Thirteen of Cicero’s speeches were found by him at Cluny and Langres, and elsewhere in France or Germany; the commentary of Asconius, a complete Quintilian, and a large part of Valerius Flaccus were discovered at St Gallen. A second expedition to that monastery and to others in the neighbourhood led to the recovery of Lucretius, Manilius, Silius Italicus and AmmianusMarcellinus, while theSilvaeof Statius were recovered shortly afterwards. A complete MS. of Cicero,De Oratore,BrutusandOrator, was found by Bishop Landriani at Lodi (1421). Cornelius Nepos was discovered by Traversari in Padua (1434). TheAgricola,GermaniaandDialogueof Tacitus reached Italy from Germany in 1455, and the early books of theAnnalsin 1508. Pliny’sPanegyricwas discovered by Aurispa at Mainz (1433), and his correspondence with Trajan by Fra Giocondo in Paris about 1500.
Greek MSS. were brought from the East by Aurispa, who in 1423 returned with no less than two hundred and thirty-eight, including the celebrated Laurentian MS. of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Apollonius Rhodius. A smaller number was brought from Constantinople by Filelfo (1427), while Quintus Smyrnaeus was discovered in south Italy by Bessarion, who presented his own collection of MSS. to the republic of Venice and thus led to the foundation of the library of St Mark’s (1468). As the emissary of Lorenzo, Janus Lascaris paid two visits to the East, returning from his second visit in 1492 with two hundred MSS. from Mount Athos.
The Renaissance theory of a humanistic education is illustrated by several treatises still extant. In 1392 Vergerio addressed to a prince of Padua the first treatise which methodically maintains the claims of Latin as an essential part of a liberal education. Eight years later, he was learning Greek from Chrysoloras. Among the most distinguished pupils of the latter was Leonardo Bruni, who, about 1405, wrote “the earliest humanistic tract on education expressly addressed to a lady.” He here urges that the foundation of all true learning is a “sound and thorough knowledge of Latin,” and draws up a course of reading, in which history is represented by Livy, Sallust, Curtius, and Caesar; oratory by Cicero; and poetry by Virgil. The same year saw the birth of Maffeo Vegio, whose early reverence for the muse of Virgil and whose later devotion to the memory of Monica have left their mark on the educational treatise which he wrote a few years before his death in 1458. The authors he recommends include “Aesop” and Sallust, the tragedies of Seneca and the epic poets, especially Virgil, whom he interprets in an allegorical sense. He is in favour of an early simultaneous study of a wide variety of subjects, to be followed later by the special study of one or two. Eight years before the death of Vegio, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II.) had composed a brief treatise on education in the form of a letter to Ladislaus, the young king of Bohemia and Hungary. The Latin poets to be studied include Virgil, Lucan, Statius, Ovid’sMetamorphoses, and (with certain limitations) Horace, Juvenal and Persius, as well as Plautus, Terence and the tragedies of Seneca; the prose authors recommended are Cicero, Livy and Sallust. The first great school of the Renaissance was that established by Vittorino da Feltre at Mantua, where he resided for the last twenty-two years of his life (1424-1446). Among the Latin authors studied were Virgil and Lucan, with selections from Horace, Ovid and Juvenal, besides Cicero and Quintilian, Sallust and Curtius, Caesar and Livy. The Greek authors were Homer, Hesiod, Pindar and the dramatists, with Herodotus, Xenophon and Plato, Isocrates and Demosthenes, Plutarch and Arrian.
Meanwhile, Guarino had been devoting five years to the training of the eldest son of the marquis of Ferrara. At Ferrara he spent the last thirty years of his long life (1370-1460), producing text-books of Greek and Latin grammar, and translations from Strabo and Plutarch. His method may be gathered from his son’s treatise,De Ordine Docendi et Studendi. In that treatise the essential marks of an educated person are, not only ability to write Latin verse, but also, a point of “at least equal importance,” “familiarity with the language and literature of Greece.” “Without a knowledge of Greek, Latin scholarship itself is, in any real sense, impossible” (1459).
By the fall of Constantinople in 1453, “Italy (in the eloquent phrase of Carducci) became sole heir and guardian of the ancient civilization,” but its fall was in no way necessary for the revival of learning, which had begun a century before. Bessarion, Theodorus Gaza, Georgius Trepezuntius, Argyropulus, Chalcondyles, all had reached Italy before 1453. A few more Greeks fled to Italy after that date, and among these were Janus Lascaris, Musurus and Callierges. All three were of signal service in devoting their knowledge of Greek to perpetuating and popularizing the Greek classics with the aid of the newly-invented art of printing. That art had been introduced into Italy by the German printers, Sweynheym and Pannartz, who had worked under Fust at Mainz. At Subiaco and at Rome they had produced in 1465-1471 the earliest editions of Cicero,De Oratoreand theLetters, and eight other Latin authors.
The printing of Greek began at Milan with the Greek grammar of Constantine Lascaris (1476). At Florence the earliest editions of Homer (1488) and Isocrates (1493) had been produced by Demetrius Chalcondyles, while Janus Lascaris was the first to edit the Greek anthology, Apollonius Rhodius, and parts of Euripides, Callimachus and Lucian (1494-1496). In 1494-1515 Aldus Manutius published at Venice no less than twenty-seveneditiones principesof Greek authors and of Greek works of reference, the authors including Aristotle, Theophrastus, Theocritus, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Sophocles, Herodotus, Euripides, Demosthenes (and the minor Attic orators), Pindar, Plato and Athenaeus. In producing Plato, Athenaeus and Aristophanes, the scholar-printer was largely aided by Musurus, who also edited the Aldine Pausanias (1516) and theEtymologicumprinted in Venice by another Greek immigrant, Callierges (1499).
The Revival of Learning in Italy ends with the sack of Rome (1527). Before 1525 the study of Greek had begun to decline in Italy, but meanwhile an interest in that language had been transmitted to the lands beyond the Alps.
