A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

1034 THEOCRITUS. THEOCRITUS.
of Pentheus, related in a dry rhetorical manner. however, is, that Theocritus purposely employed a
Lastly, the twenty-eighth, entitled'HAaKaica, is an mixed or eclectic dialect, in which the new or
occasional poem, written in a very pleasing style. softened Doric predominates. (Jacobs, Praef ad
This great intermixture of the different species of Anth. Pal. p. xliii.; Wiistemann, Proleg. ad Theocr.
poetry is quite in accordance with the spirit of the p. xxxiv.)
age and of the Alexandrian school, in which the Of the other poems which have come down to us,
poet was brought up. But, in those of the idyls the Berenice, of which we only possess five liner,
which are certainly genuine, all these varieties are and a word, preserved by Athenaeus (vii. p. 284),
harmonized by the true poetical genius of Theocritus. was an encomium of the celebrated queen, the wife
But yet, if we carefully examine the collection of Ptolemy the son of Lagus, and the mother of
as a whole, it will be found to contain incongruities Ptolemy Philadelphus. The poem entitled Syrinx,
of style and subject, and varieties of merit, too contained in the Greek Anthology, is an exercise
great to allow of the belief that all these twenty- of ingenuity, consisting in the composition of
nine idyls (for the thirtieth may be certainly ex- twenty verses in such a manner that the length of
eluded) are the genuine productions of Theocritus. each pair of verses is less than that of the pair beThe introduction of spurious poems into the col- fore, and thus the whole resembles the ten pipes of
lection can easily be accounted for. As early as the mouth-organ or Pan-pipes (oipLy4). Of tile
B. c. 200 there existed a collection of the works of epigrams, two (Nos. 17, 18, Brunck) are supposed
the bucolic poets, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, by Jacobs to be the productions of Leonidas of
as we learn from the following epigram of Artemi- Tarentum, while, on the other hand, the Palatine
dorus, which is prefixed to the works of Theocritus, MS. assigns the 10th epigram of Erycius to Theoand is also contained in the Greek Anthology critus. (Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 376; Jacobs,
(Brunck, Anal. vol. i. p. 293; Jacobs, Ant/l. Graec. Anth. Grace. vol. i. p. 194, vol. xiii. p. 958.)
vol. i. p. 194):- It is unnecessary to say much of the reputation of
Theocritus. Both in ancient and in modern tinies,
BovicohKac MoTlan oa7ropdaES 7rotc, VUv as aC 7ra(oyai he has been deservedly placed at the head of the'Ev,-1'It~ls 1=3Spas,,'TI ztLL6 &'yE'aS.
species of poetry which he formed, and in a very
Into such a collection, made at a time when critical high rank among all poets, for the force and truthscience was in its infancy, every thing would na- fulness of his pictures, the beauty of his language,
turally be swept together that had the least tradi- and the simple good taste of his style. The best
tional or other claim to be regarded as the pro- discussion of his characteristics is that by Finkenlduction of one of these three poets; and, moreover, stein, in the Introduction and Appendices to Azcwhatever was of doubtful authority would naturally thucsa, oder d. Bu2kol. Dichler des Alterthuems, Beil.
be ascribed to Theocritus, as the most celebrated of 1806-1810. TheEclogues of Virgil are mere imitathe three. Of this large collection the idyls tions of the Bucolics of Theocritus, to which they are
that have come down to us are merely samples, se- immeasurably inferior. [VIRGILIUS.] The Alexlected by the grammarians (whence the name of andrian grammarians gave Theocritus a place in one
Ecloqae, which was afterwards applied to bucolic of their Pleiads, that, namely, of the seven miscelpoetry in general); and thus it has happened that, laneous poets; and commentaries were written
while much of the genuine poetry of Theocritus upon him by Amerias, Asclepiades of Myrlea,
has been lost, there must be much that is not his Theon, Theaetetus, Amarantus, Munatus, and
in the collection we now possess. To distinguish others. The existing Scholia evidently contain a
the genuine from the spurious, we have scarcely very small, and probably not the most valuable,
any other test than internal evidence; and here portion of those commentaries: they consist chiefly
the danger arises, into which some critics appear to of paraphrastic explanations of the text.
have fallen, of making the comparative excellence The modern literature of Theocritus is much too
of the poems the sole test of their genuineness. It voluminons to admit of any attempt to give here a
is impossible here to enter upon the detailed critical list even of the chief editions and illustrative worlks.
arguments for and against the genuineness of the The titles of the whole occupy forty-nine columns
several poems. The whole subject has been dis- of Hoffminann's Lexicon Bibliograph7icun Scripltorim
cussed by Eichstsdt (de Carm. Theocr. ad sua Ge- Graecorzoi1. The Editio Princeps, in folio, connera revocat. sc., Lips. 1794, 4to.), by E. Rein- taining the Works and Days of Hesiod and the
hold (de Genuinis Thleocr. Carnm. et Suppositiliis, Idyls of Theocritus, is without place or date, but
Jen. 1819), by A. Wissowa (Theocritus T/heocri- is believed to have been printed at Milan about
teos, Vratislav. 1828, 8vo.), and by WVarton, 1481. There is another very early edition, in 8vo.,
Meineke, and Wiistemqnn, in their editions of without place or date. The next earliest edition
Theocritus. Those idyls, of which the genuineness is that of Aldus, containing the Idyls, and a vast
is the most doubtful, are the 12th, 17th, 18th, 19th, mass of other matterl, Venet. 1495, fol. For a full
20th, 26th, 27th, 29th, and 30th. account of this and the other ancient editions, see
The Metre chiefly employed in these poems is Hoffmann. The chief among the more recent
the heroic hexameter, adapted to the purposes of editions are those of Reiske, Viennae, 1765, 1766,
Theocritus by having a more broken movement 2 vols. 4to.; of Warton, Oxon. 1770, 4to.; of
substituted for the sustained and stately march of the Brunck, in the Analecta, 1772, 4to.; of ValckeHomeric verse. In a few cases other metres are naer, 1779-1781, 8vo.; of Schaefer, 1810, fol.; of
employed. The dialect of Theocritus has given the Heindorf, 1810, 8vo.; of Gaisford, in his Ioetae
grammarians considerable trouble. The ancient Minores, Oxon. 1816, 1820, 1823, 8vo.; of Kiesscritics regarded it as a modification of the Doric dia- ling, Lips. 1819, 8vo., reprinted, with Bion and
lect, which they called yva Aopivs, and some of the Moschus, Notes, Scholia, Tndices, and Portua's
modern editors have carried this notion so far as to Lexicon Doricoiiz, Lond. 1829, 2 vols. 8vo.; of
try to expunge all the epic, Aeolic, and Ionic Jacobs, Halae, 1824, 8vo., only vol. i. published of
forms, which the best MSS. present. The fact, Meineke, Lips. 1825, 12mo.; and, the most nefhll