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100-457: Richard Porson (25 December 1759 – 25 September 1808) was an English classical scholar . He was the discoverer of Porson's Law . The Greek typeface Porson was based on his handwriting. Richard Porson was born at East Ruston , near North Walsham , Norfolk , the eldest son of Huggin Porson, parish clerk. His mother was the daughter of a shoemaker from the neighbouring village of Bacton . He

200-479: A School of Translators was set up in the border city of Toledo, Spain , to translate from Arabic into Latin. Along with the unavailability of Greek authors, there were other differences between the classical canon known today and the works valued in the Middle Ages. Catullus , for instance, was almost entirely unknown in the medieval period. The popularity of different authors also waxed and waned throughout

300-466: A Roman audience saw a play adapted from the Greek by Livius Andronicus. Andronicus also translated Homer's Odyssey into Saturnian verse. The poets Ennius, Accius, and Patruvius followed. Their work survives only in fragments; the earliest Latin authors whose work we have full examples of are the playwrights Plautus and Terence . Much of the best known and most highly thought of Latin literature comes from

400-469: A curriculum, were both derived from Roman use. In the Middle Ages , classics and education were tightly intertwined; according to Jan Ziolkowski, there is no era in history in which the link was tighter. Medieval education taught students to imitate earlier classical models, and Latin continued to be the language of scholarship and culture, despite the increasing difference between literary Latin and

500-521: A learned vocabulary of international application. Thus, Latin grew from a highly developed cultural product of the Golden and Silver eras of Latin literature to become the international lingua franca in matters diplomatic, scientific, philosophic and religious, until the 17th century. Long before this, Latin had evolved into the Romance languages and Ancient Greek into Modern Greek and its dialects . In

600-615: A new edition of Thomas Hutchinson 's Anabasis of Xenophon was called for, and Porson was asked by the publisher to supply notes, which he did in conjunction with Walter Whiter . These are a good example of the terse style of Latin notes he practised. They also show his acquaintance with his two favourite authors, Plato and Athenaeus , and a familiarity with Eustathius of Thessalonica 's commentary on Homer . The following year Porson wrote his Notae breves ad Toupii emendationes in Suidam , though this treatise did not appear until 1790 in

700-633: A practical English Grammar , John Jewel 's Apology of the Church of England , an odd volume of the Chambers' Cyclopaedia picked up from a wrecked coaster, and eight or ten volumes of The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure . When Porson was eleven, the rector of East Ruston took charge of his education. Thomas Hewitt taught him with his own boys, taking him through Julius Caesar , Terence , Ovid and Virgil ; he had already made great progress in mathematics. In addition, Hewitt brought him to

800-510: A royal donation of 10,000 Gold Thalers had enabled them to acquire the so-called " Semler’schen House" in which the journal could be produced. Christian Gottfried Schütz himself was appointed Professor of the History of Literature and Eloquence. Political developments in 1806 hit Schütz particularly hard. In October 1806, in the aftermath of the Battle of Jena nearby, Halle was over-run by

900-684: A scholarship at King's College, Cambridge . In 1777 his patron John Norris died; but contributions from Etonians helped fund his maintenance at the university, and he found a new patron in Sir George Baker , then president of the College of Physicians . With his help Porson entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a pensioner (i. e. a student who paid for his tuition and board, rather than a sizar or scholar) on 28 March 1778, matriculating in April. What first set his mind towards literary criticism

1000-426: A time diminished, but not terminated: Schütz appears still to have been based at Halle when he died there in 1832. Schütz published volumes on a wide range of themes in the areas of philosophy, philology, rhetoric, psychology, education and university matters. He published collections of the writings of Aeschylus , Cicero , und Aristophanes . In respect of philosophy he was particularly influential as one of

1100-520: A transcendent single deity. Different cities often worshipped the same deities, sometimes with epithets that distinguished them and specified their local nature. The earliest surviving philosophy from ancient Greece dates back to the 6th century BC, when according to Aristotle Thales of Miletus was considered to have been the first Greek philosopher. Other influential pre-Socratic philosophers include Pythagoras and Heraclitus . The most famous and significant figures in classical Athenian philosophy, from

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1200-603: A version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean region and Europe; thus Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic ( c.  8th to 6th centuries BC), Classical ( c.  5th to 4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic ( c.  3rd century BC to 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and

