth century ; of Vergil, a Codex Vaticanus of the fifth century ;
of Horace, a Codex Bemensis (incomplete) of the ninth century ; of Ovid,
a Codex Petavinas (from A. Petavius, Cy. xvi.) of the eighth century ; of
Livy, the Codex Veronensis (bks. iii.-vi.) of the fifth century (palimpsest) ;
of Tacitus, a Codex Mediceus of the ninth century ; of Juvenal, the Codex
Pithoeanus (from P. Pithou) at Montpellier of the ninth century; of Mar-
tial, a Codex Parisinus T of the ninth century ; of Pliny the Elder, a
2o6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
These facts are quite sufficient to show that with scarcely
an exceptiQn the only manuscripts of the best classical
authors that give anything more than isolated fragments
are copies made later than the fifth century. Had it not
been for the labours of the Benedictines and of those who
followed their example, the remains of classical literature
would have been so scanty as to give us no real conception
of that literature and learning as a whole.
With St. Benedict must be mentioned the Roman patri-
cian and scholar who is said to have been his friend. This
was Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boethius (or
Boetius) , almost the last of the Western Romans to possess
a good understanding of Greek. He gained the esteem of
Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, who made Rome his
capital in the year 5000. Over the Goths, Boethius exer-
cised such influence that his countrymen found little oppres-
sion in the Gothic rule. In the end, however, he was ac-
cused of treason, his property was confiscated, and after
being imprisoned, he was executed (c. 524) with terrible
cruelty. While in prison, Boethius wrote his dialogue en-
titled De Consolatione Philosophiae. It was divided into
five books, and was written in a close imitation of the best
Latin models, while the poetry which is interspersed shows
palimpsest from the monastery of St. Paul in Carinthia of the sixth century
(bks. xi.-xiv.) ; of Pliny the Younger, a Codex Laurentianus (Mediceus) of
the ninth century ; of Quintilian, a Codex Bemensis of the tenth century
(incomplete) ; of Suetonius, a Codex Memmianus or Parisinus of the ninth
century.
THE MIDDLE AGES 207
metrical accuracy. For seven centuries he was held in
great reverence, and even in later times his work was not
forgotten. He is the first writer who shows a knowledge
of the Arabic (Hindu) numerals. The Consolatio found
many translations, among them one by King Alfred into
Anglo-Saxon, and by Chaucer and Queen Elizabeth into
English.^
Now that western Europe had been overrun by foreign-
ers speaking every sort of language and dialect, one might
have supposed that the Latin language would have sunk
into disuse. But just the contrary was the case. It was
the only stable language known to men of that time. Its
dignity and masculine brevity made it a fit medium of
intercourse between kings and princes. Finally, it was the
language of the Church, and the Church was slowly con-
quering the barbarians who had overrun the provinces of
ancient Rome. Nevertheless, as the spirit and history of
Latin literature were unknown, merely the faintest possible
tinge of grammatical and technical knowledge could be
imparted to students who tried to get a smattering of the
language for practical purposes only. Even those who
knew how far they were from any real knowledge of what
they were studying, gloried in their ignorance, and made
a boast of it. Grammar was regarded as pedantic. A
^ The most modem translation is by James, (London, 1897). See, also,
Hildebrand, Bo'etius und seine Stellimg zum Chrisknthum (Regensburg,
1885) ; and Stewart, Boethius (Edinburgh, 1891).
2o8 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
knowledge of its rules was held to be somewhat discredit-
able. One of these scholars (Wolfhard in the Life of St.
Walpurgis) speaks of his own barbarisms of style, but tells
the reader that his dung-heap is, nevertheless, full of
pearls. Gregory the Great had spoken still more forcibly
at an earlier date. " The place of prepositions and the
cases of nouns I utterly despise, for I consider it indecent to
confine the words of the heavenly prophets within the
rules of Donatus." A priest of Cordova uttered the same
thought with a vigour that verges almost upon ferocity.
" Let philosophers and the impure followers of Donatus,"
he says, " ply their windy problems with the barking of
dogs and the grunting of swine, snarling with skinned
throat and bared teeth: let the foaming and bespittled
grammarians belch wind, while we remain the evangelical
servants of Christ." Even as late as the fourteenth cen-
tury the well-known anecdote of the Emperor Sigismund at
the Council of Costnitz is characteristic of the popular
feeling about grammar. In a speech against the Hussites
he had used the word "schisma" as a feminine noun, for
which he was corrected by a monk, who called out that
schisma was a noun of the neuter gender. Whereupon the
emperor asked, "How do you know it?" "Because Alex-
ander Gallus says so." " And who is Alexander Gallus? "
" A monk." " Well," said Sigismund, " I am the Emperor
of Rome, and I fancy that my word is as good as any
monk's."
THE MIDDLE AGES 209
That the Church did not do more to keep alive the spirit
of learning is not, however, to be counted against her. We
ought rather to feel surprised that she did so much. The
conditions of her existence and the difficult mission that
she had to perform have been very fairly summed up by
Mr. J. A. Symonds: —
"The task of the Church in the Middle Ages was not so much to
keep learning alive as to moralise the savage races who held Europe
at their pleasure. . . . After the dismemberment of the Empire,
the whole of Europe was thrown open to the action of spiritual
powers who had to use unlettered barbarians for their ministers
and missionaries. To submit this vast field to classic culture at
the same time that Christianity was being propagated would
have been beyond the strength of the Church, even had she chosen
to undertake this task, and had the vital forces of antiquity not been
exhausted." ^
The worst feature of the mediaeval spirit was that it
had lost the power of appreciating, even in the slightest
degree, the classic sentiment. To scholastics, classicism
was absolutely a sealed book. The free air of paganism,
its passionate love of beauty, its abounding life and viril-
ity and colour and richness were as remote from the
conception of the mediaeval monks as the sunlight is
remote from the conception of one who is congcnitally
blind. Whatever they studied they studied in the spirit
of Scholasticism. Their criticism was warped and
cramped and distorted by theology. If, for instance, they
' S3Tnonds, History of the Italian Renaissance, i. pp. 61, 62 (London,
187s).
P
2IO HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
admired Vergil's famous Fourth Eclogue, they admired it,
not because it was in itself a beautiful piece of verse,
but because they thought it a prophecy of the approaching
birth of Christ. The most licentious passages of Ovid
were explained allegorically, just as modern commentators
have explained the sensuous Hebrew of the Song of Songs.
If they taught grammar, they filled it full of strange sub-
tleties, discovering the three Persons of the Trinity in the
verb, and mystic numbers in the parts of speech. Words
were even defined theologically, as when the scholastics
after defining voluntas as expressive of the nature of God,
and voluptas of the nature of the Devil, then coined
the blended form volumtas as expressive of the mixed
nature of man. It is easy to imagine what remarkable
feats of ingenuity their etymological speculations exhibit.
Nevertheless, although the Church's task was to moralise
the barbarians, education was one of its chief instruments.
It rejected the pagan literature while it retained the lan-
guage in which that literature had been written; and after
paganism was thoroughly extinct, the literature itself was
revived and taught in the monastic and other schools
during the Middle Ages. It is somewhat difficult to define
exactly what period of time lies properly within the medi-
£eval age. The decline began when Constantine trans-
ferred the seat of the Empire from Rome to Byzantium
(Constantinople) in 330, because, after that, Rome itself
lost its chief significance both politically and from the
THE MTODLE AGES 211
standpoint of scholarship. Its records become more
and more melancholy with advancing time. Its officials
flocked to another and a foreign city. The emperors had
not only turned their backs upon its gates, but upon
its language and its civiHsation. Henceforward Rome's
population diminished. Its temples fell into decay, and
there began to brood over it the portent of destruction.
The new Caesars carried away the archives, and it lost the
prestige of the imperial court. Some of its rulers never
visited it at all. The Emperor Constantius had been in
power several years before he saw the former capital of the
Empire, and then he journeyed to it only at the request of a
barbarian prince whom he was entertaining, and who was
anxious to behold the city which had once been mistress
of the world. The historian, Ammianus Marcellinus,*
(c. 330 -c. 378 A.D.), gives an interesting account of this
visit. Constantius himself seems to have been astonished
by the magnificence of Rome.
"As the Emperor gazed upon the vast city spreading along the
slopes, in the valleys, and between the summits of the hills, he
declared that the spectacle which first met his eyes surpassed every-
thing that he had yet beheld. Now his gaze rested on the temple of
Tarpcian Jupiter, now on baths so magnificent as to resemble
entire provinces, now on the massive structure of the Colosseum,
mightily compact, the summit of which seemed scarcely accessible
to the human eye ; now on the Pantheon, rising like a fairy dome,
and its sublime columns with their gently sloping stairways adorned
^Ammianus INIarcellinus was himself a Greek by birth, though he
wrote in Latin — the Latin of a foreigner, often clumsy and often affected.
212 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
with statues of heroes and emperors, besides the Temple of the
City, its Forum, the Forum of Peace, the Theatre of Pompey, the
Odeon, the Stadium, and all the other architectural wonders of
Eternal Rome. When, however, he came to the Forum of Trajan,
a structure unequalled by any other of its kind throughout the
world, so exquisite indeed that the gods themselves would find
it hard to refuse their admiration, he stood as if in a trance, surveying
with a dazed awe the stupendous fabric which neither words can
picture, nor mortal again aspire to rear. Being asked what he
thought of Rome, the Emperor repUed that in one respect only was
he disappointed, and that was in finding that its inhabitants were
not immortal." ^
Not long aftervi^ard, in the reign of Honorius, Rome
witnessed her last great imperial spectacle when that em-
peror entered the city to celebrate his triumphs over the
Goths (403). There is something pitiful in the attitude
of this great city, which was still the most magnificent of
any in the world, accepting with almost hysterical gratitude
the visits of curiosity which its emperors from time to time
condescended to give it. Its very beauty, its maze of por-
ticos, its wilderness of marble, bronze, and gold, and its
gigantic palaces gorged with pictures, statues, and jewels,
only heightened the melancholy of its decadence, with a
diminishing population now grown too small to crowd its
streets and too unwarlike to defend its walls.
It is really then from the year 330 that we must date The
Beginning of the Middle Ages. In 395, the Roman Empire
practically embraced the entire Christian world from East
^ Res Gestae, xvi. 14 foil.
THE MIDDLE AGES 213
to West, and southward to the great Sahara. Yet already
there were stirrings in the North and West, among the
Germans whose six tribes^ were already rolling like a wave
toward Italy and the western possessions of Rome. In 410,
Alaric headed the Visigoths, penetrated Greece, and later,
streaming through Italy, sacked the great city which for
eight hundred years had never fallen into the hands of an
enemy. In 415, Spain became an independent kingdom
under Teutonic invaders, the Burgundians established
themselves in southeastern France and Switzerland, and
later were amalgamated with the new Frankish kingdom.
In 449, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded and con-
quered Britain. Worse than all, there menaced Italy the
savage and ape-faced Huns of Ugro-Finnic stock, whose
hideous customs made them seem a host of demons rather
than an army of mortal men. Yet they did not remain very
long on Roman soil, since they were routed in Gaul (at
Chalons) by the allied Romans and Teutons (451), one
hundred and sixty thousand men having perished in the
battle, which was even more epoch-making than those of
Thermopylae and Marathon. But the Roman Empire
in the West was destined to destruction. In 455, the
Vandals sailed across the Mediterranean from Africa, and
plundered Rome. In 476, the Herulian Goth, Odoacer,
became emperor of the West, receiving a timorous consent
' Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Burgundians, Franks, and Suevi.
See Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, Eng.
trans., i. chs. iv-v (London, 1S94).
214 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
from the emperor in Constantinople. Thus, one may say
that the Middle Ages began, either with the transfer of the
capital to Constantinople in 330, or with the establishment
of Gothic power in Italy in 476, A convenient time from
which to date The End is the year 1453, when the Eastern
Empire fell, and the triumphant Muhammadans poured
through the gates of Constantinople.
The history of scholarship in the Middle Ages, so far
as concerns western Europe, is conveniently divided into
the Early Christian Period (300-751), the Carolingian
Period (751-911), and the Period of Scholasticism (911-
1476). During the first of these three periods, the leaven
of civilisation was at work trying to bring about something
like order among the rude barbarians who had shattered
and mastered the Western Empire. One great source
of civilisation lay in the retention of the Latin language.
It was not, as is often said, the influence of the Church alone
that made Latin the chosen speech of the invaders as soon
as they had become settled in their new possessions. It
was also the urgent need of having some one intelligible
medium of communication, — a language which Goths
and Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, and Vandals could
use with the certainty of being understood. All the dia-
lects and patois of Germany and Jutland were cast, as it
were, into the one great crucible. They were simmering
and uniting and separating, and taking on continually new
forms and new idioms. There was a chaos of human
THE MIDDLE AGES 21 5
speech, and amid it the Latin language alone was the one
stable, settled, and fit instrument for the purpose for which
men used it. A little later, the Church confirmed this
selection; and when, even in the Dark Ages, men still
attempted to write and teach philosophy or theology, and
the elements of a learning that had been well-nigh lost,
it was but natural that they should employ the only lan-
guage which they knew, and which was capable of express-
ing accurately and easily their conceptions. All these
reasons together, — the need of a universal language, the
usage of the Church and the requirements of scholarship,
gave Latin very great prominence. It spread from the
courts and monasteries and churches, into the mouths
and the understanding of the common people, so that it
was once more almost a genuine vernacular. Of this fact
proofs are not wanting. In the fourth century, during the
reign of Theodosius, a Gaul addressed the Roman senate
in the lingua Romana rustica, rude and rough, but still
intelligible to his hearers. There were still compositions
written in Latin during the fifth and sixth centuries, and
intended for the common people. Fortunatus,i writing
in Latin the life of Saint Aubin, says in his Introduction that
he will be careful not to use any expression that may be
unintelligible to the populace. A popular song in very
good Latin has come down to us celebrating the victory of
Clotaire II over the Saxons in 622. In the same centiu"y,
' 535-600. Edition by Leo and Krusch (Berlin, 1881-1885).
2l6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Baudemind composed the life of Saint Amandus for public
reading, and wrote it in fairly grammatical Latin. Latin
was also universally employed in public documents and
public correspondence. And not merely was it written
and spoken as a matter of necessity, but some of the men
least capable of succeeding were fired with an ambition to
gain honour from its use. Gregory of Tours* informs us
that Chilperic I. attempted Latin verse; and there still
exists a letter written in metrical Latin by Auspicius,
Bishop of Tours, to a Count who bore the barbarous name
of Arbogastes. The growth of the papal power did a great
deal to propagate and protect the use of Latin. There was
constant communication between the Papal Court and the
newly founded States, and it was all in Latin. The bishops
of the Church were nobles of the kingdoms and of the
Empire, and they made Latin the language of the courts.
The papal legate presided over royal and imperial councils,
1 The Latin of Gregory himsqlf is interesting as seen in his History of
the Franks. It shows how even with educated men like himself Latin
literature was fading from remembrance. He quotes Vergil, but un-
metrically. His citations from other Latin writers are probably borrowed.
He uses the accusative absolute and apparently does not know that sub-
ject and verb should be in agreement. In him e and i are confounded ;
aspirates are practically disregarded ; and he pronounces c before i and e
like s. See Bonnet, Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours (Paris, 1890) ; Monceaux,
Le Latin Vulgaire, in the Revue des Deux Mondes (July 15, 1891) ; du
Meril, Poesies Popiilaires Latines anterieures an Douzieme Sicde (Paris,
1843) ; Nisard, Essai sur les Poetes Latins de la Decadence (Paris, 1867) ;
Olcott, Studies in the Word Formation of the Latin Inscription (Rome,
1898), and Grandgent, Vulgar Latin (Boston, 1908).
THE MIDDLE AGES 217
and so the deliberations were in Latin. Indeed, the
breach between the Greek Church and the Roman Church
was due very largely to the fact that the Eastern Church
would not accept the Latin language as its official tongue.
The Roman Church did well in not yielding. Latin is
essentially a liturgical language. Lacking some of the
Hellenic grace, its sonorous sentences and majestic peri-
ods seem made for the stateliness of worship.
Of course the mingling of Latin with the so-called bar-
barous tongues, injected into its vocabulary a large number
of unusual words, just as the syntax was violently deranged.
Paratactic sentences and illiterate spelling were to be
expected, and likewise an extensive use of prepositions.
On the other hand, it must be remembered that all these
things had been common enough in the language of the
ignorant, even during the Golden Age, as may be seen plainly
in the plebeian inscriptions, and in such writers as Persius
and Petronius and St. Jerome. The Latin of literature
was never identical with the Latin of men's daily speech.
Therefore, when we come upon a period of literary steril-
ity, we find what should be called a reversion to popular
usage rather than an absolute corruption of what had
previously been refined and regular. The plebeian speech
comes to the surface everywhere, and sweeps away book
language. This vulgar Latin lasted long, even in remote
parts of Europe, and among the illiterate; so that Dante
calls the Sardinians " apes " {simiae) because of their
2l8 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
assiduous imitation of Latin. In like manner, so soon as
there ceased to be any definite standard of versification,
the nicely balanced quantitative system so carefully
wrought out, from Ennius to Ovid, gives way to an accentual
system which is not new, but really very old — older even
than the Hellenizing Period of Latin literature. Before
Ennius, the populace chanted rude ditties that were rhymed
and full of alliteration. After the downfall of western
culture, the same sort of poetry again is common. Indeed,
accentual rhythm and rhyme were not established by the
Church in the Christian hymns; but rather did the priestly
poets compose hymns in the sort of metres that were most
familiar to their congregations. Some of these hymns are
very beautiful, and they retain their place in the literature
of succeeding ages, — such of them, for example, as the
Dies Irae, Veni, Creator Spiritus, and Mortis Portis
Fractis, Fortis, this last by Peter the Venerable.^
A good example of semibarbarous Latin prose is given
by Drager in the Introduction to his Historische Syntax.
It is from a life of Theodoric the Ostrogoth (c. 454-526) : —
" Rex vero vocavit Eusebium, praefectum urbis Ticeni, et in-
audito Boetio protulit in eum sententiam. Qui mox in agro Cal-
ventino, ubi in custodia havebatur, misit rex et fecit occidi. Qui
accepta corde in fronte diutissime tortus est, ita ut oculi eius
creparent. Sic sub tormenta ad ultimum cum fuste occiditur."^
1 See Duffield, Latin Hymns (New York, 1889) ; and du Meril, Poesies
Latines du Moyen Age (Paris, 1847).
* A very admirably written monograph, full of illuminating illustrations,
isCla.rk's Sitidies in the Latin of ihe Middle Ages (Lancaster, Penn., 1900).
THE MIDDLE AGES 219
As is well said by Dr. V. S. Clark: " Barbarism in Latin-
ity is a relative term, and it is impossible to set an exact
date for its beginning. It was a matter partly of individual
writers as well as of age." We can find barbarisms in
Latin during the classical period that match precisely
some of the barbarisms of the mediae vals.^ We must
remember that Latin remained throughout the Middle Ages
practically the mother tongue of all the professional and
official classes, for it was the language of the Church, the
law courts, and of both religious and secular instruction.
On the other hand, among the peasants, it gradually de-
cayed or rather, perhaps, was transmuted into the Romance
languages; so that the literary language was styled lingua
Latina, while the common speech was called lingua Ro-
inana. " It is probably impossible to determine just when
Latin ceased to exist as a spoken language among the com-
mon people. But the question of peasant dialects, while
it may be interesting from the standpoint of Romance phil-
ology, has very little to do with the transmission of literary
Latin through the Middle Ages. What we are concerned
with is the extent to which Latin was understood by people
who, even though illiterate, or nearly so, on account of their
position in social and economic life, correspond in a general
way to what we now sometimes term ' the reading classes,'
— townspeople and small landholders, traders, and the
better class of artisans and craftsmen, — the Canterbury
^ Supra, p. 210.
220 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PfflLOLOGY
pilgrims of the latter half of the first decade of Christian
centuries. It is natural to suppose that people of this class
understood Latin and continued to employ it occasionally
long after it had ceased to be the ordinary medium of com-
munication." ^
Something like a definite learning appears during the
reign of Charlemagne (c. 800). This monarch's chosen
adviser was the great mediaeval educator, Alcuin, who
Latinized his name into Flaccus Albinus. He was born at
York, where he became the head of a large school. Later,
in Italy, he met Charlemagne, who said, "Come to my court
and teach my subjects the liberal arts." Alcuin gladly
accepted the invitation, and at first taught the Emperor
himself in rhetoric and logic. To aid him in his work,
Charlemagne established a court school (Schola Palatma).
Alcuin also founded new schools throughout France and
improved those which already existed. At Tours he set up
a seat of learning modelled after his own school at York.
Alcuin, though imperfectly trained, was the greatest scholar
of his time ; for, in addition to knowing Latin fairly well, he
had a smattering of Greek and Hebrew. Among his works
are especially to be noted a Rhetoric and a Grammar, the
principles of which are drawn and partly garbled from the
1 See Muratori, Ant. ltd. Dissertatio XLma. Cf. also du M.gx\\, Poesies
Poptdaires Latines, p. 264 (Paris, 1843). Poggio in his Historia Convivialis
mentions the fact that Latin was spoken by the women of Rome in his day
(1380), and that he had learned from them Latin words that he had never
heard before. See Clark, op. cit., p. 15.
THE MIDDLE AGES 221
writings of Cicero. Both of these books are ill-digested,
and are imbued with a clumsy wit, intended, no doubt, to
divert the scholar. Thus, Alcuin gives an imaginary dia-
logue between himself and his imperial pupil.
Alcuin. What art thou?
Charles. I am a man {homo).
Alcuin. See how thou hast shut me in.
Charles. How so ?
Alcuin. If thou sayest I am not the same as thou, and that I am
a man, it follows that thou art not a man.
Charles. It does.
Alcuin. But how many syllables has homo?
Charles. Two.
Alcuin. Then art thou those two syllables ?
Charles. Surely not ; but why dost thou reason thus ?
Alcuin. That thou mayest understand sophistical craft and see
how thou canst be forced to a conclusion.
Charles. I see and understand from what was granted at the start,
both that I am homo and that homo has two syllables, and that I can
be shut up to the conclusion that I am these two syllables. But
I wonder at the subtlety with which thou hast led me on, first to
conclude that thou wert not a man, and afterward of myself, that I
was two syllables.
Still more characteristic of Alcuin's teaching is a part of
the dialogue in which Pepin, " a royal youth," questions
Alcuin (Albinus) as follows : —
Pepin. What is writing ?
Albinus. The guardian of history.
Pepin. What is language ?
Albinus. The betrayer of the soul.
Pepin. What generates language ?
222 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Albinus. The tongue.
Pepin. What is the tongue ?
Albinus. The whip of the air.
Pepin. What is air ?
Albinus. The guardian of life.
Pepin. What is Ufe ?
Albinus. The joy of the happy ; the expectation of death.
Pepin. What is death ?
Albinus. An inevitable event ; an uncertain journey ; tears for the
living ; the probation of wills ; the stealer of men.
Pepin. What is man ?
Albinus. The slave of death ; a passing traveller ; a stranger in his
place.
Pepin. What is man like ?
Albinus. An apple (i.e. because he hangs between heaven and
earth).
It will be seen from these dialogues that while Alcuin,
like all the mediaeval scholars, knew something of the
classic tongues, he had lost entirely the classic spirit, and
indeed his knowledge was rather fanciful. Thus, in the
true spirit of a monk, he derived coelebs (a bachelor) from
cesium (heaven), and then gives the sapient explanation
that a bachelor is one who is on the way to heaven. The
parts of an hexameter line are called pedes because the
metres walk on them. Litlera is leg-entibus-iter, because
the litlera prepares the path for readers. Malus (a mast)
has the penult long, as against malus (with a short penult)
because a m&lus homo does not deserve to have a long a 1
The vowels are the souls of words, and the consonants are
the bodies. The soul moves itself and also the body,
THE MIDDLE AGES 223
while the body is immovable apart from the soul. Thus
the consonants may be written by themselves, but they
cannot be pronounced when separated from the vowels.
It is reported that x^lcuin forbade any one to read the
classic poets. So, while he did much to prepare for the
great revival of learning, five centuries later, his immediate
influence was rather harmful than otherwise. The cathe-
dral schools taught what they could, but even their
ablest scholars spent their time in constructing ingenious
but foolish Latin trifles to show their cleverness. Thus
they wrote for their own amusement what they called
echo'ici versus, or lines of poetry which read the same
both backward and forward, "serpentine verses" and
reciproci versus} It is interesting to know how many of the
classical writers were read at this time. Putting aside the
Church fathers, we have mention by Alcuin of Pliny,
Cicero, Vergil, Statius, Lucan, the grammarians, and
Horace.^ Where the classical writers were not locked up
in bookcases, they were sometimes paraphrased, or else
1 Examples of these are found even in the classical writers, as the follow-
ing from Sidonius : —
Praecipiti modo quod decurrit tramite flumen
Tempore consumptum iam cito deficiat.
(Epist. ix. 14.)
where the distich, if read backwards, word by word, gives a second distich.
^ This list is taken from a poetical account by Alcuin of the Library at
York. One might add also from other sources Juvenal, a part of Livy,
Martial, Ovid, a part of Persius, Phaedrus, Propertius, Seneca (in part),
Silius Italicus, two plays of Terence, Tibullus, and Valerius Flaccus.
2 24 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
centones, or patchwork variations, were made from them.
Thus, the conversation between Dido and Anna {Aeneid,
iv.) is imitated: —
Anna, dux
Mea lux,
Iste quis sit ambigo,
Quis honor,
Quis color,
Voltu quis intelligo ;
Ut reor,
Ut vereor,
Hunc nostra connubia
Poscere,
Id vere
Portendunt mea somnia.
If the learned had so little share of the classical spirit,
it is not hard to understand how dense was the ignorance
of the uneducated layman. The names and some faint
echo of the exploits of the heroes of antiquity still floated
through men's minds : Alexander the Great, as a remark-
able conqueror; Hector of Troy, as a bold knight and lover;
Helen, who set the town of Troy on fire; Vergil, as a power-
ful wizard who had once gone down into hell and told of
what he saw there (Aen. vi.) ; Venus, as a woman of wonder-
ful beauty, — these were all imperfect memories flitting
about in legends, and fabliaux, and minstrels' songs, and
all confused with tales of chivalry and magic, and forming
part of innumerable stories about giants and dragons and
dwarfs and demons, — specimens of which are faithfully
TEE MIDDLE AGES 225
preserved for us in the Gesta Romanorum/ and the Alex-
ander Saga, and faintly indicated in the Faustus-legend
and the Niebelungenlied.^ Even in Italy, where one
might suppose that the great architectural works of the
Romans would have kept their history in part alive, men
had forgotten it entirely, and explained the Colosseum, the
Palatium, the Pantheon, and the great triumphal arches
as the work of demons and sorcerers, much as the German
peasants of to-day speak of the Roman military works in
Wiirttemberg as Teufelsmauer. In Naples the carved
figures of Roman heroes, men, and statesmen were sup-
posed to be talismans. Many of these ancient structures
were ascribed to Vergil, who was said to have known a
spell so powerful as to compel devils to come from hell and
build for him.^ The wandering reprobates, known as
Goliardi, went about singing half-lyrical songs celebrating
love and wine.
Nevertheless, the Carolingian Age left deep traces upon
1 A collection of curious anecdotes borrowed from all sources and written
in Latin. Most of them have "morals" attached to them, and they are
written in almost childish Latin. Some of them in later centuries were
borrowed by Shakespeare, Chaucer, Gower, and Schiller for their plots or
themes. See the English version edited by Hooper (London, 1894) ; and
Howells, My Literary Passions, p. 14 (New York, 1895).
^'See Engel's bibliography of the older Faust-literature (Aldenburg,
1885) ; and for the Niebelungenhed, Lichtenberger, Le Poeme et la
Legende des Niebelungen (Paris, 1891).
' See Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages, pt. ii., Eng. trans. (London
and New York, 1895) , and Leland, The Unpublished Legends of Vergil,
(New York, 1900). On the Alexander-Saga, see Spiegel (Leipzig, 1851).
Q
226 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
mediasval Europe. Alcuin ^ may be said to have originated
the University of Paris; and his schools sent out teachers
into the far North, so that even Ireland became an im-
portant home of learning, with schools and abbeys and
monasteries of great repute. The oldest manuscript of
Horace (the Codex Bernensis) was undoubtedly copied by
an Irish monk in the eighth or ninth century, since on
the margin are found words written in the Erse or Irish
alphabet.
But the first impulse toward a revival of classical study
under Charles the Great died out within the period of a
few generations. The immediate reasons for this new
decadence is partly to be found in a superstition which
seized upon all Christendom in the tenth century. Men
were obsessed with the belief that the world was to
be destroyed in the year looo. With the horror of this
approaching dissolution before their eyes, — a horror
that deepened as every day brought them nearer and nearer
to the time of the expected cataclysm, — all learning fell into
absolute neglect. It is difficult for us to conceive of the
profound gloom that brooded over the peoples of Europe
as the thousandth year approached. Men ceased to build
^ See The Life of Alcuin by Lorenz, Eng. trans. (London, 1837) ;
West, Alcuin and the Rise of Christian Schools (New York, 1892) ; Mul-
linger, The Schools of Charles the Great (London, 1877) ; Rashdall, The
Universities of Europe during the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1895) ; Putnam,
Books and their Makers during the Middle Ages, i. (New York, 1896) ;
and Sandys, op. cit., i. 466, 497.
THE MIDDLE AGES 227
houses, to buy, or to sell. They forsook their domestic du-
ties and betook themselves to the churches and the shrines
of the saints; all worldly interests were swallowed up in the
great dread that oppressed their souls. When the dreadful
year arrived, it brought with it everything that could
heighten and intensify the universal terror. A hideous
plague broke out, the crops failed, the very seasons seemed
to have been checked in their courses. Such imperfect
accounts as have come down to us of that period give us,
as it were, only glimpses of the fearful scenes that were
enacted, — the wailing of women, the prayers of the priests,
the lamentations of the diseased, many becoming mad
with fright, half-naked fanatics stalking through the streets
of cities and invoking damnation upon the wicked; while
those lost souls whose own sins had driven them to despair
of pardon threw off all restraint and with a sort of blas-
phemous defiance plunged into every form of lust and
crime. When the year looi was ushered in, and the
world remained still unvisited by the angel of death, a
great reaction came. Many went back to their old life;
but the Church, with a profound feeling of gratitude and
relief, resolved to signalise the respite by a new activity.
It is to this fresh enthusiasm that the second impulse
toward a revival of study must be traced.
A whole century, however, elapsed before much progress
had been made; but with the end of the eleventh century
the great movement known as Scholasticism was fully
228 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
under way. Scholasticism was rather an intellectual
than an aesthetic development. Its chief features are
dialectic and not philological. The whole movement re-
volves about the philosophical question of Realism and
Nominalism; but this discussion, while it sharpened men's
wits and made them acute in reasoning, was, after all, little
better than the labour that is done in a treadmill; for the
schoolmen were not free to question anything fundamental.
The Church prescribed for them a ready-made solution of
every great philosophical problem, so that the dialecticians
and casuists of the Middle Ages were only travelling in a
circle, making no progress at all, but only vexing their souls
and beating against the bars of an intellectual cage. This
narrowness and lack of freedom became more and more
oppressive as time went on, and more and more vexatious
to the bolder spirits of the age.
Tlie time from the eighth century to the fourteenth is
divisible into two periods, viewed from the standpoint of
classical learning. The first period begins at the end of
the eighth century when Charles the Great established
Monastic Schools, and made the first attempt, probably in
the history of the world, to provide for a universal gratui-
tous primary education, and for Higher Schools. This
period is a short one, inasmuch as the educational establish-
ments of Charles died out within a few generations to make
way for a new barbarism. The second period begins with
a second restoration of learning under the guidance of
THE MIDDLE AGES 229
Scholasticism — a period which saw the Founding of the
Great Universities. This second revival of learning was
not, however, permanent, and the new love of study again
decayed and was followed by the Renaissance, that final im-
pulse toward liberal culture which forms the beginning of
all modern educational history. These three revivals of
learning, which were really revivals of classical study, were
each stronger than its predecessor, and each prepared the
way to some extent for the next. The first, under Charle-
magne and Alcuin, though it lasted but a short time, left a
body of men devoted to teaching, and gave some slight
degree of continuity down to the founding of the universities,
as Professor West observes, ''so sheltering studies in various
monasteries and cathedrals that some of the greater schools,
thus kept alive, afterwards became natural receptacles for
the new university life of the next age."
The first of these periods just mentioned was marked by
a more systematic study of the Latin language. The im-
portance of grammar began now to be recognised as the
only safeguard against the absolute corruption of that
tongue. One of the great French monastic schools took
for its motto the sentence. In onini doctrina grammatica
praecedit. Its study was made the basis and starting-
point of all secular learning, and the minuteness with
which it was pursued proved an admirable corrective to the
slovenly carelessness in the use of Latin which had marked
the ecclesiastical writings of the preceding centuries.
230 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
In the twelfth century three great schools survived of the
numerous establishments founded by Charles the Great,
and are distinguished for their influence in the preservation
of classical learning. These were at Laon, at Paris, and
at Chartres. In them a number of famous teachers
ushered in the scholastic period and did much to keep alive
the forms at least of pure Latinity. Of these three schools,
the School of Chartres is the most remarkable because its
interest was less theological and dialectical than literary,
so much so that Poole justly says of it that its character
was that of " a premature humanism." Associated with
it are the names of Fulbert, whose pupils styled him "Soc-
rates," and who died in 1029;^ of St. Bernard (1091-1153);
and of Abelard (1079-1142), who boldly appealed to reason
as against authority and thus foreshadowed freedom of
speech and of research, which ultimately became the watch-
word of the nascent universities.^
In this school Bernard of Chartres composed hexam-
eters on the model of Lucretius, wrote a commentary
on the first six books of the Aeneid, and drilled his pupils
* Not the canon associated with the story of Abelard and Heloise.
The great Fulbert was bishop of Chartres.
^ See the biography of St. Bernard by Sparrow-Simpson (London, 1895) ;
McCabe, Peter Abelard (New York, 1901) ; and Compayre, Abelard
and the Origin and Early History of Universities (New York, 1893).
St. Bernard, the great controversialist and mystic, is usually called
Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard the writer of beautiful hymns is
known as Bernard of Cluny. The two men were, however, contem-
poraneous.
THE MIDDLE AGES 23 1
in the forms and rules of grammar as he understood them,
introducing, at an early period of the course, the reading
of the classical texts. Upon these he commented freely,
besides treating them grammatically, pointing out the
difference between the prose and the poetic style, and de-
veloping his system in a way that suggests the enlightened
methods of a later age. Everyday exercises in prose and
verse composition were required, and an insistence upon
good models marked his teaching. One of his maxims,
which has been quoted by John of Salisbury, is significant
of the originality of his mind : '' Among the virtues of the
grammarian this is one, to he ignorant of some things."
These schools, as has been already said, formed centres
about which ultimately rose the earliest Universities. Any
cathedral school which boasted of the presence of a famous
teacher drew to it a crowd of students, such an institution
being called at first studium generale. These finally re-
ceived a sort of incorporation by papal bulls and royal
charters, with the power of perpetuating themselves by en-
dowing their graduates with the right of teaching every-
where. This license to teach was the origin of the academic
degree, and as soon as the studium generale had become a
corporation it received the name of Universitas. Perhaps
the oldest university was that of Bologna, which was
founded in 1093, while Paris had a separately organised
teaching body as early as 1169. Oxford became a univer-
sity at about the same time ; Cambridge, perhaps a little
232 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
earlier. The oldest German university is that of Prague,
whose foundation dates from 1347. During the whole
period of scholasticism which practically ends in the thir-
teenth century, while the Latin language was greatly used
as a medium of communication and while its general forms
were studied, it cannot be said that the classics were either
read or appreciated outside of a few centres like that of
Chartres. The teaching of the age was as narrow as its
thought. Latin was studied only as a vehicle for scholastic
disputation. It was spoken fluently by all scholars, but
the classics were very little read; while the vocabulary of
the language was filled with a swarm of new words and
expressions partly theological and philosophical, and partly
legal and political.^ The only persons who kept alive the
older classical tradition were a few Italians who left Italy
and established themselves in various parts of Western
Europe. Among these were Anselm, who became Arch-
bishop of Canterbury in the year 1093, and whose prede-
cessor Lanfranc, together with men who, like John of
Salisbury and a few of the French scholars, still knew
something of the Latin of ancient Italy.
That so many manuscripts have survived to us dating
from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, is due to no wide-
spread love of classical learning, but rather to the fact that
' Cf. such words as nominalismus, mater ialismus, realismus, quidditas,
haeceitas, and see Du Cange's Glossarium ad Scriptores Mediae et Infinae
Latinitatis (last ed., 1884 foil.), passim.
THE MIDDLE AGES 233
in the monasteries copying was imposed upon the monks
by way of penance. There was also a certain pride in pos-
sessing books, irrespective of any desire to read them.
This pride was wholly the pride of the collector and not at
all the pride of the scholar; nevertheless, to it is largely due
the preservation of such manuscripts as we now possess.
Among these storehouses in which were hoarded the
treasures of classic literature, are especially to be noted
the libraries of Monte Cassino, Naples, Bologna, Milan,
and Bobbio in Italy; Fleury, Tours, Cluny, Mont-
pellier, Chartres, Grenoble, Lille, Liege, Paris, Marseilles,
and Caen in France; Augsburg, Freystadt, Strasburg,
Leipzig, Wiirzburg, Mainz, Konigsberg, Zweibriicken, in
Germany; Leyden, Utrecht, and Dordrecht in Holland;
St. Gallen in Switzerland; Copenhagen in Denmark;
Stockholm in Sweden; Seville and Saragossa in Spain;
and Oxford, Cambridge, Salisbury, and York in Eng-
land.^ So true was the remark ascribed to Geoffrey
of Sainte-Barbe-en-Auge: Claustrum sine armario (est)
quasi castrum sine armamentario. It may interest the
reader to see which are the oldest classical codices now
extant :
^ See Clark, Libraries in the Medicsval and Renaissance Period (Cam-
bridge, 1894) ; Dugdale, Monasticum Anglicaniim, 8 vols. (London, 1849) ;
Wattenbach, Das Schriflwesen imMitldaller (Leipzig, 1875) J Deschamps,
Dictionnaire de Geographic a VUsagc du Libraire (Paris, 1870) ; Wehle,
Das Buck (Leipzig, 1879) ; and Putnam, op. cit. (New York, 1896-97).
234 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
A List of Some of the Oldest Classical Manuscripts '
I. Greek.
a. Fragments of Euripides' Antiope and Plato's Phcsdo, 250 B.C.
(Flinders Petrie Papyri, ed. Mahaffy, Dublin Academy,
1890.) The oldest specimens of a classical text known.
h. A few lines of the XL Iliad (ante-Aristarchean and non-
Zenodotean), 240 B.C.
c. Louvre Fragmenta of Euripides, second century B.C.
d. Alcman, second to first century, B.C. (Paris).
e. Iliad fragmenta (Banks, Harris), second century B.C.
/. Papyri from Hcrculaneum, 79 a.d. (Epicurus, Philodemus).
?. Aristotle. 1 _.
7 ^^ , „ , ,. , \ First to second century a.d.
h. Herodas, Bacchylides. J
i. Menander (discovered in Egypt, 1905).
k. Hyperides, 150 a.d. (London, Paris).
/. Berlin fragments of the Melanippe of Euripides, third to
fourth century.
m. Pap3T:us fragments of Isocrates, fourth century (Marseilles).
n. Codex Ambrosianus of the Iliad (Milan) .
0. Codex Vaticanus of Dio Cassius.
p. Euripides' Phaeton, and Menander, Fragments.
q. Fragmenta of Aristoph., Birds (Paris).
n. Latin.
c. Fragments of the Younger Seneca, first century (Hercu-
laneum) .
b. Manuscript of Vergil, fourth to fifth century (chiefly Flor-
ence, Vatican).
c. Fragmenta of Sallust's Historic^, third to fourth century
(Orleans).
d. Codex Bembinus of Terence, fourth to fifth century (Vatican).
e. Codex Puteaneus of Livy, sixth to seventh century (Paris).
1 Many of the dates in this list are conjectural, though agreed upon
by scholars.
Fifth to
sixth
century.
THE MIDDLE AGES 235
Palimpsest.
Juvenal and Persius, fragmenta in codice Vaticano, third to
fourth century.
Codex Veronensis and Codex Vaticanus of Livy.
Lucan (Vienna, Naples, Rome), fourth century.
Cicero's De Republica, fourth to fifth century (Vatican).
Cicero in Verrem, fragmenta in Codice Vaticano, fifth century.
Gaius, fifth century (Verona).
Platus (Codex Ambrosianus), fifth to sixth century (Milan).
Gellius and Seneca, fragmenta, fifth to sixth century (Vatican).
Fronto, fragmenta, fourth to sixth century (Vatican, Milan).
Livy, fragmenta (Vienna), fifth century.
It has been said that most of the codices preserved in
these and other libraries were, for the most part, Latin
and not Greek. By the eighth century, Greek, even as a
tradition, had faded from the memory of Western Europe.
Hellenic literature was little more known at that time than
was Sanskrit down to the end of the eighteenth century.
The names of Greek poets, philosophers, and statesmen
were familiar only from the mention of them in Latin
authors. Their actual personality, their time and country,
and their places in history, were all a blank. Thus we
find Smaragdus, a mediaeval grammarian, so ignorant of
the meanings of Greek words as to think that Eunuchus
Comosdia and Orestes Tragcedia were the names of authors.^
1 Almost the only exception to this general ignorance of Greek is to be
found in Ireland, whither Greek was probably brought from Gaul in the
fifth century. The Irish schools were admirably conducted, and for a
time the country was unmolested by the dwellers upon the Continent.
While in Gaul and Germany and Italy there was continual strife and
236 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Even when a little Greek had filtered its way into the knowl-
edge of the mediaevals they used it to vitiate and render
barbarous the Latin which they wrote. Thus, the gram-
marian, Vergilius Maro, in the seventh century (whose
preceptor wrote a work in which he discusses twelve kinds
of Latin), coined new words on the analogy of the Greek.
For example, scribere was supplanted by charaxare, while
rex became thors (from 6p6vo<i)^ so that the mixture of
Greek with Latin and the garbling of Latin forms to re-
semble Greek, resulted in an argot which is difficult to
understand and which might well have justified the theory
that there were t\velve kinds of Latin, or, indeed, as many
kinds of Latin as there were monks who knew a little
Greek. There remains a composition by an Irish monk *
which contains the sentence : ' Pantes ' solitiim elahorant
agrestes ' orgiiim,' two out of the five words being Greek.
These are only a few of the quaint things that were con-
ceived by the mediaeval grammarians, who made even a
deeper darkness out of a glimpse of daylight. Thus we
hear of long discussions on what was the vocative of ego,
and of furious debaters rushing at one another with drawn
swords because they could not agree as to inchoative verbs.^
a deepening of intellectual darkness, Irish scholars preserved the older
learning and carried it to Bobbie and Pa via and St. Gallen. See Cramer,
De Gracis M edii Mvi Studiis , i. 24 (London, 1849); Hyde, A Literary
History of Ireland (Dublin, 1899) ; Newell, St. Patrick, his Life and
Teachings (London, 1890) ; and Bury, Life of St. Patrick (Cambridge, 1905).
^ Hisperica Famtna, edited by Stovvasser (1887).
* See Sandys, op. cit. i. p. 450, with the references there given.
THE MIDDLE AGES 237
Another thing that interested the mediaeval scholars, as
it had the Romans and even the Aristotelian Greeks,
was the so-called Liberal Arts {artes liberales) . Aristotle ^
made a distinct division between the liberal and the
practical or technical arts. Varro and Cicero carried
over the distinction to Roman culture, and Varro set
forth nine subjects which made up the training of the
Roman gentleman {liher homo). These nine were gram-
mar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astrology, mu-
sic, medicine, and architecture.^ The later Romans,
under Alexandrian influence, sought to lessen the number
of liberal arts, and it is probable that they dropped medi-
cine and architecture, though we have no direct proof
of this. About the beginning of the Middle Ages, the
Western Church, which had at first discouraged liberal
studies on the ground that they were pagan, gradually
came to cultivate them because they ministered to the
higher spiritual truth. In this the Church was, curiously
enough, going back to Aristotle, and even to Solon, who
taught that ixovaiKri or liberal culture is the training of the
soul. St. Augustine (a.d. 354-430) altered the number
of the liberal arts, so that his category contained only
seven; and in this he was followed by the famous gram-
marian, Martianus Capella, a native of Africa, but a teacher
at Rome, where he wrote, somewhat earlier than a.d. 439,
a sort of educational allegory called De Nuptiis Philo-
logicB et Mercurii.
* Politics, viii. i. * Ritschl, Opiisc. iii. 371,
238 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
This work is as important in the history of prose
fiction as it is in the history of education; for its author
dragged fiction into the service of grammar and tried to
sugar-coat the pill of philology with myth and story.
Martianus strikes out medicine and architecture on the
ground that they are utilitarian studies.^ In Boethius we
find a separation of the liberal arts into t\vo groups : first
arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, which form
what was afterwards called the Quadrivium ; while gram-
mar, rhetoric, and logic form a trio which was soon known
as the Trivium. Cassiodorus wrote a work upon the
liberal arts, fixing the number at seven and even asserting
that this number had a mystical meaning, since he quoted
the text: " Wisdom hath builded her house; she hath
hewn out her seven pillars." ^ This classification and
this mystical interpretation of the number seven continue ^
down through the writings of Isidorus,^ and was especially
favoured by Alcuin^ and by Alcuin's pupil, Rabanus
Maurus.® This famous teacher (whose name is also written
Hrabanus) was bom at IMainz, of which city he was later
made Archbishop. Studying under Alcuin, he compiled
1 Martianus (ed. by Eyssenhardt, pp. 332 and 336).
^ Prov. ix. I.
^ Seven was a mystic number, not only among the Jews, but among all
the great nations of antiquity. See an interesting chapter on the subject
in Hadley, Essays (New York, 1873).
* Supra, p. 190. ' Supra, pp. 220-223.
* His collected works are to be found in Migne's Patrologia Latina,
vols, cvii-cxii. Cf. the monographs by Kohler (1870) and Richter (1882).
THE MIDDLE AGES 239
an abridgment of the Latin grammar of Priscianus which
was much used throughout the Middle Ages. He is a
connecting hnk in the development of classical study, as
are his own pupils Rudolphus and Trithemius, who wrote
biographies of their master which can be found in Migne's
Patrologia.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, there appears the
remarkable figure of Roger Bacon,^ an Englishman born
at Ilchester, educated at Oxford and Paris, and finally
enrolled in the Franciscan Order. In his writings one can
find that clearness of vision and keenness of criticism
which were inimical to scholastic teaching. Bacon reaches
out and figuratively clasps hands with men of modern
times. His chief works are the Opus Mains, the Opus
Minus, and the Opus Tertium (fragmentary). He also
wrote a compendium on philosophy and another on
theology. His originality gave great force to his learn-
ing, which was beyond that of any contemporary. He
thought much, and he set down what he thought in a
vigorous style and with a certain audacity which was rare
among his fellows. So far in advance was he of others
in the sphere of physics, that in his own time he was re-
garded as a sort of wizard or necromancer. It is likely
that he had a knowledge of gunpowder and that he had
experimented with the steam-engine as well as with a
number of chemical compounds. Taking up his doctrines
1 C. 1 2 14-1294.
240 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
briefly, we may note that he criticised the Fathers for
Epending too little time in studying the ancient languages,
and thus by neglect of them failing to understand the
wisdom of the ancients. Furthermore, he declared that
no perfect knowledge of the Scriptures can be had without
knowing Hebrew and Greek, or that philosophy can be
thoroughly pursued without studying Arabic/ All current
translations are inaccurate, because the translators are not
familiar with foreign words and leave many of them
standing in the text; whereas Bacon says very acutely,
that a translator ought to be familiar, not only with the
language that he is translating and also his own language,
but likewise with the subject to which the text relates.
These are golden words, and they deserve the serious at-'
tention of modern publishers.
Bacon says that there are not five men in the Western
world who are acquainted with Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic
grammar. He shrewdly notes the difference between
having a purely colloquial knowledge of any language and
a knowledge which is scientific, which goes down to the
very foundations, and which is therefore the knowledge of
a philosophical linguist. Bacon, consequently, insists upon
grammar, grammar, and still more grammar; and in this
he is the forerunner of a philological school of modern
times. He criticises even the errors of translation to be
^ Referring to the Arabic translations of Aristotle of which the originals
were practically unavailable to the Western world.
THE MroDLE AGES 241
found in the Vulgate, and he hits hard those critic-
asters who have ventured to change the text. He says:
" Every one has the impertinence to alter whatever he
does not understand — a thing which he would not do in
the case of classical poets." Here, Bacon drops a hint
or two for the criticism of the texts of the Scriptures, —
hints that were to be fruitful in the time of Valla and
Erasmus.^
Bacon was by no means one who merely criticises the
work of others. He showed his interest in grammatical
study by writing a Greek grammar, a manuscript of which,
now in the library at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, has
the Greek characters beautifully written and contains a
short Greek accidence ending with a paradigm of the verb
rvirra).^ A Greek lexicon has also been ascribed to
Bacon. Nevertheless there was little Greek known to the
scholars of that time, and at Oxford so much of Aristotle
as was read was read in a Latin translation. It is worthy
of remembrance that another Franciscan, the famous
traveller, Raimundus Lullius, tried to persuade, first the
Pope and then the University of Paris, to establish a school
of oriental languages (Greek, Arabic, and the Tartar
^ It is worth noting that an Oxford scholar of this time spent forty
years in correcting and explaining the Vulgate. Cf. Martin, La Vulgate
Laiine an xiii s. d'apres Roger Bacon (Paris, 1888) ; and Gasquet in the
Dublin Review for January, 1898.
2 Dr. Sandys observes {op. cit. i. p. 595) that "Bacon's own knowledge
of Greek was mainly derived from the Greeks of his time, and it is their
pronunciation that he invariably adopts."
242 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
dialects) , thus anticipating the great oriental schools which
thrive to-day at Paris and Berlin.^ Bacon's opuscula,
gathered from the fragments of his minor work, are very
interesting as showing his unusual mental activity. He
had a sort of glossary of Latin words derived from the
Greek. He corrects a number of common errors in spell-
ing, quantity, and etymology. He tells some anecdotes,
as, for instance, that he himself has seen the Greek text
of the fifty books of Aristotle's Natural History, mentioned
by Pliny (viii. p. 17), and altogether takes us back to the
many-sided curiosity of Aulus Gellius.^ Altogether he is
very fairly described by Hallam in a single sentence : " The
mind of Roger Bacon was strangely compounded of almost
prophetic gleams of the future course of science and the
best principles of the inductive philosophy, with a more
than usual credulity in the superstitions of his own
time." '
Mediasvalism is something very difficult to understand,
and many views are taken of it. Its spirit, when properly
apprehended, was certainly not a spirit of desolation and
decay. It sprang out of the ruins of antique greatness
1 Rashdall, op. cit. ii. p. 96.
^ See supra, p. 188.
' There is an edition of Bacon's works edited by Brewer (London,
1859). A very excellent and comprehensive study of Bacon is that by
Charles (Paris, 1861) ; and a later monograph by Parrot, Roger Bacon, sa
Personne, son Genie, ses CEuvres el ses Contemporains (Paris, 1894). His
Greek grammar was published, with notes and an introduction, by the
University of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1892).
THE MIDDLE AGES 243
from which it drew much of its own loiowledge, though
often without any consciousness of its value. The Middle
Ages appear to some as having been wholly a time of
gloom when intellectual pursuits were discouraged, partly
through lack of loiowledge, and partly by the discourage-
ment which came from an almost savage environment,
pierced only here and there by rays of light and glints of
colour. Yet in reality the true Middle Ages were very
different from this description. There was a gradual pro-
cess of assimilation, by which the highest thought of an-
tiquity was to be transformed into something different
and new. So we have the blending of the pagan past
and the Christian present, combining what was beautiful
in the antique world with what was spiritual in the Chris-
tian teaching. As we look at Mediaevalism it often shocks
us, since so much raw brutality was everywhere in con-
tact with that which was in the end to master it. We
seem at first to be standing on the borders of a dark and
almost fearful waste, from within which v/e can hear the
rending sound of continuous devastation. Yet when we
give our patient study to it, we grow conscious that the
process is not one of destruction, but rather of germi-
nation. Instead of a chilling cold, there is something
warm and stimulating, that is always noticeable.
Thus its Art may have been rude, yet the originality
of it has appealed most strongly to artists of modem times,
while the grandeur of its Gothic architecture attains the
244 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
height of the sublime. Even its Philosophy, as wrought
out by the scholastics, has been revived and has flourished
for two centuries, not merely within the great schools of the
Catholic Church, but among men of every mode of thought,
from Kant to Leo XIII.^ As to the political side — the
clash of principalities and powers and the almost incessant
strife of kings and popes and mercantile communities, —
Professor J. W. Burgess has admirably written : —
"Men have been wont to call the Middle Ages, 'Dark Ages.' On
the contrary, they are full of light. In them the great questions
of the relationship of individual right to political right, of local
government to central government, and of ecclesiastical govern-
ment to secular government, were raised and drawn into conscious
consideration. Had the European empire of Charlemagne been
perpetuated, Europe might have become a second China, but would
never have been what it is — viz.,' the source of the civilization of
the modern world. The unceasing conflicts of the Middle Ages
between private right and public law, local government and central
government, state authority and Church authority, were necessary
to bring men out from under the monotony of slavish subjection
to the artificial, external Church-state system of the Carlovingian
empire, and develop them by the antagonism of thought and will
into the power of producing systems more reflected and more free."
In Letters and Learning, we owe a great debt to the
Middle Ages. For a time, the fanaticism of the Early
Church destroyed much; but from the eighth century a
^ See Picavet's remarkable monograph entitled Esquisse d'une Histoire
Generate et Comparee des Civilisalions Medievales (Paris, 1905) ; and
Perrier, The Revival of Scholastic Philosophy (New York, 1909). See also
AJlbutt, Science and Mediccval Thought, pp. 72, 78 foil. (London, 1895).
THE MIDDLE AGES 245
great deal was done to preserve and transmit the classical
tradition, although by no means in the classical spirit.
