NEWIIALL. — PISISTRATUS AND HOMER. 509 



with Monro in any such statement as that such a collection " may be 

 shown to be unknown to the Alexandrian grammarians," for their 

 works are preserved to us in such an incomplete state that it is abso- 

 lutely impossible to say exactly what they did mention and what not. 

 T. W. Allen, in the Classical Review,'** assuming the reality of this 

 silence, has an explanation which is possible. He writes : "If Pisis- 

 tratus were the reputed father of the koi.vti, it is natural that we find 

 no mention of him in the scholia. The grammarians ignore the koivt) 

 because it was in every one's hands, and because it had suffered by 

 transmission. The same account explains the absence of reference to 

 the Athenian edition." 



The explanation of the sources of the so-called Pisistratean legend 

 by those who disbelieve in it has aff"orded critics the exercise of much 

 originality and ingenuity, but it is based for the most part on merest 

 conjecture. Flach (p. 41) is of the opinion that the story of Pisistra- 

 tus's edition came from Megarian historians of little scientific impor- 

 tance, and was "boomed" by the scholars of the Pergamean school 

 that they might find a great literary man to belittle the Homeric 

 scholars of their rival school, the Alexandrian. Likewise Nutzhorn,*^ 

 who disbelieves in the Pisistratean recension, makes light of the testi- 

 mony of Cicero, saying that Cicero drags in Pisistratus here merely as 

 an added example of the point he is trying to establish, — how neces- 

 sary it is for the great statesman to be a learned man as well. How- 

 ever that may be, unless Nutzhorn is willing to admit that Cicero in 

 this place is deliberately falsifying evidence (i. e., the tradition which 

 he cites), I fail to see that his remark has any point. Desire on the 

 part of Cicero to illustrate a principle aptly cannot be said to imply 

 the use of fictitious examples. Interesting also, and more probable, 

 is the conjecture of Dilntzer (p. 17), who makes Dicaearchus in his 

 Bios 'EXXaSo? the authority for the statement of Cicero. This opinion 

 is based on the fact that Dicaearchus was an author of general popu- 

 larity with Cicero, as shown by his references to him on several occa- 

 sions, his work being of great importance in the literary history of 

 Greece. 



After such a discussion of conjectures we are reminded of the words 

 of Wolf:'*^ "Nunc vero nihil opus est coniecturas capere. Historia 

 loquitur. Nam vox totius antiquitatis et, si summam spectes, consen- 

 tiens fama testatur Pisistratum carmina Homeri primum consignavisse 

 litteris, et in eum ordinem redegisse quo nunc leguntur. Hoc pos- 



^ XV, p. 8 (1901). 



*5 Die Entstehungsweise tier Ilom. Gedichte, Leip., 1869, p. 48. 



*® Prolegomena ad Homerum, ed. ii (posthumous), Berlin, 187G, c. xxxiii. 