1300-503: A victorious French army. Schütz's house was plundered while he himself was arrested and briefly detained by the invading forces. Possibly of greater long term consequence was the French emperor's decision to close down the university and convert its main building into a quarantine hospital . Deprived of his university salary, Schütz was eventually obliged to sell a valuable volume from his library. He considered moving to Berlin, but in

1400-527: A volume of Porson's Correspondence . They are specimens of dry humour, and allude to English dramatists and poets. In the same periodical during 1788 and 1789 appeared the Letters to Archdeacon Travis against George Travis , on a debated Biblical verse called the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7). Edward Gibbon 's verdict on the book was that it was "the most acute and accurate piece of criticism since

1500-673: A work on Greek metres and issued an edition of the Hecuba , in which Porson's theories were attacked. Porson at first took no notice of either, but went on with his Euripides , publishing the Orestes in 1798, the Phoenissae in 1799 and the Medea in 1801, the last printed at the Cambridge press, and with the editor's name on the title page. But there are many allusions to his antagonists in

1600-545: Is a Greek creation". Ancient philosophy was traditionally divided into three branches: logic, physics, and ethics. However, not all of the works of ancient philosophers fit neatly into one of these three branches. For instance, Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics have been traditionally classified in the West as "ethics", but in the Arabic world were grouped with logic; in reality, they do not fit neatly into either category. From

1700-424: Is one of the most influential works of twentieth-century literature. Christian Gottfried Sch%C3%BCtz Christian Gottfried Schütz (19 May 1747 – 7 May 1832) was a German classical scholar and humanist , known for his contributions in philosophy and philology , and for his work as an academic and literary editor and publisher. Christian Gottfried Schütz was the eldest of eight recorded children born to

1800-568: Is opposition to the teaching of Latin in Italy, it is nonetheless still compulsory in most secondary schools. The same may also be said in the case of France or Greece. Indeed, Ancient Greek is one of the compulsory subjects in Greek secondary education, whereas in France, Latin is one of the optional subjects that can be chosen in a majority of middle schools and high schools. Ancient Greek is also still being taught, but not as much as Latin . One of

1900-558: Is still seen as a foundational aspect of European culture. The legacy of the classical world is not confined to the influence of classical languages. The Roman Empire was taken as a model by later European empires, such as the Spanish and British empires . Classical art has been taken as a model in later periods – medieval Romanesque architecture and Enlightenment-era neoclassical literature were both influenced by classical models, to take but two examples, while James Joyce 's Ulysses

2000-445: Is very well regarded and remains at the heart of much of our art today. For example, ancient Greek architecture gave us the classical orders: Doric , Ionic , and Corinthian . The Parthenon is still the architectural symbol of the classical world. Greek sculpture is well known and we know the names of several ancient Greek artists: for example, Phidias . With philology, archaeology, and art history, scholars seek understanding of

2100-549: The Adversaria , consisting of the notes on Athenaeus and the Greek poets, and his prelection on Euripides; Peter Paul Dobree , afterwards Greek professor, the notes on Aristophanes and the lexicon of Photius. Besides these, from other sources, Thomas Gaisford edited his notes on Pausanias and Suidas, and Thomas Kidd collected his scattered reviews. When Thomas Burgess attacked his literary character over his Letters to Travis , Thomas Turton came forward to defend him. For

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2200-676: The Archaeological Institute of America in 1879), including many foreign archaeological institutes in Athens and Rome (the American School of Classical Studies at Athens in 1881, British School at Athens in 1886, American Academy in Rome in 1895, and British School at Rome in 1900). More recently, classical archaeology has taken little part in the theoretical changes in the rest of the discipline, largely ignoring

2300-640: The London Institution was founded in Old Jewry , Porson was appointed principal librarian, with a salary of £200 a year and a suite of rooms. This assured him financial ease in his latter years. Among his intimate friends was James Perry , editor of The Morning Chronicle . He married Perry's sister, Mrs Lunan, in November 1796. Porson then drank less; but she died a few months after her marriage (12 April 1797), and he returned to his chambers in

2400-557: The Roman Empire destroyed most evidence (cultural artefacts) of earlier, conquered civilizations, such as that of the Etruscans . The English word philosophy comes from the Greek word φιλοσοφία, meaning "love of wisdom", probably coined by Pythagoras. Along with the word itself, the discipline of philosophy as we know it today has its roots in ancient Greek thought , and according to Martin West "philosophy as we understand it