The use of Latin as a lingua franca, even in a corrupted
form, made of it a thread that pierced the mazes of the
mediaeval labyrinth. One recalls the names of the great
hymn writers, of the great teachers, from Alcuin and his im-
mediate pupils, such as Rabanus Maurus, who lectured at
Fulda, Servatus Lupus, Walafrid, who was in literature the
precursor of Dante,' John of Salisbury, who was a mighty
figure in English classical scholarship, Joseph of Exeter,
Albertus Magnus,^ Thomas Aquinas, his favourite pupil,
and finally Roger Bacon himself, who stands, as it were,
not far from Dante in the first faint light of the com-
ing Renaissance. As we have seen, many of the Latin
classics were read in part and some of them in their entirety.
Many that were not read were nevertheless copied in the
monastic scriptoria. Of those ancients who were well
known (in addition to the Fathers) are Terence, Horace
(who was much admired by Alcuin), Ovid, to whom many
spurious poems were ascribed, Lucan, who was supposed
to be an authority on geography and astrology, Statius,
Martial, Juvenal, who with Persius was esteemed for his
stern morality, Cicero, of course, with the younger Seneca,
the Elder Pliny, Quintilian, Cornelius Nepos, Caesar,
Sallust, Livy, Suetonius, and the historical anecdotes of
^ See Ker, The Dark Ages, p. 159 (New York, 1904).
* See d'Assailly, Albert le Grand (Paris, 1870).
246 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Valerius Maximus. The fragment of Petronius De Bello
Civili was fairly well known, and was used for reading in
the schools. Of all the classics, Vergil held the foremost
place largely because he was believed to have been one
of the " Christians before Christ."
As to the adjuncts of classical literature, there was the
small grammar of Donatus ^ and many compilations of
Priscian's great work, of which there exist to-day more
than a thousand manuscripts. Sometimes bits of text
were quoted in illustration of the rules of grammar, though
this was unusual.^ There were also produced a number
of lexicons, or rather glossaries and vocabularies. The
mediaeval teachers used to dictate to their students word-
lists which were carefully copied and then often abridged,
corrected, and enlarged according as they passed from one
possessor to another. One of these glossaries, compiled
as early as the ninth century, has been edited with a com-
mentary, while containing also the substance of twelve
others. Something like a genuine lexicon was produced
by one Papias, the Lombard scholar, about 1063, though
it was in reality a sort of encyclopaedia. The Low Latin
word Dictionarium did not come into use for a long time.
^ Supra, p. 184.
* See the monograph on grammar contained in I. Miiller's Handbuch,
V. i (Leipzig, 1902).
' Gottingen, 1854. See also the elaborate description of mediaeval
glossaries in Lowe, Prodromus Glossarioriim Latinonim (Leipzig, 1876).
A collection of these glossaries was begun in 1876 by Goetz under the
patronage of the Royal Literary Society of Saxony.
THE MIDDLE AGES 247
Papias called his own dictionary, Elementarium Doc-
trincB Erudimentum. It circulated in manuscript until
after the invention of printing, when it was issued at Venice
in 1491. In the twelfth century an English monk, Osbom
of Gloucester, made an attempt at an etymological diction-
ary, which he called Panorama. About the year 1200,
Hugutio, Bishop of Ferrara, compiled a Liher Deriva-
tionum. Eighty-six years later, the two works last men-
tioned were used by Balbi of Genoa, who based on them
his famous Catholicon, which was not only a manual of
grammar, but also of rhetoric and criticism, with a rather
extensive lexicon of ecclesiastical Latin, These were the
best dictionaries known to the Middle Ages/
Thus far we have regarded the Middle Ages wholly in
their relation to the history of Western civilization, from
the downfall of the Western Empire to the beginning of the
thirteenth century. It remains for us to consider here
the Eastern or Byzantine Empire (also called New Rome) ,
which had its seat at Constantinople (Byzantium) and
which outlived the Western Empire by more than a thou-
sand years. The Eastern Empire was practically estab-
lished in A.D. 330, when Constantine made Byzantium the
capital of the whole Roman world; but the actual breach
between the East and West came in a.d. 395. In that year
* See the monograph on Lexicography in I. Miiller's Handhuch, i.
(Nordlingen, 1902) ; De Vit, Preface to the Lexicon of Forcellini (Prato,
1879) ; Mahn, Darstellimg der Lexicographic nach alien ihreti Seiien
(Rudolstadt, 181 7).
248 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the Roman Empire was divided between the two sons of
Theodosius. Arcadius took the Eastern half, with his
capital at Constantinople, while Honorius received the
Western half, with his capital at Rome. The long and
tangled history of the Eastern Empire is the record of
constant strife, sedition, folly, treachery, misgovemment,
and murder. Thus it has been neglected until the last few
years. Even Gibbon called it " a tedious and uniform
tale of weakness and misery." Montesquieu sweepingly
declared that " the history of the Greek Empire from
Phocas on was merely a succession of revolts, schisms,
and treacheries." Taine vividly condemned it as being
" a gigantic mouldiness, lasting a thousand years."
It has been computed that of the 107 persons who ruled
from 395 to 1453 (when Constantinople was stormed by
the Turks), 20 were murdered, 18 were mutilated, 12 died
in a monastery or a prison, 12 abdicated, 3 starved to
death, 8 died in warfare — in all, 73 out of 107 met with
violence or disgrace. Perhaps the best excuse for the
existence of the Byzantine Empire is found in the fact
that it formed for centuries a barrier between Asia and
Western Europe, so that the latter had time to attain cohe-
sion and a sort of unity of purpose, to develop a new
civilisation and the military power necessary to repel
wild hordes, such as the Saracens whom Charles Martel
shattered at Tours in the eighth century, or the Turks who
were hurled back from Vienna in the sixteenth century.
THE MIDDLE AGES 249
If we look more carefully into the history of Byzantium
in its later years, we shall find that while religious schisms,
civil wars, and violence of every kind shook it to its centre,
there are everywhere traces of the older Roman spirit,
surviving and making themselves visible. Indeed, the
history of Old Rome is very largely a history of civil war,
and so we must not be surprised that New Rome showed
many of the same characteristics. It differed from Old
Rome in being far more oriental. Its rulers were despots;
its people were, as has been said of the Parisians, " half
tiger and half ape." In other words, princes and populace
alike alternated between the most childish amusements
and the most bloody strife.^ Yet, it had the Roman power
of assimilation, and of recuperation after periods of ex-
hausting warfare. Some of its emperors, such as Con-
stantine Copronymus (741-773), were great soldiers and
organised more effective armies than the world had yet
seen. The boundaries of the Empire were extended, both
in Asia and Europe. Again and again the administration
was reformed and commerce stimulated. Against the
Hungarians, the Turks, the Armenians, and the Bulgars,
successful wars were waged.' Byzantium itself was a
1 For a diverting account of life in Byzantium, see Marrast, Esquisses
Byzanlines (Paris, 1874).
2 See Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by
Bury (Cambridge, 1899); Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire
(London, 1890) ; and Oman, The Story of the Byzantine Empire (London
and New York, 1892).
250 HISTORY or CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
magnificent city. Rome on the Tiber was ransacked to
make the new capital deserve the title of " Imperial."
Statues and paintings and jewels gleamed and flashed in
all its public buildings. Its architecture has been styled
" the complete monumental expression of Greek Chris-
tendom," It was the Greek architectural genius which
chose the Roman dome as its fundamental unit/in place of
the wooden roof, and then, by using lofty piers, was able
to suspend the dome and use it with any kind of ground-
plan. Domes were even multiplied at will; and this (with
semi-domes) is characteristic of the Byzantine architecture
wherever it can be found, especially in the great master-
pieces of St. Sophia and the Church of the Apostles in
Constantinople, as well as in many churches in Russia,
Northern Italy, and Asia Minor. In fact, the Byzantine
types were Grasco-Asiatic in their origin, and this is
why they suggest at once an Orientalism which we can trace
in almost everything which the Eastern Empire originated.
As for other forms of art, there are few remains of
Byzantine Sculpture, partly because there existed, first,
an oriental lack of skill in drawing the figure, and second,
because many of the Greek Christians were iconoclastic
in the literal sense. Fresco-painting, Mosaic, and Panel-
painting were practised by the artists of Byzantium.
Most of the frescoes and panels have now disappeared.
It is only from the mosaics made prior to the tAvelfth cen-
tury that modem archaeologists can get any good idea of
THE MIDDLE AGES 251
the early Byzantine painting. We know, however, that it
greatly influenced the Christian artists throughout the
Middle Ages, and it was felt even in the later frescoes in the
catacombs at Rome. Toward the middle of the eleventh
century, the Italian States and the Norman Kingdom at
the South imported Byzantine artists in mosaic who trained
Italian pupils and thus spread the Byzantine influence
throughout Italy, It is in the Minor Arts, however, which
have to do with decoration, such as the illuminating of
manuscripts with gorgeous colours, ivory carving, tapestry
weaving, rug-making, and the carving of cameos, together
with embossing, chasing, and enamelling the most exqui-
site bits of gold work, that the skill of the Byzantine artists
was supreme.^
Byzantine Literature has in itself (with one excep-
tion) ^ very little to interest any one save the historian.
Scholars and priests of Byzantium wrote innumerable
tracts and controversial treatises, which have mostly per-
ished, as they deserved to do. The Byzantine Histo-
rians form a group of writers who busied themselves
with the history of the Eastern Empire down to its
destruction by the Turks, and there were some who
kept on writing even after that. Five of them have con-
siderable value. These are Zonaras, Nicetas, Nicephorus,
1 See Texier and Pullan, Byzantine Architecture (London, 1894) ;
Essenwein, Byzantinische Baukunst (Darmstadt, 1896) ; Bayet, L'Art
Byzantin (Paris, 1892).
2 See infra, pp. 254-257.
252 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Chalcondylas, and Procopius. The first four of these
give a continuous history of the Byzantine Empire from
its beginning down to the year 1470. Procopius is noted
as a collector of scandalous stories which he jotted down
in his Anecdota, or " secret history." In it he gives his
private notes relating to the court-life with which he was
very intimate; and the book reminds one of some of the
French memoirs which reveal to us the piquant sayings
and doings of the French court under the old regime.
This book of Procopius was not published until after his
death. It is written in a fresh and interesting style, and in
consequence has been read more than almost any other
production of the Byzantine historians.^ There are
fifteen other writers of Byzantine history whose united
works are published with a Latin translation in the Corpus
Scriptorum Historice ByzantincE?
Really remarkable among the Byzantine writings is
the codification of the Roman Law made by the Byzantine
lawyer, Tribonianus, an Asiatic Greek, at the command of
the Emperor lustinianus. It was a collection of authori-
1 For a separate edition of Procopius, including his orations, the
reader is referred to Dindorf, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1838). There is an old and
rare translation of Procopius into English by Holcroft (London, 1663).
The most amusing or startling passages of Procopius were transferred by
Gibbon to the footnotes of his Decline and Fall.
'In 36 vols., edited by Labbe (Paris, 1711; reprinted at Venice in
1733)- A similar collection in 48 vols, was begun at Bonn in 1828, but
is badly executed, although parts of it were done by such distinguished
scholars as Niebuhr, Bekker, and the brothers Dindorf.
THE MIDDLE AGES 253
ties, and to it we owe the treasures of ancient jurisprudence
which must otherwise have been lost. The whole has been
known since the sixteenth century as the Corpus luris
Civilis.^
It will thus be seen that so much of the literature of the
Eastern Empire as has been preserved was of a formal
and not very artistic character. Doubtless the populace
had its own ephemeral prose and verse, of which there are
some fragments left, — for instance, in the so-called politici
versus (a-Tixoi ttoXitlkoi) written in popular metres,
and the cheap novels composed by Theodorus Prodromus
of Constantinople. He was imitated by Nicetas Euge-
nianus, and there are also eleven books on the adventures
of Hysmine and Hysminias, which are perhaps the original
source of the world-famous story of Don Juan.^
To Byzantine Scholarship, Classical Philology owes an
enduring debt. The learned men of Byzantium lacked
originality, but they had the gift of patience to an ex-
traordinary degree. Like the historians, they were tireless
in collecting scraps and fragments, in making up excerpts
and compilations, and in this way preserving the wealth of
rich material for modem times. Almost all their material
was derived at second hand, whether it was lexicographic,
^ It is in four parts, known as (a) Codex I usiinianeus ; (b) Pandectoe or
Digesta; {c) Institutiones ; (d) Novellas, this last mostly written in Greek.
Edited by Moramsen and others.
^ See Waxman, The Don Juan Legend in Literature, in Journal of
American Folk-Lore (April, Sept.), 1908.
254 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
historical, or etymological. Thus Photius (c. 820-c. 891)
wrote many things, among them two volumes which
are of great service to the student of the Greek language
and literature. He was sent as an ambassador to Assyria
and beguiled his stay there by making abstracts of 280
books, many of which are now lost. Sometimes he varied/
his abstracts by criticisms and comments so that the whole,
w^hich is called Myrobiblion^ (MvpLo^i^Xiov), gives
us a synopsis of much ancient and valuable literature.
Remarkable for its extent and for its preservation of early
historians was the encyclopaedia of history compiled by
one of the emperors, Constantinus Porphyrogenetus
(reigned from 915 to 959). This book was something like
the Historian's History of recent times, since, while it
was arranged according to the subject-matter, its text was
that of the earlier authors who had treated these themes.
An extremely important work in the growth of Lexi-
cography is the Lexicon of Suidas {c. 976). This is a
remarkable monument to the erudition which is encyclo-
paedic. The sources upon which Suidas drew are still
only partly known; but his reading must have been mon-
strous in its scope and range, as his book is almost mon-
strous, rudis indigestaque moles. It is a grammar, lexicon,
and geography all in one. The subjects are arranged in
alphabetical order, but with little care or skill, and it is full
1 See Krumbacher in Muller's Handhiich, ix. i (Nordlingen, 1897),
pp. 1 193 foil.; Hergenrother, Fholios, 3 vols.
THE MIDDLE AGES 255
of serious mistakes which show that Suidas was not pos-
sessed of the critical spirit. Still, the work is extremely
valuable because it contains so much information that can
be found nowhere else.^
Following Suidas came loannes Tzetzes, who was also a
very voluminous writer, mainly of scholia; for besides his
allegories of the Iliad and Odyssey in ten thousand verses
(hence Chiliades), interpreting Homeric mythology in a
rationalistic way, he prepared a commentary to the Iliad,
the Pseudo-Homeric works, and has left scholia to Hesiod,
to Aristophanes, to Oppian, and especially to Lycophron's
Alexandra. Here he gives us the only clew that we have
to that obscure and mystical poem.^ He also epitomised
the rhetoric of Hermogenes. He was fond of writing
the so-called versus politici.^ Eustathius, Archbishop of
Thessalonica, wrote about 1175 a valuable commentary on
the Homeric poems which is based upon sound Homeric
scholia and other excellent sources, while we also have
from his pen a fine preface to a commentary on Pindar.
The body of this work itself has been lost.'' From the stand-
1 The best edition is that of Bekker (Berlin, 1854), but see also the
Prolegomena to Bernhardy's edition, pp. 25-95, ^^^ Krumbacher, o/». cit.
pp. 562-570.
2 Supra, p. loi. Some think that this work was written by his brother,
Isaac Tzetzes. See Hart, De Tzelzanim Nomine, Vila, Scriptis (18S0).
' Supra, p. loi. His works are edited separately by Bekker (Berlin,
1816), the Chiliades by Kiessling (Leipzig, 1826), and Lehrs (Leipzig,
1840). See Krumbacher, op. cit. pp. 526-536.
* See Krumbacher, pp. 536-541. The preface to Pindar has been
edited by Schneidewin (Gottingen, 1837).
256 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
point of pure literature, the most interesting Byzantine
writer is Maximus Planudes (1260-13 10). Though he
wrote schoHa and a treatise on syntax, it is more to the
point that he translated into Greek a number of Latin
authors such as Caesar, a part of Cicero, the sayings
{disticha) of Cato, the MetamorpJwses of Ovid, and espe-
cially the Heroides of Ovid, basing his translation on a
valuable manuscript which is now unknown. Most
important of all is the Anthology which he compiled with
much taste and which is the younger of the two great
Greek Anthologies. This one is called Anthologia
Planudea. It was really based on earlier anthologies,
the first having been made by Meleager of Gadara about
B.C. 60. To it Meleager gave the title 'AvdoXoyta, or
" The Garland." This original Anthology was made up
of poems by Meleager himself and forty-six other poets,
including Alcaeus, Anacreon, Sappho, and Simonides.
The poems were all of the first order and were epigram-
matic in the Greek sense, — briefly embodying a single
thought, either tender or humorous or pathetic, and all of
them exquisitely polished, so that they glowed and glinted
with light and colour. This work was immensely popular,
and continual editions were made to it throughout the
centuries, until in the tenth century a.d. one Cephalas
edited the mass of poems and made practically a new
compilation. Planudes did the same, though with far less
literary taste. Nevertheless the Planudean Anthology was
THE MIDDLE AGES 257
the only one known in Western Europe until the seven-
teenth century. It is the basis of the famous translation
by Grotius.^ In 1606, Salmasius (Claude de Saumaise)
found in the library at Heidelberg the older and finer
collection of Cephalas. This, however, was not published
for one hundred and seventy years, when it was included
by Brunck in his Analecta; nor was it critically edited
until there appeared the edition of F. Jacobs in 1803.2
No skill and no modern language can fitly and artistically
translate these wonderful poems. They are the embodi-
ment of Greek genius, and they sweep the whole gamut
of human feeling with a sureness of touch and an exqui-
site artistry that are utterly inimitable.
Another means by which Western civilisation was mod-
ified came from the Crusades, which indirectly brought
Western Europe into contact with the Byzantines, and also
with the Turks, Saracens, and Arabs. The First Crusade
occupied the years 1096-1099. The Seventh or last Cru-
sade began in 1270 and ended in 1272. It is impossible
that hundreds of thousands of Europeans could have be-
1 Infra, p. 349.
^ In 13 vols.; revised in 181 7. A recent edition is that in Didot's
Bibliotheca (Paris, 1872), while a fine critical edition was begun by
Stadtmiiller in 1894. See Thackeray's Anthologia Grceca with English
notes (London, 1877) and Mackail, Select Epigrams (London, 1891).
Stadtmiiller has added to the Palatine collection a number of the most
brilliant poems from ante-classical sources down through the Byzantine
period, so that, in all, not less than three hundred poets are repiesented.
The Heidelberg collection is called Anthologia Palatina.
s
258 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
come acquainted with the ways and customs and art and
learning of older civilisations than their own without re-
ceiving impressions which they carried home with them.
In fact, the Crusades are generally held to hav^ checked
the advance of the Muhammadans, to have enr^hed Eu-
rope by promoting trade and establishing new industries,
by bringing into circulation great quantities of money
which had hitherto been hoarded, and by making more im-
portant the free cities of Europe. Finally and most per-
vasive was the intellectual effect of contact with the higher
culture of the Byzantines and Arabs. Those Europeans
who had been fond of philosophy found in the sages of
the East men who were their masters, and who could teach
them even Greek philosophy far better than they could
learn it in the schools and universities of their native lands.
This led to a certain toleration, and often to a liberality
of thought which verged on skepticism. Some Crusaders
even became Muhammadans. As has been said, " The
roots of the Renaissance are to be found in the civiliza-
tion of the Crusades." ^
So much for Byzantine and oriental influence through-
^ See Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzziige, 7 vols. (Leipzig, 1807-183 2) ;
Michaud, The History of the Crusades, Eng. trans. (London, 1881) ; Kug-
ler, Geschichte der Kreuzziige (Berlin, 1891) ; Von Sybel, Geschichte des
ersten Kreuzziiges (Leipzig, 1900) ; Archer and Kingsford, The Crusades
(New York, 1898) ; Rohricht, Geschichte des Konigreichs Jerusalem
(Berlin, 1898) ; and especially Prutz, Kulturschichte der Kreuzziige (Ber-
lin, 1898).
THE MIDDLE AGES 259
out the Middle Ages. It was for the most part represented
by men of erudition rather than of taste, who turned their
backs in large measure on the old learning in order to
engage in theological controversy or political strife. But
they at any rate preserved the manuscripts of the true
Greeks, and they were to exercise a direct influence at a
time when the mist of the Middle Ages was dispelled in
Western Europe and when mankind awoke to what was
a new heaven and a new earth. ^
* On the literature of the Byzantines, see Krumbacher, op. ciL; Wil-
amowitz, Euripides und Herakles, i. pp. 193-219; Gibbon, op. cit., and
Hankius, De Byzantinarum Reriim Scriptoribus Gmcis (Leipzig, 1677).
Cf. also Sandys, op. cit. i. pp. 387-439 ; Mr. Frederic Harrison's Byz-
antine History in the Early Middle Ages, p. 36 (London, 1900). It is in-
teresting, though inexplicable, that Dr. Gudeman in his Outlines of the
History of Classical Philology should have devoted nearly five pages to
the Byzantine scholars of the Middle Ages, while the scholarship of West-
ern Europe for nearly a thousand years is put off with a mere bibho-
graphic notice filling half a page.
VI
THE RENAISSANCE
The Renaissance — the most remarkable intellectual
movement that the world has ever seen — is too often
regarded as being primarily nothing more than an intel-
lectual reversion to the great models of classical antiquity,
— as being almost exclusively literary, artistic, and archae-
ological. Yet this is only a narrow and imperfect view.
The Renaissance which began in Italy was rather a pro-
found and far-reaching revolt against the narrowness
and mental routine of mediaevalism. It was the waking
of humanity in Western Europe from a prolonged lethargy,
to burst all the fetters that ages of tiresome tradition had
forged for it, and to struggle up into the sunlight of intel-
lectual freedom. It was a great declaration of indepen-
dence, the effects of which were ultimately to be felt in
every sphere of human activity. In philosophy it over-
threw scholasticism. In religion it paved the way directly
for the so-called Reformation. In art it inspired the mas-
terpieces of Michelangelo, Rafaelle, and Da Vinci in Italy,
and the great schools of painting that soon afterward
sprang up in the Netherlands and Flanders. In archi-
tecture it restored the beautiful classic models. In
260
THE RENAISSANCE 26 1
politics it finally abolished feudalism by giving birth
to the sentiment of nationality, and sowing the seed from
which constitutional government was to spring. In sci-
ence it made astronomy truly scientific through Coper-
nicus and Galileo. It invented printing and, by the
employment of the compass, was enabled to discover the
New World and the Indian Ocean. It would be impos-
sible to exaggerate the tremendous and far-reaching influ-
ence of this wonderful movement whose effects have per-
meated every department of intellectual effort and left
enduring traces in every sphere of modem life.
The Renaissance began in the field of scholarship,
and for our purposes we need consider its importance
only from that particular point of view. One of the first
significant signs of the coming change is to be seen in
Dante,^ who not only broke away from mediaeval tradition
in using the vernacular Italian verse, while taking Vergil
as his model, but who likewise wrote a number of treatises
in the Latin language that were the foreshadowing of the
new spirit. In one way, Dante does not belong to the
history of the Renaissance. He is in many ways a pure
mediaeval in his sympathy with the world for which he
wrote; yet in a large sense he is truly the herald of the
coming dawn. *'In him the modern mind first found its
scope and recognised its freedom; first dared and did
what placed it on a level with antiquity in art. Many
* 1265-1321.
262 HISTORY or CLASSICAL PHLLOLOGY
ideas, moreover, destined to play an important part in the
coming age received from him their germinal expression.
It may thus be truly said that Dante initiated the moWe-
ment of the modem intellect in its entirety, though he did
not lead the Revival considered as a separate movement
in this evolution." * The Renaissance in its first period
began in Italy (i 250-1 453), and was marked by a wide-
spread revival of interest in classic literature and classical
ideals. Its first sign was a passion for the largeness and
the richness of the pagan world, and this we see in the
vigour and magnificence of Dante's own verse, in striking
contrast to the dull formalism of those who had before his
time written for the mediaevals.^
It is a popular error which ascribes the Renaissance
to the influence of the Byzantine Greeks. Some wrongly
say that after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks
in 1453, many scholars and writers fled westward and im-
parted their learning and their knowledge of the Greek
classics to the Western peoples, especially in Italy. But,
as a matter of fact, the Renaissance began at least a
century before the fall of Constantinople, as can easily
be seen by considering the brilliant career, not merely of
Dante, but of the true protagonist of this period, Francesco
Petrarca, whom we shall mention a little later. We have
* Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, p. 69.
* See Federn, Dante and His Time, Eng. trans. (New York, 1902) ;
and Scartazzini, A Handbook to Dante, Eng. trans. (Boston, 1897).
THE RENAISSANCE 263
also seen that Roger Bacon, who flourished in the thirteenth
century, composed a Greek grammar and pronounced his
Greek after the manner of the Byzantines. A few Greek
teachers of eminence had been known in Europe,^ but they
seem to have excited no great interest outside of a very
small set. Nor was the mediaeval mind necessarily
cramped and its culture crude. One could hardly say
that, after recalling such names as those of Gregory the
Great, of Cassiodorus, Alcuin, Charlemagne, and the great
scholars and teachers who were best known in France and
England. The Renaissance means rather a new inspi-
ration and a new desire. It was essentially secular and
almost pagan in its irresponsibility, its love of life, and its
thirst for mental freedom. The mediaevals had been al-
most wholly under the guidance of the priesthood, and
their chief concern had been with the mysteries of faith.
Their philosophy was ingenious, but it was very narrow.
It could split hairs most dextrously, but finally men grew
weary of the splitting of hairs and shook themselves into
a realisation of what a larger life must mean for them.
So the Englishman, William of Ockham, expresses the
new feeling in a new philosophy of Nominalism. Mar-
sigilo of Padua teaches the importance of the individual
and that the individual has a right to think and organise
as seems best to him. Wiclif in England, and John Huss
in Bohemia, and many other independent minds organised
' Boethius, Isidorus, Alcuin, Rabanus Maurus, Bacon, ct al.
264 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
at their pleasure throughout Europe. They taught the
importance of the individual Christian to Christianity
and the right of individual interpretation of the Script\^res.
A brief survey of Francesco Petrarca's activities will give
an understanding of what was actually done at the begin-
ning of the true Renaissance. It was he who took the
first positive steps in the revival of learning.^ Possessing
the fire and the passion of a Catullus, he openly revolted
against the dimness and bareness of mediaevalism. He
reverted with an almost fierce intensity to the pagan free-
dom and spontaneity of thought. He travelled widely and
visited the learned men of France and Germany and Flan-
ders. He saw a larger world than his predecessors knew,
and he took a more comprehensive view of human life.
His poetic instinct and exquisite taste rejected the dull
writings of the scholastics with their barbarous and clumsy
satires. For his own inspiration he went to Vergil, and in
his studies he enlarged his Latin vocabulary from the Cic-
eronian and Augustan writers. Apart from his Italian
verse, he composed an epic in Latin entitled Africa. Its
subject was the Second Punic War, and it was received
with an enthusiasm that can now scarcely be realised or
understood. But it recalls to us the significant fact that
one of the great motives which led to the Renaissance was
a renewal in Italy of the national spirit, so long stifled
both in politics and art. The petty republics and small
1 (1304-13 74.)
THE RENAISS.\NCE 265
principalities had almost blotted out the memory of the
time when the great Roman Empire had been mistress of
the world and when Rome gave law to Spain and Gaul
and Africa and Asia Minor. A recollection of this fact
now thrilled through the minds of all Italians and inspired
that sentiment for Italian unity which was destined to re-
main a vital thing down through the succeeding centuries
until gradually the Kingdom of Sardinia gave it actuality
when in 1870 the King of a United Italy burst through
the walls of Rome and made that ancient city the splen-
did capital of a new and powerful State.
As to Petrarca's Latin epic on the Second Punic War,
its verse is imperfect. The Latin poets of the Renaissance
period were still obliged for a long time to guess at many
of the quantities in the words which they employed, and
they often guessed wrong; yet there are in this poem many
splendid passages of which perhaps the most significant
of all is one of nine lines in the ninth book,^ which is a
spirited and striking prophecy of the Renaissance itself.
One more important fact remains to be mentioned. To
Petrarca's mind, it began to be apparent that the classical
texts known to his world formed but a small part of the
great and splendid mass of literature that had once existed ;
and he appears to have set himself to the task of its recov-
ery. Wherever he went in his travels, he searched for
manuscripts of classic authors, and with some measure of
^ ix. 273-282.
266 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
success. At Liege he discovered two new orations of
Cicero and a part of Cicero's letters. At Verona he found
a portion of the Institutio of Quintilian, — then practically
unknown. More important in its way than all the rest
as a philological discovery, he recognised and acknowl-
edged the very close relation of Latin to Greek, — a won-
derful achievement for the time, as strange, in fact, as the
much later discovery of the relation of Sanskrit to both
Greek and Latin. In his old age, Petrarca, like Cato,
made an effort to master the Greek language. Unluckily
there was no one in Florence at that time who was capable
of teaching him, and he died without learning enough to
read a copy of Homer which had been sent him from
Constantinople.^
Petrarca was the first true son of the Renaissance, in
that his love for classical antiquity was not in the least
degree overlaid by mediaevalism, as was that of Dante.
Despising all that had been done in the preceding seven
hundred years, he struggled passionately to return to the
spirit and life of the classical age. Before his death he
had attained to a Latin style of remarkable purity, and in
his Epistolce, his De Viris Illustribus, and his dialogues he
struck the note of classicism so clearly and so splendidly
as to waken the dormant genius of Italy once more to
* Petrarca urged his friend and disciple Boccaccio to render this copy
of Homer into Latin, and the task was very imperfectly performed with
the aid of a Calabrian Greek, one Leonzio Pilato.
THE RENAISSANCE 267
life.i Petrarca's gifted secretary, Giovanni da Ravenna (or
Giovanni Malpaghini), an accomplished Latinist, was the
most noted missionary of the new movement. TraveUing
from city to city all over Italy, he gathered about him
a host of pupils to whom he taught the Latin, not of
the monks and schoolmen, but of Cicero and Caesar,
communicating to them the new impulse, and stirring them
with a new enthusiasm that had been felt both by him-
self and by his inspired master.
Giovanni Boccaccio,^ who is best known to moderns by
his Decameron, was an enthusiastic son of the Renais-
sance. His mother was French, but he was soon taken to
Italy, where he flung himself into the gay life and natural
beauty of the city of Naples, which was then, under King
Robert, a centre of culture and learning. At the same
time he became interested in classical study and had spent
much time in copying manuscripts of Terence and Apu-
leius. It is likely that the latter author, whose book is
professedly a collection of Milesian tales, gave Boccaccio
the first suggestion for his Decameron, which is, in arrange-
ment and manner, a collection of Milesians, that is to say,
of short, witty stories as we know them now. But from
^ There is a critical edition of the Africa by Corradini with an Italian
translation (Oneglia, 1874). On Petrarca himself, see Mezieres, Pclrarque
(Paris, 1867); Geiger, Petrarca (Leipzig, 1874); Robinson and Rolfe,
Petrarch (New York, 1898), and de Nolhac, Petrarque et VHumanisme,
2d ed. (Paris, 1907).
^ 1313-1375-
268 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the standpoint of a classicist, Boccaccio is most impor-
tant because of the fact that he attained to an excellent
Latin style and wrote a number of treatises in Latin on
various subjects, quite after the manner (let us say) of
Varro or Suetonius.^ His disciples and those of Giovanni
Malpaghini in their turn preached the gospel of classi-
cal culture at Venice, Mantua, Rome, and other Ital-
ian cities. Leonardo Bruni^ made excellent translations
of Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Plutarch; while Barbaro,
Strozzi, and others shared in the enthusiastic labours. One
of them, Colutius Salutati (Coluccio di Salutato), chancellor
to the city of Florence in 1375, first used in the public docu-
ments of his office the sonorous Latin of Cicero, and thus
forced upon popes and princes the necessity of securing for
themselves scribes and secretaries who were masters of
the classic style. The interest which pertained to every-
thing which had to do with classical antiquity led Ciriaco
de' Pizzicolli (Cyriacus of Ancona) to feel a strong enthu-
siasm for archaeological rather than literary remains. He
ransacked every part of Italy and the Greek islands,
collecting, besides manuscripts, bits of sculpture, gems,
medals, and coins, and taking note of such inscriptions as
seemed to him significant. When asked what was his
object in these endless joumeyings, he replied, "I go to
* See Korting, Boccaccio's Leben und Werke, pp. 742 foil. (Leipzig,
1880) ; Symonds, op. cit. pp. 87-97, ^33 ; Cochin, Boccaccio, etc. (Paris,
1890). 2 1369-1444.
THE RENAISSANCE 269
awake the dead "; and this reply has been regarded as the
key-note of the early Renaissance.^
The recognition of the value of Greek which had come
to Petrarca in his later years now became a part of every
scholar's training. Giacomo da Sciaparia visited Con-
stantinople in 1375, the year of Petrarca's death, for the
purpose of learning Greek from those who spoke it.
Salutato and Strozzi founded a chair of Greek at the
University of Florence. In 1396 Manuel Chrysoloras,
a learned Byzantine, came from the East to Italy; and
while teaching Greek at Florence, established schools for
the study of that language at Padua, Milan, Venice, and
Rome. Cosimo de' Medici, then head of the Florentine
Republic, founded a special academy for the study of Plato.
The rich citizens of Florence vied with one another in
their munificence and enthusiasm for the furthering: of
classical learning. Niccolo de' Niccoli, Pietro di Pazzi,
Manetti, and Palla Strozzi are but a few of many famous
names. The first gave his entire fortune to the collection
and reproduction of ancient manuscripts. Di Pazzi kept a
teacher of Greek and Latin always in his house, and com-
mitted to memory the whole of the Mneid and long
chapters of Livy. Manetti devoted his life to the further-
ance of what has been called Humanism in opposition to
^Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, ii. pp. xxii. 129 foil.; Hubner,
Romische Epigraphik in Miiller's Handbuch, i; Symonds, op. cit. pp.
155 foil, and Injra, p. 270.
270 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Mediae valism.i He strove also to harmortise the teach-
ings of Christianity with those of paganism. Strozzi
employed all the facilities which his great commercial in-
terests in other countries gave him for the discovery and
purchase of manuscripts.
It is perfectly clear from all this, that it was not the down-
fall of Constantinople and the dispersion of Greek scholars
that brought about the Renaissance, since the thirst for
learning, the reversion to the classical spirit, antedated
the end of the Byzantine Empire by nearly eighty years:
"Circumstances favoured a rapid spread of the new culture.
The Italian cities, grown rich under democracy, but having tired
somewhat of its responsibilities, had been passing into the control
of that extraordinary series of despotic rulers who united with a
brutal unscrupulousness of character a taste for the best in litera-
ture and art without a parallel. It was one of the chief aims to
power for a new-made tyrant like Cosimo de' Medici that he pro-
vided the means of existence for talent of every sort. Even the
bloody ruffians who, one after another, held power in Milan, made
places for scholars and artists, maintained libraries, and encouraged
learned research. The ancient universities of Bologna, Padua,
and Salerno were reinvigorated by the healthful breath of the new
learning and stimulated by the rivalry of the new schools founded
by the younger republics. The Papacy, with a free hand after the
Council of Basel (1431-1449), passed into the control of a series of
men like Nicholas V., Pius II., and Leo X., in whom the interest in
learning and art was an absorbing passion. In fact, learning, under
the Italian humanistic impulse, may be said to have taken on the
form of a fine art and thus to have concealed much of its serious
import. Under all these favouring conditions it is not strange that
^ Infra, p. 271.
THE RENAISSANCE 271
a certain flippancy of character came to be associated with the clev-
erness of the fifteenth-century scholars. The lightness of Boc-
caccio had seemed the natural expression of exuberant joy in the
natural things of human life. A century later, this sincerity had
largely given way to an over-refinement that knew no limits.
Everything was permissible in the name of aesthetic experiment.
Without in any formal way renouncing their allegiance to Chris-
tianity, many became more really interested in philosophy than in
doctrine, and increasingly lax in following the ordinary forms of
devotion." '
Here, then, is to be seen what is meant by Humanism
as opposed to MedicCvaHsm. Humanism of course sug-
gests humanitas, which to the Roman mind meant fine
breeding combined with geniality, careful cultivation, and
a certain urhanitas — in other words, the characteristics
which to-day mark the one whom we would describe as a
gentleman and a scholar. The key-note of Humanism
is a toleration of individual tastes and an objection to every
form of dogmatism. The mediasvals were dogmatic to a
degree. The men of the Renaissance imposed no check
upon the aesthetic tastes of others, though they were all
bound together by a common love of what was fine and
gracious and beautiful. ^
Returning to the relations between Byzantium and
Italy, we can readily see in the first place that the Renais-
^ See infra, p. 272.
2 Voigt, Die Wiederbelcbung des klassischen Alterthums odcr das erste
Jahrhundert des Humanismits, 3d ed. (Berlin, 1893) ; Burckhardt, The
Culture of the Renaissance in Italy, Eng. trans. (London, 1898); and
Gasquet, The Eve of the Reformation (London, 1905) ; Emerton, op. oil.
272 HISTORY_OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
sance antedated the sack of Constantinople by the Turks
(1453). It is, indeed, of the utmost importance to clas-
sical literature that the general interest in the Recovery
of Greek manuscripts began while Constantinople was still
an independent Grecian city. Had the Renaissance been
postponed, many of the literary treasures brought to Italy
in the early part of the fifteenth century to supply the
demand of Italian scholars must have remained in Greece
to be destroyed in the pillage of Byzantium, where it is
traditionally said that at least 120,000 books were taken
and burned by the fanatical Turks. As it was, from the
year 1400 to 1450, there was an increasingly brisk im-
portation of Greek texts into Italy, and an even greater
demand for translations of them. Thus, Nicholas V.,
who, as a monk, had run deeply into debt for manuscripts,
became, when Pope, a munificent collector and patron.
It was his purpose to have all the Greek classics
rendered into idiomatic and lucid Latin. He main-
tained hundreds of copyists in his service, and agents
in foreign countries were employed by him wholly for
procuring codices. It was he who gave to Perotti five
hundred ducats ($1200) for translating Polybius into
Italian, and to Guarino a thousand gold florins for a like
version of Polybius into Latin. He also promised Filelfo
the sum of ten thousand gold florins for a metrical render-
ing of Homer. Even when the plague drove him and his
court from Rome, he took with him all his copyists and
THE RENAISSANCE 273
translators lest he should lose any of them. His collec-
tion of books numbered at his death two thousand volumes
and became the nucleus of the Vatican Library. Car-
dinal Bessarion, the translator of Aristotle and a part of
Xenophon, collected, at a cost of thirty thousand gold
florins, manuscripts to the number of six hundred. For
the safe keeping of these, the Venetian Republic, in 1468,
erected a massive building, and thus laid the foundation of
the great Library of St. Mark. The noblest Italian collec-
tion which existed at this time was that of Frederick of
Urbino (1444-1482).^ Even as a boy he had begun to
purchase books, and as soon as he reached manhood he
kept some forty copyists continually at work. His library
was one of the most complete of the age, including a wide
range of literature which represented not only theology, but
philosophy, medicine, and a list of Greek authors, com-
prising all of Sophocles, all of Pindar, and all of Me-
nander.^ In his possession were catalogues of all the great
libraries of Italy and of foreign libraries, including even
1 Also called Federico di Montefeltro.
2 The complete Menander was probably lost at the sack of Urbino by
Cesare Borgia. Scholars hope for the ultimate recovery of books that
have been regarded as wholly lost. The Egyptian papyri may prove a
valuable source. Thus very recently they have yielded parts of Bac-
chylides and Menander. The mediaevals possessed MSS. of authors
now lost. We may now look for the missing books of Livy, for the MSS.
of Petronius, for all of Menander, and perhaps for the lyric poets like
Sappho, Alcaeus, and others of whose writings only the veriest fragments
are now known to exist. See Burckhardt, op. cit. i. p. 268.
274 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
those so far away as Oxford. It is worth noting that his
collection contained not only ancient works, but what was
then " modern," that is to say, contemporary literature
— Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio. Here was the true
type of humanist, and one that modem classical scholars
would do well to emulate. Too often they narrow their
knowledge to a small comer of a specialty which profits
only two or three, and they ignore the great golden world
outside, pulsating with life and filled wjth millions of
things of which no one should be altogether ignorant.
The present writer has himself come in contact with pur-
blind ignoramuses who were supposed to be classicists
but who really knew nothing of the classics, because they
were ignorant of the thousand and one things which shed
an interpretative light upon classical learning through the
varied, multicoloured sources of general literature and
history and politics and art. These are the creatures
who have too often dragged the classics down to the level
of their own ignorance. One may wish to-day for a new
Renaissance which shall be actuated with the same wide
sympathy and the same comprehensive learning that
marked the great Revival in the fifteenth century.
But, after all, the greatest services in the recovery of
classical texts were rendered, not by popes and princes, but
by less distinguished persons who, having little money to
spare, gave the more freely of their time and labour. These
went forth like seekers after hidden treasure in a search
THE RENAISSANCE 275
that had for them, in their enthusiasm, all the romantic
zest of a new Crusade. It must be remembered that while
Italy was ablaze with the ardour of the new revival, the
rest of Europe was still plunged m the dulness of Mediae-
valism. Only here and there had some single scholar yet
caught the spirit of the Renaissance. The monasteries
were still as somnolent as ever. The schoolmen were still
threshing out their mouldy theological chaff. The copy-
ists of the North were still erasing Vergil and Catullus
and Lucretius to make room for Rabanus Maurus and
Duns Scotus.
Into these sleepy haunts came the scholars of Italy, eager
to search among the parchments that lay in dusty bundles
in the scriptoria, the cellars, and sometimes even the out-
houses, for any scroll or scrap that contained the Latin of
pagan Rome. The story of these explorations, of the
difficulties encountered, of the rebuffs experienced, of the
disappointments undergone, and of the splendid discoveries
achieved, would read like a romance; but it cannot be
related here. One name in the history of this period is,
however, so closely linked with the recovery of priceless
manuscripts, as to justify at least a passing mention, be-
cause of the services which he rendered in the revival of
learning and more especially in what we may call the exca-
vation of texts hitherto unknown. Many scholars have
shown their gratitude to him by calling the first half of
the fifteenth century " The Age of Poggio Bracciolini."
276 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini ^ was a Florentine,
who, as a young man, gained his living by copying manu-
scripts. From his fees he was able to pay for instruction
under two of the greatest teachers of his time — Giovanni
da Ravenna in Latin and Manuel Chrysoloras in Greek.
Later he became secretary to the Roman Curia, and in
this capacity he accompanied the great dignitaries of the
Church on their official visits to Switzerland, Germany,
and even England, so that the notes of these journeys
which he made are very interesting from their quaintness
and naivete. In 1453, he was made Chancellor to the
Republic of Florence, Prior, and Historiographer, in
which capacity he wrote the annals of the city in Latin
modelled upon that of Livy. Poggio was a man of great
versatility, wide sympathy, and an intense enthusiasm
for classical literature. His literary activity was remark-
able, even in that era, for he won distinction as an orator,^
as an historian,^ as a keen though scurrilous controver-
sialist,^ as a satirist,^ as a writer of very readable epistles,'
as an essayist,^ as a translator from the Greek,* and as a
compiler of witty though indecent anecdotes and epi-
grams. ° It is not, however, for these things, nor for his
fluent and easy Latin, that he is now remembered. His
* 1380-1459. 2 Orator Publicus of Florence.
^ History of Florence. * Against Filelfo {q.v.).
* He attacked chiefly the clergy. ^ Especially regarding his travels.
^ Imitating Seneca. ^ He translated Xenophon's Cyropcedia.
* Collectively styled Facetice.
THE RENAISSANCE 277
fame to-day rests upon his remarkable discoveries of
manuscripts in the convent hbraries of Germany and
Switzerland chiefly, at Weingarten, Reichenau, and St.
Gallen, Without recalhng minor details, it is sufficient
to say that he brought to light the whole of Quintilian,
twelve plays of Plautus, Asconius Pedianus, Ammianus
Marcellinus, Nonius Marcellus, Probus, and Flavius
Caper, together with a part of Valerius Flaccus. Among
his other trouvailles were valuable manuscripts of Lu-
cretius,^ Columella, Silius Italicus, Vitruvius, Livy, Ma-
nilius, Priscian, Frontinus, the Silvce of Statius, the oration
of Cicero Pro CcBcina, and the Aratea. If Poggio's means
permitted him to buy a manuscript, he bought it. If he
could not buy it, he copied it. If he could neither buy
it nor copy it, he stole it, as in the case of a valuable
manuscript of Livy and one of Ammianus at Hersfeld.^
No pains were spared by him, and no fatigues or diffi-
culties could discourage him. As his friend Francesco
Barbaro wrote: "No severity of winter cold, no snow,
no length of journeying, no rouglmess of roads, pre-
vented him from bringing to light the monuments of
literature." He used his influence with the prelates of
the Church to aid him. A certain Dane had informed
' This manuscript is one of the three copies made from a single arche-
type which has long been lost. From Poggio's copy were made all the
Italian manuscripts of Lucretius.
2 At least there is no record of his having returned them, as it was
his usual practice to note.
278 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the Pope that in a Cistercian convent at Roskilde there
was a manuscript of Livy containing all of the lost books.
Poggio at once persuaded Cardinal Orsini to send a
special messenger in search of it, while Cosimo de' Medici
bestirred himself and despatched agents to secure this
treasure. The Dane, however, had probably lie^, for
the manuscript could not be found. Poggio's own ac-
count of how he discovered Quintilian ^ is interesting
because it shows that even in the most famous libraries
of the North, the books which they contained were very
little valued for their own sake. Poggio writes: —
" The monastery of St. Gallen lies some twenty miles from
the city. Thither, partly for amusement and partly for the sake
of finding books, of which we had heard that there was a large
collection in the convent, we directed our steps. In the middle
of the well-stocked library, we discovered Quintilian safe as yet
and sound, though covered with dust and filthy from neglect and
age. You must know that the books are not housed as they de-
serve, but were lying in a most foul and dismal dungeon at the
very bottom of a tower, — a place into which condemned crimi-
nals would hardly have been thrust. . . . Quintilian was indeed
right side to look upon, and ragged like a felon with rough beard
and matted hair, protesting by his countenance and garb against
the injustice of his sentence. He seemed to be stretching out his
hand and calling on the Romans, begging to be saved from so
undeserved a fate."'^
1 This complete manuscript of Quintilian, Poggio copied with his own
hand in thirty-two days and sent it to Leonardo Bruni, who wrote back
to him: "As Camillas was called the second founder of Rome, so may
you receive the title of the second author of the works which you have
restored to the world."
''There is a life of Poggio in English by Shepherd (Liverpool, 1837).
THE RENAISSANCE 279
Side by side with this narrative, we may set the similar
account of Boccaccio's visit to Monte Cassino : * —
" Desirous of saving the collection of books ... he modestly
asked the monk to open the Hbrary for him as a favour. The
monk stiffly answered, as he pointed to a steep staircase : ' Go up ;
it is open.' Boccaccio gladly went up; but he found that the
place which held so great a treasure was without a door or key.
He entered, and saw grass sprouting on the windows, and all the
books and benches thick with dust. Astonished, he began to
open and turn the leaves of first one tome and then another, and
found many and various volumes of ancient and foreign works.
Some of them had lost several sheets. Others were snipped and
pared all around the text and mutilated in different ways. . . .
Coming to the cloister, he asked the monk whom he met, why
these valuable books had been so disgracefully mutilated. The
answer was given him that the monks, in order to gain a httle
money, were in the habit of cutting off sheets and making psalters
which they sold to boys. The margins they made into charms
and disposed of them to women."
Other famous discoveries that were made about this
time were those of fairly complete manuscripts of Cicero's
letters by Leonardo Bruni (1409), of Cicero's rhetorical
works by Gherardo Lanbriano, at Lodi (1425), and of a
fairly complete manuscript of Plautus by Nicholas of
Treves (1429). Of the Greek classics the most famous
collector was Giovanni Aurispa. In 1423, he arrived at
Venice with 238 volumes which he had purchased in
Constantinople. Among these were the celebrated Codex
' Quoted from Benvenuto da Imola, by Symonds, op. cil., pp. 133-134.
28o HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Laurentianus ^ written in the tenth century and now pre-
served in the Laurentian Museum at Florence. It con-
tained six plays of ^schylus, seven of Sophocles, and
the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. T^here were
also the Iliad (Venet. A), the complete text bf Demos-
thenes, besides Plato, Xenophon, Diodorus, Strabo,
Arrian, Athenasus, Lucian, Dio Cassius, and Procopius.
So great a mass of treasure in the field of manuscript-
collecting was never found by any other individual.
It was about this time that some of the later Byzantines
began to be known in the countries of the West. The
name of Manuel Chrysoloras has already been men-
tioned. He taught Greek in Florence, Venice, and Rome,
and pursued his journeying to the North, where he
died, in Germany (1415). He made a literal translation
of Plato's Republic; and his contemporary, Plethon, did
much to spread the Platonic philosophy. Theodorus
Gaza, in the early part of the fifteenth century, wrote an
elementary Greek grammar, and made translations of
Aristotle, Theophrastus, ^Elian, and Dionysius, besides
' Codex, originally meaning a log of wood, later meant wooden tablets
covered with wax for writing on, and in after times, when parchment or
paper or other materials were substituted for wood and put together in
the shape of a book, the name codex was applied to it. In the language
of classical scholarship, codex is used of any manuscript edition preserved
in the libraries of Europe. Codices are sometimes named after persons
who possessed them, e.g. the Codex Vossianus, named after the Dutch
scholar Voss ; but oftener after the places where they had been kept, e.g.
Codex Britannicus from the British Museum.
THE RENAISSANCE 281
turning the De Senectuie and the De Amicitia of Cicero
into Greek. It must be said, however, that the Italian
humanists stood high above the Greeks who came to
teach them. The latter were slow and unimaginative
and plodding — essentially Byzantine. They were hewers
of wood and drawers of water to such brilliant Italians as
Francesco Filelfo, itinerant, lecturer and teacher, witty
controversialist, collector of manuscripts, and transla-
tor of Homer; or his brilliant contemporary, Laurentius
Valla (Lorenzo dclla Valla); or Marsilius Ficinus (Mar-
siglio Ficino) ; or the immensely erudite Angelus Poli-
tianus ; and especially Petrus Victorius (Pietro Vettori) }
The men just mentioned have been made the subject
of many volumes, and in their lives, their achievements,
and their controversies, one finds displayed the virtues
and the vices, the enthusiasms, and the illuminating
ardour of the Renaissance. Filelfo, roving from place
to place, seems like one of the greater Sophists of the
time of Socrates.^ Valla, though scurrilous like Poggio,
prepared in 1444 a volume which he called EleganticB
Latini Sernionis. It was essentially a treatise on style,
on purity of diction, practically on Ciceronianism. Dur-
ing the Middle Ages and later, it was difficult to write
Latin with any assurance, since there were no full lexi-
cons whose makers had sifted out the classical words
from the barbarisms of the preceding centuries, nor
^ 1499-1584. ^ Supra, pp. 49-51-
282 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
were there any grammars which taught authoritatively
what was right and what was wrong in the syntax of the
Latin language. Valla did not attempt to indicate bar-
barisms; but he took a safe stand on the basis of Cicero's
Latinity. He could say that such and such a sentence
or such and such a phrase or word was right because it
was Ciceronian. Other sentences and phrases and words
might be quite correct, but one could not be sure. That
is to say, Valla's book was a guide to Ciceronians, and
was executed with so much care and taste that it imposed
upon Italians the Latin that was Cicero's, and in less
than a hundred years it had reached its fifty-ninth edition.
Even to-day it may be consulted with profit. Valla,
likewise, translated Homer, Herodotus, and Thucydides;
while he made an edition of Quintilian with careful
attention to the text and doctrine. ^
Politianus, who took his name from Monte Puliciano,
had a wonderful reputation in his time. He began his
studies in both Latin and Greek at Florence under the
best teachers, and when scarcely fifteen years of age, he
wrote a poem of 1400 lines celebrating the victory of
one of the Medici at a tournament. At seventeen he
wrote exquisite Greek poems. Lorenzo de' Medici made
him tutor to his two sons, and afterward gave him
' See Vahlen, Lorenzo Valla (Vienna, 1870) ; Nisard, Les Gladiateurs
de la Republique des Lettres, etc. (Paris, 1889) ; Wolff, Lorenzo Valla
(Leipzig, 1893) ; Schwahn (Leipzig, 1896) ; and Symonds, op. cit. pp.
258-265.
THE RENAISSANCE 283
a charming villa where he could study under the most
favourable conditions. Being sent as an ambassador
from Florence to Rome, he was received in the most
flattering manner by the Pope. At the request of His
Holiness, he translated Herodianus and received 200 gold
crowns as a reward. As a translator, he was inimitable,
but he preferred professorial work, filling a chair of
Latin literature in Florence, and also teaching Greek.
His fame spread all over Europe, and pupils flocked
from the great cities to study under him, among them
being the first two English teachers of Greek — Grocyn
and Linacre — and Michelangelo. One may rightly say
that Politianus was perhaps the most brilliant scholar of
the first period of the Renaissance, since he was not only
vigorous but original. While able to reproduce the
noble periods of Cicero, he could write with equal ease
pages which recalled the elegance of Livy and the strength
of Tacitus. His Latin verse is especially to be noted for
its beauty of expression and for the glow of its author's
imagination.^
As for Victorius, he stands as the greatest philologist
and critic of his century. His life was one of wide experi-
ence, for he was at various times a soldier, a diplomat,
and a teacher of Greek and Latin. He made text editions
and commentaries on Cicero, which surpassed in acute-
ness the work of his contemporaries. Like Politianus,
^ See Gresswell, Life of Politian (London, 1805).
284 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
he translated some of the works of Aristotle. Editions
with notes were put forth on parts of ^schylus, Sophocles,
Xenophon, Terence, Sallust, Varro, Isaeus, and some less
known Grecians. But his most remarkable production
is his VaricB Lectiones, in thirty-eight books (1582). It
shows beyond all question the acuteness of his criticism
and the vast extent of his reading.^ He had the honour
of being painted by Titian, and of being sought out by
students from all countries in Europe.
Victorius was especially interesting in his criticism
and exposition of Aristotle's Poetics. He interpreted the
famous Kd6apai<i in 1560, very much as Roborteli had
done twelve years before, and as Castelvetro did ten
years later. In his criticism, he attacks the notion of
poetic prose, because Aristotle in defining the poetic
forms makes verse always an essential. Professor Spin-
gam notes that the phrase " poetic prose" is used, perhaps
for the first time, by Minturno (1564) in his Arte Poetica.
