A history of classical philology from the seventh century, B. C. to the twentieth century, A. D.

Front matter

HARRY THURSTON PECK

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME PROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

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 engaged. 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 Alexandrian School; that the significance of the Renaissance to a classicist 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 vm 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 monument to his scholarship and wide reading; yet the multiplicity of details contained in its three volumes will not imnaturally 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 convenient size all that is essential; while the bibliographical references will enable the reader to pursue more exhaustively any particular subject that has here been touched

PREFACE IX

upon. It is hoped that the book may be of some practical 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.

Table Of Contents

Preface

CHAPTER

I. The Genesis of Philological Studies in Greece

Introduction

The Definition of Classical Philology Methods of Treatment

The history of Classical Philology is the history of the whole intellectual development that springs from classical antiquity, and of the growth of those studies and sciences that have interpreted and thrown light upon the intellectual history of Greece and Rome. It will trace at once the evolution of the classical literatures, of science (especially linguistic science), and will chronicle the history of Epigraphy, Palaeography, Numismatics, Criticism, Philosophy, Archaeology, Mythology, and Religion.

The terms "philology" and "philologist" have been variously used for many centuries. Plato (428-347 B.C.) was the first Greek writer to employ the words <pi\6Xoyo'; and ^iXoXoyia, but he uses them in no technical sense, and only in a general way. A philologist in Plato's dialogues is one who is fond of talk or who is much given to argument, whether philosophical or not. In Aristotle, philology is a love of learning (Lat. studium). During the Alexandrian period and in Rome, the word was often restricted to the sense of "a scholar," "a learned man." There is a deep significance in the fact that it was first so applied to Eratosthenes (276-196 B.C.), the head of the great library at Alexandria, who was, in his day, almost the supreme type of the scientific investigator, since he was not merely, or even primarily, a student of language and literature, but a mathematician and astronomer, a geographer and an athlete. He is one of the best examples afforded by Greece to refute the cheap gibes of petty men, who would have us think that versatility is inconsistent with sound scholarship.

The general development of the word "philology" makes it, then, mean, first of all, a love of speech; second, the pursuit of linguistic research; and finally, learning in its widest sense. From the dawn of the Renaissance down to the eighteenth century it was oftenest used of linguistic studies; but in the period last named. Watts, an English lexicographer of the time, explained it as including history and criticism as well as the humanities. Thus Classical Philology is the philology which relates to the culture-studies of the Greeks and Romans. When the great Homeric critic, F. A. Wolf, matriculated at Gottingen, he inscribed himself as studiosus philologice, and made it clear that he meant by the phrase the intelligent, critical study of the whole traditional learning of

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 history 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 Philologie or Klassische Alterthumswissenschaft) is that comprehensive study of antiquity which has just now been defined. For the various meanings of the word "philology" at different times, see Grafenhan, Geschichte der Klassischen Philologie im Alterthum, 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.

(3) The Eiodographic Method, which describes the history of philology by subjects.

(4) The Ethnogi'aphic or Geographic Method, which discusses 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.^

1 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 Grundriss (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 composed is a very interesting and instructive fact. One carmot even say that the Greeks were homogeneous; and a great deal of the most modern research has served only to darken coimsel 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 shepherds should have been subsequently overcome by a horde of virile conquerors from Thrace is another part of ithe 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 Pelasgians, 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. 331; and Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, pp. 28-34 (New York and London, 1892).

'See Sergi, The Mediterranean Race. Eng. trans. (London, igoi).

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 children 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. Everywhere were dense forests, haunted by lions, wild boars, and wolves." These Greeks of the Tribal Age were seminomadic 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 coastline 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, Forschungen zur alten 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 civilisation, the fruits of which were appropriated by the true Hellenic invaders from the north.

for trading with the natives. Though in most respects the Greeks were then as barbarous as the North American 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 genius 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. Politically, they also afford a parallel with the Celts, in that

GENESIS OF PHILOLOGICAL STtJDIES 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 speculation. To the last, the Greeks were adventurous, ingenious, 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 primitive people, there is nothing primitive in the mode of their construction or the deftness of touch that is everywhere 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 Mass, Die Interpolationen in der Odyssee (Halle, 1904); and Brgal, Pour Mieux Connattre 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 development 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-religioiis 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 ascribed to Homer.

The chief importance of the epos for our present purpose 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 Democritus (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 relations 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 Christians, and what the Kor^n is to orthodox Muhammadans, — this the Homeric poems were to the early Greeks. A 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 connected 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 Mthiopis of Arctinus, and the Nostoi of Agias, not to mention the parodies by Pigres.^ There were likewise the so-called

' See, for example, Seymour, Life in the Homeric Age, with the bibliography, pp. xiii-xvi (New York, 1908) ; and Adam, The Religious Teachers of Greece, pp. 21-67 (Edinburgh, 1908).

^The chief authority for the Cychc poets is the Chreslomatheia of Proclus (41 2-485 A.D.) in the extracts preserved by Photius. See Welcker, Der Epische Cyclus (Borm, 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).

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 essential 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 declaimers. Therefore, in the sixth century B.C., a recension 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 mSTORY 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 ascription 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 supplied 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 HUerarische Thatigkeit (Tiibingen, 1885). The Greek grammarian Diomedes, quoted by Villoisou, says that a staff 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 aU frequently mention both Homer and Pisistratus, makes any allusion whatever to this alleged recension of the Homeric text. So significant is this omission, that modem students of the subject (for example, Wilamowitz) are disposed 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 Peinathenaic festival, yet with no minute consideration of particular lines. See infra, p. 20.

of the Greater Panathensa; to have encouraged Thespis to produce his primitive tragedies at Athens, thus promoting 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 compelled 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 important 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 including Herodotus. They amount to about four himdred 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-vulgola ah vorakxandrinisch erwiesm (Leipzig, 1898).

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 alterations 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 Musseus and that he was punished for it.

There is some significance in the legend that the first carefully prepared edition of Homer was made in Athens, rather

'Seven of these " city editions " are noted — the Massalotic, the Sinopic, the Chian, the Cyprian, the Argive, the Cretan, and the Lesbian. The first four were Ionic, and the last three were .lEolic. 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 iKddjeis kotA iriXeis.

GENESIS OE PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES IN GREECE 1 7

than among the Asiatic lonians, who had represented a higher form of culture. Athens was destined to become 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 P£edonomi, 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-mjrthical 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 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 invasion of Xerxes, when the Athenians left their own city and took refuge at Troezen, one of the first things they did was to arrange for their school system during the period of their temporary exile. ^ The Mitylenaeans 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 developed, 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 ypa/ifiaTia-Ti]';, 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 appreciation 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, lo. ' Diodorus Siculus, xii. 12.

a conscious purpose of exhibiting in their actions the qualities 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 PrEeneste 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."