Lessico
Artemidoro Aristofaneo
Artemidorus
(Ἀρτεμίδωρος) surnamed Aristophanius,
and also Pseudo-Aristophanius, from his being a disciple of the celebrated
grammarian Aristophanes, of Byzantium at Alexandria. Artemidorus himself was,
therefore, a contemporary of Aristarchus
, and likewise a
grammarian. He is mentioned by Athenaeus (iv. p. 182) as the author of a work περὶ
Δωρίδος, the nature of which is
not clear, and of λέξεις or γλῶσσαι
ὀψαρτυτικαί that is, a dictionary of
technical terms and expressions used in the art of cookery. (Athen. i. p. 5,
ix. p. 387, xiv. pp. 662, 663; Suidas, s. vv., Ἀρτεμίδωρος and Τιμαχίδας; Erotian in Λάσιον.) Some MSS. of
Theocritus contain, under the name of Artemidorus, an epigram of two lines on
the collection of bucolic poems, which perhaps belongs to our grammarian. (Theocrit. p. 806, ed. Kiessling; Anthol. Graec, ix. n. 205.)
Dictionary
of Greek and Roman biography and mythology
William Smith, Boston, 1867
Aristofane di Bisanzio
Aristofane di Bisanzio (... – ...) è stato un filologo greco antico, quarto bibliotecario della Biblioteca di Alessandria. Visse probabilmente tra il 257 e il 180 aC ad Alessandria. Fu allievo di Callimaco. Fu il primo a fissare la fine dell'Odissea al libro XXIII, verso 296. Inoltre utilizzò dei particolari segni grafici per indicare se un verso era spurio. Pubblicò la prima edizione completa di Pindaro in 17 libri e riunì i dialoghi di Platone in 15 trilogie.
Delle sue numerose opere sono rimasti solo frammenti, spesso non testuali, nelle raccolte di scolii. Inoltre abbiamo le sue introduzioni ad alcune tragedie di Euripide, Sofocle ed Eschilo. Opere perdute sono: Sui personaggi (Περὶ προσώπων), Brani paralleli di Menandro e di coloro da cui attinse (Παράλληλοι Μενάνδρου τε καὶ ὰφ'ὦν ἕκλεψεν ὲκλογαί), Glosse (Γλῶσσαι), Proverbi, Sull'analogia (Περὶ ὰναλογίας), Sugli animali (Περὶ Ζῴων).
Aristophanes of Byzantium
Aristophanes (Greek: Ἀριστοφάνης) of Byzantium (c. 257 BC – c. 185–180 BC) was a Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other classical authors such as Pindar and Hesiod. Born in Byzantium about 257 BC, he soon moved to Alexandria and studied under Zenodotus and Callimachus. He succeeded Eratosthenes as head librarian of the Library of Alexandria at the age of sixty.
Aristophanes was the first to deny that the Precepts of Chiron was the work of Hesiod. Aristophanes is credited with the invention of the accent system used in Greek to designate pronunciation, as the tonal, pitched system of archaic and classical Greek was giving way (or had given way) to the stress-based system of koiné. This was also a period when Greek, in the wake of Alexander's conquests, was beginning to act as a lingua franca for the Eastern Mediterranean (replacing various Semitic languages). The accents were designed to assist in the pronunciation of Greek in older literary works.
He also invented one of the first forms of punctuation in the 3rd century BC; single dots (distinctiones) that separated verses (colometry), and indicated the amount of breath needed to complete each fragment of text when reading aloud (not to comply with rules of grammar, which were not applied to punctuation marks until thousands of years later). For a short passage (a komma), a media distinctio dot was placed mid-level (·). This is the origin of the modern comma punctuation mark, and its name. For a longer passage (a colon), a subdistinctio dot was placed level with the bottom of the text (.), similar to a modern colon or semicolon, and for very long pauses (periodos), a distinctio point near the top of the line of text (·). As a lexicographer he compiled collections of archaic and unusual words. He died in Alexandria around 185–180 BC.
Aristarco di Samotracia (Samotracia, ca. 216 – Cipro, ca. 144 aC) fu il sesto bibliotecario della biblioteca di Alessandria. Ἀρίσταρχος - soprannominato «ὀ γραμματιχώτατος», il grammatico per antonomasia - venne da Samotracia (Isola greca del Mar Egeo settentrionale) ad Alessandria per studiare sotto Aristofane di Bisanzio. Fu maestro del figlio di Tolomeo Filometore e poi bibliotecario della celebre biblioteca di Alessandria, che lasciò alla morte di Tolomeo VI, nel 145, ritirandosi a Cipro. Si mantenne fedele all'insegnamento di Aristofane, difendendo, in grammatica, il principio dell' analogia, secondo il quale le forme grammaticali vanno desunte dall'esempio offerto dai maggiori scrittori. Sua l'edizione più celebre di Omero, tramandata nel «commento dei Quattro»: egli esprimeva la convinzione che Omero, il maggior poeta greco, fosse l'autore sia dell' Iliade che dell'Odissea. Oltre a Omero commentò Anacreonte, Archiloco, Aristofane, Erodoto, Eschilo, Esiodo, Ione e Pindaro, e fu autore di Συγγράμματα, brevi discussioni critiche delle opinioni di altri commentatori. Se dei suoi scritti restano pochi frammenti, in compenso numerose sono le testimonianze indirette riportate dai grammatici successivi e dagli scoliasti.
Dopo di lui vi furono altri bibliotecari ad Alessandria, ma l'epurazione degli studiosi della biblioteca voluta da Tolomeo Fiscone non permise più uno sviluppo degli studi analogo a quello precedente: questo è il motivo per cui tradizionalmente è considerato l'ultimo bibliotecario.
Aristarchus of Samothrace
Aristarchus or Aristarch of Samothrace (Ἀρίσταρχος, 220?–143? BC) was a grammarian noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homeric poetry. He was the librarian of the library of Alexandria and seems to have succeeded his teacher Aristophanes of Byzantium in that role. He established the most historically important critical edition of the Homeric poems, and he is said to have applied his teacher's accent system to it, pointing the texts with a careful eye for metrical correctness. It is likely that he, or more probably, another predecessor at Alexandria, Zenodotus, was responsible for the division of the Iliad and Odyssey into twenty-four books each. According to the Suda, Aristarchus wrote 800 treatises (ὑπομνήματα) on various topics, all lost but for fragments preserved in the various scholia.
Accounts of his death vary, though they agree that it was during the persecutions of Ptolemy VIII of Egypt. One account has him, having contracted an incurable dropsy, starving himself to death while in exile on Cyprus. The historical connection of his name to literary criticism has created the term aristarch for someone who is a judgmental critic.