2500-513: The late antique period . Late Latin survived long after the end of classical antiquity, and was finally replaced by written Romance languages around the 9th century AD. Along with literary forms of Latin, there existed various vernacular dialects, generally known as Vulgar Latin , in use throughout antiquity. These are mainly preserved in sources such as graffiti and the Vindolanda tablets . Latin literature seems to have started in 240 BC, when

2600-584: The 1960s at the University of Konstanz . Reception studies is concerned with how students of classical texts have understood and interpreted them. As such, reception studies is interested in a two-way interaction between reader and text, taking place within a historical context. Though the idea of an "aesthetics of reception" was first put forward by Hans Robert Jauss in 1967, the principles of reception theory go back much earlier than this. As early as 1920, T. S. Eliot wrote that "the past [is] altered by

2700-549: The 19th century, little new literature was still being written in Latin – a practice which had continued as late as the 18th century – and a command of Latin declined in importance. Correspondingly, classical education from the 19th century onwards began to increasingly de-emphasise the importance of the ability to write and speak Latin. In the United Kingdom this process took longer than elsewhere. Composition continued to be

2800-666: The 20th century, the study of classics became less common. In England, for instance, Oxford and Cambridge universities stopped requiring students to have qualifications in Greek in 1920, and in Latin at the end of the 1950s. When the National Curriculum was introduced in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 1988, it did not mention the classics. By 2003, only about 10% of state schools in Britain offered any classical subjects to their students at all. In 2016, AQA ,

2900-796: The 5th to the 3rd centuries BC, are Socrates , his student Plato , and Aristotle , who studied at Plato's Academy before founding his own school, known as the Lyceum . Later Greek schools of philosophy, including the Cynics , Stoics , and Epicureans , continued to be influential after the Roman annexation of Greece, and into the post-Classical world. Greek philosophy dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics , metaphysics , ontology , and logic , as well as disciplines which are not today thought of as part of philosophy, such as biology and rhetoric. The language of ancient Rome

3000-712: The Greek Alphabet . He gave assistance to William Beloe in one or two articles in the British Critic , and probably wrote also in the Analytical Review and the Critical Review . In 1792 his fellowship ceased to be tenable by a layman; and Porson decided not to take holy orders. The Master, Thomas Postlethwaite , who had the nomination to one of the two permanent lay fellowships, used his privilege to nominate John Heys, his nephew. Porson

3100-643: The Latin orphanage school in Halle before moving on in 1765 to the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg where he was taught Theology by Johann Jakob Semler, who talent spotted him and set him on his life's career as an academic. After he had received his Master of Philosophy degree, awarded on 21 March 1768, he took a post teaching mathematics at the Knights' Academy (Ritterakademie) at Brandenburg an der Havel . The next year he

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3200-543: The Monostrophics . He also began a correspondence with David Ruhnken , the veteran scholar of Leiden , requesting fragments of Aeschylus that Ruhnken had come across in his collection of unpublished lexicons and grammarians, and sending him his restoration of a corrupt passage in the Supplices (673–677), with the help of a nearly equally corrupt passage of Plutarch 's Eroticus . The Cambridge University Press

3300-495: The Protestant minister Gottfried Schütz and his wife, in the village of Dederstädt , a couple of hours walk to the south of Eisleben , in an area administered, under a slightly convoluted arrangement by Saxony . Shortly after his birth his father was appointed to a senior preaching position in nearby Aschersleben , to where the family relocated, and it was here that the boy received his early schooling. Later he attended

3400-455: The Temple and his old habits. Perry's friendship induced him to spend his time in writing for The Morning Chronicle . For some months before his death he had appeared to be failing; his memory was not what it had been, and he had some symptoms of intermittent fever, but on 19 September 1808 he was seized in the street with a fit of apoplexy , and after partially recovering, died on the 25th. He

3500-477: The United States, philhellenism began to emerge in the 1830s, with a turn "from a love of Rome and a focus on classical grammar to a new focus on Greece and the totality of its society, art, and culture." The 19th century saw the influence of the classical world, and the value of a classical education , decline, especially in the United States, where the subject was often criticised for its elitism. By

3600-513: The ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine ("common") or Biblical Greek, and its late period mutates imperceptibly into Medieval Greek. Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earlier form it closely resembles Classical Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classical and earlier periods included several regional dialects. Ancient Greek

3700-482: The city of Rome was founded in 753 BC; in reality, there had been a settlement on the site since around 1000 BC, when the Palatine Hill was settled. The city was originally ruled by kings, first Roman, and then Etruscan – according to Roman tradition, the first Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus, ruled from 616 BC. Over the course of the 6th century BC, the city expanded its influence over

