Extract

Marcellinus (2), biographer of *Thucydides (2) (text in Stuart-Jones's OCT of Thucydides, rev. J. U. Powell, 1938). His ‘Life’ contains three sections of which A (chs. 1–45) is probably the ‘Life of Thucydides’ from [*Proclus' ] Chrestomathia, worked over by a schoolteacher, and B (chs. 46–53) by a contemporary of *Dionysius(7) of Halicarnassus (perhaps *Caecilius(1)), whose main interest was Thucydides' style. To these Zosimus (5th cent. ce) added C (chs. 54–8) to make the introduction to his edition of *scholia on *Isocrates, *Demosthenes (2), and Thucydides. Marcellinus was probably the scholar who, shortly after *Justinian, isolated the Thucydidean scholia and gave the composition his name. If the biographical parts could be trusted, its value would be great, but there was an ancient tendency to spin biographical facts about an author out of that author's own writings (M. Lefkowitz, Lives of the Greek Poets (1981)).