ranslated by Varro
Atacinus, copied by Ovid and Virgil, and minutely studied by Valerius
Flaccus in his poem of the same name. Some of his finest passages have
been appropriated and improved upon by Virgil by the divine right of
superior genius.[1] The subject of love had been treated in the romantic
spirit before the time of Apollonius in writings that have perished, for
instance, in those of Antimachus of Colophon, but the _Argonautica_ is
perhaps the first poem still extant in which the expression of this
spirit is developed with elaboration. The Medea of Apollonius is the
direct precursor of the Dido of Virgil, and it is the pathos and passion
of the fourth book of the Aeneid that keep alive many a passage of
Apollonius.

[Footnote 1: e.g. compare _Aen._ iv. 305 foll, with Ap. Rh. iv. 355
foll., _Aen._ iv. 327-330 with Ap. Rh. i. 897, 898, _Aen._ iv. 522
foll., with Ap. Rh. iii. 744 foll.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Two editions of the Argonautica were published by Apollonius. Of these
we have only the second. The Scholia preserve a few passages of the
first edition, from which the second seems to have differed only
slightly. The old opinion that our MSS. preserve any traces of the first
edition has long been given up. The principal MSS. are the following:--

The Laurentian, also called the Medicean, XXXII. 9, of the early
eleventh century, the excellent MS. at Florence which contains
Sophocles, Aeschylus and Apollonius Rhodius. This is far the best
authority for the text (here denoted by L).

The Guelferbytanus of the thirteenth century, which closely agrees
with another Laurentian, XXXII. 16, of the same date (here denoted
by G and L^2 respectively).

There were in the early eleventh century two types of text, the first
being best known to us by L, the second by G and L^2 and the corrections
made in L. Quotations in the Etymologicum Magnum agree with the second
type and show that this is as old as the fifth century. Besides these
there are, of inferior MSS., four Vatican and five Parisian which are
occasionally useful. Most of them have Scholia; the best Scholia are
those of L.

The principal editions are:--

Florence, 1496, 4to. This is the _editio princeps_, by Lascaris, based
on L, with Scholia, a very rare book.

Venice, 1521, 8vo. The Aldine, by Franciscus Asulanus, with Scholia.

Paris, 1541, 8vo, based on the Parisian MSS.

Geneva, 1574, 4to, by Stephanus, with