3800-487: The classical period written in the classical languages of Latin and Greek. The roots of classical philology lie in the Renaissance , as humanist intellectuals attempted to return to the Latin of the classical period, especially of Cicero , and as scholars attempted to produce more accurate editions of ancient texts. Some of the principles of philology still used today were developed during this period; for instance,

3900-478: The classical period, with poets such as Virgil , Horace , and Ovid ; historians such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus ; orators such as Cicero ; and philosophers such as Seneca the Younger and Lucretius . Late Latin authors include many Christian writers such as Lactantius , Tertullian and Ambrose ; non-Christian authors, such as the historian Ammianus Marcellinus , are also preserved. According to legend,

4000-622: The days of Bentley." But it was then the unpopular side: the publisher is said to have lost money on the book; and one of his early friends, Mrs Turner of Norwich, cut down a legacy she had left Porson to £30 on being told that he had written a book against the Bible. After 1787 Porson continued to contribute to the leading reviews, writing in the Monthly Review the articles on Joseph Robertson 's Parian Chronicle , Thomas Edwards's Plutarch on Education , and Richard Payne Knight 's Essay on

4100-459: The dominant classical skill in England until the 1870s, when new areas within the discipline began to increase in popularity. In the same decade came the first challenges to the requirement of Greek at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, though it would not be finally abolished for another 50 years. Though the influence of classics as the dominant mode of education in Europe and North America

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4200-530: The earliest to survive to us today, probably composed in the eighth century BC. These early epics were oral compositions, created without the use of writing. Around the same time that the Homeric epics were composed, the Greek alphabet was introduced; the earliest surviving inscriptions date from around 750 BC. European drama was invented in ancient Greece. Traditionally this was attributed to Thespis , around

4300-400: The eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes, along with a few fragments. Sixty years after the end of Aristophanes' career, the next author of comedies to have any substantial body of work survive is Menander , whose style is known as New Comedy . Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes , the nature of the world, and

4400-457: The end of the fifth century BC. Surviving Greek comedy begins later than tragedy; the earliest surviving work, Aristophanes ' Acharnians , comes from 425 BC. However, comedy dates back as early as 486 BC, when the Dionysia added a competition for comedy to the much earlier competition for tragedy. The comedy of the fifth century is known as Old Comedy , and it comes down to us solely in

4500-633: The end remained in Halle, redoubling the effort he put into his academic and literary publishing. Above all, the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung somehow lived on and flourished. In 1808 Schütz was elected an external member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities . At Halle the university remained closed till December 1814, but the war years ended in 1815 and the university was reinstated, impoverished and for

4600-588: The entirety of Latium . Around the end of the 6th century – traditionally in 510 BC – the kings of Rome were driven out, and the city became a republic. Around 387 BC, Rome was sacked by the Gauls following the Battle of the Allia . It soon recovered from this humiliating defeat, however, and in 381 the inhabitants of Tusculum in Latium were made Roman citizens. This was the first time Roman citizenship

4700-495: The evenings, he would collect the young men of the house about him and pour forth from memory torrents of literature. In 1792 the Regius Greek Professorship at Cambridge became vacant with the resignation of William Cooke . Porson was elected without opposition and held the chair until his death. The duties consisted of taking a part in the examinations for the university scholarships and classical medals. It

4800-599: The fifth and fourth centuries BC, has traditionally been considered the height of Greek civilisation. The Classical period of Greek history is generally considered to have begun with the first and second Persian invasions of Greece at the start of the Greco-Persian wars, and to have ended with the death of Alexander the Great . Classical Greek culture had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried

4900-635: The first Chancellor's Medal for classical studies. The same year he was elected a fellow of Trinity, an unusual appointment for a junior bachelor of arts, under a regulation which lasted until 1818. Porson graduated MA in 1785. His first appearance in print was in a short notice of Christian Gottfried Schütz 's Aeschylus in Paul Henry Maty 's Review , written in 1783. This review contains several other essays by him, including those on Richard François Brunck 's Aristophanes , Stephen Weston 's Hermesianax , and George Isaac Huntingford 's Apology for

5000-778: The first defenders, and then a promoter, of Immanuel Kant , with whom he entered into what became a long running correspondence in 1784. As early as 1768, in a dissertation of his own on Aesthetics, Schütz referenced Kant's 1764 critical work Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime . In 1785 he organised a series of articles in his Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung focused on Kant's critical philosophy , in which he included contributions of his own that robustly rebutted criticism of it from opponents such as Ernst Platner , Dietrich Tiedemann and Johann Christoph Schwab . He also won for Kant (whose home town of Königsberg

