c. 330–260 BCE · first head of the Library · editor of Homer · royal tutor
Zenodotus of Ephesus
Ζηνόδοτος
In Alexandria: c. 285–260 BCE
The Suda places him under Ptolemy I and says he headed the libraries in Alexandria; no earlier head is known, so he is counted the first. He made the first critical edition (diorthosis) of Homer, marked suspect lines with the obelos, and compiled a glossary of rare words. Tzetzes says he sorted the epic poets while Alexander Aetolus and Lycophron sorted the drama.
Their life and work
A pupil of the poet and scholar Philitas of Cos, he lived, the Suda says, under the first Ptolemy, taught Ptolemy's children and was put in charge of the libraries in Alexandria; he is counted their first head because no earlier one is known. Later critics, Aristarchus above all, often found his readings of Homer rash, and the scholia that keep many of them do so to argue with them; without that argument his edition would be lost entirely. He also edited Hesiod's Theogony and perhaps Pindar and Anacreon.
Tzetzes' account of the first sorting of the books, Zenodotus for the epic poets and his colleagues for the drama, was written in the twelfth century from older sources now lost. It agrees with the little else we know, and most historians accept its outline. Known: probable
Our device: Their emblem is the obelos, a short stroke in a margin. No portrait of any of these people survives. The emblems are our devices.
On the shelves
- Zenodotus of Ephesus, Edition (diorthosis) of Homer, and Homeric Glosses · c. 285–270 BCE · Survives in fragments
Moments
- c. 285–260 BCE · Zenodotus edits Homer; the drama sorted for editing Known: probable
In the show
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Sources (5)
- Suda Zenodotos, ζ 74 (opens in a new tab)
- Tzetzes, Prolegomena de comoedia Koster XIa I–II
- R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968) 105–122
- R. Blum, Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography, trans. H. H. Wellisch (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991; German 1977)
- E. Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007)