Aristotle describes the history of poetry (in Poetics 4–5) in terms of a gradual progress, starting from primitive beginnings and concluding with the perfect forms of Attic (classical) drama. Characteristic of this Aristotelian approach to literary history are the notion of gradual progress, the notion of a τέλος, and the suggestion that different historical ideas, authors or genres belong to one coherent process of development. This chapter examines to what extent Aristotle’s approach has informed ancient literary criticism. It is demonstrated that the Aristotelian framework is in different aways adopted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his history of early historiograpy (On Thucydides 5–6), and by Demetrius in his history of prose styles (On Style 12–15). Modern histories of (ancient) literature likewise adopt the Aristotelian narrative of progress. The author of On the Sublime, however, contradicts the Aristotelian model: Longinus’ enthusiasm for early authors like Homer, Archilochus and Hecataeus shows that, according to this critic, the history of the sublime is not one of gradual progress from a primitive beginning towards a perfect form in the classical age. Longinus suggests that the sublime was there from the very beginning. The special position of On the Sublime is explained as resulting from a deliberate rejection of Aristotelian principles.

In Chapter 4, I continue my study of the reception of Plutarch’s work in the French Renaissance. First, I discuss how Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) was introduced to Plutarch’s work at the press of Aldus Manutius in Venice and his subsequent work translating several of Plutarch’s texts into Latin. I demonstrate how the subsequent vernacular translations of Erasmus’s Latin work, including his Education of a Christian Prince, and his translation of Plutarch’s Apophthegmata or Sayings of Kings and Commanders had a different presence in the French and English contexts. I also explore the interesting case of Claude de Seyssel (1450–1520) who drew on the Latin translations of Plutarch by Jean Lascaris of the Lives of Antony and Demetrius to complete his vernacular translations of Appian and Diodorus Siculus. I demonstrate connections between Seyssel’s work on these translations and his later political reflections in his treatise The Monarchy of France while deepening my analysis of the contours of public humanism.

Catullus features heavily in Chapter 21 of The Cambridge Companion to Sappho, but he is by no means the only Roman literary figure to have found in Sappho an important predecessor. Ovid, Horace, and others give powerful evidence of her influence in Latin literature.

After introducing Porphyry’s commentary, this chapter asks how Porphyry saw himself at the time of writing. Was it as a ‘Neoplatonist’ and pupil of Plotinus as usually presumed? Does he write as a mathematician and scientist or as a philosopher? Assuming he sees harmonics as a natural interest of the philosopher, what sort of philosopher does he represent himself as? He could claim to be embarking upon a ‘Pythagorean’ task rather than a ‘Platonist’ one, though the two were hard to distinguish in this era. Either would involve the Timaeus. His persona may have a bearing on the work’s date. The long discussion on logos and sensation is examined for indications of Porphyry’s sources and allegiance. This epistemology is distinctive, and the most distinctive features are independent of Plotinus. The section’s eclecticism and polymathy make it hard to associate with a single school, like Thrasyllus, Porphyry’s only named authority here. Porphyry’s persona is in fact complex, as much Pythagorean as Platonist, with an early dating feasible, allowing for debts to Longinus and to the mathematician Demetrius rather than to Plotinus. A Pythagorean’s interest in harmonics is natural.