into the world about 213 A.D. He
travelled much, studied in many cities, and was the friend of the mystic
Neoplatonists, Plotinus and Ammonius. The former called him "a
philologist, not a philosopher." Porphyry shows us Longinus at a supper
where the plagiarisms of Greek writers are discussed--a topic dear to
trivial or spiteful mediocrity. He is best known by his death. As the
Greek secretary of Zenobia he inspired a haughty answer from the queen
to Aurelian, who therefore put him to death. Many rhetorical and
philosophic treatises are ascribed to him, whereof only fragments
survive. Did he write the Treatise on the Sublime? Modern students
prefer to believe that the famous essay is, if not by Plutarch, as some
hold, at least by some author of his age, the age of the early Caesars.

The arguments for depriving Longinus, Zenobia's tutor, of the credit of
the Treatise lie on the surface, and may be briefly stated. He addresses
his work as a letter to a friend, probably a Roman pupil, Terentianus,
with whom he has been reading a work on the Sublime by Caecilius. Now
Caecilius, a voluminous critic, certainly lived not later than Plutarch,
who speaks of him with a sneer. It is unlikely then that an author, two
centuries later, would make the old book of Caecilius the starting-point
of his own. He would probably have selected some recent or even
contemporary rhetorician. Once more, the writer of the Treatise of the
Sublime quotes no authors later than the Augustan period. Had he lived
as late as the historical Longinus he would surely have sought examples
of bad style, if not of good, from the works of the Silver Age. Perhaps
he would hardly have resisted the malicious pleasure of censuring the
failures among whom he lived. On the other hand, if he cites no late
author, no classical author cites him, in spite of the excellence of his
book. But we can hardly draw the inference that he was of late date from
this purely negative evidence.

Again, he describes, in a very interesting and earnest manner, the
characteristics of his own period (Translation, pp. 82-86). Why, he is
asked, has genius become so rare? There are many clever men, but scarce
any highly exalted and wide-reaching genius. Has eloquence died with
liberty? "We have learned the lesson of a benignant despotism, and have
never tasted freedom." The author answers that it is easy and
characteristic of men to blame the present times. Genius may have been
corrupted,