In the study of Latin the principal aim of the Italian humanists was theimitationof the style of their classical models. In the case of poetry, this imitative spirit is apparent in Petrarch’sAfrica, and in the Latin poems of Politian, Pontano, Sannazaro, Vida and many others. Petrarch was not only the imitator of Virgil, who had been the leading name in Latin letters throughout the middle ages; it was the influence of Petrarch that gave a new prominence to Cicero. The imitation of Cicero was carried on with varying degrees of success by humanists such as Gasparino da Barzizza (d. 1431), who introduced a new style of epistolary Latin; by Paolo Cortesi, who discovered the importance of a rhythmical structure in the composition of Ciceronian prose (1490); and by the accomplished secretaries of Leo X., Bembo and Sadoleto. Both of these papal secretaries were mentioned in complimentary terms by Erasmus in his celebrated dialogue, theCiceronianus(1528), in which no less than one hundred and six Ciceronian scholars of all nations are briefly and brilliantly reviewed, the slavish imitation of Cicero denounced, and the law laid down that “to speak with propriety we must adapt ourselves to the age in which we live—an age that differs entirely from that of Cicero.” One of the younger Ciceronians criticized by Erasmus was Longolius, who had died at Padua in 1522. The cause of the Ciceronians was defended by the elder Scaliger in 1531 and 1536, and by Étienne Dolet in 1535, and the controversy was continued by other scholars down to the year 1610. Meanwhile, in Italy, a strict type of Ciceronianism was represented by Paulus Manutius (d. 1574), and a freer and more original form of Latinity by Muretus (d. 1585).
Before touching on the salient points in the subsequent centuries, in connexion with the leading nations of Europe, we may briefly note the cosmopolitan position of Erasmus (1466-1536), who, although he was a native of the Netherlands, was far more closely connected with France, England, Italy, Germany and Switzerland, than with the land of his birth. He was still a school-boy at Deventer when his high promise was recognized by Rudolf Agricola, “the first (says Erasmus) who brought from Italy some breath of a better culture.” Late in 1499 Erasmus spent some two months at Oxford, where he met Colet; it was in London that he met More and Linacre and Grocyn, who had already ceased to lecture at Oxford. At Paris, in 1500, he was fully conscious that “without Greek the amplestknowledge of Latin was imperfect”; and, during his three years in Italy (1506-1509), he worked quietly at Greek in Bologna and attended the lectures of Musurus in Padua. In October 1511 he was teaching Greek to a little band of students in Cambridge; at Basel in 1516 he produced his edition of the Greek Testament, the first that was actually published; and during the next few years he was helping to organize the college lately founded at Louvain for the study of Greek and Hebrew, as well as Latin. Seven years at Basel were followed by five at Freiburg, and by two more at Basel, where he died. The names of all these places are suggestive of the wide range of his influence. By his published works, hisColloquies, hisAdagesand hisApophthegms, he was the educator of the nations of Europe. An educational aim is also apparent in his editions of Terence and of Seneca, while his Latin translations made his contemporaries more familiar with Greek poetry and prose, and hisParaphrasepromoted a better understanding of the Greek Testament. He was not so much a scientific scholar as a keen and brilliant man of letters and a widely influential apostle of humanism.
In France the most effective of the early teachers of Greek was Janus Lascaris (1495-1503). Among his occasional pupils was Budaeus (d. 1540), who prompted Francis I.France.to found in 1530 the corporation of the Royal Readers in Greek, as well as Latin and Hebrew, afterwards famous under the name of the Collège de France. In the study of Greek one of the earliest links between Italy and Germany was Rudolf Agricola, who had learned Greek underGermany.Gaza at Ferrara. It was in Paris that his younger contemporary Reuchlin acquired part of that proficiency in Greek which attracted the notice of Argyropulus, whose admiration of Reuchlin is twice recorded by Melanchthon, who soon afterwards was pre-eminent as the “praeceptor” of Germany.
In the age of the revival the first Englishman who studied Greek was a Benedictine monk, William of Selling (d. 1494), who paid two visits to Italy. At Canterbury he inspired with his own love of learning his nephew,England.Linacre, who joined him on one of those visits, studied Greek at Florence under Politian and Chalcondyles, and apparently stayed in Italy from 1485 to 1499. His translation of a treatise of Galen was printed at Cambridge in 1521 by Siberch, who, in the same year and place, was the first to use Greek type in England. Greek had been first taught to some purpose at Oxford by Grocyn on his return from Italy in 1491. One of the younger scholars of the day was William Lilye, who picked up his Greek at Rhodes on his way to Palestine and became the first high-master of the school founded by Colet at St Paul’s (1510).
(b) That part of theModern Periodof classical studies which succeeds the age of the Revival in Italy may be subdivided into three periods distinguished by the names of the nations most prominent in each.
1. The first may be designated theFrenchperiod. It begins with the foundation of the Royal Readers by Francis I. in 1530, and it may perhaps be regarded as extending to 1700. This period is marked by a many-sidederuditionThe French period.rather than by any special cult of theformof the classical languages. It is the period of the great polyhistors of France. It includes Budaeus and the elder Scaliger (who settled in France in 1529), with Turnebus and Lambinus, and the learned printers Robertus and Henricus Stephanus, while among its foremost names are those of the younger (and greater) Scaliger, Casaubon and Salmasius. Of these, Casaubon ended his days in England (1614); Scaliger, by leaving France for the Netherlands in 1593, for a time at least transferred the supremacy in scholarship from the land of his birth to that of his adoption. The last sixteen years of his life (1593-1609) were spent at Leiden, which was also for more than twenty years (1631-1653) the home of Salmasius, and for thirteen (1579-1592) that of Lipsius (d. 1606). In the 17th century the erudition of France is best represented by “Henricus Valesius,” Du Cange and Mabillon. In the same period Italy was represented by Muretus, who had left France in 1563, and by her own sons, Nizolius, Victorius, Robortelli and Sigonius, followed in the 17th century by R. Fabretti. The Netherlands, in the 16th, claim W. Canter as well as Lipsius, and, in the 17th, G.J. Vossius, Johannes Meursius, the elder and younger Heinsius, Hugo Grotius, J.F. Gronovius, J.G. Graevius and J. Perizonius. Scotland, in the 16th, is represented by George Buchanan; England by Sir John Cheke, Roger Ascham, and Sir Henry Savile, and, in the 17th, by Thomas Gataker, Thomas Stanley, Henry Dodwell, and Joshua Barnes; Germany by Janus Gruter, Ezechiel Spanheim and Chr. Cellarius, the first two of whom were also connected with other countries.
