Extract

Aristophanes of Byzantium (probably c. 257–180 bce) succeeded *Eratosthenes as head of the Alexandrian Library (c.194 bce). He was a scholar of wide learning, famous for his linguistic, literary, textual, and scientific researches, and he is credited with the innovation of writing Greek accents.His edition of *Homer's Iliad and Odyssey made a distinct advance on the work of *Zenodotus and *Rhianus. Despite some capriciousness and boldness of treatment, due to a subjective method of criticism, his work showed much critical acumen; e.g. he was the first to put the end of the Odyssey at 23. 296. In his textual criticism he used symbols to show his doubts of the genuineness or satisfactoriness of verses (see scholarship, ancient).Besides editions of *Hesiod's Theogony, *Alcaeus, and *Alcman, he produced the first properly ordered edition of *Pindar, in seventeen books; in his texts of the lyric poets Aristophanes used signs to mark the ends of metrical cola; but PLille 76a and 73 of *Stesichorus prove that his predecessors had recognized the importance of cola.