The two great names of Politianus and Victorius shine
forth to give splendour to the closing years of the first
period of the Renaissance, which is perhaps best called
the Italian Period. It had witnessed the dawn of the
New Learning. It had watched the enthusiastic revival
of pagan culture, and it had restored to Western Europe
immense treasures of ancient lore.^ By the end of the
1 See Creuzer, Opiisc. ii. pp. 21-36 (Frankfurt, 1854) ; Rudinger,
Petrus Victorius (Halle, 1896).
2 The immense demand for manuscripts of lost authors rather natu-
THE RENAISSANCE 285
fifteenth century, and even by the middle of that cen-
tury, this remarkable movement had swept onward to
the North and was nearing its height in countries re-
mote from Italy, but owing to Italy their inspiration.
The first breath of the Renaissance was soon felt in
France, with which Italy had such close relations, then
in Germany, in Belgium and Holland, in England, and in
Spain and Portugal. Perhaps the close of the Italian
Renaissance may be regarded as almost coincidental
w^ith the Introduction of printing. The typographical
art was very gradually developed in Italy and Spain.
At first, initial letters in manuscripts were stamped in ink
from engraved blocks of wood. Then these engraved
blocks were used for making playing cards, for orna-
menting woven fabrics, religious pictures with or without
lettering, engraved words without pictures, and finally
the wooden blocks developed into types of single letters
founded in a mould.
Who first employed these movable types, no one can
surely say. It makes no difference, however, whether
rally led to an extraordinary number of literary frauds. A great many
skilful scribes who were also men of ability made large sums by writing
on parchments spurious works which they ascribed to the Greeks or
Romans of renown. This was not a new thing, since as far back as the
Alexandrian School many fictitious odes of Sappho were in circula-
tion, and likewise didactic sayings wrongly ascribed to Theognis, and
erotic songs to Anacreon. See Gudeman, "Literary Frauds among
the Greeks " in Classical Studies in Honour of Henry Drisler (New York,
1894).
286 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
we name Gutenberg or Coster or the unknown workman
who is said to have stolen the invention from Coster at
Mainz in Germany and then to have made small mov-
able printing presses. There are also the names of t'ust
and Schoffer. Certain it is that printing was known
about 1430, and that regular presses were set up about
1448. We may, therefore, say that the year 1450 marks
the End of the Italian Renaissance, The introduction of
printing was of immense importance to men of learning,
for it multiplied copies of the best-known classics, and
by putting the apparatus for critical work into the hands
of every scholar, it paved the way for a general and com-
parative scientific study of classical texts.^ The use of
printing spread with remarkable rapidity. The great
centres of book production were Venice, Rome, Cologne,
Strassburg, Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Mainz. Before
the close of the fifteenth century, there were t^venty-two
printing establishments at Cologne, twenty at Augsburg,
seventeen at Nuremberg, and sixteen at Strassburg.^ The
most famous printers, whose names continually appear in
the history of early editions, were Fust and Schoffer at
Mainz, John Auerbach at Basel (1492-1516), Zell at
Cologne, the Aldi at Venice (1490-1597),' John Froben
1 See Prutz, The Age of the Renaissance (New York, 1902).
2 See Cotton, Typographical Gazetteer, 3d ed. (Oxford, 1852-1S66).
3 See Brunei, Manuel de Lihraire, etc., 8 vols. (Paris, 1880) ; De Vinne,
The Invention of Printing (New York, 187S) ; Hoe, A Short History of the
Printing Press (New York, 1902) ; and Faulman, Geschichte der Buck-
truckverkunst (Vienna, 1882).
THE RENAISSANCE 287
at Basel (1496-1527), and Christopher Plantin at Antwerp
(1554-1589). The first press to be set up in England was
that of William Caxton in 1477. The first press in the
Western Hemisphere was established in the city of Mexico
in 1540; and the first to be set up in the British Colonies
in North America dates from 1638 at Harvard College and
still survives under the name of the University Press.^
Hence, the first great impulse toward the freer spirit
of ancient times swept over Italy, surging on to other
countries, where its influence took many forms. The
Renaissance was in reality not so much a new epoch,
but rather a harking-back to the civilisation of classical
antiquity, which it modified to suit the New World of
Southern Europe. In classical scholarship, we find, as
in the early days of Greece and Rome, first, the accumu-
lation of material for study; the expansion of that study
in various ways; the development of Criticism ^ which
calls into its service many ancillary studies — Palaeo-
graphy,^ Epigraphy,* Numismatics, a knowledge of the
^ The first printed editions of classical authors is interesting. Thus the
editio princeps of any ancient was printed at Rome and was a copy of
Cicero, Dc Officiis, in 1465. The first work printed in Greek was the
'EpwriJ/xara of Constantinus Lascaris (Milan, 1476). Theretofore, in
printed Latin books, Greek words had been inserted with a pen. This
work of Lascaris was set up according to its parts at various places and
times, and gathered together by Aldus into one book (1495).
^ See Spingarn, History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance (New
York, 1899).
' As with Giovanni Aurispa.
* As with Cyriacus of Ancona, who said that inscriptions seemed to
give a greater reason and a truer knowledge than even books themselves.
288 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Graphic and Plastic Arts/ Architecture,^ and finally the
invention of a means for making the apparatus criticus of
learning accessible to every one.
Thus, the Renaissance, though not, as IVfichelet de-
scribes it, " the discovery of the World and Man,"
was, as Walter Pater said, " a love of the things of the
intellect and the imagination for their own sake." It
was an intellectual sunburst, which restored to modem
times all that was glorious in the centuries of Greek
and Roman culture. Dr. Sandys points out that the
metaphor of a new birth was first associated with the
earliest revival of learning, under Charlemagne, by Modoin,
the Bishop of Autun, in this golden line: —
Aurea Roma iterum renovata renascitur orbi.'
* As with Donatello and later with Michelangelo and Bramante.
2 As with Brunelleschi (1377-1446), one of the greatest architects of
the Renaissance. It was he who, more than any other, revived the Ro-
man or classic forms of architecture.
' For a critical history of the Renaissance see Voigt, Die Wiederbe-
lebung des Klassischen Allerthnms, 3d ed. (Berlin, 1893) ; Burckhardt,
Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien (Stuttgart, 1890-1891) ; id., KuUur
der Renaissance in Italien, 8th ed. (Leipzig, 1901) ; Symonds, The Re-
naissance in Italy (London, 1887) ; Walter Pater, Studies in the History
of the Renaissance (London, 1888) ; Vernon Lee, Euphorion (London,
1884) ; Scott, The Renaissance of Art in Italy (London, 1888) ; Einstein,
The Italian Renaissance in England (New York, 1902) ; IVIuntz, Precursori
e Propugnatori del Rinascimento (Florence, 1902) ; Sandys, Lectures on
the Revival of Learning (Cambridge, 1905); id., op. cit. pp. 1-123);
Saintsbury, A History of Criticism, i. pp. 456-466 ; ii. 1-108 (London,
1901-1902) ; and for a convenient summary, Pearson, A Short History
of the Renaissance (Boston, 1893). See De Vinne, Notable Printers of
Italy during the Fifteenth Century (New York, 1910).
VII
DIVISION INTO PERIODS
As we have seen already, the inspiration given by Ital-
ian scholars extended rapidly over the whole of Europe.
The first century or more is what is properly to be called
the Renaissance itself; but since its effects have lasted
down to the present day, it may be said that we, our-
selves, are still living and experiencing the results of
that great revival. Many scholars, therefore, would
regard the Renaissance as continuing down into the
twentieth century, calling the periods (i) the Italian,
(2) the French, (3) the English and Dutch, (4) the Ger-
man, and (5) the Cosmopolitan. This is a convenient
mode of grouping the great personalities who were con-
spicuous in their respective periods; but roughly we may
set down the fifty years or so which followed the begin-
ning of the Italian Renaissance as the Post-Renaissance
Period. In it we see the fruits of Italian culture gradually
distributed throughout the different countries of Europe,
until there were developed many schools of learning,
each having a tinge of distinctive nationality.^
^ See Nisard, op. cit., passim; Pokel, Schriflstellerlexikon (Leipzig,
1882) ; and Michaud, Biographic Universelle, Aticienne et Moderne, last
edition, 45 vols. (Paris, 1843-1865).
u 289
VIII
THE AGE OF ERASMUS
While the impulse given by Italy and Italian scholarship
was quickly felt in every country, the other countries
needed someone of commanding personality who should
be able to interpret this great intellectual movement to
the schools and peoples of Northern Europe. The New
Learning must not be imitative, and therefore it must
not remain Italian; but after its fundamental principles
should be accepted, they must be dealt with according to
the national instinct and temperament of each of the
peoples of the North. He whose mission it was to per-
form this splendid work, and thus to stamp his memory
upon the period of transition, was Desiderius Erasmus,
the greatest humanist who has ever lived, and in whom
Humanism itself is vividly personified. The facts about
his life, as Professor Emerton has said, form a sort of
Erasmus-legend, since they are taken from passages in his
writings which have been styled autobiographical, though
the author himself never so allowed them to be called.
There remain also 1500 letters from his pen (for he was
a voluminous and ready writer); representing at least
500 different correspondents — people of every grade in
290
ERASMUS 291
life, from the most lowly to those who sat on thrones. It
may be added that a letter from Erasmus was regarded
by a king as being no less precious and no less an honour
than was a letter from the same writer to a village school-
master. So great became his influence and so widespread
his fame, that the fifty years from i486 to 1536 constitute
in themselves a period which may itself be called almost
*' The Age of Desiderius Erasmus."
Desiderius Erasmus was bom at Rotterdam. Ac-
cording to tradition he was an illegitimate son, who
was, nevertheless, lovingly cared for by his parents until
they both died when he was fifteen years of age.^ He was
taught in the well-known school at Deventer, and later at
Bois-le-Duc, where he says that he " wasted " some three
years, suffering from the narrowness and the discomfort
of his life. Finally, he entered the monastery near Gouda,
and during the ten years of his stay there, he took priestly
orders. In 1492 — significant year! — he left the mon-
^ The father of Erasmus was called, in his native Dutch, Ga^rt or
Gerard ; hence the name of Erasmus in the vernacular was Gasrt Gaert's.
This name, Erasmus himself Latinized and Graecized into Desiderius
Erasmus. The powerful and historically accurate novel by Charles Reade,
The Cloister and the Hearth, gives a fictitious account of the elder Gaert.
The book may be commended to the most serious reader, since it displays
the later Middle Ages and the early Renaissance in minute detail, while
yet its careful knowledge has been fused by the genius of a great writer
into something that is singularly consistent and alive. George Eliot's
Romola is pale and introspective beside this masterpiece of Reade, in
which every page displays the author's virility and erudition.
292 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
astery, and, taking up his abode at Paris, he began what
we should now describe as a Hterary caieer. But having
regard for the different conditions at that time, he might
better be termed an independent scholar, teaching and
writing, and thus making an income which brought him,
together with fame and many favours, the right of living
as he would and where he would. His mind was stimu-
lated by much travel, for he passed to Louvain, to England,
to Basel, to Freiburg, and he spent three years of his life
in Italy. But here we note a curious fact: that the man
who was to spread Italian culture through the North
was himself a son of the North, receiving in the North
the foundations of his genial and brilliant scholarship. He
was, however, in fact, a genuine citizen of the world, a true
cosmopolite, equally at home in every country, and always
sure of a friendly greeting. How thoroughly denational-
ized Erasmus was may be seen in the fact that when he
was offered a readership at Louvain he declined it, because
he was not sufficiently familiar with the Dutch language
— his native tongue! It is, indeed, quite certain that,
though he lived at times in Paris, he understood little
French; that, though he was frequently in Germany, he
knew no German ; and that, however greatly he admired
Italy, his knowledge of Italian was very slight. In fact,
his only language was the language of the cultivated
world over which he reigned as king, — a sort of Latin,
which he spoke with the utmost fluency. Its syntax was
ERASMUS 293
purely classical. Its vocabulary was adapted and en-
larged so as to mention modem things. But this adapta-
tion and enlargement were largely effected by the influence
of Analogy, so that his newly coined words seemed as
purely Roman as did the newly coined words of Plautus.^
Having a perfect command of this noble instrument of
speech, he could travel from country to country, and meet
the distinguished men of every centre of learning without
considering whether their native tongue happened to be
French or English or Dutch or German or Italian. Latin,
adapted to every condition or state of life, rich for the
eloquence of the orator, easy and playful for the genial
converse of social life, majestic and sonorous for the stately
ceremonies of religion, — here was the lingua linguarum
in this Golden Age of scholarship and letters.
The personality of Erasmus was so delightful that in
every country, in every town, and especially in every abode
of learning, he was welcomed as a friend and almost as a
monarch. Indeed, more than one king urged him to attach
himself to the royal court, and by his mere presence give
to it an additional lustre. But Erasmus cared little for
courts. He preferred the sympathetic companionship
of such men as William Grocyn, who first taught Greek at
Oxford, of the great Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas
More, and of Archbishop Warham, who settled upon
him a liberal income for life. He was one of the group
' See supra, pp. 145-147.
294 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
of cultivated men who gathered around the famous
pubhsher, John Froben, at Basel; and in like manner,
ha was an intimate friend of the Venetian publisher, Aldus
Manutius, and knew well all the members of the circle
associated with the Aldine Press.^
His writings fall under several heads. At first, he
criticised some of the abuses which had sprung up in the
Catholic Church, and he made fun of the scholastic method
in philosophy. The drift of many of his works is to show
that forms are of little value in religion, while the spirit
of genuine piety is everything. A second phase of the life-
work of Erasmus is found in his editions of the works of
Aristotle and Demosthenes, with translations, in part, of
Euripides, Lucian, and the Moralia of Plutarch. Of
Latin authors, not including the Patristic writers, he edited
Terence and parts of Cicero and Livy. More important
than these achievements, and in fact quite epoch-making,
was his critical revision of the New Testament. We have
already seen that such a stupendous undertaking had been
suggested by Lorenzo Valla, in his Annotations to the New
Testament? Erasmus, in a preface to this work of Valla's,
pointed out the obvious fact that no correct translation of
tlie Bible could be made except by a trained linguist, and
^ See supra, p. 286.
^ Supra, pp. 241, 281-2. This tractate by Valla seems to have been
recovered by Erasmus in the year 1505. It represents the starting-point
in Biblical criticism and exegesis.
ERASMUS 295
that the original Greek manuscripts ought to be carefully
revised and compared. Evidently, he began at once to
equip himself for such an undertaking; for in 1 51 2 — seven
years later — he writes to the Englishman, John Colet, the
founder of St. Paul's School, and says that he has already
collated the New Testament with the ancient Greek manu-
scripts, and that he has annotated it in more than a thou-
sand places.
The work, when completed, was published at the press
of Froben in Basel. It is very easy to criticise it now, and
in its own time it was criticised chiefly because Erasmus
never attained the sure knowledge of Greek that some of
his contemporaries possessed.^ He himself once said:
" My Greek studies are almost too much for my courage,
while I have not the means of securing books or the help
of a master." He also wrote that " without Greek the
amplest erudition in Latin is imperfect." This, of course,
was in his early years. Long afterward he rendered into
Latin the Greek grammar of Theodorus Gaza, while his
Greek texts mark the climax of his learning.^ It is also
to be noted that in 1528 he published a dialogue called
Ciceronianus, in which he discussed Latin style, protesting
against limiting modem Latin to a pedantic imitation of
' For instance, Guillaume Bude (Gulielmus Budaeus), the French
philologist, who was a distinguished Grecian, much superior to Erasmus.
See his Life by E. de Bude (Paris, 1884).
^ Such as his translations and editions already mentioned, besides his
critical works on some of the Greek Fathers.
296 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the vocabulary and phraseology of Cicero.* This was
interesting as marking the coming break betsveen the
Italian School of Latinity, which was strictly Ciceronian,
and the other schools which were presently to arise in
Northern countries. In the same year he also wrote his
treatise on the correct pronunciation of Latin and Greek.^
With regard to Greek, he established a pronunciation which
has been practically adopted in all the Northern countries
of Europe and in the United States, and which is known
after him as " the Erasmian Pronunciation." Somewhat
later another method, called " the Reuchlinian Method,"
was proposed,^ and was known for its "lotacism" because
of the vowels, r), t, v, ei, and vi, all have the sound of i
in the word machine. It might have been argued that,
since Greek remains a living language, scholars ought to
pronounce it as the Greeks of that day pronounced it ;
but many changes had crept in since the classical period,
so that the pronunciation of educated Greeks was known
to differ very largely from the ancient pronunciation.
Hence, as a common standard, most countries have held
to the Erasmian method.
As to the pronunciation of Latin in the time of
Erasmus, it was largely that of the Italians, a fact made
* Infra, p. 303.
2 See W. G. Clark in the (English) Journal of Philology, i. 2 ; 98-108.
^ By Johann Reuchlin (loannes Capnio), an admirable Grecian, and
also an erudite Hebrew scholar, who lived in the time of Erasmus, and
was regarded as second in learning only to him.
ERASMUS 297
evident by Erasmus himself in his use of one pronuncia-
tion in whatever country he might be, and before what-
ever universities he might lecture. Scholars retained for
all practical purposes the most essential features of it,
because, coming from all the countries of Europe and
fraternising everywhere, this intercourse tended to main-
tain a general tradition which was not seriously disturbed
for some time after.^
Erasmus, though easy-going and fond of social pleasure,
nevertheless accomplished an amount of serious work
which is prodigious when one gathers it together and
views it as a whole. Concerning his semi-theological works
this is no place to speak; and yet they give a very char-
acteristic picture of his mental attitude toward life, and
toward all things that have to do with life. In the early
part of his career he wrote books which, with keen wit,
satirised the failings of the clergy. Such were his Adagia
(1508), his Encomium MoricB, or Praise of Folly (1509), and
especially his famous Colloguia, or dialogues (15 24) ,2 which
abound in lively satire, and flashes of inimitable wit.
^ See Erasmus, De Recta Lalini Grceciqne Sermonis Pronunciatione
(Basel, 1528) ; Zacher, Die Aussprache des Griechischen (Leipzig, 1888) ;
Blass, The Pronunciation of Ancient Greek, Eng. trans. (Cambridge, 1890) ;
and Corssen, Ucber Aussprache etc. der Lateinischen Sprache (Berlin, 1870).
2 His writings may be classed as (a) theological ; {h) satirical ; (c)
educational; {d) philological; (e) critical; (/) literary; as in his very
numerous letters, and (g) expository' in such lectures and discourses
as he chose to give in a delightfully unconventional way.
298 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
But when Martin Luther broke with the Church, and
declared his independence of the Papacy, Erasmus could
not follow him. His tranquil good sense, while it ad-
mitted that certain abuses were temporarily to'^ije seen,
had no sympathy with Luther, but believed that all these
wrongs would right themselves through the wisdom of
the Church itself. Therefore, he refused to break with
the splendid traditions of papal Rome, and he died a
Catholic, although not greatly heeding external forms in
his religion. This fact deserves mention here because if
shows how truly and unfeignedly Erasmus was a hu-
manist — as truly as was Horace in the Augustan Age at
Rome, His motto might well have been that of the genial
poet who praised the Golden Mean, and who declared: —
"Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines,
Quos ultraque citraque nequit consistere rectum."
Professor Emerton does not admit that Erasmus was a
genius; yet who but a very great genius could have accom-
plished what was accomplished by Erasmus? Who, at
that particular moment, could have been so absolutely the
Man of his Time ? He exercised, by his peculiarly winning
personality, an influence which was felt all over Europe.
He w^as a king of letters, a man of extraordinary reading,
of a sane and yet brilliant and original mind, a contributor
in a score of ways to the progress of learning and the uni-
fication of classical philology. All his influence was for
ERASMUS 299
good. There was no blot upon his character, and his
aspirations were always noble. He had no personal pride
as to his own accomplishments; he was " a friend of all
the world." The work which he performed in all these
different ways was a serious one, and it was seriously
expressed by Erasmus in tsvo sentences that were penned
by him in the year before his death : —
" I used my best endeavours to free the rising genera-
tion from the depths of ignorance, and to inspire it with
a thirst for better studies. I wTote, not for Italy, but for
Germany and the Netherlands." ^
Important Editiones Principes or the Fifteenth Century
I. Greek
1481. Theocritus {Id. i.-xvrn.), together with Hesiod, Works
and Days.
1488. Homer (ed. Chalcondylas) . Valla's Latin trans, of the
Iliad was printed as early as 1474.
1495. Hesiod, Opera omnia (Aldus).
1495-98. Aristotle (Aldus).
^ Erasmus, Opera, ix, 1440 (Basel, 1540). See the lives of Erasmus and
the studies of his character and work by De Laur (Paris, 1872) ; Nisard,
Erasmi Epistolcc, i (1484-1514), edited by P. S. Allen (Oxford, 1906);
Jebb, Erasmus (London, 1890) ; Froude, Erasmus (London, 1894) ;
Emerton, Erasmus (Cambridge, 1899) ; Pennington, Erasmus (London,
1901). See also Nichols, The Epistles of Erasmus (1901-1904) ; Wood-
ward, Erasmus on Education, (New York, 1904) ; De Nolhac, Erasme en
Italic (Paris, 1888); and Sandys, Lectures on the Revival of Learning,
pp. 162-167, ^nd pp. 177-178 (Cambridge, 1905).
300 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
V
1496. Euripides, Med., Hypp., Ale, Aitdrom. (Lascaris),
Apollonius (Lascaris), Lucian (in Florence).
1498. Aristophanes (excl. Lys. and Thesm.).
1499. Aratus {hi Astronomi vett. ap. Aldum).
II. Latin.
1465. Cicero, De Officiis. First printed edition of a classical
author. Cf . art. " Typography " in Encycl. Brit.
Lactantius (Rome).
1469. Caesar, Vergil, Livy, Lucan, Apuleius, GelHus (Rome).
1470. Persius, Juvenal, Martial, Quintilian, Suetonius (Rome).
Tacitus, Juvenal, Sallust, Horace (Venice), Terence
(Strassburg).
1471. Ovid (Rome, Bonn), Nepos (Venice).
1472. Plautus (G. Merula), Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius
Statius (Venice).
1473. Lucretius (Brixiae).
1474. Valerius Flaccus (Bonn).
1475. Seneca (Prose Works), Sallust (first volume issued in
octavo).
1484. Seneca (Tragedies) at Ferrara.
1485. PHny the Younger (Venice).
1498. Cicero, Opera Omnia.^
1 See Brunei, Manuel de Libraire, 8 vols. (Paris, 1880) ; Schiick, Aldus
Manulius und seine ZeUgenossen (Berlin, 1862) ; Didot, Aide Mamice,
pp. Ixviii and 647 (Paris, 1875).
IX
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM
The task of Erasmus had been the binding together
of Northern energy and Southern culture. He had prac-
tically made the whole world of Western Europe one in
everything which pertained to scholarship. Learned men
came and went with perfect freedom from country to
country, from monastery to monastery, and from court to
court, needing no passport, save the cachet of a liberal
education. But this age of enlightenment was to last only
for a short time. Even while Erasmus lived, the so-called
Protestant Reformation burst forth in Germany, and
soon divided all of Europe into hostile camps. What-
ever may be one's religious belief, he can but regret the
effect which this religious antagonism had upon the
immediate future of classical scholarship. It divided
countries according to the dogmas of their princes. It
put a sudden and grievous end to the genial intercourse of
humanists. It made the great universities appear like
hostile fortresses, from which the inmates no longer sent
forth works of learning for the benefit of every land alike ;
but rather missiles in the shape of angry tracts or ponderous
tomes that wasted learning and altered the mellow geniality
30J
302 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
of Ilumanism into yelpings and vituperation, scattering vile
language all over Europe. Thus, the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge in England, of Leyden and
Utrecht in Holland, of Marburg, Konigsberg, and Jena
in Germany, thundered out their theological fulminations
on the Protestant side, while from Wiirzburg, Gratz,
Innsbruck, Paris, and Louvain, learned treatises were
mingled with the most scurrilous abuse of Protestant
scholars who had written on the same subject.^
Nevertheless, the odium theologicum could not alto-
gether eliminate the love of what had belonged to the
earlier epoch. Luther might rage in Germany; and the
papal sword might flash in Italy; while Holland and
England drew together in a political and scholarly union,
and France went its own way, Catholic as yet, but liberally
so. The difference lay in the fact that scholarship took
on different forms in different countries. The learned
world was not united as it had been in the days of Erasmus.
Young Englishmen had formerly visited Italy and Paris
to pursue their studies; but now they went to Leyden or
to Utrecht. The German student, according to his faith,
went to a school or university where that faith was taught.
The young Frenchman studied at one or another of the
universities that were Catholic. Thus, classical scholar-
ship in Europe became national rather than universal.
As for Italy, its scholars had remained true to the early
1 See Nisard, Les Gladiateurs de la Republique de Lettres (Paris, 1889).
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 303
Renaissance, so that the Italian School remained Cicero-
nian to the last degree, following closely the precepts
of Lorenzo Valla. Its Latin was wholly that of Cicero.
Not a word, nor a phrase, nor a line was tolerated, save
when it could be shown absolutely to have the purity of
diction and the rhythmic cadence of the great Roman
orator. It is extraordinary to learn what pains were taken
to secure this perfect imitation. Thus Cardinal Pietro
Bembo was probably the most perfect imitator of Cicero
that ever lived.^ His Latin in every shade, in every note,
in every inflection, recalls the Latin of his master and
model. It is related that he would not speak Latin with
any casual scholar, lest by doing so he should mar the
perfection of his own Latinity. Herein he was very
different from Erasmus, whose colloquial style had been
syntactically correct, while yet allowing his own personality
to appear in everything that he wrote and said. This
individual touch of his gave popularity to all his writings.
He had special characteristic, of his own, — so that one
could feel in all that was Erasmian the pungent wit,
the sympathetic mood, and the geniality of the man him-
self. But Bembo and his fellow Cardinal, Sadoleto,^
the most distinguished representatives of the Italian School,
wasted themselves on style alone. What they wrote and
spoke was delightfully conceived in the Ciceronian manner,
^ 1470-1547. See Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy, ii. pp. 409-415.
*I477-I547. See Joly, Etude sur Sadolet (Caen, 1857).
304 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
but it had no force, no personal power to attract the Hstener.
One felt that the writer or speaker was too self-conscious,
and too much afraid of making a sh'ght slip here or there.
Hence the ItaHan School remained a school of literature,
contenting itself with the authors of the Golden Age,
whom they read and reread and annotated from a strictly
literary point of view. It was a school of style — style
always, and, therefore, style that degenerated into puerility.
As classical learning penetrated th.e_coun tries North and
West of Italy, it took on a more independent form. It,
likewise, began to show a touch of the critical element,
and also a desire to provide both instruments and aids for
scholarly activity. Thus, in Italy, although many vocabu-
laries and glossaries were produced, they were scattered
and fragmentary, and each represented half a dozen others.
It was in 1483, that loannes Crastenus printed the first
Greek-Latin vocabulary, which increased in size as it
passed through several editions. In 1497 ^ much more
complete work of the same character was issued from
the Aldine Press, and this was speedily followed by lexi-
cons bearing the name of Calepinus, Bude (Budaeus),
Gessner, Constantine, and others. Most important is
the dictionary of Bude (Paris, 1529; Basel, 1530). It
was re-edited and much enlarged by Robert Etienne,
(Paris, 1548). This dictionary is the first to have been
published after the Renaissance. It is particularly exact
in its explanation of legal terms. Robert Etienne, or, as
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 305
he called himself, Robertus Stephanus (absurdly styled by
the English, " Robert Stephens"), was at once a printer
and a man of learning; and his son, Henri Etienne, or, as
he called himself, Henricus Stephanus,* were two very
important figures in the history of classical studies in
France. The father issued carefully collated editions of
Horace, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, and Dio Cassius.
But his most important production was his Latin dic-
tionary {Thesaurus Linguce Latina), which appeared in
parts during the years 1 531-1536. It was not an entirely
original work, being based upon the vocabulary of Bud^,
yet for a long time no better lexicon was known to Europe.
Henri Etienne, in 1572, published a work that is most
remarkable. It was a Greek lexicon in five volumes
{Thesaurus Linguce Greece) . It defined more than 100,000
Greek words with references to authorities. It was a
compilation of remarkable industry and scholarship, and
was many times re-edited — last of all by Dindorf (Paris,
1856 foil.). To this day, it remains unrivalled as being
the most complete lexicon of Greek known to the world.
France was now the mother of a brilliant group of schol-
ars, or at least the centre to which they flocked. The
College de France, established by Francis I, gave shelter
and recognition to many very remarkable men, constituting
^ See Egger, UHellenisme en France, 2 vols. (Paris, 1869); id. pp.
198 foil. ; Pattison, Essays, i. 62-124 (Oxford, 1889) ; Feugere, Essai sur
la Vie et les Ouvrages de Henri Etienne (Paris, 1853); Pokel, 5.t>. ; and
Lefranc, Histoire du College de France (Paris, 1893).
3o6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
what may be roughly called the French School of Classical
Philology. This school was noted for its acute criticism
and its wide range of encyclopasdic knowledge. With the
Etiennes must be reckoned the memorable names of Adrien
Turnebe (Hadrianus Turnebus)/ who was the greatest
Greek scholar of his time; Denis Lambin (Dionysius
Lambinus),^ Director also of the Royal Printing Establish-
ment; Marc Antoine Muret (Marcus Antonius Muretus),^
one of the greatest stylists of any period; Charles du
Fresne, sieur du Cange/ a writer on Low Latin, whose glos-
saries are still in vogue, and have been many times re-
edited; Bernard de Montfaucon,^ the founder of scientific
Palaeography; and greatest of all, Isaac Casaubon (Casau-
bonus),^ whose prodigious learning was surpassed by only
one man of his own time or for centuries after.
' 1512-1565. See Pokel, op. cit., s.v.; and Clement, De Adriani
Turnaibi Pracjalionibiis, p. 7 (Paris, 1899).
"^ 1520-1572. See Mattaire, Histor'ia Typographorum Aliquot Parisi-
ensiimi (London, 1717); the appendix to Ore\\\, Onomasticon Ciceronis,
I. pp. 478-491 (Zurich, 1861), 3d ed. ; and the preface to Munro's
Lucretius, pp. 14-16.
' 1 5 26-1 585. His orations and a part of his other works are printed ;
Teubner edition, ed. by Frey (Leipzig, 1887-1888) ; Pattison, Essays,
i. 124-132, last ed. (Oxford, 1889); and Dejob, Marc Antoine Muret
(Paris, 1861).
* 1610-1688. See Hardouin, Essai sur la Vie el les Ouvrages de du
Cange (Paris, 1849).
^ 1655-1741. See de Broglie, La Sociele de I'Abbaye de Saint-Ger-
main, 2 vols. (Paris, 1891).
* 1559-1614. The standard life of Isaac Casaubon must apparently
always remain that of Mark Pattison, ed. by Nettleship, 2d ed. (Oxford,
1892).
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 307
Turnebus was the most celebrated Grecian of this period,
and his mind was intensely critical. Beside editing several
Greek and Roman authors, he wrote comm.entaries on
Varro de Lingua Latina, and on Horace. He likewise left
thirty books of Adversaria, consisting of notes and critical
comments, many of which were brilliant and of great value.
Lambinus is to be remembered as having first made the
text of Lucretius fairly intelligible. Before his time, whole
passages had been impossible to read. But the critical
mind of Lambinus threw light upon what had been dark,
and by judicious emendation he gave to the world an edi-
tion of the great Epicurean, upon which Lachmann after-
ward based his epoch-making work. Lambinus spent
eleven years in Rome and devoted himself to the collation
of manuscripts in the Vatican Library. At the end of that
time (1561), he was called to Paris as Professor of Greek
and Latin, and employed his profound learning with sobri-
ety and admirable results, so that not only his editions of
Lucretius, but those also of Plautus, Cicero, and Horace
make his memory a very special one in the minds of classi-
cal scholars. Few of his contemporaries had such vast
learning, and few had such profound knowledge of an au-
thor's style. He died of apoplexy, caused by the murders
of St. Bartholomew's night. Modem commentators owe
to Lambinus much of the material which they use without
giving credit to this splendid scholar of the French Renais-
sance.
3o8 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
His contemporary, Muretus, spent several years as his
companion in Rome, and became well known for his work
in editing various classical authors, such as Terence, Ca-
tullus, Tibullus, Propertius, and Seneca. As a critic he
produced a volume of Varies Lectiones, but he was most
renowned for the purity of his Latin style. At the age of
eighteen he wrote Latin with great fluency and ease, and
afterwards in the University of Paris his orations in Latin
see^d as splendid as those of Cicero. They were read
indeed in schools side by side with Cicero as late as the end
of the eighteenth century, and various editions were made
of them.
One of the greatest of the Post- Renaissance scholars
was Isaac Casaubon (Casaubonus) , who deserved the title
which Varro bore of being essentially a TroXviarcop. One of
his contemporaries declared : " He is the most learned of all
men who live to-day." He was born in Geneva, the son of
a Huguenot minister, from whom he received all his instruc-
tion until he reached the age of nineteen. In these troubled
years the family often had to flee from home to save their
lives from their armed opponents. Pattison relates that,
while hiding in a cave, Isaac received his first lesson in
Greek. At nineteen he was sent to the Academy (now the
University) of Geneva, where he studied Greek under
Portus, a Cretan. When Portus died he recommended his
learned pupil as his successor, and thus at the age of twenty-
three he became Professor of Greek. Four years later he
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 309
was called to a like position in Montpellier, but there, as
at Geneva, he sufifered from lack of a sufficient library.
Shortly afterward he went to Paris, owing to the influence
of Henry IV. His Calvinism prevented him from receiving
a professorship in the University, and instead he was made
Royal Librarian, a position which he held until the murder
of the King, when he felt his position insecure; so that in
1610 he crossed the Channel to England, where James I
showed him great favour and made him prebendary of
Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster. In the great
abbey he lies buried. Casaubon was immensely erudite
both in theological and in classical scholarship. As a
theologian he wrote a work on ecclesiastical freedom (1607) ,
and especially his Exercitationes Contra Baronium (16 14),
in which he sharply attacked the chronological work of
Cardinal Baronius.^
Casaubon was not brilliant, nor was he possessed of so
keen and searching a mind as that of his great contem-
porary Scaliger, but his tolerant spirit and enormous read-
ing made him famous throughout Europe. Until he came
to Paris he had been greatly hampered by the lack of books.
1 Caesar Baronius, who became Cardinal in 1596 and librarian of the
Vatican (1597), was the author of the work mentioned above, a chronology
from the birth of Christ to 1198 a.d. It cost him twenty-seven years
of labour, and has been added to in modem times, even as recently as
1864. Baronius was a clever and diverting writer, but Casaubon charged
him with many errors, owing to his ignorance of Greek and Hebrew.
He died in 1607, and, therefore, never lived to read the attack upon him
by Casaubon.
3IO HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
At Geneva and at Montpellier there were no libraries of
importance. He was obliged to borrow necessary volumes
from other scholars to whose homes he walked great dis-
tances. These volumes he copied laboriously with his own
hand, and it is said that in the case of smaller books, he
memorised them. Such practices, while tiresome, fixed in
his memory the texts themselves and made him exceedingly
exact in his learning. Many countries sought him out ;
but it was in England that his final home was made. He
was welcomed at all the universities, and was especially
agreeable to the King (James I), who was fond of theo-
logical discussion. In fact, on one occasion, when there
was some difficulty about paying his pension, the King
wrote with his own hand : —
" Chanceler of my Excheker, I will have Mr. Casaubon paid
before me, my wife, and my bames."
It was also by the personal intervention of King James
that Casaubon's library, which had been stored in Paris, was
sent over to England. The English people could hardly
understand such favour, and Casaubon became very unpop-
ular. He could speak no English, and his scholarship was
not appreciated by the mob. Consequently, he was always
in danger of some ruffianly assault. At night his windows
were broken, and by day his children were stoned in the
streets. In France, of course, after he had definitely de-
cided not to return from England, he was equally disliked,
being regarded as a renegade who had sold his religious
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 31I
belief for English gold. He died in the year which wit-
nessed the publication of a great controversial work which
was, nevertheless, wholly unworthy of his powers.
Casaubon was a man of encyclopeedic knowledge. He
was as familiar with out-of-the-way authors, such as those
of the Historia Augusta, and Dionysius of Halicamassus,
as with the better-known classics, such as Persius and Po-
lybius. During the four years of his visit in England, he
contributed little to Classical Philology, In fact, his most
memorable books were those which antedate his stay in
Paris, and at a time when his reading was done under so
great difficulty. It was given to him to take up a number of
authors, and so thoroughly to comment on them as to leave
little for succeeding scholars in the way of exegesis. Thus
he brought out an edition of the C/^arac/gre5 of Theophrastus
as early as 1592, and an extraordinarily complete Athenaeus
in 1598.* His exliaustive edition of Persius^ was called
by Scaliger "divine"; while his Suetonius passed through
three editions in the course of a few years. In his Polybius^
is a remarkable introduction on the subject of Greek
Historiography. Less full and of less lasting value were
his annotations of other authors, but he deserves great and
enduring credit for having been the first to study Roman
' Incorporated into Schweighauser's edition (1840).
2 Published in 1605, and pillaged by every commentator since that
time.
' PubUshed in 1609.
312 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
satire/ — a subject which was, and has been since, of
remarkable interest to all classicists.^
Still representing the French School of classical study, we
have the remarkable lexicographer, Charles du Fresne,
sieur du Cange, who did for Low Latin what Valla in an
earlier century had done for the Ciceronian tongue. Hold-
ing a lucrative office in Paris, this scholar gave himself up
for twenty years to unremitting industry, so that it has been
said that the number of his books would be incredible if
we had not the original manuscripts all written by his own
hand. To enumerate them would here be impossible, but
the two by which he is best known deserve especial mention.
The first of them is a glossary, as he modestly called it, to
the writers of Medieval and Low Latin; ^ and a like glos-
sary to the writers of Late Greek.* Into these tomes he
gathered all the words that he could find in legal docu-
ments, charters, manuscripts, diplomas, titles, and many
printed documents, all written in the mixed language
which prevailed in the Middle Ages and for some time
afterward. His sources were drawn from the archives
of Paris ; and, therefore, ponderous though they were, suc-
ceeding scholars have added to them almost in each decade,
until at present every issue is practically an Antibarharus.
From his pen came also an excellent edition of the Byzan-
tine Historians. His Greek glossary was hardly so com-
' De Satyrica Grceca Poesi et Romanorum Satira (1605).
* The original was edited by Rambach (Halle, 1774).
' Glossarium ad Scriptores Media et Infimce Latinitatis (1678).
* Glossarium ad Scriptores et hijimce Gracitatis (1688).
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 313
plete as his Latin one, and in fact was published in the year
of his death. His son Hved only four years ; and finally,
the French Government, knowing how valuable were the
writings of Du Cange, collected the greater part of his
manuscripts, which are now contained in the Bibliotheque
Nationale in Paris.^
Worthy of recollection was another Frenchman of this
period, Bernard de Montfaucon, a nobleman by birth,
but forced through ill health to a life of seclusion and study.
There are few incidents in his career which present much
variety, since he passed successively from one abbey to
another, examining and annotating their numerous manu-
scripts. From 1698 to 1701, he spent most of his time in
Rome. His first publication was a work entitled Analecta
GrcBca (1688) , never completely finished. But he is best re-
membered in Archaeology by his work in ten folio volumes,^
in which drawings made by him of antique objects and
monuments gave to the world something that was wholly
new. It was one of the most interesting contributions
made to the study of Archeeology; and his Palceographia
^ See Hardouin, op. cit. The last and most complete Glossarium to
the mediaeval Latin is that edited by Favre, 10 vols.''(Niort, 1884-1887).
^ L'Antiquite Expliquee et Representee en Figures. This book was a
wonderful storehouse of antiquities. It was first brought out by sub-
scription in 1719, and in less than two months the first edition (18,000
volimies) was sold, and a new edition of 2500 volumes was printed
in the same year, with a supplementary edition of five more volumes.
A full list of his contributions to Archaeology will be found in the Nou-
velle Biographic Generate, s.v.
314 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
GrcBca has never yet been superseded. Somewhat eariier
(1681), there had appeared a work on Palaeography/
written by Jean Mabillon, an inmate of the beautiful abbey
of Saint Germain,^ the earliest seat of the learned Benedic-
tine Order in France. The validity of the abbey's charters
had been attacked, and Mabillon wrote the work just men-
tioned to show how false documents could be distinguished
from genuine ones, and how to determine th-e--date of a
manuscript by comparison with others. The difference
between the work of Mabillon and that of Montfaucon lies
in the fact that the latter dealt with Greek manuscripts
alone, of which he gave a list of 11,630, whereas Mabillon
had dealt alone with Latin.
The close of what has been called the French Period,
though it shows us the colossal figure of Casaubon, has no
one who can rival him. Nevertheless, a great cluster of ac-
complished scholars enter into the annals of the end of the
seventeenth century. Such, for example, is the man of
letters, Jean Bouhier (1673-1746), who cited the Petronian
fragment De Bella Civili, besides translating it, and con-
tributing to the PalcBographia of Montfaucon. The most
important consecutive portion of Petronius {i.e. the Cena
Trimalchionis) was recovered at Trau (the Roman Tra-
gurium) in 1663 by the Frenchman Pierre Petit (Marinus
Statilius) and published by him at Paris in 1664.^ There
1 De Re Diplomatica.
^ See Vanel, Les Benididins de Saint-Maur (Paris, 1896).
' See Introduction to Peck's Cena Trimalchionis, 2d ed. (New York,
1908).
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 315
were editions of Horace by P^re Sanadon and others, while
parts of Demosthenes and Cicero were translated by the
learned Father de Thoulie, also known as Olivetus, who
finally edited the whole of Cicero.
Classical Archaeology was at this time further promoted
by Bunduri, who wrote a prodigious work on the antiqui-
ties of Constantinople; by Michel Fourmont, who collected
many inscriptions and forged many others; by Burette, who
studied Greek Music; and by Nicolas Frdret, whose attempts
in Ancient Geography and History were fairly accurate.
A Frenchman (d'Anville), who lived four decades later than
Freret, published seventy-eight geographical treatises and
two hundred and eleven maps, all admirably executed. A
group of French scholars collected Greek and Roman
coins as well as ancient gems. Among these collectors were
Charles Patin, J. F. F. Vaillant, J. Pellerin, and P. J.
Mariette, the last reproducing a large number of gems in
his Pierres Gravees (1752). A French nobleman, the
Comte de Caylus, who had served in the army, went to the
East in disguise, visited Smyrna, Ephesus, and Colophon,
actually traversed and examined the plain of Troy, and
then, returning, carefully studied the monuments of
Constantinople. He was a man of great wealth, and de-
voted more than two-thirds of it to his passion for antiqui-
ties. His magnificent house he filled to overflowing with
works of ancient art — not only Greek and Roman, but
also Etruscan and Egyptian. Whatever was interesting
3l6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
and beautiful he endeavoured to add to his collections.
Two sumptuous works of his are the seven volumes which
make up his Recueil cfAntiquites, and the reproduction
by P. S. Bartoli which he caused to be made of the mural
paintings found in the sepulchre of the Nasones.^
The greatest masters of the French school Had ceased
with Montfaucon, or even earlier with Casaubon. Casau-
bon's final years in England seem to identify him with a
different type of scholar. In fact, among his contempora-
ries, a number were in many ways different from the learned
yet brilliant Frenchman whose style was almost that of
the Italians in its purity, and whose criticism and comment
were puissant and profound. The Netherlands, small, but
full of intellectual life, produced a cluster of learned men,
unrivalled in the history of the modem world. Of course,
Erasmus had led the way, since by birth he was a Nether-
lander ; but he belonged to no country and to no school.
In his own time he was essentially a cosmopolitan, at home
alike in Italy, in England, in Germany, and in France.
It was, as we have said, the so-called Protestant Reforma-
tion that made it quite impossible for another Erasmus to
exist until several centuries had passed. Between 1540,
however, and 1650, the universities of Holland,^ had bred
or had called to their chairs some of the most remarkable
' Peintures Antiques (1757).
' The University of Leyden was founded in 1575 ; that of Louvain
in 1610; and that of Utrecht in 1636.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 317
classicists that the world had ever seen. We may include
among these Casaubon, though he studied at Oxford and
spent his declining years in England, and with him we must
group the famous Joest Lips — better known as Justus
LipsiuSj^ and finally the greatest scholar of all time, Joseph
Justus Scaliger.^ These three men towered above all their
contemporaries, who called them The Triumvirate.^ The
rather uneventful story of Casaubon has been already told.
The life of Justus Lipsius was fairly tranquil. But round
Scaliger, the greatest of the three, there raged a conflict
of wit and learning, which ultimately caused his death,
and which gives us an illustration of how the division of
Catholic and Protestant, both of them extremely militant,
was inimical to learning.
Lipsius was educated in a Jesuit College, and had been
at the Catholic University of Louvain. This, perhaps, is the
reason why of the three great contemporaries, he alone
died in the communion of the Church. His life was that
of a wanderer. He roamed through Burgundy, Germany,
Austria, Bohemia, and Italy. Though Pattison speaks of
him as " a narrow pedant," he must have had something
of the personal charm of Erasmus, for he made friends
among the scholars whom he met. His first published
work was a volume of critical miscellanies, which he dedi-
cated to Cardinal Granvella, who secured for him an
* 1547-1606. 2 1540-1609.
' See Nisard, Le Triumv-irat Litteraire au XVI"'' Sikcle. (Paris, no
date).
3l8 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
appointment as Latin secretary and a visit to Rome, where
he remained two years, studying carefully the monuments
and inscriptions, and especially examining the manuscripts
in the Vatican. A second volume of Varies Lectiones
(1575), after his return from Rome, showed a decided
advance in critical ability. He no longer leaned on con-
jectural emendation, but preferred to emend by the com-
parison (collation) of manuscripts, and he had learned to
distinguish between what palaeographers call " good manu-
scripts," and " bad manuscripts." His intercourse with
scholars was as varied as that of Erasmus, but his theologi-
cal difficulties were far greater. Thus, for a year, he taught
in the Lutheran University at Jena. Soon aftenvards we
find him at Cologne, which was Catholic. Presently he
returned to Louvain, whence he retired to Antwerp, where
he received (1579) a call to the newly established Univer-
sity of Leyden as a professor of history. In his eleven years
at Leyden (the Protestant University) he passed his time in
classroom drudgery, and yet he found time to produce his
two great masterpieces, — his edition of Seneca (1605)
and of Tacitus (1574). This last work is a superb monu-
ment to his genius. It was published by a sort of growth,
from one edition to another, until it became the most re-
markable commentary on that difficult author. Lipsius
had studied him so continually and with such intensity
that he could repeat the whole of everything that Tacitus
had written; and if any one doubted this, he would say:
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 319
" Put your sword to my throat and thrust me through if I
make a mistake in a single word." His books were largely
published by the famous press of Plantin at Antwerp, and
there his completed opera were set up in four volumes
(1637). In all, he prepared forty-eight separate publica-
tions, but most of them were of a controversial character,
and had no relation to scholarship.^ After his long stay at
Leyden, he returned to Catholic intimacies, and was re-
ceived, by the Jesuits especially, with open arms. Courts
and universities in Italy, Austria, and Spain poured invi-
tations upon him; but at last he settled at Louvain, where
he was made Professor of Latin without being expected to
teach, and having also the appointments of pri\y councillor
and historiographer to the King of Spain. From Louvain
he sent out many clever and amusing pamphlets, writing
them at the request of the Jesuit Fathers. He was indeed
the scholarly champion of the Catholics, as Scaliger and
Casaubon were the champions of the Protestants. But
Lipsius had a genial mind, and he seldom sought to wound.
He even maintained a friendly personal intercourse with
Protestant scholars of distinction, and with him great learn-
ing blotted out religious acrimony. He died at Louvain,
leaving his Greek books and manuscripts to the college
there. Lipsius had a profound knowledge of Roman
antiquities, but a very slight acquaintance with Greek.
1 Besides his Tacitus and Seneca, he edited Velleius Paterculus, and
Valerius Maximus.
320 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Even in Latin he had no ear for metres, and very little true
appreciation of poetical phrasing. Yet no man ever so
completely knew the Roman historians, especially Tacitus,
whose pages he had begun to read as a boy, and whom he
kept studying and revising until the very last year of his
life/
Great, however, as Lipsius was, there towers above him
in the history of learning the wonderful figure of Joseph
Justus Scaliger,^ a contemporary of Lipsius, and described
by Pattison as " the most richly stored intellect which ever
spent itself in acquiring knowledge." Scaliger was bom of
a father so remarkable as to make it surprising that even
his son could surpass him. This was Julius Caesar Scali-
ger.3 An eminent scholar has said that none of the ancients
could be ranked above him, while the age in which he lived
could not show his equal. He claimed to be one of the
illustrious Italian house of La Scala, and to have been bom
at their princely castle on the Lago de Garda. At twelve
he was presented to the Emperor Maximilian, and became
one of his pages, frequently showing himself a miracle of
personal bravery. He was also given to arts and letters,
studying under Albrecht Durer. In 15 12 he fought at the
^ The only complete life of Lipsius was written by Le Mire (Antwerp,
1607). See, however, Reiffenberg, De Justi Lipsi Vita et Scriptis Cofn-
mentarius (Brussels, 1823), and the pages referring to him in L. Miiller's
Geschichte der Klassichen Philologie in den Niederlanden (Leipzig, 1869),
a work which is commended to students of the Dutch-English period.
* 1540-1609. ' 1484-1588.
/
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 3 21
battle of Ravenna, where his father and elder brother were
slain beside him; but there he performed such incredible
deeds of valour that the Emperor conferred upon him per-
sonally the highest tokens of chivalry, — the spurs, the
collar, and the golden eagle. Receiving no more sub-
stantial rewards, he left the military service and became
a student at the University of Bologna. There and else-
where he studied as vigorously as he had fought, dividing
his time between medicine, natural history, and the classics.
This autobiographical account would be of compara-
tively little interest had not the truth or falsehood of it
played so important a part in the later life of his illustrious
son, and, in fact, plunged him from the heights of glorious
distinction to the depths of humiliation. As to the elder
Scaliger, however, he was undoubtedly a man of unusual
powers, whether he were descended from the family of La
Scala (Fr. de I'Escale), or whether, as his enemies in after
years declared, he was the son of an obscure teacher at
Verona. This much may be said : during his life-time no
one questioned his noble ancestry, while many undoubted
facts verify his narrative. Certain it is that he was a brill-
iant classicist and spent the last thirty-two years of his life
in such a way that on his death (1558) no scholar's repu-
tation equalled his. He was essentially one of the French
school with an Italian colouring, and the last part of his
life was spent in France at Agen, where he fell violently
in love with a beautiful young orphan of thirteen. Her
y
322 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
friends objected to her marriage with a person whom they
called a mere adventurer; but he attacked her with as much
success as he had stormed fortresses, and finally married
her when she was sixteen. The marriage proved to be a
very happy one; and it endured until his death, twenty-
nine years later, signalised in those years by the birth of
fifteen children. In 1531, this J. C. Scaliger published an
oration against Erasmus in answer to that great scholar's
Ciceronianus. It was astonishing in its vigour and com-
mand of every shade of Latin, ranging from brilliant rheto-
ric to foul abuse. Erasmus, however, treated it with silent
contempt, which caused Scaliger to write another oration
of the same sort, and a number of Latin verses, which were
still less successful. From his pen came also a treatise
on comic metres, and the first known scientific Latin
grammar. After his death there appeared his Poetica, —
filled with many paradoxes and boasts that nevertheless
were mingled with much acute criticism.^
Modem writers who estimate his genius regard him
rather as a philosopher and man of science than as a student
of the classics. His early training as a physician made him
care more for physics than for literature. Hence his
writings of enduring worth are monographs on many
subjects relating to the physical sciences. Although
Daude speaks of his intellect as " teeming with heroic
thought," he was not an investigator nor one who arrived
' See Spingam, op. cit., pp. 150-152, 176.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 323
at new truths. He clung to Aristotle and to Galen, and
rejected with arrogance the theories of Copernicus.
Nevertheless, his philosophical Exercitationes on Cardan
(1557) passed through many editions, and was a popu-
lar text-book as late as the middle of the seventeenth
century. Even in our own times, men like Leibnitz and
Sir William Hamilton have called the elder Scaliger the
best modern exponent of the physics and metaphysics
of Aristotle.*
His gifted son, Joseph Justus Scaliger,^ has come to be
recognised as the greatest scholar of the modern world.
He was the tenth child of the elder Scaliger; and it was
fortunate that an outbreak of the plague compelled him
to remain at home for a few years, and to become his
father's continual companion. This companionship was
worth far more to him than instruction in any school.
Association with a man of the world and an acute observer
made young Scaliger much more than a mere scholar.
It gave to his mind the breadth and also the accuracy,
both of which a true scholar should possess. It was the
chief pleasure of the elder Scaliger in his later years to
write Latin verse; and daily he dictated to his son from
eighty to more than a hundred lines. The boy was also
compelled each day to write a Latin theme or declamation.
Thus, when he was eighteen years of age, and after the
^ See Magen, Documents sur J. C. Scaliger et sa Famille (Paris 1880).
* 1540-1609.
324 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHLLOLOGY
death of his father, he went to Paris, and spent four years
at the University. His scholastic life there was very inter-
esting. Hitherto he had known only Latin and had given
no study to Greek. But at this time the French schools
and universities were throbbing with the early glow of
Hellenism,^ and the great French scholars were almost
entirely bent on Hellenic studies.
This was a surprise to Scaliger. He had devoted his
early youth to Latin; and now, of a sudden, he was made
to feel that ignorance of Greek was ignorance of every-
thing. Therefore, he enrolled himself under the cele-
brated Grecian, Tumebus (Tumebe), and attended his
lectures for several months. But presently he found out
that he could learn but little Greek in this way. He could
not rush into the lecture-room of a great scholar and under-
stand the lectures that were given there. He must him-
self do much preliminary work. Therefore, he shut
himself up in his rooms, and resolved on teaching himself.
He read all Homer in twenty-one days (presumably both
the Iliad and Odyssey) and then devoured all the other
Greek poets, orators, and historians. As he proceeded,
he formed a grammar for himself, noting the paradigms,
and reducing the words to their proper order. He seemed
to find this easy. Before listening to Tumebus again,
he essayed to teach himself both Arabic and Hebrew, and
acquired a very fair knowledge of both, though nothing
* Egger, op. cit., passim.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 325
like a critical mastery. There was another teacher of
Greek, named Dorat/ who had the official title of " Poet
Royal." He certainly justified this title, in a way, for he
published more than 50,000 Greek and Latin verses, of
which 15,000 are preserved. He had no great profundit)'
as a scholar, yet he was most admirable as a teacher;
while Tumebus could only lecture and not teach. The
name of Doratus stood very high, and he was fortunate
in his pupils, among whom was Scaliger and also Ronsard.
