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Aristarchus or Aristarch of Samothrace (, 220?
220 BC

Sorry, no overview for this topic
–143 BC?
143 BC

Events...
) was a grammarian noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homer
Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
ic poetry. He was the librarian
Librarian

A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs....
 of the library
Library of Alexandria

The Royal Library of Alexandria or Ancient Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest Great libraries of the ancient world....
 of Alexandria
Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
 and seems to have succeeded his teacher Aristophanes
Aristophanes of Byzantium

Aristophanes of Byzantium was a Greece 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....
 of Byzantium
Byzantium

Byzantium was an Ancient Greece city, which was founded by Greeks colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas or Byzantas ....
 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.






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Aristarchus or Aristarch of Samothrace (, 220?
220 BC

Sorry, no overview for this topic
–143 BC?
143 BC

Events...
) was a grammarian noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homer
Homer

Homer is traditionally held to be the author of the ancient Greek language epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as of the Homeric Hymns....
ic poetry. He was the librarian
Librarian

A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs....
 of the library
Library of Alexandria

The Royal Library of Alexandria or Ancient Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest Great libraries of the ancient world....
 of Alexandria
Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
 and seems to have succeeded his teacher Aristophanes
Aristophanes of Byzantium

Aristophanes of Byzantium was a Greece 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....
 of Byzantium
Byzantium

Byzantium was an Ancient Greece city, which was founded by Greeks colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas or Byzantas ....
 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
Zenodotus

Zenodotus , was a Greek language grammarian, literary critic, and Homeric scholarship. A native of Ephesus and a pupil of Philitas of Cos, he was the first librarian of the Library of Alexandria....
, was responsible for the division of the Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
 and Odyssey
Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
 into twenty-four books each. According to the Suda
Suda

The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine Empire Medieval Greek historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world. It is an Encyclopedia lexicon with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers....
, Aristarchus wrote 800 treatises () 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
Ptolemy VIII Physcon

Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II , nicknamed , Ph?skon, Physcon for his obesity, was a king of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. His complicated career started in 170 BC, when Antiochus IV Epiphanes invaded Egypt, captured his brother Ptolemy VI Philometor and let him continue as a puppet monarch....
 of Egypt
Ptolemaic Egypt

Ptolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Aegyptus in 30 BC....
. One account has him, having contracted an incurable dropsy
Edema

File:Oedema.jpgEdema or Oedema , formerly known as dropsy or hydropsy, is an abnormal accumulation of fluid beneath the skin, or in one or more cavities of the body....
, starving himself to death while in exile on Cyprus
Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is an island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, west of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, south of Turkey and north of Egypt....
.

The historical connection of his name to literary criticism
Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals....
 has created the term aristarch for someone who is a judgmental critic.

See also


  • Homeric scholarship
    Homeric scholarship

    Homeric scholarship is the study of Homeric Epic poetry, especially the two large surviving epics, the Iliad and Odyssey. It is currently part of the academic discipline of classical studies, but the subject is one of the very oldest topics in all scholarship or science, and goes back to antiquity....


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