A Rubbish Bin, A Swamp!

“Scaliger once described such a chronicle as a dust-bin. Yet the mass of rubbish accumulated by John of Antioch includes a few fragments of better things. Not only the classical prose-writers, but the classical poets were among his authorities, for he made no attempt to discriminate facts from myths. In several places he preserves the names of lost works. Here and there, too, a bit of classical prose or verse has stuck in the dismal swamp of his text.”

-R.C. Jebb, English Men of Letters: Bentley, p.10 (Harper and Brothers 1902)

 

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