CRITIQUE

...reproaching those who were to attend to false speeches and vain and unending genealogies. But not only the Fathers of the Christian Church, but even others had reason to criticize Hesiod. There is also a Dialogue of Lucian titled Hesiod, in which he brings in Hesiod telling many things about himself, and he mocks him, as is his custom; and for that reason, several Epigrams against Hesiod exist. Besides this, there is that well-known proverb concerning those who grow very old, "Hesiodic Old Age," about which a couplet by Pindar is also held. Antonio Possevino, Select Library.

The edition of Hesiod by Henri Estienne, Daniel Heinsius, and Georg Pasor is praised, to which a Hesiodic Lexicon is joined. Yet the Graevius edition will undoubtedly surpass all of these.

HOMER

Famous before
Christ in the
year 907.

The age of Homer was no less obscure than either his homeland or his parents. There was formerly a very old and famous question about this, and the dispute would still be under the judge if it had not been decided by the authority of our marble The Parian Marble. Homer flourished under Diognetus, King of Athens, in the Attic year 676; in the Julian Period 3807; 302 years after the fall of Troy; 23 years before the Olympics were restored by Iphitus and Lycurgus; and 131 years before Coroebus won the race. Therefore, there is no longer any doubt about that matter. John Marsham in his Chronology.

Among the Greeks, no writing is found which is known to be older than the poems of Homer. Josephus, book 1.

Homer was indeed the first parent of doctrines and antiquity. Pliny, book 25, chapter 2. Homer is the source and origin of all divine inventions. Macrobius, on the Dream of Scipio, book 2, chapter 10.

Next, the most brilliant genius of Homer shone forth, the greatest without example. By the magnitude of his works and the splendor of his songs, he alone deserved to be called The Poet. The greatest thing in him is that neither before him was anyone found whom he might imitate, nor after him was anyone found who could imitate him. Velleius Paterculus, book 1, chapter 5.

As Aratus thinks one should begin from Jupiter, so we seem likely to begin rightly from Homer. For he (just as he himself says all the force of springs and the courses of fountains take their beginning from the Ocean) gave the example and origin to all parts of eloquence. No one has surpassed him in sublimity in great matters, or in appropriateness in small ones. He is at once cheerful and concise, pleasant and grave, admirable in both abundance and brevity: most eminent not only in poetic but in oratorical virtue. Quintilian, book 10, chapter 1.

Our famous Homer is a certain ocean of divine wisdom. Angelo Poliziano, preface to Plato’s Charmides.

The wise men of all ages have admired Homer. Isaac Casaubon, in his Letters. As for those who despise Homer, nothing worse can be wished for them than that they should enjoy their own stupidity. The same author in his Dissertation on Homer.

No one has been praised by such a unanimous judgment of the wise of every age: and that by...