Abstract

The position of classical studies in our time is paradoxical in several respects. When at the end of the so-called Middle Ages a great new interest in ancient Greek literature was aroused by Greek fugitives from the East, spreading from Italy to other countries of Western Europe, the study of the great Greek authors was beset with considerable difficulties. All the manuscripts which the Greek fugitives brought with them or which had been transferred to the West at an earlier time and were now rediscovered, were to some extent corrupted by copyists’ mistakes and/or mechanical corruptions, and even where they were not corrupted their content was in many places not easy to understand because the historical background for the understanding was lacking. In some cases doubts arose concerning the authenticity of works ‘attributed to certain authors. To meet these needs, the methods of textual criticism were developed by the humanists of the Renaissance and later perfected and supplemented by various kinds of historical criticism after a second revival of interest in classical antiquity, which was promoted by Winckelmann in the 18th century.