Θέσπιν καὶ Χοίριλον ἀγωνιζόμενος. This the Learned _Camerarius_
has thus translated: _Scripsit Oratione solutâ de _Choro_ contra
_Thespin_ & _Chœrilum_ quempiam._ And _Keuster_ likewise
understood, and render’d, the Passage to the same Effect. He
owns, the Place is obscure, and suspected by him. “For how could
_Sophocles_ contend with _Thespis_ and _Chœrilus_, who liv’d long
before his Time?” The Scholiast upon [C]_Aristophanes_, however,
expresly says, as _Keuster_ might have remember’d, that _Sophocles_
actually did contend with _Chœrilus_. But that is a Point nothing
to the Passage in Question; which means, as I have shewn in another
Place, That _Sophocles_ declaimed in Prose, contending to obtain a
_Chorus_ for reviving some Pieces of _Thespis_ and _Chœrilus_.
Is This contending against Them, as rival Poets?

[Footnote C: In Ranis, v. 73.]

[Sidenote: _Meursius_, and _Camerarius_ mistaken.]

IV. Some other Learned Men have likewise been mistaken in
Particulars with regard to _Sophocles_. In the Synopsis of his Life,
we find these Words; Τελευτᾶ δὲ μετὰ Ἐυριπίδην ἐτῶν ϛ’. _Meursius_,
as well as _Camerarius_, have expounded This, as if _Sophocles_
surviv’d _Euripides_ six Years. But the best Accounts agree that
they died both in the same Year, a little before the _Frogs_ of
_Aristophanes_ was play’d; _scil._ Olymp. 93, 3. The Meaning,
therefore, of the Passage is, as some of the Commentators have
rightly observ’d; _That _Sophocles_ died after _Euripides_, at
90 Years of Age._ The Mistake arose from hence, that, in Numerals,
ϛʹ signifies as well 6 as 90.