ARISTOPHANES  , of

Byzantium, Greek critic and grammarian, was born about 257 B.C . He removed early to Alexandria, where he studied under Zenodotus and Callimachus . At the age of sixty he was appointed chief librarian of the museum . He died about 185-18o B.C . Aristophanes chiefly devoted himself to the poets, especially Homer, who had already been edited by his master Zenodotus . He also edited Hesiod, the chief lyric, tragic and comic poets, arranged Plato's dialogues in trilogies, and abridged Aristotle's Nature of Animals . His arguments to the plays of Aristophanes and the tragedians are in great part preserved . His works on Athenian courtesans, masks and proverbs were the results of his study of Attic comedy . He further commented on the Iltvawes of Callimachus, a sort of history of Greek literature . As a lexicographer, Aristophanes compiled collections of foreign and unusual words and expressions, and special lists (words denoting relationship, modes of address) . As a grammarian, he founded a scientific school, and in his Analogy systematically explained the various forms . He introduced critical signs—except the obelus; punctuation prosodiacal, and accentual marks were probably already in use .

The

foundation of the so-called Alexandrian " canon " was also due to his impulses(Sandys, Hist . Class . Schol., ed . 1906, 1 . 129 f.) . Nauck, Aristophanis Byzantii Grammatici Fragmenta (1848) .