Commentary on the Dream of Scipio; Saturnalia

...regarded all the dialogues of Plato and the Platonists so well-worn through use, and had made them so familiar to himself by reading, that nothing pertaining to the law of dialogues seems to have been able to escape him. For these reasons, I believe that we should grant him the right to judge even Virgil in some matters, just as he must undoubtedly be counted among those who truly philosophize. Ancient philosophers are free For those ancient philosophers did not devote their efforts only to that wisdom which they professed, but also took upon themselves no small concern for Poetics, Rhetoric, and other liberal arts; to such an extent that no one has ever dared to censure the judgment of Aristotle concerning poets, which exists in his works. And Antimachus, to prove his own poem, Antimachus is believed to have held Plato alone as equivalent to all others. Philosophers held this right, that they might pronounce without penalty upon the craftsmanship of all others, whatever they thought. But it was permitted to grammarians Grammarians to judge almost no other kind of author except poets. Let the rhapsodies of Homer be pointed to, concerning which there was never a sharper judgment than that of Aristarchus. And the Virgilian work itself, which, after his death, could not have been published without the labor and assistance of a grammarian. And certainly, it is much easier to offer a true judgment concerning another's craftsmanship than to edit something oneself which might be approved by the judgment of those whose approval is necessary. Why, therefore, should we not grant the same right to Macrobius? But enough of this, not so that it may be known to you through me—for whom these things are born in your own home—but so that through you it may be known to all. For the fact that he did not prescribe for himself the boundaries of speech from Cicero alone, nor labor over the choice of individual words, cannot be cast against him any more than against all those who flourished after Cicero...