We have already seen that a strict imitation of Cicero was one of the characteristics of the Italian humanists. In and after the middle of the 16th century a correct and pure Latinity was promoted by the educationalLiterary Latin.system of the Jesuits; but with the growth of the vernacular literatures Latin became more and more exclusively the language of the learned. Among the most conspicuous Latin writers of the 17th century are G.J. Vossius and the Heinsii, with Salmasius and his great adversary, Milton. Latin was also used in works on science and philosophy, such as Sir Isaac Newton’sPrincipia(1687), and many of the works of Leibnitz (1646-1705). In botany the custom followed by John Ray (1627-1705) in hisHistoria Plantarumand in other works was continued in 1760 by Linnaeus in hisSystema Naturae. The last important work in English theology written in Latin was George Bull’sDefensio Fidei Nicenae(1685). The use of Latin in diplomacy died out towards the end of the 17th century; but, long after that date negotiations with the German empire were conducted in Latin, and Latin was the language of the debates in the Hungarian diet down to 1825.
2. During the 18th century the classical scholarship of the Netherlands was under the healthy and stimulating influence of Bentley (1662-1742), who marks the beginning of the English and Dutch period, mainly representedThe English and Dutch period.in Holland by Bentley’s younger contemporary and correspondent, Tiberius Hemsterhuys (1685-1766), and the latter scholar’s great pupil David Ruhnken (1723-1798). It is the age of historical and literary, as well as verbal, criticism. Both of these were ably represented in the first half of the century by Bentley himself, while, in the twenty years between 1782 and 1803, the verbal criticism of the tragic poets of Athens was the peculiar province of Richard Porson (1759-1808), who was born in the same year as F.A. Wolf. Among other representatives of England were Jeremiah Markland and Jonathan Toup, Thomas Tyrwhitt and Thomas Twining, Samuel Parr and Sir William Jones; and of the Netherlands, the two Burmanns and L. Küster, Arnold Drakenborch and Wesseling, Lodewyk Valckenaer and Daniel Wyttenbach (1746-1829). Germany is represented by Fabricius and J.M. Gesner, J.A. Ernesti and J.J. Reiske, J.J. Winckelmann and Chr. G. Heyne; France by B. de Montfaucon and J.B.G.D. Villoison; Alsace by French subjects of German origin, R.F.P. Brunck and J. Schweighäuser; and Italy by E. Forcellini and Ed. Corsini.
3. TheGermanperiod begins with F.A. Wolf (1759-1824), whoseProlegomenato Homer appeared in 1795. He is the founder of the systematic and encyclopaedic type of scholarship embodied in the comprehensive termThe German period.Altertumswissenschaft, or “a scientific knowledge of the old classical world.” The tradition of Wolf was ably continued by August Böckh (d. 1867), one of the leaders of the historical and antiquarian school, brilliantly represented in the previous generation by B.G. Niebuhr (d. 1831).
In contrast with this school we have the critical and grammatical school of Gottfried Hermann (d. 1848). During this period, while Germany remains the most productive of the nations, scholarship has been more and more international and cosmopolitan in its character.
19th Century.—We must here be content with simply recording the names of a few of the more prominent representatives ofthe 19th century in some of the most obvious departments of classical learning. Among natives of Germany the leadingGermany.scholars have been, inGreek, C.F.W. Jacobs, C.A. Lobeck, L. Dissen, I. Bekker, A. Meineke, C. Lehrs, W. Dindorf, T. Bergk, F.W. Schneidewin, H. Köchly, A. Nauck, H. Usener, G. Kaibel, F. Blass and W. Christ; inLatin, C. Lachmann, F. Ritschl, M. Haupt, C. Halm, M. Hertz, A. Fleckeisen, E. Bährens, L. Müller and O. Ribbeck.Grammarand kindred subjects have been represented by P. Buttmann, A. Matthiae, F.W. Thiersch, C.G. Zumpt, G. Bernhardy, C.W. Krüger, R. Kühner and H.L. Ahrens; andlexicographyby F. Passow and C.E. Georges. Among editors ofThucydideswe have had E.F. Poppo and J. Classen; among editors ofDemosthenes or other orators, G.H. Schäfer, J.T. Vömel, G.E. Benseler, A. Westermann, G.F. Schömann, H. Sauppe, and C. Rehdantz (besides Blass, already mentioned). ThePlatonistsinclude F. Schleiermacher, G.A.F. Ast, G. Stallbaum and the many-sided C.F. Hermann; theAristotelians, C.A. Brandis, A. Trendelenburg, L. Spengel, H. Bonitz, C. Prantl, J. Bernays and F. Susemihl. The history ofGreek philosophywas written by F. Ueberweg, and, more fully, by E. Zeller.Greek historywas the domain of G. Droysen, Max Duncker, Ernst Curtius, Arnold Schäfer and Adolf Holm;Greek antiquitiesthat of M.H. Meier and G.F. Schömann and of G. Gilbert;Greek epigraphythat of J. Franz, A. Kirchhoff, W. von Hartel, U. Köhler, G. Hirschfeld and W. Dittenberger;Roman history and constitutional antiquitiesthat of Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903), who was associated inLatin epigraphywith E. Hübner and W. Henzen.Classical art and archaeologywere represented by F.G. Welcker, E. Gerhard, C.O. Müller, F. Wieseler, O. Jahn, C.L. Urlichs, H. Brunn, C.B. Stark, J. Overbeck, W. Helbig, O. Benndorf and A. Furtwängler;mythology(with cognate subjects) by G.F. Creuzer, P.W. Forchhammer, L. Preller, A. Kuhn, J.W. Mannhardt and E. Rohde; andcomparative philologyby F. Bopp, A.F. Pott, T. Benfey, W. Corssen, Georg Curtius, A. Schleicher and H. Steinthal. The history ofclassical philologyin Germany was written by Conrad Bursian (1830-1883).
