Callio'pius
In all, or almost all, the MSS. of Terence, known not to be older than the ninth century, we find at the end of each play the words " Calliopius recensui," from whence it has very naturally been inferred, that Calliopius was some grammarian of reputation, who had revised and corrected the text of the dramatist. Eugraphius, indeed, who wrote a commentary upon the same comedian about the year A. D. 1000, has the following note on the word
plaudite at the end of the Andria: " Verba sunt Calliopii ejus recitatoris, qui, cum fabulam terminissct elevabat aulaeum sceiiae, et alloqucebatur populum,
Vos valete, Vos plaudite sive favete(;" but this notion is altogether inconsistent with the established meaning of
recensui. Barth, on the other hand, maintained, that Calliopius was a complimentary epithet, indicating the celebrated Flaccus Albinus or Alcuinus, whom in a MS. life of Willebrord he found designated as "Dominus Albinus magister optimus Calliopicus,"
i.e. totus a Calliope et Musis formatus; but the probability of this conjecture has been much weakened by Fabricius, who has shewn that Calliopius was a proper name not uncommon among writers of the middle ages. (Funocius,
de Inerti ac Decrepita Linguae Latinae Senectute, c. 4. § xxxii.; Fabric.
Bibl. Lat. lib. i. c. 3. §§ 3 and 4; Eust. Swartii
Analecta, 3.11, p. 132; Barth.
Advers. 6.20; Ritschl,
De emendat. Fab. Terentt, disput., Wratislav. 4to. 1838.)
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W.R]
