GEORGIUS

CHOEROBOSCUS (c. A.D. 600)  , deacon and professor at the oecumenical school at Constantinople . He is also called chartophylax either as the holder of some ecclesiastical office or as superintendent of the university library . It is not known whether " Choeroboscus " (Gr. for ` swineherd ") is an allusion to his earlier occupation or an inherited family name . During his tenure of office he delivered a course of lectures on grammar, which has come down to us in the shape of notes taken by his pupils . He drew from the best authorities—Apollonius Dyscolus, Herodian, Orion, Theodosius of Alexandria . The lectures are written in simple style, but suffer from diffuseness . They were much used by Constantine Lascaris in his Greek grammar and by Urban of Belluno (end of 15th cent.) . The chief work of Choeroboscus, which we have in its complete form, is the commentary on the canons of Theodosius on Declension and Conjugation . Mention may also be made of a treatise on orthography, of which a fragment (on Quantity) has been preserved; a tract on prosody; commentaries on Hephaestion and Dionysius Thrax; and grammatical notes on the Psalms . See C . Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897) ; A . Hilgard, Grammatzici Graeci, iv .

(1889-1894), containing the

text of the commentary on Theodosius, and a full account of the life and. writings of Choeroboscus; L . Kohn in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopadie, iii . 2 (1889); Reitzenstein, Etymologika, 190, n . 4 .