In France we have J.F. Boissonade, J.A. Letronne, L.M. Quicherat, M.P. Littré, B. Saint-Hilaire, J.V. Duruy, B.E. Miller, É. Egger, C.V. Daremberg, C. Thurot, L.E.France,Benoist, O. Riemann and C. Graux; (in archaeology) A.C. Quatremère de Quincy, P. le Bas, C.F.M. Texier, the duc de Luynes, the Lenormants (C. and F.), W.H. Waddington and O. Rayet; and (in comparative philology) VictorBelgium, Holland,Henry. Greece was ably represented in France by A. Koraes. In Belgium we have P. Willems and the Baron De Witte (long resident in France); in Holland, C.G. Cobet; in Denmark, J.N. Madvig. Among the scholars of Great Britain and Ireland may be mentioned:England.P. Elmsley, S. Butler, T. Gaisford, P.P. Dobree, J.H. Monk, C.J. Blomfield, W. Veitch, T.H. Key, B.H. Kennedy, W. Ramsay, T.W. Peile, R. Shilleto, W.H. Thompson, J.W. Donaldson, Robert Scott, H.G. Liddell, C. Badham, G. Rawlinson, F.A. Paley, B. Jowett, T.S. Evans, E.M. Cope, H.A.J. Munro, W.G. Clark, Churchill Babington, H.A. Holden, J. Riddell, J. Conington, W.Y. Sellar, A. Grant, W.D. Geddes, D.B. Monro, H. Nettleship, A. Palmer, R.C. Jebb, A.S. Wilkins, W.G. Rutherford and James Adam; among historians and archaeologists, W.M. Leake, H. Fynes-Clinton, G. Grote and C. Thirlwall, T. Arnold, G. Long and Charles Merivale, Sir Henry Maine, Sir Charles Newton and A.S. Murray, Robert Burn and H.F. Pelham. Among comparative philologists Max Müller belonged to Germany by birth and to England by adoption, while, in the United States, his ablest counterpart was W.D. Whitney. B.L. Gildersleeve, W.W. Goodwin, Henry Drisler, J.B. Greenough and G.M. Lane were prominent American classical scholars.
The 19th century in Germany was marked by the organization of the great series of Greek and Latin inscriptions, and by the foundation of the Archaeological Institute in Rome (1829), which was at first international in its character. The Athenian Institute was founded in 1874. Schools at Athens and Rome were founded by France in 1846 and 1873, by the United States of America in 1882 and 1895, and by England in 1883 and 1901;Schools of Rome and Athens.and periodicals are published by the schools of all these four nations. An interest in Greek studies (and especially in art and archaeology) has been maintained in England by the Hellenic Society, founded in 1879, with its organ theJournal of Hellenic Studies. A further interest in Greek archaeology has been awakened in all civilized lands by the excavations of Troy, Mycenae, Tiryns, Epidaurus, Sparta, Olympia, Dodona, Delphi, Delos and of important sites in Crete. The extensive discoveries of papyri in Egypt have greatly extended our knowledge of the administration of that country in the times of the Ptolemies, and have materially added to the existing remains of Greek literature. Scholars have been enabled to realize in their own experience some of the enthusiasm that attended the recovery of lost classics during the Revival of Learning. They have found themselves living in a new age ofeditiones principes, and have eagerly welcomed the first publication of Aristotle’sConstitution of Athens(1891), Herondas (1891) and Bacchylides (1897), as well as thePersaeof Timotheus of Miletus (1903), with some of thePaeansof Pindar (1907) and large portions of the plays of Menander (1898-1899 and 1907). The first four of these were first edited by F.G. Kenyon, Timotheus by von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, Menander partly by J. Nicole and G. Lefebre and partly by B.P. Grenfell and A.S. Hunt, who have also produced fragments of thePaeansof Pindar and many other classic texts (including a Greek continuation of Thucydides and a Latin epitome of part of Livy) in the successive volumes of theOxyrhynchus papyriand other kindred publications.
Authorities.—For a full bibliography of the history of classical philology, see E. Hübner,Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Geschichte und Encyklopädie der klassischen Philologie(2nd ed., 1889); and for a brief outline, C.L. Urlichs in Iwan von Müller’sHandbuch, vol. i. (2nd ed., 1891). 33-145; S. Reinach,Manuel de philologie classique(2nd ed., 1883-1884;nouveau tirage1907), 1-22; and A. Gudemann,Grundris(Leipzig, 1907), pp. 224 seq. For the Alexandrian period, F. Susemihl,Gesch. der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit(2 vols., 1891-1892); cf. F.A. Eckstein,Nomenclator Philologorum(1871), and W. Pökel,Philologisches Schriftsteller-Lexikon(1882). For the period endingA.D.400, see A. Gräfenhan,Gesch. der klass. Philologie(4 vols., 1843-1850); for the Byzantine period, C. Krumbacher in Iwan von Müller, vol. ix. (1) (2nd ed., 1897); for the Renaissance, G. Voigt,Die Wiederbelebung des class. Altertums(3rd ed., 1894, with bibliography); L. Geiger,Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien und Deutschland(1882, with bibliography); J.A. Symonds,Revival of Learning(1877, &c.); R.C. Jebb, inCambridge Modern History, i. (1902), 532-584; and J.E. Sandys,Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning(1905); also P. de Nolhac,Pétrarque et l’humanisme(2nd ed., 1907). On the history of Greek scholarship in France, É. Egger,L’Histoire d’hellénisme en France(1869); Mark Pattison,Essays, i., andLife of Casaubon; in Germany, C. Bursian,Gesch. der class. Philologie in Deutschland(1883); in Holland, L. Müller,Gesch. der class. Philologie in den Niederlanden(1869); in Belgium, L.C. Roersch in E.P. van Bemmel’sPatria Belgica, vol. iii. (1875), 407-432; and in England, R.C. Jebb, “Erasmus” (1890) and “Bentley” (1882), and “Porson” (inDict. Nat. Biog.). On the subject as a whole see J.E. Sandys,History of Classical Scholarship(with chronological tables, portraits and facsimiles), vol. i.;From the Sixth CenturyB.C.to the end of the Middle Ages(1903, 2nd ed., 1906); vols. ii. and iii.,From the Revival of Learning to the Present Day(1908), including the history of scholarship in all the countries of Europe and in the United States of America. See also the separate biographical articles in this Encyclopaedia.