The gratitude of those who studied under him poured itself
out in their ascription to him of a high quality of scholar-
ship. Even Scaliger who could commend him only mildly
for his poetry, speaks with enthusiasm when he styles
him GrcECCB linguce peritissimus. The influence of
Doratus is seen in the Greek spirit of Ronsard, found in
those poems of his which recall the loftiness of ^Eschylus.^
In ^schylus, the studies of Doratus were very fruitful, since
he combined learning and taste, so that Hermann, in after
years, preferred him to any other critics of the great tragic
writer.
Upon the recommendation of Doratus, Scaliger became
a sort of travelling companion and tutor to a young lord
of La Roche Pozay, named Louis de Chastaigner. The
two young men were very sympathetic and set out upon a
' Jean d'Aurat. His pupils named him by the Latinised form, Do-
ratus.
2 See Chalandon, Essai sur Ronsard (Paris, 1875) ; and Fieri,
Pitrarque et Ronsard (Marseilles, 1895).
326 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
course of travel which was chronicled by Scaliger and is
extremely interesting. At Rome they found the rather
shifty but intensely clever Muretus, of whom Scaliger said
with something of a sigh: " There are not many Mure-
tuses in the world. If he only believed in the existence
of God, as well as he can talk about it, he would be an
excellent Christian." After traversing Italy they went
north to England and Scotland, one of Scaliger's letters
being dated at Edinburgh. Scaliger cared little for the
English. He despised their " inhuman disposition " and
the narrowness which made them inhospitable to foreigners.
It disappointed him also to find only a few Greek manu-
scripts in England, and only a few scholars of the type
with which he was so familiar on the Continent. Never-
theless, he was a Protestant, and for that reason his life for
many years had been often trying. One pleasant resting-
place he found at Valence, where lived the most profound
jurist of the age, Cujacius (Jacques de Cujas).^ This
wise and temperate scholar had a remarkable collection
of manuscripts on the Roman law, numbering more than
five hundred; and here he lived and studied with tran-
quillity, reconstructing the Roman jurists in a purely classic
fashion, without any touch of mediaevalism. For three
years, Scaliger enjoyed the hospitality of Cujacius with
free access to his fine library for four years.
Then the so-called massacre of St. Bartholomew led
^ See Spangenberg, Cujacius und seine Zeitgenossen (Leipzig, 1882).
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 327
him to take refuge in Geneva, where he was received with
high honour and appointed to be professor in the Academy.
He lectured on both Greek and Latin authors, and gave
great satisfaction to the students. But he himself hated
lecturing and found the fanatical preachers of Protestant-
ism as distasteful as the more subtle zealotes. Hence he
returned to France (1574) and lived for the next twenty
years in the various castles of his friend, La Roche Pozay.
Much of his life was far different from that of a tranquil
scholar. The Huguenots and the Leaguers with their
outbreaks of violence often compelled Scaliger to move
from one chateau to another, going on guard duty, taking
part in military expeditions in the night-time, and wielding
pike and dagger like any other freebooter.^ He had,
however, for at least half the time, a chance to give himself
up to study and composition; and his editions of the
Catalecta (1574), of Festus (1576) of Catullus, Tibullus,
and Propertius (1577) are remarkable examples of true
criticism, disdaining the prevalent happy-go-lucky guess-
work for a fixed and ordered system of scientific scholar-
ship.
In 1590, the great Lipsius retired from Leyden, where
for twelve years he had been professor of Roman History
and Antiquities. Leyden was then the fortress of Protes-
^ Our knowledge of Scaliger's life at this time is derived from a num-
ber of letters in Lettres Franqaises Inedites de Joseph Scaliger, discovered
at Agen by M. de Larroque, and published there by him in 1881.
328 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
tant learning, as Paris was the fortress of Catholic scholar-
ship. And so, when Leyden saw its most famous scholar
retire, it sought out Scaliger as his successor. In this, the
University and also the States-General and the Prince of
Orange gave their aid, and the Prince wrote a personal
letter both to Henry IV of France and to Scaliger himself,
asking that the latter might accept a chair in the Univer-
sity. Scaliger had hoped that Henry IV would, when
successful, give freedom of speech and thought to Protes-
tants. Moreover, Scaliger hated to lecture, and much
preferred the quiet of his study, and the learned inter-
course of distinguished men. The drudgery of the Uni-
versity made no appeal to him; the spirit of learning was
all in all. Consequently he refused ; but when the invita-
tion was renewed in the most flattering manner at the end
of another year, he felt that he would do wrong to remain
in France, subject to the sneers and hidden innuendoes of
the once Huguenot King. This second call from Leyden
was accepted by Scaliger, and he was welcomed there
with honours such as are given not only to princes of
learning, but, likewise, to men of princely blood, as Scaliger
believed himself to be. He dined at the table of Prince
Maurice. The burghers at Leyden deemed his presence
among them a glory to the town, and even the children
louted low before him, when he took his walks abroad.
Very different, indeed, was his lot as compared with that
of poor Casaubon in England, who was hustled by British
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 329
boors and his windows broken by the rabble in the street.
Scahger was in reality a prince of learning, and perhaps
he should have been quite content with this. That he
deemed himself the scion of a princely Italian family was
not his fault, and to this day no one is certain of the facts.
Yet this conviction which he inherited from his father,
and which had never been questioned in his father's life-
time, was fated to destroy his happiness, and end his won-
derful labours. The story is worth relating in some detail,
because it illustrates the evil effects of the religious feuds
which had broken out with the so-called Protestant Refor-
mation.^
As was said before, the services of distinguished scholars
were employed alike by the Old Church and the New in
the way of theological sharp-shooting. Thus we have
seen that Casaubon died while completing his attack
upon Cardinal Baronius. He had himself been made
the victim of a stream of vile abuse from a Cretan
Catholic (Eudamon-Ioannes) who attacked him in a
pamphlet.
Yet a much more skilful shaft was launched against
him by one Caspar Scioppius (Caspar Schoppe). This
man, who flitted back and forth betAA^een Madrid and
Ingolstadt, was a really remarkable figure. He had been
disappointed in many of his hopes, and he became a savage,
* See Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, pp. 389-400 (Oxford, 1892) ; and id.
Essays, ed. by Nettleship, i. pp. 132-192 (Oxford, 1889).
330 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
venomous creature ready to attack any one whom his
Catholic masters pointed out to him. UnHke many of
the literary bravos of the time, he was an accomplished
Latinist, and was almost monstrous in his shameless in-
genuity and audacious use of fiction. He had already
scourged King James of England in two pamphlets.
" Now," said he, " I am going to flay the King of Eng-
land's dog." This he did in his Holofernes. It was an
atrocious libel from beginning to end; yet it was piquant,
and when decent, it was witty. But when he went on to
charge Casaubon with every sort of unnatural crime and
to support the charges by imaginary stories that had no
basis, his fierce assault was neither plausible nor probable.
Casaubon was too austere and virtuous a man for such
insults to have any effect whatever.
Thus, only to a certain extent, the virulent libel against
Casaubon did slight harm. Nor was Casaubon, although
he was one of the Triumvirate, so conspicuous a figure as
Scaliger, who remained at the very pinnacle of sixteenth
and seventeenth century scholarship. Unfortunately, his
enemies found a flaw in his otherwise impenetrable armour.
In 1594, he published a sort of glorification of his family,
Epistola de Vetustate et Splendore Gentis ScaligercB et
J. C. Scaligeri Vita. This was really an exhibition of
filial love, though there runs through it a vein of proud,
and, one might even say, of noble self-appreciation. But
it showed, nevertheless, a weak point in his nature, and
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 33 1
one which his enemies at Ingolstadt assailed ahke with
every means that could wound so proud a spirit. Again
and again he had been attacked ; but he cared nothing for
coarse and violent scribblers. In 1607, however, there
entered the arena a foeman, vastly inferior to Scaliger in
learning, but the peer of any one in wit, in all the artifices
of debate, with a marvellous command of style, and wield-
ing all the powers of sarcasm, in which he had no rival.
Mark Pattison says: " Every piece of gossip or scandal
which could be raked together respecting Scaliger or his
family " was put at the disposal of Scioppius. With these
gifts and with this material, Scioppius said, " I shall kill
Scaliger!" and soon after launched a volume of some
four hundred pages written with consummate ability so
that " no stronger proof can be given of the impression
produced by this powerful philippic, dedicated to the
defamation of an individual, than that it has been the
source from which the biography of Scaliger as it now
stands in our biographical collections has mainly flowed."
The book was called Scaliger HypolimcBus (" The Sup-
posititious Scaliger"), and it simply crushed the haughty
Triimivir, as well it might. For he had always believed in
good faith that he was a prince of Verona, and he had
written a great many things which he had heard from his
father, and which he believed to be true. But as a matter
of fact, whether or not Julius Caesar Scaliger was de-
scended from a princely family he was certainly a good
332 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
deal of a romancer, and it was not difficult for so malicious
and so clever an antagonist as Scioppius to show the
blunders and errors of fact which had crept into the younger
Scaliger's E pis tola. Around these errors and around
other statements which were claimed to be erroneous,
Scioppius danced and jeered with outrageous glee. As
soon as Scaliger could rally from the unexpected attack,
he wrote a reply to Scioppius which he called Confutatio
FabulcB Burdonum. This title refers to Benedetto
Bordone, a person of humble birth and said by Scioppius
to be the real father of the elder Scaliger. This would
have made both Scaligers little less than impostors, and,
therefore, in the reply the falsity of the charge was attacked,
though with moderation and good taste. The Confutatio,
however, does not bring forw^ard a single convincing proof
either of his father's descent from the family of La Scala,
or of any event narrated by Julius as having happened
to himself or to any of his family before he arrived at Agen
in France. The success of Scioppius was remarkable.
The product of his almost devilish ingenuity was read all
over Europe, and it was generally believed even by many
who had passed for friends. Scaliger was too great, too
learned, too much of a real prince in intellect and bearing,
for these petty, jealous creatures to be otherwise than
pleased at his overthrow. The name of the greatest man
in Europe now evoked merely a grin, or a coarse joke.
His verynamewas used as a synonym for a pedant (pedant),
THE PERIOD or NATIONALISM 333
while in French Hterature, especially, his memory has
been covered with unworthy ridicule.^
So much for the chief incidents of his life and death.
One recounts them because they are characteristic of the
time in which he lived, and of the continual warfare be-
tv^^een literary rufhans and their betters. We must now
return to an account of the great achievements which
placed Scaliger at the very head of all men of letters and
learning, from Varro to Mommsen. Having shown by
his edited works, already mentioned,^ that he could criti-
cise and amend according to a scientific system, he now
moved on to a higher field than that of scholarship alone.
"It was reserved for his edition of Manilius (1579), and his De
Emendatione Temporum (1583), to revolutionize all the received
ideas of the chronology of ancient history, — to show for the first
time that ancient chronology was of the highest importance as a
corrector as well as a supplement to historical narrative, that
* The most adequate biography of Joseph Scaliger is that of Jacob
Bemays (Berlin, 1865). See also the essay by Mark Pattison in his
book of essays, already mentioned. For the life of the elder Scaliger,
the letters edited by his son, those afterwards published in 1620, and his
own writings, are the principal authorities. See also Laffore's Etude siir
Jules Cesar de Lescale (Agen, i860) and Magen's Documents sur Julius
CcBsar Scaliger et sa Famille (Agen, 1873). The two books by Ch.
Nisard — Les Gladiateurs de la Republique des Lettres (Paris, 1 889) , and
Le Triumvirat Litleraire au Seizieme Siecle (Paris) — are written with
levity. The second of the two is little more than a digest of the volume
by Scioppius ; yet perhaps this makes it worth the reader's while. There
is an excellent account of the two Scaligers by Sir R. C. Jebb in the
Encyclopcedia Britannica, 9th ed., vol. xx, pp. 361-365 (New York, 1886).
* Supra, pp. 334-340.
334 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
ancient history is not confined to that of the Greeks and Romans,
but also comprises that of the Persians, the Babylonians, and the
Egyptians, hitherto neglected as absolutely worthless, and that of
the Jews, hitherto treated as a thing apart and too sacred to be
mixed up with the others, and that the historical narratives and frag-
ments of each of these, and their several systems of chronology, must
be carefully and critically compared together, if any true and general
conclusions on ancient history are to be arrived at. It is this which
constitutes his true glory, and which places Scaliger on so immensely
higher an eminence than any of his contemporaries. Yet, while
the scholars of his time admitted his pre-eminence, neither they
nor those who immediately followed seem to have appreciated his
real merit, but to have considered his emendatory criticism, and
his skill in Greek, as constituting his claim to special greatness.
'Scaliger's great works in historical criticism had overstepped any
power of appreciation which the succeeding age possessed ' (Patti-
son). His commentary on Manilius' is really a treatise on the as-
tronomy of the ancients, and it forms an introduction to the De
Enicndatione Temporum, in which he examines by the light of
modern and Copernican science the ancient system as applied to
epochs, calendars, and computations of time, showing upon what
principles they were based."
His Manilius, while it represented a new field of labour,
had puzzled and frightened away the smaller critics as
being the most difficult of all the Latin classics. But this
work, with him, merely served as an introduction to a
comprehensive chronological system to which he gave the
1 The author of a Latin poem upon astronomy written in five books
between 9 a.d. and 15 A. d. A proposed sixth book was never written.
The first satisfactory text was that of J. J. Scaliger (1579)- Late
editions are by Bentley (London, 1739), and Jacob (Berlin, 1846). See
Kramer, De Manilii Asironomicis (Marburg, 1890).
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 335
name De Emendatione Temporum} In this latter effort
of a great genius Scaliger created a science of Chronology.
Heretofore, historians had merely arranged past facts in
a tabular series to help the memory. On the one hand,
the philologists know nothing of the mathematical prin-
ciples upon which the calculation of period rests. On the
other hand, the astronomers had not attempted to apply
their principles to the records of ancient time. It was
Scaliger who now, with a new light which Copernicus and
Tycho Brahe gave him, turned back to the ancient
epochs and systems and made it plain on what principles
they had been formed. He instituted an acute comparison
between the Greek and Persian methods of reckoning
time; he studied even the Hebrew calendar, and then in
ascending to primitive ages, he saw how chronology may
become an instrument of discovery for times when written
records do not exist. This suggestion is only a hint in the
first edition of the De Emcndaliofie. It proved fruitful
to him until he grasped the daring idea of compiling a
book which should embrace the records of the prehistoric
past. Scaliger was the first to see that the history of the
ancient world, if it could be known at all, could be known
only as an entity; and that the facts of this remote period
could be had only in the remains of those chronologers
who, in copying statements which they often failed to
1 The first edition published in 1583, followed by many other and
fuller editions.
33^ HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
understand themselves, did transmit in this way to future
ages the universal tradition of the human species. The
distorted fragments of Berosus, Menander, Manetho, and
Abydenus were first to be collected. Finally, he adopted
as a basis of primitive tradition, St. Jerome's Latin trans-
lation of the so-called Eusebian Chronicle.
It is necessary to explain in a few words what this
Eusebian Chronicle was which gave the study of it so much
importance. Eusebius was an Asiatic Greek, a friend of
the Emperor Constantine, and bom in Palestine in the
middle of the third century a.d. He was one of the most
learned scholars of the time and the most widely read.
A list of his books would be unnecessary here, but all his
studies were of a nature which intended toward the dis-
covery of religious truth. He was familiar with a great
variety of Greek authors, philosophers, historians, theolo-
gians, who lived in Egypt or Phoenicia or Asia and
Europe. More than anything else he cultivated a study
of chronology with a view to establishing on a solid basis
the historical value of the Old Testament. This was
practically a universal history {UavToSaTrr] 'la-Topia)
divided into two books. The first book discussed the
origin and the history of all nations from the creation
of the world down to the year 325 a.d. Here Eusebius
uses copious extracts from historians whose works are now
lost. The second part, entitled " The Chronicle Canon"
(KpoviKof: Kava)v), consisted of parallel tables given by
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 337
periods of ten years each, containing the names of the
sovereigns and the principal events which had taken place
from the call of Abraham (2017 B.C.)- He had drawn
largely upon the chronography of Sextus lulius Africanus,
completing the whole by the aid of Manetho, losephus, and
other historians. This was the famous chronicle which
he continued down to his own time. The book was widely
read and was accepted as necessarily accurate. In course
of time, after the death of Eusebius, St. Jerome trans-
lated the Chronicle into Latin, continuing it to 378 a.d.
For some centuries, the Christian scribes preserved it as
an essential part of the works of St. Jerome, although they
had no idea of its unusual value. When the Renaissance
was well under way, neither the men of elegant letters,
nor the Protestant controversialists, knew what to make
of it, and at last it was omitted from their editions of St.
Jerome's works as being without value. Even the great
Erasmus, though he edited the other writings of Jerome,
did not think it worth his while to include this Chronicle,
and in fact, it was not replaced in the series of his works
until 1734.^
It was left for Scaliger to appreciate the inestimable
value of this document, which contains all that we know
of a great deal of pre-classical history, carrying us back
to the oriental countries as well as to Greece and Rome.
1 This was a handsomely printed edition published at Verona, but
very uncritically edited.
z
338 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
To edit and explain so complicated a work as this was a
task fit for an intellectual giant like Scaliger. The sub-
stance of the Chronicle was tempting to one whose tastes
were annalistic; while the form in which it had come
down was peculiarly attractive to a mind like Scaliger's.
A careful examination of it led him to doubt whether this
was, in fact, an original document composed by St. Jerome,
or whether it was the Latin version of a Greek original
which had perished. The next point which he considered
was this: Since we have not the Greek original, is the
Latin translation a faithful version of what Eusebius set
down? In the first place, all translators are liable to
various defects, and in the Chronicle there was a greater
chance of error because the work was written with such
speed. St. Jerome himself calls it tumuUuariimi opus and
asks for lenity from his readers. Again Jerome did not
write the book, but merely used it to supply the Latin
world with a manual of general history. He omitted
and inserted whenever he thought the book would be
improved, and tried to communicate the elements of uni-
versal history in countries where barbarous hordes were
overrunning the civilisation of Christianity, Further-
more, the manuscripts were peculiarly corrupt, as was
natural in a book so full of dates.
Pondering over these facts, Scaliger came to believe that
the original Chronicle as written by Eusebius had con-
sisted of two books; and that the first of these books had
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 339
been lost in the Dark Ages. The second book had been
preserved for its utiHty as an epitome of ancient history,
while the first book as consisting of extracts from the
Greek historians, for modems was the lost book that was
the most valuable. It would daunt the boldest text-
critic of modern times to arrive at these conclusions from
the slight indications which Scaliger had at hand. Even
more reckless did it seem for him to reproduce a second
book of the Chronicle of which he had only St. Jerome's
Latin, in its original language. But finally Scaliger's
almost miraculous mind attempted to recover the first
book both in its substance and language. No such re-
markable attempt had ever before or has ever since been
known in the annals of criticism. What Scaliger relied
upon was his skill in imitative translation, and his mastery
of the whole remains of Greek literature. How ingenious
was he in detecting the smallest scrap of Eusebius may
be shown by one slight incident. A few fragments of
the original Chronicle had been recovered and fitted into
their places by the skill of Scaliger; but these would have
been of little use. In 1601 he came upon the vestiges of
a manuscript chronicle by a Greek priest which possibly
contained Eusebian fragments, and which by deduction was
likely to be found in the Royal Library at Paris. It turned
out that the manuscript was found there. Scaliger at
Leyden in an agony of mingled anxiety and exultation,
wrote letter after letter, and after a year's siege secured
340 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the manuscript over which he gloated, and presently de-
clared that this single writer was more to his purpose than
all the other Greek writers combined. It was, indeed,
another chronicle which had been compiled by Georgius
Syncellus at Constantinople soon after the year 900. To
this chronicle the Greek monk had transferred almost the
whole of Eusebius, together with additions of his own.
The second book of Eusebius, therefore, — the only part
that any one was sure of, — was published at last in 1606,
as part of a folio, Thesaurus Temporiim, in which every
chronological relic in Greek or Latin was restored, placed
in order, and made clear. This was an immense triumph
for Scaliger. It placed him at the very head of all critics
and chronologists from that time forever, since he had
performed an achievement not to be paralleled. Many
scholars, however, who admired his genius regarded his
theory about a first book of Eusebius as fanciful. Could
he have lived beyond the life of ordinary man, he would
have witnessed a triumph even greater than his first. In
the next century, while the Veronese edition of St. Jerome
was passing through the press under the direction of
Dominico Vallarsi, a complete Eusebius in an Armenian
translation (a manuscript of the twelfth century) was
slowly making its way to Italy, and was at last published
(1818) in the Armenian Convent at Venice. Then it was
shown that Scaliger's wonderful divination had rightly
guided him; that there was a first book to the Chronicle;
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 34 1
that St. Jerome had translated only the second book;
and that many of the omissions that he had charged against
St. Jerome were actual omissions.
This remarkable discovery placed Scaliger indisputably
above the heads of all his contemporaries. It was his
great eminence which led the vile-minded Scioppius to
assail him at a point which had nothing to do with either
scholarship or morals. It is not surprising, however, that
many who admired his genius were not friendly toward the
man himself. His learning was so great as to make that
of other men seem frivolous and slight, especially if they
were men of his own age or older. His gravity might be
called austere. His thoughts were settled almost wholly
on his learning. He had a manner which was unfortunate,
and it made him seem supercilious. For these reasons
many persons disliked him, and many more actually
hated him, besides those who were jealous of his great
learning. Thus it was that the lampoon of Scioppius
had more than a temporary effect. In France and Ger-
many and Italy, and even England, the name of Scaliger
was derided. He was thought of mainly as a mere pedant,
a butt for cheap wit, and one who might readily be fleered
at with reason. Thus, M. Charles Nisard in his two enter-
taining but trifling volumes^ displayed the opinions which
have long been held of Scaliger in France. It was Pro-
* Nisard, Les Gladiateurs de la Repiibligue de Lettres (Paris, 1889) ; and
Le Triumvirat Litterairc an Seiziemc Siccle (Paris, no date).
342 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
fessor Jacob Bemays who, in 1855, revived the glory of
Scaliger and made his name as illustrious as it had been
two centuries before; and it was Mark Pattison who
aided very greatly in this honourable task.^ It is they who
recall to us, not merely the advance which Scaliger made
in scientific chronology, and likewise in constructive criti-
cism, but that he had also helped on the study of Numis-
matics by his treatise De Re Nummaria (1616). To him
are due, also, twenty-four indexes to Gruter's Thesaurus
Inscripliojium Latinarum^ (1603).
The death of Scaliger served only to stimulate the
scholarly activities of the Netherlanders and Flemings,
among whom we find, to be sure, no such mighty names
as those of the Triumvirate, but many which have a
peculiar significance because of some special incident or
achievement. Thus Jacques de Cruques (Latinised as
Cruquius) will remain forever famous because in the Abbey
at Blankenberghe he discovered a number of different man-
uscripts of Horace with scholia (1578). Among these
manuscripts was the famous Codex Blandinianus, possibly
the oldest {vetustissimus). Unfortunately, an attack by a
1 Bemays, /o^e^A Justus Scaliger (Berlin, 1855) ; and Pattison, Essays,
i. pp. 162-171 (Oxford, 1889).
2 Janus Gruter (Jan Gruytere) was a classical scholar who studied in
Cambridge and Leyden, and taught in Wittenberg and in Heidelberg.
He was in Heidelberg keeper of the famous Palatine Library, which was
presently carried to Rome. He edited a number of classical authors,
but is best known for his collection of inscriptions, which was, however,
most valuable from the indexes mentioned above.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 343
mob upon the Abbey led to the destruction of this invaluable
manuscript, so that we have now only the notes and excerpts
of Cruquius. It is certain that they are of the greatest in-
terest to Horatians, although some have endeavoured to
repudiate them as either inventions or as inaccurately
written out by Cruquius. Nevertheless, there are some
lines which are almost certainly genuine, and they explain
lines existing in other manuscripts, which had hitherto
been almost meaningless.^ Another contemporary scholar
was William Canter, a well-known Greek critic of Utrecht,
who had studied in Paris and edited Euripides (1571) in a
fashion which made the distinction between strophe and anti-
strophe by Arabic numerals in the margins. He also edited
Sophocles (1579) and yEschylus (1580). Later in the cen-
tury is Gerhard Johannes Vossius, who taught at Leyden
and afterwards in Amsterdam. He gave patient study to
the syntax of Latin as well as to its etymology, writing five
treatises on these subjects; and, like Scaliger, another Ars
Poetica. He is best to be remembered, however, by two
treatises which, taken together, form an important con-
tribution to the history of ancient literature. The first
is entitled De Historicis GrcBcis (1623-4) and De His-
toricis Latinis (1627). All of his books were widely read
' As to eminent scholars who doubt the accuracy of the Codex Blandi-
nianus and even the veracity of Cruquius, the reader is referred to Keller's
Epilegomena zu Horaz (Leipzig, 1879), accompanying a new recension of
Keller and Holder's first edition (Leipzig, 1870) — a remarkable piece
of critical work, though not convincing.
344 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PmLOLOGY
and studied, and a new edition of the former was printed
at Leipzig in 1833. His interest in everything classical
was very wide. He wrote a monograph on art {De
Graphice) and in modern times he is the author of a very
early treatise on Mythology {De Theologia Gentili). His
brother-in-law, Franciscus Junius, who spent thirty years
of his life in England as librarian to Earl of Arundel, made
a special study of ancient paintings and published a vol-
ume De Pictura Veterum (1637). Daniel Heinsius (1581-
1639) was the beloved pupil of Scaliger, and in his arms
that great scholar died. Heinsius was a multifarious
editor of classical books, though hardly worthy to rank with
most of his contemporaries.
When Scaliger died in 1609 the chair of history, which
was thus vacated, was left without an occupant for twenty-
two years, although a very worthy successor would have
been Vossius, who was widely known by his historical writ-
ings on ancient history. The chair was not filled, however,
until 1 63 1, and then by a foreigner, Claude de Saumaise
(Salmasius), — a brilliant figure among the sturdy Hol-
landers, and one who attracted admiration, both for his
personality and for his varied learning. In 1606 he had
discovered the older Anthology by Cephalas in the Palatine
Library at Heidelberg. The influence there probably in-
duced him to become a Protestant, which was, indeed, the
religion of his mother. In 1609 he attempted successfully
a genuine feat of scholarship, in editing Florus, with notes,
THE PERIOD or NATIONALISM 345
which he compiled within ten days. In the next year he
returned to France, studying jurisprudence but receiving no
office because of his religion. He was, however, devoted to
the classics, and when, in 1620, he published Casaubon's
notes on the Historia Augusta, he made so many acute and
brilliant additions of his own as to render his name illus-
trious. His Protestantism was evinced when he married
Anne Mercier, a Huguenot of distinguished family, and he
reached the height of his fame by his commentary on the
Polyhistor of Solinus (1629), a work that still remains a
proof of extraordinary and conscientious industry. So
anxious was Salmasius to attain complete accuracy that he
learned Arabic to help him in the botanical part of his work ;
and he was so unwilling to let his book go to press until he
should have consulted a rare treatise by Didymus that the
third section of his commentary {Dc Herbis et Plantis)
did not appear until after his death. Salmasius was at
once a scholar of high rank, and a gentleman of polished
manners — a genuine cavalier. It was natural that he
should have received urgent calls from Oxford, Padua,
and Bologna. All of these he declined. But in 1631 the
University of Leyden presented him with a research pro-
fessorship and a stipend of two thousand livres a year, a
sum which was soon raised to three thousand. The only
thing required of him was that he should live in Leyden,
and refute the annals of Baronius.^ He fulfilled the former
' Supra, p. 30Q n.
346 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
condition, but conveniently forgot the second. He was
very prolific, however, in tracts and monographs, most of
them classical. In spite of his Protestantism, and his
attacks upon the papal power, Salmasius was popular in
France, and the scholars of Paris evidently hoped that he
would change his faith and return to them. He was, in-
deed, made a royal counsellor and a Knight of St. Michael,
and great sums of money were offered him; but while he
accepted the honours, he refused the money and remained
faithful to his religion.
Salmasius is now best remembered by his Defensio Regia
pro Carolo I, which he wrote in defence of Charles I of
England and of absolute monarchy. It is remembered
because it drew forth from Milton a virulent answer.
Many have said that Milton overwhelmed Salmasius in
this controversy; but such an opinion is due to the parti-
ality given by English-speaking people to Milton, in this
as in other things. The truth is that the Defensio, being
written by one Protestant against another, was very widely
read and had considerable influence. Charles -11 paid the
cost of printing and gave the author a hundred pounds.
Queen Christina of Sweden invited Salmasius to visit her
at her court, and loaded him with gifts and other distinc-
tions. The first edition of his Defensio was anonymous.
A French translation appeared at once under the name of
Le Gros and was also the work of Salmasius. It must
be said that neither Milton nor Salmasius showed his full
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 347
powers in this famous controversy. Milton allowed him-
self too much vituperation and vile language, while Sal-
masius was not sufficiently carried away by his subject
to give his words the ringing force of truth.
Nevertheless, Salmasius was gladly welcomed back to
Leyden, where he died soon after, in 1653. He had by
his great powers made himself a literary dictator, and we
must ascribe this to his vast erudition, his natural good
sense, his keen perception of an author's meaning, all of
which make his text corrections often ingenious and fre-
quently most felicitous. He was, moreover, neither a sour
Puritan nor a dissolute cavalier ; but liberal, generous, and
wise, and exercising a fortitude that enabled him to com-
bat ill health, and yet produce books to the number of
eighty, every one of which had a distinct value.
Contemporary with Salmasius and Vossius, and like-
wise a great pillar of Dutch scholarship, was Hugo Grotius
(in his native tongue called Huig van Groot), one of
those ancient scholars and writers who, like Plato and
Thucydides, and C^sar and Sallust, was a man of action
and thought as well as literary distinction. He served
his State as well as raised the reputation of his country
for scholarship. Young Grotius was able to write good
Latin verses at the age of nine. He entered the Univer-
sity of Leyden at twelve. Three years later he began an
edition of the encyclopaedia of JNIartianus Capella. In fact,
he was a great favourite of Joseph Scaliger, who urged him
348 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
to edit this educational allegory. After travelling on the
Continent, he took the degree of doctor of laws at Leyden,
and entered on actual practice as an advocate. He was
successful in his profession, and yet he could not put
aside the classics. His Latin style was so pure that he
was even read in the schools side by side with Terence,
just as Muretus in France had been read side by side
with Cicero. Apart from his text editions,^ however, he
wrought out two great works which show how he was
divided in his studies between the classics, pure and simple,
and juristic science. The first is his extraordinary treatise
on the principles of jurisprudence as relating to comba-
tants. He went, however, much farther than this, and
opened many larger questions which were subsequently
to be developed by those who looked upon Grotius as a
master. Thus, for example, he was the first to attempt
to formulate a principle of right, as a basis for society
and government, outside the Church or the Bible. His
treatise De lure Belli et Pacts'^ marks an epoch in the
science of law. It is worth noting that even in this work
one is struck by the beauty of his Latin style, and the
glimpses of half-forgotten pearls with which he con-
sciously adorned his pages.
The other remarkable work which he accomplished was
1 Of Martianus Capella, the Pharsalia, and Silius Italicus.
* Published at Paris in 1625. A French translation was long afterward
made by H6ly (Paris, 1875).
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 349
his translation into Latin verse of the Anthologia Planudea.^
This was the first and best translation of these poems, so
varied, so sparkling with wit, and again so full of a per-
vasive tenderness as to make it seem impossible that a
grave jurisconsult who had passed his fiftieth year could
turn from his legal studies to attempt so difficult a task as
this. But having attempted it, he succeeded, and his
flowers of elegance and grace lose little or nothing by the
artful way in which he has transformed them from Greek
to Latin. Not for more than one hundred and fifty years
was any serious rivalry with Grotius attempted; and then
its preparation occupied Van Bosch and Van Lennep for
seven years.^
With Grotius ^ ends the earlier type of Netherlandish
scholar. For a time, there are no giants to be noted in
the universities of Holland. There is much making of texts,
as by the two Gronovii,^ the second of whom compiled
in thirteen volumes an immense Thesaurus Antiquitatum
GrcBcarum;^ Nicolaus Heinsius, the son of Scaliger's dis-
ciple Daniel Heinsius; and also J. G. Graevius (Greffe),
who capped the Thesaurus of Heinsius by publishing
three thesauri, containing in all thirteen volumes, relating
to antiquarian topics.
> Supra, pp. 256, 257.
2 Utrecht, 1 795-1822.
' See de Vries, Hugo Grotius (Amst., 1827).
* J. F. Gronov (1611-1671) and Jacob Gronov (1645-1716).
^ Published in 1702.
350 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
The study of ancient coins was taken up by Ezechiel
Spanheim/ whose life represents the union of the Protes-
tant countries, since he was bom in Geneva, educated in
Leyden, and died in London. Besides his Dissertatio^
he wrote a famous commentary on the Hymns of Cal-
limachus, which is still valuable in the edition of Emesti
(1761). Spanheim was an industrious, though not an
inspired, scholar, so that Wyttenbach said of him: " Span-
heimius multa, non multum, legerat."
The two Peter Burmanns (Burmanni) revived the old
supremacy of Holland in letters. The elder ^ was a stu-
dent of Graevius, but spent the last twenty-six years of his
life as Professor of Eloquence at Leyden. He was a
voluminous editor, confining himself, however, to the
Latin writers both in prose and poetry, for which he has
been much blamed by the Grecians. The most notable
are his editions of the PoetcE Latini Minores, and of
Petronius in prose. His editions were largely Variorum
editions, and many of them are dull; though sometimes
when his prejudices were aroused, he became so scurrilous
that his introductions could not be printed during his life-
time. So laborious was he, and so patiefit, that he was
called by many " the beast of burden " (Burdomanus) of
classical learning. Students of the history of scholar-
* 1629-1710.
* Dissertatio de Usu et PrcRstantia Numismatum Antiquorum (1664).
» 1668-1741.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 351
ship in the Netherlands will, however, continue to read
the huge quarto volumes of his Sylloge Epistolarum a Viris
Illustribus Scriptarum, which contains material of great
value relating to classicists.^
Just as Burmann devoted his whole life to Latin studies,
so the German, Ludolf Kiister (Neocorus)^ represented the
investigation of Greek, Kiister was a German by birth,
but something of a cosmopolite, since he visited Utrecht,
Paris, and Cambridge, then lived for a long time at Rotter-
dam, and died in Paris. He wrote (1696) a critical history
of Homer, and in 1705 an edition of Suidas in three large
volumes, published by the Cambridge Press. He then
busied himself on a life of Pythagoras (1707) and followed
it up with a massive edition of Aristophanes, including all
the Greek scholia, with a metrical version parallel to the
text. He included also at the end of the volume all the
modem comments, besides many notes sent by the great
English classicist, Richard Bentley.^
The number of famous Dutch scholars who flourished
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is notable be-
yond those whom we have already mentioned. Thus,
Lambert Bos,* the contemporary of Kuster, studied Greek
grammar with much care at Franeker ; and there was also
the great edition of Livy by Arnold Drakenborch. This
was originally in seven quarto volumes (i 738-1 746).
1 See L. Miiller, op. cU., pp. 54-59. ^ Infra, pp. 361-371.
* 1670-1716. ■* 1670-1717.
352 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
His contemporary, Siegbert Havercamp, Professor at
Leyden, edited Lucretius in t^vo large volumes, full of
errors. He was careless in neglecting the value of what
lay nearest at hand, i.e. the Leyden manuscripts. He col-
lected a number of tracts on the pronunciation of Greek,
and it was this collection which probably led to the ap-
pointment of Havercamp as Professor of Greek at Leyden.
This honour should have been given, as is now plainly
seen, to Tiberius Hemsterhuys,^ educated at Groningen
and Leyden. At the latter university, when a mere youth,
he was placed in charge of the public library, and at nine-
teen was called to the chair of mathematics at the Athe-
naeum at Amsterdam (1704). His acute criticism of clas-
sical authors who were then being edited by the different
professors led him to a distinction which was to become
very great. J. H. Lederlin, who had been engaged to
edit Julius Pollux, threw up his engagement, and de-
parted suddenly for Strassburg, where a professorship had
been offered him. The remaining three books of the work
were assigned to Hemsterhuys, who, with natural modesty,
wrote to Bcntley, and begged for his opinion on ten pas-
sages in the last two books. Bentley's prompt answer
to all these questions, thrown off at once in a letter that
fills three pages of print, is a remarkable proof of his
versatility and ready scholarship.^
1 1685-1766.
2 Still more striking was another incident connected with this book.
When Bentley received the first edition, he wrote back in words of high
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 353
Later, this eminent Greek scholar began to edit the
whole of Lucian, the minuteness of which can be judged
by the fact that in ten years he had only translated and
elucidated six of the texts. At that stage, however, the
printing began, but proceeded slowly. The publisher,
wishing to see the work completed during his own life-
time, the remaining five-sixths were given over to one
J. F. Reitz ^ of Utrecht, who finished them in five years.
Hemsterhuys, likewise, did much text criticism in the
editions of other men, correcting mistakes and emending
doubtful passages. Meanwhile, he had been advanced to
a professorship at the University of Harderwyk. Much to
the disappointment of friends of learning, Hemsterhuys
did not succeed Gronovius at Leyden, though he became
professor at Franeker. Finally, however, in 1740, two
years before the death of Havercamp, he received the
praise, but regretted that so learned a scholar as Hemsterhuys should
have dealt carelessly with the metrical quotations in Pollux. Bentley,
thereupon, proceeds to make the necessary corrections, and does so with
such ease and fluency and fulness as would astonish the ripest scholar.
They did, indeed, bring gall and wormwood to young Hemsterhuys.
He had been well aware of the importance of these quotations, and had
endeavoured with all his skill to rectify them. Hence Bentley's easy
mastery of the subject seemed maddening to Hemsterhuys who was so
distressed, that he resolved to give up Greek forever; and for several
months did actually not allow himself to open a Greek book.
^ Reitz (1695-1778) was head master of the local school at Utrecht.
It was in this position that he assisted Hemsterhuys; but later for a
period of thirty years he was Professor of History and Eloquence in the
University.
2A
354 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Professorship of Greek in Leyden, where he revived
Hellenic studies so successfully that scholars from other
lands flocked to hear him, while he was joined by his most
famous pupil, David Ruhnken.^ Ruhnken had been
studying Greek at Wittenberg; but so famous was Hem-
sterhuys, that even in the German universities students
were advised to seek the Netherlands for the best instruc-
tion in the Hellenic literature and language. Such
renown had sprung from the arduous and brilliant labours
of Hemsterhuys, Oudendorp, L. K. Valckenaer, Peter
Wesseling, and one of the foreign contingent, Jacques
Philippe d'Orville, whose studies were made entirely in
the Netherlands. There had been, indeed, a sort of
rivalry between the Grecians and the Latinists at Leyden,
and the other great Dutch universities.
For a time Latin was regarded as the chief of the classics,
while Greek was, as it were, an oriental tongue to be
grouped with Arabic and Hebrew. But Hemsterhuys and
his colleague had taken Greek out of this unnatural
position, and had taught it and its great importance,
with brilliant effort and complete success. On the other
hand, Latin for a time had become a sort of stamping
ground for dullards, until Franz van Oudendorp ^ be-
came a professor at Leyden, with the result that Greek
and Latin were each represented by a man of stimu-
lating power. Oudendorp's Lucan, his editions of Caesar,
^ 1723-1798. ^ 1696-1761.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 35$
Suetonius, and Apuleius were excellent specimens of exe-
getical work.
The Anglo-Dutch Period. — It has been said that the
Protestant countries in the North had, by a natural sym-
pathy, gradually been drawing together after the outbreak
of Protestantism. But although the very early English
scholars whom we have mentioned as- flourishing in Ire-
land and in the abbeys were in close contact with the
schools of France and the splendid Italian seats of learning,
not so much can be said for the Englishmen of the seven-
teenth century. They had, however, a certain full-bodied
enjoyment of the pagan side of classicism. They were not
averse to the songs of the Goliardi; and, as a matter of
pride, they patronised learning at Oxford and Cambridge
and some of the public schools.
We have already seen that many young Englishmen
came to the Netherlands to study for a while, and the
Netherlands were a source of English classical learning.
A good type of these cultivated Englishmen was Sir
Henry Savile,^ an Oxford man, who was tutor in Greek to
Queen Elizabeth. Savile was a wealthy, high-spirited
man, of much learning, although his learning was of a
serious and painstaking sort. He translated four books
of Tacitus, the HistoricB and also the Agricola. Fur-
thermore, he wrote an excursus on the military usages of
the Romans — a pamphlet which was translated into
* 1549-1622.
356 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Latin at Heidelberg in 1601. Later he became Provost
at Eton, and there he introduced a stem and austere disci-
pUne. He was one of those who were associated in pre-
paring the authorised version of the Bible, and was knighted
by James I.
Sir Henry endeavoured, as a work by which he should
be remembered, to prepare a great edition of St. Chrysos-
tom. He secured manuscript collections from Paris, but
could not get a font of the royal type; whereupon, Savile
bought a special font, employed the King's printer, and
oversaw the actual printing of the eight folio volumes
which were done at Eton at a cost of ;^8ooo, the paper
alone costing £2000. Casaubon, who was in England
while this work was going on, describes it accurately as
produced privata impensa, animo regio. No master-
piece of English scholarship had heretofore been so
splendidly executed and evinced such breadth of erudi-
tion joined with lavishness of outlay. Savile was, indeed,
a fitting type of the magnificent English scholar of the
early school. Free-handed in gratifying his scholarly
tastes, his generosity was felt all over England. He
collected manuscripts, patronised other scholars; founded
professorships at Oxford, and aided Bodley in founding
the famous Bodleian Library.
Apart from his love of scholarship, Savile was, likewise,
chivalrous in manner, and somewhat affected in his speech.
He regarded himself as "an extraordinarily handsome
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 357
man, no lady having a finer complexion." His apprecia-
tion of himself is commemorated by a portrait at Oxford,
another at Eton, and by sculptured monuments at Merton
College, Oxford, and at Eton. Associates of Savile were
Andrew Downes/ one of the revisers of the King James
version of the Bible; but so fond was he of his haunts at
Cambridge that he is said never to have attended the meet-
ings of the revisers " till he was either fetched or threat-
ened with a Pursivant." He was especially noted for
his knowledge of Greek, and it is described by Fuller as
"composed of Greek and industry."
Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam,^ entered Trinity College,
Cambridge, at the age of twelve; and as a student he is
said to have browsed chiefly among Cicero, Li\7-, Sallust,
and Caesar in Latin; and in Greek among Homer, Xeno-
phon, Plato, and Aristotle. Later he came to care little
for Aristotle, while his attitude toward ancient philosophy
is given in a sentence by Lord Macaulay: "Two words
form the key of Baconian philosophy — utility, and pro-
gress." Bacon is unique because he regretted that there
was a noticeable absence of any history of learning.
Most striking is the famous Novum Organum (1620),
which, by its title, declares the author to enter the philo-
sophic field against the logical doctrine of Aristotle. As
Aristotle thought that learning should be useful and, there-
fore, content to be stationary, Bacon proceeds to develop
^ 1549-1628. * 1561-1629.
358 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
a system which shall be fruitful, and given to the develop-
ment of new learning. 1
There remain in this earlier period Ludwig Caspar
Valckenaer, a professor in Leyden who made rather
noticeable editions of the Hippolytus and Phcenissce of
Euripides, and sundry editions of: (i) The Bucolic Poets,
(2) The Fragments of Callimachus, (3) Diatribe de Aris-
tohulo. Valckenaer's lectures were attended by English
students as were those of Ruhnken, another professor at
Leyden, who is to be remembered chiefly by his Lexicon
to the Platonic words in the TimcEus and his critical his-
tory of the Greek orators.^ Daniel Wyttenbach,^ a Swiss
by birth, and educated at Marburg, studied also at the
German University of Gottingen. He abandoned Ger-
many to live at Leyden under Ruhnken, after which he
taught at Amsterdam for twenty-eight years, then return-
ing to Leyden for seventeen years. Wyttcnbach produced
a complete edition of Plutarch's Moralia, with Greek texts,
and Latin translation, with two volumes of notes, and two
of an index, containing seven hundred pages. It is inter-
' Another interesting writer and scholar of the same time was Robert
Burton, who produced, after much quiet study, the famous Anatomy of
Melancholy (162 1). This volume is a delightful blending of what is grave,
and what is gay, filled with apt and quaint quotations that contain the
essence of human wisdom, so that from them many a gem has been
drawn without acknowledgment.
^ See Wyttenbach, Vita Ruhnkenii, pp. 67-300, pp. 1 75-181; L.
Miiller, op. cit. pp. 84-88, 101-103.
' 1746-1820.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 359
esting with regard to the scholarly relations existing be-
tween Germany and Great Britain, that even when the
two countries were at war, it was decided to print this great
monumental work at the Oxford Press. The instalments
of manuscript were sent successively to the Press through
the British minister at the Hague, and several of these
boxes were protected in a chest covered with pitch, that
was mislaid for two years and a half, " during all which
time," says Dr. Sandys, " the editor (Thomas Gaisford)
was anxiously uncertain as to its fate." ^
In the course of time both Oxford and Cambridge began
to spread their stately halls, and to cultivate the new learn-
ing with Greek restored in some of the colleges where it had
become almost unknown. There was at first a feud be-
tween the Latinists, who had thought the Roman tongue
sufficient, and their fellow-students — the two bands de-
scribing themselves, respectively, as " Greeks " and
" Trojans." Their animosity at times became so rampant,
that parties of them took to fighting in the streets. But
the progress of learning went steadily on, until England
possessed classicists who were deserving of being matched
with the great men upon the Continent. Charles Burncy ^
declared, about the year 1800, that England had possessed
a Pleiad: Richard Bentley (1662-1742); Richard Dawes
^ Sandys, op. cit. ii. p. 463.
* 1757-1818. He wrote a critical discourse on the metres of jEschy-
lus (1809).
360 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
(1708-1766); Jeremiah Markland (1693-1776); John
Taylor (1703-1766); Richard Porson (1759-1808);
Thomas Tyrw-hitt (i 730-1 786); and Jonathan Toup
(1713-1785)-^
1 Andrew Downes (d. 1628) is associated with Savile's gigantic edition
of St. Chrysostom. Greek was largely restored by him in Cambridge,
where he held a professorship of Greek for forty years (1586-1625).
John Taylor (i 703-1 766) edited Lysias, ^schylus, and several orations
of Demosthenes. Peter Elmsley (1773-1825) made, besides an edition
of Thucydides, some excellent annotations on various dramas. Thomas
Gataker (1574-1654), a Puritan scholar, published a Greek text of Mar-
cus Aurelius, accompanied by a Latin version, and a commentary, so that
this book was "the earliest edition of any classical writer pubUshed in
England with original annotations" (Hallam). In his introduction
there are many observations on the Stoic philosophy, and many illustra-
tive passages from the Greek and Latin writers are given in the note.
Morhof, in his Polyhistor, i. p. 926 (Wiemar, 1747), placed Gataker among
the six Protestants who were deeply read; and Gassendi calls him "a
scholar of enormous reading." A very versatile investigator was the
jurist, John Selden (i 584-1 654), who sat in the Long Parliament, and in
161 7 brought forth two works of which the first (The History of Tythes)
was written in English, while the second treatise {De Diis Syris) was in
Latin, and had a certain mysticism running through it. His name, how-
ever, is far better known from its connection with the famous Arundel
Marbles. These marbles were purchased in Assyria by an agent of the
second Earl of Arundel. They were shipped to England, and placed in
the gardens of Arundel House (1627). They consisted of two large frag-
ments of a chronological table, which as a whole was called Marmor
Parium. The table begins with Cecrops, and continues as far as 354 B.C.
The lost fragment, which would have been the third, ended with 263-
262 B.C., the year of its composition. Selden deciphered and interpreted
the inscription, and published the Marmora Arunddliana with the most
careful notes, description, and much learned information. When the
marbles first came to England, they were gazed at by multitudes at Arun-
del House, and Selden won universal praise. About 1667, John Evelyn's
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 361
Of these seven men, Richard Bentley was the most
memorable master of Greek and Latin. He comes, indeed,
in some respects close to the great Continental scholars,
having the brilliancy of Muret, the versatility of Salmasius,
and some of the depth of reading which was Scaliger's.
He was a burly, contentious Englishman, with a violent
diary describes the famous marbles as broken, and "scattered up and
down about the garden, — exceedingly impaired by the corrosive air of
London." Some of these fragments had been used in repairing the house,
while the upper half of the Marmor Parium was built into the chimney,
whence it was rescued once more by Selden. At Evelyn's request 250
inscribed pieces of marble were given to the University of Oxford. Only
136 arrived there. First they were inserted in the walls of the Shel-
donian Theatre, and finally were placed in the University Galleries.
Milton has been spoken of already as a controversialist and classicist, but
belongs to the category of poets rather than that of professional linguists.
He was a wide reader, wrote a number of Latin verses, "in the springtime
of an ardent and brilliant fancy." His Tractate on Education (1642) is,
however, less the work of a poet than of a schoolmaster and encyclopjedist,
since he arranged the classic authors according to a plan which he im-
agined will form an "easie and delightful Book of Education." He com-
mends also the famous Italians for their commentaries and criticisms.
Castelvetro, Tasso, and Mazzoni are those whom he especially mentions.
It is interesting to note that he advises the Italian pronunciation of Latin
and apparently of Greek. John Hales (d. 1656), and the still more famous
Jeremy Taylor (d. 1667), and the dreamy "Cambridge Platonists" are
an interesting but unimportant group of scholars. John Evelyn (1620-
1706), though best known for his English diary, translated into his native
tongue the first book of Lucretius with a commentary (1656). A very
learned lady was Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, who translated the entire six
books of Lucretius, dedicating them to the Earl of Anglesey. Her lack
of sympathy with the poet is shown by her speaking of him as "this
Dog," and of "the foppish, casuall dance of attoms," as "an impious doc-
trine." Thomas Creech, a fellow of All Souls, put forth a third transla-
362 HISTORY OP CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
temper, and a pride so great, that when he was chaplain to
StiUingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, a nobleman, who was
the Bishop's guest, said to him after dinner: " That
chaplain of yours is a very extraordinary man." " Yes,"
tion of Lucretius and an edition of it with notes (1695) at the Oxford
Press. Creech was a man of good taste, and a more serious scholar than
most of his contemporaries. Besides his Lucretius, he translated portions
of Horace, Theocritus, Manilius, Ovid, Juvenal, and Plutarch. The
death of John Dryden occurred in the same year as that of Creech (1700).
This manly poet had translated into metrical English not only Vergil,
but also Horace, Perseus, and Juvenal. His renderings were far more
spirited than Pope's in his Homer ; though Pope, by his neatness of phras-
ing, brought the great epic poet into the hands of many. Pope, however,
like the elder Dumas had collaborators, so that much of what passes as
his v/ork is in reality the work of others. Furthermore, a rhymed version
compelled him to depart from the original, or else to supplement it; so
that the best-known couplet in his Odyssey is partly an interpolation : —
True friendship's laws are by this rule exprest,
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest. — xv. 74.
The seventeenth century was, in fact, one of classical taste. Joseph Addi-
son, John Dryden, John Evelyn, and Joseph Spence were especially
affected by the influence of Bentley, but perhaps even more by the so-
called classic revival in France, of which we shall have something to say
hereafter. Worthy of mention for serious classical study is Thomas
Ruddiman (1674-1757), a Scotch printer and bookseller, who produced
a practical grammar, entitled Rudiments of the Latin Tongue, which went
through many editions, was reprinted in England, and imported into the
American colonies. His more elaborate work — Grammaticce Latince
Inslitiitiones — was excellent for its treatment of syntax. He also printed
the Latin works of George Buchanan, that truculent Scotchman who had
assailed Queen Mary in Latin verse, and had made a metrical rendering
of the Psalms, which brought him more credit than he deserved. Jere-
miah Markland, already mentioned as one of Burney's Pleiad, was a
scholar of note, producing an edition of the Silva of Statius, and showing
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 363
replied the Bishop. " If he only had the gift of humility;
he would be the most extraordinary man in Europe."
Bentley was a Cambridge man (St. John's College), and
took his degree high among the wranglers. Later when
chaplain to Bishop Stillingfleet, who had a remarkably
fine library, Bentley read omnivorously, sounding deeply
the vast reaches of classic lore — noting the nicest points,
the most delicate shades of meaning, the cadences in verse,
and the subtler laws of prose. After several minor writings,
largely in the shape of letters, giving privately much aid to
foreign and English scholars, he published, as an appendix
to an edition of John Malalas of Antioch, his own now
celebrated Letter to Mill (1691). In this letter he dealt
most acutely with the Attic Drama, identifying Themis,
Minos, and Auleas of the legendary history, as being
actually the historical dramatists, Thespis, Ion of Chios,
and ^schylus. He likewise discovered the metrical con-
tinuity {syanphma) which exists in the anapaestic system.
His monograph was less than one hundred pages in bulk,
yet in it he criticised and explained more than sixty authors,
Greek and Latin. By this achievement he won a reputa-
tion among scholars on the Continent, who were, it must
be confessed, better able to appreciate him than his own
clever classicists in Great Britain.
critical ability in his treatment of the Epistles of Cicero to Brutus, and
of three plays of Euripides. He was familiar with the Continental learn-
ing, and said of his own work : " Probably it will be a long time before this
sort of learning will revive in England."
364 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Bentley had a boundless ambition in these years. He
projected a collection of the fragments of all the Greek
poets, and another of all the Greek lexicographers. But
his Epistola ad Millium was alone sufficient to place him
at the head of all living English scholars. To quote Mark
Pattison: —
The ease with which, by a stroke of the pen, he restores passages
which had been left in hopeless corruption by the editors of the
Chronicle, the certainty of the emendation, and the command over
the relevant material, are in a style totally different from the care-
ful and laborious learning of Hody, Mill, or Chilmead. To a small
circle of classical students it was at once apparent that there had
arisen in England a critic, whose attainments were not to be measured
by the ordinary academical standard, but whom these few pages had
sufficed to place by the side of the great Grecians of a former age.
