The Alexandrine grammarians were

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

s and textual scholars who flourished in Hellenistic Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, when that city was the center of

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

culture. Despite the name, the work of the Alexandrine grammarians was never confined to

grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

, and in fact did not include it, since grammar in the modern sense did not exist until the first century BCE. In Hellenistic and later times, '' grammarian'' refers primarily to scholars concerned with the restoration, proper reading, explanation and interpretation of the classical texts, including literary criticism. However unlike

Atticism Atticism (meaning "favouring Attica", the region of Athens in Greece) was a rhetorical movement that began in the first quarter of the 1st century BC. It may also refer to the wordings and phrasings typical of this movement, in contrast with vari ...

, their goal was not to reform the Greek in their day. The Alexandrine grammarians undertook the critical revision of the works of classical

Greek literature Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today. Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving wri ...

, particularly those of

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

, and their studies were profoundly influential, marking the beginning of the Western grammatical tradition. From the beginning, a typical custom, and methodological bias of this tradition was to focus their commentary and analysis on de-contextualized sentences.

Notable members

Important members of the Alexandrian grammarians included: * Zenodotus of Ephesus (fl. c. 280 BCE): First superintendent of the

Library of Alexandria The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, ...

and editor of Homer. *

Callimachus Callimachus (; ; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar, and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works, most of which ...

(fl. c. 260 BCE): Poet, critic, and scholar who cataloged the Library. *

Aristophanes of Byzantium __NOTOC__ Aristophanes of Byzantium ( ; Byzantium – Alexandria BC) was a Hellenistic Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other classical authors such as ...

(c. 257 BCE – c. 185 BCE): Editor of Homer and inventor of the

polytonic orthography Greek orthography has used a variety of diacritics starting in the Hellenistic period. The more complex polytonic orthography (), which includes five diacritics, notates Ancient Greek phonology. The simpler monotonic orthography (), introduce ...

of classical Greek. *

Aristarchus of Samothrace Aristarchus of Samothrace ( ''Aristarchos o Samothrax''; BC) was an ancient Greek grammarian, noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homeric poetry. He was the head librarian of the Library of Alexandria and seems to have succeeded hi ...

(c. 220 – c. 143 BCE): Responsible for the most important critical edition of the Homeric poems. *

Dionysius Thrax Dionysius Thrax ( ''Dionýsios ho Thrâix'', 170–90 BC) was a Greek grammarian and a pupil of Aristarchus of Samothrace. He was long considered to be the author of the earliest grammatical text on the Greek language, one that was used as a st ...

(170 BCE – 90 BCE): Homeric scholar and student of Aristarchus, who did author a Greek grammar, although it did not discuss syntax. *

Didymus Chalcenterus Didymus Chalcenterus (Latin; Greek: , ''Dídymos Chalkéderos'', "Didymus Bronze-Guts"; c. 63 BC – c. AD 10) was an Ancient Greek scholar and grammarian who flourished in the time of Cicero and Augustus. Life The epithet "Bronze-Guts" came fr ...

: (c. 63 BCE – 10 CE): Commentator on lyric and comic poets, who compiled and transmitted the work of his predecessors.

Notes

References

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alexandrine Grammarians * Ancient Greek grammarians Lexicographers