Authorities.—For a full bibliography of the history of classical philology, see E. Hübner,Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Geschichte und Encyklopädie der klassischen Philologie(2nd ed., 1889); and for a brief outline, C.L. Urlichs in Iwan von Müller’sHandbuch, vol. i. (2nd ed., 1891). 33-145; S. Reinach,Manuel de philologie classique(2nd ed., 1883-1884;nouveau tirage1907), 1-22; and A. Gudemann,Grundris(Leipzig, 1907), pp. 224 seq. For the Alexandrian period, F. Susemihl,Gesch. der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit(2 vols., 1891-1892); cf. F.A. Eckstein,Nomenclator Philologorum(1871), and W. Pökel,Philologisches Schriftsteller-Lexikon(1882). For the period endingA.D.400, see A. Gräfenhan,Gesch. der klass. Philologie(4 vols., 1843-1850); for the Byzantine period, C. Krumbacher in Iwan von Müller, vol. ix. (1) (2nd ed., 1897); for the Renaissance, G. Voigt,Die Wiederbelebung des class. Altertums(3rd ed., 1894, with bibliography); L. Geiger,Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien und Deutschland(1882, with bibliography); J.A. Symonds,Revival of Learning(1877, &c.); R.C. Jebb, inCambridge Modern History, i. (1902), 532-584; and J.E. Sandys,Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning(1905); also P. de Nolhac,Pétrarque et l’humanisme(2nd ed., 1907). On the history of Greek scholarship in France, É. Egger,L’Histoire d’hellénisme en France(1869); Mark Pattison,Essays, i., andLife of Casaubon; in Germany, C. Bursian,Gesch. der class. Philologie in Deutschland(1883); in Holland, L. Müller,Gesch. der class. Philologie in den Niederlanden(1869); in Belgium, L.C. Roersch in E.P. van Bemmel’sPatria Belgica, vol. iii. (1875), 407-432; and in England, R.C. Jebb, “Erasmus” (1890) and “Bentley” (1882), and “Porson” (inDict. Nat. Biog.). On the subject as a whole see J.E. Sandys,History of Classical Scholarship(with chronological tables, portraits and facsimiles), vol. i.;From the Sixth CenturyB.C.to the end of the Middle Ages(1903, 2nd ed., 1906); vols. ii. and iii.,From the Revival of Learning to the Present Day(1908), including the history of scholarship in all the countries of Europe and in the United States of America. See also the separate biographical articles in this Encyclopaedia.
(B) The Study of the Classics in Secondary Education
After the Revival of Learning the study of the classics owed much to the influence and example of Vittorino da Feltre, Budacus, Erasmus and Melanchthon, who were among the leading representatives of that revival in Italy, France, England and Germany.
1. InEngland, the two great schools of Winchester (1382) and Eton (1440) had been founded during the life of Vittorino, but before the revival had reached Britain. The first school2which came into being under the immediateEngland.influence of humanism was that founded at St Paul’s by DeanColet (1510), the friend of Erasmus, whose treatiseDe pueris instituendis(1529) has its English counterpart in theGovernorof Sir Thomas Elyot (1531). The highmaster of St Paul’s was to be “learned in good and clean Latin, and also in Greek, if such may be gotten.” The master and the second master of Shrewsbury (founded 1551) were to be “well able to make a Latin verse, and learned in the Greek tongue.” The influence of the revival extended to many other schools, such as Christ’s Hospital (1552), Westminster (1560), and Merchant Taylors’ (1561); Repton (1557), Rugby (1567) and Harrow (1571).
At the grammar school of Stratford-on-Avon, about 1571-1577, Shakespeare presumably studied Terence, Horace, Ovid and theBucolicsof Baptista Mantuanus (1502). In the early plays he quotes Ovid and Seneca. Similarly,Shakespeare and the grammar-school.inTitus Andronicus(iv. 2) he says, ofInteger vitae: “’Tis a verse in Horace; I know it well: I read it in the grammar long ago.” InHenry VI.part ii. sc. 7, when Jack Cade charges Lord Say with having “most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school,” Lord Say replies that “ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.” In theTaming of the Shrew(I. i. 157) a line is quoted as from Terence (Andria, 74): “redime te captum quam queas minimo.” This is takenverbatimfrom Lilye’s contribution to theBrevis Institutio, originally composed by Colet, Erasmus and Lilye forEarly text-books.St Paul’s School (1527), and ultimately adopted as theEton Latin Grammar. TheWestminster Greek Grammarof Grant (1575) was succeeded by that of Camden (1595), founded mainly on a Paduan text-book, and apparently adopted in 1596 by Sir Henry Savile at Eton, where it long remained in use as theEton Greek Grammar, while at Westminster itself it was superseded by that of Busby (1663). The text-books to be used at Harrow in 1590 included Hesiod and some of the Greek orators and historians.
In one of thePaston Letters(i. 301), an Eton boy of 1468 quotes two Latin verses of his own composition. Nearly a century later, on New Year’s Day, 1560, forty-four boys of the school presented Latin verses to Queen Elizabeth. The queen’sAscham.former tutor, Roger Ascham, in hisScholemaster(1570), agrees with his Strassburg friend, J. Sturm, in making the imitation of the Latin classics the main aim of instruction. He is more original when he insists on the value of translation and retranslation for acquiring a mastery over Latin prose composition, and when he protests against compelling boys to converse in Latin too soon. Ascham’s influence is apparent in thePositionsof Mulcaster, who in 1581 insists on instruction in English before admission to a grammar-school, while he is distinctly in advance of his age in urging the foundation of a special college for the training of teachers.
