ZOYLUS (c. 400-320 B.C.)  , Greek grammarian of Amphipolis in Macedonia . According to Vitruvius (vii., preface) he lived during the age of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), by whom he was crucified as the punishment of his criticisms on the king . This account, however, should probably be rejected . Zoilus appears to have been at one time a follower of Isocrates, but subsequently a pupil of Polycrates, whom he heard at Athens, where he was a teacher of rhetoric . Zoilus was chiefly known for the acerbity of his attacks on Homer (which gained him the name of Homeromastix, " scourge of Homer "), chiefly directed against the fabulous element in the Homeric poems . Zoilus also wrote against Isocrates and Plato, who had attacked the style of Lysias of which he approved . The name Zoilus came to be generally used of a spiteful and malignant critic . See U . Friedlander, De Zoilo aiiisque Homeri Obtrectatoribus (Konigsberg, 1895); J . E . Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (2nd ed . 1906) .