Of these lines Markland wrote in 1728 ‘patet ignari cuiusdam et barbari interpolatoris esse’; Dr. Trapp in 1735 found them ‘in themselves flat, and improper, and altogether unworthy of Virgil’; ‘in his ipsis miror qui factum sit ut Viri Doctissimi non agnouerint orationis uim et elegantiam’ ; ‘finding in them … all Virgil's usual ease and suavity … [we] hail those verses with joy, and reinstate them in their rightful … position as the commencing verses of the great Roman (...) epic’ ; ‘uersus praeclarissimos iniuria poeta abiudicauerunt editores plerique’. (shrink)

Whether any apology is possible for the form of this paper is doubtful; but perhaps a few words are allowable. The miscellaneous notes, of which it consists, are fairly well described by the title: at all events, the proposals contained in them—with, I fear, many others—have been pencilled at one time or another in one margin or another. Their age varies widely: two or three must go back to days when my only complete Euripides was Kirchhoff's editio minor and my (...) only Sophocles a copy of Tournier; the most date from middle age or ‘quidquid est illud inter iuvenem et senem medium in utriusque confinio positum’; but, whenever they were made, they were not made by a student of the Greek dramatists commanding the equipment that such a student ought to have. The equipment, in any case, was out of my reach; but, though I have read the plays often, I have read them only because the ancients have a way of enabling one to forget the moderns—as I was informed in my youth by an excellent scholar who has now forgotten both. I hope, therefore, that anyone who may happen to read the paper will overlook some errors and ignorances of the amateur; and, above all, if I may borrow a sentence from Markland's preface to his emendations on Lysias, ‘si quando dictatoria ista, Lege, vel Scribe, occurrent, scito me nihil aliud velle quam Forte legendum vel scribendum’. (shrink)

All surviving manuscripts of the Dialexeis of Maximus of Tyre descend from the oldest, Parisinus Graecus 1962 . Where they diverge, they do so as a result either of error or of attempts at correction. The history of the conjectural emendation of the Dialexeis thus begins with the second oldest manuscript, Vaticanus Graecus 1390 , which dates from the third quarter of the thirteenth century. Since that time, the most significant contributions have come from two scholars, one of the fifteenth (...) century and one of the eighteenth: Zanobi Acciaiuoli, librarian at the monastery of San Marco in Florence, many of whose corrections found their way anonymously into the editio princeps of 1557 via the manuscript used by Stephanus; and Jeremiah Markland, whose ideas are recorded as an appendix to the second, posthumous edition of John Davies's Maximus, published in 1740. J. J. Reiske's edition of 1774–5 and Friedrich Duebner's of 1840 also contain valuable material. But the field is by no means yet picked clean: witness most recently the useful articles of Professors Koniaris and Renehan. I offer the following gleanings of my own. (shrink)

The difficulty lies in the two words at the end of the first and last lines of the extract, cortus being manifestly corrupt, and pontus inappropriate. In 276 it is fairly clear that ‘the wind’ should be the subject of the sentence, and Markland's uentus is now printed by most editors: in 271, in spite of a variety of conjectures, editors are mostly agreed that ‘the sea’ should be the object, and Marullus' pontum is usually accepted. The sense is (...) thus rectified, but there remains a serious palaeographical difficulty, neither of the corruptions pontum > cortus, uentus > pontus being very probable in itself or paralleled in the Lucretian MSS. It has been suggested, both by Professor Reid and by Professor Merrill , that the last words of the two lines have been interchanged. If this theory can be accepted, it at once gives us pontum in 271: the nominative pontus is only an attempt to adjust it to its new context in 276. We should then be left with cortus at the end of 276, and I suggest that the obvious correction is then corus. (shrink)

This difficult passage has been much discussed and the text of L emended usually by rearrangement of the verses. The work of commentators before Wilamowitz is practically valueless, for their inexact knowledge of Theban topography, with which Euripides' account of this battle shows a good acquaintance, was based largely upon the unsatisfactory description of Pausanias: despite the good sense of Markland, they misunderstood 653.

