Apollonius and maximus on the order and meaning of the oblique cases

Apollonius Dyscolus’ science of syntax examines the expression of meanings and is founded on the assumption that the system of meanings and expressions is well ordered. The order of the various expressions involving cases is based on the logic of what they express, and therefore the order of verbal predicates and of spatial relations must not be confused with the order of the case-forms in which they are expressed. Just such a confusion lies behind the passage in which Maximus Planudes is commonly thought to have originated a “localist” theory of case: a summary of the introduction to Apollonius’ Syntax, in which the order of the cases received a passing mention, is embellished by Maximus with material adapted (by way of Heliodorus) from Apollonius’ discussion of the order of spatial relations, each of which may be expressed by a certain case. Besides being unoriginal and misguided in its interpretation of Apollonius, the resulting exposition of Maximus is not even a “localist” theory of case-meaning, as has often been uncritically claimed.