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The use of gratia is common to all. The supine is found in but two, and is very likely due to the sources followed. The future part. expressing finality occurs but once, de Caess. 6, 3. The gerundive is not used in the de Caess. The last two of the works seem to be more nearly related to each other than to the first two, though this may be due to the utilization of common sources. The de Vir. Ill. and the Origo Gent. are akin in subject-matter and have about the same relative number of each form as might be expected, though there is a noticeable difference in the use of quo and the supine, and considerable difference in the use of gratia and of ut.

IV. SUMMARY.

The final table gives the number of occurrences for each of the writers, and also the per cent. of occurrences for each of the forms used to express finality. Owing to the mass of examples in Livy the average per cent. does not vary far from his, the widest divergence being in the case of ad. In some of the writers a low per cent. for one form is balanced by a high per cent. for another. This is the case with ad and causa in Caesar, ad and the supine in Sallust, ad and ut in Velleius, ad and the gen. and dat. of the ger. in Tacitus, and ut and quo in Tacitus. However, in the last seven on the list, a high per cent. of one form is balanced by a low per cent. for a number of the others. Some of the most marked deviations from the general average are to be found in the writers in which there are comparatively few occurrences. Rejecting half a dozen in which there are the fewest occurrences, in the remainder, the difference between the highest and the lowest per cent. is about .300 for ut, .250 for ad, .155 for qui, and .180 for quo. Causa with the ger. is not used by Curtius and Florus to express design, though the former has the nom. with the ger. 6, 11, 32; 7, 1, 39. After the time of Livy, the per cent. for the supine in the most important writers does not rise above .03, though Dict. Cret., one of the minor writers, has the largest per cent. of them all. The per cent. for quo, causa, supine, fut. part. and gerundive is nearly the same, yet more than four-fifths of the participles are to be found in four writers, and nearly one-half of them in one, Ammianus Marcellinus, though they occur in all but Caesar and Nepos. Attention has already been called to the usage of the different writers with reference to causa and gratia and of quo without a comparative. The examples given under each section

indicate the practical equivalence of the different forms, and variations from the general average can be well explained by differ

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Average,

.084 .294 .031 .074 .063

.065 .022 .022

.3258 .2928 .0961 .0636 .0555 .0507 .0507 .0465 .0160 .0031

.347 .021 .084

ences in subject-matter calling for the use of different verbs by the individual writers.

Of the writers examined, Sallust certainly shows the greatest freedom, especially in his later works. Instances of quo without a comparative, of the genitive of the ger. without causa, and of the future participle expressing design, are also rather common in Tacitus, but they appear in his works as the result of the influence of Sallust, and his only noticeable variation from other writers is his use of the dative of the gerund and gerundive, of which only a comparatively few examples occur in other writers. Some of the writers examined are so dependent on earlier sources that the usage of each is really the reflection of the usage of many writers, and the results are not really assignable to a single writer. The later writers show but few points of interest, the most interesting one being Dictys Cretensis, noticeable for his archaistic use of the supine, and of gratia instead of causa.

ILL. WESLEYAN UNIV., BLOOMIngton, Ill.

R. B. STEELE.

III-A PRE-VARRONIAN CHAPTER OF ROMAN LITERARY HISTORY.

The pre-eminence of Varro among the scholarly figures of Roman antiquity has undoubtedly led to an exaggerated estimate of the value of his methods and the significance of his results. But while the ever-advancing investigation of Roman literature reveals the hand of Varro in methods which are foolish and in results which are impossible, on the other hand it discloses equally his enormous superiority to the school of philological and antiquarian studies which he supplanted and out of which he came. This very pre-eminence has made the task of separating Varronian from pre-Varronian views one of the greatest difficulty; but obviously such a separation is of supreme importance, not only for a just estimate of Varro, but also for a real comprehension of the development of philological studies at Rome, and in the present paper it is my purpose to attempt to distinguish two strata in the history of these studies, which have hitherto been obscurely merged in each other or quite identified.

The beginnings of literary and grammatical studies at Rome are described by Suetonius in the interesting historical introduction to his treatise De grammaticis. After explaining that the earliest scholars were poets of foreign birth who only translated Greek writers or gave readings of their own compositions, he goes on to narrate how the first decisive impulse to these studies was derived from the lectures of Crates of Mallus, who came as an ambassador from King Attalus of Pergamon, very soon after the death of Ennius (169 B. C.),' ac nostris fuit exemplo ad imitandum: hactenus tamen imitati, ut carmina parum adhuc divolgata vel defunctorum amicorum vel si quorum aliorum probassent, diligentius retractarent ac legendo commentandoque et ceteris nota facerent. Thereupon follow several examples of the early editorial activity that was thus inaugurated,

1On the inaccurate statement of Suetonius, since the reign of Attalus II (Philadelphus) did not begin until 159 B. C., see Leo, Plautinische Forschungen, P. 29, note I.

the first of which will suffice for illustration, setting forth how C. Octavius Lampadio Naevii Punicum bellum, quod uno volumine et continenti scriptura expositum divisit in septem libros. That this division bears some relation to Crates' division of the Homeric poems is a not improbable conjecture,' and it will serve to illustrate the method of the literary study inaugurated by the example of Crates and the character of the 'imitation' of his Roman disciples. Although the words of Suetonius only make specific reference to editorial and interpretative studies (retractarent, legendo, commentando), we may confidently assume that the example of Crates afforded stimulus to the beginnings of literary history, aside from the elements of it which are implied in the preparation of the critical edition of antiquity, viz. the literary and historical introduction. For that Crates was the author of a treatise Tepi kwμodías at least (whether a separate work or an introduction to his commentary on Aristophanes) is quite certain, and his lectures would naturally have included such subjects as well as technical interpretation and criticism.

But the Romans were as yet still in leading strings in literature, and how far therefore removed from any naturally developed critical spirit, not to say sound method in its application, some of the products of these earlier Roman studies are eloquent witnesses. Perhaps a more childish example is not afforded than the arguments by which Accius demonstrated that Hesiod was older than Homer: quod Homerus, inquit, cum in principio carminis Achillem esse filium Pelei diceret, quis esset Peleus non addidit; quam rem procul dubio dixisset, nisi ab Hesiodo iam dictum videret, and a similar argument drawn from the monstrosity of the singleeyed Cyclops follows. Inasmuch as the chapter of Gellius (III II) which affords us this specimen of the philology of Accius begins and ends with Varro's treatment of the questions concerning the age and the birthplace of Homer, from the first book De imaginibus, it is quite certain that here, as elsewhere (III 3, 9: M. Varro in libro de comoediis Plautinis primo Accii verba haec ponit), Gellius owes his knowledge of the earlier critic to Varro himself, and that the passage of Accius was cited in the descriptive text of the Imagines to be refuted by the documentary

1 Hillscher, Hominum litteratorum etc. hist. crit., in Jhbb. für Phil., Supplementband XVIII (1892), p. 358, and cf. Susemihl, Gesch. d. gr. Lit., vol. II, p. 10 (note 50).

2 Cf. Wilamowitz, Herakles (ed. I), vol. I, p. 144 ff.

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