Bentley's only fault was a pugnacity and dogmaticism,
which in after years made him as many enemies as his
learning and genuine benevolence made him friends. In
private life he was charitable to a degree, and young
scholars found in him an unfailing source of aid.^ For
some years after his Letter to Mill, his energy was extraor-
dinary, though it took no shape in literary form. He
won recognition from Continental scholars, and became
librarian of the Royal Library, in which he worked labori-
ously. The University of Cambridge asked him to obtain
fonts of Greek and Latin type for the Press; and these he
had cast in beautiful form in Holland. He aided Evelyn
» Supra, p. 351-52.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 365
in his work on ancient coins. He corresponded with such
Continental scholars as his illustrious contemporary, F. A.
Wolf, and supplied Graevius with numerous suggestions,
and especially an invaluable collection of the fragments of
Callimachus.
The work by which Bentley is best known — his Disser-
tation on the Epistles of Phalaris — need not be mentioned
here at length. The so-called Epistles of Phalaris have
already been suspected by many as spurious. Bentley
had promised to prove their spuriousness, which he did
in a short paper. This paper was resented by the Oxford
editor of Phalaris, the Hon. Charles Boyle. Boyle at-
tacked Bentley, and in so doing called to his aid his
numerous friends, who saw in this controversy a battle
between Oxford and Cambridge, and who, therefore, freely
lent Boyle all the assistance in their power. The result
was a tract marked by shallow learning and ingenious soph-
istry, but full of clever malice and amusing wit. These last
qualities made it good reading even for the unlettered, and
it was widely read, going almost at once into a third edition.
Bentley then replied in his immortal Dissertation, in which
he put forth a part of his gigantic powers. In profound
scholarship, as in wit, he crushed his adversary, so that no
answer could possibly be given, nor was one ever tried.
Soon afterward he was nominated to the headship of
Trinity College, Cambridge, most splendid in its traditions
and in the magnificence of its foundation. It had, how-
366 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PfflLOLOGY
ever, in 1700, become the dwelling-place of cultivated
idlers — men who dined and wined and cared little for the
scholar's life. To them Bentley came as an unwelcome
reformer, riding roughshod over their traditions and their
tastes. He diverted the college funds to purely academic
uses, he introduced strict discipline, and, in fact, as De
Quincey wrote, " He made Trinity College at once his
reward and his scourge for the rest of his life." This con-
test, which has been styled "The Thirty Years' War,"
would have killed a less sturdy man than Bentley. But
he fought through it all with the combative spirit that was
naturally his. More than once it seemed as though he must
go under in the face of an almost unanimous opposition.
At one time he was deprived of his academic degree, and
his headship was taken from him; yet when he died, he was
an undisputed victor, secure in the possession both of his
degrees and of his headship of Trinity.
It is an interesting fact that all of Bentlcy's published
work represents the casual hours that he could steal from
his struggle against the enemies within his academic house-
hold. This fact gives us one more proof of the man's
immense scholarship and his profound reading, every
line of which was at the disposal of his wonderful memory.
In his books we see, not the carefully finished work of a
leisured scholar, but the mere play of a giant, whose mind
is really bent on other things. This is true of his Dis-
sertation on Phalaris; and it is just as true of his critical
THE PERIOD or NATIONALISM 367
edition of Horace (17 12), in his Terence (1726), in his
Milton (1732), and in his ManiHus (1739), and the famous
Critica Sacra with its notes on the Greek and Latin text
of the New Testament.
An admirable account of Bentley's work as a critic will
be found in Sir Richard Jebb's brilliant little monograph,
published in the English Men of Letters Series.^ There
will be shown, with many interesting illustrations, the
almost preternatural ingenuity of Bentley's mind. This
best showed itself in the elucidation of passages in Greek
and Latin, which had been utterly despaired of by preced-
ing scholars. To throw a dazzling light into the deepest
darkness was Bentley's forte? He arrived at his results
by happy combination of vast reading, minute scholarship,
and a gift for conjecture which few have ever possessed.
First of all he was a critic, and in a large measure he was
the kind of critic who relies largely upon what the French
call le sentiment critique — that is to say, upon an in-
stinctive knowledge of what the author had in mind, and
of how he would naturally express himself. Bentley for-
mulated this theory of his in the famous sentence: Nobis
et ratio et res ipsa centum codicibus potiores sunt?
It was Bentley's command of the three instruments of
criticism mentioned here that gave him his sureness and
1 London and New York, last ed. 1889.
^ Cf. Jebb, op. cit., pp. 139-140, and p. 211.
' In his note on Horace, Carm. Hi. 27. 13.
368 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
dexterity. He possessed the " critical sentiment " in a
high degree, he was a master of his subject (res) , and he was
famihar with the manuscripts (codices). Hence his great
success in conjectural emendation. He became a new
leader in the field of criticism, largely because he applied
to his task each of these three aids; and so long as he gave
each of them an equal share in his work, he remained un-
rivalled in his chosen field. He leaned, however, too much
toward the instinctive critical sentiment, and therefore,
while his emendations often strike one by their brilliancy
and ingenuity, they are not convincing. And so, for ex-
ample, out of the hundred or more changes which he in-
troduced into his edition of Horace, only four or five have
been accepted to take their place in the texts of modem
times.
Hence Bentley must be regarded chiefly as a pioneer.
He was the first to point the way toward truly scientific
methods. Others have followed in his steps, and have
passed beyond him, but their achievements are all due to
Bentley's inspiration and example. He serves also as a
warning; for when he tried to make criticism purely sub-
jective, he, with all his powers, began to flounder in a bog
of error. Thus in his edition of the Paradise Lost, under-
taken at the request of Queen Caroline, he evolved the
absurd notion that the text as we have it is not the text
as Milton wrote it, but that it had been altered in places
by a copyist through whose hands it had passed. There-
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 369
fore Bentley goes through the book, and by an entirely
subjective method, endeavours to restore it to its original
form. The result is both ludicrous and pathetic, and may
serve as a warning to those who think that merely by put-
ting themselves in place of an author, they can think his
thoughts, and rewrite what he wrote. In later years the
Swedish scholars have shown something of this audacity.
The French school have held to an intense conservatism,
while the German school, to which we shall presently refer,
learned from ^Bentley' s best work the value of correcting
one source by another, and using the critical sentiment
with caution.
Bentley's emendations are dazzling examples of what
a combination of learning and genius can effect. To him
also we owe the discovery of the digamma in its relation to
the prosody of Homer, the suggestion for a new and critical
revision of the New Testament, and the flood of light which
he throws upon the early Latin metres in his introduction
to Terence. It is strange that not until the nineteenth
century was his genius fully recognised in England. Eng-
lishmen thought of him mainly as the contentious Master
of Trinity, — as a quarrelsome, pugnacious creature ;
whereas, even in his youth, his name was known all over
the Continent as the greatest scholar of his time. As late
as 1833, Bishop Monk, who wrote his life,^ regrets that he
^ See The Life of Richard Bentley, 2d ed. (London, 1833). This book
2B
370 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
"wasted his time upon conjectural criticism" instead of
turning his attention to Theology. But the Germans have
never ceased to give him the praise that is his due.
" Thus," says Mahly, " Bentley is not merely one among
the great classical scholars, but he inaugurates a new era
in the art of criticism. He opened a new path. With
him, criticism obtained its majority. When scholars had
hitherto offered suggestions and conjectures, Bentley,
with unlimited control over the whole material of learning,
gave decisions." Bunscn styled him: "The founder of
historical philology." Jacob Bemays, with rare enthusiasm,
wrote: " Corruptions which had hitherto defied every at-
tempt, even of the mightiest, were removed by a touch of
the fingers of this British Samson."
But in the England of his day, even the most learned men
were so far below him as not to appreciate the greatness of
his powers. When hAS Dissertation appeared, his opponents
at Oxford were aware that he had routed them; yet their
learning was too slight to make them understand how
utterly they were crushed; and as for the British educated
public, it supposed for a long time that Boyle was in reality
the victor. Thus when Bentley died, in his eightieth year,
his own countrymen remembered him by his long struggle
in Trinity College. They hardly dreamed that in Richard
Bentley England had produced the richest intellect, and
has more to do with Bentley's quarrels and personal affairs than with his
work as a critic and scholar.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 371
the most remarkable type of scholarship that can be found
in the annals of Classical Philology in Great Britain.^
Contemporary with Bentley and following him are a
number of learned men who are chronicled by English-
men, but who made no great impression upon the history
of European scholarship, though one of them, Richard
Dawes,^ in his emendations to the Greek dramatists, was
followed in some instances by Brunck, and was after-
wards confirmed by the Ravenna MS. One w^ho is other
than an Englishman may find it worth while here to recall
Christopher Pitt,^ who made an excellent translation of the
Mneid, and another of Vida's Art of Poetry. Thomas
Gray,^ best known to posterity for his Elegy in a Country
Churchyard, was a writer of very careful and delicate
Latin poetry ; while he was mentioned by some as among
the few Englishmen of his time who thoroughly under-
stood Plato. Richard Hurd^ should be mentioned be-
^ The principal biographies of Bentley are those of Monk, already
cited; Mahly, Richard Bentley. Eine Biographie (Leipzig, 1868); Ber-
nays, Philol. Mus. viii. 1-24; Wolf, Kleine Schriften, ii. 1030-1094; De
Quincey, Complete Works, vi. 35-180; Nicoll, Great Scholars; Mark
Pattison in the EncyclopcEdia Britannica, vol. iii; and Jebb, Bentley,
2d ed. (New York and London, 1899).
The works of Bentley were collected and edited by Dyce, 3 vols.
(London, 1836). Separate works have been edited as follows: Disserta-
tion on the Epistles of Phalaris, edited by W. Wagner (Berlin, 1874) ;
Horace, edited by Zangemeister (Berlin, 1869) ; and Critica Sacra, edited
by A. A. Ellis (Cambridge 1862).
"^ 1709-1766. * 1717-1771.
• 1699-1748. * 1 720-1808.
372 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
cause of his aesthetic commentary on the Ars Poetica of
Horace, and the Epistola ad Augustum which had the
unusual honour at that time of being translated into Ger-
man. One cannot pause to dwell upon scholars who were
able and sometimes worthy of passing notice from their
Continental contemporaries. Perhaps an exception may
be made in favour of Samuel Musgrave/ a student at
Leyden, as well as at Oxford, who numbered among his
correspondents foreigners of such distinction as Ruhn-
ken, Schweighauser, and Emesti. He edited the whole of
Euripedes, and twice visited Paris in order to make a
careful collation of the text. Thomas Tyrwhitt, one of
the Pleiad, was much admired during his lifetime, and
was said to have a knowledge of almost every European
tongue. Certainly his literary taste was excellent. It
was he who led the way in detecting the famous forgeries
of Chatterton. He likewise edited Chaucer, and criti-
cised Shakespeare with real acuteness. In some ways he
was a worthy follower of Bentley's method, for he dis-
covered many traces of Babrius in the fables of -^sop.
His critical notes on many authors, and especially his
valuable edition of Aristotle's Poetics, with a Latin version,
gained him recognition from France and Germany. But
other Englishmen may be omitted from this short list
until we reach the name of Samuel Parr.^ Parr was essen-
^ 1732-1780.
2 1747-1825. See Field, Life of Samuel Parr, 2 vols. (London, 1828) ;
and Nicoll, op. cit. pp. 139-187.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 373
tially a Latinist, and practised the composition of Latin
epitaphs and various inscriptions which gave opportunity
for the cultivation of a stately style. He was fond of
saying with regard to one friend or another, "It is all very
well to say that So-and-so is a good scholar, but can he
write an inscription? " He held that even in Oxford he
could find but one inscription which resembles the models
of antiquity, while in Westminster Abbey he could not find
even one. Parr wrote a Latin preface to a work of Bellen-
den, and made it so elaborate and so closely modelled on
Cicero that this preface was studied in the schools, and
even in Cambridge, as a model of Latin prose, in this
respect resembling the Latin of Muretus upon the Conti-
nent. Macaulay^ has spoken of Parr's vast treasure of
erudition as " too often buried in the earth, too often
paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostentation, but
still precious, massive, and splendid."
In fact, Parr was not one who concentrated his powers
upon a single object. His reading was remarkably wide,
both in the classics and in philosophy, and yet he always
failed of being supremely great. Looking over the annals
of scholarship in the eighteenth century, one finds between
Bentley and Porson (whom we have still to consider) less
that is remarkable in the way of severe study than in a
taste for elegant criticism. Bendey's strange edition of
the Paradise Lost was, in its way, a piece of English
* Essays, p. 642 (London, 1861).
374 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
exegesis; and we have noted some of the various transla-
tions, such as Pitt's version of the Mneid, and of Vida's
Art of Poetry. So Thomas Gray wrote more truly in a
vein of criticism than of creation, while Kurd's aesthetic
commentary is remarkable for its time, and Tyrwhitt's
exposure of Chatterton, like his criticism of Shakespeare,
was essentially the work of an analytic mind, which dealt
with comparison and the application of the fundamental
principles of the art which judges art.
By far the greatest English scholar after Bentley was
Richard Person/ the son of a parish clerk in a small
town in Norfolkshire. Person's personality was extremely
odd. In his prime he is described as having been nearly
six feet high, with a bulging forehead, a Roman nose, and
an expressive mouth, while his countenance suggested pro-
found thought. Such is the description of his, perhaps,
partial friends. If he was so impressive looking on cere-
monious occasions, he was certainly otherwise in his daily
life. His dress was slovenly and seemed to be thrown
upon him; his hands were ink-stained, while his snortings
and puffings and absent-minded contortions must have re-
sembled those which Macaulay has ascribed to Dr. Samuel
Johnson. Person was, likewise, over-fond of drink, and
it is related of him that even at ofhcial dinners he drank
to excess ; while after the guests had departed he would
walk about the table, sipping up the dregs which remained
' I 759-1808.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 375
in the glasses of the others. When deprived of stimu-
lants, he had a strange craving for such things as soap,
cologne, and ink, which he would lap up with avidity
wherever he could find them.
His mental powers were, however, remarkable. As a
mere child he evinced a high degree of memory, so that a
number of gentlemen provided him with funds to enter
Eton and afterward Trinity College in Cambridge. There
he took various honours, until he reached a fellowship.
The unfailing generosity of his friends also gave him an
annual income of £ioo, and he was unanimously elected
to the professorship in Greek, though the income from this
chair was only ;£4o. Two years before his death he was
made librarian of the London Institution. In all the
various posts that were held by him, he studiously neglected
his duties, but no one called him to account. He was
considered a prodigy, as much so when he was eating
soap, as when he was overthrowing Gottfried Hermann
as to nice points in Hellenic metres.
Porson was naturally an indolent person, and yet he
accomplished an enormous amount of work, and did an
enormous amount of reading. There is a tradition that
when he made the journey by mail-coach from Oxford to
London, he crammed the pockets of his long top-coat with
editions of the various classics printed in small type, and
by the swaying lamp of the coach, pored over them with
painful assiduity. Among the really important results of
376 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Poison's learning are (i) his restoration of the Greek in-
scription on the Rosetta Stone; (2) his critical edition of
four plays of Euripides; (3) the preface to the second
edition of his Hecuba, in which he completely disposed of
the ingenious theories of Hermann; and (4) his Letters to
Travis, one of his early works, yet very important, be-
cause in it he proved that the passage in the New Testa-
ment (i St. John V, 7) which speaks of the " three that
bear witness in heaven " is wholly spurious. This opinion
had been held by Erasmus, and by many other scholars
down to the time of Bentley, but it was Person who first
made it a certainty.
Porson^ was essentially a Grecian, and his Latinity was
not so remarkable as that of Samuel Parr; but as a Hellen-
ist he excited the admiration of Continental scholars, with
whom he maintained a continual correspondence, e.g.
Ruhnken, Heyne, Villoison, and Hermann. In 1808 he
died, and was buried in Trinity College, at the foot of the
statue of Sir Isaac Newton. A portrait of him hangs in the
dining room of Trinity Lodge, and another in the Univer-
sity Library. If we wish to see a perpetual and ever
* See Watson, Life of Richard Porson (London, 1861) ; The Table
Talk of Samuel Rogers (London, 1856) ; and Luard, Cambridge Essays
(London, 1857) ; also The Correspondence of Richard Porson by Luard
(Cambridge, 1866); Nicoll, op. cit. pp. 91-138, and Sandys, In Social
England, vi. p. 300 foil. — Note : The authenticity of the traditional
text on the "three heavenly witnesses" was defended by John Burgess,
Bishop of Salisbury, but was finally and absolutely refuted by Dr.
Turton, afterwards Bishop of Ely.
THE PERIOD or NATIONALISM 377
present monument and memorial to him, we shall find it
in the beautiful Greek type in which almost all our modern
texts are printed. This was cast after Porson's death
from the clear and elegant letters in which he copied his
Greek manuscripts, and which is now everywhere known
as the " Porsonian type."
From the middle of the eighteenth century until nearly
the middle of the nineteenth, such renown as English
learning shed upon English scholarship was in small
measure due to the influence of the great English univer-
sities. The colleges, both at Oxford and at Cambridge,
were sunken into a sort of lethargy. The Fellows en-
joyed their stipends in their beautiful academic homes,
not by any means neglecting the routine reading of the
classics, but doing nothing for the advancement of classical
learning, and caring more for the fine vintages of the
cellars, and the deep potations with which they ended
every day, than for plainer living and higher thinking. If
men of real distinction came from among their number,
this was in spite of the university influence and not
because of it. Thus, Lord Chesterfield spoke of the
"rust" of Cambridge; and even West, the friend of
the poet Gray, writing to the latter, says : —
"Consider me very seriously here in a strange country, in-
habited by things that call themselves Doctors and Masters of
Arts, — a country flowing with syllogisms and ale, where Horace
and Vergil are equally unknown."
378 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Gray, answering him, quotes the words of the Hebrew
prophet, and insists that Isaiah had Cambridge no less
than Babylon in view when he spoke of wild beasts and
wild asses, of an inhabitation of dragons and a court for
owls.
A more serious indictment was that of England's greatest
historian, Edward Gibbon, uttered in stem and stately
language against the University of Oxford. After giving
the particulars of his unprofitable stay there, he spoke
the famous words which have become so widely known : —
"To the University of Oxford, I acknowledge no obligation, and
she will as readily renounce me for a son, as I am willing to dis-
claim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen
College; they proved the most idle and unprofitable of my whole
life. The reader will pronounce between the school and the
scholar."^
It is Edward Gibbon who, thrust forth from Oxford in
his seventeenth year, because he chose to become a Catholic,
wrote with all the minute application and research of an
accomplished scholar the greatest existing history of later
Rome. From childhood he had been remarkable for his
unusual memory, which his abundant reading fed. It
was in Rome in 1751 that the first conception of his great
work came to him. The plan then formed was originally
limited to the decay of the imperial city, but after years of
reading and reflection it was expanded to embrace the
1 See Morison, Gibbon, pp. 7-10 (New York, 1879); and Lang,
Oxford, pp. 199-218 (Philadelphia, 1906).
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 379
Empire, as its title {The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire) shows. He began to write this book in 1772,
after twenty-one years of reading and research, and pub-
lished the first volume in 1776. Two more volumes were
published in 1781, and the last three volumes in 1788.
From the moment of its appearance, it ranked as a classic
of the classics, nor even to this day has the most searching
criticism discovered an important error in its massive
structure. The book, indeed, has been rightly called,
" one of the greatest achievements of human thought and
erudition. It is in reality a history of the civilised world
during those thirteen centuries when paganism was being
supplanted by Christianity." New facts have thrown a
different light upon some of Gibbon's conclusions; but
the most critical scholarship has not altered the essential
truth of his great panorama. His style gives point and
endurance to what he writes. It has stateliness and
balance and a sort of "measured melancholy" befitting
the author's theme; yet it would, perhaps, have made the
whole monotonous, were it not infused with a certain
piquant quality which led Byron to speak of Gibbon as
" the lord of irony." ^ He died in London in 1794.
How little tlie universities had to do with the broader
field of classics, is seen by the fact that archaeological
' The numerous editions of Gibbon's Decline and Fall have all been
supplanted by that of Bury in seven volumes (London, 1896-1909).
See also Gibbon's Memoirs, edited by Hill (London, 1900) ; and The
Letters of Gibbon, edited by Prothero (London, 1896).
380 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
study was carried on almost entirely outside their precincts.
The manner in which they treated the Arundel Marbles ^
is sufficiently characteristic. The reproach, however,
was not applicable to Englishmen in general. Thus the
so-called Dilettanti Society, which had been founded in
1733, produced some remarkable works for which it found
the necessary funds. Two explorers (James Stuart and
Nicholas Revett) furnished the material for a work of
enduring value, known as The Antiquities of Athens
Measured and Delineated? This book was rendered into
German, and is still referred to by the student of archae-
ology because its plates exhibit the earliest reproductions
of the monuments at Athens.
Nolessvaluableweretheworksof Robert Wood {d. 1771),
an inveterate traveller, who brought accounts and drawings
of the ruins of Palmyra and Heliopolis. Sir William
Hamilton sent to the British Society of Antiquaries a
minute account of the early excavations at Pompeii. The
British Museum was enriched by a splendid collection of
Greek and Roman marbles, bronzes, coins, gems, vases,
and other antiquities; while Richard Payne Knight col-
lected a splendid set of antique bronzes and coins, which
also fell to the Museum. The travels of Sir William
Martin Leake in Upper Egypt and in Turkey and Greece
(1801 and 1804) both enriched the literature of archaeology
1 Supra, p. 360.
* First edition, 1762; second edition, 1825-1830.
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 381
and added to the immensely valuable collections that were
sent to England. In particular one may mention his
Topography of Athens (1821), Travels in the Morea
(1830), Travels in Northern Greece (1835), and Numis-
matica Hellenica (1854).^
Hence, at a time when Oxford and Cambridge had
lapsed into something like an academic languor, so that
men of real genius left them and pursued their studies
independently, much was done to stimulate research and
classical scholarship by the splendid collections that were
gathered by individual enterprise and by the generosity
of the Government. One of the most magnificent insti-
tutions of learning in Great Britain was, and still re-
mains, the British Museum in London, which is rivalled
only by the Louvre in Paris.^
1 See The Memoir, by Marsden (London, 1864).
2 The British Museum had its nucleus in a fine collection of books,
manuscripts, and specimens of natural history gathered by Sir Hans
Sloane. In 1753 he offered this to the Government for £20,000, though
it had cost him more than £50,000. The money was raised by a public
lottery ; and then the Sloane collection with the Harleian and Cottonian
libraries were arranged in Montague House, which was purchased for
this object. The institution was opened in 1759 under the name of the
British Museum. New collections were added continually, until in 1823
the eastern wing of the present building was erected, and the whole
structure as it stands to-day was finished in 1847. It is impossible to
describe it, except to say that it is divided into various departments of
(i) Printed Books; (2 and 3) Manuscripts; (4) Greek and Roman
Antiquities ; (5) Coins and Medals ; (6) Egyptian and Assyrian Antiq-
uities; (7) British and Mediaeval Antiquities; (8) Prints and Draw-
ings. Some notion of the immensity of the Museum can be inferred
382 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
The monuments of the East beyond the domain of
Hellas and Rome were splendidly exhibited in this struc-
ture, and the travellers and explorers who had stimulated
a knowledge of Archaeology very naturally were destined
to excite and increase the study of language in a new and
hitherto unknown form. English scholarship heretofore
had done little or nothing to aid Philology, apart from the
comparative study of Greek and Latin, leaving for the
scholars of the Continent to speculate as to the relations
of Hebrew which was regarded as a primal and original
tongue; but now, at the close of the eighteenth cen-
tury, there came an oriental scholar who was to open
one of the most brilliant pages in the study of classical
learning.
This was William Jones ^ (afterwards Sir William).
He was born in London, and was educated at Harrow,
whence he was entered at University College, Oxford.
There he was able to gratify his strong desire to gain a
thorough knowledge of oriental languages. His instinc-
tive orientalism seems to have been like that of the late
Edward Henry Palmer^ in that, without visiting the East,
he became versed in both Persian and Arabic, colloquially
as well as in the dialects. In 1770 he published, at the
from the fact that if the books in the library were placed on end in book-
cases eight feet high, they would extend to a distance of more than three
miles.
1 1 746-1 794.
2 Edward Henry Palmer, by Walter Besant (London, 1883).
THE PERIOD OF NATIONALISM 383
request of the king of Denmark, A Life of Nadir Shah,
translated into the French from the Persian; in the next
year, A Persian Grammar (1772); and in 1780 he trans-
lated the seven exquisite poems, known to the Arabs as
the Mdallakat. Sir William, like Hugo Grotius, was as
remarkable in law as in literature. He wrote a number
of legal essays, so that in 1783 he was knighted and made
a judge in the Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal.
His delight at finding himself amidst everything that was
oriental showed itself in many ways. He established the
Royal Asiatic Society, to whose volumes he contributed
largely, and of which he was the first President. He
published the translation of a story in verse, called
The Hindu Wife, and finally an English rendering of
the ancient work, now well [known to Sanskrit scholars,
Sakuntala, or the Fatal Ring (1789). This aroused a
wide interest throughout Europe, and led to a general
discussion of Hindu literature. Jones was engaged in a
digest of the Hindu and Mohammedan laws at the time
of his death in 1794.
He was one of the most noted linguists and oriental
scholars that England has ever produced;^ one passage
penned by him in the first volume of Asiatic Researches,^
after he had given what one may call only a slight
* See The Life of Sir William Jones by Lord Teignmouth (London,
1807).
^ Asiatic Researches, i. 442 (1786).
384 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
glimpse of Sanskrit, is memorable in the history of lin-
guistics : —
"The Sanskrit language, whatever may be its antiquity, is of a
wonderful structure ; more perfect than the Greek, more copious
than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bear-
ing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs
and in the forms of grammar, than could have been produced by
accident ; so strong that no philologer could examine the Sanskrit,
Greek, and Latin, without believing them to have been sprung from
some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists. There is a
similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both
the Gothic and Celtic had the same origin with the Sanskrit. The
Old Persian may be added to the same family." ^
1 Though Sir William Jones rightly pointed out the peculiar similarity
between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Old Persian, we must remember
that something had been done before his time to help the progress of this
discovery. In the Middle Ages, the Arabs introduced some knowledge
of the Hindu science, and the so-called Arabic (Hindu) numerals. In the
sixteenth century, the Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French obtained
a foothold in India. They sought there, however, only merchandise
and precious stones, though some knowledge of Sanskrit was gathered
by missionaries, and one of them even translated a Sanskrit poet into
Dutch as early as 1651. The first Sanskrit grammar to be issued in
Europe was compiled by Father Pauhnus, who had it printed in Rome
in 1 790, only a few years before Jones's death ; but the real mediator be-
tween India and Europe were men of letters, like Charies Wilkens, H. F.
Colebrooke, and H. H. Wilson. In Germany, their translations were
admired intensely by men like Goethe, Herder, the two Schlegers, and
after them those who found in Hindu literature something more interest-
ing to them even than its lyrics, its remarkable epics, and its very strik-
ing drama. See Frazer, A Literary History of India (New York, 1904) ;
Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, with bibliographical notes
(New York, 1900) ; Biihler and Kielhorn, Grundriss der indoarischen
Philologie (Strassburg, 1896 foil.).
X
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE
Where shall we look for those early schools in which
there were gathered together wandering scholars who yielded
the first fruits of the early universities? We have already
mentioned the revival of learning promoted by Charles the
Great with the aid of Alcuin/ His successor, Louis the
Pious, who " knew Latin and understood Greek," let learning
lapse; and later the monastic school at Tours was of slight
importance, although in it an Irish monk composed a Latin
grammar, Charles the Bald, the son of Louis, was king of
France from 840 to 876, and Emperor of the West. At the
head of the school set up by him he placed the most noted
philosopher of the early Middle Ages, John the Scot (or
Duns Scotus), and he invited teachers from Ireland and
even from Greece. At Fulda a school founded by Boniface
was famous for the labours of those whom Alcuin taught.
Among them was the German, Rabanus Maurus, born at
Mainz, Servatus Lupus, and Walafrid Strabo. It was
Rabanus (or Hrabanus) who founded the library at Fulda
and then retired to a lonely hill, where he composed a great
many encyclopaedic works and several treatises on educa-
^ Supra, pp. 219-229.
2C 38s
386 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
ti'on. He introduced Priscian's grammar into the schools
of Germany, besides a short tract on alphabets and
abbreviations.
In the Middle Ages many fragments of classic literature
were read and studied, and some of them much more fully
than we should have supposed. The historians (Caesar,
Sallust, Livy, Suetonius, and Florus) were very familiar,
and Valerius Maximus was popular because he abounded in
historical anecdotes. Germany was not so well supplied
with books as were France and Italy. Nevertheless, one
cannot be very precise upon this point. For instance, Pliny
the Elder's Historia Naturalis is catalogued nine times in
France and in Germany, and only twice in Italy and Eng-
land. On the other hand, the younger Pliny is mentioned
only twice in the book-lists of Germany, while his letters
are quoted once by a scholar in Verona. There are more
traces of Tacitus in Germany than elsewhere.^
Petrarch, who knew something of the North, regarded the
Germans of Austria as by no means strangers and incuUi.
Thus when the German Emperor, Charles IV, became head
of the Holy Roman Empire^ and showed himself a generous
patron of literature, the Italian poet hailed him as a new
Augustus, a sincere friend of all the arts. Petrarch corre-
1 An elaborate account of the preservation of the Latin classics in the
monasteries of the East, arranged in a very careful way, will be found
in a number of works and monographs such as West, in Proc. Amer.
Phil. Assoc, 1902, xxii foil. ; Wattenbach, Schriftwesen im Mittelalter
(Berlin, 1871), etc. 2 1346.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 387
sponded with the Emperor, from 1350 to 1356, when he
was sent to the Emperor's capital at Prague,^ then supposed
by the Italians to be ' the extreme confines of the land of the
barbarians.' Before this time he had given the Emperor an
efiigy decorated with gold and silver coins of ancient Rome,
showing the images of his great predecessors. Arrian's ac-
count of Alexander in easy Latin verse was taken to Vienna
(1442-1455). iEneas Silvius wrote (1450) a Latin treatise
on education for the benefit of his imperial master.
When ^neas was made Pope in 1459, his former pupil,
Hinderbach, who was fond of him, promised on behalf of
Germany that this country should continue to cultivate the
humanism of which the new Pope had been so admirable
an example. Classics were, therefore, soon taught by him
(1460-1469) ; and he also lectured in Vienna, not only on
mathematics but astronomy. His pupil, Johann Muller,
of Konigsberg, best known as Regiomontanus, lectured on
Vergil, Terence, and Cicero's De Senectute. A number of
classicists and also astronomers now spread throughout
Germany, establishing rude schools where lectures were
regularly given and where editions and translations of
Greek and Latin works were put into circulation. It is
interesting that at Ratisbon the calendar was so studied as
to lead to a proposal for its correction. Because of this
the Archbishop was summoned to Rome, where he died.^
Let us trace briefly the rise and progress of the greater
1 1356. » 1476.
388 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
German universities. It came partly from Paris and partly
from the influence of Italian universities, especially Bo-
logna.^ The earliest of them was at Prague (1348), and the
next the University of Vienna (1365). Paulsen says that
both of these were on the eastern borderland of German
civilisation in that Paris was near enough for Western Ger-
many, and because between the old church schools, such as
Cologne, a close connection was kept up. In the same
century (1385) the Westerns founded the University of
Heidelberg (1385) and the University of Erfurt. Five
of these remain at the present day; Cologne having been
closed in 1794 and Erfurt in 1816. It must be remem-
bered that it was Austria and the parts of Germany which
bordered on Italy that receive more directly the fruits of
French and Italian culture. Though rude and touched
with the semi-orientalism of Byzantium, Austria was at
least more civilised than the barbaric North. All this is
prior to the Renaissance, and these universities were the
homes of scholasticism. A second period of great activity
opens with the humanistic movement. Such doctors as
Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus
had taught and argued in many of these schools. Then
came the Hussite schism which lost Prague to Germany.
In its place the University of Leipzig was founded (1409).
Rostock opened its halls (141 9) to meet the needs of the
Baltic countries.
1 Originally devoted solely to the study of law.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 389
The humanistic movement naturally called into being
fresh seats of learning. Of these there were nine German
universities/ of which four (Greifswald, Freiburg, Basle,
and Tubingen) still continue to exist. It is characteristic
of the German mind that the universities in Austrian Ger-
many did not arise gradually like the older ones in France
and Italy. They were established after a scheme already
in operation, both the spiritual and temporal power con-
tributing to their foundation. It was the Pope who founded
the institution, and gave it the privilege of bestowing de-
grees; while its continued existence was assured by the local
sovereign, who provided the revenues and granted to the
university temporal and corporate privileges. Thus we
see that the German notion of a higher seat of learning
was one that had been mapped out in advance, with a defi-
nite purpose and a somewhat cut-and-dried academic
ideal. The triple division of scholaris, baccalaureus, and
magister is, as Professor Paulsen says, " evidently identi-
cal with that of apprentice, journeyman, and master work-
man, which we find among the mediaeval artisans." *
Thus the historical development of German universities
went on, though with alterations in their character con-
cerning which we shall briefly speak. For a long time a
1 Greifswald (1456), Freiburg (1457), Basle (1460), Ingolstadt (1472),
Treves (1473), Mainz and Tiibingen (1477), Wittenberg (1502), and
Frankfiirt-on-the-Oder (1506).
2 See Paulsen, The German Universities, Eng. trans, by E. D. Perry
(New York, 1895).
390 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
university might be a great seat of learning, or it might be
only a humble school with a small foundation, destined to
be swept away in a few years. It may be convenient for
reference to name the universities in Germany and Austro-
Hungary which exist to-day,^ and to say a word or two con-
1 In Germany to-day there are twenty-one universities, the largest
being Berlin (with about 5800 students), Munich and Leipzig, Bonn,
Breslau, Freiburg, Halle, Tubingen, Heidelberg, Gottingen, Marburg,
Strassburg, Wiirzburg, Kiel, Konigsberg, Erlangen, Giessen, Greifswald,
Miinster, Jena, Rostok. At Freiburg, Munich, Miinster, and Wiirzburg
the faculties of theology are Catholic ; at Bonn, Breslau, and Tubingen
they are mixed Catholic and Protestant; while the faculties at all the
other universities are Protestant. It might as well be added that the
universities of Austria-Hungary number seven — Vienna, Gratz, Inns-
bruck, Pesth, Breslau, Cracow, and Limberg.
Of the distinguished men who first made German learning illustrious —
omitting those of whom we shall speak above — are Peter Luder (c. 1450),
who matriculated at Heidelberg before he visited Rome. Later he
returned to his German academic home and lectured on the Latin poets
(1456). This was such an innovation that his older colleagues did every-
thing possible to hinder him in his work, so that when the plague afflicted
Heidelberg, Luder lectured with much applause at Ulm, Erfurth, and
Leipzig. One of his most ardent pupils at Leipzig was Hartman Schedel
( 1 440-1 5 1 4), who became known as a collector of humanistic literature.
It was he who preserved a great part of the journal of Ciriaco d'Ancona
(see supra, p. 268) with copies of monuments and inscriptions. His own
collection is now in the library at Munich, and his work on the history
of the world from the Creation to the year 1492 is everywhere known as
the "Nuremberg Chronicle." His sketches of ancient monuments are
said to have inspired some of the drawings of Albrecht Diirer, now
in Vienna. Schedel was, therefore, an important figure in the human-
istic period of German scholarship. Another leading humanist who
deserves especial mention was the Frisian who is best known by his
Latinised name Rudolphus Agricola (1444-1485). His mental and
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 39I
ceming their characteristics. In the earliest days of Ger-
man scholarship the universities were essentially scholastic.
physical activity is shown by his interest in travel and observation ; for
he was educated at four German universities and, perhaps, at Paris.
He then journeyed to Italy, studying at Pavia and at Ferrara, where he
was a student of Greek under Theodorus Gaza. After so much activity
he appears to have dropped to a rather humble station in his native city
of Groningen, where he was town clerk for four years. However, during
this time he acted as a town-envoy, and often visited Deventer, where
he met Erasmus. Later he taught at Heidelberg, lecturing on Aris-
totle, and translating selections from Lucian. Humanists in Germany
looked to him as their leader. Like Erasmus he was very influential in
his private and personal associations, though his scholarship was some-
what overrated. He wrote a treatise on education which appeared in
the same volume as like works by Erasmus and Melanchthon, an honour
which it did not deserve. He had, however, the truly humanistic spirit,
and urged carefulness in reading, practice of the memory, cheerful
alacrity, and a quiet but earnest opposition to the stiffness of scholas-
ticism. Alexander Hegius (1433-1498), who was a teacher of Erasmus,
made Deventer a great humanistic centre of Northern Germany. He
mocked at the old mediaeval text-books, and pointed back to the Latin
Classics as the true source of a perfect Latin style. There follows him,
Rudolf von Langen (1438-1519), who studied at Erfurt, visited Italy,
and finally founded a great humanistic school at Miinster. Another
famous school was that of Jacob Wimpheling (1450-1528) at Schlett-
stadt in Alsace, which was the third of the schools of Germany. Later,
at Strassburg to which he migrated, he founded a literary {i.e. humanistic)
group which followed the teachings of Erasmus. He was the friend of
Sebastian Brant, well known in English literature as the author of the
Ship of Fools (1494)- Conrad Celtes (1459-1518) is rightly called by
Dr. Sandys "the knight-errant of humanism in Germany." His early
years were unfavourable, but after spending some time under Agricola
at Heidelberg and learning a little Greek, he made his way into Italy,
living with the^ most cultivated Italians at Padua and Ferrara, and in
Rome. When he returned, he received the poet's crown from Fried-
392 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
From the middle of the fifteenth century, the humanistic in-
fluence came in strongly, especially with those men whom we
have already mentioned. Subsequently arrived a period of
partial reaction, owing to the influence of Martin Luther
rich III at Nuremberg. Celtes was the first German to v.in this honour.
Immediately afterward he founded humanistic societies in rapid succes-
sion in Poland and Hungary, and along the Rhine. The last (at Mainz)
was a very famous group. Its first president was the Maecenas of the
time, Johann von Dalberg, and among its members were the two Greek
and Hebrew scholars, Trithemius and Wilibalc Pirkheimer. Johannes
Trithemius was a great collector of manuscripts, and is still remembered
for his learning. Celtes, also a member of this group, was later called
to be the head of the Imperial Library in Vienna. He travelled a great
deal throughout Germany, and described his adventures in a collec-
tion of Latin poems, many of which do not tend to edification, but
suggest the semi-pagan spirit of the early Renaissance. He is best
remembered to-day for a discovery which he made in the Vienna Library
of a thirteenth-century copy of a Roman map {ilinerarium). The origi-
nal was as early as the third century, and is of great interest, although a
part is missing. This map Celtes bequeathed to a rich patron of learn-
ing, one Conrad Peutinger of Augsburg, from whom it gets its familiar
name Tabula Peulingeriana. This copy was painted at Kolmar after
the model of an original map, which consisted of twelve broad strips of
parchment showing all those parts of the world that were known to
the Romans. The pieces which should contain Spain and Britain are
lost, with the exception of the southeast corner of Britain (Kent). It
is disproportionately lengthened from east to west, the ratio of its height
to its breadth being 1:21. The distances from town to town are marked
on lines running from east to west. The relative sizes of the towns are
indicated by distinctive marks. Those who are interested in this very
early map can iind it in the little Atlas Antiquus of Justus Perthes
(Gotha, 1893). — On all that proceeds, see Lernen und Forschen (Berlin,
1892) ; Pearson, Ethic of Frecthoiight (1901) ; Janssen, A History of
the German People, Eng. trans., i. 63-80 (London, 1891) ; Bursian,
Geschichte der klass. Philologie in Deutschland, etc. (Munich, 1883).
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 393
(d. 1546), who introduced a purely ecclesiastical mode of
learning, but it was checked by the great scholars who pre-
ceded F. A. Wolf (1739). If we prepare a scheme of Ger-
man scholarship from Luder down to Bopp,^ it will stand
somewhat as follows: introducing not only Criticism and
Hermeneutics, but Archaeology, including History, Gram-
mar, Religion, Geography, Chronology, Metrology, Nu-
mismatics, and Epigraphy.
I. Ecclesiastical Period (1400 to c. 1415).
11. Humanistic Period (c. 141 5 to c. 1660).
III. Ante-Wolfian Period (c. 1660 to c. 1739).
IV. Wolfian Period (c. 1739 to c. 1810).
V. Post- Wolfian Period (c. 1810 to c. 1870).
After 1870, as will be seen, German scholarship was no
longer isolated, but belonged to the cosmopolitan creative
study of all the western world. There are many different
ways of subdividing these periods of German learning. Al-
most all scholars agree in speaking of the Ecclesiastical
Period. Almost all of them will speak of the Humanistic
Period. After that, there are other divisions in terminology.
Thus we shall hear of the Grammatico-critical School,
of the Historico-antiquarian School, and finally of the
Junggrammatiker, until the scholarship that is purely Ger-
man ceases to exist as an isolated phenomenon. Ger-
many first teaches all the world, and then learns from all
the world, until at last the divisions of learning cease to be
1 That is to say, from about 1451 through 1867.
394 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
National, and become wholly Cosmopolitan. The Eccle-
siastical Period has already been sufficiently described in the
preceding pages, and so has the spirit of the early Renais-
sance.
One should speak more fully of the first great Grecian
to arise in Germany, in the person of Johann Reuchlin,i
who studied at Paris and at Basle, — at the latter school
under a native Greek. It was there that he wrote a Latin
dictionary, entitled : Vocahularius Breviloquus, an excellent
work which was preferable to its predecessors in the clear-
ness of its arrangement, and which was the more remarkable
from the fact that he was only twenty years of age when the
book was finished. After some further study, he taught both
Greek and Latin at Orleans and Poitiers. He describes
Greek as " necessary for a liberal education; for it leads us
back to the philosophy of Aristotle which cannot really
be comprehended until its language is understood." Later,
in Rome, he met Argyropulos, who was surprised at Reuch-
lin's command of Greek. Later still he learned Hebrew,
and thencefonvard pursued the study of it as the most im-
portant thing in life. For the last year of his existence he
w^as professor of Greek and Hebrew at Tubingen.
The fact that Reuchlin urged the study of Hebrew was
distasteful to the bigots of the day. They preferred dog-
Latin and still more barbarous Greek to a language which
they regarded as almost impious to learn. Reuchlin was,
^ 1455-1522.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 395
therefore, abused and assailed for a long while, until the
enlightened humanists of the day came to his defence.
They believed that anything and everything should be
studied, and they fell upon Reuchlin's enemies like a band
of light horse. These witty and nimble-minded scholars
came to the defence in the once famous satire called Epis-
tolcE Ohscurorum Virorum (15 16-15 17). The first book
of the EpistolcB was largely composed by a humanist
named Johann Jager, while the second was mainly the work
of the famous writer, Ulrich von Hutten; and the quiet,
deeply learned leader of this band was Conrad Muth
(Mutianus Rufus), who had been at school with Erasmus,
and with him had felt the earnest inspiration of early hu-
manism. Returning to Germany, he made his canonical
residence at Gotha, and over the door he set in golden
letters the words : Beata Tranquillitas. There he lived as
a lover of all that is beautiful in literature. It was a strange
fate that he should have survived to see his home plun-
dered by a Protestant mob at the time of the Reformation.
For Protestantism had broken in upon the mild and gen-
ial humanistic learning, especially in Germany, where the
followers of Luther were savage in their assault upon what-
ever was refined and beautiful. The humanists saw that they
had more to fear from the stark ignorance of the Protestants
than from the occasional intolerance of the Catholics. Not
long, however, did this Lutheran riot continue. The inven-
tion of the printing-press and the setting up of printing-
396 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
presses all over Europe did much to beat back Protestant-
ism of the radical sort, and to bring again the more graceful
attitude of the classicists. The desecration of cathedrals
with their beautifully painted windows, the pillaging of art
galleries, the smashing of the most exquisite statuary, —
these atrocities did not continue for very long. With the
multiplication of printing-presses a love for classical learn-
ing returned, and before the end of this period (1660) the
modem languages had begun to exercise an influence which
classicists deplored, but which was in reality a humanistic
trait. Among the greater humanists of Germany was
Hslius Eobanus Hessus,^ who lectured to enormous audiences
on poetry and rhetoric. Of his pupils was the famous
Camerarius,^ who formed one of the interesting group who
clustered around the press of Froben at Basle. He is chiefly
noted for his criticism of Roman chronology.' Among
his friends at Basle were Beatus Renanus,* the associate
and biographer of Erasmus, and well Icnown for his editio
princeps of Vellcius Paterculus, and his work on the text
of Tacitus; Clareanus, who held the professorship of poetry;
Grygenus of Heidelberg, famous for discovering a manu-
script of the first five books of the fifth decade of Livy;
and finally Galcnius of Prague, who produced editions of
Callimachus and Aristophanes, as well as of the Planudean
* 1488-1540. * 1500-1574. Really Kammermann.
* See Bursian, op. cit., i. 154 foil.
* See his life by Horawitz (187 2-1 874).
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 397
Anthology. Many minor scholars helped to give distinc-
tion to Basle, partly by residing there, and partly by accept-
ing professorships for short periods in French and German
universities. In this way they scattered the rich seed of
classical learning and of liberal education.
The great educator whom Germany remembers best to-
day by the name of " The Preceptor " was Philip Schwarz-
erd, better known to us and to the world at large as Me-
lanchthon.' Though a friend of Luther, he could not be
in thorough sympathy with that boisterous, unruly spirit,
but was instead a classical scholar of great diligence. Ger-
many to-day feels the influence of Melanchthon in its
severe training in grammar and style. Melanchthon
wrote grammars of Greek and Latin and a large number of
classical text-books. The works that he composed in Latin,
especially his Latin Letters, are written in a style that is
clear and simple, though without distinction. He was a
Lutheran in his dislike for the paganism of Italy; in fact,
he was essentially a German philologist and not an Italian
classicist or a French one.
Johann Sturm of Strassburg was another important name
in the educational development of early Germany.^ He
1 1497-1560. There is an excellent biography of ]\Ielanchthon by
Hartfelder, in Woodward's Renaissance Education; while he is criticised
by Pearson in his Ethic of Freethoiight, already quoted. A biography in
English by T. B. Saunders has been announced for publication.
^ 1507-1580. Other educators who were contemporaries of Sturm
were Rivius, who corrected many passages in Sallust ; Michael Neander,
398 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
was head-master of the school at Strassburg for forty-three
years, and made the chief work of his scholars the writing
and the speaking of Latin, for this seemed to him the whole
of education. Pupils from all countries came to visit him,
and his school became a sort of model for most German
gymnasia. It happened that Roger Ascham, who never met
him, was a correspondent of his and once wrote to him : —
"For our time the odde man to perform all three perfitlie, what-
soever he doth, and to know the way to do them skilfullie, whan
so ever he L'st, is in my poore opinion, Joannes Sturmus."
A work written by Conrad Gesncr, just mentioned, was
a somewhat remarkable attempt at achieving what many
were at that time studying and discussing with great inter-
est. This was a book known as Mithridates (1555), which
has been styled the first effort toward the comparative
study of language. When Hebrew was added to Greek and
Latin as a subject for wide study, linguists began to look at
it with a peculiar interest. Very many scholars held that all
living languages must have sprung from a single tongue.
who prepared a so-called Opus Aurettni, made up of Greek and Latin moral
sayings ; Basilius Faber, whose Latin Thesaurus or Lexicon long survived,
being reedited by Cellarius (1686) ; Graevius (1710) ; and J. M. Gesner
as late as 1726. An earlier Gesner at Zurich wrote a sort of combina-
tion of a biographical-bibliographical dictionary, united with an en-
cyclopaedia, together with a dictionary of Greek and Latin, and one of
proper names. A pupil of Rivius was Georg Fabricius (1516-1571),
who studied in Italy, and explored with lively interest the monuments
and inscriptions in Rome. Like modern editors of the familiar classics,
he used his knowledge of topography and antiquities to illustrate his
editions of them.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 399
Furthermore, they argued that as the Old Testament was
written in Hebrew, Hebrew must have been the earhest lan-
guage in the world, — a theory which has found adherents
down to Gesenius in recent times. Great was the industry
devoted to collecting words from different languages which
had the same meaning, in order that they might then be
studied for traces of their common origin.
After the rise of the Reformation there was less literary
study of the classics, but everywhere one might notice a
sterner and stricter discipline both in the schools and in the
universities. Especial branches of learning were cultivated .
Lexicography is represented by Basilius Faber (1571), and
a very thorough knowledge of Greek with critical acumen
were the characteristics of Friedrich Sylburg and Lorenz
Rhodomann, the latter of whom was remarkably skilful
in writing Greek hexameters, so that his epic poems which
he put forth anonymously (1588) were widely believed to be
genuine works of antiquity.
In Hungary during the Renaissance there were some few
well-trained classical students, such as Johannes Vitez
(d. 1472), who corresponded with the Italian scholars; and
Janus Pannonius, who brought to Hungary a large collec-
tion of Greek and Latin manuscripts. The king of Hun-
gary, Matthias Corvinus,^ was interested in the humanities.
He founded an academy at Pressburg, and also a university
at Buda, where he maintained thirty copyists and artists
» 1443-1490.
400 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
to continue the supply of illuminated manuscripts. It is
interesting that Latin remained the spoken language of the
Hungarian aristocracy down into the nineteenth century.
Maria Theresa's famous harangue to the Hungarian nobles
was delivered in Latin, as was their spirited response:
" Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria Theresa ! " Latin was
also the official language of the Hungarian Diet, until 1828.^
1 Almost the same thing may be said of Poland, where a well-known
humanist who had studied at Cracow, and seems never to have
visited Italy, maintained for some twenty years a brisk correspond-
ence with Filelfo. The first Latin history of Poland was written by
Johannes Dlugosc. Latin poetry was mainly studied by Gregor of
Sanok, who finally became a lecturer at Cracow. The most famous
humanist, however, who made Latin popular in Poland was Filippo
Buonacorsi. He, with Celtes, founded classical societies both in Poland
and Hungary, as the latter had done in Western Germany. See
Zeissberg, Die polnische Geschichtsschreibung des MiUelalters, etc. (s. 1.
1847), and on Polish classicism see Sokolowski and Szujski, Mon. Medii
Jivi, t. ii (Cracow, 1S76). Classical studies in Russia began in the
seventeenth century, when the Academy of Kiev was founded in 1620.
Latin was studied rather than Greek in that century, and all instruc-
tion was carried on in Latin. After Kiev, Moscow became a seat of
learning, after the establishment there, in 1679, of a printing school.
In this the study of Greek was carried on and was subsidised by the
government. This developed into the SIavo-Gra;co-Latin Academy
(1685), with teachers who were of Greek descent, but who had taken
their doctor's degrees at Padua. This academy was favoured by Peter
the Great, and here were published translations of classical authors,
twenty-six volumes being rendered into Russian by the long-lived
scholar, Martynov (1771-1883). The University of Moscow was
founded in 1755, the University of Vilna in 1803, the University of
St. Petersburg in 1819, the University of Kazan in 1804, the University
of Kharkov in 1804, and that of Odessa in 1865. Much was done for
the promotion of literary studies of every kind by Catharine II in the
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 4OI
Further students of distinction who followed in the seven-
teenth century were Johann August Ernesti,^ a famous
teacher of Latin style, especially of the pure Ciceronianism.
His most famous books are an edition of Cicero in five
volumes (1739) with an Onomasticon Ciceronianum pub-
lished after his death at Halle (1832). To this school of
stem scholarship we must also ascribe Johann Jacob
Reiske, a student of oriental Greek, and author of full
editions of Plutarch, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, and
others, all of which were not published until after Reiske's
death. He wrote his own autobiography, published in
eighteenth century, she who summoned Voltaire and other French
writers of distinction to offset the German influence, which remained
and continued to be very strong. Almost all the distinguished scholars
of Russia were either of German birth and training, or at least of
German training. Thus R. T. Timkovski had studied at Gottingen,
under Heyne ; Professor D. L. Kriukos (1809-1S45) had been a pupil
of Boeckh ; while one of the most brilliant scholars at St. Petersburg,
Professor N. M. Blagoviestschenski (1821-1891) had " heard " Hermann,
Becker, Haupt, Creuzer, and Schlosser at Leipzig and Heidelberg.
This scholar wrote a very able work on Horace and his times, besides
an annotated translation of Persius, and also discussed certain in-
teresting questions of Roman History. Of native stock were V. K.
Lernstedt (1854-1902), who made an edition of Antiphon ; L. F. Voevod-
ski (1846-1901), who wrote a peculiar treatise on cannibalism in Greek
Mythology, which, however, he regarded as bearing upon the Sun
Myth. Of the many Germans who taught in Russia the best known
are Christian Friedrich Matthasi of Moscow, where he discovered
a manuscript of the Homeric Hymns ; C. F. Graefe at St. Peters-
burg, who edited Nonnus, using German in this work because " the
revival of classical learning belongs to the Germans." During the
^ 1707-1781.
2D
402 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Leipzig (1783). The true founder of the science of Ar-
chseology was Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Winckel-
mann was the son of a poor cobbler, and was for many
years a charity scholar, rising gradually by his energy
and ability. At length his associates advised him to fel-
low that career which ultimately made him the first
great creative and critical scholar in the field of Classical
Archjeology. He spent much time in Rome, Naples,
and Pompeii, and became librarian to Cardinal Albani,
the most famous collector of his time, to whom he owed
innumerable opportunities. In many ways his work led
to the elevation of taste in the decorative arts; but his
monumental production is his Geschichte der Kunst des
Alterthums, which appeared in 1764 (new edition by Julius
Lessing with biography, 1882). Winckelmann was the
middle of the nineteenth century it may be said in general that the
Germans greatly influenced and stimulated Russian scholarship.
August Nauck spent the better part of his life in teaching Greek at
St. Petersburg, while Lucian Miiller was equally conspicuous for
his work in Latin. Archeology owes much to Russia, and its
study began in the reign of Peter the Great, in the year of whose
death the Academy of Sciences was founded. After the Crimea had
been conquered in 1783, great interest was taken in the exploration
of this former home of Greek civilisation. Much has been done in
this field by H. E. Kohler, an authority on ancient gems, and especially
by L. Stephani (d. 1887), who spent nearl}' forty years in charge of
the antiquities in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, while writing many
valuable monographs on the researches in Southern Russia. See the
interesting synopsis of the history of classical scholarship written by
Professor Maleyn of St. Petersburg, and incorporated by Dr. J. E.
