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physiology of horses, vi. 333, omens, vi. 934, earthquakes, vii. 809).

Owing to the poet’s ill-health and comparatively early death no more than 1127 lines of this epic appear to have ever been written. In them we have the visit of Thetis, anxious for her son at the outbreak of the Trojan War, to Chiron, under whose charge he is; she conveys the youthful Achilles to Scyros, disguises him as a girl and entrusts him to the care of King Lycomedes; then come the deception of Deidamia, the discovery of Achilles by Ulysses and Diomede, and his departure for Troy. There the fragment ends.

The poet’s style is simpler and less artificial than in the Thebaid, and the narrative flows more evenly. The most successful part of it is undoubtedly the discovery of Achilles, i. 675–920, while the story of his introduction to and courtship of Deidamia is also well told.

The only MS. that deserves separate notice is the fifteenth-century MS. at Madrid (hence known as Matritensis), from which it has been proved that all other existing MSS. are derived (see Klotz, Introduction to the Silvae, Teubner edition). Besides this MS., designated M, there are a certain number of emendations entered by Politian in a copy of the first edition in the Corsinian library at Rome; some of these he