CONTENTS OF NO. LXXVI. Notice of "Researches into the Origin and Affinity of the principal Languages of Asia and Europe. By Lieut-Col. VANS KENNEDY” Page Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, in answer to his De fence of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, 1 John v.7. Cambridge Prize Poems, for 1828: Hannibal; CHR. ........ 259 Philological Remarks on Greek, Latin, and Celtic Words, by the Rev. THOS. PRICE, containing some Strictures on Col. KENNEDY'S "Researches into the Origin and Affinity of Languages." 267 Oxford Latin Prize Poem, for 1827. Mexica; CHARLES .... Adversaria Literaria. No. xLv11.—Ιακωβάκη 'Ρίζου τοῦ 309 316 Prologue and Epilogue to the Adelphi of Terence........ 318 tion, with Original Notes. By the Rev. J. SEAGER, 321 Notices of Foreign Works Literary Intelligence Correspondence 324 335 342 FOR THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION. De Græcæ Linguæ Dialectis. A GODOF. HERMANNO 175 Nugæ, No. XXIII. Classical Criticism: Xenophon's Anabasis .. 187 195. THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL; N°. LXXV. SEPTEMBER, 1828. AN INQUIRY Into the Credit due to DIONYSIUS of HALICARNASSUS as a Critic and Historian;-By the Author of Remarks on the supposed Dionysius Longinus.' [Continued from No. LXXIV.] Περὶ μὲν γὰρ ̓Αρκάδων τί δεῖ λέγειν αὐχούντων ἀρχαιότητα, μόλις γὰρ οὗτοι καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα γράμμασιν ἐπαιδεύθησαν ; Josephus contra Apionem, lib. i. c. 4. The Enotri and Aborigines. WITHIN a century after Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Jew published a history of his own nation, which, beginning with the origin of the world, and ending with his own times, comprised a space of 5000 years. In disproof of the high antiquity which Josephus claimed for his countrymen, his enemies alleged the silence of the best Greek historians: and to this and other attacks on his veracity we owe the two books against Apion; in which Josephus without much ceremony asserts, that as to all which regards civilisation, the Greeks were but the children of yesterday; that their earliest pretensions to the use of letters reached no higher than to the time of Cadmus; and that according to the opinion which was then more generally received, letters were not in use among the Greeks so early as the siege of Troy. The Ægyptians, Chaldeans, and Phoenicians, however unfit to be compared with the Jews, were yet allowed by the Greeks VOL. XXXVIII. Cl. Jl. NO. LXXV. A themselves to have the oldest and surest traditions. As for the Greek historians, the earliest were little earlier than the Persian invasion, and they disagreed among themselves. Hellanicus differed from Acusilaus; Acusilaus found great fault with Hesiod; Ephorus exposed the numerous errors of Hellanicus; Timæus those of Ephorus later writers those of Timæus; and Herodotus was the object of general attack. Sicily had its separate historians, so had Attica, and so had Argos; still, however, the narratives disagreed. Even in the accounts of the Persian war, the most approved authors were at variance; and Thucydides, though reported to have written a very accurate history of his own times, was frequently charged with falsehood. In the opinion of Josephus, there were two principal causes of these disagreements: the first and most powerful was the want of public documents; a want which both occasioned errors, and allowed the Grecian antiquaries to tell lies with impunity. Even among the Athenians, who were said to be Aborigines, and to be fond of science, the oldest of the public records were the laws of Draco, who was born a little before the usurpation of Pisistratus. As for the Arcadians boasting about antiquity, what need be said of them? for they hardly knew their letters even at a period still later. So contemptuous a notice of the Arcadians may seem strange to those who give any credit to Dionysius; but let us not coudemn Josephus hastily. Diodorus Siculus employed thirty years on his Universal History: he travelled over great part of Asia and Europe; he lived some time at Rome, and derived great assistance from his stay there; and he was cotemporary with Julius and Augustus Cæsar. From these circumstances, for which we have his own authority,' Diodorus was likely to be as well informed as Dionysius; and although the last of the three books, which he appropriated to the early history of Greece, is lost, the two which remain suffice to convince us, that in his opinion antiquity was obscure, chronology uncertain, and the historians at variance. The later historians, as Ephorus of Cuma, who began from the return of the Heraclidæ, Callisthenes, and Theopompus, omitted the old legends: Diodorus, on the contrary, bestowed the greatest pains on them; and in his 4th book he gives us the history of the Grecian heroes and demi-gods from the earliest times. He begins, however, with the Theban Bacchus; and they, who are most conversant with the 4th and 5th books, will perhaps be the readiest to allow that 'Lib. i. c. 4. Ed. Wess. these contain nothing which can justify Dionysius, or contradict Josephus. At a much later period, Eusebius 1 of Cæsarea "collected the particulars of the ancient histories of all nations that had made any figure in the world, and then endeavored to arrange them with one another." "Omnium regum mihi tempora prænotavi, Chaldæorum, Assyriorum, Medorum, Lydorum, Hebræorum, Ægyptiorum, Atheniensium, Argivorum, Sicyoniorum, Lacedæmoniorum, Corinthiorum, Thessalorum, Macedonum, Latinorum, qui postea Romani nuncupati sunt," is Eusebius's declaration as translated by Jerome; a translator who added occasionally, in what related to Roman history, and therefore cannot be suspected of suppressing any thing material to it. That Eusebius himself was not sceptical as to Greek antiquity, is proved by the Sicyonian monarchy; and that he was not fastidious as to authorities, is proved by his confidence in Castor. Yet, even Eusebius knows nothing of Æzeüs and the Æzei. "Telchines et Caryatæ adversum Phoroneum et Parrhasios instituunt bellum-" "Telchines victi Rhodum condiderunt-" "Arcas filius Jovis et Callistho, Pelasgis in ditionem redactis, regionem eorum Arcadiam nuncupavit" are notices which occur, but they are far from befriending Dionysius. In the first, book of his Roman history, Dionysius, mentions his treatise on Chronology: the work is lost; and was so little. noticed, that Suidas and Clemens Alexandrinus are the only authors to whom Hudson refers us. We may gather, however, from Clemens, that Dionysius's account of Argos began with Inachus; and as Clemens makes the Argive government2 under Inachus older by nine generations than that of Arcadia under Pelasgus the autochthon, we may safely conclude that the chronological treatise of Dionysius did not state that Phoroneus and Ezeus were the earliest rulers in Peloponnesus. It is true that Clemens, in his λóyos TроτGETTIxòs, mentious the great antiquity which the poets ascribed to the Arcadians; but even, Dionysius would not have required us to believe that the Arcadians were older than the moon, nor indeed that some of them lived 300 years.3 'I have not seen Aucher's edition, but I have the authority of Scaliger. 2 Stromatum lib. i. p. 320. Ed. Colon. The text is evidently incorrect, but the sense seems clear. 3 "Constat autem Arcadas plurimum vixisse; in tantum, ut quidam usque ad trecentos annos vivendo pervenerint." Servius, Æn. lib. viii. vers. 51. If I recollect right, Censorinus quotes Ephorus to the same effect. |