5100-495: The first thirty years of the 19th century, he was often regarded as the author of a very popular poem, The Devil's Thoughts (later entitled The Devil's Walk ). It was actually written by Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge . The dates of Porson's published works are these: Dr. Turton's vindication appeared in 1827. Classics In Western civilization, the study of the Ancient Greek and Roman classics

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5200-456: The first time after the reforms of the 1880s, though it did not become part of Oxford's Greats until much later. The second half of the 19th century saw Schliemann 's excavations of Troy and Mycenae ; the first excavations at Olympia and Delos ; and Arthur Evans ' work in Crete, particularly on Knossos . This period also saw the foundation of important archaeological associations (e.g.

5300-580: The form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These different groups varied enough for it to be possible to speak of Greek religions or "cults" in the plural, though most of them shared similarities. Also, the Greek religion extended out of Greece and out to neighbouring islands. Many Greek people recognized the major gods and goddesses: Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Dionysus, Hephaestus, Athena, Hermes, Demeter, Hestia and Hera; though philosophies such as Stoicism and some forms of Platonism used language that seems to posit

5400-518: The history and culture of a civilization, through critical study of the extant literary and physical artefacts, in order to compose and establish a continual historic narrative of the Ancient World and its peoples. The task is difficult due to a dearth of physical evidence: for example, Sparta was a leading Greek city-state , yet little evidence of it survives to study, and what is available comes from Athens , Sparta's principal rival; likewise,

5500-494: The largest army Rome had yet put into the field was wiped out, and one of the two consuls leading it was killed. However, Rome continued to fight, annexing much of Spain and eventually defeating Carthage, ending her position as a major power and securing Roman preeminence in the Western Mediterranean. The classical languages of the ancient Mediterranean world influenced every European language, imparting to each

5600-515: The largest exam board for A-Levels and GCSEs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, announced that it would be scrapping A-Level subjects in Classical Civilisation, Archaeology, and Art History. This left just one out of five exam boards in England which still offered Classical Civilisation as a subject. The decision was immediately denounced by archaeologists and historians, with Natalie Haynes of The Guardian stating that

5700-421: The last decade of the eighteenth century, scholars of ancient philosophy began to study the discipline historically. Previously, works on ancient philosophy had been unconcerned with chronological sequence and with reconstructing the reasoning of ancient thinkers; with what Wolfgang-Ranier Mann calls "New Philosophy", this changed. Another discipline within the classics is "reception studies", which developed in

5800-456: The library of Trinity College. Soon after, in 1797, appeared the first instalment of what was intended to be a complete edition of Euripides –an edition of the Hecuba . Porson's work did not escape attack. Gilbert Wakefield had published a Tragoediarum delectus . Conceiving himself slighted, as there was no mention of his work in the new Hecuba , he wrote a diatribe extemporalis against it. Gottfried Hermann of Leipzig had also written

5900-535: The loss of the A-Level would deprive state school students, 93% of all students, the opportunity to study classics while making it once again the exclusive purview of wealthy private-school students. However, the study of classics has not declined as fast elsewhere in Europe. In 2009, a review of Meeting the Challenge , a collection of conference papers about the teaching of Latin in Europe, noted that though there

6000-488: The middle of the sixth century BC, though the earliest surviving work of Greek drama is Aeschylus ' tragedy The Persians , which dates to 472 BC. Early Greek tragedy was performed by a chorus and two actors, but by the end of Aeschylus' life, a third actor had been introduced, either by him or by Sophocles . The last surviving Greek tragedies are the Bacchae of Euripides and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus , both from

6100-505: The most notable characteristics of the modern study of classics is the diversity of the field. Although traditionally focused on ancient Greece and Rome, the study now encompasses the entire ancient Mediterranean world, thus expanding the studies to Northern Africa and parts of the Middle East . Philology is the study of language preserved in written sources; classical philology is thus concerned with understanding any texts from

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6200-537: The new edition of Jonathan Toup 's book published at Oxford. These first made Porson's name known as a scholar and carried his fame beyond England. The letters he had from Christian Gottlob Heine and Johann Gottfried Jakob Hermann were preserved in the library of Trinity College. During 1787 he wrote three letters on John Hawkins 's Life of Johnson for the Gentleman's Magazine , which were reprinted by Thomas Kidd in his Tracts and Criticisms of Porson , and in