Sandys in the third volume of his work already cited, pp. 384-390.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 403
teacher of his age and the expounder of Classic Art. It
was his theory of the Beautiful which greatly impressed
Goethe and which led Gotthold Ephraim Lessing to put
forth his famous discourse called Laokoon, which has
never ceased to be discussed.^ Winckelmann's death has
an interest for the superstitious. In April, 1768, he left
Rome to revisit Germany; but on the way a strong feeling
came upon him that he should not depart from Italy. This
feeling finally amounted to a horror, yet a man so sane
as Winckelmann disregarded it, and visited both Munich
and Vienna. At the Austrian capital he was received
with great honour by the Empress, Maria Theresa, who
presented him with a number of very ancient and rare
gold coins. Leaving Vienna, he hurried to Trieste to
take ship for Italy. On his journey, however, he fell in
with a man named Arcangeli, an ex-convict, whose greed
was excited by the gold, and who in consequence entered
Winckelmann's room and stabbed him to death, on June
8, 1768.
Joseph Eckhel,2 founded the science of Numismatics
by making a specialty of Greek and Latin coins and med-
als, on which he wrote eight volumes, entitled Doctrina Num-
morum Vetemm, the first volume appearing in 1798 and
the whole work being reprinted in a fourth edition (1841).
Christian Gottlob Heyne, a persuasive teacher steeped
in reading, ends this so-called Ante-Wolfian Period. He
1 See K. Justi, Winckelmann, sein Leben, seine Werke und seine Zeit-
genossen, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1872). * 1737-1798.
404 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
was professor at Gottingen, and though his learning
was preeminent, it was his exceptional gifts as a teacher
which gave him and his university the leadership at
this time. It is said that of his students at least one
hundred and thirty became professors in various uni-
versities throughout Germany and Holland. Friedrich
August Wolf was born in 1739, and lived a long life and
died in 1824. He was, as we have already said, the true
founder of modern philology.^ He was at first Professor
of Philosophy at Halle until that university was closed
after the battle of Jena (1806). His teaching was marked
by great breadth, since he held that classical study dealt
with every phase of the life and thought of antiquity. In
classical antiquity he found a model of public and private
life, resting upon the highest ideals. In 1807 he went to
Berlin, where he took an active part in founding the
new university; but, unfortunately, he became involved
in petty quarrels, so that he left Germany and visited
Southern France, where he died. His lasting fame rests
upon his so-called Prolegomena ad Homerum (1795). In
it he traced the history of the Homeric poems, and
sought to show that they have both been greatly changed
from their original form, and that they are made up of
separate poems by different authors. It is not true, how-
1 See supra, pp. 2-3. He attracted much attention by insisting on
being matriculated in Philology, though there was no such faculty. He
was told to matriculate under Theology, but refused ; and thus he was
the first Sludiosus pliilolcgiaeiu Gottingen.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 405
ever, as many believe, that he denied the existence of a
personal Homer. Wolf's views had in part been antici-
pated by Giambattista Vico, by Robert Wood, and in a
fashion by Bentley. They go back even to the x^P^Xo^'^^'i
of Alexandria; but Wolf knew nothing of Vico, and
moreover his own minute researches were extremely
stimulating, apart from his conclusions.^
Wolf marks the beginning of a new era in classical schol-
arship. From this time on we find in Germany two
schools, one devoted to Criticism and Exegesis (the Gram-
matico-critical School), of whom the great exponents were
Gottfried Hermann,^ a sort of German Bentley; Christian
August Lobeck,^ whose Aglaophamus (1829) contains a
vast fund of information on the Orphic and other mys-
teries of the Greeks; August Immanuel Bekker/ who,
besides preparing text-editions of Greek authors, largely
helped to edit the Corpus of the Byzantine writers in
twenty-four volumes, and also a Homer with thedigamma
1 See Volkmann, Geschichle und Kritik der Wolf's Prolegomena (Leip-
zig, 1874).
2 1772-1848. Hermann was professor at Leipzig (1803 foil.) and gave
courses which were wide in their scope and interest, especially in
grammar and composition. " Know your authors at first hand, " was his
motto. In the study of Greek prosody and rhythm, he was likewise a
great and original expounder. He first set forth the doctrine of the
Anacrusis, and was the father of Metaphysical Syntax. See W. G.
Hale, A Century of Metaphysical Syntax, published in part of the
Proceedings in the St. Louis Exposition in 1904.
3 1781-1860.
« 178S-1871.
406 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
printed in the text. He spent a' long time in making re-
searches throughout the principal libraries of Europe, and
he studied the texts with entire indifference to the printed
editions. An epoch-making work was that of Karl Lach-
mannon Homer's Iliad (1807), and above all, his immortal
masterpiece, in which he took the hitherto rent and little
understood poem of Lucretius, and with his fine critical
sense — far greater than Bentley ever possessed — restored
it to its rightful place among the masterpieces of Latin
genius. Lachmann was first a professor at Konigsberg
and afterward at Berlin, where he remained one of the
most distinguished of his colleagues for more than a
quarter of a century. It was late in life that he pro-
duced his Lucretius, an account of which is given in
the preface to that poet by H. A. J. Munro, who says :
" Hardly any work of merit has appeared in Germany
since Lachmann's Lucretius, in any branch of Latin
literature, without bearing on every page the impress of
his example." He was, in fact, the creator of a strict
and scientific system of textual criticism. In this he
follows Bentley, of whom he cannot say too much in
praise; but he goes beyond Bentley in restraining his
" critical sentiment" by ascertaining the original form of
the work through the evidence of manuscripts, and the
correction of their errors. He was renowned no less for
versatility than for profound learning, so much so that
it may be said with truth that he was a master of three
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 407
great departments of philology — oriental, classical, and
Teutonic. In each of these he produced an epoch-making
work. For, besides his Lucretius, by which he is per-
haps the best known, he applied the principles of Wolf's
Prolegomena to the German epic of the Nibelungen to
show that this could be resolved into twenty original
ballads or lays; just as he resolved the Iliad into
eighteen, for he regarded the poem as inconsistent in
details. In his treatment of Lucretius he was followed
especially by Hermann Kochly, by Jacob Bernays, and
by the Enghshman, H. A. J. Munro; but we must not
forget that the first clear light upon this difficult text
came centuries before, from Lambinus (Denys Lambin).
The third great achievement of Lachmann was his
treatment of the New Testament, in which he brought out
the methodology of scientific textual criticism.^ To the
same period belong in the Grammatico-critical School
the illustrious names of August Meineke,^ who wrote a
critical history of the Greek comic poets, and edited the
fragments, assisted by Theodor Bergk, as also the Alex-
andrian poets in his Analecta Alexandrina, K. W.
Dindorf,^ Karl Lehrs,^ Friedrich Ritschl,^ and August
* 1793-1851. 2 1790-1870.
^ 1802-1883. With his brother Ludwig he edited all the Greek plays
and other texts, besides a lexicon to ^Eschylus. Both brothers shared in
the making of three famous series — the Teubner, the Tauchnits, and
the Didot.
* 1802-1878. A great authority on grammatical studies in Greece.
s 1806-1876. See Friedrich Ritschl, by L. MuUer (Berlin, 1878).
408 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Nauck,^ who did so much for the lives of the Greek
tragic poets. He was a professor in the Academy of St.
Petersburg, — one of the many who carried the influence
of German scholarship to Russia, as did his contempo-
rary, Lucian Miiller.
In the Historico-antiquarian School, we find Barthold
Georg Niebuhr, ^ founder of a new school of historical
study. Niebuhr was a Dane by birth and a lawyer by
profession. But soon after the University of Berlin was
founded he was called to the chair of history in that insti-
tution, where he lectured almost wholly on the annals of
Rome, before brilliant audiences who were charmed by his
novel manner of treating what had become a threadbare
subject. Hitherto, Roman history had been told and
written of with no great discrimination. The early legends
had been accepted or rejected in a lump. But Niebuhr
approached them in the spirit of a lawyer or a judge who
knows that all human testimony is imperfect and yet con-
tains a certain amount of truth. Therefore, he proposed
without prejudice to take up the written records of Li\y
and other authors and to weigh and balance them as though
he were presiding in a court. This method was singularly
acute, and on the negative or destructive side was widely
accepted. But when he came to constructive work and
* 1822-1892.
* 1776-1831. See Winkworth, The Life and Letters of Niebuhr (London,
1853), and Eyssenhardt, Niebuhr (Gotha, 1876).
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 409
himself put forth two volumes of a History/ they were
treated by historians according to Niebuhr's own method,
and had their defects pointed out with much acumen.
The theory of "tribal lays" had been somewhat over-
done; and when Niebuhr resolved this early history of
Rome into the remains of a series of poetical ballads,
he failed to convince. He was not even original.^
Yet it was Niebuhr who first treated his subject in a
truly scientific spirit so far as his early lectures went.
His studies of the population of Rome under the Republic,
and its divisions — the plehs, the patricians and plebeians,
the ager publicus, etc. — were all new and acceptable to
scholars. Furthermore, he put forth two volumes of mis-
cellanies, mainly philological, and dealing partly with
the criticism of classical texts ^ and topography, having
himself in Italy discovered new fragments and palimpsests.
Niebuhr had a freshness and vivacity of style which helped
convince his hearers; nor was this effect diminished by a
remarkable self-consciousness such as once led him to say :
" The discovery of no ancient historian could have
taught the world so much as my work." Though in
1 In 1812.
^ Perizonius, the Dutch scholar, had anticipated this theory (1685),
while the Frenchman, Louis de Beaufort, had published (1738-1750)
proofs of the uncertainty of early Roman History. Niebuhr was
also preceded by Arnold Heeren (i 760-1842), whose monographs on
ancient commerce, politics, and colonization were in many cases
written before Niebuhr began his lectures at Berlin.
5 1828-1843.
41 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
detail he was often wrong, the later researches of able men*
have not shaken the foundations of his history. He was,
in fact, a Danish Gibbon, dealing with the early Republic
as Gibbon did with the later Empire.^
1 His friend, Georg Ludwig Spalding (1762-1811), went to Berlin
with Niebu'hr and there put forth three volumes of a fine edition of
Quintilian, the fourth volume being seen through the press by P. K.
Buttmann with an excellent lexicon to the author by Bonnel in a
fifth volume.
"^ Other scholars of the time were the famous F. E. D. Sclileier-
macher, who did so much for German prose style and for the ana-
lytical study of Plato ; Ludwig Friedrich Heindorf , also a Platonist,
but best known for his notes on Horace; Philipp Karl Buttmann
(originally Boudemont), author of a clearly expressed but purely
dogmatical grammar, and of a Lexilogus, an acute study of the
Homeric vocabulary. His other works may be ignored. Immanuel
Bekker (1785-1871), of Berlin, was a notable critic of Greek texts.
For sixty-one years he held his professorship at Berlin, seldom lectur-
ing, seldom heard, yet winning a brilliant reputation among scholars for
his collection of manuscripts (over four hundred) and his improvements
in the existing texts of Aristotle, Plato, the Attic orators, the Byzan-
tine historians, many late writers, and in Latin, of Livy and Tacitus.
It was first said of him, and not of von Moltke, that " he could
be silent in seven languages." See H. Suppe (Gottingen, 1872).
August Boeckli (i 785-1867) was the rival of Gottfried Hermann.
He devoted his attention to the antiquarian aspect of the classics. He
made especial studies of Plato and the dramatists, while his elaborate
edition of Pindar is a monument to his industry (1811-1821). He
was professor of Eloquence in the University of Berlin for fifty-six
years. In his work he was more interested in broad views of classical
learning, and unlike Hermann he published a treatise on the public
economy of Athens (Eng. trans., Boston, 1857), and a great part of
the Corpus Inscriptionum Gracarum, but not ended until (1877) ten
years after his death.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 41I
Among the earliest text-critics and grammarians after
Hermann was Christian August Lobeck (1781-1860),
who taught at Wittenburg and Konigsberg. He discussed
with much acuteness the laws of word-formation in Greek,
taking up the terminations of nouns and the general laws
of the language in his Phrynicus (1820), his notes on a
fragment of Herodian (1820), and his great Pathologia
Sermonis Grceci (1843-1862). His comprehensive knowl-
edge of Greek literature enabled him to pour forth a mul-
titude of examples and to detect and illustrate the living
phenomena of the language. In addition to Lobeck was
Gregor Wilhelm Nitzsch (1790-1861) , whose life was largely
devoted to Homeric studies. He differed from Wolf in
regarding the actual Homer as living near the end of the
poems, and therefore the shaping artist; while he makes
the point that the Cyclic Poets implied the existence of
an Iliad and an Odyssey somewhat in their present form.
Better known, in foreign countries at least, was Karl
Friedrich Nagelsbach, and most of all for his treatise on
Latin style {Lateinische Stilistik), which, appeared in 1846,
and reached its ninth edition at the hands of Iwan Miiller
(1905) , who gave it a complete index, and thus greatly added
to its usefulness. The book deals with the most character-
istic differences of idiom between Latin and German prose.
Lobeck and Karl Lehrs carried on grammatical studies
relating to the Greek from the beginning of the decadence
(300 B.C.) to the Byzantine Age. As a critic, Lehrs treated
412 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
the text of Horace very severely, many of whose odes he
even rejected as spurious ! An early pupil of Hermann
was Friedrich Wilhelm Thiersch (i 784-1860), a lecturer
at Munich, and doing much for the organisation of the
educational system of Bavaria. He had studied the art
of the Louvre and the British Museum, and therefore
gave much attention to antique sculpture. It was due to
him that the Glyptothek was founded at the Bavarian
capital by the Crown Prince, Thiersch, however, rightly
belongs to the list of grammarians, and besides two Greek
grammars, he wrote innumerable treatises on the nicer
points of word-formation and the particles. He was
fairly intimate also with modem Greek, and wrote
in French a treatise on the Greece of to-day. Other
professors at the Bavarian university were Georg Anton
Friedrich Ast (i 778-1841), editor of the Characters
of Theophrastus; Leonhard Spengel, Carl Prunst (1820-
1888) ; and Ludwig Doederlein, professor at Bern and
Erlangen, and noted for his forcible and stimulating
lectures, full of epigram, and for his rather unmethodical
treatises on synonyms and etymologies in Latin {Lateinische
Synonymen und Etymologien, 6 vols. ; Lateinische Synony-
mik, etc.), the first of which was published in 1826-1838,
and the second in 1839.
Grammar was still the subject that attracted Karl
Wilhelm Kriiger (1796-1874), whose Greek grammar in
two parts has its rules clearly stated and its examples
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 413
always pertinent. This book was rivalled by that of
Raphael Kiihner (1802-1878), and the trio was completed
by Heinrich Ludolf Ahrens (1809-1881), the author of an
exhaustive treatise on the Greek dialects (Gottingen,
1839-1843). Many of the papers of Friedrich Wilhelm
Schneidewin, the editor of several Greek dramatists, show
that he, too, though given to criticism as Hermann was,
and to archaeology as was Thiersch, was a grammarian
in the sense that we now employ the word.
But Syntax led to another sphere of labor with Gott-
fried Bernhardy (1800-1875), who, in 1829, published a
volume on the scientific syntax of the Greek language, but
regarded syntax solely in its relation to the history of
Latin literature. As professor at Halle (where he was
afterwards pro-Rector) he published a very interesting
monograph on his own system of classical learning (1832),
which is very suggestive and full of truth. According to
him, grammar is the instrument of such learning, and
Criticism and Interpretation its elements. Of less account
and purely ancillary are Antiquities, Palaeography,
Numismatics, and Epigraphy. In this, Bernhardy may
be said to have set forth the whole truth regarding classical
study when regarded from the standpoint of a wise and
widely read scholar who applies philosophy to the subject
that is dearest to him. In Bernhardy one sees alike the
influence of Hegel and of Wolf. He carries out his prin-
ciples in two books which were the first of the kind to
414 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
place the study of classical literature upon a very high
level.*
Following Bemhardy, an excellent work on Roman
literature 2 was prepared in two volumes by Wilhelm
Sigismund Teuffel of Tubingen (1820-1878). This work
is not intended for continuous reading, but is a sort of
glorified bibliography with notes. It was at first vilely
translated into English by W. Wagner, and later its fourth
edition, having been enlarged and supplemented by L.
Schwabe, was well rendered into English by G. C. W.
Warr (1845 ^^^ 1901), who added the more important
English and French references which the Germans had
insolently omitted. This is a book of great value to the
student of Latin for the easy access which it gives him to
many details relating to Roman authors and their books.
Closely linked with another valuable work of reference
is the name of Teuffel, who assisted the completion of
the great Real-Encyclopddie of August Pauly (1796-
1845), a monument of minute information regarding
Greek and Roman topics, which, begun at Stuttgart in
1839, was finished after Pauly's death. ^
1 Grundriss der romischen Litteralur (1830, 5th ed., Brunswick,
1872); Grundriss der Griechischen Litteralur (1836-1845; 4th ed., 3
vols., 1876-1880). There is a Life of Bernhardy by Volkmann. It
describes his other works, such as his Suidas (1853), his rivalries
with M. H. E. Meier and Theodor Bergk, and his fatherly friendship
for his pupils, such as Heinrich Keil and August Nauck.
^ Geschichte der romischen Litteralur (1870), last Eng. trans., 1900.
' New ed. by Georg Wissowa (1902).
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 415
Grammatical studies were further pursued by Karl
Gottlob Zumpt (i 792-1849), whose grammar of Latin
prose (1818) was several times translated into English
and was circulated in the British dominions as well as in
the United States; by Karl Leopold Schneider (i 786-1821),
whose large grammar was the first systematic treatise
of the kind produced in Germany; Nicolai, Meisterhans,
R. Klotz, J. F. Jacob, editior of the Mna, and Albert
Forbiger (1798-1878), a second-rate scholar, but one whose
pedestrian editions of Vergil and Lucretius were better
known in England than those of Heyne and Lachmann.
Forbiger was also the compiler of a German-Latin dic-
tionary.^
^ Lexicography, being an elementary part of grammar, may be
considered here in its later developments, with a reference to early
lexicography on pp. 96, 97, 108, 126, 165-167, 194, 246, 247, 254,
25s, 305- Soon after the Renaissance began to make word-books
and various kinds of lexica popular, one Ambrogio Calepino (Ambro-
sius Calepinus) had prepared a Didionarium which was widely used,
because it defined the Latin words in Italian and later gave also the
equivalent in Greek. The success of the so-called Calepinus was
extraordinary. It was repubhshed, revised, ampHfied, and extended
in every possible way, the definitions being given in many lan-
guages, so that finally there was produced a Calepinus with the Latin
defined in Italian, German, French, Dutch, Danish, English, and
Greek. The vogue of the book, thus altered, continued into the
eighteenth centurj', when still another revision was undertaken at
Padua by lacopo Facciolati, who soon became convinced that the
whole work was antiquated. He proposed that an entirely new
lexicon be made out of the great body of Latin authors; and this
was finally done by himself and his colleague Egidio Forcellini, in
41 6 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
The broadly scientific study of language which is va-
riously known as Linguistics {Linguistik) , or Comparative
their Totius Latinitatis Lexicon (Padua, 1771), a splendid memo-
rial of classical scholarship. This was revised by Vicenzo De-Vit
(1879) and Fr. Corradini (d. 1888), who used the work of Klotz,
and whose lexicon was completed after his death (1890) by Perin.
It has been said of this great lexicon as made by Facciolati and
Forcellini, so fully have they illustrated their articles by quota-
tions from the classics, that the greater part of Latin literature could
be restored from their lexicon, were it destroyed in the texts where
we now find it. Other lexicons than those of the Italians have been
independently made by Wilhelm Freund in Germany (enlarged and
translated in the United States by E. A. Andrews) and made the basis
of Lewis and Scott's Latin Dictionary (1882). This was "conveyed"
by the English publisher, William Smith (afterward Sir William), and
is known in England as Smith's Latin Dictionary. Independently,
Karl Ernst Georges (1806-1895), of Gotha, produced a German-
Latin lexicon in 1833, and it was accepted at Jena as the equivalent
of a doctor's dissertation. A seventh edition appeared in 1882, as
did (in 1879) the seventh edition of another lexicon which bears the
name of Georges, but which is based upon the work of other scholars,
such as Luneman, Forcellini, Gesner, and Scheller. Georges had
ill health and weak eyesight, so that he did not often go far from
his library; but he generously put his stores of learning at the dis-
posal of scholars in every part of the world. Besides the books already
mentioned he wrote a Latin-German and German-Latin Hand-
worierbuch and a Schidworterbuch, both of which have gone through
many editions. The most ambitious attempt at a Latin lexicon was
that planned by Eduard WoIfHin, professor at Munich. As early
as 1857, the king of Bavaria offered to contribute ten thousand
gulden toward the cost of a truly complete dictionary of Latin.
It was proposed to put the editorship into the hands of Carl Halm
of Munich, Ritschel, and Alfred Fleckeisen, with Franz Biicheler
of Bonn as editor-in-chief. Political disturbances delayed the enter-
prise until finally Wolfflin began the publication of his Archiv fiir
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 417
Philology, began with the discovery of Sanskrit by Sir
William Jones, already mentioned (p. 383). The greatest
lateinisch Lexikographie und Grammatik (in 1848), a quarterly for
collections and suggestions from scholars all over the world. In
1893 the Archiv announced a plan for a great Thesaurus in 12 vols,
of 1000 pages each, to befinished in twenty years at a cost of $150,000,
and under the charge of the academies of Berlin, Gottingen, Leipzig,
Munich, and Vienna. Professor Biicheler, Wolfflin and F. Leo were
the first editors. It was to appear in fasciculi.
Greek lexicography reached its highest excellence with the dic-
tionary of Stephanus (see p. 305), yet, as with Latin, there was felt
the need of lexicons that should define Greek words in the language
of the students using them, instead of in Latin. Faber, in 1571,
had published a Thesaurus; but, using that as a basis, J. M. Gesner,
between 1726 and 1735, issued two revisions, and now he set forth a
Thesaurus of his own, eliminating barbarisms and solecisms, and
though uneven in its treatment and explanation, it marked a distinct
advance in the history of lexicography. Gesner was noted as a leader
in the New Humanism. The Old Humanism of the Renaissance had
sought to prolong the life of the Latin language and literature. Yet
this was found to be impracticable as a spoken tongue, and the so-called
School of Halle abandoned the attempt, and merely tolerated the teach-
ing of spoken Latin in the schools. But the New Humanists, headed by
Gesner at Gottingen, held that the classics had a psychic and philosoph-
ical value which made the study of them peculiarly helpful, in leading
to a broader and richer understanding of the modern literatures and
of their art and poetry and every phase of learning. This view was
that which bore fruit in the aesthetic teachings of Winckelmann, of
Lessing, and of Goethe. Gesner was also the precursor of Heyne in let-
ting taste play a part in his exegesis and commenting upon the authors
whom he edited {Scripiores Rei RusUccr, Quintilian, Pliny's Letters and
Panegyricus, Horace, and Claudian). Others of the New Humanists
were Tobias Damm (1699-17 78), a teacher in Berlin who compiled
a great lexicon to Homer and another to Pindar, the words being
etymologically arranged (alphabetically by V. C. F. Rest in 1833).
2E
4l8 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
achievements in this department of Classical Philology
have been made by Germans or in Germany. Sir William
Jones drew attention to the likeness of the structural
system of Sanskrit and what we now call the Indo-Euro-
pean languages; but it was Franz Bopp (1791-1867) who
gave a scientific turn to the discovery. Bopp was bom in
Mayence, hved in Paris (1812-1815), where he studied
Persian and Arabic under de Sacy, and himself learned
Sanskrit from the grammars of William Carey (1806)
and Sir Charles Wilkins (1808). In 1821 he became
professor, and held his chair for fifty -six years down
to his death. ^ In 18 16 he published his first work
Johann GotUob Schneider (1750-1822), of Breslau, whose lexicon
supplied a model for those of Franz Passow (i8i9-i824),as Passow's
did for Rest and Palm (1841-1857), and this in turn for that of the
Englishmen Liddell and Scott (1843), the last edition (1880) bearing
on its title page also the name of Henry Drisler, an American
Hellenist of Columbia College, New York, who had himself made
an independent lexicon of Greek, including proper names. Messrs.
Liddell and Scott were scholars of very unequal capacity. A
popular rhyme in England runs as follows :
" This is the book of Liddell and Scott,
Some of it's good and some of it's not,
That which is good is Scott,
That which is Liddell is not ! "
The first appearance of Liddell and Scott's lexicon in 1843 ^as,
however, noteworthy, because its definitions were given in English
and not in Latin — an innovation for which the editors gave a very
noble defence in their preface.
* See Lefmann, Franz Bopp, sein Leben und seine Wissenschaft
(Berlin, 1896).
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 419
on the conjugational system of Sanskrit as compared
with those of Greek, Latin, Persian, and German,
endeavouring to explain the origins of our grammatical
forms. This he discussed more freely and fully in his
Comparative Grammar {Vergleichende Grammatik), which
appeared in 1833. Bopp made much of " roots " and
more legitimately of conjugational similarities in the lan-
guages named. But when he wrote he was in advance of
his time. Sanskrit was still imperfectly understood, and
therefore Bopp's earlier contemporaries, such as Hermann
and Lobeck, held aloof, while some, like Ludwig Ross,
even treated Comparative Grammar as a subject for
witticisms.
Theodor Benfey, a converted Jew (1809-1881), gave
an intense devotion to the study of Sanskrit, of which lan-
guage he wrote a complete grammar (1852), having pre-
viously published a lexicon of " Greek roots " (1839-
1842) and very many articles and monographs on scientific
Greek etymology. After Bopp and Benfey, the two great
pioneers in the comparative study of languages, there came
many, of whom Georg Curtius (1820-1885), at Leipzig,
was the most influential — the head of a school of language
study. ^ Curtius, whose elder brother Ernst won fame for
a history of Greece (1857-1867),^ in his inaugural, declared
^ See J. M. Edmonds's Comparative Philology (Cambridge, 1906).
Leo Meyer, who was a pupil of Benfey and did much to further his
work, is at the present writing still living as an honorary professor
at Gottingen. 2 g^g trans, by A. W. Ward (1873).
420 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
that he should bring Classical Philology and language
study into closer relation with each other. This he accom-
plished by his own influence and that of his many dis-
tinguished pupils — ten volumes of Sludien (1868-1878)
with five volumes of Leipziger Studien (1878-1882) being
edited by himself and his colleagues. The chief works
that were wholly his own were his Greek grammar for
schools (Prague, 1832), principles of Greek Etymology
(1858-1862), and his bulky treatise on the Greek Verb
(1873-1876). In his etymological discussions, Georg
Curtius investigates and classifies the regular phonetic
changes in the consonants as they pass from Sanskrit to
Greek, Latin, or German ; but many of these changes are
irregular and not in accordance with any settled principle
known to Curtius at that time. So he dubs them " spo-
radic changes," to be explained or not, according to the
ingenuity of the investigator. In other words, he held that
the exceptions to the consonantal changes set forth in
Grimm's Law were " sporadic " and really accidental.
What was Grimm's Law ? It is a law as to the relations
between the consonants in (i) Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin,
(2) High German and Low German (including English).^
The germ of this law was discovered by Rasmus Kris-
tian Rask (i 787-1832), who had travelled extensively in
Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Persia, and India, care-
fully comparing the difi"erent languages spoken in these
* See Giles, Comparative Philology, § 99 et. al.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 42 1
countries. It was he who, first among Europeans, came
to know grammatically the Old Persian form of speech
that is variously called " Zend " or " Avestan." Rask's
book on Icelandic and other languages (18 18) partly
anticipated the law which generally governs the consonantal
changes already mentioned. Jakob Grimm (i 785-1863)
who was preparing a German grammar, saw at a flash the
great importance of Rask's statements; and when the
second edition of his Deutsche Grammatik appeared (1822),
it showed the influence of Rask. Hence the law of
consonantal change came to be styled Grimm's Law;
but the exceptions to it were regarded as inexplicable and
as partly justifying the famous gibe of M. de Voltaire.
Curtius with Grimm's Law and the " sporadic changes "
reigned content, until a young Dane, Karl Ludwig Verner,
who was not a classical scholar at all, wrote a paper in
Kuhn's Zeiischrift,^ which showed that these exceptions
were due to the accentual system of the original Indo-
Germanic languages. That is, the sonant spirants, except
p, f, h, w, and s, became respectively the spirants d, 3,
g, gii, and s when the vowel immediately preceding them
did not, according to the original Indo-Germanic system,
have the primary accent of the word. This gives proof
of the prevailing " pre-accent " down to about 300 a.d.
These two discoveries — that of Rask (Grimm) and of
1 Vol. xxiii, pp. 79-130 (1877), entitled Eine Ausnahme der Ersten
Lautverschiebung.
42 2 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Karl Verner — are the most remarkable and have been the
most fruitful in the study of languages since Classical
Philology began. They were applied with great skill by
Karl Brugmann of Leipzig, who may be styled the chief
of the Jung-Grammatiker, among whom are numbered
Hermann Osthoff of Heidelberg, August Leskien of Leip-
zig, Hermann Paul of Munich,^ and Ludwig Lange of
Leipzig (1825-1885). The New Grammarians hold in
general (i) that language-changes, so far as tliey are
mechanical, occur according to definite and immutable
laws, and (2) that the principle of Analogy, which is always
at work, has been so ever since speech began.^
The Young Grammarians found a powerful ally in
Friedrich Karl Brugmann (1849- )> who cooperated
with the others, and wrote a paper almost as revolutionary
as Vemer's, in Curtius's Studien.^ The subject was
Nasalis Sonans, and proved so destructive to the theories
of Curtius as to bring about a personal rupture between the
two men; so that for many years Curtius and the Old
Grammarians waged an unceasing war on Burgmann and
his disciples. It is now universally accepted that Brug-
mann was correct in his view of the Indo-Germanic
1 Paul's Principien der Sprachgeschichte (Eng. adapt, by Strong,
Logeman, and Wheeler) ; and Brugmann's Griindriss der verglei-
chenden Grammatik der indo-germanischen Sprachen (Eng. trans.).
2 See B. I. Wheeler, Analogy and the Scope of its Application in
Study (1887).
' Vol. ix (Leipzig, 1877).
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 423
vocalic nasals.^ In fact, owing to the labors of Vemer, of
Brugmann (who finally succeeded Curtius at Leipzig),
and the Young Grammarians in general, language-study
has been put upon a sound scientific basis, wherein changes
are to be traced, not to sporadic causes, but to analogy,
which has laws of its own.
It was natural that so great a change in linguistics
should be accompanied by a new movement in the field
of grammar which sets forth, quasi-dogmatically, the
truths of language- study. Hence we find the German
influence exliibited by Johann Nicolai Madvig (1804-1SS6),
a Dane of great distinction who was educated at Copen-
hagen. He became professor of Latin there (1829) and re-
mained as such for more than fifty years. Like most of
the greatest scholars whom the world has seen, Aladvig
was remarkably versatile, engaging as much in politics,
law, and diplomacy as in classical study. He was a mem-
ber of the Diet, President of the Council, Inspector of
Schools, and Minister of Education. As a grammarian
and critic his best work was done in Cicero, but his collec-
tive papers. Adversaria Critica, etc., are masterpieces of
interpretation and criticism. His Latin grammar (1841)
was translated in every European country and in the
United States. His personality was remarkable. To his
death, in his eightieth year, he was vigorous and full
^ See Brugmann's great work, Grundriss der vergJeichenden Gram-
malik der indo-gcrmaiiischen Sprachen (Eng. trans., 2d ed., 1897).
424 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
of the scholar's zest, combined with the graceful poise of
the diplomat who has mingled with kings and nobles.
" Speak the truth in love " was his favourite maxim, and
it was carried out to the letter. He taught all the scholars
of modem Denmark and most of the Scandinavian coun-
tries. Among his pupils were Christensen, Sophus Bugge,
and Johan Louis Bugge (1820-1905) of Christiania. As
a critic, Madvig was less given than his contemporaries to
the minute study of manuscripts, except in determining
their relation to the archetype. He dwelt largely on verbal
criticism, and was an adept in conjectural emendation.
In his judgments he recalled the judicial methods of
Niebuhr. Such was Madvig, a great classical scholar —
a Grecian, a Latinist, a critic, a grammarian, and a brill-
iant man of the world.
To be compared with the Danish Madvig was the
Dutch scholar, Caryl Gabriel Cobet (1813-1889), whose
mother, however, was a Frenchwoman, and Cobet was
bom in Paris. He showed the brilliancy and wit of the
French, though his education was carried out at the
Hague and at Leyden. It is said that on entering Leyden
he was already steeped in the ancient classics, and had a
verbal familiarity with them. His doctor's dissertation
excited high hopes, and the Royal Institute gave him leave
of absence for five years so that he might study Greek manu-
scripts in Italy. On his return, he was made an extraor-
dinary professor at Leyden, and his inaugural address has
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 425
become a classic in the field of text criticism.^ The story is
told that during one of the symposia oi the professors, they
fell to arguing on a certain point of usage in the Greek
drama. Cobet was on fire with enthusiasm, and so pelted
his colleagues with quotations from ^schylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides and from the Fragments, that they gave
way and admitted his claim. Then, with a roguish smile,
he informed them that most of his quotations were spurious,
that he had invented them on the spot as a bit of academic
play. Not long after the retirement of Petrus Hoffman
Peerlkamp, who had been full professor (1848) and who is
best known by his critical work in Horace, Cobet succeeded
him. He was the greatest Greek scholar of modem Hol-
land. Dr. Sandys recalls the meeting of Cobet and Mad-
vig at the tercentenary celebration at Leyden in 1875.
A hush was felt when Cobet's turn came to address his
great contemporary in Latin, for Cobet was first of all a
Hellenist as Madvig was first of all a Latinist. But
Cobet's words were full of grace, compliment, and dex-
terity, so that Madvig began his reply: Post Cohetum
Latine loqui vereor? Cobet's most enduring work is to be
found in the numerous lectures, papers, and examples of
criticism that are contained in his VaricE Lectiones and his
NovcB Lectiones, which with Madvig's Adversaria and
1 Oratio de Arte Emendandi (Amsterdam, 1840).
* Cobet did later (in 1877) criticise the Latin of Madvig. His own
was superb, — flashing, graceful, sinuous, reflecting his remarkable
personality.
426 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Opuscula, and the addresses of Edouard Toumier (183 1-
1899), of Paris, might well constitute a Corpus of modem
critical work.
The German influence on France in classical studies has
been more subtle and less direct than upon other peoples,
mainly because of the difference of race and the clash of
politics, and also because of the French genius which cre-
ates and transforms in its own way. If less profound than
the German, it is more lucid, and, one may say, more logical.
Yet since the great discoveries were made by Germans
or those allied with them, and since even in the department
of Romance Philology the more minute and careful work
has been done by Germans,* the genuine scholars of France
have accepted and merely elucidated what the Germans
found. Because, however, they have lacked originality one
passes over their later work with the mention of a few con-
spicuous names, such as those of men who wrote with charm
— H. J. G. Patin (i 792-1876), whose studies in the Greek
and late Latin poets are learned and widely read; Desire
Nisard and Charles Nisard, who set themselves to making
the classics popular even at the cost of inaccuracy ; Emile
Egger (1813-1885), author of the first treatise on Com-
parative Grammar (1852); the able lexicographers, L. M.
Quicherat (i 799-1884), author of a Latin thesaurus, and
Emile Littre (1801-1881) ; the distinguished palaeographer,
Charles Graux (1852-1882), whose brief life was one of
^ E.g. Dietz, Korting, Meyer-Liibke, Grober.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 427
remarkable achievement; and Otto Riemann (1853-1891),
best known for his work in Livy. The French School in
Athens was founded as early as 1846, and has helped to
stimulate such archaeologists as Bumouf, Fustel de Cou-
langes, Perrot, Collignon, Homolle, and Reimann, — with
scores of others whose names are known to every scholar.
Victor Henry (1850-1907) wrote comparative grammars
that were translated into English, and his wide knowledge
of all languages made him a universal authority. One
of the most brilliant expositors of Roman life and Latin
literature was Gaston Boissier (1823-1908), whose lectures
were absorbing and whose books were fascinating {Ciceron
et ses Amis (Eng, trans., 1892), U Opposition sous les
Cesars (1874-1875), La Fin du Paganisme (1891), and
UAfrique Romaine (1895)).
Archaeology in its broad sense and Fine Art owe less
to Germany in their development than other branches of
Classical Philology. To be sure, there is Winckelmann, the
father of archaeologists, and Lessing, his greatest critic,
but scholars of other nations share the honours with these
two illustrious men. We have seen how early the Arundel
Marbles were admired in England, and how the British
Museum was created for the repository of rare objects of
antiquity. The Louvre in Paris was begun in 1204 and
converted into the beginnings of an art museum by Fran-
cois I. Upon it were lavished all the genius of men like
Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujin, and its beautification con-
428 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
tinued through the Napoleonic wars, during which the
great Emperor filled the galleries with the richest spoils
of the countries he conquered, as did his nephew Napo-
leon III. Its collections undoubtedly surpass in richness,
beauty, and value those of any other structure in the world
to-day. Even those of the Vatican must be reckoned
inferior. Throughout France, the provincial museums
exhibit separate collections, though it is becoming the
policy of the government to draw these gradually to Paris.
Side by side with archaeology stands history, and here
the German influence is very great. There are in Ger-
many editions of the Latin fragments by H. Peter,
Friedrich von Schlegel, Johann Wilhehn von Siivern
(d. 1829), while Karl Bottiger (1760) wrote Sabina, the
daily life of a Roman lady, a model for Bekker's well-
known Callus and Charicles (i 796-1 846). More serious
historians of Rome were Ernst Curtius^ and Theodor
Mommsen^ (1817-1903), of whom we shall have more
to say. But in England there were giants of history, —
Connop Thirlwall (1797-1875) and George Grote (1794-
1871) — each having written a monumental history of
Greece, Thirlwall' s being called " a Tory history," and
Grote's, " a Whig history," from the evident partiality
of their respective authors. Thus, Thirlwall, a lecturer in
Trinity, was in sympathy with the English patriciate,
while Grote was a banker, not a university man, and fully in
' See the Deutsche Rundschau (Berlin, 1896).
' See Infra, pp. 443-444.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 429
sympathy with the Athenian democracy. Of late years, a
young ItaHan, Guilelmo Ferrero, has sought to throw a new
light upon the problems of ancient Rome, though he seems
largely to have drawn upon the French history of the
Romans by Jean Victor Duruy. Other French classical
historians have been Napoleon III, whose Casar deserves
attention, Francois Villemain, a rhetorical lecturer, Aubin
Louis Millen (1759-1818), who gave a remarkably full
description of the Roman relics in the south of France ; and
Jean Francois Boissonade (1774-1857), who spent most of
his time in studying the later Greeks, of the decadence of
whom he modestly said that " the mediocrity of their talent
was suited to the mediocrity of his scholarship." But his
work was prodigious. In nine years (1823-1832) he
produced twenty-four volumes of annotated Greek poets,
and his was the editio princeps of Babrias (1844). We
must note, also, though many names are omitted :
Barthelemy St. Hilaire (1805-1895), lecturer on Greek and
Roman philosophy, translator of Aristotle (1891), and
publicist as well as scholar, besides the Due de Luynes
(1803-1867), numismatist and explorer, Charles Lenor-
mant (1816-1881), a student of ancient monuments; and
his son, Francois (1837- ), a scholar of the most
varied attainments, best known for his minute studies at
Eleusis with reference to the Mysteries.^
1 In modern Italy, the name of Cardinal Angelo Mai (1782-1854) is
to be remembered for his study of the manuscripts in the Vatican and
43° HISTORY or CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Since the splendid career of Cobet, the Dutch univer-
sities have had no classical scholar of the first order, but
they honourably maintain the traditions of the past. They
are Groningen (founded in 1614), Utrecht (1636), Leyden
1575), and Amsterdam, whose Athenasum was raised to the
rank of a university in 1877. The greatest number of
students is to be found at the oldest seats of learning, —
Leyden and Utrecht. There were two more universities
in Holland, — Franeker and Hardervyk, — but these were
suppressed by Napoleon I.
Belgium, as a separate state, is of recent existence,
having formed a part of Holland until the revolution of
183 1. It contains more than one famous and ancient
Ambrosian libraries of which he had charge. Some of his discoveries
were of works hitherto unknown to exist, as a part of Dionysius Hali-
carnassensis, fragments of the lost Vidularia of Plautus, and remains
of Cicero's lost treatise, De Repjiblica (1822). Since Comparative
Philology has been in vogue, Domenico Pezzi (1844-1906), and
Graziadio Ascoli (1829-1907) are the greatest names among the com-
parative philologists of Italy. We have already mentioned Vin-
cenzo De-Vit (1810-1892) as the reviser of Forcellini's great lexicon,
and Fr. Corradini (1820-1898) whose like task was completed by
Perin in 1890. Studies in early Latin were ably undertaken by
Giovanni Battista Gandino (1877-1905) ; while Domenico Com-
paretti, professor of Greek at Pisa, is widely known by his account
of Vergil in the Middle Ages (1873; Eng. trans. 1895). Luigi
Canina, Bartholomeo Borghesi, and Francesco Maria Avellino
were all distinguished archaeologists; but first of all stood Giovanni
Battista de Rossi (there were two of the name), who made collections
of inscriptions, especially of those in the Catacombs, and of Christian
Archaeology.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 43 1
university and is remarkable for the number of its learned
societies. The Catholic University of Louvain was
founded in 1426, having separate colleges, as in England.
Of these the best known was the Collegium Trilingue, over
which Erasmus for a time presided, cultivating the three
languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Lipsius also lec-
tured here and styled the University " the Belgian
Athens." Louvain has had its vicissitudes, having been
closed by the Austrian Emperor, Joseph II, and by the
French in 1797; but in 1834 it was refounded as a strictly
Catholic University and has resumed its old prestige.
Besides Louvain, there are Ghent (1816), Liege (1816),
and the " free university " of Brussels (1834). As Dutch
scholarship tends toward textual criticism, so that of the
Belgians has by preference turned to archaeology and
constitutional antiquity, these being represented chiefly by
Jean Baron de Witte (1868-1S89), a scholar largely influ-
enced by the Germans; J. E. G. Roulez (1806-1878),
Professor of Greek at Ghent, and an authority on ancient
music; Joseph Gantrelle (1809-1893), Professor of Latin
at Ghent, a defender of the classics and editor of the
Agricola (1874), Germnnia (1877), and the Historic
(1881), besides publishing a special study of the stj'le of
Tacitus (1882), to whom, indeed, he devoted his chief
labours.^ The influence of Germany is plainly seen in the
1 Other Belgian scholars of note were Auguste Wagener (1829-
1896), largely influenced by German teaching; Louis Chretien
432 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
work of the Belgian scholars, because at so many of their
universities, Germans have held professorships (e.g.
J. D. Fuss; G. J. Bekker), yet the native Gallic strain
has made Belgian scholars not only profound but
lucid.
The Scandinavians, as we have already noted, are among
the most original of classical scholars. It is unnecessary,
however, to trace their work farther than the beginning
of the nineteenth century, for it is only then that Danes,
Swedes, and Norwegians became conspicuous for their
prowess in learning. Their universities to-day are, first
of all, Copenhagen (founded in 1478) and one of the most
famous in Northern Europe; Upsala, in Sweden (1480);
Christiania (181 2), the Norwegian State University;
besides Lund in Sweden (1666). The most famous
Scandinavian scholars have been already named, —
Rask, Madvig, Niebuhr, and Vemer, — but several others
now require attention.
Johan Louis Ussing (i 820-1 905) was the close associate
of Madvig and was the most celebrated Scandinavian
archaeologist, writing his dissertation on the subject of
Roersch (1831-1891), of Liege, and noted for his valuable reviews and
monographs; F^Iix Neve (1816-1893), of Louvain, orientalist by-
choice, but classicist by profession; Jean Joseph Thonissen (1816-
1891), a jurist who wrote a long work on primitive criminology
in Greece and Rome; and finally, Pierre Willems (1840-1898),
author of a standard work on the political institutions of ancient
Rome (Louvain, 1870), and another on the Roman Senate.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 433
Greek vases. He travelled for two years in Greece and
Italy and founded the Museum of Classical Archaeology
at Copenhagen, where he was made Reader, The influ-
ence of Madvig led him to more closely philological work,
so that he took part in editing Li\y and annotated Plautus
on his own account (1875-1887). As a text-editor he was
conservative, unlike most Scandinavians, who are possessed
of a cacoethes emendandi, of which the Swedish Ljundberg
furnishes an awful example in his edition of Horace (1872),
where out of all the lines he has left barely sixty unaltered
(Reinach). In Iceland, there arose one splendid scholar,
Sveinbjoin Egelsson (1791-1852), whose thunderous trans-
lations of all Homer unite a fire and splendour that rival
the Sagas of the North, while they recall them. Esaias
Tegn^r of Lund (i 782-1846), the most popular poet in
Swedish literature, so that in 1808 he was, to quote Dr.
Sandys, " the Tyrtaeus of Sweden," was professor of
Greek, but insisted more on Latin, while Karl Vilhelm
Linder (1825-1882) was a strenuous advocate of Greek.
Sophus Bugge (1833-1907) not only investigated conso-
nantal changes, studied Latin under Madvig, in Berlin,
Sanskrit under Weber and Bopp, and Germanic philology
under Haupt,^ but he investigated further the principles of
1 Moritz Haupt (1808-1874) was a pupil of Hermann, whose
daughter he married. His was a vigorous, impetuous personality.
He is said to have taught Nettleship in his lectures the value of
Bentley. He himself learned from Hermann's Baccha what is
meant by " really understanding an author." He was appointed
2 F
434 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Verner's Law. He is mentioned here, however, because of
his criticism of a very important work which caused a revo-
lution in Latin studies everywhere. Wilhelm Corssen
(1820-1875), a teacher at Schulpforta, undertook an acute
and accurate investigation of the sounds of the Latin
language. Materials for this work had been gathered by
Albert Denary (1807-1860), while further notes had been
made by Friedrich Ritschl (1806-1876) in his Plautine
studies. But no preceding scholar had made Latin
phonetics a definite object until Corssen appeared with
his Ueber Aussprache, Vokalismus und Betonung der
lateinischen Sprache} In it, Corssen sought to study the
sounds {i.e. the pronunciation) of the Latin language, using
not only the earliest literary sources, and the most ancient
inscriptions, but also the Italic dialects such as Faliscan,
Oscan, and Umbrian, with a vast collection of quotations
from the Roman grammarians, whose work had been
little studied. All these means of information Corssen used
with scholarly ability, and his results as to phonetics have
stood the test of time, so that his book is definitive. It
was needed, for the confusion in the pronunciation of Latin
had become great. There was no standard, and there had
been none since the time of the Protestant Reformation.
after Lachmann's death to fill the latter's chair at Berh'n. Though
his Fach was Germanic philology, the list of his published works on
Greek and Latin is a very long one.
1 Published in 1 858-1859 at Leipzig, where it received a prize for
scholarship; reeditcd in 1868-1870, 2 vols.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 435
Each nation had pronounced Latin as though it were its
own language, and while on the continent of Europe this
was of no great consequence, since the vowel sounds were
generally the same, it shut Englishmen, and later, Ameri-
cans, away from using Latin as an intelligible medium
of speech. Lipsius, Cardinal Wolsey, and Milton had
all complained of this, but there was no one to guide men
until Corssen appeared, spurred by the necessity imposed
by the new science of Comparative Philology. He
showed clearly the phonetic basis for the " Roman " sys-
tem, and after some grumbling, every university has
adopted it. In England it met with much opposition
from the public schools, and even to-day it is not commonly
employed; though in the universities and in advanced
work it is not only accepted, but taught.^ In the United
States, where colleges have been founded from many
countries, Corssen's authoritative statements were soon
received, because it gave to students one single, accurate
pronunciation instead of many inaccurate ones; so that
to-day the phonetic system is universal both in school,
college, and university.^ Curiously enough the phonetic
system had been anticipated by an American of German
parentage, Dr. Haldcman, of Philadelphia, though he had
1 See the more recent English grammars of Latin, such as Kennedy's,
Roby's, and the luminous work of Lindsay, The Latin Language,
(Oxford, 1894), chh. 2-4.
^ The standard work on Latin pronunciation is that of Seelmann,
Ueber die Aussprache des Laiein (Stuttgart, 1885).
436 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
access only to the Latin grammarians and to written litera-
ture rather than to dialects and inscriptions. This book
is entitled Elements of Latin Pronunciation (185 1), and was
finished before Corssen's work appeared. An indepen-
dent attempt to reach the same end was made by Professor
Richardson of the University of Rochester, and he did
arrive at many of Corssen's results (1859), though dififering
from him grotesquely in other conclusions. Corssen spent
the last years of his life in Rome, where he died, it was
said, of disappointment and chagrin. His Aussprache to
this day is an authority. Flushed by his success, however,
he undertook the task of solving the problem that still
awaits solution, — the origin and linguistic affinities of the
Etruscans, that strange people who lived in Italy and at
one time conquered the greater part of it, yet who, in ap-
pearance as in language and customs, were like neither the
Latins, the Umbrians, or the Oscans, but suggested an
oriental origin. Corssen resolved to dispel this mystery.
In his colossal work, Ueher die Sprache der Etrusker,^ he
lavished all the powers of his intellect and all the vast
materials at his command. For a moment, so great was
his prestige, the learned world believed that he had suc-
ceeded, yet criticism soon showed that he had failed, and
he went down to his death with the sneers of his late
friends to smooth the way.
^ Leipzig, 1874-1875, 2 vols. See Deecke, Corssen und die Sprache
der Etrusker (Stuttgart, 1875). Deecke edited the Etrusker, in 1877.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 437
Practically all that is known about the Etruscans was
known before Corssen turned his attention to the subject.
In 1826, the Royal Society of Berlin oflfered a prize for the
best essay on the Etruscans. In 1828 an elaborate
monograph on the subject was presented by Karl Otfried
Miilleri (i 797-1840). Already Muller had done much.
He had felt the influence of Niebuhr and had studied under
Boeckh at Berlin, and both had aroused his interest in
historical topics. A monograph on iEgina and the ^gin-
etan marbles was his first published work, and in 181 9,
at the age of twenty-two, he was made Professor of Classical
Learning in Gottingen, where he lectured on Archaeology
and art. His book upon the Etruscans contains all that
was known until recent years. He did not attempt to
establish a theory, like Corssen, but only to present the
facts and to make suggestive comments; and that is all
that can be done down to the present day. Muller was
interested in mythology, religion, literature, and upon
especial classical authors, such as Pindar, ^Eschylus,
and Herodotus among the Greeks, and among the Romans,
writers of the Silver Period. In 1833 an edition of the
Eumenides with dissertations on the manner of presenting
the play and its purport, caused much interest, as shedding
new light on the Greek theatre; and the author was not
disturbed when even Hermann called him " mistaken "
* His real name was Karl Muller, but as this was and is so frequent
in Germany (like John Smith in England), he inserted the " Otfried."
438 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
and " presumptuous." He at once edited the fragments
of Varro, De Lingua Latina, and later of Festus. He
died at Athens and was buried there (1840). He had done
much for historical research and for the methods of Niebuhr.
His acquaintance, Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868),
who long survived him, turned more to the artistic manner
of interpretation. He early studied at Rome; he was
professor at Giessen (1808), he fought as a volunteer
against Napoleon (1814), and was aftenvards again a
professor, first at Gottingen and then at Bonn, where he
presided over the first Museum of Ancient Art ever known.
His lectures were stimulating by reason of his personality,
and his reach was broad, including both Greek and Latin
poetry and the mythology of Greece. He made numerous
translations, wrote monographs on many subjects, and is
especially known by " Welcker's Cyclus,''^ or Greek Trag-
edies in Relation to the Epic Cycle} It has been said of
him that his chief strength lay in interpretation, while that
of K. O. Miiller was in historical research.
A contemporary of great fame was Otto Jahn (1813-
1869), also given to archaeology. He was at various times
professor at Greifswald (1842-1847), at Leipzig (1847-
1851), at Bonn (1855-1869). He died at Gottingen.
Though an archeeologist and the author of many mono-
graphs, he will be longest remembered by his critical
revisions of Persius (1843) and Juvenal (1851), with an
1 3 vols., 1839-1844.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 439
edition of both in the year before his death. For text-
books he edited the Cupid and Psyche of Apuleius, the
Athenian Acropolis from Pausanias, the Electra of
Sophocles, the Symposium of Plato, and the Treatise on
the Sublime ascribed to Longinus. It would be impos-
sible here to enumerate his minor treatises on artistic
subjects, whose very titles fascinate and attract/
Classical literature treated either with deep learning or
with distinction was a subject for study at all times,
though the Germans are not happy, as a rule, in that which
requires the aesthetic as well as the historic element. We
have already mentioned Bernhardy as an historian of both
the two great literatures. K. O. Miiller began a history
of Greek Literature at the request of the London Society
for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in 1836, but he died
before its completion. The full text was not published
in English until 1858, when Dr. J. W. Donaldson finished
it in a three-volume edition. Yet much has been done
for classical literature by German scholars, many of whom
translated, and others wrote special monographs on par-
ticular authors, such as the illuminating papers on Plautus
(Parerga) by Friedrich Ritschl (1806-1876), who also
wrote of the literary activity of Varro and the laws of the
'Latin archaeologists are Conrad Bursian (1830-1883), the his-
torian of classical studies in Germany; Otto Benndorf (1838-1907) ;
Peter Willen Forchhammer (1801-1894), the topographer; and
Heinrich Kiepert (1818-1899) the well-known cartographer, Professor
of Geography at Berlin, and maker of many maps and charts.
440 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Satumian verse.^ More strictly historians of literature
were J. A. Fabricius (1668-1736), who condensed and
compiled the whole of the classic writers, without whose
aid no subsequent history of either Greek or Latin has
been WTitten; Teuffel, already mentioned; and Otto
Ribbeck (182 7-1 898), professor successively in five uni-
versities, but passing his last years at Leipzig. To him
we owe much of the history and criticism of the early
Latin dramatists, whose fragments he edited (3d ed., 1897-
1898), a study of Roman tragedy under the Republic,^
with editions and conservative texts of Vergil, Horace, and
Juvenal. His most interesting work is his history of
Roman poetry.^
Since the Middle Ages, some lost fragments of impor-
tant authors have been discovered. Such is the long episode
of the Cena Trimalchionis from the Latin novel of Petronius,
edited by Friedlander; the so-called Anthologia Palati-
nas, already mentioned; quite recently, fragments of
Bacchylides {ed. prin. Kenyon) ; Babrius (122 fables,
* He is best known by his monumental edition of Plautus in con-
junction with Gustav Lowe, Georg Gotz, and Friedrich Scholl.
