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Concept
Zenodotus
Summary
Zenodotus (Ζηνόδοτος) was a Greek grammarian, literary critic, Homeric scholar, and the first librarian of the Library of Alexandria. A native of Ephesus and a pupil of Philitas of Cos, he lived during the reigns of the first two Ptolemies, and was at the height of his reputation about 280 BC.
Zenodotus was the first superintendent of the Library of Alexandria and the first critical editor (διορθωτής diorthōtes) of Homer. In 284 BC, the Ptolemaic court appointed Zenodotus as the first Director of the library and also the official tutor to the royal children. His colleagues in the librarianship were Alexander of Aetolia and Lycophron of Chalcis, to whom were allotted the tragic and comic writers respectively, Homer and other epic poets being assigned to Zenodotus.
Although he has been reproached with arbitrariness and insufficient knowledge of Greek, his recension undoubtedly laid a sound foundation for future criticism. Having collated the different manuscripts in the library, he expunged or obelized doubtful verses, transposed or altered lines, and introduced new readings. It is probable that he was responsible for the division of the Homeric poems into twenty-four books each, and possibly was the author of the calculation of the days of the Iliad in the Tabula Iliaca.
He does not appear to have written any regular commentary on Homer, but his Homeric γλῶσσαι (glōssai, "lists of unusual words, glosses") probably formed the source of the explanations of Homer attributed by the grammarians to Zenodotus. He also lectured upon Hesiod, Anacreon and Pindar, if he did not publish editions of them. He is further called an epic poet by the Suda, and three epigrams in the Greek Anthology are assigned to him.
In addition to his other scholarly work, Zenodotus introduced an organization system on the materials in the Library of Alexandria whereby texts were assigned to different rooms based on their subject matter (verse or prose, literary or scientific), and the various sub-classifications within each.
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