6300-524: The new philosophical perspectives of Immanuel Kant . With Christoph Martin Wieland and Friedrich Justin Bertuch , in 1785 Schütz founded the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (daily literary journal) which could boast more than 2,000 subscribers within two years of its launch and continued to be produced, latterly from Halle, till 1849. At Jena he was also one of those involved in administration: during

6400-465: The notes; and in the Medea he holds Hermann to scorn by name in caustic language. Hermann's attack may have provoked the supplement to the preface to the Hecuba , in the second edition published at Cambridge in 1802. There the laws of the iambic metre are fully explained. A third edition of the Hecuba appeared in 1808, and he left corrected copies of the other plays, of which new editions appeared soon after his death; but these four plays were all that

6500-404: The notice of John Norris of Witton Park , who sent him to Cambridge to be examined by James Lambert , the two tutors of Trinity College, Cambridge ( Thomas Postlethwaite and Collier), and the mathematician George Atwood , then assistant tutor; the result was so favourable that Norris decided in 1773 to provide for his education. It was impossible to get him into Charterhouse School and he

6600-537: The observation that if a manuscript could be shown to be a copy of an earlier extant manuscript, then it provides no further evidence of the original text, was made as early as 1489 by Angelo Poliziano . Other philological tools took longer to be developed: the first statement, for instance, of the principle that a more difficult reading should be preferred over a simpler one, was in 1697 by Jean Le Clerc . The modern discipline of classical philology began in Germany at

6700-450: The original text than any existing manuscript, could be reconstructed. Classical archaeology is the oldest branch of archaeology, with its roots going back to J. J. Winckelmann 's work on Herculaneum in the 1760s. It was not until the last decades of the 19th century, however, that classical archaeology became part of the tradition of Western classical scholarship. It was included as part of Cambridge University's Classical Tripos for

6800-440: The origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece. Modern scholars refer to the myths and study them in an attempt to throw light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece and its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself. Greek religion encompassed the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Greece in

6900-521: The period: Lucretius , popular during the Carolingian Renaissance , was barely read in the twelfth century, while for Quintilian the reverse is true. The Renaissance led to the increasing study of both ancient literature and ancient history, as well as a revival of classical styles of Latin . From the 14th century, first in Italy and then increasingly across Europe, Renaissance Humanism , an intellectual movement that "advocated

7000-551: The plays of William Shakespeare were rewritten along neoclassical lines, and these "improved" versions were performed throughout the 18th century. In the United States, the nation's Founders were strongly influenced by the classics, and they looked in particular to the Roman Republic for their form of government. From the beginning of the 18th century, the study of Greek became increasingly important relative to that of Latin. In this period Johann Winckelmann 's claims for

7100-436: The popularity of " New Archaeology ", which emphasized the development of general laws derived from studying material culture, in the 1960s. New Archaeology is still criticized by traditional minded scholars of classical archaeology despite a wide acceptance of its basic techniques. Some art historians focus their study on the development of art in the classical world. Indeed, the art and architecture of ancient Rome and Greece

7200-529: The present as much as the present is directed by the past"; Charles Martindale describes this as a "cardinal principle" for many versions of modern reception theory. Ancient Greece was the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period , beginning in the eighth century BC, to the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC. The Classical period , during

7300-617: The specialised science and technology vocabularies, the influence of Latin and Greek is notable. Ecclesiastical Latin , the Roman Catholic Church's official language, remains a living legacy of the classical world in the contemporary world. Latin had an impact far beyond the classical world. It continued to be the pre-eminent language for serious writings in Europe long after the fall of the Roman Empire. The modern Romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Galician, Catalan) all derive from Latin. Latin

7400-589: The study and imitation of classical antiquity", developed. Humanism saw a reform in education in Europe, introducing a wider range of Latin authors as well as bringing back the study of Greek language and literature to Western Europe. This reintroduction was initiated by Petrarch (1304–1374) and Boccaccio (1313–1375) who commissioned a Calabrian scholar to translate the Homeric poems . This humanist educational reform spread from Italy, in Catholic countries as it

7500-686: The sum was used to found the Porson Prize in 1816 at Cambridge, and remainder for the foundation of the Porson Scholarship, first awarded in 1855. He continued chiefly to reside in London, in chambers in Essex Court, Temple, London — occasionally visiting his friends, such as Joseph Goodall at Eton College and Samuel Parr at Hatton, Warwickshire . It was at Goodall's house that the Letters to Travis were written. At Hatton, in

