[84] Plat. Resp. p. 378 d.
[85] Diogenes Laertius, 2. 11, quotes Favorinus as saying that Anaxagoras was the first who showed that the poems of Homer had virtue and righteousness for their subject. If the later traditions (Georg. Syncellus, Chronogr. p. 149 c) could be trusted, the disciples of Anaxagoras were the authors of the explanations which Plato attributes to οἱ νῦν περὶ Ὅμηρον δεινοί, and which tried by a fanciful etymology to prove that Athené was voῦv τε καὶ διάνοιαν (Plat. Cratyl. 407 b).
[86] Diog. Laert. 2. 11: Tatian, Orat. ad Græcos, c. 21, Μητρόδωρος δὲ ὁ Λαμψακηνὸς ἐν τῷ περὶ Ὁμήρου λίαν εὐήθως διείλεκται πάντα εἰς ἀλληγορίαν μετάγων. A later tradition used the name of Pherecydes: Isidore, sun of Basilides, in Clem. Alex. Strom. 6, p. 767.
[87] On the general subject of allegorical interpretation, especially in regard to Homer, reference may be made to N. Schow in the edition of Heraclitus Ponticus mentioned below; L. H. Jacob, Dissertatio philosophica de allegoria Homerica, Halæ, 1785; C. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus, pp. 155, 844, 987; Gräfenhan, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie, Bd. i. p. 211. It has been unnecessary for the present purpose to make the distinction which has sometimes (e.g. Lauer, Litterarischer Nachlass, ed. Wichmann, Bd. ii. p, 105) been drawn between allegory and symbol.
[88] The most recent edition is Heracliti Allegoriæ Homericæ, ed. E. Mehler, Leyden, 1851: that of N. Schow, Göttingen, 1782, contains a Latin translation, a good essay on Homeric allegory, and a critical letter by Heyne. It seems probable that the treatise is really anonymous, and that the name Heraclitus was intended to be that of the philosopher of Ephesus: see Diels, Doxoyraphi Græci, p. 95 n.
[89] The most recent, and best critical, edition is by C. Lang, ed. 1881, in Teubner’s series. More help is afforded to an ordinary student by that which was edited from the notes of de Villoison by Osann, Göttingen, 1844.
[90] c. 1, πάντως γὰρ ἠσέβησεν εἰ μηδὲν ἀλληγόρησεν: he defines allegory, c. 5, ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἄλλα μὲν ἀγορεύων τρόπος ἕτερα δὲ ὧν λέγει σημαίνων ἐπωνύμως ἀλληγορία καλεῖται.
[91] c. 2.
[92] c. 8.
[93] c. 61.