Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/422

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

412 Journal of Ph ilology . Subsequent Excursus, on the three last books, are devoted to the two campaigns which secured the freedom of Greece: the account of tho Persian operations in 480 B.C. according to Ctosias, whom Mr Blakesley regards as probably giving the Spartan, while Herodotus gives the Athenian, version of the events which occurred : and the two great battles of Marathon and Salamis. The article upon the last is especially interesting, the picture which it exhibits of the position and manoeuvres of the hostile fleets, founded chiefly upon the text of yEschylus' drama of the Persoe, being we believe entirely original, as well as intelligible and consistent, which can hardly bo said of the plan of the engagement as generally understood.] C. B. S. Rhetores Gr^bci, ex recognitione L. Spengel, Voll. I. II. Lipsia;. Sumti- bus et typis B. G. Teubneri. 1853, 1854. 12mo. [The first two volumes of a series of works, which much needed to bo collected and edited afresh. The first volume contains nine treatises, or parts of treatises on rhetoric, two of which (anonymous) wore lately brought to light by M. Seguier de Saint Brisson from Paris MSS., by means of which Sauppe considerably enriched his Fragmenta Oratorum Grcecorum : they are not included in Walz's Rhetores Grceci. We could have almost wished that the editor had excluded from this series Aristo- tle's Rhetoric (more especially as Prof. Bonitz undertakes to edit Aristotle's entire works in the same collection of Teubner), and perhaps also the Texyt) prjTopiKr) of Anaximenes, which is ordinarily printed along with Aristotle's works, under the title of prjToptKT) irpbs 'Aei-av8pou. The latter treatise had already been shewn to bo the work of Anaximenes by Spengel in a series of papers " prajclarao eruditionis plenissimis," as Sauppe (Fr. Oratt. Or. p. 321) calls them, and his views, though smartly assailed by Lersch, appear to be now generally accepted. In editing the other treatises, Spengel, besides giving manifold proof of his own ability, had made good use of the labours of recent scholars, more especially of Finckh, to whom he dedicates the work. It is unfortunate, however, that ho did not obtain a collation of the Paris MS. of Minucianus, the text of which is known to bo more complete than the ordinary one: this work abounds with citations from the Orators, and an enlarged copy might possibly have furnished us with some novelties. We arc also sorry that Spengel has so frequently omitted to specify the Orations of Demosthenes, &c. from which the rhetoricians quote : this omission is so much tho more inexcusable, because tho principal value of tho Ilhotori - cians consists in tho citations and allusions to other authors, principally to the Orators, which they continually make, often without naming them. By their means a largo number of fragments are preserved not otherwise known, and a valuable series of testimonies to tho genuineness of ancient writings is handed down, as well as a collection of ancient various readings. But in Spengel's edition wo arc not uniformly referred to tho source of the citations. Thus Rufus, p. 465, 1. 9, to illustrate his pipicrpos, intro- duces a citation, olov tfXyoo irptorov piv cos avros v(3pltr0r)v" k.t.X.