APPENDIX.
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Page 176.—The text of the passage about Neleus of Scepsis is uncertain. But the account is probably taken for the most part from Strabo (XIII. 1, 54), who, in speaking of Scepsis near Troy, tells us that Neleus, a native of the town, a scholar of Aristotle and Theophrastus, succeeded to the possession of Theophrastus's library, which included that of Aristotle, who left his to Theophrastus; Aristotle being the first man, to Strabo's knowledge, who collected a library, setting the example to the Egyptian kings. Neleus took the books to Scepsis, where those who afterwards came into his properly kept them shut up without much care for their preservation; and when the kings of the house of Attalus were searching everyivhere for books for the library at Pergamus, they buried them underground; and in the damaged condition they thus were in, the works of Theophrastus and Aristotle were bought at last by Apellicon the Teian, who was more, however, of a book-collector than a philosopher, and had copies made with the gaps filed in at a venture. Thus the earlier Peripatetics were left without the works of their master, and the later had faulty copies. And after Sylla, on taking Athens, carried Apellicon's library to Rome, Tyrannion the grammarian made a recension of them, and bad copies were made for booksellers, as is commonly the case, he says, with books written for sale both here (in Rome) and in Alexandria. Strabo was Tyrannion's scholar, and probably gives the story from his account; the statement, however, that the early Peripatetics had no copies of Aristotle's writings, is said to be open to a good deal of exception.
Page 177.—The mountain of Hephæus in Campania seems to be quite unknown. It has been thought that Tifata (Tiphata in Greek) may have been the name originally written.
Page 183.—Afidius, the last word in this page, is probably a mistake (of Plutarch or of a transcriber) for Fufidius.
Comparison, page 194.—The proverb Lions at home occurs in verse, but not in the same form, in Aristophanes's play of the Peace (1189). The scholiast, in his note on the passage, says it was originally said of the Spartans after some mishap in Ionia, "Lions at home, but in Ephesus—mere Laconians." Sallust's affirmation about Sylla was probably made in one of his lost Histories.
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