7600-524: The summer term of 1790 and again in 1798 he served as Rector of the university . In 1804 Schütz transferred from Jena to Halle , accompanied by his son, Friedrich Karl Julius Schütz who was himself appointed a visiting professor of philosophy at Halle. They were also accompanied by Johann Samuel Ersch , and together they continued with the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (daily literary journal) , now in their new home base where

7700-418: The superiority of the Greek visual arts influenced a shift in aesthetic judgements, while in the literary sphere, G. E. Lessing "returned Homer to the centre of artistic achievement". In the United Kingdom, the study of Greek in schools began in the late 18th century. The poet Walter Savage Landor claimed to have been one of the first English schoolboys to write in Greek during his time at Rugby School . In

7800-406: The text with an asterisk affixed, while an obelus was used to mark many others as corrupt. It was at once recognised as Porson's work; he had superintended the printing of a small edition in two octavo volumes, but this was kept back by the printer and not issued till 1806, still without the editor's name. It was printed from a copy of Jan Cornelis de Pauw 's edition corrected, which is preserved in

7900-415: The turn of the nineteenth century. It was during this period that scientific principles of philology began to be put together into a coherent whole, in order to provide a set of rules by which scholars could determine which manuscripts were most accurate. This "new philology", as it was known, centered around the construction of a genealogy of manuscripts, with which a hypothetical common ancestor, closer to

8000-743: The vernacular languages of Europe during the period. While Latin was hugely influential, according to thirteenth-century English philosopher Roger Bacon , "there are not four men in Latin Christendom who are acquainted with the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic grammars." Greek was rarely studied in the West, and Greek literature was known almost solely in Latin translation. The works of even major Greek authors such as Hesiod , whose names continued to be known by educated Europeans, along with most of Plato, were unavailable in Christian Europe. Some were rediscovered through Arabic translations;

8100-451: Was Latin, a member of the Italic family of languages . The earliest surviving inscription in Latin comes from the 7th century BC, on a brooch from Palestrina . Latin from between this point and the early 1st century BC is known as Old Latin . Most surviving Latin literature is Classical Latin , from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD. Latin then evolved into Late Latin , in use during

8200-707: Was adopted by the Jesuits , and in countries that became Protestant such as England, Germany, and the Low Countries, in order to ensure that future clerics were able to study the New Testament in the original language. The late 17th and 18th centuries are the period in Western European literary history which is most associated with the classical tradition, as writers consciously adapted classical models. Classical models were so highly prized that

8300-543: Was appointed an inspector of Theology Seminaries in Halle , a position that opened the way for him to become a visiting professor in Philosophy at the university in 1775 and a full professor in 1777. He moved in 1779, taking a post as Professor of "Poetry and eloquence" ( "Poesie und Beredsamkeit" ) at Jena University , where he would play a key role in communicating in the German heartland and, on occasion defending,

8400-489: Was buried in Trinity College Chapel , close to the statue of Newton, at the opposite end of the chapel to the remains of Richard Bentley . Porson did not discriminate between the manuscripts he used or point out the relative value of early copies. Thus he collates minutely Lascaris 's edition of the Medea , mentioning even misprints in the text. His most brilliant emendations are convincing. His library

8500-509: Was considered the foundation of the humanities , and they traditionally have been the cornerstone of an elite higher education. The word classics is derived from the Latin adjective classicus , meaning "belonging to the highest class of citizens." The word was originally used to describe the members of the Patricians , the highest class in ancient Rome . By the 2nd century AD the word

8600-504: Was divided into two parts, one of which was sold by auction, while the other, containing the transcript of the Gale Photius , his books with his notes, and some letters from foreign scholars, was bought by Trinity College for 1000 guineas. His notebooks were careful; they have been rearranged, and illustrate his penmanship. Much remains unpublished. James Henry Monk , his successor as Greek professor, and Charles James Blomfield edited

8700-513: Was entered at Eton College in August 1774. Porson did not care for Eton, but he was popular there; two dramas he wrote for performance in Long Chamber (the scholars' dormitory) were remembered. His memory was noticed; but he seems not to have lived up to expectations, as his composition was weak, and he fell behind through gaps in his knowledge. He went to Eton too late to have any chance of

8800-402: Was even then considered by some to be somewhat peripheral, intellectually as geographically, to the German cultural heartland) the right to make his own contributions in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung , and entered into discussions with him on the influential "Kritik der reinen Vernunft" "(Critique of Pure Reason)" (1781). Christian Gottfried Schütz married in Halle in 1778. His bride

