The remarks I wish to make upon the Thucydides scholia in Bâle University MS. no. E III 4 will be clearer if prefaced by an outline history of the scholia to Thucydides in general.

The editio princeps (Aldine, May 1502) contained no scholia. They made their first appearance in the following year as an appendix to the Aldine Gemistius and Herodian. The same scholia were then reprinted in the Juntine edition (Florence 1526) as a frame to the text. In the Hervagian edition of Camerarius (Bâle 1540) they were relegated to the end, and Camerarius claims in his prefatory epistle to have expended some trouble in emending them. Henceforward the same corpus of scholia, unchanged save for occasional emendation, passes on from edition to edition, either framing the text, as in Stephanus ([Geneva] 1564), or beneath it, as in Stephanus ([Geneva] 1588), Hudson (Oxford 1696), Duker (Amsterdam 1731), Gottleber-Bauer-Beck (Leipzig 1790–1804).

There are only two passages in the whole of the works of Plato and Aristotle in which the word σχoλ⋯ is given central position and philosophical significance. These are (1) the celebrated interlude in the Theaetetus of Plato (172–177) and (2) the predominantly educational discussion of the foundations of the ideal city in Aristotle's Politics, Bks. VII and VIII. It will be as well to begin by summarizing briefly the doctrine of these two passages.

The metre of Olympian II is still a matter of some difficulty. It has commonly been recognized as differing from Pindar's other metres, but many opinions have been held of its character. An understanding of it is, however, not merely essential to any general theory of Pindar's metric but vital to the textual criticism of the poem. Without some coherent theory we cannot say where ‘Responsionsfreiheiten’ are allowed and some important cruces remain unsolved. In recent years three theories have been put forward. In his Res Metrica pp. 153–5 W. R. Hardie put forward the view that it is an example of a μέτρον μονοεɩδές composed in Cretic verse. He holds that it is written in Cretics or their recognized metrical equivalent, Paeons. This kind of verse is known from the Delphic Paean to Apollo and the Paean of Limenius, and so far as the equivalence of Cretics and Paeons is concerned, there is no difficulty in it. But as Hardie himself admitted, his theory does not account for all the facts. It may be said to suffer from the following defects. n In Str. 1, 3, 5, 7 and Ep. 1, 4, 5 he has to assume the existence of an extra single syllable at the beginning of the line. Since all attempts to defend ‘Anacrusis’ are extremely doubtful, this can hardly be maintained here. 2. The clausula of the Strophe cannot be reduced to Cretics or Paeons. 3. He has to admit that in Ep. 2 and 3 there is ‘some Trochaic movement’ and presumably he would have to admit that in Str. 3 there is either an Iambic, or, as he would prefer, a Trochaic movement with Anacrusis in ἤτοɩ πɩσα μεν. There is certainly some truth in Hardie's theory, but since it does not consider all the facts or co-ordinate them into a whole, it is not really satisfactory.

In the de Abstinentia book I chapters 7–12 Porphyry gives an account of the views of Hermarchus, the Epicurean, on abstinence from animal food. This account, which is presumably derived from Hermarchus' work on Empedocles, would seem to preserve his actual words, for in chapter 9 (p. 91, 22) the word γωγε is used where it must refer to Hermarchus. It would be exceedingly careless of Porphyry, if he were merely summarizing or paraphrasing, to leave this word as it stands. (On the view here maintained see the Additional Note at the end.)

Sidgwick describes this strophe as ‘locus corruptus, coniecturis nondum sanatus.’ Mazon, who prints απεύχεται in 1. 625, leaving the rest as it stands, says ‘texte douteux.’ Of the three principal attempts to amend or otherwise interpret it, that of Hermann (ed. 1852) is too radical and far-fetched, requiring an excessive parenthesis. That of Headlam (C.R. 1900, p. 196 f.) involves the strange theory that the chorus suddenly divides itself into two, and that one half indulges in a sort of disorderly interruption of the other. That of Wilamowitz (ed. maior, 1914), while leaving the worst textual difficulty to stand, supposes that the chorus accuses itself of weakness and subservience to Clytemnestra, which, in view of Wilamowitz's own convincing interpretation of the Parodos, is highly improbable.

In R. C. Flickinger's ‘Greek Theater and its Drama’ (3rd ed. second impression 1929) we read on pp. 171–2, ‘In the iambic trimeters written by Aeschylus a trisyllabic substitution (tribrach, anapaest or dactyl) for the pure disyllabic iambus occurs only once in about twenty-five verses.’ A similar statement is found in other earlier writers, e.g. Haigh (‘Tragic Drama of the Greeks’ 1896 p. 372). The authors of the error appear to have been Rossbach and Westphal, who are quoted with approval by J. Rumpel (Philologus XXIV (1866) p. 407), and subsequently repudiated by him (Phil. XXV (1867) p. 54). When Rumpel found that he had been misled, he counted for himself the trimeters and the trisyllabic feet in Aeschylus, but his results are of dubious value owing to the fact that he counts as ‘trimeters’ lines like;

δαίμονά τε τὰν ἂμαχον ἀπόλεμον ἀνίερον (Ag. 769) and

αὐτοϕόνα δίμορα τέλεα τάδε πάθη. τί ϕῶ; (Sept. 850).

Since Bentley's attack upon the Greek letters of Euripides and Phalaris, scholarship has been inclined to look with suspicion upon other similar compositions, which have for the most part lain under a cloud of doubt. This attitude of doubt was certainly to be found in the scholarship of last century, though there has been a tendency of late years to attempt to restore certain of these groups of letters to their original position as genuine productions of the writers whom they claim as their authors. Such has been the case with Plato's letters; such also is the case with those of M. Junius Brutus, the tyrannicide. Condemned last century by both Westermann and Marcks, they found in Rühl a clever and successful advocate, who stoutly refuted these attacks. His task was rendered less difficult, in that Marcks, who alone adduced arguments to support his thesis, had not gone deeply into his subject, and his reasoning, therefore, was superficial. But the subversion of Marcks' arguments did not of itself establish the authenticity of the letters, and the positive reasoning of Rühl was hardly less deficient than Marcks'. A fresh examination of these letters, therefore, may be pardoned, if the conclusions differ from those of Rühl.

The name of Democritus can claim a place in any discussion of indivisibles. Yet its introduction in this paper seems to depend on the lucus a non lucendo principle; for Democritus did not believe in the existence of indivisible lines. Nowhere is the belief ascribed to him and in at least one place it is implicitly denied, the scholion on De Caelo 268a 1, which says he made his elements indivisible solids, as contrasted with lines or surfaces. Two passages, one from Plutarch, the other from Simplicius, will show why he could not believe in indivisible lines.