Ritschl himself edited and reedited nine plays (1848-1854), and his
three coadjutors were assisted by Alfred Fleckeisen (1820-1899),
Wilhelm Studemund (i 843-1 889), who also was a noted Greek
palaeographer, Wilhelm Wagner (i 843-1 8S0), and especially in the
prosody by the researches of Wilhelm Corssen, already mentioned.
^1875.
'3 vols., 1859-1868; abridged, 1895. See a volume compiled by
his friends, Otto Ribbeck, Ein Bild (1901).
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 44I
ed. pHn. Boissonade); a lost treatise by Aristotle on the
polity of the Athenians {ed. prin. Kenyon) ; ^ and fairly
complete plays of Menander (ed. Lefebvre in 1907,
Headlam in 1908); with seven poems of Herondas {ed.
prin. Kenyon, last ed. by Creuzer, Leipzig, 1894). It is
believed that the papyri of Egypt will yield new treasures,
as they have in the past five years, and scholars look eagerly
for other plays of Menander, some of the exoteric works of
Aristotle, and it may even be the famous lost books of Livy.
Archaeology (to revert to a subject already spoken
of) has been greatly enriched by the compilation of
corpora to each of the classic languages. With the
aid of Epigraphy, a collection of Greek inscriptions
has been made by Boeckh, who edited the first two
volumes of the Corpus Insert pHonum GrcBcarum (1825-
1843), followed by other volumes by Franz (1845-1853),
the fourth by E. Curtius and A. Kirchhoff (1826-1908),
and the whole completed by the Index of H. Rochl
(1877). Assistance was given to the work by Wilhelm
Dittenberger (1840-1906), professor at Halle. He did
much also for the Corpus hiscriptionum Atticarum (1878-
1882), and prepared himsef a Sylloge of Greek inscrip-
tions that are especially important (1882, 2d ed. 1898-1901).
Apart from his epigraphical work, Dittenberger was a spe-
cialist in Cassar, having prepared eleven editions of Kraner's
Commentary. Georg Kaibel (1849-1901), editor of the
^ See Gilbert, Greek Constitutional Antiquities, 1895.
442 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Electra of Sophocles (1896) and of Athenaeus (1886-1890),
collected a volume of some 1200 epigrams (1878) copied
from stones {ex lapidihus) and covering a thousand years.^
Latin Epigraphy was pursued in a desultory way for a
long time, chiefly in Italy. The Romans do not appear
to have collected inscriptions as the Greeks did. It was
only at the beginning of the Middle Ages, when Rome
became a Christian Mecca, that pilgrims copied some of the
most famous inscriptions to carry home. With the
Renaissance came a genuine interest in them as in
gems and carved work. Cola di Rienzi (about 1344)
prepared a topographical account of Rome, in which he
drew largely on inscriptions; while Poggio Bracciolini^
collected them. Unfortunately, many were forged,^ and
some of them have only recently been stamped as spurious,
mainly from the unscrupulous hands of Pirro Ligorio of
Naples. The first printed collection of inscriptions seems
to have been that of Ravenna (1489). For Gruter's great
work the reader is referred to another place.* The study
was taken up by others, among them Raffaele Fabretti
(1618-1700), but it was L. A. Muratori (1672-1750) who
gave a great impulse to Epigraphy by his Novus The-
saurus Veterum Inscriptionmn (4 vols., Milan, 1739-
1742), and to Palaeography by his researches in Milan
1 Other noted Greek epigraphists were Kohlen, — and outside of
Germany, CEconomides, Dobree, Riemann.
2 Supra, pp. 276-9. ^ Supra, pp. 284-5. * Supra, p. 342.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 443
and other seats of learning. Bartolommeo Borghesi
(d. 1859) made epigraphy a science, and to him is due the
splendid work that has been accomplished in this field.
Both the French Academy and that of Berlin planned a
vast Corpus of all existing Latin inscriptions, but this was
not undertaken until 1863, when the first volume of the
present Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum appeared under
the editorship of Theodor Mommsen and Wilhelm Henzen
(1816-1887). The work has steadily progressed, volume
by volume, with supplements, but it will probably never
be wholly finished, owing to new discoveries.^
The greatest mind since Scaliger's, if not the greatest
mind of all time, is recalled in the illustrious name of
Theodor Mommsen (1819-1893). Like so many dis-
tinguished men of letters, he became famous for his
versatility, so that in him we find the young poet, the
ardent politician, the close student of inscriptions, the
master of ancient constitutional law, and finally the his-
torian of the Roman Empire, — chronologist, numisma-
tist, and lyrist. It was he who made the plan for the
splendid Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, in 1847, as
against A. W. Zumpt, and to Mommsen the Academy
entrusted the scheme as he outlined it.
1 See the article " Inscriptions " in vol. xiii of the ninth edition of
the EncydopcBdia Britannica. It was written by Professor Emil
Hiibner of Berlin, himself a famous archaeologist. On the Corpus
especially see Egbert, Latin Inscriptions, pp. 6-15 (New York,
1896).
444 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
He came to write his History of Rome with a certain
naivety. While spending a vacation with his father-in-
law, the old gentleman said, " Why, yes, Theodor, your
studies have fitted you for just such a work." Young
Mommscn flushed with pleasure, and at once began the
history. Out of the fulness of his mind, he made no
preparation, but just wrote on, chapter after chapter,
book after book, and volume after volume, until, instead
of composing a " popular" work, he had poured the wealth
of his wide knowledge into a book which is informing in
matter and brilliant in style. It aroused a storm of con-
troversy, the more so as Mommsen had not thought it
worth while to equip it with footnotes. These were
given later by a sixth volume, and another book entitled
Romische Forschungen.
The History of Rome is in reality a protest of New
Germany against the old feudalism which Napoleon had
failed to shatter. It pleaded for a brilliant dictator, and
told the story of Julius Cassar, the greatest man who
ever lived, as the ideal head of a State. He lashed the
weakling, Cicero, and wrote some of his papers with great
flashes. No one has refuted him and neither Gisner nor
Ferrero has made a satisfactory response. The climax
of Roman grandeur comes with Caesar; and Mommsen
beholds a grandeur in the North, when the petty,
ignorant squires of Junkerthum are scattered by an
enlightened Dictator.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 445
A picturesque figure among archseologists is that of
Heinrich Schliemann (182 2-1 890), at fourteen a grocer's
boy, at thirty-six an "Indigo King" in St. Petersburg
with a fortune that grew every year. He then betook
himself to archaeology, teaching himself Greek, and read-
ing carefully. He believed the site of Troy was on the
hill of Hissarlik. The hill was opened (1870-1873), as
he had Mycenee explored (1874-1876), Troy again (1879),
Archomenos (1881), and very successfully Tiryns (1885).
Many excavations were made, quite enough to justify
the Homeric story, and to shed light upon Thucydides.
Schliemann chose to live a la grecque for his own
gratification. His house was constructed at Athens, and
was embellished with mosaics, friezes, and illuminated
Homeric quotations. He married a Greek wife, who
bore him a girl whom he called Andromache, and a boy,
Agamemnon. Even his porter was styled Bellerophon.
Just as he was about to explore Crete, death came on
him suddenly at Naples, leaving Dorpfeld to finish the
Trojan discovery.^
It may be said that all of Continental Europe felt the
influence of the extraordinary range and originality of
German scholarship; yet of England, until very lately,
this has been less true. Great Britain has had her
own ideals, her own traditions, and her own intellectual
character, and her learned men have not interchanged
* See Schuchardt, Schliemanns Ausgrabimgen, Eng. trans. (1890),
containing a bibliography.
446 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
their acquisitions with any other country to the extent that
even Spain and Portugal have done. This has not been
true of her greatest scholars, such as Bentley, for example,
but in general the British distaste for foreigners has ex-
tended even to their learning. Hence the German influ-
ence in its full sweep is a thing of the past two or three
decades, and has been shown in the persons of men still
living, whose names are (except casually) excluded from
this survey. A passage in George Eliot's Middlemarch,
where young Ladislaw tries to make Dorothea see how
backward is her husband, Mr. Casaubon, in modem
scholarship, says: —
" If Mr. Casaubon read German, he would save himself a great
deal of trouble. ... It is a pity that it [devoted labour] should
be thrown away, as so much English scholarship is, for want of
knowing what is being done by the rest of the world."
"I do not understand you," said Dorothea.
" I merely mean," said Will in an off-hand way, "that the
Germans have taken the lead in historical inquiries, and they laugh
at results which are got by groping about in woods with pocket-
compasses, while they have made good roads."
But Great Britain had a scholarship of her own, a schol-
arship of elegance, and again of sound truth. In Greek
and Latin, as such, she surpassed all her rivals. No verse
or prose in either language was so near the classical stand-
ards as that which came from Oxford or from Cambridge.
The Italian school of Latinity with its Ciceronianism was
near to that of England ; while, for a time at least, the
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 447
critical work of the Netherlands was stimulated by the
example of Englishmen. Names such as those of Bentley,
Porson, Peter Elmsley (i 773-1825), Thomas Gaisford
(i 779-1855), C. J. Blomfield (i 786-1857), Paul Dobree
(i 782-1825), James Scholefeld (i 789-1853), Charles
Badham (1813-1884), J. W. Donaldson (1811-1861), who
finished K. O. Muller's Greek literature, W. E. Jelf (181 1-
1875), George Long (1800-1879), John Conington
(1825-1869), the first professor of Latin at Oxford,
Henry Nettleship (1839-1893), who with Conington pro-
duced a definitive edition and translation of Persius, and
William M. Leake (1777-1860) — all these were familiar
to Continental scholars. More especial mention is due to
one of the most brilliant men of his country, Sir Richard
Claverhouse Jebb (1841-1905), who at the time of his
death was professor of Greek at Cambridge. He was a
witty, versatile man of the world, " a humanist in the
highest sense of the word " (Sandys), who had no equal
in his mastery of both classical form and spirit. Though
not a stranger to drawing-rooms and polite society, he
edited Sophocles (1883-1896) and Bacchylides (1905),
translated Theophrastus, published an introduction to
Homer, a life of Porson, of Erasmus, and one of Bentley,
helped found the British School at Athens, and was a master
of English prose and of Greek verse. It is impossible to
overrate his combination of deep learning, so easily car-
ried, with the easy tone of an accomplished gentleman.
448 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Further mention must be made of Benjamin Jowett
(1817-1893), Master of Balliol, who admirably translated
into English, Plato (187 1), Thucydides (1881), and the
Politics of Aristotle (1885), both of the latter with com-
mentaries. But perhaps it was Jowett's personality that
must be taken into account. His influence over awkward
and bashful undergraduates was remarkable, as it was
with those of his own age. His pungent, witty, unexpected
sayings will be remembered and quoted as long as his
translations are read.
Mention has been made elsewhere of many noted
British scholars. We must refer again to H. A. J. Munro
(1819-1885) to note his splendid work both as an editor
and translator of Lucretius, and because he gave " the first
impulse to a reform in the pronunciation of Latin." ^ And
one must also mention the services which Great Britain
has rendered to Classical Archaeology in the work of the
British Schools at Athens (1883-) and at Rome (1901-) ;
Banks, Arden, Harris, carried on fruitful explorations at
Herculaneum, resulting in the course of a century, in the
rescue of important fragments of Epicurus, Philodemus,
a part of the Iliad, speeches of Hyperides, and others
already mentioned as recovered. And perhaps the ex-
treme of minute commentary was reached by Professor
J. E. B. Mayor (1825-1911) in his two volumes of closely
printed notes on the Satires of Juvenal (last ed., 1886).
' See Sandys, op. cit., iii. p. 433.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 449
These and such as these are of the dlite of British scholar-
ship. Their names are known wherever classical learning
exists. One is reminded of the story of how Gaisford
when in Germany went to pay a call on Dindorf at Leipzig.
The door was opened by a shabby man who resembled a
servant; but when Gaisford's name was mentioned, rushed
into his arms and kissed him.^
If England felt only in the person of her most learned
men the influence of Germany, the United States of
America may be said not to have discovered Germany at
all until within the memory of those still living. Settled
at first by Englishmen, such rude culture as it had for more
than a century was wholly English. The first institution
of higher learning was Harvard College, now Harvard
University, named from John Harvard of Cambridge, who
gave half his fortune and all his library to the college that
was to bear his name (1638). In age, among American
homes of scholarship, the College of William and Mary,
chartered by those sovereigns in 1693, comes next to Har-
vard; ^ and in order, during the colonial period, are Yale
(1701), so named in 17 18 after one Elihu Yale; Princeton
^ Tuckwell, p. 131.
2 Dr. Sandys {op. cit., iii. 452) oddly omits this venerable seat of
learning, which has existed down to the present time, and among
whose graduates have been four Presidents of the United States,
the most learned of our Chief Justices, and one of the most brilliant
of our soldiers (General Winfield Scott). He makes Yale to have
been the second college established in the United States.
2G
450 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
(1746); the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,
originally an academy, assisted by Benjamin Franklin
(1751); in New York City, King's College, chartered by
George II (1754), but renamed Columbia College in 1787,
and Columbia University in 1890. Brown University
was established in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1764.
These five centres of the higher education were all in
existence before the Revolution, There are now in the
United States more than four hundred institutions that
call themselves colleges or universities, but barely a
score satisfy the definition. In general it may be said
that the older colleges that have become universities
deserve the name, and are splendidly equipped with the
most modem apparatus for research, with specialists
trained in Germany or in other foreign countries to
satisfy the most exacting seeker after knowledge; while
the newly founded ones are still to prove their right to
scholarly esteem.
It must be noted, however, that this statement is only
general. Some of the youngest universities, like Chicago,
(1892), Johns Hopkins (1876) in Baltimore, Leland
Stanford at Palo Alto, California (1891), Cornell at Ithaca in
New York (1865), were nobly endowed by the generosity of
some very wealthy men. The Clark University in Worces-
ter, Massachusetts, admits no undergraduates, but gives
all its energy to intense specialisation. All these newer uni-
versities are modelled mainly on the German, while the
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 45 1
older ones still retain in large measure the traditions of
English scholarship.
There was scarcely any standard but the English
standard known prior to the nineteenth century, and the
wide separation of the United States from Europe made this
natural enough; but it led to a sort of intellectual dry-rot.
The first American to study in Germany was George
Ticknor (i 791-187 1), afterwards Professor of the French
and Spanish Languages and Literatures at Harvard. He
spent four years divided between Gottingen, Leipzig,
Halle, and Paris, visiting also Weimar, Naples, and Rome,
and meeting some of the most eminent scholars of his
time.
In like manner, Edward Everett (i 794-1865), aftenvards
President of Harvard, and Professor of Greek, spent four
years (1815-1819) abroad. On returning, he said: "In
regard to university methods, America has nothing to
learn from England, but everything to learn from Germany."
George Bancroft (1800-1891), the long-winded historian
of his own country, was another of those sporadic pilgrims
whose isolated enthusiasm bore no fruit because the Ameri-
can people were not ready for it. Let us add to the list
C.C. Eel ton. Professor of Greek at Harvard, who annotated
Wolf's text of the Iliad, and wrote a singularly naif account
of his travels in Europe. T. D. Woolsey of Yale was a
more able and active scholar, and more deserving of regard.
He edited a number of Greek texts with a fair comprehen-
452 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
sion of their meaning.^ Harvard possessed two foreign-
bom professors whose influence was felt, as was that of
the poet Longfellow (1807-1882). These were E. A.
Sophocles (1807-1883), who wrote a Greek grammar of
the Roman and Byzantine periods, Carl Beck (1798-
1866), a German by birth. His pupil, G. M. Lane
(1823-1897), was Professor of Latin for thirty-three years.
After his death, a Latin grammar upon which he had
long laboured was finished and seen through the press
(1898) by his former pupil. Professor M. H. Morgan.
Many American grammars were published in this period,
the more popular being those of Albert Harkness, Pro-
fessor of Latin in Brown, often revised ; ^ Allen and
Greenough; ^ Gildersleeve," Gildersleeve-Lodge,^ Hale and
Buck,® Bennett ^ and especially a grammar litde known,
but made on a theory of his own, by Gustavus Fischer,
who resigned the chair of Latin at Rutgers College in order
to pursue this work. By an unfortunate fatality, the
whole edition of this learned work was, with its plates, de-
stroyed by fire, so that a copy of it is a very rare possession.
The true spread of the influence of German learning in
America is due to Charles Anthon (1797-1867) of Columbia
College, who was himself of German descent. He produced
a large number of annotated editions of Greek and Latin
1 For a criticism of American colleges at this time, see Bristed,
Five Years in an English University (New Yorii, 1855).
2 1898. 2 1904. * 1875. ^ 1905- ' 1903- ^ 1908.
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 453
text-books, in whose commentary he drew freely upon the
best German sources. For the fulness of his annotations
he was severely criticised, but the extent of them was in
reality due to the lack of knowledge among classical
teachers who had never heard of Doring or Jahn, or even
Bentley. Anthon's texts were very widely circulated, as
were his handbooks on geography, mythology, prosody,
grammar, besides a Latin lexicon. In this way, the
teachers as well as schoolboys came to know something
that was more accurate and broader than the New England
horn-books which had done duty for too long. Anthon
may, therefore, be regarded as the first American to bring
the German influence to bear,' and he could do it the better
because the events of 1848 in Germany had driven to the
United States thousands of involuntary emigrants. So,
Columbia University has the honour of securing the services
of Franz Lieber as an expounder of international law;
and of initiating the study of archaeology by the labours
of Augustus C. Merriam (1843-1895), who worked hard
for insufficient recognition, and who died at Athens, where
he is now buried. Finally, it is an interesting fact that
each of the two lexicons officially adopted at Oxford and
Cambridge should be wholly or in part the work of
^ Englishmen who sneer at him should remember that his books
were pirated multitudinously by English publishers, and that his
Horace, in particular, was used in all the English public schools, where
they were wholly ignorant of German.
454 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
Columbia professors. The Latin lexicon by Lewis and
Short tells that Charles Lancaster Short (1821-1886)
was Professor of Latin at Columbia; while the Greek
lexicon of Liddell and Scott, in the latest edition, ac-
knowledges the services of Dr. Henry Drisler (1818-
1897), who had collaborated with the English editors,
and who held the Greek chair in Columbia.
The first university to be founded after German ideals was
the Johns Hopkins, endowed by a gentleman of that name,
and its first president, Daniel Coit Gilman (1831-1909),
gave full swing to his Germanising tendency, so that in a
few years he had gathered around him a group of scholars
in the European sense and compelled the older universities
to reform their methods. Johns Hopkins has been the
alma mater of many able men, most of whom still live to
do her honor. The American Journal of Philology, edited
by Professor Basil L. Gildersleeve, is published there.
Other studies and classical series emanate from Chicago
{Classical Philology and the Classical Jour^ial), as do
Harvard Studies, Cornell Studies, etc., from other uni-
versities.
Profound scholarship was represented by William
Dwight Whitney (1827-1894), Professor of Comparative
Philology at Yale, who was a Sanskritist and student of
language, widely known in Germany and wherever
oriental studies are pursued. He was one of the four chief
contributors to the St. Petersburg dictionary of Sanskrit;
THE GERMAN INFLUENCE 455
his own Sanskrit grammar is a standard work; with the
first volume of the Atharva-V eda-Samhitd (1855-1856),
the second volume being completed by Whitney's former
pupil, Professor Lanman of Harvard. Other professors
of distinction at Yale were James Hadley (1821-1872),
who is known by his Greek grammar; ^ L. R. Packard
(1836-1884), and Thomas Day Seymour (1848-1907),
whose studies were largely upon Homer, though he pro-
duced one edition of selected odes from Pindar (1882).
His last work was Life in the Homeric Age, his swan-song,
the results of long years of patient study.
Of American scholarship it is difficult to write, for the
fine flavour of it and its opportunities are all new, and its
ablest representatives are still living men. Let it be long
before it becomes possible to mention them in a volume
that has to do so fully and almost wholly with those who
have laid aside their pleasant labours.
1 i860; last ed. rev. by F. D. Allen (1884).
XI
THE COSMOPOLITAN PERIOD
With the death of Theodor Mommsen, the twentieth
century appears to have entered upon a new and
remarkable period of scholarship. It has passed through
the rough and rugged paths by which all learning is
attained, the value of classical training is now recognised
on every side, and all possible means are provided for
its efficient and illuminating study. Immense sums are
given for its betterment, and many countries maintain
special schools for classical study in Rome and Athens.
Furthermore, the scholars of to-day are divided into
groups according to their own inclination and their especial
ability. A still more marked distinction from the past is
that universities are not now separated and isolated as
they were even in the period of Nationalism. The students
and professors of one country pass to the fellowship of the
professors and students of another country, very much as
they did in the time of the Renaissance, but with much
more facility and a still greater assurance of welcome.
This is noticeable in the United States, where chairs are
established for the interchange of American Professors
4S6
THE COSMOPOLITAN PERIOD 457
with those of foreign lands, which lecturers are welcomed
every year from Germany, France, England, Italy, and
the Scandinavian countries. The whole world of leamins:
has become a single world without becoming a narrow
world.
Every division of Classical Philology is now regarded as
intimately united with all the rest. Archaeology throws
light on usage and on custom, Art refines and gives beauty
to Numismatics, and makes the readings of the Classics an
aesthetic pleasure. Language study is no longer crude nor
a matter of mere guesswork; but since the remarkable
discovery of Verner and the splendid expository work of
Brugmann, it is a science of the highest order. Moreover,
the love of the Classics for themselves has grown and
flourished.
But perhaps the greatest gift which has come to us in
modern times, from the teaching of Scientific Philology,
is the recognition of the value of scientific truth. When
we look back upon the controversies and foul wrangling of
men of genius like Scioppius and Scaliger and Milton, we see
that they in reality were fighting first for victory and only
partially for truth. To-day, one hopes that in whatever
form the higher study may reveal itself, it will reveal itself
as a longing for idealised worship of reality and verity in
all things.
So long ago as 1870, the great Romance scholar, Gaston
Paris, uttered in a lecture this splendid credo: —
458 HISTORY OF CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
"I profess absolutely and without reserve this doctrine that
science has no other aim than truth, and truth for its own sake,
without care for the consequences, good or ill, regrettable or happy,
which that truth might have in practice. He who from a patriotic,
religious, or even from a moral motive, allows himself in the facts
that he is studying, in the conclusions that he draws, the smallest
dissimulation, the slightest alteration, is not worthy of a place in
the great laboratory to which truthfulness is a more indispensable
claim to admission than skill. Thus understood, studies in common
carried on in the same spirit in all civilised countries, form, above
restricted, diverse, and often hostile nationalities, a great father-
land which no war soils, which no conqueror threatens, but wherein
souls find the refuge and the unity which was given them of old
by the citadel of God."
INDICES
I. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
II. GENERAL INDEX
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Abbott, E. Pericles (London, i8gi).
Abbott, F. F. The Use of Repetition in Latin (Chicago, 1902).
Adam, James. The Religious Teachers of Greece (Edinburgh, 1908).
Allbut, Thomas C. Science and Mediaeval Thought (London, 1901).
Allman, G. J. Greek Geometry from Thalcs to Euclid (Dublin, 1889).
Antichan, P. H. Les Grands Voyages de Decouvertes des Anciens (Paris,
1891).
Arbenz, Emil. Die Schriftstellerei in Rom ziir Zeit der Kaiser (Basle, 1877).
Archer, T. A., and Kingsford, C. L. The Crusades (New York, 1898).
Assailly, Octave d'. Albert le Grand (Paris, 1870).
B
Ball, R. S. Great Astronomers (New York, 1899).
Ball, W. W. R. A Short Account of the History of Mathematics (Lon-
don, 1901).
Bascom, John. The Philosophy of Rhetoric (New York, 1888).
Bayet, Charles. L'Art Byzantin (Paris, 1892).
Bemont, Charles, and Monod, G. Mediaval Europe, English translation
(New York, 1906).
Benn, Alfred W. Early Greek Philosophy (London, 1908).
Greek Philosophers (London, 1883).
Bentley, Richard. Critica Sacra, new ed. by A. A. Ellis (Cambridge,
1862).
Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, last ed. by W. Wagner (Berlin,
1874).
Bernays, Jakob. Life of Joseph Scaliger (Berlin, 1855).
Bernhardy, Gottfried, Eratosthenica (Berlin, 1822).
Geschichte der Gricchischen Litteratur, sth ed. (Halle, 1877-1892).
Grundriss der Romischen Litteratur. 2 vols., sth ed. (Brunswick, 1865).
Bernstein, G. H. Versus Ludicri in Cczsares Priores (Halle, 1810).
Berry, Arthur. A Short History of Astronomy (New York, 1899).
461
462 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Besant, Walter. Edward Henry Palmer (London, 1883).
Binde, Robert. Seneca (Glogau, 1883).
Birt, Theodor. Das Antike Buchwesen (Berlin, 1882).
Historla Hexametri Latini (Bonn, 1876).
Blass, F. W. Die Attische Beredsamkeity 2d ed., 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1898).
The Pronunciation of Ancient Greek, Eng. trans. (Cambridge 1S90).
Die Interpolationen in der Odyssee (Halle, 1904).
Blau, August. De Aristarchi Discipulis (Jena, 1883).
Boeckler, Doctor. Die Polychromie in der Antiken Sculptur (Aschers-
leben, 1882).
Boissier, Gaston. Etudes sur la Vie et les CEuvres de M. T. Varron (Paris,
1861).
La Fin du Paganisme (Paris, 1891).
La Religion Romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins (Paris, 1906).
Le Poete Attius (Paris, 1857).
Roman Africa, Eng. trans. (New York, 1899).
Bonnet, A. M. Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours (Paris, 1890).
Booth, John. Epigrams Ancient and Modern, 3d ed. (London, 1874).
Botsford, G. W. A History of the Orient and Greece (London and New
York, 1904).
Botticher, K. E. F. De Alliteratio7iis apud Romanos Vi et Usu (Berlin,
1884).
Breal, M. J. A. Pour Mieux Connaitre Homere (Paris, 1906).
Broglie, Emmanuel de. La Societe de VAhhaye de Saint-Germain des
PrSs, 2 vols. (Paris, 1891).
Browne, Henry. Handbook of Homeric Study (London and New York,
1905)-
Brugmann, Karl. Zum heutigen Stand der Sprachwissenschaft (Leipzig,
188s).
Brunei, Gustave. Manuel du Lihraire, etc., 8 vols. (Paris, 1880).
Bude, E. de. Vie de Bude (Paris, 1884).
Biihler, J. G., and Kielhom. Grundriss der Indo-arischen Philologie
(Strassburg, 1896 fol.).
Bunbury, E. H. A History of Ancient Geography, 2d ed. (London, 1883).
Burckhardt, Jakob. Geschichte der Retuiissance in Italien (Stuttgart,
1890-1891).
Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, 8th ed. (Leipzig, 1904).
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Eng. trans. (London, 1898).
Bursian, Konrad. Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie in Deutsckland,
etc. (Munich, 1883).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 463
Bury, J. B. A History of the Later Roman Empire (London, 1887).
Ed. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(London, 1896).
Life of St. Patrick (Cambridge, 1905).
Butcher, S. H. Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art (London, 1902).
Demosthenes, last ed. (London, 1903).
Cajori, Florian. A History of Elementary Mathematics (London and New
York, 1907).
A History of Mathematics (New York, 1906).
Capes, W. W. University Life in Ancient Athens (London, 1877).
Cara, P. C. A. Gli Hethei Pelasgi (Rome, 1894-1902).
Carroll, Mitchell. Aristotle's Poetics (Baltimore, 1895).
Castellani, Carlo. Delle Biblioteche neW Antichitd (Bologna, 1884).
Cave, William. Primitive Christianity (London, 1834).
Chaignet, A. E. Pythagore et la Philosophie Pythagorienne (Paris,
1873)-
Chalandon, Georges. Essai sur Ronsard (Paris, 1875).
Charles, Emile. Roger Bacon; sa Vie, ses Ouwages, ses Doctrines d'aprds
des Textes Lnedits (Paris, 1861).
Chassang, Alexis. Histoire du Roman, &c. (Paris, 1862).
Church, R. W. Miscellaneous Essays (London, 1888).
The Beginning of the Middle Ages (London, 1895).
Cirbied, J. C. de. Memoires et Dissertations (Paris, 1824).
Clark, J. W. Libraries in the Mediceval and Renaissance Period (Cam-
bridge, 1894).
Clark, Victor S. Studies in the Latin of the Middle Ages (Lancaster,
Penn., 1900).
Clarke, George. The Education of Children at Rome (New York, 1896).
Classen, Johannes. Introduction to the edition of Thucydides (Berlin,
1897).
Clement, Louis. De Hadriani Turnebi . . . Praefationibus et Poe-
matis (Paris, 1899).
Clinton, H. F. Fasti Hellenici, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1824-1834).
Clodd, Edward. The Story of the Alphabet (New York, 1903).
Cochin, Henri. Boccace, Etudes Italiennes (Paris, 1890).
CoUignon, Albert. Etude sur Petrone (Paris, 1892).
Comparetti, Domenico. Vergil in the Middle Ages, Eng. trans, (Lon-
don and New York, 1895).
464 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Compayre, Gabriel. Ahelard and the Origin and Early History of Univer-
sities (New York, 1893).
History of Paedagogy, Eng. trans. (Boston, 1886).
Condamin, J. P. Dc Tertulliano Christiana Lingua Artifice (Lyons,
1877).
Conway, R. S. Vertier^s Law in Italy (London, 1893).
Cook, Albert S. The Age of Poetry (Boston, 1892).
Cooper, F. T. Word Formation in the Roman Sermo Plebeius (New York,
1895)-
Cotton, Henry. Typographical Gazeteer, 3d ed. (Oxford, 185 2-1 866).
Couat, Auguste. La Poesie Alexandrine (Paris, 1882).
Courthope, W. J. Life in Poetry: Law in Taste (London, 1901).
Cox, G. W. The Greeks and the Persians (New York, 1897).
Cramer, Friedrich. De GrcBcis Medii Aevi Studiis (Lund, 1849-1853).
Creuzer, Georg F. Opusciila (Leipzig, 1817).
Croiset, Alfred. Xenophon, son Caractere el son Talent (Paris, 1873).
Croiset, A. and M. An Abridged History of Greek Literature, Eng. trans.
(New York, 1904).
Cros, C. I. H., and Henri, Charles. UEncaustique (Paris, 1884).
Curteis, A. M. A History of the Roman Empire from 375 to 800 A.D.
(London, 1875).
Curtius, Ernst. History of Greece, Eng. trans., 5 vols. (New York, 1868-
1872).
D
Decharme, Paul. Euripides and the Spirit of His Dramas, Eng. trans.
(New York, 1906).
Dedouvres, E. Les Latins (Paris, 1903).
Dejob, Charles. Marc Antoine Muret (Paris, 1881).
Delbriick, Berthold. Einleitung in das Sprachstudium, 3d ed. (Leip-
zig, 1893) ; Eng. trans. (London, 1882).
Delepierre, J. O. La Parodie chez les Grccs, etc. (London, 1870).
Denis, Jacques. La Comedie Grecque, 2 vols. (Paris, 1886).
Deschamps, Pierre. Dictionnaire de Geographic a V Usage dii Lihraire
(Paris, 1870).
De Vinne, T. L. The Invention of Printing (New York, 1878).
Notable Printers of Italy during the Fifteenth Century (New York, 1910).
De Vit, Vincenzo. Preface to the Lexicon of Forcellini (Prato, 1879).
Didot, A. F. Aide Manuce et VHelUnism^ d Venise (Paris, 1875).
Bibliotheca (Paris, 1872).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 4^5
Draper, J. W. History of the Intellectual Development of Europe (New
York, 1899).
Dressel, Heinrich, De Isidori Originum Fontibus (Turin, 1874).
Drisler, Henry. Classical Studies in Honour of (New York, 1894).
DuBois, E. H. Stress Accent in Latin Poetry (New York, 1906).
Du Cange [Charles du Fresne], Glossarium ad Scriptores Media et InfimcB
Latinitatis, ed. by Favre (Niort, 1884-1887).
Du£F, J. W. A Literary History of Rome (London and Leipzig, 1909).
Dufi&eld, S. A. W. Latin Hymn-Writers and their Hymns (New York,
1889).
Dugdale, William. Monasticum Anglicanum, 8 vols. (London, 181 7-
1830). ^
Du Meril, Edelstand, Poisies Populaires Lalines Anterieures au Dou-
zieme Siecle (Paris, 1843).
Poesies Latines du Moyen Age (Paris, 1847).
Dunlop, J. C. A History of Prose Fiction, last ed. (London, 1896).
Dyce, Alexander. The Complete Works of Richard Bentley, 3 vols. (Lon-
don, 1836).
The Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers, to which is added Porsoniana (Lon-
don, 1856).
E
Eckstein, F. A. Lateinischer und Griechischer Unterricht (Leipzig, 1887).
Egger, Emile. Callimaque et VOrigine de la Bibliographic (Paris, s. a.).
Essai sur VHistoire de la Critique chez les Grecs (Paris, 1886).
L'Hellenisme en France, 2 vols. (Paris, 1869).
Einstein, Lewis. The Italian Renaissance in England (London, 1907).
Emerton, Ephraim. Eras7mis (New York, 1899).
Engel, Carl. The Music of the Most Ancient Nations (London, 1864).
Engel, Karl D. L. Zusammenstellung der Faust Schriften (Altenburg,
1885).
Erasmus, Desiderius. De Recta Latini Gracique Sermonis Pronuncia-
tione (Basel, 1528).
Epistola (1484-1514), ed. by P. S. Allen (Oxford, 1906).
Opera Omnia (Basel, 1540).
Essenwein, A. O. Byzantinische Bauhinst (Darmstadt, 1896).
Eyssenhardt, Franz. Niebuhr (Gotha, 1886).
F
Faulman, Karl. Geschichte der Buchlructverkunst (X'ienna, 1882).
Federn, Karl. Dante and His Time, Eng. trans. (New York, 1902).
2H
466 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Feugere, L. J. Essai sur la Vie et les Outrages de Henri Etienne (Paris,
i8s3).
Field, W. The Life of Samuel Parr, 2 vols. (London, 1828).
Fink, Karl. A History of Mathematics (Chicago, 1900).
Fitz-Hugh, Thomas. Outlines of a System of Classical Paedagogy (Balti-
more, 1900).
Flach, H. L. M. Peisistratos und Seine Litterarische Thdtigkeit (Tubingen,
1885).
Fleischer, L. O. Die Reste der AUgriechischen Tonkunst (Leipzig, 1900).
Forbes, W. H. Life and Mind of Thucydides (London, 1895).
Fowler, H. A., and Wheeler, J. R. A Handbook of Greek Archceology (New
York, 1909).
Frazer, R. VV. A Literary History of India (New York, 1901).
Frick, Carolus. Pomponius Mela und Seine Chorographie (Leipzig, 1880).
Froude, J. A. Erasmus (London, 1894).
G
Gardner, Percy. New Chapters in Greek History (London and New
York, 1892).
Gardthausen, V. E. Griechische Paldographie (Leipzig, 1879).
Gasquet, F. A. The Eve of the Reformation (London, 1898 ; New York,
1900).
Geiger, Ludwig. Petrarca (Leipzig, 1874).
Geraud, P. H. J. F. Les Litres dans VAntiqiiite (Paris, 1840).
Gerlach, F. D. Geschichtschreiber der Romer (Stuttgart, 1855).
Gevaert, F. A. Histoire et Theorie de la Musique dans I'A ntiquite (Ghent,
1875-1881).
Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. by
Bury (Cambridge, 1899).
Giles, P. A Short Manual of Comparative Philology (London, 1895).
Girard, Jules. La Peinture Antique (Paris, 1895).
Etudes sur I' Eloquence (Paris, 1874).
Gleditsch, J. G. Die Pythagoreer (Posen, 1841).
Grafenhan, E. F. A. Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie in Alterihum,
7 vols. (Bonn, 1843-1850).
Grandgent, Charles H. Vulgar Latin (Boston, 1908).
Graves, F. P. A History of Education before the Middle Ages (New York,
1909).
Greenwood, J. G. Pneumatics (London, 1851).
Gregorovius, F. History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, Eng.
trans. (London, 1894).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 467
Gresswell, W. P. Memoirs of Angelus Politianus, etc. (London, 1805).
Gros, Etienne. Etude siir la Rhetorique chez les Grecquts (Paris, 1835).
Gubernatis, Angelo de. Storia delta Poesia Epica (Milan, 1883).
Gudeman, Alfred. Outlines of the History of Classical Philology (Boston,
1902).
H
Haase, F. De Latinorum Codicum Manuscriptorum Subscriptionihus
(Breslau, i860).
Hadley, James. Essays (New York, 1873).
Haight, A. E. The Tragic Drama of the Greeks (Oxford, 1896).
Hall, H. R. The Oldest Civilization of Greece (London, 1901).
Hankel, Hermann, Geschichte der Mathematik in Alterthum und Mittel-
alter (Leipzig, 1874).
Hankius, Martinus (Martin Hanke). De Byzantinarum Rerum Scrip-
toribus Graecis (Leipzig, 1677).
Hardie W. R. Lectures on Classical Subjects (London, 1903).
Hardouin, Henri. Essai sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de du Cange (Paris, 1849).
Harnack, Adolf. Das Monchthtim (Giesen, 1895).
Harrison, Frederic. Byzantine History in the Early Middle Ages (Lon-
don, 1900).
Hart, G. De Tzetzarum Nomine, Vita, Scriptis (Leipzig, 1880).
Hartfelder, Karl. Philipp Melanchthon als Praeceptor Germaniae (Ber-
lin, 1889).
Hartmann, Paul. De Canone Decern Oratorum (Gottingen, 1891).
Havet, P. A. L. De Saturnio Latinorum Versii (Paris, 1880).
Henderson, W. J. How Music Developed (New York, 1898).
Hergenrother, J. A. G. Photios, 3 vols. (Regensburg, 1867-1869).
Heyse, C. W. L. System der Sprachwisscnschaft (Berlin, 1856).
Hildebrand, August. Boetius und Seine Stellung zum Christenthum
(Regensburg, 1885).
Hill, G. B. Ed. Gibbon's Memoirs (London, 1900).
Hodgkin, Thomas. Italy and Her Invaders, 8 vols. (Oxford, 1892-1899).
The Letters of Cassiodorus (London, 1886).
Hoe, Robert. A Short History of the Printing Press (New York, 1902).
Holm, Adolph, History of Greece from Its Commencement to the Close of the
Indepetulence of the Greek Nation (London, 1894-1899).
Howells, W. D. My Literary Passions (New York, 1895).
Hiibner, F. Enyclopddie, 2d ed. (Berlin, 1892).
Hyde, Douglas. A Literary History of Irelatui (Dublin and New York,
1899)-
468 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
I
Ihne, W. Early Rome (New York, 1902).
J
Jannet, Claudio. Les Institutions Sociales . . . a Sparte, 2d ed. (Paris,
1880).
Janssen, Johannes. A History of the German People, Eng trans. (Lon-
don, 1881).
Jebb, Richard C. Attic Orators, 2d ed., 2 vols. (London, 1893).
J5e«//cy — English Men of Letters Series, 2d ed. (New York, 1899).
Erasmus (Cambridge, 1890).
Homer (Boston, 1887).
The Growth and Influence of Classical Greek Poetry (London, 1893).
Jevons, F. B. A History of Greek Literature (New York, 1897).
Joly, Aristide. Etude sur Sadolet (Caen, 1857).
Jones, Stuart. Select Passages from Ancient Writers Illustrative of the
History of Greek Sculpture (London, 1895).
Jortin, John. Remarks on Ecclesiastical History (London, i7Si~i773)-
Jowett, B. VV. Dialogues of Plato, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1893).
Justi, Karl. Winckelmann, Sein Leben, Seine Werke, und Seine Zeit-
genossen, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1872).
K
Keil, H. Grammalici Latini (Leipzig, 1855-1880).
Keller, Otto, Epilegomena zu Horaz (Leipzig, 1879).
Ker, W. P. The Dark Ages (New York, 1904).
Kiessling and Lehrs. Chiliades (Leipzig, 1826 and 1840).
Kingsley, Charles. Alexandria and Her Schools (Cambridge, 1854).
Klotz, Richard. Grundziige der Altromischen Metrik (Leipzig, 1890).
Korting, G. K. O. Boccaccios Leben und Wcrke (Leipzig, 1880).
Kortiim, J. F. C. Geschichlliche Forschungen (Leipzig, 1863).
Kraemer, August. De Manilii Qui Fertur Astronomicis (Marburg,
1890).
Kroll, Wilhelm. Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie (Leipzig, 1908).
Kugler, Bernard von. Geschichte der KreuzzUge (Berlin, 1891).
L
Laffore, Jules de B. de. Etude sur Jules Cesar de Lescale (Agen, i860).
Lanciani, R. A. A ncient Rome in the Light of Recent Excavations (Boston,
18S9).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 469
Lang, Andrew. Oxford (Philadelphia, 1906).
Larroque, Philippe T. de. Leltres Franqaises Inedites de Joseph Scaliger
(Agen, 1881).
Laur, H. Durand de. Life of Erasmus (Paris, 1872).
Lawton, W. C. The Successors of Homer (London, 1898).
Leake, W. M. The Topography of Athens (London, 1821).
Lecky, W. E. H. History of European Morals (New York, 1884).
Lee, Vernon. Euphorion (London, 1884).
Lefranc, A. J. M. Histoire du College de France (Paris, 1893).
Lehrs, Karl. De Arislarchi Sludiis Homericis (Konigsberg, 1833; 3d
ed. 1882).
Appendix to Herodiani Scripta Tria (Berlin, 1857).
Leland, C. G. The Unpublished Legends of Vergil (New York, 1900).
Le Mire, Aubert. Life of Lipsius (Antwerp, i6og).
Leo, Friedrich. De Vidularia Plauti (Gottingen, 1895).
Lersch, Laurenz. Sprachphilosophie der Allen, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1838-
1841).
Lichtenberger, Henri. Le Poeme el la Legcnde dcs Nibehingen (Paris,
1891).
Lindsay, W. M. The Latin Language (Oxford, 1894).
Lloyd, W. W. The Age of Pericles, 2 vols. (London, 1875).
Lobeck, C. A. De Antiphrasi et Euphemisnio (s. 1. et a).
Lorenz, Ottocar. The Life of Alcuin, Eng. trans. (London, 1837).
Lowe, Gustav. Prodromus Glossariorum Latinorum (Leipzig, 1876).
Luard, H. R. Cambridge Essays (London, 1857).
The Correspondence of Richard Porson (Cambridge, 1866).
Ludwich, Arthur. Arislarchs Homerische Tcxtkritik (Leipzig, 1884-
1885).
Die Homer-Vulgata als Voralexandrinische Erwiesen (Leipzig, 1898).
M
McCabe, Joseph. Peter Aheldrd (New York, 1901).
Macaulay, T. B. Essays (London, 1861 and foil.).
Macdonell, Arthur A. A History of Sanskrit Literature, with biblio-
graphical notes (New York, 1900).
Mackail, J. W. Latin Literature (New York, 1907).
Select Epigrams (London, 1891).
Mahaffy, J. P. History of Classical Greek Literature, 2 vols. (New York,
1880).
Old Creek Education (London and New York, 1882).
470 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
What Have the Greeks Done for Modern Civilization ? (London and New
York, 1909).
Mahly, Jacob A. Richard Benlley, Eine Biographie (Leipzig, 1868).
Mahn, E. A. P. Darslellung der Lexicographic nach Allen Ihren Seiten
(Rudolstadt, 1817).
Maitland, S. R. The Dark Ages (London, 1853).
Maittaire, Michael. Historia Typographorum Aliquot Parisiensium
(London, 171 7).
Mariette, P. J. Pierres Gravies (Paris, 1752).
Marrast, Augustin. Esquisses Byzantines (Paris, 1874).
Marschall, Carl. De Quinti Remmii Palaemonis Libris Grammaticis
(Leipzig, 1887).
Marsden, William, Ed. The Memoirs of W. M. Leake (London, 1864).
Martha, Constant. Le Poeme de Lucrece (Paris, s. a.).
Martin, J. P. La Vulgate Latine an xii s. d'apres Roger Bacon (Paris,
1888).
Matthai, C. F. von. Glossaria Grceca (Moscow, 1774-1775).
Mengin, Urban. Documents sur J . C. Scaliger et sa Famille (Paris, 1880).
Meyer, Eduard. Forschungen sur Allen Geschichte, 4 vols. (Halle,
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Mezieres, A. J. F. Petrarque (Paris, 1868).
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1881).
Michaud Freres. Biographie Universelle Ancienne et Moderne, last ed.,
45 vols. (Paris, 1843-1865).
Michaut, Gustave. Le Genie Latin (Paris, 1904).
Middleton, J. H. The Engraved Gems of Classical Times (London, 1892).
Migne, J. P. PatrologicB Cursus Computus — Gr. and Lat. (Paris,
1857-1866).
Mohler, J. A. Geschichte des Monchthums (Regensburg, 1866-1868).
Mommsen, Theodor. A History of Rome, Eng. trans. (New York, 1903-
1905)-
Monk, J. H. The Life of Richard Bentley, 2d ed. (London, 1833).
Monro, D. B. Modes of Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1894).
Monroe, Paul. Source Book of the History of Education, Greek and Ro-
man Period (New York, 1901).
Montalambert, C. F. de T. The Monks of the West, Eng. trans. (Lon-
don, 1861).
Montfaucon, Bernard de. UAntiquite Expliquee et Representee en Fi-
gures, 10 vols. (Paris, 17 19).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 47 1
Morison, J. C. Gibbon — English Men of Letters Series (New York,
1879)-
Miiller, F. Max. India, What Can It Teach Us? last ed. (London,
1892).
Lectures on the Science of Language, last ed. (London, 1891).
The Sacred Books of the East, 2d ed. (London, 1892).
Miiller, Iwan. Handbuch der Klassischen Alterthumswissenschaft, 3d
ed., 5 vols. (Munich, 1901).
Miiller, Lucian. Frledrich Ritschls Leben (Berlin, 1877).
Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie in den Niederlanden (Leipzig,
1869).
Greek and Latin Versification, Eng. trans. (Boston, 1895).
Miiller, P. E. De Genio Aevi Theodosiani (Copenhagen, 1797).
Mullinger, J. B. The Schools of Charles the Great (London, 1877).
Murray, Gilbert. A Handbook of Greek Archccology (London, 1892).
Miintz, Eugene. Les Precurseurs de la Renaissance (Florence, 1902).
N
Nettleship, Henry. Essays in Latin Literature (Oxford, 1889).
Lectures and Essays (Oxford, 1S95).
Newell, E. J. 5/. Patrick, His Life and Teachings (London, 1890).
Nichols, F. M. Epistles of Erasmus (New York, 1901-1904).
Nicoll, H. J. Great Scholars (Edinburgh, 1880).
Nisard, Charles. Essai sur les Poctcs Latins de la Decadence (Paris, 1867).
Les Gladiateurs de la Republique des Lettres (Paris, 1889).
Le Triumviral Litteraire (Paris, s. a.).
Nolhac, Pierre de. Erasme en Italic (Paris, 1888).
Petrarque et I'Humanisine (Paris, 1S92, 2d ed. 1907).
Norden, Eduard. Die Antike Kunstprosa (Leipzig, 1S98).
Nordenskjold, A. E. Periplus (Stockholm, 1897).
O
Olcott, G. N. Studies in the Word Formation of the Latin Inscriptions
(Rome, 1898).
OUeris, Alex. Cassiodore, Conservateur des Livres de VAntiquite Latine
(Paris, 1884).
Oman, C. W. C. The Story of the Byzantine Empire (London and New
York, 1892).
Orelli, J. K. Onomasticon Ciceronis, last ed. (Ziirich, 1887-1888).
472 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Otto, Friedrich. Sprichworter der Romer (Leipzig, 1890).
Overbeck, J. A. Geschichte der Griechischen Plastik (Leipzig, 1894).
Pais, Ettore. Ancient Legends of Roman History, Eng. trans. (New
York, 1905).
Parthey, G. F. C. Das Alexandrinische Museum (Berlin, 1838).
Pater, Walter. Studies in the History of the Renaissance (London, 1888).
Pattison, Mark. Essays, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1889).
Isaac Casaubon, ed. by Nettleship, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1892).
Paul, F. De Sillis (Berlin, 1821).
Paul, H. Grundriss, 3 vols., last ed. (Strassburg, 1896, foil.).
Paulsen, Friedrich. The German Universities, Eng. trans. (New York,
1895).
Pearson, Alfred. A Short History of the Renaissance (Boston, 1893).
Pearson, Karl. Ethic of Free Thought (London, 1901).
Peck, H. T. Cena Trimalchionis , 2d ed. (New York, 1908).
Literature (New York, 1908).
Pennington, A. R. Life of Erasmus (London, 1901).
Perrier, J. L. The Revival of Scholastic Philosophy (New York, 1909).
Perrot, Georges. Les Precurseurs de Demosthene (Paris, 1873).
Perthes, Justus. Atlas Antiquus (Gotha, 1893).
Peter, Hermannus. Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1883).
Picavet, F. J. Esquisse d'une Histoire Generate et Comparee des Civilisa-
tions Mcdievales (Paris, 1905).
Pieri, Marius. Petrarque et Ronsard (Marseille, 1895).
Plessis, F. Metrique Grecque et Latine (Paris, 1889).
Pokel, W. Schriftstellerlexikon (Leipzig, 1882).
Polle, K. F. De Artis Vocabulis Quibusdam Lucretianis (Dresden, 1866).
Prothero, G. W. ed. The Letters of Gibbon (London, 1896).
Prutz, Hans. Kidturgeschichte der Kreiizzilge (Berlin, 1898).
The Age of the Renaissance (New York, 1902).
Putnam, G. H. Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages (New York,
1896-1897).
R
Rabe, Hugo. De Theophrasti Libris (Bonn, 1890).
Rashdall, Hastings. The Universities of Europe during the Middle Ages
(Oxford, 189s).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 473
Reiffenberg, F. A. F. T. De Justi Lipsi Vita et Scriptis Commentarius
(Brussels, 1823).
Reiley, Katherine, Philosophical Terminology of Lucretius and Cicero
(New York, 1909).
Reinach, Salomon. Manuel de Philologie Classique, 2d ed., 2 vols.
(Paris, 1885).
Renan, Ernest. Melange d'Histoire et de Voyage dans I'Autiquite (Paris,
1898).
Ribbeck, Otto. Geschichte der Romischen Dichlung, 2 vols., 2d ed.
(Leipzig, 1897-1900).
Ridgeway, William. The Early Age of Greece (Cambridge, 1901, foil.).
Ritschl, F. W. Die Alexandrinischen Bibliolheken (Breslau, 1838).
Neue Plautinische Excurse (Leipzig, 1869).
Opuscula Philologica (Leipzig, 1866).
Roberts, E. S. Greek Epigraphy (Cambridge, 1887-1905).
Roberts, William. History of Letter Writing (London, 1843).
Robinson, J. H., and Rolfe, J. C. Petrarch (New York, 1898).
Rohricht, Reinhold. Geschichte des Konigreichs Jerusalem (Berlin, 1898).
Roth, K. L. Lehen Varros (Basle, 1857).
Riidinger, Wilhelra. Petrus Victorinus (Halle, 1896).
Ruske, Lothar. De Auli Gellii Noctium Atticarum Fontibus (Breslau,
1883).
Saalfeld, G. A. E. A. Der Hellenismus in Latiiim (Wolfenbiittel, 1883).
St. Hilaire, Barthelemy de. De VEcole d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1845).
Saintsbury, George. A History of Criticism, 3 vols. (New York, 1900 ;
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Salverte, Frangois de. Le Roman dans la Grece Ancienne (Paris, 1894).
Sandys, J. E. A History of Classical Scholarship, 3 vols., 2d ed. (Cam-
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Lectures on the Revival of Learning (Cambridge, 1905).
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Schanz, Martin von. Die Sophisten (Gottingen, 1867).
Scherer, W. Poetik (Berlin, 1888).
Schmidt, Joseph. De Latinitate Tertulliani (Erlangen, 1870).
Schmidt, K. E. Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Gramniatik (Halle, 1859).
Schneidewin, F. W. The Preface to Pindar (Gottingen, 1837).
Schomann, G. F. Geschichte der Alterthiitner, 4th ed. (Berlin 1897).
Schroeder, Leopold von. Indiens Litteratur und Cultur (Leipzig, 1887).
474 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Schiick, Julius. Aldus Manntius iind Seine Zeitgenossen (Berlin, 1862).
Scott, Leader. The Renaissance of Art in Italy (London, 1888).
Sears, Lorenzo. History of Oratory (Chicago, 1903).
Sellar, W. Y. The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age (Oxford, 1892).
Sergi, Giuseppe. The Mediterranean Race, Eng. trans. (London, 1901).
Seymour, T. D. Life in the Homeric Age (New York, 1908).
Shepherd, William. Life of Poggio (Liverpool, 1837).
Simon, Jules. Histoire de I'Ecole d^Alexandrie, 2 vols. (Paris, 1844-
1845)-
Skrzeczta, R. F. L. Die Lehre dcs Apolloniiis Dyscolus (Konigsberg,
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Spangenberg, E. P. J. Jacob Cujas iind Seine Zeitgenossen (Leipzig, 1822).
Spanheim, Ezechiel. Dissertatio de Usu et Prastantia N umismatum Anti-
quorum (Amsterdam, 1671).
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Sturz, F. W. Opusctda Nonnulla (Leipzig, 1825).
Suringar, W. H. D. De Romanorum Autohiographis (Leyden, 1846).
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Susemihl, Franz. Geschichte der Griechischen Litter alur in der Alexan-
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Sutphen, M. C. Latin Proverbs (Baltimore, 1902).
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Taylor, H. C. The Medicevat Mind (New York, 191 1).
Teignmouth, J. S. The Life of Sir William Jones (London, 1808).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX 475
Teuffel-Schwabe-Warr. A History of Roman Literature, 2 vols. (London,
1892).
Texier, C. F. M., and Pullan, R. P. Byzantine Architecture (London,
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Thackeray, F. St. J. Anthologia Grceca, with English notes (London,
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Thiaucourt, Camille. Les Traites Philosophiques de Ciceron et Leurs
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Thurneysen, Rudolf. Dcr Saiurnier (Halle, 1885).
U
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Epicurea (Leipzig, 1887).
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Vacherot, Etienne. Histoire Critique de VEcole d^Alexandrie, 3 vols.
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Verrall, A. W. Euripides the Rationalist (Cambridge, 1895).