Cleland’sInstitution of a Young Nobleman(1607) owes much to the Italian humanists. The author follows Ascham in protesting against compulsory Latin conversation, and only slightly modifies his predecessor’s method of teachingCleland.Latin prose. When Latin grammar has been mastered, he bids the teacher lead his pupil “into the sweet fountain and spring of all Arts and Science,” that is, Greek learning which is “as profitable for the understanding as the Latin tongue for speaking.” In the study of ancient history, “deeds and not words” are the prime interest. “In Plutarch pleasure is so mixed and confounded with profit; that I esteem the reading of him as a paradise for a curious spirit to walk in at all time.” Bacon in hisAdvancement of Learning(1605) notes it as “the first distemper of learning when men study words and not matter” (I. iv. 3); he also observes that the Jesuits “have muchBacon, Milton, Petty.quickened and strengthened the state of learning” (I. vi. 15). He is on the side of reform in education; he waves the humanist aside with the words:vetustas cessit, ratio vicit. Milton, in hisTractate on Education(1644), advances further on Bacon’s lines, protesting against the length of time spent on instruction in language, denouncing merely verbal knowledge, and recommending the study of a large number of classical authors for the sake of their subject-matter, and with a view to their bearing on practical life. His ideal place of education is an institution combining a school and a university. Sir William Petty, the economist (1623-1687), urged the establishment ofergastula literariafor instruction of a purely practical kind. Locke, who had been educatedLocke.at Winchester and had lectured on Greek at Oxford (1660), nevertheless almost completely eliminated Greek from the scheme which he unfolded in hisThoughts on Education(1693). With Locke, the moral and practical qualities of virtue and prudence are of the first consideration. Instruction, he declares, is but the least part of education; his aim is to train, not men of letters or men of science, but practical men armed for the battle of life. Latin was, above all, to be learned through use, with as little grammar as possible, but with the reading of easy Latin texts, and with no repetition, no composition. Greek he absolutely proscribes, reserving a knowledge of that language to the learned and the lettered, and to professional scholars.
Throughout the 18th century and the early part of the 19th, the old routine went on in England with little variety, and with no sign of expansion. The range of studies was widened, however, at Rugby in 1828-1842 by ThomasArnold.Arnold, whose interest in ancient history and geography, as a necessary part of classical learning, is attested by his edition of Thucydides; while his influence was still further extended when those who had been trained in his traditions became head masters of other schools.
During the rest of the century the leading landmarks are the three royal commissions known by the names of their chairmen: (1) Lord Clarendon’s on nine public schools, Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury, St Paul’s and Merchant Taylors’ (1861-1864), resulting in the Public Schools Act of 1868; (2) Lord Taunton’s on 782 endowed schools (1864-1867), followed by the act of 1869; and (3) Mr Bryce’s on secondary education (1894-1895).
A certain discontent with the current traditions of classical training found expression in theEssays on a Liberal Education(1867). The author of the first essay, C.S. Parker, closed his review of the reforms instituted in GermanyControversy on classical education.and France by adding that in England there had been but little change. The same volume included a critical examination of the “Theory of Classical Education” by Henry Sidgwick, and an attack on compulsory Greek and Latin verse composition by F.W. Farrar. The claims of verse composition have since been judiciously defended by the Hon. Edward Lyttelton (1897), while a temperate and effective restatement of the case for the classics may be found in Sir Richard Jebb’s Romanes Lecture on “Humanism in Education” (1899).
The question of the position of Greek in secondary education has from time to time attracted attention in connexion with the requirement of Greek in Responsions at Oxford, and in the Previous Examination at Cambridge.
In theCambridge University Reporterfor November 9, 1870, it was stated that, “in order to provide adequate encouragement for the study of Modern Languages and Natural Science,” the commissioners for endowed schools had“Compulsory Greek.”determined on the establishment of modern schools of the first grade in which Greek would be excluded. The commissioners feared that, so long as Greek was asine qua nonat the universities, these schools would be cut off from direct connexion with the universities, while the universities would in some degree lose their control over a portion of the higher culture of the nation. On the 9th of March 1871 a syndicate recommended that, in the Previous Examination, French and German (taken together) should be allowed in place of Greek; on the 27th of April this recommendation (which only affected candidates for honours or for medical degrees) was rejected by 51 votes to 48.
All the other proposals and votes relating to Greek in the Previous Examination in 1870-1873, 1878-1880, and 1891-1892 are set forth in theCambridge University Reporterfor November 11, 1904, pp. 202-205. In November 1903 a syndicate wasappointed to consider the studies and examinations of the university, their report of November 1904 on the Previous Examination was fully discussed, and the speeches published in theReporterfcr December 17, 1904. In the course of the discussion Sir Richard Jebb drew attention to the statistics collected by the master of Emmanuel, Mr W. Chawner, showing that, out of 86 head masters belonging to the Head Masters’ Conference whose replies had been published, “about 56 held the opinion that the exemption from Greek for all candidates for a degree would endanger or altogether extinguish the study of Greek in the vast majority of schools, while about 21 head masters held a different opinion.” On the 3rd of March 1905 a proposal for accepting either French or German as an alternative for either Latin or Greek in the Previous Examination was rejected by 1559 to 1052 votes, and on the 26th of May 1906 proposals distinguishing between students in letters and students in science, and (inter alia)requiringthe latter to take either French or German for either Latin or Greek in the Previous Examination, were rejected by 746 to 241.
Meanwhile, at Oxford a proposal practically making Greek optional with all undergraduates was rejected, in November 1902, by 189 votes to 166; a preliminary proposal permitting students of mathematics or natural science to offer one or more modern languages in lieu of Greek was passed by 164 to 162 in February 1904, but on the 29th of November the draft of a statute to this effect was thrown out by 200 to 164. In the course of the controversy three presidents of the Royal Society, Lord Kelvin, Lord Lister and Sir W. Huggins, expressed the opinion that the proposed exemption was not beneficial to science students.
Incidentally, the question of “compulsory Greek” has stimulated a desire for greater efficiency in classical teaching. In December 1903, a year before the most important of the public discussions at Cambridge, the ClassicalThe Classical Association.Association was founded in London. The aim of that association is “to promote the development, and maintain the well-being, of classical studies, and in particular (a) to impress upon public opinion the claim of such studies to an eminent place in the national scheme of education; (b) to improve the practice of classical teaching by free discussion of its scope and methods; (c) to encourage investigation and call attention to new discoveries; (d) to create opportunities of friendly intercourse and co-operation between all lovers of classical learning in this country.”
The question of the curriculum and the time-table in secondary education has occupied the attention of the Classical Association, the British Association and the Education Department of Scotland. The general effect of the recommendationsThe curriculum.already made would be to begin the study of foreign languages with French, and to postpone the study of Latin to the age of twelve and that of Greek to the age of thirteen. At the Head Masters’ Conference of December 1907 a proposal to lower the standard of Greek in the entrance scholarship examinations of public schools was lost by 10 votes to 16, and the “British Association report” was adopted with reservations in 1908. In the case of secondary schools in receipt of grants of public money (about 700 in England and 100 in Wales in 1907-1908), “the curriculum, and time-table must be approved by the Board of Education.” The Board has also a certain control over the curriculum of schools under the Endowed Schools Acts and the Charitable Trusts Acts, and also over that of schools voluntarily applying for inspection with a view to being recognized as efficient.
