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).