Scholia

The practice of compiling scholia continued to late Byzantine times, outstanding examples being Archbishop Eustathius' massive commentaries to Homer in the 12th century and the scholia recentiora of Thomas Magister, Demetrius Triclinius and Manuel Moschopoulos in the 14th.

Scholia were altered by successive copyists and owners of the manuscript, and in some cases, increased to such an extent that there was no longer room for them in the margin, and it became necessary to make them into a separate work.

This is indicated by the repetition of the lemma ("headword"), or by the use of such phrases as "or thus", "alternatively", "according to some", to introduce different explanations, or by the explicit quotation of different sources.

[2] The scholia on Hesiod, Pindar, Sophocles, Aristophanes and Apollonius Rhodius are also extremely important.

[3] In Latin, the most important are those of Servius on Virgil;[4] of Acro and Porphyrio on Horace;[5] and of Donatus on Terence.