III · The Great Librarians · c. 200–180 BCE

Aristophanes of Byzantium; the rivalry with Pergamon

Known · AttestedKnown · AttestedHis careerLegend · Told storyThe papyrus ban and the invention of parchment

Aristophanes heads the Library, edits the poets and writes a book correcting and supplementing Callimachus's Pinakes. The Suda says he was imprisoned on suspicion of planning to flee to Eumenes II of Pergamon.

What the evidence supports: The rivalry with Pergamon was real. The ban on papyrus that drove Pergamon to invent parchment is Pliny's story; writing on skins is far older.

Who and what

Told stories

Legend: told story

The invention of parchment

Pliny, citing Varro, tells that when a Ptolemy, jealous of the library at Pergamon, stopped the export of papyrus, Pergamon invented parchment.

Told by Pliny the Elder, citing Varro, 77 CE, some two and a half centuries after the rivalry it tells of

What the evidence supports

Alexandria and Pergamon did compete for books and scholars. Writing on prepared skins is far older than either library.

Sources (2)
  • Pliny, Natural History 13.70
  • L. Casson, Libraries in the Ancient World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001)
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Legend: told story

The plagiarists exposed

Vitruvius tells that at a poetry contest Aristophanes of Byzantium, one of the judges, named the poets who had stolen their verses and fetched the originals from the library's cases from memory.

Told by Vitruvius, c. 30–20 BCE, about a century and a half after Aristophanes

What the evidence supports

Aristophanes headed the Library and was famed for his learning. The contest is an anecdote found in Vitruvius alone.

Sources
  • Vitruvius, On Architecture 7 praef. 4–7
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Sources (6)