to contemporary writers but also to the best writers of the Alexandrian period, such as Menander. For if the grammarian had condemned a word in an author of his own time, he could not afford to be confronted by a student with the same word in Menander. The great popularity of Menander made it all the more necessary for the strict stylist to utter a warning against him.
Prominent among the votaries of this creed were Herodes Atticus and Aristides;[1] but for maintenance of a rigorous standard of Attic style Phrynichus stands at the head of the atticizing school of grammarians. The eligible words were taken from the works of a small list of writers. The canon of Phrynichus is given by Photius, Bibl. p. 101 b Bekker:
Εἰλικρινοῦς δὲ καὶ καθαροῦ καὶ Ἀττικοῦ λόγου κανόνας καὶ στάθμας καὶ παράδειγμά φησιν (sc. Φρύνιχος) ἄριστον Πλάτωνά τε καὶ Δημοσθένην μετὰ τοῦ ῥητορικοῦ τῶν ἐννέα χοροῦ, Θουκυδίδην τε καὶ Ξενοφῶντα καὶ Αἰσχίνην τὸν Λυσανίου τὸν Σωκρατικόν, Κριτίαν τε τὸν Καλλαίσχρου καὶ Ἀντισθένην μετὰ τῶν γνησίων αὐτοῦ δύο λόγων, τοῦ περὶ Κύρου καὶ τοῦ περὶ Ὀδυσσείας, τῶν μέντοι κωμῳδῶν Ἀριστοφάνην μετὰ τοῦ οἰκείου, ἐν οἷς ἀττικίζουσι, χοροῦ, καὶ τῶν τραγικῶν Αἰσχύλον τὸν μεγαλοφωνότατον καὶ Σοφοκλέα τὸν γλυκὺν καὶ τὸν πάνσοφον Εὐριπίδην.
Of this list we have practically nothing left of Aeschines, Critias and Antisthenes, with the possible exception of the Xenophontic Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία,[2] and two words assigned to Antisthenes, but usually considered spurious.[3] Among the rest, Phrynichus definitely censures Xenophon (p. 89 L., 160 R. al.), and Euripides (p. 341 L., 427 R.); while nowhere in his extant work does he cite any word from Aeschylus or Sophocles as an example of good Attic. He places under the ban also Herodotus (p. 130 L., 207 R. al.), Homer (p. 145 L., 223 R. al.), Hesiod (p. 101 L., 149 R.), Epicharmus (p. 108 L., 194 R. al.), Aristotle (p. 311 L., 366 R. al.), Theophrastus (p. 341 L., 427 R.), new comedy as a group (p. 344 L., 456 R. al.), and the writers of new comedy individually passim; and even of the orators Hyperides (twice: pp. 333 L., 417 R., 335 L., 419 R.).
