uthor of a mythological, literary and historical
miscellany called the _Chiliades_, in the course of which he quotes more
than four hundred authors. The prolegomena to his scholia on
Aristophanes supply us with valuable information on the Alexandrian
libraries. The most memorable name, however, among the scholars of this
century is that of Eustathius, whose philological studies at
Constantinople preceded his tenure of the archbishopric of Thessalonica
(1175-1192). The opening pages of his commentaries on the _Iliad_ and
the _Odyssey_ dwell with enthusiasm on the abiding influence of Homer on
the literature of Greece.

While the Byzantine MSS. of the 11th century (such as the Laurentian
MSS. of Aeschylus and Sophocles, and the Ravenna MS. of Aristophanes)
maintain the sound traditions of the Alexandrian and Roman ages, those
of the times of the Palaeologi give proof of a frequent tampering with
the metres of the ancient poets in order to bring them into conformity
with theories recently invented by Moschopulus and Triclinius. The
scholars of these times are the natural precursors of the earliest
representatives of the Revival of Learning in the West. Of these later
Byzantines the first in order of date is the monk Planudes (d. 1330),
who devoted his knowledge of Latin to producing excellent translations
of Caesar's _Gallic War_ as well as Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ and
_Heroides_, and the classic work of Boethius; he also compiled (in 1302)
the only Greek anthology known to scholars before the recovery in 1607
of the earlier and fuller anthology of Cephalas (fl. 917).

The scholars of the Byzantine age cannot be compared with the great
Alexandrians, but they served to maintain the continuity of tradition by
which the Greek classics selected by the critics of Alexandria were
transmitted to modern Europe.

(b) _In the West_ (c. 530-c. 1350).--At the portal of the middle ages
stands Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), who had little (if any) knowledge
of Greek and had no sympathy with the _secular_ side of the study of
Latin. A decline in grammatical learning is exemplified in the three
Latin historians of the 6th century, Jordanes, Gildas and Gregory of
Tours (d. 594), who begins his history of the Franks by lamenting the
decay of Latin literature in Gaul. The historian of Tours befriended the
Latin poet, Venantius Fortunatus (d. _c._ 600), who is still remembered
as the writer of the three well-known hymns beginning _Salve fest