[222] Perhaps Zenodotus, the superintendent of the Alexandrine library under Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the third century B. C.: there is a Scholion on Plautus, published not many years ago by Osann, and since more fully by Ritschl,—“Cæcius in commento Comœdiarum Aristophanis in Pluto,—Alexander Ætolus, et Lycophron Chalcidensis, et Zenodotus Ephesius, impulsu regis Ptolemæi, Philadelphi cognomento, artis poetices libros in unum collegerunt et in ordinem redegerunt. Alexander tragœdias, Lycophron comœdias, Zenodotus vero Homeri poemata et reliquorum illustrium poetarum.” See Lange, Ueber die Kyklischen Dichter, p. 56 (Mainz. 1837); Welcker, Der Epische Kyklus, p. 8; Ritschl, Die Alexandrinischen Bibliotheken, p. 3 (Breslau, 1838).
Lange disputes the sufficiency of this passage as proof that Zenodotus was the framer of the Epic Cycle: his grounds are, however, unsatisfactory to me.
[223] That there existed a cyclic copy or edition of the Odyssey (ἡ κυκλικὴ) is proved by two passages in the Scholia (xvi. 195; xvii. 25), with Boeckh’s remark in Buttmann’s edition: this was the Odyssey copied or edited along with the other poems of the cycle.
Our word to edit—or edition—suggests ideas not exactly suited to the proceedings of the Alexandrine library, in which we cannot expect to find anything like what is now called publication. That magnificent establishment, possessing a large collection of epical manuscripts, and ample means of every kind at command, would naturally desire to have these compositions put in order and corrected by skilful hands, and then carefully copied for the use of the library. Such copy constitutes the cyclic edition: they might perhaps cause or permit duplicates to be made, but the ἔκδοσις or edition was complete without them.
[224] Respecting the great confusion in which the Epic Cycle is involved, see the striking declaration of Buttmann, Addenda ad Scholia in Odysseum, p. 575: compare the opinions of the different critics, as enumerated at the end of Welcker’s treatise, Episch. Kyk. pp. 420-453.
[225] Our information respecting the Epic Cycle is derived from Eutychius Proclus, a literary man of Sicca during the second century of the Christian era, and tutor of Marcus Antoninus (Jul. Capitolin. Vit. Marc. c. 2),—not from Proclus, called Diadochus, the new-Platonic philosopher of the fifth century, as Heyne, Mr. Clinton, and others have imagined. The fragments from his work called Chrestomathia, give arguments of several of the lost cyclic poems connected with the Siege of Troy, communicating the important fact that the Iliad and Odyssey were included in the cycle, and giving the following description of the principle upon which it was arranged: Διαλαμβάνει δὲ περὶ τοῦ λεγομένου ἐπικοῦ κύκλου, ὃς ἄρχεται μὲν ἐκ τῆς Οὐράνου καὶ Γῆς ὁμολογουμένης μίξεως ... καὶ περατοῦται ὁ ἐπικὸς κύκλος, ἐκ διαφόρων ποιητῶν συμπληρούμενος, μέχρι τῆς ἀποβάσεως Ὀδυσσέως.... Λέγει δὲ ὡς τοῦ ἐπικοῦ κύκλου τὰ ποιήματα διασώζεται καὶ σπουδάζεται τοῖς πολλοῖς, οὐχ οὕτω διὰ τὴν ἀρετὴν, ὡς διὰ τὴν ἀκολουθίαν τῶν ἐν αὐτῇ πραγμάτων (ap. Photium, cod. 239).
This much-commented passage, while it clearly marks out the cardinal principle of the Epic Cycle (ἀκολουθία πραγμάτων), neither affirms nor denies anything respecting the excellence of the constituent poems. Proclus speaks of the taste common in his own time (σπουδάζεται τοῖς πολλοῖς): there was not much relish in his time for these poems as such, but people were much interested in the sequence of epical events. The abstracts which he himself drew up in the form of arguments of several poems, show that he adapted himself to this taste. We cannot collect from his words that he intended to express any opinion of his own respecting the goodness or badness of the cyclic poems.
[226] The gradual growth of a contemptuous feeling towards the scriptor cyclicus (Horat. Ars. Poetic. 136), which was not originally implied in the name, is well set forth by Lange (Ueber die Kyklisch. Dicht. pp. 53-56).
Both Lange (pp. 36-41), however, and Ulrici (Geschichte des Griech. Epos, 9te Vorles. p. 418) adopt another opinion with respect to the cycle, which I think unsupported and inadmissible,—that the several constituent poems were not received into it entire (i. e. with only such changes as were requisite for a corrected text), but cut down and abridged in such manner as to produce an exact continuity of narrative. Lange even imagines that the cyclic Odyssey was thus dealt with. But there seems no evidence to countenance this theory, which would convert the Alexandrine literati from critics into logographers. That the cyclic Iliad and Odyssey were the same in the main (allowing for corrections of text) as the common Iliad and Odyssey, is shown by the fact, that Proclus merely names them in the series without giving any abstract of their contents: they were too well known to render such a process necessary. Nor does either the language of Proclus, or that of Cæcius as applied to Zenodotus, indicate any transformation applied to the poets whose works are described to have been brought together and put into a certain order.
The hypothesis of Lange is founded upon the idea that the (ἀκολουθία πραγμάτων) continuity of narrated events must necessarily have been exact and without break, as if the whole constituted one work. But this would not be possible, let the framers do what they might: moreover, in the attempt, the individuality of all the constituent poets must have been sacrificed, in such manner that it would be absurd to discuss their separate merits.