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274 274 On the Attic Dionysia. identity of the Lencea with one or other of the Dionysian festivals which are known to us under different names. The opinion maintained after Selden and Corsini by Ruhnken^ that the Lenoea coincided with the Anthesteria, had been re- ceived by the learned with general acquiescence, and had been adopted by Boeckh himself in his work De tragcedicE GrcEcce principibusy with some modifications suggested by Spalding, who has discussed the subject in his preface to his edition of the Oration against Meidias, and in a Latin essay De Diony- siis Atheniensium festo, published in the Berlin Transactions of 1804-1811. But in the year 1817 the author of a thick volume on the ancient comic theatre of Athens^ took up the question, and among a number of paradoxical opinions pecu- liar to himself, asserted one which had already been sanctioned by many great names, that of the identity between the Lenaea and the Rural Dionysia. Hermann shortly after gave new importance to this opinion by a review of the work, in which, after an elaborate discussion of the arguments advanced bv the contending parties, he declared himself on the side of Ruhnken's opponents. It was apparently this revival of the controversy that induced Boeckh to investigate it afresh. The result of his researches seems to be almost entirely unknown to the English public : at least no notice has been taken of it, so far as the writer knows, in any of the works since published in England relating to this branch of ancient literature, and in Mr Clinton's Fasti Ruhnken'*s doctrine is assumed as finally established, with the remark that he ^*^had poured upon the Anthesteria so clear a light, that the subject is placed beyond the reach of doubt or controversy .''^ (t. p. 332). We shall at all events not rate BoeckVs labours too highly, if we venture to say, that this is no longer the state of the question, at least in the same sense : and his name is svifiicient with all lovers of learning to ensure a patient and respectful attention for his views and arguments. It is not therefore for laying 1 Auct. Emend, ad Hesych. p. 991. He has committed a singular mistake in claiming Scaliger, Casaubon, and Petavius, as advocates of his own opinion. The two former (De Em. Temp. p. 29. De Sat. Poes. i. v. p. 123 Ramb. ad Theophrast. p. 131) distinctly assert the identity of the Lenaea and the rural Dionysia. (See also Casaubon ad Athen. An. v. c. 18.) Petavius ad Them. p. 647 F. tacitly admits it. 2 Kanngiesser. Die alte komische Buchne in Athen. 1817.