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From these originals, and from the numerous tribe of scholiasts and critics, some estimate may be formed of the literary wealth of the twelfth century: Constantinople was enlightened by the genius of Homer and Demosthenes, of Aristotle and Plato: and in the enjoyment or neglect of our present riches, we must envy the generation that could still peruse the history of Theopompus, the orations of Hyperides, the comedies of Menander, and the odes of Alcæus and Sappho.
According to Macrobius, Vergil paid him the compliment of imitating him, and he in turn is cited by the scholiasts as authority for an opinion of Vergil's.
The most important contribution to our knowledge on this subject which has been made in these recent years is the translation of the 'Library of the Fathers, by which it is about as rational to suppose that the analytical criticism of modern times can be superseded, as that the place of Herman and Dindorf could be supplied by an edition of the old scholiasts.
Nothing can be more obvious; the poet, being a man of imagination, not a professor, sees it all, and casually mentions that the son had the father's and the father had the son's shield. His audience, men of the sword, see the case as clearly as the poet does: only we moderns and the scholiasts, almost as modern as ourselves, are puzzled.
But in this the comparison between them runs, as the scholiasts call it, upon all-four; which, by the bye, is upon one or two legs more than some of the best of Homer's can pretend to; namely, That the one raises a sum, and the other a laugh at your expence, and thinks no more about it.
As a proof of this belief he speaks of the practice of burning and burying with the dead things appropriate to the needs of the living. Lucan, the Latin poet, in his Pharsalia, refers to the seclusion of the Druids' groves and to their doctrine of immortality. The Scholiasts' notes on this passage are after the manner of their kind, and add very little to our knowledge.
Matrimony, as reconstituted by fashionable scholiasts, comprises husband, wife, and, to relieve the tedium of the situation, a good-looking appendage of the male sex, who is an agreeable companion of the one and the devoted slave of the other. Each contributes to the harmony of the arrangement the husband, a background; the wife, the charms of her presence; the adorer, cash.
Now, suppose for a moment, that the works of Plato or Aristotle were to us in the place of the Scriptures; and that the question was, whether these works of theirs could be understood with certainty; it would prove nothing against our being able to understand them, if, whilst we look to them alone, another man were to say, that, to his judgment, the works of other philosophers were no less authoritative; or, if he were to insist upon it, that the interpretations given by the scholiasts were always sure to be correct, because the scholiasts were the authorized interpreters of the text.
The scholiasts merely babble. Let us follow again the sequence of events. With him in command were Meriones and five other young men less notable. They had supplies with them and whatever was needed: they cooked supper in bivouac. In the Doloneia the wakeful princes, after inspecting the advanced guard, go forward within view of the Trojan ranks and consult.
If the sixth Eclogue refers to Siro, as Servius holds, then Vergil and Gallus had long been literary associates before the first and ninth were written. The student of Vergil who has once compared the statements of the scholiasts with the historical facts at these few points, where they run parallel, will have little patience with the petty gossip which was elicited from the Eclogues.
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