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ARISTARCHUS OF SAMOTHRACE
PATRICK REINARD
University of Trier
Aristarchus of SAMOTHRACE was the most important Greek philologist in antiquity (see Berti and Costa 2010, 149–54). He was a disciple of Aristophanes of BYZANTIUM and became the sixth director of the Library of Alexandria in 153 BCE, succeeding Apollonius (POxy. 1241 II; see now Murray 2012). The main productive period of Aristarchus’ career was in the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor (180–145), during which time he became the teacher of the royal family. In 144 Ptolemy VII was usurped by Ptolemy VIII Physkon, who suppressed the entourage of the former king. Aristarchus and many of his disciples were forced to flee. He came to CYPRUS, but died shortly afterwards of dropsy (Schmid‐Stählin 1959, II.1: 264).
Aristarchus’ works are a climax of ancient philology, text criticism, and exegesis (Athenaeus calls him ὁ γραμματικώτατος, “grammarian par excellence”: 15.671–72). He was famous for his works on HOMER and his goal of “explaining Homer by Homer”: he refused allegorical interpretations, which were common in the philological tradition of Pergamon. As a teacher Aristarchus was also very efficacious. The Suda records approximately forty disciples, among whom are Apollodorus, Aristonicus, and Dionysius Thrax (Schmid‐Stählin 1959, II.1: 265 and 268). Aristarchus was the first to introduce and establish a system of diacritical signs for philological research in text criticism. This critical sign system is still recognizable in the works of Suetonius (De viris illustribus 108) and Diogenes Laertius (3.65–66).
Beside Homer, Aristarchus explored other famous poets: HESIOD, ALCAEUS, PINDAR, ARCHILOCHUS, ARISTOPHANES, Bacchylides, Alcman, ANACREON, and SOPHOCLES (Schironi 2004). We can add the PROSE author Herodotus to that list. Aristarchus’ commentary on Herodotus’ Histories is the only one of which a part has survived via an unmediated source: a papyrus fragment (P.Amh. 12) seems to contain an abbreviated part of a commentary on Book 1 (Bichler and Rollinger 2011, 119; West 2011, 77). The excerpt is written on the verso of unrelated accounts. The text gives comments on 1.194 and 1.215; the lack of any notes or information on the intervening chapters makes it obvious that P.Amh. 12 is the product of excerpting a much longer text. As Stephanie West points out, the excerpter was first of all interested in realia, and our fragment of Aristarchus was very likely produced for school needs, as chapters 194 and 215 seem to be suitable as reading exercises for teenagers (West 2011, 80–81). This evidence corresponds with the PAPYRI of Herodotos which preserve often just parts of the Herodotean text. In many cases these papyri texts were excerpts, too. The survival of a part of Aristarchus’ commentary leads some scholars to conclude that the famous philologist also published an edition of the Histories, which could be the template for known manuscript traditions (Schmid‐Stählin 1959, I.2: 666).
SEE ALSO: Editions; Education, Ancient; Manuscripts; Scholarship on Herodotus, Ancient Greece and Rome
REFERENCES
1 Berti, Monica, and Virgilio Costa. 2010. La biblioteca di Alessandria: storia di un paradiso perduto. Tivoli: TORED.
2 Bichler, Reinhold, and Robert Rollinger. 2011. Herodot. 3rd edition. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.
3 Murray, Jackie. 2012. “Burned after Reading: The So‐called List of Alexandrian Librarians in P.Oxy. X 1241.” Aitia (online) 2. Accessed October 28, 2017. http://aitia.revues.org/544
4 Schironi, Francesca, ed. 2004. I frammenti di Aristarco di Samotracia negli etimologici bizantini. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
5 Schmid, Wilhelm, and Otto Stählin, eds. 1959. Geschichte der griechischen Literatur. 6th edition [revised from the original by Wilhelm von Christ, 1920]. Munich: C. H. Beck.
6 West, Stephanie. 2011. “The Papyri of Herodotus.” In Culture in Pieces. Essays on Ancient Texts in Honour of Peter Parsons, edited by Dirk Obbink and Richard Rutherford, 69–83. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ARISTEAS OF PROCONNESUS (ὁ Ἀριστέης Προκοννήσιος)
KELCY SAGSTETTER
United States Naval Academy
Aristeas was a poet from PROCONNESUS (BA 52 B3, modern Marmara) who claimed to have traveled first to the land of the SCYTHIANS, then further north to the ISSEDONES at the command of APOLLO. There he learned about the one‐eyed ARIMASPIANS and the GRIFFINS who guarded their GOLD, as well as the HYPERBOREANS, mythical devotees of Apollo (4.13–16). Herodotus is openly skeptical about this journey, as is STRABO, who calls Aristeas a charlatan (13.1.16/C589). Aristeas’ mostly non‐extant poem, the Arimaspea, recounts how the Arimaspians attacked their neighbors the ISSEDONES (Bolton 1962, 1–38). Aristeas was also allegedly able to disappear and reappear at will and be present in two places at once; he flew to METAPONTUM as a crow 247 years after his last appearance, where he commanded the citizens to erect a statue to him (Hdt. 4.15; Bolton 1962, 119–41). These supernatural stories suggest eastern shamanic influences, which made him a popular figure with the Pythagoreans (Corcella in ALC, 548–53, 582–86; Bolton 1962, 142–75; Birch 1950, 80–81). Aristeas’ floruit is most likely the seventh century BCE, though the Suda (s.v. Ἀριστέας (A 3900)) makes him a contemporary of CROESUS in the sixth century.
SEE ALSO: Caÿstrobius; Cimmerians; Poetry; Travel
REFERENCES
1 Birch, Cordelia. 1950. “Lives and Work of Aristeas.” CJ 46: 79–83, 111.
2 Bolton, J. D. P. 1962. Aristeas of Proconnesus. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
ARISTEAS (Ἀριστέας, ὁ) son of Adeimantus
PIETRO VANNICELLI
Università di Roma–La Sapienza
Aristeas, whose father ADEIMANTUS commanded the Corinthian contingent in the Greek fleet in 480 BCE, was captured and put to death by the Athenians together with the other members of an embassy sent by SPARTA to PERSIA near the beginning of the PELOPONNESIAN WAR, in 430 (7.137.3). Herodotus explains this event—the latest explicitly mentioned in his work—as the delayed effect of divine wrath for the killing of Persian HERALDS in Sparta two generations earlier, during the PERSIAN WARS. This interpretation is implicitly refuted by THUCYDIDES in his account of the embassy’s fate (2.67).
SEE ALSO: Aneristus son of Sperthias; Corinth; Date of Composition; Reciprocity; Sperthias and Bulis; Talthybius
FURTHER READING
1 Vannicelli, Pietro, and Aldo Corcella, eds. 2017. Erodoto. Le Storie, libro VII: Serse e Leonida, 460. Milan: Mondadori.
2 Westlake, H. D. 1969. Essays on the Greek Historians and Greek History, 73–83. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
ARISTEIDES (Ἀριστείδης, ὁ)
ANGUS BOWIE
Queen’s College, Oxford
