HISTORY OF Pre-Alexandrine.—The history of classical scholarship back to a date so early that it is hardly possible to fix a limit. As soon as a philosopher began to criticize a literary (e.g., Xenophanes on Homer and Hesiod), so soon scholarship the widest sense may be said to have begun. Philosophic lation soon raised the question of the relation of the name the thing named, or, in other words, directed attention to the or inner meaning of words, the Ervj oXoyia, as opposed to the conventional meaning, and thus founded the science of etymology. Directly connected with this was the question of the right use cf language, opOobreta, with which the name of Protagoras (born c. 485 B.c.) was especially connected (Plato, Phaedr. 267 C.). This again naturally led to a consideration of the function of words in a sentence and thus to the evolution of a grammatical termi nology. Plato already distinguished 6vo,ua and not so much as noun and verb, but as subject and predicate (cf. Plato Sophist. 261; "There are two sorts of intimation of being given by the voice. . . . That which indicates action we call a verb ... and the other, which is an articulate mark set on those who do the actions, we call a noun" cf. Cratyl. 425 A., Aristoph. Nub. 681 sqq.) Aristotle distinguished ovoµa, apepov (Poet. xxi.7), abv8FVµos (Rhet. 5.2, etc.)—noun, verb, article, con junction.
The first librarian was Zenodotus of Ephesus (c. 325-260 B.C.). As librarian he classified the epic and lyric poets, the tragedians being classified by Alexander Aetolus, the comedians by Lyco phron. As a scholar he made a critical recension of the Iliad and the Odyssey, founded on numerous mss., and compiled a Homeric glossary (`O nnjptKat I'Xwovat). He seems also to have dealt with the text of Hesiod, Anacreon and Pindar. As a critical scholar he seems to have erred on the side of too great subjectivity.
The poet Callimachus, who did much in the way of making catalogues (irivaKES), is often said to have succeeded Zenodotus as librarian, but there is no evidence for the statement (cf. Calli machus, Loeb ed. p. 6 sqq.) . The next librarian of whom we hear is Eratosthenes of Cyrene (born c. 275 B.c.), who became librarian c. 235. A man of many-sided learning (hence called by his admirers pentathlos, while his detractors called him Beta, imply ing that he was second-best in all departments, but first in none), he wrote on geography, mathematics, astronomy, chronology. We are here concerned only with his work in classical scholarship, in which his chief production was a treatise on Old Attic Comedy (irEpi Tijs apxaias KKw/scpoia s) . His successor in the librarianship was Aristophanes of Byzantium, who became librarian in 195 B.C. He edited Homer, Pindar, Euripides, Aristophanes. He also elab orated a system of critical signs (obelus, sigma, antisigma) and accentuation, divided the strophes of the lyric poets into Kcaa ("limbs") and made an epitome of Aristotle's Natural History (ed. Lambros 1885). His successor, Aristarchus of Samothrace (c. 217-145 B.C.), enjoyed still greater fame and became for later antiquity the type of the philologist (Cic. Ad. Att. i 14.3) . He published two editions of Homer, in which he followed the admir able principle, "O n pov E `O,aipov a a /njvm'etv (explaining Homer by Homer), edited Hesiod, and concerned himself also with the text of the lyric poets, the tragedians, Herodotus, and Aristoph anes, writing both continuous commentaries (bfiro,uvtµara) and treatises on special questions (avyypi aTa). Aristarchus was the first to recognize the eight parts of speech (Quintil. i. 4.2o) dvoµa (noun), (verb), avrwvvµia (pronoun), (adverb), l„sfroX? (participle), iipepov (article), a-6144E072os (conjunction), 1rpoOEats (preposition).
His pupil, Dionysius Thrax (c. 170-90 B.c.), wrote a Greek grammar, T EXvn rpa .q aTtKi,, which retained its vogue down to the Renaissance and has been the ultimate model of all mod ern grammars (ed. Uhlig, Leipzig, 1884). Didymus, on account of his industry surnamed xaXEvrepoc (copper-guts); wrote on Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Bacchylides, the comedians, the Attic orators, and Thucydides.
Post-Alexandrine Period, 1 B.C.-1350.—Dionysius of Hali carnassus (who lived at Rome from 3o B.C. onwards) wrote a number of valuable works on literary criticism : Letters to Am maeus I. and II., De Compositione Verborum, De Oratoribus Antiquis, Letter to Pompeius, etc. A very valuable treatise On the Sublime (ILEpi i /'ovs) is extant, probably of the 1st century A.D. Apollonius Dyscolus (c. 130) wrote a valuable treatise on syntax in four (extant) books. The most valuable feature of the scholar ship of this period is a series of works on lexicography and kindred subjects by Moeris, Phrynichus, Harpocration, Pollux, Hesythius, Stephanus, Suidas, Photius, and the 12th century Etymologicum Magnum. Mention should be made of the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus (2nd century) which preserves much curious informa tion and is the source of most of the extant fragments of the Greek comic poets. Lihanius ( 314-393) is the author of a Life of Demosthenes and of Arguments to his speeches. With him we must close the tale of classical scholarship for nearly 1,000 years.