Vibaek, M. Life of Karl Vcrncr (Copenhagen, 1893).
Voight, Georg. Die Wiederbelebung des Klassischen Alterthums oder das
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Voss, Otto. De Heraclidis Pontici Vita et Scriptis (Rostock, 1897).
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W
Wachsmuth, Curt. De Cratete Mallota (Leipzig, i860).
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Wattenbach, Wilhelm. Das Schriftwcsen im Mittelalter {Leipzig, 1S7 5).
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476 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Weise, F. O. Charaderisiik der Lateimschen Sprache, 3d ed. (Leip-
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Weissenfels, Oskar. Aesthet-Kritische Analyse der Ars Poetica (Gorlitz
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Welcker, F. G. Der Epische Cyclus, 2d ed. (Bonn, 1865-1882).
Werner, R. M. Lyrik mid Lyriker (Leipzig, 1890).
West, A. F. Alciiin and the Rise of Christian Schools (New York, 1892),
Roman Autobiography (New York, 1901).
Westphal, Rudolf. Allgemeine Metrik (Berlin, 1892).
Die Musik des Griechischen AUerthtims (Leipzig, 1887).
Whitney, W. D. Language and the Study of Languages, 4th ed. (New
York, 1884).
The Life and Growth of Language, last ed. (New York, 1890),
Whittaker, Thomas, The Neo-Platonists (Cambridge, 1901).
Wiese, L. A. De Vitis Scriptormn Romanorum (Berlin, 1840).
Wilamowitz-Mollendorf, Ulrich von. Euripidis Heraklcs (Berlin, 1889).
Wilken, Friedrich. Geschichte der Kreuzziige, 7 vols. (Leipzig, 1807-1832).
Wilkins, A. S. National Education in Greece in the Fourth Century before
Christ (London, 1873).
Winckelmann, J. J. Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (Dresden, 1754).
Windelband, Wilhelm. History of Ancient Philosophy, Eng. trans. (New
York, 1899).
Winkworth, Susanna. The Life and Letters of Niebuhr (London, 1853).
Wissowa, Georg. De Macrobii Saturnalimn Fontibus (Breslau, i888).
Wolf, F. A. Prolegomena ad Ilomerum (Berlin, 1795) ; last ed. 1859.
Wolff, Max von. Lorenzo Valla, Sein Leben und Seine Werke (Leipzig,
1893)-
Woltmann, Alfred von, and Woermann, Karl. A History of Painting,
Eng. trans. (New York, 1901).
Woodward, W. H. Erasmus on Education (Cambridge and New York,
1904).
Zacher, Konrad. Die Aussprache des Griechischen (Leipzig, 1888).
Zeissberg, Heinrich von. Die Polnische Geschichtschreibung des MitteU
alters, &c. (s. 1., 1847).
Zeller, Eduard. Aristotle (London, 1897).
History of Eclecticism, Eng. trans. (London, 1893).
Zingerle, A. R. Zu Spdtern latein. Dichtern (Innsbruck, 1873).
GENERAL INDEX
Abelard, 230.
Academic School of Philosophy, 122.
yElius Herodianus, 114, 186.
/Elius Praeconinus Stilo, L., the first
Roman philologist, 159, 160; his
grammatical and critical work, 160.
i^neas Silvius, 387.
/Eschylus, 72, 78, 94, 109.
Esthetics, 71.
/Esthetic Criticism, in Plato, 72, 73 ;
in Aristotle's Poetics, 73, 75.
African Period of Latin, 1S6.
Agricola, Rudolphus, 390 a.
Albertus Magnus, 388.
Alcaeus, S3, lOQ. HQ-
Alciphron, 155.
Alcuin, his influence on Mediaeval
study, 220-224, 238, 239, 385.
Alexander ^Etolus, 98, 106.
Alexandria, founding of, 88; descrip-
tion of, 8S-90 ; the Library and Mu-
seum at, 92-97.
Alexandrian Canon, 99, 100; its in-
fluence on Greek Literature, 100,
lOI.
Alexandrian Influence, 96, 97, 102 ; at
Rome, 152.
Alexandrian Library, 92-94, 98, 102 ;
foreign books collected in, 93, 94;
in Roman times, 93 ; its chief libra-
rians, 98, 109; gradual destruction
of, n6, 117.
Alexandrian Literature, 96-98, loi, 102,
106.
Alexandrian Philosophy, Jewish in-
fluence in, 102, 103.
Alexandrian Poetry, 96, loi, 102.
Alexandrian Schools, 95, 96 ; late repre-
sentatives of, 116.
Alexandrian Science, 103, 104.
Alexandrian use of terms (ptXdXoyos,
(piXoXoyia, 2.
Algebra, 104; invented by the Egyp-
tians, 105.
Alphabet, taught by ypa/j./xaTia-T'/i^,
18; Plato's classification of the
letters, 65 ; teaching of the alphabet
in schools, 69, 70 ; Roman alphabet,
132.
Altgrammatiker, 422, 423.
Ammianus Marcellinus, quoted, 211,
212.
Anacreon, 34.
Analogy and Anomaly, 119, 120.
Anaximander, 21, 25, 26.
Anaximenes of Lampsacus, 21; his
Homeric criticism, 44; his practical
treatment of rhetoric, 45 ; his three
rhetorical categories, 45.
Anaximenes of Miletus, 21.
Anglo-Dutch Period, 355.
Annalistic Method in Classical Philol-
ogy, 3-
Anomaly, see Analogy.
Anthology, history of the Planudean
Anthology, 256; of the Palatine
Anthology, 256, 257; 344. 349-
Anthon, Charles, 452, 453.
Antiphon, first publishes speeches as
models, 43.
Antiphrasis, as a principle in language,
68, 69.
Apelles of Ephesus, 83.
Aphorisms, Roman fondness for, 149,
15s. 156; Varro's collection of, 162.
ApoUonius Dyscolus of Alexandria,
founded scientific syntax, 185.
ApoUonius of Perga, 103.
ApoUonius Rhodius, loi.
Apuleius, as a word-maker, 148.
477
478
INDEX
Aquinas, Thomas, 388.
Arabic, knowledge of, in the Middle
Ages, 240.
Aratus, 96, 102.
Arcesilaus, 118.
Archeology and Antiquities, 250-254,
268, 269, 287, 288, 313, 31s; in
Russia and the Crimea, 401 n.
Archimedes, 103.
Aristarchus, 104; his critical methods,
109-116; his grammatical terminol-
ogy, log; his five critical processes,
no; his Homeric criticism, 109-1 II ;
his five notcB, 113; his successors,
114.
Aristobulus, 102.
Aristophanes, 72; his criticism of Eu-
ripides, 76.
Aristophanes of Byzantium, invents
accents, punctuation, and critical
signs, 98, 107, 108 ; his hypotheses to
the dramatists, 98 ; helps establish
the Canons, 99 ; his ten prosodim,
107 ; his criticism of texts, 107, 108 ;
as the first scientific lexicographer,
108.
Aristotle, meaning of (fiCkoKoyla in,
2 ; his analytical treatise on rhet-
oric, 45-47 ; his conception of rhet-
oric, 47, 48; his metaphysical dis-
tinctions, 48; his Organon, 48; his
ten categories, 48; the importance
of his categories in the development
of formal grammar, 48 ; his Poetics,
73-76; his dramatic criticism, 74,
75 ; his criticism of Homer, 78 ; his
"casket edition" of Homer, 78.
Aristoxenus, 80.
Arithmetic in the Graeco-Roman
Period, 172, 173.
Ars Poetica, 181, 182.
Art, distinction between fine art and
useful art, 73 ; aesthetic study of
art, 127-129; mediaeval art, 243;
Byzantine art, 250, 251.
Arundel Marbles, the, 360 n.
Asconius, Pedianus, 168.
Asiatic Style, 42.
Ast, G. A. F., 412.
Astronomy, 22, 103.
Athens, contrasted with Sparta, 28;
as the champion of Hellas, 29, 30;
as a centre of learning, 32, 35, 42;
as a university town, 1 21-124.
Attic Style, 42.
Attius, his tragedies, 149; his Didas-
colica, 157 n. ; his reforms in Roman
orthography, 157 n.
Aurispa, Giovanni, his enormous col-
lection of Mss., 279, 280.
Auspicius, 216.
Austria, classical studies in, 386-388.
B
Bacchylides, 34, 234.
Bacon, Francis, 357-359-
Bacon, Roger, 239-242 ; character of
his writings, 239; his criticism of
the Scholastics, 239 ; his suggestions
as to Scriptural text-criticism, 240,
241 ; his Greek lexicon, 241 ; his
glossaries and modern methods, 242.
Bancroft, George, 451.
Baronius, Cardinal Caesar, 309 n.
Beadus, Renanus, 396.
Beck, Carl, 452.
Bekker, August Immanuel, 405, 410 n.
Benfey, Theodor, 419.
Benedictus (St. Benedict), 197 ; founds
the order of the Benedictines, 200,
202, 203.
Bentley, Richard, assists Kiister, 351 ;
his relations with Hemsterhuys, 352
n., 353; included in the "Pleiad,"
360; as a scholar, 361-365; his
Phalaris, 365 ; his critical power,
366-370; bibhography to, 371 n.
Bergk, Theodor, 409.
Bernhardy, Gottfried, 413, 414.
Bernard de Chartres, his method of
teaching, 230, 231.
Bernays, J., quoted, 74.
Bessarion, his founding of the Library
of St. Mark (Venice), 273.
Biographical Method in Classical
Philology, 3.
Biography, 120, 153, 154.
Blagoviestschenski, N. M., 401 n.
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 267, 268.
INDEX
479
Boeckh, August, 410 n.
Boethius, Anicius Manlius, 206; his
De Consolatione Philosophiae, 206,
207 ; first writer to use Arabic
(Hindu) numerals, 207 ; translated
by King Alfred, Chaucer, and Queen
Elizabeth, 207.
Boissier, Gaston, 427.
Bopp, Franz, first scientific student of
Comparative Philology, 418, 419.
Borghesi, Bartoloraeo, the first scien-
tific epigraphist, 443.
Bos, Lambert, 351.
Botsford, G. W., quoted, 7, 8.
Bouhier, Jean, 314.
Brant, Sebastian, 391 n.
British Museum, 381 n.
Brown University, 450.
Brugmanu, Karl F., 422, 423.
Bruni, Leonardo, 268.
Bucheler, Franz, 417.
Buda, University at, 399.
Budaeus, 304.
Bugge, Sophus 424. 433, 434-
Burgess, Prof. J. W., quoted, 244.
Burlesque, of the Sophists, 65, 66, 76 ;
of the tragic writers, 76; of Homer
and the CycUc writers, 77. See
Parody.
Burmann, Peter (the Elder), his Latin
editions, 350, 351.
Burney, Charles, his "Pleiad," 359,
360.
Burton, Robert, 358 n.
Butcher, S., quoted, 73, 74.
Buttmann, P. K., 410 n.
Byzantine Empire (New Rome), charac-
teristics of its history, 210, 247-250;
its art, 250, 251; its literature, 251,
254, 256, 257; its jurisprudence,
252, 253; its scholarship, 253-255;
its pillage by the Turks, 272; its
earUer relations with Italy, 269.
Cajori, Florian, quoted, 22.
Calepinus, Ambrosius, his lexicon,
415 n; alterations herein, see Lexi-
cography.
Callimachus, 93 n, 96 ; his bibliograph-
ical work, 98, 106 ; his lyric poetry,
loi ; his epigrams, loi.
Camerarius, 396.
Canon of Ten Sculptors, 129.
Canter, William, his use of Arabic
numerals in verse, 343.
Carneades, 150.
Carnegie Institution, 92.
Carolingian Period of Middle Ages,
214-218, 225, 226.
Casaubon, Isaac, 306, 308-312.
Cassiodorus, Magnus AureUus, 203,
204.
Castelvetro, F., 75.
Categories, of Anaximenes, 45; of
Aristotle, 46, 47.
Catholicon, 247.
Cato, M. Porcius, his Origincs, 153;
as the originator of Roman prose,
153-
Catullus, Quintus Valerius, 152.
Caylus, le Comte de, 315, 316.
Celtes, Conrad, 391 n.
Cephalas, 256, 344.
Charlemagne, his court school, 220.
Charles the Bald, 385.
Christomathies, see Lexicography.
Chrysoloras, Manuel, 269, 280.
Cicero, M. T., as a word-maker, 148;
as a philosopher, 150 ; as a historian,
153; as an orator, 153.
Ciceronianism at the time of the Re-
naissance, 281, 282, 302, 303 ; culti-
vated by Ernesti, 400.
Ciriaco de' Pizzicolli (di Ancona), ar-
cha;ologist, 268.
City editions of Homer, 16, 17, in,
112.
Clark, Victor S., quoted, 219.
Classical Archaeology, studied in Great
Britain, 380, 381 ; in France and
Germany, 426—429.
Classical Philology, 1-4 ; definition of,
1-3; methods of treating, 3-4; his-
tory of, 1—2.
Cobet, Caryl Gabriel, 424, 425.
Codex, meaning of, 280 n.
Colet, John, 295.
College de France, 305.
48o
INDEX
Columbia University (King's Col-
lege), 450.
Comedy in Athens, 72, 76.
Commodianus, 193.
Comparative Philology, 3 n. ; first at-
tempt at, 398 ; first scientific study
of 418, 419.
Conington, John, 447.
Constantinople, see Byzantine Em-
pire.
Cooper, F. T., quoted, 187.
Corax of Syracuse, writes the first
manual of rhetoric, 41 ; his rules, 41,
44.
Corpus Inscriptionum AUicarum, 441.
Corpus Inscriptionum Greecarum 441.
Corpus Inscriptionum Lalinarum, 443.
Corpus luris Civilis, 253.
Corssen, \V., 434—437.
Corvinus, Matthias, 399.
Cosmopolitanism at Rome, 186.
Crates of Mallos, 119, 120; his view of
Homer, 120; the "Bentley of An-
tiquity," 120; his conception of
text-criticism, 119, 120; his works,
120; his embassy to Rome, 1 20 ; 157.
Cralylus, synopsis of the dialogue, 61-
67.
Critical Signs, 98, 107, 108, 113, 114,
160, 166, 167, 186.
Criticism, of the Homeric Poems, in
Early Greece, 13, 20, 25, 27 ; its
varieties, 39, 40, see Text Criticism ;
aesthetic, 73-75 ; of the drama in
Greece, 74-77 ; subjective, 107, 368,
369 ; verbal, 305, 306 ; diplomatic,
336-340. See Text Criticism.
Cruques, Jacques de (Cruquius), his
studies of Horace in Mss. now lost,
342, 343 ; Codex Blandinianus, 342,
343-
Crusades, their influence on Europe,
257, 258.
Cujacius (Jacques de Cujas), his rela-
tions with Scaliger, 326; his recon-
struction of Roman law, 326.
Curtius, Ernst, 419.
Curtius, Georg, the head of a school
of language study, 419, 420.
Cyclic Poets, 12.
Cylas, 174.
Cynics, 51.
Dalberg, Johann von, 391 n.
Damm, Tobias, 417.
Dante, 261, 262.
Dawes, Richard, 371.
Demetrius, Magnus, 120.
Demetrius Phalerius, 88-91.
Democritus of Abdera, 11 ; his theories
of language, 58 ; his treatise on
Glosses, 1 26 n. ; his work on painting,
128.
Demosthenes, 44.
Descriptive Geography, see Geog-
raphy.
Didascalica, 157 n.
Didymus Chalcenteros, his vast pro-
ductiveness, 114, 116.
Dilettanti Society, 380.
Dindorf, K. W., 407.
Dindorf, Ludwig, 407 n. ; 449.
Dinocrates, the designer of Alexandria,
89.
Diogenes Laertius, 60.
Diogenes of Apollonia, quoted, 40.
Dionysius Thrax, the first teacher of
formal grammar, 158—160.
Dittenberger, W., 441.
Dcederlein, L., 412.
Donaldson, J. W., 439.
Donatus, ^Elius, 184, 185 ; abridg-
ment of, 246.
Doratus, Auratus (Jean d'Aurat),
teacher of Scaliger and Ronsard, 326.
Downes, Andrew, 357, 360.
Drakenborch, Arnold, his great edition
of Livy, 351.
Drama, its beginnings in Greece, 15;
influence in Greece, 72, 75-77 ; na-
tive Roman drama, 131.
Dramatic Criticism, in Aristotle, 74,
75 ; the three Dramatic Unities,
75 ; in Theophrastus of Ephesus, 76 ;
in Aristophanes, 76.
Drisler, Henry, 418 n, 454.
Du Cange, Charles du Fresne, his glos-
saries of Low Latin and Late Greek,
312.
INDEX
481
Duff, J. W., quoted, 136.
Duns Scotus, 385, 388.
DuFis of Samos, 128.
Duruy, J. V., 429.
E
Eckhel, Joseph, 403.
Eclectics, 51; at Alexandria, 97, 102.
Editiones Principes of the Fifteenth
Century, 299, 300.
Education, in early Greece, 17-19, 26,
27 ; in the Prae-Alexandrian Period,
49-51; the ancient universities, 121-
125; in early Rome, 131; the
Graeco-Roman education, 171-191;
monastic schools, 228-231.
Egelsson, Sveinbjoin, "the Icelandic
Homer, " 433.
Egyptians, their influence upon early
Greek thought, 22; their scientific
knowledge, 105 n.
E£/c6s, rhetorical meaning of, 41, 44.
Eiodographic Method in Classical
Philology, 9.
Eleatic School, 24; linguistic theories
of the, 56-59.
Elegiac Poetry, in Greek literature, 33 ;
in Latin literature, 152.
Eliot, George, quoted, 446.
Encyclopaedists in Latin, 188-igo.
English universities, scholarly relations
between EngUsh and Dutch Univer-
sities, 359, 447 ; the Oxford Press,
359 ; revival of Greek at, 359 ; Eng-
lish scholars of the seventeenth cen-
tury, 360-363 ; the Cambridge Press,
364; deterioration of from 1750 until
1820, 377, 378; German influence
on, 446.
Ennius, Quintus, 138; changes made
by him in Latin verse structure,
139-141 ; hla A nnales, 139, 140.
Epic Poetry among the Greeks, 9-
12, 97; among the Romans, 134,
135 : 139, 151-
Epicurus, his theory of the ongin of
language, 60; his endowment of a
school at Athens, 122.
Epigrams, of Callimachus, loi ; of
Martial, 155.
Epigraphy, origin and development of,
in Antiquity, 167, 168; Greek, 441 ;
Roman, of late development, 442,
443-
EpistulcB Obscurorum Virorum, 394,
395-
Epitome of the Four Treatises, 114, 115.
Erasmus Desiderius, 290; account of
his life, 291-294; his writings, 294-
297 ; his character and influence,
297-299.
Eratosthenes of Alexandria, styled
01X6XO7OS, 2 ; in the Alexandrian
School, 98, 103, 106, 107.
Ernesti, Johann August, 400, 401.
Ethics, in Homer, 18, 19 ; in the philos-
ophy of Pythagorus, 23 ; of Socrates,
50, 51-
Ethnographic Method in Classical
Philology, 4.
Etruscology, 436, 437.
Etymology, 52; Plato's discussion in
the Cratylus, 61-67 ; popular ety-
mologies, 66, 67 ; principles involved
in developing words, 63, 64, 69;
etymological schools among the
Romans, 157, 162-164.
Euclid, 103.
Eudemus, his history of geometry, 22.
Eudoxus of Canidus, 174.
Eumenes, as founder of the Pergamene
School, 118.
Euphemism, 69.
Euripides, 67, 72, 76, 78, 86.
Eusebius, his Chronicle, 1 89 ; restora-
tion of, by J. J. Scaliger, 336-341.
Everett, Edward, 451.
Exegesis, 72, 73.
Faber, Basilius, 397 n,, 399.
Fabretti, Raffaele, 442.
Fabricius, George, 397 n.
Fabricius, J. A., 440.
Facciolati, lacopo, 415-416.
"FamiUes" of Manuscripts, in.
"Father of History," see Herodotus.
21
482
INDEX
Felton, C. C, 451.
Fenestella, 168.
Ferrero, G., 429.
Fiction, see Prose fiction.
Filelfo, Francesco, 281.
Fisher, G., 452.
Folk Literature among the Romans,
131, 156.
Foreign schools at Athens and Rome :
(i) French school at Athens, 427 ;
(2) German school at Rome ; (3)
British school at Athens, 447 ; (4)
British school at Rome, 448; (5)
American school at Athens ; (6)
American school at Rome.
Forgeries, of manuscripts, 284 n., 285 ;
of inscriptions, 442.
Frederick of Urbino, his remarkable
library, containing a list of Greek
authors now lost, 273.
French School of Classical Philology,
304-320; studies in music, geog-
raphy, history, and gem-work by
French scholars, 315, 316.
Froben, Johann, 294.
Fronto, Marcus Cornelius, 186.
Gaisford, Thomas, 447, 449.
Gaza, Theodoras, grammarian and
translator, 280, 281, 295, 391 n.
Geldner, K. F., quoted, 30.
Gellius, A., 186 ; his Nodes Atticae, 188,
189.
Gem-cutting, learned from the Egyp-
tians, 83, 84.
Genealogy, 35.
Geographic Method in Classical Philol-
ogy, 4-
Geography, 25 ; first scientific treatise
on, 25 ; descriptive geography, 25,
35 ; 174,17s; first geographical dic-
tionary, 176; in the French Period,
315 ; road-maps, 392 n.
Geometry, 22, 23 ; developed by Euclid
and Archimedes, 103.
Germany, early culture in, 388 ; schol-
asticism in, 388 ; humanism in, 388-
394. 396-398 ; universities in, 388-
393 ; intellectual influence of, 385-
455 ; periods of classical scholar-
ship in, 393 ; study of Hebrew in,
394-
Gesner, Conrad, 398.
Gesner, J. M., 397 n.
Gesta Romanorum, 190, 224, 225.
Gibbon, Edward, 37, 378, 379.
Gilman, D. C, 454.
Glosses, 125-127; various meanings of
the word, 126; their relations to
lexicography, 126; Pamphilius, 194.
Glossographers, 127, 194.
Glossography, 126, 166, 167; iee Lexi-
cography.
Gnipho, M. Antonius, 166.
Goethe, J. W. von, 417.
Gorgias of Leontini, teaches rhetoric
in Athens, 41-43.
Grasco-Roman Period, 130-190.
Graevius (Johann Georg Grave), 397 n.
Grafenhan, A., quoted, 26.
Grammar, its early relation to logic, 47 ;
meaning of "grammaticus," 70;
gradual development of grammatical
terms by Protagoras, 70; by Prodi-
cus, 49, 70; by Plato, 70; by .Aris-
totle, 70, 71 ; by the Stoics and Alex-
andrians, 71, 109, 120; by Diony-
sius Thrax, 158; first treatise on
formal grammar, 159; L. Stilo, 159,
160; M. T. Varro, 162; the first
school grammar, 183; later gram-
matical writers among the Romans,
184-187; study of, in the monastic
schools, 229, 231; grammatical
theories in the Middle Ages, 236;
modern theories of, 401 n., 405,
412-415.
Tpdfi/j.aTa, ypafifjiariffT-fis, 18, 69.
Grammatici Latini, 184-187.
Grammaticus, 70; 172, 173.
Gray, Thomas, 371.
Greek, in the Middle Ages, 235, 236;
in the Renaissance and after, 269;
taught in Italy by the Byzantines,
269 ; restoration of, in the English
universities, 359.
Greek culture, antiquity of, 5-9.
Greek genius, character of, 83-87.
INDEX
483
Greek Literature, beginnings of, 9-13;
Homeric writings, 13-15; teaching
of, 18-20; early criticism of, 20;
historiography, 26, 34-3O ; at Athens,
28 £[. ; varieties of, 33-4S ." study of,
71; criticism of, 71; 73-75; the
drama, 72; parody, 7 6-7 8; genius
of, 83-87; in Alexandria, 91-116;
in Pergamum, 118-120; see Renais-
sance.
Greek studies in Ireland, 235 n.
Gregorovius, F.,
Gregory Nazianzen, quoted, 123, 124.
Gregory of Tours, 216.
Grimm's Law, 420, 421.
Grocyn, William, first teacher of Greek
at Oxford, 293.
Gronovii (J. F. and Jacob Gronov),
their Thesaurus of Greek antiquities,
349-
Grotius Hugo (Huig van Groot), great
classical scholar and constructive
jurist, 347 ; his edition of Martianus
Capella begun at the age of twelve,
347 ; his treatise De lure Belli ct
Pads, 348 ; his translation into Latin
verse of the Planudean Anthology,
349-.
Gruter, Janus (Jan Gruytere), his col-
lection of Latin inscriptions, 342.
H
Hadley, James, 455.
Haldeman, S., 435.
Harpocration, Valerius, his lexicon to
the ten orators, 194.
Harvard, John, founder of Harvard
College, 449.
Havercamp, Siegbert, 352.
Haupt, Moritz, 401 n., 433 n.
Hebrew, study of, 240, 394, 398.
Hecataeus, 25, 26.
Hegemon, the originator of true par-
ody, 77-
Hegius, Alexander, 391 n.
Heinsius, Daniel, pupil of Scaliger,
344-
Heliodorus, 155.
Hellanicus of Mitylene, 35.
Hellenes, origins of the, 5-8.
Hellenic Influence in Italy, 266—284.
Hemsterhuys, Tiberius, his acute criti-
cism, 352 ; his edition of Lucian, 353 ;
appointed professor in Leyden, 354;
his fame in other countries, 354.
Henri, Victor, 427.
Henzen, Wilhelm, 443.
HephEstion, on metres, 194.
Heraclides Ponticus, his treatise on
language, 76.
Heraclitean School, linguistic theories
of, 56-59-
Heraclitus, 21 ; his view of language,
56-60.
Herennius Philon, 194.
Hermeneutics, 73, 87.
Hermann, Gottfried, 401 n., 405.
Hero of Alexandria, 104, 105.
Herodotus, his contributions to geo-
graphical knowledge, 34, 35 ; quoted,
34, 35 ; his history, 34.
Hesiod, 13.
Hessus, Helius Eobanus, 396.
Heyne, Christian Gottlob, 403.
Hieronymus (St. Jerome), 148, 195.
Hipparchus, 103.
Hippias of Elis, his experiments in
literature, 50, 51.
History, 26, 34; in Greek literature,
34-38; among foreigners, 54, 55;
in Latin literature, 153, 154; the
Byzantine historians, 254, 258 ; later
historians, — Gibbon, 378, 379,
Niebuhr, 408-410, Curtius, Ernst,
419, Grote, 428, Thirlwall, 428, Du-
ruy, 429, Boissonade, 429, Momm-
sen, 443, 444, Ferrero, 429.
Holmes, O. W., quoted, 182.
Homeric Epic, character of the, 9, 10;
early interpolations in, 9, 14-16;
preservation of the probable arche-
type, 9, 15; inspirational theory of,
10-12; influence upon Greek
thought, II, 12, 17, 19, 26, 27;
ethical value of, 11, 18, 19; early
criticism of, 13-15, 20, 44; allegori-
cal and rationalistic explanation of,
20; burlesques of, 77; editions made
by Aristotle, 78, 79.
484
INDEX
Homeric Hymns, 13.
Homonymy, 58.
Horatius, I. Flaccus, quoted, ig; as a
satirist, 149; as a lyric poet, 152;
as a critic of literature, 181, 182.
Humanism, 269-271; contrasted with
Mediaevalism, 270-273 ; in Germany,
388-394, 396-398; the New, 417.
Humboldt, of Antiquity, the, see
Herodotus.
Hungary, classical studies in, 399.
Hurd, Richard, 371.
Hutten, Ulrich von, 395.
Hylozoism, 21.
Hymns, Homeric, 13; Latin, 218.
Hypsicrates, etymological school of,
at Rome, 157, 158.
Iambic Poetry, a.
lamblichus, 103.
Iberians, the, 6.
Iliad, the, see Homeric Epic.
Interpreters of foreign languages,
among the Greeks, 54.
Invasions of Italy, 213, 214.
Ionian Greeks, 17, 18, 28; educational
influence of, 17, 18.
Ionian School of Philosophy, 21, 22,
24.
Ireland, Classical Scholarship in, 226;
Mediaeval Schools in, 226 n. ; La-
tinity in, 233.
Irony, 69.
Isidorus of Seville, 187, 188; his
Origincs, igo; his De Natura Rerum,
190; on the mystic number Seven,
248.
Isocrates, the first artistic orator, 43 ;
his success as a rhetorical teacher, 43 ;
obligations of Cicero to, 44.
Italian Period of Scholarship, 284, 303,
304-
Itineraria, 175, 30" n.
Jager, Johann, 395.
Jahn, Otto, 438, 439.
Jebb, R. C, 447.
Jerome, 148, 195.
Jevons, F. B., quoted, 36.
John of Salisbury, 231, 232.
Jones, Sir William, his knowledge of
Oriental languages, 382 ; his ap-
pointment as a judge in Bengal, 383 ;
his translations from the Sanskrit,
383 ; his anticipation of Comparative
Philology, 383, 384.
Jowett, Benjamin, 448.
Juba of Mauretania, 194.
Junggrammatiker, 393, 422.
Junius, Franciscus, his study of an-
cient painting, 344.
Justinianus, 252.
Kaibel, Georg, collector of 1200 epi-
grams, 441—442.
Kiepert, Heinrich, 439 n.
Kirchhoff, A., 441.
Klassische Altertliumsmssenschaft, 3.
Klotz, R., 415.
Kohler, H. E., 401 n.
Kriiger, K. W., 412.
Kiister, Ludolf (Neocorus), his devo-
tion to Greek, 351; his edition of
Aristophanes with the scholia, 351.
Laberius, D., 149.
Lachmann, Kari, 405-407 ; his Homer,
405 ; his Lucretius, 406 ; his methods
of text criticism influenced by Bent-
ley, 406 ; by Wolf, 406 ; his text
criticism of the New Testament,
407.
Lambinus, Dionysius, 306, 307, 407.
Lane, G. M., 452.
Langen, Rudolf von, 391 n.
Language, study of, in connection with
philosophy and psychology, 51, 52;
theories regarding the origin of, 51-
69, see Varro; indifference of the
Greeks to foreign languages, 52-55;
Eleatic theory of, 56-59 ; HeracUtean
theory of, 56-60.
INDi
485
Lasus of Hermione, 79.
Latin language, its characteristics, 131,
136, 139-141, 217, 218; as modified
by Ennius, 141 ; by Plautus, 142-
147; by Lucretius, 147-148; by
Cicero, 148 ; by ecclesiastical writers,
148; the sermo urbanus, 156; the
sermo cotidianus, 156; the sermo
plebeius, 156, 217; de line of, 193,
194 ; used in the Mediaeval Church,
206-210; used as a diplomatic lan-
guage, 216; used as a liturgical lan-
guage, 217; late Latin, 217-223, 229,
232; semibarbarous Latin, 218;
scholastic Latin in thirteenth cen-
tury, 232 ; use of, in Hungary and
Poland, 399 n.
Latin literature, native period of, 130-
134 ; early Hellenic influence on, 134-
137, see Ennius, Plautus, Pacuvius,
Terentius, Lucilius, Lucretius; the
Golden Age, 151-153, see Epic
Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Prose Fiction,
Criticism, Varro; Spanish influence,
176, 178, 186, 187, 190; Roman
oratory, 1 76-1 81 ; the Silver Age,
178-181, see Quintilianus, Seneca,
Tacitus, Suetonius, Plinius Maior,
Q. Remmius Palamon ; the African
Period, 1S6-188, see Apuleius,
Fronto, Tertullianus, Aulus Gellius.
Law, Roman, 252—253.
Lehrs, Karl, 407, 411, 412.
Leo, F., 419.
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 403.
"Letter-play," 69.
Lexicography, beginnings of, 96, 97,
126; scientifically undertaken by
Aristophanes of Byzantium, 108;
developed by glossographers, 126;
at Rome, 165-167, 194; in the
Middle Ages, 244-247; by Suidas,
254; in the Byzantine Empire, 254,
255; during the Renaissance, 281,
304; lexicon of Calepinus, 415; un-
rivalled Greek lexicon of Stephanus
(Robert Etienne), 305 ; in Italy, 415,
416; in Germany, 416, 417 ; in Eng-
land and in the United States
418 n.
Liberal Arts, the Seven, 237, 238.
Libraries : the libraries at Alexandria,
92-94, 98, 102 ; private libraries at
Rome, 109, 116, 118; at Pergamum,
118; public libraries at Rome, 161,
198; at Constantinople, 198; mon-
astic libraries, 233-235; Vatican,
273; St. Mark's, 273; Library of
Urbino, 273.
Libyans, the, 6.
Licymnius, his classification of syno-
nyms, 68.
Ligurians, the, 6.
Linguistik, 3 n.
Lipsius, Justus, 317; his study of
Palaeography, 318; his reverence for
Tacitus, 319; his death, 327.
Literary Criticism, 20, 21; by Plato,
19, 71, 72; by Aristotle, 73-75; by
the Sophists, 76 ; in the form of bur-
lesque, 76-78 ; by the Alexandrians,
96-102; by Crates, 120; at Rome,
180-183.
Literary Study in early Greece, 18; in
the Pra;- Alexandrian Period, 71 ;
by the Alexandrians, 96-98; by
Crates, 120, 157 n. ; by the Romans,
160-164, 166, 169 ; by the Byzan-
tines, 251, 254, 256, 257; by the
Media;vals, 237, 238.
Literary Teaching, beginnings of, 18,
19 ; by the Sophists, 49, 50.
Littre, Emile, 426.
Livius Andronicus, 134, 137.
Livius, Titus, 153, lost books of,
277, 278. _ y
Lobeck, Christian August, 405, 411.
Logic, 46-47 ; in relation to language,
51-60.
Logographi, 26.
Louis the Pious, 385.
Louvain, " the Belgian Athens, "
431-
Lucilius, C, 149.
Lucretius, his theory of the origin of
language, 60; his philosophical vo-
cabulary, 147, 148; as a poet and
philosopher, 151.
Luder, Peter, 390 n.
Lullius, Raimundus, 241, 242.
486
INDEX
Luther, Martin, 298, 302, 392, 395,
397-
Lycophron of Chalds, 99, loi, 102, 255.
Lycurgus of Athens, his recension of the
tragic poets, 78, 79.
Lycurgus of Sparta, 17.
Lyric Poetry, among the .f^oUans and
Dorians, 33 ; at Alexandria, loi, 105 ;
in Latin literature, 131, 134, 151,
152.
Lysias, 43.
M
Mabillon, Jean, 314.
Macedonian ascendency overGreece,84.
Macrobius, his Saturnalia, 189.
Madvig, Johann Nicolai, 423-425.
Mahaffy, J. P., quoted, 19.
Mai, Cardinal, 166.
Manuscripts, collection and preserva-
tion of, 204-206, 273-280; during
the Middle Ages, 233, 235 ; list of the
oldest classical manuscripts, 202, 234,
23s; at Constantinople, 272 ; prob-
ability of recovering Mss. now lost,
273 n. ; recovery of lost Mss. in
recent times, 440, 441.
Maps, see Geography.
Maria Theresa, 399, 403.
Mariette, P. J., 315-
Martianus Capella, 237, 238.
MassiUa, the University at, 125.
Mathematics, 22, 103, 105.
Matron of Pitana, 77.
Matthaei, C. F., 401 n.
Maximus Planudes, 256.
Mayor, J. E. B., 448.
Mediaevalism, characterized, 242, 243,
270; contrasted with Humanism,
270-273.
Mediterranean race, the, 6.
Meineke, August, 407.
Mela, Pomponius, 176.
Melanchthon (Philipp Schwarzerd),
396, 397-
Meleager, 256.
MeHc Poetry, 33.
Menander, 86, 91, 234.
Merriam, A. C, 453.
Metaphor, its use in language, 68.
Metres, early treatises on, 76.
Middle Ages, foreshadowed in the sec-
ond century a.d., 192 ; decadence of
Classical Latin, 193, 194, 214-220;
influence of Christianity on class-
ical learning, 195-200, 215-217; sep)-
aration of the Eastern from the
Western Empire, 199; Monachism,
200-204; invasion of the Roman
provinces, 213, 214; end of Middle
Ages, 214; periods of mediaeval
scholarship, 214; popular use of
Latin after the fall of Rome, 214-
223; grammatical theories in, 236;
art in, 243 ; philosophy in, 244, 263 ;
letters and learning in, 244-247, 386.
Missing Analogy, 59.
Mock-heroic, 77.
Mommsen, Theodor, his remarkable
versatility, 443 ; his plan for the
Latin Corpus, 443 ; his history of
Rome, 444 ; his supplementary
papers, 444.
Monachism, 200-204.
Monastic Scholars, 222-225; their
books, 223 n.
Monastic Schools, 228-231.
Montanus, 196.
Monte Cassino, 202.
Montfaucon, Bernard de, 306, 313,
314-
Miiller, Lucian, 402 n., 407 n.
Miiller, Otfried, quoted, 3 ; his mono-
graph on the Etruscans, 437 ; his
history of Greek hterature, 439.
Munro, H. A. J., quoted, 406 ; his
edition of Lucretius, 407, 448.
Muratori, L. A., his new Thesaurus,
442, 443-
Muretus, Marcus Antonius, 306, 308,
326.
Museum, the Alexandrian, 92-95 ; the
Pergamene, 119; the Vatican, 428;
Louvre, 427 ; British, 381 n. ; at
Copenhagen, 433 ; American.
Music, 33; early Greek treatises on,
79; foundation of Classical modes
among the Greeks, 80, 81 ; vocal,
80, 81 ; notation of, in Greece, 81, 82 ;
INDEX
487
Fleischer's theory of Greek modes,
81, 82; at Rome, 82.
Muth, Conrad (Mutianus Rufus),
395-
Myron, 42.
Mythic Cycle, 12, 13.
Mythology, the oldest treatise on, 13 ;
a great anonymous manual of, 116.
N
Naevius, G. N., 134 ; his Punka, 135,
136.
NasaHs Sonans, 422, 423.
Nauck, August, 402 n., 408.
Neo-Platonism, 102, 103.
Netherlands, rise of scholarship in,
316, 317-
Nettleship, Henry, 447.
New Learning, the, 284, 285.
Nicholas V., 272.
Niebuhr, Barthold G., 37, 408—410.
Nisard, Desire and Charles, 426.
Nitzsch, K. F., 411.
Nonius Marcellus, i8g.
Numerals, Arabic (Hindu), 207.
Nuremberg Chronicle, 3go.
Odoacer, 213.
Odyssey, the, see Homeric Epic.
Onomantia, 67.
Onomatopoetic theory of language,
see Herachtean School.
Oratorj', in the Prae-Alexandrian Period,
39 ; as an art, 39-47 ; Asiatic Style
of, 42 ; Attic Style of, 42 ; its relation
to Rhetoric, 43-48 ; in legal pro-
ceedings, 41, 43, 46; taught at
Rhodes, 124 ; at Rome, 132 ; orations
written for friends, 159; QuintiHan's
teaching of, 178, 179.
Oriental influence on Europe, 258.
Oriental languages: Arabic in the
Middle Ages, 240; Hebrew in the
Middle Ages, 240.
Osborn of Gloucester, 247.
Oudendorp, Franz van, revives Latin
at Leyden, 354.
Painting in Early Greece, 82, 83; en-
caustic painting, 83.
Palaeography, 314.
Pamphilius on Glosses, 194.
Panorama, 247.
Papias, 246.
Paris, Gaston, quoted, 457, 458.
Parmenides, 24.
Parody, 77, 78, see Burlesque.
Paronomasia, in Greek, 66, 67.
Parrhasius, 83.
Parr, Samuel, 372, 373.
Pater, Walter, quoted, 288.
Paulsen, Friedrich, quoted, 388, 389.
Paulus Diaconus, 169.
Pausanius, 176.
Pausias, 83.
Pelasgians, the, 6.
Peloponnesian War, 35.
Pennsylvania, University of, 450.
Pergamene Library, its foundation,
118; catalogued by Callimachus,
120.
Pergamene School, 118— 120; con-
trasted with the School at Alexan-
dria, 117, 118; how founded, 118-
120; under Crates of Mallos, 119-
120.
Pergamum, description of, 118, 119.
Pericles, the .A.ge of, 42, 43.
Peripatetic School of Philosophy, 122,
128.
Persian Wars, their influence on Greek
civilization, 29-32.
Persius Flaccus, 149, 183.
Petrarca, Francesco, his studies, 264;
his Latin epic, 264, 265 ; his recov-
ery of classic authors, 265, 266 ; his
relations with the German Emperor,
386, 387-
Petronius, C, 154, iS7. 161 ; quoted,
177 n. ; read in schools, 246; dis-
covery of Cena Trimalchionis in
1663, 314.
Phidias, 42.
Philetas of Cos, first attempt at an
Homeric lexicon, 96, 127.
Piiilologist, various meanings of, 1-3.
488
INDEX
Philology, various meanings of, 1-3.
Philosophy, origin of, in Greece, 21;
the Ionian School, 21; Heraclitus,
21; Pythagoras, 22-24; the Eleatic
School, 24; Aristotle, 48, 122; Soc-
rates and the Sophists, 50, 51 ; the
Sceptics, 50; the Stoics, 51, 122;
the Epicureans, 51, 122; the
Cynics, 51; the Eclectics, 51, 97;
Plato, 63-65, 122; Alexandrian
philosophy, 102, 103 ; philosophical
studies at Rome, 147, 150, 151;
Mediaeval, 243, 244, 263 ; in the
Renaissance, 263.
Photius, 254.
Phrynicus, 411.
Pindar, 32-34.
Pisistratus, alleged recension of Ho-
meric poems by, 14-16.
Plato, first uses terms (^4X6X070?,
<pi\o\oyla, I ; his opinion of writing,
19; his linguistic theories, 61-67;
his physiology of language, 63-65 ;
his ridicule of popular etymologies,
65, 66; classifies letters of the al-
phabet, 65 ; his grammatical dis-
tinctions, 70.
Plautus, T. Maccius, his place in Ro-
man Hterature, 138; his enrichment
of the Latin vocabulary, 142-148;
comparison with Shakespeare, 143,
144; text criticism of, 160; Varro's
Plautine Canon, 165.
Plebeian Latin, see Sermo Plebeius.
Plinius Maior, 188.
" Poetic Prose," 284.
Poetics of Aristotle, 73-76.
Poetry, inspirational theory of, 10-
12.
Poggio Bracciolini, Francesco, 276-
279-
Pohtianus, Angelo de, 282, 283.
PoUtical Science, 38.
Pollux, Julius, his dictionary, 194.
Polus, 68 n.
Polyclitus, his "Canon," 128 n.
Polygnotus of Thasos, 82.
Polyonomy, 58.
Pompeius Festus, i6g.
Porson, Richard, characteristics of, 374,
375 ; his work and reading, 375-377 ;
restores the Rosetta Stone, 376 ; his
letters to Travis, 376; the Three
Heavenly Witnesses, 376; Porsonian
type, 377-
Post-Renaissance Period, 289.
Prae-Alexandrian Period, characteriza-
tion of, 84-86; its end, 87.
Princeton University (College of New
Jersey), 450.
Printing, introduction of, 285; devel-
opment of, 28s, 286 ; centres of early
book production, 286; effect upon
Classical scholarship, 286, 395.
Priscianus Scianus of Constantinople,
185, 186; his grammar abridged,
239 ; introduced into Germany, 386.
Private editions, in.
Probus Berytius, M. Valerius, 186.
Procopius, 252.
Prodicus of Ceos, as a lecturer on style,
49-50 ; his treatise on synonyms, 50,
70.
Pronunciation, of Greek, 241 n., 290;
of Latin, 434.
Prose, beginnings of Greek, 26 ; devel-
opment of, 34, 35; Latin, 153, 154;
methods of studying, 177, 178.
Prose fiction (Greek and Latin), 154,
155 ; at Byzantium, 253.
Protagoras of Abdera, as a teacher of
rhetoric, 49, 51; first distinguishes
grammatical moods and genders, 70,
70 n.
Protestant Reformation, effects of,
301-303.
Ptolemius, Claudius, 176.
Ptolemy Soter, go.
Publilius Syrus, 149.
Punctuation, in Greek, 98, 108.
Punic Wars, 31, 153, 154.
Pyrgoteles, 84.
Pythagoras, 21-24; Golden verses of,
24.
Quadrivium, 238.
Quintilianus, M. Fabius, his treatise
on education, 178-181.
INDEX
489
Rabanus (Hrabanus) Maurus, 185, 238,
239, 27s, 385-386.
Rask, R. K., his study of Old Per-
sian, 420, 421.
Regiomontanus (Johann MUUer), 387.
Reiske, Johann Jacob, 401.
Reitz, J. F., 353.
Religion, 11, 13; taught by Pythago-
ras, 23, 24 ; philosophical religion at
Alexandria, 102, 103.
Remmius Palaemon, Q., 183.
Renaissance, the, characteristics of,
260-264; causes of the, 262, 270-
274 ; philosophy in, 263 ; early
scholars of, 281 ; Italian Period, 284,
28s; results of the, 285, 287, 288;
Ciceronianism in, 302, 303.
Reuchlin, Johann, 393, 394.
Rhetoric, 40-51 ; first treatise on, 41 ;
taught in Athens by Gorgias, 43 ;
critically expounded by Aristotle, 45,
48 ; popularized by the Sophists, 49-
51; the Alexandrian rhetoric, 98,
loi ; exhibition of, by Carneades,
150.
Rhinthon of Tarentum, 78.
Rhodomann, Lorenz, 399.
Ribbeck, Otto, professor in five uni-
versities, 440.
Richardson, J. F., 436.
Rienzi, Cola di, 442.
Ritschl, Friedrich, 407, 434, 439; his
edition of Plautus, 439, 440.
Romance Languages, 219; study of,
by Germans, 426.
Romans, early history of, 130-134;
early literature of , 131-136, 138, 142-
144, 148, 149; their first relations
with Greece, 132-134; Hellenic in-
fluence on, 134; national charac-
teristics of, 136-138.
Roman use of philologus, philologia,
2.
Rome, in the first century a.d., 170,
171; schools at, 172-181; the city in
the fourth century A.D. , 211, 2r2.
Ruhnken, David, 354, 358.
Russia, development of classical stud-
ies in, 400 n. ; universities in, 400 n. ;
German influence in, 400 n.
Saintsbury, George, quoted, 20.
Salmasius (Claude de Saumise), dis-
covered the Palatine Anthology, 344 ;
edited Florus in ten days, 345 ;
edited the Historia Augusta, 345 ;
his commentary on Solinus, 345 ;
his calls from Oxford, Padua, and
Bologna, 345 ; receives research pro-
fessorship in Leyden, 345 ; his con-
troversy with Milton, 346 ; personal
characteristics, 347.
Salutati, Colutius, first Ciceronian, 268.
Sanskrit, first grammar of, 384.
Sappho, 33.
Satire, a Roman form of literature, 135,
149, 150, 162.
Savile, Sir Henry, tutor in Greek to
Queen Elizabeth, 355 ; his transla-
tions from Tacitus, 355 ; becomes
Provost at Eton, 356 ; helps prepare
the authorized version of the Bible,
356; produces a great edition of St.
Chrysostom, 356; a founder of the
Bodleian Library, 356.
Scaliger, Joseph Justus, 323-341 ; his
early teaching, 323; his knowledge
of Greek and Arabic, 324; his travels
in England and Scotland, 326; his
stay with Cujacius, 326, 327; his
call to Leyden, 328; his feud with
Caspar Scioppius, 329; his Epistula
de Gcnte Scaligera, 330, 331 ; his
Confutatio Burdonum, 332 ; his learn-
ing as a chronicler, 53i5-2,3(> ; his
Manilius, 337, 338; his Eusebian
Chronicle, 339, 340; his personal
characteristics, 341 ; temporary de-
cline of his reputation, 34r.
Scaliger, Julius Cassar, 320, 321 ; his
Latin Grammar, 322; his physical
theory', 322.
Sceptics, the, 50.
Schliemann, H., his remarkable exca-
vations, 445.
Schola Palatina of Charlemagne, 220.
49°
INDEX
Scholasticism, period of, 214 ; its prin-
cipal features, 227, 228.
Scholia, origin of, 125.
Schools, see Education.
Scioppius, Caspar (Caspar Scioppe),
329-331.
Sears, L., quoted, 39, 40.
Seneca, quoted, 3.
Sermo Cotidianus, 156.
Sermo Plebeius, 156.
Sermo Rusticus, 215.
Sermo Urbanus, 156.
Servius, 184.
Seven, as a mystic number, 248.
Seymour, T. D., 455.
Short, C. L., 454.
Sicily, first rhetorical teaching in, 41.
Silli, 78.
Simonides, 72, 73.
Socrates, essentially a Sophist, 50 ; in-
fluence of his teachings, 50. Si; as
a critic of poetry, 72, 73; burlesques
the Sophists, 65, 66.
Solon, 16, 28.
Sophists, the, 49; character of their
teaching, 49-50; their influence on
Greek philosophy, 50-51; bur-
lesqued by Socrates, 65, 66 ; literary
criticism by, 76.
Sophocles, 42.
Sophocles, E. A., 452.
Spalding, Georg, 410 n.
Spanheim, Ezechiel, as a numismatist,
3SO.
Spanish Latinity, Period of, 178, 183.
Spengel, L., 412.
Stephani, L., 401 n.
Stephanus, Henricus, 305.
Stephanas of Byzantium, 176.
Stephanus, Robertus, 305.
Stoics, 51 ; their language teaching,
119, 120.
Strabo of Amasia, 174, 175.
Studium Generate, 231.
Sturm, Johann, 397, 398.
Style, 40, 47, 49 ; Asiatic, 42 ; .^ttic,
42 ; Alexandrian Stylists, 98 ; Latin,
in antiquity, 135, 138.
Suetonius Tranquillus, Gaius, 171.
Suidas, his lexicon and its sources, 254.
Symonds, J. A., quoted, 209.
Synchronistic Method in Classical
Philology, 3.
Tabula Peutingeriana, 175, 392 n.
Tarsus, the university at, 124.
Teachers, in the Graeco-Roman Period,
172-173-
Tegn6r, Esaias, 433.
Terentius, P., 149.
Terpander of Lesbos, z^, 80.
Tertullianus, M. Aureus, 186, 196,
197.
Text Criticism, beginnings of, 13-16;
undertaken by Aristotle, 78; by
Lycurgus of Athens, 78 ; at Alexan-
dria, 98, 104-116; at Pergamum,
119, 120; ^lius Stilo, 160; by
Varro, 165 ; by other Romans, 166,
167 ; see Criticism.
Thales, 21.
Theocritus, loi.
Theon, 116.
Theophrastus of Lesbos, his treatises
on comedy, on style, and on metres,
76; succeeds Aristotle and endows
Peripatetic School, 122.
Thiersch, F. W., 412.
Thrace, mythical poets of, 10.
Thucydides, 35-37.
Ticknor, George, 451.
Timon of PhHus, 77, 78.
Tisias, 41.
Topography, 175, 176.
Tournier, Edouard, 426.
Tragedy, 72 ; discussed by Aristotle,
73-75 ; among the Romans, 148, 149.
Trebonianus, 252.
Tribal Age in Greece, 7.
Trigonometry, 104.
Trithemius, Johannes, 239, 391 n.
Triumvirate, the, 317.
Trivium, 238.
Trojan Cycle, 12.
Tryphon, 116.
Turnebus, Hadrianus, 306, 307.
Tyrwhitt, Thomas, 372.
Tzetzes, loannes, 255.
INDEX
491
United States, universities in, 449-
451 ; classical scholarship in, 452-
455 ; German influence in, 452-455.
Unities, the dramatic, 75.
Universities, at Alexandria, 92-97 ;
Pergamum, 11 7-1 20; at Athens,
1 21-124; at Rhodes, 124; at Lesbos,
124; at Tarsus, 124; at Paris, 226,
426-428; at Bologna, 231; in Eng-
land, see English Universities ; in
Germany, 232, 388-393 ; in Hun-
gary, 399 ; in Poland, 399 n., 400 n. ;
in Russia, 400 n. ; in Holland, 430 ;
in Belgium, 431 ; in Scandinavia,
432-434 ; in the United States,
449-451-
Ussing, Johan Louis, 432, 433.
V
Valckenaer, Ludwig Caspar, 358.
Valla, Lorenzo della, 281 ; his treatise
on style, 281, 282; his contempora-
ries, 281; his Ciceronianism, 281,
282 ; his first suggestion of Biblical
criticism, 294.
Varro, M. Terentius, 160; as an en-
cyclopaedist, 160-161 ; as a man of
affairs, 160, 161 ; his treatise De
Lingua Lalina, 162-164; his An-
tiquitatum Libri, 162; his other works
162; his Plautine Canon, 165.
Vatican Library, the founding of, 273.
Verner's Law, 421.
Verrius Flaccus, M., 168-170.
Victorius Petrus, 283, 284.
Viermenner Scholien, 114, 115.
Vipsanius Agrippa, M., 175.
Vocabulary, Latin, 141 ; enrichment of,
by Plautus, 145-147 ; by Ennius,
141 ; by Lucretius, 147 ; by Cicero,
148 ; by Tertullian, 148 ; by .\puleius,
145, 146, 148; Plebeian Latin, 156.
Voevodski, L. F., 401 n.
Vossius, Gerhard Johannes, 343, 344;
his Ars Poetica, 343; his two great
historical treatises, 343 ; his mono-
graphs on Art and Mythology, 344.
Vulgate, the, criticised by Roger Bacon,
241 ; edited at Oxford, 241.
W
Walafrid Strabo, 385.
Warfare, as a stimulus to intellectual
productiveness, 31, 32.
Watts, 2.
Welcker's Cyclus, 438.
Whitney, W. D., 454, 455.
Willems, Pierre, 432 n.
William and Mary, College of, 449.
Wimpheling, Jacob, 391 n.
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 402,
403, 417-
Wolf, F. A., matriculation at Gottin-
gen of, 2 ; 403, 404.
Wolfliin, Eduard, 416, 417.
Woolsey, T. D., 451.
Writing, Plato's opinion of, 19.
Wyttenbach, Daniel, 358, 359.
Xenophanes, rejects Homeric theology,
24.
Xenophon, the historian, 37, 38.
Yale, Elihu, founder of Yale College,
449.
Z
Zeno, 24.
Zenodotus of Ephesus, 98; his criti-
cism of texts, 105, 106; as a lexi-
cographer, 106; called Ai.opd(i)TT]s,
105-
Zeuxis, 83.
Zumpt, K. G., 415.
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