A more definite and scientific criticism was that undertaken by the philological section of the School at Alexandria (see Alexandrian School), and in connection with the great Alexandrian Library (see Bibliotheca), for which great quantities of manuscripts were purchased by King Ptolemy at the advice of Demetrius Phalereus. All of the early heads of the School worked at text-recension. Zenodotus of Ephesus (B.C. 325-260) published a collection of Homeric glosses (see Glossa), and about B.C. 274 put forth a διόρθωσις or recension of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, also called the ἔκδοσις Ὁμήρου. In this, four kinds of corrections appear: (a) Elimination or the omission of lines known to be spurious; (b) Query or the indication of doubtful lines; (c) Transposition or a change in the order of the lines; and (d) Emendation or the substitution of new readings for the old. See Düntzer, De Zenodoti Studiis Homericis (Göttingen, 1848).

The existing texts were classified and characterized in the Πίνακες of Callimachus, the first great bibliographical work ever written; and Eratosthenes of Cyrené wrote a critical treatise on the poets of the Old Comedy. He was succeeded by Aristophanes of Byzantium , perhaps the greatest philologist of antiquity. His criticism was partly diplomatic and partly verbal; and was guided always by the sentiment critique. He did much for both text-criticism and for language-study in general. To him is ascribed the invention of diacritical marks and symbols (σημεῖα κριτικά), all of great palaeographic importance. Ten of these are known as the δέκα προσῳδίαι: (a) the rough breathing (πνεῦμα δασύ); (b) the smooth breathing (πνεῦμα ψιλόν); (c) the grave accent (βαρεῖα); (d) the acute accent (ὀξεῖα); (e) the circumflex accent (τόνος ὀξυβαρεῖα or περισπωμένη); (f and g) the long and short marks (χρόνοι); (h) the διαστολή or comma (virgule); (i) the hyphen (ὑφέν); (j) the apostrophe (ἀπόστροφος). The Greek marks of punctuation are also ascribed to Aristophanes. His critical work included an edition of Homer (a second διόρθωσις), and also editions of Hesiod (the Theogony), Alcaeus, Anacreon, Pindar, Euripides, Aristophanes, and perhaps Simonides and Menander. The famous Alexandrian Canon was in part his work. See Canon Alexandrinus.

His great pupil Aristarchus of Samothrace (c. 217-143 B.C.) did much for the study of formal grammar (see Grammatica), and also edited Archilochus, Alcaeus, Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, and especially the Homeric poems, of which he put forth two separate recensions, writing συγγράμματα or special monographs, besides the ἐκδόσεις (texts) and ὑπομνήματα (commentaries). Aristarchus approached his task in a skeptical spirit, and employed five processes: (a) διόρθωσις or arrangement of the text; (b) ἀνάγνωσις or determination of accents; (c) τέχνη, determination of forms and questions of syntax; (d) ἐξήγησις or explanation of words, allusions, etc.; and (e) κρίσις, the determination of all questions respecting authenticity or integrity of the text, and the final judgment of the author as a whole. Aristarchus used a number of critical symbols in his work. Among them were the ὀβελός or spit (—) to mark a spurious line; the διπλῆ to call attention to some special point; the dotted διπλῆ to denote a variant from the reading of Zenodotus; and the ἀστέρισκος (*) to denote a “formulaic” line. Of the 15,600 lines of the Iliad and Odyssey, Aristarchus “athetized,” i. e. struck out as spurious, 1160.

The later Alexandrians did also much careful work in the recension of texts, and so did the rival School of Pergamus, headed by Crates of Mallos, the “Anomalist” (see Crates; Philologia), who flourished in B.C. 168. Didymus Chalcenteros is the last of the important Greek text critics.

From the Greeks the Romans received the principles of textual criticism, and early began to apply these principles to the study of Latin works. Lucius Aelius Stilo investigated the text of the Carmina Saliaria; M. Antonius Griphus wrote commentaries on the Annales of Ennius. Cicero is said to have prepared an edition of Lucretius. (See Lucretius.) To Varro we owe the establishment of a Plautine Canon. (See Plautus; Varro.) The greatest of the Roman text-critics was M. Valerius Probus Berytus (c. 80 A.D.), who edited, with critical signs, Vergil, Horace, Lucretius, and Terence, and wrote a treatise on the σημεῖα κριτικά. (See Suet. Reliq. p. 138, Reifferscheid; and the introduction to Conington's Vergil, i. pp. lxv. foll.) Glossography also flourished greatly among the Romans. See Glossa; Scholia ; Subscriptio.

In the first period of the Renaissance in Italy the study of texts revived during the corruption of existing manuscripts. (See Renaissance.) Among these early critics are Laurentius Valla (q.v.) and Politianus (q.v.). The critical acumen of scholars was much sharpened by the immense number of forged texts that began to appear. A single forger, Annius of Viterbo, alone put forth seventeen volumes of spurious works ascribed by him to the classical writers. (See Wachler in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopädie.) Gradually a scientific basis for textual criticism was established, the great names in this process being those belonging to the so-called French or Polyhistorical School, the Scaligers, Lambinus, Salmasius, and Casaubon; and to the Anglo-Dutch or Critical School, Gronovius, Burmann, Hemsterhuys, and especially Richard Bentley.

Text-critics are generally to be classified according to the relative importance which they give to the subjective element in their criticism. Bentley, who is the father of the subjective method, in his later work largely disregarded the evidence of manuscripts in his determination of the proper lections, depending largely upon his own instinctive feeling as to what an author must have said. He has expressed this principle in a formal phrase —Nobis et ratio et res ipsa centum codicibus potiores sunt—and in following this out he did much that was rash and indefensible as well as much that is brilliant and convincing. The reductio ad absurdum of this subjective method will be found in Bentley's edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, in which he rewrote whole passages, because of reasons based on his own conception of what Milton must in reality have said.

The school that represents the antithesis of the Bentleian principle is that of which the Jesuit scholars of France stand as a type. These held to what they called la tradition classique, and studied to avoid any radical changes in a text whatever, going so far as to force an explanation of passages that evidently violate the laws of the ancient languages, history, and good sense. The Bentleians rewrite everything; the other school explains everything; and each set must be regarded as often equally unreasonable.

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