Scholia: Difference between revisions

{{Use dmy dates|date=AprilMay 20122021}}

'''Scholia''' ({{singular}}: '''scholium''' or '''scholion''', from {{lang-grc|σχόλιον}}, "comment", "interpretation") are [[grammar| grammatical]], critical, or explanatory comments, either&nbsp;– original or extractedcopied from pre-existingprior commentaries,&nbsp;– which are inserted onin the margin of the [[manuscript]] of an ancient authorauthors, as [[gloss (annotation)|glosses]]. One who writes scholia is a '''scholiast'''. The earliest attested use of the word dates to the 1st century BC.<ref>

[[File:Maass, Ernst – Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem Townleyana, 1887 – BEIC 3064427.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Ernst Maass]], ''Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem Townleyana'' (1887), a collection of scholia of [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]''.]]

Ancient scholia are important sources of information about many aspects of the ancient world, especially ancient [[History of literature|literary history]]. The earliest scholia, usually anonymous, date to the 5th or 4th century BC (such as the "a" ''scholia onminora'' to the ''Iliad''). The practice of compiling scholia continued to late Byzantine times, outstanding examples being Archbishop [[Eustathius of Thessalonica|Eustathius]]' massive commentaries to Homer in the [[ByzantiumByzantine Empire under the KomnenoiKomnenos dynasty|12th century]] and the ''scholia recentiora'' of [[Thomas Magister]] and, [[Demetrius Triclinius]] and [[Manuel Moschopoulos]] in the [[Palaeologan Renaissance#Restoration of the Classics|14th]].

Scholia were altered by successive copyists and owners of the manuscript, and in some cases, increased to such an extent that there was no longer room for them in the margin, and it became necessary to make them into a separate work. At first, they were taken from one commentary only, and subsequently from several. This is indicated by the repetition of the [[Headword|lemma]] ("headword"), or by the use of such phrases as "or thus", "alternatively", "according to some", to introduce different explanations, or by the explicit quotation of different sources.

The most important are those on the [[Homer]]ic ''[[Iliad]]'', especially those found in the 10th-century manuscripts discovered by [[Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison|Villoison]] in 1781 in the [[Biblioteca Marciana]] in [[Venice]] (see further [[Venetus A]], [[Homeric scholarship]])., Thewhich scholiaare based on [[Hesiod]],Aristarchus [[Pindar]],of [[Sophocles]], [[AristophanesSamothrace|Aristarchus]] and [[Apolloniushis Rhodius]]school.<ref>J areE alsoSandys, extremely''A important.Dictionary Inof [[Latin]],Classical theAntiquities'' most(London important1894) arep. those65</ref> ofThe [[Maurus Servius Honoratus|Servius]]scholia on [[VirgilHesiod]], of [[Acro (scholiast)|AcroPindar]] and, [[Pomponius Porphyrio|PorphyrioSophocles]] on, [[HoraceAristophanes]], and of [[AeliusApollonius Donatusof Rhodes|DonatusApollonius Rhodius]] onare [[Terence]]also extremely important.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}

*[[Asconius Pedianus|Asconius]] (c. {{circa|55 AD}}) on [[Cicero]]'s ''Pro Scauro'', ''In Pisonem'', ''[[Pro Milone]]'', ''Pro Cornelio'' and ''[[In Toga Candida]]''

*[[Servius the Grammarian|Servius]] (c. {{circa|400}} AD) on [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]''

*[[Macrobius]] (c. {{circa|400}} AD) on [[Cicero]]'s ''[[Somnium Scipionis|Dream of Scipio]]''

*[[Proclus]] (c. {{circa|440}} AD) on [[Plato]]'s ''[[Parmenides (dialogue)|Parmenides]]'' and ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'' and [[Euclid's Elements|Euclid's ''Elements'']]

*[[Boethius]] (c. {{circa|520}} AD) on [[Cicero]]'s ''Topics''

* [[Baruch Spinoza|Benedict Spinoza]] provided his own scholia to many of the propositions in his ''[[Ethics (Spinoza book)|Ethics]]'', commentaries upon and expansions of the individual propositions, or sometimes short conclusions to sections of argumentation running over a number of propositions.

* In modern mathematics texts, scholia are marginal notes which may amplify a line of reasoning or compare it with proofs given earlier. A famous example is [[Thomas Bayes|Bayes]]' scholium, in which he presents a justification for assuming a [[continuous uniform distribution]] for the [[Prior distributionprobability|prior]] of the parameter of a [[Bernoulli process]].<ref>{{cite journal |author=Murray, F. H. |title=Note on a scholium of Bayes |journal=[[Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society]] |date=February 1930 |url=https://projecteuclid.org:443/euclid.bams/1183493827 |accessdateaccess-date=January 3, January 2018 |number=2 |pages=129–132 |publisher=American Mathematical Society |volume=36 |doi=10.1090/s0002-9904-1930-04907-1|doi-access=free }}</ref> Another famous example of a somewhat different use is to be found in [[Brook Taylor]]'s ''Methodus Incrementorum'', in which the propositions demonstrated are often followed by a scholium which further explains the significance of the proposition.

* ''Scholia'' is an academic journal in the field of [[Classics|classical studies]].<ref>[http://www.otago.ac.nz/Classics/scholia/ ''Scholia''], [http://www.classics.und.ac.za/reviews/ ''Scholia'' reviews] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010701084036/http://www.classics.und.ac.za/reviews/ |date=1 July 2001 }}</ref>

* Search engine relying on [[wikidata]], mainly for scientific publications: [https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/ Scholia].

=== BibliographySources ===

* [httphttps://euripidesscholia.org/ Online scholia on Euripides]