Further efficiency in classical education has been the aim of the movement in favour of the reform of Latin pronunciation. In 1871 this movement resulted in Munro and Palmer’sSyllabus of Latin Pronunciation. The reform wasReform in Latin pronunciation.carried forward at University College, London, by Professor Key and by Professor Robinson Ellis in 1873, and was accepted at Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Liverpool College, Christ’s Hospital, Dulwich, and the City of London school. It was taken up anew by the Cambridge Philological Society in 1886, by the Modern Languages Association in 1901, by the Classical Association in 1904-1905, and the Philological Societies of Oxford and Cambridge in 1906. The reform was accepted by the various bodies of head masters and assistant masters in December 1906-January 1907, and the proposed scheme was formally approved by the Board of Education in February 1907.
See W.H. Woodward,Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance(1906), chap. xiii.; Acland and Llewellin Smith,Studies in Secondary Education, with introduction by James Bryce (1892);Essays on a Liberal Education, ed. F.W. Farrar (1867); R.C. Jebb, “Humanism in Education,” Romanes Lecture of 1899, reprinted with other lectures on cognate subjects inEssays and Addresses(1907); Foster Watson,The Curriculum and Practice of the English Grammar Schools up to 1660(1908); “Greek at Oxford,” by a Resident, inThe Times(December 27, 1904);Cambridge University Reporter(November 11 and December 17, 1904);British Association Report on Curricula of Secondary Schools(with an independent paper by Professor Armstrong on “The Teaching of Classics”), (December 1907); W.H.D. Rouse inThe Year’s Work in Classical Studies(1907 and 1908), chap. i.; J.P. Postgate,How to pronounce Latin(Appendix B, on “Recent Progress”), (1907). For further bibliographical details see pp. 875-890 of Dr Karl Breul’s “Grossbritannien” in Baumeister’sHandbuch, I. ii. 737-892 (Munich, 1897).
See W.H. Woodward,Studies in Education during the Age of the Renaissance(1906), chap. xiii.; Acland and Llewellin Smith,Studies in Secondary Education, with introduction by James Bryce (1892);Essays on a Liberal Education, ed. F.W. Farrar (1867); R.C. Jebb, “Humanism in Education,” Romanes Lecture of 1899, reprinted with other lectures on cognate subjects inEssays and Addresses(1907); Foster Watson,The Curriculum and Practice of the English Grammar Schools up to 1660(1908); “Greek at Oxford,” by a Resident, inThe Times(December 27, 1904);Cambridge University Reporter(November 11 and December 17, 1904);British Association Report on Curricula of Secondary Schools(with an independent paper by Professor Armstrong on “The Teaching of Classics”), (December 1907); W.H.D. Rouse inThe Year’s Work in Classical Studies(1907 and 1908), chap. i.; J.P. Postgate,How to pronounce Latin(Appendix B, on “Recent Progress”), (1907). For further bibliographical details see pp. 875-890 of Dr Karl Breul’s “Grossbritannien” in Baumeister’sHandbuch, I. ii. 737-892 (Munich, 1897).
2. InFranceit was mainly with a view to promoting the study of Greek that the corporation of Royal Readers was founded by Francis I. in 1530 at the prompting of Budaeus. In the university of Paris, which wasFrance.originally opposed to this innovation, the statutes of 1598 prescribed the study of Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Theocritus, Plato, Demosthenes and Isocrates (as well as the principal Latin classics), and required the production of three exercises in Greek or Latin in each week.
From the middle of the 16th century the elements of Latin were generally learned from unattractive abridgments of the grammar of the Flemish scholar, van Pauteren or Despautère (d. 1520), which, in its original folioTextbooks.editions of 1537-1538, was an excellent work. The unhappy lot of those who were compelled to learn their Latin from the current abridgments was lamented by a Port-Royalist in a striking passage describing the gloomy forest ofle pays de Despautère(Guyot, quoted in Sainte-Beuve’sPort-Royal, iii. 429). The first Latin grammar written in French was that of Père de Condren of theOratoire(c. 1642), which was followed by the Port-RoyalMéthode latineof Claude Lancelot (1644), and by the grammar composed by Bossuet for the dauphin, and also used by Fénelon for the instruction of the duc de Bourgogne. In the second half of the 17th century the rules of grammar and rhetoric were simplified, and the time withdrawn from the practice of composition (especially verse composition) transferred to the explanation and the study of authors.
Richelieu, in 1640, formed a scheme for a college in which Latin was to have a subordinate place, while room was to be found for the study of history and science, Greek, and French and modern languages. Bossuet, in educatingRichelieu, Bossuet, Fénelon, Fleury.the dauphin, added to the ordinary classical routine represented by the extensive series of the “Delphin Classics” the study of history and of science. A greater originality in the method of teaching the ancient languages was exemplified by Fénelon, whose views were partially reflected by the Abbé Fleury, who also desired the simplification of grammar, the diminution of composition, and even the suppression of Latin verse. Of the ordinary teaching of Greek in his day, Fleury wittily observed that most boys “learned just enough of that language to have a pretext for saying for the rest of their lives that Greek was a subject easily forgotten.”
In the 18th century Rollin, in hisTraité des études(1726), agreed with the Port-Royalists in demanding that Latin grammars should be written in French, that the rules should be simplified and explained by a sufficientRollin.number of examples, and that a more important place should be assigned to translation than to composition. The supremacy of Latin was the subject of a long series of attacks in the same century. Even at the close of the previous century the brilliant achievements of French literature had prompted La Bruyèreto declare inDes ouvrages de l’esprit(about 1680), “We have at last thrown off the yoke ofLatinism”; and, in the same year, Jacques Spon claimed in his correspondence the right to use the French language in discussing points of archaeology.
