Zenodotus of Ephesus: The First Librarian of Alexandria
Source: GreekReporter.com
Zenodotus of Ephesus was an ancient Greek scholar and the first librarian of the Library of Alexandria. He was also the first person in recorded history to use alphabetical order as a method of organization.
A grammarian and literary critic who lived during the reigns of the first two Ptolemies, Zenodotus was the first critical editor of Homer’s epic works, the Odyssey and the Iliad. His work on these, however, is not highly respected. In 284 BC, the Ptolemaic court promoted Zenodotus from superintendent of the Library of Alexandria to its first director. He was also appointed as the royal children’s official tutor.
Zenodotus’ work at the Library of Alexandria
Zenodotus was assigned to the task of establishing canonical texts for the Homeric poems and the early Greek lyric poets. He worked on the texts of Pindar, Hesiod, and Anacreon.
While citations of Zenodotus’ readings by later Hellenistic and Roman writers reveal much about his scholarship on the Iliad and the Odyssey—with more than 400 of his readings having been preserved—little evidence remains of his work on Hesiod’s poetry. Only once do the Hesiodic scholarly comments provide information about the readings of his text.
Zenodotus is best known for his revisions of Homer and is, in fact, described in the Suda, an encyclopedic lexicon written in Greek with 30,000 entries, as having been the first “editor,” so to say, of Homer. There were earlier editors, but Zenodotus’ was apparently the oldest revised text known to Alexandrians. Modern scholars agree he was the first of the Alexandrian editors, though the meaning of “editor” in this context is debated. Scholars claim he was the founder of Homeric textual criticism.
As previously mentioned, Zenodotus’ readings appear in more than 400 parts, but these are mostly quoted. This is because Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician, disagreed with them. This could mean that the eccentric or clearly false readings in Zenodotus’ text are being cited in disproportionate numbers.
Regardless, it is evident this was an eccentric text in many ways. Zenodotus’ revisions had many inorganic additional lines with respect to the original text, and there were also some differences in wording. Oftentimes, there was also an abbreviated text. In over 50 parts, there were omitted lines or passages present in the rest of the tradition known to us. Occasionally, there were reformulations of surrounding lines.
In four parts, Zenodotus had lines in a different order. The most noteworthy case is that in which he tells the reader the appearance of dawn came not before but after the scene of Olympus—that is, some 50 lines later than in the original.
Aristarchus noted that Zenodotus’ readings were actually unmetrical or devoid of poetic meter and rhythm. He claims Zenodotus’ texts were characterized by dual verb forms or participles used as plurals, as well as a recurrent tendency to use irregular forms of pronouns.
Some historians argue it is a mistake to judge Zenodotus by the standards of today’s meaning of the word “editor,” claiming it would be more useful to view his work as a reflection of the tradition on which he was dependent.
Zenodotus’ Glossary
The ancient scholar and librarian is known to have written a glossary of rare and unusual words chosen from Homer’s works. These were organized in alphabetical order, making him the first person known to have employed alphabetical order as a method of organization.
Because the collection at the Library of Alexandria seems to have been organized in alphabetical order by the first letter of the author’s name from very early, the historian Casson concludes it is highly likely that Zenodotus was the one to have organized it in this manner.
Zenodotus’ system of alphabetization, however, only used the first letter of the word, and it was not until the second century AD that anyone is known to have applied the same method of alphabetization to the remaining letters of the word.
On top of his scholarly work and alphabetization, Zenodotus introduced an organizational system of the materials in the Library of Alexandria. Texts were assigned to different rooms based on their subject matter (poetry, literary, or scientific) and sub-classifications. Zenodotus then organized the works alphabetically by the first letter of the name of their author.
In addition, library workers would attach a small tag to the end of each scroll. These tags provided authors’ names as well as other identification markers. They were added during the accessions procedure but often did not include a title. Many rolls contained more than one work. On the other hand, many works, such as compilations of poetry, warranted more than a single title. If a title was lacking, Zenodotus had to unroll and take a look at the text.
These tags allowed for the scrolls to be easily returned to the area where they had been classified. It also ensured that library users did not have to unroll each scroll in order to view its contents. This was the first recorded use of metadata, a landmark in library history.
Despite having been criticized by later scholars for arbitrariness and possession of insufficient knowledge of Greek, Zenodotus’ readings undoubtedly laid a strong foundation for future criticism. It is likely he was responsible for dividing the Homeric poems into 24 books each. He was also possibly the author of the Iliad‘s calculation of days in the Tabula Iliaca.
The original article: GreekReporter.com .
belongs to