Scholar-librarian
Born: c. 217 b. c.e.; Samothrace Died: c. 145 b. c.e.; Cyprus Category: Scholarship
Life Aristarchus of Samothrace (ar-uh-STAHR-kuhs of sa-MUH-thrays) lived in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy Philometor (r. 180-145 b. c.e.). He studied under Aristophanes of Byzantium and became the fifth head of the Alexandrian library. He served as a tutor to Philometor’s brother, Ptolemy Euergetes II (Ptolemy VIII), and his sons, including Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator, who succeeded his father in 145 b. c.e. Ptolemy Euergetes II had Ptolemy VII murdered in 144 b. c.e. and persecuted the friends of the late king, including Aristarchus. Aristarchus escaped to Cyprus and died shortly afterward.
Aristarchus was most renowned for his Homeric scholarship. He produced two recensions of the Homeric text and commentaries on these editions. Although these works have been lost, parts of Aristarchus’s scholarship have been preserved in the scholia of the Venetian codex of Homer’s Iliad (c. 750 b. c.e.; English translation, 1611). Aristarchus also produced editions and commentaries on other poets and playwrights, including a commentary on Herodotus, the first on a prose writer. In these works, Aristarchus attempted to interpret a writer through the writer’s use of language.
Influence With Aristarchus, Homeric scholarship in Alexandria was regarded as reaching its zenith. Through his followers, his insights were preserved in the scholia. His method of interpreting a writer through the writer’s works furnished a model for later scholarship.
Further Reading
Lamberton, Robert, and John J. Keaney, eds. Homer’s Ancient Readers:
The Hermeneutics of Greek Epic’s Earliest Exegetes. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Pfeiffer, R. History of Classical Scholarship. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Albert T. Watanabe
See also: Alexandrian Library; Herodotus; Homer; Ptolemaic Dynasty.
World History