Meanwhile, in 1563, notwithstanding the opposition of the university of Paris, the Jesuits had succeeded in founding theCollegium Claromontanum. After the accession of Henry IV. they were expelled from Paris and otherThe Jesuits.important towns in 1594, and not allowed to return until 1609, when they found themselves confronted once more by their rival, the university of Paris. They opened the doors of their schools to the Greek and Latin classics, but they represented the ancient masterpieces dissevered from their original historic environment, as impersonal models of taste, as isolated standards of style. They did much, however, for the cultivation of original composition modelled on Cicero and Virgil. They have been charged with paying an exaggerated attention to form, and with neglecting the subject-matter of the classics. This neglect is attributed to their anxiety to avoid the “pagan” element in the ancient literature. Intensely conservative in their methods, they kept up the system of using Latin in their grammars (and in their oral instruction) long after it had been abandoned by others.
The use of French for these purposes was a characteristic of the “Little Schools” of the Jansenists of Port-Royal(1643-1660). The text-books prepared for them by Lancelot included not only the above-mentioned Latin grammar (1644)Port-Royal.but also theMéthode grecqueof 1655 and theJardin des racines grecques(1657), which remained in use for two centuries and largely superseded the grammar of Clenardus (1636) and theTirociniumof Père Labbe (1648). Greek began to decline in the university about 1650, at the very time when the Port-Royalists were aiming at its revival. During the brief existence of their schools their most celebrated pupils were Tillemont and Racine.
The Jesuits, on the other hand, claimed Corneille and Molière, as well as Descartes and Bossuet, Fontenelle, Montesquieu and Voltaire. Of their Latin poets the best-known were Denis Petau (d. 1652), René Rapin (d. 1687) and N.E. Sanadon (d. 1733). In 1762 the Jesuits were suppressed, and more than one hundred schools were thus deprived of their teachers. The university of Paris, which had prompted their suppression, and the parliament, which had carried it into effect, made every endeavour to replace them. The university took possession of theCollegium Claromontanum, then known as theCollège Louis-le-Grand, and transformed it into anécole normale. Many of the Jesuit schools were transferred to the congregations of theOratoireand the Benedictines, and to the secular clergy. On the eve of the Revolution, out of a grand total of 562 classical schools, 384 were in the hands of the clergy and 178 in those of the congregations.
The expulsion of the Jesuits gave a new impulse to the attacks directed against all schemes of education in which Latin held a prominent position. At the moment when the university of Paris was, by the absence of its rivals,Classical education attacked.placed in complete control of the education of France, she found herself driven to defend the principles of classical education against a crowd of assailants. All kinds of devices were suggested for expediting the acquisition of Latin; grammar was to be set aside; Latin was to be learned as a “living language”; much attention was to be devoted to acquiring an extensive vocabulary; and, “to save time,” composition was to be abolished. To facilitate the reading of Latin texts, the favourite method was the use of interlinear translations, originally proposed by Locke, first popularized in France by Dumarsais (1722), and in constant vogue down to the time of the Revolution.
Early in the 18th century Rollin pleaded for the “utility of Greek,” while he described that language as the heritage of the university of Paris. In 1753 Berthier feared that in thirty years no one would be able to read Greek. In 1768 Rolland declared that the university, which held Greek in high honour, nevertheless had reason to lament that her students learnt little of the language, and he traced this decline to the fact that attendance at lectures had ceased to be compulsory. Greek, however, was still recognized as part of the examination held for the appointment of schoolmasters.
During the 18th century, in Greek as well as in Latin, the general aim was to reach the goal as rapidly as possible, even at the risk of missing it altogether. On the eve of the Revolution, France was enjoying the study of theEve of the Revolution.institutions of Greece in the attractive pages of theVoyage du jeune Anacharsis(1789), but the study of Greek was menaced even more than that of Latin. For fifty years before the Revolution there was a distinct dissatisfaction with the routine of the schools. To meet that dissatisfaction, the teachers had accepted new subjects of study, had improved their methods, and had simplified the learning of the dead languages. But even this was not enough. In the study of the classics, as in other spheres, it was revolution rather than evolution that was loudly demanded.
The Revolution was soon followed by the long-continued battle of the “Programmes.” Under the First Republic the schemes of Condorcet (April 1792) and J. Lakanal (February 1795) were superseded by that of P.C.F.First Republic.Daunou (October 1795), which divided the pupils of the “central schools” into three groups, according to age, with corresponding subjects of study: (1) twelve to fourteen,—drawing, natural history, Greek and Latin, and a choice of modern languages; (2) fourteen to sixteen,—mathematics, physics, chemistry; (3) over sixteen,—general grammar, literature, history and constitutional law..
In July 1801, under the consulate, there were two courses, (1) nine to twelve,—elementary knowledge, including elements of Latin; (2) above twelve,—a higher course, with twoConsulate.alternatives, “humanistic” studies for the “civil,” and purely practical studies for the “military” section. The law of the 1st of May 1802 brought thelycéesinto existence, the subjects being, in Napoleon’s own phrase, “mainly Latin and mathematics.”
At the Restoration (1814) the military discipline of the lycées was replaced by the ecclesiastical discipline of the “Royal Colleges.” The reaction of 1815-1821 in favour of classics was followed by the more liberal programme ofRestoration.Vatimesnil (1829), including, for those who had no taste for a classical education, certain “special courses” (1830), which were the germ of theenseignement spécialand theenseignement moderne.
Under Louis Philippe (1830-1848), amid all varieties of administration there was a consistent desire to hold the balance fairly between all the conflicting subjects of study. After the revolution of 1848 the difficulties raised by the excessive number of subjects were solved by H.N.H. Fortoul’s expedient of “bifurcation,” the alternatives being letters and science. In 1863, under Napoleon III., Victor Duruy encouraged the study of history, and also did much for classical learning by founding the École des Hautes Études. In 1872, under the Third Republic, Jules Simon found time for hygiene, geography and modernThird Republic.languages by abolishing Latin verse composition and reducing the number of exercises in Latin prose, while he insisted on the importance of studying the inner meaning of the ancient classics. The same principles were carried out by Jules Ferry (1880) and Paul Bert (1881-1882). In the scheme of 1890 the Latin course of six years began with ten hours a week and ended with four; Greek was begun a year later with two hours, increasing to six and ending with four.
The commission of 1899, under the able chairmanship of M. Alexandre Ribot, published an important report, which was followed in 1902 by the scheme of M. Georges Leygues. The preamble includes a striking tribute to the advantages that France had derived from the study of the classics:—