elements of the usual Roman training
and thereby first began to be dissociated from the professional
sciences properly so called.

Philology

In the field of letters Latin philology flourished vigorously, in
close association with the philological treatment--long ago placed
on a sure basis--of Greek literature. It was already mentioned
that about the beginning of this century the Latin epic poets found
their -diaskeuastae- and revisers of their text;(33) it was also
noticed, that not only did the Scipionic circle generally insist
on correctness above everything else, but several also of the most
noted poets, such as Accius and Lucilius, busied themselves with
the regulation of orthography and of grammar. At the same period
we find isolated attempts to develop archaeology from the
historical side; although the dissertations of the unwieldy
annalists of this age, such as those of Hemina "on the Censors"
and of Tuditanus "on the Magistrates," can hardly have been better
than their chronicles. Of more interest were the treatise on
the Magistracies by Marcus Junius the friend of Gaius Gracchus, as
the first attempt to make archaeological investigation serviceable
for political objects,(34) and the metrically composed -Didascaliae-
of the tragedian Accius, an essay towards a literary history of the
Latin drama. But those early attempts at a scientific treatment
of the mother-tongue still bear very much a dilettante stamp, and
strikingly remind us of our orthographic literature in the Bodmer-
Klopstock period; and we may likewise without injustice assign but
a modest place to the antiquarian researches of this epoch.

Stilo

The Roman, who established the investigation of the Latin language
and antiquities in the spirit of the Alexandrian masters on a
scientific basis, was Lucius Aelius Stilo about 650.(35) He first
went back to the oldest monuments of the language, and commented on
the Salian litanies and the Twelve Tables. He devoted his special
attention to the comedy of the sixth century, and first formed a
list of the pieces of Plautus which in his opinion were genuine.
He sought, after the Greek fashion, to determine historically the
origin of every single phenomenon in the Roman life and dealings
and to ascertain in each case the "inventor," and at the same time
brought the whole annalistic tradition within the range of his
research. The success, which he had among his contemporaries, is
attested by the de