Posidonivs was fortunate to be born in an age when the Romans had begun to recognize their own intellectual limitations, and had turned for guidance to a hitherto despised nation, admitted by themselves to be as much their superior in originality as it was inferior to them in practical matters. He was, moreover, the official exponent of a philosophical system which, destined as it was to exercise for hundreds of years the strongest moral influence over the world, had already taken (...) a firm hold on the more thoughtful minds at Rome. Probably any Greek teacher of ability had, in the time of Cicero, a good chance to make a name; Posidonius, who was a man of considerable intellectual gifts, great learning, and some originality, and who was, moreover, the accredited successor to Zeno and Chrysippus, obtained a reputation which lasted for some centuries. (shrink)

The study of post-Aristotelian philosophy is constantly confused by the perplexing way in which the names of philosophers recur. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, is sufficiently well known not be confused with either Zeno the Eleatic or the later Stoic, Zeno of Tarsus, a disciple of Chrysippus; but when we come to less distinguished names the opportunity of error is greater. If two philosophers of the same name are prominent members of different schools, there ought to be no obscurity, but (...) in an age of eclecticism one school will sometimes adopt doctrines from another, and so make classification difficult. (shrink)

The text of Fronto is in a very corrupt state, and the startling discrepancies which exist between different collations, as well as the unintelligibility of many of the readings deciphered, seem to justify a good deal of conjectural emendation. I append some attempts to complete or restore the sense in some passages of the Greek letters which seem hitherto to have been left in an unsatisfactory state. Not having had access to the MS, I have relied on the collations of (...) Naber and others for a statement of what is to be found in the palimpsest. (shrink)

For the purposes of the new text of Livy which Professor Conway and Professor C. F. Walters are preparing for the Oxford Series of Classical Texts, I undertook in 1908 to examine the Codex Leidensis, which contains Livy's first decade.