Book 9
12.113
He was quick to perceive anything and to turn up his nose in scorn; he was fond of writing and at all times good at sketching plots for poets and collaborating in dramas. He used to give the dramatists Alexander and Homer materials for their tragedies.i.e. he collaborated with these two tragic poets, Alexander the Aetolian and Homer of Byzantinum, partly by furnishing them with plots, partly by handing over scenes from unpublished plays of his own, or other similar material. When disturbed by maidservants and dogs, he would stop writing, his earnest desire being to maintain tranquillity. Aratus is said to have asked him how he could obtain a trustworthy text of Homer, to which he replied, You can, if you get hold of the ancient copies, and not the corrected copies of our day. He used to let his own poems lie about, sometimes half eaten away.