The Revival of Learning or the Italian Period 1350-1527. -A general account of the Renaissance is beyond the scope of this article and we can merely mention some of the leading names. Francesco Petrarca (1304-74) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75) have an interest only as pioneers, being interested in Greek, but not themselves expert Greek scholars. Manuel Chrysoloras (1350 1415), a Greek immigrant, taught Greek in Florence (1396-140o). It was at the instigation of another Greek, Gemistus Plethon that Cosmo de'Medici founded an academy for the study of Plato. His pupil, Joannes Bessarion (1403-72), a native of Trebizond, came to Italy in 1439 with the Greek emperor in an endeavour to unite the Greek and Roman churches. Thereafter he joined the Roman Church, becoming presently bishop of Frascati. He died at Ravenna in 1472, bequeathing his collection of mss. to Venice (St. Mark's Library). Theodorus Gaza (c. 1400-c. 1478), of Thessalonica, taught Greek for a time at Ferrara, afterwards in Rome and Naples. His Greek grammar was printed by Aldus Manutius at Venice in 1495, and he was also the author of translations of Aristotle, Aelian, Theo phrastus De Plantis, and of Dionysius, De Comp. Verborum. Demetrius Chalcondylas (1428-151o) edited Homer (ed. prin ceps, 1488), Isocrates, Suidas. Laurentius Valla (14o7-57) trans lated Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides. But the greatest philologist of the Renaissance was Petrus Victorius (1499-1584), who edited Sophocles, Isaeus, Aristotle's Rhetoric, Poetics, Ethics, Politics, Cicero, Terence, Sallust, Varro's De Re Rustica. Lastly, among famous collectors of mss. may be mentioned Poggio Bracciolini who discovered a great number of Latin mss., and Giovanni Aurispa (c. , who, in 1423, brought to Venice 238 mss. including Venetus A. of the Iliad and the Codex Lauren tianus (loth century, now in Florence) of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Apollonius Rhodius.
The Greek grammar ('Epwrriµara) of Constantius Lascaris printed at Milan by Paravisinus in 1476, was the first book to be printed wholly in Greek.
Present Day.-It would perhaps be invidious to mention the names of distinguished scholars either recently gone from us or still living, but a few words may be said of certain features which characterize classical scholarship of the present The most notable development of modern times has been undoubtedly the increased interest in archaeology, in the widest sense, which has been witnessed in the last Loo years, and more particularly in the last half century. As this is written, it is almost exactly a century since the foundation of the Archaeo logical Institute in Rome (1829). The French schools in Athens and Rome were founded respectively in 1846 and 1873, those of the United States in 1882 and 1895, the British schools in 1883 and 1901. Everywhere, ancient sites have been and are being exca vated-Troy, Delphi, Mycenae, Tiryns, Sparta, Olympia, Epi daurus, Dodona, Delos, Crete have yielded results beyond all expectation-while the recovery of papyri from Egypt has not merely restored to us a considerable body of ancient Greek litera ture, such as Aristotle's Constitution of Athens (1891), Herondas (1891), Bacchylides (1897)-to mention only some examples but has thrown a valuable light on the true nature of New Testament Greek.
The study of one department of archaeology, namely that of anthropology, and in particular of primitive ritual and religion, has strongly influenced the study of classics. There was a time when the attention of scholars was perhaps too exclusively devoted to the literary aspects of the classical writers-to textual criti cism and the study of form. As a natural consequence the labours of successive generations were confined to the great literary masterpieces of antiquity, while comparatively little study was given to writers of inferior genius who, nevertheless, preserve for us antiquarian and anthropological information of the first impor tance. Moreover, much that even in the best authors was either overlooked or misunderstood, has taken a new meaning in the light of the comparative study of the beliefs and institutions of primitive man. It is hardly too much to say that archaeological and anthropological discovery and speculation have been a fruitful and vivifying development of classical studies in recent years.
But the interest in "pure scholarship" which has long been a distinctive feature of the study of classics in this country is still fully maintained. The practice of composition in Greek and Latin, which for long occupied a leading place in our school and univer sity education, appears to have somewhat retrograded, and the art of verse composition in particular seems to be falling into some neglect. On the other hand, there has been in the last 5o years an increasing interest in the art of translation from the classics, and an increasing demand for translations which should be at once accurate in point of scholarship and acceptable from the point of view of literary form. This has been the aim success fully pursued by many scholars writing independently, while it is the professed purpose of such a series as the Loeb in the United States and the Bude series in France.
Although the classics no longer enjoy their old monopoly in education, the study of the Greek and Latin writers seems to flourish as vigorously as it has done at any time, and at the present moment, so far as the evidence goes, the prospects of classical scholarship as an indispensable force in education appear to be singularly bright. See also GREEK LITERATURE ; LATIN LITERA TURE. (A. W. MA.)