Note 113 — X. TO HOMER

Before Leonzio completed his translation (which was neither poetical nor Latin: Voigt, II, p. 191), Petrarch and other mediaeval students were obliged to content themselves with the Periochae of the Iliad and the Odyssey which are attributed to Ausonius, and with a poor Epitome of the Iliad which was known as the Homerus Latinus or Pindarus Thebanus (P. de Nolhac, II, p. 131). It is because of the existence of this that some maintain that Leonzio’s was not the first Latin translation of modern times. A mere glance, however, will convince anyone that this Homerus (published in 1881 by Baehrens under the title “Italici Ilias Latina,” in Poetae latini minores, Vol. III, pp. 7-59 inclusive), is not a real translation and does not correspond to the real Homer.