8900-583: Was extended in this way. Rome went on to expand its area of influence, until by 269 the entirety of the Italian peninsula was under Roman rule. Soon afterwards, in 264, the First Punic War began; it lasted until 241. The Second Punic War began in 218, and by the end of that year, the Carthaginian general Hannibal had invaded Italy. The war saw Rome's worst defeat to that point at Cannae ;

9000-699: Was finished of the projected edition of the poet. Porson lived six years after the second edition of the Hecuba was published, but he put off the work. He found time, however, to execute his collation of the Harleian manuscript of the Odyssey , published in the Grenville Homer in 1801, and to present to the Society of Antiquaries his conjectural restoration of the Rosetta Stone . In 1806, when

9100-460: Was in decline in the 19th century, the discipline was rapidly evolving in the same period. Classical scholarship was becoming more systematic and scientific , especially with the "new philology " created at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. Its scope was also broadening: it was during the 19th century that ancient history and classical archaeology began to be seen as part of classics, rather than separate disciplines. During

9200-569: Was pleased when he found how often in Aristophanes he had been anticipated by Bentley, and when Niels Iversen Schow 's collation of the unique manuscripts of Hesychius appeared and proved him right in some instances. In 1795 there appeared from Foulis's press at Glasgow an edition of Aeschylus in folio, printed with the same type as the Glasgow Homer, without a word of preface or any clue to the editor. Many new readings were inserted in

9300-598: Was proposing a new edition of Thomas Stanley 's Aeschylus , and the editorship was offered to Porson; but he declined to reprint Stanley's corrupt text and incorporate the variorum notes. He was especially anxious that the Medicean manuscript at Florence should be collated for the new edition, and offered to undertake the collation; but the syndics refused the offer, the vice-chancellor John Torkington , master of Clare Hall (the then name of Clare College ), observing that Porson might collect his manuscripts at home. In 1786,

9400-462: Was said he wished to give lectures; but lecturing was not in fashion in those days. Porson worked mainly on the tragedians, Aristophanes , Athenaeus , and the lexicons of Suidas , Hesychius and Photius . This last he twice transcribed (the first transcript was destroyed by a fire at James Perry 's house) from the original among the Gale manuscripts in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge . He

9500-462: Was sent first to the Bacton village school, kept by John Woodrow, and then to that of Happisburgh , kept by Mr Summers, where his extraordinary powers of memory and aptitude for arithmetic were discovered. His literary skill was partly due to the efforts of Summers, who long afterwards stated that in fifty years of scholastic life he had never come across boys so clever as Porson and his two brothers. He

9600-496: Was the gift of a copy of Jonathan Toup 's Longinus by the headmaster of Eton; but it was Richard Bentley and Richard Dawes to whom he looked as his immediate masters. Porson became a scholar of Trinity in 1780, won the Craven university scholarship in 1781, and took his degree of BA in 1782, as third senior optime (i. e. with the third best result of those achieving a second-class degree in that year), obtaining soon afterwards

9700-581: Was the language of Homer and of classical Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to the vocabulary of English and many other European languages, and has been a standard subject of study in Western educational institutions since the Renaissance. Latinized forms of Ancient Greek roots are used in many of the scientific names of species and in other scientific terminology. The earliest surviving works of Greek literature are epic poetry . Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey are

9800-428: Was used in literary criticism to describe writers of the highest quality. For example, Aulus Gellius , in his Attic Nights , contrasts "classicus" and " proletarius " writers. By the 6th century AD, the word had acquired a second meaning, referring to pupils at a school. Thus, the two modern meanings of the word, referring both to literature considered to be of the highest quality and the standard texts used as part of

9900-430: Was well grounded in Latin by Summers, remaining with him for three years. His father also took pains with his education, making him repeat at night the lessons he had learnt in the day. He would frequently repeat perfectly a lesson he had learnt one or two years before and never seen in the interval. For books he had only what his father's cottage supplied – a book or two of arithmetic, James Greenwood 's An Essay towards

10000-410: Was without means of support, but a subscription was got up among his friends to provide an annuity; Cracherode , Cleaver Banks, Burney and Samuel Parr took the lead, and enough was collected to produce about £100 a year. He accepted it on the condition that he should receive the interest during his lifetime and that the principal should be returned to the donors on his death. When this occurred, part of

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