If only from a sense of duty, I have filled the evident lacuna, so as to safeguard the κα and furnish some little excuse for the copyist . There remains, however, the melancholy fact that Callirrhoe was consigned to her living grave as a consequence, not of γωνα in any known or imaginable sense of the word, but of a profound swoon produced by a kick from Chaereas; whose foot, says Chariton in his best manner, εστχως κατ το διαφργματος νεχθες (...) πσχε τς παιδς τν ναπνον . I have therefore restored a common word for ‘unconsciousness’ : cf. II 5 γενομνην δ με φ ω ν ο ν ξ αφνιδου πτώματος θαψαν ο γονες πολυτελς, I 2 φωνος εθς ν κα σκτος ατς τν φθαλμν κατεχθη, I 4 fin. Καλλιρρη μν ον φωνους κα πνους κειτο νεκρς εκνα πσι παρχουσα, and so frequently. The same change is imperative at Xen. Eph. III 6 σκηφαμνη δ φων κατειλθαι, κλευσεν ατ τινι τν δωρ νεγκεν. The confusion is simple and occurs, for instance, at Max. Tyr. i, where Markland restored διαφωνας for διαγωνας. As for the sequence φωνας … ρρηξε φωνν, neither the author nor his readers could have even been aware of it: the weakness which deters the modern from the equivalents of δωκεν ποδοναι , συνπεμψε παραπμψοντας , παμμγεθες λκον, ταρτρειον τ μγεθος , χωρα δσιππα πρς τν ππον , δυσδοδον χει τν προδον , ποκατστησαν ες τν ρχααν κατστασιν , στελλομν βασιλες πστειλεν , and all their numberless analogues, was to the Greeks foolishness. On that point the judgment of Chariton was as sound as that of Pascal. (shrink)

If only from a sense of duty, I have filled the evident lacuna, so as to safeguard the κα and furnish some little excuse for the copyist. There remains, however, the melancholy fact that Callirrhoe was consigned to her living grave as a consequence, not of γωνα in any known or imaginable sense of the word, but of a profound swoon produced by a kick from Chaereas; whose foot, says Chariton in his best manner, εστχως κατ το διαφργματος νεχθες πσχε (...) τς παιδς τν ναπνον. I have therefore restored a common word for ‘unconsciousness’ : cf. II 5 γενομνην δ με φ ω ν ο ν ξ αφνιδου πτώματος θαψαν ο γονες πολυτελς, I 2 φωνος εθς ν κα σκτος ατς τν φθαλμν κατεχθη, I 4 fin. Καλλιρρη μν ον φωνους κα πνους κειτο νεκρς εκνα πσι παρχουσα, and so frequently. The same change is imperative at Xen. Eph. III 6 σκηφαμνη δ φων κατειλθαι, κλευσεν ατ τινι τν δωρ νεγκεν. The confusion is simple and occurs, for instance, at Max. Tyr. i, where Markland restored διαφωνας for διαγωνας. As for the sequence φωνας … ρρηξε φωνν, neither the author nor his readers could have even been aware of it: the weakness which deters the modern from the equivalents of δωκεν ποδοναι, συνπεμψε παραπμψοντας, παμμγεθες λκον, ταρτρειον τ μγεθος, χωρα δσιππα πρς τν ππον, δυσδοδον χει τν προδον, ποκατστησαν ες τν ρχααν κατστασιν, στελλομν βασιλες πστειλεν, and all their numberless analogues, was to the Greeks foolishness. On that point the judgment of Chariton was as sound as that of Pascal. (shrink)

Some time ago I noted that the generally accepted emendations a! fuge , and a! ducere are suspect , 71–2). In his recent Loeb edition , Goold in the latter passage restores the MSS. reading adducere; in the former, quisquis es assiduas aufuge blanditias, he prints Tappe's tu fuge for MSS. aufuge. The best solution, it seems to me, is one which the modern editions, Propertiana included, are of a mind to ignore: Markland's heu fuge.

All surviving manuscripts of the Dialexeis of Maximus of Tyre descend from the oldest, Parisinus Graecus 1962. Where they diverge, they do so as a result either of error or of attempts at correction. The history of the conjectural emendation of the Dialexeis thus begins with the second oldest manuscript, Vaticanus Graecus 1390, which dates from the third quarter of the thirteenth century. Since that time, the most significant contributions have come from two scholars, one of the fifteenth century and (...) one of the eighteenth: Zanobi Acciaiuoli, librarian at the monastery of San Marco in Florence, many of whose corrections found their way anonymously into the editio princeps of 1557 via the manuscript used by Stephanus; and Jeremiah Markland, whose ideas are recorded as an appendix to the second, posthumous edition of John Davies's Maximus, published in 1740. J. J. Reiske's edition of 1774–5 and Friedrich Duebner's of 1840 also contain valuable material. But the field is by no means yet picked clean: witness most recently the useful articles of Professors Koniaris and Renehan. I offer the following gleanings of my own. (shrink)